HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- From the runway to the store rack, Vivienne Tam is one designer who uses creativity and business acumen in equal measure. Leading fashion designer Vivienne Tam spoke to CNN's Andrew Stevens in The Boardroom. Since her start in the fashion business in the early '80s and establishing her own brand in the '90s, she has risen to fame with her east-meets-west styles. Today it's her skills in business which have expanded the label to some 30 stores worldwide, from New York to Beijing. CNN's Andrew Stevens caught up with the designer in Hong Kong to talk about what it's like to lead both the business and creative direction of a global fashion line. Tam: The business side is like designing, it's like I like the touch of the fabric, I like to know the details about it. And you feel about it, you know about the deal, because who's the person who knows what the best deal for you is? Yourself. It's like designing clothes, I love to know how to solve every single thing, you know. Like what kind of budget Stevens: It's just natural curiosity? Tam: Natural curiosity, I love it. I love every aspect of it. Stevens: Who have you learned your business skills from or have you made it up as you went along? Tam: I self-taught myself in business; I know nothing about the business, I learned everything -- about the pricing, the shipping, the contracts, everything -- by doing it. When you're doing it yourself, you know everything. If you don't do it, you just listen to somebody telling you how to do it, you're not experiencing it. Once you're experiencing it, you can grow so much from it. Once you experience it, you can go further, much further. It's a feeling of it. Stevens: When you won the Hong Kong businesswoman of the year award, you said that your mother was one of your greatest inspirations. How did she inspire you? Tam: She inspired me so much you know, like you say, the determination, persistence. When she really wanted to make something, she would really go to the end, she'd really want to make it happen and I see her, she's really the force behind me. We were quite poor, we had no money, my parents were working really hard. When I grew up, I saw them working so hard, and then deep inside myself that I wanted to change the situation, I wanted to make something, this one thing. Stevens: What do you think are the most important qualities for a businessperson? Tam: For me, it's most important, a vision, determination, and to never say no to yourself. And be open to criticisms, open to learning, and open to criticisms and knowing nothing about the business; nothing, so you can learn everything by knowing nothing, you know, and be successful in the things that you didn't know. Stevens: You work in a very creative industry, how do you keep your staff motivated in this industry, how do you keep them going, how do you keep them working for you? Tam: I always tell them my story, how I was in school when my teacher asked for one outfit -- I give them 8 outfits. I told them, do things that I didn't ask you, give me, do your work with passion, it's more important than "Oh, 6 o'clock, I have to leave." Do something that is out of the box. E-mail to a friend

When did she start in the fashion industry?

Answer: mother

Answer: Vivienne Tam

Answer: mother

Answer: early '80s

Answer: Andrew Stevens

Answer: in the '90s,

Answer: Vivienne Tam

Answer: Vivienne Tam

Summary:
Designer Vivienne Tam speaks to CNN's Andrew Stevens in The Boardroom .
She started in the fashion industry in the '80s, launched own brand in the '90s .
Said her mother was inspiration when made Hong Kong businesswoman of the year .


HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Hong Kong authorities Sunday announced that two recalled candy products made by British confectioner Cadbury had high levels of melamine. The industrial chemical has recently been found in Chinese-made milk products that have sickened nearly 53,000 children in China, killing four. Countries around the world have since banned the import of Chinese products containing milk, or have withdrawn products that contain milk from China -- such as candy -- amid worries they contain melamine. Last week, Cadbury recalled all of its Chinese-made candy products after preliminary tests showed they contained trace amounts of melamine. Cadbury took the action because "no level of melamine is appropriate," spokesman Tony Bilsborough told CNN on Sunday. He could not comment on the latest test results. The company stresses that its products manufactured at its Beijing plant are only exported to Taiwan and Hong Kong, with one product -- Cadbury Eclair -- sent to Australia, Nauru and Christmas Island. Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety tested 104 samples of products made by a variety of manufacturers, including Cadbury, Nestle, and some U.S. and Chinese companies. Only two of the samples showed unsatisfactory levels of melamine -- Cadbury Dairy Milk Cookies Chocolate (bulk pack 5kg) and Cadbury Dairy Milk Hazelnut Chocolate (bulk pack 5kg). The sample of the Cadbury Dairy Milk Hazelnut Chocolate contained melamine levels of 65 ppm (parts per million) which is more than 25 times the acceptable level of 2.5 ppm, according to Hong Kong's government. According to the center, a child weighing 22 pounds (10kg) would have to eat more than 10 small pieces of the hazelnut chocolate to surpass the tolerable daily intake. An average adult weighing 132 pounds (60kg) would have to eat more than 112 small pieces to surpass the level. The melamine levels in the samples of Dairy Milk Cookies Chocolate were 6.9 ppm -- more than twice as high as the legal limit of melamine. Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety said it will continue to test dairy products and other products with dairy ingredients. Test results on other products -- including milk powder, soya drinks, yogurt, butter, baby food and frozen confections -- would be released on Monday, it said. Chinese authorities have implicated 22 Chinese dairy companies in the tainted milk scandal. Investigators suspect people watered down milk in an attempt to sell more of it, and added melamine in order to fool quality checks, Chinese authorities have said. The toxic chemical is used to bolster apparent protein levels in diluted or poor-quality milk. On Saturday China announced that a test of 607 batches of liquid milk from 27 cities found the samples to be melamine-free, state-run media said. The tests were the sixth Chinese officials have carried out since melamine was discovered in powdered infant formula last month. Chinese authorities have promised to subsidize farmers hit by the shrinking demand for milk, the news agency Xinhua said. Among them is the northern Hebei province, which has earmarked 316 million yuan ($46.1 million) for subsidies. That translates to giving a farmer 200 yuan ($29) per cow, Xinhua said. Melamine is used to bolster apparent protein levels in diluted or poor-quality milk. Chinese authorities have arrested 40 people in connection with the scandal, including two brothers who could face the death penalty if convicted. Authorities have implicated 22 Chinese dairy companies in the scandal.

How many children died from Chinese milk products

What do the products have high levels of?

Who said Cadbury products had high levels of melamine?

What is in the milk that made children in China ill?

Answer: four.

Answer: recalled all of its Chinese-made candy products

Answer: Cadbury Dairy Milk Cookies Chocolate (bulk pack 5kg) and Cadbury Dairy Milk Hazelnut Chocolate (bulk pack 5kg).

Answer: four.

Answer: melamine.

Answer: Hong Kong authorities

Answer: China

Answer: is used to bolster apparent protein levels in diluted or poor-quality milk.

Answer: high levels of melamine.

Summary:
Hong Kong authorities say two Cadbury products have high levels of melamine .
Cadbury recalled all of its Chinese-made candy products last week .
Chinese milk products have sickened nearly 53,000 children in China, killing four .


HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- In Hong Kong, where the alert level has been raised to "emergency" after reporting its first case of swine flu, authorities are trying to keep the H1N1 virus from spreading through the metropolis of 7 million people through quarantine, stepped-up border measures and surveillance. Quarantined guests and hotel employees wave through the glass of the main entrance of Hong Kong's Metro Park Hotel. The quarantine has extended beyond the single confirmed case, a 25-year-old Mexican man, to include more than 340 people. They include: two taxi drivers, two fellow taxi passengers, a local friend, 36 passengers within a three-row vicinity of the patient aboard a China Eastern flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and 300 guests and staff at the Metropark Hotel he checked into. All have been put on the antiviral drug, Tamiflu. Among the two cab drivers, one was suspected of taking the patient from the airport to the hotel, and another was believed to have taken him from the hotel to the hospital. Authorities are seeing another 40 to 50 guests whose names are on the hotel's guest list. Some of them left their luggage behind. "They are gambling with their health, jeopardizing public health safety," said Dr. York Chow, secretary for Food and Health, appealing to the guests to come forward. In addition to the Metropark Hotel in Wanchai district, the Lady Maclehose Holiday Village is being used as an isolation center during the one-week quarantines. The government has assured that people under quarantine will have their visas automatically extended, their hotel lodging fees waived and their onward journeys prepared. The Wanchai hotel is providing guests $200 worth of free overseas telephone calls daily. The isolation order, which went into effect Friday night, is to expire Friday at 8:30 p.m. (8:30 a.m. ET) -- the length of an incubation period for swine flu. The isolation order did not extend to the air crew or remaining passengers aboard the China Eastern flight. An airplane's air exchange rate is high compared to that in an office or hotel, explained Yuen Kwok-yung, chair of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong. "Risk is very low on a plane," he said. So far, there have been no further confirmed cases of swine flu, and no Hong Kong pigs have tested positive for the virus, Yuen said.

How long will they remain in quarantine?

How many people were quarantined in Hong Kong?

How many rows were people confined from?

Answer: H1N1

Answer: They include: two taxi drivers, two fellow taxi passengers, a local friend, 36 passengers within a three-row vicinity of the patient aboard a China Eastern flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and 300 guests and staff at the Metropark Hotel he checked into.

Answer: one-week

Answer: guests and hotel employees

Answer: 340

Answer: three-row vicinity

Summary:
More than 340 people quarantined in Hong Kong following single case of H1N1 .
Those isolated due to remain in quarantine until Friday .
Confined persons include 36 travelers in three-row vicinity of sick man aboard flight .


HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- In ancient China, a hat tells of social rank. For the six Ngan siblings, hats tell the story of their rise to fortune. A shop assistant displays a Beijing 2008 Olympic Games baseball cap. The Ngan siblings grew up in a poor rural village in China's Fujian province in the 1960s and 1970s in the newly established communist China. People in Fujian and elsewhere in mainland China would speak of the fortunes that could be made in the booming Hong Kong economy. Occasionally, the talk would lead some to move to the international capitalist enclave. Today, the siblings operate their own headwear making and cosmetic trading businesses. One sister's company is the only licensed headwear manufacturer for the upcoming Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. "Everybody has opportunities in Hong Kong, it's up to you if you'll take the chance, and make use of your talents," says the third and the eldest sister, Ngan Po Ling, Pauline. If the hat fits, wear it None of the Ngan siblings wear hats regularly. They say hats don't really fit their oriental faces. The eldest brother Ngan Shun Kwing, without any other job offers, found work at a hat factory when he first arrived in Hong Kong in 1972. Four years later, Ngan Shun Kwing started his own hat company with his second brother. "Doing your own business is better than being employed," Ngan Shun Kwing, now 55, says. "I have no qualifications, nobody hires me. And, when can you earn millions as a factory worker?" The family united in 1980 when the parents and four younger siblings obtained approval to move to Hong Kong. Some of them, including their father, helped with the hat business. The company grew and later branched out to Global Headwear Ltd., which owns factories in China, Cambodia and Bangladesh with more than 10,000 workers, offices in six U.S. cities and major clients include Polo Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie & Fitch. The three Ngan brothers and some of their children manage the corporation, which has also diversified in mining and recycling. The three sisters are also entrepreneurs, but only the fourth sibling, Ngan Po Wan, Wendy, 45, is out of the headwear trade. She started Kingstar International Trading Ltd. in 1992 with her husband and the company is now the Hong Kong, Macau and China distributor of world-famous skin care products, including Guinot and La Colline. Pauline, 48, also started a company with her husband, Ngan Hei Keung. In 1986 the couple began trading headwear and promotional goods and later the company formed the group, Mainland Headwear Holdings Ltd., which was listed on Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2000. "My elder brothers' success is the spur and encouragement," Pauline says, "For us the younger ones, we follow their path." Mainland Headwear is a world leader in licensed headwear manufacturing. The company holds sole license to manufacture headwear for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, and worldwide exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute FIFA World Cup headwear in Greater China and Japan from 2007 to 2014.  Watch a spokeswoman lead a tour of the plant » Ngan Shun Kwing, Pauline and Wendy attributed their success to their parents' upbringing and tough rural life in Mainland China, which nurtured their exceptional diligence and determination in facing all challenges in life. From harsh rural life to Hong Kong Back in the quiet life in Chishui town in Dehua, Fujian, life was very different from Hong Kong's. The siblings ate sweet potatoes in congee (rice porridge), while receiving new clothes and enjoyed meat only once a year during the Chinese New Year. At night, they hardly had electric lights on. They spoke Fujian's Chinese dialect Hokkien and the national language Putonghua. The family did small businesses. Ngan Shun Kwing and Pauline were sent to the nearby mountain Daiyun Shan to learn from farmers during the Cultural Revolution's "Down to the Countryside Movement." "The hardest life in the world is being a farmer." Ngan Shun Kwing says.

Who has opportunities?
Who began their fortune?
What did Pauline say?
what caused thier success?
what is the name of the company?
What paved their success?

Answer: "Everybody

Answer: six Ngan siblings,

Answer: "Everybody has opportunities in Hong Kong, it's up to you if you'll take the chance, and make use of your talents,"

Answer: to their parents' upbringing and tough rural life in Mainland China,

Answer: One sister's

Answer: "My elder brothers'

Summary:
"Everybody has opportunities in Hong Kong," Ngan Po Ling, Pauline says .
Mainland Chinese siblings began their fortune in headwear making .
Pauline's company is the Beijing Olympics' licensed headwear manufacturer .
Parents' upbringing and tough life experiences in China paved their success .


HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Jackie Chan: A-list Asian megastar, iconic kung fu hero to millions and basically a really famous guy. We had been pursuing an in-depth interview with him for months through "The JC Group," Jackie's all-conquering management company.

Gaining access to Jackie Chan's personal "museum" uncovered many gems during filming.

Schedules conflicted, dates came and went - then finally a breakthrough. He was setting aside an afternoon in between a dizzying array of international commitments. Better still, we would be filming in Jackie's Hong Kong den -- his office which is home to a private "museum" of memorabilia and awards collected over the years.

Jackie Inc. is a sprawling, multi-tentacled empire with offices all over the world - but his hideaway is in a particularly charmless area of Hong Kong. Once inside the dreary office block, you pass a team of people working on JC merchandise and into Jackie's inner sanctum.

The first thing that confronts you is the ordered chaos in his suite of rooms. Clearly incapable of throwing anything away, his office is littered with props, costumes, trophies (including several for his bowling skills), CDs, and -- some might say -- junk.

He is also a compulsive collector. As he later tells us, if a friend gives him a gift such as a tea cup, he begins amassing tea cups until he has to build glass display cases to house his out-of-control collection.

Another obsession is antique locks, including one vast, heavy model he hand-carried back from Turkey.

Our first sighting of Jackie is odd. We were told he is a very late riser and the main challenge of the shoot for his staff was getting him out of bed. Instead, he arrives early, unannounced and on his own - a rarity with film stars.

We are still setting up and he stares at us blankly through thick glasses, then disappears into his gym without a word. We begin to wonder if he actually knows about the interview.

Introductions are finally made and the effusive, likeable Jackie Chan is alive and well. He throws himself into the idea of us filming him working out - putting on a bright yellow sweat suit, then pouring out the sweat from his sleeve after 40 minutes on the cross trainer.

During the interview, he is animated and a great story teller, discussing brushes with the triads and the last time he saw Bruce Lee alive.

As China's Olympic poster boy, he was clearly uncomfortable discussing Tibet and drew the distinction between sport and politics currently favored by the IOC.

Our eventual guided tour took in his room of autographed film star photographs (Robert De Niro his most treasured) and his personal walk-in wine chiller, which was naturally behind a false wall.

His business drive is evident. His merchandising arm produces clothes, glasses and Jackie Chan action figures, while he also dabbles in gizmos that interest him - he owns the distribution rights to the Segway in Hong Kong and cheerfully taught Anjali how to ride one.

Exhausted, we took our leave after a five hour shoot while Jackie still appeared to be warming up. The following day he left for Japan - ahead of Olympic duties on the Great Wall of China and a quick skip over to India.

Unarguably "the hardest working man in showbusiness" -- when awake.  E-mail to a friend

Who got to film in Jackie's hong Kong den?

Answer: five hour

Answer: which is home to a private "museum" of memorabilia and awards collected over the years.

Answer: (CNN)

Answer: props, costumes, trophies (including several for his bowling skills), CDs,

Summary:
Rare treat to film in Jackie's Hong Kong den .
Personal office looked like organized chaos and revealed his many collections .
Action superstar was still raring to go after exhausting five-hour shoot .


HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Like that other famous environmentalist, Thomas Friedman began his talk at the Asia Society in Hong Kong on December 16 with a simple PowerPoint slide. But that's where the similarities between Al Gore and The New York Times columnist end. Thomas L. Friedman has taken on a green hue with his latest book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded". Unlike Gore, Friedman is a distinctly different shade of green, a deeply pragmatic green that believes economic forces can usher in a revolution in environmental policy. He argues that systemic change simply requires showing the world that it needs green technology and letting pure economics do the rest. As a journalist, Friedman makes no claims to having scientific expertise in climate change. He is approaching it from a philosophical standpoint. Green capital Friedman's new book "Hot, Flat and Crowded" is not a major departure from his previous books. Whether he's discussing globalization or green industry, he is writing from his deep-seated belief in the markets. He is an unabashed capitalist. For Friedman, the system works but it's not immune to bad decision-making. Green industry like globalization will come of age if given the right market environment. His faith in capitalism is equal to that in green technology -- for him, these are two things that are clearly reconcilable. So how do we do this? America as the bastion for innovation, Friedman argues, should play a big role. In fact, he confesses it really isn't a book about the environment and energy, its a book about America. For Friedman, America is slipping down the ranks of hegemonic power and climate change is its big chance to reposition itself as a global leader. The environment is merely an allegory for how the U.S. will achieve this revival. As an extension of that argument, all countries need to do the same. Right now, no country has really taken the lead in environmental technology, so what we have at the moment is an all out race to the top. Indeed Friedman's book was written before the financial meltdown but recent events have furthered his argument that environmental technology is the solution of all solutions. It's a sentiment I also came across at the recent Clinton Global Initiative meeting. Green Dream Team Friedman seemed cautiously optimistic about Obama's ability to lead the green revolution. Given the disarray of many of America's financial institutions, it's unclear whether this new green message will get through. A glimmer of hope however is Obama's newly appointed energy secretary Steven Chu. There's been extensive chatter about him on environmental blogs in recent days with the media calling Chu the head of Obama's "Green Dream Team." Friedman made a ringing endorsement of Chu as did many in the audience that day. Steven Chu, Nobel Laureate and the head of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, is seen as a promising choice for many environmentalists, one perhaps that proves Obama's intention to fulfill a key campaign promise on energy policy. Chu himself underwent an interesting move from physics to environmental technology. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 but left the world of Quantum Physics to study the science of global warming. As head of Berkeley National Lab, he led projects to the tune of $650 million channeling much of it towards green technology to develop advanced biofuels and solar power.  Watch a video of Steven Chu from Berkeley University Changing light bulbs and leaders The audience listening to Friedman that day was clearly appreciative of his no-nonsense approach to the green issue. As Friedman puts it, "it's not about changing light bulbs, it's about changing leaders." He confessed to having attended too many Earth Day concerts in the past and that no matter how many celebrities you get to show up or how you offset the event, it won't be enough to set off this green revolution. So as I sat there wondering whether the fish the guests had been eating for lunch was sustainable, for Friedman, it didn't really matter. For his revolution, he had bigger fish to fry.

What type of approach does he have to environmentalism?

Who also means to transform U.S economy?

What is the solution to all solutions according to Friedman?

Answer: environmental technology

Answer: a philosophical standpoint.

Answer: Thomas L. Friedman

Answer: in Hong Kong

Answer: "Hot, Flat and Crowded".

Answer: environmental technology

Summary:
Journalist and author of "Hot, Flat and Crowded" spoke at Hong Kong event .
Pragmatic approach to environmentalism also a means to transform U.S. economy .
For Friedman, innovation in energy technology is solution of all solutions .


HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- On the eve of what was to become the biggest sale ever of a Chinese contemporary painting, Trevor Simon wanted to get the word out about "Execution," a painting he had hidden from everybody. The painting had been stored in a  London warehouse for more than a decade after arriving from Hong Kong. "Not a single person in the world had seen it other than me for more than a decade," said the 36-year-old investment banking strategist by phone from London on Thursday. That includes his mother and the woman he loves. Beijing artist Yue Minjun's painting, inspired by the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square in 1989, sold for 2.9 million pounds ($5.9 million) Friday night in London. The sale exceeded the 2.15 million pounds ($4.37 million) paid in June for the previous record, Yue's "The Pope." Simon remembers seeing the oil painting at Manfred Schoeni's gallery in Hong Kong during the late 1990s and how it fascinated him at first sight. "As soon as I saw it, my whole self changed," he said. "I realized that this stood for everything that was going on at the time, so I was stunned into silence literally. I saw what was happening in China. I was rising in banking, and I saw an execution of people who were smiling. "I saw that was what was going on in banking." Schoeni and Simon were already on friendly terms, and Schoeni had wanted to show him "Execution," which had been covered up. But when Simon insisted he wanted the painting, he recalled Schoeni telling him it wasn't going anywhere and was not for sale. But Simon said he would not leave and remembered saying: " 'Fine, have a drink with me.' And maybe I loosened his head a bit. After a couple hours, I struck a deal." A junior investment banker in his 20s at the time, Simon would spend $250,000 Hong Kong dollars ($32,200), or two-thirds of his annual salary, on "Execution." The painting reflected what he felt was going on in the world in which he worked: a soulless place. "While you can apply a good mind, the job eats your life. You spend 14 hours in the markets. A week in Paris, a week in London running around. No life. My girlfriend didn't want to be with me: 'I can't have you.'" She'd leave him and has since become engaged to someone else, he said. "It was not only an image of an execution of characters in front of the walls of Tiananmen, but an execution of me," he said, describing himself as "committed to this painting." Under the terms of the deal he struck with Schoeni, the painting was to be "out of sight for five years" and shipped to London, Simon explained. He described the painting -- at 3 meters (10 feet) wide and 1.5 meters (5 feet) high -- as "monumental," "physical," and "like a wall." He put "Execution" in a box, shipped it out of Hong Kong to London. "And it hasn't moved since that day. It's in a crusty warehouse behind a main road." He finds a key distinction between "Execution" and Francisco de Goya's "The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid" and Edouard Manet's "The Execution of the Emperor Maximilien of Mexico." In those, he said, "that's murder, true assassination of a political figure. But here [with "Execution"], it's far more potent. Because they're killed by culture." The laughing was a "response to unimaginable persecution," he said. "You don't know what the hell else to do. You're nervous. You're not laughing, 'Ha ha hee hee.

What proportion of this annual salary did Simon spend on the painting?

Answer: $250,000 Hong Kong dollars ($32,200),

Answer: Beijing artist

Answer: 2.9 million pounds

Answer: two-thirds

Answer: Trevor Simon

Summary:
Beijing artist Yue Minjun's "Execution" sold for record 2.9 million pounds ($5.9M)
In the painting, Simon saw metaphor for himself and his life in the bank world .
Simon spent two-thirds of his annual salary on the painting in the 1990s .
Under deal, Simon kept painting out of sight, shipped it out of HK to London .


HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- The United Nation's International Maritime Organization (IMO) has gathered this week in the shipping hub of Hong Kong to draw up new rules on ship recycling. Ship-breaking yards in Bangladesh are responsible for pollution and health problems. As the delegates meet in the city's Convention and Exhibition center overlooking the harbor, many of the vast container ships that glide past them will end up 1,500 miles away on the beaches of south east Bangladesh. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh take 80 percent of end-of-life ships, according to the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking, but critics of the U.N. convention being discussed fear the problems of pollution and poor working conditions these countries experience through badly regulated shipbreaking will not be properly addressed. Lee Adamson, the IMO's spokesperson, is confident the convention will be "a tremendous step forward in terms of health and safety for workers in the industry and for protection of the environment from end-of-life ships. It will set standards where none previously existed." But those standards don't go far enough for lawyer and head of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, Rizwana Hasan. She has been trying to clean up the dirty and dangerous industry through the law courts since 2003. Her passion and persistence led to a Bangladesh High Court ruling in March this year finally forcing the government to tighten its regulations of the trade. It has also brought her the Goldman Environmental Prize in April and increasing international attention. "Now I have an international connection, my opponents are taking me more seriously as a threat," she told CNN. The main objection of Hasan and the nongovernmental organization Platform on Shipbreaking against the IMO convention is that it fails to deal with the issue of pre-cleaning -- the removal of toxic materials from ships before they are beached and dismantled, which is often done by hand by laborers without any safety equipment. "Technical details about recycling are being discussed, but nothing about pre-cleaning of ships. It's the core issue. Pre-cleaning is when the majority of in-built toxic material of a ship is removed before being beached in a foreign country. Plus, nothing is being said against beaching -- Bangladesh's beaches have become a natural disadvantage," Hasan told CNN. Secretary-General of the IMO Efthimios E. Mitropoulos stated in his opening address of conference its aim "is to adopt a new convention on the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships, while balancing the commercial and economic considerations of the industry." With perhaps too much emphasis on the economic considerations of the industry, Hasan believes the IMO is in effect legalizing shipbreaking in the name of ship recycling. "They're talking about the responsibility of the ship owners in building new ships, but not about the existing ships and what to do them," said Hasan. More ships to scrap The ship breaking industry is booming. Single-hull oil tankers have to be taken off the high seas by 2010, but the financial downturn has also become a major factor. With less trade in goods, container ships are being taken out of service and scrapped, as shipping lines can no longer afford to keep them afloat. In turn shipbreaking industries fuels local businesses in iron milling and create local markets for parts from ships, including anything salvaged, from doors and tables to nuts and bolts. Shipping companies often sell their decommission ships to intermediary companies that then sell the ships to breakers yards. Less scrupulous companies will not ensure the ships are as free of toxic materials as they should be before they are dismantled and even change their flag of convenience so they are not bound by the UN Basel convention on the exporting of toxic material. In 2006 legal actions instigated by Hasan were successful in turning away two toxic-laden ships from being beached in Bangladesh. The dangerous job of breaking up ships has migrated from dry docks in industrial countries to other ports across the world, where labor and environmental laws are not strictly upheld. While still happening on a smaller scale in India, it was because of tighter

What are sites of polluting and dangerous shipbreaking?

Answer: lawyer and head of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association,

Answer: Hong Kong

Answer: Convention and Exhibition center

Answer: Bangladesh

Summary:
U.N. meeting in Hong Kong to draw up new convention on ship recycling .
Eco lawyer Rizwana Hasan claims it won't stop dangerous shipbreaking practices .
Bangladesh beaches sites of polluting and dangerous shipbreaking .
Hasan succeeded in making Bangladeshi government clean up shipbreaking yards .


HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Unilever is recalling four batches of Lipton Milk Tea sold in Hong Kong and Macau after finding traces of the chemical melamine in the product, the company said Tuesday. Unilever Hong Kong Limited described it as a precautionary measure and said no other Lipton Milk Tea Powder products were affected. The announcement came a day after British confectioner Cadbury said it has recalled all of its Chinese-made candy products after preliminary tests showed they contained trace amounts of melamine. Some of the products were exported to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, Nauru and Christmas Island, according to the company. They are the latest companies to get caught up in China's tainted milk scandal, which began earlier this month when authorities discovered melamine in powdered infant formula.  Watch how scare affects companies outside China » Contaminated milk has sickened nearly 53,000 children in China, killing four. Countries around the world have since banned the import of Chinese products containing milk, or have withdrawn products that contain milk from China -- such as chocolates -- amid worries they contain melamine. Authorities have arrested 40 people in connection with the milk scandal, including two brothers who could face the death penalty if convicted. Investigators suspect people watered down milk in an attempt to sell more of it, and added melamine in order to fool quality checks, Chinese authorities have said. The toxic chemical is used to bolster apparent protein levels in diluted or poor-quality milk. Others arrested include 19 managers of pastures, breeding farms and milk-purchasing stations. Chinese authorities have said those arrested were involved in a network that made and sold melamine. Authorities have implicated 22 Chinese dairy companies in the scandal. Melamine is the same industrial contaminant from China that poisoned and killed thousands of U.S. dogs and cats last year. Health experts say ingesting melamine can lead to kidney stones, urinary tract ulcers, and eye and skin irritation. It also robs infants of much-needed nutrition. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said a company in Taiwan, the King Car Food Industrial Company, had recalled seven instant coffee and milk tea products that were sold in the United States under the Mr. Brown brand name. They contain a non-dairy creamer found to be contaminated with melamine. The FDA also recommends that U.S. consumers not eat White Rabbit Creamy Candy, which in China has been found to contain unacceptable levels of melamine. The candy's maker, Guanshengyuan, has recalled its exports of White Rabbit Cream Candy.

What has been contaminated with melamine?

What were Chinese milk products contaminated with?

What have been contaminated with melamine?

Answer: four batches of Lipton Milk Tea sold in Hong Kong

Answer: Lipton Milk Tea

Answer: Lipton Milk Tea

Answer: Lipton

Answer: Macau

Answer: melamine.

Answer: Lipton Milk Tea

Answer: Hong Kong and

Answer: four

Answer: Unilever

Summary:
Unilever recalls four batches of Lipton Milk Tea sold in Hong Kong .
Unilever Hong Kong describes it as a precautionary measure .
Chinese milk products have been contaminated with melamine .


HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Yue Minjun acknowledges that "Execution," inspired by the bloody Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, is the most politically sensitive of his work. A section of Yue Minjun's "Execution," which the artist shows how human conflict is worth laughing at But while Tiananmen served as the catalyst, the oil painting should not be seen as depicting what happened at Tiananmen, the Beijing-based artist said this week through a translator in a phone interview. Billed by Sotheby's as "among the most historically important paintings of the Chinese avant-garde ever to appear at auction," "Execution" had been tucked away from sight until now. Its owner bought it from a gallery in Hong Kong a decade ago under condition that the painting not be shown in public because of its subject matter, according to Sotheby's. On Friday, it went on auction in London, a highlight in a contemporary arts sale that also included Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Untitled (Head)," Mark Rothko's "Untitled (Blue Divided by Blue)", Andy Warhol's "Jackie," Francis Bacon's "Studies of Isabel Rawsthorne," and Damien Hirst's "Adenosine." "Execution" would become the most expensive work of Chinese contemporary art at auction, selling for 2.9 million British pounds ($5.9 million). It eclipsed Yue's previous record, set in June when his "The Pope" sold for nearly 2.15 million British pounds ($4.37 million). The sale of "Execution" also comes on the same week another Yue piece, "The Massacre at Chios," sold for nearly $4.1 million at a Sotheby's auction of contemporary Chinese art in Hong Kong. Stretching across "Execution" is a long red building, suggesting Tiananmen's gate outside the Forbidden City. Is the painting of Tiananmen? "I want the audience not to think of one thing or one place or one event," he said from his Beijing home. "The whole world's the background." The red building, he explains, is simply something that's familiar to him as a Chinese artist. "As I said, the viewer should not link this painting to Tiananmen. But Tiananmen is the catalyst for conceiving of this painting." The background may make people think of Tiananmen because he is a Chinese artist. "But it should not be," he said. Yue painted "Execution" in a month -- in 1995. However, "it took me quite a long time for me to put the idea together." The big picture, he said, "it's on the whole world's human conflict that is worth laughing about." Drawing references to Francisco de Goya's "The Third of May, 1808: The Execution of the Defenders of Madrid" and Edouard Manet's "The Execution of the Emperor Maximilien of Mexico," the painting depicts a mock execution. Manet, it must be pointed out, modeled his painting after Goya's; and Yue's "Execution" mirrors both of those -- but with his trademark grinning clones, all likenesses of Yue himself. And the men in the position of being shot are shown in their underwear. "People feel freedom, most themselves, at home in their underpants," Yue said. And whereas in Goya's painting, the man's hands are up in resistance, the men's hands in "Execution" are down. "They are not fearing death," Yue said. "The laughs illustrate my deep feelings," he said. The viewer will feel happiness but also fear toward the future and the unknown, a universal sentiment, he said. "One might be very happy now but always unsure of what's going to happen next. "I think Chinese and the world have similar feelings in this respect," he said. As for the main figures that dominate the right-half of the painting, they assume the position of holding the guns, but without the guns themselves. "In my painting, they're

What is a record for contemporary Chinese art?

Answer: 2.9 million British pounds ($5.9 million).

Answer: Yue Minjun

Answer: 2.9 million British pounds ($5.9 million).

Answer: "Execution"

Answer: 2.9 million British pounds ($5.9 million).

Answer: "Execution,"

Summary:
NEW: "Execution" sold for $5.9 million, a record for contemporary Chinese art .
Yue: Tiananmen was catalyst for "Execution," but painting does not depict it .
The big picture is, the world's human conflict is worth laughing at, Yue says .
Owner tucked painting away from public view for a decade .


HONG KONG, China (Reuters) -- Paul Lee got his liver from an executed Chinese prisoner; Karam in Egypt bought a kidney for his sister for $5,300; in Istanbul Hakan is holding out for $30,700 for one of his kidneys.

Doctors in Pakistan have been arrested for abducting people, drugging them and stealing their kidneys.

They are not so unusual: a dire shortage of donated organs in rich countries is sending foreigners with end-stage illnesses to poorer places like China, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Colombia and the Philippines to buy a new lease of life.

Lee, a 53-year-old chief subway technician in Hong Kong, was diagnosed with liver cancer in January 2005 but doctors denied him a transplant because they feared the tumor would spread.

A friend told him about a transplant hospital in China's north eastern Tianjin city and he signed up for a place. That April, he paid 260,000 yuan ($34,380) for a transplant -- surgery that saved his life.

"The hospital has connections with a lot of prisons," Lee told Reuters. "Mine came from an executed prisoner from Heilongjiang. I thank the donor deeply."

The World Health Organization estimates that 21,000 liver transplants are carried out annually, but medical experts put annual worldwide demand at at least 90,000.

Demand for kidneys also exceeds supply, and that has given rise to organ trafficking and a black market for rich people and "transplant tourists" who travel to poor countries to buy body parts from people with few other routes to a better living.

A donor in South Africa receives $700 for a kidney compared with $30,000 in the United States. A lack of transparency and little protection for donors has spurred calls by international bodies to crack down on, or at least regulate, the trade.

But even where the trade is banned, laws are often muddled or laced with loopholes, which are sometimes defended by vested interests.

And the unregulated route is much less complicated for the recipient. Any transplant procedure involving a living donor carries risks for the donor -- especially for liver transplants which involve removing part of the donor's liver.

The complications can include bleeding, infection, even death.

In the transplant trade, the recipient need not worry about, for example, exposing a living relative to that risk.

"It is cheaper and your next of kin is not taking the risk and you don't have to care for someone you don't know. Once you pay, it is discarded in a way, it is dispensable," said Luc Noel, a Geneva-based coordinator for Clinical Procedures at the World Health Organization.

China recently banned the sale of human organs and restricted transplants for foreigners, saying it must first meet demand at home for 2 million organs a year.

Only 20,000 transplants are carried out in China each year. Of these, 3,000 are liver transplants and 95 percent of them use livers from dead donors.

China defended its use of organs from executed prisoners, saying consent was obtained from convicts or their families. A transplant operation using the liver of a dead donor costs around $33,000 in China.

"What is important is the transparency, it has to be open to scrutiny ... if China makes its current system open to scrutiny and very transparent, that would do good," said the WHO's Noel.

In Asia, a cultural obsession with keeping the body of the deceased intact has stymied public organ donation programs.

Excluding China, Asia has fewer than 200 livers donated by people ahead of their death each year, said Lo Chung-man, professor of hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery at the University of Hong Kong.

Pakistan, where trade in human organs is not illegal, is turning into a "kidney bazaar", said the chief executive of Pakistan's Kidney Foundation, Jaffar Naqvi.

There are no confirmed figures for the number of foreigners coming to the country for new kidneys but Naqvi said there were 13 centers in Lahore alone which reported more than 2,000 transplants last year from bought kidneys.

Patients, mostly from Europe, Saudi

Which country is turning into a "kidney bazaar"?

In what country is it legal to trade human organs for money?

WHAT HAS CREATED A TRADE FROM POORER COUNTRIES?

What countries are  organs being purchased from

What problem has organ shortages caused?

WHAT DO "TRANSPLANT TOURISTS" BUY WHEN THEY TRAVEL?

Where is the trade in human organs legal

What do they call people who buy organs from poor countries

Answer: foreigners with end-stage illnesses

Answer: dire shortage of donated organs

Answer: in rich countries

Answer: Pakistan,

Answer: $30,000 in the United States.

Answer: who travel to poor countries to buy body parts from people with few other routes to a better living.

Answer: Pakistan,

Answer: a dire shortage of donated organs

Answer: China, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Colombia

Answer: a dire shortage of donated organs in rich countries

Answer: who travel to poor countries to buy body parts from people

Answer: abducting people, drugging them and stealing their kidneys.

Answer: who travel to poor countries to buy body parts from people with few other routes to a better living.

Answer: poor countries

Answer: sending foreigners with end-stage illnesses to poorer places like China, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Colombia and the Philippines to buy a new lease of life.

Answer: $5,300;

Answer: travel to poor countries to buy body parts from people with few other routes to a better living.

Answer: body parts from people

Answer: Pakistan,

Answer: China's

Answer: "transplant tourists"

Answer: $30,700

Answer: "transplant tourists"

Summary:
Organ shortage in rich states has created a trade from poorer countries .
"Transplant tourists" travel to poor countries to buy organs from the desperate .
Pakistan, where trade in human organs is legal, is turning into a "kidney bazaar"
Patients pay $8,500 for a new kidney, while donors are paid just $300 to $1,000 .


HONG KONG, China -- Most people by now will be familiar with the term 'carbon footprint' and may even have calculated it themselves, but how many are familiar with their 'water footprint'?

Professor Arjen Y. Hoekstra, the creator of the 'water footprint' concept.

It's about time we all learned what it is, says Professor Arjen Y. Hoekstra, Professor in Multidisciplinary Water Management at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, as soon it will be influencing how we live our lives.

Hoekstra created the water footprint concept in 2002 when he was undertaking research on what is known as virtual water trade flows for the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education.

CNN finds out what it is and why it's important.

CNN: So, what is a water footprint?

Hoekstra: It relates to how much water is being used to make a product, but it also refers to where that water is being used and when that water is being used. This is about the water use in different parts of the world to make products for businesses and individuals, so this enables an impact assessment and a formulation of policy to improve the water sustainability of these products.

CNN: What can businesses or individuals do to save on water?

Hoekstra: Businesses or individuals can become "water neutral" by reducing the effects of their water footprints. They can have incentives for that, because once they are water neutral they can market that and consumers may like that so there are other mechanisms there.

CNN: How would one go about becoming water neutral?

Hoekstra: The water footprint of a business has two components -- the water used during operations and the water used in the supply chain. In order for a product to be sustainable you have to make both operations of the business sustainable as well as the supply chain.

A product from a business is water neutral if the business has made sure that the operations are sound, that the water use has been reduced reasonably as much as possible, and the pollution has been brought to zero, but they also have to do that in their supply chain and they can't do that themselves because it is not their own business.

So, they can only do that by influencing their suppliers or by changing to another supplier. And this is quite something because it means that the whole business sector and all these supply chains have to become much more transparent.

CNN: What business sectors use the most water?

Hoekstra: Agriculture -- 85 percent of the world's water usage is in agriculture, 10 percent is industry and 5 percent is in households. But these sectors are not independent because what we call the industry sector is taking so much stuff from the agricultural sector, so they are connected.

It means that if the industrial sector has to reduce their water footprint it also means they have to look at their supply chain and part of their supply chain is in the agricultural sector. The agricultural sector should become more transparent.

CNN: What can individuals do?

Hoekstra: There are two types of approaches. One is to substitute types of consumption articles for other ones, which take less water -- like going from a meat-based diet to a vegetarian one, which will save a lot of water.

Drinking tea instead of coffee saves a lot of water. Not wearing cotton but wearing artificial fiber saves a lot of water.

But this is probably limited, because people don't shift from meat to vegetarian as they just don't like not to have beef; or they like cotton.

So the different kind of approach is to keep the same kind of consumption pattern but when choosing cotton, or when choosing beef, choose the sound one. If you make things more transparent, by citing the precise impact of a certain article on the water system, through the water footprint, you provide that kind of information and you label it somehow, then consumers within the same category have some choice to go in the better direction.

CNN: What do you think will encourage the take-up of the water footprint

What uses up to 85 percent of the world's freshwater supplies?

What uses 85% of the world's fresh water?

The agricultural sector uses how much of the world's freshwater supplies?

What can individuals do to make a difference?

Individuals can make a difference by gauging their own what?

In what way can individuals make a difference?

Answer: Agriculture

Answer: agriculture,

Answer: 85 percent

Answer: become "water neutral" by reducing the effects of their water footprints.

Answer: 'water footprint'?

Answer: reducing the effects of their water footprints.

Summary:
Individuals can make a difference by gauging their own 'water footprint'
Agricultural sector uses up 85 percent of world's freshwater supplies .
Global water treaty should include basic food-water rights for all .
The U.S. water footprint per capita is twice the world average .


HONOLULU, Hawaii (CNN)  -- Bobby Maxwell kept a close eye on the oil industry for more than 20 years as a government auditor. But he said the federal agency he worked for is now a "cult of corruption" -- a claim backed up by a recent government report. Bobby Maxwell, a long-time auditor of the oil industry, says his former agency is corrupt "top to bottom." "I believe the management we were under was showing favoritism to the oil industry," Maxwell told CNN. Maxwell is referring to a tiny agency within the Department of the Interior called the Minerals Management Service, which manages the nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on federal lands. A report, conducted by the Interior Department's inspector general and released earlier this month, found that employees at the agency received improper gifts from energy industry officials and engaged with them in illegal drug use and inappropriate sexual relations. It looked at activities at the agency from 2003 through 2006. Maxwell said the report doesn't surprise him. The agency, he said, is corrupt "top to bottom."  Watch a failure to "protect America's interests" » "It sounds like they forgot they work for the government," he said. "It's disgusting. ... There's no excuse for that. Those people should not be working in those positions at all. "They crossed a lot of lines that should never have been crossed," he said. "They lost all objectivity." Maxwell was in charge of keeping track of the millions in royalty payments owed taxpayers by oil and gas companies who explored and found oil on U.S. government lands. He estimates he and his team were responsible for saving the government close to $500 million in royalties, either underpaid or somehow skipped by oil and gas companies, over the years. He received the Interior Department's highest award in 2003 for his work. But not long afterward, his job was killed. He believes it was retribution for his cracking down on Big Oil and blowing the whistle on what he believes was a "cult of corruption" within the agency. The Interior Department denies that, saying his job was reorganized as part of routine restructuring. Just before he lost his job, he said, one of his superiors in Washington ordered him not to investigate why Shell Oil had raised its oil transportation costs. Maxwell said it jumped from 90 cents to $3 a barrel without adequate explanation. The government paid Shell to transport oil from offshore platforms. When asked why a government worker would tell an auditor not to investigate, he said: "I believe it started from the top down," he said. Shell Oil told CNN it "pays the same rate any shipper does" and that it has "never engaged in fraudulent transactions or entered into sham contracts as Mr. Maxwell alleges." Maxwell, a registered independent, said the shift in attitude at the agency began about seven or eight years ago, about the time the Bush administration came into power. He said he was discouraged from aggressively auditing oil companies. "Laws and regulations were not applied, also not enforced," he said. The inspector general's 27-page summary says that nearly a third of the roughly 60 people in Maxwell's former office received gifts and gratuities from oil industry executives. Two received improper, if not illegal, gifts at least 135 times, the report says. It goes on to describe a wild atmosphere in which some staff members admitted using cocaine and marijuana. In addition, two female workers at the Minerals Management Service were known as the "MMS chicks" and both told investigators they had sex with oil industry officials they were supposed to be auditing. One e-mail from a pipeline company representative invited government workers to a tailgating party: "Have you and the girls meet at my place at 6 a.m. for bubble baths and final prep ... Just kidding." Inspector General Earl Devaney said in a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne accompanying the report that it details "

Who said oil regulators in bed with oil industry?

Who lost his job due to scrutiny of oil giants?

What did the Department of the Interior say?

Answer: government auditor.

Answer: the federal agency he worked for is now a "cult of corruption"

Answer: Bobby Maxwell

Answer: Bobby Maxwell

Answer: agency is corrupt "top to bottom."

Answer: Bobby Maxwell,

Answer: employees at the agency received improper gifts from energy industry officials and engaged with them in illegal drug use and inappropriate sexual relations.

Summary:
Whistleblower said oil regulators in bed with oil industry: "It's disgusting"
Department of Interior said it can't comment on Bobby Maxwell's specific claims .
Maxwell was auditor for 20-plus years, said he lost job due to scrutiny of oil giants .
Recent report found the agency Maxwell worked for took improper gifts from oil reps .


HONOLULU, Hawaii (CNN) -- Battered by the current economic recession, Hawaii's economy could get a strong boost from two key sporting events. The Pro Bowl this year was played at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu. It will return there in 2011. The National Football League's Pro Bowl Game will return to Honolulu in 2011 -- an event that is expected to bring millions of dollars in revenue. Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann is also hoping to lure the 31st Summer Olympic Games -- but not to his city. He's actively supporting Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Games. "How does that play out for Hawaii? Well, obviously if we get the Olympics -- that is (the) USA -- we benefit from a Discover America campaign that we'd like to see with visitors coming prior to Chicago to Hawaii or after, and visiting other parts of our country," the mayor said. "What I really want to do is promote Hawaii as a great place for some of these teams to come and do a little R&R (rest and relaxation) or training before they go on to the Olympics in Chicago." Hannemann will head to Chicago, Illinois, this weekend to court International Olympics Committee members, who are in the Windy City to evaluate its plan to host the Games. On October 2, the IOC will choose among Chicago; Madrid, Spain; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; or Tokyo, Japan, as the 2016 host city. Hannemann co-chairs the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Olympic Task Force, along with Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, which he said aims "to bring the Olympics to America in 2016." Hawaii's economy is heavily dependent on tourism, and the economic recession means fewer people are visiting the island state. With three-quarters of the state's population living in Honolulu, Hannemann said, workers are especially hit hard in the capital city. "The slowdown in tourism has resulted in shorter hours, in some cases even a decrease in their wages, and hopefully a last resort is some of them are being laid off as a result of some of these businesses going out of business," he said. "So our job is just to continue to do what we can to work with private industry to shore up the tourism industry. It is our No. 1 industry, nothing comes close." Tourism accounts for between $10 billion and $12 billion each year compared to Hawaii's second-largest industry, which is military spending, according to Hannemann. That accounts for between $3 billion and $4 billion annually, the mayor said. Last month, the Hawaii Tourism Authority voted to allow the NFL's Pro Bowl game to return to Hawaii in 2011 and 2012. The game has been held the week after the Super Bowl at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu since 1980, and has sold out every time. Next year, it will take place in Miami, Florida, before the Super Bowl -- raising concerns that it will not be as much of a draw because no Super Bowl players will participate in the game. Hawaii authorities agreed to allow the game to return to the state under the condition that the NFL would consider returning the Pro Bowl to the Sunday after the Super Bowl "depending on the success, or failure, of the 2010 game in Miami," according to the NFL. Hannemann said the tens of thousands of people who attend the game annually have then spent "at least $30 million" across the state of Hawaii. Losing the game would not only be an economic loss for the state, but a "major downer" for residents, he said. "People (have) said, 'Oh, my goodness, now we lost the Pro Bowl. We've had it here for over 20 years, it's been a sell-out. What's going on here? ... Everything's going to go out of Hawaii,' " Hannemann said. "So I got involved, I went and talked to some of the commissioners there, I changed their votes, and we're

What does Hawaii's economy depend on heavily?

When will NFL's Pro Bowl return to Hawaii?

Answer: The Pro Bowl

Answer: 2011.

Answer: tourism,

Answer: Aloha Stadium in Honolulu.

Answer: tourism,

Answer: host the 2016 Games.

Answer: 2011.

Summary:
NFL's Pro Bowl will return to Hawaii in 2011 .
Mayor hopes Chicago gets the Olympics -- and that attendees stop off in Hawaii .
Hawaii's economy is heavily dependent on tourism .
One writer questions the cost of hosting the Pro Bowl .


HONOLULU, Hawaii (CNN) -- It's been more than a year since a racial slur threatened to end the television career of Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman. But the incident still weighs heavily on his mind.

Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman watches his son's baseball game this month in Honolulu, Hawaii.

A&E briefly suspended his top-rated reality show in late 2007, and his reputation was on the line.

Now, with his show back on the air and at the top of the network's ratings list, Chapman insists that he does not want the controversy to be forgotten.

"They said, 'It'll pass,' and I said to the guy, 'You know what? I won't let it.' "

Chapman, 56, spoke candidly about accusations of racism on a recent windy Saturday afternoon on the sidelines of 8-year-old son Garry's baseball game.

It was his other son, Tucker, who recorded a profanity-laced conversation with his father and reportedly sold the recording -- which included Chapman repeatedly using the "n-word" -- to the National Enquirer in 2007.

Some African-American leaders called for the cancellation of his show.

Chapman said he was advised to lay low for several weeks, but he refused.

"All the spin doctors ... all those guys told me, 'Dog, say that you were this, say you were that, [but] if you go out there, you're done.' I said, 'I'm going out in a hail of glory. You may call me a convict ... but you ain't gonna call me something I'm not. I'm going out swinging.'"

Chapman said his meetings with leaders of the black community were more than an attempt to redeem himself in the public eye and get his show back on the air. In a February 8, 2008, foreword to his book, "You Can Run But You Can't Hide," he writes that "giving up cussing is just the first step toward my evolution as a human."

He said he was referring to his use of the racial slur, which he admits -- even on the recording -- knowing that it would spark public outrage. But as a former prison inmate of mixed ethnicity -- he is part Native American -- Chapman said he felt he could use the word without it defining him as a racist.

"I was with 38,000 black men at the age of 22 in the '70s, the [prison] guards -- whether they're black or white -- called them that [the slur] every day," he said. "Once I said it and met with leaders of the black community and realized what that word meant, that's when I said, 'I will never again utter that word. Ever.' "

He said, "I don't give a damn that [it] was a private call they burglarized; I knew not to do that. I didn't know not to say the word because what it would do, but I do now. Now if you catch me [saying it], you won't have to stop my show, I'll resign."

Controversy is something that Chapman draws on; it defines his character both publicly and privately. He ran with motorcycle gangs before he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to a five-year prison term in 1977. He maintains his innocence and served a fraction of the sentence.

His determination to prove he was the world's best bounty hunter led him to Mexico in 2003, where he and his team captured the heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune, Andrew Luster, who was convicted in absentia on charges of rape.

The Mexican government charged Chapman and his team with kidnapping and demanded their extradition, but the charges later were dropped.

His life story of an ex-con-turned-vigilante is the hallmark of his celebrity and leads many people to tune in to his show, which began in 2004.

What threatened to end TV career of Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman?

What Chapman said about the controversy?

Answer: the incident still weighs heavily on his mind.

Answer: a racial slur

Answer: back on the air

Answer: Chapman

Answer: Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter"

Answer: "They

Summary:
Use of slur threatened to end TV career of Duane "Dog the Bounty Hunter" Chapman .
Chapman says he does not want the controversy to be forgotten .
Chapman was heard repeatedly using racial slur in recording sold to tabloid .
Reality show has returned successfully to A&E network .


HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Even with Hurricane Ike more than 100 miles away, authorities began rescue efforts Friday, picking up more than 120 people stranded by rising seas along the southeast Texas coast. The U.S. Coast Guard rescues a person trapped in a car on Friday as Hurricane Ike hits Texas. Most of the rescues occurred in Galveston County, where rising water and other effects of the storm began hours before expected landfall early Saturday. Stranded residents have been airlifted from Crystal Beach, Bolivar Peninsula and other communities in the Galveston area. Many of those rescued were motorists stranded on flooded roads. In Surfside Beach, police waded through chest-high rushing water to rescue five people trapped in their homes. One man refused to leave, said Surfside Beach police Chief Randy Smith.  Watch rescuers save a motorist from floods » "Some of them took convincing, some of them didn't," he said. Police also rescued another five people who waded out to meet the officers. About half of those rescues were done by helicopters out of several bases along the coast, said Coast Guard Petty Officer David Schulein. Three HH-65C helicopters from Coast Guard Air Station Houston rescued more than 20 people and were continuing to fly round-the-clock rescue missions until weather grounds them, said Petty Officer Renee Aiello, a station spokeswoman. The Coast Guard helicopters from Air Station Houston could make their last flights Friday afternoon as rain starts to move in, Aiello said.  Watch Ike begin to spill water into Texas » "We'll be out as long as the weather permits us," she said. "We're still working." Some 37,000 people may need to be rescued after Hurricane Ike strikes, a U.S. military official said Friday. Texas already has asked for help, and the active-duty military has 42 search-and-rescue helicopters on standby, the official said. iReport.com: Commander briefs Coast Guard crews Meanwhile, the Coast Guard and Air Force were unable to rescue 22 people aboard a freighter adrift in the Gulf of Mexico because of weather, the two military branches said Friday. "Weather on scene deteriorated to a point that made the rescue impossible," the Coast Guard said in a statement issued Friday. First Lt. Lauren Johnson, an Air Force spokeswoman, confirmed the report. Aircraft were used in the effort, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Coast Guard said. Coast Guard officials had said earlier they thought the best way to help the 584-foot freighter might be to let the storm push it to shallow water where it can drop anchor.  Watch the captain of the freighter talk with CNN » The freighter had been headed south from Port Arthur, Texas, and is loaded with petroleum coke -- a petroleum byproduct. The Coast Guard said in a news release it received a distress call around 4 a.m. from the Antalina, a Cypriot-flagged freighter. It said the vessel had "lost main propulsion 90 miles southeast of Galveston" and was unable to steer. Coast Guard Capt. Bill Diehl said the freighter had been "in the direct line of the path of the storm and lost its engines." He said the Coast Guard is keeping radio communications with the freighter, and its news release said the Coast Guard is in hourly contact with the crew. There had been warnings for residents to evacuate beforehand, and Chief Petty Officer Michael O'Berry, interviewed by CNN, was asked why they didn't get out in time.  Watch last-minute evacuees explain their change of heart » He said he thinks the residents "didn't understand, I guess, the strength of the storm. As it came about, they realized it's a lot stronger than they may have anticipated." CNN's Mike Ahlers, Jeanne Meserve and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

What area has been flooded?
Who were stranded?
Is the military involved?
What was stranded?
Who has search and rescue on stand by?

Answer: Crystal Beach, Bolivar Peninsula

Answer: 120 people

Answer: has 42 search-and-rescue helicopters on standby,

Answer: more than 120 people

Answer: active-duty military

Summary:
NEW: Coast Guard helicopters airlift stranded residents from Galveston area .
NEW: Many of those rescued were motorists stranded on flooded roads .
Coast Guard, Air Force unable to rescue 22 people stranded on freighter .
Active-duty military has 42 search-and-rescue helicopters on standby .


HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- On the tape, Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan appears to burn with rage. Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, pictured here, allegedly tortured a business associate on videotape. Believing he was cheated in a business deal, the member of the United Arab Emirates ruling family was trying to extract a confession from an Afghan grain dealer. With a private security officer assisting, Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan is seen stuffing sand in the Afghan's mouth. As the grain dealer pleads and whimpers, he is beaten with a nailed board, burned in the genitals with a cigarette lighter, shocked with a cattle prod, and led to believe he would be shot. Salt is poured on his wounds. In the end, the victim can muster up only weak moans as an SUV is repeatedly driven over him. The 45 minutes of torture appears on a nearly three-hour-long videotape shot in late 2004 in the desert outside Abu Dhabi, one of the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf region. It was made at the direction of the sheikh himself. The tape has been viewed by CNN. Now the tape has surfaced as a piece of evidence in a federal civil suit filed in Houston, Texas, against the sheikh by his former business partner, Bassam Nabulsi. As media, U.S. governmental and human rights questions and concerns emerged, Abu Dhabi's government on Tuesday issued a statement saying it deplored the contents of the video and plans an immediate and comprehensive review of it. Nabulsi, a Lebanese-born U.S. citizen living in Houston, says he met Sheikh Issa when the royal came to Houston for medical care in 1994.   Watch portions of the tape and Nabulsi tell his story » According to Nabulsi, the men became friends and business partners, and Sheikh Issa eventually recruited Nabulsi to move to Abu Dhabi to work for him. "We were buddies," said Nabulsi, who met with CNN journalists in Houston. "He gave me his personal vow. He swore to look after my family in case something happened to me." The sheikh, who holds no official government position, is the half-brother of the country's ruler. In the lawsuit, Nabulsi says was disturbed by the sheikh's "increasingly bizarre behavior" after the November 2004 death of his father, UAE ruler Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan. Nabulsi's lawsuit says that Sheikh Issa's father "kept tight control over Sheikh Issa" but after the father's death, he "apparently no longer felt constrained." Nabulsi claims he confronted his business partner about the Afghan's treatment, telling him that to do such a thing he "must not be a God-fearing person." Nabulsi says his boldness prompted the sheikh to turn on him. Later, Nabulsi was arrested on drug charges. Security officers working for the sheikh ransacked his home and demanded the torture video, Nabulsi claimed. By this point, the tape -- shot by Nabulsi's brother at the order of the sheikh -- had been smuggled out of the country. According to an affidavit, Nabulsi's brother worked for Sheikh Issa as a personal assistant. In 2005, Nabulsi was arrested, jailed and ultimately convicted on drug charges. And, he said, he was tortured and humiliated by UAE police, who demanded he return the tape. "It was a lot of humiliation," Nabulsi told CNN. "And I really don't like to talk about it." Nabulsi was fined and deported. Darryl Bristow, the sheikh's Houston attorney, argued in court papers that American courts have no jurisdiction over his client. In a statement to CNN, Bristow said Nabulsi is using the videotape of a third party, Nabulsi's brother, to influence the court over a business dispute. "The public should know that the man behind the camera was Bassam Nabulsi's brother and that Bassam Nabulsi kept the video from the media while his lawyer was asking for money. What do you call that where you come from?" Bristow asked. Nabulsi

Who is suing Sheikh Issa of Abu Dhabi?
What did Bassam Nabulsi's tape show?
Where is Sheikh Issa from?
Who was tortured in jail?
who is Sheikh Issa of Abu Dhabi?
What does Bassam Nabulsi's tape show?
who is sheikh?
Who was tortured in jail?
Who is  suing?

Answer: Bassam Nabulsi.

Answer: allegedly tortured a business associate on videotape.

Answer: United Arab Emirates

Answer: Bassam Nabulsi.

Answer: the half-brother of the country's ruler.

Answer: Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan appears to burn with rage.

Answer: Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan

Answer: Afghan grain dealer.

Answer: Bassam Nabulsi

Summary:
Former business partner of Sheikh Issa of Abu Dhabi suing royal .
Bassam Nabulsi's tape shows sheikh severely torturing grain merchant .
Nabulsi, of Houston, says he himself was tortured in jail, sheikh owes him $80M .
U.S. senior officials say case is holding up a U.S. nuclear deal with the UAE .


HUNTINGDON VALLEY, Pennsylvania (CNN)  -- The president of The Valley Swim Club on Friday strongly denied charges of racism after his club canceled the swimming privileges of a nearby day care center whose children are predominantly African-American. John Duesler said he underestimated the number of swimmers who would come to swim at the club. "It was never our intention to offend anyone," said John Duesler. "This thing has been blown out of proportion." Duesler said his club -- which he called "very diverse" -- invited camps in the Philadelphia area to use his facility because of the number of pools in the region closed due to budget cuts this summer. He said he underestimated the amount of children who would participate, and the club's capacity to take on the groups was not up to the task. "It was a safety issue," he said. The Creative Steps Day Care children -- who are in kindergarten through seventh grade -- went to The Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley on June 29 after the center's director, Alethea Wright, had contracted to use the club once a week. During their first visit, some children said they heard club members asking why African-American children were there. One youngster told a Philadelphia television station a woman there said she feared the children "might do something" to her child.  Watch Wright react to comments allegedly aimed at the children » Days later, the day care center's $1,950 check was returned without explanation, Wright said. She was dismissive of Duesler's comments Friday. "He knows what happened at the pool that day," Wright told CNN in a telephone interview. "I was embarrassed and humiliated." She called it an "unfortunate situation," adding, "I know what happened; the members know what happened and a higher power knows what happened."  Watch the club president say racism is not at play » After news reports of the incident, the office of Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pennsylvania) said Specter sent a letter to the club president asking him to reinstate the contract with Creative Steps, saying, "I think that you would agree that there is no place for racism in America today." Duesler said he appreciates the senator's concern, but the club's board has yet to make a decision of how it will proceed. "If we're going to revise our policies here, we need to make it so for all the camps," he said. "I just don't think we're prepared for that." Duesler earlier in the week told two Philadelphia television stations the children had changed "the complexion" and "atmosphere" of the club, a comment that protesters outside the facility Thursday said showed that racism was involved. Bernice Duesler, John Duesler's wife, called the negative response her husband has faced since the incident "unbearable." "He's not one of the good guys -- he's one of the great guys," she said, holding back tears. "He doesn't deserve this." She added, "If there really was a racial issue that happened, my husband and I would be the first one[s] picketing." Jim Flynn, who said he was one of the club members who made a complaint against the children, told CNN this week it was not racially motivated. "There were a lot of children in the pool and not enough lifeguards," he said. "As general members we were not told that they were coming. If we knew, we could decide to not come when the pool was crowded or come anyway. We could have had an option." He also said invitations to two other day care centers, neither of which contained minority children, had previously been withdrawn. Girard College, a private Philadelphia boarding school, told CNN on Thursday it would offer Creative Steps Day Care use of its facilities this summer.

Who will decide whether to reinstate the contract?

What is the name of the swim club president?

Who has to decide to reinstate the center's contract?

Answer: She called it an "unfortunate situation,"

Answer: During their first visit, some children said they heard club members asking why African-American children were there. One youngster told a Philadelphia television station a woman there said she feared the children "might do something" to her child.

Answer: the club president

Answer: The Valley Swim

Answer: John Duesler

Answer: make a decision of how it will proceed.

Answer: John Duesler

Answer: Swim

Answer: The Valley Swim Club

Answer: "It was never our intention to offend anyone,"

Answer: underestimated the number of swimmers who would come to swim at the club.

Answer: The Valley Swim

Answer: the club's board

Answer: how it will proceed.

Summary:
Swim club president John Duesler: "It was never our intention to offend anyone"
"He knows what happened at the pool that day," day care director counters .
Duesler: Club is "very diverse," and had reached out because area pools had closed .
Duesler says club's board has yet to decide whether to reinstate center's contract .


Habib Battah is a blogger, freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker based in New York and Beirut. BEIRUT, Lebanon -- When I heard Snoop Dogg was coming to Beirut, I jumped at the opportunity to show the world a different side of the country I had grown up in. So I hit the phones, tracked down the promoter and before I knew it, I was driving to the airport to film Snoop's arrival. Beirut blogger Habib Battah with U.S. rap legend Snoop Dogg. When I first met the Dogg (as he's known by his very courteous suit-wearing bodyguards), he was seated in the VIP lounge of Beirut International Airport, surrounded by entourage while awaiting passport control. The U.S. rap legend had never been to the Middle East before, and I was wondering why he decided to perform in Beirut of all cities. Outfitted in a hooded sweater, despite the sweltering heat of the Beirut summer, Snoop leaned forward and told me in his low voice: "There are a lot of places I could have started but I chose to start here because I felt they've been supporting me you know -- they've been down with me for long time." By "starting" in Lebanon, Snoop meant that he intended to embark on a Middle East tour in the coming months. "Me and my man Roger had a nice conversation about putting together a Snoop Dogg Middle East tour ... so we gonna try to get that together over the next couple of months," Snoop, flanked by his forever-smiling local organizer, Lebanese entertainment mogul, Roger Kalaouz, told a room full of eager photographers and entertainment journalists. But the Lebanese paparazzi still wondered, why Beirut? "This is my first chance to party with the people of Lebanon," Snoop said. "They were always partying to my music but now they get a chance to actually party with Snoop Dogg. "This is the party capital of the world," he added and the room filled with applause. Hours later, Snoop drove the locals wild once again during his performance in front of thousands of adoring young fans by holding up a Lebanese flag on stage and then performing an impromptu sing-along with the chorus line "Beirut, Lebanon." When the show ended just before one a.m., Snoop did not leave Beirut without living up to his promise to party hard. Acting on a tip from a source close to Snoop's circle, I managed to follow Snoop's entourage to the afterparty, at a massive and highly exclusive rooftop club overlooking the Mediterranean Sea and the Lebanese mountains. I entered the club through the back entrance with members of Snoop's band that I had met at the airport. When we got inside, the champagne was flowing and the club was rocking with hundreds of people. A mixture of house and trance music reverberated across all surfaces as fireworks lit up the evening sky. Snoop's band and crew were ecstatic, sporting looks of awe when they reached their VIP tables in the balcony section which boasts outdoor air conditioning. And even though the European electric beat was quite a stretch from the hip hop he produces, Snoop himself seemed to be getting down -- waving his hands in the air. But it wasn't long before the Dogg switched things up grabbed the microphone: "You are now rocking with the big Snoopie D.O. double jizzle for shizzle dizzle" he said, sending screams through the glamorous crowd. Then he turned toward the DJ podium: "Hey! Yo! DJ! Why don't you play some of that Snoop Dogg sh*t? Once again the crowd was electrified, as Snoop began rapping to his track "Drop it Like It's Hot," (Part of the that performance is available on Snoop's Web site.) Later he played other local favorites such as "Gin and Juice" and then rocked to a new track "That's the Homie" from his upcoming album "Malice in Wonderland" while being filmed by two cameraman and a flash light. The Beirut show producer, Roger Kalaouz later explained that Snoop was

Who is to performs in Lebanon's capital, Beirut?

Where is the party capital of the world?

Who has never visited the Middle East before?

Which journalist followed Snoop Dogg around?

Answer: "This is the party capital of the world,"

Answer: Snoop Dogg

Answer: Beirut,

Answer: "Beirut, Lebanon."

Answer: "This is the party capital of the world,"

Answer: Snoop Dogg

Answer: Habib Battah

Summary:
Legendary U.S. rapper Snoop Dogg performs in Lebanon's capital, Beirut .
Beirut journalist Habib Battah followed Snoop to show a different side of Lebanon .
Snoop has never visited the Middle East before and plans more dates in region .
Snoop on Beirut: "This is the party capital of the world"


Hamid Dabashi is the author of "Iran: A People Interrupted." He is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. His Web site is http://www.hamiddabashi.com/ Hamid Dabashi says it's wrong to view the conflict in Iran as a battle of the middle class vs. the poor. (CNN) --   In a short essay that Abbas Amanat, a scholar of 19th-century Iran at Yale University, was asked to write for The New York Times on the current crisis in Iran, he asserted that what we are witnessing is "the rise of a new middle class whose demands stand in contrast to the radicalism of the incumbent President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and the core conservative values of the clerical elite, which no doubt has the backing of a religiously conservative sector of the population." This learned position of a leading scholar very much sums up the common wisdom that Iranian expatriate academics are offering an excited public mesmerized by the massive demonstrations they witness on their television sets or computer screens and eager to have someone make sense of them. In part because of these hurried interpretations, the movement that is unfolding in front of our eyes is seen as basically a middle-class uprising against a retrograde theocracy that is banking on backward, conservative and uneducated masses who do not know any better. While the illiterate and "uncouth" masses provide the populist basis of Ahmadinejad's support, the middle class is demanding an open-market civil society. Highly educated, pro-Western and progressive Iranians are thus placed on Mir Hossein Moussavi's side, while backward villagers and urban poor are on Ahmadinejad's. The fact that in North America and Western Europe, usually unveiled and fluently English-speaking women are brought to speak on behalf of the women demonstrators further intensifies the impression that if women are veiled or do not speak English fluently then they must be Ahmadinejad supporters. This is a deeply false dichotomy that projects a flawed picture to the outside world. It is predicated on the spin that a very limited pool of expatriate academics are putting on a movement that is quite extraordinary in Iranian political culture, one whose full dimensions have yet to be unpacked. The fact is that given the structural limitations of a nascent democracy that is being crushed and buried in Iran under a particular interpretation of a Shiite juridical citadel, opposition to Ahmadinejad is fractured into the followers of three candidates with deeply divided economic programs and political positions. Moussavi is universally known as a hard-core socialist in his economic platform and a social reformist in his politics. Mehdi Karrubi is far to Moussavi's right in his economic neo-liberalism and social conservatism. Mohsen Rezaie, meanwhile, is even more to the right of Karrubi in his social conservatism but to his left in his economic platform. What above all challenges the reading of this event as a middle-class revolt against "uncouth radicalism" is a crucial statistic that professor Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, one of the most reliable Iranian economists in the U.S., provides in the same set of responses that The New York Times solicited from experts. "Young people ages 15-29," Salehi-Isfahani reports, "make up 35 percent of the population but account for 70 percent of the unemployed." The overwhelming majority of the people pouring into streets of Tehran and other major cities in support of Moussavi are precisely these 15- to 29-year-olds. How could this then be a middle-class uprising if the overwhelming majority of those who are supporting it and putting their lives on the line are in fact jobless 15- to 29-year-olds who still live with their parents -- who cannot even afford to rent an apartment, let alone marry and raise a family and join the middle class in a principally oil-based economy that is not labor-intensive to begin with? Another crucial statistic that Salehi-Isfahani does not cite is the fact that more than 63 percent of university entrants in Iran are women, but only 12 percent are part of the labor force. That means that the remaining 51 percent are out of a job, and yet the most visible aspect of

What does Dabashi say about Ahmadinejad supporters being called poor, rural Iranians?

Answer: it's wrong to view the conflict in Iran as a battle of the middle class vs. the

Summary:
Hamid Dabashi: Rape and torture allegations being made in Iran .
He says a prominent cleric and activist has accused security forces of wrongdoing .
The charges threaten the Islamic Republic's standing within the faith, he says .
Dabashi: Iran needs to restore notion of Muslims and non-Muslims living in peace .


Hamid Dabashi is the author of "Iran: A People Interrupted." He is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York. His Web site is http://www.hamiddabashi.com/. Hamid Dabashi says allegations of rape and torture are testing Iran's Islamic Republic as never before. (CNN) -- Troubling news of kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder is flooding out of Iran. Neda Aqa Soltan was murdered point-blank in the streets of Tehran for the whole world to see; while Sohrab Arabi was killed far from any global attention and his body given to his mother quietly to bury, as was the tortured body of Mohsen Ruholamini. These names have assumed symbolic significance for many more innocent young men and women murdered by the custodians of the Islamic Republic with a wanton disregard for the lives and liberties of its own citizens. Not just murder, but the rape of young men and women also is on the shameless roster of the Islamic Republic. After years of sporadic charges and troubling rumors, finally a courageous cleric has put a stamp of public recognition on atrocious practices in the theocratic state. Mehdi Karrubi -- one of the revolutionary founders of the Islamic Republic, a high-ranking cleric, a presidential candidate, a former speaker of the house and now a widely popular political activist -- has published a letter, addressing it to the former president and current head of the Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. He accuses the security officers of the Islamic Republic of repeatedly and violently raping young women and men while they are in custody. Since the publication of this letter, a massive outpouring of testimony and reports has come out, corroborating Karrubi's charges that rapes of young women and men are a widespread, common practice in the Islamic Republic. These are not light charges for any state, for any republic, let alone for an Islamic Republic. These charges are no longer brought by expatriate, and at times discredited, opposition. It is the founding fathers of the Islamic Republic, with impeccable revolutionary credentials, who are bringing these charges, as others are coming out and corroborating them in excruciating detail. The Islamic Republic has never faced such a deep crisis of legitimacy in its turbulent 30-year history. As widely evident, it is not just the regime's claim to a "republic" that is in question and in jeopardy, but, perhaps far more seriously, it is its claim to Islam that has troubling consequences for more than 1.3 billion Muslims around the world. People in the streets of Tehran are chanting, paraphrasing a famous slogan of the 1979 revolution, "Independence, Freedom, Iranian Republic," pointedly replacing "Iranian" for "Islamic." Though this a perfectly legitimate demand, given the criminal record of the Islamic Republic, by no means is this sentiment a common denominator of the growing opposition to the regime. To the degree that, at least in part, he represents this uprising, Mir Hossein Moussavi, as a pious and practicing Muslim, continues to insist that he wishes to restore the ideals and aspirations of the Islamic revolution within the constitution of the state. Never have the two opposing ideas of an "Islamic Republic," and Muslims living in a democratic republic seemed so at odds with each other. The 30-year experience of the Islamic Republic shows fundamental flaws in defining a state apparatus in the exclusive terms of a militantly legalistic Islam, while at the same time Iranians, the overwhelming majority of them Shiite Muslims, have repeatedly demonstrated, under this regime, they are perfectly capable of democratic behavior. Not just as immigrants in the E.U. nations and the U.S., but as citizens in Iran, millions of Muslims have shown they are integral to the democratic institutions embedded in the notion of a nation-state. What is in question is the viability of an Islamic republic -- or for that matter, a Jewish state, a Christian empire,  a Hindu fundamentalist government -- or any state or movement that is defined not by the democratic apparatus of citizenry, but by exclusionary membership in a world religion. As in the rest of the Muslim world

who made the Rape and torture allegations ?

Answer: the ideals and aspirations of the Islamic revolution within the constitution of the state.

Answer: Hamid Dabashi

Summary:
Hamid Dabashi: Rape and torture allegations being made in Iran .
He says a prominent cleric and activist has accused security forces of wrongdoing .
The charges threaten the Islamic Republic's standing within the faith, he says .
Dabashi: Iran needs to restore notion of Muslims and non-Muslims living in peace .


Hanford Nuclear Site, Washington (CNN) -- The federal government has set aside nearly $2 billion in stimulus funds to clean up Washington State's decommissioned Hanford nuclear site, once the center of the country's Cold War plutonium production.

That is more stimulus funding than some entire states have received, which has triggered a debate as to whether the money is being properly spent.

The facility sprawls across approximately 600 square miles of south-central Washington, an area roughly half the size of Rhode Island. It was built in the 1940s as part of the "Manhattan Project" to develop the first atomic weapon during World War II.

Millions of dollars and thousands of jobs poured into the remote area about 75 miles east of Yakima where nine nuclear reactors were eventually built.

During the Cold War, Hanford was a buzzing hive of activity, eventually becoming the main source of plutonium production for the nation's nuclear weapons program.

Decades of improper radioactive waste disposal earned Hanford the notorious distinction of being most contaminated nuclear site in the Western Hemisphere.

Today, the Hanford site is a virtual ghost town and those involved in the clean-up project say they will need every dollar of the federal stimulus funds.

There are still millions of gallons of untreated contaminated groundwater, hundreds of buildings used for plutonium enrichment that need to be torn down, and underground tanks that are full of radioactive sludge.

The stimulus money will reduce the clean-up time by years, according to Jon Peschong, who oversees the federal project at Hanford.

"It was perfect work, ready to go for the stimulus package," Peschong said. "Each day that passes the conditions worsen [and] the receipt of the federal stimulus money allows us to reduce the costs and also allows us to reduce the clean up footprint much sooner, years sooner."

The money is also created jobs for about 1,400 people at Hanford, including Joe Gill who manages a team that is tearing down equipment that is heavily contaminated by radiation. Despite the dangers of his job, Gill said it came just at the right time.

"I had managed a production warehouse facility for one of the largest companies in the world, [I] thought I'd be there for 20 years," Gill said. "We laid off 8,000 people in three months and they closed down our plant, [and] those jobs aren't jobs you just read the paper and get."

It is clear by watching Gill's team perform their time-consuming daily tasks that Hanford won't be decontanimated quickly. The workers have to suit up three to four times a day in protective gear. They break down contaminated equipment through a "glove box," allowing them to disassemble the equipment a room away through lead-lined gloves. Each time a worker removes their hands from the gloves, they must be wanded down by a colleague checking for any radiation exposure.

The large scale of the project and years of cost overruns have led critics to complain that stimulus money is being misdirected at Hanford. A report by Sens. John McCain, R-Arizona, and Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, listed Hanford as one of 100 sites where stimulus money may have been wasted.

The Hanford clean-up "has been plagued by massive cost and schedule problems - and almost no progress," according to the report.

Gerry Pollet, who runs a Hanford watchdog organization, says he supports using stimulus money to rid the nuclear site of its radioactive waste. But he questions whether the funds are going where they are most needed.

"You are not seeing the value that we should be seeing for the clean-up and the environment," said Pollet, who heads Heart of America Northwest. "They are picking the low-hanging fruit, the easy projects that give very nice photo opportunities. But that doesn't cost $2 billion.

"Hanford is getting more money than many states in stimulus funds and you would expect to see real progress for clean-up [to] happen with those dollars."

While debate continues over whether

How much is being spent on the clean up?

Answer: nearly $2 billion

Answer: $2 billion

Answer: Washington

Answer: clean up Washington State's decommissioned Hanford nuclear site,

Answer: Washington State's decommissioned Hanford nuclear site,

Answer: "Hanford is getting more money than many states in stimulus funds

Summary:
$2 billion being spent to clean up Hanford nuclear site in Washington State .
Hanford is the most contaminated nuclear site in W. hemisphere .
Stimulus funds creating jobs in and around the site .