Priceless Monet punctured during Paris Nuit Blanche

Drunken intruders broke into the Orsay Museum in Paris early Sunday and punched a hole in an invaluable work by Impressionist master Claude Monet.
French Culture Minister Christine Albanel called the attack on Monet's Le Pont d'Argenteuil an assault on the French people.
Le Pont d'Argenteuil depicts a view of the Seine at a rural bend, featuring a bridge and boats.
"This splendid Monet painting punched right in the middle," said an emotional Albanel on French radio. An official described the damage as a 10-centimetre tear. But the painting can be restored, Albanel said. The break-in occurred during Paris's annual all-night festival — Nuit Blanche (Sleepless Night) — which brought 1.5 million people into the streets for concerts and exhibits. Toronto recently held its second Nuit Blanche.
A surveillance camera caught a group of four boys and one girl entering through a broken door at the museum, which houses a major collection of impressionist art, on the banks of the Seine River.
An alarm sounded and the group left. No arrests have been made yet.
Albanel also said that she would seek improved security in museums and stronger sanctions against those who desecrate art.Monet led the 19th-century Impressionist movement, and is noted for his experimentation with light, colour and perception. Some of his best-known works include Nympheas, Water Lilies and Impression, Sunrise.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2007/10/07/monet-orsay-damage.html#skip300x250

Who is KazMunayGaz

KazMunayGaz (KMG) is a Kazakh state-controlled company currently expanding at a rapid pace. In August this year, KMG started works at a gigantic petrochemical complex valued at 5.2 billion USD, near the city of Atyrau and close to the energy fields of Tengiz and Kashagan which will supply it with oil and natural gas.

The new complex is expected to export 50% of its production to China, 25% to Europe and 15% to Russia.

Morgan Stanley, named to provide consulting services for the sale of Rompetrol shares, said in April that there were six offers for a large stake in Rompetrol, possibly including Gazprom.

Since the beginning of the year, rumor had it on international market that Rompetrol would sell 10-25% of its shares in a trade aimed at boosting funds to support further development in the company.

The Wood & Company investment bank expected Rompetrol would earn 140 to 472 million euro following such a trade.

The Kazakh company is one of the largest in Central Asia and has been trying to enter European markets for several years. It also submitted offers for Unipetrol (the Czech Republic) and Mazeikiu Nafta (Lithuania) but without any success.
Source: http://english.hotnews.ro/Romanian-businessman-Dinu-Patriciu-sells-75-of-Rompetrol-to-Kazakh-company-KazMunayGaz-articol_45759.htm

Dinu Patriciu: "I did not sell Rompetrol, but only a participation"

Businessman Dinu Patriciu explained at TV news station Antena 3 talk show, "Stirea zilei" on Monday that he opted to sell 75% of Rompetrol to Kazakhstan company KazMunayGaz as he considered the interests of both parties would fit very well. Moreover, he says that his move thus creates an alternative for energy projects from the Caspian region to Europe.
Patriciu says he cannot divulge the exact value of the transaction and he does not plan to give up his remaining 25% shares in Rompetrol. He also insisted on keeping the company’s management even if he gave up the financial control.
Moreover, on Realitatea TV at the “100%” talkshow, Patriciu says that the total transaction is “obviously different than the value of the shares”.

Dinu Patriciu, at Realitatea TV:

• There is no precondition for the business - it just needs to be approved by the competition department of the European Commission

• Patriciu says he did not negotiate with Lukoil and when asked about Gazprom he said he cannot say due to confidentiality clauses

• Patriciu motivated his choice of a Kazakhstan company by arguing that he planned in bridging energetically the Caspian to Europe. Moreover, the move assures Romania’s independence of Russia. Thus, Romania becomes a stand from the East towards the West.

• In the next two years Rompetrom value will triple

• Asked why he does not collaborate with the Romanian state but with a foreign one, Patriciu said that in Kazakhstan the investments’ fond is extremely independent from the state

• Ion Sturza, board member in Rompetrol was involved in the process as he represented in the last years Rompetrol in the Soviet

• Rompetrol would have valued a lot more if it were not the hassle Patriciu was subject to in the last two years

• The biggest part of the money will be invested in Romania

Dinu Patriciu, at Antena 3:

• I just sold a participation of Rompetrol but I still have management control

• Kazakhstan people have resources and Rompetrol becomes a bridge between the East and the West

• He explains the move through strategic reasoning: Rompetrol needed resources to become on of the fist 10 European companies

• Kazakhstan was chosen due to its independency from Russia.

• Rompetrol brand will not change

• I informed all the authorities that had to be informed of this business

• Moreover, in the same time I announced the press

• Rompetrol is a company created by a Romanian, lead by a Romanian and attended by Romanian workers - all of whom produce for the same country

• State businesses lead to financial difficulties

• I invest in the media also. The press is one of the least consolidated in Romania, which explains the disequilibrium

• I am not interested in politics. I will always do what is best to keep the liberal spirit in Romanian politics

• I never considered giving up the last 25% of Rompetrol
source: http://english.hotnews.ro/Dinu-Patriciu-I-did-not-sell-Rompetrol-but-only-a-participation-articol_45765.htm

Japanese find sleep, shelter in cyber cafes

Takeshi Yamashita does not look like a homeless person.

From his carefully distressed jeans to his casual-cool navy striped T-shirt, he is every bit the trendy Tokyoite.

Yet the 26-year-old has been sleeping in a reclining seat in an Internet cafe every night for the past month since he lost his steady office job and his apartment.

It's cheaper than a hotel, offers access to the Internet and hundreds of Manga comic books, and even has a microwave and a shower where he can wash in the morning before heading off to one of his temporary jobs ranging from cleaning to basic office work.

Asked how long he plans to go on living like that, Yamashita smiles and shrugs.

"I hope the situation in Japan will improve. The new Japanese generation doesn't have any money, and many young people don't have any motivation. I don't have money, but I have a dream," he says, sitting in a cubicle with a PC and a stack of comic books.

So what is his dream?

"I don't know. Maybe some ordinary job in an office."

Yamashita is one of Japan's many "freeters" -- a compound of "free" and "Arbeiter", the German word for "worker".

A by-product of the economic crisis that hit Japan and its lifelong employment guarantees in the 1990s, freeters drift between odd jobs.

Earning around 1,000 yen ($8) per hour, they often struggle to pay the rent in Tokyo, one of the most expensive cities in the world where a modest 30 square meter (320 square foot) flat in a central location can easily cost 150,000 yen ($1,250) a month.

Now the economy is recovering, but many freeters are missing out on the upswing after years of unskilled work. Most expanding companies prefer to recruit fresh university graduates or transfer basic jobs to low-wage countries such as China.

As an Internet cafe owner in Tokyo's Ueno district, Masami Takahashi has had a close-up view of social change in Japan.

Around the corner from his cafe, homeless people who cannot even afford a reclining seat sleep in cardboard boxes.

Chinese prostitutes in Japanese kimonos prop up drunken office workers, or "salarymen", who will stumble into Masami's cafe for a nap later in the night.

The salarymen were the first to discover Internet cafes as a cheap alternative to hotels after companies hurt by the economic crisis stopped funding team drinks -- an essential part of Japanese corporate culture -- followed by a night in a hotel.

And then there are customers for whom Takahashi's Internet point is home. Takahashi, an affable host sporting a mullet and a blue track suit, regularly sees freeters taking refuge at his cafe. He has even lent money to some of them out of pity.

"It shows how the social system is changing. It's a bit sad for us Japanese," he told Reuters, scratching his head.

At about 1,400 to 2,400 yen ($12-$20) for a night in a central Internet cafe -- free soft drinks, TV, comics and Internet access included -- prices beat those of Japan's famous "capsule hotels", where guests sleep in plastic cells.

This means that on a Friday night in Shibuya, one of Tokyo's main entertainment districts, the dimly lit cafes are packed.

At 3 am, there is loud snoring from salarymen in suits, their shoes lined up neatly outside each individual cubicle containing a reclining seat or sofa, a computer and a clothes hanger.

There are fashionable young women wearing high heels and short skirts, who missed the last train after a night out.

And there are those who use the discretion of a net cafe to their own advantage.

"I often come here with my boyfriend. Today we escaped from high-school and came here," said 16-year-old Naomi, a schoolgirl in a white shirt, tartan miniskirt and knee-high socks.

Shyly sweeping aside her long brown fringe, Naomi said she started going to net cafes with her boyfriend at the age of 15, telling her parents she was sleeping at a friend's place.

"We usually spend all night talking and reading mangas, and in the morning we go to school".

Like Yamashita, the freeter, many of the cyber homeless fade into this colorful crowd, finding anonymity as well as shelter.

"The younger ones don't look any different from other young people," said Kazumasa Adachi, a manager at one of the more elegant net cafes where staff wear suits and receive customers with the polite efficiency of hotel receptionists.

He recognizes cafe dwellers by the heavy bags they lug around.

"They are different from the real homeless because they belong to the working poor, so they do have some money, whereas the ones on the street have no money at all," he added.

There is no official data on the cyber cafe homeless. Japan's Welfare Ministry plans a wider study on the phenomenon, according to a newspaper report, but in the meantime, it is hard to gauge the scope of the problem or its social impact.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that many are freeters in their mid-to-late-twenties, who stay in a net cafe for a couple of months before settling for a more permanent housing solution.

Those who are older, poorer, with fewer chances of escaping their drifting lifestyle, and sometimes too embarrassed to return home, find themselves at the very bottom of cyber society.

They congregate in run-down Tokyo suburbs such as Kamata, renting poorly ventilated, smoke-filled cubicles with reclining seats for 100 yen an hour.

"It's very uncomfortable. You can't really sleep," said one Kamata cafe guest who preferred not to be named.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/05/08/japan.cyberhome.reut/index.html

EU: Galileo project in deep 'crisis'

Europe's $4.9 billion satellite navigation system is in deep crisis and will require more public funds to get back on track, the European Union said.

The Galileo project -- Europe's rival to the U.S. Global Positioning System, or GPS -- has already seen major delays because the eight companies in the consortium are arguing over how to divide the workload.

The consortium of companies from France, Germany, Spain, Britain and Italy has been given until Thursday to set up a joint legal entity to run the project or risk losing control of it. But German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee, speaking on behalf of the EU, said he had "little hope left" the consortium will end the infighting in time.

"Galileo is in a profound and serious crisis. We're in a dead-end street," Tiefensee said. "The cardinal problem is that the companies still have not been able to agree on the way forward. We need to find an alternative solution."

The European Commission is to present a proposal on May 16 on how to overhaul the system, which Tiefensee said Monday would not likely be operational in orbit until 2012 -- a year later than had been expected. Tiefensee said Germany, which holds the rotating six-month EU presidency, also wants more public funding for the project.

Under the original plan, European taxpayers were supposed to cover roughly one-third of the $4.9 billion project, which is to create some 150,000 jobs.

"We will hope to find another form of financing, of distributing the cost (within) a public-private partnership," Tiefensee said, adding it has not been decided whether the consortium will be able to hold on to some of the contracts.

Only one out of 30 planned satellites in the system has been launched -- in December 2005. The second satellite missed its autumn 2006 launch date after it short-circuited during final testing.

Galileo was originally to have started launching its 30 satellites -- compared to GPS's 24 -- by 2008. However, that date was postponed to 2011 due to previous disagreements between EU governments on how to pay for the system. Now, Tiefensee says it won't likely be operational until 2012.

Like GPS, Galileo is envisioned to be a network of satellites orbiting Earth that will beam radio signals to receiving devices on the ground, helping users pinpoint their locations.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/05/08/galileo.troubles.ap/index.html

Study ties coral disease to warmer oceans

Warmer sea temperatures are linked to the severity of a coral disease, according to a study on Australia's Great Barrier Reef that offers a dire warning about global warming's potential impact on the world's troubled reefs.

The 6-year study released on Monday tracked the relationship between water temperature and the frequency of a coral disease called white syndrome across more than 900 miles of the world's largest coral reef.

"We've linked disease and warm water, which is one of the aspects of global warming," said John Bruno, the study's lead author. "Our study suggests as global warming warms the oceans more and more, we could see more disease outbreaks and more severe ones."

The results of the study, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, were to be published on Tuesday in the online journal PLoS Biology.

Researchers have suspected for years that warm sea temperatures were responsible for disease outbreaks on coral reefs. But Bruno said the study was the first to conclusively connect the two.

Reefs are undersea rock formations built by tiny animals called coral polyps. They are important habitats and nurseries for fish and other sea creatures.

Scientists estimate about a quarter of the world's coral has been permanently lost and another 30 percent could disappear over the next 30 years.

The study tracked the fate of 48 reefs across the Great Barrier Reef. They were resurveyed each year for six years and disease data were compared with data on ocean temperature taken from U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites.

Hot water

Two years ago, unusually hot water across the Caribbean Sea was blamed for a massive surge of coral bleaching, an ailment that turns corals white, and a subsequent wave of deadly diseases that attacked reefs across the region.

In some locations, scientists found a 25 to 30 percent loss of coral and centuries-old corals were killed. Coral bleaching is a different phenomenon from white syndrome.

In the NSF study, scientists found white syndrome, an ailment that has appeared across the Pacific, flourished when the sea temperature rose. In 2002, for example, the frequency of the disease increased 20-fold after a year in which the region saw its second warmest summer.

The study found that the effect of temperature was "highly dependent" on the density of the coral cover. Outbreaks of white syndrome followed unusually warm temperature on reefs with greater than 50 percent coral cover.

The healthiest reefs suffered the most severe disease outbreaks, probably because they had the most dense concentrations of coral polyps.

"It's the same natural principle as what happens when humans are packed together in tight circumstances and they are more prone to disease," said Bruno, an assistant professor of marine ecology at the University of North Carolina.

A host of corals were affected, many of them the important "reef-building" corals that construct the limestone foundation on which coral polyps live.

Bruno said while the study focused on white syndrome, "there is no reason to suspect" that other coral diseases would not be similarly affected by warmer ocean temperatures.

"We are working on the same kind of experiments with yellow band disease," he said. "It's starting to look like there is a role of temperature in driving yellow band disease too."

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/05/08/global.warming.reefs.reut/index.html

NASA's probe shows Jupiter up close and personal

Small moons are acting as shepherds using their gravity to herd dust and boulders in Jupiter's faint rings, NASA scientists reported on Tuesday.

The finding is one of several discoveries made from images captured in late February by the New Horizons probe in what NASA scientists called "a real-world fly-by" of Jupiter, 16 months into its mission to Pluto.

They also got the closest look yet at the "Little Red Spot," an Earth-sized swirling storm that scientists described as a galactic rendition of Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night" painting, and dramatic views of volcanic eruptions on Jupiter's moon Io.

These postcards from Jupiter were taken by the piano-sized robotic probe's seven cameras as it came within 1.4 million miles of Jupiter on February 28. About 70 percent of the data has been relayed to Earth so far.

The close encounter allowed New Horizons to make use of Jupiter's gravity to shave three years from its travel time to Pluto. It is expected to arrive in 2015.

The encounter with Jupiter "was a chance to practice ... before the rubber hits the road" with Pluto, Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator, told a televised news briefing.

Pictures of Jupiter's faint rings revealed the moons Metis and Adrastea herding rocks with their gravitational pull.

"The boulder-sized particles are definitely being controlled by these shepherding satellites," Jeff Moore of the NASA Ames Research Center in California told the briefing.

Also spied was what appeared to be remnants of an object that had recently collided with the rings. "Individual clusters of particles in the rings is a really new discovery," Moore said.

MYSTERY VOLCANO

On Jupiter's volcanic moon Io, New Horizons revealed an umbrella-shaped plume rising 200 miles into space from the volcano Tvashtar.

"It's really exciting that it performed for us," said John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

"Galileo was orbiting for six years and we never saw plumes like that," he said, referring to an earlier mission.

The probe also revealed a mystery volcano, so young its lava has just reached Io's surface, but has yet to emit enough gas to produce a plume.

"We're seeing the birth of a new volcano here," Spencer said.

In about eight years, the mission will produce the closest-ever views of Pluto and the hundreds of other icy objects in the distant Kuiper belt region.

But for now, the NASA scientists are happy with the test drive.

"I think we're ready to rock and roll." Stern said.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN0126144720070502?src=050207_0838_ARTICLE_PROMO_also_on_reuters&pageNumber=2

Next target of cell phone industry: navigation

After hitting alarm clock makers and camera manufacturers, the cell phone industry has a new target -- personal navigation device makers.

Handset makers see navigation as one of the next major value-adding offerings and even at this very early stage, analysts say the annual market for phone navigation is worth hundreds of millions of euros.

While a few years ago personal navigation device makers like Dutch TomTom shrugged off possible rivalry from the handset industry, they have now acknowledged the potential risk to their business.

The world's top handset maker Nokia started to sell its first navigation phone N95 a month ago, and other top vendors are expected to follow shortly, hoping to make 2007 the breakthrough year for cell phone navigation.

The N95, with a 700-euro price tag, is not in reach of the masses despite first reports showing strong sales, but the Finnish firm aims to bring GPS positioning chips to a wide array of its products.

"I believe it will quickly go through almost the whole of our portfolio," Kai Oistamo, head of Nokia's Mobile Phones unit, told a recent news conference.

The GPS technology enables handset makers to bypass mobile phone network operators and at least some of the navigation phones can be used for routing when not connected to operators' networks.

Operators would get a share of the business when real-time data traffic starts to grow. So far it is the handset makers' dream that people will use phones to find restaurants nearby, but car navigation firms have already started to offer road data.

According to researchers Canalys, the navigation products market is set to grow in 2007 by about two thirds from last year, with traditional personal navigation devices (PND) taking 85 percent of the market.

Analysis firm Berg Insight has forecast annual shipments of handset-based personal navigation products in Europe and the U.S. to reach 12 million units by 2009, compared with 1 million in 2005.

"As the pie grows, more powerful players want to have a piece of it. Nokia was the first to acknowledge it," said Oren Nissim, Chief Executive of Telmap, an Israeli navigation software firm.

Nokia, which bought into the navigation industry last year with the acquisition of German firm Gate5, rolled out a free Nokia Maps service in February, giving away maps and routing data while charging consumers for a turn-by-turn navigation service.

"Nokia's entrance has livened up this market. Interest towards the sector from outside has grown a lot," said Juha Murtopuro, chief executive of Finnish navigation software startup Navicore.

Google and Yahoo are seen as keen to add mobile navigation services to their mapping offerings, while car navigation firms are adding mobile services to their products.

"In the short term I am more worried about the personal navigation device makers, in the long term about the Internet companies," said Ralph Kunz, head of mapping and navigation operations at Nokia, who expects the Internet's advertisement-funded business model to spread to mobiles.

"In the mid term there is no reason to believe why the funding mechanism would not be the same as in the Internet," he said.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL0233196120070502?src=050207_0838_ARTICLE_PROMO_also_on_reuters&pageNumber=2

Pieces of Titanic transformed into luxury watches

Steel and coal from the Titanic have been transformed into a new line of luxury wristwatches that claim to capture the essence of the legendary oceanliner which sank in 1912.

Geneva watchmaker Romain Jerome SA billed its "Titanic-DNA" collection as among the most exclusive pieces showcased this week at Baselworld, the watch and jewellery industry's largest annual trade fair.

"It is very luxurious and very inaccessible," said Yvan Arpa, chief executive of the three-year-old company that hopes the limited edition watches will attract both collectors and garrulous luxury goods buyers.

"So many rich people buy incredibly complicated watches without understanding how they work, because they want a story to tell," he said. "To them we offer a story."

The North Atlantic wrecksite of the Titanic, which hit an iceberg and sank on its first voyage from the English port of Southampton to New York, have been protected for more than a decade but many relics were taken in early diving expeditions.

Romain Jerome said it purchased a piece of the hull weighing about 1.5 kg (3 pounds) that was retrieved in 1991, but declined to identify the seller. The metal has been certified as authentic by the Titanic's builders Harland and Wolff.

To make the watches, which were offered for sale for the first time in Basel for between $7,800 and $173,100, the Swiss company created an alloy using the slab from the Titanic with steel being used in a Harland and Wolff replica of the vessel.

The gold, platinum and steel time pieces have black dial faces made of lacquer paint that includes coal recovered from the debris field of the Titanic wrecksite, offered for sale by the U.S. company RMS Titanic Inc.

Arpa said the combination of new and old materials infused the watches with a sense of renewal, instead of representing a reminder of the 1,500 passengers who drowned when the oceanliner met her tragic end off the coast of Newfoundland.

"It is a message of hope, of life stronger than death, of rebirth," he said in an interview in Romain Jerome's exposition booth in Basel, where more than 2,100 exhibitors are flaunting their latest wares amid a boom for the luxury goods sector.

The company will make 2,012 watches to coincide with the centenary anniversary of the Titanic's sinking in 2012.

Arpa said the young watchmaker would unveil a new series next year commemorating another famous legend, but declined to offer clues of what is to come.

"For a new brand, you have to find something different to be interesting," he said. Asked if the next collection would be based on Scotland's legendary Loch Ness monster, he smiled and said: "Ooh. Have you found it?"

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUSL1310422320070415?pageNumber=2

Two British helicopters crash north of Baghdad

Two British personnel died and another was seriously injured when two helicopters crashed north of Baghdad on Sunday, Britain's ministry of defence said.

"Now that next of kin have been informed, I can confirm that the two helicopters reported this morning as having crashed north of Baghdad earlier today were, in fact, both UK helicopters," Defence Secretary Des Browne said in a statement.

"Sadly, two personnel have died and one is very seriously injured. All of these were UK personnel," he said.

The statement said initial reports indicated the crash was an accident and not the result of an attack by insurgents.

It was earlier reported that the two helicopters were U.S. military helicopters.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSPAR34073020070415

Space storm disrupted GPS, experts say

A solar eruption in December disrupted the Global Positioning System, a satellite-based navigational system used widely by the military, scientists and civilians, researchers reported on Wednesday.

The solar flare created radio bursts that traveled to the Earth, covering a broad frequency range, the researchers said, affecting GPS and other navigational systems.

Solar flares have been known to knock out satellites and even electricity grids, but the researchers told the Space Weather Enterprise Forum this was an unexpectedly serious new effect.

"In December, we found the effect on GPS receivers were more profound and widespread than we expected," said Paul Kintner, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University in New York.

"Now we are concerned more severe consequences will occur during the next solar maximum," Kintner said in a statement.

Dale Gary of the New Jersey Institute of Technology said the burst created 10 times more radio noise than the previous record.

"Measurements with NJIT's solar radiotelescope confirmed, at its peak, the burst produced 20,000 times more radio emission than the entire rest of the Sun. This was enough to swamp GPS receivers over the entire sunlit side of Earth," Gary said in a statement.

Forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration observed two powerful solar flares on December 5 and 6, 2006, emanating from a large cluster of sunspots.

A giant radio burst followed, causing large numbers of receivers to stop tracking the GPS signal.

"NASA wants to better understand this solar phenomenon so we can limit the adverse impacts on real-time systems," said Tony Mannucci of the U.S. space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Anthea Coster of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the findings showed solar radio bursts can have global and instantaneous effects. "The size and timing of this burst were completely unexpected and the largest ever detected. We do not know how often we can expect solar radio bursts of this size or even larger," she said.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0438594720070404?pageNumber=2

Google lets users create own maps

Google Inc. is out to make map-making simpler, giving away tools for ordinary users to pinpoint locations, draw routes and attach photos or video to existing online maps, the company said on Wednesday.

The Web search leader, which set off an explosion of creative map-making among professional programmers after introducing Google Maps two years ago, is now offering MyMaps, tools for everyday users to create maps in a few mouse clicks.

Let your imagination run wild, spatially speaking: Pinpoint your favorite restaurant locations. Return from a world tour and plot out landmarks along the way. Take photos from a recent hike and use MyMaps to illustrate locations along the trail.

"Who better to create maps than local experts?" Jessica Lee, product manager for Google Maps, said in an interview. "MyMaps makes map-making universally accessible to anyone."

Creators of custom maps can publish them so other users can find them when searching Google Maps. Users of Google Local search will now see relevant user-generated MyMaps show up in a special section along with traditional commercial results.

Or they can choose to leave their MyMaps unlisted for personal use or to share with a select group of friends.

See the new features by clicking on the MyMaps tab now available at Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/).

MyMaps can also feature YouTube videos or other snippets of Web content in small windows that appear when a user clicks on pinpointed location. Anyone comfortable with the trick of adding small bits of hypertext code to a Web site or blog or MySpace profile can add video to MyMaps in just a few clicks.

Feeling uninspired? Just search out an address on Google Maps and add MyMaps locations automatically to anyone of your existing maps by clicking the button that appears saying "Save to MyMaps."

Instead of telling stories in chronological fashion using text or pictures, map-making this easy allows people to narrate their lives location-by-location.

Lee describes how one Google employee recreated their resume on MyMaps, where each job or educa

Leave it to a Google engineer to create a map featuring the locations where great computer languages were invented in recent decades: http://tinyurl.com/2n5or3/. Another employee created a map of life around Google's Silicon Valley headquarters at http://tinyurl.com/ytwvnw/.

Another more fanciful example charts monster sightings worldwide, from Godzilla to Dracula, Mummy, the Blob, King Kong and Bigfoot, Lee said. (http://tinyurl.com/2lkqhu)

MyMaps is initially available in the United States and the national versions of Google in nine other countries including Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and Spain.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0436837620070405?pageNumber=2

tion entry was pinpointed by location.

Third Time No Charm for XXX Domain

The multiyear effort to create a .xxx top-level domain, sticken down in a 9-5 vote by ICANN on Friday, has been a controversial one, with ICANN board members expressing concern over whether ICANN, by approving such a domain specifically designed for adult material, could find itself in the content-regulation business.
The Internet's agency for overseeing domain names on Friday rejected a proposal for creating a voluntary domain ending in .xxx. The 9-5 vote to block the plan is the third time the agency has decided against some form of the proposal.

The Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), meeting in Lisbon, voted against a request by ICM Registry to create the .xxx top-level domain (TLD) for adult sites.

"This decision was the result of very careful scrutiny and consideration of all the arguments," ICANN Chairman Dr. Vint Cerf said in a statement. "That consideration has led a majority of the Board to believe that the proposal should be rejected."

'Extremely Disappointed'

ICM President and Chief Executive Stuart Lawley said in a statement that his Florida-based company "was extremely disappointed" by this most recent rejection. The proposal had initially been presented by ICM nearly seven years ago.

"It is not supportable for any of the reasons articulated by the board," he said, adding that the vote "ignores the rules ICANN itself adopted for the RFP (request for proposal), and makes a mockery of ICANN bylaws' prohibition of unjustifiable discriminatory treatment." He reportedly said that a lawsuit was "likely."

Larry Walters, a Florida attorney with extensive experience in First Amendment and online adult issues, had expected ICANN to approve the new top-level domain.

"Any other TLD with this amount of supporting material," he said in an interview before the vote, "would have been approved a long time ago. The contract being proposed by ICM Registry is well within the range of other TLD contracts."

Opposition in Adult Industry

The multiyear effort to create voluntary, adult site .xxx domains has been a controversial one. Some Board members have expressed concern over whether ICANN, by approving such a domain, could find itself in the content-regulation business.

ICANN board member Steve Goldstein said in Friday's meeting that, if passed, the resolution would mean that the agency would need to "assume ongoing management and oversight roles regarding the content." ICANN defines itself as the agency "responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers," not as a manager or definer of content.

ICM's Lawley criticized this concern over content management, saying that ICANN itself put those sections into the proposal during negotiations.

There is opposition to the idea among the adult Web site industry. Some have said that the .xxx domain, even if voluntary, would create an online ghetto that could more easily be controlled and isolated by governments or others. Religious and other groups also oppose the domain as a way to legitimize adult sites and make them easier to find.

Because the .xxx domain would be voluntary, questions have been raised as to whether parents and teachers would actually be able to block all such sites.

After its initial proposal was tabled and effectively rejected in 2000, largely because of ICANN's concern about becoming a content regulator, ICM resubmitted it in 2004 with provisions to handle any regulation issues outside of ICANN.

ICANN's board rejected that proposal in mid-2006, expressing concern that the language was vague and that ICANN would end up having to step in as a regulator. The newest proposal, rejected Friday, was the result of negotiations between ICANN and ICM to clarify enforcement.

Source: http://www.sci-tech-today.com/news/Third-Time-No-Charm-for-XXX-Domain/story.xhtml?story_id=13200G4SSQ7O

Rich populist woos Romanians

Less than three months after Romania joined the EU, the country is in deep political crisis, with the president and prime minister accusing each other of lying and corruption.

Meanwhile, a third man is climbing in the polls. He is Gigi Becali, the multi-millionaire boss of the champion Steaua football club.

From humble beginnings as a shepherd, Mr Becali made his fortune in real estate after the fall of communism to become one of Romania's richest men and the second most popular politician after the president himself.

His New Generation Party (PNG) headquarters is as flamboyant as the man - a palace in Bucharest being polished back to its former glory with no expense spared.

Restorers carefully apply gold leaf to every moulding, while Gigi Becali, a dark-haired man in his late forties, looks on whistling O Sole Mio.

In Berlusconi's footsteps

His soulmate among European politicians is Silvio Berlusconi. Like the former Italian prime minister, Mr Becali wants to use football and money to get to the top. But he is also a devout Orthodox Christian.

I met him on his return from Mount Athos, the holiest site in Eastern Orthodoxy. He often goes there in a private jet to pray before key matches.

His office looks more like a shrine, with Byzantine icons on every wall, a life-size painting of himself as St John in the desert and on his desk a statuette of his namesake St George killing the dragon.

"I too want to kill the devil in Romania, the corruption and lies," he tells me, with an eye on the huge TV screen in the corner to check how often his own face pops up on the news channel.

So how does he explain his spectacular rise from shepherd to multi-millionaire politician?

"In the Byzantine Empire, the great kings were shepherds. And if you want me to quote the Bible, Jesus didn't say I am your captain or your driver, but I am your shepherd. So in Romanian politics, I see myself as an apostle because I'm trying to do something no one has tried before", he said.

"Now that Europe has been reunited, I also want to see a spiritual reunification of Europe, I want western Christian-democracy to be enriched by Eastern Orthodoxy. If we don't counter sin with faith, then the end of the world is nigh," Mr Becali says.

Fan base

This messianic tone goes down well in a country where the Orthodox Church is the most trusted institution. Football too enjoys cult status.

At a match in the Black Sea port of Constanta, I saw Steaua fans furiously chanting and waving their red and blue banners.

Some even had flags that looked suspiciously like iron crosses. Notorious for their violence and their racist taunts against Hungarian, Roma or black players, they are a force to be reckoned with, on the pitch and at the polls.

"Gigi would make Romania a cleaner and fairer country, because he has faith in God and he wants to clean out the mafia," one young man said. "He helps poor people, he understands their difficulties, while other politicians do nothing," said another.

Help for poor

For leading political analyst Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Mr Becali "satisfies an important need in the voters right now - the need to denounce the whole corruption of the political system".

"He managed to create an image for himself of a person who not just speaks differently from the rest of the political class, but also is different. He's a man of his word, he is a provider, he delivers what he says he does," Alina Mungiu-Pippidi says.

The proof can be seen in a village in eastern Romania called Vadu-Rosca. It is now known as Becali's village.

The houses here were swept away by catastrophic floods two years ago. Then came Mr Becali in his trademark Maybach limousine and promised to build them all up again. And so he did.

Eleonora Lazar showed me into one of 200 identical small white bungalows, all built by Mr Becali. A widow with three children, she told me she had more faith in the football boss than in the government.

"He's so generous, he deserves to become president," she says. "Why should we elect someone who didn't even bother about us? We pray for him every day, for his health and so people should stop accusing him of all sorts of things. He's never done anything bad," Mrs Lazar told me.

Mr Becali has fought off accusations of tax evasion and dodgy deals. He equally rejects any charges of extremism and intolerance.

Anti-gay stance

But what about an offer he made last year to give a few million dollars to anyone who would root out homosexuality in Romania? Amid the faint smell of incense that pervades his office and with three bodyguards looking on, he got visibly angry.

"I love homosexuals like everyone else. I have nothing against them. But I insist, it's a sin. And I will repeat it everywhere, including in the European Parliament, because I'm not afraid of any European policy or whatever, homosexuality is a sin, and that's that!" he shouted.

If he is elected, I asked him, what are the first three things he plans to do?

"I will ask God to give me wisdom," came the answer after a pause. "He will tell me, this is the first thing you should do, this is the second, and this is the third. I can't tell you now what God will tell me then."

Mr Becali's parting words were just as striking. "We'll see," he told me with a smile, "if you are on the side of God or on that of the devil."

In one of Europe's poorest countries, his voice is unashamedly anti-liberal, promising some sort of salvation to those angered and frustrated with conventional party politics.

Political turmoil

Mr Becali's party is gaining ground on the more established Greater Romania Party, which recently caused a stir in the European Parliament by helping to form a new ultra-nationalist group.

Polls credit PNG's list headed by Gigi Becali with 10-15% of the vote, which could see it wining four to six seats of the 35 allotted to Romania in the European Parliament.

But as Alina Mungiu-Pippidi explains, it is not just happening in Romania. "People like Becali and others in Central Europe, where everywhere radical populism is on the rise, are the product of a certain failure in our political transition," she says.

"Our transitions were very successful economically, they succeeded in bringing our countries into the EU, but didn't succeed in creating normal politics. If Becali fails, it's going to be somebody else. The problem is that normal politics don't manage to deliver as they should," Mrs Mungiu-Pippidi says.

If he fails, Mr Becali told me he would buy a few thousand sheep, make cheese and stop answering journalists' questions.

But many fear his flock will be the stray sheep of Romania's long transition to democracy.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6457237.stm

Call for Spain strawberry boycott

A campaign group has urged consumers to avoid buying strawberries grown in Spain in winter because, it says, they damage the environment.

WWF says that crop cultivation is causing an "environmental catastrophe" in the country's southern wetlands.

The group claims that the irrigation required for the berries is draining water from the region's wetlands.

Some 95% of Spanish strawberries are grown around the Coto Donana national park in southern Spain.

The 5,000-hectare (12,300-acre) site, surrounded by strawberry farms, is a UN World Heritage site.

Plastic waste

But WWF says that water irrigating the farms is reducing water to the Donana marshes by up to 50%.

"By buying Spanish strawberries - on sale in supermarkets from January to April - you are supporting the destruction of the Iberian natural milieu because the impact of this cultivation on the environment is catastrophic," the group's Paris office told AFP news agency.

The group says that strawberry cultivation is highly polluting, resulting in 4,500 metric tons of plastic waste each year and pesticide pollution.

Germany and France are the largest importers of the 330,000 tons of strawberries grown each year.

A spokesman for the Spanish arm of the French supermarket giant Carrefour said they purchased their strawberries from a sole supplier whose production methods were strictly monitored in line with European standards.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6460767.stm

Russia clinches Balkan oil deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a deal in Athens to ship Russian oil to the EU via a pipeline bypassing the busy Bosphorus.

The 285km (178-mile) pipeline will go overland from Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas to the northern Greek town of Alexandroupolis on the Aegean Sea.

The deal caps negotiations that have lasted 13 years.

A Russian consortium will hold a 51% stake in the pipeline. It is expected to be ready in three years' time.

The consortium brings together state oil firm Rosneft, pipeline monopoly Transneft and a subsidiary of gas giant Gazprom. Bulgaria and Greece will each have 24.5% stakes.

Prime Ministers Costas Karamanlis of Greece and Sergei Stanishev of Bulgaria joined Mr Putin at the signing ceremony in the Greek capital.

The pipeline project's estimated cost is 900m euros (£616m; $1.2bn).

Russian tankers are frequently held up for 10 days at a time as they wait to navigate Turkey's narrow, congested Bosphorus and Dardenelles Straits.

The removal of these delays should help to bring oil costs down, the BBC's Malcolm Brabant reports from Athens.

Pipeline diplomacy is helping to reassert Russian influence in the region, he says.

Earlier this month a senior US State Department official, Matthew Bryza, was in Athens and congratulated the three signatories to the pipeline accord.

He said the more oil that reached global markets the better. But Mr Bryza added that the United States was concerned that Europe could become too reliant on the Russian energy giant Gazprom as a source of natural gas.

At least one third of Russian oil exports currently leave by tanker via the Black Sea and Bosphorus Strait.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6453153.stm

Italians released in Niger Delta

Two Italian oil workers who were abducted in southern Nigeria three months ago have been released.

The employees of the oil company, Agip, were kidnapped on 7 December during an attack on an oil export terminal in the Niger Delta.

They were seized by a local militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend).

In a statement, the group said it would step up attacks on the facilities and stage bombings across the province.

"We will take more hostages and concentrate on locations believed to be secure to dispel the false sense of security being felt by some in the oil industry and foreign industry watchers," Mend said in an email statement.

Ransom demands

On their release, the men were reported to be in good health but suffering from stress.

They had been kidnapped along with two other Agip employees. One man, a Lebanese national, managed to escape last month, while another Italian was freed in January.

Mend is demanding the release of two prominent local leaders, regional control over oil resources and compensation from oil companies for pollution in the Delta.

In the last 12 months, more than 100 foreign workers have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta, Africa's largest oil-producing region - leading to a 20% fall in oil exports.

In most cases in the Delta, hostages are released unharmed after a week or two in captivity after a ransom has been paid.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6452673.stm

Gulf Louvre deal riles French art world

A storm is raging in France over the government's decision to build a branch of the Louvre in Abu Dhabi - the first-ever foreign annex of the world-famous art gallery.

The controversy is not over public spending on culture - French taxpayers think nothing of subsidising films to the tune of 500m euros a year ($700m; £350m).

The row centres on the fact that France stands to make money from the deal, being signed on Tuesday.

A good deal of money, in fact. According to unofficial estimates, Abu Dhabi should pay about 700m euros over 20 years for the privilege of displaying works from French museums.

This, according to critics, amounts to using France's artistic heritage for basely commercial ends.

"Our museums are not for sale", proclaims an online petition signed by 4,700 people - including many curators, art historians, and archaeologists.

Cultural exception

The French culture ministry, however, says the deal represents an "exceptional chance" for the French art world.

The deal, to be signed in Abu Dhabi by Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres and Sheikh Sultan bin Tannoun, paves the way for a new "Louvre Abu Dhabi", due to open in 2013.

The architect will be French. Construction costs will be borne by the emirate.

Most controversially, the agreement will allow Abu Dhabi to lease works from the Louvre and other French museums for durations of up to two years.

This is what many in the French art world find offensive.

"The purpose of a gallery should not be to make money," arts writer Didier Rykner told the BBC news website.

"People talk about a cultural exception for cinema. There should also be a cultural exception for art."

No comment

Mr Rykner, who drew up the petition and posted it on his website, La Tribune de l'Art, says the project was not designed with the best interest of art in mind.

French museums will be deprived of major works, which will be displayed in a "random, unscientific" way in Abu Dhabi, Mr Rykner contends.

He also points out that transporting hundreds of fragile works is fraught with risk.

The logic of this project is purely political and diplomatic," says Mr Rykner, who points out that the United Arab Emirates is a major ally and customer of France.

He says most French art historians and curators agree with him - although many, who are state employees, have not signed his petition for fear of damaging their careers.

The government, meanwhile, has remained tight-lipped about the deal. When contacted by the BBC, the culture ministry declined to comment ahead of the signing.

Louvre President Henri Loyrette has defended the agreement, but said he "understands the concerns".

He has announced a new body, mainly composed of curators, to oversee the "scientific quality of the project and the respect of ethical rules".

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6421205.stm

U.S., North Korea discuss relations

U.S. and North Korean officials held talks on Monday aimed at eventually normalizing diplomatic ties as part of an agreement under which Pyongyang has pledged to scrap its nuclear arms programs in exchange for aid.

The talks in New York marked the highest-level such meeting on U.S. soil since communist North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-il, sent a top envoy to Washington in 2000 in an abortive effort to improve relations.

North Korean envoy Kim Kye-gwan and his U.S. counterpart, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, held the first of two days of discussions on how to resolve problems between two countries that have been bitter foes since the 1950-1953 Korean War.

President George W. Bush in 2002 labeled North Korea part of an "axis of evil." And antipathy to the United States has been a core element of Pyongyang's identity for five decades.

Despite the historic enmity, Kim Kye-gwan's meeting with U.S. nuclear and Korea experts earlier on Monday showed a "sea change in tone and substance" from recent exchanges, said nuclear expert Jim Walsh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who participated.

"Both sides are talking differently and treating each other differently," Walsh said of the unofficial meeting, attended by eight North Koreans and 15 Americans, including Victor Cha, Asia chief of the U.S. National Security Council.

Monday's official session was followed by a working dinner and Tuesday's talks were expected to run all day, a State Department official said in New York. Neither Hill nor Kim Kye-gwan spoke to the media after their meeting.

Earlier in Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack played down expectations of any breakthrough.

"I would expect that it ... would take some time in order for that process to be completed," he told reporters. "It would be a matter of building up trust, it would be a matter of performance and today is just an initial discussion."

"Underlying all of this, North Korea can realize a different kind of relationship with the rest of the world. The pathway is open to them," he said. "There is also another pathway of isolation ... if they do not perform."

Bilateral issues to be discussed include Washington's designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism and U.S. trade sanctions against it under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the State Department said.

Washington will seek Pyongyang's assurances that it is committed to following through on an agreement to shut down within 60 days its main nuclear facility and allow inspectors in return for 50,000 tons of fuel oil.

The New York meeting is part of the first stage in implementing the February 13 deal reached in Beijing by the Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China after three years of talks punctuated by North Korean's October nuclear test.

Further steps to fully "disable" North Korea's nuclear weapons program will gain the impoverished state an additional 950,000 tons of oil or other forms of aid of equivalent value.

Before the next round of six-party nuclear talks on March 19, North Korea is set to hold discussions with Japan in Hanoi and separate meetings on energy aid, the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and regional security.

Wendy Sherman, a former U.S. negotiator with North Korea, said Kim Kye-gwan's meeting at the nonprofit Korea Society with experts that included former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, was "positive, cordial, open and fairly expansive."

"That said, at the end of the day this comes down to the negotiations that will go on," she added.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0520266920070306?pageNumber=1

Arabs want U.N. timetable for U.S. withdrawal

- The Arab League said on Sunday the United Nations Security Council should set a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq.

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa listed what the Cairo-based organization believed were the key issues for easing the crisis in Iraq.

Apart from setting a timetable for U.S.-led coalition to leave, the list also includes a call for the fair distribution of wealth and the disbanding of all militias, which are demands that Arab leaders have repeated many times.

"I suggest that these foundations be included in a binding U.N. Security Council resolution that all Iraqi and other parties with present roles in Iraq should respect and follow," Moussa said in a speech to a meeting of Arab foreign ministers.

The United States has rejected calls for setting a date for its troops, who make up the vast majority of multinational forces, to leave the country they invaded in 2003.

Arab governments have little influence in Baghdad. The Arab League representative in Iraq resigned in January because of his frustration over the situation in the country.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL0464329020070304

Extra police calm Danish rioting

Fires were lit at a number of locations but protests in the Noerrebro and Christiania districts were dispersed.

About 50 arrests were made overnight, bringing to more than 600 those held since the unrest began on Thursday.

The riots started after an anti-terror squad raid to evict squatters from the Youth House (Ungdomshuset) building.

Text messages

In the worst clash on Saturday night more than 30 people were arrested near the enclave of Christiania after protesters built and then lit barricades.

Molotov cocktails were thrown in a protest in Noerrebro but it was quelled by the heavy police presence.

Police had been reinforced from other districts and had brought in security vans from Sweden.

There had been fears of major disturbances as protest organisers tried to rally supporters through text messages.

Police spokesman Lars Borg said: "We are very happy that the situation was so quiet. The people who want to demonstrate have been more... aware that the things they are doing are not the right things to do."

Police said they arrested about 100 activists in raids on houses, schools and hostels. About half were foreigners who police said would be expelled.

Earlier on Saturday, 2,000 people attended a peaceful demonstration.

Left-wing activists have occupied the youth centre in the Noerrebro district since 1982, but it was sold by the city in 2000 to a Christian fundamentalist group.

That group obtained a court eviction order last year - but the activists vowed not to leave, saying the council had no right to sell the building while it was still in use.

Last December, a protest in Copenhagen against the eviction plans turned violent, and more than 300 people were arrested.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6416421.stm

South Korea to press North on ending nuclear arms

North Korea's chief nuclear envoy looked set on Tuesday to make a rare trip to the United States while South Korea sent a top official to Pyongyang to persuade the North to quickly start scrapping its nuclear arms program.

North Korean nuclear negotiator Kim Kye-gwan arrived in Beijing on Tuesday, accompanied by a senior official in charge of relations with the United States, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.

Kyodo said Kim could leave for the United States as early as Wednesday. North Korea has few air links with the outside world and its officials often travel via China.

Reclusive North Korea agreed earlier this month at six-way talks to shut down its main nuclear reactor, the source of its weapons-grade plutonium, in return for energy aid. It separately said it would halt its seven-month boycott of talks with Seoul.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said on Tuesday North Korea needed repeated reassurance that it would not be threatened by force before it would give up its nuclear arms.

"This is a matter of mutual relationships," Roh told a news conference, saying U.S. policy on the North "had not been consistent like South Korea's" and suggesting Pyongyang had reason to be wary of U.S. overtures.

Roh added that until ties between Washington and Pyongyang had improved considerably, it would be futile for the two Koreas' leaders to meet in a summit.

The two Koreas were beginning a four-day meeting in Pyongyang on Tuesday, their first high-level contact in seven months. Seoul officials said family reunions and food aid for the impoverished North would be on the agenda.

"The most important thing to discuss would be how to cooperate between the South and North to swiftly implement the February 13 nuclear agreement," South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said before leaving for Pyongyang:

North Korea's July 2006 missile launches and October 9 nuclear test chilled what had been improving ties between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war more than half a century after their 1950-53 conflict.

Seoul has said it could resume the food aid it suspended after the missile test if it saw progress in the six-way talks on ending Pyongyang's pursuit of atomic weapons.

South Korea was likely to send the first batch of energy aid to Pyongyang if it began shutting down its reactor.

RARE NORTH KOREAN VISIT

Analysts said the North's recent diplomatic actions, coming after the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions in response to its nuclear test, were encouraging but it was best to be cautious until Pyongyang actually delivered on its pledges.

The State Department said on Monday that nuclear envoy Kim might visit San Francisco to meet non-governmental groups and then go to New York for talks with his U.S. counterpart. Such talks are envisaged under the February 13 nuclear agreement.

The agreement, reached four months after Pyongyang stunned the world with its first nuclear test, requires the secretive communist state to allow international nuclear inspections.

The deal also called for a working group on normalization of U.S.-North Korean relations to meet within 30 days. The United States proposed that it meet in New York, where U.S. and North Korean officials sometimes have contact.

The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said last week he would meet the North Korean government in March to discuss the shutdown of its nuclear arms program and bring it back under U.N. supervision.

(With additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul, George Nishiyama in Tokyo and Arshad Mohammed in Washington)

source:http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSSEO22152620070227?pageNumber=1

Toyota says new factory to be in U.S.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp., Japan's top automaker, said on Tuesday the new factory that it plans to announce at 1500 GMT will be in the United States.

A spokesman declined to comment further. A news conference will be held at a yet-to-be-disclosed location at the same time, he said.

Several Japanese media reports earlier said Toyota would build a new assembly plant in the southern U.S. state of Mississippi to produce the Highlander sport utility vehicle model.

source:http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUST23213920070227

Court in landmark genocide ruling

The UN's highest court is set to make a landmark ruling in the first case of a state charged with genocide.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague will decide whether Serbia is accountable for atrocities in Bosnia during the war of the early 1990s.

If the Bosnian suit is successful, it will be the first time a state, rather than an individual or group, has been held responsible for genocide.

Bosnia could then seek billions of dollars in compensation from Serbia.

At least 100,000 people died in the 1992-1995 war, triggered by the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Bosnia's Muslims and Croats wanted to cut ties with Belgrade, a move opposed by Bosnian Serbs.

Binding ruling

Bosnia says Belgrade incited ethnic hatred, armed Bosnian Serbs and was an active participant in the killings.

Belgrade says the conflict was an internal war between Bosnia's ethnic groups and denies any state role in genocide.

The case, Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Serbia and Montenegro, began a year ago and a panel of judges has been deliberating since hearings ended in May 2006. Their ruling is binding.

Relatives of people killed in the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men at Srebrenica are expected to protest outside the court as the ruling is read.

The war crimes tribunal in The Hague has already found individuals guilty of genocide in Bosnia and established the Srebrenica massacre as genocide.

The ruling comes with Serbia still facing challenges linked to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

Its passage into the European Union has stalled over its failure to hand over war crimes suspects for trial.

It also faces final talks with the United Nations on the future of Kosovo, with the province heading towards near-statehood despite Serbian opposition.

Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6395791.stm

Ottawa to give $200M for Afghan reconstruction

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will announce about $200 million in reconstruction aid for Afghanistan in an effort to demonstrate that Canada's mission there is making a positive difference in people's lives.

As Canada marks the official one-year anniversary this week of its mission in Kandahar, government sources say the prime minister will make the announcement Monday at an event on Parliament Hill.

It comes in the final phase of a frosty Afghan winter, and a relative peace that's expected to melt over the coming weeks as pro-Taliban fighters descend from the mountains to resume their bloody insurgency.

Before what may mean more dispiriting images of flag-draped coffins return to Canadian television sets, the prime minister hopes to remind the country of the more uplifting things being accomplished.

"Progress is being made," said one government official.

"We're investing more funds in order to ensure that we keep on building more schools, more hospitals, to ensure the standard of living rises for the Afghan people," the official said.

Harper promised announcement

Harper declared several weeks ago that he would soon make a "significant announcement" about Canada's next steps in Afghanistan, and he also promised to table a report in Parliament about the mission's successes and ongoing challenges.

If the single greatest challenge is winning over Afghan hearts and minds, a multitude of observers has cited the slow pace of construction as the most nagging impediment to success in Kandahar.

NATO's former commander in Afghanistan, British Gen. David Richards, has warned that Afghans could rebel en masse against foreign troops unless they see a tangible difference in their lives soon.

Canada has already pledged about $1 billion over 10 years to rebuilding Afghanistan.
However, much of the money so far has gone to longer-term or more abstract projects, including economic development programs and good-governance projects like training judges.

Tangible needs

One Afghan farmer interviewed last week pointed to more tangible needs. "I would like to see them build schools and clinics," Bismalah, a farmer whose land outside Kandahar was overrun with fighting last fall, told the Canadian Press.

"They are broken and destroyed."

But in one example of a visible project designed to gain Afghan loyalties, Canadians are almost finished applying pavement on a new road that will simplify the lives of farmers who need to bring their produce to Kandahar's marketplace.

Many military officials agree that Canada should be doing much more of that work and often blame the lack of building on a slow, bureaucratic method of aid delivery.

The vast majority of Canada's aid funds is controlled by civil servants who are often unable to operate in a hostile environment. By way of comparison, the U.S. gives its military officials access to a $136-million US fund which they use to quickly dish out cash for infrastructure projects.

A senior Canadian general told a Senate committee last fall that civilian bodies, such as the Canadian International Development Agency, were struggling to proceed with already funded projects in Kandahar.

The death of senior diplomat Glyn Berry in January 2006 severely hobbled Canada's reconstruction and aid effort, placing restrictions on an already slow bureaucracy.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said last week that the military needs to work more closely with Canada's development workers and diplomats to make tangible progress in Kandahar.

"The local population must be able to identify our soldiers and our country with the reconstruction efforts," Dion said in a speech. "The Afghan people need to see new schools, hospitals and government buildings, not just tanks."

In that same speech, Dion bemoaned that Canadian military spending in Kandahar has outpaced its aid contribution by a factor of nine, and that four-fifths of those aid dollars are being spent outside the Kandahar region.

He also announced that his Liberals would, if elected, withdraw Canadian troops at the end of the current mission in February 2009. The NDP wants Canada's 2,500 soldiers pulled out of Kandahar immediately.

Soldiers required for reconstruction, Tories say

The Conservative government says it has made no decision about what happens after 2009, but the Tories ridicule the notion that reconstruction is possible without a robust military presence.

"In order to make concrete progress in developing the country and providing humanitarian aid to the people, we need to push away the threat of the Taliban," said one government official.

"Indeed, there haven't been any Canadian casualties or big attacks lately. But we do expect that they will resume this spring, and NATO will be ready to take them on again."

source: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/02/25/canada-aid.html#skip300x250

Security meeting to focus on Iran

Controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear programme is expected to dominate a security conference in Munich.

The meeting of defence ministers and MPs is to be addressed by Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani.

Mr Larijani said he believed Iran's dispute over its nuclear programme could be resolved through negotiations.

On Saturday Russian President Vladimir Putin told the meeting the United States exerted "almost uncontained" use of force around the world.

The United Nations has set a deadline later this month for Iran either to stop enriching uranium or face broader economic sanctions.

'No way around'

The conference, founded in 1962, has become an annual opportunity for world leaders to discuss the most pressing issues of the day.

Earlier, German chancellor Angela Merkel told delegates the international community was determined to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons.

There was "no way around" the need for Tehran to accept demands from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), she said.

"What we are talking about here is a very, very sensitive technology, and for that reason we need a high degree of transparency, which Iran has failed to provide, and if Iran does not do so then the alternative for Iran is to slip further into isolation," she said.

Mr Larijani has been repeating Iran's position that it wants nuclear power, not nuclear weapons.

"We believe the Iranian nuclear dossier is resolvable by negotiation," Mr Larijani was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying on the sidelines of the conference.

European diplomats are hoping to hold informal talks with Mr Larijani at the two-day summit.

It would be their first meeting since the collapse of talks last year and the imposition of limited UN sanctions on Tehran for its failure to stop the enrichment of uranium.

Washington's "very dangerous" approach to global relations was fuelling a nuclear arms race, Mr Putin said on Saturday.

Correspondents say the strident speech may signal a more assertive Russia.

The White House said it was "surprised and disappointed" by the Russian president's comments.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6351137.stm

High school remembers Anna Nicole -- barely

Nikki Hart stares out of the Mexia High School's 1985 year book, an attractive but unsmiling young woman with a sullen look.

Long-time teachers in this small Texas town -- population 6,563 -- vaguely recall the unspectacular student who grew up to be tabloid queen Anna Nicole Smith, Playboy Playmate and billionaire's widow who died on Thursday at the age of 39.

"I remember her but she went by Nikki Hart then. I really remember her more as the girl who worked at the fried chicken restaurant in town," said math teacher Glenn McGuire.

It's not like we're proud, you don't see signs when you come into town saying 'This is the home of Anna Nicole Smith,'" he said.

Born Vickie Lynn Hogan in Houston, Nikki Hart was one of the many names Smith acquired over the course of a tumultuous and tragic life that saw her outlive her son but not survive long enough to lay undisputed claim to the estate of her late husband, billionaire J. Howard Marshall.

And contrary to popular belief, it seems that she did not actually grow up in Mexia and only attended school there briefly. The perception of small-town girl who made it big was one she cultivated, her mother Virgie Arthur said on ABC's Good Morning America show.

Teachers at Mexia High School said transcripts showed that she had transferred there from a Houston school, attended at least one semester of ninth grade in Mexia, but did not complete a whole term of tenth grade.

At Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken -- a popular local take-out place -- locals said she found work and as a teenager married cook Billy Smith, who fathered her son Daniel.

Daniel died, possibly of a drug overdose, last year in the Bahamas in a hospital room at the age of 20, three days after Smith gave birth to a daughter.

The town she left behind -- a friendly but nondescript place set in flat cattle and natural gas country -- has mixed feelings about its famous former resident.

"There are better things to be known for. It is not a path that I would recommend to our students," Mexia High School Principal Johnnie Cotton said.

That path included stints as a stripper, a model and actress.

But much of her notoriety sprang from her 1994 marriage to the tycoon Marshall, when she was 26 and he was 89.

Marshall, who was worth $1.6 billion, died 14 months later and Smith spent much of the following decade battling his family over the estate. Marshall's family called her a gold digger and the tangled legal fight remains unresolved.

" Some people in this town 80 miles south of Dallas gave her credit for doggedly pursuing her goals.
Some people have it that she disgraced this town," said Alan Campbell, a burly trucker in the local natural gas industry.

"But I don't think that she did. She had a goal and she did it," he said as he tucked into lunch at a Mexia restaurant.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0930103120070210?pageNumber=3

French unions wage war on words

French trades unions have discovered a new enemy to protest against: the English language.

Leading the charge of the French language brigade in its latest skirmish against the invading Anglo-Saxon force is French MP Jacques Myard.

Unusually for an MP on the right of the political spectrum, the troops following him into battle are French trades unionists and language pressure groups, united in a new French Resistance.

They argue that the English language has colonised French screens, large and small, infiltrated French music, and is now conquering the French workplace as well, in e-mails or "les e-mails", and on "le web" or "l'internet" and even on "les news".

'Respect people'

All this has to stop, insists Monsieur Myard. "I think this is very dangerous, because the French language is the spirit of France and of every Frenchman," he says.

"So it would be a big mistake for enterprises who want to do business in France to impose their own culture. We French were imperialists long before them, so we know how it works."

Delivering his defence of the French language in perfect English, Mr Myard continues: "It is time for us to react and say to businesses - stop your nonsense! Respect people. Learn French. Learn German, learn Chinese and Arabic, as well as English."

The French have already legislated against the English language encroaching too much in songs on the radio by means of a quota limiting English pop, rock and rap, but the language just keeps creeping back in via other routes.

According to a survey brandished by the French trades unions at their press conference in Parliament today, 7% of French firms already use English as their main language, while multi-nationals routinely send e-mails to their French workers in English regardless of whether they understand them.

Jean-Loup Cuisiniez of the CFTC trade union says the trend towards using English in the workplace here is both dangerous and insulting to French workers.

"A French manager at Areva, the French nuclear firm, sent an e-mail to his French workers informing them of the death of a colleague - in English. Why? There is something wrong when that happens," he says.

Monsieur Cuisiniez also believes that safety, as well as efficiency, could be compromised if workers do not understand instructions given to them in a foreign language.

He himself speaks five languages including English, Spanish and Japanese, but worries that monoglot French workers in factories and offices may feel unable to admit to their lack of English.

"They might not want to confess that they don't understand instructions, and that could be very dangerous," he says, "especially if workers fear that they could be sidelined if management discover their lack of English."

He himself refused to use English-language software for his computer at work, eventually forcing his company to back down and provide it in French.

French decline

Yet Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet, CEO of the French internet company priceminister.com, believes that this rearguard action against the infiltration of English comes too late.

His firm, based in trendy loft-style offices in northern Paris, does business in several languages including English and now Spanish, and he too speaks fluent English.

"I wish that French were the global language of business," he sighs. "Because my French is better than my English. But it isn't. English has become the international language. And I don't believe that the right way to go about things is by banning a language - that is not how English became a global language."

Recently, the new American head of a merged Franco-American telecoms firm was reported to have announced that she had no plans to learn French before coming to meet her colleagues, much to the chagrin of her French staff.

All this has made some in France fear that the decline in the use of the French language - both in international diplomacy and business - goes hand in hand with the decline of French influence on the world stage and its importance as a global power.

However, few French are yet willing to admit defeat on the language front, even as "les businessmen" and "les managers" continue to help the enemy's sneaky advance into French territory.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6344475.stm

Paternity row over model's baby

Three men who claim to have fathered Anna Nicole Smith's five-month-old daughter, are threatening legal action.

Her partner and lawyer, Howard K Stern; ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead; and Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, say they may be the father.

The child could inherit millions in the long-running court battle over her mother's former billionaire husband.

An initial post-mortem examination has failed to find what caused the former top model's death on Thursday.

But medical examiner Joseph Perper said he had not ruled out an overdose as a cause, and was waiting for the results of chemical analysis.

There was "no evidence" to suggest that Ms Smith's death was the result of a crime, a police spokesman said, adding the inquiry would remain open until medical tests were complete.

Custody battle

Ms Smith died only five months after the birth of her daughter, Dannielynn.

Three men are now claiming to be the father of the child, who is potentially heir to a multi-million dollar fortune.

Ms Smith married Texas oil billionaire J Howard Marshall II in 1994, not long after being named Playboy's Playmate of the Year. She was 26 and he was 89.

He died 14 months later, setting the stage for a battle over his estate that pitted Ms Smith against Mr Marshall's son.

The case has not yet been resolved, even though Mr Marshall's son died last year.

Ms Smith's own son Daniel died in September, leaving her daughter as her only surviving offspring.

Ms Smith said her lawyer and partner, Howard K Stern, was the father, but ex-boyfriend Larry Birkhead was demanding DNA testing before Ms Smith died.

The husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor, Prince Frederick von Anhalt, also says he may be the father.

A judge has ordered that Ms Smith's body be preserved until a paternity hearing later this month.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6349281.stm

Italy mystery of prehistoric hug

Archaeologists in Italy have unearthed two skeletons thought to be 5,000 to 6,000 years old, locked in an embrace.

The pair from the Neolithic period were discovered outside Mantua, about 40km (25 miles) south of Verona.

The pair, almost certainly a man and a woman, are thought to have died young as their teeth were mostly intact, said chief archaeologist Elena Menotti.

The burial site was discovered on Monday during construction work for a factory building.

Hugging

"It's an extraordinary case," said Ms Menotti. "There has not been a double burial found in the Neolithic period, much less two people hugging - and they really are hugging," she told Reuters news agency.

Flint tools, including arrowheads and a knife, were also found alongside the couple.

Scientists will now study the skeletons and artefacts to work out how and when the two people died, Ms Menotti said.

"I must say that when we discovered it, we all became very excited," she said.

"I've been doing this job for 25 years. I've done digs at Pompeii, all the famous sites, but I've never been so moved because this is the discovery of something special," she said.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6338751.stm

EU to get tough on 'green crimes'

Plans to turn environmental offences over to the criminal courts across the EU are set to be unveiled by the European Commission.

It marks an extension of the EU's powers, following a landmark ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2005.

It is one of the first times the EU would have the power to make criminal law and set penalties.

Most offences covered by the draft directive relate to the dumping, transport or treatment of waste.

This includes both nuclear material and radioactive substances.

Heavy fines

A draft of the proposal, leaked to the BBC, said "environmental crime often has a transboundary nature...offenders are therefore currently in a position to exploit the existing differences between member states".

The directive also takes in the illegal trade in endangered species, the "unlawful significant deterioration to a protected habitat", and the unlawful use of ozone-depleting substances.

Most of the offences would be punishable by one to three years in prison. However, that could rise to five years if there was negligence or if the offences caused death or serious injury.

And for offences committed intentionally, the maximum penalty foreseen is 10 years in prison. Fines could go as high as 750,000 euros (£500,000).

The environmental pressure group Greenpeace welcomes the plan but says it does not go far enough.

"It will make it easier for member states to prosecute criminal gangs, individuals and companies that make a business out of shady practices such as the trade in endangered species and in ozone-depleting substances," says Katherine Mill from Greenpeace.

But she says the fines are "minimal", compared with the penalties in EU internal-market cases.

"In comparison, 1.5m euros is the recommended starting fine for the release of radioactive material which causes death. This is peanuts for a large company."

The commission appears to agree with the principle, if not the criticism of the fines.

The draft says: "Only criminal penalties will have a sufficiently dissuasive effect...administrative or financial sanctions may not be dissuasive in cases where the offenders are impecunious or, on the contrary, very strong."

But that has set alarm bells ringing among those who fear the EU is taking over the powers of member states.

"It's a significant transfer of power to the commission," says Timothy Kirkhope, leader of the British Conservatives in the European Parliament.

"The decision on whether or not to criminalise offences in Britain should be a matter for Britain, not for the EU. We all support penalties against environmental vandals but this sets an alarming precedent."

Effective laws?

Britain supported earlier proposals to criminalise environmental offences, but on a different legal basis. This would have left it to the member states to set the penalties.

But that framework decision by the EU Council of Ministers was overturned by the European Court of Justice last year. Judges ruled that the EU's competence on environmental law overruled the member states' powers on criminal justice.

In their ruling, judges said: "The European Community has the power to require the member states to lay down criminal penalties for the purposes of protecting the environment."

But how effective would these new laws be? And are they really necessary?

One case recently in the spotlight is that of the Probo Koala. The tanker, chartered by Trafigura, a company based in the Netherlands, left Amsterdam in August, carrying a load of chemical waste.

The waste was offloaded in Ivory Coast by a local contractor. Most of it was dumped in open-air sites. The Ivorian government says 10 people died and tens of thousands needed medical attention. The public outcry forced the cabinet to resign.

Trafigura denies any wrongdoing, and says it is "distressed by the deaths and illnesses which have occurred in Abidjan".

'Normal' waste

It says the slops from the Probo Koala were made up of "spent caustic soda, gasoline residues and water.

"They resulted from normal maritime gasoline trade operations during June and July 2006 and were, as is usual, held in separate waste tanks aboard the ship."

Dutch lawyer Bob van der Goen is working together with British and French lawyers on a claim for damages for hundreds of Ivorians who say their health was damaged by the waste.

He says there are already laws which would cover the case of the Probo Koala, but they are not being properly enforced.

"There is a lot of window-dressing going on," he says. He believes it is a lack of political will, and not a gap in the legislation, which is the biggest barrier to punishing environmental offenders.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6344849.stm