Mihella - News

Priceless Monet punctured during Paris Nuit Blanche

2007-10-08T05:02:00.000-07:00

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

2007-08-28T11:56:00.000-07:00

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"

2007-08-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-08T17:39:00.000-07:00

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'

2007-05-08T17:29:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-08T17:06:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-02T07:44:00.000-07:00

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

2007-05-02T07:20:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-15T04:46:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-05T02:12:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-05T01:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-30T16:25:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-17T02:27:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-17T02:17:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-14T23:02:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-05T22:49:00.000-08:00

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

2007-03-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

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

2007-03-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

- 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

2007-03-04T08:03:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-27T05:35:00.000-08:00

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.

2007-02-27T05:30:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-25T19:57:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-25T19:44:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-11T01:09:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-10T03:39:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-10T03:27:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-10T03:08:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-09T03:55:00.000-08:00

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'

2007-02-09T03:46:00.000-08:00

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

Italy may recognise unwed couples

2007-02-09T03:41:00.000-08:00

The Italian government has approved a bill to grant legal rights to unmarried couples, including same-sex partners.

The highly controversial move came after months of heated debate in the broad, ruling coalition and fierce opposition from the Vatican.

If parliament passes the package, unmarried couples will get greater health and social welfare benefits.

But partners will enjoy inheritance rights only if they have been living together for at least nine years.

The bill, approved on Thursday evening, does not go as far as the civil unions now protected by law in some other European countries.

But Franco Grillini, a Democrats of the Left parliamentarian, said "it still contains important elements, beginning with the recognition of rights for same-sex couples". He is honorary president of Italy's main gay rights association, Arcigay.

Equal Opportunities Minister Barbara Pollastrini, a co-author of the bill, said: "This draft law, which is a mark of respect and coherence, recognises rights but also duties."

The legislation - promised in the centre-left manifesto of Prime Minister Romano Prodi last year - divided the government, which includes centrist Christian Democrats and Communists.

The cabinet vote was boycotted by Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, a devout Catholic.

He said he opposed the bill because "it seeks solutions and guarantees which imitate marriage".

Pope Benedict XVI has campaigned against legal recognition of unmarried couples, saying the traditional Christian marriage of man and woman must not be undermined.

Same-sex civil unions already exist in France, Spain and Britain.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6345729.stm

Racist webmaster gets 6 months for hate propaganda

2007-01-24T01:19:00.000-08:00

A notorious Montreal-based white supremacist whose body is covered in racist tattoos was sentenced Tuesday to six months in jail for willfully promoting hatred on a website he created.

Jean-Sébastien Presseault built and managed a website that featured racist and anti-Semitic music, documents, literature and cartoons available for download, including songs with titles such as "Skin is Black, You Make Me Sick."

Before he was arrested in 2003, Presseault's U.S.-based website received hundreds of thousands of hits, and material was downloaded from it more than 300,000 times, according to Montreal police.

Presseault has been in custody since June 2006, when he pleaded guilty to willfully promoting hatred, after he was picked up by police for uttering threats against the judge hearing his case.

On Tuesday, Quebec judge Martin Vauclair concluded Presseault, now 30, is a racist and violent man, and rejected the defence's request for a more lenient sentence to be served in the community.

Crown prosecutors sought a one-year sentence with three years' probation, but are satisfied with the six-month prison term.

"This is a sentence that sends a message, that, as judge Vauclair says in his judgment, will denounce and dissuade people to commit these crimes," said Thierry Nadon, a Montreal lawyer who prosecuted the case.

But anti-racist advocates were disappointed.

"If you know six months will maybe get you out in 30 days, it's maybe not a very high price to pay, so maybe you take that chance," said Moise Moghrabi, a spokesman with B'nai B'rith.

Presseault's lawyer had wanted him to serve his time outside of prison, arguing his client is a family man, with a wife and young daughter.

Presseault is the second person in Canada to be convicted and sentenced under article 319 of the Criminal Code, which deals with online hate propaganda.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2007/01/23/qc-presseault.html

Oil prices shoot back above $55 US a barrel

2007-01-24T01:10:00.000-08:00

Oil prices shot back up above $55 US a barrel Tuesday as cold weather hit the northeastern United States and U.S. President George W. Bush revealed plans to increase the country's petroleum reserves.

In trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the price of light, sweet crude for March delivery finished at $55.04 US, up $2.46 US.

As part of his state of the union address to be delivered Tuesday night, Bush was expected to ask Congress to double the capacity of the strategic petroleum reserve.

The reserve, which is held as a hedge against oil market disruptions, is currently about 727 million barrels, and the U.S. Congress has given consent for it to grow to one billion barrels. Bush is expected to seek its expansion to 1.5 billion barrels, with that capacity filled by 2027.

Relatively warm winter weather in the U.S. and growing oil supplies combined to push the price of oil down to $50 US a barrel last week. However, the return of colder weather over the weekend started putting upward pressure on prices on Monday as heating oil use jumped.

Tuesday's jump in crude prices led to a 2.9 per cent rise in the heavily-weighted TSX energy index. Rising energy stocks were a main reason behind the 205-point surge in the benchmark index of the TSX.

Petro-Canada shares gained $1.86 to $45.21; Nexen soared $2.94 to $72.28; and Suncor Energy advanced $2.83 to $89.40.

The S&P/TSX composite index climbed 205.10 points to close at 12,910.87. Surging gold prices also contributed to the big gain, as bullion futures rose almost $12 US an ounce to $646.60 US.

Source:http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2007/01/23/oilprice.html

'The most polluted town in Europe'

2007-01-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

First impressions leave a mark and mine were of an immediate assault on the senses.

Within minutes of arriving in Copsa Mica, a small industrial town deep in a valley in Transylvania, I could feel the pollution in my eyes and nose. I could even taste it - it was slightly sweet.

Ahead of me was a factory built in the late 1930s to process heavy metals, a giant smelting works that over the following decades belched out contaminants on a terrifying scale.

The factory's current owners, the Greek firm Mytilineos Holdings, has recently installed new filters to bring emissions into line with European standards. But there's a poisonous legacy.

Official statistics show life expectancy in the town is nine years shorter than the national average.

There are numerous studies that lay out the facts. An environmental organisation, EcoTur, carried out a survey in the area from 1999 to 2004 working alongside scientists from Britain.

It found the soil contained so much lead that it was 92 times above the permitted level; the vegetation had a lead content 22 times above the permitted level.

One of the organisation's leading members, Prof Doru Banaduc, of the University of Sibiu, told me the whole food chain was contaminated.

"The town is really a dangerous place to live - everything you touch, everything you eat, the air you breathe is serious for your health."

Another study into children aged between two and 12 years old found heightened levels of lead and evidence of arrested development.

Last year alone, 80 workers from the factory were treated for lead poisoning. For years, hundreds of people have complained of bronchial problems.

No choice

Further evidence of a health impact came during an official investigation into the deaths of two horses.

The national veterinary service found the hay fed to the horses had lead levels 10 times higher than the legal limit, and the horses themselves were carrying high levels of lead and other heavy metals.

There is a high risk that food grown locally is similarly toxic. In the marketplace, we found a trader highlighting the fact that his vegetables were grown a long way from Copsa Mica.

But for a town suffering from grinding poverty, many do not have the choice of paying for food that comes from outside the area.

I asked Berta Matefi if she was worried about feeding her own children with potatoes and fruit from their small holding.

"Yes I do," she said. "But what can we do? We cannot afford to do anything else."

'Legacy of distrust'

The factory, Sometra, is adamant that its emissions record is now improving.

A detailed environmental control programme has been agreed with the local authorities, part of a package of measures designed to bring Romanian industry in line with EU standards.

In August and September last year, the plant was closed while new filtering systems were fitted. Bela Balazs, Sometra's production director, told me that emissions were now within EU limits.

"We have results about heavy metal content in the emitted dust and every measurement is in the correct level," he explained.

He talked of there being a major difference between historic pollution and the factory's current emissions.

But when we asked to film the new filters, we were refused.

There is a legacy of distrust. While around 1,000 people are employed at the plant, there are many more living locally who are not.

Most conversations on the street quickly turned to the pollution and the threat to health.

There is talk of a clean-up: hundreds of new trees have been planted. But the toxins have penetrated at least one metre (three feet) into the soil.

Improvements will need to be measured over decades rather than years.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6268741.stm

Connecticut versus Texas: battle brewing over birthplace of the hamburger

2007-01-16T18:36:00.000-08:00

A burger battle is brewing between a Texas state legislator and the owners of a New Haven restaurant who claim the hamburger was invented in Connecticut.

With the new session of the Texas legislature now underway, Republican state Representative Betty Brown has proposed a resolution declaring Athens, Texas, the original home of the hamburger.

Brown, an Athens resident, says that a long-ago resident of the town had a luncheonette in the late 1880s and sold the first burgers there.

Those claims are not sitting well with Ken Lassen Sr., 89, third-generation owner of Louis' Lunch, established in 1895. He says his grandfather came up with the first hamburger there.

Lassen said it happened in 1900 when a man rushed into the restaurant asked for something he could eat on the run. Ken Lassen's grandfather grabbed a broiled beef patty and put it between two slices of bread.

Mayor John DeStefano Jr., advocating for his city, backs the Lassens and their claims.

"We are even the birthplace of George Bush, who wants people to think he's from Texas," the mayor said. "So yes, the hamburger is as much a New Haven original as President Bush. Get over it, Texas."

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/070116/K011606AU.html

Castro had 3 failed surgeries, Spanish paper says

2007-01-16T00:58:00.000-08:00

Cuban leader Fidel Castro is in serious condition after a series of three failed operations on his large intestine for diverticulitis complicated by infection, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on Monday.

Castro, 80, suffered a serious infection that worsened to peritonitis, the newspaper's Tuesday edition said, citing two medical sources at the Madrid hospital where a surgeon who visited Castro in December works. The report was posted on the newspaper's Web site on Monday.

Castro's prognosis is "very serious" and he is being fed intravenously, the paper said.

A first operation to extract part of his large intestine and connect the colon to the rectum was a failure and the link broke, releasing feces into the abdomen that caused another peritonitis, the newspaper reported.

A second operation to clean and drain the infected area and perform a colostomy also failed, the paper said. A third operation implanted a prothesis, it said.

When Spanish surgeon Jose Luis Garcia Sabrido visited Castro in late December, Cuban doctors were considering another operation, the paper said.

"The patient required drainage for more than half a liter of fluids a day, which is causing him a severe loss of nutrients," the paper reported.

Castro, who took power in Cuba in 1959, has not been seen in public since July 26. He handed over power to his brother five days later, fueling speculation he is so ill he may never return to power on the communist-run Caribbean island.

In a New Year's message issued on December 30, Castro told Cubans that he was recovering slowly from surgery and said his recovery was "far from being a lost battle."

Garcia Sabrido, the Spanish surgeon, said after his visit in December that Castro did not have cancer and could return to govern Cuba if he recovered fully from his surgery.

Source:

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-01-16T031459Z_01_N18357550_RTRUKOC_0_US-CUBA-CASTRO-MONDAY.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C1-topNews-2

Is 'Bad Cholesterol' A Culprit In Parkinson's Disease?

2007-01-16T00:53:00.000-08:00

A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina, led by Dr. Xuemei Huang, has found what appears to be a link between low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels and Parkinson's Disease.

Cholesterol is the fatty-like substance that builds up along the walls of your arteries. LDL, also known as “bad cholesterol,” is the main source of that cholesterol buildup.

In a study of 124 participants, the researchers found that patients with low levels of LDL cholesterol were more than three and a half times as likely to develop Parkinson's Disease as patients with higher LDL levels. Their conclusion opened up the question as to whether or not “statins,” a group of LDL cholesterol lowering drugs, may also be a risk factor for the disease.

Parkinson’s Disease is a chronic neurological condition that affects a small area of cells in the mid brain known as the substantia nigra. It is named for Dr. James Parkinson, a London doctor who first described the condition in 1817. The progress of the disease is slow because the cells of the substantia nigra degenerate over time. As they degenerate, they reduce their production of a chemical known as "dopamine."

Source:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,243812,00.html

Criticism of Iraq hangings grows

2007-01-16T00:29:00.000-08:00

United Nations and European Union leaders have condemned the executions in Baghdad of two of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's top aides.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said he regretted the move, while a top EU official said it had damaged Iraqi reconciliation.

The US and UK also expressed concern about the conduct of the executions.

Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar were hanged for crimes against humanity - Barzan was decapitated by the noose, but officials said it was an accident.

A half-brother of Saddam Hussein, Barzan was Iraq's former intelligence chief and al-Bandar was the former head of the Revolutionary Court.

The two men were convicted alongside Saddam Hussein over the killing of 148 Shias in 1982.

Their executions came just over two weeks after Saddam Hussein was put to death in Baghdad.

The manner of his execution drew international criticism after unofficial mobile phone footage showed him being taunted and insulted in his final moments.

'Detrimental to Iraq'

The United Nations reacted strongly to the announcement of Monday's executions.

UN spokesman Michele Montas said Mr Ban "regrets that despite pleas from himself and the high commissioner for human rights to spare the lives of the two co-defendants, they were both executed".

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour also condemned the hangings, saying that they could "make it more difficult to have a complete judicial accounting of other, equally horrendous, crimes committed in Iraq".

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that the executions were "detrimental also to the question of national reconciliation" in Iraq, while a number of European leaders restated their opposition to the death penalty.

US and UK officials also expressed concern about the way in which the death sentences were carried out.

Both US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and a spokesman for UK Prime Minister Tony Blair raised concerns about the dignity afforded to the condemned men.

But the Iraqi authorities defended the conduct of the executions.

Journalists were shown a video recording of the events in an apparent attempt by officials to make it clear that the decapitation of Barzan was an accident.

In it the two men, both dressed in orange boiler suits, were seen being led to the gallows.

Executioners in balaclavas placed hoods round their heads, then the noose. The two men were then seen to fall, after which the footage showed Barzan's decapitated body.

Iraqi spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said that the condemned men had not been taunted or insulted before their deaths and that the executions had been carried out "in accordance with the law".

Barzan's decapitation was "a rare incident", he said.

But the BBC's Mike Wooldridge in Baghdad says the authorities' defence of the procedures shows little sign of stemming this new controversy, particularly when the government could ill-afford to have anything go wrong on this occasion.

Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6265631.stm

technorati

2007-01-15T21:01:00.000-08:00

Technorati Profile

'Human hair' clue in hunt for airliner

2007-01-14T20:53:00.000-08:00

Rescuers have found fragments of human hair and scalp that might come from passengers on a missing Indonesian airliner, a rescue official said on Sunday.

The remains will be sent for DNA testing, Muslimin, a rescue official in Makassar, said by telephone.

Pieces of wreckage of the Adam Air Boeing 737-400 that vanished from radar screens on New Year's Day with 102 people aboard have been found in the past few days floating in the sea or washed up on beaches off Sulawesi island.

Officials have suggested the plane might have crashed into the sea off the west coast of Sulawesi, disintegrating into small pieces.

"Some human hair and scalp suspected to be that of the victims of the missing Adam Air plane were found this morning in Dutungan island in the Pare Pare area," Muslimin said.

He did not say how long the DNA testing would take.

Makassar, Sulawesi's largest city and the coordinating point for the search, is about 1,400 km (870 miles) northeast of Jakarta. Pare Pare is a two-hour drive north from Makassar. Both are on Sulawesi's west coast.

A search team found part of one of the plane's wings on Saturday night, Budi Haryoto, an official from the national search and rescue agency said.

He said the 1.5 metres (5 ft) long fragment was still being examined to find out if it was part of the right or left wing.

A fisherman found the tail stabiliser of the Boeing on Tuesday snared in his nets but initially stored it under his traditional stilted house because he thought it was only a slab of plywood. He was given a cash reward of 50 million rupiah ($5,500) on Saturday for finding the first piece of the missing jet.

Part of a passenger seat with a serial number on it was found on Sunday in waters around Pasir Putih island roughly half way between Pare Pare and Makassar, Lieutenant Andi Ichsan, an Indonesian marine involved in the search, told Reuters.

Troops in a rubber boat also found a piece of an emergency exit door off Sakuala island in Pangkep district, he said.

On Saturday, pieces of clothing that might be linked to passengers were also found, according to the Web site of Indonesian TV station SCTV.

Despite the possibility that the Boeing had broken up, Indonesian navy ships assisted by a U.S. oceanographic ship have been trying to locate its fuselage, which could still house the flight recorder that could provide clues to explain the disaster.

Search mission chief First Air Marshal Eddy Suyanto said on Saturday that the search for the plane's main body and black box was being hampered by the depth of the sea in areas where metal objects had been detected in the Makassar Strait.

Strong winds and heavy seas were also making the search more difficult at the weekend.

The flight recorder is set up to give off a signal for 30 days to aid detection, but it is likely to be very hard to locate in waters as deep as 1,700 metres (5,600 ft) in the area.

So far no bodies confirmed as the missing passengers have been found. Suyanto said previously that, considering that parts of the plane found so far were mostly small, a body was unlikely to have survived the disaster in one piece.

The 17-year-old plane was heading from Surabaya in East Java to Manado in northern Sulawesi when it vanished in bad weather on January 1. The plane made no distress call, although the pilot had reported concerns over crosswinds.

Source:http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/01/14/missing.plane.reut/index.html

Immigrant quota for Russia retail

2007-01-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

Tough new laws limiting job opportunities for immigrants have been introduced in Russia.

The number of non-Russians working in the retail trade is now being limited to 40%, but by the end of the year that number is supposed to be zero.

Russian police are raiding the country's markets on a daily basis, enforcing quotas on the number of foreigners working in the retail trade.

The new law was proposed after race riots in northern Russia last summer.

President Vladimir Putin spoke of the need to defend the interests of what he called the native population.

Markets - often a source of employment for Russia's army of immigrant workers - were singled out.

Immigration officials say that the new laws have encouraged more foreigners to apply for legal residency status even if they will remain barred from working in retail.

Human rights groups fear that police officers may try to abuse their authority as they carry out their duties.

Immigrant workers, most of them from Central Asia or the Caucasus, share those fears.

They also question who would actually do their often difficult, dangerous and dirty jobs if they did not.

Source:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6261897.stm

Millionaire Secret Santa dies

2007-01-13T10:48:00.000-08:00

Larry Stewart, a millionaire who became known as Secret Santa for his habit of roaming the streets each December and anonymously handing money to people, died Friday. He was 58.

Stewart died from complications from esophageal cancer, said Jackson County Sheriff Tom Phillips, a longtime friend.

Stewart, who spent 26 years giving a total $1.3 million, gained international attention in November when he revealed himself as Secret Santa. He was diagnosed in April with cancer and said he wanted to use his celebrity to inspire other people to take random kindness seriously.

"That's what we're here for," Stewart said in a November interview, "to help other people out."

Stewart, from the Kansas City suburb of Lee's Summit, made his millions in cable television and long-distance telephone service.

His private holiday giving started in December 1979 when he was at a drive-in restaurant nursing his wounds from having been fired. It was the second year in a row he had been fired the week before Christmas.

"It was cold, and this carhop didn't have on a very big jacket, and I thought to myself, `I think I got it bad. She's out there in this cold making nickels and dimes,' " he said. He gave her $20 and told her to keep the change.

After that, Stewart hit the streets each December, handing out money, often $100 bills, sometimes two and three at a time. He also gave money to community causes in Kansas City and his hometown of Bruce, Miss.

Stewart said he offered the simple gifts of cash every year because it was something people didn't have to "beg for, get in line for, or apply for."

Stewart gave out $100,000 between Chicago and Kansas City in December. Four Secret Santas whom Stewart "trained" gave out another $65,000.

Source:http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/13/obit.stewart.ap/index.html

Somalia declares state of emergency

2007-01-13T10:42:00.000-08:00

Somalia's parliament declared on Saturday a three-month state of emergency amid fears of a return of clan violence after weeks of war ousted Islamists.

Members of parliament in the government's interim seat of Baidoa -- its home until Ethiopian and Somali troops defeated Islamists who controlled much of the south, voted 154 to two to ratify Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's plan.

The government, which is seeking to install itself in the capital Mogadishu, faces a huge challenge to bring peace and security to the Horn of Africa nation, which has been without effective central rule since the 1991 ouster of a dictator.

"A three-month state of emergency has been passed. If the need arises for the government to extend the period then the president will have to ask parliament for approval," second deputy speaker Osman Elmi Boqore told parliament.

Residents fear Mogadishu could slide back into the anarchy that has gripped the city since 1991.

On Friday, warlord gunmen tried to force their way inside the presidential palace and fought Somali troops, showing how hard it will be to tame the nation.

The shootout which killed a handful of people and came as warlords agreed to merge their forces into a new national army, was the kind of clash that was commonplace in Mogadishu.

Within hours of the Islamists fleeing Mogadishu, militiamen loyal to the warlords reappeared at checkpoints in the city where they used to terrorise civilians.

The government welcomed the vote.

"Since the country is facing a hard time, we believe the emergency law will play a crucial role in bringing back peace and in the reconstruction of our country," government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told Reuters.

The government is seeking to disarm the capital's residents but few weapons have been handed in as locals wait to see whether the government can impose the relative stability they experienced under the Islamists' sharia rule.

Islamist stronghold captured

Earlier, government forces captured a southern Islamist stronghold and Ethiopian planes pounded the area. Many fugitive Islamists were believed to be in the coastal village of Ras Kamboni near the Kenyan border after fleeing south.

"The government took over the last Islamist stronghold of Ras Kamboni yesterday evening after fighting in the morning," Dinari said.

"Most of the wanted terrorists have either died or fled. They are hiding in the forests ... Government forces are still chasing them. We will not stop the chase until we are sure they are totally eliminated."

Washington sent a warplane into Somalia on Monday to try to kill top al Qaeda suspects and Ethiopian aircraft have struck the area for days to finish a war that began before Christmas.

"Ethiopian troops are engaged in a mopping up operation against the remnants of the terrorist group around Ras Kamboni," Ethiopian Information Ministry spokesman Zemedhun Tekle said.

Speaking from the southern Kismayu port, lawmaker Abdirashid Mohammed Hidig, also acting government leader for the area where operations were being launched, said Ethiopian planes were striking sites where "the Islamists are believed to be hiding."

Hidig said U.S. forces were on the ground but were not involved in any fighting although he had not seen them. A senior U.S. official told Reuters this week he was not aware of any American special forces in Somalia.

British-based aid agency Oxfam said air raids to pursue Islamists in southern Somalia had mistakenly killed 70 nomadic herdsmen. While some Somali sources have reported scores of deaths, there has been no independent confirmation. Both Ethiopia and the United States deny hitting civilians.

Washington's strike was its first overt military involvement in Somalia since a disastrous peacekeeping mission in 1994.

It killed up to 10 al Qaeda allies, but missed its main target of three top suspects, the U.S. government said. Washington denies carrying out any further strikes.

Ethiopia, the region's major power, wants to withdraw in coming weeks its soldiers who have been attacked in Mogadishu.

Diplomats fear that would leave the government -- the 14th attempt at central rule since 1991 -- vulnerable to remnant Islamists vowing guerrilla war, warlords seeking to re-create their fiefdoms, and competing clans.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/01/13/somalia.reut/index.html

Tsunami fears ease hours after strong quake

2007-01-13T10:34:00.000-08:00

Tsunami alerts issued for the Pacific Basin due to a massive underwater earthquake were lifted hours later Saturday when only minor surges resulted.

The alerts had been issued for Japan and a broad area surrounding the Pacific Ocean -- including Hawaii and Alaska -- after the quake hit east of the Kuril Islands.

The temblor had a preliminary magnitude of 8.2, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center bulletin said.

Hours after the quake was detected, instruments in four locations along Japan's northeastern coast measured a rise in tidal levels of about 10-centimeters (4 inches), according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. No damage was reported.

A 1-foot (30-centimeter) wave was measured in Shemya, Alaska, part of the Aleutian Island chain, the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center said.

The center warned that strong currents could still result on the western coast of the United States and Canada.

Earlier, the Japan Meteorology Agency had said tsunami waves between one and two meters were possible near Hokkaido, Japan, and other areas of Japan's northern island.

The earthquake occurred at 11:23 p.m. ET, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center bulletin said.

After the earthquake, coastal residents in low-lying parts of the warning areas were advised to move to higher ground.

Sirens were sounded in Kushiro, Japan, after the earthquake. Most residents stayed home and some sought shelter in public buildings on high ground, officials said.

In November, a tsunami warning was issued after an 8.3-magnitude earthquake in a nearby area. Large waves were reported hours later in Hawaii and on the western coast of the United States, including a 6-foot wave in Crescent City, California. (Full story)

A wave measuring about 40 centimeters (16 inches) did wash up on some eastern Pacific coastal areas of Japan, officials there said in November, but nothing like the wave of almost 2 meters (about 6 feet) that had been predicted as a possibility.

A 9.1-magnitude quake off the coast of Indonesia on December 26, 2004 caused a tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in 11 countries. (Full story)

And a tsunami caused by a magnitude 8.3 offshore earthquake struck Hokkaido on September 25, 2003, injuring 589 people and causing significant damage to the port and coastal communities, according to the archives of the U.S. Geological Survey. (Full story)

Source:http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/01/13/tsunami.japan/index.html

Isabel Peron arrested in investigation of '70s rights abuses

2007-01-12T18:44:00.000-08:00

Former Argentine President Isabel Peron was briefly detained Friday in Madrid as part of investigations into the South American country's past human rights abuses, police said.

She appeared at Spain's National Court which released her conditionally three hours after her arrest, pending an extradition request from Argentina. The court said Argentina has 40 days to file the request and ordered Peron to appear at a police station every 15 days.

As Peron walked free to a car awaiting her outside the court, a group of protesters shouted at her. She did not speak to reporters.

Police acted on an international arrest warrant from an Argentine investigative judge who said he had questions about Peron's chaotic 20-month rule, a time when shadowy right-wing violence destabilized Argentina. The third wife of three-time president Juan Domingo Peron was ousted in the March 1976 coup that ushered in a seven-year dictatorship that waged a "dirty war" against its opponents.

Peron, 75, has lived in exile in Spain since 1981.

Her arrest marked the expansion of Argentina's human rights investigations beyond dictatorship-era crimes to the death squads that terrorized the nation before the 1976 coup.

Peron was taken into custody at her villa in the wealthy northern Madrid neighborhood of Villanueva de la Canada.

She was wanted for questioning about three decrees she approved in her brief presidential tenure, calling on armed forces to crack down on "subversive elements." She was also wanted for questioning in connection with the disappearance of leftist Hector Aldo Fagetti Gallego one month before the coup.

Maria Estela Martinez de Peron -- known as Isabel -- was sworn in as president in 1974 after the death of her husband, the former strongman and father of Argentina's ruling political party. She struggled to hold on to power as Argentina was convulsed by violence from leftist guerrillas and reprisals by death squads.

Her detention followed the recent arrests in Argentina and Spain of two suspected leaders of the "Triple A" death squad that human rights groups call a precursor to state-sponsored terror waged by the country's military rulers from 1976-83.

Political analyst Felipe Noguera noted that dozens of former police and military officers have been summoned for questioning since Argentina's Supreme Court in 2005 annulled a pair of 1980s amnesty laws blocking prosecution of human rights cases.

"What might be different is that her surname is Peron," Noguera said. "So this seems to drive home the point that a lot of violence against the left wing started during the Peronist time, before and not during the junta."

Previously, efforts to bring alleged human rights abusers to justice focused on crimes committed during the dictatorship, when at least 13,000 suspected leftists and other opponents of the regime were killed or disappeared.

Peron testified in 1997 in Madrid as a witness in a Spanish case probing crimes during the military dictatorship. She said then she recalled signing a law authorizing the "annihilation" of leftist guerrillas, but did not remember details. She also said that she was unaware of human rights abuses that began during her tenure and expanded after the military overthrew her.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the 1980 Nobel Peace laureate for his human rights work, told The Associated Press he believed the Triple A, short for the Argentina Anticommunist Alliance, was effectively part of a state structure and thus the beginnings of state-backed terror.

"Once and for all, we have to get to the bottom of this problem and find out how this terrorism was generated by the state," Perez Esquivel said. "The search for the truth must go in every direction."

In Argentina, families of the victims of the repression celebrated Peron's arrest.

"I believe state terror began before the coup," said Maria Adela Antokoletz, whose brother, a lawyer who defended leftists, was kidnapped shortly before the 1976 coup. "Those who signed these decrees knew perfectly well the nature of the campaign and what this repression would involve."

Human rights groups blame Triple A for at least 1,500 killings of government opponents from 1973 to 1976. The dead included leftists, trade activists, opposition lawmakers and intellectuals.

Some victims were abducted off streets and never seen again while others were found dead of bullet wounds, some with their hands hacked off or burned.

The violence set the stage for the dictatorship's crackdown on dissent, a campaign known as the "dirty war." Nearly 13,000 people are officially listed as dead or missing from that era, but human rights groups say the total is closer to 30,000. Civilian rule was restored in 1983.

Source:http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/01/12/argentina.peron.ap/index.html

AMD warning shows processor momentum shifting

2007-01-12T18:22:00.000-08:00

AMD also has a new notebook chip in the works that should help it challenge Intel's long-standing dominance in that fast- growing segment.

Even then, it may take several months before the new chips translate into fresh share gains. That is because AMD must increase output of those chips, while customers need time to evaluate them against Intel's offerings.

"If the Vista deployments begin to build some momentum and PC sales overall improve dramatically, then everyone will benefit and it could lift AMD," Acree said.

"Unfortunately, a lot of things don't change for AMD until they get new products, just like how things didn't change for Intel until they had new products."

In light of AMD's warning, Wall Street now expects it to show a profit, before special items, of $51 million, or 8 cents per share. Including the company's acquisition of graphics chip maker ATI, which closed in the quarter, AMD is expected to show a loss of nearly $500 million, or 91 cents per share.

AMD reports quarterly earnings on January 23.

Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2007-01-12T220543Z_01_N11450199_RTRUKOC_0_US-INTEL-AMD.xml&pageNumber=2&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage2

Madonna calls for more adoption

2007-01-12T18:02:00.000-08:00

Madonna has called for more people to adopt children from Africa despite the controversy surrounding her own moves to take custody of a Malawian child.

The singer told US talk show host David Letterman she was "saving a life" by taking the one-year-old to the UK.

She admitted she had been warned it might be difficult but had not expected so much criticism.

The 48-year-old suggested laws needed to change because a million children in Malawi needed to be "rescued".

Some groups in Malawi have expressed concern that Madonna was able to bypass laws about foreigners adopting children.

She has also faced criticism this week from actress Angelina Jolie, who has adopted children from Cambodia and Ethiopia as well as having a daughter with actor Brad Pitt.

Jolie said in a magazine interview she would have steered clear of adopting from a country where there was no legal framework for adoption.

Madonna said she was warned by a social worker that adopting a child from Malawi could be difficult.

"She didn't say don't do it, but she just said expect challenges, and, boy, did we get them."

She added: "We were basically creating the laws as we went."

Madonna also has a nine-year-old daughter and six-year-old son.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6255297.stm

Russian billionaire held in prostitution sweep

2007-01-11T19:58:00.000-08:00

One of Russia's wealthiest men, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, was taken into custody by French police in a crackdown on a suspected prostitution ring at a swank Alpine ski resort, officials said Thursday.

Investigators suspect Russian call girls were brought to the resort in Courchevel, a favored playground of Russia's rich, to work during the winter holidays, authorities said. Clients allegedly paid the women with gifts from luxury boutiques.

A total of 26 people were taken in for questioning Tuesday, Prosecutor Xavier Richaud said. As of Thursday, 15 -- including Prokhorov -- were still being held in the southeast city of Lyon, officials close to the investigation said.

Among those detained, the officials said, was an Austrian who runs a travel agency and is suspected of helping the Russian women find their way to two at the ski resort. The officials asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

Some of the 15 could be placed under investigation -- a step short of being charged -- as early as Friday. They would face counts of "aggravated procuring in an organized band" and "criminal association," the sources said.

Martine Monteil, director of France's judicial police, said earlier that a Russian tycoon was in custody for allegedly offering young women to his guests. She did not identify Prokhorov by name.

Prokhorov, the 41-year-old chief executive of a Russian mining giant, is ranked No. 89 on Forbes magazine's 2006 list of the world's richest people. He is worth $6.4 billion, according to Forbes, largely thanks to his holding in OAO Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest nickel producer, and Polyus Gold, Russia's biggest gold miner.

The sporty, 6-foot-7 Prokhorov is often described as Russia's most eligible bachelor. Even among Russia's big-spending business elite, he has a reputation for organizing lavish parties.

The arrests occurred in several hotels at fashionable Courchevel, which has its own airstrip that can accommodate private jets. Russian tycoons flock to the resort over the New Year and Orthodox Christmas holidays.

Investigators also seized $65,000 at two four-star hotels in Courchevel, an official working on the probe said. The official was not authorized to speak to the media and requested anonymity. No drugs or weapons were found.

Those questioned include seven Russian women about 20 years old, as well as people suspected of helping bring the women to France, the official said. It was unclear whether the women were among those still in custody.

Police suspect the women involved worked only occasionally as prostitutes and that their pay likely came mainly in the form of expensive presents from luxury boutiques in the ski station, the investigating official said.

That practice is also used by some prostitutes in the chic beach resorts of the French Riviera. The official said the giving of gifts could complicate efforts to prove the women were prostitutes and not simply friends.

Police began the investigation last year after noticing suspicious trips by young Russian women heading through Geneva to the French Alps, with tickets booked through Austrian travel agencies, the official said. Investigators were on the lookout for two waves of prostitutes arriving in Courchevel during the 2006-07 holiday season.

Sergei Chernitsyn, head of the press department with Norilsk Nickel, said the company had received no information about Prokhorov's arrest. He called the allegations "absurd."

"We expect him back at work on Monday," Chernitsyn said. The spokesman added that the company was "operating to plan" and would not be affected by Prokhorov's detention.

Based on Russia's Arctic edge in the Taimyr Peninsula, Norilsk Nickel also has the world's biggest reserves of palladium, and its mines were at one point worked by inmates of Josef Stalin's gulag.

A keen basketball player, Prokhorov has used his wealth to acquire Euroleague basketball champions CSKA. Skiing, jet skiing and kickboxing are among his favorite sports. He divides his time between Norilsk, Moscow, Saint Tropez on the French Riviera, and Courchevel, where he owns a chalet.

Source:http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070111/Mikhail_Prokhorov_070111/20070111?hub=World

Syphilis rates 'soaring in China'

2007-01-11T19:09:00.000-08:00

The Lancet reports that China - which virtually eliminated syphilis in the 1960s and 70s - is now seeing the disease return with alarming intensity.

It reveals that reported rates have risen from 0.2 cases per 100,000 in 1993 to 5.7 cases per 100,000 in 2005.

Dramatic intervention is now needed, a co-author of the report says.

The study involved doctors from China's National Centre for STD Control in Nanjing and from the University of North Carolina's School of Medicine.

Dr Myron Cohen, a co-author of the report, described the spread of the disease as "fantastically rapid".

Spreading HIV

The disease is most prevalent amongst those in particular high-risk groups, like commercial sex workers and men who have sex with men. In those groups, as many as one in ten to one in five has syphilis, according to some of China's top specialists.

But syphilis is also spreading quickly in the general population. An area of particular concern is the surge in congenital syphilis - the number of babies born with the disease, after contracting it in utero from infected mothers.

It is reported that about 3,400 Chinese babies are being born each year with congenital syphilis. The figure has risen dramatically since 1991 - by more than 70% each year.

Syphilis is an aggressive and dangerous disease in itself - but Dr Cohen says its rise also has wider implications, giving a sense of the rapid spread of other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) too.

"If we are seeing syphilis spread, we have to be concerned that other STDs are spreading as well," he told the BBC.

"Also we have reason to believe that syphilis helps to drive HIV. So we have to be concerned that untreated syphilis will amplify the spread of HIV as well."

'Deeply conservative'

So why is there such dramatic spread? It is being fuelled in part by rapid social change.

The large numbers of migrant workers in China, increasing prostitution and more extramarital sex - along with low condom use - are all key factors.

The need to pay for health care now may deter people from getting early tests and treatment.

Chinese society is still deeply conservative with little open discussion about sex at any level.

That severely inhibits the exchange of information at all levels, from within families and sexual relationships to information campaigns in schools, universities and in the media.

There may even be a biological reason too for the rapid rise.

Chinese adults, who are sexually active now, had no exposure to syphilis for decades. Some scientists say that has left today's population with very little immunity to it.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6253807.stm

Human error may have doomed Mars Global Surveyor

2007-01-11T10:33:00.000-08:00

NASA is investigating whether incorrect software commands may have doomed the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, which abruptly fell silent last year after a decade of meticulously mapping the Red Planet.

The space agency said the theory is just one of several that may explain the probe's failure. NASA on Wednesday announced the formation of an internal review board to investigate why the Global Surveyor lost contact with controllers during a routine adjustment of its solar array.

John McNamee, deputy director of solar system exploration at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said a preliminary investigation points to incorrect software commands uploaded to the spacecraft in June.

The software was aimed at improving the spacecraft's flight processors. Instead, bad commands may have overheated the battery and forced the spacecraft into safe mode, McNamee told scientists gathered Tuesday in Virginia to plan for future Mars missions.

An account of McNamee's speech was posted on the NASA watchdog site nasawatch.com, and it was confirmed Wednesday by Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program.

Overheating problem

Records show there was an incorrect loading of software, which could have resulted in a cooling radiator for a battery being pointed at the sun, McCuistion said.

"It may have overheated and lost the battery, which then would not allow us to have adequate power to operate the spacecraft," McCuistion told AP Radio.

If the Global Surveyor's demise is traced to a technical error, the mistake raises questions about why engineers did not catch the problem before the software program was sent to the spacecraft.

McCuistion said the space agency will wait for the completion of the investigation before declaring an official cause of failure.

The Global Surveyor, which lost contact with Earth in November, was the oldest of six active spacecraft on or circling Mars. NASA has made several unsuccessful attempts to locate the missing probe.

"We're declaring it most likely dead," McCuistion said. "I doubt we will see it again."

During its 10 years mapping the Martian surface, the Global Surveyor beamed back some 240,000 pictures, including the first detailed images of swirling dust devils and gullies.

Shortly before it failed, the Global Surveyor re-imaged thousands of gullies and found the strongest evidence yet that liquid water recently coursed through two of them. The discovery, which still needs to be confirmed, raises the possibility that Mars might harbour an environment conducive to primitive life.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/01/11/tech-mars.html

After storm, the mercury drops in B.C., Prairies

2007-01-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

The winter storm that battered western Canada this week and caused havoc for travellers is being blamed for at least three deaths in Saskatchewan and B.C. as temperatures plummeted across the regions.

A 32-year-old woman was killed after four vehicles collided in icy conditions on Lougheed Highway in Maple Ridge, B.C.

In Saskatchewan, two people were found frozen to death on the side of the road north of Lloydminster after they left their stranded vehicle.

Snow warnings from Environment Canada were dropped Thursday for much of B.C., just in time for icy Arctic air to move south over the province after blizzard conditions buffeted the Lower Mainland Wednesday.

Arctic outflow warnings have been issued for the North and Central B.C. coast, with windchills predicted to reach down to -20 C by Thursday night.

Emergency crews — including patrols on snowmobiles — rescued 45 people Wednesday who were trapped by the blizzard in the Dawson Creek area.

Some people waited 16 hours in the bitter cold to be rescued, but the RCMP said late Wednesday that everyone was safe.

Residents in Edmonton were faced with another day of bitter cold on Thursday as temperatures stayed below -30 C, which prompted warnings from physicians to bundle up properly.

Dr. Matthew Rose of Edmonton's Boyle MacAuley Health Centre says layers are the best protection from cold weather and windchill, but that's not always an option for homeless people.

"A T-shirt, sweatshirt, sweater and a reasonable winter jacket is probably the ideal combination," Rose told CBC News Wednesday. "The inner city population does not have access to that kind of apparel choice, so they do the best they can with what's available and really rely on clothing donations."

Snowmobiles used in rescues

In Saskatoon, city firefighters and ambulance crews were forced to use snowmobiles borrowed from a local dealership to get to people trapped in snowbound vehicles in one of the worst blizzards to hit the city in years.

The storm left about 350 people marooned for several hours Wednesday at Saskatoon's airport.

Gord Lacoursiere drove to the airport to pick up a stranded friend and take him home, but his four-wheel-drive truck got stuck in a drift only a few hundred metres from the terminal building.

Lacoursiere said he could see nothing around him but swirling snow until another truck drove past his vehicle. He then found his way to the building by walking in the tire tracks and realized he might have to stay the night.

"We gotta find a bar with beds I think," he told CBC News at the time.

One woman was stranded in the airport's parking lot and called on her cell phone to be rescued, said Bill Restall, the airport's manager.

Two staff members went out and found her by the sound of her beeping horn, then led her back to the building, he said.

Source:http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/01/11/weather-wrap.html#skip300x250

Bon Cop, Bad Cop' picks up Genie nominations

2007-01-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

TORONTO -- The bilingual cop action film "Bon Cop, Bad Cop," one of the top-grossing films in Canadian history, picked up a handful of Genie nominations on Tuesday, including best picture and best actor nods for its two male stars.

But it was "The Rocket," the moving film about hockey legend Maurice Richard and the rise of Quebec nationalism, that received the lion's share of nominations, receiving 13 nods in 19 Genie categories, including best picture.

Roy Dupuis also got a best actor nomination for his turn as the beloved Habitant.

Three other films rounded out the best picture category: "Trailer Park Boys: The Movie," "La petite guide de la vengeance (The Little Book of Vengeance)," and "Un dimanche a Kigali (A Sunday in Kigali)."

"Bon Cop's" Colm Feore and Patrick Huard, who play bickering cops from Ontario and Quebec, respectively, as they try to solve a chain of hockey-related serial killings, join Dupuis in the best actor category. Olivier Gourmet in "Congorama" and Luc Picard in "Un dimanche a Kigali" were also nominated. It was Picard's second nomination in as many years; he got a nod last year for his work in "L'Audition."

In the best actress category, 12-year-old Jodelle Ferland, the Vancouver actress best known for her turn in "Silent Hill," was nominated for her starring role in the stomach-churning "Tideland." The Terry Gilliam horror film was funded in part by Telefilm Canada and was one of the most critically reviled movies of the year.

Julie Le Breton also got a nod for "The Rocket," Fatou N'Diaye for "Un dimanche a Kigali," Ginette Reno for "Le secret de ma mere" and American actress Sigourney Weaver for "Snow Cake."

While Ricky, Bubbles and Julian were shut out in the acting categories, their "Trailer Park Boys" co-star, Hugh Dillon, picked up a best supporting actor nod for his portrayal of Sonny, the sinister owner of the boys' favourite strip club.

"Bon Cop, Bad Cop" - considered the top-grossing Canadian film of all time if inflation isn't taken into account ("Porky's" would still be ahead in today's dollars) had a total of 10 nominations, "Un dimanche a Kigali" had seven and "Tideland" had six, most of them in production categories.

The Genies, honouring the best in Canadian cinema, will be handed out Feb. 13 in a gala to be broadcast on Citytv.

Source: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070109/genies_nods_070109/20070110?hub=Entertainment

George Michael pleads not guilty to charges

2007-01-10T09:40:00.000-08:00

LONDON -- George Michael pleaded innocent Wednesday to charges of being unfit to drive and possessing marijuana.

The 43-year-old singer was arrested Sept. 30 after police responded to complaints that a car was blocking an intersection in north London. Police said Michael was found passed out inside the car.

Michael, who was referred to by his birth name, George Panayiotou, wasn't in court, and the pleas were entered by his attorney, Keima Payton.

Judge Katherine Marshall provisionally set a trial date for April 23, but Payton said blood samples taken on the night of his arrest weren't legal, meaning the trial should be scrapped.

"Are you saying prosecution should not take place because it is unfair?" Marshall asked.

"Indeed," Payton said.

Arguments were set for March 7 to discuss whether the blood sample taken from Michael was inadmissible. The judge excused Michael's attendance for that hearing, too.

Michael rose to fame in the 1980s as half of the duo Wham! before starting his solo career.

Source: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070110/george_mike_070110/20070110?hub=Entertainment

Mel's movie tops box office

2007-01-09T23:07:00.000-08:00

"YOU can't hope for better than the No 1 spot," says Mel Gibson, citing the opening weekend box office for his ancient Mayan chase pic, Apocalypto.

Gibson's latest epic has which reaped a three-day gross of $US15 million ($A19 million).

Still, that's nothing compared with the dollars Gibson collected from his previous directing job, The Passion of the Christ.

Gibson's controversial retelling of the Crucifixion opened on Good Friday of 2004 and made a whopping $US85.8 million ($A110 million) its first weekend out.

"Of course, I knew Apocalypto wouldn't do that kind of business," Gibson said by phone from Los Angeles. And not, he asserted, because of any fallout from his July arrest on drink-driving charges and subsequent anti-Semitic rantings.

He blames it on the shops.

"No, I don't think it (the scandal) had an impact," said Gibson, who has been on a public campaign of self-reflection, contrition and reconciliation with Jewish leaders since his infamous outburst.

"It was a soft weekend all around. There were other good pictures out there and they were all in line with one another. Everyone was at Christmas parties or shopping. ... But, hey, I'm not sneezing at it. No 1 - I think it's great."

Apocalypto also has landed a Golden Globe nomination for best foreign language film (the actors, indigenous Americans, speak Yucatec). Whether the widely praised film will garner Oscar nods is another question. Gibson, who won best picture and best director Academy Awards for Braveheart, was criticised by religious leaders for his villainous depiction of Jewish high priests in The Passion.

The actor and moviemaker's anti-Jew eruptions hardly helped matters. Can he still be embraced by the Hollywood community?

"Hey, awards and stuff like that, or being embraced, is not the ultimate goal of what I do," he said.
"What I'm doing is what I love - it's a passion for telling stories. These other things are, and have always been, by-products. Who was ever embraced by the Hollywood community, tell me? . . .
People, if they're creative and they have something to say, they just do it, and it's either consumed or not."

But doesn't he feel that he's alienated a significant group of his peers?

"If I have, there's nothing I can do about it, and there's no way of gauging it either," Gibson said. "In my dealings it's always straight-ahead here, business as usual. And most people are very understanding. There's very few of us that haven't made a mistake or goofed up somewhere along the line. People understand humanity and human failure. There you go, you know."

Like Braveheart and The Passion before it, the $US40 million ($A51 million) Apocalypto - which Gibson financed and filmed last year in Mexico - is graphically, rhapsodically violent. There are impalings, decapitations, scenes of people getting their hearts ripped from their chests. Some critics have said it's too much, that Gibson's penchant for gore is obsessive, fetishistic.

"Well, it's part and parcel of the subject matter, and the story," he said. "Apocalypto is set in the fading glory days of the Mayan civilisation, when tribe preyed upon tribe, and priests practised human sacrifice.

"People either really love it or they really hate it. Looking at some of the people that really hate it, I think maybe there's a little disingenuousness and jealousy there. One always has to ask, is that honest? Is that an honest criticism? And sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. But it's of little consequence . . . I make the story that I want to tell and put it out there and try to share it with people."

How does he mean, "disingenuousness"?

"Well, when you read things like `it's boring'. I know it's not boring. So why is he saying that? ...

Some critics are really honest, great, erudite. Others are bitter. I mean, imagine having to see that many movies every week. You'd get jaded really fast."

Gibson, 50, hasn't appeared onscreen for several years: He had a role in the little seen 2003 release The Singing Detective, and was, of course, the star of M Night Shyamalan's 2002 extraterrestrial thriller, Signs.

A couple of projects he's been linked to - Under and Alone, about an undercover agent who joins the Mongols biker gang, and Richard Donner's Sam and George - are on the back burner.

"I love it when I do it," he said of acting. "I just haven't gotten around to it for awhile. That's not to say I won't. But if you do something for 30 years you get an appetite for something more. Or something else."

And what's next as a director? After films in Aramaic and Yucatec, is there another dead language and culture he'd like to explore? "I'm not sure what's next," he said. "I'm on the hunt. I might try something out of left field, you know."

Like The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto aren't?

"Yeah, in a sense. But I mean out of left field if you think about those. I'll focus somewhere else. I think it's time."
Source: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20953066-5006023,00.html

EU Commission proposes migrants' green card

2007-01-09T22:19:00.000-08:00

The European Commission will propose a green card this year giving highly skilled migrants easier access to the European Union, officials said on Tuesday.

The U.S. so-called green card is a coveted identification card that allows immigrants to live and work in the United States and eventually apply for U.S. citizenship.

The EU proposal touches on one of the hottest political issues in Europe - immigration - and could face strong resistance from several EU states, all of which have to agree for it to come into effect.

"We are going to make a specific proposal for the admission of high skilled workers. We foresee a green card," an EU Commission official told Reuters news agency.

"The green card would be valid in the 27 EU states, to be attractive," the official said. The EU executive plans to present the proposal early in the second half of 2007.

Under the EU plan, which is still being drafted, access might be subject to certain limits, a second official said. But the overall aim would be to make it easier for migrants with a green card to work in a number of EU states, he said.

Germany, which took over the rotating six-month EU presidency on Jan. 1, has led opposition to any pan-EU policy on legal migration, rejecting interference in its labour market.

Germany's then ruling Social Democrats introduced a Green Card programme in 2000 to try to lure foreign from India and other countries.

Restrictions

EU officials argue a pan-EU programme, allowing skilled migrants to move around the bloc, would be more attractive.

Marriage to a U.S. citizen is one of the easiest ways for a foreigner to obtain a U.S. green card, but it is also based on employment criteria with priority for highly skilled candidates.

Australia and Canada have a points-based system favouring those with high education and language skills.

In the EU, the approach to legal immigration differs from country to country. Most allow only limited new immigration except for family reunification, and work permits for people with specific skills and a job contract.

The EU is also struggling to sort out its own citizens' right to work within the bloc. Citizens of some older member states fear floods of cheap workers from the bloc's newcomers.

Many old EU members still impose restrictions on workers from the 10 mostly ex-communist member states which joined in 2004, and from Romania and Bulgaria which joined on Jan. 1.

While they have done little on legal migration, EU states have in the past few years beefed up their cooperation on illegal migration, including joint patrols to prevent African migrants reaching the wealthy bloc by boat.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=427651&in_page_id=1811

Merkel's hope for an EU superstate

2007-01-09T22:11:00.000-08:00

Moves to revive the rejected EU constitution are under way, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday.

She said every member state would be consulted during Germany's six-month presidency of the EU, which began on January 1.

Plans to adopt the constitution, intended to speed up decision-making in the enlarged, 27-member EU, were effectively killed when it was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005.

But Mrs Merkel declared that 'the period of reflection is over' and said she wants a constitution in place before European elections in 2009.

She said she wants to save as much as possible of the draft text: 'We are not starting from scratch.'

Mrs Merkel added: 'We will consult every member state about who has reservations about what, who has which concrete expectations and wishes for changes.'

But she admitted the German plan was a 'tall order', as it needs the support of all EU members.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=427639&in_page_id=1811

Safety problems persist in Ontario: SARS report

2007-01-09T21:05:00.000-08:00

Toronto's outbreaks of SARS were likely not preventable, the final report of a provincially appointed commission said Tuesday, but more could have been done to protect the safety of health-care workers. The Ontario Ministry of Labour was sidelined during the outbreaks that killed 44 people in the Toronto area, the 1,204-page report called Spring of Fear said, calling for the ministry to play a lead role in future infectious disease outbreaks.

Having occupational health experts involved in containing the outbreaks would have helped protect hospital workers, said the report by Justice Archie Campbell, who was ill Tuesday and unable to attend a news conference.

"Justice Campbell found that systemic problems ran through every hospital and every government agency," said Doug Hunt, chief counsel for the commission.

Hospitals, the report said, are as dangerous for workers as mines and factories, and the courage of front-line health workers saved the province from a worse disaster.

Among Ontario's 375 SARS cases, 45 of those afflicted were health-care workers. Two nurses and a doctor died from SARS.

Source:http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/01/09/sars-campbell.html#skip300x250

US submarine collides with Japanese ship

2007-01-09T00:44:00.000-08:00

TOKYO: A nuclear-powered US submarine and a Japanese commercial ship have collided near the Arabian Sea, US and Japanese officials said on Tuesday.

A Pentagon spokesman in Washington confirmed the report, saying the US submarine had collided with a Japanese merchant ship south of the Straits of Hormuz, located between Iran and Oman.

There had been no major damage due to the collision and the Japanese tanker was now at a port in the United Arab Emirates.

The 110-meter (360-foot) long submarine carries 127 officers and enlisted crew and is based in Norfolk, Virginia, according to the Navy's website.

On February 9, 2001 another nuclear-powered US submarine Greenville sank the Japanese fisheries training ship Ehime Maru during a rapid ascent off the coast of Hawaii, killing nine people on board, including four teenage students.
Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1073483

Gas smell causes a stink in Manhattan

2007-01-09T00:27:00.000-08:00

A powerful, mysterious smell of gas has wafted through much of Manhattan and parts of New Jersey, forcing building evacuations and a temporary suspension of commuter train service before dissipating by mid-afternoon.

Officials were quick to stress that the odour was not dangerous, but at least 19 people went to the hospital with minor ailments and its wide extent provoked jitters in a city that constantly reminded of the September 11 attacks.

Twelve people were taken by ambulance to New York hospitals by emergency workers responding to calls from people complaining of upset stomachs, dizziness or difficulty breathing, a Fire Department spokesman said.

"It was all minor," said the spokesman, although he said a total of 409 fire trucks and hook and ladder rigs were scrambled to investigate the fumes - about six times more than during a normal period.

A spokesman for ConEdison said the company had found no problems in its natural gas system that would have explained the smell. "We did not find any gas leak or any problem on our gas system," spokesman Joseph Peta said. "At this point the cause of the odour remains a mystery."

Seven people went to the hospital seeking treatment in New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from New York, although New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the odour was not dangerous and no unusual gas leaks had been found.

"It may just be an unpleasant smell, but at this point we do not know any more than that. The one thing we are confident about is, it is not dangerous," Bloomberg told a news conference.

"The city's air sensors do not report any elevated level of natural gas," he said.

The gas-like smell permeated lower Manhattan and was detected as far north as Central Park, across the width of the island, and in New Jersey.

A US Department of Homeland Security spokesman said there was no indication of a terrorism connection.

Four schools in Manhattan were briefly evacuated, and the odour chased people out of landmarks such as the Rockefeller Centre and Macy's department store.

"It was really, really bad then, so bad it gave me a headache," said Kate Browne, who lives in the West Village neighbourhood and said she could smell the gas when she took her daughter to school.

"The emergency services turned up at my daughter's school looking for the leak then," she said.

Part of the New York-New Jersey PATH commuter train system, which carries 225,000 passengers a day, was closed temporarily as a precaution but normal service quickly resumed.

Several office buildings were evacuated and their air conditioning systems shut down, but city officials soon told building managers that people could return to work.

"There have been no abnormal changes in gas flow in our gas transmission lines," a spokesman for power utility Con Edison said. He declined to answer questions.

Bloomberg said there had been a small gas leak in lower Manhattan, but that was not nearly enough to account for the wide range of the odour. The city was blanketed with low clouds and there was light rain and little wind.

The smell reminded some locals of an incident in October 2005 with the more pleasing scent of pancakes and maple syrup. That mystery also sent an unidentified scent through Manhattan and New Jersey and prompted a multi-agency investigation that proved fruitless.

Natural gas is odourless and a chemical called methyl mercaptan is added to it so that people can detect leaks. The chemical adds an odour similar to rotten eggs or sulphur, which was what people smelled during their morning commute.

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Mayor-denies-New-York-smell-is-dangerous/2007/01/09/1168104947122.html

U.S. targets al-Qaida in Somalia attack

2007-01-09T00:20:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military launched a strike Monday against three suspected members of al-Qaida in Somalia, one of whom is linked to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 250 people, media outlets reported Monday.

The targets, according to the Los Angeles Times and CBS News, included the senior al-Qaida leader in East Africa and an al-Qaida operative wanted for his involvement in the embassy attacks.

Citing Pentagon sources, the Times and CBS reported that an Air Force AC-130 gunship led the attack against the site at the southern tip of Somalia. There was no confirmation that the Air Force had killed any of the al-Qaida targets.

U.S. officials have secretly been negotiating with Somalian clans that are thought to have sheltered the three men, hoping to get information about their locations.

CIA, FBI and military teams have been tracking the men, particularly their alleged leader, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, for years, but they have proved elusive.

U.S. officials and their African and European allies in the negotiations believe that one Somalian sub-clan in particular has been harboring Mohammed and his associates, whom the U.S. describes as the leaders of an East Africa al-Qaida cell. Mohammed faces terror charges in the U.S. that could bring a death penalty if he is captured and convicted.

Mohammed, who has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, was indicted in 1998 by a federal grand jury along with Osama bin Laden and others for his alleged role in the embassy bombings.

Source:http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070109/LOCAL17/701090397/-1/ZONES04

Diana death inquest to reopen

2007-01-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

The deaths of Britain's Princess Diana and her lover Dodi Fayed in a 1997 car crash, one of the most thoroughly investigated events of recent times, comes in for more scrutiny on Monday when an inquest reopens after a three-year break.

Three weeks ago, a lengthy police investigation ruled that the crash was an accident and the two were not the victims of an elaborate murder plot. A two-year French investigation had already come to that conclusion.

Diana, who was 36, Fayed and their chauffeur Henri Paul died when their Mercedes limousine smashed at high speed into a pillar in a Paris road tunnel after they sped away from the Ritz Hotel, pursued by paparazzi on motorbikes.

In the decade since the accident, a host of conspiracy theories flourished suggesting the couple were murdered because their relationship was embarrassing the British royal family.

The death of the "People's Princess" -- divorced from heir to the throne Prince Charles and the world's most photographed woman -- sparked an outpouring of grief in Britain.

A two-year French investigation ruled out foul play, saying Paul was responsible because he was drunk, under the influence of anti-depressants and driving too fast.

But that has not stopped skeptics pointing the finger of blame at British spies acting on the orders of Queen Elizabeth's husband Prince Phillip or even of Prince Charles.

When the formal British inquest opened in 2004, it was immediately adjourned in dramatic fashion by the then royal coroner Michael Burgess to allow police to carry out a top-level investigation into the allegations.

That three-year inquiry, headed by former London police chief John Stevens, reported last month that it agreed with the French probe's conclusions, with thorough tests showing the chauffeur had been drinking before the crash.

It also dismissed claims Diana was pregnant and was engaged, or about to get engaged, to Fayed.

"On the evidence available now, there was no conspiracy to murder any of the occupants of that car. This was a tragic accident," Stevens said.

Secret hearings

But under British law an inquest is needed to determine the cause of death when someone dies unnaturally. It cannot apportion blame but can rule that the death was "unnatural," due to violence or an accident.

The police report will be at the center of the inquest, which resumes on Monday, but Stevens said his findings should not prejudge its conclusions.

The inquest has already attracted controversy after Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, who took over last year as the presiding judge, decided initial hearings should be conducted in secret.

She changed her mind after strong criticism from Fayed's father Mohamed al Fayed, owner of the London store Harrods and the leading advocate of murder conspiracy theories.

Preliminary hearings will decide whether inquests into Diana and Fayed's deaths should be held together, whether a jury should be present and if so, who will take part.

Nothing short of a full public inquiry is likely to satisfy al Fayed. "I will never accept this cover-up of what really happened," he said after the Stevens report, which he called "garbage."

"For nine years I have fought against overwhelming odds and monstrous official obstructions. I will not stop now in my quest for the truth."

Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/01/05/diana.inquest.reut/index.html

Chinese Casinos Take on Vegas

2007-01-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

If you're feeling lucky, then you might want to book a ticket to Macau.

Forget Monte Carlo, Atlantic City, even Las Vegas. The sleepy coastal backwater, an hour ferry ride away from Hong Kong, seems set to surpass Vegas to become the gambling capital of the world.

The gaming revenues in the Chinese-held territory are expected to top $6.8 billion this year, slightly more cash than Las Vegas' casinos will bring in.

It has been a stunning transformation for this former Portuguese colony. Macau had long been known throughout Asia as a gambling mecca, but was dominated by a tawdry gambling scene, seedy nightlife and a fair share of corruption and vice.

Most of the gamblers were day-trippers from Hong Kong, who would head home flush or broke at the end of the night.

A Vegas Facelift

But, in recent years, Macau has undergone a multi-million dollar facelift. Since the Chinese government allowed foreign casinos to begin operating on Macau in 1991, major players have been setting up shop and cashing in.

American casino magnate Steve Wynn opened a glitzy, Vegas-style resort on Macau. The Sands group built what is now the world's biggest casino here, and others have followed suit.

The result has been Southeast Asia's own version of the Vegas strip, complete with all of the glamour and grandeur you'd expect, from lavish fountains to neon lights. It seems to be a bet that is paying off in spades.

Stephen Weaver, the vice president of Asian development for the Sands, says the investment in Macau has paid off for the casinos.

"We earned back our investment in this property in nine or 10 months," he says. "That is a successful investment by anybody's standard."

Fun for Young and Old

With the encouragement of the Macau government, the newest casinos are also selling themselves as resort destinations for the entire family — offering recreation facilities, organized tours, health clubs, and exotic spas. Their hope is that families will come and stay for several days, as they now do in Las Vegas.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Travel/story?id=2647650&page=1

Woman Accused of Killing Husband for Boob Job

2007-01-07T13:22:00.000-08:00

In a murder trial that began in California this week, a young mother is accused of using arsenic to kill her Marine husband to, according to prosecutors, pay for plastic surgery and a shopping spree.

The murder mystery has gripped San Diego and a Marine Corps Air Station.

Cynthia Sommer, 33, is accused of poisoning her husband Todd Sommer, a Marine, with arsenic for financial gain so she could afford plastic surgery and a shopping spree.

Sommer is accused of murdering her husband in order to collect his $250,000 life insurance policy. Prosecutors say soon after he died, Sommer spent $5,400 on breast implants and hosted boisterous parties at her home on the base.

They recounted what she said when medics removed his body.

"She said something to the effect of, 'We joked about the life insurance policy, but I never thought I'd actually see it,'" San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Laura Gunn said.

Todd Sommer's death was initially ruled a heart attack, but tests later found arsenic in his liver at levels 1,000 times above normal.

But the mystery has deepened because analysts say the prosecutor has been unable tie Sommer's wife to the poison.

"She doesn't have any evidence linking Sommer to possessing or trying to buy arsenic," said Beth Karras, a Court TV news correspondent. "She has ways of trying to get around it. She did a lot with what she had. It's a tough case though."

Sommer's attorney Robert Udell said the state is pursuing a case based only on circumstantial evidence and that his client is not guilty.

"There's still not one piece of evidence, one document, one hearsay statement connecting Cindy with arsenic, or even the attempt to get arsenic," Udell said.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/LegalCenter/story?id=2775274&page=1

Painting of Jolie Draws Notice

2007-01-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

A North Carolina artist intrigued by the public obsession with celebrity has found herself feeding that obsession with a painting of actress Angelina Jolie as the Virgin Mary hovering over a Wal-Mart check-out line.

Kate Kretz has painted for 20 years but none of her previous work has garnered the attention given "Blessed Art Thou," showing this weekend at Art Miami, an annual exposition of modern and contemporary art.

The painting has gotten much attention from celebrity web sites and blogs. Since the buzz started, the number of daily unique visitors to Kretz's own blog has jumped from an average of 30 to 15,000 on Wednesday.

"My intention was to ask a question and get people to think," Kretz said in a telephone interview Friday from Miami. "I had no idea so many people would be asking a question and thinking."

The painting acrylic and oil on linen depicts an angelic Jolie in the clouds, holding her newborn daughter, Shiloh, with children Maddox and Zahara at her legs. Below them is a Wal-Mart checkout line. The painting is for sale for $50,000 through Chelsea Galleria in Miami, which represents Kretz.

On her blog, Kretz, 43, said the painting addresses "the celebrity worship cycle." She said she chose Jolie for the subject "because of her unavoidable presence in the media, the worldwide anticipation of her child, her 'unattainable' beauty and the good that she is doing in the world through her example, which adds another layer to the already complicated questions surrounding her status."

Washington Post art critic Blake Gopnik, asked to comment about "Blessed Art Thou" on a Post blog, was unimpressed. "Once you've deciphered it, there's not much chance of giving it a second look," Gopnik wrote.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2776438

Amniotic Fluid Yields Stem Cells

2007-01-07T13:11:00.000-08:00

Scientists reported Sunday they had found a plentiful source of stem cells in the fluid that cushions babies in the womb and produced a variety of tissue types from these cells sidestepping the controversy over destroying embryos for research.

Researchers at Wake Forest University and Harvard University reported the stem cells they drew from amniotic fluid donated by pregnant women hold much the same promise as embryonic stem cells. They reported they were able to extract the stem cells without harm to mother or fetus and turn their discovery into several different tissue cell types, including brain, liver and bone.

"Our hope is that these cells will provide a valuable resource for tissue repair and for engineered organs as well," said Dr. Anthony Atala, head of Wake Forest's regenerative medicine institute and senior researcher on the project.

It took Atala's team some seven years of research to determine the cells they found were truly stem cells that "can be used to produce a broad range of cells that may be valuable for therapy."

However, the scientists noted they still don't know exactly how many different cell types can be made from the stem cells found in amniotic fluid. They also said that even preliminary tests in patients are years away.

Still, Atala said the research reported in the scientific journal Nature Biotechnology expands far beyond similar work discussed at a heart research conference in November. There, Swiss researcher Simon Hoerstrup said he managed to turn amniotic fluid stem cells into heart cells that could be grown into replacement valves. Hoerstrup has yet to publish his work in a scientific journal.

Atala said the new research has found even more promising stem cells with the potential to turn into many more medically useful replacement parts.

"We have other cell lines cooking," Atala said.

The hallmark of human embryonic stem cells, which are created in the first days after conception, is the ability to turn into any of the more than 220 cell types that make up the human body. Researchers are hopeful they can train these primordial cells to repair damaged organs in need of healthy cells.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=2776804

Sri Lanka detains 3 in bomb blasts

2007-01-07T09:24:00.000-08:00

Three people have been detained for questioning after bus bombs blamed on Tamil separatist rebels killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens more, Sri Lanka's Defense Ministry said Sunday. The insurgents have denied involvement.

The government meanwhile reaffirmed its commitment to the peace process and urged the rebels to resume negotiations.

Security forces said a Tamil rebel suicide bomber killed at least 15 people and wounded 40 more Saturday on a bus in the coastal town of Meetiyagoda, 95 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital, Colombo, and near several popular resort towns.

It was not clear if the dead bomber was included in the official death toll. Police could not immediately be reached early Sunday.

Less than 24 hours earlier, a bus bomb also blamed on the Tamil Tigers killed at least six people just northeast of Colombo.

Police detained three people late Saturday in connection with the blast earlier that day, an official at the Defense Ministry's Media Center for National Security said Sunday. The officer, who cannot be named due to military policy, had no other details.

The rebels, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, have been fighting for decades for an independent homeland for the Tamil ethnic minority in Sri Lanka's north and east, because of discrimination at the hands of the majority-Sinhalese government.

As a major foreign donor called for an end to the escalating violence that killed more than 3,600 in 2006, Sri Lanka's government urged a return to peace talks.

"The government reaffirms its total commitment to a peaceful settlement for the north and east," it said in statement released late Saturday.

"The government appeals to the international community to condemn such acts of terror and prevail on the LTTE to renounce violence and return to the negotiating table," it said.

Cowardly acts of terrorism'

Japan also called for change in a statement e-mailed to news organizations.

"These attacks, which deliberately targeted innocent common people, must be condemned as cowardly acts of terrorism, and such incidents must not be repeated in future," the Japanese Embassy said in a statement.

Police said Saturday's blast was triggered by a female Tamil rebel.

"There is a female body inside the bus, and looking at the damage the blast has caused around her, we suspect that she could have been a suicide bomber," said senior police official Upul Ariyaratne.

Violence has risen sharply in Sri Lanka over the past year, but most has occurred in the ethnic Tamil-dominated north and east, where the rebels run their own de facto state in some areas. The latest bloodshed appeared to signal an escalation of the ethnic conflict ravaging the South Asian island nation.

"The LTTE are losing their strength in the east. Because of this, they are targeting innocent civilians," said military spokesman Brig. Prasad Samarasinghe.

The rebels have made suicide bombings a hallmark of their two-decade campaign to carve out a separate state for minority Tamils.

Yet the rebels said they were not involved.

"We totally deny that. We did not do that, that's all I can say," the rebels' military spokesman, Rasiah Ilanthirayan, told The Associated Press by telephone from the group's northern stronghold, Kilinochchi.

On Wednesday, the rebels warned the government of "serious repercussions" for a government airstrike they said killed 16 Tamil civilians, including eight children, in a Tiger-controlled northwestern area. The military said it targeted only rebel positions in the raid Tuesday.

The renewed fighting has seriously threatened a 2002 cease-fire between the rebels and the government, although the truce still officially holds.

The civil war has claimed about 68,000 lives, and displaced 1.6 million people.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/01/07/srilanka.blasts.ap/index.html

Third snowstorm smacks Colorado

2007-01-06T20:06:00.000-08:00

now-weary Colorado was hammered with its third snowstorm in as many weeks, complicating recovery efforts from back-to-back blizzards and raising fears that livestock losses would keep mounting.

The Denver area was blanketed with up to 8 inches of snow Friday, while nearly a foot fell in the foothills west of the city before the storm moved into New Mexico.

In Kansas, an estimated 60,000 people were still without power after more than a week, and between 6,000 to 10,000 customers remained in the dark in Nebraska, according to Nebraska Public Power District.

Crews in Colorado worked around the clock to clear roads so residents could get to stores for food and medicine. Several school districts canceled classes because winds gusts up to 30 mph had reduced visibility.

The roofs of two buildings in hard-hit southeastern Colorado -- the Walsh post office and a restaurant in Elizabeth -- collapsed under the weight of the accumulated snow. No injuries were reported, the state Division of Emergency Management said.

Agriculture officials were trying to determine how to deal with the carcasses of thousands of livestock that were killed in last week's blizzard or starved afterward.

An estimated 3,500 cattle are believed to have died on rangeland in six southeastern Colorado counties alone, said Leonard Pruett, the region's agriculture extension agent for Colorado State University.

"The magnitude of the snow out here is astounding," said Ed Cordes, project manager for Pioneer Pork, which has about 7,500 sows and 4,000 young pigs on a ranch near Springfield, about 200 miles southeast of Denver.

American Humane Association workers arrived Friday to help rescue and feed young pigs that might have been orphaned because they became separated from their mothers or whose mothers' milk production declined, Cordes said.

Owners of feedlots, where range cattle are taken before slaughter, were still calculating their losses.

Luke Lind, a vice president of Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, which has 10 feedlots in Colorado, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma, said the mortality rate could be "significant," but he declined to give specific numbers. Five Rivers had 60,000 cattle in pens in the Lamar, Colorado, area alone, he said.

In a massive effort to save stranded rangeland cattle, the Colorado National Guard conducted a three-day airlift that dropped about 3,000 hay bales to herds spotted on the rangeland. Troops trucked in hay and smashed ice on watering holes for livestock trapped and weakened by the earlier blizzard.

While that likely saved livestock, the survivors still face the threat of lung infections from the stress of the storm and dehydration, Pruett said.

In Washington, Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Marilyn Musgrave introduced bills Friday to help speed financial aid to ranchers who have lost livestock in Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico and Oklahoma.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/01/06/winter.storms.ap/index.html

Bets off on Prince William wedding

2007-01-06T19:58:00.000-08:00

Shhh! Prince William, Britain's future king, will marry on July 19.

A British bookmaker has closed its books on William and Kate Middleton getting hitched on that day after it received a number of bets the couple will tie the knot then.

"We've taken a number of large bets -- one punter wanted to place a £1,000 bet -- that the couple will marry on July 19, so we're no longer accepting wagers on that day," a William Hill spokesman told Reuters.

William Hill stands to lose in excess of £50,000 if the couple marry in 2007 and more than £20,000 if they wed on July 19.

Earlier this week William and Kate were given an unusually high level of police security when 10 officers provided the couple with a cordon as they emerged from a London nightclub, fueling rumors of an imminent engagement announcement.

William and Kate shared a house as students at St. Andrews University in Scotland. From there, romance gradually blossomed.

Middleton, who turns 25 next week, is the daughter of affluent parents who sent her to private school and live in a five-bedroom house in the heart of the English countryside.

They run their own mail order party supplies company.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/01/06/william.wedding.reut/index.html

Japan's "Cup Noodle" king dies aged 96

2007-01-06T14:14:00.000-08:00

The Japanese inventor of instant noodles, a snack that has sold billions of servings worldwide since its launch, died on Friday at the age of 96, according to an official at Nissin Food Products Co. (2897.T: Quote, NEWS , Research), the company he founded.

Born in Taiwan in 1910 while it was under Japanese occupation, Momofuku Ando ran clothing and other companies in Taipei and Osaka early in his career.

He was inspired to develop the world's first instant noodle product after coming across a long line of people waiting to buy fresh "ramen" noodles from a black market stall during the food shortages after World War Two, Japanese media said.

After his Chicken Ramen product became hugely popular in 1958, despite a luxury price-tag of 35 yen, he went on to bring out the Cup Noodle in 1971.

Providing the instant noodles in a waterproof styrofoam container that could be used to cook them using just hot water proved a stroke of marketing genius that made the product a hit with time-pressed people around the world.

Ando remained in the public eye until recently -- appearing on television in 2005 to promote a version of the Cup Noodle adapted for astronauts to eat aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

Often seen devouring servings of the dish he invented, Ando opened a museum devoted to instant noodles in Osaka in 1999. Ando is survived by his wife, Masako.

Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2007-01-06T073249Z_01_T138929_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-INSTANT-NOODLES-JAPAN-DC.XML&from=business

EU urges U.S. to seize chance for global trade deal

2007-01-06T14:05:00.000-08:00

EU trade chief Peter Mandelson, preparing for talks in Washington on how to save world trade negotiations, urged Europe and the United States on Saturday to show political leadership to get a deal by April.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, leading a delegation to the U.S. capital, is to press the trade issue with President George W. Bush on Monday.

He will also urge Bush to do more on climate change, work more closely on securing energy supplies and the two will discuss Middle East peace efforts.

Mandelson is to meet U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, with whom he has swapped blame for July's suspension of the World Trade Organization's Doha round of talks to boost global trade. He said it was an opportunity to revive the process.

Mandelson said "quiet, constructive bilateral contacts" recently showed a possible outline of a final deal which must be reached in the coming months after which the round, already into its sixth year of talks, risks long delays.

"We have now entered a narrow window of opportunity lasting until Easter during which success for the world trade talks is possible," Mandelson said in a statement. "We now need the added momentum of political leadership from the highest level. Europe and the U.S. have a shared responsibility to make this happen."

U.S. officials say a breakthrough is unlikely on Monday
Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2007-01-06T181837Z_01_L06738339_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESSPRO-EU-USA-DC.XML&from=business

Oprah Winfrey targeted in extortion scheme: report

2007-01-06T13:57:00.000-08:00

An Atlanta man has been charged with trying to extort $1.5 million from Oprah Winfrey over tapes of telephone calls between him and a Winfrey employee that he said would embarrass the popular U.S. talk show host, according to court documents and media reports on Saturday.

Keifer Bonvillain is charged in federal court trying to extort money by threatening to injure a person's reputation, according to court documents.

A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago does not identify Winfrey, but refers to an "Individual A," as "a public figure and the owner of a Chicago-based company."

he Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune on Saturday identified Individual A as Winfrey -- whose Harpo Studios is based in Chicago. They cited unidentified sources close to the investigation.

Neither Winfrey, who was in South Africa opening a $40 million school for girls she had paid for, nor her press representatives could be reached immediately for comment.

According to the complaint, filed on December 14, Bonvillain first wrote to his target in October and said an employee was saying "awful things" about the individual.

Bonvillain then wrote to the person's business on November 17 and said he had tapes of conversations with the employee that would be embarrassing, according to the complaint. The court documents did not disclose the content of the tapes.
Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyid=2007-01-06T212840Z_01_N06270809_RTRUKOC_0_US-CRIME-OPRAH.xml&src=rss

Falling oil prices should aid drivers

2007-01-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK - U.S. drivers could start seeing lower prices at the pump as early as this weekend, thanks to the cascading price of crude oil and a seasonal dip in gasoline, analysts say.

A gallon of regular unleaded gasoline costs an average of $2.325 across the country, according to the AAA.

"That's probably going to be the highest price you pay in January," Oil Price Information Service analyst Tom Kloza said. "We're going to get a nice little energy price dividend in January: If you're buying heating oil, you're going to pay a lot less than last year, and we're definitely going to be paying less for gasoline than we did in December."

Gasoline prices typically fall in January amid weaker demand, Kloza said, before perking back up around .
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070105/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices

YouTube ordered to block video in Brazil

2007-01-05T12:11:00.000-08:00

SAO PAULO, Brazil - A Brazilian judge has ordered YouTube to find a way to stop Brazilians from viewing steamy footage of supermodel Daniela Cicarelli and her boyfriend on the highly trafficked video-sharing site, court officials said Thursday.

YouTube was first ordered in September to remove video showing Cicarelli and Brazilian banker Renato Malzoni in intimate scenes along a beach near the Spanish city of Cadiz.

But the clip still appears periodically on YouTube, prompting the expanded order from Sao Paulo state Supreme Court Justice Enio Santarelli Zuliani on Tuesday, the court's press office said in a statement.

Two Brazilian sites that ran the video of Cicarelli and Malzoni complied with the original order, the statement said.

Cicarelli is one of Brazil's best-known models. She hosts a show on Brazilian MTV and was previously engaged to Brazilian soccer great Ronaldo, who plays for the famed Real Madrid team of Spain.

The judge said YouTube must find a way to use filters so the clip stops popping up in Brazil on the site owned by Google Inc. Lawyer Rubens Decousseau Tilkian, who represents Cicarelli's boyfriend, said YouTube had not gone far enough to prevent access to the clip because people keep posting it using different names for the video.

"The Internet is democratic and has to be defended, but this struggle is to have some level of control to avoid the violations of people's fundamental rights, like privacy and intimacy," Tilkian said in a phone interview.

YouTube spokeswoman Jennifer Nielsen declined comment on the decision.

Links to the video appeared on YouTube Thursday, but efforts to access them from Brazil and the United States produced this message: "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation."

Though Zuliani is a judge in Brazil's most populous state of Sao Paulo, where Internet use is heaviest, he had the power to issue an order affecting all of Brazil, the court press office said.

The case now goes automatically to a three-member panel of judges who will decide whether to make the order permanent and whether to fine YouTube as much as $119,000 for each day that the video was viewable, Tilkian said.

The lawyer represented both Cicarelli and Malzoni in the first case when they won the order to have the links taken down. Malzoni decided to go forward with the second case seeking to ban YouTube in Brazil after the video kept reappearing, Tilkian said.

"The problem is that the system is failing," Tilkian said. "Our objective is simply to get this video off-line."

It's not YouTube's first brush with litigation, although disputes have often been over copyright. In July, independent news reporter Robert Tur sued YouTube in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, claiming footage of his was posted and circulated without his permission.

YouTube also deleted nearly 30,000 files after a Japanese entertainment trade group complained, and through negotiations with leading U.S. copyright holders agreed to deploy an audio-signature technology that can spot specific clips.

When it bought YouTube in November, Google set aside shares now worth about $220 million as a financial cushion to cover losses or possible legal bills for the frequent copyright violations on YouTube's video-sharing site.

Meanwhile, Google last September appealed a Brazilian federal judge's order to turn over information on users of the company's Orkut social-networking service.

Google insisted it already had complied with court requests to identify individuals accused of using Orkut to spread child pornography and engage in hate speech against blacks, Jews and homosexuals.

The company has said it is open to data requests from foreign governments as long as they comply with U.S. laws and are issued within the country in which the information is stored.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070105/ap_on_hi_te/brazil_youtube

Activity spotted at North Korea nuclear test site

2007-01-04T20:15:00.000-08:00

Another government official in Seoul said vehicle and personnel movement had been spotted near the site of the North's first test, Yonhap news agency reported.

That official said there were no signs of cables being laid or electronic monitors being installed, which might indicate a test was imminent.

AUSPICIOUS EVENT FOR NATION

The ABC report said intelligence was inconclusive, but the preparations in hand were similar to steps taken by North Korea before its October 9 test. Many analysts say that first test was not fully successful.

The two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and China failed in their latest round of talks in Beijing last month to make any progress in suspending the North's nuclear programs in exchange for aid and pledges not to attack it.

North Korea was rebuffed at those talks in its insistence that it be treated as a nuclear power.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said last week that North Korea has probably extracted more than 50 kg (110 lb.) of plutonium since 1994, with more than 30 kg obtained since 2003 while it was engaged in the six-country negotiations.

North Korea hailed its nuclear test as "an auspicious event for the nation" in editorials in official media to welcome the New Year, adding it would further boost its military strength.

"The DPRK's (North Korea's) nuclear deterrent serves as a powerful force for defending peace and security in Northeast Asia and guaranteeing the victorious advance of the cause of independence," one editorial said.

(Additional reporting by David Morgan, Arshad Mohammed and Paul Eckert in Washington and Kim Yeon-hee in Seoul)

Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2007-01-05T040428Z_01_WAT006794_RTRUKOC_0_US-KOREA-NORTH-TEST.xml&pageNumber=1&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage1

Moldovans rush for Romanian visas

2007-01-04T19:57:00.000-08:00

The Romanian consulate in the Moldovan capital Chisinau is overwhelmed with visa requests from Moldovans.

Romania introduced visa requirements on 1 January, the date it joined the European Union along with Bulgaria.

Moldovans who study in Romania or work abroad have paralysed the consulate's internet site - and it will be unable to clear the backlog before 15 January.

The Romanian foreign ministry says it will boost staff in Chisinau to deal with the applications.

More than 70% of Moldovans speak Romanian and many have family ties across the border in Romania.

Romania has asked the Moldovan authorities for permission to open two new consulates, in the towns of Balti and Cahul.

Moldovans working in EU countries with no embassy in Moldova need to get to Bucharest to renew work permits. Officials say students will get priority.

Correspondents say many Moldovan families rely on money sent back by relatives working abroad.

They say Moldovans resent the restrictions demanded by the EU, as Moldova was part of Romania until the end of World War II, when it was absorbed into the Soviet Union.

Before 2001, Moldovans did not need passports to enter Romania.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6231465.stm

Google, China Mobile cooperate on search services

2007-01-04T11:45:00.000-08:00

Google Inc., the world's top search engine, on Thursday said it is cooperating with China's top mobile carrier to provide mobile and Internet search services in the world's second-largest online market.

Google will provide online search technology to China Mobile, Google said in an announcement, adding that the service will be launched broadly in early 2007.

China ranks behind the United States as the world's second-largest Internet market with over 120 million users.

China Mobile Ltd. said it had 300 million users at the end of November.

Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2007-01-04T084850Z_01_SHA143531_RTRUKOC_0_US-GOOGLE-CHINA-CHINAMOBILE.xml&WTmodLoc=TechNewsHome_C2_technologyNews-3

2007 predicted to be world's warmest year

2007-01-04T08:04:00.000-08:00

This year is set to be the hottest on record worldwide due to global warming and the El Nino weather phenomenon, Britain's Meteorological Office said on Thursday.

The Met Office said the combination of factors would likely push average temperatures this year above the record set in 1998. 2006 is set to be the sixth warmest on record globally.

"This new information represents another warning that climate change is happening around the world," said Met Office scientist Katie Hopkins.

The world's 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1994 in a temperature record dating back a century and a half, according to the United Nations' weather agency.

Britain's Met Office makes a global forecast every January with the University of East Anglia, and said it expected the world's average temperature to be 0.54 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 long-term average of 14.0 degrees.

There is a 60 percent probability that 2007 will be as warm or warmer than the current warmest year, 1998, which itself was 0.52 degrees above the long-term average it said in a statement.

Most scientists agree that temperatures will rise by between two and six degrees Celsius this century due mainly to carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.
Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2007-01-04T113318Z_01_L03183156_RTRUKOC_0_US-CLIMATE-WARMEST.xml&src=rss