Exciting world

Mass Slaughtering of Whales

2009-05-29T01:20:00.000-07:00

More than 180 pilot whales were killed this week in the small town of Hvalvik in Faroe Islands during a traditional whale killing. Crowding the animals into a bay and killing them is an annual tradition for the Faroese who are descendents of Vikings, who eat pilot whales as a central part of their diet. The Faroese aren't involved in commercial whaling, so rather than selling the huge amounts of meat, they divide it evenly among their community.

Mexico detains 10 mayors for alleged drug ties

2009-05-27T04:21:00.000-07:00

AP – Mexican soldiers guard kidnapping suspects, from left to right, Mexican citizen Roman Roque, 18, U.S. …

MEXICO CITY – Federal forces detained 10 mayors and 18 other officials Tuesday for allegedly protecting one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels in an unprecedented anti-corruption sweep in the Pacific coast state of Michoacan.
Soldiers and federal agents fanned out across President Felipe Calderon's native state to carry out the operation, which an expert called a blow to politicians tied to traffickers in Michoacan.
The officials, who had been under investigation for six months, allegedly leaked sensitive information and provided protection to La Familia cartel, said Ricardo Najera, a spokesman for the federal Attorney General's Office. He declined to give more details to avoid compromising the case.
More than 200 federal agents burst into the state attorney general's office in Morelia to detain three of the officials.
Most of the mayors were from towns in a mountainous region where there have been numerous beheadings and federal agents recently found 22 methamphetamine laboratories. Among those detained was the mayor of Uruapan, where La Familia gunmen dumped five human heads on a bar dance floor in 2006, the Attorney General's Office said in a statement.
The mayors came from different parties, including Calderon's own conservative National Action Party.
The detentions of elected officials show how Mexican cartels have infiltrated the country's political structure and how far-reaching their control is in rural Mexico, said Victor Clark, an expert on trafficking based in the drug-plagued northern border city of Tijuana.
It also marks a first for the federal government, which has arrested scores of corrupt police officers in the past but has never gone after such a large group of mayors.
"This is a huge blow to the cartel. These ties are indispensable for the operation of these organizations," said Clark, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights in Tijuana. "But until now the government has never dared to touch the political classes tied to drug trafficking. For me this is an important step."
High-ranking state police officials and two municipal police chiefs were among those detained Tuesday, including state police academy director Mario Bautista and the state governor's adviser, Citlalli Fernandez, who also is the former public safety secretary, the Attorney General's Office said.
Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy said the federal forces had also sought the state attorney general for questioning but could not locate him during Tuesday's operation. Officials at the federal Attorney General's Office said they had no information about that claim.
Godoy criticized the federal government for not informing him about the arrests, but promised to cooperate with the investigation. He said any state government official under investigation would be asked to resign.
Meanwhile, the federal Public Safety Department paraded before the news media 11 suspected La Familia members who were detained late Monday and early Tuesday in the states of Michoacan and Mexico, among them a former Michoacan state police officer.
Najera declined to say whether those arrests were related to the Michoacan operation.
The sweep drives home Mexico's struggle to weed out corruption in its drug fight. Many local and federal police have been arrested on charges of protecting drug cartels since Calderon launched his nationwide crackdown on organized crime in 2006. More than 10,750 people have died in drug violence since the crackdown started.

_____
Associated Press Writer Julie Watson contributed to this report.

Swedish Red Cottage Up

2009-05-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

A helicopter was used on Tuesday, May 26, to lift a traditional Swedish red cottage with white corners into its place atop of the 85 meter high Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm. The red cottage, designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, will stand on top of the Globe throughout the summer.
(Reuters photos)

Georgians rally against Saakashvili

2009-05-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Burjanadze said 'the only thing we have to discuss with the authorities is their resignation [AFP]

More than 50,000 opposition supporters have rallied in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, to demand the resignation of Mikheil Saakashvili, the country's president.
"We will fight for this country - Saakashvili cannot stay as president," Nino Burjanadze, a former parliamentary speaker, told protesters at a stadium in the Georgian capital on Tuesday.
"The only thing we have to discuss with the authorities is their resignation."
Opponents accuse Saakashvili of mishandling Georgia's brief war with Russia last August over the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
They also accuse him of becoming increasingly autocratic since he came to power after the peaceful 2003 Rose Revolution.

War criticised
Burjanadze said: "Today, the Georgian people have shown to the world and to themselves that they're ready to struggle to the very end.
"You have frightened those who want to frighten you."
The crowd sang the national anthem in the stadium and observed a minute of silence for those who died during the war.
"Saakashvili must leave because he ceded our territories to the Russians," Natela Urashvili, a 49-year-old dentist, said.
The demonstrators later marched to the city's main cathedral, where opposition leaders held talks with the head of the country's Orthodox Church on how to proceed in the political standoff.
The Georgian opposition has been staging daily protests since April 9 in the biggest demonstrations against Saakashvili's rule since the conflict with Russia.
The Georgian leader has rejected resignation calls and offered to hold talks on democratic reforms.
The May 26 comemmoration, one of two main patriotic holidays in Georgia, marks the date that the country declared independence from Russia in 1918 and started a short-lived republic.

Source:Agencies

Patients killed in Turkish blaze

2009-05-26T11:09:00.000-07:00

Dozens of patients were evacuated when the fire broke out on Tuesday [AFP]

Eight people have died in a fire that broke out in a hospital in the northwestern Turkish city of Bursa.
Sahabettin Harputlu, the governor of Bursa province, said all the dead had been patients in the intensive care unit at the Sevket Yilmaz hospital.
The fire broke out early on Tuesday. Dozens of other patients and staff were rescued.
Harputlu told state television: "Firefighters quickly extinguished the fire and rescue workers evacuated 44 patients but unfortunately half of the 16 intensive care unit patients died."
"We don't know yet whether they were poisoned by smoke or died when life-supporting machines were left without power during the fire."
Several other patients suffered from smoke inhalation but all were in stable condition, authorities said.
Harputlu said a short circuit was believed to have caused the fire.

Source:Agencies

German court lifts ban on cannibal movie

2009-05-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

BERLIN (AP) - A German federal court on Tuesday overturned a ban on a movie inspired by the case of a confessed cannibal, ruling that the artistic freedom of the filmmakers trumped the cannibal's personal rights.
Screenings of the movie "Rohtenburg" were banned in March 2006—just before it was due to open in German theaters—after a lower court ruled that the film infringed the personal rights of Armin Meiwes.

Meiwes was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 2006 in a cannibal case that both fascinated and appalled Germany.
The makers of "Rohtenburg," directed by Martin Weisz and starring Thomas Kretschmann as a cannibal named Oliver Hartwin, argued that Meiwes' case did no more than provide inspiration for the movie.
Germany's Federal Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that the producers' right to artistic freedom outweighed Meiwes' personal rights, adding there was "a public interest in information" on the case.
The film did not misrepresent the facts of the case, which were in any case widely known, the court statement said.
Meiwes argued unsuccessfully during his trial that the 2001 death of Bernd Juergen Brandes should be classified as a mercy killing. He claimed that Brandes answered his Internet posting seeking a young man for "slaughter and consumption." He said Brandes wanted to be stabbed to death after drinking a bottle of cold medicine to lose consciousness.

Meiwes captured the killing on video.
It was not immediately clear whether the movie will now be screened in German theaters.

Airplane Restaurant

2009-05-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

A restaurant shaped like an airplane has opened its doors for customers in Nanjing, China. The restaurant serves Western food as well as hot pot.
(Reuters photos).

Prisoners' Cooking Competition

2009-05-26T10:32:00.000-07:00

Inmates in Singapore's Changi Prison participated on Tuesday, May 26, in a cooking competition. The winners will be rewarded with an opportunity to cook for visiting family members. The competition is organized by the Yellow Ribbon project, which hopes to encourage greater family and societal acceptance of ex-offenders.
(Reuters photos)

California Supreme Court upholds gay marriage ban

2009-05-26T10:24:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The California Supreme Court has upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, but it also decided that the estimated 18,000 gay couples who tied the knot before the law took effect will stay wed.
The decision Tuesday rejected an argument by gay rights activists that the ban revised the California constitution's equal protection clause to such a dramatic degree that it first needed the Legislature's approval
The announcement of the decision caused outcry among a sea of demonstrators who had gathered in front of the San Francisco courthouse awaiting the ruling.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)—The nation's most populous state stood poised to recapture the spotlight in the debate over gay marriage as California's highest court prepared to rule on the legality of a voter-approved ban on same-sex unions.
The California Supreme Court planned to hand down its decision Tuesday in a series of lawsuits seeking to overturn November's Proposition 8.
Gay rights advocates maintain the ballot measure so dramatically revised the state constitution's equal protection clause that it needed the Legislature's approval before it could be put to voters.
If the seven-member court upholds the initiative as a constitutional expression of the electorate's will, it also will be deciding whether to sustain the marriages of an estimated 18,000 gay couples who wed before the measure passed with 52 percent of the vote.
Proposition 8 superseded the Supreme Court's May 2008 ruling that legalized same-sex unions by changing the state constitution to outlaw them. In that 4-3 decision, the court majority invalidated California's marriage statutes, holding that denying same-sex couples the right to wed amounted to state-sanctioned discrimination.
But based on the skeptical questions raised during oral arguments, legal experts have doubted the same four justices would undermine California's powerful citizen initiative process by invalidating the new ban.
Since that March hearing, however, three other states—Iowa, Maine and Vermont—have joined Massachusetts and Connecticut in making same-sex marriage legal. The trend has offered gay rights advocates hope that the court might elect to make California the sixth state to extend marriage to gays and lesbians.
"Many of us are heading into Tuesday filled with both hope and determination," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. "And we need to be clear that regardless of how the court rules, we will need both for whatever the next steps are."
Gay rights advocates have scheduled marches throughout California and in several other states for Tuesday evening. Organizers say the gatherings will be celebratory if the court rules in their favor and angry if Proposition 8 is upheld.
Activists in the San Francisco Bay area, including several clergy members, said they planned to block the street outside the courthouse and to be arrested in a mass show of civil disobedience if the justices do not invalidate the measure.
"Words are not enough right now. We believe it's time to put our bodies on the line to show that separate is not equal," said Kip Williams, an activist with One Struggle, One Fight, a group that was launched in response to Proposition 8's passage.
In tense anticipation of the news to come, about 400 same-sex marriage supporters attended an interfaith prayer service held Monday night at San Francisco's Episcopal Grace Cathedral.
The Rev. Roland Stringfellow, with the Pacific School of Religion, said the service was meant to show how many communities of faith stand with gay couples on this issue. Among those to offer prayers were a Sikh mother, a Buddhist nun, a Jewish rabbi and Episcopal Bishop Marc Andrus.
Proposition 8's supporters, meanwhile, have not planned any organized events to accompany the decision. If a court majority invalidates the measure, angry voters would funnel their energy into unseating the justices who went along with the decision, predicted Frank Schubert, who managed the successful Yes on 8 campaign.
"If the court were to go as far as throwing it out, saying the people do not have the power to amend their constitution, then they are going to have to ultimately answer to the people," Schubert said.
One couple who will be anxiously awaiting the ruling are Karen Strauss and Ruth Borenstein, the lead plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits challenging Proposition 8.
The two women, partners for 17 years, had wanted to marry in the presence of their parents, who live in Florida. But Strauss' 84-year-old mother is dying of cancer, and they now realize she won't live long enough to attend their dream wedding no matter what.
"People who don't know us, who have nothing to lose by our decisions, had the opportunity to decide for us this most private and personal decision," said Strauss, 51, who will be across the country at her mother's bedside when the decision comes down. "That is a personally painful position to be in, whichever way it goes."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

France opens UAE military base

2009-05-26T03:20:00.000-07:00

France hopes the base will raise its profile in the Gulf, and could help it win defence contacts [AFP]

France has opened its first military base in the Gulf Arab region, with French officials saying the facility will strengthen efforts to battle piracy and defend trade.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, inaugurated the base, dubbed Peace Camp, in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.
Located in Abu Dhabi, the facility will host up to 500 troops stationed at three sites: a navy and logistical base, an air base housing three fighter planes and a training camp.
Speaking at a maritime security conference, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan, the UAE's president, called the deal "an important pillar of our foreign policy because it helps the stability in the Gulf region".
The base sits on the banks of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40 per cent of the world's crude oil is transported.
Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said that the naval base in Abu Dhabi was aimed at supporting and training France's allies in the region.
"Some 90 per cent of European trade traffic is by sea and we have to defend traffic and trade and we are interested in the Gulf and want to bring about the necessary balance in this region," he said.

Business interests
France will also play a role in combating piracy in the region.
"The naval base is also strategic for international security and stability. We assure maritime trade security in this region, the Mediterranean sea, the Gulf waters and the Indian Ocean," Kouchner said.
He declined to comment on whether the UAE had finalised a deal to buy Rafale fighter planes from France's Dassault Aviation.
Dassault said on Saturday it was in talks with the UAE on a possible order for its Rafale fighters, in what would be the first sale of the aircraft to a foreign buyer.
The Le Parisien newspaper reported on Saturday that France was finalising the sale of 60 Rafale jets in a deal worth $8-11bn, and that Sarkozy would personally push the issue during his visit to Abu Dhabi.
Dassault declined to confirm the figures and said only that an agreement might be reached this year.

Nuclear plans
France also hopes the base will strengthen its ties with the UAE, which plans to build a number of nuclear reactors to meet an expected need for an extra 40,000 megawatts of electricity by 2017.
France's Total, Suez, and state nuclear reactor maker Areva said last year they planned to develop two third-generation nuclear reactors in the UAE.
The Reuters news agency reported a source close to Sarkozy, who arrived in Abu Dhabi on Monday night, as saying that state-controlled power firm EDF would be joining the French consortium.
US firms GE and Westinghouse Electric are also hoping to compete for a share of the expected $40bn market.

Source:Agencies

Hague 'should drop Karadzic case'

2009-05-26T03:12:00.000-07:00

Karadzic faces 11 charges for genocide, war crime and crimes against humanity during the Bosnia war [EPA]

Lawyers for Radovan Karadzic have called on the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal to drop charges against him, saying he was promised immunity from prosecution by Richard Holbrooke, the US peace envoy.
Holbrooke assured the former Bosnian Serb leader in July 1996 that he would not face charges if he relinquished power and left public life, according to documents filed at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague, Netherlands, on Monday.
"Dr Karadzic honoured his part of the agreement. He now seeks to require the tribunal to honour Holbrooke's part," the motion read.
Karadzic faces 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities carried out during the 1992-5 Bosnia war.
The 63-year-old claims that Holbrooke made the promise during a meeting in Belgrade, Serbia's capital.

'Another lie'
Karadzic was not at the meeting, but those present, including Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serb president, Jovica Stanisic, his intelligence chief, Momlico Krajisnik, the Bosnian Serb assembly speaker and Aleksa Buha, the foreign minister, told him of the detail, according to the motion.
Holbrooke has denied the existence of such an agreement, describing Karadzic's claim as "no more than another lie from the most evil man in Europe".
Karadzic has said Krajisnik and Buha could give evidence that Holbrooke offered the deal and claims he has 15 witnesses who support the claim. Stanisic is considered to be too ill to make a statement.
Milosevic died in 2006 while being tried for war crimes.
Peter Robinson, Karadzic's legal adviser, said documents included in the motion, such as statements, articles and a US government cable, should be enough for the tribunal to hold a hearing on the claims of an offer of immunity.
"Our hope is that they will at least have an evidentiary hearing. It's convincing enough for an evidentiary hearing for sure," he said.

Prison threat
The tribunal has said that any such deal would not be binding and could not grant Karadzic immunity from prosecution.
Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton peace agreement that ended the Bosnian conflict, is now the US representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Karadzic would face life in prison if convicted of charges over events related to the three-and-a-half year siege of Sarajevo, which left 10,000 people dead, and the massacre of 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica in July 1995.
He was arrested on a Belgrade bus in July 2008, 13 years after he was first charged by the ICTY.
The tribunal entered not guilty pleas on Karadzic's behalf in March.

Source:Agencies

Blue whale

2009-05-26T02:46:00.000-07:00

The biggest animal in the world: weighs 200 kilograms

The best way to carry food

2009-05-26T02:18:00.000-07:00

Squirrel kung fu

2009-05-26T01:41:00.000-07:00

Acrobats

2009-05-26T01:29:00.000-07:00

Strange fish swimming in an acrobatic way

The strangest plane in the world

2009-05-26T01:13:00.000-07:00

Soyuz Ready for ISS Expedition(25/5/2009)

2009-05-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

The Soyuz TMA-15 spacecraft was transported on Monday, May 25, to Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in preparation for the scheduled 20th expedition to the International Space Station (ISS). During a 180-day mission, due in two days, the six-member crew will receive and unload three Russian Progress craft and a Japanese HTV-1 space freighter, conduct two spacewalks and carry out a series of scientific experiments. (Reuters photos)

Melbourne Breeds Endangered Penguins(25/5/2009)

2009-05-25T06:46:00.000-07:00

Sixteen new king and gentoo penguins arrived in Melbourne Aquarium on Monday, May 25, for a new breeding program. The Southern Ocean and Antarctic aquarium in central Melbourne is famous for breeding programs of endangered sea species.

Iran sends six warships to international waters

2009-05-25T05:30:00.000-07:00

Iran has sent six warships to international waters, including the Gulf of Aden, to show its ability to confront any foreign threats, its naval commander said on Monday.
Monday, 25 May 2009 14:16

Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, quoted by the ISNA news agency, made the announcement five days after Iran said it test-fired a surface-to-surface missile with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles).
Iran said on May 14 it had sent two warships to the Gulf of Aden to protect oil tankers from the world's fifth-largest crude exporter against attacks by pirates but ISNA did not make clear whether they were among the six Sayyari talked about.
Iranian waters stretch along the Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman. Iran has threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 40 percent of the world's traded oil is shipped, if it were attacked over its nuclear programme.
"Iran has dispatched six ... warships to international waters and the Gulf of Aden region in an historically unprecedented move by the Iranian Navy," Sayyari told a gathering of armed forces officials, IRNA reported. Sayyari said that preserving Iran's territorial integrity in its southern waters called for the "perseverance and firmness" of the navy.
The move to dispatch the warships "is indicative of the country's high military capability in confronting any foreign threat on the country's shores," Sayyari said.
The ISNA report did not mention the threat of pirate attacks, which, fuelled by large ransoms, have continued almost unabated despite the presence of an armada of foreign warships patrolling the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.
In January, pirates released an Iranian-chartered cargo ship carrying 36,000 tonnes of wheat to Iran from Germany that was seized in November. In March, a regional maritime official said Somali villagers had detained another Iranian vessel.

Nearly 20,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden each year, heading to and from the Suez Canal. Seven percent of world oil consumption passed through the Gulf of Aden in 2007, according to Lloyd's Marine Intelligence Unit.

Reuters

North Korea conducts nuclear test

2009-05-25T03:27:00.000-07:00

The latest North Korean test is likely to inflame already strained relations in the region [Reuters]

North Korea has announced it has conducted a successful nuclear test, as it steps up what it says are moves to strengthen its nuclear deterrent.
The underground test on Monday morning local time was followed shortly afterwards by reports from South Korea that the North had also tested three short-range missiles.
Barack Obama, the US president, has condemned the North Korean test as a "threat to international peace" and said it warrants action by the international community.
Announcing the nuclear test, North Korea's second, state media said the explosion had raised the explosive power of its nuclear weapons arsenal.
"We have successfully conducted another nuclear test on May 25 as part of the republic's measures to strengthen its nuclear deterrent," the official KCNA news agency said.
It said the test would "contribute to defending the sovereignty of the country and the nation and socialism and ensuring peace and security on the Korean Peninsula."

The statement said the test was conducted "on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control".
Russia later said it believed the explosion from the test had a yield of 10-20 kilotonnes - about the same as the US bombs used against the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War Two.
The test is a dramatic escalation of the stakes in the long-running stand-off over North Korea's nuclear programme, with Japan warning that the North's move was a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
"We will definitely not tolerate it," Takeo Kawamura, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, told reporters in Tokyo.
The Security Council is expected to hold an emergency session on Monday in New York to discuss the test, Russia's ambassador to the UN has said.

'Seismic event'
Earlier the US Geological Survey (USGS) said it had detected a magnitude 4.7 tremor in North Korea at 0954 local time (OO54GMT) on Monday, indicating that a nuclear test may have taken place.

The area is not seismically active.
The USGS located the epicentre of the tremor near the town of Kilchu about 375km northeast of the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
The site is close to where North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in October 2006.
Susan Potter a geophysicist based at the US National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado told Al Jazeera the tremor had been a "relatively shallow seismic event".
She said the October 2006 test had registered a somewhat weaker tremor of magnitude 4.3.
At the time of the 2006 test experts said the apparently relatively low yield of the device indicated it may not have exploded correctly.

Sanctions

The latest North Korean test is likely to trigger calls for a tightening of sanctions against North Korea, although what those might be is not clear as existing measures have had little effect.
China, North Korea's closest ally and a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, is likely to oppose stronger sanctions as part of any new UN resolution.
However, analysts say China is likely to be angered by the North Korean test and will look for other ways to put pressure on Pyongyang.
Beijing has not yet given any official reaction to the test, but Al Jazeera's Beijing correspondent Tony Cheng said any public reaction was likely to be muted.
However, he said the last thing that Beijing wants to see is an escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula.
The test comes amid escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula and less than two months after North Korea's controversial rocket launch in early April.
North Korea says the launch put a satellite into orbit, but the US has said it believes the launch was a cover for a test of the North's long-range missile technology.
The April 5 rocket launch triggered condemnation from the Security Council, in turn provoking an angry reaction from the North, which said it was pulling out of nuclear disarmament talks and restarting its weapons programme.
It had also repeatedly threatened to conduct a new nuclear test.

'Arms race'
North Korea is believed to have extracted enough weapons grade plutonium for about eight bombs and has said it will restart its mothballed nuclear plant at Yongbyon to produce more.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ron Huisken, a nuclear non-proliferation expert at the Australian National University, said that through Monday's test North Korea had signalled a determination to remain committed to its nuclear weapons capability.
But he said the test did not signify an immediate danger.
"North Korea can't actually do anything at this point," he said.
"To the best of our knowledge, it hasn't actually weaponised its nuclear material. Certainly it hasn't miniaturised it to the point where you can put a bomb on an airplane or – even more technically demanding – on top of a missile."
Donald Kirk, a Korea expert based in the South Korean capital, Seoul, said Monday's test was designed to draw international attention and fortify "North Korea's claim to be the ninth nuclear power".
He added that the test was also certain to raise tensions in the region and "raises the spectre of a nuclear arms race in northeast Asia" with Japan Taiwan and South Korea, among others, possibly tempted to develop their own nuclear weapons.

Source:Al Jazeera and agencies

Timeline: N Korea's bomb programme

2009-05-25T03:20:00.000-07:00

Key dates in the history of nuclear weapons development in North Korea:
1986: North Korea begins operations of a 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon built with Soviet help.

1993: North Korea announces it will quit the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, later suspends its withdrawal.

1994: North Korea and the United States sign an agreement in Geneva. The North pledges to freeze - and eventually dismantle - its plutonium-based nuclear weapons programme in exchange for help building two power-producing nuclear reactors.

September 17, 1999: Bill Clinton, the US president, agrees to first major easing of economic sanctions against North Korea since the Korean War's end in 1953.

October 23-24, 2000: Madeleine Albright, the US secretary of state, visits Pyongyang, the highest-ranking US official ever to visit North Korea.

January 29, 2002: George Bush, the US president, labels North Korea, Iran and Iraq an "axis of evil."

October 4, 2002: North Korea tells visiting US delegation it has a uranium enrichment programme, Washington says.

November 11, 2002: US and Asian allies - Japan, South Korea - halt oil supplies to the North promised in the 1994 deal and suspend construction of two new reactors.

January 10, 2003: North Korea says it will withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

August 27-29, 2003: North Korea joins first round of six-nation talks, involving envoys from China, Japan, Russia, the US and South Korea.

February 25-28, 2004: Second round of six-nation talks.
June 23-26, 2004: Third round of six-nation talks.

February 10, 2005: North Korea announces it has nuclear weapons.

July 26, 2005: Fourth round of six-nation talks is held, ending in recess after 13 days with no agreement.

September 13, 2005: Six-nation talks resume.

September 15, 2005: US blacklists Macau-based bank for alleged counterfeiting and money-laundering by North Korea, leading the bank to freeze North Korean assets.

September 19, 2005: North Korea promises to dismantle nuclear programmes in exchange for pledges of energy assistance; US says it has no plans to invade, and will respect North's sovereignty in an agreement ending talks.

November 9-11, 2005: Fifth round of six-nation talks.

January 3, 2006: North Korea says it will not return to talks unless the US lifts financial restrictions imposed in 2005.

July 5, 2006: North Korea launches seven missiles - including a long-range model - into the Sea of Japan, drawing international condemnation and a UN Security Council resolution condemning the act.

October 9, 2006: North Korea says it has conducted its first-ever nuclear test.

October 14, 2006: UN Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution imposing wide-ranging economic and diplomatic sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test.

December 18-22, 2006: Six nations envoys meet in wake of nuclear test, no breakthrough made.

January 16-18, 2007: US and North Korean envoys meet in Berlin.

February 8-13, 2007: Six-nation talks resume in Beijing, a tentative agreement on
disarming Pyongyang is reached. The draft plan contains commitments on disarmament and energy aid along with "initial actions" to be taken by certain deadlines.

July 14, 2007: North Korea says it has shut down the Yongbyon reactor.

September 6, 2007: Israeli plans attack and destroy a site in Syria. After months of speculation the US later says the site was a nuclear reactor under construction with North Korean help, following a design similar to the Yongbyon plant.

November 2007: North Korea begins disabling Yongbyon reactor under surpervision of international - including US - experts.

December 31, 2007: North Korea misses agreed deadline for it to submit a full declaration of all its nuclear activities.

May 2008: North Korea hands US officials more than 18,000 pages of records on the Yongbyon plant. The US later says it will provide 50,000 tons of much-needed food aid to North Korea as a humanitarian gesture.

June 26, 2008: North Korea hands over much-delayed declaration of nuclear activities. US announces it will remove North Korea from list of state sponsors of terrorism.

June 27, 2008: In a symbolic gesture of its commitment to ending its nuclear programme, North Korea destroys the cooling tower at its Yongbyon nuclear plant. The reactor itself had already been disabled.

July 12, 2008: Negotiators from six nations agree on steps to verify nuclear disarmament. North Korea is to finish disabling Yongbyon by the end of October while the US, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea would complete deliveries of fuel oil and other economic aid.

July 24, 2008: Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, and Pak Ui-chun, North Korea's foreign minister, meet during the highest level of diplomatic contact between the two countries in four years, to reaffirm commitments to nuclear disablement.

August 26, 2008: North Korea announces reversal of disablement work at Yongbyon facilities in response to the US' refusal to remove Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

October 11, 2008: The US says it will take the North off the list following a verbal agreement it will continue dismantling the nuclear plant.

February 23, 2009: Sorth Korea says North Korea has a new type of ballistic missile capable of reaching northern Australia and the Pacific island of Guam.

April 5, 2009: North Korea launches a rocket carrying what it insists is a communications satellite, but the move draws accusations it was testing a long-range missile. The UN Security Council responds by imposing further sanctions.

April 14-25, 2009: North Korea announces move to quit six-party nuclear talks and re-start operations at partly-disabled Yongbyon. It also expelled UN inspectors, and later announced that the reprocessing of spent fuel rods has begun.

April 29, 2009: Angered by criticisms over its rocket launch, the North threatens to conduct nuclear test and test long-range ballistic missile unless the UN Security Council apologises for imposing sanctions.

May 7-12, 2009: Special US envoy on North Korea visits Asia, saying Washington is ready for direct talks with Pyongyang. But the North dismisses the offer as useless, citing the US' "hostile policy".

May 25, 2009: North Korea confirms successful underground nuclear test, raising the explosive power and level of control of its nuclear device. The test raises regional tensions and draws international condemnation.

Source:Al Jazeera

Iran blocks access to Facebook

2009-05-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

Ahmadinejad is said to face a difficult task in being re-elected next month [AFP]

Iran has blocked its citizens from accessing the social networking site Facebook as the country prepares for next month's presidential election.Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, a leading reformist candidate, suggested on Sunday that the move was aimed at reducing opposition to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current president.
"Every single media outlet that is seen as competition for Ahmadinejad is at risk of being closed," Shahab Tabatabaei, a senior aide for Mousavi, said.
"Placing limits on the competition is the top priority of the government."
Tabatabaei said the block was "a swift reaction" to a Mousavi campaign rally on Saturday that had been attended by young Iranians waving green banners and scarves - the symbolic color of the Mousavi campaign.

you vote

Social networking sites and blogs have become an important campaign tools for Mousavi as he aims to mobilise Iran's youth vote for the June 12 election.

There are a number of pages on Facebook dedicated to Mousavi, one of which has more than 6,000 supporters.
Mousavi himself has posted a comment on the site saying: "Ahmadinejad's government has dishonoured Iranians across the world".
"Facebook is one of the only independent sources that the Iranian youth could use to communicate," Mohammed Ali Abtahi, a former vice-president and now adviser to Mahdi Karroubi, another pro-reform candidate.
He said that the blocking of Facebook - and possibly other websites popular with reformists - would leave Iranians "forced to rely on government sources".
Those supporting Mousavi have said that they will use email to disseminate news of the banning.

'Sharing and expression'

Facebook, based in the US, said that they had received reports that their site had been barred and that they were investigating the issue.
"We are disappointed to learn of reports that users in Iran may not have access to Facebook, especially at a time when voters are turning to the internet as a source of information about election candidates and their positions," Elizabeth Linder, a spokeswoman for the website, said.
"It is always a shame when a country's cultural and political concerns lead to limits being placed on the opportunity for

sharing and expression that the internet provides."
Mousavi is a former prime minster and one of three candidates running against incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mohsen Rezaie, a former head of the Revolutionary Guard is the fourth candidate standing.
Ahmadinejad is expected to face a tough challenge in being re-elected, with a poor economic record at home and the international tensions created by his remarks about other countries.

Source:Agencies

Eleven die in stampede at Morocco concert

2009-05-24T12:14:00.000-07:00

Mawazine music festival ends in tragedy

The stampede caused a fence to give way, killing five women, two teenagers and four men

RABAT (Agencies)

Eleven people were killed in a stampede at a stadium in the Moroccan capital Rabat overnight when thousands of spectators hurried to leave at the end of a concert wrapping up the city's landmark music festival.

The stampede caused a fence to give way, killing five women, two teenagers and four men. Forty people were injured, eight of them seriously.

The victims were among some 70,200 spectators at the Hay Nahda stadium to see home favorite Abdelaziz Stati sing at a concert which was part of the Mawazine (Rhythms) festival -- opened on May 15 by Australian pop icon Kylie Minogue.

"An investigation is under way to establish the exact causes and circumstances of the incident," the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The concert was part of a week-long annual Mawazine music festival in Rabat which ended in the early hours of Sunday.

is one of a growing number of well-funded music festivals aimed at promoting an image of tolerance and modernity in the Muslim north African kingdom.This year's festival featured Kylie Minogue, Ennio Morricone, Khaled, Alicia Keys and Algerian diva Warda al Jazairia, and drew tens of thousands of spectators.Mawazine, which is backed by King Mohammed, aims to liven up the sleepy capital Rabat and ward off the growing cultural influence of powerful opposition Islamists.

Moroccan Islamist politicians have denounced pop concerts as encouraging immoral behavior.

They argue it would be better to spend the money to create jobs

Austria's Spring Parade

2009-05-24T12:05:00.000-07:00

The mountainous region of Ausseerland celebrates on May 21-24 the 50th anniversary of the Daffodil Festival. The carnival sees the Daffodil Queen and the famous car and boat parades. The annual event, first organized in 1960, has become a highlight of the spring season and the largest flower festival in Austria.

Kuwait reports swine flu cases in US soldiers

2009-05-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

US soldiers quarantined in their military base: minister

KUWAIT (AlArabiya.net)

Kuwait confirmed on Saturday its first H1N1 flu cases in U.S. soldiers transiting through the country, the state news agency KUNA reported, citing a government official.

The virus was detected in 18 soldiers and those of them still in the country were “completely quarantined” in their military base, Health Undersecretary Ibrahim Al-Abdulhadi told KUNA.

Abdulhadi said health officials discovered that the U.S. soldiers were infected with swine flu once they arrived in Kuwait and they were given appropriate medication.

“Most of the soldiers left Kuwait already and the rest are treated in a military hospital,” whose name and location were not mentioned, and they would be leaving the country later, said Abdulhadi.

He told KUNA that the Health Ministry would held a press conference on Sunday to release more details about the issue.

Last week Turkey and India reported their first “swine” flu cases in two travelers flying from the United States.

India said the infected man it identified had changed planes in Dubai in his way from the United States and that all passengers who flew on the same plane to India were being contacted.

The World Health Organization is poised to declare a full pandemic of the H1N1 swine flu virus, which has infected more than 11,000 people in 42 countries and killed 86.

Arrests over Cairo bomb attack

2009-05-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

The arrests relate to a bombing that targeted tourists in a Cairo neighbourhood in February [EPA]

Egypt has detained seven people suspected of involvement in a bomb attack in a popular Cairo tourist area that killed a French teenager in February, according to the interior ministry.
In a statement released on Saturday, the ministry identified the group as the Palestinian Army of Islam.
"(Police) were able through information received and surveillance, to identify a group, some of them Egyptians and others foreigners, affiliated with al-Qaeda ... and seven of them were arrested," it said.
Those arrested included two Palestinians, two Egyptians, a British-Egyptian, a Belgian-Tunisian and a French-Albanian.
The ministry said members of the cell, led by two Egyptians living abroad, were found in possession of weapons and explosives.

'Outside' connection
"(The cell) worked on organising terrorist operations in the country and outside," the Egyptian interior ministry statement said.
"Some members were commissioned to enter Gaza to receive advanced training in explosives preparation ... before returning to the country."
Quoting Egyptian officials, Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh in Cairo said that the suspects were allegedly planning to attack tourist resorts in Sinai as well as oil pipelines connecting Egypt with Israel.
"The authorities also say that the Belgian suspect of Tunisian origin confessed that [the suspects] were planning to carry out an attack in France," she said.
"The authorities say they are on the lookout for more suspects who are on the run over and

above the seven in custody."

February bombing
Egyptian officials said 24 people, mostly tourists, were injured in the February bombing in addition to the French fatality.
It was the first deadly attack on tourists in the country since bombs killed at least 23 people at a resort in the Sinai peninsula in 2006.
Cairo initially blamed that attack on bedouins with militant views.
Anti-government groups have sporadically struck tourist targets in recent years through bomb and shooting attacks, damaging an industry that is one of Egypt's main sources of revenue.
Many Arabs accuse Egypt of helping Israel to enforce a blockade on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip by not opening its borders to allow people and supplies in and out of the Strip.

Source:Al Jazeera and agencies

Mexico's Teotihuacan

2009-05-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

Following a century of exploration and research, Mexico removed the curtains to show the world its astounding "Teotihuacan, City of Gods" exhibition in Mexico City's anthropology museum. With more than 400 pieces on display until August 29, the exhibition shows pre-Hispanic figures representing political and various aspects of the old city.

Painting without a painter

2009-05-23T09:14:00.000-07:00

A new way of painting

Embattled SKorean ex-president jumps to his death

2009-05-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

AP – Police officers gather in front of home of former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun located at the

SEOUL, South Korea – Former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun — whose hard-won reputation as a corruption fighter was tarnished by bribery allegations that drew in his family and closest associates — jumped to his death Saturday while hiking in the mountains behind his rural home. He was 62.
After leaving his family a suicide note, Roh threw himself off a steep cliff around 6:40 a.m., police and lawyer Moon Jae-in said in the southern port city of Busan.
"I'm indebted to too many people. Too many people are suffering because of me," Roh wrote in the note left on his computer. "Don't be sorry; don't blame anybody. It's destiny." He asked to be cremated and a small gravestone erected in his hometown.
A self-taught lawyer who lifted himself out of poverty to reach the nation's highest office in 2003, Roh had prided himself on being a "clean" politician in a country with a long history of corruption. Recent allegations that he accepted $6 million in bribes from a Seoul businessman were deeply troubling to the ex-leader.
"I have no face to show to the people. I am sorry for disappointing you," an emotional Roh said last month before turning himself over to Seoul prosecutors who grilled him for 13 hours about the allegations.
His suicide — the first in South Korea by an ex-president — stunned the nation. South Koreans nationwide huddled around TV screens watching news broadcasts. Supporters flooded his Web site with condolences.
"I was utterly shocked," said Chun Soon-im, 63, of Seoul. "They say 'hate the sin but not the sinner,' and that's how I feel. The investigation must continue and we must get to the truth, but I cannot help feeling sorry for the man and those left behind."
Roh denied the bribery allegations against him during questioning April 30 and May 1, prosecution spokesman Cho Eun-sok said.
His supporters claimed the probe was politically motivated by conservative opponents.
Roh had acknowledged that local shoe manufacturer Park Yeon-cha gave his wife $1 million, but suggested it was not a bribe. He also said he was aware Park gave $5 million to another relative but said he thought it was an investment. Prosecutors suspect the $6 million was eventually conveyed to Roh.
Several former aides and associates also have been questioned as part of the probe into Park, who was indicted in December on separate bribery and tax evasion charges. Roh's elder brother was sentenced last week to four years in prison in another bribery scandal.
Justice Minister Kim Kyung-han declared the investigation into Roh closed. It was unclear where the probe into family members stands.
President Lee Myung-bak said Roh's "sad and tragic" death was "truly hard to believe," spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said.
Roh, who lived in Bongha, some 280 miles (450 kilometers) south of Seoul, had gone for a walk accompanied by a security guard, Busan police said.
Part way up, Roh hurled himself off a 100-foot (30-meter) -high cliff known as Owl's Rock, suffering multiple injuries, police said. He was rushed to a local hospital before being transferred to Busan National University Hospital, where he was declared dead several hours later.
Later Saturday, mourners wailed as Roh's coffin, draped in dark red, arrived in Bongha. His two children, sobbing, followed the casket to the village community center.
In central Seoul, some 500 people held a quiet candlelight memorial service at a makeshift mourning site, some offering white chrysanthemums, a traditional Korean symbol of grief, and burning incense for Roh.
Roh's death was a tragic end for the son of farmers who never attended college but still managed to pass the country's competitive bar exam in 1975.
He built his reputation defending students accused of sedition under previous military-backed administrations, and once was arrested and his law license suspended for supporting an outlawed labor protest.
His political career took off with his election as a liberal lawmaker to the National Assembly in 1988. Roh's ascension to the presidency came in a surprise 2002 election win on a campaign pledge not to "kowtow" to the United States, which resonated with young voters.
He maintained predecessor President Kim Dae-jung's "sunshine policy" of offering North Korea aid as way to facilitate reconciliation, holding a summit in Pyongyang with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in 2007, the second such meeting between leaders of the two countries that technically remain at war.
Though criticized as standoffish and confrontational by some, he was praised by others as a candid leader who cared for the underprivileged and fought against corruption. Roh was the first South Korean president with an Internet fan club.
But in 2004, Roh urged voters to support candidates from his Uri Party — a violation of political neutrality laws. He became the first South Korean president impeached over the violation, but was reinstated several months later after a court ruled against the impeachment.
"He shocked us twice: first, by betraying our trust in him as the keeper of justice when it was revealed that he'd received the illegitimate money; now, in showing that he was not even responsible enough to face the consequences of his action," said Kim Hye-jung, 35, of Seoul. "As a supporter of the values he stood for, I feel greatly let down."
Roh is survived by his wife, Kwon Yang-sook, son Roh Gun-ho and daughter Roh Jeong-yeon. Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.
___
Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang, Hyung-jin Kim, Kwang-tae Kim and ShinWoo Kang contributed to this report

A slap on the face

2009-05-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

A slow motion of a slap and its impact on the face

I Am Earth

2009-05-23T07:53:00.000-07:00

Winner of MBC2s Movies in Motion competition for student filmmakers

Text Book Hero

2009-05-23T07:22:00.000-07:00

Winner of MBC2s Movies in Motion competition for student filmmakers

Protesting Tamils Die Hard (23/5/2009)

2009-05-23T06:18:00.000-07:00

Following the military defeat of the Tamil Tigers, hundreds of the world's Tamil diaspora are mobilizing for a new phase in their struggle. One of those protests were witnessed in central Sydney streets as about 1000 pro-Tamil demonstrators halted traffic on Saturday, May 23.

Canada convicts Rwandan of genocide

2009-05-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

The UN estimates that more than 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died in the genocide [File: AFP]

A court in Canada has found a former Rwandan militia leader guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide for his role in murders, torture and rape during the slaughter of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Desire Munyaneza could face life imprisonment after a Quebec Superior Court convicted him on Friday.
"Desire Munyaneza intentionally killed dozens in Butare and its surroundings that were not directly involved in the conflict, raped several women, and pillaged homes and businesses of people who also had nothing to do with the unrest," Andre Denis, the judge, said.
"As such, you have been found guilty of committing war crimes as defined under Canadian law," he said to the accused.
Munyaneza was the first person to be tried under Canada's Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, which allows residents to be tried for crimes committed abroad.

Witnesses Munyaneza's two-year trial heard from 66 witnesses in Canada, France, Rwanda and Tanzania.
The court was told that Munyaneza, the son of a wealthy Hutu beer distributor, set up roadblocks in southern Rwanda to select Tutsis and moderate Hutu as victims based on their ethnicity or allegiances.
One man who was imprisoned in Rwanda for his own role in the genocide testified that Munyaneza orchestrated the massacre of between 300 and 400 Tutsis in a church.
"The accused's criminal intent was demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt, as was his culpable violence," Denis wrote in his judgement.The UN estimates that more than 800,000 people were killed during the violence.
"I'm very happy he was found guilty. I want to thank and congratulate Canada," Caesar Gashabeze, a survivor of the genocide, said.
"We have been waiting for this."AppealThe defence said it would appeal the conviction after repeatedly questioning the testimony of witnesses and highlighting the fact that most were unable to identify Munyaneza's prominnent facial scar.
"The evidence did not justify a conviction," Richard Perras, Munyaneza's lawyer, said. Munyaneza was arrested in Toronto in 2005 after seeking asylum in Canada, which Canadian immigration officials rejected.

He had fled to Cameroon after the genocide.The prosecutor said that the case illustrated Canada's commitment to bringing war criminals to justice.
"The case was very challenging as it involved events dating back 15 years in a foreign country, Rwanda," Pascale Ledoux said.

Munyaneza will be sentenced in September.

Source:Al Jazeera and agencies

FBI arrests four planning terror attacks in NYC

2009-05-23T03:26:00.000-07:00

Burj Dubai Fountains

2009-05-23T02:56:00.000-07:00

Burj Dubai Fountains in Mall Dubai

Scientists in New York unveil “missing link”

2009-05-23T02:05:00.000-07:00

Scientists in New York unveil “missing link”

2009-05-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

47 million year old fossil linked to human ancestors

Bearing a long tail "Ida" had several human characteristics

NEW YORK (Agencies)

Scientists on Tuesday unveiled the well preserved fossilized remains found in Germany of a primate from 47 million years ago that may have been a close relative of the common ancestor of monkeys, apes and people.The primate, which was two feet (58 cm) from the tip of its nose to the end of its tail, was a female that died before its first birthday,said Norwegian paleontologist Jorn Hurum, who led a team of scientists, who analyzed the fossil in the past two years, said.

It was called Darwinius masillae in honor of Charles Darwin, who advanced the theory of evolution, but nicknamed Ida.

The finding, described Tuesday in a scientific journal, was displayed at a press conference at New York's Natural History Museum, and is due to be the subject of a documentary on the History Channel, BBC and other broadcasters.

Organizers said that scientists led first discovered Ida in 1983 by private collectors who failed to understand her importance -- and split the bones into two lots.

The monkey-like creature was preserved through the ages in Germany's Messel Pit, a crater rich in Eocene Epoch fossils.

Although bearing a long tail, she had several human characteristics, including an opposable thumb, short arms and legs, and forward facing eyes.

She also lacked two key elements of modern lemurs: a grooming claw and a row of lower teeth known as the toothcomb."This is the first link to all humans -- truly a fossil that links world heritage," Hurum said in a statement.

David Attenborough, the renowned British naturalist and broadcaster, said the "little creature is going to show us our connection with all the rest of the mammals."

"The link they would have said until now is missing... it is no longer missing," he said.

Iran's Presidential Race Heats Up

2009-05-23T01:19:00.000-07:00

As the Iranian presidential race gets its final touches, supporters of Iran's presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi swarmed to Tehran streets distributing his electoral posters. The June 12 poll will pit incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against Mousavi, Mohsen Rezai and Mehdi Karroubi who were all approved by Iran's powerful 12-member Guardians Council.
(Reuters' photos)

Monks Rally for Myanmar Opposition Leader

2009-05-23T01:13:00.000-07:00

Scores of Myanmarese monks took to the streets outside the UN office in the Thai capital Bangkok on Friday, May 22, 2009, calling for ending the trial of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The trial, which entered its fifth day on Friday, has sparked outrage in the West, and the European Union is considering tougher sanctions against the military government.
(Reuters' photos)

Rapper T.I. coming to Arkansas _ for prison term

2009-05-15T23:36:00.000-07:00

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Rapper T.I. will be coming to Arkansas - to serve a federal prison sentence.

T.I., whose real name is Clifford J. Harris Jr., must report to Forrest City's low-security federal prison by noon on May 26, according to court filings. There, Harris will join 1,500 other inmates as he serves a year-and-one-day prison sentence after pleading guilty in March to federal weapons charges in Atlanta.
The rapper, the self-proclaimed "King of the South," had faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each charge in his three-count indictment.
Harris will be credited for 305 days of home detention he already has served after being charged, so his stay at the Forrest City prison likely will be only two months.
R.D. Weeks, a spokesman for the prison, said Harris likely would be treated like any other prisoner coming into the facility.
"Unless there are custody or security concerns, all incoming inmates are placed in general population," Weeks told The Associated Press.
Weeks said each cell at the prison is double-bunked. Harris also will have the opportunity to use the recreation yard, as well as take part in counseling or participate in the one of the facility's 14 religious groups, Week said.
Harris, 28, was arrested after after trying to buy unregistered machine guns and silencers from undercover federal agents in 2007. That came after Harris' best friend was killed following a post-performance party in Cincinnati in 2006. The rapper has said the bullets that killed his friend were meant for him.
Upon his release, Harris will be on probation for three years. He also must pay a $100,000 fine as part of his sentence.
Harris' sixth album, "Paper Trail," has sold about 2 million copies and the rapper earned a Grammy for the song "Swagga Like Us" that he performed with Jay-Z. Harris wrote the lyrics for the album while awaiting trial.

Violence erupts in Brazil slum

2009-05-15T13:47:00.000-07:00

Firefighters battled to put out fires set byangry residents [Bandeirantes TV]

Police in Brazil have increased patrols in one of the nation's biggest slums in the cityof Sao Paulo after violence erupted on Wednesday night following the arrest of three alleged drug dealers.
At least 11 people were reported injured, including a baby, after local residents burned vehicles, threw rocks and blocked key roads in the Penha slum in protest against the arrests, local media said on Thursday.
Images from Bandeirantes TV, a local television station, showed heavily armed riot officers at the scene on Wednesday and firefighters hosing down burnt out vehicles and the tire barricades.
Two of the three drug dealers arrested managed to escape during the riot, a spokesman for Sao Paulo's public safety department told AP news agency.
Luiz Felipe Muffo said on Thursday authorities are investigating whether the city's infamous First Capital Command gang was involved.
The First Capital Command gang reportedly controls most of the drug trade in Sao Paulo's slums.
It was blamed by authorities for a month of violence in 2006 that left 200 people dead, including police, prison guards, suspected criminals, jail inmates and bystanders.
Raids in slums of the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro are common but violence in Sao Paulo's slums is relatively rare.

Source:Agencies

Polish man hires prostitute to take son's virginity

2009-05-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

14-year-old disappointed as prostitute is undercover officer

LONDON (Reuters)
A man who tried to hire a prostitute to take his 14-year-old son's virginity as a present was spared jail by a court on Friday.

The Polish national took the boy out in his car and allowed him to pick out the prostitute, who was standing at the side of the road in the red-light district of Nottingham.

But the 42-year-old father was arrested because the teenager had chosen an undercover police officer, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was handed a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for a year, after he admitted a charge of trying to solicit a woman to have sex with a child, the Press Association reported.The court heard that the father, who came to Britain eight years ago, was arrested last July during an undercover operation by the city's vice squad.

Prosecutor Adrian Harris said the man and his son had approached the undercover officer whose code name was Sarah and beckoned her over.He asked "Sarah" how much it would cost for her to have sex with his son and they agreed on a 20 pound (about $30) fee. However, when the car pulled over, the man was arrested by plainclothes police officers.

"The boy said that they had driven past the girl and his dad pointed to her and said 'will she do?'" Harris said.

"He said 'yes' and they had turned round. He said his dad did this because he was still a virgin and he was taking care of that for him."

Judge Jonathan Teare said he would spare the father jail because of his excellent character and that he believed he did not mean any harm to his son."

You have a duty of care to your son and that is to look after his moral welfare, not as you might think to break him in to the ways of sex through a prostitute," he said.

The court was told the boy would continue to live with his father.

Obama restarts Guantanamo trials

2009-05-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

Al-Qaeda suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is among those who could face the tribunal [EPA]

Barack Obama, the US president, has said military commissions for al-Qaeda suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp will be restarted.
Obama said new legal safeguards would be introduced to the system, including a ban on evidence obtained using "cruel, inhuman and degrading interrogation methods".
"These reforms will begin to restore the commissions as a legitimate forum for prosecution, while bringing them in line with the rule of law," Obama said in a statement released on Friday.
Obama suspended the tribunals, which were set up by the administration of George Bush, his predecessor, soon after he took office in January and placed them under review.
The move is likely to affect the five detainees charged with having played key roles in the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been accused of planning the attacks.
Obama said he would also place restrictions on the use of hearsay evidence, so that the "burden will no longer be on the party who objects to hearsay to disprove its reliability".
Detainees would have expanded rights to choose their own legal representation and basic protections provided for those who refuse to testify, he said.
The US president also said he would work with congress "on additional reforms that will permit commissions to prosecute terrorists effectively and be an avenue, along with federal prosecutions in Article III courts, for administering justice".

'Misguided policy'
Human rights and civil liberties groups were critical of the decision, saying the tribunal system should be scrapped.
"It's disappointing that Obama is seeking to revive rather than end this failed experiment," Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said before Obama's announcement.

"There's no detainee at Guantanamo who cannot be tried and shouldn't be tried in the regular federal courts system.
"Even with the proposed modifications, this will not cure the commissions or provide them with legitimacy. This is perpetuating the Bush administration's misguided detention policy."
A total of 13 of the 241 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay are currently in the military tribunal system, which has only convicted three prisoners in eight years.
Obama had been critical of the military tribunal system in the past, describing them in June 2008 as an "enormous failure".
On Friday, he said he had always agreed with them in principle but that the way the Bush administration had set them up was wrong.
"I objected strongly to the Military Commissions Act that was drafted by the Bush administration and passed by congress because it failed to establish a legitimate legal framework and undermined our capability to ensure swift and certain justice against those detainees that we were holding at the time."
The decision to restart the process means trials would have to finish before the Guantanamo facility is closed in January 2010, or the detainees would need to be transferred to the US mainland, where they would have more legal rights.
Obama has come under increasing pressure over the treatment of al-Qaeda suspects after memos written by Bush-era legal officials released last month that argued that tactics including waterboarding, which simulates the sensation drowning, were not torture.

Source:Al Jazeera and agencies

Shuttle snapped up against sun

2009-05-15T08:50:00.000-07:00

NASA'S space shuttle Atlantis has been caught in a stunning snap silhouetted against the sun.

The pic — the first ever image taken of a solar transit of a space shuttle and Hubble Space Telescope — was taken by an amateur astronomer from his back garden

In space ... against the orb of the sun

It shows Atlantis several minutes before the craft successfully grappled the telescope.

All alone ... shuttle is ringed

Astronauts aboard the shuttle are now repairing and upgrading Hubble for the last time in a series of spacewalks.
The extraordinary photos were taken by Thierry Legault, an engineer famed for his pictures of space taken in his yard in Paris.
He took his latest image in Florida, 60 miles south of the Kennedy Space Centre.

Bangladesh Black Rivers

2009-05-14T21:52:00.000-07:00

Like many other rivers in Bangladesh, Buriganga river suffers from the dumping of millions of tons of human and industrial waste which has turned its waters into pitch black. Over the past seven months from November to April, virtually no water but only stinky mucky liquid flows in the gradually narrowing rivers - the Buriganga, Shitalakshya, Turag and Balu - as no governments could stop discharge of liquid waste into them, according to a recent study. (Reuters photos).

Refugee Kids Mark Nakba (14/5/2009)

2009-05-14T21:44:00.000-07:00

Dozens of Palestinian children held a march on May 14, 2009, at the Burj al-Barajneh refugee camp in Lebanon’s Beirut to mark Nakba, when Israel was created on the ruins of Palestine in 1948. Palestinians around the world mark Nakba Day on May 15, as a day of mourning for losing their homeland. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, defines as refugees the descendants of Palestinians who fled or were forced out of their homes in 1948.
(Reuters photos).

Funny Obama

2009-05-14T21:18:00.000-07:00

Obama dancing

Hysteric woman from Shangahai

2009-05-14T13:51:00.000-07:00

Controversy about recording a video on the internet about a hysteric woman

RACE FOR THE ARCTIC

2009-05-14T03:47:00.000-07:00

Arctic route faces uncertain future
By Peter Semotiuk in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Canada
Being trapped by ice while crossing the passage is a real danger and a boat can easily be crushed

Peter Semotiuk first travelled the length of the Northwest Passage, a sea route through the Arctic Ocean, over 20 years ago and now helps boats to navigate safely through its waters.

During this time he has seen the ice in the passage diminish at a startling rate. Semotiuk says he is fearful for the area's delicate ecosystem.

Along the legendary Northwest Passage are regions that have never been explored by sailors - an irresistible temptation to those with a quest for the unknown.
In recent times, the number of boats attempting and successfully crossing the passage has increased significantly, where there used to be one or two - or none - per year, there are now half a dozen.

Much of the explanation for this is that the ice in the passage is diminishing at an incredible rate.
In the past, it was not unusual to have years with no open waterway at all - in a good year it might have been passable for a week at most. In the summers of both 2007 and 2008 it was open for two months.
While some areas have become less dangerous for boats, there is an increased risk in others.
Not all of the newly-opened Arctic waters have been charted and are certainly dangerous for casual travelers. Well-known areas are not any safer since the climate changes mean more icebergs are breaking off the Greenland glaciers and drifting into the frigid waters of Davis Strait between Baffin Bay and Greenland.
Advances in hi-tech equipment such as radar, global positioning systems, and satellite communication have helped enormously.
But it is the nature of the Arctic to create the unexpected. Vast fields of ice can move in overnight, weather can change quickly and when it does, it's deadly.

Personal journey
I've lived and worked in the Arctic for many years and I was lucky enough to cross the Northwest Passage in 1988 on Belvedere, an American yacht owned by John Bockstoce.
It was his sixth year of trying and each year he had been stopped by ice.
The trip was not only dangerous but tedious, with weeks of waiting for ice to shift, giving a series of advances and retreats until finally there was enough movement to allow us to slip through.
Because I've had experience of the waters and terrain, I can analyse ice charts and weather forecasts and, via marine band radio, pass information on potential ice movement to help others avoid trouble spots.
Being trapped by ice is a very real danger. A boat can easily be crushed, and rescue may be far distant.
When able I try to provide information on where one might obtain supplies, fuel, food, fresh water, and engine parts, as well as up to date weather and ice reports.

Regular contact
I have also been providing a radio net for all boats so they can talk to each other, and I am in regular contact with the Canadian Coast Guard.
Preparation is vital: several boats have been forced to spend a winter trapped in the ice.

Up here winter means almost a year, stretching from September until August of the following year - a long time to live with limited provisions should one choose to stay with their boat.The trip can be easy but the Arctic is, as always, filled with treachery.
Last year one boat made an effortless crossing of the passage only to be destroyed and sunk in a storm when she reached the Alaska coast.
There are also the real-life monsters. The polar bear can be a terrifying intruder - they move swiftly and silently and are fearless about climbing on board anchored boats.
Despite the occasional dangers, most visitors are enthralled by the Arctic and its landscape, environment, and people, and most are respectful of Canadian sovereignty.
But new issues have been taking shape on the world stage.

Commercial implications
For some, the clearing ice has implications for commerce - perhaps they believe the passage can be used as an alternative to the Panama Canal shipping route or have some military advantage.
For others, the transit of the Northwest Passage is a trophy.

The object is not to experience its unearthly and uncomfortable beauty but to race through it - a brusque and efficient conquest of one of the last remaining wild places on earth.
Will that beauty be one day destroyed? Maybe. In fact, yes, probably.
The ecosystem is fragile; wildlife is disappearing, damage is all too often permanent, even the smallest of scars take centuries to heal.
We can hope that humans will have the sense to be cautious of exploitation.
But we can't forget that the Arctic has a way of turning on its intruders with a viciousness that can destroy both the timid and the arrogant in a heartbeat.
Nothing can be assumed or taken for granted in the Arctic.It's still possible that the melting of the ice cover will slow, or that the passage may again ice over and its forbidding, hostile nature will yet prevail.

Source:
Al Jazeera

UK Returns Aboriginal Scull

2009-05-14T03:26:00.000-07:00

Members of an Aboriginal tribe held a ritual in front of Liverpool's World Museum on Wednesday, May 13, to mark the repatriation of human remains to Australia. A skull is being returned to representatives of the Ngarrindjeri people because it has strong spiritual and religious significance. The remains were purchased from Dr William Broad, of Liverpool, in 1948, when he visited Australia between 1902 and 1904 and published works on Australian skeletal remains

3-D paintings

2009-05-13T08:57:00.000-07:00

The opening of Patrick Hughes's art exhibition

Zoo keepers lock the nation's only pig away over swine flu

2009-05-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

Afghanistan quarantines only pig over flu fear

The pig is a curiosity in Afghanistan, which is a Muslim country (File)

KABUL (AlArabiya.net, Reuters)

Afghanistan's only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to the Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats, because people are worried it could infect them with the HiNi virus popularly known as swine flu.

The pig is a curiosity in Afghanistan, where the animals are forbidden because Muslims are not allowed to eat pork or any pig products. It has been in quarantine since Sunday after visitors expressed alarm it could spread the new flu strain that first appeared in Mexico.

"For now the pig is under quarantine, we built it a room because of swine influenza," Aziz Gul Saqib, director of Kabul Zoo, said. "We've done this because people are worried about getting the flu."

No flights between Mexico and Kabul

Worldwide, more than 1,000 people have been infected with the virus, according to the World Health Organization, which also says 26 people have so far died from the strain. All but one of the deaths were in Mexico, the epicenter of the outbreak.

There are no pig farms in Afghanistan and no direct civilian flights between Kabul and Mexico.

"We understand that, but most people don't have enough knowledge. When they see the pig in the cage they get worried and think that they could get ill," Saqib said.

The pig was a gift to the zoo from China, which itself quarantined some 70 Mexicans, 26 Canadians and four Americans in the past week, but later released them.

Some visitors were not concerned about the fate of the pig and said locking it away was probably for the best.

"Influenza is quite contagious and if it passes between people and animals then there's no need for the pig to be here," zoo visitor Farzana said.

War with the animals
Shabby and rundown, Kabul Zoo is a far cry from zoos in the developed world, but has nevertheless come a long way since it suffered on the front line of Afghanistan's 1992 to 1994 civil war.Mujahideen fighters then ate the deer and rabbits and shot dead the zoo's sole elephant. Shells shattered the aquarium.

One fighter climbed into the lion enclosure but was immediately killed by Marjan, the zoo's most famous inhabitant. The man's brother returned the next day and lobbed a hand grenade at the lion leaving him toothless and blind.

The zoo now holds two lions who replaced Marjan who died of old age in 2002 as well as endangered local leopards. In all, it houses 42 species of birds and mammals and 36 types of fish and attracts up to 10,000 visitors on weekends.

Atlantis moves in on Hubble to grab telescope

2009-05-13T07:02:00.000-07:00

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - Shuttle Atlantis and its crew moved toward the Hubble Space Telescope for a 350-mile-high grab Wednesday that will set the stage for five days of formidable spacewalking repairs.
Late Tuesday, the astronauts got comforting news: the ugly stretch of nicks on Atlantis' thermal tiles were not considered serious, and no further inspections were needed. NASA is continuing to prep another shuttle, though, just in case a piece of space junk hits the shuttle during the mission.

Hubble's unusually high orbit is strewn with smashed satellite pieces and other debris.
Commander Scott Altman and his co-pilot fired the engines Wednesday morning and steered Atlantis up into Hubble's orbit. Early in the afternoon, robot arm operator Megan McArthur will use the 50-foot boom to grab the school bus-sized observatory and anchor it in Atlantis' payload bay.
The capture is expected to occur over the Indian Ocean, just northeast of Madagascar.
Hubble scientists and managers warn that Hubble may look a little ragged; it hasn't had a tuneup for seven years.
Beginning Thursday, two teams of spacewalking astronauts—two men per team—will take turns venturing outside to replace the 19-year-old Hubble's batteries and gyroscopes, and an old camera and pointing mechanism. They also will install fresh thermal covers on the telescope and a new science data-control unit—the original conked out last September and, although revived, delayed the shuttle flight by seven months.
The space repairmen also will go into the guts of two broken science instruments and attempt to fix the fried electronics. Astronauts have never attempted anything like this before at Hubble.
This is the fifth and final flight to Hubble, costing NASA just over $1 billion. The space agency hopes to get another five to 10 years of dazzling views of the cosmos, with all the planned upgrades, which should leave the observatory more powerful than ever.
The mission almost didn't happen.
A year after the 2003 Columbia tragedy, NASA canceled the repair effort, saying it was too dangerous. The astronauts would not have anywhere to seek shelter because the international space station is in a different, inaccessible orbit.
But a new NASA regime reinstated the flight in 2006 after shuttle repair techniques were developed and tested in orbit. A plan also was put in place to have a rescue shuttle on the launch pad to blast off within days for a rescue.
That shuttle, the Endeavour, will remain on standby until Atlantis and its crew of seven head back to Earth late next week.
As for the nicks on Atlantis, they stretch over 21 inches on the right wing, on the forward edge where it joins with the fuselage. The astronauts discovered the damage Tuesday while inspecting their ship.
The nicks are shallow and embedded in thick thermal tiles, in a location that is not particularly vulnerable during re-entry at flight's end. Engineers believe those scrapes were caused by debris that came off the fuel tank 1 1/2 minutes after liftoff Monday.
Columbia's damage was considerably more severe—a plate-size hole in the most sensitive part of the left wing.
___
On the Net:
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Development goals all at sea

2009-05-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

By Dr Simon Boxall, National Oceanography Centre, UK

The oceans could fulfil the world's protein needs if fishing and climate change were managed [EPA]

As ministers from 121 countries converge on Manado, Indonesia this week for the World Oceans Conference, oceanographer Simon Boxall explains why climate change and warming seas bode ill for us all.
For those of us who live near the coast, the oceans have a clear and direct impact on our everyday lives; storms, varying sea levels, fishing and recreation.
However, if we live inland, what possible influence can the oceans have on us?
For those of us who live in the developed world climate change is our problem, our fault, and we have to act now to prevent the situation from worsening.
A sceptic would argue that climate change is not the problem of the developing world.
If only life on our planet was that simple.
The oceans cover more than 70 per cent of the Earth's surface and not only determine our climate wherever we live, they are also a source of food (they could fulfil the world's protein needs if managed properly), a major means of transport (95 per cent by weight of all goods are transported by sea), and they provide 60 per cent of the oxygen we breathe.

In an ironic twist, the oceans also contain the majority of the oil and gas reserves that create carbon dioxide, one of the key greenhouse gases, and are the major sinks of the very same gas - through absorption by the microscopic plants of the sea as well as the water itself.
Our planet's climate is warming up – an estimated 4°C by 2100, and there is no doubt now that humans burning fossil fuels like coal, gas, oil significantly contributes to this.
These are facts confirmed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of 4,000 expert scientists from over 130 countries. The IPCC has no political allegiances, nothing to gain by good or bad news, just well researched science.

Barometer of change
The ocean is the barometer of climate change, particularly in the polar sea regions.
The sea absorbs most of the heat that enters the earth's system and acts like a huge storage system.

As the planet warms up we see the changes in the oceans first, and they are warming. The temperature of the world's oceans has risen by 0.25°C in the past 30 years.
That does not sound much, but in total energy terms it is huge.
We are already seeing rapid loss of sea ice – September of both 2007 and 2008 witnessed the lowest ice cover in the Arctic Sea in human history, with many areas seeing little or no ice reforming during the 2008/9 winter.
Does this mean that sea levels will start rising rapidly?
Well, they will rise by about one metre during this century - it does not matter where you live, the rise will be everywhere - but this is not because of ice melt.
Firstly, seas rise because land ice or glaciers melt and add water to the ocean basins, and, secondly, liquids - or the seas - expand when you heat them up.
The Arctic ice cap is already floating and so, contrary to popular belief, will not add to sea level as it melts. Think about ice in a glass of water.

Coastal defence
Rising sea levels will flood many coastal areas.

Developed countries can, in theory, mitigate this; they have money, technology and organisations with responsibility for coastal defence in place.
I say "in theory" as one only has to look at the impact of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans to realise it is not always that simple.
What about the developing world? In some regions the coastal areas can be defended, in many they cannot, and in numerous developing nations the populations are focused around the coastal areas.
Katrina also highlighted a second issue related to warming seas; storms, hurricanes - or typhoons - and monsoons all get their energy from the oceans.
As the oceans get warmer, they provide more energy to these systems, and warmer seas evaporate more quickly, leading to more rainfall.
There have been a number of studies which show an increase in hurricane intensity and frequency over recent years, and the IPCC 2007 report predicts more intense monsoon events are likely.
The effects of rising sea levels, increased storms and periods of extreme rainfall all lead to coastal flooding and damage, with many of the rich and fertile deltas of Asia and Africa being severely affected.
In addition, the interceding dry seasons will be longer and hotter. So the future will be heavy floods for part of the year and drought the rest of the year. This is not just a prediction – it is already happening on an increasingly regular basis.
Changes in climate will also bring about changes in life in the ocean.
Species sensitive to temperature are already migrating north or south in search of cooler waters.
Rising sea levels are squeezing many of the intertidal habitats like mangroves - a natural defence against storms - out of existence, to say nothing of small, low island habitats.
It is not just humans who will be looking to relocate from the Maldives over the forthcoming years. However, human migration from flooded lands is likely to increase in many regions of the world.
The increase in temperature is also increasing the acidity of the ocean, albeit by a small amount, but enough to bleach and damage coral habitats.

Dire outlook
The outlook is not good, particularly for a developing world which is just finding its feet.

In 2006 Nicholas Stern, a globally respected economist, published a key report which offered two paths; we either spend about two per cent of the global GDP now to halt, or at least slow, climate change or we spend 20 per cent in the future to mitigate it.
The developed world, primarily the US and Europe, have been the problem thus far and need to reduce carbon emissions rapidly.
To be fair to both, development in the 20th century took place in ignorance of the damage being done. Europe, Japan and others are on board with change and so now, under a new administration, is the US.
The forthcoming UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December will be critical, but not just because of changes in the US - which currently accounts for about 30 per cent of the carbon - but because of the developing world.
China has the largest population today, and by 2060 India will overtake it. Between them, they will account for over half of the world's population. Both countries are also developing – rapidly.
Exports are soaring and the local populations are demanding the trappings of a so-called developed nation - cars, television and air conditioning – all power hungry items.
If that power comes from fossil fuels, then what today's developed countries do will make little difference.
We need to work globally: supporting each other in using the best of technology and the most innovative ways of producing that power.
It is not fair to demand that the developing world alone has to implement a new, safer approach to its power generation.
However, it has the most to gain if it adopts alternative carbon neutral energy, and the most to lose if it does not.
In the long term, there are two paths.
The golden path is for cheaper, inexhaustible energy which is generated locally with no reliance on external supplies of fuel.
A further benefit of this route will be the eventual export of a maturing energy and appliance efficient technology.
The muddied path is literally that. Extreme weather, floods and changes in habitat.

Dr Simon Boxall is a professor in oceanography at the National Oceanography Centre affiliated to Southampton University in the UK.
The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of Al Jazeera.

Vital coral reefs 'face collapse'

2009-05-13T06:34:00.000-07:00

South-East Asia's Coral Triangle could die by the end of the century, the WWF says [AFP]

One of the world's most ecologically and economically important coral reef systems could be a dead wasteland by the end of the century without urgent action to tackle climate change, scientists have warned.
In a report released on Wednesday, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said the collapse of Southeast Asia's Coral Triangle as a result of rising sea temperatures would threaten the livelihoods of more than 100 million people in the region.

It would also spell the end of an ecosystem labelled the marine equivalent of the Amazon rainforest, the report said.
The WWF report was released at the World Ocean Conference in Sulawesi, Indonesia, where senior officials from 80 countries are holding talks aimed at building an international commitment on marine conservation.
In its report the environmental group said the death of the reef system, which generates an estimated $3bn in annual income, would cause food production in the region to plummet by 80 per cent

Doomed reefs
The Coral Triangle stretches between the Indian and Pacific oceans across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
The diverse network of reefs has 76 per cent of the world's reef-building coral species and 35 per cent of its coral reef fish species – the highest density of species above and below the water anywhere on the planet.
The WWF report said much of this reef is doomed unless developed countries cut carbon emissions to 40 per cent below 1990 levels, and developing countries by at least 30 per cent from their current levels, by the year 2020.
"Decisive action must be taken immediately or a major crisis will develop," the report said, citing evidence from 300 scientific studies and 20 climate change experts.
"Hundreds of thousands of unique species, entire communities and societies will be in jeopardy."

'Unrealistic'
However, a senior official in Indonesia's environment ministry said a 30 per cent emission cut was an unrealistic expectation for developing nations.

I am not sure it's possible. We can only achieve around a 17 per cent cut by 2025," Marwansyah Lobo Balia, the environment minister's assistant, said.
"Of course there is a lot of coral bleaching but most of the damage we have found so far is not because of global warming but because of human activities such as pollution and fisheries that use bombs."
The report warned that if nothing is done the situation will lead to a steady rise in sea temperatures, which will kill off the coral and its dependent wildlife.
"People have compared the Coral Triangle's biodiversity richness to the Amazon," Abdul Halim, the head of The Nature Conservancy's (TNC) Coral Triangle Centre, said.

Challenges
Like the endangered Brazilian rainforest region, the area's huge biodiversity faces a daunting set of challenges arising from overfishing, climate change and impoverished communities.

The 220-page WWF report drives home a message of urgency ahead of talks to conclude a new international climate change treaty in Denmark in December.
"Unless there is some sort of miracle, it will mean aggregated poverty and when you couple it with the inundation of coastlines, you will get to the point where whole societies are destabilised," said Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the report's author and a marine expert at the University of Queensland in Australia.
The US government has pledged $40m in funding for a five-year programme to improve management of marine and coastal resources within the Coral Triangle.
"We are looking to promote better understanding of the role of the ocean in the climate system," said Mary Glackin, the US deputy undersecretary for oceans and atmosphere.
"It's really a web of life. So you need to be concerned about the very smallest thing up to the very high predators."

Indonesian whaling culture under threat

2009-05-13T06:30:00.000-07:00

Officials from 80 countries attending the World Ocean Conference in Indonesia are seeking an international commitment on marine conservation.
Indonesia has already come up with ways to protect its waters and marine life, but as Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen reports those plans have run up against local customs.

India in Last Round of Marathon Polls(13/5/2009)

2009-05-13T05:54:00.000-07:00

Millions of Indians went on Wednesday, May 13, to cast their votes in the final of five stages of the country's marathon elections, with signs that a weak coalition could emerge the winner. More than 100 million voters across 9 states were eligible to vote Wednesday for 86 seats in the 543-seat lower house of parliament. The poll had 714 million voters eligible to cast their ballots at more than 828,000 polling stations. Results of the election are expected on Saturday.
(Reuters photos)

Extreme Mammals

2009-05-13T05:52:00.000-07:00

A show called "Extreme Mammals" is currently held at the American Museum of Natural History, featuring an assortment of strange and wondrous creatures, both extinct and living. Specimens showed range from the egg-laying platypus to the so-called walking whale, a type of giant sea mammal that developed legs and feet.
(Reuters photos)

Berlin Wall for Sale(13\5\2009)

2009-05-12T21:38:00.000-07:00

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a German entrepreneur is still making money selling its remaining concrete chunks to tourists as souvenirs. When the wall came down in 1989, Volker Pawlowski was a construction worker in West Berlin and he bought large sections of the 100 kilometres concrete barrier that had surrounded West Berlin. Pawlowksi, whose wife and daughter are also in the business, has enough Wall remnants to sell for decades

Chocolate-Powered Racing Car

2009-05-12T11:07:00.000-07:00

Engineers at England's Warwick University succeeded in building green F3 car with a body made from vegetable products, and powered by a chocolate-based biofuel, in a bid to prove that motor racing doesn't have to be a gas-guzzling eco-disaster. The team of engineers says the racer will soon be reaching speeds of up to 160 miles per hour.

Brazil's Stones Protest

2009-05-12T10:50:00.000-07:00

Brazilian peace activists held a symbolic protest using stones in downtown Rio de Janeiro on Monday, May 11, denouncing widespread violence in the Latin American country. Rio de Paz (Peace Rio) NGO activists placed 17,000 stones on the ground to represent the victims of violence killed during the past 28 months in the state of Rio.
(Reuters photos).

Emirates launches probe into allegations against sheikh

2009-05-12T10:32:00.000-07:00

UAE detains sheikh following abuse video Sheik Issa bin Zayed Al Nahyan is pictured in the video alledgedly beating a man

The United Arab Emirates detained a member of the country's ruling family and launched an official investigation into allegations that he abused an Afghan man following a dispute over money, the official news agency WAM said on Monday.

Sheik Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan was being held after prosecutors based in the capital of Abu Dhabi officially launched a criminal investigation into the events depicted in a video that allegedly showed the sheikh severely abusing a man, a judicial department press release said.

The Abu Dhabi Judicial Department said that it had accepted the recommendation of its human rights office to refer all documents related to the video "depicting the ill treatment of an individual" to public prosecutors.The 45-minute video -- first broadcast by ABC news and circulated widely on the internet -- showed Nahyan beating the man, running him over and pouring salt on his wounds among abusive bahavior.

"This is to ensure that all human rights obligations are met and enforced, that all national laws are applied equally and with transparency to all, and that the country continues in its efforts to respect the rule of law and ensure that all individuals in the Emirates are provided fair and equitable trials and have an opportunity to be heard," the press release said. The human rights office said its recommendations were based on viewing the video and meeting with the victim in an effort to gather information about the facts surrounding the incident.

The press release also said that the individuals suspected of involvement, including Nahyan and a uniformed police officer, would be suspended from duty and prevented from traveling outside the Emirates.

Singapore's Bird Park

2009-05-12T03:49:00.000-07:00

The Jurong Bird Park in Singapore is a world-famous bird zoo and tourist attraction managed by Widlife Reserves Singapore. Opened in 1971, the Park, which was built at a cost of $3.5 million, is currently the world's largest bird park in terms of number of birds, with over 9,000 birds of 600 species including 29 endangered species, and second largest in terms of land area after Germany's Vogelpark Walsrode.
(Reuters photos)

Senegalese Wrestling

2009-05-12T03:41:00.000-07:00

Senegalese Wrestling was a traditional sport that young men used to fight as a distraction, to court wives, prove their manliness, and bring honor to their villages. But now the sport transcended ethnic groups and is enjoying the status of national sport. Tournaments and championships which attract big crowds are arranged by business-promoters who offer prizes for the winners.

(Reuters photos)

Making Japanese Leaders

2009-05-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

In a bid to remedy the shortage of strong leaders in the world's second biggest economy, Japan's Matsushita Institute of Government and Management trains hundreds of Japanese youth on leadership, with meditation a central part of the training program. The Matsushita Institute has trained more than 200 students, and nearly 70 of its alumni are politicians, including two who have served as cabinet ministers and one who was briefly leader of the main opposition party.

(Reuters photos)

Belgian Metal workers Protest(11/5/2009)

2009-05-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

Amid waves of job cuts sweeping the world as part of a global recession, around 4,000 Metal workers of the socialist trade union FGTB-ABVV in Belgium staged a protest on Monday, May 11, in the city of Namur to defend their jobs and salary conditions.
(Reuters photos)

the earth just as it looks from space

2009-05-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

Iran releases jailed US journalist

2009-05-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

Saberi's parents have said their daughter never spied for the United States [AFP]

Iran has released an American-born journalist jailed for spying for the United States after a court reduced her sentence.Roxana Saberi was sentenced to eight years in prison last month, but Monday's ruling saw that cut to a two-year suspended sentence."I'm okay.

I don't want to make any comments but I am okay," she said shortly after walking out Of Tehran's Evin prison.She was then then driven away by her father.
Barack Obama, the US president, welcomed what he called a "humanitarian gesture" by Iran.
"He was relieved to see that Roxana Saberi has been released," Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said.
"We know this has been a trying time for her family and friends and he looks forward to welcoming her home to the United States.
"We want to continue to stress that she was wrongly accused, but we welcome this humanitarian gesture.

"Parents 'happy'
Saberi's father, Reza, told Al Jazeera that he is planning to take Roxana out of the country as soon as possible.

"She was very hopeful and we were very hopeful [that she would win the appeal], so we are happy with the news," he said."We asked the authorities to be lenient on her and all the support and people's kindness helped a lot."
Saberi launched a hunger strike on April 21 in protest at the sentence, taking in only water or sugared water, but she ended it after about two weeks when she was briefly hospitalised.The ruling came after a court in the capital, Tehran, heard Saberi's appeal behind closed doors.
"The verdict of the previous court has been quashed," Saleh Nikbakht, her defence lawyer, said on Monday.
"Her punishment has been changed to a suspended two-year sentence."
Saberi was initially detained in January reportedly for buying alcohol, but was later charged with espionage.

"The article of law that was referred to in her conviction was article 501 that says any co-operation with hostile governments and hostile countries deserved one to 10 years in prison," Al Jazeera's Alireza Ronaghi, reporting fom Tehran, said.
"That article of law has been disputed by lawyers who say Iran is not at war with anyone at

the moment and the phrase of 'hostile government' should be interpreted more seriously."

Journalism ban

Saberi has reported for US National Public Radio, the BBC and Fox News, and has lived in Iran for the past six years. Tehran says that she has been working in the country illegally after her press card was revoked in 2006.
Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, another defence lawyer, said Saberi would be banned from doing any journalism in Iran for five years.
The original sentence was handed down just weeks after Barack Obama, the US president, said that his administration would work towards better relations with Tehran after three decades with no official ties.
Afshin Molavi, an Iran expert at the New American Foundation, told Al Jazeera that the arrest and subsequent release had taken place in "a highly charged political environment".
"In this particular moment, with elections coming up and a very open American political overture to Iran, I think this had become far too much of a distraction," he said.
Washington has repeatedly denied that Saberi was involved in spying for the US.

White House: Budget deficit to top $1.8 trillion

2009-05-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

White House: Budget deficit to top $1.8 trillion, 4 times 2008's record

WASHINGTON (AP) -- With the economy performing worse than hoped, revised White House figures point to deepening budget deficits, with the government borrowing almost 50 cents for every dollar it spends this year
.
The deficit for the current budget year will rise by $89 billion to above $1.8 trillion -- about four times the record set just last year.
The unprecedented red ink flows from the deep recession, the Wall Street bailout, the cost of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus bill, as well as a structural imbalance between what the government spends and what it takes in.
As the economy performs worse than expected, the deficit for the 2010 budget year beginning in October will worsen by $87 billion to $1.3 trillion, the White House says.
The deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps.
For the current year, the government would borrow 46 cents for every dollar it takes to run the government under the administration's plan.
In one of the few positive signs, the actual 2009 deficit is likely to be $250 billion less than predicted because Congress is unlikely to provide another $250 billion in financial bailout money.
The developments come as the White House completes the official release of its $3.6 trillion budget for 2010, adding detail to some of its tax proposals and ideas for producing health care savings.
The White House budget is a recommendation to Congress that represents Obama's fiscal and policy vision for the next decade.
Annual deficits would never dip below $500 billion and would total $7.1 trillion over 2010-2019. Even those dismal figures rely on economic projections that are significantly more optimistic -- just a 1.2 percent decline in gross domestic product this year and a 3.2 percent growth rate for 2010 -- than those forecast by private sector economists and the Congressional Budget Office.
For the most part, Obama's updated budget tracks the 134-page outline he submitted to lawmakers in February. His budget remains a bold but contentious document that proposes higher taxes for the wealthy, a hotly contested effort to combat global warming and the first steps toward guaranteed health care for all.
Obama's Democratic allies controlling Congress have already made it clear that they will reject key elements of his plan.
Already apparently dead is a plan to raise $267 billion over the next decade to pay for his health care initiative by curbing the ability of wealthier people to reduce their tax bills through deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and local taxes.
And the congressional budget plan approved last month would not extend Obama's signature $400 tax credit for most workers -- $800 for couples -- after it expires at the end of next year.
Obama's remarkably controversial "cap-and-trade" proposal to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions is also reeling from opposition from Capitol Hill Democrats from coal-producing regions and states with concentrations of heavy industry.
Under cap-and-trade, the government would auction permits to emit heat-trapping gases, with the costs being passed on to consumers via higher gasoline and electric bills.
Among the new proposals is a plan -- already on its way through Congress -- that would increase the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's borrowing authority from $30 billion to $100 billion in order to grant a two-year reprieve from higher deposit insurance premiums while the industry is struggling.
Also new are several tax "loophole" closures and increased IRS tax compliance efforts to raise $58 billion over the next decade to help finance Obama's health care measure. The money makes up for revenue losses stemming from lower-than-hoped estimates of his proposal to limit wealthier people's ability to maximize their itemized deductions.
The updated budget also would repeal an unintended tax windfall taken by paper companies that use a byproduct in the paper-making process as fuel to power their mills.
The tax credits were never intended for paper companies, but now they could be worth more than $3 billion a year, according to a congressional estimate.
The budget would make permanent the expanded $2,500 tax credit for college expenses that was provided for two years in the just-passed economic stimulus bill.
It also would renew most of the Bush tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, and would permanently update the alternative minimum tax so that it would hit fewer middle- to upper-income taxpayers.

Iran 'set to free US journalist'

2009-05-11T05:06:00.000-07:00

Saberi has reported from Iran for US and Britishnews organisations [AFP]

Iran is expected to release an American-born journalist jailed for spying for the United State after a court reduced her sentence.

Roxana Saberi was sentenced to eight years in prison last month, but Monday's ruling saw that cut to a two-year suspended sentence.
"The verdict of the previous court has been quashed," Saleh Nikbakht, her defence lawyer, said.
"Her punishment has been changed to a suspended two-year sentence and she will be out of prison in one-and-half hours."
Saberi's father, Reza, told the Reuters news agency that he and his wife were on their way to Tehran's Evin jail, where their daughter has been held since late January, "to bring our daughter back home".AppealThe ruling came after a court in the capital, Tehran, heard Saberi's appeal behind closed doors.

Saberi was initially detained in January reportedly for buying alcohol, but was later charged with espionage.

"The article of law that was referred to in her conviction was article 501 that says any co-operation with hostile governments and hostile countries deserved one to 10 years in prison," Al Jazeera's Alireza Ronaghi, reporting fom Tehran, said.
"That article of law has been disputed by lawyers who say Iran is not at war with anyone at the moment and the phrase of 'hostile government' should be interpreted more seriously." Saberi has reported for US National Public Radio, the BBC and Fox News, and has lived in Iran for the past six years.

Tehran says that she has been working in the country illegally after her press card was revoked in 2006.
The original sentence was handed down just weeks after Barack Obama, the US president, said that his administration would work towards better relations with Tehran after three decades of with no official ties.
Al Jazeera's Ronaghi said: "They [Iran] don't want to jeopardise all the possibilities and potential of future changes in Iran-US relations with one court order."
Washington has repeatedly denied that Saberi was involved in spying for the US.
________

Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies

The suffering of children in the war

2009-05-11T04:56:00.000-07:00

A short animation film about the kid's life and innocence during the war.

Two Trillion Tons

2009-05-11T04:16:00.000-07:00

The Ghost of Tennessee Ernie Ford comes back to warn us that Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan and budget could be hazardous to our economic well-being

STIMULUS WATCH: Early road aid leaves out neediest

2009-05-11T03:31:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — Counties suffering the most from job losses stand to receive the least help from President Barack Obama's plan to spend billions of stimulus dollars on roads and bridges, an Associated Press analysis has found.

Although the intent of the money is to put people back to work, AP's review of more than 5,500 planned transportation projects nationwide reveals that states are planning to spend the stimulus in communities where jobless rates are already lower.
One result among many: Elk County, Pa., isn't receiving any road money despite its 13.8 percent unemployment rate. Yet the military and college community of Riley County, Kan., with its 3.4 percent unemployment, will benefit from about $56 million to build a highway, improve an intersection and restore a historic farmhouse.
Altogether, the government is set to spend 50 percent more per person in areas with the lowest unemployment than it will in communities with the highest.
The AP reviewed $18.9 billion in projects, the most complete picture available of where states plan to spend the first wave of highway money.
The projects account for about half of the $38 billion set aside for states and local governments to spend on roads, bridges and infrastructure in the stimulus plan.
The very promise that Obama made, to spend money quickly and create jobs, is locking out many struggling communities needing those jobs.
The money goes to projects ready to start. But many struggling communities don't have projects waiting on a shelf. They couldn't afford the millions of dollars for preparation and plans that often is required.
"It's not fair," said Martin Schuller, the borough manager in the Elk County seat of Ridgway, who commiserates about the inequity in highway aid with colleagues in nearby towns. "It's a joke because we're not going to get it, because we don't have any projects ready to go."
The early trend seen in the AP analysis runs counter to expectations raised by Obama, that road and infrastructure money from the historic $787 billion stimulus plan would create jobs in areas most devastated by layoffs and plant closings. Transportation money, he said, would mean paychecks for "folks looking for work" and "folks who want to work."
"That's the core of my plan, putting people to work doing the work that America needs done," Obama said in a Feb. 11 speech promoting transportation spending as a way to expand employment.
Also, Congress required states to use some of the highway money for projects in economically distressed areas, but didn't impose sanctions if they didn't.
States can lose money, however, if they don't spend fast enough.
The AP examined the earliest projects announced nationwide, the ones most likely to break ground and create jobs first.
More projects are continually being announced, and some areas that received little or no help so far may benefit later.
The Obama administration could also encourage states to change their plans.
To determine whether there was a disparity in where the money would go, the AP divided the nation's counties into four groups by unemployment levels.
The analysis found that, no matter how the early money is measured, communities suffering most fare the worst:
_High-unemployment counties, those in the top quarter of jobless rates, are allotted about 16 percent of the money, compared with about 20 percent for areas least affected by joblessness.
_In low-unemployment counties nationwide, those in the bottom quarter of jobless rates, the federal government is spending about $89 a person compared with $59 a person in the worst-hit areas.
_In counties with the largest populations, the government is spending about $69 a person in areas with the lowest unemployment and $40 a person in places with the greatest job need.
The analysis also found that counties with the highest unemployment are most likely to have been passed over completely in the early spending.
Among them: Wheeler County, Ore.; Steuben County, Ind.; Macon County, Ga.; and Crowley County, Colo.
Many others are getting minimal help in this round: Vermillion County, Ind.; Lapeer County, Mich.; Presidio County, Texas; Tallahatchi County, Miss.
Those counties still will benefit from job creation elsewhere in their states, said Lana Hurdle, a Transportation official overseeing the agency's stimulus money.
"Even if you have to drive to it, it's better than no job," Hurdle said.
Joel Szabat, who also oversees the stimulus for the Transportation Department, said the agency presses states to build projects in struggling areas but does not normally consider how much money is going to each county.
Presented with AP's findings, he said: "I will be going back to ask our folks to do this kind of analysis, the overall amount for the projects."
"Our goal, and I think it is a goal that will be achieved, is that you will see that a fair share of this money will go to these areas," Szabat said.
Obama's plan sends $38 billion to states and local governments for roads, bridges, transit and other infrastructure, about 5 percent of the overall program that also includes money for, among other things, schools, community development, technology, worker training and tax breaks.
All counties will receive some stimulus relief eventually. But the haste voiced by the White House is not reflected in the flow of highway money so far.
"We cannot wait," Vice President Joe Biden said last week when announcing a $30 million transit project in his hometown of Wilmington, Del., where the 7.7 percent unemployment rate remains below the national average. "We're spending a lot of time and money. Why? It's about ... jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. That's why we cannot wait."
Yet residents of Perry County, Tenn., will have to wait.
County Mayor John Carroll said he's disappointed his community, which suffers from 25.4 percent unemployment, won't receive a dime any time soon for its road needs.
"It's pretty easy to draw a connection between the high unemployment rate and the lack of any four-lane highways," he said.
Federal auditors acknowledge they can't yet track the transportation money that is leaving Washington and there is no single list of the thousands of projects planned in each state. For its analysis, the AP used lists of projects approved through March by the Transportation Department and collected lists of stimulus projects that have been announced in 49 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Federal officials have approved 2,800 projects. The remaining projects on
the AP list represent the states' official plans for the money.
Only Virginia, which has not announced its plan, is not included.
As the number of projects grows, places like Elk County, Pa., could still be left out because they could not afford the upfront costs needed to put proposals in the pipeline.
"It's all based on this 'shovel readiness,'" said Elk County Commissioner Daniel Freeburg. "That's been our stumbling block."
Elk County surely could use jobs. The once thriving north central Pennsylvania county is home to metal factories that equip the nation's auto industry. Layoffs are mounting.
Freeburg is pinning hopes on getting future stimulus money, such as for energy conservation programs, that will create jobs and rekindle the local metal and lumber industries.
In promoting his plan, Obama went to hard-hit communities such as Elkhart, Ind., and Peoria, Ill., and promised the jobs would come.
"Now, I know that some of you might be thinking, 'Well that all sounds good, but when are we going to see any of that here in Elkhart?'" Obama said. "'What does all that mean for our families and our community?' Those are exactly the kind of questions you should be asking of your president and your government."
Obama kept his promise to Elkhart, which so far is expected to receive $13.7 million, and Peoria, which should receive at least $10.6 million. But other, similar counties have not been so lucky.
For now, laid-off workers in Elk County, Pa., question why they've missed out, while money flows to more prosperous places.
"Why are they helping them?" asked Wendy Cameron, 50, of Saint Marys, Pa., who lost her job in a metal factory last year. She doesn't have health insurance and would gladly take road work. "They're not in need. We are.
"What are these people going to do? Is everybody going to go on welfare? I've never been on welfare. I don't want to be on welfare."
Associated Press writer Cal Woodward contributed to this report.

On the Net:
Related Interactive: http://tinyurl.com/orulga
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

My childhood (My favorite Park and Beach)

2009-05-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

Children all like places can give them fun. They all like playing in the park, on the beach, and with a lot of friends. Some of them are lucky because their parent has time to go out with them, but some of them are not. I think I belong to the lucky side.
When I was a child, my parent always took out time to go out with me.

I remembered a lot of places could give me fun.

My favorite childhood places were beach and park. My house was close to the park and beach. It took ten minutes to walk to there, and from park to beach you just have to cross the street.

Summer is the best time to go to the beach.

We used to go there after dinner.

We swam in the water, caught fish, and crabs. If we felt tired, we just lie down on the beach and close our eyes.

The sand was very soft and the sky was very clear.
In winter, the weather turned cold. We stopped going to the beach, and went to the park instead. We fed the animals in the park. There were a lot of animals, like birds, monkeys, deer, foxes, and tigers. Because I was a child, my parent didn’t allow me to feed big animals.

I chose birds and monkeys to feed.

We usually bought some food like bread, cookies, and bananas. We tore food into small pieces and threw it to them.

They always finished all the food every time. There was a big playground in the park.

Sometimes my parent took my friends and me to play basketball in there. Even though I wasn’t tall enough to catch balls, I still enjoyed it every time.
I miss my childhood, especially the park and the beach. They give me a lot of good memories.

Pope visits Jordan

2009-05-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

Pope celebrates mass in Jordan and urges Mideast Christians to be faithful to roots

Amateur-Indian by Rehman Akhtar

2009-05-10T05:36:00.000-07:00

Rehman lives in Saudi Arabia and performed in Dubai at the Comedy Cafés open-mike night

Sugar Sammy -Lebanese Cinnabon

2009-05-10T05:33:00.000-07:00

Comic Sugar Sammy on Lebanese woman and her love of Cinnabon at Dubais Comedy Cafe

Mike Batayeh - Marrying and cussing

2009-05-10T05:13:00.001-07:00

Comic Mike Bateyeh on marriage and cursing at Dubai’s Comedy Cafe

Russia warns foes in Soviet-style show of might

2009-05-09T13:21:00.000-07:00

Russia on Saturday sternly warned its foes not to dare attempt any aggression against the country, as it put on a Soviet-style show of military might in Red Square including nuclear capable missiles.
The display to mark the 64th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II came amid renewed tensions with Georgia after NATO's decision to hold war games in the Caucasus country infuriated Moscow.
"We are sure that any aggression against our citizens will be given a worthy reply," President Dmitry Medvedev said in a speech in Red Square side-by-side with powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
"The victory over fascism is a great example and a great lesson for all peoples and is still current today when people are again starting military adventures," he added.
Russia's war with Georgia in August over Georgian breakaway regions sent Moscow-NATO ties to their worst level since the Cold War and tensions have flared again over the alliance's decision to go ahead with the exercises.
Moscow, which remains at loggerheads with Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili, angrily condemned the war games that started this week as a provocation that risk stoking instability in the region.
"Protecting the motherland is our holy duty, it is a moral foundation for all generations," said Medvedev. "The future of Russia will be peaceful, happy and successful."
Before handing over to Medvedev as president last year, Putin resurrected the Soviet practice -- dropped after Communism -- of having missiles and heavy tanks rumbling over the Red Square cobbles in front of Russia's leaders.
Thousands of soldiers and more than 100 items of hardware featured in the Red Square parade, which was matched by similar demonstrations across Russia involving almost 30,000 troops, officials said.
Thousands of soldiers marched past Medvedev and Putin, before dozens of heavy tanks, including the main T-90 battle tank and the Sprut self-propelled anti-tank gun, thundered through Red Square to the sound of martial music.
There was a rare public showing for some of Russia's best known missile systems, including the S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft missiles, the short range Iskander-M and the medium-range Buk.
As in 2008, Russia proudly showed off a half dozen examples of its nuclear-capable Topol intercontinental ballistic missile which has a range of more than 10,000 kilometres (6,500 miles).
Squadrons of fighter jets also flew over Red Square.
The parade was overseen by Defence Minister Anatoly Serdukov, a civilian ex-furniture salesman implementing a hugely controversial military reform to eliminate Soviet-era structures and prepare the army for modern warfare.
"Greetings comrades! I congratulate you on the 64th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War," Serdukov, dressed in a suit, told the soldiers from an open-top car.
"Hurrah!," shouted the soldiers, creating a huge wave of sound with the traditional Russian victory cry that shook Red Square.
According to the Russian authorities, 8.6 million Soviet soldiers and 27-28 million civilians were killed in the conflict. Officials have repeatedly emphasised that Russia's role in defeating Hitler should never be forgotten.
Moscow has been festooned with official posters with slogans like "May 9, a holiday in our homes and in our hearts" while state television has repeatedly played archive footage of the war.
The restoration of the heavy weaponry to the parade is a throwback to the days when reclusive Soviet leaders would observe the proceedings from the top of Lenin's mausoleum on Red Square.
However as in 2008, Putin and Medvedev avoided embarrassing comparisons with the past by surveying events from a podium rather than the mausoleum, which was largely hidden by a festive hoarding.
Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

Turtle fatal

2009-05-09T02:08:00.001-07:00

Kazakhstan Vault Protests

2009-05-09T01:32:00.000-07:00

Trying to make their voice heard in the former Soviet republic, a group of Kazakh homeowners holed up in an underground vault on Friday, May 8, to protest government plans to evict them from their houses. Protestors, a rare show in Kazakhstan, presented a statement to members of the media including their requirements.

(Reuters Photos)

'Wizard of Oz' Munchkin Mickey Carroll dies at 89 (AP)

2009-05-08T15:07:00.001-07:00

ST. LOUIS - Mickey Carroll, one of the last surviving Munchkins from the 1939 beloved film "The Wizard of Oz," died Thursday. He was 89.
His caretaker, Linda Dodge, said Carroll died in his sleep at her home in suburban Crestwood.
He had heart problems and received a pacemaker in February.
Until January, he had lived in his own home in suburban Bel-Nor.

Carroll was one of more than 100 adults and children who were recruited to play the movie natives of what author L. Frank Baum called Munchkin Country in his 1998 book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz."
Carroll told The Associated Press in a 2007 interview that the Munchkins made only $125 a week while filming the movie that would become a classic.
"The Wizard of Oz" was Carroll's only movie.
When it appeared on television in the 1960s, he found a new career at charitable events, retail events and Oz-related events.
"It's not me; it's the movie," Carroll said. "
When they see me, they think of their childhood, and it makes them smile."
Carroll was born Michael Finocchiaro on July 8, 1919, in St. Louis.
The son of immigrants, he grew up in an Italian neighborhood on the city's north side with a twin sister and four older siblings. All preceded him in death.
A pituitary condition caused Carroll's short stature. Stephen Cox, a friend of Carroll's and the author of a book on the Munchkins, told the St.Louis Post-Dispatch that Carroll was 4-foot-3 when he stopped growing in his 40s.
Carroll danced at the Muny Theater in St. Louis when he was in grade school, he once said, and in the 1920s worked in Chicago clubs and on the Orpheum Theater vaudeville circuit.
His gift of gab and comedic timing helped his popularity.
He warmed up crowds for President Franklin Roosevelt while campaigning in New York City and served as a crowd-getter in President Harry Truman's whistlestop campaign.
He did Phillip Morris live radio ads and appeared in shows with
Mae West. He later did radio shows with George Burns, Gracie Allen, Jack Benny and Al Jolson.
But it was his role as one of the "Oz" Munchkins that defined him.
Carroll played the part of the Munchkinland "Town Crier," marched as a "Munchkin Soldier" and was the candy-striped "Fiddler" who escorted the movie's wide-eyed orphan, Dorothy Gale, played by Judy Garland, down the yellow brick road toward Emerald City.
In the mid-1940s, Carroll returned to St. Louis to run the family business making cemetery monuments. After he sold it in 1996, he filled his time with charity work, Dodge said.
In November 2007, Carroll and six other surviving Munchkins received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Carroll was joined on that occasion by former Munchkin colleagues Ruth Duccini, Jerry Maren, Margaret Pellegrini, Meinhardt Raabe, Karl Slover and Clarence Swensen. Swensen died in February.
At a special screening of the film in 2005 in Los Angeles, Carroll said talking to longtime fans about the movie brought back their childhoods.
"They have tears," he said.
"I'll say, `May the magic of Oz always be with you.' And, `Follow the yellow brick road!' And they're all excited. I bring back their childhood.
Ain't that something?"
___
On the Net:
Mickey Carroll's Web site: http://www.mickeycarrollmunchkin.com/
(This version CORRECTS corrects the publication year of Baum's book to 1998, not 1900.)
More on: Judy Garland, Mae West

Warning: Sunspot cycle beginning to rise

2009-05-08T14:41:00.000-07:00

AP – FILE - In this undated image provided by NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) shows a new …

WASHINGTON – When the sun sneezes it's Earth that gets sick. It's time for the sun to move into a busier period for sunspots, and while forecasters expect a relatively mild outbreak by historical standards, one major solar storm can cause havoc with satellites and electrical systems here.
Like hurricanes, a weak cycle refers to the number of storms, but it only takes one powerful storm to create chaos, said scientist Doug Biesecker of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's space weather prediction center.
A report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a storm as severe as one in 1859 occurred today, it could cause $1 trillion to $2 trillion in damage the first year and take four to 10 years to recover.
The 1859 storm shorted out telegraph wires, causing fires in North America and Europe, sent readings of Earth's magnetic field soaring, and produced northern lights so bright that people read newspapers by their light.
Today there's a lot more than telegraph lines at stake. Vulnerable electrical grids circle the globe, satellites now vital for all forms of communications can be severely disrupted along with the global positioning system. Indeed, the panel warned that a strong blast of solar wind can threaten national security, transportation, financial services and other essential functions.
The solar prediction center works closely with industry and government agencies to make sure they are prepared with changes in activity and prepared to respond when damage occurs, Biesecker said in a briefing.
While the most extreme events seem unlikely this time, there will probably be smaller scale disruptions to electrical service, airline flights, GPS signals and television, radio and cell phones.
On the plus side, the solar storms promote the colorful auroras, known as the northern and southern lights, high in the sky over polar areas.
An international panel headed by Biesecker said Friday it expects the upcoming solar cycle to be the weakest since 1928.
The prediction calls for the solar cycle to peak in May 2013 with 90 sunspots per day, averaged over a month. If the prediction proves correct it will be the weakest cycle since a peak of 78 daily sunspots in 1928.
Measurement of sunspot cycles began in the 1750s.
The panel described solar storms as eruptions of energy and matter that escape from the sun. At least some of this heads toward the Earth.
Solar cycles of more and fewer sunspots last several years and the cycle currently building up will be number 24 since counting began.
It's only the third time researchers have tried to make such a forecast. In 1989 a panel predicted Cycle 22, which peaked that year. And in 1996 scientists predicted Cycle 23.
Both earlier groups did better at predicting timing than intensity, according to Biesecker.
The last solar minimum occurred in December, the researchers said.
W. Dean Pesnell of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said the forecasts are based on such indicators as the strength of the sun's magnetic field at the poles and the reaction of the Earth's magnetic field to the sun. Both are weak right now, he said, with only a few sunspots visible since 2007.
A preliminary forecast issued in 2007 was split over the outlook for the upcoming cycle, Biesecker said the researchers have now reached consensus.
___
On the Net:
NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov
NASA: http://www.nasa.gov
Space Weather Center: http://www.spaceweather.gov

Natural Disasters the of America(2009\5\8)

2009-05-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

KFC offers rain checks on coupon Oprah promoted

2009-05-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Memo to KFC: never underestimate the power of Oprah Winfrey.
Or the lure of a freebie.
A free grilled-chicken meal promotion touted by the popular talk show host has caused such a frenzy that a few stores ran out and the Louisville-based chain is asking customers to take a rain check for the deal.
"For the last day and a half, our restaurants have just been absolutely inundated," KFC President Roger Eaton said in an interview Thursday with The Associated Press.

"It's just been overwhelming."
Lines snaked outside some KFC restaurants and cars stacked up at drive-through windows as people waited to redeem the coupons available on Oprah.com for 24 hours this week, he said. The coupons also were available until late Wednesday on unthinkfc.com — a KFC Web site promoting the new grilled chicken.
Restaurants summoned extra help to keep pace with the crowds, yet some customers waited an hour and a half as the chain gave away millions of the meals Tuesday, Wednesday and part of Thursday.
Uncomfortable with the delays, the chain decided to ask people to wait longer for the meals — but with the hope of a more peaceful setting in which to eat them.

Eaton said the company will mail coupons to customers in stages and throw in a free soft drink.
"The way we're operating at the moment isn't giving the experience that we'd like to give them," he said.
Police in Greensboro, N.C., said the backup of vehicles heading to a KFC there created a hazard at the dinner hour Wednesday. A 911 caller complained of people arguing and said traffic was stopped, according to a 911 report. Authorities eventually blocked access to the restaurant, and many customers left without redeeming their coupons.
There were isolated reports across the country of customers becoming upset at KFC stores as they waited or as stores ran out of chicken on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The company said Thursday that it had received no reports of violence or arrests.
The rush began when the downloadable coupons were available on Oprah.

com for 24 hours beginning Tuesday after Winfrey announced the promotion on her show. Each coupon promised two pieces of grilled chicken, two individual side orders and a biscuit.
A spokeswoman for Winfrey's Harpo Productions in Chicago applauded the company's decision to offer rain checks for the new meals, which KFC introduced three weeks ago as a healthier alternative to its popular staple, fried chicken.
"We feel this new plan is a great new way to accommodate the overwhelming interest," the spokeswoman said.
The free-meal promotion was funded by KFC, a spokeswoman for the chain said.
Known for generosity, Winfrey has doled out impressive giveaways for her studio audiences, from books to cars, and her comments or support have caused distinct spikes in the popularity of everything from consumer goods to political candidates. She also has hosted a televised philanthropy competition, "Oprah's Big Give," where contestants help people in need.
KFC, a subsidiary of Louisville-based Yum Brands Inc., has backed its new Kentucky Grilled Chicken with an advertising blitz.

chain hopes to lure health-conscious customers with its grilled offering, which is lower in fat, calories and sodium than the chain's fried chicken.
KFC has never had such a response to a special-meal offer, said KFC spokeswoman Laurie Schalow.
"It's unprecedented in our more than 50 years," she said. "It beats anything we've ever done."
The chain would not say how much the giveaway cost because the expense was part of its much larger national marketing and promotions budget for the year.
"The relative costs of a day like yesterday are very small relative to the potential value of getting people to taste this product," Eaton said. The draw, he said, was a mix of Winfrey's star power, the lure of a free meal in tough times and curiosity about the new product.
It's been a heady couple days for a chain that's been struggling in the United States but growing furiously overseas, particularly in China.
"We're getting people into the restaurants through this promotion who haven't been to KFC for a very long time," Eaton said. "We're basically repositioning the brand through this exercise."
___
Associated Press Writers Sophia Tareen in Chicago and Mike Baker in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.

Largest U.S. Banks Need Additional $75B in Equity, According to Stress Tests

2009-05-07T14:49:00.000-07:00

By Neil Irwin and Binyamin AppelbaumWashington Post Staff WritersThursday, May 7, 2009 5:01 PM

The nation's largest banks collectively need another $75 billion in equity to ride out potential losses due to the recession, according to long awaited government stress tests released this afternoon.
Nine of the 19 banks do not need any new capital at all, including J.P Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Another eight banks can fulfill their capital needs by raising money privately or, if they can't, by converting existing government investments into common stock. That list includes Bank of America, which needs $33.9 billion, and Wells Fargo, which needs $13.7 billion.
That leaves only two firms that must actually raise more cash. GMAC, the auto finance company that is historically tied to General Motors, needs an additional $9.1 billion in new capital. Regions Financial Corp., a regional bank based in Alabama, needs another $400 miliion.
Regulators have spent the last three months examining the banks' financial situations, projecting losses the firms would incur on their mortgage, consumer lending, and other loan portfolios if the jobless rate rises above 10 percent and home prices continue to tumble. The tests also estimated the degree to which those losses will be offset by earnings over the coming years.
The tests, a signature element of the Obama administration's strategy for rescuing the financial system, are meant to instill confidence in major banks by ensuring that they can weather a prolonged recession. The new capital they need, which is less than analysts had feared, suggests that the 19 largest U.S. banks will largely be able to raise the money they need in private markets, with few if any returning to the Treasury to request more money.
The banks that need more capital have a month to inform the government of how they plan to do so.

Their options include selling new common stock and selling off business lines or other assets. If the firms fail to raise the money in six months, they would receive a new injection of money from the government.
Banks were already racing to raise the money they need in private markets this afternoon.
Wells Fargo this afternoon announced it will raise $6 billion in a new sale of its stock. Wells, the nation's third biggest commercial bank, needs a total of $13.7 billion in new common equity to fulfill its requirements under the stress test.
Morgan Stanley, which needs to raise another $1.8 billion according to the stress test, said it will raise $2 billion by selling stock and issue another $3 billion in debt.
Citigroup said it will expand by $5.5 billion a program to switch out preferred stock for common stock, which would fill a common equity hole of that size that the government identified in the stress test.

Government to condemn land for Flight 93 memorial

2009-05-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

AP – FILE-- In this Sept. 11, 2006 file photo, flags attached to angels in memory of the 40 passengers and

PITTSBURGH – One man inherited property that his grandfather bought during the Depression. A Lutheran pastor owns a cottage where he planned to retire with his wife. Two others own businesses.
But they and other property owners in rural southwestern Pennsylvania knew things would change in the aftermath of United Flight 93's crash on Sept. 11, 2001, which killed 40 passengers and crew and four terrorist hijackers. Plans were soon in the works for a memorial to honor the victims. Property owners say they realized that and were willing to cooperate and help make it happen.
But now that the government intends to take their land by eminent domain so the Flight 93 memorial can be built by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, property owners say they're disappointed and surprised by the plan.
They also disputed that negotiations have taken place and said they've either not been made offers, or were only provided offers within the past week.
The park service "apologized about the way it's come together, but what's sad is they had all these years to put this together and they haven't," said Randall Musser, who owns about 62 acres that the park service wants to acquire.
"They haven't ever really gotten officially started with negotiations," he said Thursday. Appraisers were just at his land on Tuesday.
Musser served on the committee that helped establish the park's boundaries and said landowners were promised in 2002 that eminent domain would not be used.
While landowner Tim Lambert knew that eminent domain, or condemnation, was a possibility, he thought it was unlikely and that the park service and a victim's family group working to acquire land wanted to buy larger parcels before dealing with owners of smaller properties.
"It's absolutely a surprise. I'm shocked by it. I'm disappointed by it," said Lambert, who owns nearly 164 acres that his grandfather bought in the 1930s. The park service plans to condemn two parcels totaling about five acres — land he said he had always intended to donate for the memorial.
"To the best of my knowledge and my lawyer, absolutely no negotiations have taken place with the park service where we've sat down and discussed this," Lambert said.
Lambert said he had mainly dealt with the Families of Flight 93 and said he's provided the group all the information it's asked for, including an appraisal.
Larry Hoover, a Lutheran pastor who owns two parcels, including one that has a cottage where he and his wife planned to retire to, said a number of appraisals had been done, "but I've never sat down with the park service and done any negotiations.
"I can't say that we have ever got to the place where we've had a figure on the table," he said Thursday. It's been about three years since he's talked with the park service and about a year since he talked to the family group, he said.
The park service defended its plans.
"We had a group of people who took some very heroic actions. It's just fitting and right that we get this done in time for the 10th anniversary," said spokesman Phil Sheridan.
The park service had teamed up with the Families of Flight 93 to work with landowners since before 2005 to acquire the land. "But with few exceptions, these negotiations have been unsuccessful," the park service said in a statement.
Sheridan said he did not want to characterize any individual landowner as unwilling to negotiate, but, "Basically, at this point, we have not been able to acquire all the land we need," he said.
Even with willing sellers, Sheridan said title questions, liens and other claims can arise that would have to be worked out and could delay the project.
The seven property owners own about 500 acres still needed for what will ultimately be a $58 million, 2,200-acre permanent memorial and national park at the crash site near Shanksville, about 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
Patrick White, vice president of the families' group, said: "The families continue to support dedication of the permanent memorial by the 10th anniversary and that we are equally committed to working within the process with those landowners who are willing to sell."
"The thing to appreciate about the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution is that it provides for just compensation," he said.
The next step will be for the U.S. Justice Department to file a complaint in federal court. A court would have to decide the matter and would set a value on the land.
Condemnation is rarely used. The last time the park service used it, Sheriden said, was to acquire a tower at the Gettysburg battlefield. The tower wad demolished to return the battlefield to the way it looked in 1863.
In February, government officials and representatives of the 33 passengers and seven crew members killed when the plane crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, pledged to dedicate a memorial on the site by the 10th anniversary.
United Flight 93 was traveling from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco when it was diverted by hijackers with the likely goal of crashing it into the White House or Capitol. The official 9/11 Commission report said the hijackers crashed the plane as passengers tried to wrest control of the cockpit.

Obama Releases $3.4 Trillion Budget Plan

2009-05-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

By Lori Montgomery, Amy goldstein and William BraniginWashington Post Staff WritersThursday, May 7, 2009 1:06 PM

The Obama administration today unveiled program details of a $3.4 trillion federal budget for the fiscal year beginning in October, a proposal that includes substantial increases for a number of domestic priorities as well as a plan to trim or eliminate 121 programs at a savings of $17 billion.
In a statement delivered at the White House after the budget details were released, President Obama defended the cuts from critics on both sides -- those he said would fight to preserve the targeted programs and others who consider the reductions insignificant.
"We can no longer afford to spend as if deficits don't matter and waste is not our problem," he said. "We can no longer afford to leave the hard choices for the next budget, the next administration -- or the next generation."
While many government employees do valuable, thankless work, Obama said, "at the same time, we have to admit that there is a lot of money that's being spent inefficiently, ineffectively and, in some cases, in ways that are actually pretty stunning." He cited several examples, including a $465 million program to build an alternate engine for the Defense Department's joint strike fighter, a program that Pentagon brass neither wants nor plans to use.
Obama said some proposed cuts are larger and more painful than others, while some would produce less than $1 million in savings. "In Washington, I guess that's considered trivial," he said. "But these savings, large and small, add up." He said of the $17 billion total in projected savings, "Even by Washington standards, that should be considered real money."
Obama also stressed that the proposed cuts do not replace the need for "large changes" in entitlement spending.
The new budget documents, totaling more than 1,500 pages, fill in the details of a broad outline that Obama released in February. They include a massive appendix listing program-by-program information on the roughly 40 percent of the fiscal 2010 budget that constitutes discretionary spending, which will be set by Congress in what is expected to be a contentious appropriations process.
Also included is a separate tome that provides details on the programs targeted for cuts or elimination. If approved by Congress, those trims would amount to only about one-half of 1 percent of the $3.4 trillion federal budget.
But the proposed reductions are expected to be equally controversial on Capitol Hill, with some lawmakers battling for programs they favor and others demanded deeper cuts.
Congressional Republicans immediately denounced the cuts as insufficient when some details of them emerged yesterday.
The criticism drew a retort this morning from White House budget director Peter Orszag, who went on MSNBC to stress that the cuts are just a start on the long-term work of curbing government spending, notably the growth of the Medicare and Medicaid health care programs.
In any case, Orszag said, "$17 billion a year is not chump change by anyone's accounting."
About half of the trims would come from curbing defense programs that have been identified by Defense Secretary Robert M.
Gates as expendable. They include ending production of the F-22 fighter plane -- thus saving $2.9 billion next year -- and canceling a new $13 billion presidential helicopter fleet, which would save about $750 million in fiscal 2010.
In a letter to Congress accompanying the new budget documents, Obama said his proposals make "long-overdue investments and reforms" in education, health care and renewable sources of energy while "beginning to rein in unsustainable deficits and debt.
" He said the proposed program cuts "are just the next phase of a larger and longer effort needed to change how Washington does business and put our fiscal house in order."
"I have little doubt that there will be various interests -- vocal and powerful -- who will oppose different aspects of this budget," he wrote. "Change is never easy. However, I believe that after an era of profound irresponsibility, Americans are ready to embrace the shared responsibilities we have to each other and to generations to come.
They want to . . . reconstruct an economy that is built on a solid new foundation."
In his letter and in his remarks at the White House, Obama vowed again to cut the federal budget deficit in half by the end of his first term, and he pledged to bring nondefense discretionary spending over the next decade to its lowest level as a share of gross domestic product since 1962.
Under the budget request for the Pentagon, Afghanistan war funding surpasses that for Iraq for the first time, part of a shift in priorities that Gates seeks in defense spending.
The $130 billion in war funding that is part of the 2010 budget request includes $65 billion for Afghanistan operations and $61 billion for Iraq. The budget covers Obama's plan to increase U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan by 21,000 this year, but more funds would be required if he decides to meet the request of U.S. commanders for an additional 10,000 troops next year. The budget also includes $700 million for improving Pakistan's counterinsurgency capability -- a major increase in such assistance.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon's $534 billion base budget -- $21 billion, or 4 percent, larger than last year's -- also includes key initiatives to reshape the U.S. military for fighting today's wars. Major shifts include increasing spending on intelligence and reconnaissance, helicopters and Special Operations Forces, while stopping production of unneeded weapons systems and terminating or restructuring other programs considered "troubled."
In addition to the F-22 and presidential helicopter programs, proposed cuts include halting a $19 billion transformational satellite program and trimming $1.2 billion from missile defense.
Emphasizing the need to care for the all-volunteer force, the budget includes a 2.9 percent pay raise for active and reserve military personnel and increased spending on research for common wounds such as traumatic brain injury and mental health problems. Health care costs for military personnel have ballooned in recent years and are projected to consume $47 billion of the 2010 defense budget.
With the 2.9 percent across-the-board pay raise and other compensation increases, but excluding special pay and bonuses, military salaries will average nearly $52,000 a year for enlisted personnel and $98,000 a year for officers, the document says.
The budget includes $2.3 billion more for personnel costs than the level enacted in 2009, an increase that would help pay for the Bush administration's decision to permanently increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marine Corps by 27,000 Marines.
The volume separately lists budget items for "overseas contingency operations" covering pay and other personnel costs for service members in Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots. Included in this category is $115.3 billion for the "Iraq Freedom Fund" during fiscal 2010, an amount that includes up to $100 million "to support the relocation and disposition of individuals detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, relocate military and support forces associated with detainee operations and facilitate the closure of detainee facilities."
In addition, nearly $7.5 billion is budgeted for assistance to Afghan security forces.
The proposed budget immediately came under fire today from congressional Republicans. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) charged in a speech that the Obama administration "seems to be forcing the Pentagon to make some needlessly tough choices -- even as they justify trillions of dollars for domestic spending in the name of economic stimulus." He said growth of discretionary federal spending by 7.7 percent next year, compared with 4 percent growth in defense spending while the United States fights two wars, "shows the wrong budget priorities for our country."
Cornyn also complained about the plan to cut missile defense spending. "Given the threats we face, now is not the time to cash in a peace dividend," he said.
However, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) hailed the budget and praised Obama for reaffirming his pledge to cut waste. "No spending should be immune from review," he said in a statement.
Obama's list of proposed cuts is less ambitious than the hit list former president George W. Bush produced last year, which targeted 151 programs for $34 billion in savings. Like most of the cuts Bush sought, congressional sources and independent budget analysts predict, Obama's also are likely to prove a tough sell.
"Even if you got all of those things, it would be saving pennies, not dollars. And you're not going to begin to get all of them," said Isabel Sawhill, a Brookings Institution economist who waged her own battles with Congress as a senior official in the Clinton White House budget office. "This is a good government exercise without much prospect of putting a significant dent in spending."
Administration officials defended their approach, saying the list of program reductions and terminations is just the start of a broader effort to cut spending and rein in a skyrocketing budget deficit, which is projected to approach $1.7 trillion this year. They also noted that the list does not include more than $300 billion in savings Obama proposes to squeeze from federal health programs and use to finance an expansion of coverage for the uninsured.
"This is an important first step, but it's not the end of the process. We will continue to look for additional savings," said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the list of cuts had not been officially released. "You have not heard everything to be said on this topic from us."
The president has already scored a victory on the budget. Congress last week decisively approved his request to devote billions of dollars in new spending to health care, energy and education in the fiscal year that begins in October. But that plan depends in part on the administration's ability to identify budget cuts elsewhere. The document being released today details some of those savings.
The relatively short list of proposed program cuts quickly drew fire from Republicans who learned of them yesterday.
"While we appreciate the newfound attention to saving taxpayer dollars from this administration, we respectfully suggest that we should do far more," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said.
In separate briefings with congressional Democrats and reporters, administration officials yesterday said the proposed savings were evenly split between defense and nondefense programs, and that many of the most significant reductions had already been revealed by the president or by Gates.
They also said the majority of the reductions were new targets not previously identified by the Bush administration. But the two lists clearly have some overlap.
For example, congressional sources said Obama is proposing to eliminate a program that reimburses states and localities for holding suspected criminals who turn out to be in the country illegally. Created in 1994, the program was repeatedly targeted by Bush officials, who argued that it is ineffective. But Congress restored funding for the program because it was popular with state and local officials. The program handed out $400 million last year.
Administration officials said Obama also wants to do away with Even Start, a program created in the late 1980s to promote literacy for young children and their parents. Starting in 2005, Bush tried annually to persuade Congress to eliminate the program. Lawmakers gradually reduced funding from $247 million to $66 million, but never proved willing to eliminate it.
Yesterday, an administration official said that, though Obama considers early childhood education a priority, "The evidence is unfortunately clear that this specific early childhood program does not work very well."
The officials previewed four other programs marked for termination on the grounds that they are not needed or are not effective. Obama officials have previously identified three of them as being out of favor: a $35 million-a-year long-range radio navigation system that officials said has been made obsolete by Global Positioning System devices; a Department of Education attache based in Paris that costs $632,000 per year; and a $142 million program that officials said continues to pay states to clean up abandoned mines even though that task has been completed.
In addition, the White House is proposing to cancel the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation, an independent federal agency established to "encourage and support research, study and labor designed to produce new discoveries in all fields of endeavor for the benefit of mankind," according to its Web site. The program costs $1 million a year, and officials said 80 percent goes to administrative overhead.
The proposed cuts, if adopted by Congress, would not actually reduce government spending. Obama's budget would increase overall spending; any savings from the program terminations and reductions would be shifted to the president's priorities.
But the more likely outcome, budget analysts said, is that few to none of the programs targeted by Obama will be terminated. Presidents from both parties have routinely rolled out long lists of spending cuts -- and lawmakers from both parties routinely ignore them.
"You can go through the budget line by line, but there's no line that says 'waste, fraud and abuse,'" said Robert Bixby, executive director of the nonprofit Concord Coalition, which promotes deficit reduction. "What some people think is waste, other people think is a vital government service."
The administration officials said they think their cuts will be taken more seriously by lawmakers because the economic crisis and the accompanying rise in deficit spending is focusing fresh attention on the need to trim spending. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has told committee leaders to offer their own spending cuts by the beginning of June.
"The spirit on Capitol Hill is now cognizant of the need to find some efficiencies," the administration official said. "I think you're going to see proposals not just from us, but from lawmakers to find savings."
Still, in the context of an enormous deficit, the sums under discussion are a drop in the bucket, analysts said.
"Obviously, the bottom line is frightening," said Rudolph Penner, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office. "They have a long way to go to show fiscal restraint."
Staff writers Ann Scott Tyson and Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.

Group allegedly planning to attack parliament, take PM hostage

2009-05-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

Canadian Muslim pleads guilty to terrorist plot

Khalid was part of a group of 18 Canadian Muslims arrested in mid-2006 in Toronto, accused of planning attacks (File)

OTTAWA (AlArabiya.net, AFP)
A Canadian man has plead guilty to participating in a terrorist plot three years ago to attack the Canadian parliament and take the prime minister hostage, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Saad Khalid, 22, is the first adult in the group to admit a role in the alleged plot.Khalid was part of a group of 18 Canadian Muslims arrested in mid-2006 in Toronto, accused of planning attacks in that city and in Ottawa, and having ties to jihadists in Pakistan.
He entered a guilty plea in a Brampton courtroom on Monday, but a publication ban ordered by the court prevented its publication until Wednesday.

Khalid faced two charges of "knowingly participating in or contributing to ... activities of a terrorist group ........ (enabling it) to carry out a terrorist activity," and intending to cause a deadly and destructive explosion, said an indictment.
The group allegedly planned to attack the Canadian parliament and to take hostages, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to force Canada to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan.
Prosecutors said the group wanted to obtain three tons of ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer that can be used to make explosives.
But after the arrests, authorities dropped charges against seven of the suspects, and they were freed.
In September, one of the youngest of the group whose name cannot be revealed because of his age, was found guilty of terrorist activities. He is now 20 and remains in prison.
Khalid, and other members of what was dubbed the Toronto 18, was arrested in June, 2006 and charged with terror-related offences.
Nine others still remain in custody awaiting trial.

Job includes luxury island life of snorkeling and socializing

2009-05-07T06:44:00.000-07:00

British man wins Aussie's "best job in the world"
Luxury

Stuck behind a desk working a 9 to 5? Well then you might envy a lucky British man who won the chance to take a stab at the "best job in world" as manager of an Australian tropical island for six months.Charity worker Ben Southall was selected by tourism chiefs in Queensland, who launched a global hunt to fill the spot, from 34,000 applications and beat out 15 candidates from around the world.
No longer working as a charity fundraiser in the United Kingdom, the 34-year-old will become manager of Hamilton Island, on the Great Barrier Reef as part of efforts to revive Australian tourism that witnessed a decline in the wake of economic recession.

"I hope I can fill the boots as much as everybody is expecting.

My swimming is hopefully up to standard and I look forward to all the new roles and responsibilities that the task involves," Southall told BBC.

Luxury
Living in a three bedroom villa on Hamilton Island equipped with a private pool and ocean views and a golf buggy, Southall is set to report back to Tourism Queensland through blogs, photo diaries, video updates and interviews.

His new job requires him to explore "the islands of the Great Barrier Reef, swim, snorkel, make friends with the locals and generally enjoy the tropical Queensland climate and lifestyle," according to Tourism Queensland website.

The "best job in the world" contest has generated huge interest around the globe, but the jury is out on whether that will translate into more tourism dollars for Queensland, Australia.

World without oil !!! How be?

2009-05-06T09:24:00.000-07:00

Officials arrest 8 in Turkey 'blood feud' wedding massacre

2009-05-05T13:59:00.000-07:00

Blood fued' massacre at Turkish wedding kills 44

People bear the coffin of a victim of Monday night's assault to bury in Bilge in southeastern Turkey, 05 May 2009

Eight men suspected of gunning down 44 people during a wedding ceremony in southeastern Turkey were arrested Tuesday and accused of killing the couple, whose wedding they opposed, along with relatives and friends, in a 15-minute rampage. Monday's attack is one of the worst involving civilians in Turkey's modern history.

Traumatized survivors of the massacre along with relatives of the victims waited outside the region's main hospital for news of their loved ones. Ambulances brought the dead and injured to the hospital throughout the night.

What was meant to be an evening of joy and celebration turned into a massacre, when at least six masked gunman entered the remote village where the wedding ceremony was taking place.

According to witnesses, the gunmen who were armed with automatic weapons and hand grenades, opened fire on the 200 people attending the wedding.

More than a dozen children and women, including the bride, were killed the attack in Bilge, a village of a few hundred people in Turkey's conservative heartland.

One witness described what happened.My sister, her husband and other relatives died. All together 44 people lost their lives, he said. The wedding couple put their wedding rings on and as the evening prayers started people started firing through windows and the door.

Another witness said the gunmen rounded up women and children and then executed them. The region where the attack occurred is the center of a more than 20-year conflict between the Turkish state and Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy.

Initially it was thought the massacre was part of that conflict. But Interior minister Besir Atalay, who flew to the region following the attack, said that was unlikely.

According to our first inspections ; this happened because of a feud within the family, he said. But our efforts to find out what happened are continuing.

I can't be more specific at the moment.While the scale of Monday's killing has shocked this predominently Muslim country of 70 million, experts say dozens are killed in rural Turkey every year in "blood for blood" vendettas passed from generations over land disputes, grazing rights or matters of family honor.

It is believed the attack was triggered by the rejection of marriage by the bride-to-be of another member of the local clan.

After intense security operations, eight people have been detained. Some reports say they include relatives of those killed.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the attack. To aim a gun against people who are happily celebrating a wedding; to massacre defenseless people including children aged three, even one, is evil beyond words, beyond humanity, Erdogan said.

No tradition, no understanding can justify such a killing.The village is believed to be part of a local militia group with local people armed by the state to fight against the Kurdish insurgency. Up to 70,000 people have been provided with weapons by the initiative
Some of those guns are believed to have been used in the attack.

These killings are expected to lead to calls for greater control of arms distribution, or even a ban. Observers says the wedding massacre is a tragic combination of ancient customs and modern weapons.

Handwritten letters claimed "torture" by US military

2009-05-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

Saddam's "sleepless nights" revealed in FBI files

Saddam, seen here during his 2004 trial, alleged abuse and mistreatment from US officials in a series of handwritten letters released by the FBI

In his final days, ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein complained of torture and severe "beatings" as well sleep deprivation in a series of letters penned during his time in American captivity, press reports said on Tuesday. The handwritten letters, obtained by the New York Daily News, poured out complaints of mental and physical abuse by the "detention gang" of the United States military jailers.

in one letter Hussein wrote: "not a single part of my body was spared of the severe harm inflicted by the detention gang," adding, "some of the traces are still visible on my body."Hussein described his detention center – believed to be inside Baghdad International Airport – as a nightmarish chamber where sleepless nights echoed the screams of prisoners being tortured.

"My opportunity to sleep in this place is limited and almost scarce," Saddam wrote.

"I don't think there is anyone with a sensitive and humanitarian heart who can sleep amidst the screams of the tortured and the many blows of the doors and the squeaking sounds of the chairs.

In one letter written on Christmas day 2003, the former Iraqi leader claimed that in the past three days, the "total hours of sleep did not exceed four to five hours."

Prisoner requests

Saddam's letter's describe torture and sleepless nights (Courtesy of New York Daily News).

The letters were among 352 pages in Hussein's declassified FBI file, which the paper requested after his December 2006 execution for crimes against humanity.The heavily redacted FBI file did not address Hussein's allegations of mistreatment and are not considered credible by U.S. experts.In one note, American officials - seemingly intent on convicting the imprisoned leader – stated that FBI should "overwhelm Hussein with the volume of evidence against him and others regarding human rights violations, mass murders and the use of chemical weapons."Following Saddam's capture on Dec. 15, 2003, he penned his first letter nine days later requesting the return of "a number of simple necessities, the most important are notebooks with chapters from a story." He also demanded an accounting of over $1 million in cash found hidden with him in a Tikrit spider hole.A 2004 memo also revealed that Hussein became fond of his FBI interrogator and even ended a hunger strike "for the benefit of Supervisory Special Agent Piro."The files show that the Hussein and his family were tracked by the agency since the early 1970s. One early memo described the Iraqi leader as someone who "enjoys a good Havana cigar."

remember Hiroshima

2009-05-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

A video clip from a BBC documentary shows how a single U.S. bomb wiped out an entire city

Barcelona 6 VS Real Madrid 2009

2009-05-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

Barcelona targets only

Japan warns of a circulating Internet (swine flu) virus

2009-05-03T07:19:00.000-07:00

Japan reports 'swine flu' computer virus

A suspicious Japanese-language email message is circulating in cyberspace in Japan

TOKYO (AFP)
Japan reported no human cases of deadly swine flu so far -- but a computer virus of the same name has been spreading on the Internet in recent days, authorities warned Thursday.
Japan's National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) said on its website that a suspicious Japanese-language email message with an attached file called "information on swine flu" had been circulating in cyberspace.
"The institute has received reports that the email message falsely identifying itself as coming from the NIID is circulating," it said.

"The email is carrying a file titled 'information on swine flu', which has been recognized as an illegal program by the institute's virus-checking software," the NIID statement said.

The institute did not say what kind of malware was hidden inside the file or what harm it might do.The email seemed to be sent to random Internet users, the institute said.

"It is obviously a suspicious message falsely identifying itself," it said.

Japan has so far reported no human cases of swine flu, which is believed to have killed dozens of peoples in Mexico and has spread to the United States, Europe, Israel and New Zealand.

Photos of the meeting REAL MADRID vs BARCELONA

2009-05-02T13:56:00.000-07:00

Types "how to deliver a baby" into Google search engine

2009-05-02T13:22:00.000-07:00

Brit helps wife deliver with YouTube as midwife

LONDON (AFP)
A British man helped deliver his baby son by following clips on YouTube, after his wife went into labor early, he said Friday.Marc Stephens, a 28-year old engineer with the Royal Navy, was caught out when his wife Jo went into labor early three weeks prematurely at their home in Redruth, southwest England.He typed "how to deliver a baby" into the Google search engine.

"I didn't even have time to panic. She started complaining of pain around 10.30 pm. I went on Google and watched a couple of clips on YouTube," he said, adding that his wife had given birth quickly with their three older children."At 2.30 am she woke me up, but when I rang the midwife to come out she said they were busy at the hospital. The next thing I know she is coming through the bedroom doorway on all-fours.

"I looked down and the baby's head was showing."After helping her give birth, he rounded up daughters Jasmine, two, Sophie, five and Zoe, six, and the whole family went by ambulance to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in nearby Truro.Within hours they were back at home, where Stephens was on Friday caring for his wife and children, including new-born son Gabriel.

Real Madrid v Barcelona 2009

2009-05-02T05:16:00.001-07:00