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Skydiver aims to break sound barrier in free fall

2012-10-01T21:26:00.002-07:00

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — His blood could boil. His lungs could overinflate. The vessels in his brain could burst. His eyes could hemorrhage.

And, yes, he could break his neck while jumping from a mind-boggling altitude of 23 miles.
But the risk of a gruesome death has never stopped "Fearless Felix" Baumgartner in all his years of skydiving and skyscraper leaping, and it's not about to now.

Next Monday over New Mexico, he will attempt the highest, fastest free fall in history and try to become the first skydiver to break the sound barrier.
"So many unknowns," Baumgartner says, "but we have solutions to survive."
The 43-year-old former military parachutist from Austria is hoping to reach 690 mph, or Mach 1, after leaping from his balloon-hoisted capsule over the desert near Roswell.
He will have only a pressurized suit and helmet for protection as he tries to go supersonic 65 years after Chuck Yeager, flying an experimental rocket plane, became the first human to go faster than the speed of sound.
Doctors, engineers and others on Baumgartner's Red Bull-sponsored team have spent as much as five years studying the risks and believe they have done everything possible to bring him back alive. He has tested out his suit and capsule in two dress rehearsals, jumping from 15 miles in March and 18 miles in July.
Baumgartner will be more than three times higher than the cruising altitude of jetliners when he hops, bunny-style, out of the capsule and into a near-vacuum where there is barely any oxygen and less than 1 percent of the air pressure on Earth.
If all goes well, he will reach the speed of sound in about half a minute at an altitude of around 100,000 feet. Then he will start to slow as the atmosphere gets denser, and after five minutes of free fall, he will pull his main parachute. The entire descent should last 15 to 20 minutes.
He will be rigged with cameras that will provide a live broadcast of the jump via the Internet, meaning countless viewers could end up witnessing a horrific accident.
Baumgartner is insistent on going live with his flight.
"We want to share that with the world," he says. "It's like landing on the moon. Why was that live?"
His team of experts — including the current record-holder from a half-century ago, Joe Kittinger, now 84 — will convene inside a NASA-style Mission Control in the wee hours Monday for the liftoff of the helium balloon at sunrise.
"All the things that can happen are varying degrees of bad," offers Baumgartner's top medical man, Dr. Jonathan Clark, a former NASA flight surgeon.
Clark was married to space shuttle astronaut Laurel Clark, who was killed aboard Columbia while it was returning to Earth in 2003, and he has dedicated himself to improving astronauts' chances of survival in a high-altitude disaster.
NASA is paying close attention, eager to improve its spacecraft and spacesuits for emergency escape, but is merely an observer; the energy drink maker is footing the bill and will not say how much it is costing.
The No. 1 fear is a breach of Baumgartner's suit.
If it breaks open — if, say, he bangs into the capsule while jumping or supersonic shock waves batter him — potentially lethal bubbles could form in his bodily fluids. That's what's known as boiling blood. A Soviet military officer died in 1962 after jumping from a balloon at 86,000 feet; the visor of his helmet hit the gondola and cracked.
During the descent, the temperature could be as low as minus 70. Baumgartner's suit will be all he has between his body and the extreme cold.
Then there's the risk of a flat spin, in which Baumgartner loses control of his body during the free fall and starts spinning. A long, fast spin, if left unchecked, could turn his eyeballs into blood-soaked, reddish-purple orbs, and he could be left temporarily blind. Also, a massive blood clot could form in his brain.
A small stabilizing chute will automatically deploy if he goes into a flat spin and blacks out or otherwise becomes incapacitated. He also has an emergency chute that will automatically deploy if he is unable to pull the cord on his main chute.
Baumgartner's team has a plan for every contingency but one: If the balloon ruptures shortly after liftoff because of a gust of wind or something else, the capsule will come crashing down with him inside. He won't have time to blow the hatch and bail out.
"I have every expectation that he'll come through this successfully based on our analysis," Clark says, "but you know, it still is an unknown."
Kittinger leapt from an open gondola on Aug. 16, 1960, from an altitude of 19.5 miles and reached 614 mph, or Mach 0.9 — records that stand to this day. He was a captain in the Air Force, and the military's Excelsior project was a test bed for the nation's young space program.
Kittinger has been Baumgartner's mentor, signing on with this new project after decades of refusing others' requests.
Fearless Felix insists he would not attempt the jump if the odds were against him.
"I think they underestimate the skills of a skydiver," says Baumgartner, who has made more than 2,500 jumps from planes, helicopters, landmarks and skyscrapers, with no serious injuries.
If he makes it back in one piece, Baumgartner plans on settling down with his girlfriend and flying helicopters in the U.S. and Austria, performing mountain rescues and firefighting.
"After this," he promises, "I'm going to retire because I've been successfully doing things for the last 25 years and I'm still alive."
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Online:
Red Bull Stratos: http://www.redbullstratos.com
National Museum of the U.S. Air Force: http://tinyurl.com/2dsnn6

Boat sinks off Hong Kong after collision; 36 dead

2012-10-01T21:24:00.002-07:00

HONG KONG (AP) — A boat packed with revelers on a long holiday weekend collided with a ferry and sank off Hong Kong, killing at least 36 people and injuring dozens in the deadliest accident to strike the Chinese territory in years.

The boat was carrying utility company workers and their families to famed Victoria Harbour to watch a fireworks display in celebration of China's National Day and mid-autumn festival. The two vessels collided Monday night near Lamma Island off the southwestern coast of Hong Kong Island.

The government said 36 bodies had been recovered as of Tuesday morning and the search was made difficult by low visibility and obstacles on the boat. Details about the victims were not given, though local outlet RTHK reported some of the dead were children.

More than 100 people were rescued and sent to hospitals, and nine had serious or critical injuries, the government's statement said. At least one person appeared to be missing, according to government figures.

Such large-scale accidents are rare for Hong Kong, a semiautonomous enclave off mainland China that has one of Asia's most advanced infrastructures and economies with first-rate public services.

The tragedy is also the latest test for the new administration of Hong Kong's Beijing-installed chief executive, Leung Chun-ying, who rushed to the pier where rescue work was taking place.

Leung's July inauguration was greeted by protests, and opposition by students and their parents against the proposed teaching of China-influenced patriotic history forced his government to back off the plan last month.

"All of Hong Kong's emergency forces are focused here," Leung said earlier. "Wide-ranging rescue work is being carried out on in the sea, land and in the air." Leung said he didn't know what caused the collision but promised a thorough investigation.
After daybreak, the boat was half submerged with its bow pointing almost straight up. A barge was tied alongside it, apparently to stabilize the sunken boat and keep it from tipping further.

Hong Kong fire services had deployed seven boats, including one to support diving operations, and more than 200 rescue personnel, the government said. Four rescue boats and a team of divers also were dispatched from the mainland Chinese province of Guangdong just across the border, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

"There was a boat that came in close and crashed," said Yuen Sui-see, director of operations at Power Assets Holdings Ltd., which was using the vessel to take staff on the outing. "After the crash, the other boat continued away, it didn't stop." He denied the vessel was overloaded, saying it was carrying 121 passengers and three crew but had capacity for more than 200 passengers.

Local news reports said the boat was hit by a ferry operated by the Hong Kong and Kowloon Ferry company on a regularly scheduled service. RTHK said the ferry captain was afraid to stop in case it sank, too, and returned to port safely. Local TV later showed images of the ferry, with its bow chewed up and chunks missing.

Survivors said the boat started sinking rapidly after the collision. One woman told local television that she swallowed a lot of water as she swam back to shore. Another man said he didn't know where his children were. Neither gave their names.

Lamma is the third-biggest island in Hong Kong and near one of the coastal Chinese city's busiest shipping lanes. The island is home to about 6,000 people, including many of the former British colony's expatriate workers.

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Follow Kelvin Chan at twitter.com/chanman

Samsung wins reconsideration of Galaxy Tab sales ban

2012-09-30T21:11:00.002-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that a lower court should reconsider a sales ban against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 won by Apple in a patent dispute with theSouth Korean electronics maker.

The injunction was put in place ahead of a month-long trial that pitted iPhone maker Apple Inc against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in a closely watched legal battle that ended with a resounding victory for Apple last month on many of its patent violation claims.

However, the jury found that Samsung had not violated the patent that was the basis for the tablet injunction and Samsung argued the sales ban should be lifted. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh said she could not act because Samsung had already appealed.

In its ruling on Friday, the Federal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington said Koh could now consider the issue.

The decision comes just a month before the South Korean corporation is expected to unveil the second generation of one of its most successful devices, the stylus-equipped Note.

The Galaxy 10.1 is an older model, but the ban still hurts Samsung in the run-up to the pivotal holiday shopping season.

The world's top two smartphone makers are locked in patent disputes in 10 countries as they vie to dominate the lucrative market, which is growing rapidly.

A U.S. jury found during the just-concluded trial that Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad and awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages.

(Reporting By Dan Levine; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn. Editing by Andre Grenon)

Canada says it took Guantanamo detainee early after U.S. pressure

2012-09-30T21:10:00.001-07:00

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada, which allowed Guantanamo detaineeOmar Khadr to be transferred to a prison in his homeland months earlier than expected, did so after pressure from the United States,Foreign Minister John Baird said on Sunday.

Baird declined to comment on reports an angry Washington had insisted on Khadr's quick return after someone in Canada leaked a secret U.S. report on him.

Khadr, 26, the youngest prisoner and last Westerner held in the Guantanamo military base, was sent back to Canada on Saturday to finish his sentence. He was 15 years old when captured in Afghanistan and later confessed to killing a U.S. soldier and conspiring with al Qaeda.

Khadr's arrival in Canada was a major surprise since Public Safety Minister Vic Toews indicated as recently as September 14 that Khadr was unlikely to return before January.

Asked whether the United States had put pressure on Canada to accept Khadr now, Baird told CTV: "Yes ... obviously the Americans are closing down the prison and wanted to send him back and under law, Canadian law, we're pretty obliged to take him."

Khadr, who pleaded guilty in 2010 to murdering a U.S. army medic with a grenade in a Afghan firefight in 2002, applied for a transfer to Canada in April.

Toews, who was responsible for handling the application, requested a copy of a videotaped interview a U.S. psychiatrist had done with Khadr in Guantanamo.

Shortly after the video was delivered to Ottawa, a Canadian news magazine published extensive excerpts. U.S. officials expressed anger, with an aide to President Barack Obama telling the Toronto Star the leak was "a breach of trust."

Toews said he had no idea who had leaked the transcript. Baird did not answer directly when asked about U.S. anger over the incident.

"We have strong relation(s). They won't be deeply affected by anything of the sort," he said.

Canada's ruling right-of-center Conservatives have little time for Khadr and regularly dismissed critics who said he had been a child soldier in Afghanistan and therefore needed to be rehabilitated rather than punished.

Khadr, who complained he had been tortured in Guantanamo, was taken to Afghanistan by his father, a senior al Qaeda member, who died in 2003 in a clash with Pakistani forces.

Toews said on Saturday he was worried that Khadr had become radicalized by his experiences and still idealized his father.

A U.S. war crimes tribunal in 2010 sentenced Khadr to 40 years in prison, although he was expected to serve just a few more years under a deal that included his admission he was an al Qaeda conspirator.

He is now in the Millhaven maximum-security prison in the central province of Ontario and can apply for parole next year.

John Norris, one of Khadr's lawyers, said his client would not pose Canadian authorities any problems.

"He has been a model inmate in Guantanamo. And I'm pretty I would not have been a model inmate in Guantanamo. It's a desperately horrible place, yet he has managed there and has impressed many people there," Norris told CTV on Sunday.

"The government has propagated a real stereotype of Omar. It's a caricature. It is not the real Omar Khadr," said Norris, who has yet to see Khadr.

The Khadr case was an irritant to Canada and the United States, who share a long border and have the world's largest trading relationship.

Bilateral ties cooled in January when Obama put off a decision on approving an oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was "profoundly disappointed" by the move and later announced Canada needed to sell more of its crude to Asian markets. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Bill Trott)

Bangladeshi Muslims torch Buddhist temples, homes

2012-09-30T21:09:00.001-07:00

COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — Thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims set fire to at least 10 Buddhist temples and 40 homes in anger over a Facebook photo of a burned Quran before authorities restored order.

The situation was under control Sunday afternoon after extra security officers were deployed and the government banned public gatherings in the troubled areas near the southern border withMyanmar, said Nojibul Islam, a police chief in the coastal district of Cox's Bazar.

He said at least 20 people were injured in the attacks that started late Saturday after a photo of a burned copy of the Muslim holy book was posted on Facebook. The rioters blamed the photo on a local Buddhist boy, though it was not immediately clear if he actually posted the photo.

Bangladesh's popular English-language Daily Star newspaper quoted the boy as saying that the photo was mistakenly tagged on his Facebook profile. The newspaper reported that soon after the violence started, the boy's Facebook account was closed and police escorted him and his mother to safety.

Joinul Bari, chief government administrator in Cox's Bazar district, said authorities detained the boy's parents and were investigating.

Buddhists make up less than 1 percent of Muslim-majority Bangladesh's 150 million people.

The Bangladeshi violence follows protests that erupted in Muslim countries over the past month after a low-budget film, "Innocence of Muslims," produced by a U.S. citizen denigrated the Prophet Muhammad by portraying Islam's holiest figure as a fraud, womanizer and child molester.

Some two dozen demonstrators have been killed in protests that attacked symbols of U.S. and the West, including diplomatic compounds.

Capriles leads huge rally in Venezuelan capital

2012-09-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A huge crowd filled the streets of Venezuela's capital on Sunday cheering for opposition candidateHenrique Capriles, waving flags in a show of support one week before the country's hotly contested presidential election.

Capriles waved from a truck that rolled through the vast expanse ofsupporters. The crowd overflowed from Bolivar Avenue, the widest downtown thoroughfare, which according to some estimates has a capacity to hold about 260,000 people. The authorities didn't provide a crowd estimate.

"Bolivar Avenue is too small for us," Capriles shouted to the crowd, which was the largest of any opposition gathering in recent years.

While President Hugo Chavez led a rally with tens of thousands of supporters in western Zulia state on Sunday, authorities were investigating the killings of two men in a shooting that erupted elsewhere during an opposition campaign caravan on Saturday.

Capriles condemned the killings in western Barinas state.

"On Oct. 7 we're going to defeat violence in Venezuela," Capriles said. "Our country is tired of the violence, of the division, of the confrontation. ... The time of hatred is going to be buried in Venezuela."

Chavez also lamented the violence, calling for his supporters not to "fall for provocations" at election time.

"I ask all Venezuelans, it's not with violence that we're going to face each other. It's vote against vote," Chavez said.

Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said in a message on Twitter that a suspect was arrested in the killings, but he didn't immediately identify him.

Opposition lawmaker Julio Cesar Reyes said on Saturday that a group of Chavez's supporters blocked the caravan and people on both sides were arguing when a gunman appeared and started shooting. Both men killed were participants in the motorcade of Capriles supporters.

One video posted on YouTube showed the two groups arguing on a street when gunshots rang out and people ran for cover.

Violence has erupted previously during the campaign for the Oct. 7 vote, but these were the first deaths.

Chavez rallied thousands of supporters during weekend street events in Guarenas, a town east of Caracas, and in western Zulia state.

"It's impossible for us to lose," Chavez said at Saturday's rally in Guarenas. The crowd chanted: "Ooh, Ahh, Chavez won't go!"

People grabbed at red T-shirts that were thrown into the crowd. Some stood on rooftops cheering, and women screamed as Chavez passed.

Yusneidy Rondon, a 26-year-old student, shouted with emotion and danced in the street after getting close enough to hand Chavez a letter.

"Chavez forever. ... I love him!" gushed Rondon, who said that in her letter she had asked the president to provide her with a computer, just as she now enjoys free university tuition.

While Chavez touted his achievements during his speech, he also said "self-criticism" is important and acknowledged that problems including a housing shortage and sporadic blackouts remain.

"There are reasons for many people to be dissatisfied with this government that I lead," Chavez told the crowd. But, he added, "On Oct. 7, it isn't at stake whether the light went out or not... whether they've given me a house or not."

"Those are very important problems and we're working to solve them," Chavez said. "My socialist government is going to continue solving our big problems."

Many analysts say they expect a tight race. A recent poll by the Venezuelan firm Consultores 21 put the two candidates roughly even, with 46.5 percent saying they would vote for Capriles and nearly 46 percent saying they would vote for Chavez. The poll had an error margin of 3 percentage points.

Another survey by Datanalisis this month showed Chavez with a 10-point lead over Capriles, while 11 percent of those interviewed didn't reveal a preference.

Addressing the crowd in Caracas, Capriles criticized Chavez for what he called a long list of unfulfilled promises, noting that years ago the president pledged to clean up the sewage-filled Guaire River in Caracas and it remains badly polluted.

"Where's the cleanup? Pure chatter," Capriles told the crowd.

The opposition leader criticized what he called gifts by Chavez's government to other countries, and rattled off a list including a donation to a Puerto Rican music group, a hospital in Uruguay and prefabricated homes in Guatemala.

Capriles' supporters converged on the demonstration by marching down several avenues, blowing horns and whistles. Some chanted: "We see it, we feel it, Capriles president!"

"I'm marching for my grandchildren, for my future," said Segunda Palacios, a retired teacher. "We don't want a tyrant anymore."

She said if Chavez wins re-election, "that would be catastrophic for the country."

___

Associated Press writers Jorge Rueda and Ian James contributed to this report.

Labour to impose "real" bank split if elected - Miliband

2012-09-30T21:05:00.002-07:00

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Labour leader Ed Milibandlaunched an offensive against banks on Sunday ahead of his party'sannual conference, promising a "real separation" of retail andinvestment banking and to raise the top rate of personal income tax.

The Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government has said it will implement the recommendations of an independent review by Oxford University economist John Vickers into how banks should be structured in the wake of the global credit crisis.

But critics, including Vickers, have lamented the watering down of some of the proposals - including the definition of the ring fence between retail and investment arms and the ratio of loans to capital that banks can hold on their books.

Britain's banks - including Barclays, RBS, Lloyds and HSBC - will have until 2019 to make the changes with the government committed to write the new rules into law by 2015.

Labour accuses the government of caving in to fierce lobbying by the financial sector.

"Either they can do it themselves - which frankly is not what has happened over the past year - or the next Labour government will, by law, break up retail and investment banks," Miliband said.

"The banks and the government can change direction and say that they are going to implement the spirit and principle of Vickers to the full - that means the hard ring-fence between retail and investment banking. We need real separation, real culture change. Or we will legislate."

Some in the Conservative-led government had been concerned that punishing the financial sector could damage the competitiveness of the City of London, a major global financial centre, and potentially harm a crucial part of Britain's recession-hit economy.

Miliband's warning to the banks comes ahead of his party's annual conference in the northern English city of Manchester, where he is under pressure to explain to voters how it would govern if elected in 2015.

Miliband, who replaced former prime minister Gordon Brown as Labour leader after that defeat, has struggled to make a good impression on voters so far. While opinion polls show Labour would win an election tomorrow, his own personal approval ratings languish below those of Prime Minister David Cameron.

Seeking to capitalise on a perception of Cameron's government as too friendly to the wealthy in an era of austerity, Miliband said Labour would reverse a tax cut for the highest earners in this year's budget which saw the highest rate of income tax drop to 45 percent from 50 percent.

(Editing by Patrick Graham)

Iran swipe at Web brings angry reply

2012-09-30T21:04:00.001-07:00

TEHRAN (AP) — Iran's cyber monitors often tout their fight against the West's "soft war" of influence through the Web, but trying to block Google's popular Gmail appeared to be a swipe too far.

Complaints piled up — even from email-starved parliament members — and forced authorities Sunday to double down on their promises to create a parallel Web universe with Tehran as its center.

The strong backlash and the unspecific pledges for an Iran-centric Internet alternative to the Silicon Valley powers and others highlight the two sides of the Islamic Republic's ongoing battles with the Web. It's spurred another technological mobilization that fits neatly into Iran's self-crafted image as the Muslim world's showcase for science, including sending satellites into orbit, claiming advances in cloning and stem cell research and facing down the West over its nuclear program.

But there also are the hard realities of trying to reinvent the Web. Iran's highly educated and widely tech-savvy population is unlikely to warm quickly to potential clunky homegrown browsers or email services. And then there's the potential political and economic fallout of trying to close the tap on familiar sites such as Gmail.

"Some problems have emerged through the blocking of Gmail," Hussein Garrousi, a member of a parliamentary committee on industry, was quoted Sunday by the independent Aftab-e Yazd daily. What he apparently meant was that many lawmakers were angry and missing their emails.

He said that parliament would summon the minister of telecommunications for questioning if the ministry did not lift the Gmail ban, which was imposed last week in respond to clips on Google-owned YouTube of a film mocking the Prophet Muhammad that set off deadly protests across the Islamic world.

Even many newspapers close to the government complained over the email disruptions. On Saturday, the Asr-e Ertebat weekly reported that Iranians had paid a total of $4.5 million to purchase proxy services to reach blocked sites, including Facebook and YouTube, over the past month.

Iranian authorities — perhaps recognizing the risks at hand — decided against taking a symbolic twin shot at Google and cut access to the Web browser in a country with 32 million Internet users among a population of 75 million, according to official statistics.

That would rank online Iran among the world's top 20 in terms of sheer numbers of users, and equivalent to some European countries in per capita Web use at more than 40 percent, according to the private monitoring group Internet World Stats. The World Bank, however, puts Iran's Internet link rate at just 21 percent last year.

The U.S. is among the world's highest at more than 75 percent.

Iran's deputy telecoms minister, Ali Hakim Javadi, told reporters that Iranian authorities were considering lifting the Gmail ban. But he also used the opportunity to again promise development of Iran's domestic alternatives: the Fakhr ("Pride") search engine and the Fajr ("Dawn") email, Aftab-e Yazd reported.

When reporters noted the quality of Gmail services, Javadi quipped: "If there is Mercedes Benz on the street, that doesn't mean everyone drives a Mercedes."

Iran's clerical establishment has long signaled its intent to get citizens off of the international Internet — which they say promotes Western values — and onto a "national" and "clean" domestic network. Earlier this year, Iran's police chief, Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam, called Google an "instrument of espionage" rather than a search engine.

But it is unclear whether Iran has the technical capacity to follow through on its ambitious plans, or is willing to risk the economic damage and the social shock waves.

The Internet has steadily become part of Iran's fabric since the first Farsi-language sites developed a decade ago by Canadian-Iranian blogger Hossein Derakshan, who is considered one of the founders of Iran's social media community. Derakshan, however, was detained in 2008 and sentenced to nearly 20 years in prison two years later as the battles heated up between liberals seeking open access to the Web and authorities trying to erect their own version of China's "Great Firewall," the name given to Beijing's extensive filtering and censorship of the Internet.

Sites such as Twitter and Facebook were pillars of the street revolts after the disputed 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The powerful Revolutionary Guard responded by recruiting and training its own cyber force to patrol the Web and, later, try to defend against virus attacks on nuclear and other sites that Iran has blamed on the West and its allies.

Some Web security experts also have raised the possibility of Iranian hackers being behind some recent high-profile computer attacks, such as disruptions at Saudi Arabia's state oil giant Saudi Aramco and Qatari natural gas producer RasGas earlier this month. Iran has denied any links.

In a video message for Iranian new year in March, President Barack Obama denounced what he called the "electronic curtain" that keeps ordinary Iranians from reaching out to Americans and the West.

A few weeks later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the creation of an Internet oversight agency that included top military, security and political figures in the country's boldest attempt yet to control the Internet. The panel is headed by Ahmadinejad and includes powerful figures in the security establishment such as the intelligence chief and the commander of the Revolutionary Guard.

It's not Iran's first attempt to hold off what hardliners call a Western "cultural invasion." The so-called Barbie wars have gone on for more than a decade with periodic raids to confiscate the iconic American dolls from toy stores. Iran also introduced its own dolls — twins Dara and Sara — designed to promote traditional values with modest clothing and pro-family values, but it hasn't significantly dented the demand for Barbie dolls.

Egypt TV presenter in incitement trial arrested

2012-09-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

CAIRO (AP) — The owner of a TV station on trial for incitement after calling for the killing of Egypt's Islamist president Mohammed Morsi was arrested on Sunday in connection with a series of allegations, including theft of electrical power and issuing a bounced check, police said.

Tawfiq Okasha was not at his Cairo home when police went to arrest him, but he later surrendered at a police station in the eastern suburb of Nasr City, they added.

Also Sunday, Justice Ministry officials said an investigating judge referred the last prime minister of Egypt's deposed authoritarian leader Hosni Mubarak to trial on corruption charges arising from the decade he served as civil aviation minister. Besides Ahmed Shafiq, the chairman of national carrier EgyptAir and nine other ministry officials were also referred to trial.

Shafiq left Egypt shortly after his narrow defeat by Morsi in a presidential runoff in June. He has already been referred to trial on separate corruption charges dating back to the 1990s when he chaired a housing association for air force officers. Mubarak's two sons, onetime heir apparent Gamal and wealthy businessman Alaa, were charged in the same case together with four retired generals.

Shafiq, who lives in the United Arab Emirates, was defiant in a comment he posted on his Twitter account after news of his new trial broke in Cairo.

"I will continue my political work and I will stand up to persecution and the use of law to commit character assassination against me," he wrote. "I traveled after the election to avoid expected persecution. Time has shown that it did happen," wrote Shafiq, who like Mubarak is a career air force officer. He was named prime minister in Mubarak's final days in office.

Authorities last month ordered the closure of Okasha's TV station — Al-Faraeen," or "The Pharoahs" — which he used to launch scathing attacks on Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, the fundamentalist Islamist group from which the president hails. Okasha has emerged as one of the most popular TV personalities of post-Mubarak Egypt by railing against the uprising that toppled Mubarak's 29-year rule in February 2011.

For months, he appeared on Al-Faraeen every night to mock the country's "enemies" — everyone from leftists and Islamists to Freemasons and Zionists — with rants full of abuse and earthy humor. In the weeks before a court ordered his station closed, he presented himself as Egypt's champion against a takeover by the Brotherhood, starting an open clash with the group and the new president.

It was not immediately clear why authorities decided to move against Okasha now since most Egyptians, particularly celebrities like him, get away with a fine when faced with similar charges. Okasha, according to the police officials, was also arrested over allegations of forgery and disturbing authorities.

No details were immediately available on the particulars of the charges.

The police and Justice Ministry officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters.

Okasha is not the only media personality facing criminal charges related to attacks on Morsi or his Brotherhood.

The editor of the el-Dustour newspaper, which vilifies Morsi daily, is on trial for "spreading lies" and fabricating news. A Christian man is also serving a two-year prison sentence for insulting Morsi.

There are widespread worries among Egyptians that Morsi and the Brotherhood have amassed too much power, holding executive and legislative authorities as well as dominating the process of writing the next constitution.

But Okasha does not get much sympathy because many of the nation's key political players see him as a divisive figure. Many secular politicians and activists who distrust the Brotherhood shun him, seeing him as a remnant of Mubarak's authoritarian regime.

Some see the crackdown on Okasha and Shafiq as a move by Morsi to eliminate a powerful potential rival in Shafiq, and a vocal critic in Okasha. Like in the days of Mubarak, Morsi's presidential palace maintains that the president has nothing to do with legal procedures against critics like Okasha or the el-Dustour editor.

Veteran politician Ayman Nour was jailed on forgery charges soon after he finished a distant second in a 2005 presidential election, the only vote where Mubarak allowed someone besides himself to appear on the ballot. Shortly afterward, the politician who finished third lost the leadership of his party in a power struggle suspected to have been engineered by Mubarak's security agents.

Euro, oil fall on Spain, growth worries

2012-09-30T21:01:00.001-07:00

TOKYO (Reuters) - The euro, oil and Asian shares fell on Monday, weighed down by uncertainty about Spain's bailout and concerns over slumping demand due to a slowdown in global growth, with data from Japan to China underscoring sluggish business activity.

Several Asian markets are closed for holidays on Monday, including China, Hong Kong and South Korea, keeping trade subdued.

The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> fell 0.4 percent. The Australian market (.AXJO) was barely changed in choppy trade, rising as much as 0.6 percent and falling as much as 0.3 percent. Taiwan stocks slid 0.7 percent (.TWII), pausing after ending the third quarter up 5.7 percent.

Japan's Nikkei stock average (.N225) fell 0.8 percent to a three-week low. (.T)

China's official factory purchasing managers' index, which tracks mainly big firms, rose to 49.8 in September from August's 49.2, which was the lowest since November 2011. The figure was in line with expectations and reflected how the world's second-biggest economy is struggling to regain strength against cooling exports as the global economy remain sluggish.

A private sector HSBC PMI earlier showed overall factory activity shrank for an 11th consecutive month in September, suggesting China's economy has almost certainly suffered a seventh straight quarter of slowing growth.

"The PMI came in below 50 again in September, suggesting a continued weakness in the economy and confirming our view that the policies implemented so far have failed to arrest a cyclical economic downturn," ANZ Bank said in a research note. "We expect the PBOC to cut the reserve requirement ratio by 50 bps soon."

Beijing approved about $150 billion worth of infrastructure projects last month. China cut interest rates twice in June and July and lowered banks' reserve requirement ratio three times since late 2011, but has refrained from cutting interest rates or RRR since July, though it has kept money markets liquid.

Elsewhere, Bank of Japan data showed sentiment among big Japanese manufacturers worsened in the third quarter from the previous quarter, hit by a steady deterioration in export demand as Europe's debt crisis simmers and China's economy slows.

Europe's debt crisis also took a toll on South Korean exports to the region, falling 5.1 percent in September from a year ago, while the HSBC Taiwan PMI for September fell at its fastest rate in 10 months as export orders slumped.

Euro zone and U.S. manufacturing surveys are due later on Monday but the key statistic this week is Friday's U.S. nonfarm payrolls, the first jobs data after the Fed's latest easing.

DOLLAR DRIVES COMMODITIES LOWER

U.S. crude fell 0.9 percent to $91.36 a barrel and Brent fell 0.7 percent to $111.66.

The euro fell 0.4 percent to a three week low of $1.28035 while risk-sensitive currencies also fell, with the Australian dollar slipping 0.4 percent to $1.0328.

The safe-haven dollar was bid, lifting the dollar index (.DXY), measured against a basket of key currencies, up 0.2 percent, weighing on spot gold which traded down 0.4 percent to $1,763.81 an ounce.

Gold is typically associated with safety but it is also perceived as an alternative currency and comes under pressure when the U.S. currency strengthens.

While copper and steel may get the brunt of growth worries in China, the world's leading consumer of base metals, oil and gold were likely to be underpinned over the long term by the recent round of monetary stimulus packages launched by the U.S. Federal Reserve, said Bob Takai, general manager of Sumitomo Corp's energy division.

"U.S. oil prices are weighed by lackluster U.S. economic fundamentals and authorities probably don't want to see a spike in oil which puts a drag on the economy, but oil is also unlikely to slump thanks to ample liquidity provided by the Fed's quantitative easing," he said.

London copper fell 0.6 percent to $8,159 a metric ton.

EYES ON EUROPE

An independent audit on Friday showed Spanish banks will need a total of 59.3 billion euros ($76.3 billion) in extra capital to beef up their strength, which was within expectations and welcomed by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

But uncertainty over when and whether Spain will seek external aid kept investors nervous. Markets were also waiting for a review by credit rating agency Moody's, which currently has Spain on one notch above junk with a negative outlook.

Greece, another source of market jitters, resumes talks with its international lenders this week for a bailout needed to avert bankruptcy and a possible euro zone exit. Two German magazines reported on Saturday Athens will receive the aid despite budget shortfalls and slow progress on reforms because the euro zone does not want the country to leave the euro.

"All of this suggests a range trading environment with a mild positive bias," Sebastien Galy, currency strategist at Societe Generale, said in a note.

A slew of central bank policy meetings this week will kick off with the Reserve Bank of Australia on Tuesday, followed by the ECB, the Bank of England and the BOJ, potentially deterring investors from making big bets. ($1 = 0.7773 euros)

(Editing by Richard Pullin and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

NASA launches super-size rover to Mars: 'Go, Go!'

2011-11-26T23:44:00.001-08:00

A rover of "monster truck" proportions zoomed toward Mars on an 8½-month, 354 million-mile journey Saturday, the biggest, best equipped robot ever sent to explore another planet.

NASA's six-wheeled, one-armed wonder, Curiosity, will reach Mars next summer and use its jackhammer drill, rock-zapping laser machine and other devices to search for evidence that Earth's next-door neighbor might once have been home to the teeniest forms of life.

More than 13,000 invited guests jammed the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday morning to witness NASA's first launch to Mars in four years, and the first flight of a Martian rover in eight years.

Mars fever gripped the crowd.

NASA astrobiologist Pan Conrad, whose carbon compound-seeking instrument is on the rover, wore a bright blue, short-sleeve blouse emblazoned with rockets, planets and the words, "Next stop Mars!" She jumped, cheered and snapped pictures as the Atlas V rocket blasted off. So did Los Alamos National Laboratory's Roger Wiens, a planetary scientist in charge of Curiosity's laser blaster, called ChemCam.

Surrounded by 50 U.S. and French members of his team, Wiens shouted "Go, Go, Go!" as the rocket soared into a cloudy sky. "It was beautiful," he later observed, just as NASA declared the launch a full success.

A few miles away at the space center's visitor complex, Lego teamed up with NASA for a toy spacecraft-building event for children this Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The irresistible lure: 800,000 Lego bricks.

The 1-ton Curiosity — 10 feet long, 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall at its mast — is a mobile, nuclear-powered laboratory holding 10 science instruments that will sample Martian soil and rocks, and with unprecedented skill, analyze them right on the spot.

It's as big as a car. But NASA's Mars exploration program director calls it "the monster truck of Mars."

"It's an enormous mission. It's equivalent of three missions, frankly, and quite an undertaking," said the ecstatic program director, Doug McCuistion. "Science fiction is now science fact. We're flying to Mars. We'll get it on the ground and see what we find."

The primary goal of the $2.5 billion mission is to see whether cold, dry, barren Mars might have been hospitable for microbial life once upon a time — or might even still be conducive to life now. No actual life detectors are on board; rather, the instruments will hunt for organic compounds.

Curiosity's 7-foot arm has a jackhammer on the end to drill into the Martian red rock, and the 7-foot mast on the rover is topped with high-definition and laser cameras.

With Mars the ultimate goal for astronauts, NASA will use Curiosity to measure radiation at the red planet. The rover also has a weather station on board that will provide temperature, wind and humidity readings; a computer software app with daily weather updates is planned.

No previous Martian rover has been so sophisticated.

The world has launched more than three dozen missions to the ever-alluring Mars, which is more like Earth than the other solar-system planets. Yet fewer than half those quests have succeeded.

Just two weeks ago, a Russian spacecraft ended up stuck in orbit around Earth, rather than en route to the Martian moon Phobos.

"Mars really is the Bermuda Triangle of the solar system," said NASA's Colleen Hartman, assistant associate administrator for science. "It's the death planet, and the United States of America is the only nation in the world that has ever landed and driven robotic explorers on the surface of Mars, and now we're set to do it again."

Curiosity's arrival next August will be particularly hair-raising.

In a spacecraft first, the rover will be lowered onto the Martian surface via a jet pack and tether system similar to the sky cranes used to lower heavy equipment into remote areas on Earth.

Curiosity is too heavy to use air bags like its much smaller predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, did in 2004. Besides, this new way should provide for a more accurate landing.

Astronauts will need to make similarly precise landings on Mars one day.

Curiosity will spend a minimum of two years roaming around Gale Crater, chosen from among more than 50 potential landing sites because it's so rich in minerals. Scientists said if there is any place on Mars that might have been ripe for life, it may well be there.

The rover should go farther and work harder than any previous Mars explorer because of its power source: 10.6 pounds of radioactive plutonium. The nuclear generator was encased in several protective layers in case of a launch accident.

NASA expects to put at least 12 miles on the odometer, once the rover sets down on the Martian surface.

McCuistion anticipates being blown away by the never-before-seen vistas. "Those first images are going to just be stunning, I believe. It will be like sitting in the bottom of the Grand Canyon," he said at a post-launch news conference.

This is the third astronomical mission to be launched from Cape Canaveral by NASA since the retirement of the venerable space shuttle fleet this summer. The Juno probe is en route to Jupiter, and twin spacecraft named Grail will arrive at Earth's moon on New Year's Eve and Day.

Unlike Juno and Grail, Curiosity suffered development programs and came in two years late and nearly $1 billion over budget. Scientists involved in the project noted Saturday that the money is being spent on Earth, not Mars, and the mission is costing every American about the price of a movie.

"I'll leave you to judge for yourself whether or not that's a movie you'd like to see," said California Institute of Technology's John Grotzinger, the project scientist. "I know that's one I would."

FARC rebels execute 4 military hostages: Colombia

2011-11-26T23:42:00.001-08:00

Colombian FARC rebels executed four members of the security forces during a botched mission to free them from a decade as hostages, the most violent act by the group since troops killed its leader Alfonso Cano this month.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which has a policy of killing hostages if troops approach their camps, shot three of the captives in the head and the fourth in the back, President Juan Manuel Santos said.
The bodies were found in chains, he said.

"These heroes of Colombia sacrificed their lives trying to bring peace to Colombia," Santos said. "This is another demonstration of the FARC's cruelty ... It's an atrocious crime."
One police sergeant who was also being held hostage by the FARC managed to escape and was found alive by the military on Saturday, Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said.
Latin America's No. 4 oil producer has been wracked by bloodshed from guerrillas and cocaine barons for decades, although the FARC - once a powerful force controlling large parts of Colombia - has been severely weakened.
Santos said on Thursday the Andean nation was nearing the final phase of nearly 50 years of war and that his government would be willing to talk peace if the guerrillas were serious.
Troops launched the operation in southern Caqueta province 45 days ago after a tip that FARC captives were being held in the area, Pinzon told a news conference. The killings of the four hostages happened after a firefight between soldiers and the rebels.
"This is a reality shock," said security analyst Alfredo Rangel. "It shows that despite all the hits they have received in recent years that they are determined to fight the state, they are determined to continue their violent ways."
Bombings and kidnappings have eased sharply as Colombian troops use better intelligence, U.S. training and technology to take the fight to the rebels.
Foreign investment, especially in oil and mining, has surged as the insurgency weakens. But the FARC and other groups pose a threat in rural areas where the state's presence is weak and cocaine trafficking lets the rebels finance operations.
The FARC, considered a terrorist group by European nations and the United States, has lost key commanders in the past four years, including its founder Manuel Marulanda, military leader Mono Jojoy last year and Cano earlier this month.
The new leader Timoleon Jimenez - or "Timochenko" - has vowed to continue the fight against the government.
"What a great Christmas the FARC guerrillas have given the families of the police and military," said Marleny Orjuela, director of Asfamipaz, an association that represents families of kidnapped members of the armed forces.
"Santos has killed our hope, rescuing them when he knows they would be executed."
The FARC, which funds operations with extortion as well as drug trafficking, has held scores of politicians, police officers and soldiers as hostages, including French-Colombian Ingrid Betancourt seized in 2002 and three Americans taken a year later.
They were rescued by the military in 2008, when Santos was defense minister.
This was the third group of hostages killed by the FARC.
In 2003, Guillermo Gaviria, governor of Antioquia province, was shot along with an adviser and eight military captives when troops attempted to free them. In 2007, 11 lawmakers were shot when the rebels falsely believed troops entered their camp.

Analysis: In India, a sense of crisis fans embers of reform

2011-11-26T23:38:00.001-08:00

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's move to open India's protected retail sector to global supermarket giants last week surprised critics who had written him off as a policy ditherer, but he was probably motivated by expedience rather than any reformist zeal.
India's stellar economic growth is slowing, the rupee has skidded to record lows and inflation is stuck close to a double-digit clip. Faced with this predicament, Singh may have simply weighed the benefits of opening a $450 billion market to foreign investment against the political risk, and taken his chance.

Just as he did back in 1991, when the central bank was forced to airlift 47 tonnes of gold to Europe as collateral for a loan to avert a sovereign default, Singh has opted for liberalization to deal with urgent economic problems.
"In India, we've always achieved economic reform at gunpoint," said political commentator Swapan Dasgupta.
Many seized on Singh's retail sector decision, taken in the face of dissent within his own cabinet, as a sign that the reform process he had helped father was finally back on track. The frontpage headline of the Economic Times on Friday crowed: "Hello Walmart, Goodbye Inertia".
Unpopular, saddled with petulant coalition allies, up against a combative opposition and facing elections in five states next year, Singh's Congress party is likely to shy away from far-reaching economic reforms that could cost it votes.
Nevertheless, the move to allow multinationals into the retail market could be the first of several liberalization initiatives aimed at silencing complaints from business leaders and even its own supporters that this is a government adrift.
"They are not reformers," said Surjit Bhalla, chairman of Oxus Investments. "But, given its huge unpopularity, Congress is now looking to do what it can. There's more than an even chance that reforms will continue."
Next up may be a decision to open India's airline sector, which is struggling with cost pressures and a fierce price war, to foreign investors.
RISK AND REWARD
Singh, who will be 80 next year, earned his reformist stripes as finance minister back in 1991 when he prised open India's state-stifled economy, opening the way for a long run of dazzling growth.
However, as prime minister since 2004, he has presided over less spectacular reforms such as opening the country's nuclear power market and freeing petrol and fertilizer pricing. And his government, beleaguered by corruption scandals, has slipped into a policy paralysis since it won a second term two years ago, taking the gloss off the "India Shining" story.
Asia's third-largest economy is nowhere near the crisis it was facing 20 years ago. However, growth has sagged since it topped 9 percent for three years in a row before the global financial crisis, and a monetary tightening cycle to stamp out inflation that began in March 2010 is exacerbating the slowdown.
The move to allow multinationals into India's vast retail market will eventually help unclog some of the supply bottlenecks that stoke inflation.
It will also generate sorely needed foreign capital, not least for infrastructure investment, which the government's latest five-year plan targets at an ambitious $1 trillion.
The government has taken other steps recently to attract funds from abroad. It has raised the limit on foreign investment in government and corporate bonds, and the cabinet has approved a law that - once it has parliamentary approval - will allow limited foreign direct investment in pensions firms.
While none of this will address the country's economic ills in the short term, it may bring an immediate political gain.
Welcoming in the world's big supermarket brands was risky. It will fuel fury with Congress among the millions of neighborhood store owners, who could make the party pay in next year's state elections.
But the promise of world-class shopping will be welcomed by India's growing ranks of urban middle classes, and Singh's uncharacteristic boldness could shore up public faith in his government as it gears up for a general election in 2014.
If there is a new phase of reforms underway, it is likely to be tentative rather than sweeping.
Some reforms, such as removing subsidies on diesel, are politically untouchable because of the backlash the party would face from the poor. Even the decision to open up the retail sector was hedged with provisos that will protect shopkeepers in small towns and rural areas.
The government's plans to pass a food security bill, which would widen subsidies for the poor, are an example of how there has been little change in the populist stance of the Congress party. Critics say the bill will only add to the fiscal deficit.
Nevertheless, with its back to the wall, the government appears to have snapped out of its inertia.
"Reforms have been thrust upon it," said Bhalla. "As long as the pressure is on this government it will continue to act."

Fractured town shows challenges ahead for Libya

2011-11-26T23:34:00.001-08:00

Every revolution has its losers. Libya's new rulers, who swept to power three months ago in a revolt against Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule, have promised the country a brighter future. In the biggest cities, celebratory gunfire and the war-cry "God is great" can still be heard daily.
In Bani Walid, long a stronghold for Gaddafi loyalists and one of their last bastions to fall during this year's civil war, the mood is entirely different.

On a quiet Friday morning -- the day of rest in this almost entirely Muslim country -- a middle-aged man drew the metal shutters of his shop closed to speak freely about how Libya's new leaders have brought this town nothing but empty promises.
"Under Gaddafi everything was great. And now there's nothing," he says, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by forces loyal to the National Transitional Council (NTC), which led the revolt against Gaddafi.
"They will find me," he says, adding angrily: "Anyone who tells the truth in Libya gets slaughtered."
Bani Walid, which sits on a rocky perch above a lush valley dotted with olive trees, is a town divided.
"Before the liberation, half the people were Gaddafi loyalists, half were with the revolution," said Tariq Faqi, a 28-year-old doctor who works at the town's hospital, after Friday prayers at the Abdel Nabbi bil Kheir Mosque.
"Now they accept reality and they're waiting to see what happens ... People feel they can't trust the new government until they see improvement."
SECURITY
After the fall of Tripoli three months ago, Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam hid among the town's 100,000 or so inhabitants. He says Western warplanes fired on his convoy as he fled, and their missiles blew off part of his thumb and index finger.
Bani Walid is also home to the Warfalla tribe, the biggest in this vast, oil-rich country of roughly six million people, and one upon which Gaddafi often relied to stay in power.
Here as all over Libya, security remains one of the top concerns. A militia from Tripoli, a good two hours' drive away, conducted a raid in Bani Walid this week, sparking a firefight in which several people were killed on each side.
Talks between tribal elders have eased tensions, and most people interviewed felt life had since returned to normal, but residents disagreed over how much faith to place in a central government they said had yet to deliver concrete results.
A provisional national government was sworn in on Thursday with the aim of steering the country toward democracy and dealing with the most pressing problems, with elections to a constituent assembly due in the middle of next year.
The new government was put in place by the unelected NTC, which still wields significant influence over all government matters and had the final say in each of Prime Minister Abdurrahim El-Keib's cabinet appointments.
The country is still teeming with weapons, and Libya's new rulers have yet to disarm and make an army out of the patchwork of militias that roam the country, often far from their homes, occasionally clashing with each other, settling old scores.
Keib says his top priorities are improving security and looking after former rebel fighters and their families, but if he is to convince all of Bani Walid of the benefits of democracy, he will have to tackle a far wider range of issues.
"The situation now is good," school administrator Abdullah Mohammed, 36, said when asked about security, standing next to the mosque which, unusually, was damaged in the war, a testament to the intensity of the fighting that took place here.
"There was an incident two days ago but now it's getting better," he added as he left Friday prayers, echoing the sentiment of many who described the raid by men from Tripoli's Souq al-Juma neighborhood as an isolated case.
While many residents said they did not want any more armed "outsiders" coming to their town after a war in which many local homes were destroyed and looted, most said they were happy for a national army to come and help secure the town.
"We want Libya to be united. We don't want any problems between us," bank employee Garera Salem Mohammed, 52, said in a largely empty square bearing the scars of war.
WINNERS AND LOSERS
Bani Walid's position on a hilltop made it virtually impregnable by ground forces alone. To take it, warplanes from Western countries in the NATO alliance pounded Gaddafi's forces while NTC troops battered the town with artillery.
At the fruit and vegetable market, the most common complaint was that banks had not reopened yet, as they have in Libya's cities, even though there is a nationwide restriction on monthly cash withdrawals.
"The market is dead. No one has any money with which to buy anything," said Munir Ali Muftah, 24, who was finding no takers for his dates and took shelter from the still-warm winter sun under his neighbor's tarpaulin roof.
"The people whose homes have been destroyed are not back yet," he added.
Of the market's few customers, most said they hoped the central government would bring an improvement in daily life but did not want to go so far as to predict it, replying simply with "insh'Allah" -- God willing -- when asked about the future.
Others were already growing impatient.
"We haven't seen anything from the new government. There's no money, there are no funds available for anything," said Moussa Juma Maymoun, 46, who was selling cigarettes, lighters and snuff stacked on the trunk of his car.
"In the former system, our situation was good. Everything was fine. But now everything is different. When you talk about elections and democracy, where is the democracy?" said Maymoun, who used to water olive trees for the agriculture ministry.
As the government begins to tackle all the problems of a country emerging from decades of dictatorship, it should think of the victims of this eight-month war as much as of the NTC fighters who emerged victorious, the local doctor said.
"Many of the civilians evacuated (during the war). They returned to find their homes destroyed, their belongings stolen. The government must take this into consideration and do something for them," Faqi said outside the mosque.
"Their priority should be the civilians, at least as much as the rebels. Civilians suffered a great deal in this country."
With national security still fragile and myriad factions continuing to compete for power ahead of next year's elections, the government would only achieve national unity by helping the war's losers as well as its winners.
"Educated people realize things can improve over time and are willing to be patient but here there are all levels of education," Faqi said.

Israel threatens to cut off power, water to Gaza

2011-11-26T23:23:00.001-08:00

U.S. Marines will march out of Afghanistan by the thousands next year, winding down combat in the Taliban heartland and testing the U.S. view that Afghan forces are capable of leading the fight against a battered but not yet beaten insurgency in the country's southwestern reaches, American military officers say.
At the same time, U.S. reinforcements will go to eastern Afghanistan in a bid to reverse recent gains by insurgents targeting Kabul, the capital.
Gen. James F. Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an Associated Press interview that the number of Marines in Helmand province will drop "markedly" in 2012, and the role of those who stay will shift from countering the insurgency to training and advising Afghan security forces.

The change suggests an early exit from Afghanistan for the Marine Corps even as the prospects for solidifying their recent successes are uncertain.
"Am I OK with that? The answer is 'yes,'" Amos said. "We can't stay in Afghanistan forever."
"Will it work? I don't know. But I know we'll do our part."
At stake is President Barack Obama's pledge to win in Afghanistan. He said during his 2008 campaign that the war was worth fighting and that he would get U.S. forces out of Iraq.
Facing a stalemate in Afghanistan in 2009, Obama ordered an extra 30,000 U.S. troops to the country, including about 10,000 Marines to Helmand province, in the belief that if the Taliban were to retake the government, al-Qaida soon would return to the land from which it plotted the Sept. 11 attacks.
Also at stake are the sacrifices of the nearly 300 Marines killed in Afghanistan over the past three years.
Weighing against prolonging the conflict is its unsustainable cost and what author and former Defense Department official Bing West has called its "grinding inconclusiveness."
In a series of pep talks to Marines in Helmand this past week, Amos said the Marine mission in Afghanistan would end in the next 12 months to 18 months. That is as much as two years before the December 2014 deadline, announced a year ago, for all U.S. and other foreign troops to leave the country.
"Savor being out here together," Amos told Marines on Thanksgiving at an outpost along the Helmand River called Fiddler's Green, "because it's going to be over" soon.
He was referring only to the Marines' role, which is limited mainly to Helmand, although there also are Marine special operations forces in western Afghanistan. The U.S. military efforts in Kandahar province and throughout the volatile eastern region are led by the Army, along with allied forces.
Amos stressed in his visits with groups of Marines that he is optimistic that Helmand's improved security will hold. On Saturday, he said "there is every reason to be optimistic" at this stage of the 10-year-old war.
For the past two years, Helmand and neighboring Kandahar have been the main focus of the U.S.-led effort to turn the tide against a resilient Taliban. In that period, the Taliban and other insurgent networks have grown bolder and more violent in the eastern provinces where they have the advantage of sanctuary across the border in Pakistan and where U.S. and NATO forces are spread more thinly than in the south.
During two days of visiting Marine outposts throughout Helmand this past week, Amos cited progress against the Taliban and was told by Marine commanders that plans are well under way to close U.S. bases, ship war equipment home and prepare for a major drawdown of Marines beginning next summer.
Amos declined to discuss the number of Marines expected to leave in 2012, but indications are that 10,000 or more may depart.
There are now about 19,400 Marines in Helmand, and that is due to fall to about 18,500 by the end of this year.
On Saturday, he told Marines on board the amphibious warship USS Bataan in the Gulf of Aden that Marines in Helmand now "smell success" and that their numbers in Helmand will drop "pretty dramatically" next year.
Marine Gen. John Allen, the top overall commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was ordered by Obama last summer to pull out 10,000 U.S. forces by the end of this year and 23,000 more by the end of September 2012. That has driven the move to accelerate a transition to Afghan control.
Allen said in an interview Thursday that winding down the Marine combat mission in Helmand makes sense because security "has gotten so much better now." He said the pullout of 23,000 U.S. forces in 2012, including an unspecified number of Marines, probably will begin in the summer, which historically is the height of the fighting season in Afghanistan.
Allen said Afghan security forces, often criticized for weak battlefield performance, desertion and a lack of will, are closer to being ready to assume lead responsibility for their nation's defense than many people believe.
"The Afghan national security forces are better than they thought they were, and they're better than we thought they were," Allen said.
That is why he thinks it's safe to lessen the Marine's combat role in Helmand, reduce their numbers and put the Afghans in charge.
That approach also allows Allen to build up elsewhere. He said that in 2012 he will put more U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, increase the number of U.S. special operations forces who are playing an important role in developing Afghan forces, and add intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance resources. He said he plans to add "several battalions" of U.S. forces in the east. He gave no specific troop number, but a battalion usually totals about 750.
"I'm going to put a lot more forces and capabilities into the east," he said. "The east is going to need some additional forces because our intent is to expand the security zone around Kabul."
The top Marine in Helmand, Maj. Gen. John Toolan, said he is not convinced that 2012 is the best time to shift the focus to eastern Afghanistan, where the Haqqani network has taken credit for a series of spectacular attacks recently, including suicide bombings inside Kabul, the heavily secured capital.
He said he believes the Taliban movement in southern Afghanistan is still the biggest threat to the viability of the central government.
Toolan said the Marines continue to make important progress against a Taliban whose leaders are showing signs of frustration and division.
"They're starting to break up," Toolan said. "There's still a lot to be done to see that these insurgents stay on their backs."
Stephen Biddle, a defense analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who recently visited U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said there is a risk to putting the Afghans in the lead role in Helmand as early as 2012.
"If you throw them into the deep end and put them in the lead in really tough neighborhoods you run the risk that they get their noses bloodied early in ways that could make it hard for them to recover because they lose confidence," Biddle said in an interview in Washington. On the other hand, if the U.S. and its allies wait until 2013 or 2014 to hand off to the Afghans in the most challenging areas, there would be less chance to bail them out.
"It's a dilemma with no obvious solution to it," he said.

Mexico City 'zombies' gather to challenge record

2011-11-26T23:20:00.001-08:00

Thousands of self-proclaimed "undead" have gathered in the historic center of Mexico's capital for a "Zombie Walk" that organizers hope sets a world record.

The announced 9,860 registered participants are dressed in rags and ghoulish makeup to look bloody and decaying.

Organizer Pablo Guisa says the fifth annual Mexico City event is meant to celebrate diversity and human rights. The participants also collected donations for a local food bank.

Cities around the world hold zombie walks, and Guinness World Records currently recognizes Asbury Park, New Jersey, as the record holder, with 4,093 participants on Oct. 30, 2010.

A group in Brisbane, Australia, has applied for the record, claiming it massed 8,000 "zombies" last month.

Iran threatens to hit Turkey if US, Israel attack

2011-11-26T23:18:00.001-08:00

Iran will target NATO's missile defense installations in Turkey if the U.S. or Israel attacks the Islamic Republic, a senior commander of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard said Saturday.

Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guards' aerospace division, said the warning is part of a new defense strategy to counter what he described as an increase in threats from the U.S. and Israel.

Tensions have been rising between Iran and the West since the release of a report earlier this month by the International Atomic Energy Agency that said for the first time that

Tehran was suspected of conducting secret experiments whose sole purpose was the development of nuclear arms.

The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of trying to produce atomic weapons, and Israel, which views Tehran as an existential threat, has warned of a possible strike on Iran's nuclear program. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes.

"Should we be threatened, we will target NATO's missile defense shield in Turkey and then hit the next targets," the semiofficial Mehr news agency quoted Hajizadeh as saying.

Tehran says NATO's early warning radar station in Turkey is meant to protect Israel against Iranian missile attacks if a war breaks out with the Jewish state. Ankara agreed to host the radar in September as part of NATO's missile defense system aimed at countering ballistic missile threats from neighboring Iran.

A military installation in the Turkish town of Kurecik, some 435 miles (700 kilometers) west of the Iranian border, has been designated as the radar site, according to Turkish government officials.

Hajizadeh said the United States also plans to install similar stations in Arab states, which has spurred Iran to alter its military defense strategy.

"Based on orders from the exalted commander in chief, we will respond to threats with threats," he was quoted as saying.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, is also commander in chief of Iran's armed forces.

Another senior Guard commander, Yadollah Javani, threatened that Tehran will target Israel's nuclear facilities should the Jewish state attack Iran.

"If Israel fires a missile at our nuclear facilities or vital installations, it should know that Israel's nuclear centers will be the target of our missiles," the semiofficial ISNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Also Saturday, the chief of Iran's elite Quds Force said he doesn't fear assassination and is ready for "martyrdom."

The comments by Quds Force commander Brig. Gen. Ghassem Soleimani were published in several Iranian newspapers. The Quds Force is the special foreign operations unit of the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard, and Soleimani is a key figure in Iran's military establishment but rarely speaks in public.

Tensions have increased in recent weeks between Iran and the U.S., with several American neoconservatives urging the Obama administration to use covert action against Iran and kill some of its top officials, including Soleimani.

The force has been accused by the Americans of involvement in an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Two men, including an alleged member of Iran's Quds Force, have been charged in New York federal court in the case.

Iran has dismissed the American claims as a "foolish plot", saying U.S. officials have offered no proof.

New Zealand set for asset sales after crushing election win

2011-11-26T23:15:00.001-08:00

New Zealand's re-elected center-right government claimed a mandate on Sunday to push on with up to $5 billion worth of asset sales and welfare reforms and said it would quickly get down to forming a new administration.
The National Party, led by former foreign exchange dealer John Key, scored 48 percent of the vote, increased its number of seats to 60 from 58 and gained the support of two small parties to guarantee a majority in the 121-seat parliament.

"It's a pretty strong endorsement of where the Government sits, and we're confident we'll be able to build the relationships needed to go ahead with the programme," National's campaign manager Steven Joyce told TVNZ.
National campaigned on promises to consolidate policies of the past three years and work toward economic growth by cutting debt, curbing spending, selling state assets and returning to a budget surplus by 2014/15.
Ray Miller of Auckland University said National had effectively neutralised its biggest weakness -- the unpopular asset sales, slated to raise NZ$5 billion to NZ$7 billion.
"They got the policy out early, they sold it in positive terms and in the end, while it was still a negative, it was one policy among many and not an overriding one," he said.
National plans to sell minority stakes in state-owned power energy companies and further reduce the stake in Air New Zealand. Key has promised local small investors will have preference in share sales, with a 10 percent cap likely on how much any single investor can hold.
WELFARE REFORM, SLOW CARBON TRADE
It also plans to reform welfare by getting people off benefits and back to work, and will slow down the expansion of its carbon trading system to lessen the cost on businesses and households.
Key's strong personal rating, his easy going, affable, unifying style was also a factor behind National's showing, despite continuing worries over the economy.
"I've got a PHD in geology and I still can't get a full-time job," said Sami Alshidi, 52, who has been working as a taxi driver and voted National because he felt it would steer the economy better.
Financial markets had already priced in no change of government and a broad continuation of policies.
"The National Party has a clear mandate to proceed with asset sales to lower fiscal deficits and government debt," said TD Securities head of research Annette Beacher.
"But this election was not on the global radar screens...(and) will likely be completely ignored."
The final tally of seats could yet change when tens of thousands of absentee votes are counted over the next two weeks, although the initial turnout of nearly 74 percent was one of the lowest in more than a century, election officials said.
The main opposition center-left Labour Party slumped to 27 percent, the lowest share of the vote in its 95-year history, and lost nine seats. The environmentalist Greens upped their share to more than 10 percent and gained four seats.
The re-emergence of the nationalist New Zealand First Party, led by the maverick veteran Winston Peters, from three years in the political wilderness, is expected to add fireworks but not impede National.
"We will make sure of a huge amount of sunlight on New Zealand politics," Peters said.

Egypt's ElBaradei turns up heat on ruling generals

2011-11-26T23:12:00.001-08:00

Presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei has offered to lead a government of national unity, raising the pressure on Egypt's ruling generals amid protests demanding an immediate end to army rule.
Activists are calling on citizens to converge again in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Sunday, a day before the start of a parliamentary election overshadowed by political turmoil and the threat of violence.
The interim government led by Essam Sharaf resigned last week as protests against army rule intensified in Cairo and other cities. The violence has left 42 people dead.

Facing its worst crisis since it pushed President Hosni Mubarak from office during a popular uprising in February, the army has promised a speedier handover to civilians, offered a referendum on military rule and named a new prime minister.
But demonstrators have rejected the military's choice of a 78-year-old veteran of Egyptian politics to lead a new government and say it must hand over power to civilians now.
Some protest groups want ElBaradei to head a civilian body that would replace the ruling military council in supervising Egypt's transition to democracy.
ElBaradei himself is respected among pro-democracy campaigners but many Egyptians view him as out of touch because he spent much of his career outside the country, particularly during his time at the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
His campaign team said late on Saturday he was prepared to drop his bid to be head of state if he is asked to lead a transition government.
It said he has met revolutionary youth coalitions and political parties who had rejected Ganzouri's appointment.
"The political forces and groups stressed that the only way out of the crisis is to form a national coalition government with full powers to manage the transitional period until presidential elections are held," his team said in a statement.
It said ElBaradei would abandon his bid for the presidency if he were asked formally to form a government, "so as to be completely neutral in the interim period."
Many Egyptians yearning for an end to upheaval want the parliamentary election to begin on Monday on schedule and some protesters agree, despite their hostility to those in power.
Abdul Aal Diab, a 46-year-old state employee protesting in Tahrir, said the election should not be mixed up with demands for the departure of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who heads the military council.
"This is one thing, that is something else," he said. "Everyone will be in the polling stations come Monday."
"Why are you so sure?" interrupted 27-year-old Mustafa Essam. "I won't go. I have no faith in anyone. We don't know anything about these elections."
Groups chanted slogans against the generals in Tahrir Square overnight as other people wandered among banners, tents and tea stalls fully equipped with chairs and tables that lent the protest an air of permanence.
LONG, COMPLEX VOTE
The prolonged political turmoil has compounded an economic crisis that threatens to make life even harder for the millions of Egyptians living in poverty.
Alarmed by the violence in Cairo and other cities, the United States and the European Union have urged a swift handover to civilian rule in a country where the prolonged political turmoil has compounded economic woes.
The vote due to start on Monday is billed as Egypt's first free and fair election in decades, but a confusing array of candidates and parties and fears of bullying, bribery and violence at polling stations offer voters a daunting challenge.
The complex, drawn-out election to parliament's lower house concludes in early January. Voting for the upper house and the presidency will follow before the end of June.
Reflecting security concerns, Ahmed al-Zind, head of Egypt's Judges Club, told a news conference the organization had taken out private insurance to cover all the judges involved in supervising the election.
Sunday's rally call suggests the loose pro-democracy movement spearheading the protests has rejected the army's decision to recall Kamal Ganzouri, a 78-year-old politician who served as prime minister under Mubarak during the 1990s.
A television clip circulated on Facebook in the past 24 hours shows Ganzouri sitting one seat away from Tantawi on January 25, the first day of Egypt's revolt, as they listen to a speech by former Interior Minister Habib al-Adli, who is on trial with Mubarak on charges of ordering protesters to be killed.
Egyptians protesting against the appointment of Ganzouri clashed with police firing tear gas in central Cairo on Saturday. The Interior Ministry said a protester was killed by accident, an account backed by Ahmad Zeidan, 18, an activist at the sit-in who said he had seen the youth being run over.

Google opens music store to US, challenge to Apple

2011-11-17T10:42:00.001-08:00

Google unveiled its much-anticipated digital music store Wednesday, opening a new front in its battle with Apple to provide services over mobile devices.

For the first time, Google Inc. will sell songs on the Android Market, its online store for apps, movies and books. The service is available over the next few days to customers in the U.S., but it aims to roll it out eventually to some 200 million Android users globally.

Some songs are free, while others were priced at 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29 — the same prices as on Apple's iTunes. Artists whose work is available right away include Adele, Jay-Z and Pearl Jam. The store will feature dozens of free tracks from artists like Coldplay, Rolling Stones and Busta Rhymes.

Google is offering 13 million tracks for sale, from three of the four major recording companies — Vivendi SA's Universal Music, EMI Group Ltd. and Sony Music Entertainment — and a host of independent labels. Warner Music Group was the major recording company left out. Warner spokespeople did not respond to requests for comment.

Google is allowing sharing of purchased songs over its social network, Google Plus. Friends will be able to listen to one another's songs once for free.

Once someone buys a song, it can be downloaded and is automatically uploaded for free into an online locker. The song can then be streamed over computer and mobile phone browsers, including the Safari browser, which comes on Apple Inc. devices such as the iPad. People who download the Google music app on devices running Android 2.2 and higher can stream stored songs or download them for offline playback within the app.

Google's director of digital content for Android, Jamie Rosenberg, took a dig at Apple's online song storage service, iTunes Match, which costs $25 a year. Google's cloud storage service is free for up to 20,000 songs.

"Other cloud music services think you have to pay to listen to music you already own. We don't," he said.

Recording company executives said that, although some of Google's features go beyond what is offered at iTunes — specifically the one free listen for friends, the concessions were worth the benefit of reaching new customers.

"How many people do you know have both an iPhone and an Android device?" said Universal's president of global digital business, Rob Wells. "I encourage any new entrant into the digital music space who is going to help us reach a broad audience and sell legitimate songs."

Mark Piibe, EMI's executive vice president of global business development, said Google's plan to bring legitimately sold music to people in new ways "can only be good for the market as a whole."

Although Google and the recording companies hope sharing of songs helps sell more tunes, some observers were skeptical.

Adam Klein, chief executive of discount digital music store eMusic, said that for his customers, buying music is more a considered, personal decision that is often not influenced by friends' tastes.

"A Google-Plus tie-in will not make it a game changer," he said.
T-Mobile USA, which brought Google's first Android-enabled smartphone to market in 2008, also was a partner in the Google music launch. The mobile phone carrier said it would offer other free songs to its customers and soon allow them to pay for music purchases through their phone bill.

Google also appealed to independent artists who release their own music, allowing them to upload songs, biographical information and artwork to the store after paying a one-time $25 fee. Artists would be able to keep 70 percent of all sales.

By launching the store, Google is opening its music service widely. It released the service as an unfinished beta in May to about a million people in the U.S. who requested an invitation and got one. That version of the service, which essentially uploaded your digital songs for online storage and allowed playback on computers and Android devices, proved to be a hit: Testers were streaming music on average 2.5 hours every day.

As Libya dithers, fighters take on security role

2011-11-17T10:40:00.001-08:00

At the Mellitah Oil & Gas facility, a joint venture between Italy's oil major Eni and the Libyan national oil company, fighters from the mountain city of Zintan stand guard.

Deep in the Sahara desert, 700 km south, another brigade of fighters from Zintan -- a city which prides itself as being one of the first to rise up against Muammar Gaddafi -- say they are securing the Akakus oil field in the absence of a national army.

Some of the fighters who ousted Gaddafi are not prepared to wait

for their interim government to form a cabinet and begin the long task of rebuilding a functioning state. They are doing it for themselves.

Armed militias are acting as a pseudo-police force: setting up road checkpoints, directing traffic and arresting those they regard as criminals.

Groups of fighters from Misrata, 190 km to the east of the capital, have joined some Tripoli brigades to guard the naval base where several military ships that escaped the bombing by NATO during the war are docked.
At the Akakus field, fighters are positioned around the main facility, armed with heavy machine guns and rockets.
"The protection of this field is by Zintani fighters to prevent looting," said one guard at the gate to the field, which stands in a vast expanse of sandy desert.

All of the militias claim loyalty to the National Transitional Council (NTC), which promises to lead Libya toward participatory democracy, but also to the clans, towns or regions from which they hail.

Fighters give different reasons for not handing in their weapons and returning home.

Some say they are being paid by their commanders or are worried that a pro-Gaddafi insurgency will break out while the country is still weak. Others say they have a moral commitment to serve Libya, even unofficially.

But there are suggestions the militias also want to wield political leverage over the emerging government.

STARTING AN AIR FORCE

While officials hold secret meetings in Tripoli to decide on high-level positions, Colonel Abdullah al-Mehdi is trying to get the air force back in the air.

"People are crossing the border illegally from Niger and Mali. They are smuggling drugs and attacking oil fields to steal cars and equipment," Mehdi, from Zintan, told Reuters as he flew his favorite airplane from Gaddafi's defunct Libyan air force, a twin-engined Russian military transporter.

"We need to position planes at airports around the country to patrol the border." He said he intends to move some fighter jets from the capital to the border town of Ghadames and the southern desert city of Sabha.

"Two jets here, three there," the 49-year-old said.

Shouting over the roar of propellers, Mehdi says he has been transporting fighters and weapons to Libya's borderlands and worked as an air ambulance.

And more frequently now that the eight-month civil war has ended, he has ferried representatives of the interim government around the country to aid the reconciliation with tribes who fought for Gaddafi.

"I also run a prison," he added. Who Mehdi is working for is unclear -- both the defense and interior ministers are yet to be appointed -- but he collaborates with the Tripoli Military Council, the armed wing of the NTC.

"What ministry, I am the ministry," Mehdi said, a broad smile emerging under his thick, graying mustache.
With Gaddafi gone, Mehdi wants to reach out to the leaders of neighboring Mali and Chad to deal with drugs and weapons smuggling, before taking a holiday in Russia.

"I haven't had a day off or been paid for eight months," the pilot said in English.

"F*** money, we killed Muammar Gaddafi."

Hungary isotope lab likely radioactive source: IAEA

2011-11-17T10:37:00.001-08:00

Hungary believes the source of low levels of radioactive iodine detected in Europe over the past few weeks was probably an isotope maker in Budapest, the U.N. nuclear agency said on Thursday.

Hungary's nuclear authority told the International Atomic Energy Agency that iodine-131 had been released from the Institute of Isotopes Ltd from September 8 to November 16.

"The cause of the release is under investigation," the Vienna-based IAEA said in a statement.

"The levels of Iodine-131 that have been detected in Europe are extremely low. There is no health concern to the population." Iodine-131, linked to cancer if found in high doses, can contaminate products such as milk and vegetables.

The IAEA, the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog, announced on Friday that the traces had been detected in Europe, after it was tipped off by authorities in the Czech Republic.

Authorities in Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, France and Poland have measured very low levels of iodine-131 in their atmospheres over the past few days.

The Hungarian institute, which produces radioisotopes for healthcare, research and industry, said earlier on Thursday that it had suspended production.
Mihaly Lakatos, director of the institute, said that despite the higher than usual emission of the isotope, Hungary could not have been the source of the leakage registered in several European countries over recent weeks.
"The amounts of iodine-131 measured in neighboring countries cannot have much to do with this, because the distances involved rule out that the amount we emit could be registered over there," he told Reuters.
DOUBT

However, Jozsef Ronaky, director of the Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority, said it was too early to draw such a firm conclusion.

"It cannot be ruled out (that the institute was the source). I consider the opinion of the laboratory premature. Establishing whether the substance detected in other countries was emitted by them requires a thorough investigation," he told Reuters.
Ronaky said the body, which has no oversight of the Institute of Isotopes but is the IAEA's point of contact in Hungary, has submitted all relevant Hungarian data to the U.N. nuclear watchdog. "I think it is probably us, that is the Institute of Isotopes, that is the source," he said.
Ronaky said he has initiated a thorough inquiry involving the institute and national authorities to explore how potential issues of technology, oversight and communication could be addressed.
The Hungarian Medical Officer Service, which is in charge of overseeing the laboratory, could not immediately comment.

The Institute of Isotopes is 69-percent owned by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, while the rest is owned by Hungarian private investors.

Budapest's envoy to the U.N. agency also said earlier he could not rule out that the lab was the source.

The IAEA said that if a person were to breathe in the levels for a whole year, they would receive an annual radiation dose of less than 0.1 microsieverts.

In comparison, average annual background radiation is 2,400 microsieverts a year, it said.

Obama in Bali for summit of East Asian nations

2011-11-17T10:34:00.001-08:00

Aiming to knit Asian allies ever closer as China's might rises, President Barack Obama is completing a nine-day Asia-Pacific trip with a visit to his boyhood home of Indonesia, where he'll become the first U.S. president to take part in a summit of East Asian nations.

Security issues and the U.S. vision for an increasingly robust American role in Asia are expected to be central themes for Obama's participation in the East Asia Summit in Bali, where the

president arrived Thursday night after traveling from Australia. But concerns over China may shadow the president's meetings Friday and Saturday with leaders of smaller Asian nations increasingly alarmed over China's claims to maritime passage and rich oil reserves in the South China Sea.

Obama will also get a chance to meet on the summit sidelines with leaders such as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with whom the president has an especially close personal relationship, as the U.S. looks to bulk up regional alliances and encourage big roles for friends.

For Obama, the visit will mark a homecoming to the country where he lived for four years as a boy after his mother married an Indonesian man and moved them to Jakarta. Obama visited Jakarta last year and spent time during that visit reflecting on his personal ties to Indonesia, something he probably won't have as much time for on this trip. But Obama's background as a Hawaii native partly raised in Indonesia has shown throughout his trip, which began with an economic summit in Honolulu and ends when he departs Bali on Saturday.

While in Bali, Obama will be aiming to expand commercial ties and export opportunities with fast-growing Asia, looking for ways to underscore the connection between his foreign travels and U.S. jobs with an election year approaching. Nuclear nonproliferation, disaster relief and maritime security also are U.S. priorities.
But behind it all, China looms large.
The centerpiece of Obama's visit to Australia was announcement of a new military agreement that will allow more U.S. military aircraft and a rotating presence of U.S. Marines into Australia, a move largely seen as a hedge against China, which immediately objected.
In Bali, Obama will encounter more allies eager for U.S. support as China and its smaller neighbors argue over the South China Sea, an area that is critical to U.S. interests as well.
He arrives after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton earlier this week signed a declaration with her counterpart from the Philippines calling for multilateral talks to resolve maritime disputes such as those over the South China Sea. Six countries in the region have competing claims, but China wants them to negotiate one-to-one — and chafes at any U.S. involvement.
Clinton said the U.S., during the East Asia Summit, "will certainly expect and participate in very open and frank discussions," including on the maritime challenges in the region. Beijing said Tuesday it opposes bringing up the issue at the summit.
It's not clear how much will be said publicly about the dispute, but U.S. officials are quick to note the importance of the South China Sea, where $1.2 trillion in U.S. trade moves annually, according to Adm. Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific Command. Briefing reporters traveling with Obama this week, Willard called it "a vital interest to the region, a national interest to the United States, an area that carries an immense amount of commerce, and an area in which we must maintain maritime security and peace and not see disruptions as a consequence of contested areas."
On Thursday, China was muted in its public response, saying only that more robust American ties to Australia should not harm other countries.

"China has no opposition to the development of normal state-to-state relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said in Beijing. "We also hope that when developing normal state-to-state relations, one should take into consideration the interests of other countries as well as the whole region and the peace and stability of the region."

Behind the scenes, however, the more assertive U.S. policy toward China was setting Beijing on edge. The government's Xinhua News Agency said the U.S. feels threatened by China's rise and influence in Southeast Asia and said Obama's goal was "pinning down and containing China and counterbalancing China's development."

Study: Triple threat paints grim future for frogs

2011-11-17T10:29:00.001-08:00

Frogs, salamanders and other amphibians may eventually have no haven left on the globe because of a triple threat of worsening scourges, a new study predicts.

Scientists have long known that amphibians are under attack from a killer fungus, climate change and shrinking habitat. In the study appearing online Wednesday in the journal Nature, computer models project that in about 70 years those three threats will spread, leaving no part of the world immune from one of the problems.

Frogs seem to have the most worrisome outlook, said study lead author Christian Hof of the Biodiversity and Climate Research Center in Frankfurt.

Meanwhile, federal scientists in the United States are meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, this week to monitor the situation and figure out how to reverse it.

Several important U.S. amphibian species — boreal toads in the U.S. Rocky Mountains and the mountain yellow legged frog in the Sierra Nevada Mountains — are shrinking in numbers, said zoologist Steve Corn, who is part of the U.S. Geological Survey's Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative. The western part of the United States has the problem worse than does the East.

About one-third of the world's amphibian species are known to be threatened with extinction, and 159 species already have disappeared, a 2008 international study found.
"It's no fun being a frog," said prominent biodiversity conservationist Stuart Pimm of Duke University, who was not part of Hof's study or the USGS effort. "They are getting it from all three different factors."
Hof's study was the first to look at projections of the three threats by geography and see if they overlap. While they overlap some, it is not nearly as much as expected. The wide distribution of threats leaves no refuge for amphibians.

The strongest threats seem to be where the most species of amphibians live, concentrating the potential loss of diversity, said Hof and Ross Alford, an amphibian expert at James Cook University in Australia, who was not part of the research.

The biggest threats are seen, mostly from climate change, to frogs and other amphibians in tropical Africa, northern South America and the Andes Mountains, areas which Hof calls "climate losers." In the northern Andes, which have the largest number of frog species in the world, more than 160 frog species are at risk, he said.

Alford and other outside scientists said they thought Hof's work might be overly pessimistic. But studying the geographic distribution of amphibian threats in the future is important, they said.

Tourists invited to see erupting Congo volcano

2011-11-14T11:09:00.001-08:00

A national park in Congo best known for its endangered mountain gorillas is now inviting tourists to go on overnight treks to see a volcano spurting fountains of lava nearly 1,000 feet into the air.

Mount Nyamulagira began erupting on Nov. 6 and could continue to do so for days, or even months.

"Last night's was the most spectacular yet," spokeswoman LuAnne Chad said Monday from Virunga National Park.

Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano attracted tourists earlier this year when a fissure had lava spurting 65 feet (20 meters) high. In comparison, volcanologist Dario Tedesco estimated that the lava on Mount Nyamulagira in Congo is spewing up to 980 feet high (300 meters) high.

Park wardens have named the latest Nyamulagira eruption "Kimanura," after the name of the area along the volcano's flank, spokeswoman Chad said.

Rivers of incandescent lava are flowing slowly north into an uninhabited part of the park, but that the lava flows pose no danger to the park's critically endangered mountain gorillas, a statement from the park said.
Virunga Park is home to 200 of the world's 790 mountain gorillas, as well as lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, okapi, forest elephants and buffalo.

The park has set up a tented camp nearly one mile (1.5 kilometers) south of the eruption where tourists can spend the night. For $300, the park provides transportation for the hour-long drive from the eastern capital of Goma and wardens to guide visitors on the three- to four-hour hike to the camp.

Virunga is located in eastern Congo, where numerous militia and rebel groups continue to terrorize the population nearly a decade after the country's civil war ended. Some 360 park rangers protect the park and its wildlife from poachers, rebel groups, illegal miners and land invasions.

Rangers worked through the civil war in eastern Congo's five parks, with more than 150 killed in the last 10 years, according to the statement.

The 3,000 square-mile (7,800 square-kilometer) Virunga National Park is a World Heritage site containing seven of the eight volcanoes in the Virunga mountain range that sprawls across the borders of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. Only two are active — Nyamulagira and, closer to Goma, Mount Nyiragongo.

Nyiragongo erupted destructively in 2002, destroying most of Goma city including 14,000 homes and forcing 350,000 residents to flee.