Passing The Story

Australian city cut off by floodwaters

2011-01-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

SYDNEY — East coast Australia's water torture worsened Monday with the city of Rockhampton completely cut off by floodwaters two days before the swollen Fitzroy River was expected to reach its peak.

"The highway is cut at Rockhampton," Queensland state premier Anna Bligh said. "Rockhampton is now completely stranded — a town of 75,000 people — no airport, road or rail."

Mayor Rod Carter assured residents that the Defence Force had ferried in enough food, drinking water and medical supplies for an emergency that could carry into next week.

Col. Luke Foster, in charge of the airlift, said Hercules transport planes had brought in enough supplies before the last road link, the Bruce Highway, was severed.

"We'll continue to monitor the circumstances as they emerge and as they change," Foster said, promising that seven helicopters would be stationed in Rockhampton.

Queensland is reeling from the worst flooding in the state in 50 years, with 22 towns besieged by water and 200,000 people affected.

A man died when his car was swept off a causeway, the third death since Christmas put down to a flood crisis that extends over an area the size of France and Germany combined.

The rising waters knocked out Rockhampton's airport on Saturday and Carter said "we expect to have our airport closed for the best part of three weeks."

The Fitzroy River is projected to peak on Wednesday.

"Many Rockhampton residents will recall the devastating floods of 1991 and 1954," Bligh said. "These river peaks are at those historical levels and unfortunately it'll be a long time before this massive amount of water recedes."

She said 150 houses had been inundated and 1,000 more had water lapping up to their steps. If flood projections are correct, 400 houses could have water above their floorboards before the floodwaters sluice out into the Pacific Ocean.

Bligh has come under fire for flying to Sydney to spend New Year's Eve watching the firework display just hours after telling Queenslanders that the state she runs was facing one of the worst natural disasters in Australia's history.

Carter urged residents who worried their houses would flood to go to the evacuation centers or to move in with family or friends whose houses were on higher ground.

"If the police tap you on the shoulder and tell you you have to shift, that's a lawful direction," the mayor said. "We're doing that as compassionately as we can, but once that direction is given, there's no turning back _ you have to evacuate your home."

Bligh conceded that the ramifications of having an area the size of France and Germany under water would spread beyond Australia's borders.

"There's likely to be a significant long-term effect of that and not only nationally but internationally," she said.

Queensland coal fields produce half the world's supply of coal for making steel and three-quarters of them are stalled by the floods.

Macquarie Group, Australia's biggest investment bank, warned that the spot price for metallurgical coal would likely rise to $300 a ton from $246.

"There is a strong chance that 2011 could prove worse than 2008 when 7-8 million tons of metallurgical coal were lost due to flooding in Queensland," Macquarie said in a statement.

from http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Australian+city+floodwaters/4054153/story.html

User fury as iPhone alarms fail again

2011-01-03T16:44:00.000-08:00

IN AN eerie, if far less serious, parallel to the Y2K millennium bug that set hearts racing a decade ago, iPhone users in Asia, parts of Europe, Australia and New Zealand overslept yesterday after their phone alarms malfunctioned on the first working day of 2011, despite Apple’s reassurances that built-in clocks would work as normal.

The online world was abuzz with irritated messages as people blogged, tweeted and posted Facebook messages about how they were two hours late for work or missed flights because of the third successive day of failure on the iPhone’s built-in alarm.

“I was a victim of the iPhone alarm glitch this morning. I have never gotten ready for work so fast in my life,” tweeted jkless. The problem also appeared to affect alarms on other Apple products such as the iPod and iTouch music player.

After the problem arose on New Year’s Day, Apple said the phones would function properly again on January 3rd, but many wished they had relied on the old-fashioned alarm clock instead. The problem did not affect recurring alarms.

There have been glitches like this before. The iPhone alarm system failed to recognise changes in daylight savings time in 2010, causing some users to sleep in an hour longer. And Apple had to deal with publicity problems in July when shortly after the launch of the iPhone 4, the most recent model, there were reports of bad phone reception.

It didn’t seem to hurt sales – Apple sold more than 14 million iPhones in the year to the end of September, and the phone is now the world’s No 2 smartphone brand behind global leader Nokia.

Of course, the alarm glitch may prompt some malingerers to try to extend the Christmas break.

ChrisWBates tweeted: “Wonder how many people are going to use ‘my iPhone alarm didn’t go off’ as an excuse to not go in tomorrow after new year’s break.” And as another online wag commented: “Haven’t you all heard of an alarm clock?”

from http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0104/1224286701596.html

Russia finds Khodorkovsky guilty in second trial

2010-12-27T20:33:00.000-08:00

MOSCOW - A Moscow court on Monday found tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky guilty in his second fraud trial, provoking condemnation from the West over a case seen as an indicator of Russia's political future.

Khodorkovsky and co-accused Platon Lebedev were convicted of embezzlement and money laundering, said judge Viktor Danilkin, dashing the hopes of Russian liberals that the trial would show a new approach from Russian courts.

The United States led some stinging Western reaction, with the White House saying it was "deeply concerned" about the "selective application of justice". Germany called it a step backward for Russia.

The pair were charged with embezzling 218 million tonnes of oil from Khodorkovsky's Yukos oil giant between 1998 and 2003 and laundering 487 billion rubles (16 billion dollars) and 7.5 billion dollars received from the oil.

"This is an unjust verdict by a court that is not free," Khodorkovsky's lead lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant told journalists. "It is shameful for the country. We will appeal the verdict." Amid chaotic scenes, only a handful of reporters were allowed into the courtroom for the verdict and judge Danilkin then requested even those journalists to leave as the rest of the verdict was read out.

"The court has established that M. Khodorkovsky and P. Lebedev committed embezzlement acting in collusion with a group of people and using their professional positions," said Danilkin in the judgement. Both reacted impassively to the judgement in the glass-fronted defendants' cage in the packed courtroom, Khodorkovsky leafing through papers and looking into the air while Lebedev appeared to be reading a book.

Hundreds of supporters gathered outside the court shouted "Russia without Putin" and "Down with the police state". An AFP correspondent saw police arrest 20 people. The court adjourned Monday evening until 0700 GMT Tuesday and it was not clear when the final sentence would be delivered.

Once the country's richest man and now its most prominent prisoner, Khodorkovsky, 47, is already serving an eight-year sentence for fraud on charges that his supporters insist were trumped up by the authorities. But with his release scheduled for 2011, Khodorkovsky was put on trial last year on charges of money laundering and embezzlement that could see the head of the now-defunct Yukos oil giant stay in jail until 2017.

The verdict was watched as a possible indicator of Russia's future direction under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, amid speculation that Putin is planning a return to the Kremlin in 2012 polls. Liberals had hoped an acquittal would send a signal to the West that Russia was serious about reform and demonstrate the independence of its judiciary.

"The judge would have had to have been a hero to have given an acquittal verdict," Lyudmila Alexeyeva, one of Russia's best known rights defenders, told the Interfax news agency.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, travelling with President Barack Obama in Hawaii, said the US was "troubled by the allegations of serious due process violations, and what appears to be an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends."

The "apparent selective application of the law to these individuals undermines Russia's reputation as a country committed to deepening the rule of law," he added.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said that "the way the trial has been conducted is extremely dubious and a step backward on the road toward a modernisation of the country."

In a more subdued reaction, Britain said it would stress to Russia that the law should be applied in a "non-discriminatory and proportional way". European Parliament head Jerzy Buzek said Khodorkovsky's case "has become an emblematic symbol of the systemic problems of the rule of law, legal nihilism and human rights in today's Russia."

Amnesty International called on the Moscow courts to overturn the conviction "on the grounds that his trial was unfair and appeared politically motivated."

Moscow's Khamovnichesky court had postponed the verdict from its original date of December 15, without explaining why.

The next day Putin compared Khodorkovsky to US fraudster Bernard Madoff, jailed for 150 years, and observed that a "thief must be in prison". The pursuit of Khodorkovsky has been the most controversial legal action of the post-Soviet era in Russia.

Like many other billionaires, Khodorkovsky made his fortune in controversial loans-for-shares privatisation in the 1990s but his supporters say he turned Yukos into Russia's most transparent company.

from http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/World/Story/A1Story20101228-255149.html

What Facebook Can Give Back To The Web

2010-12-27T20:30:00.000-08:00

In Time’s Person of the Year 2010 article on Mark Zuckerberg, one fact shouts out to me above all others: 1 in 4 Web pages in the United States is now viewed behind the walls of Facebook.

I enjoy Facebook and would be happy spending a quarter of my Web life there, if I could leave Facebook for the other 75%. But even if I log out completely, most of the Web’s most popular sites are tied to Facebook, through Share or Like or Connect buttons. Facebook is not just another Web site: it is a service that “Facebookizes” every Web site it touches, making me bring all of my friends with me, like luggage. It’s disconcerting being on a Web site that I’m used to browsing anonymously, and seeing my friends’ faces there. And so I have a holiday wish: Facebook, let me dance if I want to, let me leave my friends behind.

For the last twenty years, we’ve enjoyed One Web that is united through the common policy of letting us be whoever we want to be, wherever we go. One Web allows us at times to be cooler than we are in real life, aspirational, anonymous, and/or fanatical about a particular subject. And that is why the Web is wonderful.

Over the last five years, Facebook added a new hat to the One Web haberdashery, by giving us the ability to be a person who is a friend online with the people we have known in real life (as well as people we’ve never met). In 2010 Facebook added Instant Personalization, with the explicit goal of letting us be our Facebook selves everywhere. But in so doing, we have lost the On/Off button: I love being my Facebook self some places, but how do I turn it off on-the-fly?

This presents an opportunity for Facebook to give back to the Web: please let us take off our Facebook hats whenever we want by replacing the Connect button with an On/Off button that lets us see clearly whether we are being Facebookized on any given page of the Web.

One Web is as old as the Web itself: The 1993 New Yorker joke was that on the Internet no one knows you’re a dog. But now you can’t go anywhere without people knowing your pedigree, where you went to obedience school, and the status of your latest puppy love.

What’s wrong with that, you ask? Well, I don’t know how you roll… but I personally spend a lot of my time on the Internet doing things that I’m not ashamed of in principle, but don’t want broadcast to my mom, former schoolmates, and coworkers. Mostly I’d just bore them to tears because almost nobody I know gives a rat’s ass about my obsessive love of Logan Couture of the San Jose Sharks, Showtime TV shows like LOOK, or photos of panda babies. But also… I admit that I waste a lot of time on the Web when I “should” be doing other things. If you put together all the time I’ve spent just looking up song lyrics, watching videos of kittens, and studying cupcake recipes—all perfectly innocent and life-affirming activities, I might add—some small-minded people might think badly of me.

So imagine that every time you looked at any Web page, Facebook could tell all your friends what you were looking at in real time. Would you be OK with that? From a technical point of view, Facebook could do it right now. They have the data from a large percentage of the top websites; they just aren’t exposing it yet. When we talk about the benefits of anonymity, for the average person it amounts to their boss not knowing how much time they’re spending on fantasy football or shoe shopping at work. (Vibram Five Fingers for the win!)

In Facebook’s march to a billion users by 2012, Facebook seems to be everywhere we Web users want to be. Someday soon more than half our Web page views could be on the Facebook-Enhanced Web (FEW) instead of the rest of the World-Wide Web (WWW) that Tim Berners-Lee gave to the world so we could roam it freely like pandas in the bamboo forest.

Remember, the WWW consists of millions of websites, of which Facebook is now the world’s third biggest by unique users. However, if we measure by Web page views, Facebook is bigger than the next 99 websites combined, so the FEW is already huge.

We the Web users have chosen the FEW over the WWW for what seem like good reasons: Facebook promises us a spam-free, porn-free, crime-free world where we can do everything with people we know in real life. Who wouldn’t want that?

Proponents of a stable Web, for one. Facebook has spread its seed all over the Web now—with Facebook Connect and Share and Like buttons everywhere—so much that when Facebook goes down, the Web goes down. Facebook has bequeathed the WWW a single point of failure.

Note that Facebook did this without being closed: they have APIs, and buttons, and export mechanisms. They’re not closed; they’ve just redefined open. I’ve made my peace with the idea that Facebook will be the biggest service on The Open Internet; what we all should want to avoid is a future where Facebook is the Web. That would be as lame as spending eternity in a 1971 Ford Pinto with all of your friends.

Reliability issues aside, there’s a deeper principle at stake here. Facebook has divided the Web into two: the Web with Facebook (your friends), and the Web without Facebook (people cooler than your friends). Our friends are who we are interested in, but they are not what we are interested in.

All the time we spend looking at repetitive posts and photos from people we already know, could be spent instead on the Web meeting new people who are interested in the same things we are. In other words, making cooler friends. Ambient Findability, as I like to call it, means that what (and who!) we find changes who (and what!) we become. Enabling that is what has always made the Web great.

So, in the spirit of One Web and Ambient Findability, I’m asking Facebook on behalf of all Web citizens to give us the benefits of being able to just look at things online without being tracked by you. Give us the option to treat Facebook like every other part of the Web, whenever we want, and I assure you it will benefit us all.

Give us an easy one-click way to truly and totally disconnect from Facebook Connect whenever we want. I’ll still spend just as much time on Facebook, I promise! But now I won’t have to see my friends’ faces every time I look up a restaurant review on Yelp, read the news on the New York Times, or wait for external modules to load on TechCrunch. It’s just an option, and an option confers value… I’m sure the vast majority of users love Facebook Connect and will continue to use it. But having the option to return the rest of One Web to its pre-Facebook status—useful but not fundamentally social—would be the best gift that Zuck could give back to the Web.

from http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/25/facebook-web/

Assange memoir to give full details of WikiLeaks

2010-12-27T20:26:00.003-08:00

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's new memoir will give a full account of his life and the secretive group that has leaked large amounts of documents, US publisher Alfred A Knopf said on Monday.

Knopf spokesman Paul Bogaards said Assange and the publishing house reached a deal for his autobiography "just before the holiday" and that a manuscript was expected to be delivered in 2011.

Assange told The Sunday Times newspaper in Britain that he agreed to book deals due to financial pressures from legal issues.

The deals would bring in USD 800,000 from Knopf and another 325,000 pounds (USD 500,000) from British publisher Canongate, both part of the Random House stable owned by Bertelsmann AG.

"I don't want to write this book, but I have to," Assange told the Times, citing a growing legal bill that has reached more than 200,000 pounds (USD 308,000). "I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat.

Bogaards said the book is still untitled.

"In terms of the subject matter, it will be a complete account of his life through the present including the founding of WikiLeaks and the work he has done there," said Bogaards. "We do not have a timetable for publishing the memoir as yet."

Assange, 39, is an Australian computer expert who has angered the United States by releasing secret diplomatic cables on his website and teaming up with newspapers around the globe to amplify the impact of the disclosures.

He is now on bail and living in the English countryside under house arrest as he prepares to fight extradition to Sweden, where authorities want to question him over alleged sexual offenses.

Assange's memoir would come hard on the heels of a volume from his former second-in-command Daniel Domscheit-Berg, whose "Inside WikiLeaks: My Time at the World's Most Dangerous Website" is set to tell the story of the site. The book is due out from German publisher Econ Verlag in January.

from http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/world-news/assange-memoir-to-give-full-detailswikileaks_508709.html

Heathrow passengers land in Edmonton

2010-12-22T20:48:00.000-08:00

Relieved passengers landed Wednesday afternoon on the first Edmonton-bound Air Canada flight to arrive from London's Heathrow Airport since snow stranded thousands of passengers on the weekend.

"I was stuck at Heathrow Airport from the 20th and then I had to take a four-hour train back to where I was from and then I finally got out today," said Rupaly Toor, who travelled home to Edmonton for her Christmas break from school.

"So yeah, it's horrible there ... it's exactly how it is on TV. There's tents outside and just people camping and it's not good."

Weather delays forced Air Canada to cancel many of its flights to and from London. The airline was able to resume its full schedule Tuesday but officials warned it might take more than a week to lear the passenger backlog.

Two incoming flights, and two outgoing flights from the Edmonton International Airport were cancelled because of the snow in London.

"It took them three days without snow to get a runway cleared. It's just ridiculous," said Howard Singleton, who flew to Edmonton to visit his brother.

Singleton was supposed to fly out of Heathrow on Monday but his flight was cancelled after the plane wasn't allowed to land.

All the worries and delays were forgotten when Diane Hill's daughter and son-in-law walked through the arrivals gate with their new baby girl.

"It feels fabulous. Christmas will be Christmas," Hill said.

from http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/12/22/edmonton-heathrow-edmonton-flight-lands.html

Canada urges UN sanctions against Gbagbo regime

2010-12-22T20:46:00.000-08:00

Canada is threatening the Ivory Coast with sanctions, a tactic many believe could actually work to defuse the dangerous political showdown there if the United Nations could muster a global clampdown.

Right now, it's a country with two presidents. One, incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, refuses to admit he lost an election, and most of the world is demanding he cede power. The other, election winner Alassane Ouattara, is holed up in an Abidjan hotel surrounded by 800 UN peacekeepers effectively serving as his bodyguard.

Now two clocks are ticking: the speed with which the world can heap pressure on Mr. Gbagbo to leave, and the stamina of the UN to stay in, and guard Mr. Ouattara, until that happens.

The race could decide whether the country splits into civil war and has implications for UN peacekeeping, the price of chocolate, and a Canadian oil company.

It's turning into an international showdown: Mr. Gbagbo wants UN peacekeepers to leave, but the world doesn't recognize him as president. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon instead called on countries to support besieged peacekeepers, arguing the UN's legitimacy is at stake. On Wednesday, the United States said it's talking to countries, mostly in Africa, about expanding the peacekeeping mission.

How willing African countries will be to send troops is unclear, but war-weary Western nations such as Canada will be reluctant. But international sanctions, often seemingly futile, might be persuasive in the Ivory Coast.

Canada wants the UN to impose new sanctions on Mr. Gbagbo's regime, and is working with other countries, including UN Security Council members, “to determine how best to achieve the desired result of pressuring Laurent Gbagbo to cede power,” said Melissa Lantsman, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon. The real hope is putting together sanctions that could cut away the domestic support Mr. Gbagbo needs to stay in power. If his funds dry up, he won't be able to pay government officials, and crucially, the army.

The election crisis is often seen as part of an intractable north-south split in the country, with Mr. Ouattara from the Muslim north, and Mr. Gbagbo from the Christian south.

But it is, according to experts, less clear cut: many Muslims live in the south, and Mr. Gbagbo doesn't have monolithic backing of Christians or others there. The country has suffered under his regime. Some think he doesn't have deep enough political support to stay if he doesn't control the levers of power by paying the salaries of civil servants and soldiers and keeping state radio and TV running.

“He would have to keep three or four of these balls in the air in order to hang on to power,” said Michael McGovern, a Yale University expert on the Ivory Coast. “The army is the key.”

The trick is to quickly fashion sanctions that could persuade backers he can't hang on.

The United States and the European Union have imposed travel bans on Mr. Gbagbo and some associates, but it's mostly symbolic. The World Bank froze loans to the country on Wednesday. A more debilitating move has been suggested: having the West African central bank, which controls the money supply in eight countries, freeze Ivory Coast accounts.

The UN Security Council can approve broad economic sanctions to freeze assets or restrict trade. That's also the easiest route for Canadian sanctions, because our laws make it easy to adopt UN measures; the law to impose unilateral sanctions has several legal tests and takes longer – and global sanctions have more impact.

Tough UN sanctions could restrict sales of the country's big cash crop, cocoa. Aside from making the price of chocolate rise, it would hit the country's economy and population hard. But one of the regime's major sources of funds now is oil. “Gbagbo has very good control of the receipts that come out of that,” Mr. McGovern said. That's where Canada, with small trade and aid ties with the Ivory Coast, has an interest at stake.

A Calgary-based oil company, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., operates the Espoir oil field in Ivoirien waters, pumping out 30,000 barrels a day, and the Ivory Coast's national oil company, PETROCI, owns a 20-per-cent stake. International sanctions to really cut off Mr. Gbagbo's flow of funds would probably have to cut the flow of oil profits, and hit a Canadian firm, too, perhaps by banning Ivoirien oil sales or the supply of equipment for operating rigs. (The company declined to comment.)

There are skeptics about whether sanctions are effective. They have to be “smart sanctions” that hit the government without devastating citizens. Governments can find illicit ways around some of them, or endure them. But in Mr. Gbagbo's case, the threat of cutting off the payroll could convince those who keep him in power that they're backing the wrong horse.

From http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-urges-un-sanctions-against-gbagbo-regime/article1847913/

Australia's Newcrest halts Ivory Coast, Indonesia mines

2010-12-20T22:27:00.000-08:00

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australia's Newcrest Mining has put work at its Bonikro gold mine in Ivory Coast on ice and moved mine management to Ghana amid election tensions in the region, although the company said no threats had been made to the mine or staff.

Separately, Newcrest said parts of its Kencana underground mine at Gosowong on Halmahera island in Indonesia, jointly owned with PT Aneka Tambang, was blocked after a mudstone movement, which trapped two workers.

"Precautionary measures are in place to ensure the safety and security of all employees," Newcrest said about the Ivory Coast situation.

Violence has claimed over 50 lives since the contested election November 28. See .

The bulk of the mine management relocated to nearby Accra in Ghana and the mine is being managed from there, with security and local employees maintaining the site in preparation for a resumption of operations as soon as possible, Newcrest said.

The mine produces around 120,000 ounces of gold per year.

In Indonesia, the two workers were trapped on Sunday by moving mudstone. Both men are unharmed and receiving water and food via a number of holes drilled into the area but it will take several days to rescue them

Snow and ice have stranded tens of thousands of would-be travellers across northern Europe.

2010-12-20T22:25:00.000-08:00

The UK, France and Germany are among the worst-hit areas, with forecasters warning freezing weather may continue.

Hundreds of passengers desperate to return home for Christmas camped overnight at the world's busiest transport hub, London's Heathrow.

More than 1,000 flights were cancelled at German airports in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin.

In France, Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport had three of its four runways open though most of the short-haul flights had been cancelled to enable longer-haul passengers to fly.

At the capital's smaller Orly airport although both runways were in operations, many flights had delays of more than three hours, according to French newspaper, Le Monde.

In Germany airlines encouraged their passengers to take the train while train operators - whose services are already overcrowded - urged passengers to stay at home, Reuters reports.

At Germany's Frankfurt airport - where many spent the night on camp-beds - authorities brought in four brightly coloured clowns to try and lift the mood in the terminals.

But some of the most dramatic scenes took place in the British capital where, more than 48 hours after the last heavy snowfall in London, angry passengers with tickets turned up at Heathrow Airport only to be turned away from the already overcrowded hub.

All short-haul flights had been cancelled and only one runway was in operation for the few flights that managed to take leave.

Backlog

The airport operator said that no more than one third of scheduled flights would be allowed to leave or land at the airport until at least 0600GMT on Wednesday.

Officials warned that despite relaxation of night-flight operations in an effort to loosen the backlog it might take until after Christmas to do so, and perhaps longer if more snow falls.

London's St Pancras International rail terminal was clogged with passengers and their luggage

The chaos at Heathrow had a knock-on effect in other international hubs where stranded passengers began to accept the possibility of not being with their loved ones over the Christmas period.

"My daughter is coming home and I don't see her very often and she's coming home to an empty house and it's just devastating," said 64-year-old Vivian Crosby, of Cambridge, England, stranded at New Jersey's Newark airport.
Long queues

Others expressed disbelief that such a short burst of snow could have such a great impact.

Scott Kirker, from Philadelphia, had hoped to travel to Singapore via London to see his parents for Christmas but his flight was cancelled.

"We keep being told that London never has snow, it's never a problem! It's a major inconvenience for a lot of people," he said from Newark.

Travellers' frustration was summed up by London Mayor Boris Johnson: "It can't be beyond the wit of man surely to find the shovels, the diggers, the snowploughs or whatever it takes to clear the snow out from under the planes, to get the planes moving and to have more than one runway going," he said late on Monday.

Airport operators explained that the sheer volume of snow - five inches in just one hour on Saturday - led to extensive ice buildup around aircraft on the ground and that safety concerns remained their priority.

The treacherous conditions are costing British Airways some £65m (£100m; 75m euros) a day, analysts say, and the weather is severely impacting UK business in general: the number of customers in UK shops is down 25% at what is normally one of the most intense shopping periods of the year.

There were severe delays on the Eurostar rail service between the UK and France and Belgium, and Thalys trains between France and Belgium were also affected as speed restrictions hit rail travel in England and northern France.

Lines of delayed passengers snaked for several hundred metres outside London's St Pancras station, and Eurostar - which has been turning away even those with bookings - urged travellers to cancel or postpone their trips if possible.

North Korea Warns South Korea To Stop Live-fire Drills

2010-12-17T17:51:00.001-08:00

Seoul, South Korea -- North Korea is warning South Korea to stop planned live-fire drills on an island the North bombed last month.

The North says the "intensity and scope" of its retaliation will be worse than last month's attack if the South goes through with its announced one-day live-fire drills sometime between Saturday and Tuesday on Yeonpyeong Island.

The North responded to similar South Korean drills on Nov. 23 by raining artillery shells on the tiny fishing community near the Koreas' disputed sea border. Four South Koreans were killed.

The South has said the drills are part of "routine, justified" exercises. Representatives of the U.N. Command that oversees the armistice that ended the Korean War will observe the drills.

Big legal setback for Obama's health care overhaul

2010-12-13T21:09:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's historic health care overhaul hit its first major legal roadblock Monday, thrown into doubt by a federal judge's declaration that the heart of the sweeping legislation is unconstitutional. The decision handed Republican foes ammunition for their repeal effort next year as the law heads for almost certain eventual judgment by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson, a Republican appointee in Richmond, Va., marked the first successful court challenge to any portion of the new law, following two earlier rulings in its favor by Democratic-appointed judges.

The law's central requirement for nearly all Americans to carry insurance is unconstitutional, well beyond Congress' power to mandate, Hudson ruled, agreeing with the argument of Virginia's Republican attorney general — and many of the GOP lawmakers who will take control of the U.S. House in January. Hudson denied Virginia's request to strike down the law in its entirety or block it from being implemented while his ruling is appealed by the Obama administration.

"An individual's personal decision to purchase — or decline to purchase — health insurance from a private provider is beyond the historical reach of the Commerce Clause," said Hudson, a 2002 appointee of President George W. Bush.

Nevertheless, the White House predicted it would prevail in the Supreme Court, although it may be a year or two before the health care law gets there. The next step for the Virginia lawsuit is the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, where Democratic-appointed judges hold a majority.

In an interview with television station WFLA in Tampa, Fla., on Monday, Obama emphasized that other judges had either found the law constitutional or dismissed lawsuits against it.

"Keep in mind this is one ruling by one federal district court. We've already had two federal district courts that have ruled that this is definitely constitutional," Obama said. "You've got one judge who disagreed. That's the nature of these things."

But in the short term, the latest court ruling hands potent ammunition to GOP opponents as they prepare to assert control in the new Congress with promises to repeal the law. Obama in turn has promised to veto any repeal legislation and appears likely to be able to prevail since Democrats retain control of the Senate. Republicans also have discussed trying to starve the law of funding.

Whatever the eventual outcome, Monday's ruling could create uncertainty around the administration's efforts to gradually put into effect the landmark legislation extending health coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans. And it can only increase the public's skepticism, which has not significantly receded in the months since the law's enactment, defying Obama's prediction that it would become more popular as the public got to know it.

Obama aides said implementation would not be affected, noting that the individual insurance requirement and other major portions of the legislation don't take effect until 2014.

Underscoring the potential for Hudson's ruling to become a political cudgel for the new Republican House majority, incoming House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, quickly cautioned states against "investing time and resources in Obamacare's implementation now that its central mandate has been ruled unconstitutional."

"Republicans have made a pledge to America to repeal this job-killing health care law, and that's what we're going to do," said Boehner. Calls to repeal the law were a staple of tea party campaign rallies this year.

Other lawsuits are going forward, including one by 20 states that gets under way Thursday in Florida. That suit also challenges whether the federal government can require states to expand their Medicaid programs.

The suit that was decided on Monday had gained a high profile because it was pursued by Virginia's outspoken attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli. The two earlier cases decided in favor of the administration were brought by little-known legal entities.

In his ruling, Hudson largely agreed with Cuccinelli's argument that Congress exceeded its authority, and he dismissed the Justice Department's argument that the insurance-buying requirement would come under the definition of regulating interstate commerce, a power given to Congress by the Constitution.

The mandate for people to buy insurance "is neither within the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution," the judge said.

Hudson limited his ruling to striking down the so-called individual mandate, leaving intact other portions of the law — something supporters cast as a victory. But administration officials and outside analysts agree that important provisions of the legislation could not go forward without the requirement for everyone to be insured. That's because insurers need to have large pools of healthy people, who are cheap to insure, or it is not financially tenable for them to extend coverage to anyone with a pre-existing condition or guarantee certain policies to nearly all comers.

Some provisions of the law took effect in September, six months after its passage, including free preventive care, an elimination of lifetime limits on coverage and a requirement for insurers to allow adult children to stay on their parents' health plans until age 26.

Hudson recognized that his would not be the last word on the subject.

"The final word will undoubtedly reside with a higher court," he wrote.

White House health reform director Nancy-Ann DeParle said the administration is encouraged by the two other judges — in Virginia and Michigan — who have upheld the law. She said the Justice Department is reviewing Hudson's ruling.

In contrast to Hudson's ruling, the judges in Michigan and Virginia, both appointed by President Bill Clinton, said the purchase requirement was allowable under the Constitution.

Winter storm traps drivers in Indiana, moves east

2010-12-13T21:02:00.000-08:00

LAPORTE, Ind. – Kate Ergang wasn't worried when two jackknifed semi-tractors trapped her and a friend on an Indiana highway in a blizzard. They had eaten dinner already and had blankets and pillows in the car. They talked, listened to their iPods and dozed off.

But the May college graduate had a few minutes of panic Monday morning when she woke and realized that nearly 12 hours later, they were in the same spot.

More than 100 vehicles were stuck Monday on Indiana's snow-covered highways. Strong winds and blowing snow hampered snow plow drivers' efforts to free them, but all motorists had been safely rescued by Monday evening, said Amy Bluhm, a dispatcher with LaPorte County 911.

The wind and heavy lake effect snow were part of a slow-moving storm that has been crawling across the Midwest since Friday night. At least 15 deaths have been attributed to the storm, which dumped nearly 2 feet of snow in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin before moving into Michigan and Indiana. Monday, it stretched further east, with snow in parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

Up to 16 inches of snow fell in northwest Indiana, where 70 drivers got stuck in drifts on a section of Indiana 2 in the Valparaiso area. Ergang and her friend, Allison Frank, were among an unknown number trapped on U.S. 30.

They were driving home to Crown Point on Sunday after visiting friends in central Indiana. All was fine until they reached Wanatah, about 35 miles southwest of South Bend.

"It was a whiteout. It was like a tornado of snow," Ergang said.

Unable to see if a car was in front of her, Frank would nudge her 2000 Ford Focus slowly forward, stopping periodically, before all traffic came to a standstill about 7 p.m. because the semi-tractors had jackknifed at an interchange east of Valparaiso. Frank turned the car off, and the two made beds in their seats with the blankets and pillows.

In the morning, they flagged down a police officer headed the opposite way who told them a 7-mile stretch of the highway had been closed. The road to Wanatah opened a little later, about 6:30 a.m., and they headed back there. They and dozens of other motorists spent the next three hours in a service station convenience store, where they could use the bathroom and bought food.

"It was definitely a relief to get out of the car and get in the warmth and talk with somebody else about what was going on," Ergang said when reached by phone later at home.

Indiana state police Lt. Lou Brown said some people made the situation worse by driving on roads that were closed or abandoning vehicles that got stuck.

"People would get into a snowdrift and couldn't go anywhere so they'd just leave the vehicle to get out of the weather," he said. "It just plugs things up and then snow plows can't get around them."

Also, people who get out of their cars risk being hit by other vehicles or plows. The best thing for people to do, Brown said, is stay home.

At least eight people in four states, including Indiana, died in traffic accidents related to the storm, and a 79-year-old man snow-blowing the end of his driveway in western Wisconsin was killed when a plow backed into him.

Five more died after shoveling or blowing snow, and Kenneth Swanson, 58, of rural River Falls, Wis., died when a metal shed collapsed from the heavy snow, pinning him under debris and about 3 feet of snow.

Along with the wind and snow, the upper Midwest was gripped by bone-chilling cold brought by arctic air that swept in behind the storm. Wind chills were below zero in many places Monday, and schools in Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and other states shut down.

Katie Muratore, a 20-year-old biology major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wore a calf-length overcoat with a fur-lined hood and hid her face behind a thick scarf as she hurried along a walkway between the campus and state Capitol. She usually takes the bus to class, but everyone else had the same idea Monday and she couldn't find any room.

"It's like sardines on the bus today," Muratore said.

In Dearborn, Mich., Jeff Smith dug his car out of his driveway Monday morning — with no gloves or hat.

"Gloves make it hard to shovel and my hair is still wet. So it's either you get a cold or you mess up your hair, so I risk the cold," said Smith, 57, a 30-plus-year Ford Motor Co. employee who was glad his job is close to home.

The 12-degree temperature didn't stop hundreds of fans from lining up hours before free tickets to Monday night's football game between the Minnesota Vikings and the New York Giants became available at 9 a.m. at Ford Field. The game was moved to Detroit after the Minneapolis Metrodome's inflated roof collapsed Sunday under the weight of heavy snow. The Lions said about 30,000 tickets were distributed before 11 a.m.

In Minneapolis, stadium officials were trying to repair the roof in time for the Vikings' next home game, Dec. 20 against Chicago.

Back in Indiana, truck drivers stopped at the Junction City Restaurant in nearby Rolling Prairie near the intersection of U.S. 20 and Indiana 2 for lunch, hoping the conditions would improve. They said driving was particularly difficult in areas where wind was blowing across open farmland, sweeping the snow onto highways and making it hard to see.

Bill Sullivan, 73, of Rolling Prairie, lives in the area and drove over to have lunch with two friends. He said even their 2-mile trip was difficult.

"We couldn't even see on the way over," Sullivan said. "It was blinding. You can't see nothing. We're going home and getting out of this crap."

Suicide bomber kills 6 troops in Afghanistan

2010-12-12T20:09:00.001-08:00

KABUL - Six U.S. troops were killed Sunday when a man rammed a minivan packed with explosives into a newly built military installation in Kandahar Province, U.S. and Afghan officials said.

The attack in a farming village in Zhari district, a Taliban stronghold where American soldiers are attempting to restore Afghan government control, was the latest in a string of incidents that have made the onset of winter here unusually deadly.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted online. The statement said the suicide bomber, identified as Ahmadullah, drove the minivan packed with 2,000 kilograms of explosives into the building.

The statement said U.S. soldiers had been busy in recent days turning a large house into an outpost.

U.S. forces have suffered heavy casualties in Kandahar this year as they have built a network of small outposts in and around the country's second largest city, the birthplace of the Taliban movement.

U.S. military and some Afghan officials say the effort has curbed the Taliban's control in key areas the group controlled until recently.

But the Afghan government's presence in the province remains anemic.

Sunday's attack comes two weeks after an Afghan border guard turned his weapon on U.S. trainers in the east, killing six troops.

So far this year, at least 670 NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan, far more than the 502 killed last year, which had been the deadliest in the nine year war, according to a count by the Associated Press.

Mines and powerful roadside bombings have become the deadliest weapons used against NATO troops in southern Afghanistan.

The Obama administration, which authorized a 30,000-troop surge last year, is expecting an interagency report of the state of the war later this month. The assessment will be used to fine-tune the United States's counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan as the war enters its 10th year.

Sunday's attack comes a day after an unusually deadly spate of military operations that left at least 40 suspected insurgents and seven civilians dead, according to the military.

The bloodshed comes amid continuing political tension in Kabul over the results of Afghanistan's parliamentary election in September.

Fazl Ahmad Manawi, the head of the country's independent election commission said in a press conference Sunday that the attorney general's office is attempting to use its investigative powers to pressure the commission to alter the results.

Afghan prosecutors have ordered the arrest of commission members in recent days on fraud charges - a move the election commission has interpreted as an intimidation tactic.

Sweden suicide bomber's British connections under investigation

2010-12-12T19:57:00.001-08:00

Britain's security services were tonight investigating the UK connections of the suicide bomber who struck Stockholm on Saturday night.

Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, an Iraqi-born Swede, who set off a car bomb in the Swedish capital before killing himself with a second bomb strapped to his body, had a BSc in sports therapy from the University of Bedfordshire in 2004, and had spent some time in Luton in recent years. Well-placed Whitehall officials confirmed the bomber's identity and his link to a British university.

According to the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, he had travelled to Britain and Jordan in the runup to Saturday's attack, in which he was the only victim. On an Islamic dating site, Muslima.com, where he was seeking a second wife, Abdaly, 29, listed Luton as his address, and said he met his first wife in Bedfordshire.

However, his car was registered in Sweden, and the motives declared in emails sent to a Swedish news agency and the security police, addressed local issues. The emails refer to a Swedish cartoonist, Lars Vilks, whose 2007 drawing of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog infuriated Muslims around the world, and to Sweden's 500 soldiers in Afghanistan. "Now your children, daughters and sisters shall die like our brothers and sisters and children are dying," the email warned.

The car bomb caught fire but did not explode and caused minimal damage in a busy Stockholm shopping street. Only one of several bombs Abdaly had strapped to his body blew up, killing him but nobody else.

Sweden's prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, cautioned that no connection between the emails and the bombs had been proved.

"We know that a man is dead. We know that a car exploded. We know that some threats has been given to the secret police and media," Reinfeldt said. "But we are not sure they are connected. And I think it's very important not to give final answers based on speculation."

British security and intelligence sources suggested Abdaly was one of an increasing number of individuals influenced by al-Qaida extremist ideology who have spent time in the UK.

However, the sources said there was no indication the bomber was directed by any al-Qaida leader. They said the bomber had probably been left to plan his own attack.

The fact that the Stockholm attack failed suggests al-Qaida is not in a position to train its supporters properly, British sources said.

Terrorism experts suggested al-Qaida and its allies were increasingly favouring one-man attacks on targets of opportunity, rather than long-planned, sophisticated and spectacular assaults such as 9/11.

Dutch release man accused of cyber attacks

2010-12-12T19:40:00.001-08:00

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A 19-year-old Dutchman arrested on Saturday over a cyber attack on the website of the public prosecution office was released on Sunday after admitting involvement in the attack, Dutch authorities said.

The man was the second teenager arrested in the Netherlands for cyber attacks in the past few days after police detained a 16-year-old youth on Thursday in connection with cyber attacks by WikiLeaks supporters.

The youth, arrested in The Hague, is being held on remand.

The prosecutor's office said on Sunday the 19-year-old man admitted involvement in the so-called "denial of service" attack against the prosecutor's website.

He also confessed to being involved in cyber attacks against Mastercard, Visa and Moneybookers, the statement added.

Cyber activists around the globe have attacked organizations seen as foes of WikiLeaks in retaliation for the ending of services to the website after it published thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic reports.

Involvement in denial of service attacks carries a maximum prison sentence of six years in the Netherlands.

Storm socks Midwest, cancels flights, closes roads

2010-12-12T19:34:00.001-08:00

CHICAGO – A powerful, gusty storm dumped mounds of snow across the upper Midwest on Sunday, closing major highways in several states, canceling more than 1,600 flights in Chicago and collapsing the roof of the Minnesota Vikings' stadium.

At least two weather-related deaths were reported as the storm system dropped nearly 2 feet of snow in parts of Minnesota and marched east. A blizzard warning was in effect Sunday for parts of eastern Iowa, southeastern Wisconsin, northwestern Illinois and northern Michigan, according to the National Weather Service. Surrounding areas, including Chicago, were under winter storm warnings. Much of Iowa was under a wind-chill advisory.

In Minneapolis, the heavy snow left the Metrodome decidedly unready for some football. Video inside the stadium aired by Fox Sports showed the inflatable Teflon roof sagging before it tore open, dumping massive amounts of snow across one end of the playing field.

No one was hurt but the Vikings' game against the New York Giants had to be moved to Detroit's Ford Field. The day of the game had already been pushed back from Sunday to Monday because the storm kept the Giants from reaching Minneapolis on time. Stadium officials were trying to repair the roof in time for the Vikings' next home game, Dec. 20 against Chicago.

The wintry weather, with blowing snow that severely limited visibility, wreaked havoc on air and road travel. In the Chicago area, wind gusts of up to 50 mph, temperatures in the teens and wind chills well below zero were expected, along with up to 8 inches of snow.

At least 1,375 flights were canceled at O'Hare International Airport and more than 300 were canceled at Midway International Airport, Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman Karen Pride said. Both airports expected more cancellations and reported significant delays.

Officials at O'Hare set up about 200 cots and will provide amenity kits containing toothpaste and toothbrushes in case travelers get stranded at the airport, Pride said.

Major highways in several states were closed due to poor driving conditions and accidents.

In Indianapolis, police said a man fatally stabbed his wife, then died four blocks from his home Sunday morning when his vehicle hit a tree after he lost control on a slippery road. Police did not immediately release the names of the couple.

Illinois State Police closed a section of Interstate 80 in the north central part of the state after a multiple-car pileup west of Peru and part of Interstate 55 near Springfield after accidents and reports of zero visibility. No deaths were reported.

Seven vehicles crashed on Interstate 94 about 50 miles west of Milwaukee, prompting authorities to close the westbound lanes. But Tod Pritchard of Wisconsin Emergency Management said there were no reports of fatal crashes in the state, partly because residents seemed to be heeding warnings to stay off the road.

Pritchard said travel was expected to become even more difficult Sunday afternoon because temperatures were falling and at a certain point, road salt would no longer be effective. The storm had already dropped up to 18 inches of snow in parts of northern and central Wisconsin, he said, and light snow continued Sunday.

Interstate 90 from Albert Lea, Minn., to Exit 410 in South Dakota reopened Sunday afternoon after being closed Saturday because blowing snow reduced visibility. Minnesota state highways also reopened, although transportation officials warned that many were still snow-compacted, icy and, in numerous cases, down to a single lane.

In Iowa, Interstate 29 from the state line to Sioux Falls, S.D. remained closed, although other portions of it and Interstate 80 reopened.

AAA-Michigan said it has been a busy day for its roadside assistance crews, with 850 calls from midnight through 12:30 p.m. Sunday.

"A lot of cars in ditches, spinouts, dead batteries," spokeswoman Nancy Cain said. "It's really the first big blast of winter weather statewide."

Six people were injured Saturday when a van carrying 13 people hit a guardrail and overturned in Mecosta County, near Stanwood, Mich., in the north-central Lower Peninsula. Authorities said Sunday that weather played a role in the death of Douglas Munneke, 55, of St. Cloud, Minn. He died of a heart attack after collapsing while he was snow-blowing his driveway Saturday.

The weather was an unexpected burden for a Minnesota man who had pledged to camp out on the roof of a coffee shop to help his daughter's school raise money.

Hospital executive Robert Stevens donned four layers of long underwear, heavy boots and a down coat before embarking on his quest Friday night. He had vowed not to come down until he had raised $100,000, but he reconsidered about 3 p.m. Saturday after high winds shredded his tent canopy.

But Sunday morning, Stevens headed back up to brave the subzero wind-chills. He had only raised $54,000 and said if he didn't get to his goal the school would likely close.

"Mother Nature won out yesterday — but I'm looking for the win today," Stevens said.

Swedes shocked by 1st terror attack in 3 decades

2010-12-12T19:23:00.001-08:00

STOCKHOLM – No one died except for the suspected bomber, but two explosions in Sweden's capital tore at the fabric of this tolerant and open nation — a society that hadn't seen a terrorist attack in more than three decades.

Two people were wounded in central Stockholm on Saturday in what appeared to be the first suicide bombing in the history of Sweden, which has been spared the major terrorist strikes seen in several other European countries.

A car exploded in the middle of the seasonal shopping frenzy, shooting flames and causing several smaller blasts as people ran screaming from the scene. The blast that killed the alleged bomber came moments later further a few blocks away from the car explosion on a busy pedestrian street.

Experts said the alleged bomber probably didn't succeed in detonating all the explosives and could have caused much greater damage.

While police haven't confirmed Saturday's attack was motivated by Islamist views, an audio file sent to Swedish news agency TT shortly before the blast referred to jihad, Sweden's military presence in Afghanistan and a cartoon by a Swedish artist that depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog, enraging many Muslims.

It hasn't been verified that the speaker is the person who set off the explosive, but police have said they are investigating that possibility.

"Now the Islamic state has been created. We now exist here in Europe and in Sweden. We are a reality," the voice said in the file, submitted to The Associated Press by TT. "I don't want to say more about this. Our actions will speak for themselves."

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt on Sunday said the attack was "unacceptable" but urged Swedes not to jump to "premature conclusions" that "create tension which paints pictures that are then difficult to change."

"Sweden is an open society ... which has stated a wish that people should be able to have different backgrounds, believe in different in gods ... and live side by side in our open society," Reinfeldt said at a news conference.

Swedes, with a tradition of welcoming immigrants and a culture of transparency, began questioning the veracity of their self-image of being a secure nation after the 1986 murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme. In 2003, the fatal stabbing of Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in an department store was a wake-up call for many.

But there have been no major terrorist strikes.

"We had a terrorist attack in the 1970s from the Rote Armee Friktion of Germany, but if this is a suicide bomber it is the first time in Sweden," security police spokesman Anders Thornberg told The Associated Press. "It's very serious and it's very tragic that these things have come to Sweden too."

On Sunday, the pedestrian district where the explosions occurred was eerily quiet and empty for a mid-December weekend.

"We're used to seeing things like this on the news. This was a lot closer to home but it still doesn't feel very tangible," said Eric Osterman, a 26-year-old student.

German tourist Melanie Ziethmann, 34, said she heard the bang of the explosion on Saturday but didn't realize what it was until a friend in Germany contacted her to make sure she was OK.

"We were surprised that this happened in Sweden," Ziethmann said. "It was quite shocking. I thought it was very safe here."

In October, Sweden raised its terror threat alert level from low to elevated because of what police called "a shift in activities" among Swedish-based groups that could be plotting attacks.

Days later, police made several arrests over an alleged bomb plot in the country's second-largest city, Goteborg. The suspects were later released and police said the city was no longer deemed to be under threat.

Magnus Norell, a terrorism expert at the Swedish Defense Research Agency, said it was just a matter of time before Sweden was hit by a terror attack.

"Sweden isn't an isolated island, even if we might think that sometimes," he said. "We have only been lucky so far."

Norell said Sweden has the same problem with worsening radicalization among Islamic groups as other countries, with young men traveling to training camps in countries such as Somalia and Pakistan.

"The whole idea is that this is a global war for them and that the target exists everywhere, all over the world," he said.

The 2007 drawing of the Prophet Muhammad by Lars Vilks has raised tensions before in Sweden. In May, Vilks was assaulted while giving a speech in Uppsala, and vandals unsuccessfully tried to burn down his home in southern Sweden.

Tension over immigration also has been growing in this nation of 9.4 million. Sweden attracted more Iraqi refugees following the U.S. toppling of Saddam Hussein than any other country in the West, but calls for restrictions have increased in recent years and in September the far-right Sweden Democrats entered Parliament for the first time, winning 20 of the 349 seats.

On Sunday, about 100 people assembled in chilly central Stockholm for a peaceful demonstration organized by Swedish Muslims for Peace and Justice.

"We felt a responsibility to sharply condemn the attack, but it would be naive to think that yesterday's events aren't going to have a negative effect on the perception of Muslims in Sweden," said Samaa Sarsour, 26, one of the main organizers of the rally. She urged the crowd to punch the air and kick out their feet in a display of defiance against the hijacking of religion by extremists.

Saturday's blast could have been disastrous if the car explosions had set off gas canisters inside the vehicle.

"We were really blessed there. Something must have gone wrong, because it is a fairly normal way of arming a car to get maximum destructive effect," Norell said. Had it succeeded, it could have injured people "in all possible directions," he said.

2010-12-11T08:12:00.001-08:00

Palestinian officials said that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should have blamed Israel for the failure of the latest Mideast efforts.

The officials reacted on Saturday to a Clinton speech before Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy's seventh annual forum in Washington, in which she said Israelis and Palestinians both bear responsibility for the failure of the direct talks that took place in September.

In her speech on Friday, Clinton criticized the leadership of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, saying they had "not yet made the difficult decisions that peace requires. Like many of you, I regret that we have not gotten farther, faster."

"Israeli and Palestinian leaders should stop trying to assign blame for the next failure and focus instead on what they need to do to make these efforts succeed," she said.

The Obama administration said earlier this week that it stopped trying to get Israel to renew a freeze on West Bank settlement construction for three months, after a 10-month freeze expired on September 26. The U.S. now wants to return to indirect talks.

The Palestinians have said they won't resume negotiations without a full settlement construction freeze. Despite their disappointment with Washington's performance, the Palestinians are likely to participate in indirect talks. They said they'll make a final decision within a week.

In her speech, Clinton also said that a Palestinian state achieved through negotiation is inevitable.

Clinton said that the United States is serious about pushing forward a peace agreement and laying the foundations for a future Palestinian state.

"We will deepen our support of the Palestinians’ state-building efforts, because we recognize that a Palestinian state, achieved through negotiations, is inevitable," Clinton said, adding that "the long-term population trends that result from the occupation are endangering the Zionist vision of a Jewish and democratic state in the historic homeland of the Jewish people."

U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell will head back to the region next week, and Clinton said diplomacy would now concentrate on a range of "core issues" - all of which have proved difficult to resolve.

These include borders and security, settlements, water, refugees, and Jerusalem itself, which Israel says is its capital but which the Palestinians also hope will serve as the capital of their future independent state.

Russia 'suspends satellite launch' after failures

2010-12-11T08:02:00.001-08:00

MOSCOW — Russia's space agency has suspended this month's launch of a European satellite after a rocket failed to take its payload into orbit last weekend, Interfax reported on Friday.

"A decision has been taken to suspend the launch preparations until an interagency commission completes its investigation of the failed launch of the Proton rocket," an unnamed officials at Russia's Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan told the news agency.

The Russian space agency Roskosmos on Friday said in a statement that initial preparations for the European satellite launch were going ahead "on schedule" but that the launch date would be set after the investigation.

Russia was due to send a telecommunications satellite for Paris-based provider Eutelsat into space on December 20.

The delay comes after a rocket launched from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome on December 5 failed to put three Russian navigation satellites into orbit after it took the wrong trajectory for reasons that remain unclear.

Initial reports suggested the rocket may have been carrying too much fuel or may have been programmed incorrectly.

If an investigation finds that the Proton-M rocket performed normally, the Eutelsat launch could go ahead this month, but otherwise the launch could be postponed for several months, the space agency source told Interfax.

The satellites that failed to reach orbit were to have completed a navigation system called Glonass that the Russian government is developing as a rival to the United States government's GPS system.

The failure was an embarrassing setback for a costly project that has been backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who even fitted his dog Connie with a collar with a Glonass transmitter in a publicity stunt.

Russia planned to spend 1.7 billion rubles (55 million dollars) on the project in 2011 after spending about two billion rubles in 2010.

WikiLeaks backers threaten more cyber attacks

2010-12-09T17:55:00.001-08:00

ONDON/WASHINGTON—Cyber attacks on global companies seen as enemies of WikiLeaks drew the attention of U.S. authorities Thursday and Dutch police arrested a 16-year-old boy suspected in attacks on credit card sites of Visa and MasterCard.

Internet activists vowed to crash sites that have blocked business with WikiLeaks and PayPal, and others saw sporadic outages.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said U.S. authorities were looking into cyber attacks on companies like Amazon.com and others. “We are aware of the incidents,” he said.

The teenage boy was arrested by a high-tech crime unit in The Hague after admitting to attacks on the websites of MasterCard and Visa, the prosecution in the Netherlands said on its website.

The suspect, whose details were not disclosed, was believed to be part of a larger group of hackers under investigation that participated in so-called denial of service attacks, the prosecution said. Data and computer equipment were confiscated during his arrest.

A succession of U.S. institutions has withdrawn services from WikiLeaks after the website published thousands of sometimes embarrassing secret U.S. diplomatic reports that have caused strains between Washington and several allies.

WikiLeaks activists instructed their followers Thursday to mount a distributed denial of service attack on a PayPal website that manages the integration of the company’s payment processing technology with independent online merchant websites. PayPal is a subsidiary of eBay.

Online retail and web-hosting powerhouse Amazon last week stopped hosting WikiLeaks’ website, and Thursday it briefly became the main target of the pro-WikiLeaks campaigners — before they admitted it was too big for them, for the moment.

“We cannot attack Amazon, currently. The previous schedule was to do so, but we don’t have enough forces,” read one message on Twitter.

While major payment providers have stopped transfers to WikiLeaks, a small company with a base in south Sweden said on Thursday it would carry on as a lone channel for donations.

Flattr, a British-Swedish firm operating a web-based donation system, is one of few avenues left open to people who want to donate money to finance WikiLeaks’ operations.

“We will never stop this as long as WikiLeaks’ operations are legal,” Leif Hogberg, a system developer and co-owner of the small firm, said in a telephone interview.

In an online letter, Anonymous, a loose-knit group, said its activists were neither vigilantes nor terrorists. It added: “The goal is simple: Win the right to keep the Internet free of any control from any entity, corporation, or government.”

Some of the motivation for the cyber campaign appears to stem from anger at the arrest in Britain of Assange over alleged sex crimes committed in Sweden. He is in jail in London, awaiting an extradition hearing.

Assange said last week he had expected clampdowns in countries such as the United States that championed free speech, and had deliberately picked providers like Amazon to host its data to test that theory.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay voiced concern Thursday at reports of pressure being exerted on private companies to halt financial or Internet services for WikiLeaks.

A group of former WikiLeaks collaborators who quit the project are to launch a new campaigning site next week to protest against its founder, a Swedish newspaper said on Thursday.

Respected daily Dagens Nyheter said the decision was made to launch the site, Openleaks, in protest against Julian Assange. It did not elaborate.

The source said a short-term goal was to complete the technical infrastructure and ensure that “the organization continues to be democratically governed by all its members, rather than limited to one group or individual”, an apparent reference to Assange’s leading role at WikiLeaks.

Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, has been hailed as an advocate of free speech by supporters, but now finds himself fighting serious sexual allegations made by two women in Sweden.

Assange will have another court appearance next Tuesday and his supporters assert he is being victimized for his work.

Riots spread in Haiti after disputed election results

2010-12-09T17:35:00.001-08:00

PORT-AU-PRINCE—Through the swirling Père Lebrun smoke the UN officer locked eyes.

Blue helmets. Guns at shoulder height. The very white UN tanks rumbled up the main Delmas road Wednesday morning in the wake of a presidential election that has left Haiti locked in crisis.

The Père Lebrun, or burning tires, remain the signature feature of Haitian protest, the name adopted from a long-ago tire merchant in Port-au-Prince, their presence appearing now to mark every major roadway.

The tires shot flames into the sky of the capital. Protesters threw rocks against tin fences, the sound reverberating like cannon fire, the detritus from the Jan. 12 earthquake providing a ready arsenal. Enormous garbage containers, dragged into the streets, served as barricades and the conventionally insane Haitian traffic was all but non-existent. Shops stayed closed and street merchants were largely absent.

And then, the shots. Staccato and frightening. A young woman huddled against me in the crook of a concrete wall as if I were any protection.

Pap, pap, pap. And the officer locked eyes.

When asked what the soldiers were shooting and why, UN military spokesperson Barbara Mertz responded, “I have no information on that at this time.” Later reports that UN peacekeepers shot and killed two protesters in Les Cayes on Haiti’s south coast were unfounded, says UN spokesperson Vincenzo Pugliese, who added that those deaths were attributable to “different party militants.”

By late Wednesday afternoon the peacekeepers were deploying tear gas and rubber bullets outside the provisional electoral council in the capital.

As forewarned, the match has been lit. The election that put former first lady Mirlande Manigat in first place with 31 per cent of the vote has offered predictable chaos and no predictable outcome, with second place finisher Jude Celestin ahead of Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly by just 0.64 per cent.

American Airlines has cancelled flights into the capital. The United Nations imposed travel restrictions. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon urged “all political actors to address irregularities in accordance with Haitian electoral law.”

It seems, as it often does in Haiti, that an obscure play is being dramatized.

The words of protest, however, are crystal clear. “We won’t lose the battle,” said Andre Ense, a Martelly supporter, leaning against a trashed tap-tap minibus on Avenue Jean-Jacques Dessalines. “The ground will shake again.”

And it did. Late Wednesday morning we stood and watched flames leaping out of the roof of Celestin’s campaign headquarters on Ruelle Rivière, the ground littered with campaign literature, the dense odour of gasoline filling the air. Rock throwers had been shot by security guards, a local gathering of residents said, and the headquarters had been ignited in retaliation.

It has been an incendiary interregnum to what was expected to be a clear two-way run-off to success President Réne Préval.

“The election was obviously rigged and plagued with massive fraud,” Damian Melo from the Martelly campaign communicated via email. “The U.S. Embassy statement was very clear [the] results are inconsistent with preliminary results. We have our legal team preparing all appeals and challenges.” He was referring to an embassy release Tuesday that the preliminary results were inconsistent with those forecast by the National Election Observation Council.

In a news conference from his home Wednesday, the phantomesque president appeared at moments near catatonic and offered little in the way of clarity. “The candidates have ways to contest the results,” Préval said, adding that the numbers were only preliminary. “We knew the elections were not perfect. There were some irregularities.”

It was a moment to disabuse anyone of the notion that having the president speak would introduce an environment of calm resolve.

Violence, Preval warned, would only bring more trouble, and barricaded streets would only serve to hamper the cholera response. “Right now, planes cannot land with medicines. Investors won’t want to come if things stay like that.”

The president has only himself to blame as he has done alarmingly little to pull the country together.

Edouard Paultre, head of the Haitian Council of Non State Actors, told the Star that frauds and irregularities observed by his group included ballot box stuffing and coercion backed by threat of violence. He added that the council estimates that between 30 and 50 per cent of eligible voters did not get the chance to cast a ballot because they could not find their names on the poll roster.

But Paultre also said a three-way second round cannot be countenanced. “The law is clear,” said. “That cannot happen.”

Not surprisingly, Celestin backers made themselves scarce on the streets of Port-au-Prince.

Celestin himself remained mute. At day’s end, Joseph Lambert, chief co-ordinator of Celestin’s Inite (Unity) Party, said the party could not understand how the vote count fell so far below the 52 per cent result the party believes it had landed, and suggested that improperly discounted ballots were to blame. He urged the party to remain “calm, vigilant, available and mobilized.”

In the end Sweet Micky himself was best placed to soothe the populace. His handlers say attempts to hold a news conference were scuppered for security reasons, and Karibe Hotel owner Richard Buteau confirmed he had been advised against allowing Martelly to appear at his usual locale.

Instead, Martelly went live on radio with a surprisingly terse speech. Thanks for the love, he said. Be on the watch for “infiltrations” that could result in his party being held responsible for violent acts not of their own making.

“Watch to your left, watch to your right. I am with you and will be all the way to victory. Tét kale.”

It was not a message to sing the country to sleep. It was a rallying cry.

Party in Oslo, rage in Beijing

2010-12-09T17:20:00.001-08:00

BEIJING—China battened down the hatches and choked off websites that could carry broadcasts of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony Friday — hoping to seal off the country from news honouring jailed Chinese writer and dissident Liu Xiaobo.

The last-minute move on the eve of the celebration in Oslo was just the latest in a multi-layered government campaign to stop information on Liu’s Nobel from spreading inside the country.

The dissident’s award has embarrassed and enraged China’s authoritarian leaders. They have vowed vengeance against countries that honour him and mounted a campaign inside China to suppress his supporters.

Activists — including the dissident’s wife Liu Xia — have been put under house arrest, lawyers and academics have been barred from leaving the country to attend, and orders have been issued from the Central Propaganda Department of the Communist Party on how Chinese news organizations should contain the news.

Chinese diplomats in Oslo have also been busy orchestrating protests against the award Friday — ironically, an activity the Chinese government does not allow in its own country.

At a press briefing in Beijing Thursday, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson railed against the Nobel and issued a blistering attack on the U.S. House of Representatives for passing a motion Wednesday calling for the release of Liu and his wife.

“We urge the relevant U.S. lawmakers to . . . change their arrogant and unreasonable attitude and show respect for the Chinese people and China’s judicial sovereignty,” spokesperson Jiang Yu told reporters.

Jiang, who earlier this week called the Nobel committee “clowns,” said the award represents only a minority of world opinion.

“The Chinese people and the overwhelming majority of people in the world oppose what they’re doing,” she said “This is not an issue of human rights. It is an issue of interference in our internal affairs.”

She said the Chinese government hoped that countries that received invitations to attend could “tell right from wrong.”

China has bullied a number of Oslo-based foreign embassies from attending the ceremony, promising that they would face “consequences” if they showed up.

Nobel spokesperson Geir Lundestad said this week that the 19 countries that are “unable to attend,” is the highest number in recent memory and probably the highest in history.

But 44 of the 65 embassies in the Norwegian capital will attend, including Canada.

A group of Liu’s supporters who live in democratic countries from which they were free to travel to the ceremony are also expected to turn up.

The 54-year-old Liu, who co-authored a 2008 petition called Charter ’08 calling for democratic reforms in China, is a former university professor who has been a significant force in China’s intellectual circles dating back to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

To keep him relatively unknown to the Chinese public, the government in 1991 banned him from teaching, public speaking or publishing in his own country.

But he continued to publish abroad.

His supporters praise him for his sharp analytical mind, his humane principles, and his lifelong, peaceful pursuit of freedom, democracy and human rights in China.

It was his co-authorship of Charter ’08 which calls for the country’s careful and orderly transition to democracy that landed him in jail — for the fourth time.

China is an authoritarian state in which power resides in the hands of just one party: The Communist Party of China. The executive, legislative and judicial branches of government — even the People’s Liberation Army — must be loyal to the Party.

Liu’s call in Charter ’08 for the government to be accountable to the people rather than the Party was deemed seditious by the Party-controlled courts.

On Christmas Day last year he was sentenced to 11 years in jail on charges of trying to subvert the state.

This week, trying to counter-balance the Nobel Peace Prize, China hastily organized a first-ever “Confucius Peace Award,” holding a news conference with fanfare to announce the winner was retired Taiwanese politician Lien Chan.

But word arrived from Lien’s Taipei office Thursday that Lien had never heard of the award and had no intention of accepting it.

On Friday, both the BBC and Norwegian broadcaster NRK were inaccessible in Beijing, and while CNN could be accessed, some stories on its site about Liu’s Nobel victory were blocked.

Clashes as UK parliament votes for student fee rise

2010-12-09T17:12:00.001-08:00

LONDON (Reuters) – Protesters attacked government buildings and damaged a car carrying Prince Charles after parliament voted on Thursday to raise fees paid by university students in a vote which divided Britain's coalition government.

The move to shift the burden of paying for university teaching from state to student is the first test of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition's intent to push through austerity cuts as it tries to erase a record budget deficit.

It provoked fury from young protesters who have staged a series of demonstrations in recent weeks. Analysts say the seven-month-old coalition will hold together, but could come under increasing strain as cuts bite harder next year.

Some protesters attacked a limousine taking Charles and his wife Camilla to a London theater. The car was spattered with paint and a window was cracked, but the couple were unhurt.

Protesters laid siege to the finance ministry close to parliament, battering open a door and chanting "we want our money back" as they clashed with riot police on the threshold of the building.

They later smashed shop windows in Oxford Street, one of the main shopping streets in the capital. Mounted police were used earlier to try to disperse protesters outside parliament.

Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the violence.

"It is clear that a minority of protesters came determined to provoke violence, attack the police and cause as much damage to property as possible," he said.

"It is shocking and regrettable that the car carrying the Prince of Wales (Prince Charles) and the Duchess of Cornwall was caught up and attacked in the violence," he added.

The clashes were the worst political violence in London since a mass riot in 1990 over a local tax which helped to end to Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher's decade in power.

Analysts said there could be more to come as hundreds of thousands of public sector workers lose their jobs.

"There will probably be serious injuries if not deaths if this level of protest is replicated in the new year by militant unions," said Carina O'Reilly, European security analyst with IHS Jane's.

REDUCED MAJORITY

Twenty-two people were arrested and 10 policemen suffered injuries. A Reuters photographer was taken to hospital after he was hit in the face by a rock.

Police said tens of thousands joined the protests, including groups of hooded and masked youths who were at the center of the violence. Police had warned that, like in previous student demonstrations, violent groups could hijack the rallies.

The lower house of parliament approved the plan by a majority of 21 votes, with 27 members of the coalition parties voting against and a handful abstaining.

Two Liberal Democrats and a Conservative government aide resigned their posts over the issue.

"It's the lowest government majority of 2010 and lower than you have thought a couple of weeks ago," said Philip Cowley, professor of parliamentary government at the University of Nottingham. "It's not the first revolt and it certainly won't be the last."

Analysts say further divisions over spending cuts will make life in the government difficult for the left-leaning Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems campaigned against higher fees before the May election, wooing many young voters. Their opinion poll rating has halved since the election and leader Nick Clegg has been vilified for his changes in policy.

Students protested in their thousands across the country against the higher fees, arguing they will price out the poor.

The government has made cutting a record peacetime budget deficit its priority. Departments have to cut spending by some 19 percent over the next four years.

Under the tuition fee changes, universities in England will be able to charge students fees of up to 9,000 pounds ($14,100) per year -- almost treble the current limit.

(Writing by Keith Weir; additional reporting by Peter Apps, Isabel Coles, Stefano Ambrogi, Keith Weir, Adrian Croft, Karolina Tagaris and Michel Rose)

Google's computer programme: from search engine to operating system

2010-12-09T02:57:00.001-08:00

A relentless torrent of news has poured from Google over the last week. On Monday the firm announced a phone, made in partnership with Samsung, that it hopes will rival Apple’s iPhone; next it announced the release of its own operating system, which it hopes will in due course come to rival Windows, the software that forms the basis of most computers on the planet. Today it is back in its heartland of search, revealing the most and least looked for words and phrases online, from people to aspirations.

What is telling however is not Google’s ability to capture a year in review. Of course people were searching “I love football” and “I hate football” in a World Cup year, and of course David Cameron was another top term after the Conservatives formed a Government. But what’s much more interesting is how these results show that Google is now a part of the furniture. People type in “I feel lonely” or “I love dance”.

More and more people are entering those Google searches into Google’s own browser, Chrome, too. This week the company announced that 120 million people are using the stripped down browser that has set a trend that others such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer have also followed. This time last year, just 40 million people were using Chrome, so the growth is extraordinary. Just as Google took over from incumbents such as Yahoo with web search, it could yet discover a similar trajectory for the browser, because switching is comparatively easy.

Why WikiLeaks' Julian Assange might prefer Sweden

2010-12-09T02:47:00.001-08:00

Why is Julian Assange so reluctant to return to Sweden, where the number of rape accusations is so much higher than most other European countries, but rape convictions are among the lowest? Awful as it is to doubt a woman's claims of sexual assault, any prosecution would seem to be on questionable ground. According to reports, one woman claims that a crime was committed against her because the consensual condom was broken, she says deliberately by Assange. Just weird, especially when she remained "thrilled" to be hosting a party for him the next day.

The other reportedly says Assange had sex with her consensually at night, but non-consensually – and without a condom – when she hadn't achieved consciousness in the morning. (It certainly puts a new slant on the unfortunate NHS advertising slogan: "Wake up to rape.") The second woman didn't get upset until she had met and exchanged notes with the first one. Neither did the first, for that matter.

Assange hardly comes over as Prince Charming, but Lord knows that's not a crime. Meanwhile, Sweden offers some of the most powerful source protection legislation in the world. Assange should high-tail it off to Scandinavia, clear his name (since he professes innocence), and in the transparent and open way he promotes so passionately. Then he should claim political asylum. He's safer in Sweden than in Britain, I fear.