World News Headlines

Laura Wright Wins Emmy for Best Lead Actress!!! 2011

2011-11-28T05:24:00.000-08:00

Laura Wright Wins Emmy for Best Lead Actress!!! Laura Wright Wins Emmy for Best Lead Actress!!! 2011

Saudi Arabia women drive cars in protest at ban

2011-06-17T06:01:00.000-07:00

Women in Saudi Arabia have been openly driving cars in defiance of an official ban on female drivers in the ultra-conservative kingdom.

The direct action has been organised on social network sites, where women have been posting images and videos of themselves behind the wheel.

The Women2Drive Facebook page said the direct action would continue until a royal decree reversed the ban.

Last month, a woman was arrested after uploading a video of herself driving.

Manal al-Sherif was accused of "besmirching the kingdom's reputation abroad and stirring up public opinion", but was released after 10 days having promised not to drive again.

Campaigners have not called for a mass protest - which would be illegal - but have asked women who have foreign driving licences to drive themselves as they go about their daily life.

"All that we need is to run our errands without depending on drivers," said one woman in the first film posted in the early hours of Friday morning.

The film showed the unnamed woman talking as she drove to a supermarket and parking.

"It is not out of love for driving or traffic or the experience. All this is about is that if I wanted to go to work, I can go. If I needed something I can go and get it.

"I think that society is ready to welcome us."

Another protester said she drove around the streets of Riyadh for 45 minutes "to make a point".

"I took it directly to the streets of the capital," said Maha al-Qahtani, a computer specialist at the Ministry of Education.

Religious fatwa

On Twitter, Mrs Qahtani described the route she had taken around the city with her husband, saying: "I decided that the car for today is mine."

Her husband said she was carrying her essential belongings with her and was "ready to go to prison without fear", AFP news agency reported.

One woman who asked not to be named told the BBC driving was often considered to be "something really minor".

"It's not one of your major rights. But we tell them that even if you give us all the basic and big rights, that you are claiming are more important than driving, we can't enjoy practising those rights because the mobility is not there.

"We can't move around without a male."

The motoring ban is not enforced by law, but is a religious fatwa imposed by conservative Muslim clerics. It is one of a number of severe restrictions on women in the country.

Supporters of the ban say it protects women and relieves them of the obligation to driver, while also preventing them from leaving home unescorted or travelling with an unrelated male.

But the men and women behind the campaign - emboldened by uprisings across the Middle East and Arab world - say they hope the ban will be lifted and that other reforms will follow.

Amnesty International has said the Saudi authorities "must stop treating women as second-class citizens", describing the ban as "an immense barrier to their freedom of movement".

The last mass protest against the ban took place in 1980, when a group of 47 women were arrested for driving and severely punished - many subsequently lost their jobs.

The women were angered that female US soldiers based in the kingdom after the war with Kuwait could drive freely while they could not.

Ayman al-Zawahiri appointed as al-Qaeda leader

2011-06-16T04:58:00.001-07:00

The long-serving second-in-command of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been appointed its head following the death of Osama Bin Laden, the militant organisation said in a statement.

Bin Laden was killed by US forces in Pakistan in early May.

Al-Qaeda warned it would continue to fight a holy war against the US and Israel under Zawahiri's direction.

Analysts say Egyptian-born Zawahiri, 59, is intelligent but lacks the charisma of his predecessor.

He is claimed by some experts to have been the "operational brains" behind the 9/11 attacks on the US.

For years Bin Laden's deputy, with a $25m (£15m) bounty on his head, he had been widely anticipated to replace Bin Laden at the helm.

The statement announcing his appointment was posted on a militant website and attributed to al-Qaeda's General Command.

"Sheikh Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, may God guide him, assumed responsibility as the group's amir [leader]", it said.

It vowed that under Zawahiri, it would pursue jihad or holy war against the US and Israel "until all invading armies leave the land of Islam".

'Jihadist renaissance'

Zawahiri, whose 60th birthday is believed to be this Sunday, warned just over a week ago that Bin Laden would continue to "terrify" the US from beyond the grave.

In a video message posted on the internet on 8 June, Zawahiri said al-Qaeda would continue to fight.

"The sheikh has departed, may God have mercy on him, to his God as a martyr and we must continue on his path of jihad to expel the invaders from the land of Muslims and to purify it from injustice," Zawahiri said.

"Today, and thanks be to God, America is not facing an individual or a group, but a rebelling nation, which has awoken from its sleep in a jihadist renaissance."

The BBC's Middle East correspondent, Jon Leyne, says priorities for al-Qaeda's new leader may include attempting to to mount a big attack to show the organisation is still in business.

In addition, he says, Zawahiri will want to turn the wave of unrest in the Middle East to al-Qaeda's advantage - perhaps building more of a power base in Yemen and working to intensify the instability there.

Divisions?

In his message last week, Zawahiri applauded the Arab uprisings against "corrupt and tyrant leaders" and urged those involved to continue their "struggle until the fall of all corrupt regimes that the West has forced onto our countries".

But our correspondent adds that the delay in announcing Zawahiri as al-Qaeda chief - coming as it does more than six weeks after Bin Laden's death, despite his being the obvious choice - may point to divisions within the leadership.

Zawahiri has for years had a bounty on his head and security analysts have suggested he is most likely to be hiding in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

However, Bin Laden and other key militant leaders who were also believed to be concealed there have instead been discovered in Pakistani towns and cities.

Bin Laden's killing by US special forces in a covert operation in the garrison town of Abbottabad on 2 May strained Washington's relations with Islamabad.

US President Barack Obama said "someone" was protecting Bin Laden, but Pakistan has denied any knowledge of Bin Laden's whereabouts and has arrested alleged CIA informants.

Jennifer Lopez Biography

2011-06-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

Birth Name

Jennifer Lynn Lopez

Nickname

J. Lo
La Lopez
Lola
Jenny From The Block

Height

5' 7" (1.70 m)

Mini Biography

Jennifer was born on July 24, 1969, in the Castle Hill section of the Bronx. Her father, David, was a computer technician. Her mother, Guadalupe, taught kindergarten. Jennifer is the middle of three daughters. Her elder sister, Leslie, is a housewife who sings opera. Her younger sister, Lynda, is a DJ on New York's WKTU, a VH1 VJ, and a morning news show correspondent on New York's Channel 11. Jennifer's parents were born in Puerto Rico, but did not meet until both came to America. Her mother's parents were Europeans who settled in Puerto Rico. She says that it was her parents' work ethic that made a difference in her life. Jennifer took singing and dancing lessons from age 5. She attended 12 years of Catholic school, including an all-girl high school. She played softball and tennis in high school and was a gymnast.

After high school, she briefly worked in a law office. During this time, she continued dance classes at night. At 18, she left home because her mother was scared by her decision to pursue show business. With casting on "In Living Color" (1990) in 1990, she moved to L.A., but initially hated it. Finally her boy friend, David Cruz, moved to be with her there and she learned to accept her new environment. Her career took off from her "Living Color" stint and reached new peaks with her portrayal of slain Latino singer Selena (1997).

When the Saints Go Marching In

2011-06-15T04:22:00.000-07:00

As corruption runs amok in India, a colorful cast of activists takes on the politicians.

Back in the 1950s, the British scholar W. H. Morris-Jones identified three idioms of Indian politics. These were the modern, the traditional, and the saintly. Thus, he wrote, “the modern language of politics is the language of the Indian Constitution and the Courts; of parliamentary debate; of the higher administration … ” On the other hand, the traditional idiom was local and sectarian. It “knows little or nothing of the problems of anything as big as India.” Here, “caste (or subcaste or ‘community’) is the core of traditional politics.” Finally, there was the saintly idiom, illustrated at the time Morris-Jones was writing, by the land-donation movement of Acharya Vinoba Bhave, “the ‘Saint on the March,’ who toured India on foot preaching the path of self-sacrifice and love and polity without power.”

To understand Indian politics today, Morris-Jones’s framework is still valuable, so long as we add a fourth idiom that has become increasingly common in recent years. This may be termed the instrumental, a euphemism for political behavior that advances the personal financial interests of an individual, his family, his caste, and his party.

For the first decade of independence, Indian politics was dominated by associates of Mahatma Gandhi who shared his integrity if not his courage. In the 1960s, the first signs of corruption entered the system. The economy was then strictly regulated. Entrepreneurs needed licenses to open or expand businesses, for which some politicians now expected bribes.

When the license-permit-quota raj was dismantled in the 1990s, it was expected that corruption would diminish. In fact, it has increased spectacularly. The state still retains control over land and natural resources and over infrastructure projects. With the surge in the Indian economy, control of these resources is worth hundreds of billions of dollars, encouraging sweetheart deals between politicians and entrepreneurs. The proceeds from these deals are then distributed among the elected members of the legislature and to favored bureaucrats. According to a recent study by the Association for Democratic Reforms, as many as 300 out of the 540 members of Parliament are millionaires. The majority were born in modest middle-class homes; their wealth ballooned after they entered politics.

In the past year, India has been racked by a series of corruption scandals. A housing complex in Mumbai meant for war veterans had its units allocated to politicians and bureaucrats and their cronies. Politicians associated with the ruling Congress Party skimmed off large sums of money from funds allocated to the Commonwealth Games, held in New Delhi in late 2010. Politicians of the major opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), were involved in a mining scandal in the state of Karnataka, where millions of tons of iron ore were shipped to China untaxed and in violation of labor and environmental standards. Then, in the biggest scam of all, a minister of the Union Government was found to have massively undersold licenses to mobile-telephone companies, thus giving them cheap, privileged access to airwaves.

A Roadmap for the Planet

2011-06-15T02:38:00.000-07:00

How we live today is clearly unsustainable. Why history proves that is completely irrelevant.

From the 18th through the mid-19th century, whale oil provided light to much of the Western world. At its peak, whaling employed 70,000 people and was the United States’ fifth-largest industry. The U.S. stood as the world’s foremost whale slayer. Producing millions of gallons of oil each year, the industry was widely seen as unassailable, with advocates scoffing at would-be illumination substitutes like lard oil and camphene. Without whale oil, so the thinking went, the world would slide backward toward darkness.

Climate alarmists and campaigning environmentalists argue that the industrialized countries of the world have made sizable withdrawals on nature’s fixed allowance, and unless we change our ways, and soon, we are doomed to an abrupt end. Take the recent proclamation from the United Nations Environment Program, which argued that governments should dramatically cut back on the use of resources. The mantra has become commonplace: our current way of living is selfish and unsustainable. We are wrecking the world. We are gobbling up the last resources. We are cutting down the rainforest. We are polluting the water. We are polluting the air. We are killing plants and animals, destroying the ozone layer, burning the world through our addiction to fossil fuels, and leaving a devastated planet for future generations.

In other words, humanity is doomed.

It is a compelling story, no doubt. It is also fundamentally wrong, and the consequences are severe. Tragically, exaggerated environmental worries—and the willingness of so many to believe them—could ultimately prevent us from finding smarter ways to actually help our planet and ensure the health of the environment for future generations.

Hunkered-down America

2011-06-15T02:03:00.000-07:00

It’s a cliche — but true — that a huge obstacle to a stronger economic recovery is the lack of confidence in a strong recovery. If consumers and businesses were more confident, they would be spending, hiring and lending more freely. Even a slight relaxation might do wonders for the subpar nature of the expansion, highlighted by May’s meager 54,000 increase in payroll jobs. Instead, we’re deluged with reports suggesting that, because the recession was so deep, it will take many years to regain anything like the pre-crisis prosperity.

Just last week, for example, the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of the consulting firm, released a study estimating that the country needs 21 million additional jobs by 2020 to reduce the unemployment rate to 5 percent. The study was skeptical that this would happen. Ugh. Pessimism and slow growth become a vicious cycle.

Battered confidence most obviously reflects the ferocity and shock of the financial collapse and the ensuing recession, including the devastating housing collapse. But there’s another, less appreciated cause: disillusion with modern economics.

Probably without realizing it, most Americans had accepted the fundamental promises of contemporary economics. These were: First, we know enough to prevent another Great Depression; second, although we can’t prevent every recession, we know enough to ensure sustained and, for the most part, strong recoveries. These propositions, endorsed by most economists, had worked themselves into society’s belief structure.

Embracing them does not preclude economic disappointments, setbacks, worries or risks. But for most people most of the time, it does preclude economic calamity. People felt protected. If you stop believing them, then you act differently. You begin shielding yourself, as best you can, against circumstances and dangers that you can’t foresee but that you fear are there.

You become more cautious. You hesitate more before making a big commitment — buying a home or car, if you’re a consumer; hiring workers, if you’re an employer; starting a new business, if you’re an entrepreneur; or making loans, if you’re a banker. Almost everyone is hunkered down in some way.

Economic models, based on past relationships and assumptions, don’t capture the shift, which embodies new assumptions and beliefs. Of course, most Americans have not consciously rejected the promises of modern economics. Neither did they consciously embrace them before. Judgments were seat-of-the-pants. People simply compared the promises against the evidence. Since the 1980s, recessions had been brief and mild; modern economics had ensured crude stability. Now, that no longer applies.

Attitudes and behavior change. One disturbing fact from the McKinsey report is this: The number of new businesses, a traditional source of jobs, was down 23 percent in 2010 from 2007; the level was the lowest since 1983, when America had about 75 million fewer people. Large corporations are standoffish. They have about $2 trillion of cash and securities on their balance sheets, which could be used for hiring and investing in new products. Meanwhile, the latest University of Michigan Survey of Consumers reports that “record numbers . . . thought that their incomes would lag inflation over the next five years.” Note: They didn’t expect high inflation so much as low income growth.

Rise of the Superbacteria

2011-06-13T06:17:00.000-07:00

When Philip Tarr heard the first reports of a massive outbreak of E. coli in Europe recently, they had a sickeningly familiar ring. Tarr, a microbiologist at Washington University, is an expert on the strains of E. coli that have periodically wreaked havoc in the United States. In 2006, for example, E. coli on contaminated spinach infected 199 people in the United States, causing kidney failure in a number of cases. The European outbreak seemed to fit the pattern: people were infected with E. coli apparently after eating contaminated vegetables.

But then Tarr got a rude shock. German hospitals sent samples of the E. coli to the Beijing Genome Center to have their DNA sequenced. On June 2, the Chinese researchers reported that the strain was not the same E. coli that contaminated the spinach, known as O157:H7. In fact, it was an entirely different strain, called O104:H4, that had never been associated with epidemics before. Tarr searched the medical literature for reports of the European strain. He could find only a handful of people who had carried it, and none of them got sick. But somehow this obscure microbe had turned vicious, triggering one of the biggest—if not the biggest—E. coli epidemics in history, with at least 1,730 infections and 18 deaths (at time of writing).

“We didn’t know this bug was out there,” says Tarr. “This outbreak is taking us all by surprise.”

The fact that someone like Tarr has been taken by surprise should be of concern to everyone. The new epidemic raises grave questions about how prepared the United States and other countries are for a similar outbreak.

What makes these outbreaks particularly confusing is that E. coli is, for the most part, a harmless creature. We are each home to billions of harmless E. coli that dwell in our gut. They live peacefully in every other mammal, too. E. coli is so harmless, in fact, that microbiologists began to rear E. coli in laboratory flasks a century ago, and it became the best-studied species on earth.

But in the mid-1900s, scientists began uncovering strains of E. coli that could cause life-threatening diarrhea. Unlike ordinary E. coli, they carried genes for a poison known as Shiga toxin, named for Japanese bacteriologist Kiyoshi Shiga. Over time, microbiologists identified a number of strains of disease-causing bacteria, classifying them by the proteins on their surface. In 1982, E. coli O157:H7 burst on the scene with particularly grisly flair. It struck 25 people in Medford, Ore., and then three months later the same strain caused an outbreak in Traverse City, Mich. Scientists were able to trace the bacteria back to undercooked hamburgers.

Since then, scientists have found a half dozen other strains that cause similar illnesses, but E. coli O157:H7 has been responsible for the lion’s share of E. coli food poisoning. It struck again in 1993 in contaminated hamburgers in Washington state, for example, sickening 732 people and killing four of them. But it has not used just hamburger to infect its victims. Along with the spinach outbreak of 2006, E. coli O157:H7 has turned up in lettuce, bean sprouts, and even cookie dough.

The mystery of Amina Arraf

2011-06-13T02:48:00.000-07:00

Questions have been raised about the identity of the Syrian blogger since news broke of her abduction earlier this week.

At first, it seemed like a straightforward -- if disheartening -- case of yet another internet activist paying the price for speaking out against the regime under who's watch they have the misfortune to live. On Monday evening Amina Arraf, a young gay woman living and blogging in Damascus, was reportedly kidnapped by armed men -- assumed to be members of Syria's notorious secret services -- and taken to an unknown location.

"We do not know who has taken her, so we do not know who to ask for her back," wrote her cousin, Rania Ismail on the homepage of Amina's blog, A Gay Girl in Damascus.

Major news organisations and social media sites around the world quickly picked up on this harrowing tale of a young woman punished for her outspoken beliefs and commitment to her sexual identity -- the "Free Amina" Facebook page amassed over 15,000 followers in the days since her disappearance.

But the story has quickly unravelled.

Doubts about Amina's identity surfaced after it emerged that the photographs purportedly of her were in fact taken from the Facebook page of Jelena Lecic, a Croatian woman living in London who has no connection to any lesbian woman in Damascus. Journalists and investigators have been unable to find any traces of a Damascene woman whose personal life corresponds to that of Amina, and the US embassy in Damascus also has no record of her existence, which is highly suspicious considering her claims to have dual American citizenship .

So, who is Amina Arraf? It is perfectly possible that "Amina" is merely the pen name of a Syrian activist who has been careful in concealing their identity from the authorities -- although perhaps not careful enough. Equally, there is a possibility that the blogger is entirely a work of cynical online fiction (cases of which have been reported before, as in the instance of Plain Layne, a young bisexual female blogger who transpired to exist purely in the imagination of Odin Soli, a middle-aged man who had previously blogged as Acanit, a young Muslim lesbian with a Jewish girlfriend).

Amina's story raises myriad questions about the elusiveness of online identity and the problematic nature of trying to verify information purely through the internet. But however mysterious or suspicious this particular case may be, it should not make us forget the plight of thousands of other bloggers and activists in the Middle East and across the world who have been forcibly detained for expressing their views.

And if the writer of A Gay Girl in Damascus does exist, and is currently being held by the Syrian security services, we can only hope that the media flurry surrounding this story will in some way aid his or her circustances by raising awareness of the situation in the country.

Emanuelle Degli Esposti is a freelance journalist currently living and working in London. She has written for the Sunday Express, the Daily Telegraph and the Economist online.

Syria Gay Girl in Damascus blog a hoax by US man

2011-06-13T02:40:00.000-07:00

A blog purportedly written by a gay woman in Syria, which described life in Damascas amid the current political unrest, has been revealed to be a hoax.

A Girl Gay in Damascus gained a worldwide readership and was closely followed by news organisations.

But the true author has now come forward - Tom MacMaster, an American man studying in Scotland.

Many Syrian activists have reacted angrily, accusing him of trivialising or even harming their cause.

"One day if I'm kidnapped by my government, many readers won't care because I could turn out to be another Amina," wrote one Lebanese blogger.

The Gay Girl in Damascus blog, dating back to February this year, claimed to document the life of 25-year-old Amina Abdallah Arraf al-Omari, a half-Syrian, half American lesbian living in Damascus.

Entries covered her social life and relationships, but "Amina" also criticised President Bashar al-Assad and spoke about her role in the growing anti-government protests.

"What a time to be in Syria! What a time to be an Arab! What a time to be alive!" read an entry on 24 March.

"I want to rush out in the street and celebrate (and will as soon as I finish writing this)."

'Not harmed anyone'

Blogs and social media have been a key source of information during the Middle East and North African uprisings, and the blog was soon being followed by journalists and activists around the world.

"Amina" even gave interviews to news organisations - an Associated Press reporter who corresponded at length with the blogger said her e-mails sounded very much like those of a woman in the middle of a violent uprising.

Then in a post last Monday, an entry said to be written by Amina's cousin was posted, saying she had been seized by armed men believed to be members of President Assad's Baath party.

"We are hoping she is simply in jail and nothing worse has happened to her," said the cousin, calling for help in finding out what had happened.

The news was widely reported, including by the BBC, and bloggers and activists launched an online campaign to secure her release.

But when the first photograph of the blogger was posted, it turned out to be that of a woman living in London who said she had no connection with the blog. Later, the US embassy said they had no record of a citizen with dual nationality matching Amina's identity and it emerged no-one had spoken to Amina in person.

On Sunday, an "apology to readers" appeared on the blog signed by Tom MacMaster - a 40-year-old American Middle East activist studying at Edinburgh University who said he was "the sole author of all posts on this blog".

"While the narrative voice may have been fictional, the facts on this blog are true and not misleading as to the situation on the ground," he writes.

"I do not believe that I have harmed anyone - I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about."

Mr MacMaster said he had just tried to show some of the struggles of people living amid political upheaval in the Middle East and to "illuminate them for a western audience".

But political and gay activists have reacted furiously to the revelation.

"Because of you, Mr MacMaster, a lot of the real activists in the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender] community became under the spotlight of the authorities in Syria," wrote Daniel Nassar, an editor of the Gay Middle East blog.

"You took away my voice, Mr MacMaster, and the voices of many people who I know."

BangPound, one blogger who investigated the story, wrote on Twitter: "There is no positive side effect of the Amina hoax. It did not bring attention to Syria. It brought attention to a white fantasy."

Families of missing people to call for more support

2011-06-13T02:33:00.000-07:00

The government is being urged to improve support for the "heartbroken" families of people who go missing.

The UK's first parliamentary inquiry into the issue will look at what campaigners say is a "complete gap" in help for those affected.

Among those giving evidence later will be three mothers of missing children, including Kate McCann, whose daughter Madeleine disappeared abroad in 2007.

The inquiry will make recommendations to the coalition government.

As well as Mrs McCann, from Rothley, Leicestershire, the inquiry will hear from mothers Sarah Godwin, whose son Quentin was 18 when he went missing in New Zealand while on his way to an after-school job in 1992, and Nicki Durbin.

Mrs Godwin said her son could be anywhere, but has strong roots with England because she is from England and he was very close to her English parents, who have since died.

'Living nightmare'

She told the BBC: "I think it's the connectivity that's really important for the families, or people who are struggling with a missing relative, not to have to search around and work out who to talk to."

She said Quentin had left behind a letter which could be read as a suicide note, and the police stepped in and did "as much as they could".

"It just takes over your life, it becomes an all-absorbing and all-engrossing area of your life," she said.

"You're driving down the road and you're looking at people walking up the street to see if you can see their faces, but it's the long-term that's really the hard road."

She said that, when she meets other parents as the inquiry later on Monday, it will be her first face-to-face encounter with someone in the same situation.

Mrs McCann, whose daughter Madeleine was three went she went missing during a family holiday in Portugal, will tell the inquiry: "When someone you love goes missing, you are left with unimaginable, unending heartbreak, confusion, guilt, and worry.

"In addition to the reassurance that everything possible is being done to find their missing loved one, families need support. And they should be spared the additional pain of financial and legal bureaucracy."

Ms Durbin, whose son Luke disappeared after a night out in Ipswich five years ago, said: "It sounds like such a cliche, but it is a living nightmare. Personally, there isn't an hour of a day that goes by without me thinking about Luke.

"If my house was burgled, I would have got support. And that would have obviously been emotional support, legal support. When I reported Luke missing, there was nothing. And there still isn't anything."

She has been backed by the charity Missing People, which says that after 48 hours relatives should be given support similar to that given to the victims of serious crime.

Registering deaths

Peter Lawrence, father of missing York chef Claudia Lawrence, will give evidence later in the week along with Rachel Elias, the sister of missing Manic Street Preachers guitarist Richey Edwards.

The inquiry will also consider calls to make it easier to register the death of a missing person whose body has not been found. This is in order to sort out their financial and legal affairs.

Courts can be asked to declare someone dead after seven years, although in England and Wales it is not statutory.

Ms Elias, whose brother Richey Edwards went missing in a high-profile case in 1995, says getting a missing person declared dead is too complicated.

NI sex offenders management 'role model for others'

2011-06-13T01:53:00.000-07:00

The way sex offenders are managed in Northern Ireland is so effective that the Republic of Ireland is considering adopting it as a model, an inspection report suggests.

There are more than 1,100 registered sex offenders living in the NI community.

The Criminal Justice Inspection said a new system introduced three years ago was working well.

That verdict has been welcomed by the agencies involved, including police.

The report made 13 points aimed at consolidating progress to date.

The Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice, Dr Michael Maguire, said it was imperative that victims' issues remained a priority for all involved with public protection arrangements.

He said staff must ensure they did not become focused solely on the process of risk management.

'Pleased at progress'

This included recommending that the Northern Ireland Prison Service should improve its contribution to the public protection arrangements process "through greater engagement" with training and by "strengthening its offender behaviour programme delivery".

"The management of serious offenders including sex offenders in the community is a high profile and critically important aspect of the criminal justice system and we are pleased to report progress within each of the agencies involved in delivering the public protection arrangements," Dr Maguire added.

"The supervision of offenders is not prison in the community and there will always be the possibility of serious crime being committed.

"While no set of arrangements can mitigate all risks completely, it is imperative the arrangements in place to protect the public operate effectively."

Dr Maguire said the introduction of legislation which placed public protection arrangements on a statutory footing had been "beneficial and underpinned important improvements in the management of sex offenders".

At the time of the inspection for the report in September 2010, there were 1,356 offenders subject to management by the Northern Ireland agencies involved in public protection arrangements.

A total of 1,207 offenders were managed in the community and 149 were in custody.

The report said inspectors had found clear evidence that previous Criminal Justice Inspection recommendations had been implemented.

Sailor Stripes: Gotta Have It or Make It Stop?Sailor Stripes: Gotta Have It or Make It Stop?

2011-06-12T04:22:00.000-07:00

Ahoy, Hollywood!

Stars are embracing the nautical trend this summer, wearing sailor stripes in red, white and navy, with brass buttons, crisp white shorts and fishermen's hats.

But what does our Fashion Police panel think of this maritime-inspired style?

"It screams summer," says Giuliana Rancic. And despite Eva's almost exposed poop deck and Rihanna's love for seamen, the verdict's unanimous.

"I say gotta have it," says Joan Rivers. "Whenever you want to go on the good ship Lollyslut you just put that on and go."

Bitch-Back! Blind Vice Games and Blabber Mouths!

2011-06-12T04:18:00.000-07:00

Dear Ted:
After the horrific homophobic rant from Tracy Morgan, I would like to know: Is the guy's behind-the-scenes attitude as awful as his acting? I love 30 Rock but I always tend to fast-forward when the guy is on-screen. Also, I have a quickie. Let's play Ditch, Do or Marry: Youngsters Edition! Who would you do, ditch or marry from the following: Wilby Whiskers, Parrish Maguire and Nevis Divine? Thanks!
—Nicholas

Dear Rock 'n' A-Hole:
Tracy hasn't made his less-than-PC opinions a secret in the past so I wasn't too surprised when I heard about the latest crap he was spewing. Not funny, obviously, and just cause he issued some generic apology doesn't mean he's off the hook. Tina Fey has done a pretty good job keeping his 'tude out of the public eye, but one woman can only do so much. As for the BVs, well, I'd marry Nev, do Parr, and ditch Wilby. But that's an interesting selection for "youngsters," age-wise I mean.

Dear Ted:
I don't think I have seen Leonardo DiCaprio photographed this much before with his previous girlfriends. I am beginning to wonder if Blake Lively leaks more than just pictures, like say her location at all times to the media?

Lily Allen Is Married...And Pregnant!

2011-06-12T04:14:00.000-07:00

Even the fact that people knew about it beforehand couldn't stop Lily Allen from smiling on her big day.

The 26-year-old songbird swapped vows with Sam Cooper at St. James the Great Church in Gloucestershire, England, on Saturday, according to People. Dad Keith Allen walked her down the aisle. But that wasn't the only big news for the couple...

Is no makeup better?

2011-06-12T03:48:00.000-07:00

make is usually is better, but bad makeup is not good. because natural is natural and so beautiful in looking in natural. like in these images of celebrities.

Big pants: Our guide to the year's most unlikely trend

2011-06-12T03:27:00.001-07:00

Do away with diets, and you can forget exercise: the fastest way to a flat tummy is a pair of Big Pants. Don't take my word for it though, there's a growing celebrity appreciation society embracing large lingerie.

It all started with Hugh Grant's close encounter with Bridget Jones's Big Pants in the film version of her eponymous diary.

Those who suspect Big Pants can't be sexy should note that it hardly stopped him in his tracks.

More recent members of the club include Sienna Miller, whose bold Big Pants sans skirt look at the Factory Girl premiere brought them to the attention of the fashionista crowd.

Then there's Beyonce, who blinged up her pair by covering them in sequins on her latest U.S. tour. And earlier this week, skinny Kimberley Walsh of Girls Aloud was pictured sporting a pair of Spanx body-squeezers under her dress after a night out.

I'm not surprised that the stars are turning against thongs in favour of the comfy pleasures of Big Pants - not least because you'll never lose your dignity in front of the paparazzi in a pair of sturdy smalls that would make your granny proud.

Five months into my pregnancy with my son, I was initiated into the Big Pants club. My knickers had morphed from flimsy slips of sexy silk into something large enough to keep all the fans dry at rain-soaked Wimbledon.

As I pulled up bloomers that were bigger than my pre-baby blouses, I admit I mourned the loss of those prenatal itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny panties.

But I was soon won over by the fact that I wouldn't have to endure the all-day wedgie effect of wearing a thong, or have to dig around in an unladylike fashion to rescue my G-string from parts it should never have reached.

What I lost in sex appeal, I gained in comfort. So even once the baby was born, the Big Pants stayed.

They proved their worth all over again as the perfect way to hide the fact that far from snapping back into shape after giving birth, I was still sporting a belly that once had strangers asking me when I was due.

This magical ability to hide a multitude of sins (and that box of chocs you know you shouldn't have eaten) lies at the heart of our love affair with Big Pants.

Even when you haven't been able to stick to your diet and your dress is a size too small, you can rely on your trusty pair of superfirm control pants.

The power of Lycra will suck you in from knees to chest, sculpting a waist that didn't seem to be there when you got up this morning.

Behind many a slinky siren there lurks a pair of polyester passion killers with a bulletproof tummy panel and industrial strength, butt-sculpting seams. Even Gwyneth Paltrow is known to have worn control pants after having her son.

But be warned, there are a couple of drawbacks to these drawers.

First, look out for the ugly cousin of VPL (visible panty line). VFL is the visible line of fat that oozes out above the waistline of your control pants, creating an unsightly set of love handles.

But you could always pull up your pants an inch or two more and move your dispossessed fat to boost your cleavage.

Second, remember that if you seduce a bloke thanks to your Big Pants' power to give you a sexy shape under a dress, when you get him home, always undress in the dark.

Even if your man shares Hugh Grant's fictional fetish for granny pants, there is nothing that will kill his passion quicker than watching his date shoehorning herself out of skin-tight pants to reveal a belly three times larger than advertised.

Stick to those rules, though, and Big Pants are definitely a girl's best friend. Now that celebrities have discovered this ticket to an instantly taut tummy, there's no reason you can't, too.

Ballet star Carlos Acosta admits O2 Arena challenges

2011-06-12T02:49:00.000-07:00

Ballet star Carlos Acosta has admitted there will be challenges staging Romeo and Juliet at the O2.

Acosta bellieves the huge London arena is "not ideal", saying: "You lose the intimacy that Romeo and Juliet needs, you have to rely on cameras."

But the Cuban dancer, who plays Romeo, said it was something The Royal Ballet "needs to do".

"There is a new audience that we need to educate as to what ballet is, how wonderful it is," said the dancer.

"The company is looking good, casting is strong and the excitement is going to be there," Acosta told BBC Arts editor Will Gompertz.

The 38-year-old will perform in front of a nightly audience of up to 12,000 people at the arena.

In spite of "all the things that work against us in that particular venue, they will be able to appreciate what ballet is - colourful, special... and want to follow it more. That is what it is all about," he added.

It is hoped staging the production at the O2 will attract people who may not have thought about a night at the ballet before.

For its 2009/10 ballet season, just 22% of audiences at the Royal Opera House were under 36 years of age, while just over half lived within 10 miles of the central London venue.

"This is an attempt to attract new audiences, to educate the audience of the future," said Acosta, who grew up breakdancing on the streets of Havana.

"Hopefully there is a much younger crowd that [will] come to the O2, a diversified crowd.

"It is not about segregation... dance is for everybody."

In Cuba, he added, "they treat it [ballet] like you imagine the final of the World Cup... it's massive, it's on TV, it's everywhere and it's not a bit elitist."

Romeo and Juliet will be the first time the ballet company has performed in a UK arena.

Announcing the production last year, company director Dame Monica Mason said she was "thrilled" about the production being shown in such a huge venue as it would "introduce our work to so many new people".

Also featuring Tamara Rojo, Alina Cojocaru and Johan Kobborg dancing the principal roles, the ballet will run from 17-19 June.

Pakistan soldiers held over videoed killing in Karachi

2011-06-12T02:42:00.000-07:00

Police in Karachi, Pakistan, say they have arrested two paramilitary soldiers seen on video killing a young man.

Video footage shows the man, Sarfaraz Shah, begging for his life before being shot by six members of the Sindh Rangers paramilitary force.

The Rangers say the young man was caught trying to rob someone. His family denies this.

An inquiry is already under way into the killing of five unarmed Chechens last month by the security forces.

The video from Karachi, which has been broadcast widely on Pakistani television, is disturbing to watch.

It shows a young man in a black T-shirt being dragged by his hair in a public park by a man in plain clothes.

He is pushed towards a group of Sindh Rangers who are in uniform and armed. The young man, who does not appear to be armed, pleads for his life as one of the Rangers points a gun at his neck.

A little later, a Ranger shoots him twice at close range, hitting him in the thigh. The young man is seen writhing on the ground, bleeding heavily and begging for help.

The paramilitaries remain close to the injured man but do nothing to help him. He died from his injuries.

The journalists' union in Karachi have said that the TV cameraman who shot the video had received threats and was being "pressured [by authorities] to say it was a fake".

Sarfaraz's brother, Salik Shah, said he had been the victim of an extrajudicial killing.

The incident has sparked an outcry with some politicians calling for the Rangers involved to be prosecuted.

It comes as a separate inquiry is under way in neighbouring Balochistan Province into the killing of five Chechens by members of the paramilitary.

Five civilians, including a heavily pregnant woman, were shot dead at close range in the western city of Quetta, despite apparently trying to surrender.

Officials initially said that the five family members were armed and were suicide bombers - but this was later found to be u

ntrue.

Deadly blasts at market in Pakistani city of Peshawar

2011-06-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

At least 34 people have been killed and 90 wounded after two explosions ripped through a market in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, police say.

The blasts occurred just after midnight in an area of the city that is home to political offices and army housing.

The number of attacks by militants in Pakistan has risen sharply since al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed in a US commando raid last month.

On Thursday, a bombing on the outskirts of Peshawar left four people dead.

An explosive device was planted in a pile of rubbish by the roadside in the Matani area, police said. The victims included a woman and a child.

Remote

A senior police official in Peshawar, Dost Mohammed, told the Associated Press that the first explosion on Sunday had been relatively small, and had drawn rescue workers, police and several journalists to the scene.

Minutes later, a large explosion rocked the area, causing the fatalities and most of the injuries. Eighteen people were said to be in a serious condition in hospital.

Jamal Khan, a 22-year-old student, was in his flat when the first blast happened. He was hit by flying debris by the second blast after rushing downstairs.

"The explosion was so huge I will never forget it all my life," he told AP. "It was deafening, and then there was a cloud of dust and smoke. When the dust settled, I saw people crying for help and body parts scattered everywhere."

Mr Mohammed said initial reports suggested the second blast was caused by explosives hidden in a vehicle and detonated by remote.

However, several police officials later said it might have been carried out by a suicide bomber on a motorbike.

The source of the first explosion is still unknown.

The AFP news agency said the apparent target was a supermarket. But the blasts also occurred close to a building containing the offices of several newspapers and across the road from those of the top political agent to Khyber, a volatile tribal region. There is also housing for soldiers nearby.

Rahimullah Yusfzai, editor of the News International newspaper, told the BBC he was in his office nearby when the blast went off.

He said the area had many shops and restaurants and was popular with families and students.

"First there was a small blast, we thought it was a gas cylinder which had exploded. Many people then ran towards the site of the blast and then the second big explosion took place which was heard far and wide," he said.

"This is how the militants operate - there is, in almost all cases, a smaller blast then a bigger one when the police and the media arrive."

The incident came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited the capital, Islamabad, for talks with senior Pakistani officials.

Speaking at a joint news conference, Pakistan's Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, said his country would give Afghanistan all the support it could, as Kabul pursued peace talks with the Taliban.

Mr Gilani said Pakistan's only aim was to support the peace process.

Panetta tries to repair strained relations with Pakistan

2011-06-11T05:53:00.000-07:00

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- In Pakistan to repair damaged relations, CIA Director Leon Panetta urged top officials to step up efforts to hunt militants operating within its borders as the United States reduced troop levels in the south Asian

nation at the request of Islamabad.

Between 200 and 300 U.S. military personnel remain in Pakistan, said a U.S. military spokesman, who asked not to be identified. It's not known what the previous number was but an official U.S. statement said the reduction was in line with a request from the Pakistani government.

"We recently received a written request from the Government of Pakistan to reduce the number of U.S. military personnel here, and we have nearly completed that reduction," said Navy Vice Adm. Michael LeFever, a U.S. defense representative in Pakistan.

Pakistan's military chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said the United States "has drastically cut down" troop strength in Pakistan.

Panetta met with the chiefs of Pakistan's military and top spy agency Friday to discuss U.S. partnership with Pakistan, strained by disputes about how to pursue counter-terrorism efforts.

Panetta's unannounced visit was the latest in a series of such visits by U.S. officials -- among them, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and Sen. John Kerry -- in efforts to smooth things over after Osama bin Laden was killed in a Navy SEALs raid in early May.

Panetta insisted that Pakistan launch a military operation in North Waziristan, a rugged mountainous region rife with militants, according to a senior Pakistani official who asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Kayani agreed with Panetta in principle but told the incoming defense secretary that Pakistani troops are already stretched thin.

Panetta and his Pakistani counterparts agreed to form a joint intelligence team to track militant targets inside Pakistan.

U.S. officials believe Pakistan is not doing enough to go after al Qaeda and other extremists, while the Pakistanis are upset with what they consider to be unilateral steps taken by the United States within their borders.

Washington did not give advance notice to Pakistani officials about the raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad.

At his confirmation hearing Thursday for defense secretary, Panetta, described the U.S. relationship with Pakistan as "difficult" but "critical."

While Pakistan has proven to be a safe haven for extremists, a positive relationship with authorities in Islamabad is vital to the mission in Afghanistan, he said.

Gallery: India's monsoon arrives early

2011-06-11T05:48:00.001-07:00

his year the monsoon arrived in Mumbai almost a week ahead of schedule. It announced itself with whip-cracking thunder on June 5, catching the otherwise prepared Mumbaikar unawares.

Around June 10 in normal years, the average Mumbaikar has umbrellas, rubber slippers, plastic bags, waterproof bags, zip-locked checkbook holders, the works. Girlfriends make dates with each other to shop for gumboots.

The slush and the rush of the torrents of water leave the average worker surviving twice-over: once their normal day in an anxious, heaving city, and once again to wade towards their destinations.

However in contrast to a heavy snow-day elsewhere in the world, no monsoon can stop Mumbai.

Everything looks full and ripe, and children play and nobody is thirsty, and all of a day’s work (and play) is undertaken wet, instead of dry.

The monsoon is a great inspiration to pop-culture. From countless Bollywood films to Tuhin Sinha’s novel, "That Thing Called Love" and Kashmira Sheth’s endearing children’s book, illustrated by Yoshiko Jaeggi, about a young boy and his grandfather who go out one "Monsoon Afternoon" to sail paper boats.

More famously, Steve McCurry, the photographer behind the lucid eyes of the Afghan girl featured on the front of National Geographic, created a monsoon series set in Mumbai.

Particularly, this portrait of a tailor in the monsoon became similarly iconic, for framing the good humor and idiosyncrasies that come with this paradoxical season.

McCurry's photos all pinpoint the simultaneous hardship and humor and accidental poetry that come with the monsoon season in Mumbai.

This photo gallery charts the same.

Syria: Thousands still fleeing into Turkey

2011-06-11T05:36:00.000-07:00

At least 4,300 people have now fled violence in Syria to seek refuge in Turkey, a senior Turkish official says.

A BBC correspondent on the border says the real number of displaced people is probably much higher.

The Syrians have mainly been fleeing the town of Jisr al-Shughour, targeted in a government crackdown.

An eyewitness described a tank attack on a nearby village on Friday morning, in which people were killed and crops destroyed.

Syria's government says its forces went into the town to restore order after the deaths of 120 security personnel.

Clashes throughout the country on Friday led to the deaths of at least 32 people.

Hundreds of people have been killed in a crackdown in recent weeks on anti-government protests, which began in March.

Meanwhile the US White House strongly condemned Syria's "outrageous use of violence" against the protesters and called for an "immediate end" to the violence.

'Not refugees'

The BBC's Owen Bennett Jones, in Guvecci on the Turkish-Syrian border, says the real number of displaced people is probably much higher than official total because many have slipped across the border unnoticed by the Turkish army.

Senior Foreign Ministry official Halit Cevik said Turkey would deal with the crisis as best it could.

"If they are coming, this is a humanitarian issue," he said. "We will do whatever is needed within our means."

He added that while Turkey could cope with the crisis at the moment, it might need international help if things got worse.

But Mr Cevik said that the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, would not be involved.

The Syrians involved were not seeking refuge in Turkey, he said, as their eventual aim was to go back home.

Russian colonel who killed Chechen girl is shot dead

2011-06-11T02:39:00.000-07:00

A Russian colonel who was jailed for murdering a Chechen teenager has been shot dead in central Moscow.

Yuri Budanov was killed on Friday by an unidentified gunman on Komsomolsky Prospekt, a busy avenue in the capital, state prosecutors said.

In 2003 a court upheld his 10-year jail sentence for strangling an 18-year-old girl in war-torn Chechnya in 2000.

But he was released early from jail in January 2009 - a move that angered human rights activists.

Russian media say the gunman, wearing a blue jacket and hood, attacked Budanov at about 1230 (0830 GMT), shooting him six times with a pistol, then fled by car.

The Mitsubishi Lancer getaway car was later found abandoned and on fire, the reports said. A pistol and silencer were found inside.

High-profile case

The Budanov trial was big news in Russia, where very few officers have been prosecuted over abuses committed during Russia's two campaigns against Chechen separatist rebels.

He was the only senior officer to be jailed for crimes committed in Chechnya.

He was found guilty of the kidnapping and strangling of Elza Kungayeva in 2000. An allegation that he had also raped her was dropped.

The murder provoked outrage in Chechnya, where many civilians have died at the hands of Russian forces and the local pro-Moscow militia, during the long war against rebels.

At his re-trial in 2003 Budanov accused Russian media of having swayed the judge, insisting that he was "a Russian soldier who defended his country for the past 20 years".

Budanov was acquitted at his first trial in December 2002, when the court accepted his plea that he had been temporarily insane at the time of the killing.

But the Russian supreme court ordered a re-trial, where he was found to have been of sound mind at the time. He was found guilty and stripped of his rank and the Order of Courage, which he had won in breakaway Chechnya.

Budanov told the court he believed that Kungayeva was a Chechen sniper and that a fit of rage had come over him as he interrogated her.

The lawyer representing Kungayeva's family, Stanislav Markelov, was shot dead in Moscow in January 2009, along with a journalist, Anastasia Baburova, who was with him at the time.

Last month a court in Moscow sentenced a Russian nationalist to life imprisonment for the double murder. His partner was also jailed.

Syria: US condemns 'brutality and violence'

2011-06-11T02:36:00.001-07:00

The US has strongly condemned Syria's "outrageous use of violence" against anti-government protesters.

The White House said the government was leading Syria down a "dangerous path" and called for "an immediate end to the brutality and violence".

Activists say at least 32 people were killed in fresh clashes on Friday.

The violence came as government forces moved into the town of Jisr al-Shughour, where it said 120 security personnel had

killed.

Hundreds of civilians have fled north into Turkey to escape the assault.

Assad 'unavailable'

In a statement, White House spokesman Jay Carney repeated calls for the Syrian security forces to exercise restraint.

"The Syrian government is leading Syria on a dangerous path," he said.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, described the use of military force as "unacceptable".

A spokesman for Mr Ban said he was "keen to speak to" Syria's president, but that Bashar al-Assad had repeatedly been "unavailable" in recent days.

Syria has prevented foreign journalists, including those from the BBC, from entering the country, making it difficult to independently verify reports from there

In the most serious of Friday's incidents, anti-government activists said about 15 people had died in the northern province of Idlib.

They said most of the deaths were in Maarat al-Numan, where tanks and helicopters are said to have fired on protesters who had taken to the streets after prayers.

State TV and opposition figures said police stations in the town had been attacked by protesters.

Correspondents say it is the first reported use of air power to quell protests in Syria's three-month uprising.

'Mutiny'

Both state media and activists on the ground also reported troops and tanks advancing on Jisr al-Shughour.

Afghanistan: Sixteen dead in Kandahar blast

2011-06-11T02:32:00.000-07:00

Sixteen people, including children, died when their vehicle was blown up in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, the Interior Ministry says.

The attack took place in Arghandab district, an unstable area with a strong Taliban presence.

This is the latest of several deadly attacks.

The UN says May was the worst month for civilian casualties in Afghanistan since 2007.

Earlier, at least three people - including the commander of a rapid reaction police unit -p were killed and 12 injured in a suicide attack in Khost province, in the east of the country.

Militants in Afghanistan frequently target the police and military.

Syria: US condemns 'brutality and violence'Unverified amateur video appears to show Syrian soldiers kicking prisoners.Unverified amateur video appears

2011-06-11T00:51:00.000-07:00

The US has strongly condemned Syria's "outrageous use of violence" against anti-government protesters.

The White House said the government was leading Syria down a "dangerous path" and called for "an immediate end to the brutality and violence".

Activists say at least 32 people were killed in fresh clashes on Friday.

The violence came as government forces moved into the town of Jisr al-Shughour, where it said 120 security personnel had earlier been killed.

Hundreds of civilians have fled north into Turkey to escape the assault.

Assad 'unavailable'

In a statement, White House spokesman Jay Carney repeated calls for the Syrian security forces to exercise restraint.

Both state media and activists on the ground also reported troops and tanks advancing on Jisr al-Shughour.

Most residents are believed to have abandoned the town.

The government blamed "armed groups" for the deaths of 120 security personnel in Jisr al-Shughour earlier this week, but some reports said the troops were shot after a mutiny.

Syrian TV said troops had reached the outskirts of the town after securing nearby villages, and that they had killed or captured a number of armed men.

Activists said they had blasted the town with tank fire, but the BBC's Jim Muir in neighbouring Lebanon says there is little indication as to how much resistance the troops are facing in an area whose population has largely fled.

Slaughtered like lambs'

There were reports of large demonstrations against President Assad in many parts of Syria after prayers on Friday.

Security forces are reported to have opened fire in some areas - activists said there were deaths in the coastal town of Latakia, in Deraa in the south, and in a suburb of Damascus.

Friday protests have become a regular event since March, but government efforts to quash them have escalated in recent weeks.

Human rights groups say more than 1,300 people have died in the crackdown, mostly unarmed civilians. The government denies this and says about 500 security forces have died.

More than 3,000 Syrians - mostly women and children - have crossed the border into Turkey to escape the violence, many of them from Jisr al-Shughour. An unknown number of people are thought to have fled to other locations within Syria.

"People were not going to sit and be slaughtered like lambs," one refugee in Turkey told Reuters news agency.

Some of those arriving at the temporary camps have serious gunshot injuries - including a Syrian Red Crescent worker who said he was shot in the back as he tried to help the injured in Jisr al-Shughour.

With the unrest showing no sign of abating, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has set up a new camp in Turkey capable of housing up to 5,000 people.

Are you in Syria? Have you travelled from Syria to Turkey to flee the situation there? Send us your comments and experiences.

Easy Carrot Cake

2011-05-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

what you need

1 cup KRAFT Real Mayo Mayonnaise

1 pkg. (2-layer size) yellow cake mix

4 eggs

2-1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 cups finely grated carrots

1/2 cup chopped PLANTERS Walnut Pieces

Make It

BEAT mayo, cake mix, eggs, 1/4 cup water and cinnamon in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed for 3 minutes. Stir in carrots and walnuts.

POUR into greased 13x9-inch baking pan.

BAKE at 350°F for 30 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely. Frost cake if desired.

Kraft Kitchens Tips

Substitute

Prepare as directed, except substitute KRAFT Light Mayo Reduced Fat Mayonnaise.

Shortcut

Instead of frosting the cake, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

England fast bowler Broad pens new Nottinghamshire deal

2011-05-04T08:26:00.000-07:00

Stuart Broad has signed a new three-year contract with Nottinghamshire.

The 24-year-old England fast bowler, who arrived at Trent Bridge from Leicestershire in 2007, is still on an ECB central contract.

His new deal with Notts, which runs until 2013, will only come into effect should he lose his England deal.

"We fully expect Stuart will maintain his England place for years to come but this re-affirms his commitment to us," said director of cricket Mick Newell.

"We knew he was in the England selectors' thoughts when we signed him in 2008.

"Although his county apperances have been limited, he has always performed exceptionally well when he's turned out for us."

Broad has made just a single one-day appearance, as well as playing three games in the Twenty20 and seven County Championship matches in his four years at Trent Bridge.

But he may be due to get in a few early season appearances once he has recovered from the side strain that forced him home early from England's unsuccessful World Cup adventure last month.

"I'm hoping to play on May 4 at home to Yorkshire," Broad told Sky Sports News.

That would give Broad the option of two more four-day matches before England begin their summer programme in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Cardiff on 26 May.

"I hope that can be the comeback," said Broad. "Then I can get some Championship wickets before the first Test..

In the light of Broad's injury and the fatigue that clearly affected main strike bowler Jimmy Anderson at the World Cup as the long winter programme drew to a close, the England hierarchy have considered more rest programmes to protect their pace attack.

But Broad, who is optimistic that his injury troubles will soon be behind him, knows full well that the crowded modern-day international schedule is unlikely to change.

"There is a lot of cricket," he said. "But we have to be in good enough physical shape to deal with it.

"I've been quite lucky to have played five years of international cricket without a setback at some stage.

"It was unfortunate that it did then happen in two of the biggest tournaments we play in.

"But I feel in good nick for this season, and I'm looking to get back in the international arena."

Notts can now only hope that Broad, who played for them in the FP t20 finals day at the Rose Bowl last August, will hope that he turns in a repeat of the match-winning performance he produced on his last County Championship appearance.

Sri Lanka's Lasith Malinga retires from Test cricket

2011-05-04T08:22:00.000-07:00

Sri Lanka fast bowler Lasith Malinga, 27, is retiring from Tests in a bid to prolong his one-day international career through to the 2015 World Cup.

Malinga angered Cricket Sri Lanka by ruling himself out of the England tour with a knee injury, while continuing to play in the Indian Premier League.

But he insists that while his knee can stand up to one-day and 20-over games, it cannot cope with five-day Tests.

"The heavy workload of Tests could lead to permanent injury," he said.

Malinga, known as "The Slinger" for his low-armed delivery, is one of world cricket's most recognisable players with his bleached curls.

The right-armer has played only two Tests since England's tour of Sri Lanka in December 2007, both against India last year, but has fashioned himself as a one-day and Twenty20 specialist, taking 13 wickets as Sri Lanka reached the final of the 2011 World Cup.

After the tournament, he told Sri Lankan state television that he had played his last World Cup match.

But in a statement on Friday, he said: "Although I am sufficiently fit to play both ODI and T20 cricket, I have a long-standing degenerative condition in my right knee that needs to be carefully managed.

"The condition relates directly to the chronic knee injury I sustained playing for Sri Lanka in Australia back in February 2008, an injury that prevented me from playing ODI cricket for 16 months.

"I have realised that the heavy workload of Test cricket, which requires a fast bowler to be able to bowl more than 15 overs, sometimes on consecutive days, could lead to permanent injury.

"I did try to return to Test cricket after a three-year absence last year following requests from the team management and the selectors, but it left me nursing severe knee pain for two months.

"I have carefully considered my options and have decided that not playing Test cricket will help me achieve my goal of representing Sri Lanka in the 2012 World Twenty20 and the 2015 World Cup."

Malinga's statement came after Sri Lanka Cricket chairman of selectors Duleep Mendis, a former national captain, said the new committee had written a letter to Malinga asking him to begin a new rehabilitation plan in Colombo.

"It looks a bit awkward when [he] says he's injured and still plays," Mendis said.

"That is the reason why we have decided to write to Malinga and ask him to return home and undergo a rehabilitation programme.

"Malinga has specifically mentioned in a letter that he is not available for Test matches right now because he has a nagging knee problem.

"When the player says that he is injured and he has to undergo a rehab programme what we can do is to tell him to undergo it immediately, without continuing to play cricket in the IPL, and then get ready for cricket in Sri Lanka if he is interested in playing for his country."

Malinga made his international debut in 2004, and took four wickets in four balls against South Africa at the 2007 World Cup, the first time it had been done in international cricket history.

He became the first man to take two World Cup hat-tricks when he took 6-38 to skittle Kenya at this year's tournament, and his Test career ends with 101 wickets from 30 Tests at an average of 33.15.

Sri Lanka - who will be captained by Tillakaratne Dilshan for the first time in Test cricket - are short on seam options for the upcoming England tour after all-rounder Angelo Mathews was ruled out with a thigh muscle injury suffered during the 2011 World Cup.

The 16-man squad contains four fast bowlers in Dilhara Fernando, Chanaka Welegedara, Suranga Lakmal and Nuwan Pradeep.

Nuwan Kulasekara - the fast bowler who played in Sri Lanka's previous Test series, against West Indies, and featured on the 2006 tour of England - has been dropped.

Lahiru Thirimanne and Dinesh Chandimal have also received call-ups. Both are considered to be among the most promising young Sri Lankan batsmen, and have already played ODIs.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka Cricket has backtracked on its demand for players to return home early from the IPL to prepare for the tour.

The board has decided that if players make themselves available for the second warm-up match - against England Lions in Derby on 19 May - it will be sufficient preparation for the Test series.

Dilshan's squad play Tests at Cardiff (from 26 May) and Lord's (3 June) before featuring in the inaugural Test at the Rose Bowl (16 June).

Sri Lanka Test squad to face England: Tillakaratne Dilshan (capt), Tharanga Paranavithana, Lahiru Thirimanne, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Thilan Samaraweera, Dinesh Chandimal, Prasanna Jayawardene (wicketkeeper), Thissara Perera, Suraj Randiv, Ajantha Mendis, Rangana Herath, Dilhara Fernando, Chanaka Welegedara, Suranga Lakmal, Nuwan Pradeep.

Kiwi Kane Williamson set for Gloucestershire debut

2011-05-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

New Zealand international Kane Williamson is set to make his debut for Gloucestershire in their CB40 match against the Unicorns on Monday.

The 20-year-old batsman's arrival at the County Ground has been delayed due to issues with his visa.

Williamson was a regular member of the Black Caps World Cup side that reached the semi-finals in India last month.

He will be joined in the next month by Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralitharan who is only playing in the T20.

(Late) Moin Akhtar Bio Biography

2011-04-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

Moin Akhter ,Pride of Performance, Sitara-e-Imtiaz, born 1950) is a Pakistani television, film and stage actor, comedian, impersonator, host, Pakistani movie, drama, TV and theater actor, writer, singer, director and producer. He has played roles in many PTV serials making a combination with Anwer Maqsood and Bushra Ansari.( and singer. His name is also often spelled as Moeen.

His TV debut was on September 6, 1966, in a variety show held to celebrate first defense day of Pakistan‎. He is a great artist belongs to Karachi a famous city of Pakistan and has starred in many TV dramas and live comedy events. He is rated among top artists in Pakistan. In 2005 he started work on talk show Loose Talk, in which he appears as a disguised guest every time and is interviewed humorously by writer Anwar MaqsoodAnwar Maqsood. Loose Talk airs on ARY Digital. He hosted "The Moin AkhtarMoin Akhtar Show" on PTV where he used to have celebrities come on the show with their spouses and have them answer questions, and also starred in the Television play, Rosi, which gained much fame because of Moin Akhtar's notable performance. Rosi was inspired by Tootsie and Moin Akhtar was the counterpart of Dustin HoffmanDustin Hoffman. He is one of the most versatile actors ever to enlighten the Pakistani television. His wit and humor keep the audience glued to the screen and while he says even the most impossible things, his sugar coated words along with his boyish charm make him one of the most unique actors in the business. Moin Akhtar is an inspiration for all the generations to come and one of the few that stand out among the many. He has parodied in several languages, including English, Sindhi, Punjabi, Memon, Pushto, Gujarati, bengali and others, while in the Urdu-speaking world, he is beloved for providing great humor for people of all ages, and with an etiquette that remains unmatched.

A few years ago, he suffered a heart attack and was admitted into the hospital. His fan base, in both India and Pakistan, and now spread all over the world as well, was gravely concerned for his health. In an interview with Mashrique, Moin Akhtar said: “I want to stay alive in the hearts and minds of the people, even after I am gone.” His fans around the globe will surely agree that he is already guaranteed that honour in his lifetime.

A variety show was held in Karachi on September 6, 1966, defense day of Pakistan. Numerous artists presented their items, including Nihal Abdullah, Taj Multani, Rubina Badar. A skinny youth by the name of Moin Akhtar also stepped up on the stage and entertained the audience with sound effects. Additionally, he also copied the voice and gestures of various Pakistani luminaries including Mohammad Ali.

he public who were all wearing smiles chanted: 'Once more, once more". People felt power in that boy's voice. He acted with confidence. There was a strange, enchanting way he conducted himself. Defense day was a celebration of people who have lifted our nation's pride. The show ended amidst incessant clapping.

Moin was ambitious but implacably determined to build a new world. That September night he must have dreamed a mighty dream and in a few dedicated years made it come true. In his teens, Moin was highly talented and - by dint of desire and hard work-was thriving ahead of his compatriots. His voice holds the power to gladden mortal hearts and his singular appearance and etiquette persists to this day.

Between 1966 and 1975, Moin performed in hundreds of shows. In the 1970s, face everyone knew.

Memorable among his public appearance was a show held at the Beach Luxury Hotel, sponsored by the Singer industries. Equally impressive was another musical evening also hosted by the Singer Company, in which Moin entertained the public both as a comedian and the host. However, fans remember Moin's true legacy-his comedy and that is a huge plus. When Urdu speaking people the world over, think of popular comedy, Moin is what they think of first. His innumerable achievements have dwarfed the most ambitious comedians in the past three decades. To think of Moin after so many accomplished years is to visualize life and humor. The Pakistani nation in general and experts in particular has never come across anybody like him, not even close. A passionate voice, a magnetic stage presence and fans like Dilip KumarDilip Kumar, have brought international acclaim to this dynamic comedian of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. All these years his passion for stage never ebbed. He has been flexible from day one. The secret of his success is that he remains open to change, Professionally and Personally. As an artist of highest repute, he is demanding in his discipline. With artists like Moin, it is often hard to tell where the screen persona end and the civilian life begin. Truth be told, Moin soon became the heartthrob of millions of people around the globe. He set a standard of style and substance that all of his successors admired. The spirit of self-reliance that his elders had taught him carried Moin though every performance. Moin, an ambassador of goodwill, captivated the hearts of his adorers with dignity, love and laughter. The image of this greatest Pakistani comedian is imprinted on the retinas of every fan. So dominating are the accomplishments of Moin that his admirers cannot think about any other entertainer.

n the early eighties, he achieved tremendous success as host of a show, held in Dubai. Literally speaking, there is no sphere of the Pakistani society, which Moin has not copied, through his parody. From the role of a poor beggar to the character of the highest-ranking bureaucrat, Moin has filled in the role of every single being. What more could Moin wish for, when the greatest Indian actor, Dilip Kumar, himself passed these comments: 'Moin Akhtar's great artistry is worth copying. That Moin continued to work as an individual artist on what was, in fact, a group feat of organizers, is presumably the secret of his potency.

Today, thirty-eight years after his first performance, the wistful magic of Moin gives him aliveness uncommon in the Pakistani entertainment. An average Moin fan cannot easily explain the wellsprings of his art. It seems that it comes from within. Moin found a perfect unanimity of tone with his colleagues, particularly Shoaib Mansoor and Anwer Maqsood. Moin, whose life and achievements inspired others, is all sweetness and light and on top of that has never let down his fans. His wit and wisdom took his fame to every nook and corner of this world. All his shows have an enduring quality. Most importantly, he never lost his power to inspire, entertain and even change lives.

From' pilot Yaqoob' of 'Buddha ghar per hai' to 'Seth Manjoor' in 'Such Much': 'Kaan Aap ki phemli kidar hai', his ability to devote unswerving attention to his task produced success in his field. His parody in English, Urdu, Sindhi, Bengali, Punjabi, Memon, Pushto, Gujrati and many other dialects distinguish him from all other entertainers. He was apt to be successful in Haseena Moin's television comedy play, 'Eid train': 'Bhabi samosa khayia' and numerous other programs like 'Studio Ponay teen', 'Show time', 'Half plate' and 'Excuse me'. Moin, an adornment to the entertainment world, is a gift that keeps on giving: His parody of a Bengali film director, Silver Jubilee in 1983: 'Mubeen Aktar, kaum chahiye'. Is yet another example of the poise and intelligence he displayed. In the process he transformed his life into an exciting adventure that constantly challenges, rewarded and rejuvenated him. His parody of a bus driver in Pushto accent, 'Aur aik baat hum bhi bata dayta hai', is yet another instance of his artistry.

Moin, the jewel of the Pakistani film, radio, television, stage and music, whose eyes smile with the joy of today, the promise of tomorrow, said: 'I have confidence in my own abilities.' Moreover, he has such good judgment and intuition, that he rarely makes a wrong decision. Majority of Pakistanis believe that had there been an artist of Moin's caliber in U.S.A. then the American people would have carved his statues and the U.S. postal service would have issued stamps of Moin Akhtar.

In fact, Moin has raised his God gifted talents to compeer and act to a point where no other actor will be able to reach in the next hundred years. Further, what distinguishes Moin from other comedians is his par excellence-comedy of the highest quality.

Furthermore, Moin is the only host in the annals of the Pakistani showbiz, who had the honor to be the host of maximum number of shows in which the head of states from both Pakistan and abroad were invited:

He was the host of the show in which King Husain of Jordan was invited.

He was the host of the show in which the Prime minister of Gambia, Dawoodi-Al-Joza, was invited.

He was the host of the show in which President Zia-ul-Haq was invited.

He was the host of the show in which Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was invited.

He was the host of the show in which President General Yahya Khan was invited.

He was the host of the show in which President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was invited.

Apart from that, he was the host of the Imran KhanImran Khan show, Dilip Kumar show and Madhuri show.

During Imran Khan show, Raza Murad of India, paid tributes to Moin in these words: 'Moin is to stage as Imran Khan and Sunil Gavaskar are to cricket and Dilip Kumar is to the films.' This is how Moin differentiates between a host and an actor: 'Actor is like the passenger of the plane, while host is the captain of the plane'. The success and failure of the show, according to Moin, depends on the host. Moin Akhtar was the host of the sixth Pakistan television award show, while Shoaib Mansoor wrote and directed that show. Generally speaking, sixth Pakistan television award show is considered the best award ceremony ever held.

Additionally, Moin believes that Anwer Maqsood is the best writer he has ever seen. The latter leaves no margin to add or edit the script. Besides, Moin himself has written a lot for programs, but used the names of other writers. He maintains that if he concentrates on writing, then he will be unable to do justice as an actor and a host. Moin worked in the film 'Taaj daar'. He also appeared in the film 'Mr. K-2.' Talking of music, Moin is also a very good singer. Years ago numerous songs were recorded in his voice, which were originally sung by Ahmed Rushdi. Moin is the master of parody. In the past thirty-eight years, he has copied the voice and gestures of thousands of artists, including Mohammad Ali, Waheed Murad, Mehdi Hasan, Ahmed Rushdi and many more.

He appeared in various Pakistan television programs. Most prominent among them was 'Rozi'. While playing the role of 'Miss Rozi', his craftsmanship seemed effortless. He also worked in numerous stage shows from Lahore, as well. The entire Pakistani nation had prayed for his health and longevity, when he was admitted to the cardiac hospital, after suffering a heart attack.

He hosted the Pakistan television show on the 'Martyrs of Kargil' He interviewed the son of a Kargil martyr. Everyone in the audience became very emotional as the child replied that following the footsteps of his father, he, too, desires to achieve martyrdom to uphold the honor of his country.

The public was remarkably quiet and reflective. With tears in his eyes, Moin concluded the show with these words: 'Who could defeat this nation whose innocent little children have so much love and devotion for their country'. While Moin is in our midst, one has to admit that there will never be another Moin that is for sure

Pakistan PM loses vital coalition partner as MQM quits

2011-01-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

Pakistan's MQM party says it is leaving Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani's coalition to join the opposition.

The move will deprive Mr Gilani of his majority in parliament.

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the second largest party in the coalition, withdrew two ministers from the federal cabinet last week.

Mr Gilani denied his government was in danger of collapsing. "I don't see any crisis," he said, speaking on television after the announcement.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says the government is now scrambling to find new partners, but that without them, new elections are likely.

Pakistan's governing coalition held 181 seats - including the MQM's 25 - in the 342-member parliament. The MQM's departure leaves Mr Gilani's Pakistan People's Party well below the 172 seats needed to preserve its majority.

Fuel prices

A statement issued by the party said: "Right at the start of the new year the government has raised the prices of petrol and kerosene oil which is unbearable for the people who are already under pressure from the already high prices."

Our correspondent says the move comes as a surprise.

"We have decided to sit on opposition benches because the government has not done anything to address the issues we have been protesting about," said Faisal Sabzwari, a MQM regional minister in Sindh province.

The MQM dominates politics in the city of Karachi.

The city, which the capital of Sindh province, has seen ethnic tension, with the MQM's militant wing widely believed to be behind most ethnic and political killings in the city over the last few years.

A smaller coalition partner, the Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam party, withdrew from the government earlier in December after one of its ministers was sacked.

Many in Pakistan believe the two parties are acting at the behest of the security establishment to undermine the country's political system.

Yahoo criticised by Alibaba for 'reckless' China stance

2010-01-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

Yahoo's partner in China has called the US internet giant "reckless" for supporting Google in its stand-off with Beijing over alleged cyber-attacks.

Yahoo said it was "aligned" with Google's position that the violation of internet privacy was deeply disturbing and something that had to be opposed.

But an Alibaba Group spokesman said on Saturday it did not "share this view".

Beijing has tried to play down Google's threat to pull out of China because of attacks by hackers and censorship.

In what correspondents say is an unusual move, the US state department said on Friday that it was to make a formal protest about the incident to China's government and demand an explanation.

'Business as usual'

Yahoo closed its offices in China several years ago when it sold much of its business there to the Alibaba Group, in which it has a 39% stake. It runs Taobao, China's largest online retailer, as well as the country's largest e-commerce site, Alibaba.com.

On Wednesday, a Yahoo spokeswoman said it condemned "any attempts to infiltrate company networks to obtain user information". Yahoo is also reported to have been targeted by hackers in China but remained silent on the issue.

"We stand aligned that these kinds of attacks are deeply disturbing and strongly believe that the violation of user privacy is something that we as Internet pioneers must all oppose," she told the Wall Street Journal.

But on Saturday, Alibaba Group spokesman John Spelich said it had "communicated to Yahoo that Yahoo's statement that it is 'aligned' with the position Google took last week was reckless given the lack of facts in evidence".

"Alibaba doesn't share this view," he added.

A Yahoo spokeswoman later declined to say whether the company would consider selling its holdings.

Meanwhile, a Google spokeswoman denied Chinese reports that the company had already decided to shut down its goolge.cn site.

"It's business as usual," Jessica Powell added.

Google said on Tuesday that cyber-attacks originating in China aimed at rights activists, and increased web censorship, might force it to end its China operations.

It also said it would hold talks with the Chinese government in the coming weeks to look at operating an unfiltered search engine within the law in the country, though no changes to filtering have yet been made.

Beijing has said foreign internet firms are welcome to do business "according to the law", and insisted that the internet is "open".

When Google launched google.cn in 2006, it agreed to censor some search results - such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Tibetan independence or Falun Gong - as required by the Chinese government.

Google currently holds about one-third of the Chinese search market, far behind Chinese rival Baidu, which has more than 60%.

China has more internet users - about 350 million - than any other country and provides a lucrative search engine market worth an estimated $1bn (£614m) last year.

What's in a healthy lunchbox?

2010-01-17T10:22:00.000-08:00

Ninety-nine out of every 100 packed lunches being eaten by primary school children are reported to be unhealthy and failing to meet nutritional standards.

So what should a healthy lunch contain and what foods should be left out?

According to advice from the Food Standards Agency,a healthy packed lunch should include:

• Meat, fish or a dairy source of protein

• Starchy carbohydrate, such as a wholegrain sandwich, to provide energy

• At least one portion each of a fruit and vegetable or salad

• Water or milk to drink, but diluted fruit juice and yoghurt drinks or smoothies are acceptable

The key foods to avoid are:

• Sweets and chocolate

• Snacks, like crisps, with added salt/sugar/fat

• Sugary and fizzy drinks

• Deep-fried foods and processed meats

• White bread - if children won't eat brown, try whole white sliced bread

Nutritional standards for school meals were introduced in 2006 and standards for vending machines, breakfast clubs and tuck shops came into force a year later.

In 2008, strict nutrition content guidelines for primary schools were introduced and extended to secondary schools in September 2009.

They include maximum/minimum levels of energy or calories and 13 different nutrients, including fat, salt and sugars.

The Schools Food Trust - an independent body set up to advise schools on healthy eating - says there are no plans to issue statutory guidance on packed lunches, but it has produced some sample lunchbox menus.

Body scanners risk right to privacy, says UK watchdog

2010-01-17T10:03:00.000-08:00

The UK's equality watchdog has written to the home secretary expressing concerns about plans to use body scanners at airports.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said the devices risked breaching an individual's right to privacy under the Human Rights Act.

They are being introduced in response to the alleged attempt to blow up an American plane on 25 December.

Ministers have said protecting people's life and liberty is paramount.

The prime minister has pledged to introduce full body scanners at British airports, and they are due to be in operation at Heathrow Airport by the end of this month.

They produce "naked" images of passengers, and civil rights groups warn they could generate illegal images of children and images of celebrities that could be leaked online.

In response to such fears, the Department of Transport said it was developing a staff code of practice for airport body scanners.

In addition to body scanners, the government is also considering "additional targeted passenger profiling".

'Proportionate measures'

In its letter, the EHRC calls on Home Secretary Alan Johnson to set out in detail the justification for bringing in body scanners, and clarify what safeguards will be put in place.

The watchdog has said the proposals are likely to have a negative impact on privacy, especially in relation to certain groups such as disabled people, the elderly, children and the transgendered community.

It also wants to see the evidence for the profiling of air passengers.

John Wadham, group director legal at the EHRC, said the commission accepted the government had a responsibility to protect air travellers.

"The right to life is the ultimate human right and we support the government reviewing security in the light of recent alleged terrorist activity," he said.

"However, the government needs to ensure that measures to protect this right also take into account the need to be proportionate in its counter-terrorism proposals and ensure that they are justified by evidence and effectiveness."

Privacy campaigners welcomed the EHRC's move.

Dylan Sharpe, campaign director of Big Brother Watch, said the government had not considered privacy in its "desperation to be seen to be doing something".

"They are another intrusion into our privacy in the name of protection, yet we know that they are not fail-safe and could see airport authorities becoming reliant on a deeply flawed method of detection," he added.

The introduction of body scanners has sparked a wide debate, and even the home secretary has admitted it will not be a "magic bullet".

Earlier this month, he said: "It is clear that no one measure will be enough to defeat inventive and determined terrorists and there is no single technology which we can guarantee will be 100% effective against such attacks."

Mr Johnson also told the Commons there was only a 50 to 60% chance that a body scanner would have detected bomb materials allegedly carried by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

He said the government would be "mindful of civil liberties concerns but conscious of our overriding obligations to protect people's life and liberty".

Mr Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to detonate a bomb on a flight from Amsterdam as it was about to land in Detroit.

Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock share actress award

2010-01-17T10:00:00.000-08:00

Voters for the Critics' Choice Awards could not pick an outright best actress winner, so split the prize between Meryl Streep and Sandra Bullock.

Streep, a winner for Julie and Julia, and Bullock, who won for The Blind Side, both attended the Los Angeles ceremony to collect their awards.

Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker picked up the best film award, with Kathryn Bigelow also winning for best director.

Avatar won five prizes, including best action movie and technical awards.

Directed by James Cameron, the ex-husband of Bigelow, the film was honoured for its cinematography, editing, art direction, sound and visual effects.

The best actor award went to Jeff Bridges for country music film Crazy Heart.

The best supporting actor and actress awards were collected by Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds and Mo'Nique for Precious respectively.

Quentin Tarantino's World War II epic Inglourious also won best original screenplay and ensemble cast, which included Brad Pitt, Eli Roth and Michael Fassbender.

Musical movie Nine, starring Penelope Cruz, Kate Hudson and Nicole Kidman, failed to win in any of the 10 categories in which it was nominated.

Bullock, who on Friday donated $1m (£614,798) to aid the medical charity Doctors Without Borders' relief effort in Haiti, used her time on the winners' podium to talk about the disaster.

"We're all so lucky to be here tonight when so many others are in pain," she said.

"I hope we can all send good love and thoughts and whatever we can."

Last year, voters for the Critics' Choice Awards plumped for Slumdog Millionaire as best film, paving the way for the British hit to sweep the Oscars, where it won eight awards on the night.

Kodak sues Apple and RIM over iPhone and Blackberry

2010-01-17T09:57:00.000-08:00

Camera maker Kodak has said it will sue Apple and Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of the iPhone and Blackberry, over technology used in their handsets.

Kodak has filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC).

It alleges the iPhone and Blackberry use technology for previewing pictures that infringe Kodak patents.

It has also filed two separate suits against Apple that claim infringements of patents relating to digital cameras and certain computer processes.

Kodak has asked the ITC to bar both firms from shipping the phones and has asked for undisclosed monetary damages.

RIM and Apple declined to comment.

Legal scrutiny

"We've had discussions for years with both companies in an attempt to resolve this issue amicably, and we have not been able to reach a satisfactory agreement," said Laura Quatela, chief intellectual property officer at Kodak.

"In light of that, we are taking this action to ensure that we protect the interests of our shareholders and the existing licensees of our technology."

The patent for Kodak's picture previewing technology has already been the subject of one dispute.

On 17 December 2009, an ITC judge ruled that camera-enabled phones made by Samsung infringed upon the Kodak patent.

The separate filing against Apple has also been scrutinised in court in a case against Sun Microsystems.

In that case, a federal jury determined that Sun's Java programming technology had infringed Kodak's patents. Sun later agreed to pay Kodak in return for a license for the patents at issue.

Apple is currently in the middle of a legal dispute with phone giant Nokia.

In October, Nokia alleged that the iPhone infringed 10 of its "fundamental" patents relating to wireless technologies.

Apple countered with its own lawsuit in December, accusing Nokia of copying its technology.

Since then Nokia has complained to the ITC and launched a further legal action that alleges "virtually all" of Apple's products infringe on its patents.

Alligators and birds share lung structure and ancestor

2010-01-17T09:48:00.000-08:00

Alligators and birds share a breathing mechanism which may have helped their ancestors dominate Earth more than 200 million years ago, scientists say.

Research published in the journal Science found that like birds, in alligators air flows in one direction.

Birds' lung structure allows them to breathe when flying in low oxygen, or hypoxic, conditions.

This breathing may have helped a common ancestor of birds and alligators thrive in the hypoxic period of the Triassic.

Mammals 'hiding'

"It might explain a mystery that has been around for quite some time", Dr Colleen Farmer from the University of Utah told BBC News.

The mystery in question is why the archosaurs came to dominate Earth after the planet's worst mass extinction 251 million years ago.

Archosaurs evolved into two different branches which developed into crocodilians, dinosaurs, flying pterosaurs and eventually birds.

Synapsids, which evolved to include mammals, had been dominant in the Permian period before the mass extinction.

Some survived but were toppled from their perch by the archosaurs.

Any mammal-like synapsid survivors "were teeny liittle things hiding in cracks" said Dr Farmer. "I think it's because they couldn't compete.

"It wasn't until the die-off of the large dinosaurs 65 million years ago that mammals made a comeback and started occupying body sizes larger than an opossum."

To demonstrate alligator lung mechanisms, the scientists measured airflow in anesthetised animals, showing it flows in one direction rather than in and out of chambers.

They also pumped water containing tiny fluorescent beads into the lungs of dead alligators to observe the flow.

Puzzle solved

The researchers believe the similarity in lung structure may explain why some animals were better able to adapt after the extinction, when oxygen levels dropped.

"We know that birds are really good at breathing in hypoxic conditions. They can fly at altitudes that would kill a mammal," said Dr Farmer.

"Many archosaurs, such as pterosaurs, apparently were capable of sustaining vigorous exercise. Lung design may have played a key role in this capacity.

"That's been a puzzle, why do birds have these very different lungs? But now we can date it back to the common ancestor of birds and crocodilians.

"It implies that all dinosaurs, herbivores like Triceratops and carnivores like Tyrannosaurus, had bird-like lungs," Dr Farmer added.

Cybercriminals revive old scams to target smartphones

2010-01-15T11:50:00.000-08:00

As mobile phones get more sophisticated, hi-tech criminals are dusting off some old tricks.

Security companies have noticed a rise in trojans known as diallers that used to be popular during the days of dial-up net access.

On a smartphone the diallers are being used to call premium rate lines leaving victims with a big bill.

Experts say the diallers are proving popular as a quick way for criminals to cash in.

Diallers were widely used during the days of dial-up net access when most people connected via modem.

Many diallers lurked on porn sites and, once they snared a victim, disconnected their modem and then placed a long distance call. Many victims were left with huge phone bills.

The economics of international calls meant that some of the cash spent on the call would be shared with the criminals. Some diallers were very sneaky in that they muted the speaker on a modem so victims could not spot when the overseas call was being placed.

Now, the security wing of software firm CA has said it is seeing a rise in diallers for smartphones. This time, instead of calling international numbers, the diallers call premium rate lines and land victims with the bill.

Writing on the CA security blog, Akhil Menon said it was seeing a "an increasing trend of trojan diallers". Mr Menon profiled one such virus, called Swapi.B, which sends premium SMS messages.

"The messages sent out are in the typical format to invoke premium services and land the mobile user with heavy mobile bills without the user's knowledge and consent," wrote Mr Menon.

Many diallers, including Swapi.B, are contracted from porn sites which disguise themselves as software, video clips or helper programs.

Mikko Hypponen, head of research at F-Secure which makes security software for mobiles, said it had seen a "handful" of diallers in recent months.

They were popular, he said, because they get round one of the big problems facing anyone wanting to make money out of Windows viruses.

"PC malware can't just directly steal money from your machine; it has to jump through hoops like keylogging your credit card number or sending spam," he said.

"However, mobile malware can just instantly steal from you by making premium-rate calls or messages," said Mr Hypponen.

Some creators of diallers were also working to ensure that it was hard to shut down the premium rate service they had set up to cash in.

Mr Hypponen said some diallers sent messages or rang many different numbers, including legitimate ones.

"The trojan can place calls to, say, 100 different premium-rate numbers, only one of which is his own number," said Mr Hypponen.

"How would you fight this? Shut down all the numbers, including the innocent ones?"

Herschel space telescope restored to full health

2010-01-15T11:48:00.000-08:00

Europe's billion-euro Herschel Space Telescope is fully operational again after engineers brought its damaged instrument back online.

The observatory's HiFi spectrometer was turned off just three months into the mission because of an anomaly that was probably triggered by space radiation.

The Dutch-led consortium that operates HiFi has now switched the instrument across to its reserve electronics.

It says the failure event has been understood and cannot happen again.

"We've had 30 people working on this," said Dr Frank Helmich, the lead scientist on HiFi, from the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

"I don't watch much television but I know Crime Scene Investigation and this was just such an investigation - but in space! We found out what happened and then we designed all the mitigating measures," he told BBC News.

The European Space Agency (Esa) telescope was launched from Earth last May.

Its quest is to study how stars and galaxies form, and how they evolve through cosmic time.

The Heterodyne Instrument for the Far Infrared (HiFi) is one of three scientific experiments onboard.

The high-resolution spectrometer is designed to capture and split light into its constituent wavelengths, creating a kind of "fingerprint" that will reveal information on the chemistry of a light source.

HiFi is expected to bring remarkable new insights into the composition and behaviour of the clouds of gas and dust that give rise to stars.

But the instrument was taken offline in August when it started returning anomalous readings.

The detailed inquiry at SRON traced the fault to a failed diode in a Local Oscillator Control Unit (LCU), which is part of the system that helps process the sky signal received by the instrument.

Even though the investigators and their "crime scene" were separated by 1.5 million km, the SRON team was able to establish that the most likely cause was a cosmic ray hitting a microprocessor.

This upset triggered a sequence of hardware and software actions that ultimately resulted in a powerful voltage being sent through the LCU and killing the diode.

HiFi project leader Dr Peter Roelfsema said: "It turned out to be a very complex technological puzzle that we had to solve based on limited information and under a great deal of pressure.

"But for all researchers involved, quickly finding an answer to this question was a matter of professional pride. We had to - and would - crack the problem with HiFi as soon as humanly possible, but we also had to take the time to be thorough."

Like most space equipment, Hifi has redundant electronics and the instrument is now using its reserve LCU. Measures have also been put in place to ensure another cosmic ray event cannot initiate the same failure sequence.

While Hifi was down, its observing time was used by Herschel's two other instruments - Pacs and Spire - to return stunning new images of the far-infrared and sub-millimetre (radio) Universe.

They will now reciprocate by giving HiFi 50% of the sky time in the next few months.

"We will go into a priority science programme," Dr Helmich told BBC News.

"We do not fear that the LCU will misbehave again but we have lost redundancy in our electronics and so we want to do the most important science observations first.

"One of the first targets will be [star forming regions in] Orion. We expect tens of thousands of [spectral] lines to be seen by HiFi that will all need interpretation."

The Herschel mission is expected to last about three years before the superfluid helium that drives its cooling system boils away. At that point, the instruments' detectors will lose their sensitivity.

Microsoft admits Explorer used in Google China hack

2010-01-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has admitted that its Internet Explorer was a weak link in the recent attacks on Google's systems that originated in China.

The firm said in a blog post on Thursday that a vulnerability in the browser could allow hackers to remotely run programs on infected machines.

Following the attack, Google threatened to end its operations in China.

Microsoft has released preliminary guidance to mitigate the problem and is working on a formal software update.

So far, Microsoft "has not seen widespread customer impact, rather only targeted and limited attacks exploiting Internet Explorer 6".

"Based upon our investigations, we have determined that Internet Explorer was one of the vectors used in targeted and sophisticated attacks against Google and possibly other corporate networks," said Microsoft's director of security response Mike Reavey in the post.

'Unfortunate'

Security firm McAfee told news agency AFP that the attacks on Google, which targeted Chinese human rights activists worldwide, showed a level of sophistication above that of typical, isolated cyber criminal efforts.

McAfee's vice-president of threat research Dmitri Alperovitch told AFP that although the firm had "no proof that the Chinese are behind this particular attack, I think there are indications though that a nation-state is behind it".

The recent spate of attacks was alleged to have hit more than 30 companies including Google and Adobe, but security firms have since said that such invasions are routine.

Mr Reavey echoed this in the post.

"Unfortunately cyber crime and cyber attacks are daily occurrences in the online world. Obviously, it is unfortunate that our product is being used in the pursuit of criminal activity. We will continue to work with Google, industry leaders and the appropriate authorities to investigate this situation."

Lady Gaga cancels concert after 'passing out

2010-01-15T11:38:00.000-08:00

Singer Lady Gaga has apologised to fans after being forced to cancel a concert in Indiana due to ill health.

"Can't apologise enough for how sorry I am," she said, via micro-blogging site Twitter, revealing she had collapsed due to exhaustion and dehydration.

"An hour before the show I was feeling dizzy and having trouble breathing," posted the 23-year-old, renowned for her flamboyant stage performances.

The show at Purdue University will now take place on 26 January.

Lady Gaga - real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta - is scheduled to return to the stage on Saturday in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

I hope you can forgive me. I love my little monsters more than anything

Lady Gaga

Last year she failed to appear as a support act at two Take That concerts in Manchester, citing ill health.

The singer tweeted that she had been "crying for hours" as a result of Thursday's cancellation.

"My stage has complicated mechanical elements," she said. "Everyone was concerned I'd be in danger during the 2hr show, since I had passed out earlier.

"I have performed with the flu, a cold [and] strep throat," she went on. "I would never cancel a show just based on discomfort.

"I hope you can forgive me. I love my little monsters more than anything, you are everything to me."

Lady Gaga - who recently topped the UK singles chart with Bad Romance - had the best-selling UK single of 2009 with Poker Face.

Her tour is due to hit the UK in Manchester on 18 February.

Talking shop: AR Rahman

2010-01-14T12:19:00.000-08:00

Indian composer AR Rahman is known by some as the Mozart of Asia. He wrote the music to the multi award-winning Slumdog Millionaire, earning himself two Oscars, a Bafta and a Golden Globe in the process.

But his work on many Bollywood movies and beyond has also won many plaudits.

Now, Rahman is hoping the popularity of his work will continue with the forthcoming release of his new Tamil film Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya, which recently had its launch at Bafta, London.

On his recent trip to the UK he spoke to the BBC Asian Network.

You're no stranger to London with your film projects - do you like spending time in the UK?

Yes I definitely like to spend time here. This time I'm here to collect a Fellowship Award from the Trinity College of Music. It's very special to me because I studied Trinity College's syllabus when I was 13.

I'm now 43 and it's great to visit the place itself. I never expected it to be such a big college.

Talking of awards, has the success of Slumdog Millionaire sunk in yet?

It's surreal! I think every human being has the time of their life and probably 2009 was it for me.

It's every artist's dream to get an Oscar or a Grammy - I've got two Oscars and am up for two Grammys this year too - that's pretty cool!

I always felt our industry was isolated and needed some kind of recognition. When you look at Hollywood they have every kind of representation - Chinese, Italian and French - but you rarely find an Indian composer so I am very proud to achieve the recognition.

What kind of reaction did you get back home in India after the success of Slumdog Millionaire?

It was very overwhelming and people were full of love for me. The success of Slumdog came just a few months after the disastrous attacks in Mumbai which almost divided the country leaving people confused and very angry.

But the success of the awards brought everyone in the communities together so I felt good winning at the right time.

When you were at the Oscars you met Michael Jackson. What was he like?

I went to Michael Jackson's house to meet him. He was such a nice guy. He even opened the door for me. We talked about life, social issues and global warming.

We met for a second time a month later and I wished him luck with his shows. I wanted to go to his rehearsals but then I heard the bad news. Such a tragedy.

Your father was a celebrated composer who died when you were still young - did he still have an influence on what you do today?

Musically he probably just taught me the basics but what he left behind was a lot of good will from musicians. Every time I went to the studios I heard good things about him which encouraged me to do well too.

Throughout my career I've always had pressure but most of it comes from within - so I can make myself work harder. I give everything 100%. It would be worrying if I didn't. At the end of the day I am a perfectionist.

Tell us about your genre of music, bringing together both Indian and Western influences.

I imagine myself as a listener when I am working. So for example if I work on a multi-cultural film I know the music has to complement it. Sometimes I like producing a new sound which in turn inspires the director to move away from traditional dances and do something completely different. The director and I work together. I wouldn't take all the credit. It's teamwork.

How big a part does spirituality play, especially since you converted to Islam?

I try to make it spiritual. I want to create a very positive energy in the songs because so many people listen to them. Even the core and the nucleus of the song has to be true and honest and the only way to do that is set up a foundation which is spiritual.

Both my parents were Hindu but my father was influenced by Sufism and its positive energies towards leading a peaceful life. It helps us as a family to reflect on positive things in life. Being religious helps me counter greed and materialism and deal with disappointments in life as well as success. Religion is very important to me.

How do you keep the balance between work and home life?

Most of my studios are based inside my various residences especially in Chennai, London and LA so I'm always with my family. I keep checking on the kids while I am working although at certain times I do lock myself into the studio because I want to be alone. The set up works for me.

The only authorised biography of you is due out soon?

Yes it's by Nasreen Muni Kabir and it's called AR Rahman - The Spirit of Music and she's still working on it. Nasreen is good as whatever she has done so far has been respected and read well so I hope her book on me is good too. It'll be out next year.

Will you ever try directing or acting?

I'm a musician and will continue to do music and just music.

US rushes troops to Haiti earthquake zone

2010-01-14T12:12:00.000-08:00

The US is sending up to 3,500 soldiers and 2,200 marines to Haiti to help rescue efforts in the wake of the devastating earthquake.

President Barack Obama pledged one of the biggest relief efforts in recent US history and said Haiti would "not be forgotten" in its hour of need.

The search for survivors continues but rescuers lack heavy lifting equipment and many are using their bare hands.

The Red Cross estimates 45,000-50,000 people are dead and up to 3m affected.

BBC correspondents say the situation is increasingly desperate, with aid only trickling in.

Mr Obama confirmed that some US rescuers were already working on the ground in Haiti.

Speaking in Washington, he promised the country "every element of our national capacity, our diplomacy, and development assistance, the power of our military and most importantly, the compassion of our country" following the disaster.

"To the people of Haiti, we say clearly and with conviction, you will not be forsaken, you will not be forgotten," he said.

However he warned it would take time for much-needed help to reach people.

Mr Obama also promised an immediate $100m for Haiti's relief effort and said that investment would grow over the coming year to aid long-term recovery.

The first 100-strong contingent from the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division is expected to arrive in Haiti by the end of Thursday, with several hundred more due by Friday.

The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier will arrive on Thursday. The USS Bataan, carrying a marine expeditionary unit, is also on its way.

The US forces will join Haitians and international search and rescue teams already on the ground.

Aid groups say it is a race against time to find people trapped under the rubble of the collapsed buildings.

Elisabeth Byrs, of the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said: "The priority is to find survivors. We are working against the clock."

The head of Medecins du Monde, Olivier Bernard, told AFP news agency that aid had to arrive by Thursday evening.

"To save lives, surgery must be available ideally within the first 48 hours," he said.

Doctor's assistant Jimitre Coquillon told Associated Press: "This is much worse than a hurricane. There's no water. There's nothing. Thirsty people are going to die."

The BBC's Matthew Price in Port-au-Prince says Haiti is in massive need of food, water and medicine, as well as bulldozers and heavy lifting equipment.

But perhaps more than anything it needs someone to take charge here, our correspondent says. The government is fragile at the best of times and there is no sense it is able to do anything for now.

Meanwhile, the US Federal Aviation Authority said it had stopped civilian flights to Haiti for the moment at the Haitian government's request because there was not enough space on the ground for more planes and only limited fuel for them to leave.

The director of Port-au-Prince's general hospital said that by 1100 (1600 GMT) at least 1,500 bodies were already stacked inside and outside the morgue, with police continuing to bring more corpses on pick-up trucks, Reuters reports.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it could be days before even an estimate of the death toll from the earthquake could be made, but said he feared it would be "very high".

Up to 150 UN staff remain unaccounted for following the collapse of the UN headquarters building in Port-au-Prince and 36 UN military and police personnel are now confirmed dead.

On a note of hope, he recounted the survival of an Estonian UN official who was detected under 4m (13ft) of rubble after scratching noises were heard. He was dug out and is now in hospital.

A few US aid planes and a 50-strong Chinese rescue team with sniffer dogs have landed at the airport serving the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Cuba already had more than 300 doctors in Haiti before the earthquake and they have been treating the injured in field hospitals.

Other plane-loads of rescuers and relief supplies are on the way from the EU, Canada, Russia and Latin American nations.

A British rescue team with heavy lifting gear and dogs has now arrived in Haiti.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "The last 24 hours have been truly horrific for the people of Haiti. It's a catastrophe that's still unravelling, it's a tragedy beyond imagination."

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton cancelled a trip to Asia to deal with the crisis. She said there were tens of thousands of casualties in Haiti and that tens of thousands of buildings had collapsed.

"This is going to be a long-term effort," she said.

Her husband, Bill Clinton, the UN special envoy for Haiti, told the Washington Post the quake was "one of the great humanitarian emergencies in the history of the Americas".

Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for an international conference on rebuilding Haiti to be held with the help of nations including the US, Brazil and Canada.

"Haiti must not remain a battered country," he said.

The World Bank is funding $100m of emergency aid. The World Food Programme is working on supplying 15,000 tonnes of food and the Red Cross has begun a $10m appeal.

The cassette comes back as art

2010-01-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

Remember the cassette? Mix tapes and mangled favourites in the car stereo? It's back. As an art object.

In 1989 Britain was a nation in love with the pre-recorded cassette. We bought 83 million that year. It was the peak of the little plastic music box's popularity.

Twenty years on, you would be forgiven for imagining the format was all but dead. The British Phonographic Institute says just 8,443 were sold in 2009.

But that number hides a new trend. In a digital age artists are turning to the cassette as an intriguing and challenging format - a ready-made frame for sound art.

In London, a tiny label called The Tapeworm has been quietly producing cassette-only releases since last summer, each one limited to 250 copies. Most have sold out.

"We do not view this as a dead format," says The Tapeworm's Philip Marshall. "We do not view this as something which does not have a place right now.

"We were looking for a way to edition music in small runs that was cost effective and would also make the artists we were commissioning think about the 'a' and the 'b'".

He is referring to the 'a' and 'b' sides of the cassette.

"There's a lost art to the 'a' and the 'b'," he says of downloaded music in particular, "a lost art to a sequence of music, a lost art to the album."

A typically leftfield offering comes sound artist Vicki Bennett, who has recorded two elderly women reading from the work of the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, complete with instructions to turn the tape over at the end of side one.

"I thought it would be amusing to do an audiobook," she says. "But also the context of the cassette has changed and now it's almost an art form. So I thought I would make a piece of high art on cassette."

Other releases include work by the composer Simon Fisher Turner, best known for his soundtracks to the films of Derek Jarman.

'Neat experience'

"You can make funny noises with cassettes," says Mr Turner, a lifelong cassette enthusiast. "You can do all sorts of things. It's just cute. Kids love them. And not just kids. I'm 55 and I love them."

In the US, cassette racks are returning to some alternative music stores. One music blog lists 101 cassette labels.

Tape Fiend is run by Kyle Wright, and each of his releases is individually numbered like a limited edition art print.

"It's definitely a neat experience listening to a cassette," he says.

"In the day of the iPod, when everyone is listening to crystal clear or supposedly crystal clear music on their headphones, just sitting back listening to a cassette Walkman on a bus, everyone stares at you [as if you are] a bit strange."

Berlin record producer and techno DJ Stefan Goldmann calls the new fascination with the cassette "format fetishism".

"We just take the format and think what makes sense in this particular format, rather than creating the music first and then finding the appropriate format," he says.

Mr Goldmann's Haven't I Seen You Before will be The Tapeworm's 12th release, featuring him playing languid electric guitar, sequenced, looped and designed to pick up seamlessly if you press AutoReverse on a cassette deck or simply turn the tape over.

Vicki Bennett, meanwhile, predicts more to come.

"Next up is the MiniDisc. I think the MiniDisc will return because it was a fantastic editing object.

"It's actually the beginning of a resurgence of older technology in the same way they got rid of vinyl records and now they're are selling more again."

Nigel Wrench's report can be heard on BBC Radio 4's PM at 1700 BST on Tuesday and is available on the programme's website.

Would you trust the human eye to spot a bomb?

2010-01-05T10:50:00.001-08:00

Airline passengers will undergo full body scans as security measures are stepped up after the alleged plan to blow up a plane on Christmas Day. But the technology is only ever as good as the people who operate it, says Chris Yates.

Security measures for British air passengers are about to get a lot more stringent.

After the alleged attempt to bomb a transatlantic passenger plane over the US on Christmas Day, full body scanners in major British airports have been given the go-ahead.

In addition to these "naked" imaging scanners, there will be a greater reliance on explosive residue detectors and a full scale review of the security system that exists in this country.

Full body scanners, or whole body imaging (WMI), as the technology is known in the trade, will allow airport security staff to see beneath passenger clothing to ensure travelers are not carrying concealed weapons of most types.

The equipment has been around for some time, with a current trial at Manchester airport, but until now plans to roll it out have been held back by concerns about privacy. The scanners effectively render a naked image of each passenger - highlighting any objects stored close to the body as well as more intimate details.

Yet the fact such concerns have been swiftly swept aside in the immediate aftermath of the Christmas Day scare is evidence of how international air travellers are about to witness another tightening of the security net.

But how effective are these full body scanners and are we relying on them too heavily?

Regardless of whether Whole Body Imaging (WMI) could have identified the explosive device allegedly used in the failed Christmas Day attack, this type of technology in the airport environment is a potential game changer for the safety of air passengers. It also gives security personnel much needed additional capability.

Human error

But it cannot be seen as the panacea to the threats we face today.

Full body scanners are often only as good as the people paid to be behind the screens, analysing the succession of complex images scrolling in front of their eyes.

Staff monitoring screens typically only do so for a two-hour stretch - one of a rotation of duties to stop them from getting bored.

But even then, they are only human and it's a human frailty that when attention is focused on a mundane task, it can easily wander - distracted by the sight of an attractive man or woman or a passing celebrity.

There are moves at the moment to relocate the operatives looking at screens to a remote area - a darkened room where there are no distractions. It's one of the ways that the security industry is looking at improving scanning and minimising human error.

So maybe the alternative is to go for something that minimises, even sidesteps, human error. entirely. With some emerging technologies, such as liquid detectors, the machines themselves make the call.

Given that the alleged Christmas Day plot is said to have relied on liquid for the in-flight bomb, there is clearly a case for liquid detectors at airports sooner rather than later.

The hardware and software is already available.

Green light scanner

A bottle scanner device has undergone pilot trials at Newcastle Airport and is being assessed by Manchester airport.

The scanner is an ingenious piece of kit - a standalone system providing a highly accurate means to positively verify whether the content of a bottle is safe for carriage in the passenger cabin or otherwise. It literally gives a green light for "OK" or a red light.

Or there is a piece of technology which can be used with existing baggage X-ray systems to detect liquid explosives and chemical threats in real time, for a fraction of the cost of deploying new hardware.

Gordon Brown has also signalled that passengers could see greater use of explosive residue detection systems that are already deployed at UK airports for random screening of passenger belongings.

Many of us are familiar with having items of hand luggage swabbed and analysed by these labour intensive devices at airports. However, this method of detection is evolving dramatically.

An explosive residue detection system developed by Loughborough University and presently being commercialised can remotely scan crowded areas, such as airports and train stations, automatically alerting an operator if it detects traces of explosives.

A hand-held variant of the system is also under development and is ideally suited to deployment in the central screening areas within airports.

PR exercise?

Of course, it could be pointed out that for all the money and time spent on elaborate scanning equipment, as far as I know, they have yet to be instrumental in foiling a terrorist plot.

Indeed, many people will say that scanning at airports is nothing but a PR exercise - there to reassure the overwhelming majority of law-abiding passengers while also acting as a deterrent for violent fanatics.

That could perhaps have been said of the old style X-ray scanners. But the level of sophistication we have nowadays gives much greater capability to detect weapons.

Yet security at airports is as much about technique as technology. The technique involves, amongst other things, passenger profiling. Rudimentary forms of profiling have been commonplace at airports for very many years and we're all used to the sort of basic questions asked of us prior to and during the check in process.

Traditionally, the UK has shied away from full on profiling of the kind passengers travelling to Israel might undergo for example. However, there is now a strong case for much greater use of this technique at airports.

Civil liberties groups have long been opposed to passenger profiling, citing issues surrounding whether individuals might be profiled on grounds of ethnic background and so forth. There is though no reason why greater profiling cannot be conducted without recourse to contentious issues such as race and religion.

The aviation industry routinely collects vast amounts of data on our travelling habits that can be used to build up an extremely useful profile. Information regarding the destination, frequency and duration of overseas trips allows those tasked with ensuring the security of flights to positively identify passengers who may travel to regions of the world determined to be high-risk for example. That enables higher levels of security to be applied to that person as he or she passes through the airport.

What is required is a system of systems comprising both technique and technology. The technique must include greater use of passenger profiling whilst the technology must include advanced tools giving greater detection capability.

Such techniques, when combined with greater use of advanced technologies, give us much greater detection capability on the frontline at our airports.

Chris Yates is an aviation security analyst with Jane's Information Group.

Google unveils Nexus One phone

2010-01-05T10:48:00.000-08:00

Google has unveiled an own-brand smartphone called the Nexus One.

The wraps were taken off the handset at an invitation-only event held at Google's Mountain View HQ.

The Nexus One is a slim, touchscreen phone built in partnership with Taiwanese manufacturer HTC and runs Google's Android operating system.

It will be sold through the Google's website and will be available on the Vodafone network in Europe and T-mobile and Verizon in the US.

Mario Queiroz, Google vice president for product management, described the unveiling as "the next stage in the evolution of Android".

Mr Queiroz said there were now more than 20 Android phones available from 59 carriers in 48 countries.

The release of the Nexus One is seen as a move to ensure Google remains relevant as people search the web using mobile phones rather than typing queries into a PC.

Google makes the lion's share of its revenue by selling adverts linked to those queries.

At the briefing, Google said the Nexus was "a point of convergence where the web meets phone and is an example of what is possible on mobile through Android."

"You will see it pushes the limits of what is possible on a mobile phone today," said Peter Chou, HTC chief executive.

It will be sold through Google's website.

A spokesperson for Vodafone told BBC News that it was the first operator to "bring the Google phone to the UK" but stressed that it was a "non-exclusive agreement", meaning other networks could also offer the phone soon.

India's Bharti targets Bangladesh

2010-01-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

Regulators in Bangladesh have approved Indian phone company Bharti Airtel's proposed $300m investment in the country's fourth largest mobile firm.

If the plan is finalised, Bharti will be the first Indian telecom operator to enter Bangladesh's highly competitive mobile market.

Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing mobile markets in the world.

It already has more than 50 million subscribers and the number is expected to double by 2015.

Price war

Bharti Airtel is India's leading mobile phone service provider and is now planning to buy a nearly 70% stake in Abu Dhabi-owned Warid Telecom, which has nearly three million customers in Bangladesh.

Bharti Airtel, which has twice failed to seal a merger with South Africa's MTN Group, wants to diversify because of intensifying competition and a price war in India.

Bangladeshi officials hope that the Indian company will invest more than $1bn in the next few years.

But Bharti Airtel will face stiff competition from market leaders such as the Bangladesh-Norway joint venture Grameenphone, which has more than 40% of the market share.

Mobile phones have become popular in Bangladesh mainly because the networks cover virtually the entire country and call rates are among the cheapest in the world.

Mobile phone companies like Bharti Airtel hope that the introduction of additional services like banking and money transfers will attract new customers and boost revenue.

US pilot admits being over alcohol limit

2010-01-05T10:42:00.000-08:00

A US pilot has pleaded guilty to being over the alcohol limit as he prepared to take off from Heathrow Airport.

Erwin Washington, 51, from Lakewood, Colorado, was arrested in November last year on a flight that was due to leave Heathrow Airport.

A breath test showed Washington was more than three times the permitted limit to fly a plane.

The United Airlines pilot will be sentenced on 5 February, Uxbridge Magistrates' Court ruled.

Flight cancelled

Washington was due to captain a Boeing 767 bound for Chicago with 124 passengers and 11 crew members on board on 9 November last year.

The plane's departure was imminent when a colleague smelled alcohol on his breath. Police arrived and arrested him.

The flight was subsequently cancelled and passengers were put on other planes.

Kevin Christie, prosecuting, said: "Mr Washington was arrested as it was believed he had reported for work and had intended to fly the aircraft in the role of captain."

The court heard that on his arrest Washington, who has a military record, replied: "Okay, fine."

A breath test recorded a reading of 31 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath, with the legal limit being nine micrograms.

A blood test revealed 50 milligrams of alcohol in 100ml of blood. The limit for pilots is 20 milligrams of alcohol, compared to the legal limit of 80 milligrams for motorists.

Defending, Chris Humphreys said Washington was "remorseful".

Legislation regarding aviation staff over the legal limit for flying has only been used seven times since it was introduced in 2003, Mr Humphreys said.

He added: "There are, thankfully, very few cases of this sort."

Magistrates' chairman Geoff Edwards said their powers were insufficient to sentence Washington, who will instead be sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court in February.

Magistrates could have imposed a maximum £5,000 fine, a Crown Prosecution spokesman said.

But at crown court, Washington could be jailed for a maximum of two years and given a fine, or solely face a fine.

The pilot was released on unconditional bail.

Obama set to tighten air security

2010-01-05T10:37:00.001-08:00

US President Barack Obama is set to announce tightened airline security, after his officials update him on reviews prompted by a plane bomb plot.

Reviews of airport screening and of the US watch-list system were ordered after a Nigerian man known to US officials allegedly got on a plane with a device.

He tried to blow up the plane on 25 December as it prepared to land in the US city of Detroit, investigators say.

It has prompted changes to airport screening around the world.

Fourteen countries, including Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, have been singled out by Washington for enhanced security measures for travellers.

On Tuesday at the White House, President Obama is expected to outline steps to improve watch-lists and deter future attacks, after his meeting with about 20 security and intelligence officials.

Prosecution investigation

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, CIA Director Leon Panetta and FBI Director Robert Mueller are among those expected at the meeting, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Mr Obama will be updated on the investigation focusing on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who remains in custody, charged with attempting to destroy a plane.

Mr Abdulmutallab began his journey in Lagos, Nigeria, and changed planes at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

His name was in a US database of about 550,000 suspected terrorists, but was not on a list that would have subjected him to additional security screening or kept him from boarding the flight.

Since the incident, officials have moved dozens of names on to "watch-" and "no-fly" lists, as they seek to overhaul security, White House spokesman Bill Burton said earlier.

Watch-list update

Those on the watch-list are subject to extra security checks, while those on the no-fly list are not allowed to board flights to the US.

Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula said last week it had trained and equipped Mr Abdulmutallab for the plane plot.

The US re-opened its embassy in Yemen on Tuesday, following what it called successful counter-terrorism operations by government security forces on Monday north of the capital.

A BBC correspondent in the Yemeni capital Sanaa says the embassy was referring to a strike that reportedly killed two al-Qaeda operatives.

The embassy had closed on Sunday in response to what it said were al-Qaeda threats. The British and French embassies have resumed operations, but remain closed to the public.

Yemeni authorities have tightened security measures at Sanaa's airport, as well as around several other embassies.

Unmarried couples caught in Malaysia hotel raids

2010-01-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

Fifty-two unmarried couples could face charges of sexual misconduct and jail terms after being caught in hotel rooms by Malaysia's Islamic morality police.

Scores of officers conducted raids on budget hotels on New Year's Day in the western state of Selangor.

Those detained in the early hours of New Year's Day were mainly students and young factory workers.

The Muslim couples are expected to be charged with the offence of close proximity, or Khalwat.

Under Malaysia's Islamic Sharia Law, couples who are not married to each other should not be in a secluded area or confined space, which could give rise to suspicion that they were engaged in immoral acts.

A spokesman for the Selangor State Islamic Department says they chose New Year's Day because many people are known to commit this offence when celebrating a major holiday.

If convicted, the couples could get a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a fine.

Sharia laws in Malaysia apply only to Malay Muslims, who make up over half the population.

Iraq drama honoured by US film critics

2010-01-04T12:01:00.000-08:00

Iraq drama The Hurt Locker has been named the best picture of 2009 by the National Society of Film Critics.

The film, about US bomb disposal experts stationed in Baghdad, also won honours for director Kathryn Bigelow and actor Jeremy Renner.

Yolande Moreau was named best actress for her performance in French film Seraphine, about the painter Seraphine de Senlis.

Joel and Ethan Coen won best screenplay for A Serious Man.

The National Society of Film Critics includes 64 critics from leading US publications and websites.

The society often picks foreign films or films popular with critics, and rarely do the winners mirror those at the Oscars, which are set for 7 March this year.

Abusive mother

Other winners included The Beaches of Agnes 40, an autobiographical documentary about the life of director Agnes Varda, which was chosen as the best non-fiction film.

Summer Hours, a story of three siblings by French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, won best foreign language film.

US comedian Mo'Nique, best known for her TV work, was named best supporting actress for her portrayal of an abusive mother in Precious.

Austrian Christoph Waltz won for best supporting actor for his work as a charismatic Gestapo officer in Quentin Tarentino's Inglourious Basterds.

Last month, The Hurt Locker was named the best picture of 2009 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

It also featured in the American Film Institute's annual rundown of the year's 10 best movies.

BeautifulPeople.com axes holiday weight gain members

2010-01-04T11:58:00.000-08:00

Dating and social network site BeautifulPeople.com has axed some 5,000 members following complaints that they had gained weight.

The members were singled out after posting pictures of themselves that reportedly showed they had put on pounds over the holiday period.

The site allows entry to new members only if existing members vote them as sufficiently attractive to warrant it.

The US, the UK, and Canada topped the list of excluded members.

The site has always been unrepentant about its selection process, calling itself "the largest network of attractive people in the world".

The move was reportedly prompted by members themselves, who police the membership of the site to maintain a high - if highly subjective - standard of attractiveness.

"As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld," said site founder Robert Hintze.

"Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded."

Avatar smashes $1bn box office speed record

2010-01-04T11:47:00.001-08:00

Avatar has become the fastest movie ever to achieve $1bn (£625.6m) in ticket sales around the world.

Distributors 20th Century Fox say it has earned more than $350m (£217m) in the US and more than $670m (£415m) in the rest of the world in only 17 days.

The 3D science fiction blockbuster was directed by James Cameron, who also made Titanic, the best selling movie of all time.

The latest figures make Avatar already the fourth-biggest film ever made.

Ahead of it are Titanic ($1.8bn; £1.1bn), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1.12bn; £695m) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($1.07bn; £664m).

Avatar - about a disabled marine who infiltrates a race of giant blue aliens - combines live action with digitally-enhanced performances.

It was reportedly the most expensive film ever made, with a budget of at least $300m (£186m).

Expensive tickets

"This is like a freight train out of control," said 20th Century Fox distribution executive Bert Livingston. "It just keeps on going.

"I think everybody has to see Avatar once, even people who don't normally go to the movies, they've heard about it and are saying, 'I have to see it'," he said.

"Then there are those people seeing it multiple times."

Avatar has now reached most parts of the globe. It opened in China on Saturday and is due to reach Italy - its final market - on 15 January.

The huge box office takings are partly down to the higher cost of tickets for 3D performances, says the BBC's Peter Bowes in Los Angeles.

But as Hollywood enters its traditional slow season, with few big films due for release, Avatar is likely to dominate the box office for several more weeks, he adds.

US lifts HIV/Aids immigration ban

2010-01-04T11:44:00.000-08:00

he US has lifted a 22-year immigration ban which has stopped anyone with HIV/Aids from entering the country.

President Obama said the ban was not compatible with US plans to be a leader in the fight against the disease.

The new rules come into force on Monday and the US plans to host a bi-annual global HIV/Aids summit for the first time in 2012.

The ban was imposed at the height of a global panic about the disease at the end of the 1980s.

It put the US in a group of just 12 countries, also including Libya and Saudi Arabia, that excluded anyone suffering from HIV/Aids.

The BBC's Charles Scanlon, in Miami, says that improving treatments and evolving public perceptions have helped to bring about the change.

Rachel Tiven, head of the campaign group Immigration Equality, told the BBC that the step was long overdue.

"The 2012 World Aids Conference, due to be held in the United States, was in jeopardy as a result of the restrictions. It's now likely to go ahead as planned," she said.

In October, President Obama said the entry ban had been "rooted in fear rather than fact".

He said: "We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the Aids pandemic - yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people with HIV from entering our own country."

France follows Britain and US in shutting Yemen embassy

2010-01-04T11:36:00.000-08:00

France has become the third Western nation to shut its Yemen embassy, after threats from an al-Qaeda offshoot, the foreign ministry in Paris announced.

The US and UK missions, which closed on Sunday, remain shut.

Reports that the closures were prompted by Yemeni security forces losing track of six trucks full of arms were denied by British officials.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula last week said it was behind an alleged plot to bomb a US airliner.

It urged attacks on "crusaders" in embassies.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Yemen was a threat both regionally and globally.

Threats to US interests in Yemen pre-dated the Christmas holiday period, and the embassy would be re-opened only when circumstances permitted, she said in Washington.

From Monday all travellers flying to America are being subjected to new security measures, introduced by the US government.

Airport staff will now carry out extra screening of people from 14 countries, including those the US considers to be state-sponsors of terrorism - Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

Yemen and Nigeria - through which the alleged bomber travelled - also face the new restrictions.

Passengers flying from other countries will be checked at random.

On Monday in Paris, French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero told reporters their Yemen ambassador had decided the previous day to suspend public access to the embassy.

French citizens in the country had been warned to be vigilant and limit their movements, he added.

The US was the first to announce the closure of its embassy on Sunday, citing "ongoing threats" by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and the UK followed suit.

A US diplomat told the Reuters news agency on Monday: "The embassy is still closed again today... We are continuing to make the security review."

The Japanese foreign ministry said consular services had been suspended at its embassy in Yemen but other business was continuing, AFP news agency reported.

The German foreign ministry confirmed security had been tightened at its mission but that the embassy remained open

Spain restricted public access to its embassy.

The Yemeni authorities have tightened security measures at Sanaa's airport, as well as around several other embassies.

Yemeni security forces, meanwhile, shot dead two militants north of the capital, Sanaa, said officials.

The US embassy was the target of an attack in September 2008 in which 19 people died, including a young American woman. The attack was blamed on AQAP.

On Sunday, the US deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counter-terrorism said there were "indications that al-Qaeda is planning to carry out an attack against a target inside of Sanaa, possibly our embassy".

John Brennan told ABC the group had "several hundred members" in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and was posing an increasing threat.

Last week, AQAP urged Muslims to help in "killing every crusader who works at their embassies or other places".

The group also said it was behind an alleged failed attempt to destroy an Amsterdam-Detroit flight with nearly 300 people aboard on Christmas Day.

Mr Brennan told CNN there were "indications" a radical US cleric of Yemeni origin had links both to the Nigerian charged with the bomb plot, and the man accused of November's shootings at a Texas military base.

He said the preacher, Anwar al-Awlaki, had had contact with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, while he was allegedly being trained by AQAP operatives last year.

It was clear, he said, that Mr Awlaki had also been in touch with Nidal Malik Hasan, the US Army major charged with shooting dead 13 people at Fort Hood.

On Saturday, the head of US Central Command, Gen David Petraeus, visited Yemen's President Ali Abdallah Saleh to pledge support for its fight with al-Qaeda, after Washington doubled its counter-terrorism aid.

Yemeni officials last week said they had sent more troops to hunt down al-Qaeda militants in the provinces of Abyan, Baida and Shabwa.

Correspondents say the security situation in Yemen is complicated by an abundance of firearms, an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south.

But the prospects of re-asserting central government authority over the lawless areas where al-Qaeda is based look, in the opinion of some analysts, remote - even with beefed-up American support.

World's tallest building opens in Dubai

2010-01-04T11:31:00.000-08:00

The world's tallest building has been opened with a dramatic fireworks ceremony in the Gulf emirate of Dubai.

The Burj Khalifa was revealed to be 828m (2,716ft) high, far taller than the previous record holder, Taipei 101.

Known as the Burj Dubai during construction, the tower has been renamed after the leader of Dubai's oil-rich neighbour, Abu Dhabi.

Last month, Abu Dhabi gave Dubai a handout of $10bn (£6.13bn) to help it pay off its debts.

Construction of the Burj Dubai began in 2004, at the height of an economic boom.

Clad in 28,000 glass panels, the tower has 160 floors and more than 500,000 sq m of space for offices and flats.

The tower also lays claim to the highest occupied floor, the tallest service lift, and the world's highest observation deck - on the 124th floor.

The world's highest mosque and swimming pool will meanwhile be located on the 158th and 76th floors.

Technical challenges

The opening ceremony, held 1,325 days after excavation work started, was attended by some 6,000 guests.

Though not complete on the inside, it was officially opened by Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum

In a surprise move he renamed it Burj Khalifa - after the president of the United Arab Emirates and emir of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan.

Sheikh Mohammed described the tower as "the tallest building ever created by the hand of man".

"This great project deserves to carry the name of a great man. Today I inaugurate Burj Khalifa," he said.

Sheikh Mohammed also unveiled a plaque inside the tower bearing the new name.

A dramatic fireworks and lights show took place around the tower while a screen displayed its exact height, which had previously been kept secret.

At 828m, Burj Khalifa dwarfs the 508m Taipei 101 and the 629m KVLY-TV mast in the US, the tallest man-made structure. Its spire can been seen 95km (60 miles) away.

"We weren't sure how high we could go," said Bill Baker of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the building's structural engineer. "It was kind of an exploration... a learning experience."

Man arrested over missing Degas

2010-01-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

Police have arrested a man over the theft of an artwork by the Impressionist artist Edgar Degas from a museum in Marseilles.

A judicial official said "an employee of the museum, a night watchman" had been arrested on Thursday.

A security guard noticed Les Choristes (The Chorus) - on loan from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris - was missing from the city's Cantini Museum on 31 December.

Public prosecutor Jacques Dallest said there were no signs of a break-in.

A colourful depiction of a group of male singers performing on stage, France's national museum service valued the pastel artwork at £710,000.

The diminutive work - measuring just 32 by 27 centimetres (13 by 10 inches) - formed part of an exhibition featuring some 20 works by the 19th century artist.

The exhibition was due to come an end on 3 January before touring Italy and Canada.

Earlier this year, Degas' bronze sculpture of a young female dancer sold at auction in London for £13.3m.

New visa proposal to help create the next big thing

2010-01-02T11:23:00.000-08:00

A proposal that will make it easier for foreign entrepreneurs in the US to start the next Google or Yahoo will be debated in the new year.

Congressman Jared Polis has proposed a start-up visa to entice "foreigners with good ideas" to stay in the US.

The issue has been gathering steam in Silicon Valley where half of all tech company founders are immigrants, according to Duke University research.

The idea is part of a proposed overhaul of the US immigration system.

"Every day the American economy is losing ground - not to mention high-tech jobs and technologies - to India and China because foreign-born entrepreneurs cannot secure a visa to stay in the US," he said.

Lost opportunity

Eric Diep, who has just turned 22, could be regarded as one entrepreneur who got away.

He came to Silicon Valley as a student like many immigrant founders who have helped start companies such as Google and PayPal.

Mr Diep was one of the first developers to get into social games with his application called Quizzes, initially launched on the social networking site Facebook.

Over a year ago he started to apply for a visa to allow him to carry on working in the Valley, but he soon encountered problems.

"The reason it was so difficult for me was because I dropped out of university and the stipulation for a lot of visas is undergraduate experience. My age also seemed to be an issue for the attorneys

"At the beginning it wasn't the expense in terms of legal fees but the big problem soon became one of distraction. I was trying to spend as much time working on perfecting my product but then I would have to go away and figure out the legalities of applying for the visa," Mr Diep told BBC News.

In the end, Mr Diep decided to base himself in his native Canada and travel back and forth to Silicon Valley.

"The flying is so tiring between the two places and it's expensive. At one point, I had no money left in my bank account but at the last minute money came in and now I feel pretty fortunate that I can still do this.

"It was a pretty close call," he added.

He backs a start-up visa because, for him, being in Silicon Valley is where he needs to be.

"Being there at the time really launched me. I would never have spotted the social gaming opportunity had I not been there."

Visa details

The start-up visa is aimed at streamlining the country's EB-5 visa system which was initially introduced in 1990 to attract foreign capital to the US.

Each year 10,000 EB-5 visas are available but to get one, applicants need to invest $1m and create 10 full-time jobs.

Mr Polis said he wants "a new class of eligibility" with the start-up visa.

It would be granted to foreign entrepreneurs if their business plan attracts either $250,000 from a venture capital operating company that is primarily US based or $100,000 from an angel investor.

They must also show that the business will create five to ten jobs or generate a profit and at least $1m in revenue.

Some of these requirements may well be changed when the bill goes to committee in the new year.

"Immigration reform is a big discussion in Washington," said supporter Brad Feld, who is also a managing director with venture company the Foundry Group.

"We think the start-up visa is an easy thing to talk about and get consensus around in terms of having a positive spin on entrepreneurship and creating jobs."

Job creation

Some critics fear that making it easier for entrepreneurs to set up shop will hurt Americans by taking jobs away from them.

"I feel incredibly strongly that that is a misinterpretation of the proposal," said Eric Ries a venture advisor and author.

"Some people have called those opposed to new immigration reform xenophobes and that is why I think it is important we craft this proposal so it addresses those concerns. This is not a new visa category but reform of an existing but flawed category," he told BBC News.

The proposal's backers say that far from taking away jobs, new jobs will emerge that were never there in the first place.

"If the capital is available for the market, we should jump to bring those people here. Those jobs only get created once the founders get funded. This is a market driven decision," said Dave McClure, an internet entrepreneur, investor and start-up advisor.

YouNoodle is a start-up company founded by two British entrepreneurs. It tracks the start-up sector and said the figures speak for themselves.

"If just ten thousand start-up visas were made available this would mean over 3000 additional new innovative and funded companies would be based in the US every year," said Kirill Makharinsky, YouNoodle co-founder.

"They would generate more than 10,000 jobs on average every year. In the first 10 years that would add up to over 500,000 highly-skilled new jobs

"So the upside is huge and the downside is negligible because no jobs are being taken away from US citizens," Mr Makharinsky told BBC News.

And for Mr McClure, the consequences of not establishing a start-up visa class are obvious.

"We will lose out because we are not being competitive with the rest of the world," he said.

"There are similar programmes in Canada, the UK and Australia. They are all vying for the top entrepreneurs and if we only look at our own citizens, we are only taking 10-20% of the world's talent into consideration here. That would be short-sighted in the extreme."

US radio star Rush Limbaugh's health scare over

2010-01-02T11:20:00.000-08:00

Right-wing US talk show host Rush Limbaugh says tests taken after he was admitted to hospital with chest pains showed nothing wrong with his heart.

Mr Limbaugh said he was being released from the Queen's Medical Center, in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he had been since Wednesday.

He said he did not know what had caused the chest pains.

Mr Limbaugh, 58, is highly influential in the US and his radio show is one of the most popular in the country.

It is broadcast on some 600 stations across the country and heard by more than 14 million people every week.

Earlier, standing in on Mr Limbaugh's radio show, guest host Walter E Williams had described the radio star's pains as similar to the feeling of a "heart attack coming on".

But doctors said Mr Limbaugh had not had a heart attack and did not suffer from heart disease, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Mr Limbaugh is in Hawaii on holiday.

'Lifeless' prion proteins are 'capable of evolution'

2010-01-02T11:17:00.000-08:00

Scientists have shown for the first time that "lifeless" prion proteins, devoid of all genetic material, can evolve just like higher forms of life.

The Scripps Research Institute in the US says the prions can change to suit their environment and go on to develop drug resistance.

Prions are associated with 20 different brain diseases in humans and animals.

The scientists say their work suggests new approaches might be necessary to develop therapies for these diseases.

In the study, published in the journal Science, the scientists transferred prion populations from brain cells to other cells in culture and observed the prions that adapted to the new cellular environment out-competed their brain-adapted counterparts.

When returned to the brain cells, the brain-adapted prions again took over the population.

Charles Weissmann, head of Scripps Florida's department of infectology who led the study, said: "On the face of it, you have exactly the same process of mutation and adaptive change in prions as you see in viruses.

"This means that this pattern of Darwinian evolution appears to be universally active.

"In viruses, mutation is linked to changes in nucleic acid sequence that leads to resistance.

"Now, this adaptability has moved one level down- to prions and protein folding - and it's clear that you do not need nucleic acid (DNA or RNA) for the process of evolution."

Mammalian cells normally produce cellular prion protein or PrPC.

During infections, such as the human form of mad cow disease known as vCJD, abnormal or misfolded proteins convert the normal host prion protein into its toxic form by changing its conformation or shape.

"It was generally thought that once cellular prion protein was converted into the abnormal form, there was no further change", Mr Weissmann said.

"But there have been hints that something was happening.

"When you transmit prions from sheep to mice, they become more virulent over time.

"Now we know that the abnormal prions replicate, and create variants, perhaps at a low level initially.

"But once they are transferred to a new host, natural selection will eventually choose the more virulent and aggressive variants."

Professor John Collinge, of the Medical Research Council's (MRC) Prion Unit, described the research as exciting confirmation of a hypothesis that he had proposed two years ago, that there could be a "cloud" or whole array of prion proteins in the body.

He called it the cloud hypothesis.

He said: "The prion protein is not a clone, it is a quasi-species that can create different protein strains even in the same animal.

"The abnormal prion proteins multiply by converting normal prion proteins.

"The implication of Charles Weissmann's work is that it would be better to cut off that supply of normal prion proteins rather than risk the abnormal prion adapting to a drug and evolving into a new more virulent form.

"You would do this by trying to block the sites on the normal prion protein that the abnormal form locks on to to do its conversion.

"We know there is an antibody that can do this in mice and the Medical Research Council's Prion Unit have managed to engineer a human antibody to do this.

Chemical libraries

"It is currently undergoing safety tests and we hope to move to clinical trials by the end of 2011"

Professor Collinge said the MRC was also trying to find more conventional chemical compounds to do this and has been collaborating with the chemical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

He said: "They have given us access to their chemical libraries, which contain millions of compounds, and we have already identified some that may work well.

"This is a timely reminder that prion concerns are not going away and that controls to stop abnormal prions being transmitted to humans through the food system or through blood transfusions must be vigorously maintained."

DNA analysed from early European

2010-01-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

Scientists have analysed DNA extracted from the remains of a 30,000-year-old European hunter-gatherer.

Studying the DNA of long-dead humans can open up a window into the evolution of our species (Homo sapiens).

But previous studies of this kind have been hampered by scientists' inability to distinguish between the ancient human DNA and modern contamination.

In Current Biology journal, a German-Russian team details how it was possible to overcome this hurdle.

Svante Paabo, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and colleagues used the latest DNA sequencing techniques to study genetic information from human remains unearthed in 1954 at Kostenki, Russia.

Excavations at Kostenki, on the banks of the river Don in southern Russia, have yielded large concentrations of archaeological finds from the Palaeolithic (roughly 40,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago). Some of the finds date back as far as 45,000 years.

The DNA analysed in this study comes from a male aged 20-25 who was deliberately buried in an oval pit some 30,000 years ago.

Known as the Markina Gora skeleton, it was found lying in a crouched position with fists reaching upwards and a face orientated down towards the dirt. The bones were covered in a pigment called red ochre, thought to have been used in prehistoric funeral rites.

The type of DNA extracted and analysed is that stored in mitochondria - the "powerhouses" of cells. This mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed down from a mother to her offspring, providing a unique record of maternal inheritance.

Using technology pioneered in the study of DNA from Neanderthal bones, they were able to distinguish between ancient genetic material from the Kostenki male and contamination from modern people who handled the bones, or whose DNA reached the remains by some other means.

The new approach, developed by Professor Paabo and his colleagues, exploits three features which tend to distinguish ancient DNA from modern contamination. One of these is size; fragments of ancient DNA are often shorter than those from modern sources.

Previous ancient DNA studies used the widespread polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology. PCR amplifies a few pieces of genetic material, generating thousands to millions of copies of a sequence. But the researchers found many fragments of ancient DNA were too small to be amplified by PCR.

A second characteristic of ancient DNA was its tendency to show particular changes, or mutations, in the genetic sequence at the ends of DNA molecules.

A third feature was a characteristic breakage of molecules at particular positions in the DNA strand.

Trust issues

The apparent ease with which modern DNA can infiltrate ancient remains has led many researchers to doubt even those studies employing the most rigorous methods to weed out contamination by modern genetic material.

"The ironic thing is that our group has been one of those that raised this issue," Professor Paabo told BBC News.

"To take animal studies on cave bears, for example, if we use PCR primers specific for human DNA on cave bear bones, we can retrieve modern human DNA on almost every one. That has made me think: 'how can I trust anything on this'."

Using the new techniques, the researchers were able to sequence the entire mitochondrial genome of the Markina Gora individual.

Future studies like the one in Current Biology could help shed light on whether the humans living in Europe 30,000 years ago are the direct ancestors of modern populations or whether they were replaced by immigrants who introduced farming to the continent several thousand years ago.

The modern gene pool contains a wide variety of mtDNA lineages. Studying these maternal lineages provides scientists with clues to the origins and histories of human populations.

Scientists look for known genetic signatures in order to classify an individual's mtDNA into different types, or "haplogroups". These haplogroups represent major branches on the family tree of Homo sapiens.

Early arrival

The researchers were able to assign the Kostenki individual to haplogroup "U2", which is relatively uncommon among modern populations.

U2 appears to be scattered at low frequencies in populations from South and Western Asia, Europe and North Africa.

Despite its rarity, the very presence of this haplogroup in today's Europeans suggests some continuity between Palaeolithic hunters and the continent's present-day inhabitants, argue the authors of the latest study.

U2, along with closely related haplogroups such as U5, are among those which could plausibly have arrived in Europe during the Palaeolithic.

Geneticists use well-established techniques to "date" particular genetic events, such as when a haplogroup first diversified. The "U" branch (comprising haplogroups U1, U2, U3 and so on) appears to be more ancient than many other genetic lineages found in Europe.

A recent study found a very high percentage of U types in the skeletal remains of ancient hunter-gatherers from Central Europe compared with later farming immigrants and modern people from the region.

Meanwhile, an analysis last year of mtDNA from 28,000-year-old remains unearthed at Paglicci Cave in Italy showed this individual belonged to haplogroup "H" - the most common type found in modern Europeans.

Doctor Who finale watched by 10.4m as Tennant bows out

2010-01-02T11:10:00.000-08:00

David Tennant's final outing as Doctor Who was watched by 10.4m viewers on New Year's Day, according to early overnight figures.

At the climax of the episode, a total of 10.8m tuned in to see the Time Lord regenerate into his 11th incarnation, 27-year-old actor Matt Smith.

Tennant's final words on the show were, "I don't want to go".

Smith, meanwhile, uttered the immortal line, "legs! I've got legs!" as he made his screen debut as The Doctor.

The 75-minute episode ended with the Tardis in flames, plummeting towards Earth - setting up Smith's first full episode, due later this year.

It was the highest-rated programme in its time-slot. ITV1's Coronation Street took second place, with 8.6m viewers.

However, both had lower ratings than the day's second episode of EastEnders, which attracted an audience of 11.6m at 1945GMT.

Emotions

Critics were generally appreciative of Tennant's final episode, which also marked the end of head writer Russell T Davies' tenure on the show.

The story saw The Doctor battle against his nemesis, The Master (John Simm), who took possession of the body of every human on the planet, paving the way for the return of the Time Lords - who planned to end time itself.

In The Guardian, television critic Mark Lawson likened the episode to Hamlet - a role which Tennant played with the Royal Shakespeare Company last year.

"In common with the prince of Denmark, the Time Lord from Gallifrey agonised aloud over whether it would be right to kill a man (the Master) after a painful encounter with his mother, played by Claire Bloom, whose Shakespearean roles include Hamlet's mother, Gertrude," he wrote.

Writing on Cult TV website Den Of Geek , Simon Brew felt that, by allowing Tenant to revisit the characters he met during his four-year tenure as the Doctor, Davies had given new emotional depth to the process of regeneration.

"We've never had this: 20 minutes or so for a Doctor to deal with his impending demise, with no threat to see off to get in the way.

"Usually, the emotions are dealt with afterwards, as the new Doctor gets used to his new body. Here, an outgoing Doctor got to face the ramifications of what was about to happen, and it was explored exceptionally well."

Meanwhile, in The Times, Caitlin Moran dissected Smith's debut .

"As if to remind us of how huge the Doctor Who Universe is, and how fast it gallops on, Smith wasted no time mourning his previous, dead self. Instead, feeling his delicately featured face, he started in alarm, and shouted: 'Argh! I'm a girl!'"

A preview for the new series has been made available on the official Doctor Who website.

It shows Smith facing vampire-like creatures, hitting a Dalek with a mallet, and shouting what seems set to become his catchphrase: "Geronimo!"

The trailer also hints at the return of Alex Kingston as River Song - an archaeologist who had appeared to have had an intimate relationship with The Doctor.

Her character was created by Steven Moffat, who has taken over from Davies as the head writer of the sci-fi franchise.

The new series is due on BBC One in the spring.

Late-night teens 'face greater depression risk'

2010-01-02T11:06:00.000-08:00

Going to bed earlier protects teenagers against depression and suicidal thoughts, New York research suggests.

Of 15,500 12 to 18-year-olds studied, those who went to bed after midnight were 24% more likely to have depression than those who went before 2200.

And those who slept fewer than five hours a night had a 71% higher risk of depression than those who slept eight hours, the journal Sleep reports.

It is estimated 80,000 UK children and young people have depression.

The researchers from Columbia University Medical Center in New York looked at data from 15,500 teenagers collected in the 1990s.

One in 15 of those studied were found to have depression.

As well as the higher risk of depression, those who were set a bedtime by their parents of after midnight were 20% more likely to think about suicide than those whose bedtime was 2200 or earlier.

Those who had less than five hours sleep a night were thought to have a 48% higher risk of suicidal thoughts compared with those who had eight hours of sleep.

Teenagers who reported they "usually get enough sleep" were 65% less likely to be depressed.

Depression and suicidal thoughts were also more likely in girls, older teenagers and in those who had a lower self-perception of how much parents care about them.

Most of the parents of the adolescents in the study set a bedtime of 2200 or earlier.

A quarter set a bedtime of 2400 or later.

On average the teenagers were having seven hours and 53 minutes sleep a night - less than the nine hours recommended at that age.

Study leader Dr James Gangwisch said although it it was possible that youngsters with depression struggle to sleep, the fact that parental set bedtimes were linked with depression suggests that a lack of sleep is somehow underpinning the development of the condition.

He said a lack of sleep could affect emotional brain responses and lead to moodiness that hindered the ability to cope with daily stresses.

This moodiness could affect judgment, concentration and impulse control.

Regular exercise

"Adequate quality sleep could therefore be a preventative measure against depression and a treatment for depression," he added.

Sarah Brennan, chief executive at the mental health charity YoungMinds, said: "Enough sleep, good food and regular exercise are all essential to stay emotionally healthy.

"Nearly 80,000 children and young people suffer with depression, yet we are still failing to provide our young people with the help and support to cope with it and prevent it.

"Providing parents with information about how to look after your body, for example by getting enough sleep, and how to get help if they are worried about their teenager, will ensure problems are tackled early and prevent serious mental health conditions such as depression."

Singer Van Morrison denies 'unfounded' baby story

2010-01-01T11:43:00.000-08:00

Veteran singer Van Morrison has denied reports that he had become a father again, adding they were "completely and utterly without foundation".

The Belfast-born 64-year-old said he had been the victim of an internet hacking attack that had placed "falsehoods" on his official website.

BBC News was one of several outlets to report the hoax as fact.

"The comments which appeared on my website did not come from me," he said, in a statement issued to the media.

The singer said he had asked his management team to carry out an immediate investigation, adding it was the second time his website had been hacked in the last three months.

He went on to say, "for the avoidance of all doubt and in the interests of clarity", that he was "very happily married to Michelle Morrison, with whom I have two wonderful children".

'Alarm bells'

A statement posted on the singer's website on Tuesday said he had had a son named George Ivan Morrison III with a woman named Gigi Lee.

A friend of Morrison's has since told the BBC News website that the singer had never heard of Ms Lee.

"One of the things that triggered alarm bells was the language used in the 'statement'," said John Saunders.

"It was so unlike him to make an announcement like this."

Mr Saunders, founder of Dublin-based public relations company Fleishman-Hillard, said it was he who informed Morrison of the original reports.

"I hesitated before making contact, but my wife said you had better do something," he said.

Morrison, whose hits include Brown Eyed Girl and Moondance, celebrated his 40th year in the music industry in 2008.

He first found fame in the 1960s as a member of the band Them, before embarking on a solo career.

'Sexercise' yourself into shape

2010-01-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

The NHS has some new advice for people struggling to schedule a fitness routine into their daily lives - a workout between the sheets.

According to the NHS Direct website, "sexercise" can lower the risk of heart attacks and helps people live longer.

Endorphins released during orgasm stimulate immune system cells, which also helps target illnesses like cancer, as well as wrinkles, it states.

Sexual health experts said such claims could not be scientifically proven.

"It's good to see the NHS are promoting sexual wellbeing," Dr Melissa Sayer told the Guardian newspaper.

"Yes, there is evidence that sex has benefits for mental wellbeing, but to say there is a link with reduced risk of heart disease and cancer is taking the argument too far."

NHS Direct, however, told the paper the content was "backed by science and clinical evidence" and "isn't just a bit of fun".

'Regular romps'

The advice, published under the headline "Get more than zeds in bed", is one of several sexual health-related articles to be found on the NHS Direct website.

Sex with a little energy and imagination provides a workout worthy of an athlete, the article says.

"Forget about jogging round the block or struggling with sit-ups.

"Sex uses every muscle group, gets the heart and lungs working hard, and burns about 300 calories an hour."

The advice suggests "regular romps this winter" could lead to a better body and a younger look.

Increased production of endorphins "will make your hair shine and your skin smooth," it adds.

"If you're worried about wrinkles - orgasms even help prevent frown lines from deepening."

The article goes on to say that orgasms release "painkillers" into the bloodstream, which helping keep mild illnesses like colds and aches and pains at bay.

The production of extra oestrogen and testosterone hormones "will keep your bones and muscles healthy, leaving you feeling fabulous inside and out".

Jet bomb suspect's journey 'began in Ghana'

2010-01-01T11:27:00.001-08:00

The Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a transatlantic airline on Christmas Day began his journey in Ghana, the Nigerian authorities say.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab spent just half an hour at the airport in Lagos before transferring to an Amsterdam flight, the information minister said.

It had been assumed the 23-year-old began his journey in Nigeria.

But Ghana has disputed Nigeria's timings, saying Mr Abdulmutallab's stop-over was at least three hours.

A senior Ghanaian government official told the BBC that the suspect bought a one-way ticket to Lagos from Accra that would have given him more than three hours at the airport.

He accused the Nigerians of attempting to "pass the buck" as the search for security lapses continues, the BBC's West Africa Correspondent Caspar Leighton reports from Accra.

Nigeria's Information Minister Dora Akunyili earlier told the BBC that it was now known Mr Abdulmutallab had boarded a Virgin Nigeria plane from Accra to Nigeria, arriving at Lagos' Murtala Muhammed airport on 24 December.

His passport was scanned on entry into Nigeria at 2008 (1908GMT), and again, as he boarded the flight to Amsterdam, at 2035, she said.

"He was able to connect that fast because he was not checking in any luggage," she said.

From Amsterdam, the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 - with 278 passengers and 11 crew aboard - went on to the US city of Detroit.

Some 20 minutes before landing at the city's Metropolitan Airport, on the afternoon of Christmas Day, Mr Abdulmutallab was spotted by flight crew and passengers trying to ignite explosives strapped to his leg, investigators say.

The explosives failed to detonate, although it is thought they may have caused a small fire which burned the suspect's leg.

He is now in US custody.

Body scanners

The incident has led to a worldwide re-think about security procedures.

US President Barack Obama is reading reports received about the security lapses that led to the near-disaster in Detroit, and intends to meet security chiefs on Tuesday to discuss new measures.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced on Friday he had ordered a review of existing security measures, and would "move quickly" to enhance airport security.

Full-body scanners would be among the new technologies considered, he said.

The Dutch authorities announced earlier this week that body scanners would be used on all passengers flying from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport to the US.

Shebab 'help'

The incident has also thrown the spotlight on Yemen, where Mr Abdulmutallab was living in the months leading up to the attack.

It is feared the troubled country is becoming a major training centre for militants, with several hundred al-Qaeda members believed to be operating there.

In recent weeks, Yemen has launched major operations against al-Qaeda with US backing, but has warned that it needs more Western support to tackle the threat.

Britain's prime minister has called a summit in London to discuss radicalisation in Yemen.

Mr Brown's office said the 28 January event had support from Washington and the European Union, and Mr Brown aimed to attract Saudi Arabia and Gulf states.

Somalia's hardline Shabab group - which controls large swathes of Somalia, including much of the capital Mogadishu - said on Friday it would send fighters to help fellow militants in Yemen.

"We tell our Muslim brothers in Yemen that we will cross the water between us and reach your place to assist you fight the enemy of Allah," said Shebab's Sheikh Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansour.

Jet bomb suspect's journey 'began in Ghana'

2010-01-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

Afghan CIA bomber 'was courted as potential informant'

2010-01-01T11:22:00.000-08:00

The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan had been courted by the US as a possible informant, US intelligence sources have said.

They said he had not undergone the usual full body search before entering the base in Khost province, and so was able to smuggle in an explosive belt.

The attack was the worst against US intelligence officials since the US embassy in Beirut was bombed in 1983.

US President Barack Obama has praised the work of those killed in a letter.

Paying tribute to the fallen, Mr Obama said those killed were "part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens, and for our way of life".

He told CIA employees in a letter that the victims had "taken great risks to protect our country" and that their sacrifices had "sometimes been unknown to your fellow citizens, your friends, and even your families".

Claim questioned

From the moment the bomb was detonated inside the base on Wednesday, says the BBC's Peter Greste in Kabul, questions were raised about how he managed to pass through security.

But now intelligence sources familiar with the investigation have said that CIA agents working from Forward Operating Base Chapman had been attempting to recruit the man as a potential informant.

A US official, and former CIA employee, said such people were often not required to go through full security checks in order to help gain their trust.

"When you're trying to build a rapport and literally ask them to risk [their lives] for you, you've got a lot to do to build their trust," he told the Associated Press news agency.

The Taliban have said one of their members carried out the attack.

Spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told the BBC the Khost bomber was wearing an army uniform when he managed to breach security at the base, detonating his explosives belt in the gym.

However, this claim was denied by the Afghan defence ministry.

"This is the Taliban talking and nothing the Taliban says should be believed," said ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi.

Neither the names of the CIA officials killed nor the details of their work have been released because of the sensitivity of US operations, the agency said.

But the head of the base - who was reported to be a mother of three - was said to be among the dead.

As chief, she would have led intelligence-gathering operations in Khost, a hotbed of Taliban activity due to its proximity to Pakistan's lawless tribal region.

'Great sacrifice'

CIA Director Leon Panetta said six other agents had been injured in the attack.

He said the dead and injured had been "far from home and close to the enemy".

"We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives - a safer America," he said.

The flags at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, are being flown at half-mast in honour of the dead.

Forward Operating Base Chapman, a former Soviet military base, is used not only by the CIA but also by provincial reconstruction teams, which include both soldiers and civilians.

The airfield is reportedly used for US drone attacks on suspected militants in neighbouring Pakistan.

A total of 90 CIA employees have been honoured for their deaths in the agency's service since its inception in 1947, according to the Washington Post newspaper.

Mudslide in Brazil resort kills at least 15 people

2010-01-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

At least 15 people have been killed and 10 injured by a mudslide in a Brazilian island resort, say officials.

The mud destroyed three houses and an upmarket lodge on Ilha Grande, Angra dos Reis, near Rio de Janeiro.

More than 40 people have now died in a series of landslides in and around Rio in the past two days.

Fire department commander Pedro Machado told local media the mud probably hit as tourists returned to their rooms after New Year's Eve celebrations.

Mr Machado said about 100 people, including police and navy boats, were searching for survivors.

The resort can only be reached by boat.

Witnesses told reporters the houses and the Sankay lodge had been hit by a piece of the hillside measuring some 300m across.

Wooden sections of the lodge could be seen floating close to the shore and on the beach, the Associated Press news agency reported.

The lodge, which has capacity for 50 people, was reported to be full at the time, AP said.

Other landslides in Angra dos Reis killed seven people early on Friday.

On Thursday at least 19 people died as heavy rains triggered mudslides in Rio de Janeiro state.

Officials said most of those deaths occurred as shanties collapsed under mud or rain in the greater Rio city area.

Pakistan volleyball crowd 'hit by suicide bomber'

2010-01-01T11:15:00.000-08:00

At least 60 people have been killed after a suspected suicide bomb attack at a volleyball pitch in the troubled north-west of Pakistan, officials say.

Officials said the bomber drove a vehicle towards the field as people gathered to watch a match. Some sources suggest the death toll has reached 75.

The attack happened near Lakki Marwat, close to North and South Waziristan.

The Pakistani army has been conducting a campaign against the Taliban in the tribal areas since October.

Dozens of people were reported to be injured in Friday's attack. Several buildings collapsed, trapping people under rubble.

'Militant hub'

"The villagers were watching the match between the two village teams when the bomber rashly drove his double-cabin pick-up vehicle into them and blew it up," district police chief Mohammad Ayub Khan told AFP news agency.

Mr Khan told reporters the attack may have been in retaliation for attempts by locals to expel militants.

"The locality has been a hub of militants," he said.

"Locals set up a militia and expelled the militants from this area. This attack seems to be a reaction to their expulsion."

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool reports from Islamabad that among those killed are believed to be members of a local peace committee who have been campaigning for an end to the violence.

Mushtaq Marwat, a member of the group, told Pakistan's Geo TV that the attack occurred as the committee was meeting in a nearby mosque.

"Suddenly there was a huge blast. We went out and saw bodies and injured people everywhere," he said.

'Soft target'

Other witnesses recalled seeing a bright flash before hearing an ear-piercing explosion.

Some initial reports about the attack said the vehicle that exploded was stationary, or that a bomber had walked towards the volleyball pitch.

North and South Waziristan form a lethal militant belt from where insurgents have launched attacks across north-west Pakistan as well as into parts of eastern Afghanistan.

Our correspondent says it had been feared that while the army was congratulating itself on its campaign, militants had simply escaped to neighbouring areas such as the one where Friday's attack happened.

The number of people killed in militant attacks in Pakistan is fast approaching 600 in just three months, with no apparent end to the violence in sight, he adds.

Militants have attacked both "hard" targets, including army or intelligence offices, and "soft" ones such as markets or the crowd that was hit in Friday's bombing.

The attack came as a general strike was held in Karachi, Pakistan's commercial capital, in protest against a bombing there on Monday and riots that followed.

The bombing, which killed at least 43 people, targeted a Shia Muslim march and was claimed by the Taliban.

DNA tests as Argentina seeks children of 'disappeared'

2009-12-30T11:46:00.000-08:00

An Argentine judge has ordered the heirs to a powerful media empire to take DNA tests to establish if they are victims of a forced adoption scheme.

Under the country's former regime, babies were often given to families considered loyal to the military.

Rights groups believe the two children of media mogul Ernestina Herrera de Noble were taken from political prisoners who gave birth in custody.

Felipe and Marcela were adopted by Ms Herrera de Noble in 1976.

They both gave their blood samples at a federal forensics agency, their lawyer said.

They made no comment after giving the sample, but a spokesperson said the family had nothing to hide.

The move to take the sample at the agency rather than the state-run National Bank of Genetic Data - which holds DNA samples of families of the disappeared - has angered campaign groups.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo group, which seeks to find some 500 children born to prisoners or abducted along with their parents during the 1976-1983 dictatorship, has demanded that the DNA be collected at the data bank.

The group's founder, Estela de Carlotto, said on Tuesday that the tests would not be valid and said they would take further legal action to ensure a fully independent investigation.

Last month, the Congress backed a proposal from the group, allowing the forced extraction of DNA from adults who may be the children of political prisoners - even when they do not want to know.

Taliban claim bombing in Karachi

2009-12-30T11:43:00.000-08:00

Pakistan's Taliban have said they carried out the suicide bombing which killed 43 people in the commercial capital, Karachi, on Monday.

A spokesman threatened to carry out more such attacks in the coming days.

Meanwhile, firefighters are still trying to douse flames following rioting after the attack on a Shia Muslim march.

Dozens of people were injured in the bomb, which struck as Shias marked the climax of the holy month of Muharram.

After the explosion, marchers turned their anger on ambulance workers, security forces and journalists.

'Our man'

"We carried out the suicide bombing in Karachi," the AFP news agency quoted Asmatullah Shaheen, one of the commanders of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) as saying.

"He [the bomber] was our man. His name was Hasnain Muawia and we did it to protect the honour of the companions of the holy prophet," said Mr Shaheen whose name is on a government list of 20 most-wanted militants.

"We will carry out more such attacks and also target government installations," he said.

Meanwhile, fire tenders in Karachi were still struggling to control the fires that erupted following Monday's attack, officials said.

Arsonists set on fire nearly 2,000 shops and warehouses between Light House and Boulton Market in central Karachi.

The area houses Pakistan's largest wholesale markets that supply goods all over the country.

Traders said hundreds of shops were gutted in fire and that they had lost merchandise worth more than $350m. It is estimated that thousands of people have been rendered jobless.

City fire chief Ehtisham Qadri told the BBC Urdu service that the fire was still not doused and that a dozen fire engines were working the narrow lanes of markets in the old city area.

"There are no leaping flames on the skyline, but it's far from over. It's not safe yet," Mr Qadri said.

"I cannot give a time frame to bring it under control, because the area is very congested and heavily built, with narrow lanes and small shops which retard our progress."

Pakistan has seen an upsurge in violence in recent months.

Hundreds of civilians have died in bomb attacks as Pakistan's army concludes an offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan and surrounding areas.

Brazil's 'needle boy' out of danger after operation

2009-12-30T11:37:00.000-08:00

Doctors in Brazil say a two-year-old boy who was pierced with at least 31 sewing needles is out of danger following a third successful operation.

Surgeons in Salvador de Bahia have decided to not remove the remaining few needles left in the boy for now.

The boy's stepfather Roberto Carlos Magalhaes, 30, has confessed to inserting the needles into the boy's body as part of a black magic ritual.

He said he did it as a means of taking revenge on his wife.

Doctor Roque Aras said the remaining needles were small and posed no significant threat, the Associated Press news agency reported.

'Happy ending'

However the unnamed boy may still have to undergo more operations in the future.

On Monday, doctors took out four needles from the child's neck.

In an earlier three-hour operation, surgeons took out 14 needles piercing the boy's liver, bladder and intestines.

Four needles which had come perilously close to his heart and lungs were removed during an initial operation last week.

Surgeon Jose Siqueira said he was optimistic following the third surgery, AFP reported.

"We think that this child's story will have a happy ending", he said.

Mr Magalhaes told Brazil's Globo TV that he inserted the needles one at a time, up to three times in a month.

He said he got the boy drunk before driving the needles in.

Mr Magalhaes, 30, and his lover Angelina Ribeiro dos Santos have been formally charged with attempted murder.

Police said Mr Magalhaes, a bricklayer, told them his mistress had urged him to ritually kill the child to take revenge on his wife.

The boy's mother had taken him to hospital in the north-eastern state of Bahia, suffering from stomach pains and vomiting.

She suspected the child had been the victim of a black magic ritual after she found suspicious objects in the home she shared with Mr Magalhaes - her husband of six months - and her six children.

In appreciation: Farrah Fawcett

2009-12-30T11:30:00.000-08:00

Farrah Fawcett's death in June was eclipsed by that of Michael Jackson, who died hours later. She was the style icon for generations of women, says Sasha Wilkins, executive style editor of Wall Street Journal magazine.

The Jennifer Aniston of her day, Farrah Fawcett became the female icon of a generation. To appreciate her influence on 1970s style, pick up any family photo album from around that time.

At least half the women inside will be wearing high-waisted denim flares, with a tight bra-less T-shirt crowned by "the Farrah" - a confection of sun-kissed, flicked, feathered and layered bouffant hair that looked natural, but owed its volume to a strafing of industrial quantities of hairspray.

The key to the appeal of her wholesome good looks was its unthreatening obtainability. To men she was the girl next door, the apogee of natural, unaffected beauty. To women she represented an achievable, relaxed image.

It's difficult for children that came of age in the 1990s to understand the appeal of unadorned, unmanipulated beauty. To them Charlie's Angels doesn't automatically mean Farrah and her cast mates, Jacqueline and Kate, but instead Cameron, Lucy and Drew. Where we had Farrah and her hair, they had Demi and her plastic surgery.

But the 1970s was a very different time. Until Farrah and her fellow Charlie's Angels blazed on to British television screens, female British TV icons were terribly posh: Dame Diana Rigg, Joanna Lumley, Honor Blackman. Fantasy figures, sure, but no everyday bloke honestly thought he would have stood a chance. The Angels became the popular antidote to the previously prevailing stylish but unapproachable female.

No gadgets, just babes

Charlie's Angels first appeared in 1976 as a TV movie. Farrah, along with Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, played sassy private investigators for a detective agency run by Charles Townsend, a reclusive multi-millionaire whom the women had never met.

Townsend referred to his employees as angels, a term that would never have got past the PC police in the 21st Century. The movie was so successful that a series was promptly commissioned, and TV history was made.

Given the nature of our multi-media, multichannel viewing experience nowadays, it's easy to forget the vast impact of television in the 1970s. A show like Charlie's Angels dominated the television landscape and became the cultural reference for an entire decade.

It's no wonder Farrah and her cast mates became international superstars - they WERE the show. The Charlie's Angels of the 1970s is a reflection of a less sophisticated time. No technology, no CGI, no go-go-gadgets to distract the viewer from the pulchritudinous babes who carried the story.

Farrah, who concealed a sharp brain and quick wit behind the pouffed-up hair, told TV Guide in a 1977 interview: "When the show was number three, I thought it was our acting. When we got to be number one, I decided it could only be because none of us wears a bra."

The real key to Farrah's resonance with men and with women was her styling. In an age where the celebrity stylist was yet to make its mark, Farrah was just herself. With her wide, ultra-white toothy grin, fluffy hair, jeans and sneakers she was the epitome of Californian wholesomeness. The open-necked, rolled sleeved gingham shirts, waisted jumpsuits and silky slip dresses looked simple and uncontrived.

The hair was a different matter. Men may have been taken in by its artless bounce, but women knew better: the Farrah took time to achieve: "I'd curl, pin, curl, pin. And when it was done, I took the pins out, turned the hair upside down and brushed it out so you wouldn't have a 'set' look," her hairdresser Allen Edwards told a journalist.

But it was the poster that made Farrah into a global sensation. She was already well-known as a model before landing Charlie's Angels, and the poster, a collaboration between Fawcett and the photographer, was shot at her home before she was cast on the show.

The success of Charlie's Angels sent sales of the poster into the millions. It's been estimated that it sold as many as 12 million copies, and Farrah received a royalty on each one. She was paid $5,000 (£3,123) per episode for the one season she appeared on the show, but is believed to have racked up over $400,000 (£249,801) in poster royalties.

Farrah did her own make-up, wore her own swimsuit, picked out six frames from the 40 rolls of film shot on the day, marking out as her favourite the image that finally became the poster. She knew how to market herself.

"The reason that the all-American boy prefers beauty to brains is that he can see better than he can think."

When Farah Fawcett died this year, the dreams of the 1970s died with her.

Apple tablet computer rumour sends shares up

2009-12-30T11:28:00.000-08:00

Apple shares have jumped another 1% as speculation grows that it will launch a new touch-screen computer.

Over the past two weeks the iPhone manufacturer's share price has been pushed up steadily by the rumours.

Apple has booked San Francisco's Yerba Buena Centre on 26 January for a "major product announcement" without giving any further details.

The company has previously used January launches to unveil products including the iPhone and the MacBook Air.

The venue is the same used by Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs when he made his return earlier this year following a liver transplant.

Touch-screen rumours

Blogs and analysts have fuelled rumours that Apple will launch a new touch-screen "tablet" computer - resembling a larger version of the iPhone and variously dubbed the iSlate or the iTablet.

The rumours have already helped Apple shares rise by more than 11% since early December.

But the company's share price has dropped in recent days, amid a continued patent dispute with mobile phone maker Nokia.

Nokia claims that most of Apple's products - from the iPod to the iPhone - make use of its patent-protected technologies.

French public debt in new high after stimulus spending

2009-12-30T11:25:00.000-08:00

France's public debt has risen to a new high of 76% of economic output after additional state spending during the downturn, figures have shown.

The national statistics office INSEE said government debt stood at 1.46 trillion euros ($2.1tn; £1.3tn) at the end of September.

This was an increase of 29.4bn euros since the end of June.

Debt levels of all major economies have risen sharply as governments have tried to spend their way out of recession.

French government spending helped the country's economy to emerge from recession between April and June.

Lower tax receipts have also contributed to spiralling debt levels.

The 1.46tn euros is the largest debt France has run since INSEE records started in 1995.

According to forecasts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), French public debt as a percentage of economic output will hit 96% by 2014.

Of the G7 economies, this is less than Japan (246%), Italy (129%), the US (108%) and the UK (98%), but more than Germany (89%) and Canada (69%), the IMF has predicted.

Japan Airlines shares fall 24% to hit a new record low

2009-12-30T11:22:00.000-08:00

Japan Airlines shares touched a record low for the second day running, falling 24% from Tuesday's price to 67 yen.

The drop followed more reports that the carrier would file for bankruptcy as part of a revival plan.

Last week, Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said the state would not give the airline any more loans.

Japan Airlines has rival offers from American Airlines and Delta to buy a stake in the firm. A bankruptcy filing would make a deal more complicated.

The Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp - a state-backed fund - was asked in October to help out the debt-laden Japan Airlines.

A decision is due in January.

Japan Airlines is less efficient than its rival All Nippon Airways and is struggling with 1.5 trillion yen of debt ($16bn; £10bn). It has been bailed out by the government four times since 2001.

It has made a loss in four of the past five years.

US aware 'Nigerian' prepared for terror attack

2009-12-30T11:19:00.000-08:00

The US was aware that "a Nigerian" in Yemen was being prepared for a terrorist attack - weeks before an attempted bombing on a US plane.

ABC News and the New York Times say there was intelligence to this effect, but its source is unclear.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab flew from Lagos to Amsterdam before changing planes for a flight to Detroit on which he allegedly tried to detonate a bomb.

The Netherlands is to introduce body scanners on US flights within weeks.

Dutch Interior Minister Guusje Ter Horst said Mr Abdulmutallab did not raise any concerns as he passed through Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport to board the flight.

She said the airport would be able to use body scanners on all flights to the US from the airport in three weeks. Nigerian authorities also said they would start using the machines next year.

Obama denounces lapses

Ms Ter Horst said that though the US had previously not wanted the scanners to be used because of privacy concerns, Washington had now agreed that "all possible measures will be used on flights to the US".

"It is not exaggerating to say the world has escaped a disaster," she said.

US President Barack Obama has acknowledged unacceptable security failures.

He said a systemic failure allowed Mr Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, to fly to the US on 25 December despite family members warning officials in November that he had extremist views.

The source of the intelligence about "a Nigerian" in Yemen was reported as coming from the Yemeni government or from US intercept intelligence, which can refer to intercepted e-mail and phone calls.

Mr Obama said he wanted to know why a warning weeks ago from Mr Abdulmutallab's father did not lead to the accused being placed on a no-fly list.

"We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix flaws in the system," Mr Obama said.

Some passengers and crew tackled Mr Abdulmutallab in his seat about 20 minutes before landing in Detroit as he allegedly tried to detonate explosives in his underwear.

Initial investigations found he had used the explosive PETN and a syringe filled with liquid.

The Dutch interior minister described the bomb as professionally made but executed in an "amateurish" way.

She said Mr Abdulmutallab had passed through standard security checks, including a metal detector and a hand baggage scan, without raising suspicions.

Nigerian airports 'safe'

Mr Abdulmutallab has reportedly told investigators that he trained in Yemen with al-Qaeda.

He was living in Yemen from August to early December, the foreign ministry said, according to an earlier report from the official Saba news agency.

He had a visa to study Arabic at an institute in the capital, Sanaa.

UK hostage Peter Moore released alive in Iraq

2009-12-30T11:00:00.000-08:00

British hostage Peter Moore has been released alive from captivity in Iraq, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.

He said Mr Moore, an IT consultant from Lincoln who was seized in Baghdad in May 2007, was in good health and "absolutely delighted at his release".

Mr Miliband said the Moore family felt deep relief after two-and-a-half years of "misery, fear and uncertainty".

Four bodyguards were seized with Mr Moore. Three were shot dead; the fourth is also thought to have been killed.

The bodies of Jason Swindlehurst, from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, and Jason Creswell, of Glasgow, were returned to the UK in June 2009, followed by that of Alec MacLachlan, of Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, in September.

Mr Miliband has called for the release of the body of the fourth guard - Alan McMenemy from Glasgow.

Mr Miliband said Mr Moore, who had been released on Wednesday morning, was in the British Embassy in Baghdad and would be reunited with his family as soon as possible.

Mr Moore's stepmother Pauline Sweeney told the BBC that hearing of his release was "the best Christmas present ever".

"We spoke to him this morning. I just burst into tears and kept asking if it was true. He sounds really well, very upbeat, he's cracking jokes," she said.

"He said when they came in to him this morning, he thought he was going out to a bullet in his head.

"He had seen quite a few of the appeal broadcasts, which kept him going and made him realise there were people out there fighting for him and that he wasn't forgotten."

The foreign secretary said he had had a "very moving" conversation with Mr Moore, who was "to put it mildly, absolutely delighted". He is undergoing medical checks.

Mr Miliband said: "The joy and relief that will be felt by Peter's family will be mirrored by the continuing anguish of the family of Alan McMenemy.

"We have believed for some time that he has been killed and his family have been told our view of his likely fate."

The foreign secretary also told the BBC there were no concessions or deals made to secure Mr Moore's release.

"This was an Iraqi-led process of political reconciliation in which an armed group has made vows to come within the political system and to renounce violence, and that's the foundation of Peter Moore's release," he said.

Mr Moore had been working for US management consultancy Bearingpoint in Iraq. The other men were security contractors employed to guard him.

The group was captured at the Iraqi Ministry of Finance by about 40 men disguised as Iraqi policemen.

They were understood to belong to an obscure militia known as the Islamic Shia Resistance, which demanded the release of up to nine of their associates held in US military custody since early 2007.

Several had already been handed to the Iraqi government and some had since been freed under the reconciliation process.

'Key' figure released

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner said it appeared "some kind of deal" had been done, though not necessarily involving the British government.

"The main person the abductors wanted back, I'm told, is out of US custody... and handed over to the Iraqis," he said.

Qais Al-Khazaali had been suspected of involvement in the kidnapping and eventual killing of five US soldiers, Mr Gardner added.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "I am hugely relieved by the wonderful news that Peter has been freed.

"At this moment of celebration, we also remember the families of British hostages who have been killed in Iraq and elsewhere.

"And we pledge to continue to do everything we can to bring British hostages back to their loved ones."

Mr Moore's father Graeme, 60, from Wigston, Leicestershire, said he was "over the moon" at the news.

He said: "We are so relieved and we just want to get him home, back now to his family and friends.

"I'm breaking down, I'm just so overjoyed for the lad."

His natural mother, Avril Sweeney, 54, from Thornton Cleveleys, Lancashire, said: "It's like a big black cloud has been hanging over me and it has lifted now.

"I can smile again."

Terry Waite, who himself was a former hostage, said he was absolutely delighted at Mr Moore's release.

He added: "It is both a very happy time for Peter and his family and... while the other families will be delighted for him, there will be that tinge of sadness and one keeps them in mind at this point."

US rejects Russian missile shield concerns

2009-12-29T14:00:00.000-08:00

The United States has rejected fresh concerns raised by Moscow about its planned missile defence system.

The State Department statement came after Russian PM Vladimir Putin said the US plans were holding up a new nuclear disarmament treaty.

The statement said the two issues were completely separate, and discussions would continue separately.

Russia and the US are yet to find a successor to the Cold War-era Start I treaty, which expired on 5 December.

Analysts say Moscow wants a clause in the new treaty that would limit the scale of any US defence shield.

The US has shelved plans for missile defence stations in Central Europe, but intends to use a sea-based system.

The BBC's Imtiaz Tyab in Washington says it is clear from Mr Putin's comments Russia still sees any missile shield as a threat - one it is now pledged to counter.

But the hardening of Russia's position must be frustrating for US President Barack Obama, our correspondent says, after the concessions he has made.

'Keeping the balance'

The US statement said that Washington and Moscow's joint position recognising the inter-relationship between defensive and offensive weapons systems had not changed.

"While the US has long agreed that there is a relationship between missile offence and defence, we believe the Start follow-on agreement is not the appropriate vehicle for addressing it," it said.

"We have agreed to continue to discuss the topic of missile defence with Russia in a separate venue."

Earlier Mr Putin said the US plans would allow them to do whatever they wanted and thus upset the balance.

He said that "to preserve the balance, we must develop offensive weapons systems", but did not specify what kinds he had in mind.

Earlier this month, President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia would continue to develop new warheads, delivery vehicles and launchers despite the disarmament talks, describing this as "routine practice".

Russia and the US are negotiating in Geneva on the details of a new treaty. Last week, the Russian foreign minister said a deal was very close.

The 1991 Start I treaty led to deep cuts in nuclear arsenals by Washington and Moscow.

Both sides have agreed to continue observing Start I until they reach a new agreement.

Under a joint understanding signed in July, deployed nuclear warheads should be cut to fewer than 1,700 on each side within seven years of a new treaty - a huge cut on Soviet-era levels.

Nonetheless, between them the two countries will retain enough firepower to destroy the world several times over.

The BBC's Rupert Wingfield-Hayes in Moscow says that Russia's nuclear arsenal is the only part of its military that remains world-class, and therefore it fears that it could be disadvantaged by cuts to nuclear capability.

Mr Putin's comments could be a negotiating ploy, rather than a reversal of Russia's commitment to a treaty, our correspondent says.

Analysts in Moscow think what Mr Putin really wants is a commitment from Washington to only deploy a small-scale missile defence system, that would be effective against Iran and North Korea but would not neutralise Russia's nuclear missile force, he adds.