Beijing Olympics

Get wet! Toshiba CAMILEO BW10 Sportcam

2010-10-23T05:29:00.000-07:00

The Sportcam, first of its kind from Toshiba, has a 2-inch display screen and is waterproof up to 2 metres. With the rubberised exterior, the Camileo BW10 is also shock and dirt proof. The camera has a 10x digital zoom and a maximum ISO sensitivity of 1600, which means you can take pretty pictures even in low ambient light.

The Camileo BW10 doesn't scrimp on image quality, packing in Full HD recording at 1080p. The cam also packs in a HDMI output so you can hook it up to a TV with a single cable, a 10-second self-timer to shoot shots of yourself, and one button YouTube uploading to share your clips as soon as you plug it into a PC.

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Voting for civic bodies begins in Kerala

2010-10-22T22:09:00.000-07:00

Voting for the first phase of local body elections began in Kerala, covering seven of the 14 districts.

Reports from across the state said the voting is brisk in rural areas while it is yet to pick up in corporations and municipal towns.

No untoward incident had been reported from anywhere, police sources said.

The districts where polling is taking place are Thiruvananthapuram,Kollam, Pathanthitta, Kozhiode, Waynad, Kannur and Kasargod.

A total of 9,238 seats are up for grabs spread around three-tier panchayats and urban civic bodies in today's polls.

About 29,000 candidates are in the fray for the elections fought on politica lines, mainly between the ruling CPI-M led LDF and the Congress-controlled UDF.

Half of the total seats are reserved for women.

Metamorphosis of an Indian curry

2010-10-22T22:08:00.000-07:00

India is known as the home of curry - but it's taken on a new form in South Africa.

If you're looking for an alternative way to have curry, check out the delicacy that is Bunny Chow in the city of Durban.

Durban has a large Indian community, and the locals have a different way of serving their curry if you don't want to eat it out of a plate.

Basically, Bunny Chow is half a bread loaf that has been hollowed out, and then filled up with a curry of your choice.

Bunny Chow usually comes in two sizes - half a bread loaf, and quarter of a bread loaf. Regardless of which one you choose, the meal is a delicious lunch or dinner option if you're feeling like a curry.

Text: Anthony Bianco

(Photographs copyright: Bianco/Travel Tart)
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Wipro net rises 10%, falls short of expectations

2010-10-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

Hit by currency volatility, wage hike, investment in marketing.

Wipro on Friday reported a lower-than-expected 9.7 per cent rise in second-quarter net profit at Rs 1,285 crore, as currency volatility, pay rises and increasing investment in sales and marketing weighed.

The street took exception to this, especially when its rivals, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, comfortably beat expectations. Shares closed 4.54 per cent down at Rs 448.40 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, while the 30-share sensitive index, or Sensex, was down by a modest 0.4 per cent.

Revenue for the July-September quarter rose 12.73 per cent to Rs 7,731 crore, compared to the year-ago quarter, driven by a volume rise of 6.6 per cent by the companyâ€™s information technology (IT) services business. Operating profit jumped 6.8 per cent to Rs 1,356.4 crore.

But on a sequential basis, net profit fell by 2.56 per cent, while revenues rose a tad below seven per cent. The Bangalore-headquartered consumer care to IT services company said salary rises and currency volatility affected the sequential numbers. It posted a forex loss of Rs 41 crore, as operating margins slipped to 18.1 per cent from 20 per cent in the previous quarter of this financial year.

Wiproâ€™s flagship IT services business, which contributes around 74 per cent to its overall revenues, posted a 15 per cent rise in revenues at Rs 5,747.1 crore ($1,290 million), compared to a year ago. Earnings before interest and tax rose seven per cent to Rs 1,275 crore.

Chairman Azim Premji was quick enough to acknowledge the companyâ€™s lower-than-expected performance. "The industry has seen much stronger volume and revenue growth for the quarter and we recognise and acknowledge this. We want to assure you that weâ€™ll rise to this occasion and challenge, and ensure that we return among the industry, leading both in terms of growth and operating margins," Premji said at the companyâ€™s earnings conference. "We are putting the entire muscle of the operation and our organisation behind this."

Yemen says Nigerian may have met radical cleric

2010-01-08T21:37:00.019-08:00

SAN'A, Yemen – Yemen on Thursday provided the most comprehensive account yet of contacts between al-Qaida and the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a U.S. airliner, saying he may have met with a radical U.S.-born cleric who previously had contact with the alleged Fort Hood shooter.

In the weeks before the attempted airliner attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab met with al-Qaida operatives in a remote mountainous region that was later hit in an airstrike that targeted a gathering of the group's top leaders, Yemen's deputy prime minister said.

The account by Rashad al-Alimi, who oversees security issues in the government, filled in some of the blanks in Abdulmutallab's movements before his failed attempt to detonate explosives on a Christmas Day flight to Detroit.

But al-Alimi also raised new questions. He contended that Abdulmutallab was recruited by al-Qaida in Britain and that the 23-year-old received the explosives in Nigeria. U.S. officials say Abdulmutallab told FBI investigators that al-Qaida operatives in Yemen gave him the material and trained him in how to use it.

In a speech Thursday, President Barack Obama outlined three broad areas where U.S. agencies fell short in addressing the threat, failing to "connect the dots" that would have revealed Abdulmutallab was planning an attack. He also announced steps to prevent such failure again.

Abdulmutallab came to Yemen in August, ostensibly to study Arabic at a San'a language institute where he previously studied from 2004-2005. But he disappeared in September, and his whereabouts were unknown until he left the country Dec. 4.

Al-Alimi said that at some point during that period, the Nigerian met with al-Qaida in a sparsely populated area of Shabwa province amid high mountains some 200 miles southeast of the capital.

Among those he may have met with was the U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who has also been linked to the gunman who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in November.

"There is no doubt that he met and had contacts with al-Qaida elements in Shabwa ... perhaps with al-Awlaki," al-Alimi told reporters.

The Awlak tribe, to which the cleric belongs, dominates much of the area.

The 38-year-old cleric, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, is a popular figure among al-Qaida sympathizers, known for his English-language Internet sermons that preach jihad, or holy, against the West. A decade ago, while preaching at U.S. mosques, he associated with two of the 9/11 hijackers.

Al-Awlaki also exchanged dozens of e-mails with U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan in the months before Hasan allegedly carried out the Nov. 5 mass shooting at the Fort Hood, Texas Army post.

Later, al-Awlaki praised the attack on his Web site, which has since been shut down.

While Yemen calls al-Awlaki a spiritual adviser to al-Qaida militants, President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, last week said he is "clearly a part of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula" trying to instigate terrorism.

On Dec. 24, the day before Abdulmutallab's alleged bombing attempt, Yemeni warplanes raided the Shabwa site, targeting a gathering of al-Qaida leaders that may have included al-Awlaki, as well as the head of al-Qaida's offshoot in Yemen and his deputy, al-Alimi said.

Al-Alimi said security forces tracked the group's leader, Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi, and his deputy Saeed al-Shihri, after the strike and they were in a "weak state." He would not clarify if that meant they were wounded, and said he could not confirm if they are alive. At least 30 militants were killed in the strike, Yemeni officials said.

The assault was one of a series of heavy airstrikes and raids Yemeni forces carried out last month. They were the biggest strikes in years by Yemen against al-Qaida in a new intensified alliance with the United States to uproot the terror group's offshoot here.

Officials in Britain have said he met with extremist there, but he was not seen as a threat.

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Portugal parliament votes to permit gay marriage

2010-01-08T21:37:00.018-08:00

LISBON, Portugal – Portugal's parliament passed a bill Friday that would make the predominantly Catholic nation the sixth in Europe to permit gay marriage.

Conservative President Anibal Cavaco Silva is thought unlikely to veto the Socialist government's bill, which won the support of all left-of-center parties. His ratification would allow the first gay marriage ceremonies to take place in April — a month before Pope Benedict XVI is due on an official visit to Portugal.

Right-of-center parties opposed the change and sought a national referendum on the issue, but their proposal was rejected and the government's bill was passed by 125 votes to 99.

Gay rights campaigners applauded from the galleries, hugged and kissed outside the building and ate wedding cake.

"This law rights a wrong," Prime Minister Jose Socrates said in a speech to lawmakers, adding that it "simply ends pointless suffering."

Socrates said the measure is part of his effort to modernize Portugal where homosexuality was a crime until 1982. Two years ago his government lifted Portugal's ban on abortion, despite church opposition.

Gay marriage is currently permitted in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Norway. Canada, South Africa and six U.S. states also permit it.

The bill removes a reference in the current law to marriage being between two people of different sexes.

"It's a slight change to the law, it's true," Socrates, the prime minister, said. "But it is a very important and symbolic step towards fully ensuring respect for values that are essential in any democratic, open and tolerant society: the values of freedom, equality and non-discrimination."

Like neighboring Spain, which introduced same-sex marriages four years ago, Portugal is an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country and previous efforts to introduce gay marriage ran into strong resistance from religious groups and conservative lawmakers.

Paulo Corte-Real, head of a lobby group called Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual Intervention, said Portugal had become a pioneering country in gay rights.

"This is a historic moment. We just hope the bill gets ratified quickly," he said.

Socrates said a referendum was not necessary because the gay marriage proposal was included in the Socialist Party's manifesto in last September's general election, when it was returned to power.

In 2001, a law allowed "civil unions" between same-sex couples which granted them certain legal, tax and property rights. However, it did not allow couples to take their partner's name, inherit their possessions nor their state pension, which is permitted in marriages.

A proposal from the Left Bloc and Green Party allowing gay couples to adopt children was voted down Friday. Gay campaigners said they would continue to fight for gay couples' parental rights.

The main opposition Social Democratic Party proposed granting non-married cohabiting couples of the same sex more rights, as in France, but its bill also was rejected.

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Uganda lawmaker refuses to withdraw anti-gay bill

2010-01-08T21:37:00.017-08:00

KAMPALA, Uganda – A Ugandan lawmaker on Friday refused to withdraw proposed legislation that would impose the death penalty for some gays and lesbians despite international condemnation and presidential opposition to a measure that could scare off foreign investors.

Lawmaker David Bahati said he will not heed a call late Thursday from the government to drop the proposed bill, as he feels such a measure is necessary in the conservative East African country.

On Thursday, Minister of State for Investment Aston Kajara said the government would ask Bahati to scrap the bill because they fear backlash from foreign investors. The bill, which Bahati proposed in September, has provoked criticism from gay-rights groups and protests in London, New York and Washington.

"I stand by the bill," Bahati said. "I will not withdraw it. We have our children in schools to protect against being recruited into homosexuality. The process of legislating a law to protect our children against homosexuality and defending our family values must go on."

That leaves the decision to the country's parliament, which will discuss the legislation in late February or early March.

Although President Yoweri Museveni has told colleagues he believes the bill is too harsh and has encouraged his ruling National Resistance Movement Party to overturn the death sentence provision, Information Minister Kabakumba Matsiko said the parliament will act independently of the presidency.

"The bill did not come from the executive," she said. "It is a private members bill."

Earlier this week, several lawmakers and officials from the ruling party said they will push to remove the death penalty statute, and have proposed instead that gays receive counseling to convert them to heterosexuality.

The proposed legislation would toughen Uganda's already strict laws against homosexuality, which are bolstered by Uganda's conservative society, which generally frowns on homosexuality.

Lawmakers outlawed gay marriage in 2005. The proposed legislation is being touted as an update to Uganda's old statutes against homosexuality, which date from the 1950s and do not address homosexuality by name, only what the law terms as "unnatural offenses" and "gross indecency."

The draft of the new bill says anyone convicted of a homosexual act — which includes touching someone of the same sex with the intent of committing a homosexual act — could face life imprisonment. Current legislation imposes seven years' imprisonment. Under the new law, the death sentence could apply to sexually active gays living with HIV or in cases of same-sex rape. The new law also expands its scope to include Ugandans living abroad, who can be extradited and punished.

Kajara said government officials worried the bill would scare off investors.

"Ever since the bill was tabled, there have been a lot of outcries not only here but from all over the world," he said. "There has been negative publicity on Uganda which is not good for investment. As government, we shall talk to the private member who brought it to parliament and request him to withdraw it."

The measure was proposed in Uganda following a visit by leaders of U.S. conservative Christian ministries that promote therapy for gays to become heterosexual. However, at least one of those leaders has denounced the bill, as have some other conservative and liberal Christians in the United States.

On the African continent, South Africa is the only country that allows gay marriage. However, some South African groups have rejected homosexuality as "un-African" and gangs carry out so-called "corrective" rapes on lesbians. A 19-year-old lesbian athlete was gang-raped, tortured and murdered in 2008.

The Catholic church in Uganda has said it supports the bill but not the death penalty provision. But a group of non-traditional churches has accused Museveni of siding with gays and maintains that the Bible supports killing gays. Anglican Archbishop of York John Sentamu, who is one of the global fellowship's most senior priests, has said he condemns the proposed law in his native country.

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Mexico cartel stitches rival's face on soccer ball

2010-01-08T21:37:00.016-08:00

MEXICO CITY – The body of 36-year-old Hugo Hernandez was left on the streets of Los Mochis in seven pieces as a chilling threat to members of the Juarez drug cartel. A note read: "Happy New Year, because this will be your last."

To drive home the point, the assailants skinned Hernandez's face and stitched it onto a soccer ball.

The gruesome find, confirmed Friday by Sinaloa state prosecutors, represents a new level of brutality in Mexico's drug war, in which torture and beheadings are almost daily occurrences.

Hernandez was taken to Sinaloa after being kidnapped Jan. 2 in neighboring Sonora state, in an area known for marijuana growing, said Martin Robles, a spokesman for Sinaloa prosecutors. The motive for his abduction was unclear.

His torso was found in a plastic container in one location; elsewhere another box contained his arms, legs and skull, Robles said. Hernandez's face, sewn onto a soccer ball, was left in a plastic bag near City Hall.

More than 15,000 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on cartels three years ago. While the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana have seen much of the violence, Sinaloa state is Mexico's drug-smuggling heartland and is the birthplace of the leadership of four of the six major cartels.

Often, victims are tortured and mutilated, in an attempt to intimidate rivals, officials and others who might represent a threat to the cartels.

Often, it works.

In the northern city of Saltillo, a major regional newspaper announced it would stop covering drug violence altogether after the body of a reporter was found Friday outside a motel with a threatening message. Valentin Valdes had recently written about the arrests of suspected drug traffickers.

"As of today we will publish zero information related to drug trafficking to avoid situations like the one we went through today," an editor of the newspaper Zocalo told The Associated Press. Tellingly, he asked that his name not be published.

Many Mexican news media have stopped covering anything that might be associated with drugs, or limit themselves to reporting on government news releases. At least 17 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1992 in direct reprisal for stories, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Valdes had written about the Dec. 29 arrests at the Marbella Motel of five alleged members of the Gulf drug cartel. He also covered the arrests Wednesday of five others who barged into the same hotel and stole the surveillance tapes.

The 28-year-old reporter was shot to death, and his body was dumped outside the Marbella Motel.

The Coahuila state Attorney General's Office said a handwritten message left next to his body read: "This is going to happen to everybody who doesn't understand, the message is for everybody."

Such threatening messages are frequently left by Mexican drug cartels.

The influence of cartels has increased to such an extent that on Friday all 60 policemen in the embattled town of Tancitaro were fired because they had failed to stop a series of killings and other crimes. Michoacan state police and soldiers will take over security duties in the town.

In December, eight government officials including the mayor of Tancitaro resigned their posts saying they had been threatened by drug traffickers.

Mexico's Ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, said that "we have begun to see important results in the ability of U.S. government to detain the flows" of drug-related weapons and cash into Mexico over the two countries' border.

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Suspects in Egypt's Christmas slayings surrender

2010-01-08T21:37:00.015-08:00

CAIRO – Three suspects in a drive-by shooting that killed six Christians in southern Egypt surrendered to police Friday, while authorities faced mounting pressure to resolve the sectarian dispute in the tense community reeling from a bloody Coptic Christmas Eve attack.

Egyptian security forces had blanketed the area between the village of Farshout and the town of Nag Hamadi, where the slayings occurred late Wednesday, blocking suspects from fleeing into nearby desert mountains, the state MENA news agency reported.

The troops then flushed the men out of dense sugar cane fields they were hiding in, and forced them to surrender, the report said.

In the Wednesday shooting in Nag Hamadi, just 40 miles 64 kilometers north of the famed Luxor ruins, gunmen had opened fire on a crowd of worshippers leaving a church after mass for Coptic Orthodox Christmas Eve. Six Christians and a Muslim security guard died in a hale of bullets.

The attack was the worst to target Christians in nearly a decade, and shocked Egypt's Christian community. Copts, who make up most of 8 million Christians in this country of 80 million people, celebrate Christmas according to the old, Julian calendar, on Jan. 7.

The attack also underscored the government's failure to address chronic sectarian strains in a society where religious radicalism is gaining ground. The Interior Ministry immediately called the shooting a revenge for the alleged November rape of a 12-year-old Muslim girl by a Christian man in the same town.

On Thursday, thousands of angry Christians went on a rampage in Nag Hamadi following the funerals of the six, clashing with police and smashing ambulances and shop windows. A brief calm followed but evaporated by nightfall Friday, when some 200 Copts gathered outside the local church demanding revenge and criticizing authorities for failing to protect their community.

"With our soul, our blood, we will defend the Cross," they shouted, then headed for main streets, breaking windows and clashing with Muslim residents. Police cordoned off the downtown area.

Witnesses said Muslims retaliated by torching a handful of Christian homes and shops in the town and a neighboring village. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Two security officials said some 20 people, including Christians, were arrested for arson late Friday. One official said several Christians were caught with fire bombs they used to torch their own homes. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Human rights groups say sectarian violence has been on the rise in Egypt. Amnesty International said attacks on the Coptic Christian community left eight people dead in 2008.

Egypt's Prosecutor General Abdel-Maguid Mahmoud arrived in the stricken town Friday to take charge of the investigation, while security chiefs met to discuss ways to ensure violence doesn't erupt anew. Local Muslim leaders and government officials converged on the Nag Hamadi Diocese to offer their condolences.

Bishop Kirollos said he had feared the attack, which could have been prevented if security had been alert. The three suspects are known to have criminal records, according to state media.

Youssef Sidhom, editor of the Coptic Watani newspaper, said Egypt has a track record of rarely seeing justice through in sectarian attacks. He criticized authorities for labeling the attack a "revenge" and for organizing quick local reconciliation sessions instead of resolving the issues.

"In Egypt in such attacks ... there is no guarantee that arresting the culprits means they will be put on trial or are convicted," he said. "Judges are never presented with enough evidence to convict the killers, and they end up going free."

Clashes between Christians and Muslims occasionally occur in southern Egypt, mostly over land or church construction disputes and in recent years have spread to the capital. The Copts are limited in where they can build churches and must obtain government approval before expanding existing ones. The government insists Christians enjoy the same rights as Muslims.

Sidhom said a rising wave of Islamic radicalism has driven Christians toward more isolation and created a gap of trust between the communities.

In 2000, Christian-Muslim clashes touched off by an argument between a Coptic merchant and a Muslim shopper in a southern village left 23 people dead.

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Official: Jamaica to take in radical Muslim cleric

2010-01-08T21:37:00.014-08:00

KINGSTON, Jamaica – A Jamaica-born Muslim cleric who has called for killing Americans, Hindus and Jews has not committed any crimes in his native country and the Caribbean island will take him in, the foreign affairs minister said Thursday.

It is unclear when Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal might arrive in Jamaica, where he lived before departing for Africa in early 2009 on a Jamaican passport, Minister Kenneth Baugh told Nationwide News Network radio. He did not know what route el-Faisal would take to Jamaica.

"As far as monitoring him, that will be left to the Ministry of National Security who have their program in place to maintain surveillance," said Baugh, without revealing specifics.

Kenya deported El-Faisal to Gambia on Thursday after several countries, including the United States, denied him a transit visa. Kenya's immigration minister said Gambian authorities have agreed to help el-Faisal find his way home.

Security agents will monitor el-Faisal's activities in Jamaica because of his history of calling for violence in other nations, according to Glenmore Hinds, Jamaica's assistant police chief. He would not disclose details, citing security protocols.

"We are working closely with our international partners on this subject," Hinds said during the same radio program.

The permanent secretary of Jamaica's Security Ministry, Richard Reese, referred security questions to police.

Gilbert Scott, former permanent secretary of the security ministry, said agents closely monitored el-Faisal during his time on the Caribbean island in 2007.

El-Faisal was born Trevor William Forrest in rural St. James parish and immigrated to Britain in the early 1980s. He was deported to Jamaica in May 2007 after serving time in a British prison for urging the killing of several religious groups.

El-Faisal once led a London mosque attended by convicted terrorists, and Britain has said that his teachings heavily influenced one of the bombers in the 2005 transport network attacks in London that killed 52 people.

Mustafa Muhammad, the head of Jamaica's Muslim community, has said he is extremely concerned about el-Faisal's return and plans to meet with community leaders.

He said Jamaica's poverty and lack of security might make it easy for people to infiltrate their community.

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American mother, baby killed by elephant in Kenya

2010-01-08T21:37:00.013-08:00

NAIROBI, Kenya – Sharon Brown was hiking with family and her 1-year-old daughter in a Kenyan nature reserve when suddenly their unarmed guide froze in his tracks. Around a corner was an elephant.

The guide shouted to turn back, but it was too late. The elephant — which was protecting a calf nearby — gored the young American mother, tossed her in the air and dragged her body into the forest, a relative said. The baby, who was flung out of her carrier, also died.

"We watched helplessly," Brown's brother-in-law, Rick LeVert, said of the tragic end to what was supposed to have been a scenic nature walk in the forest surrounding the lodge where the family was staying near Mount Kenya National Park.

The 38-year-old New York native and her husband Jeff had decided to take the guided hike Monday with their baby, Margaux, after being told by the owner of the Castle Forest Lodge that it was safe for such a young child, said LeVert, who accompanied them with his wife Libby.

"We were told several times that the walk was suitable for a mother with a baby. At no time did someone say there was a risk of an elephant charging," LeVert said.

Melia van Laar of the Castle Forest Lodge said by e-mail Thursday that the hike is suitable for a mother and young child, and that "we always do" warn guests about dangers. She said a written warning was posted on an information board.

The group had been walking over flat terrain looking at mushrooms and ants, LeVert said, when it began to rain. They headed toward a more forested area where they hiked for about an hour before the guide hesitated at a blind corner.

"At that point he turned and yelled 'Go back!'" LeVert said. "Sharon, who was next to me, turned and slipped on wet ground and a branch. I helped her up, and ... 15 to 20 meters yards up the trail was the elephant."

"It was not a lone elephant. It was a mother with a calf. We turned and we began to run. It was clear to everyone if we stayed on the path we had no chance," LeVert said. "I yelled to Sharon to come with me. I went to the left side, she went to the right side."

The elephant charged to the right, ramming into Brown, then throwing her into the air and dragging her into the forest. Margaux was tossed from her baby carrier. She was barely alive, but the family immediately knew Brown had been killed.

The elephant, making growling noises, backed up about 50 yards, allowing family members to creep toward Brown's body, LeVert said. Because she could not be saved, the family decided to leave her body and make the trek back to the lodge to try to save Margaux; the baby died en route.

LeVert said the family blamed the lodge staff for not warning them about potential dangers and for failing to provide adequate emergency help after the tragedy.

"We're not stupid. We know we were in the wild and anything could happen. But the guide did not hesitate and said the walk was suitable. The owner did not hesitate and said the walk was suitable," he said.

However, because Castle Forest lies just outside the boundary of Mt. Kenya National Park, the family was with a hotel guide who was not allowed to carry a gun, said Kentice Tikolo, a spokeswoman for the Kenya Wildlife Service. Only park rangers can carry guns.

At the lodge, LeVert said the owner did not have any emergency contact numbers for medical authorities or the Kenya Wildlife Service. Van Laar said her lodge does have emergency contacts but they weren't programmed into her phone because she never had to call them. She added that she stayed with the family the whole time.

Tikolo, the spokeswoman for the Kenya Wildlife Service, said the elephant's aggression likely came from the fact that the calf was present.

Deaths caused by animals are common enough in Kenya that the government has a set rate to pay families in the case of such killings — about $2,600, a large sum for rural Kenyans. The government pays $660 for injuries caused by animals.

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Brrr: Parents fight for sleds as Europe shivers

2010-01-08T21:37:00.012-08:00

PARIS – Snow settling near France's Mediterranean shores. German parents battling to buy sleds. British horse races called off over too much ice.

A European cold snap — awfully cold in some places — saw snow clog roads and airports Friday, knock out electricity and induce hoorays from schoolchildren kept home from school. The low temperatures, prompted by an Arctic weather system, are set to continue through the weekend.

Britain, already deep in its longest cold spell in nearly 30 years, registered its chilliest night yet this season: minus 22.3 degrees Celsius minus 8.1 Fahrenheit in the Scottish Highlands village of Altnaharra.

British authorities have used up so much grit on icy roads that on Friday they started to run out, leaving thousands of secondary roads and sidewalks untreated and turning them into sheets of black ice that stretched for blocks. Poland, too, saw shortages of salt for spilling on streets.

Gatwick Airport officials said 18,000 tons of snow had been removed from runways in recent days. A dozen flights were canceled out of Marseille-Provence airport in southern France. France's busiest airport, Charles de Gaulle, planned to cancel 25 percent of its flights on Saturday.

France's weather service issued an avalanche warning for the Alps and the Pyrenees for this weekend after days of heavy snowfall and strong winds. Some travelers abandoned plans to head to the ski slopes because of closed roads.

Last weekend, avalanches killed seven people in Switzerland at the start of its ski season.

For desperate parents from Britain to Berlin, the biggest challenge hasn't been snow-choked roads but finding a sled.

Manufacturers of all types of snow-slipping vehicles, from traditional wooden-runner sleds to plastic bobsleds with breaks, are thrilled at the boom after years of fearing they had become victims of global warming.

"There hasn't been a run on sleds like this one since at least 25 years," said Michael Ress, owner Ress Kutschen sled factory in Schwebheim, Germany.

Ress' eight employees are currently working at maximum capacity, putting together 100 beech-wood sleds per day. The entire forthcoming production of this season's 3,000 sleds, which go for euro35 $50, already has been sold in advance.

"We're running out of supplies," said Ress, adding that he was forced to order certain metal parts from Asia because his usual German suppliers were out of stock.

In London, the harsh weather dominated Friday's Cabinet meeting. British union officials pleaded with employers to offer hot drinks to people working outside. A charity call center set up to help the elderly cope with the snow and ice was shut down because workers could not get to the office.

Deep snow in Lanarkshire, Scotland, left Alec Allison using a tractor to clear it from the roads of his farm. But that didn't help his sheep. At one point, he used a long stick to search snowdrifts where he found and freed one of his sheep.

In Merseyside in northwest England, construction workers helped rescue a flock of swans trapped in a frozen lake. The RSPCA animal welfare organization said it had received about 100 calls since Wednesday reporting ducks and swans stuck in ice on ponds and lakes.

In France, snow piled up from Normandy to Marseilles on the Mediterranean shore. Some 30 centimeters 11.8 inches of snow fell on Arles and Avignon in southern France, according to the regional traffic center, and snowdrifts piled higher than a meter 3.3 feet. Snowstorms cut electricity to thousands of homes.

Much of Spain was also shivering. A nature park in the normally temperate Murcia region in the southeast turned on heaters at a pen housing three giraffes more accustomed to savannah-like climes.

Baetz reported from Berlin. Associated Press writers Gregory Katz and Jill Lawless in London, Ariel David in Rome, Ian MacDougall in Olso, Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm, Daniel Woolls in Madrid, Karel Janicek in Prague contributed to this report.

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Migrants riot in southern Italian town

2010-01-08T21:37:00.011-08:00

ROSARNO, Italy – Hundreds of migrant workers, most of them Africans, went on a rampage Friday in a southern Italian town in a second day of rioting, with authorities reporting at least 37 wounded, including 18 police officers and five migrants.

Violence ebbed and flared throughout Friday in Rosarno, a town near the western coast of Calabria in the "toe" of the Italian peninsula. The clashes in the volatile area had begun a day earlier, when two migrants were wounded by pellet fire, said a top police official, Renato Cortese, in the regional capital.

Police reinforcements were being sent in the next hours, likely during the night, with the exact number still being decided, the Interior Ministry said.

Friday evening, another two migrants were wounded in the feet and legs by pellet fire, and three more were seriously injured when they were beaten with metal rods, police and hospital officials said.

The two migrants shot Friday were in the hamlet of Laureana di Borrello, 10 kilometers 6 miles from Rosarno, said Cortese. There was no information about the attacker.

Officials at Santa Maria degli Ungheresi Hospital in the nearby town of Polistena said one of the migrants beaten by metal rods had surgery for a kidney injury and another was treated for an eye socket injury, and the third wounded in the attack was taken to another hospital for brain surgery.

The rioting began after Thursday's shooting, in which two men — one from Nigeria, the other from Togo — were lightly injured. The foreigners angrily blamed that shooting on racism, and groups of protesters stoned police, attacked residents and smashed shop windows and cars.

Friday, angry migrants, mostly from African nations, some armed with metal bars or wooden sticks, scuffled with police and residents in the streets of Rosarno.

Other residents were holed up in their homes, state radio reported, and schools and shops were shuttered.

"I'd say you could step out and buy some bread only because you have to eat, but if I had to choose I wouldn't go out for an evening stroll," said Cortese, asked by the AP in a telephone interview how dangerous Rosarno's streets were.

Police said late Friday evening that at least 37 people had been injured, including the five migrants, 14 residents and 18 police officers.

A young mother with a bruise under an eye and a bandage on the side of her head, told state TV a group of migrants started smashing her car. The woman said that, fearful for the safety of her small children, she managed to drive about two meters 6 feet, before her attackers pushed her car into a wall. Terrified, she fled with her family, and the assailants set her car afire, she said.

With television cameras rolling in the streets, some residents shouted that they wanted the migrants to leave the town.

An exact number of arrests was not available because the clashes were continuing, although they were "under control," said the paramilitary Carabinieri police press office.

Earlier, the Interior Ministry said seven migrants had been arrested.

The Italians arrested included one who tried to hit a migrant with a bulldozer as the rioters headed toward the town's center. Another Italian resident was taken into custody after trying to hit a migrant with a car, the Italian news agency ANSA reported from Rosarno, a town of 15,000 people.

Agazio Loiero, the governor of the Calabria region, told Sky TV said that the violence was "unacceptable" but the migrants had been "strongly provoked."

Ariel David reported from Rome. Associated Press reporter Marco Pedersini contributed to this report from Rome.

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3 Malaysian churches attacked in 'Allah' dispute

2010-01-08T21:37:00.010-08:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Religious tensions in Muslim-majority Malaysia turned violent Friday with firebomb attacks on three churches following a court decision that allows Christians to translate God as Allah.

"Allah is only for us," said a poster waved at one of at least two protests outside mosques in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, the Muslim holy day.

Many Muslims are angry about a Dec. 31 High Court decision overturning a government ban on Roman Catholics' using "Allah" for God in the Malay-language edition of their main newspaper, the Herald.

The ruling also applies to the ban's broader applications, such as Malay-language Bibles, 10,000 copies of which were recently seized by authorities because they translated God as Allah.

"We will not allow the word Allah to be inscribed in your churches," a speaker shouted over a loudspeaker at the Kampung Bahru mosque.

The Herald says its Malay edition is read mainly by Christian indigenous tribes in the remote states of Sabah and Sarawak.

But the government contends that making Allah synonymous with God may confuse Muslims and ultimately mislead to them into converting to Christianity, a punishable offense in Malaysia despite a constitution that guarantees freedom of religion.

It suggests using "Tuhan," but Christians say Tuhan is more like "Lord," and can't replace "Allah."

Leading Muslim scholars, activists and opposition politicians have supported the Christians' right to call God Allah, and Friday's protests were relatively small, with most of the congregation ignoring them.

Still, the unprecedented church attacks compounded the difficulties for a country that prides itself on having managed to maintain broad harmony among a mix of racial and religious gaps. About 9 percent of Malaysia's 28 million people are Christian, including 800,000 Catholics, most of whom are ethnic Chinese or Indian. Muslims are 60 percent.

Minorities have long complained of discrimination. The government refuses to allow construction of new churches and temples, court verdicts in religious disputes usually favor Muslims, and an array of laws guarantee preferential treatment for Malays, the dominant and largely Muslim ethnic group, in jobs, housing and education.

"The distrust has always been there but now the minorities in Malaysia feel that they are under siege," said James Chin, who teaches political science at the Monash University in Malaysia.

The Allah ban is unusual in the Muslim world. The Arabic word is commonly used by Christians to describe God in such countries as Egypt and Syria. The confiscated Bibles came from neighboring Indonesia, an overwhelmingly Muslim country.

Bassilius Nassour, a Greek Orthodox bishop in Damascus, called the Malaysian government's position "shameful."

"It shows Malaysia to be a backward, pagan state because God teaches freedom for everyone, and the word 'Allah' is for everyone," he said.

Some government critics suggest the Allah ban is designed to win back Muslim voters who deserted Prime Minister Najib Razak's United Malays National Organization party in the 2008 general election — a charge Najib denies. He condemned the church attacks and promised the government would "take whatever steps it can to prevent such acts."

Since the court ruling, hateful comments and threats against Christians have been posted widely on the Internet, but the attacks in suburban Kuala Lumpur, the capital, mark the first time that the Allah controversy has resulted in vandalism.

Associated Press writers Eileen Ng, Julia Zappei and Sean Yoong contributed to this report.

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Shots fired at leading Iranian opposition figure

2010-01-08T21:37:00.009-08:00

TEHRAN, Iran – Pro-government demonstrators opened fire on the car of one of Iran's opposition leaders and shattered his windows, but he escaped unharmed from the rare armed attack on a top reformist, his Web site reported on Friday.

Hard-liners called last week for the execution of opposition leaders, raising tensions that could spark a cycle of political violence beyond even the government's control.

Mahdi Karroubi blamed authorities after shots were fired at his car late Thursday from a crowd of about 500 government supporters surrounded by police in the town of Qazvin, some 90 miles 140 kilometers west of Tehran.

At the time of the shooting, Karroubi was leaving a house he was staying in while visiting a friend in the town, and government supporters were rallying outside the building. Karroubi's bodyguards, who were with him at the time of the incident, did not return fire. They were also unharmed.

"God knows why a hand, which should defend people and the country, opens fire on the people," Karroubi said. The shots shattered the carwindows, reported Sahamnews Web site.

Karroubi ran in June's disputed presidential election that the opposition says Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by fraud. Unrest began immediately following the government announcement declaring Ahmadinejad the victor, with mass street protests followed by a ferocious government crackdown. The opposition says more than 80 protesters have been killed in the crackdown, but the government puts the number of confirmed dead at less than 40.

In late December, protests gained momentum again and clashes between security forces and opposition supporters killed at least eight people — the worst violence since the height of the unrest in the summer.

The shooting against Karroubi, however, was unusual. Karroubi's car was pelted by a brick-wielding mob in December. In 1999, another pro-reform politician, Saeed Hajjarian, was shot in the face and paralyzed.

The attack raised concerns that the political turmoil rocking Iran could be spiraling out of the government's control. An editor of a reformist Web site in Tehran said he feared for Karroubi's life.

"It was not just a single threat," the editor said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "It's a move for the physical elimination of Karroubi and other opposition leaders."

None of Iran's official or semiofficial news outlets reported on the shooting on Karroubi.

Since the bloodshed last month, death threats against opposition leaders have increased, with pro-government demonstrations last week calling for the execution of Karroubi and the top opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Senior cleric Kazem Sedighi appeared to give the green light Friday for people to take matters into their own hands against opposition figures.

"I am concerned that people will lose patience if the legal apparatus does not conduct its affairs in a timely manner," Sedighi said during Friday's sermon in Tehran. He also claimed some of the 500 protesters arrested around the Shiite holy day of Ashoura Dec. 27 were intoxicated.

Also during Friday prayers, hard-line lawmaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel appeared to lash out Karroubi, accusing him of serving the enemies of Iran. Authorities have repeatedly accused the United States and Britain of fomenting Iran's unrest and supporting the opposition.

"Why did you pave the ground for the plots of foreign enemies?" said Adel, an ally of Iran's supreme leader. "You damaged the reputation of the system," he added, without mentioning Karroubi by name, and warned those going against the establishment "will melt like snow under rays of the sun."

Tehran's prosecutor said Friday a German national and a Syrian reporter for Dubai TV who were among those detained during the latest opposition protests in December would soon be released, but gave no timeframe.

This version CORRECTS New approach; UPDATES overlines; corrects that EU removed MEK from terror list last year sted this year.

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Latest shot in hummus war: Israel doubles record

2010-01-08T21:37:00.007-08:00

JERUSALEM – Israel has taken the upper hand in a new kind of Mideast conflict, one in which bullets are replaced by chickpeas.

Using a satellite dish on loan from a nearby broadcast station, cooks in an Arab town near Jerusalem whipped up more than four metric tons of hummus, the chickpea paste that is a staple — and a near-religious obsession — for many in the Middle East.

The cooks doubled the previous record for the world's biggest serving of hummus, set in October by cooks in Lebanon. That record broke an earlier Israeli record and briefly put Lebanon ahead.

Hundreds of jubilant Israelis, a mix of Arabs and Jews, gathered around the giant dish in the town of Abu Ghosh near Jerusalem on Friday, many of them dancing as a singer performed an Arabic love song to the beige chickpea paste.

Just after midday, an adjudicator sent from London by Guinness World Records, Jack Brockbank, confirmed that the Israeli chefs now held the record. He put the exact amount of hummus in the giant dish at 9,017 pounds 4,090 kilograms.

Lebanon and Israel have officially been at war for six decades. Three months ago, when the Lebanese chefs prepared their record-breaking dish, they called it a move to reaffirm ownership of a Lebanese food they claimed had been appropriated by Israelis.

"Lebanon is trying to win a battle against Israel by registering this new Guinness World Record and telling the whole world that hummus is a Lebanese product, it's part of our traditions," Fady Jreissati, the Lebanese organizer, said at the time.

The driving force behind the Israeli hummus dish, Jawdat Ibrahim, an Israeli Arab restaurateur who became a millionaire after winning a lottery in the U.S., played down the conflict, saying "competition is a healthy thing."

"Today we have the hummus. Hopefully, we will have the talks for peace in our region," he said.

The hummus war has been simmering for some time. In 2008, a group of Lebanese businessmen announced plans to sue Israel to stop it from marketing hummus and other regional dishes as Israeli.

Lebanese tourism minister Fadi Abboud told The Associated Press that his country plans to beat the new record in the spring with an even bigger plate of hummus prepared on the border with Israel. "This way they can learn how to do hummus," he said.

"We have no objection that other people do hummus but they should know that it is Lebanese. They Israelis should find a name other than hummus because this is a Lebanese name," Abboud said.

Many in the Arab world see Israel as a Western implant in the region, though a majority of Israel's population is of Middle Eastern and North African descent. The chefs responsible for Friday's record were from the country's one-fifth Arab minority.

Israel launched two major military operations against Lebanon, targeting guerrillas threatening Israel's northern border, in 1982 and in 2006. Both campaigns left widespread devastation in Lebanon.

On Friday, a newscaster on Israel's Army Radio referred to the hummus clash as the "third Lebanon war."

___

Associated Press Writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.

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CIA bomber's wife says war must go on against US

2010-01-08T21:37:00.005-08:00

ISTANBUL – The Turkish wife of a Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA employees in a suicide attack in Afghanistan says her husband was outraged over the treatment of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison and the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defne Bayrak, the wife of bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, said in an interview with The Associated Press that his hatred of the United States had motivated her husband to sacrifice his life on Dec. 30 in what he regarded as a holy war against the U.S.

Bayrak also said Friday, "I think the war against the United States must go on."

Turkish police questioned and released Bayrak on Thursday. But she says police confiscated a book she had written called "Osama bin Laden the Che Guevera of the East."

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Mrs. Robinson's affair with teen rocks NIreland

2010-01-08T21:37:00.003-08:00

BELFAST, Northern Ireland – A political scandal riveting Northern Ireland has a certain cinematic feel: an affair by 58-year-old woman named Mrs. Robinson with a 19-year-old male lover.

Five separate Facebook groups with hundreds of followers have sprung up, lampooning the affair and comparing it to the 1967 film, "The Graduate."

But there is a serious side to the story of Iris Robinson, who also happens to be a member of Parliament and the wife of Peter Robinson — Northern Ireland's government leader.

The BBC reported that Iris Robinson allegedly solicited 50,000 pounds $80,000 from businessmen so her young lover could open a restaurant — without disclosing the fact to lawmakers.

Iris Robinson has said she would not seek re-election because she was suffering clinical depression that left her unable to function in public life and revealed that she attempted suicide. She also begged forgiveness from her husband, Peter, and the public.

"Everyone is paying a heavy price for my actions. ... I am so, so sorry," she said.

Peter Robinson, who in 2008 succeeded the Rev. Ian Paisley as head of Northern Ireland's government and its major Protestant political party, vowed Friday to stay on following the revelations about his wife.

"I will be resolutely defending attacks on my character and contesting any allegations of wrongdoing," Peter Robinson said after the BBC investigative team in Belfast exposed the scandal. He stressed that he hadn't known key details of his wife's affair before the program.

On Wednesday, Peter Robinson invited four journalists to his home to give his own agonized account of his family's private turmoil — an unprecedented display from a man renowned for an icy demeanor.

The Robinsons neglected to mention the nub of the BBC report: That Iris Robinson's lover, 39 years her junior, had received third-party cash from her that should have been disclosed to Parliament.

The BBC interviewed the former boyfriend, Kirk McCambley, now 21, who had a relationship with Iris Robinson in 2008 that lasted several months. She had been friends with the boy's father, who died earlier that year.

"She looked out for me to make sure I was OK," McCambley told the BBC.

He said Iris Robinson, now 60, gave him two checks for 25,000 pounds $40,000 each, but she then asked him for 5,000 pounds $8,000 back, possibly to donate to the evangelical Protestant church she attends.

The BBC said Peter Robinson was aware of the financial deal — which should have been reported to British parliamentary standards authorities in both Belfast and London. Peter Robinson denies having known about the deal.

Even before the scandal, Iris Robinson had caused her husband political problems when she condemned homosexuals as revolting and called on them to seek help from psychiatrists and Christianity.

"Just as a murderer can be redeemed by the blood of Christ, so can a homosexual," she said.

The Robinsons have been married for 40 years and have three grown children. When Iris joined her husband in Parliament in 2001, they became the United Kingdom's first husband-and-wife lawmakers.

Associated Press Writer Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin contributed to this report.

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Chilean zoo celebrates birth of 5 white tigers

2010-01-08T21:37:00.001-08:00

SANTIAGO, Chile – The Chilean National Zoo is celebrating the birth of a rare litter of five white tigers.

Zoo director Mauricio Fabry said Thursday that the zoo will build a special habitat to accommodate the tigers born on Dec. 28.

He said that the new enclosure will include a large expanse of grass and waterfalls and will be without bars.

On Wednesday, zoo officials implanted subcutaneous chips in the cubs to identify them.

The tigers' father is Pampa, who arrived from Argentina in 2007. The mother is Luna, who arrived at the zoo from Mexico in 2004.

The couple produced a litter of three white tigers in December 2007, but the zoo hasn't seen a litter of five in 82 years.

The tigers' white fur is the result of a rare gene mutation.

Fabry says there are only 200 such tigers on the planet.

This version CORRECTS reference from pups to cubs.

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UK diplomat: US was 'hell bent' on Iraq invasion

2009-11-28T02:53:00.031-08:00

LONDON – The United States was "hell bent" on a 2003 military invasion of Iraq and actively undermined efforts by Britain to win international authorization for the war, a former British diplomat told an inquiry Friday.

Jeremy Greenstock, British ambassador to the United Nations from 1998 to 2003, said that President George W. Bush had no real interest in attempts to agree on a U.N. resolution to provide explicit backing for the conflict.

The ex-diplomat, who served as Britain's envoy in Iraq after the invasion, said serious preparations for the war had begun in early 2002 and took on an unstoppable momentum.

As diplomats frantically attempted in early 2003 to agree upon a U.N. resolution approving a military offensive, Bush's key aides grew impatient — criticizing the process as an unnecessary distraction, he said.

Grumbling from Washington "included noises about 'this is a waste of time, what we need is regime change, why are we bothering with this, we must sweep this aside and do what's going to have to be done anyway — and deal with this with the use of force,'" Greenstock testified before the inquiry into the Iraq war.

Several nations had hoped to stall the invasion of Iraq to allow U.N. weapons inspectors more time to search for evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction — the key justification for the war. No such weapons were ever found.

Yet Bush's inner circle cared little about what international allies thought and refused to halt plans to invade in March 2003, Greenstock said. He said even Blair was unable to persuade Bush, winning only a brief hiatus of two weeks.

"The momentum for earlier action in the United States was much too strong for us to counter," Greenstock said in a written statement to the inquiry, provided alongside his live testimony.

Britain's inquiry is the most exhaustive study yet into the war and will seek evidence from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, military officials and spy agency chiefs. It won't apportion blame or establish criminal or civil liability. But it will offer recommendations by late 2010 on how to prevent mistakes from being repeated in the future.

Greenstock told the five-person inquiry panel that the failure to win U.N. approval for the war had seriously undermined the legitimacy of the conflict.

He said, in his opinion, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was legal — a view rejected by critics who say it violated international law — but was of "questionable legitimacy."

"It did not have the democratically observable backing of the great majority of member states, or even perhaps of the majority of people inside the U.K.," he said.

In London, an anti-war rally in 2003 drew an estimated 2 million demonstrators — the largest street protest in a generation.

Greenstock told the panel he had his own doubts, and had threatened to resign if no international backing was agreed upon. His threat came before a Nov. 2002 resolution that offered Iraq a final opportunity to disarm and demanded access for weapons inspectors.

Efforts to agree on a sterner resolution authorizing military action foundered because the international community believed the U.S. was "hell bent on the use of force" regardless of world opinion, Greenstock said.

"The United States was not proactively supportive of the U.K.'s efforts and seemed to be preparing for conflict whatever the U.K. decided to do," Greenstock wrote in his statement.

Christopher Meyer, Britain's former ambassador to the U.S., told the inquiry Thursday that he believed Bush and Blair had used a meeting at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, to "sign in blood" an agreement to take military action on Iraq. That was a year before Parliament approved Britain's involvement.

Greenstock's statement

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US and China to reduce emissions, but not enough

2009-11-28T02:53:00.030-08:00

AMSTERDAM – Even after the U.S. and China set targets this week for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the world's combined pledges ahead of next month's climate summit fall far short of what experts say is needed to avert dangerous global warming.

Still, emission promises by the two countries, the world's biggest polluters, added much-needed momentum as governments began final preparations for the 192-nation conference in Copenhagen, where parameters will be set for a new climate change agreement.

From Beijing to Trinidad, governments huddled Friday to plan their negotiating strategies.

China hosted India and other major developing countries a day after announcing that Beijing would cut "carbon intensity," a measure of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of production, by 40 to 45 percent by 2020, compared with levels in 2005.

The Chinese target means emissions will continue to grow as its economy expands, but at nearly half the rate they otherwise would have done.

Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, whose country presides over the 27-nation European Union, said the Chinese bid was an important signal and a move in the right direction, but there was room for greater reductions.

"We feel that China could do more and we also hope to get further commitments," he said on the Web site of the EU presidency.

Unofficial calculations by U.N. climate officials said the move would put China on a path to reduce all its greenhouse gas emissions about 13 percent from "business as usual," the level those emissions would have reached without any action.

The Chinese move was expected to put pressure on India, which has failed to put forward any numbers for curbing emissions growth.

In India, where some 400 million people lack access to electricity, "climate change is not regarded as a national priority," according to an internal U.N. assessment.

However, India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, indicated that his country was reviewing its position after the Chinese announcement, which he described as "a wake-up call."

"We have to think hard about our climate strategy now and look for flexibility," Ramesh told The Hindustan Times.

Press Trust of India reported from Beijing that India also may accept a carbon intensity target, but not as steep as China's.

In other meetings Friday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told a meeting of Amazon nations in his capital that rich countries must "pay the price" for preservation of the world's largest rain forest, which is considered vital for soaking carbon from the air.

British Commonwealth nations gathered in Trinidad to debate a declaration representing the common views of 53 widely divergent nations.

Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who pulled his Commonwealth country out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that would have limited Canada's emissions, reversed his decision to stay away from Copenhagen after Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said they would attend.

Harper's Conservative government says it plans to cut greenhouse gases by 20 percent by 2020 from 2006 levels, which are slightly tougher than measures announced by the U.S.

"Governments from all over the world are delivering before the climate conference," Hedegaard said. "All across the globe, things are moving."

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Swiss vote on proposal to ban minarets

2009-11-28T02:53:00.029-08:00

GENEVA – The campaign posters are inflammatory: Minarets rising like missiles from the national flag.

A proposal championed by right-wing parties to ban minarets in Switzerland goes to a nationwide vote on Sunday in a referendum that has set off an emotional debate about national identity and stirred fears of boycotts and violent reactions from Muslim countries.

With tensions running high, the Geneva Mosque was vandalized Thursday by unidentified individuals who threw a pot of pink paint at the building's entrance.

It was the third incident against the mosque this month: earlier, a vehicle with a loudspeaker drove through the area imitating a muezzin's call to prayer, and vandals threw cobble stones at the building, damaging a mosaic.

Business leaders say a minaret ban would be disastrous for the Swiss economy because it could drive away wealthy Muslims who bank in Switzerland, buy the country's luxury goods, and frequent its resorts.

The vote taps into anxieties about Muslims that have been rippling through Europe in recent years, ranging from French fears of women in body veils to Dutch alarm over the murder by a Muslim fanatic of a filmmaker who made a documentary that criticized Islam.

Polls indicate growing support for the proposal submitted by the anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party, but it was doubtful it will gain enough momentum to pass. Muslims in Switzerland have kept a low profile, refraining from a counter-campaign.

"Switzerland's good reputation as an open, tolerant and secure country may be lost and this would bring a blow to tourism," said Swiss Hotel Association spokesman Thomas Allemann.

The nationalist Swiss People's Party has led several campaigns against foreigners, including a proposal to kick out entire families of foreigners if one of their children breaks a law and a bid to subject citizenship applications to a popular vote.

The party's controversial posters have shown three white sheep kicking out a black sheep and a swarm of brown hands grabbing Swiss passports from a box.

The current campaign posters showing missile-like minarets atop the national flag and a fully veiled woman have drawn anger of local officials and rights defenders.

The cities of Basel, Lausanne and Fribourg banned the billboards, saying they painted a "racist, disrespectful and dangerous image" of Islam.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee called the posters discriminatory and said Switzerland would violate international law if it bans minarets.

The Swiss People's Party joined forces with the fringe Federal Democratic Union in the campaign. They say they are acting to fight the spread of political Islam, arguing the minaret represents a bid for power and is not just a religious symbol.

The four minarets already attached to mosques in the country would remain even if the referendum passes. Minarets are typically built next to mosques for religious leaders to call the faithful to prayer, but they are not used for that in Switzerland.

Construction of traditional mosques and minarets in European countries has rarely been trouble-free: projects in Sweden, France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Germany and Slovenia have met protests but have rarely been blocked.

In Cologne, Germany, plans to expand the city's Ditib Mosque and complete it with a dome and two 177-foot-tall minarets have triggered an outcry from right-wing groups and the city's Roman Catholic archbishop.

"This can lead to boycotts," he told weekly SonntagsZeitung.

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Japan launches 5th spy satellite

2009-11-28T02:53:00.028-08:00

TOKYO – Japan launched its fifth spy satellite into orbit Saturday in a bid to boost its ability to independently gather intelligence, the government said.

The domestically developed H-2A rocket carrying the $565 million satellite lifted off from a space center on the southern island of Tanegashima, said Hisashi Michigami, an official at the Cabinet Office.

"The satellite will gather intelligence for our defense and diplomatic purposes," Michigami said. "We hope to upgrade our ability to gather intelligence on our own. Intelligence gathering is vital to our national security."

Michigami said the launch was successful.

Japan has long relied on the United States for intelligence. But it launched its first pair of spy satellites in 2003, prompted by concerns over North Korea's missile program.

North Korea shocked Tokyo in 1998 when it test-fired a missile over Japan. Since then, Japan has launched spy satellites primarily to watch developments in North Korea.

In April this year, a North Korean long-range rocket flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean.

Michigami said Japan has three working spy satellites. The fourth spy satellite became unresponsive in 2007 due to apparent electrical problems. Each spy satellite will last around five years, he said.

Japan has long been one of the world's leading space-faring nations, having launched its first satellite in 1970. But it has been struggling to get out from under China's shadow in recent years.

While China put its first men into orbit in 2003, Japan has yet to send astronauts on its own, though Japanese have joined U.S. space missions.

Last year, Japan's parliament voted to allow the nation's space programs to be used for defense for the first time as part of Tokyo's push to give its military a greater international role.

In January this year, Japan launched its first satellite to monitor greenhouse gases, a tool to help scientists better judge where global warming emissions are coming from, and how much is being absorbed by the oceans and forests.

The country also plans to have a two-legged robot walk on the moon by around 2020.

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Eq. Guinea leader expected to win near 100 percent

2009-11-28T02:53:00.027-08:00

JOHANNESBURG – Equatorial Guinea — a violent land of coups, petrodollar wealth and killer poverty — is holding a presidential election Sunday that its leader of 30 years says he will win by more than the 97 percent garnered in the last widely criticized vote.

The vote to reinstall Teodoro Obiang Nguema will be hard to judge since journalists have been unable to get visas, and African observers must be escorted by government employees and must not make "disparaging remarks," according to a presidential decree.

Western governments, meanwhile, are accused of turning a blind eye to corruption and repression, their eyes firmly fixed on the West African nation's abundant oil and gas reserves.

"Elections here have become a game," said Dr. Wenceslao Mansogo Alo, human rights representative of the main opposition Convergence for Social Democracy.

Obiang has announced that he will win more than the 97.1 percent garnered in the 2002 election.

"I am the people's candidate and I don't see anyone who can go against the will of the people," Obiang, 67, said at a rally Sunday.

A news release from one of two U.S. lobbying firms employed by the Obiang administration said the country has "undertaken an ambitious effort to ensure an open election process."

"The government of Equatorial Guinea is committed to holding fair and democratic elections. As part of our reform efforts we aim to ensure all voices are heard," the release quoted Equatorial Guinea's ambassador to the United States, Purificacion Angue Ondo, as saying.

The United States, though, called the 2002 vote "seriously flawed" and few doubt Obiang will win again.

"We feel isolated and disappointed because we are doing what little we can while those who have interests in this country should be putting pressure on this regime; countries like the United States and the European Union have the power to intervene with this dictatorship," Mansogo said.

American company Exxon Mobil was first to discover oil in Equatorial Guinea in 1994 and U.S. companies continue to dominate the industry there but face growing competition.

Equatorial Guinea's per capita income has ballooned to about $31,000 a year, on a par with former colonizer Spain and making it the richest nation in sub-Saharan Africa.

Yet, with a small population of just 600,000, life for most Equato-Guineans has become harsher: Some 60 percent struggle to survive on less than $1 a day. The U.N. Children's Fund says child mortality has increased and a third of children never complete primary school.

The average citizen is unlikely to live beyond 50, yet someone in Brazil — with an average annual income of less than $10,000 — can expect to live to 72.

"It's a scandal," said political analyst Paul-Simon Handy of the South African Institute for Security Studies. "Only some 30 to 40 percent of the population has access to clean water and electricity."

Meanwhile, the government boasts of multimillion-dollar investments in roads and other infrastructure.

The country's ambassador to the United States this week had an expensive U.S. lobbying firm distribute a letter and a "Facts versus Fiction" sheet around Capitol Hill to try to counter criticisms about corruption.

Obiang has survived attempts to oust him, including a foreign-funded coup attempt foiled in 2004 and a seaborne attack on his presidential palace last February.

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Invading camels to be shot in Australian town

2009-11-28T02:53:00.026-08:00

ALICE SPRINGS, Australia – Australian authorities plan to corral about 6,000 wild camels with helicopters and gun them down after they overran a small Outback town in search of water, trampling fences, smashing tanks and contaminating supplies.

The Northern Territory government announced its plan Wednesday for Docker River, a town of 350 residents where thirsty camels have been arriving daily for weeks because of drought conditions in the region.

"The community of Docker River is under siege by 6,000 marauding, wild camels," local government minister Rob Knight said in Alice Springs, 310 miles 500 kilometers northeast of Docker. "This is a very critical situation out there, it's very unusual and it needs urgent action."

The camels, which are not native to Australia but were introduced in the 1840s, have smashed water tanks, approached houses to try to take water from air conditioning units, and knocked down fencing at the small airport runway, Knight said.

The carcasses of camels killed in stampedes at water storage areas are contaminating the water supply, he added.

The government plans to use helicopters to herd the camels about nine miles 15 kilometers outside of town next week, where they will be shot and their carcasses left to decay in the desert. The state government will give a 49,000 Australian dollar $45,000 grant for the cull and to repair damaged infrastructure in the town.

"We don't have the luxury of time because the herd is getting bigger," Knight said.

It is common to see some camels in the remote community, but a continuing drought and an early heat wave have dried up other water sources and forced great numbers of them into town. Much of Australia is gripped by some of the worst drought conditions on record.

In August, the federal government set aside 19 million Australian dollars for a program to slash the wild camel population, including a possible mass slaughter.

Glenys Oogjes, executive director of national advocacy group Animals Australia, said the plan to kill camels by helicopter was barbaric, and that the community could instead focus on setting up barriers to keep out the camels.

"It's a terrible thing that people react to these events by shooting," she said. "The real concern is the terrible distress and wounding when shot by helicopter. ... There will be terrible suffering."

Camels were first brought to Australia to help explorers travel through the desert, and now an estimated 1 million roam wild across the country.

They compete with sheep and cattle for food, trample vegetation and invade remote settlements in search of water, scaring residents as they tear apart bathrooms and rip up water pipes.

Docker River residents were not especially concerned when about 30 camels came into the town looking for water a few weeks ago, said Graham Taylor, head of the local council. But their fears grew as more animals arrived day by day.

He said many people were too frightened to leave their homes because of the big, strong animals, which can grow up to 7 feet 2.1 meters tall and weigh 2,000 pounds 900 kilograms.

"We need to get the risk and that threat away from the people," Taylor said.

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UN helicopter attacked in Congo; 4 wounded

2009-11-28T02:53:00.025-08:00

KINSHASA, Congo – The United Nations says at least four of its peacekeepers have been wounded in northern Congo after a U.N. helicopter was attacked by armed men.

Madnodje Mounoubai, a spokesman for the U.N. mission in Congo, said the wounded were flown for treatment to neighboring Republic of Congo after Thursday's attack.

Mounoubai said a small U.N. unit was deployed to Dungu after fighting started earlier this month between the Enyele and Munzale tribesmen reportedly over farming and fishing rights.

More than 100 people have died and more than 50,000 have fled to Brazzaville in the neighboring small country Republic of Congo, Mounoubai said.

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Mumbai commemorates anniversary of attacks

2009-11-28T02:53:00.024-08:00

MUMBAI, India – A grandfather visited the room where his grandson was orphaned. A young man returned to the hotel where he narrowly escaped death. Mumbai residents went in droves to donate blood at a train station overrun in the 60-hour siege of India's financial capital.

One year after the attacks that killed 166 people, thousands gathered in the streets, many holding candles, and black-clad commandoes rappelled down a building in a spectacle meant to reassure the city that it is well-defended.

But beneath the pomp and sorrow, little has changed.

Luck, better intelligence operations and, to some extent, international diplomacy have kept Mumbai safe this last year, rather than any real improvement in the city's security forces, analysts and diplomats say.

Today, Mumbai remains nearly as vulnerable as it was last Nov. 26, when ten young men armed with assault rifles and almonds for energy began a three-day assault on two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and a busy train station.

The attacks inspired books, Bollywood movies, taxi tours, and a gory video game, but little of the kind of searching structural and political change that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.

Politicians who were pushed out of office in disgrace after the attacks have been reinstated. Voter turnout in Mumbai actually fell this year, and the new, independent candidates — a doctor and a banker among them — who entered politics promising change were largely ignored by the electorate.

The police have spent $27.7 million on new equipment and expanded manpower, restructured their response strategy and brought in experts from the U.S., Russia and Israel for training.

But analysts and police say the threat against India from groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, blamed for last year's attack, remains high, and activists say Mumbai's police department is still too muddied by politics to function effectively. This week's vigils were shot through with calls for further reform.

"The tragedy took place precisely because the police miserably failed in its duties," said Shukla Sen, a member of the Citizens' Initiative for Peace, who lit a candle Wednesday night outside the Taj Mahal hotel, where 31 were killed in a 60-hour siege. "The functioning of the police must improve."

On Thursday, crowds pooled nearby at the Gateway of India, a popular tourist attraction on the waterfront, pledging unity and vigilance and pointing up at the boards that still cover some of the windows of the iconic hotel. Some called for death by public hanging for Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving gunman who is standing trial in Mumbai.

Indian authorities say they have blocked multiple Islamist terror plots in the last year, in part due to improvements in intelligence-gathering and coordination instated by Home Affairs Minister P. Chidambaram, who was appointed in the aftermath of the attack. Diplomats say India, which has a reputation for taking but not giving good intelligence information, has started to share more.

F.B.I. officers testified at Kasab's trial. New York's police department has made frequent trips to the city, and members of the Los Angeles police force are scheduled to come next week.

In addition, Washington has been pressing Islamabad to turn away from its traditional enemy India and focus more on its fight against the Taliban and other extremists along the Afghan-Pakistani border. On Wednesday, Pakistan charged seven men implicated in the Mumbai attacks, its first indictments in a long-delayed trial that India and the U.S. see as a test of Islamabad's willingness to prosecute those responsible. No charges have been brought against top Lashkar leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, much to India's ire.

In a show of solidarity Thursday, nearly 3,700 people came to donate blood at Chhatrapati Shivaji train terminal, where 58 died and 104 were injured.

"I can't fight terrorists, but I can do this," said student Kaustubh Panat, 21, as he lay with a needle in his arm. "It's my honor."

Others spent the day struggling with private grief.

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Muslims cast stones on 3rd day of hajj

2009-11-28T02:53:00.023-08:00

MINA, Saudi Arabia – Vast crowds of pilgrims cast stones at walls representing the devil on the third day of the annual hajj on Friday as Muslims around the world began celebrating Eid al-Adha, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar.

The weather was sunny and hot Friday morning over the desert valley on Mina, a contrast to the unusually heavy rains that soaked the faithful on the pilgrimage's opening day Wednesday. The downpours caused heavy flooding in the nearby Red Sea coastal city of Jiddah, killing 83 people.

The stoning rituals at Mina have long been the most hazardous of the hajj. The pilgrims — more than 3 million this year — file past three stone walls representing Satan and stop to pelt them with stones in a symbolic rejection of temptation. In the heavy traffic, crushes and pileups have killed hundreds, most recently in 2006.

But since then, Saudi authorities have built a giant multi-story ramp around the walls, allowing people to stone on five different levels, spreading out the crowd and preventing jams.

On Friday, the huge masses of men in white robes and women streamed over the sprawling structure, which resembles an immense, nearly kilometer-long 0.6 mile parking garage. They furiously threw pebbles at the walls, denouncing the devil.

Afterward, pilgrims shaved their heads in a sign of renewal — or clipped off a lock if they balked at shaving themselves bald.

The stoning rituals will be repeated for two more days, ending the pilgrimage. The hajj is a religious duty for every Muslim able to carry it out.

The first day of stoning also marks the start of Eid al-Adha, or feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world traditionally slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son.

In the Gaza Strip, which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007, residents slaughtered livestock to celebrate the holy day. Muslims are asked to give a third of all meat to the poor and another third to relatives — making Eid one of the few times in impoverished Gaza that most residents eat meat.

In the northern Gaza town of Jabalia, sheep were shoved into makeshift sidewalk pens, then dragged out for slaughter by butchers, who lay the animals on the ground with their heads pointed toward the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

The butchers then called out "In the name of Allah!" and slit the beast's throat.

Other workers then swiftly skinned, gutted and chopped up the animals, tossing innards into big metal buckets.

"Even in tough times, we have to keep up this tradition," said Ibrahim Yunis, 65, standing with his daughter, who was excitedly filming the spectacle on her mobile phone. Yunis, a retired school teacher, said he saved up all year to pay $280 for a fat sheep.

Butchers in Jabalia said sheep smuggled through tunnels linking Gaza to Egypt were cheaper because they carried less meat. Abu Nidal, 40, who was sitting with his son, said he paid $150 for a sheep six months ago and fattened it himself for the holiday.

In Cairo, meanwhile, worshippers crammed into mosques and spilled out onto the streets for the Eid prayers Friday morning.

Egypt's grand Mufti Ali Gomma called on Muslims in his traditional Eid sermon to avoid wasteful spending and instead support charities.

"A good Muslim should bring happiness to the hearts of fellow human beings" he said.

After the early morning prayers, the faithful flocked to makeshift animal markets, while others, dressed in their finest clothes, headed to cemeteries to visit the graves of dead friends and relatives.

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Jobs, economics complicate Brazil's Amazon fight

2009-11-28T02:53:00.022-08:00

NOVO PROGRESSO, Brazil – Drawing his .40-caliber pistol, Severiano Pontes dashes across the steaming, muddy jungle floor, a hunch telling him what he would find around a bend.

The thick Amazon rain-forest canopy suddenly opens to a clearing where massive Jatobas and other hardwood trees have been reduced to 40 waist-high trunks lying on the ground. Fires set to help clear the underbrush still smolder nearby, sending sinewy gray smoke columns into the sea-blue sky.

Pontes and his environmental agents patrol the Amazon to prevent illegal clearing, part of Brazil's new, aggressive effort to preserve a jungle the size of the U.S. west of the Mississippi River. The government says such teams are the main reason that deforestation has slowed this year to its lowest level in two decades.

But more often Pontes' agents arrive too late.

Instead, they find graveyards of felled trees resembling twisted, blackened fossils and earth covered in a gray layer of ash. They leave with their hands and faces coated with charcoal dust and a barbecue smell that lingers even after showering hours later.

Pontes holsters his pistol, confident armed ranch hands who often defend the illegal clearings are not around, and pulls out a tape measure.

"This one, let's start with this one here!" Pontes yells, pointing to a huge chunk of a Jatoba, trees that grow higher than 35 meters 120 feet and are popular for flooring in the U.S. and Europe. "We've got to measure all this up."

The evidence will help their agency, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, or Ibama, impose fines and other penalties.

"These trees have been cut, you cannot reverse that," Pontes says. "What must be done at this point is swift punishment to stop more from being knocked down."

___

World leaders set to gather in Copenhagen next month to draft a new accord on fighting climate change already admit the much-anticipated summit won't produce a global treaty. There are too many disagreements among countries on how to reduce heat-trapping carbon emissions blamed for warming the planet.

So far, the Brazilian government has focused mostly on enforcement.

The Brazilian Amazon is arguably the world's biggest natural defense against global warming, acting as a "sink," or absorber, of carbon dioxide. But it is also a great contributor to warming. About 75 percent of Brazil's emissions come from rainforest clearing, as vegetation burns and felled trees rot.

Advocates have long pressed to defend the world's rain forests, to save animal and plant species, safeguard watersheds and protect indigenous people's homelands. For Brazil, water vapor from the forest is also vital to its rainy climate. But the government now has another reason to protect the Amazon: A new global climate agreement is expected to reward countries for "avoided deforestation," with cash or credits tradable on the global carbon market.

In the last year, the government says its stepped-up patrols have confiscated about 230,000 cubic meters 8 million cubic feet of wood, have frozen development on more than a million acres of land and have resulted in $1.6 billion in fines.

But policing a giant region that is mostly impassable because of thick vegetation is daunting for any country, rich or poor.

So the Ibama strategy has been limited to selective shock and awe, targeting states such as Para — home to Novo Progresso — where deforestation rates from August 2008 through this July, the period Brazil uses to calculate its annual deforestation, were three times that of other Amazon states.

He turns and walks up a muddied hill to his white, four-wheel-drive pickup truck, bright yellow tape measure in his right hand and a foot-long chunk of a destroyed tree in the other.

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Coma recovery case attracts doubters

2009-11-28T02:53:00.021-08:00

BRUSSELS – Rom Houben's mother remembers her son's amazement when he finally started communicating again after spending 23 years locked in a paralyzed body that was misdiagnosed as vegetative.

"Early on, he was surprised that the words came out of his finger," Fina Nicolaes said. "Now, he is busy writing a book."

However, his communication, with the help of a speech therapist holding his hand punching a touch screen, is stirring controversy only days after the story of his comeback as a fully conscious man entombed in an immobile body captured the world's imagination.

It has scholars questioning the technique of facilitated communication, bloggers denouncing it as a cruel farce, and millions asking as they watch the video of Houben's hand being held as it quickly types into the screen — who is really doing the punching here?

Dr. Steven Laureys understands the questions and said he might ask the same if he did not know the patient. And he said there is only one way to address the doubters — science.

"For me, there are two questions: Is he conscious? Can he communicate? That is 'yes' twice," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Doctors point out that it has been three years since Houben was discovered to be conscious and he has had much time to improve his communication skills. In the early stages they were basic and through practice he has been able to communicate as fluidly as he does now, they say.

One of the checks Laureys applied to verify Houben was really communicating was to send the speech therapist away before showing his patient different objects. When the aide came back and Houben was asked to say what he saw, that same hand held by the aide punched in the right information, he said.

He said there are many more tests he and his team conducted that he won't divulge because they are covered by medical secrecy and patients rights. "How would you like me discussing your IQ on the Internet?" he asked.

Laureys of the University of Liege has plenty of credentials.

He has published papers on patients in comatose or vegetative states, including one in the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet Neurology, with colleagues from Cornell University and Cambridge University. Dr. James Bernat of Dartmouth Medical School calls him "one of the world's leaders" in the field of brain imaging in people with consciousness disorders.

Still, when news of Houben's recovery and the video hit the world this week, some people immediately began raising doubts.

Bioethics professor Arthur Caplan of the University of Pennsylvania was among the first — calling the practice of facilitated communication "Ouija board stuff."

"When people look at it, it's usually the person doing the pointing who's doing the messages, not the person they claim they are helping."

The British Psychological Society, through clinical neurologist Dr. Graham Powell echoed that view, arguing there is nothing in scientific literature to support using facilitated communication as it's been used with Houben.

"The person doing the facilitated communication says they're being guided by the patient, but we really don't know if that's the case," Powell said.

Powell said a much more simple yes-no button device would reduce the potential of error: "He may not use it perfectly and his movement control may not be great, but with a system like this, there is no danger of a third party introducing mistakes."

AP Medical Writers Malcolm Ritter in New York and Maria Cheng in London contributed to this article.

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