The four were charged with planting crude bombs on two trains at the Cologne station on July 31, 2006.

The bombs, found later, failed to explode because of faulty detonators.

Jihad Hamad was found guilty and sentenced to 12 years in jail at hard labor, the officials and defense lawyer Fawaz Zakariya said.

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Their device, called a point contract transistor, conducted electricity and amplified signals, a job then currently handled by bulky and delicate vacuum tubes and other components.

Their colleague William Shockley followed soon after with junction transistors. Although Bardeen and Brattain were first, Shockley’s device became the basis for a scientific and industrial juggernaut.

“It is the seminal device in terms of the way we think about information, and information is everything, from the music we listen to (to) the TV we watch,” Intel CTO Justin Rattner said. “Modern communications is all based on theories of information, not on how many megawatts we can pump into the antenna. It is how clever we can be finding those few faint signals and putting them to use, which is a computing problem.”

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The Ministry for Emergency Situations. ministry said improved weather was helping the effort to clear the spill, which environmentalists fear could damage the area for years.

About 2,000 workers are being called on to clean up the oil which has washed up over the past few days.

The oil has been mixed with seaweed, dead fish, and dead birds.

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Alexander Pichushkin was convicted of murdering 48 people, but insisted he had killed 60 in his quest for one death for each square on a chessboard – a total of 64.

The sentence was the harshest possible under Russian law.

Pichushkin stood in a reinforced glass cage with his hands cuffed behind his back while the judge read the sentence for 45 minutes.

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Fears grew north of Los Angeles that the winds may fan three wildfires into one monster blaze, with too few resources available to fight it.

More than 56,000 homes are threatened by the three fires.

In San Diego County, 300,000 evacuees sought refuge in shelters, schools and stadiums as fires pushed into new areas Tuesday.

“It will not end … until it reaches the ocean or the winds turn around,” San Diego Fire battalion chief Bruce Cartelli said.

At least 16 wildfires have scorched about 425 square miles from north of Los Angeles to southeast of San Diego since the weekend.

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“If such an option is chosen, whatever its price, it will be paid,” Erdogan told reporters in response to a question about the international repercussions of such a decision, which would strain ties with the United States and Iraq. “There could be pros and cons of such a decision, but what is important is our country’s interests.”

Erdogan also had harsh words for the United States, which opposes a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq — one of the country’s few relatively stable areas.

“Did they seek permission from anyone when they came from a distance of 10,000 kilometers and hit Iraq?” he said. “We do not need anyone else’s advice.”

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“We need to prove that we are able to substantially improve our performance,” Mr. Enders said in an interview at Airbus headquarters here. “If not, who will give us the money to develop competitive products in the future?”

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With the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, sitting opposite him during a meeting at his dacha at the start of two days of US-Russia negotiations, President Vladimir Putin surprised his guests by embarking on a spirited monologue in which he said, somewhat cryptically: “We may decide some day to put missile defence systems on the moon but, before we get to that, we may lose a chance for agreement because of you implementing your own plans.”

He also warned that Moscow might pull out of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which bars the US and Russia from deploying medium-range nuclear missiles, unless the pact is expanded to cover other countries. He did not mention other states by name, but his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, later said Moscow had in mind India and Pakistan which are “closer to our borders than to the US”.

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“Significant failings” at all levels contributed to infections of more than 1,000 patients at three hospitals, the Healthcare Commission said Thursday.

The patients were infected with Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, which can cause diarrhea, colitis and other intestinal problems, officials said.

“The Healthcare Commission has passed the copy of the report to us and that is being reviewed,” said a spokesman for Kent Police, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with force policy.

The report into the spread of the highly contagious bacterium said nurses at three hospitals run by the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust were often too busy to wash their hands and left patients in their own excrement.

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust acknowledged that it had not been prepared for “an outbreak of that size and complexity” but had learned from the mistakes.

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Testifying by video-link from the Court of Appeal in Paris, Antonio Lopes Borges denied a lawyer’s suggestion that he had told his companion, Ana Simao, that he thought it might be an assassination.

The issue arose as a coroner’s inquest resumed in London following a trip to Paris, where the jury saw key scenes, including the Ritz Hotel, which Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed left shortly after midnight on Aug. 31, 1997, and the Pont d’Alma tunnel, where they were fatally injured when their car crashed into a pillar.

Fayed’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, contends that the couple was assassinated in a plot orchestrated by Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II.

Richard Keen, a lawyer representing the family of Henri Paul, the driver who also died in the crash, put it to Lopes Borges that he had told Simao that he thought the crash might be an assassination.

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Crandon Police Chief John Dennee, speaking outside the police department about two blocks from the shooting site, would not say whether the suspect was dead. But he said: “We’re not looking for anybody anymore.”

A dispatcher for the State Patrol who declined to give his full name as a matter of department practice said several of the patrol’s officers went to Forest County to help investigators because the suspect is an employee of the Forest County Sheriff’s Department and a part-time officer for the Crandon Police Department.

“It’s a pretty tragic situation here,” said Forest County Supervisor Tom Vollmar, who lives just outside Crandon, a city of about 2,000 people. “There are five or six people dead.”

The State Patrol and the Crandon Fire Department detoured a steady stream of traffic from two blocks of U.S. Highway 8 in the downtown area. Some residents stood in nearby front yards.

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“It’s a pretty tragic situation here,” said Forest County Supervisor Tom Vollmar, who lives just outside Crandon, where the shootings occurred. “There are five or six people dead.”

Other details were not immediately available. Messages seeking comment were left with the sheriff’s office.

The neighborhood where the shooting occurred has been blocked off, Vollmar said.

The northeast Wisconsin city of about 2,000 people is about 225 miles north of Milwaukee. The area is known for logging, and fishing, hunting and snowmobiling.

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Other details were not immediately available, according to the AP. Messages seeking comment were left with the sheriff’s office.

The neighborhood where the rampage happened been blocked off, Vollmar said.

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The name of Sergei Korolyov, the visionary rocket scientist whose brains and determination made it possible for the Soviet Union to thrust open the door to the space age, was a top state secret during his lifetime. It became known only became known after he died and was given a lavish state funeral.

“We take a rightful pride in the fact that it was our nation which opened the way to the stars for humanity,” President Vladimir Putin said in a statement.

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But 50 years later, it emerges that the momentous launch was far from being part of a well-planned strategy to demonstrate communist superiority over the West. Instead, the first artificial satellite in space was a spur-of-the-moment gamble driven by the dream of one scientist, whose team scrounged a rocket, slapped together a satellite and persuaded a dubious Kremlin to open the space age.

And that winking light that crowds around the globe gathered to watch in the night sky? Not Sputnik at all, as it turns out, but just the second stage of its booster rocket, according to Boris Chertok, one of the founders of the Soviet space program.

In a series of interviews in recent days with The Associated Press, Chertok and other veterans told the little-known story of how Sputnik was launched, and what an unlikely achievement it turned out to be.

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The A380’s visit to San Francisco is significant as SFO was the first U.S. airport to be ready to accommodate the plane’s immense size. SFO’s seven-year-old international terminal was designed specifically for planes like the A380 in mind. Those improvements included extra-large gate and check-in areas, expanded baggage carousels, and gates with multiple Jetways on two levels to board the A380’s two decks simultaneously. Remember that the Airbus holds about 525 people (or more), which makes it quite a bit larger than the already big 747.

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But the jury also watched video from security cameras at the Ritz that gives no outward sign that Henri Paul was drunk when the Mercedes he was driving crashed in an underpass while being chased by paparazzi, as both French and British police have concluded.

Paul is seen squatting in the lobby of the hotel to tie his shoe laces, shifting his weight from one foot to another and rising steadily. He is also shown bounding up stairs two at a time.

The jury has already heard that Paul ordered two Ricards – an aniseed spirit – that night after arriving at the hotel.

The father of the princess’s lover Dodi Fayed, Ritz owner Mohamed al Fayed, says Paul was not drunk and that the samples were switched after the tragedy.

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Lord Justice Scott Baker told the jury at the inquest into the deaths of the princess and her lover Dodi Fayed that scientific evidence might be unable to demonstrate “one way or the other” whether she was in the early stages of pregnancy.

But he said they would hear “intimate” details of her personal life.

Baker told the 11 members of the jury — six women and five men — Diana may have been on the contraceptive pill and that evidence she was poised to get engaged to Dodi on the night she died was contradictory.

On Tuesday the judge, who is acting as coroner in the case, told the jury that a famous image taken in summer 1997 showing Diana wearing a swimsuit could not be proof she was pregnant with Dodi’s child as she had not started a relationship with him at that stage.

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he Yemeni Coast Guard rescued 21 of the 29 Yemeni military personnel who were on the island when the volcano erupted, but they requested help from a nearby six-ship NATO task force en route to the Suez Canal, according to Ken Allan of the Canadian Navy’s HMCS Toronto.

The Canadian ship located the first survivor about five miles off the coast of the volcanic island, Allan told CNN’s American Morning.

“We managed to pluck him out of the water, after he’d been in there for quite a long time and moments later, my ship, the HMCS Toronto, picked up another survivor, currently down in sick bay receiving medical care from our doctor aboard,” Allan said.

Allan said the ships, still in the area searching Monday afternoon, also recovered two men who did not survive.

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The suspect was taken into police custody after he was seen dropping the bag and fleeing on foot, Vienna police spokeswoman Michaela Raz said.

No one was injured, but police sealed off the neighborhood as a precaution and shut down or rerouted nearby bus and tramway lines. Officers patrolled the area with bomb-sniffing dogs.

The suspect was described only as a 42-year-old native of Bosnia-Herzegovina who now lives in the province of Lower Austria, which encircles most of the capital. Police said they made the arrest a short distance from the embassy building in a neighborhood where security is tight.

Raz said explosives experts were still examining the contents of the backpack.

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Two Britons, two Japanese and eight Chinese tourists were hurt by the bomb – reported to have been homemade.

Local media said the blast was triggered using a mobile phone and washing machine motor attached to a gas cylinder.

This is the first time a bomb has exploded in the Maldives.

It is not yet clear who was behind the attack, or what the intended target was.

A British Foreign Office spokeswoman confirmed the British pair, thought to be a couple in their 30s, lived in the Gulf state of Qatar.

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Deputy Chief Vet Fred Landeg acknowledged movement controls would cost the industry tens of millions.

But he said there would be no compensation payments because no more culling would take place.

Peter Kendall, President of the National Farmers Union, said the virus was a “bitter blow” to the countryside.

A protection zone has been set up in Suffolk after government vets confirmed bluetongue disease was circulating in the UK and was classed as an outbreak.

The zone will be a minimum of 150km (93 miles) around infected premises.

A stricter 20km control zone has also been set up around the known bluetongue cases, with restrictions preventing animals being moved out of both zones.

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The Church will also no longer approve prayers to bless same-sex couples.

Many African Anglicans threatened to leave the worldwide Anglican Communion after the ordination of the first openly gay bishop four years ago.

The American Church was told to meet the conditions by 30 September or lose membership of the communion.

US bishops made the decision after a six-day meeting in New Orleans.

The meeting was attended in part by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who urged the Episcopal Church to make concessions for the sake of unity.

The Episcopal Church is the American wing of the Anglican Communion, which has 77 million members worldwide.

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The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, said there was a lack of awareness about minority groups among officers and prisoners at Highpoint jail in Suffolk.

Some staff used “derogatory language” to describe prisoners’ race, nationality and mental health, the report said.

When questioned by inspectors some inmates claimed staff were racist, it added.

The report said inspectors saw many black and Asian inmates had an easy relationship with staff at the 800-inmate prison, but many prisoners described officers as “culturally unaware”.

Pressures on the jail had intensified because the number of inmates had expanded by a third since the end of 2004 but there had been no similar growth in work and education places at the jail, it added.

Only 54% of black and Asian prisoners said staff treated them with respect, compared with 81% of white prisoners surveyed by Ms Owers’ team.

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The comments come amid reports that police have beaten and arrested demonstrators and have fired warning shots on the ninth day of protests.

The prime minister said: “The EU is going to look at a whole range of sanctions that could be imposed.”

Mr Brown said the Burmese authorities would be “held to account”.

Attending Labour’s annual conference in Bournemouth, he added that “the age of impunity and over-riding human rights is over”.

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The 110-seat Superjet 100 has been developed by state-run business Sukhoi, in conjunction with Western partners including US giant Boeing.

Aiming to rival similar-sized models from Brazil’s Embraer and Canada’s Bombardier, the plane will undergo test flights later this year.

Sukhoi aims to make up to six planes a month for foreign airlines by 2010.

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The midge-borne virus was discovered on a premises in Lound near Lowestoft, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

The first two cases were found in cows at the Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm, near Ipswich.

The strain of the disease is the same as one that has devastated livestock across northern Europe but the UK cases are not yet classed as an outbreak.

On Saturday, a cow tested positive for bluetongue at the farm in Baylham and a second cow at the same farm was also slaughtered after the virus was confirmed on Monday.

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The collapse took place in Can Tho, some 170 km (105 miles) south of the commercial centre of Ho Chi Minh City.

Rescue teams are looking for survivors said to be trapped under the rubble. It is not clear what caused the collapse.

The bridge was being built over the Hau River at a cost of $300m and was expected to be finished next year.

About 250 people were working on the bridge when the section buckled at about 0800 (0100 GMT), the official Vietnam News Agency reported.

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Around 1 a.m., Sutherland, 40, made an illegal U-turn. Officers pulled him over, and the 24 actor subsequently failed a field sobriety test.

He was booked at the LAPD Hollywood station and was released at 5:42 a.m. on $25,000 bail.

A court date of Oct. 16 was set.

A rep for Sutherland said Tuesday: “It would be premature to comment at this time.”

Because the actor was previously convicted of DUI in 2004, he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of four days in jail if convicted for this latest arrest.

Sutherland is also currently serving a five-year probation term for the prior DUI. If a judge deems the actor violated those terms, “Sutherland could get up to 60 days in jail or worse, depending on varying circumstances,” according to DUI lawyer Lawrence Taylor.

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Officials in the southern Australian state believe numbers are increasing and plan to spend up to A$50m ($43m) on an eradication campaign.

Foxes could decimate ground-nesting birds and some native rodents.

But sceptics insist the government has been hoodwinked by hoaxers bringing fox carcasses from the mainland.

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The 19-year-old died at Townhill Park, Irvinestown. Police were called to the scene shortly after 2330 BST on Sunday.

It is understood the man was pronounced dead at the scene. A 25-year-old woman has been arrested.

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he powerful winds caused chaos through towns in the Midlands and the South early this morning.

One witness told Sky News it was like a “bomb” had gone off outside his home.

One tornado struck Nuneaton in the West Midlands, causing damage to 35 homes.

A second mini-tornado hit homes in Farnborough in Hampshire, while a third struck Luton and a fourth slammed into streets in Northampton.

Other extreme wind events are reported to have occurred up and down the country.

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The monks began a sixth day of protests with prayers at the country’s holiest shrine, the Shwedagon Pagoda, before marching through the streets of its biggest city, Yangon.

From the front of the march, witnesses could see a one-mile stretch of eight-lane road was filled with people.

The protests were sparked by shock fuel price rises, but have since become a wider religious-led movement against the generals, with one monk group calling for peaceful mass protests against the junta until its downfall.

“There’s no prospect now of the monks just deciding to abandon this. They are getting braver every day and their demands are getting greater every day, and it’s much more overtly political,” a Yangon-based diplomat said.

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From California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a champion of climate-saving legislation, the presidents and premiers will hear that even an often-reluctant United States is pitching in.

“California is moving the United States beyond debate and doubt to action,” he says in remarks prepared for the meeting’s morning kickoff.

Fellow opening speaker Rajendra Pachauri, chief U.N. climate scientist, says there’s now “much greater evidence of human influence on climate change,” and therefore “it’s time for action.”

The one-day meeting, with more than 150 nations participating, also was scheduled to hear from such international figures as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, and from former U.S. vice president and climate campaigner Al Gore.

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Speaking after a meeting of the Mideast Quartet — which includes the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia — Rice said Arab League members charged with following up on a Saudi-backed peace proposal were likely to be invited to the November conference.

Syria is a member of that follow-up committee.

“We have not issued any invitation as such,” she said. “But it is only natural that we would hope that the participants would include the members of the Arab follow-up committee.”

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Gavin Regan of Bedworth, Warwickshire, was stabbed outside the Bulls Head pub in Exhall on Friday evening.

Police said the 28-year-old was killed while a group of people were mourning the death of a young woman.

Magistrates in Nuneaton on Sunday gave police an extra 36 hours to continue holding the two men. Two other men have been bailed over the incident.

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Police described the attack, which also left a 14-year-old girl with serious knife wounds, as “not random”.

Both victims were taken to hospital after the incident on Sunday, in Royd Street, Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire. The boy died a short time later.

Police are treating the case as murder. Two men, one aged 47, are being held.

Det Supt Tim Forber, of West Yorkshire Police, said: “This has been a very serious incident which has seen the life of a four-year-old boy having been brought to a tragic end and left a 14-year-old girl in hospital with serious stab wounds.

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Government vets are trying to determine if the UK’s first case of bluetongue disease, found in a cow in Suffolk, has passed to other animals on the farm.

Officials are also investigating a suspected new case of foot-and-mouth on the Hampshire-West Sussex border.

Farmers have called for aid packages for those worst affected by the crisis.

The insect-borne bluetongue virus was found in a Highland cow at the Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm, near Ipswich. \

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The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Washington would invite the Israelis and Palestinians, their neighbors, the “Quartet” of Middle East peace mediators and members of the Arab League follow-up committee to the meeting expected to be held in the United States in November.

That committee includes the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.

Only the last two have full relations with Israel, while Syria and Lebanon are deeply estranged from the Jewish state.

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Argentina has accused former high-level Iranian officials in the bombing in Buenos Aires and last year asked for their arrest. Iran denies any involvement in the attack.

In a speech set for Tuesday at the U.N. General Assembly, Kirchner is expected to criticize Iran for failing to collaborate in the investigation of the blast that killed 85 people and injured more than 200.

Iran’s top diplomat in Buenos Aires told Clarin newspaper this week that if Kirchner made such a speech at the United Nations, it would be interpreted as a sign that Argentina supports war against Iran.

“For our country, this assembly is very important, it will show which countries are for or against war. It is possible that if President Kirchner accuses Iran, many countries will interpret Argentina as being for war,” Mohsen Baharvand told Clarin.

Iran is embroiled in a standoff with the West over its nuclear ambitions and is under U.N. sanctions. The United States says Tehran wants to make bombs, but Tehran denies that and has threatened to hit back at regional U.S. interests if attacked.

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The 35-year-old who served with the Ministry of Defence Police based at RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire died in hospital on Friday night.

Lancashire Police said Susan Phillipson, 41, from the Burnley area, has been charged with murder and will appear before Burnley Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

An 18-year-old woman previously arrested on suspicion of murder has been released on bail.

Police were called to an incident at Skipton Road, Barnoldswick, at 6.45pm on Friday.

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Sergeant Mark Stansfield, 32, died in the UK on Friday after he was involved in a forklift truck accident at Basra Air Station on Wednesday.

Sgt Stansfield, who lived in Oxfordshire with his pregnant wife, was serving with 32 Close Support Squadron, UK Logistic Battalion, based at the airport.

He was conducting security checks at a supply point to the base when the accident happened.

Doctors operated on him at the base’s field hospital before he was flown to Selly Oak hospital in Birmingham for more treatment.

His condition deteriorated soon after his arrival and he died with his family at his bedside. He had been in Basra nearly four months when he was injured.

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nvestigators are working to find the shooter who opened fire on Friday as several students left a campus dining hall.

One classmate has told how the violence between groups from New Jersey and Washington DC had escalated from altercations during the week.

“They’ve been getting into it, New Jersey people and DC people,” said James Dillion, 23, of Cleveland.

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Bluetongue – never before found in the UK – was identified in a cow near Ipswich, Suffolk, according to a statement released from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The virus is characterised by changes to the mucous linings of the mouth and nose and the coronary band of the foot.

First case of bluetongue disease found at UK farm

Farmers reel under new blow as Suffolk outbreak follows fresh cases of foot and mouth in Surrey

by Robin McKie and Jo Revill
Sunday September 23, 2007
The Observer

Britain’s farmers were facing a new threat last night as it emerged that a disease known as bluetongue had been discovered in cattle, joining foot and mouth as a menace to their livestock.

Bluetongue – never before found in the UK – was identified in a cow near Ipswich, Suffolk, according to a statement released from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The virus is characterised by changes to the mucous linings of the mouth and nose and the coronary band of the foot.

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It is thought the disease has been carried by midges swept across the Channel from France and the Netherlands, which have suffered several outbreaks. The virus is not a threat to humans but can be fatal in sheep, cattle, deer and goats, and will cause economic hardship for the farmers affected.

The government’s concern will now be to halt the spread of the new virus, and ensure that farmers are still on the alert for foot and mouth.

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Liquor is banned for Muslims in Pakistan, although a few shops are allowed to sell alcohol to non-Muslims. Even those shops are closed during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began last week.

People began falling sick on Thursday and the toll of dead had risen steadily, police said.

“So far, we have reports of 41 deaths, while 27 people are still being treated in different hospitals,” said Javed Bukhari, a deputy inspector general of city police.\

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Warren City police are investigating a September 2 incident in which the officer repeatedly used a Taser to control the woman, who police allege was wildly out of control after being forced from a bar.

According to Officer Rich Kovach’s own police report, he shocked Heidi Gill, 38, seven times — twice after she had been handcuffed.

In the report, filed September 4, Kovach describes responding to a “fight/disturbance inside the bar” and finding a belligerent Gill, who began cursing, refused to give her real name, then tried to flee.

The video shows Gill stumbling, with her arms flailing, and screaming while Kovach uses the stun gun on her.

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People began falling ill in April in Kampungu, Western Kasai province, centre of an outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever that has no cure or treatment and kills 50-90 percent of its victims.

There have been 385 suspected cases of the disease, and 174 have died, though only a handful of cases have been confirmed.

“People no longer kiss each other when they meet. They don’t even shake hands,” Antoine Bushambu told Reuters by phone from the town of Mweka, around 60 km (37.5 miles) from Kampungu.

“Those are the instructions the doctors have given to the population. There’s been a big change in behavior,” said Bushambu, who works for a Congolese human rights organization.

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“They could be potentially life-threatening,” university spokesman Carlos Holmes said.

Police hoped to find out more information once the victims were able to talk.

“We haven’t had a chance to talk to them yet, and that’s probably a big reason why the suspect is still at large,” Holmes told KYW-TV of Philadelphia.

The students were shot near Memorial Hall around 1 a.m., the news release said.

Students were instructed to stay in their residence halls until further notice, and nonessential university employees were told not to report to work. At the university’s main entrance, swing-arm gates were down to prevent people from driving onto campus.
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In a Web audio tape issued on Thursday, a speaker purported to be bin Laden vowed to retaliate against “infidel” President Pervez Musharraf, his government and army for an assault on a radical mosque in the capital in July.

A militant cleric leading a Taliban-style movement and about 100 of his followers were killed when commandos stormed the Red Mosque compound to clear out gunmen.

Al Qaeda has in the past called for the assassination of Musharraf whose war-on-terror alliance with the United States is deeply unpopular in Pakistan, even among the vast majority who abhor militant violence.

“It’s now obligatory on Pakistanis to wage jihad against Musharraf because he’s pitting Muslims against Muslims for the sake of America,” said Iqbal Hussain, a car washer in thnorthwestern city of Peshawar.

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The White House was deeply troubled by Israel’s assertion that North Korea was assisting Syria’s nuclear ambition, but opted against an immediate response because of concern over negotiations on Pyongyang’s nuclear program, the Post reported, citing U.S. government sources.

Ultimately, however, the United States is believed to have given Israel some corroboration of the original intelligence before the air raid on September 6, the Post said, citing the sources.

The Post quoted its sources as saying that Israel hit the Syrian facility in the dead of night to minimize possible casualties.

The U.S. sources would discuss the Israeli intelligence, which included satellite imagery, only on condition of anonymity, and many details about the North Korean-Syrian connection remain unknown, the Post reported.

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The university said in a statement that police were called to the university’s Memorial Hall shortly before 1am after two students were shot.

“A male student and a female student were transported to hospitals within the state,” it said. “The male student is in stable condition, however, the female student’s injuries are considered serious.”

It added: “A single male suspect is being sought, but has not yet been apprehended.”

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Pallbearers threaded their way through a forest of Lebanese flags as they carried the coffins of Antoine Ghanem and his two bodyguards through the Furn el-Chebbak district, where the Phalange Party MP had his constituency.

“Ya habibi (my love), Ya habibi,” cried out his widow, Lola, as his coffin, draped with a Lebanese flag, left the Lebanese Canadian hospital where he was taken after a car bomb attack on Wednesday in which five people were killed and around 70 wounded.

The MP’s funeral was held amid heavy security at a Maronite Catholic church, while thousands mourned in the surrounding streets, festooned with white ribbons.

As loudspeakers blasted out patriotic songs, men and women waved party flags from their balconies while on the streets below women dressed in black waved handkerchiefs in a sign of grief.

Boy scouts carried wreaths, while party members marched past in khaki trousers and beige T-shirts, many holding banners with messages such as “We will not kneel.”

As the coffins arrived at the church, applause broke out and the church bells tolled as government MPs and Cabinet minsters joined Ghanem’s family for the service.

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NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) — Hurricane Katrina victims whose homes and businesses were destroyed when floodwaters breached levees in the 2005 storm cannot recover money from their insurance companies for the damages, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The case could affect thousands of rebuilding residents and business owners in Louisiana.

Robert Hartwig, chief economist at the industry-funded Insurance Information Institute in New York, said in June that a ruling against the industry could have cost insurers $1 billion.

“This event was excluded from coverage under the plaintiffs’ insurance policies, and under Louisiana law, we are bound to enforce the unambiguous terms of their insurance contracts as written,” Judge Carolyn King wrote for a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

As a result, the panel found those who filed the suit “are not entitled to recover under their policies,” she said.

More than a dozen insurance companies, including Allstate and Travelers, were defendants.

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Source:

ATLANTA – The honeymooner quarantined with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis was identified Thursday as a 31-year-old Atlanta personal injury lawyer whose new father-in-law is a CDC microbiologist specializing in the spread of TB.

Bob Cooksey would not comment on whether he reported his son-in-law, 31-year-old Andrew Speaker, to federal health authorities. He said only that he gave Speaker “fatherly advice” when he learned the young man had contracted the disease.

In a statement issued through the CDC, Cooksey also said that neither he nor his CDC laboratory was the source of the TB bacteria that infected his son-in-law.

The CDC had no immediate comment on how the case came to the attention of federal health authorities.

“I’m hoping and praying that he’s getting the proper treatment, that my daughter is holding up mentally and physically,” Cooksey told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “Had I known that my daughter was in any risk, I would not allow her to travel.”

Speaker said in a newspaper interview that he knew he had TB when he flew from Atlanta to Europe in mid-May for his wedding and honeymoon, but that he did not find out until he was already in Rome that it was an extensively drug-resistant strain considered especially dangerous.

Despite warnings from federal health officials not to board another long flight, he flew home for treatment, fearing he wouldn’t survive if he didn’t reach the U.S., he said.

He was quarantined May 25, after his return from his honeymoon, in the first such action taken by the federal government since 1963.

Read full story.

Source: news.yahoo.com

The father-in-law of the 31-year-old man under federal quarantine with a rare and dangerous form of tuberculosis is one of the leading TB researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, FOX News has learned.

Dr. Robert Cooksey, who is a research microbiologist in the CDC’s Division of Tuberculosis Elimination, confirmed to FOX News that he is the father-in-law of Andrew Speaker, a personal-injury lawyer who practices in his father’s law firm in Atlanta.

Asked by FOX News whether it was possible that he had passed along the dangerous strain to his son-in-law, Cooksey said, “Absolutely not.”

In a statement, Cooksey later said he is regularly tested for tuberculosis and has never had it.

Read full story.

Source: www.foxnews.com

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. man infected with a dangerous form of tuberculosis who sparked an international incident when he fled health authorities arrived at a specialist hospital in Denver for treatment on Thursday.

National Jewish Medical and Research Center said the patient was feeling well when he arrived in the morning. He will undergo a series of tests, including a sputum test and chest X-rays that include a computed tomography or CT scan.

A spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the patient’s health maintenance organization, the non-profit Kaiser Permanente Foundation, paid for his transportation from a hospital in Atlanta to Denver.

A CDC nurse was aboard and the patient and all staff in contact with him wore tight-fitting respirator face masks that can filter out virus-carrying particles.

The patient’s treatment will take months, possibly as long as 18 months, and will include a cocktail of antibiotics, the hospital said in a statement.

Read full story.

Source: www.reuters.com

BANGKOK, May 28 (Reuters) – A bomb planted on a motorcycle in a busy market in southern Thailand killed four people on Monday, the army said, the latest victims of a Muslim separatist insurgency in which more than 2,100 people have now died. “There are four dead and 23 injured, five of them seriously,” army spokesman Acra Tiproch said. Two of the dead were children.

It is not known whether the victims were Buddhist or Muslim.

The blast, in the southern province of Songkhla which has avoided much of the daily violence, came less than a day after a string of seven small bombs in the provincial capital, Hat Yai, wounded 13 people.

Read full story.

Source: www.reuters.com

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Britain on Monday made an official request to Russia to extradite the man suspected of killing ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210, deepening a rift between the former Cold War foes.

British prosecutors said last week they wanted to bring Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoy before a British court to try him for the murder of Litvinenko, who died on November 23 after being poisoned with the rare radioactive isotope.

“I this morning delivered the extradition papers to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the extradition of Mr. Lugovoy,” British Ambassador Anthony Brenton told reporters.

“We look for an early and positive response from the Russian authorities to the extradition request.”

Asked if they had received the documents, an official with the Russian prosecutor general’s office said: “We confirm this.”

Read full story.

Source: www.reuters.com

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese campaign to clean up online pornography has reached college campuses with the Education Ministry lashing out at some school Web sites for making money from porn.

“We strongly condemn Web site hosts for making ‘unlawful’ money by distributing pornographic information,” Vice-Minister of Education Li Weihong was quoted as saying.

“Students are easily influenced and perverted by such information as they are still in their formative years and do not have a solid hold on their values.”

Xinhua did not elaborate on how the college Web sites were run or what they contained.

Read full story.

Source: www.reuters.com

EX-COMMUNIST politics is often explained as a tussle between the crooks, the spooks and the idiots. That may be a touch insulting. But it is a fair account of the wrangling that has led to Romania’s referendum this weekend on the impeachment of the president, Traian Basescu.

Even Mr Basescu’s closest supporters find it hard to praise the former sea-captain’s tactics. He has dumped seasoned advisers and picked unwinnable fights. He runs an oddly independent foreign policy, and depends too closely on Romania’s powerful and only half-reformed security and intelligence services. On the other hand, he has championed the crucial cause of anti-corruption. His opponents in Romania’s government, by contrast, approach the subject with a level of doublespeak worthy of the communist era.
“We will continue and accelerate the fight against corruption,” promised the new justice minister, Tudor Chiuariu, when he took office a month ago. But his first move was to request the dismissal of a top anti-corruption prosecutor who was investigating senior members and supporters of the ruling coalition. The reasoning was that these probes were proving fruitless. “A prosecutor should be evaluated by the number of cases he has won. Until now, there have been no verdicts, which mean the cases are not solid enough,” the minister argued. He did not mention the reason for the delays: procedural wrangling by those being investigated.

Full article

Source: www.economist.com

May 19 (Reuters) – Romanians will vote in a referendum on Saturday on whether to impeach President Traian Basescu who was suspended by parliament last month on charges of abuse of power.

Political wrangling led to the suspension of Basescu and forced the May 19 referendum which was required under Romanian law as a follow-up to the parliamentary vote.

Here are some other leaders who have faced impeachment:

Aug 1974 – U.S. President Richard Nixon resigns rather than face impeachment for his role in the cover-up of the break-in at Democrat party headquarters in the Watergate office complex.

Dec 1992 – Brazil’s suspended president, Fernando Collor de Mello, resigns minutes after the Senate opened an impeachment trial that could have resulted in him being removed from office on corruption charges. He was later cleared in court.

Dec 1998 – The House of Representatives impeaches U.S. President Bill Clinton, setting the stage for only the second Senate trial in American history to determine if a president should be removed from office. Clinton survives the trial.

March 1999 – Paraguay’s President Raul Cubas is impeached by Congress for freeing a convicted coup leader and is blamed for the killing of his vice president, Luis Maria Argana. He resigns before Congress can remove him from office.

Full article

Source: africa.reuters.com

Traian Basescu, Romania’s suspended president, will today seek to return to office following an impeachment referendum that has focused concerns about his country’s ability to fulfil promises it made when it joined the European Union at the start of this year.

While the populist president is expected to win today’s vote, few observers believe a victory for Mr Basescu will stem the growing sense in Brussels and other EU capitals that political turmoil and a failure to continue fighting corruption in Romania and neighbouring Bulgaria have exposed the EU’s enlargement process as badly flawed.

These issues are set to heighten enlargement fatigue in the EU’s most powerful countries, threatening to set back the membership prospects of Croatia and other south-east European countries working to fulfil entry requirements.

This week, Franco Frattini, the EU’s justice commissioner, said he would consider recommending the use of penalty mechanisms in Romania’s accession treaty, known as safeguard clauses. The Commission could suspend the recognition of Romanian courtcases in other EU countries, a step that would damage cross-border business. Mr Frattini has been under pressure from British and French officials who recently accused him of being too soft with Romania and Bulgaria over “serious” corruption.

Full story

Source: www.ft.com

Voting is under way in Romania in a referendum that will decide the fate of the country’s suspended President, Traian Basescu.

Mr Basescu was accused of violating the constitution and was suspended by parliament on 19 April.

He has been locked in a long-running power struggle with his former ally, Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu.

With a high turnout expected, Mr Basescu is tipped to win enough support to survive in office.

It has been a bitter, polarising campaign in which appeals for civility and restraint have all but been ignored, says the BBC’s Razvan Scortea in Bucharest.

The voters will have to decide whether Mr Basescu is a threat to democracy or a political hero pushing for renewal and good governance.

There are more 18 million eligible voters, including two million Romanians living abroad. If a majority of voters back the impeachment, Mr Basescu will be removed from office.

‘New beginning’

Polls opened at 0800 (0500 GMT) and will close at 2000, with results expected overnight.

Full story

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanians began voting Saturday on whether to remove President Traian Basescu from office after parliament accused him of abusing his powers.

Basescu, a former ship’s captain and Bucharest mayor, is expected to easily survive the referendum, with polls showing more than 70 percent of Romanians opposed to impeachment.

More than 18 million Romanians are eligible to vote, including about 2 million citizens living abroad who can vote in embassies and other locations. Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and close at 8 p.m. (1700 GMT).

A majority of those casting ballots have to vote against Basescu for him to be removed from office.

The political crisis started with an escalating conflict between Basescu and Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu, a former ally. The two clashed on policy and attacked each other in the media. Last month, Tariceanu expelled several ministers from his Cabinet who were seen as being close to Basescu, including reformist Justice Minister Monica Macovei.

Basescu, who is known for his outspoken style, has also clashed with lawmakers, whom he accused of drafting laws for special interests.

Last month, five ruling and opposition parties ignored a court ruling that he did not abuse his powers and voted in parliament to suspend Basescu, accusing him of violating the constitution.

Romanian law allows parliament to suspend the president, who has limited powers and cannot dissolve parliament or sack the prime minister.

Full story

Source: www.cnn.com

Two Iraqi ABC News broadcast journalists were killed in Iraq, ABC News President David Westin announced this morning.

Cameraman Alaa Uldeen Aziz, 33, and soundman Saif Laith Yousuf, 26, were returning home from work at the ABC News Baghdad bureau yesterday afternoon when their car was reportedly ambushed and they were killed by unknown assailants.
Aziz and Yousuf were traveling home when they were stopped by two cars full of gunmen and forced to exit their car. The two were unaccounted for overnight and their deaths were confirmed this morning, ABC’s Terry McCarthy said.

“They are really our eyes and ears in Iraq,” McCarthy said of the contribution each made to ABC News. “Many places in Baghdad are just too dangerous for foreigners to go now, so we have Iraqi camera crews who very bravely go out … without them we are blind, we cannot see what’s going on.”

Full story

Source: abcnews.go.com

(CBS/AP) Two Iraqi journalists working for ABC News in Baghdad were ambushed and killed as they drove home from work, the television network announced Friday.

The attack took place Thursday afternoon, when unknown assailants attacked the car carrying cameraman Alaa Uldeen Aziz, 33, and soundman Saif Laith Yousuf, 26, from the network’s Baghdad bureau, ABC News President David Westin said in a statement posted on the ABC News Web site.

ABC said the men were returning home from work at the network’s Baghdad bureau when their vehicle was ambushed by two cars full of unknown gunmen.

Journalists have been frequently targeted by violence in Iraq. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has recorded 102 journalists and 39 media support workers killed and 48 journalists abducted since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Those numbers do not include those killed in the latest attack.

Full story

Source: www.cbsnews.com

GAZA CITY (CNN) — Israel launched more airstrikes against Hamas targets in Gaza Friday — one day after the Israeli military began targeting the militant group in retaliation for dozens of Qassam rockets fired from Gaza into Israel over the last several days, Israel Defense Forces said.

According to Palestinian security and medical sources, the Israeli military airstrikes Thursday and Friday have killed at least 11 Palestinians.

Among them were five militants who died Friday morning south of Gaza City. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Force said the Israeli Air Force had targeted a Hamas structure believed used for Hamas meetings and that possibly concealed a tunnel near the Karni crossing in northern Gaza.

The Israelis said they also targeted what they said was a Hamas rocket-launching site, immediately after an attack from northern Gaza into Israel.

The Israelis said Qassam rockets launched from Gaza hit a school and a synagogue in Sderot, near Israel’s border with Gaza. Two other rockets hit a home and nearly hit a gas station, the military said. Officials said more than 90 rockets from Gaza have landed in Israel since Tuesday.

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Source: www.cnn.com

Mati the blacksmith was worried. A Romanian gypsy, he was usually in lively good humour, but today he was distraught. Recently men from a television company had come to his village, offering to install satellite dishes for free, and his daughter had taken one. Now he had been sent a bill for renting it, and he didn’t have the money – or a television. His daughter had gone to work in Hungary and taken it with her. So he feared the worst. Would the police take him to prison?

His neighbour, a local councillor, read the contract and reassured him. All he had to do was tell the company he didn’t want the satellite dish, and they would take it away. Mati beamed. Life was simple again.

The incident a couple of weeks ago highlighted a clash of cultures deep in the rural heart of Romania, where a way of life that has been virtually unchanged for centuries is struggling to adapt to the demands of a new age.

In Mati’s village, five miles from the nearest paved road, rush hour begins soon after dawn when people lead cows and horses from cobbled yards outside their kitchens, past gaggles of geese, ducks and chickens, to where a herdsman waits to take them to communal pastures for the day. At dusk the process is reversed, to the tinkling of bells and shuffling of hooves, as the animals are led back to their byres and stalls for the night.

In between, not much happens in the village. Depending on the season, most people are in the fields tilling or harvesting small plots of hay, oats and potatoes with horse-drawn implements handed down through generations. The most common form of transport is the horse and cart, designed to carry crops, logs, people, sheep, tools, and pretty much anything else that needs to be moved.

Like England before the land enclosures of the 18th century, there are no walls or fences, and the hillsides are common land. The scene is reminiscent of a Thomas Hardy novel, and in truth it lays fair claim to being a fragment of a rural idyll lost in most of modern Europe.

Full story

Source: travel.guardian.co.uk

PARIS – Right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy became president of France on Wednesday, officially taking over from his conservative predecessor Jacques Chirac.

Sarkozy was proclaimed president when the head of France’s Constitutional Council, Jean-Louis Debre, read out the results of the May 6 presidential election during a ceremony at the Elysee Palace.

Sarkozy is a law and order hard-liner who mixes state intervention and pro-market economic views. He is a new generation of leader who promises to lead his reformist drive from the front — a style starkly different from 74-year-old Chirac.

Full story

Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

(CBS/AP) New French President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke out against intolerance and urged openness and unity in his inauguration speech Wednesday, as he took over from Jacques Chirac in an elaborate ceremony.

He insisted on the need to “unite the French,” “rehabilitate the values of work, effort, merit and respect” and to overcome intolerance. He said the defense of human rights and the fight against global warming would be foreign policy priorities.

The conservative Sarkozy, 52, will be “more implicated in daily affairs” than his predecessors, aide Henri Guaino said Wednesday.

“He will communicate more, act more directly,” Guaino said on Canal Plus television.

Sarkozy, who won election May 6 on pledges of market reforms and a break with the past, will become the sixth president of the Fifth Republic, founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1958.

Chirac, 74, stepped down after 12 years as president and four decades in politics. In his final presidential appeal Tuesday night, he urged his compatriots to stay united and proud, despite uncertainty about France’s place in today’s global economy and world affairs.

Full story

Source: www.cbsnews.com

PARIS, France (CNN) — France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy has been formally sworn in during an elaborate ceremony at Paris’ Elysee Palace on Wednesday.

The conservative, elected on a platform of economic reform and tough policies on crime and immigration, replaces his rival and former mentor, outgoing leader Jacques Chirac who is stepping down after 12 years in power.

In his inauguration speech, Sarkozy recounted the legacies of French leaders before him and said as president he would use the mandate the French people had given him to push forward progress in their name.

“At this, so solemn a time, I think above all of the French people,” he said.

Sarkozy said there has never been “such a need” for reforms in France and laid out a long list of domestic development initiatives and said he would be a strong proponent in the international effort to curb climate change.

Sarkozy spoke about the need to “unite the French” and “rehabilitate the values of work, effort, merit and respect.”

“For me the service of France is a duty,” he added.

CNN’s French Correspondent Jim Bittermann said the new president also made a poignant remark to his opposition. Sarkozy said he was not asking rivals to give up their beliefs but that individuals would have to make up their own minds about how best to serve their country, in an effort to bolster support for his presidency in the face of upcoming general elections.

Sarkozy took the opportunity to meet and greet prominent members of the community including political, religious and civil society leaders. Bittermann said many of the people attending the ceremony wore “opposite political stripes,” representing Sarkozy’s desire to form a broad base of support for his reforms.
Eager president

Arriving a few minutes early, Sarkozy received his first military salute as president and made the long walk up Elysee Palace yard. The conservative will replace Chirac, his rival and former mentor.

Chirac greeted his replacement on the red carpet of and the two stepped inside the palace at approximately 0900 GMT.

After meeting privately for approximately 30 minutes, the two emerged in the yard where Sarkozy walked Chirac to his car and said goodbye. Chirac left the Elysee Palace, expected to travel to his temporary Paris apartment across from the Louvre Museum.

Full article

Source: www.cnn.com

Imagine this: the Prime Minister of a large European Union nation criticises his head of state on a television chat show. Phone lines are thrown open for viewers and the first caller is . . . the angry President, telephoning from his living room sofa to harangue his premier.

This is Romania which, in the claws of a dirty referendum campaign, seems determined to raise politics to dizzying heights of absurdity.

The most bizarre power struggle in Eastern Europe since the fall of communism is coming to a climax this week with a popular vote on whether to impeach Traian Basescu. According to his critics, President Basescu has exceeded his constitutional role by interfering in daily politics, undermining the Government and turning the public against state institutions.

In an exclusive interview with The Times, the square-jawed, 55-year-old former sea captain lashed out at his left-wing opponents, accusing them of stoking a crisis to cover up their corrupt dealings, and of pussyfooting with Russia.

We meet in a borrowed villa in the heart of Bucharest, since the President has been suspended for the past month and has been evicted from the palace. “Parliament has been trying to influence prosecutors who are investigating lots of police files on top politicians,” he says. “That was their game.”

Mr Basescu and the formidable Justice Minister, Monica Macovei, had been transforming the state prosecution service into an energetic anticorruption force to answer EU criticism that Romania is too open to sleaze. But Ms Macovei was elbowed out of the Government on April 12 and a week later parliamentarians voted by 322 votes to 108 to impeach the President. The Romanian media – some of them under the spell of oligarchs who see him as a threat – is hostile to him.

On the day of our rendezvous, one newspaper has dug out an 83-year-old army pensioner who claims that Mr Basescu was handed the answers to the Marine Institute entry exam in the 1970s by a secret policeman.

Full story

Source: timesonline.co.uk

SINGAPORE – Hollywood has stepped up its fight against movie piracy in Asia with the release of an anti-piracy trailer in Singapore.

The 30-second trailer shows a thief, swinging in from a helicopter and dodging lasers, trying to steal a DVD. He is later caught.

More than 30 cases of pirated movies, filmed with handheld video cameras in theaters, have been traced to the Asia-Pacific region in the past two years, said Motion Picture Association Executive Vice President Fritz Attaway.

“As we tackle this problem in our cinemas across North America and in Europe, we anticipate that even more will come from the Asia-Pacific region,” Attaway told reporters Monday.

Full story

Source: news.yahoo.com

What does Scarlett Johansson look for in a guy?

“I think it’s the full picture,” the 22-year-old star of the upcoming Nanny Diaries tells PEOPLE. “I look at a guy and think he has such a cute nose or such nice eyes, but there isn’t one feature I look for in a guy. One thing that I look for that isn’t physical is a healthy confidence.”

Healthy enough, she says, to compensate for those men who don’t quite measure up in the looks department to Jared Leto or Josh Hartnett, both of whom she’s dated.

“If somebody is confident in a way that you would admire – being strong, funny – that can make someone that you might not initially be attracted to more attractive,” Johansson says.

As for herself, the actress, recently featured as one of PEOPLE’s 100 Most Beautiful, says she still has her own down days.

Full story

Source: www.people.com

(CBS/AP) An al Qaeda front group announced Sunday it had captured American soldiers in a deadly attack the day before, as thousands of U.S. troops searched insurgent areas south of Baghdad for their three missing comrades.

The statement came on one of the deadliest days in the country in recent weeks, with at least 124 people killed or found dead. A suicide truck bomb tore through the offices of a Kurdish political party in northern Iraq, killing 50 people, and a car bombing in a crowded Baghdad market killed another 17.

Troops surrounded the town of Youssifiyah and told residents over loudspeakers to stay inside, residents said. They then methodically searched the houses, focusing on possible secret chambers under the floors where the soldiers might be hidden, residents said. The soldiers marked each searched house with a white piece of cloth.

Full story

Source: www.cbsnews.com

Tony Blair has announced that he will stand down as Prime Minister on June 27.

wenty-four years after he launched his career as a young MP in the former pit villages of Co Durham, the Prime Minister returned there today to draw it all to a close.

“I have been Prime Minister of this country for just over 10 years. In this job, in the world today, I think that is long enough for me, but more especially for the country,” he said.

“Sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down.”

Mr Blair said that he will leave his position as soon as a new Labour leader is elected – a process that is likely to take seven weeks and result in the appointment of Gordon Brown.

Surrounded by local officials who have been with him throughout his time as MP, Mr Blair made his announcement to 250 assembled journalists and party members at Trimdon Constituency Labour Club.

The atmosphere was emotional and affectionate, with party members clapping, singing and holding banners ahead of the long-awaited speech. The audience gave Mr Blair a standing ovation as he entered the room.

In a conciliatory speech he conceded that some people thought he had made mistakes as leader, and that expectations had been “too high” in 1997.

But he added that he firmly believed the country had improved over the last 10 years.

“My duty was to put the country first,” he said. “But what I had to learn as Prime Minister is what putting the country first really meant.”

Read full story.

Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Tony Blair has confirmed his decision to quit as Labour leader and stand down as Prime Minister after 10 years in office.
He told supporters at Trimdon Labour Club in his Sedgefield constituency: “Ten years is enough for me – and the country.”
He added: “I ask you to accept one thing: hand on heart, I did what I thought was right.”

He said he would leave Downing Street on June 27 after a new leader has been chosen.

“Ten years – I think that’s long enough for me but also for the country,” he said.

Referring to Iraq, he said: “I may have been wrong, that’s your call.

“Believe one thing: if nothing else, I did what I thought was right for our country.”

Full story

Source: news.sky.com

Tony Blair today announced he was stepping down after 10 years as prime minister and 13 as Labour leader.

The prime minister told a crowd of supporters in Trimdon Labour club he would stand down as PM on June 27. He will tender his resignation to the Queen on that day.

In an emotional 17-minute speech, he said the judgment on his 10-year administration was “for you, the people, to make”. Mr Blair paid special tribute to his wife and children “who never let me forget my failings”.
But he concluded: “Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong – that’s your call. But I did what I thought was right for our country.”

“This country is a blessed country. The British are special. The world knows it, we know it, this is the greatest country on earth.”

He dealt directly with Iraq, many people’s perception as his ultimate legacy, saying: “The blowback since … has been fierce, unrelenting and costly.”

He added: “The terrorists will never give up if we give up.”

But pointing to Africa, climate change and globalisation, he declared Britain had changed under his 10-year leadership, saying: “Britain is not a follower, Britain is a leader.”

Full story

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

He told an emotional meeting in his constituency “Today I announce my decision to stand down from the leadership of the Labour Party.

“The party will now select a new leader.

“On the 27th of June I will tender my resignation from the post of Prime Minister to the Queen.”

He was speaking to a packed meeting at Trimdon Labour Club.

His announcement to his Sedgefield, Co Durham, constituency paves the way for Gordon Brown to succeed him as Prime Minister.

Mr Blair first told Cabinet colleagues of his intentions at their regular 9am Thursday meeting at No 10, then travelled to his constituency to make a public pronouncement.

Mr Blair remains as Labour leader until his successor is formally elected at a special party conference, and as Prime Minister until he hands in his seals of office to the Queen.

Read full story.

Source: www.thesun.co.uk

Tony Blair has announced he will stand down as prime minister on 27 June.

He made the announcement in a speech to party activists in his Sedgefield constituency, after earlier briefing the Cabinet on his plans.

He acknowledged his government had not always lived up to high expectations but said he had been very lucky to lead “the greatest nation on earth”.

He will stay on in Downing Street until the Labour Party elects a new leader – widely expected to be Gordon Brown.

In an emotional speech, Mr Blair said he had been prime minister for 10 years which was “long enough” for the country and himself.

Brown tribute

Mr Blair earlier told the Cabinet he did not want ministers paying tribute to him, adding “that can be left for another day”.

Full story

Source: news.bbc.co.uk

TONY BLAIR today announced he will quit as Labour leader and stand down as Prime Minister on June 27 after a decade in Downing Street.

The Prime Minister finally confirmed the worst-kept secret in Westminster during an emotional lunchtime speech at the Trimdon Labour Club in his Sedgefield constituency.

Mr Blair said: “Today I announce my decision to stand down from the leadership of the Labour Party.
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“The party will now select a new leader.

“On the 27th of June I will tender my resignation from the post of Prime Minister to the Queen.”

The announcement brings an end to months of speculation about the exact timetable for his exit from power.

Local people were queuing to get into the red-brick club from early this morning, where security was tight.

Officers in fluorescent jackets were keeping a close eye on the comings and goings in the former pit village, but traffic was still allowed to flow freely along the main road through it in front of the club.

Read full story.

Source: www.mirror.co.uk

TRIMDON, England – Tony Blair said Thursday he will step down as British prime minister on June 27, after a decade in office in which he brokered peace in Northern Ireland and followed the United States to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“I’ve been prime minister of this country for just over 10 years,” he told supporters in his Parliamentary constituency of Sedgefield. “In this job, in the world of today, I think that’s long enough for me but more especially for the country. Sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down.”

Treasury chief Gordon Brown, Blair’s partner in reforming the Labour Party and a sometimes impatient rival in government, was expected to easily win election as the party’s new leader.

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Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Tony Blair proudly claimed to have changed the face of modern Britain today as he returned to the place where his political career first began to make the formal announcement of his resignation as Labour leader.

In an emotional speech to supporters in his Sedgefield constituency, Mr Blair declared that in his ten years in power, Britain had been transformed from a “strangely old-fashioned country” into one which is “comfortable in the 21st century, at home in its own skin”.

He added: “Britain not a follower today. It is a leader.” He also defended his record over a decade at No 10, saying: “Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right.”

Under the timetable laid out, Mr Blair will formally tender his resignation as Prime Minister to the Queen on June 27. That means a six-week contest for the Labour leadership – although few believe that it will be anything other than a coronation for Gordon Brown, Mr Blair’s long-time partner in the new Labour project and his Chancellor since 1997.

he most successful leader in Labour history made the first of what will doubtless be many farewell speeches in the humble surroundings of Trimdon Labour Club in his Sedgefield constituency, which he has represented at Westminster since his first election victory as a fresh-faced 30-year-old in 1983.

It was at the same club that Mr Blair began his Labour leadership campaign in 1994 and celebrated his three general election victories. And there was once again a carnival atmosphere this morning, with party activists dancing around to Lou Bega’s Mambo No 5 as they waited impatiently for their MP to appear at around noon.

Read full story.

Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

British Prime Minister Tony Blair returned to the Trimdon Labour Club in Durham, Northern England on Thursday — to the room where he launched his Labour leadership campaign nearly thirteen years ago — and announced that will step down as prime minister and party leader on June 27.

After a decade in power — the longest run of any Labour party prime minister — Blair leaves behind a deeply skeptical British public, who made their displeasure evident in the recent local elections in the country, dealing Labour a swift kicking at the ballot box.
British newspaper columnist Matthew Parris told ABC News that “all prime ministers end up disappointing people”, but the question remains: how will Blair be remembered in the years to come?

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Source: abcnews.go.com

TRIMDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Thursday he will quit on June 27, 10 years after winning power in what was hailed as a new dawn for Britain that has since been darkened by the Iraq war.

Blair’s resignation triggers a contest for the leadership of the ruling Labour Party, which finance minister Gordon Brown is favorite to win. Brown would then become prime minister.

“I’ve been prime minister of this country for just over 10 years,” Blair told party members in Trimdon in his northern England constituency.

“I think that’s long enough, not only for me, but also for the country and sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down.”

Blair, U.S. President George W. Bush’s closest ally over Iraq, leaves office out of favour among voters for sending British forces to join the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Read full story.

Source: www.reuters.com

(CBS/AP) British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Thursday that he will resign from his job leading the government of the United States’ most important ally.

“Today I announce my decision to stand down from my leadership of the Labor party”, Blair said, “On the 27th of June, I will tender my resignation.”

Blair has governed Britain for 10 years — starting as a hugely popular, energetic young politician, and ending as a seasoned statesman, haunted by a massive drop in approval ratings, and the looming shadow of an unpopular war.

“I ask you to accept one thing; Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong, that’s your call. But I did what I thought was right,” said Blair shortly before ending his speech with a wish of good luck to his party, and the U.K.

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LONDON, England (CNN) — British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced his resignation Thursday as Labour Party leader and prime minister after a decade in power.

“I’ve come back here to Sedgefield, to my constituency, where my political journey began and where it’s fitting that it ends,” Blair said.

“I’ve been prime minister of this country for just over 10 years … I think that’s long enough for me, but more importantly, for the country.”

Blair spoke at his parliamentary constituency of Sedgefield in northeast England and said he would tender his resignation as prime minister to Queen Elizabeth on June 27.

The outgoing PM thanked the nation for it’s support during his time in office, apologized for his shortcomings and said he always did what he thought was right.

Blair arrived to a cheering crowd of local activists and applause from supporters in his parliamentary constituency in northeat England. Labour’s longest-serving PM met his Cabinet Thursday morning ahead of the midday announcement.

Blair’s departure is expected to trigger a leadership election in the ruling Labour Party that will put a new chief in 10 Downing Street by the end of June.

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There’s apparently growing dissension among Republicans over President Bush’s Iraq policy.

Eleven moderate House Republicans had an unannounced meeting with president and his top aides at the White House yesterday. That’s according to some of the participants. They said the meeting was a very blunt discussion.
Bush was reportedly told that the war is unsustainable without public support and is having a corrosive effect on GOP political fortunes. Congressman Charles Dent says he told the president that his Pennsylvania constituents are “impatient, and in some cases have a sense of futility” about the war.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq — Vice President Dick Cheney got a first-hand briefing on conditions in Iraq and the effectiveness of the U.S. military buildup on Wednesday from the top U.S. commander in Iraq in an unscheduled visit intended to press Iraqi leaders to do more to achieve reconciliation among factions.

“There’s a lot going on. This is a very important time. There’s a lot to talk about,” Cheney said as he met with Gen. David Petraeus and the new U.S. ambassador here, Ryan Crocker.
Petraeus said recently that conditions in Iraq may get harder before they get easier and will require “an enormous commitment” over time by the United States.

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Airstrikes called in by U.S. Special Forces soldiers fighting with insurgents in southern Afghanistan killed at least 21 civilians, officials said Wednesday. One coalition soldier was also killed.

Helmand provincial Gov. Assadullah Wafa said Taliban fighters sought shelter in villagers’ homes during the fighting in the Sangin district Tuesday evening, and that subsequent airstrikes killed 21 civilians, including several women and children.
fghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly said more must be done to prevent civilian casualties during military operations. He warned last week, after reports that 51 civilians were killed in the west, that Afghanistan “can no longer accept civilian casualties they way they occur.”

The U.S.-led coalition said militants fired guns, rocket propelled grenades and mortars at U.S. Special Forces and Afghan soldiers on patrol 15 miles north of Sangin.

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(CBS/AP) Vice President Dick Cheney landed in Baghdad Wednesday morning for an unannounced visit to push Iraq’s warring political and religious factions to seek common ground — and a way to end the sectarian violence devastating the country’s civilian population.

News of Cheney’s arrival came as a suicide truck bomb exploded at the Interior Ministry in the Kurdish city of Irbil, killing at least 14 people and wounding 80, officials said. CBS News reporter Pete Gow reports Iraqi Kurdistan is a largely autonomous region, ususally spared the violence that is so prevalent in other areas.

Kurdish television showed footage of a building that had been almost completely destroyed. Rubble lay in piles and long metal beams were twisted. Rescue workers reached into the wreckage to pull out one of the victims of the blast.

Hamza Ahmed, a spokesman for the Irbil governor’s office, said the blast targeted the Interior Ministry. He said that the casualties included police and civilians.

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(CBS/AP) Six foreign-born Muslims were arrested and accused Tuesday of plotting to attack the Army’s Fort Dix and massacre scores of U.S. soldiers, a plot the FBI says was foiled when the men took a video of themselves firing assault weapons to a store to have the footage put onto a DVD.

The plot to attack U.S. soldiers ended in darkness at a home in Cherry Hill, N.J., reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr. Ringleaders of a homegrown terror cell with big plans and big mouths were arrested as they tried to buy AK-47 and M-16 assault weapons from an FBI agent posing as an arms dealer.

Federal agents watched and listened to the six suspects for more than a year, adds Orr.

The defendants, all men in their 20s from the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East, include a pizza deliveryman suspected of using his job to scout out the military base.

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(AP) Air strikes called in by U.S. Special Forces soldiers fighting with insurgents in southern Afghanistan killed at least 21 civilians, officials said Wednesday. One coalition soldier was also killed.

Helmand provincial Gov. Assadullah Wafa said Taliban fighters sought shelter in villagers’ homes during the fighting in the Sangin district Tuesday evening, and that subsequent air strikes killed 21 civilians, including several women and children.

The U.S.-led coalition said militants fired guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at U.S. Special Forces and Afghan soldiers on patrol 15 miles north of Sangin.

Maj. William Mitchell, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said troops killed a “significant” number of militants.

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LAGOS, Nigeria (CNN) — Four Americans working off the coast of southern Nigeria were abducted by unknown kidnappers overnight, an oil company official said Wednesday.

According to Chevron spokesman Femi Odumabo, the U.S. nationals were working on a construction barge near Chevron’s Escravos oil export terminal in the Niger Delta and are employees of Global Industries Ltd, a Chevron subcontractor.

Odumabo said they were laying pipes for Chevron at Okan oil field.

There has been a wave of kidnappings of foreign workers in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Since late 2005, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) militants have carried out numerous attacks on Nigeria’s oil sector and abducted dozens of foreign workers, releasing nearly all of them unharmed.

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(CNN) — The Al-Jazeera television network Tuesday aired footage purportedly showing one of the suicide bombings last month in Algeria that killed at least two dozen people.

According to the Arabic-language network, the video was created by al Qaeda in the Maghreb, a regional al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa that has claimed responsibility for the April 11 terrorist attacks, which targeted the prime minister’s office in Algiers and a police station in the eastern part of the capital.

Al-Jazeera did not say how it obtained the material, the authenticity of which CNN has not independently verified.

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Vice President Dick Cheney arrived in Baghdad early Wednesday on an unannounced visit, reporters traveling with the delegation told CNN.

He is slated to meet with the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker.

Cheney also plans to visit with U.S. troops, a White House statement said.

The stopover kicks off a scheduled weeklong visit to the region, where he will hold talks with leaders in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.

According to the White House, President Bush sent Cheney on the trip to discuss “key issues of mutual interests” and closely follows Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s participation in a two-day international conference on Iraq in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Also Wednesday, at least 12 people were killed and 50 were wounded when a truck bomb exploded near an office of the Ministry of the Interior in Irbil in northern Iraq, according to a Kurdish Coalition spokesman.

Relative to other parts of the country, bombings are rare in Kurdish northern Iraq.
Prepare for Iraq, 35,000 told

About 35,000 U.S. soldiers have been told to prepare for deployment to Iraq in late 2007 to replace troops already in the fight, the Army said Tuesday.

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LONDON, England (CNN) — British police arrested four people with suspected ties to the 2005 train and bus bombings in London in a “pre-planned, intelligence-led operation” early Wednesday, a Scotland Yard statement said.

Two men and a woman between the ages of 29 and 34 were arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command in the West Yorkshire, England area. A fourth man, 22, was arrested in West Midlands.

While the identites of the suspects have yet to be officially released, the woman being held is 29-year-old Hasina Patel, the widow of Mohammad Sidique Khan, one of the 7/7 suicide bombers, a Reuters report said.

According to Scotland Yard, the four were arrested under the country’s terrorism laws “on suspicion of the commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism.”

The suspects are being held in a central London police station while police are searching five addresses in West Yorkshire and two in Birmingham. No charges have been filed as yet.

CNN’s International Security Correspondent Paula Newton said the arrests follow an extensive and lengthy covert operation launched by Scotland Yard following the July 7 London bombings on the city’s transport system that killed 52 people and injured 700.

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PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – Six suspected Islamic radicals have been arrested on allegations of plotting an attack on New Jersey’s Fort Dix army installation with the aim of killing as many soldiers as possible, officials said on Tuesday.

Four of the suspects were born in Yugoslavia, one in Jordan and one in Turkey, said Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Newark, New Jersey.

The arrests were made on Monday night in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, by FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, said a spokesman for the Cherry Hill police.

“They were plotting to make an assault on Fort Dix with the intention of killing as many U.S. soldiers as possible,” Drewniak said.

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MBANGA-PONGO, Cameroon (AP) — The searchers drove as far as they could into the swamp and then set out on foot, crawling over soggy earth until they found signs of so many lost lives.

A white tennis shoe. A black purse of braided leather. A length of orange and blue cloth that a woman might have worn as a skirt. Unrecognizable, shredded debris hanging from trees.

Crash investigators were combing through the wreckage of Kenya Airways Flight 507 on Monday. They were concentrating on the possibility that the jet lost power in both engines during a storm and tried to glide back to the airport before plunging nose-first into a mangrove swamp.
All 114 people on board were killed.

Members of the recovery team — some soldiers in camouflage and red berets, others barefoot villagers in shorts and T-shirts — used branches as walking sticks during the 20-minute hike to the site. Workers placed bodies and body parts found nearby on stretchers and carried them to waiting ambulance. Trees had been chopped down and placed over puddles to make the walk easier.

The Nairobi-bound Boeing 737-800 sent a distress signal shortly after takeoff Saturday from Douala, delayed an hour by storms, and then lost contact 11-13 minutes later. It took more than 40 hours to locate the wreckage, most of it submerged in murky orange-brown water and concealed by a thick canopy of trees.

“The plane fell head first. Its nose was buried in the mangrove swamp,” said Thomas Sobakam, chief of meteorology for the Douala airport. He said the plane disintegrated on impact.

The early investigation is focusing on a theory that the plane lost power in both engines but did not have enough altitude to glide back to the airport, a source close to the airline’s investigation in Kenya, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

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MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) — A Russian headmaster said on Monday a court has fined him half his monthly wage for using pirated copies of Microsoft software at his school in a case President Vladimir Putin has called “utter nonsense.”

Prosecutors said Alexander Ponosov had violated Microsoft’s property rights by allowing pupils to use 12 computers with unlicensed copies of Microsoft Windows and Office software.

Ponosov, a headmaster in a remote school in the Perm region of the Ural mountains, said he did not know the computers had fake licenses when they were delivered by a sub-contractor.

Russia has been urged to crack down on the widespread availability of cheap pirated software, films and music as it prepares to enter the World Trade Organization.

Illegal copies of Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system are on sale for about $6 at Moscow markets.

Russian state television has portrayed Alexander Ponosov as a hero in a David-and-Goliath battle against the legal system and international corporations.

“Today the court brought in a guilty verdict – they ordered me to pay a fine of 5,000 roubles ($194.4),” Ponosov told Reuters by telephone from the Perm region.

“I consider myself not guilty and I will file an appeal,” he said, adding that he had not paid the fine. He said he earned about 10,000 roubles a month.

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When the wife of one of our Iraqi staff members in Baghdad was preparing to give birth to their first child, she discovered to her dismay that the female gynecologist she had relied on to attend the delivery had suddenly left Iraq.

Why would a qualified doctor suddenly abandon all her patients? The answer was a sad one: Gunmen had kidnapped the doctor’s daughter and demanded a $25,000 ransom.

The gynecologist managed to pay the ransom to get her daughter back, but then immediately fled the country in case it happened again.

Our colleague’s wife found another gynecologist, but not all Iraqi women are so lucky. About one-quarter of all births in Iraq are carried out without qualified medical personnel present. Iraqi children are dying in increasingly larger numbers because of the ongoing war and the cumulative effect of sanctions and conflict under Saddam Hussein.

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(CBS/AP) Protestant leader Ian Paisley, who spent decades refusing to cooperate with Northern Ireland’s Catholic minority, was elected Tuesday to oversee a power-sharing administration alongside his longtime Sinn Fein foes.

The unopposed election of Democratic Unionist Party chief Paisley, 81, as “first minister” of a new 12-member administration heralded an astonishing new era for Northern Ireland.

Paisley immediately affirmed an oath pledging to cooperate with Catholics and the government of the neighboring Republic of Ireland moves that the evangelical firebrand long denounced as surrender.

Seconds later, Sinn Fein deputy leader and ex-IRA commander Martin McGuinness accepted the No. 2 post of deputy first minister. McGuinness, affirmed the same oath, which required all ministers to support the Northern Ireland police and British courts a position that Sinn Fein refused for decades to accept.

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(CBS/AP) A car bomb struck a market in the Shiite holy city of Kufa on Tuesday, killing at least 16 people and wounding 70, police and hospital officials said.

The explosion occurred as the open-air market was packed with shoppers, about 400 yards from the main mosque in the city, 100 miles south of Baghdad.

The 16 killed included women and children, said Salim Naima, spokesman of the Najaf health department. A school and the mayor’s office also were located in the area.

A bombing Dec. 30 at the fish market in Kufa killed 31 people. The bomb blast hit a crowd of shoppers who had gone to the market to buy food for the four-day Eid al-Adha festival, the most important holiday of the Islamic calendar.

The latest blast targeting Iraq’s majority religious sect comes as U.S. military commanders acknowledge that militants of the Mahdi Army — a group America considers a security threat in Iraq — have been quietly allowed to patrol key sites around the country.

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BELFAST, Northern Ireland (Reuters) — Northern Ireland’s Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders launch a new power-sharing, home-rule government on Tuesday designed to put a final end to decades of sectarian conflict.

Hardline Protestant cleric Ian Paisley and Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, former arch-foes, will be sworn in as heads of the government in the British province that has been battling to cement political stability since a 1998 peace accord.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who have guided the Northern Ireland peace process for the past decade, will watch the swearing-in ceremony at the imposing Stormont parliament building near Belfast.
Blair, who plans to stand down as prime minister soon, sees the latest power-sharing deal between the Protestant majority and Catholic minority as one of the main achievements of his 10 years in power after previous deals proved short-lived.

His popularity has been undermined by the Iraq conflict and political scandals, so Blair has been eager to bow out with success in Northern Ireland and an end to the conflict in which 3,600 people were killed.

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HANOI (Reuters) – A passenger on an Australian-bound plane vomited a nylon bag of white powder suspected to be heroin, causing the plane to return to Vietnam in the latest drug mule case between that country and Australia, officials said.

The Vietnam Airlines plane had been flying for an hour after leaving Ho Chi Minh City on Saturday when an Australian man of Vietnamese descent took ill, airline officials told the state-run Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

The aircraft turned around and made an emergency landing at Tan Son Nhat Airport, where the man coughed up two more bags of white powder. He was detained by police and taken to hospital.

Another newspaper, Lao Dong (Labor), reported doctors found 30 red nylon bags in the man’s stomach. It identified him as 35-year-old Nguyen Kant.

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MBANGA PONGO, Cameroon (Reuters) – Rescuers in Cameroon hacked through mangrove thickets with machetes and chain saws on Monday to reach a crashed Kenya Airways plane, but officials said all 114 on board were dead.

The Boeing 737-800 vanished early on Saturday minutes after leaving Douala for Nairobi in torrential rain.

“The plane crashed into mangrove swamp surrounded by forest and the explosion made a crater, creating a mini lake filled with water, mud and kerosene, full of clothes and debris,” said medical doctor Patricia Ngamga, on her way back from the site.

“The nose of the plane plunged into the mud and the tail had blown off and there isn’t any more,” she said before being whisked away by soldiers who kept journalists behind a police cordon marked with yellow tape.

Red Cross workers laid down white plastic sheets while some of their colleagues went towards the crash site carrying stretchers, and helicopters and planes buzzed overhead.

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PARIS (Reuters) – Hundreds of people were arrested in France overnight in clashes between police and protesters who torched cars following conservative Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory in Sunday’s presidential election, police said.

Official figures released early on Monday said demonstrators set fire to 367 cars and injured 28 policemen across France, and 270 people were arrested in the violent protests against the tough-talking former interior minister.

Reports and eyewitness accounts suggested the violence was worse than the official statistics indicated because they did not include other incidents such as petrol bomb attacks on buses near Paris or smashed up shop fronts in large cities.

The final national tally was also at odds with local figures. Paris officials said 33 policemen were injured in the capital, five more than the national total cited by police.

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He looks like Mickey Mouse and sounds like Mickey Mouse, but what he’s saying is hardly the fairytale stuff of Disney.

A Mickey Mouse look-alike named Farfur is teaching Palestinian children the ABCs of terror on Hamas’ official television station, Al-Aqsa TV.

On the weekly program “Tomorrow’s Pioneers,” Farfur and a young girl name Saraa’ tell children to pray five times each day and drink their milk, while urging the children to “resist” the “oppressive invading Zionist occupation.”

“Instead of being entertained, they’re being indoctrinated,” Itamar Marcus, the director of Palestinian Media Watch.

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Last night, Nicolas Sarkozy’s “motorcade” looked more pop star than presidential. With the results just in, announcing him the winner, he took a victory lap of Paris. The paparazzi did their best to keep up.

Sarkozy’s route took him past the Arc de Triomphe and up the Champs Elysée, right past the Elysée Palace, where he will take up residence in two weeks. All the while the scooters and motorcycles gave chase. France’s famously aggressive photographers are nothing if not persistent.
Sarkozy’s commanding victory is a strong mandate for change. The central theme of his campaign was “la rupture” — a clean break with the past. He is vowing to shake things up here. “I want to bring back work, authority, morale, respect and merit,” he told his supporters. The crowd ate it up.

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(AP) None of the 114 people aboard a Kenya Airways flight survived its crash into a thick mangrove swamp over the weekend, an official said Monday after returning from the water-filled crater he said the plane left.

Asked whether anyone survived, Luc Ndjodo, a local government official in charge of the recovery effort, said: “No. I was there. I saw none.”

Villagers wielding machetes and chain saws cleared the way Monday for searchers setting out into the central African swamp where the jetliner crashed Saturday.

“The plane fell head first. Its nose was buried in the mangrove swamp,” Thomas Sobakam, chief of meteorology for the Douala airport, said earlier.

The plane had taken off from Douala, Cameroon’s commercial capital, and its wreckage was found just 12 miles from the town’s outskirts. The cause of the crash remained unclear.

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(AP) Despite the chaos and sectarian violence raging across Baghdad, Farouq Mansour felt relatively safe as a Christian living in a multiethnic neighborhood in the capital.

Then, two months ago, al Qaeda gunmen kidnapped him and demanded that his family convert to Islam or pay a $30,000 ransom. Two weeks later, he paid up, was released and immediately fled to Syria, joining a mass exodus of Iraq’s increasingly threatened Christian minority.

“There is no future for us in Iraq,” Mansour said.

Although Islamic extremists have targeted Iraqi Christians before, bombing churches and threatening religious leaders, the latest attacks have taken on a far more personal tone. Many Christians are being expelled from their homes and forced to leave their possessions behind, police, human rights groups and residents said.

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(CBS/AP) Nicolas Sarkozy, a blunt and uncompromising pro-American conservative, was elected president of France Sunday with a mandate to chart a new course for an economically sluggish nation struggling to incorporate immigrants and the younger generations.

Sarkozy defeated Socialist Segolene Royal by by 53.06 percent to 46.94 percent with 84 percent turnout, according to final results released early Monday. It was a decisive victory for Sarkozy’s vision of freer markets and toughness on crime and immigration, over Royal’s gentler plan for preserving cherished welfare protections, including a 35-hour work week that Sarkozy called “absurd.”

“The people of France have chosen change,” Sarkozy told cheering supporters in a victory speech that sketched out a stronger global role for France and renewed partnership with the United States.

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PARIS, France (CNN) — France was Monday looking ahead to a new political era after conservative Nicolas Sarkozy took a decisive victory in presidential elections that he claimed as a five year mandate for change.

Sarkozy was expected to waste no time in pushing through promised reforms aimed at shaking up France’s labor market to revive the country’s flagging economy.

Sarkozy won with 53 percent of the vote in Sunday’s presidential runoff, according to preliminary results issued by the French Interior Ministry. Socialist Segolene Royal took 47 percent of the vote.

“The president of the republic must love and respect all the French,” Sarkozy told cheering supporters at his campaign headquarters. “I will be the president of all the French people.”

“The French people have called for change. I will carry out that change, because that’s the mandate I have received from the French people.”

Sarkozy added that he wanted to tell his “American friends that they can rely on our friendship … France will always be next to them when they need us.”

But, he added, “Friends can think differently.”

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — Nine U.S. soldiers died in Iraq on Sunday, including six killed in a roadside bombing northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military reported.

A civilian journalist was also killed in the bombing in Diyala province. The journalist’s identity was not released.

The six soldiers killed were from the Army’s Task Force Lightning. Two soldiers from that unit were wounded in the same attack, the military reported.

In addition, the military reported the deaths of two Marines and another soldier who died over the weekend, bringing the U.S. toll in Iraq to 3,377 since the March 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. In the first six days of May, 25 Americans have been killed in Iraq.
Torture chamber discovered

U.S. and Iraqi forces chasing a suspected terrorist with ties to Iran early Sunday discovered a bloodstained torture chamber and a massive amount of artillery stored in a building in Baghdad’s Sadr City, the U.S. military said.

“Had that thing gone off — when you start talking about 150 artillery shells — the extensive damage that it could have done in killing innocent civilians in Sadr City would have been horrific,” Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman, said at a news conference Sunday.

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MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) — More than 18,000 people stripped down and bared it all in Mexico City’s vast main square Sunday for U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick’s biggest nude shoot yet.

Standing up to salute, crouching in fetal positions and lying prone on the tiles of the Zocalo plaza, the volunteers formed a sea of flesh that Tunick snapped from balconies and a small crane in the morning light.

“What a moment for the Mexican art scene!” Tunick said in a news conference. “I think all eyes are looking south from the United Sates to Mexico City to see how a country can be free and treat the naked body as art. Not as pornography or as a crime, but with happiness and caring.”
The Brooklyn, New York, artist has become famous for photographing thousands of naked people in public settings worldwide, from London and Vienna to Buenos Aires and Buffalo.

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But the Mexico City shoot dwarfed all others. Previously, his best turnout had been 7,000 models in Barcelona in 2003.

“I just create shapes and forms with human bodies. It’s an abstraction, it’s a performance, it’s an installation,” Tunick said. “So I don’t care how many people showed up. All I know is that I filled up my space.”

The heart of this city since it was founded by the Aztecs in 1325, the Zocalo measures about 21,000 square yards — the size of five football fields.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH (Reuters) – The United States said for weeks Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was open to talks with Iran’s foreign minister about Iraq, but in the end her exchange amounted to pleasantries over ice cream.

The top diplomats danced around one another for two days in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, but Rice told reporters on Friday the opportunity had never arisen for a bilateral meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

“You can ask him why he didn’t make an effort. Look, I’m not given to chasing anyone,” Rice said at the end of meetings with Iraq’s neighbors and world powers to try and stabilize Iraq.

Asked why he did not meet Rice, Mottaki told a news conference: “There was no time, no appointment and no plans.”

Their only close encounter was at lunch on Thursday where at the awkward prodding of their Egyptian host. They made small talk over dessert and avoided discussion over Iraq or Iran’s nuclear program, the key areas of contention between the two.

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KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) – A tornado wiped out most of a small farming town in southwestern Kansas, killing seven people and injuring at least 63, emergency officials said on Saturday.

The funnel cloud hit Greensburg on Friday evening, smashing buildings, overturning vehicles and knocking out communications towers. Aerial television news footage showed ruins throughout the community of about 1,800 people.

Rescue workers were going door to door, helped by National Guard troops. Some residents said on television that emergency sirens had given them about 20 minutes of warning before the driving winds hit the town.

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) — The government has ordered an Internet auction site to remove an advertisement in which a Brazilian man offered to sell his wife for about $50.

The Secretariat of Public Policies for Women announced late Friday it had ordered Mercado Livre, partially owned by eBay Inc., to remove the ad and warned it was violating a law banning the offer or sale of “human organs, people, blood, bones or skin.”

The advertisement was no longer visible on the site Saturday.

It was posted by a man who gave his name as Breno and said: “I sell my wife for reasons I prefer to keep short … I really need the money.”

The described his wife physically and listed her qualities as a homemaker and companion. He reportedly said she was 35 and “worth her weight in gold.”

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(CNN) — Searchers in Cameroon were on Saturday working to track down a Nairobi-bound Kenya Airways flight reported to have gone down in a forested area southwest of the capital Yaounde.

African media reports say Kenya Airways Flight KQ 507 — which was carrying 115 crew and passengers — crashed near Yaounde after it took off from the country’s major international airport in the city of Douala.

But Titus Naikuni, the company’s chief executive officer, refused to describe the incident as a crash. He told reporters that “at the moment you can’t make a clear statement until you see the aircraft itself.”

Cameroon straddles central and western Africa, and Kenya is in eastern Africa. And both Douala and Nairobi are respectively the most powerful economic cities in Cameroon and Kenya.

Douala, a bustling metropolis on the western Cameroonian coast, at the Gulf of Guinea, has a population of more than 2 million with a seaport and several key industries.

The city handles most of the country’s major exports, such as oil, cocoa, and coffee and it is home to the Eko Market, the country’s largest market.

The plane took off from Douala bound for Nairobi, Kenya, and was scheduled to arrive in the Kenyan capital about 6 a.m., the airline said. There were reports of thunderstorms in the area around the time of takeoff overnight.

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SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt — Ambassadors from Iran and the United States met on the sidelines of an Iraq summit, a U.S. official confirmed Friday, but noted that it was unplanned and lasted only a few minutes.

U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker said handshakes were exchanged and the two sides did speak briefly on the need to stabilize Iraq. But he described the meeting as more of an encounter that lasted about three minutes.

“This was not a date,” Crocker said, adding that the meeting ended with him saying, “have a nice day.”

Earlier, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said delegates from the two sides had met on the sidelines of the regional conference on Iraq, but that meeting did not include Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

“I believe it was positive and indications are positive,” Zebari said as he described the meeting.

Crocker, who was joined by State Department Iraq policy coordinator David Satterfield, said the Iranian delegation was led by Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Aragachi.

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LIMA, Peru — Carmen Gonzalez plucks one of the 50 frogs from the aquarium at her bus stop restaurant, bangs it against tiles to kill it and then makes two incisions along its belly and peels off the skin as if husking corn.

She’s preparing frog juice, a beverage revered by some Andean cultures for having the power to cure asthma, bronchitis, sluggishness and a low sex drive.

A drink of so-called “Peruvian Viagra” sells for about 90 cents.
Gonzalez adds three ladles of hot, white bean broth, two generous spoonfuls of honey, raw aloe vera plant and several tablespoons of maca — an Andean root also believed to boost stamina and sex drive — into a household blender.

Then she drops the frog in.

Once strained, the result is a starchy, milkshake-like liquid that stings the throat.

At least 50 customers a day ask for steaming beer mugs of frog juice at Gonzalez’s countertop-only restaurant in eastern Lima, and many treat the concoction as their morning — and afternoon — cup of coffee.

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Source: www.foxnews.com

(AP) The name of Army Sgt. Richard M. Pruett is now etched into the glossy black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial — nearly four decades after he was wounded during a combat mission in South Vietnam.

His wife, Ann, wiped away tears as Pruett’s name was added to the memorial Thursday. “He would be so honored. It is the ultimate honor, I think, to be on the wall,” she said.

Richard Pruett, who was from Sherman, Texas, died in 2005 from complications related to wounds received during the war, making him eligible for inclusion on the memorial on the National Mall.

Also joining those honored on the wall are Navy Fireman Apprentice Joseph Gerald Krywicki of Holton, Mich., and Army Spc. Wesley Alvin Stiverson of Monticello, Ill.

Krywicki was killed in 1966 in Vietnam when a member of his unit accidentally discharged his rifle. The Navy initially declined to add Krywicki’s name to the memorial because he died not in combat but in a “friendly fire” incident. The Navy reversed course following inquiries from his family.

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Source: www.cbsnews.com

(CBS/AP) Iran’s foreign minister walked out of a dinner of diplomats where he was seated directly across from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on the pretext that the female violinist entertaining the gathering was dressed too revealingly.

“I don’t know which woman he was afraid of, the woman in the red dress or the secretary of state,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday, regarding the actions of Iran’s Manouchehr Mottaki.

Rice herself was questioned by reporters about the lack of a direct conversation with Mottaki, even though it appeared she was “chasing” him.

“Uh, well, you could ask him why he didn’t make an effort,” she replied. Then she laughed. “Look, I’m not given to chasing anyone.”

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Source: www.cbsnews.com

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. – Several hundred people rose early Friday to position themselves at Jamestown Settlement for a glimpse of
Queen Elizabeth II, who is visiting the site of the first permanent English settlement in America to commemorate Jamestown’s 400th anniversary.

Rather than being kept at a distance from the replica of the three-sided fortress, the crowd was allowed inside for a good view of the monarch.

“I got lucky. Everyone in the world knows Queen Elizabeth II. She’s come so far and I just wanted to see her,” said Carol Rideout, a retired scientist.

Accompanied by Vice President
Dick Cheney and his wife, the monarch and her husband, Prince Philip, planned to tour the archaeological site where remains of the original fort have been found.

The queen was later scheduled to visit the College of William and Mary before leaving for Louisville, Ky., where she is to watch the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. She’s also expected to visit Washington, D.C., and attend a state dinner with
President Bush before leaving on Tuesday.

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Source: news.yahoo.com

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt -
Iran’s foreign minister walked out of a dinner of diplomats where he was seated directly across from Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, ostensibly because a female violinist entertaining the gathering was dressed too revealingly.
“I don’t know which woman he was afraid of, the woman in the red dress or the secretary of state,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday, regarding the actions of Iran’s Manouchehr Mottaki.

Rice and Mottaki did eventually meet at lunch Friday but exchanged only pleasantries. According to
Iraq’s foreign minister, Iranian and American ambassadors met for more serious talks on the sidelines of the conference to stabilize Iraq — the second such encounter since March 10.

“There was no direct meeting but they were in the same room and they were discussing the issues,” said Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

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Source: news.yahoo.com

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd. is rolling out the smallest and lightest full-keyboard BlackBerry smartphone yet, a new multimedia-laden device aimed at broadening the market that it seeks to conquer.

Aside from all of the standard calling and wireless e-mail functions RIM’s devices are known for, the new BlackBerry Curve comes with a 2-megapixel camera with 5X zoom, built-in flash and a full-screen viewfinder.

It lets users watch videos and play music like other BlackBerries, but also comes with an advanced media manager program and a photo editor as well.

The Curve follows on the success of the BlackBerry Pearl, which debuted last September to rave reviews and has sold very well for the Waterloo, Ontario-based company.

The Pearl, however, did not feature a full, so-called QWERTY keyboard which some users prefer.

Read full story.

Source: www.reuters.com

Picture courtesy blackberrycurve.com

TOKYO — A group of Japanese magicians sued TV broadcasters on Tuesday for revealing closely guarded secrets behind a series of coin tricks, a news report said.

Forty-nine magicians are seeking $16,000 in damages from Nippon Television Network Corp. and TV Asahi Corp. for airing shows last year that revealed how magicians perform tricks involving coins, according to Kyodo News agency.
In a suit filed with the Tokyo District Court, the magicians claim the programs infringed on their common property, Kyodo said.

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Source: www.foxnews.com

(CBS/AP) Iraq’s government received reports that the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq had been killed, but officials said Tuesday the information had not been confirmed, and an insurgent coalition insisted he was alive.

CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann reports U.S. military sources in Baghdad are being extremely cautious about taking the reports of Abu Ayyub al-Masri’s death at face value.

One senior commander told CBS News that reports of al-Masri’s death or capture seem to come from Iraqi officials every month, and so far they have all been false alarms. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told reporters that American authorities in Baghdad were seeking more information.

An umbrella organization of Iraqi insurgent groups denied the al Qaeda leader had been killed, saying he was alive and safe, according to an Internet statement.

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Source: www.cbsnews.com

A teenager is being held on suspicion of attempted murder after his 12-year-old sister was shot in the head.
The 17-year-old was arrested following the incident in Manchester.
The girl was left in a critical condition after the shooting in the rundown Gorton area of the city on Monday night.

A spokeswoman for Greater Manchester Police said: “Shortly after 7.30pm police were called to Wembley Road in Gorton following reports that a person had been shot.
"Police and ambulance crews attended and a 12-year-old girl was taken to the Manchester Royal Infirmary suffering from a gunshot wound to the head."