Funny Politics ( British Prime Minister Tony Blair yawns )

British Prime Minister Tony Blair yawns as he sits on a terrasse prior the second working session on the second day of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany June 7, 2007. AFP PHOTO

Funny Politics British Prime Minister Tony Blair yawns

British Prime Minister Tony Blair yawns as he sits on a terrasse prior the second working session on the second day of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany June 7, 2007. AFP PHOTO

Jet With 56 Aboard Crashes in Turkey

An Atlasjet plane crashed on a rocky mountain shortly before it was due to land in southwest Turkey early Friday, killing all 56 people on board. The cause was not immediately known.

Pieces of wreckage and personal belongings, including suitcases, clothing and magazines, were strewn across the hillside. Rescue workers in bright yellow jackets entered the plane's fuselage, which lay amid boulders and pine trees.

``The seats were detached and all over the place. Some of the seat belts were still around the bodies,'' said medic Mustafa Dagci, one of the first people to reach the site. ``Some bodies were intact, others were in pieces.''

Dagci said he and other rescue workers had rushed to the scene, but quickly lost hope of finding survivors when they saw the extent of the devastation.

The MD-83, carrying 49 passengers and seven crew members, took off from Istanbul around 1 a.m. local time headed to Isparta on a flight of about one hour, but went off the radar just before landing at the airport.

At about 7 a.m., a rescue helicopter reached the plane's wreckage near the village of Yesilyurt, in Isparta province, and reported that no one had survived the crash, said Tuncay Doganer, the airline's chief executive.

Doganer said the cause of the crash was unknown, but ruled out technical failure and said the weather and visibility were good.

``The pilot saw the airport and informed the tower that it was inbound. The plane then disappeared,'' he said.

Investigators found the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, which will help them determine the cause of the crash, the civil aviation authority said.

Weeping relatives approached the crash site, but were turned away by soldiers and other officials who sought to comfort them. Many bodies were dismembered and not identifiable, firefighter Osman Emir said.

Ali Ceylan said his daughter-in-law, 22-year-old Melike Ceylan, his 6-week-old grandson Caner, and his son's mother-in-law perished in the crash. Caner was born in Istanbul and the family was returning to their home in Isparta.

``We were going to see our grandson for the first time. He died before we were able to see his face,'' Ceylan said. ``It's very hard for us. It's enough to make us go mad.''

He said his son, a police officer, was in shock and being treated with tranquilizers.

Cengiz Dincer, a man at the crash site, said two friends were on the plane after a day trip to Istanbul.

``I keep thinking they'll appear from the site, it is difficult to accept that they are gone,'' he said. ``Of course, it is God's will.''

Gulperi Ayan, who also traveled to the crash site, said a friend, stage actor Sakir Ozsoy, was on the plane because he was going to attend his grandmother's funeral in Isparta.

``Now we have two funerals to hold,'' she said.

A team of investigators, including two pilots, three engineers and an air traffic control expert, went to the area, Anatolia reported. Forensic experts were also sent to investigate.

In a statement, Atlasjet said the wreckage of the plane was found on a mountain around 5,000 feet high, and that rescuers initially had difficulty reaching the site because of the rugged terrain.

The area where the plane crashed is called Turbe Tepe, which means ``Shrine Peak'' in Turkish. Much of the wreckage lay amid snow patches 650 feet from the top of the mountain.

The plane was spotted five hours after it went missing. Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said it crashed 7 miles from the Isparta airport.

Turkish media released a list of passengers. All names were Turkish. The dead included a group of academics who planned to take part in a physics conference at an Isparta university. Among them was Engin Arik, a prominent female nuclear physics professor from Istanbul's Bosporus University.

Semsettin Uzun, the governor of Isparta, said the crash site was not on the plane's regular flight route. ``It is impossible to understand how the plane'' ended up there, said Uzun, who viewed the site from a helicopter.

The plane had broken into pieces, with its fuselage and rear landing in different locations. Anatolia said the plane's wings and engine were at the top of a hill while the fuselage was lower.

Dogan news agency released a transcript of the conversation between the Atlasjet pilot and the Isparta control tower, but the exchange did not indicate the plane was in trouble.

At 1:36 a.m., the pilot was quoted as saying, ``Isparta tower, we are inbound.'' The tower responded, ``Understood, Atlasjet. Continue to approach.''

The civil aviation authority said communication with the plane was interrupted on its final approach to Suleyman Demirel airport in Isparta at 1:45 a.m.

Atlasjet, a private airline established in 2001, operates regular flights inside Turkey and chartered flights to Europe and other foreign destinations.

In 2005, one of its planes ran off the runway in winter conditions, but the company had not been involved in any fatal accidents. In August, one of its planes was hijacked by two men who held several passengers hostage for four hours before surrendering.

Previous accidents in Turkey include a Turkish Airlines plane that crashed in January 2003 while attempting to land on a fog-covered runway in the city of Diyarbakir, killing 75 people. Five people survived with injuries.

In May 2003, 62 Spanish soldiers returning from peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan and 13 crew members were killed aboard a Ukrainian charter flight that crashed on a fog-shrouded mountain slope near the Turkish Black Sea port city of Trabzon.

In 1994, a Turkish Airlines jet crashed in the eastern province of Van as the pilot tried to land in a snowstorm despite repeated warnings from the control tower to turn back. Fifty-four people were killed.

New tape: Bin Laden urges Europe to quit Afghanistan

Dubai, November 30: Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden urged European countries to end their military cooperation with US forces in Afghanistan, in an audio tape aired by Al Jazeera television Thursday.

He said American power was waning and it would be wise for the Europeans to quickly end their role in Afghanistan, where many European countries contribute to the 50,000-strong NATO and US-led coalition forces fighting his Taliban allies.

"With the grace of God... the American tide is receding and they would eventually return to their home across the Atlantic... It is in your interest to force the hand of your politicians (away from) the White House," said a speaker in the recording who sounded like bin Laden.

He said the United States would soon leave the region, leaving Afghanistan's neighbours 'to settle their scores'.

In Washington, a US counter-terrorism official said the voice on the audio tape appeared to be bin Laden's. It was not immediately clear when the new message was recorded.

The United States led the invasion of Afghanistan to depose its Taliban rulers in late 2001, after they refused to hand over bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders following the Sept 11 attacks on the United States.

Bin Laden did not make any threat in the portions of the recording aired by Jazeera. The full tape is yet to be released by an Islamist website which said Monday it would carry it. Pro-Qaeda militants have accused Al Jazeera of omitting important parts of the last bin Laden tape.

DEFENDING TALIBAN

In the portions aired by Jazeera, bin Laden said the Taliban had no knowledge of plans for the 2001 attacks.

"I am the one responsible... The Afghan people and government knew nothing whatsoever about these events," he said, adding that the United States had not provided any evidence of Taliban involvement to justify its invasion.

"Europe marched behind it with no choice, but to be a lackey," bin Laden said.

"I'm addressing you (Europeans) and not your politicians... (who) like to be in the shadow of the White House as many third world leaders," he said, naming current and former leaders of Britain, France, Spain and Italy, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The United States has been urging its NATO allies to send more troops to Afghanistan, but European nations remain reluctant to commit further reinforcements.

Among European countries with troops in Afghanistan are Britain, Germany and France. The West says coalition forces aim to help bring security to allow reconstruction after decades of conflict.

But Afghanistan has seen a steady rise in violence since the Taliban relaunched their insurgency to overthrow the pro-Western Afghan government and eject foreign troops two years ago.

Bin Laden accused foreign forces of committing atrocities in Afghanistan.

"Most victims of your bombardments are purposely children and women. And you know that our (Muslim) women do not fight, but you target them even during festivities to break the morale of the mujahideen (holy war fighters)," he said.

Bin Laden's last message was released on Oct 22. The Saudi-born militant then urged unity between Iraq's Sunni insurgents.

Student Life Abroad Can Go Horribly Awry

PERUGIA, Italy (AP) - For many college students, a year abroad is an experience of a lifetime - an opportunity to learn a new language and live in a new culture. But it's often just as much about partying in a place where alcohol and drugs are readily available.

Now, the murder of a 21-year-old Briton studying in this picturesque Italian city is throwing a light on the wild life of college kids abroad.

Meredith Kercher was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death Nov. 1 in the apartment she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Marie Knox, who is in custody along with two other people in connection with the death.

The gruesome tale of sex, drugs and murder has gripped Italy, and even the Vatican has weighed in on what it called the ``dangers'' of students living far from home and family.

Knox, 20, and her one-time boyfriend and Italian co-defendant, 23-year-old Raffaele Sollecito, are due in court Friday for a hearing on whether they should remain in jail while the probe continues.

A third suspect, Rudy Hermann Guede, a native of Ivory Coast, is in detention in Germany awaiting extradition to Italy. Another man, Diya ``Patrick'' Lumumba, a native of Congo who owned the Perugia bar where Knox worked and whom she accused of the murder, was recently released from jail for lack of evidence. All four deny wrongdoing.

The case, and particularly Knox's alleged role, has made headlines in Italy, Britain, the U.S. and beyond in part because of the light it has shone on the seemingly privileged world of students studying abroad.

By all indications, Knox was a bright and eager student proficient enough in languages to read Harry Potter in German.

She grew up in Seattle, where she attended a $12,000-a-year Jesuit high school. Her parents married in 1987, the year she was born, and divorced two years later.

Last spring, she made the dean's list at the University of Washington, where, according to her profile on the MySpace.com social networking site, she was majoring in German and Italian, and minoring in creative writing.

Before arriving in Italy in September, she worked briefly as an intern at the Bundestag in Berlin, a job she lined up with the help of an uncle. On her first day of work, she described leaving her apartment three hours early since she had to navigate Berlin's public transport system on her own and wanted to be on time.

Yet, Knox also comes across as irresponsible: She walked off her Bundestag job after just a few days because, she wrote, she had nothing to do.

Her MySpace page, in which she calls herself ``Foxy Knoxy,'' includes images of her drunk and acting silly in a video, and she referred several times to drug use and nights spent working and dancing at Lumumba's bar - providing a different side to what the Italian press calls her ``angel face.''

Lumumba said after his release from jail that Knox was a flirtatious girl who was intensely jealous of Kercher.

``Amanda hated Meredith because people loved her more than they did Amanda,'' Britain's Sunday Mirror quoted Lumumba as saying. ``She was insanely jealous that Meredith was taking over her position as Queen Bee.''

In a Nov. 9 ruling ordering the suspects jailed, a judge wrote that Knox, in her statement to prosecutors, had accused Lumumba of killing Kercher while she was in another room, saying that at one point she covered her ears to drown out her roommate's screams.

The judge said Knox's memories were confused since she had smoked hashish earlier in the day.

Knox's parents, William Knox and Edda Mellas, have traveled to Perugia to visit their daughter since she was taken into custody, saying in a statement that the family was ``shocked and devastated'' by the case. But they have kept a low profile and could not be immediately reached for comment Thursday.

In many European capitals, the close-knit world of foreign students is hard to miss.

Groups of rowdy, mostly English-speaking students are routinely seen staggering through central squares, like Rome's Campo dei Fiori, on any given Saturday night, frequenting bars that carry ``Two-for-One'' or ``Lady's Night'' signs that clearly target English-speakers out to get drunk.

But Perugia, population 150,000, seemed to provide a different experience for students.

With its steep medieval streets and heavy presence of European students attending its University for Foreigners, Perugia was off the beaten track for Americans, said Carol Clark, the American director of the Perugia Umbra Institute, which offers programs for U.S. students.

``Here, foreign students tend to live in apartments with international roommates, buy food, interact with locals,'' although the foreign community still has their own pubs and meeting points, she said.

The students who come to Perugia, she said, ``want a place which is less Americanized,'' than the big cities that attract many U.S. college programs.

But alcohol and drugs are certainly available, said Esteban Garcia Pascual, an Argentine whose bar ``La Tana dell'Orso'' is a top destination for foreign students in Perugia.

``Perugia is more of a break to them than a commitment,'' he said. ``For them, it is a new world. They come here, have fun and get trashed in the evening.''

Not all students come to Perugia - or go on study abroad programs - just to have fun with other Americans, said Zachary Nowak, a 30-year-old New Yorker who fell in love with Perugia during a study abroad program and never left.

``They are really integrated,'' he said of the foreign students. ``There's no Campo dei Fiori here, they have to make an effort. If they want to order a margarita in English in a bar, they'd go to Rome or Florence.''

Dinosaur Tracks Discovered in Utah

KANAB, Utah (AP) - Tracks from half a dozen species of dinosaurs turned up in a southern Utah area popular with ATV riders. An area the size of a football field was closed to protect thousands of three-toed and other tracks, according to the Bureau of Land Management, which manages the property about 5 miles southwest of Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park in Kane County.

``Some people knew the tracks were out there, but we didn't,'' BLM spokesman Larry Crutchfield told The Salt Lake Tribune for a story posted online Thursday. ``But most people didn't even know they were riding over dinosaur tracks.''

The tracks were laid down across dozens of layers of rock, revealing a geologic record like the pages from a book.

They include tracks of a sharp-toothed and clawed carnivore, a three-toed crocodile and a large plant-eating species.

BLM paleontologist Alan Titus said the latest track find is extraordinary for its accessibility and high concentration of footprints.

``A local ATV rider told me about the site and I had planned to go see them,'' Titus said. ``But when I saw a picture of the site, I had to get out there. I had no idea there were so many.''

Southern Utah is known for dinosaur fossils and tracks from the Jurassic period. These animals lived about 190 million years ago in a harsh desert that got intermittent deluges.

``You rarely find herbivores in a desert,'' said Martin Lockley, who heads the Dinosaur Tracks Museum at the University of Colorado at Denver.

The prints in the sandstone are at least 100 million older than the fossils being extracted in neighboring Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, said paleontologist Andrew Milner, curator at the Johnson Farm track site in nearby St. George.

Viagra Pumps Up Thai Political Race

Vote-buying is an old practice in Thai politics, but one candidate for December's Thai election has reportedly come up with a new tactic - handing out Viagra instead of cash.

The allegation, made Thursday by a campaign worker against a rival party, comes as rules about handing out favors to voters have become stricter than ever, barring even the distribution of free T-shirts and soft drinks.

Sayan Nopcha, a campaigner for the People's Power Party in Pathum Thai province just north of Bangkok, said the drug used to treat sexual dysfunction in men was being distributed to elderly male voters at social functions.

Viagra is supposed to be used only on a doctor's advice, but is generally available over the counter in Thailand.

``The politician is giving out Viagra to gain popularity and votes,'' said Sayan, a local government official whose older brother is the PPP candidate. ``I think this is a very bad way of vote-buying.''

He would not identify the candidate who allegedly handed out the pills.

Under a tough new law, both the supplier and recipient of vote-buying can face criminal charges. Candidates can be disqualified and their party disbanded, as was the case with the old law, while voters who accept money or gifts can now face from one to 10 years in prison.

More than 4,200 candidates from 41 parties are competing for 480 seats in the lower house of parliament in the Dec. 23 polls - the first to be held after a bloodless military coup ousted elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September last year.

Scientists Discover 'Teenager Galaxies'

Young galaxies, so faint that scientists struggled to prove they were there at all, have been discovered by aiming two of the world's most powerful telescopes at a single patch of sky for nearly 100 hours.

An international group of researchers has identified 27 pre-galactic fragments, dubbed ``teenager galaxies,'' which they hope will help astronomers understand how our own Milky Way reached adulthood.

Cambridge University scientist Martin Haehnelt said his team used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope and the Gemini Telescope in Chile to monitor a section of the universe for 92 hours - the equivalent of about 12 nights.

``The process was a bit like taking a photograph and keeping the shutter open for a very long time,'' Haehnelt said. ``If you expose the image for long enough, you see fainter objects, such as these proto-galaxies. We took the largest telescope we could and stared through it for as long as we were allowed.''

Light takes time to travel across the universe, and powerful telescopes can pick up light which reaches them from extremely far back in time. In this case, the ultra-long exposure technique allowed scientists to see back 11 billion years or more - to 2 billion years after the Big Bang - when galaxies were still forming.

Scientists said the scope of the discovery was unprecedented.

``This is the first time that we've gone deep enough to detect the first building blocks of galaxies,'' said Richard McMahon, an astronomer at Cambridge University who was not involved in the research but has carried out similar work. He added that the fragments discovered were so young they might more appropriately be called ``baby galaxies.''

Whether babies or teens, the clusters make a compelling case for the theory that galaxies formed bit by bit instead of all at once, said Carlos Frenk, a cosmologist at Durham University in northern England who did not participate in the survey.

Frenk said astronomers had been guessing for the past 20 to 30 years at how galaxies formed, with some theoreticians arguing they were made from the amalgamation of smaller pre-galactic fragments.

``I'm very excited, because it's the first time that these fragments are unambiguously detected with the masses we would expect,'' he said. ``What this work shows is: The universe is just as the doctor ordered.''

Securing permission to use the telescopes was not easy. It took Haehnelt and his colleagues five years to persuade the telescopes' managers to give them the chunk of time they needed to run their study, he said. It took another two years to gather the data, with scientists taking readings for one hour here, another hour there. The images were later superimposed electronically to create the full picture.

Haehnelt said he picked a patch of sky where previous observations had suggested the teenage galaxies could be found. ``If we hadn't found anything special, we would have had to explain why we were wasting valuable time and resources,'' he said.

Researchers were able to identify the fragments from the weak light they emitted. Analysis of the light pointed to low star formation rates and low levels of chemical enrichment, suggesting the objects were at an early stage of formation.

Haehnelt said that larger, brighter galactic fragments had been spotted before and that they would go on to form much larger galaxies than the Milky Way. The adolescents identified by his team, in contrast, would later grow into galaxies much like the one we inhabit.

Haehnelt's team included Michael Rauch and George Becker from the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution, and Andy Bunker of the Anglo-Australian Observatory.

Their findings are due to be published in the March 2008 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Scholars Use Art to Study Climate Change

The vivid sunsets painted by J.M.W. Turner are revered for their use of color and light and for their influence on the Impressionists. But could they also help global warming experts track climate change?

A group of scientists has studied the colors in more than 500 paintings of sunsets, including many of Turner's 19th-century watercolors and oils, in hopes of gaining insights into the cooling effects caused by major volcanic eruptions.

By better understanding past changes in climate, they hope to improve computer models for future climate change.

Christos Zerefos, who led the research at the National Observatory in Athens, said he believed it was the first scientific study of art for clues to climate variations.

The scientists studied works painted around the times of major volcanic eruptions, such as the cataclysmic explosion of Mount Krakatoa in 1883, to measure how much pollution was pumped into the skies. Contemporary accounts describe brilliant sunsets after Krakatoa erupted.

``The initial idea arose from the fact that we saw an increased reddening of colors in sunsets which followed large volcanic eruptions, particularly Krakatoa,'' Zerefos said.

By measuring the amount of red and green in the paintings, the scientists aimed to calculate the amount of dust in the atmosphere. The greater the pollution, the redder the sunset, Zerefos said.

But Kevin Trenberth, who heads the Climate Analysis Research Center at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and who is not connected to the study, warned that artists and scientists do not necessarily see sunsets the same way.

``Painters are not scientists trying to do an accurate picture of nature,'' he said. ``They are artists trying to make something look good or dramatic.''

And James Hamilton, the curator at the University of Birmingham, who has written books on Turner, said that while Turner claimed to paint what he saw, it's dangerous to put too much weight on an artist's interpretation.

``They (artists) are not making absolutely clear and accurate records of what they can see,'' he said. ``It's very hard to tell when artists are being absolutely accurate and when they're using vivid sky as a platform to more vivid painting.''

John Thorne, a professor of atmospheric meteorology at the University of Birmingham, who is not connected to the study, said that while there can be a worry about painters taking artistic license, the study deals with that by using a cross section of artists.

``Some artists are very true to nature, some are very true to making up their own story,'' Thorne said. ``But they've used a huge cross-section. So rather than a specific artist, they're more showing an average across all artists.''

Hamilton agreed, noting: ``The more artists and more known dates, the better.''

The group examined 554 paintings from 181 artists and categorized 54 of them as ``volcanic sunset paintings'' because they were painted within three years of major volcanic eruptions.

The volcanic group included paintings by 19 artists, including Turner, Claude Lorrain, John Singleton Copley, Friedrich Caspar David, Breton Jules, Edgar Degas, Alexander Cozens and Gustav Klimt.

The scientists measured the color ratio in all the paintings and found that those with the highest red to green ratio were in the volcanic group.

In the study, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Zerefos and his researchers wrote that artists ``appear to have simulated the colors of nature with a remarkable precise coloration.''

That precision could make the paintings useful in tracking environmental pollution over the past few centuries, it said.

``They all may have different ways of painting, but the colors they used were representing the real environment,'' Zerefos said.

Nintendo Calls Wii Sales 'Fantastic'

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) - A top Nintendo Co. executive said holiday sales of the Wii game consoles have gotten off to a ``fantastic start'' but warned Tuesday that Wiis would be scarce through the end of the year.

Nintendo sold 350,000 Wiis in the U.S. last week, when many stores were closed for the Thanksgiving holiday, compared with 300,000 the previous week in the U.S.

It was unclear if last week's sales broke a Nintendo record. During one eight-day period in late November 2006, when the Wii debuted, consumers throughout the U.S., Canada and Latin America purchased more than 600,000 units sold.

The company is on track to sell 17.5 million Wiis in the fiscal year ending March 31. Last fall, Nintendo executives predicted they would sell 14.5 million Wiis.

They were producing roughly 1.2 million units per month at the time.

Nintendo has ramped up production to about 1.8 million per month, but its manufacturers cannot increase production again, said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, who spent Friday and Saturday spot-checking Wii supplies at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Best Buy Co., GameStop Corp., Target Corp. and Toys ``R'' Us Inc. stores in Erie, Pa., and Redmond, Wash.

``I couldn't find a single Wii system on the shelves - literally as I was walking into a Wal-Mart at 11 a.m., someone was walking out with the last one,'' Fils-Aime said in an interview at the company's new Redwood City office. ``Consumers are buying every game we can put into the system.''

Fils-Aime predicted a new sales record the week before Christmas, despite being ``very concerned'' about the U.S. economy and the rising price of gasoline. About 40 percent of Wii sales have been in North America and Latin America, while 35 percent were in Asia, primarily Japan, and the rest came from Europe and the Middle East.

He dismissed speculation online that the Kyoto, Japan-based company - maker of Pokemon and Super Mario games - is deliberately constraining supply of the $250 console to generate buzz.

``A shortage benefits no one,'' he said. ``We're disappointed. This was all about how we didn't accurately estimate demand. We need to be more bullish about the potential for the Wii.''

Unlike consoles with joysticks that players operate with their thumbs, the Wii responds to the user moving a wand-like wireless controller strapped to a wrist.

Wii games including tennis and bowling appeal to children, parents, hardcore gamers and even senior citizens.

Sony Corp.'s top-line PlayStation model, with an 80-gigabyte hard drive, costs $499 in the U.S., down from the original price of $599. A new low-end model with a 40-gigabyte drive will go on sale Nov. 2 for $399.

Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 costs $350 in the U.S.

The Wii has been a tremendous boost for Nintendo.

In the quarter ended Sept. 30, it more than doubled its sales to $6.1 billion from a year earlier, when the Wii had not yet launched.

Nintendo has sold 5.5 million Wiis in the U.S. since the console went on sale.

(This version CORRECTS comparison data, which is for broader geographic region than the U.S.)

Houston Anticipates Growth Loss Of $2.31 Billion In 2008 – A Report

report released on Tuesday articulated that Houston is the worst of the nation's economic downturn so far, and is expected to see its economic output growth dip by $2.3 billion in 2008.

Prepared by economic analysis firm Global Insight Inc., the report titled as, "The Mortgage Crisis: Economic and Fiscal Implications for Metro Areas," was released at the start of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Detroit.

According to the report, the economic output losses for 361 metropolitan areas - referred to as gross metropolitan product (GMP) – has been projected to $166 billion in 2008, with the combined economic loss of the top 10 metro areas exceeding $45 billion.

New York, the largest metropolitan area, tops the list with an expected $10 billion loss in 2008 economic output as a result of the mortgage crisis, followed by Los Angeles with $8.3 billion, Dallas and Washington at $4 billion each and Chicago at $3.9 billion.

Anticipating the growth loss of $2.31 billion, Houston ranks just out of the top 10 of those metro areas predicted to be the most affected. In 10th place is the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario area of California at $2.37 billion.

According to the report, 128 metro areas will be pushed into a "sluggish" GMP growth of less than 2 percent in 2008. Additionally, the report projects that the foreclosure crisis will result in 524,000 fewer jobs being created next year and a potential loss of $6.6 billion in tax revenues in 10 states.

Nintendo, Nokia and Motorola flunk the Green test

Nintendo, Nokia and Motorola have flunked a 'toxic test' conducted by the quarterly Guide to Greener Electronics.

The latest edition of the mag assessed for the first time TVs and the rapidly growing games consoles market and even the mobile market for their environmental credentials.

While Nintendo completely failed to show any environmental credentials, Microsoft and Philips did a little better.

The Greener Electronics Guide is a way of getting the electronics industry to face up to the problem of e-waste with an aim to make manufacturers get rid of harmful chemicals in their products.

The purpose of this guide is to see an end to the stories of unprotected child labourers scavenging mountains of cast-off gadgets created by society's gizmo-loving ways.

The guide ranked companies according to their policies and practices on toxic chemicals and takeback. Along with mobile phone and personal computer companies, the biggest makers of TVs and games consoles were also added.

Old TVs are a large part of e-waste and the games console market is one of the fastest growing in consumer electronics.

Nintendo has the dubious honour of being the first company to score 0/10 in the guide. Microsoft did little better, scoring only 2.7. Philips is the lowest TV-maker scoring only 2.

The companies are new to the Guide and thus have plenty of room for improvement.

Sony Ericsson is heading the ranking, and has taken over number one spot from Nokia while Samsung and Sony have zoomed to now occupy second and third positions.

Nokia and Motorola have each had a penalty point deducted after it was found that their claims of global takeback were not being matched by actual practice.

The implementation of product takeback programmes in six countries where Motorola, Nokia and Sony Ericsson claim, on their websites, to operate product takeback programmes, was tested.

Nokia representatives in the Philippines, Thailand, Argentina, Russia and India were not informed about their companies' own programmes and in many cases provided misleading information.

Motorola staff in the Philippines, Thailand and India were unable to direct customers to collection points in their respective countries.

Therefore, Nokia falls from top position to ninth and Motorola drops from ninth position to fourteenth.

"Companies shouldn't be under any illusions that we won't check up on their claims of green greatness," commented Iza Kruszewska, toxics campaigner at Greenpeace International. Companies making the most progress with new products without the worst toxic chemicals are now ranking higher than companies who have only committed to remove them in the future.

Toshiba has laptops free of toxic chemicals like vinyl plastic (PVC) and has reduced the use of brominated flame retardants (BFRs).

Apple's score improves slightly due to new iMacs reducing the use of PVC and BFRs.

All new mobiles from Sony Ericsson and Nokia have been free of PVC since the end of 2006. The guide focuses on toxic chemicals and takeback policy because of the rapid growth in quantities of toxic e-waste being dumped in developing countries like China and India.

However, Nintendo's Wii console appears to be more energy efficient compared to the Microsoft Xbox and Sony Playstation, energy use is not yet covered in the ranking.

Many companies have made big strides to improve their products and recycling schemes since the introduction of the guide.

But no company has so far succeeded in offering an entire range of products free of the worst toxic chemicals or a comprehensive, free, global takeback scheme to ensure responsible recycling.

Lashes for naming Teddy Bear Mohammed

Sudanese authorities Tuesday questioned a British teacher who could face charges of insulting religion - a crime punishable by up to 40 lashes - after she allowed her young students to name a teddy bear Muhammad in a class project.

Gillian Gibbons, of the private Unity High School in Khartoum, was arrested Sunday after one of her pupils' parents complained, accusing her of naming the bear after Islam's chief prophet. Muhammad is a common name among Muslim men, but connecting the prophet's name to an animal would be seen as insulting by many Muslims.

Several Sudanese newspapers Tuesday ran a statement reportedly from Unity High School saying that Gibbons had been ``removed from work at the school'' and apologizing for any offense, though it said the incident was a ``misunderstanding.''

In the first official comment on the case, Sudanese Foreign Ministry on Tuesday downplayed its significance, describing it as isolated but also condemning it.

Ministry spokesman, Ali al-Sadeq, said the case of a ``teacher's misconduct against the Islamic faith'' should not have provoked a British government caution warning to its citizens in Sudan.

Al-Sadeq said this was particularly so after the school had apologized to the parents, pupils and to the Sudanese in general for the teacher's ``unacceptable conduct.''

The statement in the newspapers was not officially confirmed by the school, however.

A person reached by phone at the school who identified herself as an administrator, said the statement was correct but would not confirm details in it. She refused to give her name, citing the sensitivity of the situation. She said the school has closed for at least the next week until the controversy eases.

The Unity High School, a private English-language school with elementary to high school levels, was founded by Christian groups but 90 percent of its students are Muslim, mostly from upper-class Sudanese families.

The school's director, Robert Boulos, told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the incident was ``a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam.''

Gibbons, 54, was teaching her pupils, who are around 7 years old, about animals and asked one of them to bring in her teddy bear, Boulos said. She asked the students to pick names for it and they proposed Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad, and in the end the pupils voted to name it Muhammad, he said.

Each child was allowed to take the bear home on weekends and write a diary about what they did with it. The diary entries were collected in a book with the bear's picture on the cover, labeled, ``My Name is Muhammad,'' though the bear itself was never labeled with the name, he said.

A former colleague of Gibbons, Jill Langworthy, told The Associated Press the lesson is a common one in Britain. ``She's a wonderful and inspirational teacher, and if she offended or insulted anybody she'd be dreadfully sorry,'' Langworthy, who taught with Gibbons in Liverpool, said.

The case brought widespread calls in Britain for her release. The Muslim Council of Britain calls upon the Sudanese government to intervene in the case.

``This is a very unfortunate incident and Ms Gibbons should never have been arrested in the first place. It is obvious that no malice was intended,'' said Muhammad Abdul Bari, the council's secretary-general.

British opposition Conservative party lawmaker William Hague called on the British government to ``make it clear to the Sudanese authorities that she should be released immediately.''

``To condemn Gillian Gibbons to such brutal and barbaric punishment for what appears to be an innocent mistake is clearly unacceptable,'' he said.

Omar Daair, spokesman for the British Embassy in Sudan, said embassy officials were in touch with Sudanese authorities and had met with Gibbons. He said he expected authorities to decide whether to bring her to court, and on what charges, within a few days. ``Her lawyer is trying to get her released on bail in the meanwhile,'' he said.

Gibbons was being questioned on suspicion of abuse of religion - a charge that is punishable by up to six months in prison, a fine or flogging of up to 40 lashes under Sudan's Islamic law-based legal system.

The case recalled the outrage that was sparked in the Islamic world when European newspapers ran cartoons deriding the Prophet Muhammad in recent years, prompting protests in many Muslim countries. The Prophet Muhammad is highly revered by Muslims, and most interpretations of the religion bar even favorable depiction of him, for fear of encouraging idolatry or misrepresenting him.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir earlier this month suggested he would ban Denmark, Sweden and Norway - where newspapers ran the cartoons - from contributing engineering personnel to a planned U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur.

But Sudanese authorities appeared so far to be playing down the incident of the British teacher. Her case has not been mentioned in state media.

The reported statement from the school said the administration ``offers an official apology to the students and their families and all Muslims for what came from an individual initiative.'' It said Gibbons had been ``removed from her work at the school.''

The statement underlined the school's ``deep respect for the heavenly religions'' and for the ``beliefs of Muslims and their rituals.'' It added that ``the misunderstanding that has been raised over this issue leads to divisions that are disadvantageous to the reputation of the tolerant Sudanese people.

Rats Wipe Out Seabirds on Alaska Island

More than 200 years ago, rats jumped ship for Rat Island. The muscular Norway rat climbed ashore on the rugged, uninhabited island in far southwestern Alaska in 1780 after a rodent-infested Japanese ship ran aground. It was the first time rats had made it to Alaska.

Since then, Rat Island, as the piece of rock was dubbed by a sea captain in the 1800s, has gone eerily silent. The sounds of birds are missing.

That is because the rats feed on eggs, chicks and adult seabirds, which come to the mostly treeless island to nest on the ground or in crevices in the volcanic rock.

``As far as bird life, it is a dead zone,'' said Steve Ebbert, a biologist at the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, whose 2,500 mostly uninhabited islands include the Aleutian chain, of which Rat Island is a part.

State and federal wildlife biologists are gearing up for an assault on the rats of still-uninhabited Rat Island, hoping to exterminate them with rat poison dropped from helicopters. If they succeed, the birds will sing again on Rat Island. And it will be the third-largest island in the world to be made rat-free.

A visitor to the island 1,700 miles from Anchorage doesn't have to look far to find evidence of vermin. The landscape is riddled with rat burrows, rat trails, rat droppings and chewed vegetation. Certain plants are all but gone.

``You go to Rat Island and there are hardly any chocolate lilies,'' said Jeff Williams, another refuge biologist.

The same for songbirds and seabirds.

Rats have all but wiped out the seabirds on about a dozen large islands and many smaller islands in the refuge, which is home to an estimated 40 million nesting seabirds. Puffins, auklets and storm petrels are most at risk because they leave their eggs and young for extended periods while foraging.

The rats jumped ship beginning in the late 1700s, a problem that worsened in the 1800s when Russian merchant vessels plied the islands, and grew more serious in the 1940s, when hundreds of military ships visited the Aleutian Islands during World War II.

Now, the islands are vulnerable to ``rat spills'' from freighters traveling the quickest route from the West Coast to Asia. The Aleutians receive about 400 port calls from vessels each year.

Rats have been the scourge of islands worldwide. According to the California-based group Island Conservation, rats are to blame for between 40 percent and 60 percent of all seabirds and reptile extinctions, with 90 percent of those occurring on islands.

``Rats are one of the worst invasive species around,'' said Gregg Howald, program manager for Island Conservation, which is working with the U.S. government on a plan for Rat Island.

Norway rats typically have four to six litters a year, each containing six to 12 babies. One pair of rats can produce a population of more than 5,000 rats in an area in one year.

The state is joining forces with federal wildlife biologists in a multi-pronged attack to drive the rats from Alaska.

State regulations went into effect this fall requiring mariners to check for rats and try to eradicate them if found. Violators face a year in jail and a $10,000 fine. Corporations could be fined up to $200,000.

The state also is mailing out 15,000 ``Stop Rats!'' brochures to educate mariners on how to control rats aboard boats and keep them from going ashore.

The brochure tells mariners to kill every rat on board, have traps set at all times, keep trash and food in rat-proof containers, use line guards - funnel-shaped devices that go around mooring lines - to keep rats from getting off or coming aboard, and never throw a live rat over the side. Rats are excellent swimmers.

The assault on the rats of 6,871-acre Rat Island could begin as early as next October. The plan - which involves the use of a blood thinner that will cause the rodents to bleed to death - still must be reviewed and sent out for public comment.

Scientists want to see how the project goes before deciding whether to try to exterminate the rats on other islands.

The world's biggest island rat eradication took place on 27,922-acre Campbell Island off New Zealand. Rats also have been wiped out on Canada's 8,080-acre Langara Island.

Once the rats are gone from Rat Island, wildlife biologists expect the return of birds to be dramatic.

After black rats were wiped out in November and December 2002 on Anacapa Island off the California coast, murrelets were back in force by the following April, and Cassin's auklets were nesting there for the first time.

``Over time, you see an incredible response,'' Howald said.

Urban women face higher risk of breast cancer

Women living and working in cities may face higher risk of developing breast cancer than those who do not live or work, a new study suggests, citing pollution as its major reason.



Scientists had earlier found that those who have densest breasts are four times more likely to develop cancer. The latest study found that women living in cities are likely to have denser breasts.



Researchers presenting their study to the Radiological Society of North America said women who live or work in cities should pay greater attention to breast screening because air pollution was likely to be the cause of denser breasts.



Breasts are partly composed of fat and partly 'dense' glandular tissue. The new study analysed mammograms of 972 women in Britain who had taken part in breast screening, the online edition of BBC News reported.



The results showed that city women aged 45 to 54 were more than twice as likely to have at least 25 percent of their breasts made of dense tissue as those from the countryside.



'Women who live or work in cities should pay greater attention to breast screening,' said Kefah Mokbel, one of the researchers at London's private Princess Grace Hospital.



'The other implication is that we have to focus on better traffic management and find ways to reduce traffic emissions.



'This is an important issue for the public and politicians, and it's vital that we raise awareness of the link we have found.' Mokbel added.

It is said that air pollution contains tiny particles that mimic female sex hormones and can disrupt the make up of breasts.

Experts produce high-performance thin field transistors from carbon

Georgia Tech researchers have reportedly produced high-performance field transistors using thin films of Carbon 60, also known as fullerene.

Researchers have been interested in making field-effect transistors and other devices from organic semiconductors that can be processed onto various substrates, including flexible plastic materials.

As an organic semiconductor material, C60 is attractive because it can provide high electron mobility – a measure of how fast current can flow.

The ability to produce devices with such performance with an organic semiconductor represents another milestone toward practical applications for large area, low-cost electronic circuits on flexible organic substrates.

The new devices – which have electron-mobility values higher than amorphous silicon, low threshold voltages, large on-off ratios and high operational stability – could encourage more designers to begin working on such circuitry for displays, active electronic billboards, RFID tags and other applications that use flexible substrates.

According to Professor Bernard Kippelen, the researchers are pretty close to making an effective and efficient thin-film transistor.

"Now that we have shown very nice single transistors, we want to demonstrate functional devices that are combinations of multiple components. We have everything ready to do that," Kippelen added.
Fabrication of the C60 transistors was reported in the journal Applied Physics Letters on August 27th.

The U.S. National Science Foundation through the STC program MDITR, and the U.S. Office of supported the research.

Because they are sensitive to contact with oxygen, the C60 transistors must operate under a nitrogen atmosphere.

Kippelen expects to address that limitation by using other fullerene molecules – and properly packaging the devices.

Though their performance is impressive, the C60 transistors won't threaten conventional CMOS chips based on silicon. That's because the applications Kippelen has in mind don't require high performance.

Now that they have demonstrated attractive field-effect C60 transistors, Kippelen and collaborators Xiao-Hong Zhang and Benoit Domercq plan to produce other electronic components such as inverters, ring oscillators, logic gates, and drivers for active matrix displays and imaging devices.

Assembling these more complex systems will showcase the advantages of the C60 devices.

"The goal is to increase the complexity of the circuits to see how that high mobility can be used to make more complex structures with unprecedented performance," Kippelen said.

Kippelen's team has been working with C60 for nearly ten years, and is also using the material in photovoltaic cells.

Beyond the technical advance, Kippelen believes this new work demonstrates the growing maturity of organic electronics. (ANI)

These shoes give you a different high!

Curious onlookers took photographs, inquisitive minds threw a few queries and everybody else lauded him. James Anthony Syiemiong's creation, a pair of 20-inch heels, was sure giving him a different high.

Hailing from Meghalaya, James' creation was a big attraction at the India International Trade Fair (IITF) here, which comes to an end Tuesday.

'Professionally, I make shoes for handicapped people. But I had always dreamt of making something that probably no one had seen before. Something that would make me create a record of some kind.

'That's when I decided to make a pair of shoes with an unimaginably high heel but on which one could balance and walk,' James told IANS.

With a platform of 17 inches and heels going up to 20 inches, the shoes have sure satisfied his dream. 'I made these shoes in 2004, and the same year it earned a place in the Limca Book of Records. After that I was awarded the prestigious title of excellence in the field of khadi and village industry,' 30-year-old James said.

For the trade fair, three pairs of the shoes, one in blue denim, one in a combination of red and black and one in pure black have been exhibited.

'The shoes that I have made have broken the last record created by a woman in Britain. She had made a similar pair but with 16-inch heels; one couldn't walk in them. The speciality of my shoes is that despite the height one can walk in them,' James said proudly.

The shoes, which are made of wood and padded up with fabric, are priced at 725 pounds.

This is not the first time that James has utilised his skill and potential to create something unusual. 'I have also created a pair of shoes which helps people curb the problem of smelly feet. I have even patented that creation of mine!' he said pointing to the patent certificate titled 'Health insole/shoes'.

Although his high heels have got a fair deal of appreciation, James is not really happy. 'I haven't managed to find any buyer as yet. The state government has not helped me particularly. At the trade fair, there have been a good number of queries but nothing concrete has worked out as yet.

'But, more than that, what I want is that these shoes should be placed in a place where it will get full public attention. Like in a mall or in a museum,' James smiled.

Study of Zebrafish may lead to research on human diseases

University of Cincinnati researchers hope their study of the tiny black-and-white striped zebrafish, whose systems closely track those of humans, will lead to enhanced research on human diseases.

A $1.53 million four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health is targeted at creating a camera that will allow more detailed study of zebrafish cells.

Jay Hove, an associate professor of molecular and cellular physiology, is working to develop the camera that would improve the study of cell and fluid movement in real time. He also hopes to develop a course for fall 2008.

``That's my mission here, to create an internationally recognized research program,'' said Hove, 43, formerly of the California Institute of Technology. ``I saw myself fitting in with what they were doing here.''

The tropical fish that belongs to the minnow family makes a good research subject because it breeds quickly.

``I can literally say, 'I need 10,000 babies next Wednesday,''' said Hove, who was hired in 2004 to establish the program.

Other scientists have studied zebrafish. Last year, Dutch researchers said they believe they have identified the gene that determines brain size in zebrafish, a finding that could eventually help in developing therapies for humans suffering from nervous system illnesses like Parkinson's Disease.

While genetically distant from humans, the zebrafish has comparable organs and tissues, such as heart, kidney, pancreas, bones, and cartilage.

``The zebrafish is therefore a powerful model organism for understanding normal development and birth defects, and providing clues to cure human diseases,'' Dr. Franziska Grieder, an official with the National Center for Research Resources, a component of the National Institutes of Health, said Monday.

The zebrafish research laboratory at the university's Genome Research Institute will move early next year to the school's East Campus. It includes three full-time research staff members and dozens of small tanks that each hold hundreds of fish with different kinds of genetic markers.

Competition to recruit more researchers to university campuses has grown and is particularly intense in the medical fields because of the millions of dollars in research money at stake.

The university opened the Genome Research Institute in 2003, and 40 researchers now work on projects ranging from validation of compounds for outside companies to protein expression and purification.

One of the institute's new projects is to form a consortium to maintain and operate a library of chemical compounds transferred to the institute from Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals. The University of Cincinnati, the University of Kentucky, the University of Tennessee at Memphis and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center already have agreed to the join the group.

The University of Cincinnati also is planning to enlarge and improve animal testing facilities.

Mexico to protect migrating butterflies

CERRO PRIETO, Mexico, November 25: President Felipe Calderon unveiled a sweeping plan Sunday to curb logging and protect millions of monarch butterflies that migrate to the mountains of central Mexico each winter, covering trees and bushes and attracting visitors from around the world.

The plan will put $4.6 million toward additional equipment and advertising for the existing Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, covering a 124,000-acre swathe of trees and mountains that for thousands of years has served as the winter nesting ground to millions of orange- and black-winged monarch butterflies.

Calderon said it would help boost tourism and support the economy in an impoverished area where illegal logging runs rampant.

``It is possible to take care of the environment and at the same time promote development,'' the president said.

The new initiative is part of ongoing efforts to protect the butterflies, which are a huge tourist attraction and the pride of Mexico. In some areas, officials can even be found standing guard along highways and slowing cars that might accidentally hit a butterfly flying across the road.

The plan also meshes nicely with one of Calderon's main policy planks: protecting the environment and combatting global warming. He has drawn up a national anti-global warming plan and committed to plant some 250 million trees in 2007.

While the monarch butterfly does not appear on any endangered species lists, experts say illegal logging in Mexico threatens its existence in North America because it removes the foliage that protects the delicate insects from the cold and rain.

``By even taking a single tree out near the butterfly colony you allow heat to escape from the forest and that then jeopardizes the butterflies,'' said Lincoln Brower, professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Florida and at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Va.

Brower, who has studied the insects for 52 years, described the Mexican nesting grounds as ``the Mecca of the whole insect world.''

The reserve already receives some $36.4 million in government funding, and its staff includes a team of park rangers who patrol the area equipped with assault rifles and body armor searching for armed gangs of lumber thieves.

The World Wildlife Fund and the Mexican Fund for Nature Conservation say the efforts are paying off. They say this year saw a 48 percent drop in illegal logging, compared to a year ago.

``We're gaining ground in the fight against illegal logging,'' Calderon said.

Each September, the butterflies begin their 3,400-mile journey from the forests of eastern Canada and parts of the United States to the central Mexican mountains. The voyage is considered an aesthetic and scientific wonder.

The butterflies return to the U.S. and Canada in late March, where they breed and cycle through up to five generations before heading back south. Scientists say they are genetically programmed to return to Mexico, where they settle into the same mountains their ancestors inhabited the year before.

According to Brower, sometimes they even return to the exact same trees - probably because previous monarchs have marked the area through a mechanism scientists don't yet understand.

The monarchs that spend the winter in Mexico do not reproduce until they return to the U.S. and have a much longer life span than those born in the spring and summer.

Omar Vidal, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Mexico program, applauded Calderon's plan.

``This is the longest migration of all insects, a unique phenomenon and a natural wonder and Mexico has the biggest responsibility to protect them because they come here to hibernate,'' he said.

Brower said the monarch isn't at risk of extinction because it can be found in Mexico, Canada, the U.S., most of South America and even parts of Australia and New Zealand. But disappearing habitat could threaten a delicate migratory route that has existed for an estimated 10,000 years.

``The whole migratory phenomenon which involves two continents and over a million square miles could just go down the drain,'' he said.

Nintendo's Wii console bags Pocket-lint's 'gadget of the year' award

London, November 26: Nintendo's groundbreaking Wii console was declared the gadget of the year at technology website Pocket-lint.co.uk's annual Gadget Awards recently.

The best-selling games machine beating off competition from Apple's much-hyped iPhone and Nokia's N95 mobile.

It also won the award for best console, beating Sony's Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360.

Apple's iPhone won the Best Smartphone award. However, the company's iPod Touch lost out to the lesser known Archos 605 Wi-Fi in the best mp3 player category.

According to the Mirror, the Awards were judged by a panel of top tech journalists.

The winners at the Pocket Lint Awards 2007 were:

Best Gadget - Nintendo Wii

Best MP3 Player - Archos 605 Wi-Fi

Best Headphones - Sennheiser PXC450

Best DAB radio - Pure Evoke - 1S

Best Console - Nintendo Wii

Best Smartphone - Apple iPhone

Best Mobile Phone - Nokia N95

Best Mobile Phone Accessory - Jawbone Bluetooth headset

Best Satnav - Navman S901

Best Car Gadget - Griffing itrip auto

Best Compact Digital Camera - Fuji FinePix Z5fd

Best DLSR Digital Camera - Canon EOS 40D DSLR digital camera

Best Printer - Kodak Easyshare 5300 All In One Printer

Best Laptop - Sony VAOI TX11N - ultraslim

Best VoIP Accessory - Philips VOIP841

Best TV - Pioneer Kuro

Best Home Cinema Accessory - Apple TV

Best Console Game - Gears of War, Xbox

Best Sports and fitness gadget - Timex iControl

Best Green Gadget - usbcell

China shows first image from lunar probe

Beijing, November 26: China displayed the first image of the moon captured by its Chang-e 1 lunar probe at a gala ceremony Monday, marking the formal start of the satellite's mission to document the lunar landscape.

Unveiling the image at the Beijing Aerospace Control Center, Premier Wen Jiabao hailed it as a major step in ``the Chinese race's 1,000-year-old dream'' of exploring the moon.

China hopes the probe, launched late last month, will have surveyed the entire surface of the moon at least once by early next year.

The probe's launch closely followed the start of a similar mission by Japan, prompting speculation over a new space race in Asia. India plans to launch a lunar probe in April.

Chinese officials have however played down talk of such competition, saying Beijing wanted to use its program to work with other countries and hoped to join in building the international space station.

In 2003, China became only the third country in the world after the United States and Russia to send a human into orbit, following that up with a two-man mission in 2005.

EU fines Sony, others for videotape price fixes

Brussels, November 21: The European Commission hit Sony Corp and two other Japanese producers of videotape with fines totalling nearly 75 million euros ($109.8 million) on Tuesday for fixing prices.

"Between 1999 and 2002, Sony, Fuji and Maxell managed to raise or otherwise control prices through a series of regular meetings and other illicit contacts," the European Union executive said in a statement.

Sony's fine was increased by 30 percent to just over 47 million euros after it obstructed the investigation, the statement said.

The fines for Fujifilm Holdings Corp and Hitachi Maxell Ltd were reduced by 40 and 20 percent respectively -- to 13.2 million and 14.4 million euros -- after they co-operated with the investigation.

"This decision sends two warnings to companies engaging in cartel activities," European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in the statement.

"First, the Commission can prosecute cartels effectively even without prompts from immunity applicants, and second, obstructing a Commission antitrust investigation leads to severe penalties," she said.

The Commission started an investigation with raids on EU subsidiaries of Sony, Fuji and Maxell in May 2002.

The raids found "abundant evidence of cartel activities" although a Sony employee refused to answer questions by EU officials, in breach of Sony's obligations, and another employee shredded documents during the raid, the Commission said.

Sony acknowledged its involvement only after receiving a formal charge sheet from the Commission, it said.

The cartel covered the two most popular professional videotape formats at the time -- Betacam SP and Digital Betacam which in 2001 had total annual sales of 115 million euros in the EU and other European countries.

Television stations and independent TV producers are the main customers for professional videotapes.

Sony, Fuji and Maxell, controlling more than 85 percent of the professional videotape market, "organised three successful rounds of price increases and endeavoured to stabilise prices whenever an increase was not possible", the Commission said.

They also regularly monitored the implementation of price agreements and the evidence had details of 11 meetings at which the three companies organised their cartel, it said.

The fines were the first applied under new EU guidelines, which will generally increase such penalties for companies which fix prices or do deals to divide up markets.

Painting goes from trash to $1 million treasure

New York, November 21: An oil painting by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo that was plucked from a sidewalk trash heap several years ago sold for more than $1 million Tuesday at Sotheby's auction of Latin American art.

The auction house had estimated that "Tres Personajes" ("Three Personages"), which was stolen from a Houston warehouse after being bought at auction in 1977, would sell for between $750,000 and $1 million, but the work ended up selling for $1,049,000 including commission.

The oil-and-sand canvas was rescued from oblivion when a New York woman, Elizabeth Gibson, spotted it in a pile of trash at a curbside on Manhattan's Upper West Side and decided to bring it home.

Gibson walked by the vibrant, 38-inch by 51-inch work, then "immediately knew I had to go back. I knew I had to take it," she said weeks before the auction.

"It was a huge, powerful and beautiful painting and I said to myself, 'It is wrong to be in the garbage,'" Gibson added. She was told that shortly after her find, a trash collecting truck had come by and hauled away the refuse.

Gibson eventually researched the work and learned of its worth and history through an Internet site.

Sotheby's did not identify the seller, but Gibson was to receive a $15,000 reward for returning "Tres Personajes" to its rightful owners, plus an undisclosed percentage of the auction price.

Apart from the Tamayo, the auction was a relatively staid affair, with 20 of 70 lots on offer going unsold. In all it took in $15.235 million, coming in under the pre-sale estimate of $16.5 million to $21.6 million.

The top lot was Fernando Botero's "Le Dejeuner sur L'Herbe," which fetched $1,329,000, missing its low estimate, which was $1.4 million.

Roberto Matta's "Et At It," which was expected to sell for $2.5 million to $3.5 million, failed to sell. Another Tamayo, "Bodegon con Mujer," also failed to sell.

By contrast Christie's auction on Tuesday totalled $21.7 million, the second best ever for auctioned Latin American art and just under the $22 million record Christie's set in May.

World's hottest chili to repel elephants

Gauhati, India: Wildlife experts in northeastern India are experimenting with a new weapon to prevent marauding elephants from destroying homes and crops and trampling people in villages close to their habitat - super-hot chilies.

Conservationists working on the experimental project in Assam state said they have put up jute fences smeared with automobile grease and bhut jolokia - also known as the ghost chili and certified as the world's hottest chili by the Guinness Book of World Records. They also were using smoke bombs made from the chili to keep elephants out.

``We fill straw nests with pungent dry chili and attach them to sticks before burning it. The fireball emits a strong pungent smell that succeeds in driving away elephants,'' Nandita Hazarika of the Assam Haathi (Elephant) Project told The Associated Press on Monday.

Hazarika said the chilies would not be eaten and that the smell would be enough to repel the elephants. He emphasized the measures would not harm the animals.

Northeast India accounts for the world's largest concentration of wild Asiatic elephants; 5,000 are estimated living in Assam alone.

Conservationists say wild elephants increasingly attack human settlements encroaching on their natural habitat. Satellite imagery by India's National Remote Sensing Agency shows that up to 691,880 acres of Assam's forests were cleared from 1996 to 2000.

More than 600 people have been killed by wild elephants in Assam in the past 16 years and villagers have reacted with an anger that has shocked conservationists. In 2001, in Sonitpur district, 112 miles north of the state capital of Gauhati, villagers poisoned 19 wild elephants to death after they feasted on crops and trampled houses.

``We have been forced to look for ingenious means to keep wild elephants from straying out of their habitats,'' M.C. Malakar, the state's chief wildlife warden, told the AP.

Nokia Siemens sees profit from greener networks

Helsinki, November 20: Nokia Siemens Networks aims to cut the energy consumption of some of its mobile base stations by up to 40 percent by 2010 in a move that should also boost profits, the telecoms network group said Tuesday.

With new technology and software, fewer base stations would also be needed for the most power-hungry part of a mobile telecom network, it added.

By the year 2010, it said it would reduce energy consumption of its GSM and WCDMA base stations to 650 watts and 300 watts respectively, from the current levels of 800 watts and 500 watts.

"We have set ambitious goals that are reasonable both environmentally but also business-wise as energy is becoming more expensive," Nokia Siemens' head of environmentally sustainable business, Anne Larilahti, told Reuters in an interview.

Part of a base station can be shut down during times of low traffic which reduces the need for air conditioning on sites, the company added.

Finnish handset maker Nokia and German conglomerate Siemens decided to combine their telecoms network equipment businesses last year to gain scale against rivals such as Ericsson and Huawei.

"There is also the chance to make a profit," Larilahti said adding that it was possible to have a "net positive" impact with greener products.

"Only then, we can do this in the long term and not settle for short-term charity projects."

Larilahti said Nokia Siemens saw itself the top player in energy efficiency with its GSM base stations consuming 25 percent less energy compared with the next best competitor.

The UGLY TRUTH about the beauty products

SUNSCREEN
Dubai's year-round sunshine means that slathering on sunscreen on a daily basis is a must. But research shows that products which claim to contain a high SPF factor may not be as safe as we think. Whilst many products on the market may reduce the risk of sunburn (UVB rays), they don't protect against UVA radiation, which is linked to ageing and skin cancer.

Glamour's Top Tip:
Stay sun-savvy with products that contain a high SPF, (no less than 30) and have both UVA and UVB protection. Apply often and liberally - you'll be glad you did in the long run.

TEETH WHITENING
Lusting after a Hollywood set of pearly whites? If you're considering an over-the-counter treatment, think twice. At-home teeth-whitening kits are often loaded with bleach, which can wear away tooth enamel and cause gum disease and teeth sensitivity.

Glamour's Top Tip:
Before you decide to DIY, consult your dentist to find out which method is best for you. Two of the most popular and effective treatments are custom-made fitted gel trays and laser treatments - and they're super-quick, so you can walk out with a winning smile in just a few hours.

HAIR DYE
If you're preparing to ditch your natural tresses for a dramatically different hair colour, wait! Most dyes are packed with harmful chemicals. The more permanent the colour, the more toxic the product. Semi-permanent and temporary dyes are much less toxic than permanent colours, and dark shades contain more chemicals than blonde and red tones.

Glamour's Top Tip:
Go organic. Hennas, natural-based herbal dyes, vegetable dyes and anything containing food-based ingredients are less harmful.

MASCARA
Out-of-date beauty products, especially eye make-up, can cause nasty infections. It's safe to use the same products for around three months, but after that, it's a no-no, as you put yourself at risk of contracting eye conditions like conjunctivitis. Mascara is the biggest enemy - when you put the brush on your eyelashes then back into the tube, bacteria can breed easily.

Glamour's Top Tip:
Minimise the risk of developing an infection by following a few simple steps. Never share your mascara or eyeliner with friends, and always make sure you close the tube after use.

ANTIPERSPIRANTS
Research has revealed that antiperspirants may pose deadly health risks for women, with prolonged use cited as a possible cause of breast cancer. They're loaded with aluminium salts which are absorbed into the skin, and long-term use could be potentially damaging.

Glamour's Top Tip:
Don't sweat it just yet. Chemical-free antiperspirants are just as effective as most other antiperspirants, and keep you smelling just as fresh.

Khmer Rouge Tribunal Holds 1st Hearing

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Cambodia's U.N.-backed genocide tribunal opened its doors Tuesday for the first public court appearance of a Khmer Rouge figure since the regime's brutal reign of terror in the 1970s.

Kaing Guek Eav, also known as Duch, who headed the regime's notorious S-21 prison and torture center, entered the long-delayed tribunal for a pretrial hearing to appeal his detention ahead of trials scheduled to begin in 2008.

Duch, charged with crimes against humanity, was dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt. He took the witness stand and stood up when asked to tell the court his name, then brought his palms together in a sign of respect for the five-judge panel beside him.

A presiding judge then read aloud from Duch's case file: ``Under his authority, countless abuses were committed, including mass murder, arbitrary detention and torture.''

Hundreds of journalists, international observers and Cambodians crowded the tribunal's compound on the outskirts of Phnom Penh to witness the event, which comes almost three decades after the regime fell from power.

``This is historic,'' said 58-year-old Sin Khor, whose husband and two brothers died during the Khmer Rouge reign. One of her brothers was shot execution-style, she said. ``Thirty years have passed. But what happened then remains alive for me.''

Two satellite trucks from Cambodian television stations were parked outside the courthouse to carry the proceedings on live television.

The 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime was blamed for the deaths of some 1.7 million people from starvation, disease, overwork and execution. Many have said they feared the surviving Khmer Rouge leaders might die before being brought to justice. The movement's notorious leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998.

Duch's hearing was held in the tribunal's pretrial chamber, with a live video feed broadcast to the main courtroom that seats 500 people.

He was charged in July with crimes against humanity for his role as the head of the regime's infamous Tuol Sleng prison, also called S-21, in Phnom Penh. Up to 16,000 men, women and children were tortured there from 1975-79 and later taken away to be executed. Only 14 people are thought to have survived.

Duch was initially arrested on May 10, 1999 and held without trial until being transferred to the tribunal's custody in July, when he was charged with crimes against humanity.

His defense team is expected to argue that his previous eight-year detention without trial was unlawful.

In a detention order in July, the tribunal's investigating judges denied a request by Duch's attorneys to release him. The judges said they have no jurisdiction to determine the legality of Duch's previous detention.

They also argued that his current detention by the tribunal will ensure his appearance at trial and protect him from any violent revenge for the crimes he is accused of.

Tribunal spokesman Peter Foster hailed Tuesday's hearing as ``a milestone,'' saying he hoped it would ease the doubts of critics who feared the tribunal would never materialize.

``It's a big day,'' he said. ``The spotlight will now be on Cambodia.''

Duch is one of five top leaders of the Khmer Rouge currently in custody at the tribunal, a former military compound on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh.

His hearing comes one day after former Khmer Rouge head of state Khieu Samphan, 76, was arrested and charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes. Police arrested Khieu Samphan at a Phnom Penh hospital, where he had been undergoing treatment since last week after suffering an apparent stroke.

Last week, authorities arrested Ieng Sary, the Khmer Rouge's ex-foreign minister, and his wife Ieng Thirith, its social affairs minister.Both were charged with crimes against humanity; Ieng Sary was also charged with war crimes.

Former Khmer Rouge ideologist Nuon Chea was detained in September on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Student's cool idea puts end to warm beer

Wellington, November 19: Like nothing better than an ice-cold beer? How about one with dry ice?

A New Zealand university student has invented a device that cools beverages in a matter of minutes, without diluting them with ice cubes, using a cooling cell that pressurises liquid carbon dioxide into small blocks of dry ice in just seconds.

"Nobody enjoys a warm beer on a summer's day. So I thought that would be a good one to look into to see if I can solve that," Kent Hodgson, a 22-year-old industrial design student at Massey University, told Reuters on Monday.

All the drinker then needs to do is place the rod-like cell, he named the Huski, like a straw into the beverage container.

"Within five minutes, you've got a super cold one," Hodgson said.

He said he was looking into patenting his invention and was also in talks with brewery companies on the possible commercialisation of his invention.

China downloaders warned of "Lust, Caution" virus

Beijing, November 19: A Chinese anti-virus company has warned against free downloads of Ang Lee's steamy spy thriller, "Lust, Caution", saying several hundred sites offering the service were embedded with viruses.

The movie has been a big hit in China, reaping 90 million yuan ($12.12 million) in its first two weeks, despite losing seven minutes to the censors, and has been tipped by some to be the year's biggest box office success.

"People should be wary of Web sites that offer free downloading services because their personal passwords can be stolen," Li Ting, of Rising International Software Co. Ltd., told Reuters.

She said several hundred Web sites promoting "Lust, Caution" were embedded with viruses and 15 percent of download links were contaminated.

"Hackers are taking advantage of popular entertainment hotspots for movies and music to attack personal computers and spread viruses," she said.

An engineer with the compnay was first to encounter the virus last week -- his screen went blank and he lost his instant messaging password.

Set in World War Two Shanghai, "Lust, Caution," features long and sometimes violent sex scenes that director Lee has hinted were real.

Lee, who won the top award at the Venice Film Festival in 2005 for his controversial gay cowboy drama "Brokeback Mountain", won the best picture award for "Lust, Caution" at this year's Festival.

Iran bans Colombian writer Marquez's latest novel

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London, November 17: Iran has decided to ban the publication of Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez's latest novel titled 'Memories of My Melancholy Whores'.

First published in Farsi as 'Memories of My Melancholy Sweethearts' in 2004, the first edition of 5,000 had sold out within three weeks, before Iranian authorities realised.

According to the BBC, the novel tells the story of a man who wants to mark his 90th birthday by sleeping with a 14-year-old virgin in a brothel and ends up falling in love.

The aged man, who had always slept with prostitutes, wants on the night he turns 90 to give himself a night of "wild love" with an adolescent virgin.

A brothel madam finds a girl for him, but when he arrives at the brothel the girl is asleep. From then on, he spends every night watching the girl sleep, finding love at the end of his life.

Iran's culture ministry said a "bureaucratic error" had led to permission being granted for the book's publication, the Fars news agency reported.

The official responsible had been sacked, Fars said.

The release of the book has angered religious conservatives, forcing the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which must approve all publications in Iran, to refuse to issue a permit to allow the book to be reprinted.

Iran has tightened censorship of books since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. abriel Garcia Marquez, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, is popular in Iran, which has published many of his books, including One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera.

Rupee rises riding on equity wave

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Mumbai, November 19: - The rupee rose Monday on expectations that buoyancy in local equities would accelerate capital inflows, but traders were wary of possible central bank intervention to check the unit's gains.

At 10 a.m., the partially convertible rupee was at 39.28/29 per dollar, up nearly 0.1 per cent from 39.32/33 at the previous close.

India's main share index rose more than 1 per cent in early trade. Foreigners have bought about $17 billion of stocks in 2007, well above the $10.7 billion record inflow for the whole of 2005.

"Dollar supplies are good as traders expect a rebound in local shares to push up foreign investment in the near term," a trader with a state-run bank said.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) bought a record $11.87 billion in intervention in September to check the rupee's rise and analysts said it played an active role in October and November as well.

"We didn't see the RBI today, but sentiment is wary about intervention if the rupee climbs sharply," the trader said.

Bathinda police dance away 500 kilos!

Bathinda (Punjab), November 17: Punjab's policemen are known for throwing their weight around but the determination of a young cop is making sure that the force in his district sheds some weight - and in a novel way too.

Personnel of all ranks in Bathinda police have been dancing to the tunes of the bhangra - Punjab's traditional dance during celebrations - and in just two weeks the results speak for themselves - the force has collectively lost over 500 kg.

The initiative for this form of exercise came from Bathinda's senior superintendent of police (SSP) Naunihal Singh. The young Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, posted here in June this year, became quite concerned on seeing the waistlines and potbellies of the men under his command.

"I thought we needed to do something innovative to check this. In just two weeks, we have collectively lost 500 kilos," Singh says with satisfaction.

The idea behind the bhangra exercise is to transform the 1,800-strong police constabulary into a fighting fit force in this south Punjab district.

Police officials say not only was the force looking completely out of shape but the extra fat was causing too many health problems for the men in khaki - ranging from diabetes, hypertension and sleep disorders to breathing problems. Singh has even taken the initiative of announcing the 'Bathinda Police Fitness Challenge 2007-08' for the personnel to motivate them to get into shape quickly.

The personnel have been divided into groups of 22 each. The minimum collective weight loss of each group will have to be 100 kg. The highest weight shedder will take away prizes. For those not falling in line, penalties will be in store.

The district police chief, during one of his recent field visits, ordered police control room (PCR) motorcycle riders to demonstrate push-ups at their duty spot.

For some Bathinda residents, the bhangra-drill of the policemen - done for one hour every morning at the police lines complex with foot-tapping music - is itself quite amusing.

The cops, who used to instil fear in the minds of people, are now forced to dance despite the presence of onlookers who flock to the police lines complex to amuse themselves. The one-hour drill leaves the pot-bellied cops literally sweating.

Cockroaches mingle with robotic bugs

Washington, November 17: - Tiny robots programmed to act like roaches were able to blend into cockroach society, according to researchers studying the collective behavior of insects. Cockroaches tend to self-organise into leaderless groups, seeming to reach consensus on where to rest together.

For example, when provided two similar shelters, most of the group tended to gather under the same one.

Hoping to learn more about this behavior, researchers led by Jose Halloy at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, designed small robots programmed to act like a cockroach.

The robots didn't look like the insects and at first the roaches fled from them, but after the scientists coated the robots with pheromones that made them smell like roaches the machines were accepted into the group, nesting together with the insects.

Given a choice, roaches generally prefer a darker place and the robots were programmed to do the same.

When given a choice of a darker or lighter shelter, 75 percent of the cockroaches and 85 percent of the robots gathered under the darker one.

Then, to see if the robots had really become part of society and could influence group decisions, Halloy and colleagues programmed them to prefer shelters with more light.

The result, the lighter shelter was preferred by the mixed group 61 percent of the time, while the cockroaches alone picked it just 27 percent of the time.

On the other hand, in 39 percent of cases the robots, despite being programmed to prefer a lighter shelter, joined the cockroaches under the darker one.

The findings were reported in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

On the Net:

Singapore lifts ban on Microsoft video game - paper

Singapore, November 16: Singapore has lifted a ban on a Microsoft Corp. video game that contains a scene showing a human woman and an alien woman kissing and caressing, a local newspaper reported Saturday.

The Strait Times said Mass Effect would instead be sold with an M18 label, meaning it can't be bought by anybody under the age of 18.

Mass Effect is the first video game to be given a rating in the country, and follows a public outcry over the ban. It effectively fast tracks a new ratings system that was due to come into effect in January, the paper said.

A similar move was made for the movie Lust, Caution, which was released uncut with a R21 age restriction after first being shown in a censored form.