FangGlobalNews

Vivian Hsu - Good Tears, Bad Tears (English Translation)

2008-06-20T21:07:00.001-07:00

Yahoo Hires Google to Sell Online Ads

2008-06-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO) — Yahoo has hired Internet search leader Google to sell some online ads in hopes of boosting its profit.

The Sunnyvale-based company announced the plans late Thursday after its stock plunged 10 percent on news that its efforts to revive takeover talks with Microsoft had hit a dead end.

Yahoo Inc. is now counting on Google Inc.'s superior moneymaking system to appease its angry shareholders as it tries to fend off a shareholder mutiny being led by activist investor Carl Icahn.

By using Google's superior advertising technology, Yahoo believes it can boost its annual cash flow by $250 million to $450 million in the first year of the deal.

The partnership could last up to 10 years if it can win antitrust approval.

Picasso Prints Stolen in Brazil

2008-06-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

The Police car stop at the outside of museum.

The bandits also took two oil paintings by well-known Brazilian artists Emiliano Di Cavalcanti and Lasar Segall, said Carla Regina, a spokeswoman for the Pinacoteca do Estado museum.

The Picasso prints stolen were "The Painter and the Model" from 1963 and "Minotaur, Drinker and Women" from 1933, according to a statement from the Sao Paulo Secretary of State for Culture, which oversees the museum.

The prints and paintings have a combined value of $612,000, the statement and a museum official said.

About noon, three armed men paid the $2.45 entrance fee and immediately went to the second-floor gallery where the works were being exhibited, bypassing more valuable pieces, authorities said.

"This indicates to us that they probably received an order" to take those specific works, Youssef Abou Chain, head of Sao Paulo's organized crime unit, told reporters at a news conference
(SAO PAULO, Brazil) — Three armed robbers stole two Pablo Picasso prints from an art museum in downtown Sao Paulo on Thursday, the city's second high-profile art theft in less than a year.

The assailants overpowered three unarmed museum guards and grabbed the works, officials said. The robbery took about 10 minutes and the museum was nearly empty at the time.

The assailants took the pieces — frames and all — out of the museum in two bags. The institution has no metal detectors.

In December, Picasso's "Portrait of Suzanne Bloch" and "O Lavrador de Cafe" by Candido Portinari, an influential Brazilian artist, were stolen from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art by three men who used a crowbar and car jack to force open one of the museum's steel doors.

The framed paintings were found Jan. 8, covered in plastic and leaning against a wall in a house on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, South America's largest city.

One of the suspects in that heist — a former TV chef — turned himself over to police in January, who already had two suspects in custody.

How Much Sleep Do You Really Need?

2008-06-11T22:32:00.000-07:00

Sleep is one of the richest topics in science today: why we need it, why it can be hard to get, and how that affects everything from our athletic performance to our income. Daniel Kripke, co-director of research at the Scripps Clinic Sleep Center in La Jolla, Calif., has looked at the most important question of all. In 2002, he compared death rates among more than 1 million American adults who, as part of a study on cancer prevention, reported their average nightly amount of sleep. To many, his results were surprising, but they've since been corroborated by similar studies in Europe and East Asia. Kripke explains.

Q: How much sleep is ideal?

A: Studies show that people who sleep between 6.5 hr. and 7.5 hr. a night, as they report, live the longest. And people who sleep 8 hr. or more, or less than 6.5 hr., they don't live quite as long. There is just as much risk associated with sleeping too long as with sleeping too short. The big surprise is that long sleep seems to start at 8 hr. Sleeping 8.5 hr. might really be a little worse than sleeping 5 hr..

Morbidity [or sickness] is also "U-shaped" in the sense that both very short sleep and very long sleep are associated with many illnesses—with depression, with obesity—and therefore with heart disease—and so forth. But the [ideal amount of sleep] for different health measures isn't all in the same place. Most of the low points are at 7 or 8 hr., but there are some at 6 hr. and even at 9 hr. I think diabetes is lowest in 7-hr. sleepers [for example]. But these measures aren't as clear as the mortality data.

I think we can speculate [about why people who sleep from 6.5 to 7.5 hr. live longer], but we have to admit that we don't really understand the reasons. We don't really know yet what is cause and what is effect. So we don't know if a short sleeper can live longer by extending their sleep, and we don't know if a long sleeper can live longer by setting the alarm clock a bit earlier. We're hoping to organize tests of those questions.

One of the reasons I like to publicize these facts is that I think we can prevent a lot of insomnia and distress just by telling people that short sleep is O.K. We've all been told you ought to sleep 8 hr., but there was never any evidence. A very common problem we see at sleep clinics is people who spend too long in bed. They think they should sleep 8 or 9 hr., so they spend [that amount of time] in bed, with the result that they have trouble falling asleep and wake up a lot during the night. Oddly enough, a lot of the problem [of insomnia] is lying in bed awake, worrying about it. There have been many controlled studies in the U.S., Great Britain and other parts of Europe that show that an insomnia treatment that involves getting out of bed when you're not sleepy and restricting your time in bed actually helps people to sleep more. They get over their fear of the bed. They get over the worry, and become confident that when they go to bed, they will sleep. So spending less time in bed actually makes sleep better. It is in fact a more powerful and effective long-term treatment for insomnia than sleeping pills.

Harry Potter Prequel Auctioned for Charity

2008-06-11T20:37:00.000-07:00

(LONDON) —An 800-word prequel to the Harry Potter series, handwritten by author J.K. Rowling, sold for nearly 25,000 pounds at a charity auction Tuesday

With the winning bid of $48,858, the absent bidder paid more than $59 a word for Rowling's short story during the event at the flagship of Waterstone's book store chain in London. Proceeds will benefit the writers' association English PEN and a dyslexia charity.

A short mystery story by acclaimed playwright Tom Stoppard raised $7,816.

Rowling was able to squeeze her Harry Potter prequel onto both sides of a piece of A5 paper, which is slightly bigger than a postcard.

The prequel to the seven-book series is set three years before Harry is born and features the characters Sirius Black and James Potter, Harry's father. They get into trouble with a policeman before escaping with broomsticks, drumsticks and a little bit of magic.

Rowling made it clear there was no hope for a new Potter novel and finished her card by writing, "From the prequel I am not working on — but that was fun!"

Twelve other authors and illustrators also contributed cards to the auction, including Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing and novelists Nick Hornby and Margaret Atwood.

Copies of all the cards will be on display in Waterstone's stores and online following the auction, and they will be collected into a book available in August.

The final installment of Rowling's seven-book Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," was published last year.

Rowling has said she has no plans to write another novel about the boy wizard, but in December she sold a handwritten, leather-bound book of fairy tales she described as drawing on the series' themes for nearly $4 million at auction. The money went to the Children's Voice, a charity she co-founded in 2005.

An Italian Snags the Flatiron

2008-06-10T23:48:00.001-07:00

Spurred by the weak dollar and the strong euro, European travelers to the U.S. have been lapping up everything from Gap boxers to iPhones to luxury condos in Palm Beach. Now a top Italian real estate investor has nabbed a crown piece of New York property, a sale that echoes the Japanese purchase of Rockefeller Center in 1989. Valter Mainetti has confirmed to TIME that his company, the Sorgente Group, has acquired a majority share of Manhattan's historic Flatiron building.

Among the first and, at the time, tallest of New York City's signature skyscrapers when it was completed in 1902, the 22-story Flatiron is instantly recognizable for its triangular shape at the intersection of Fifth Avenue, Broadway, and 23rd Street. Though it was dwarfed 30 years later by the Empire State building, 11 blocks up Fifth Avenue, the Flatiron is a favorite of architecture buffs and a lasting star in the skyline, featured in the opening credits of the David Letterman show and serving as the fictional headquarters for the Daily Bugle in the recent Spider-Man movies. It has been a National Historic Landmark since 1989. Though not quite the shock of the Mitsubishi Group's purchase of Rockefeller Center, the Flatiron's falling into foreign hands nevertheless carries symbolic weight as international investors take advantage of the upheaval in the real estate market and weakness of the U.S. dollar. The euro closed Monday at $1.56.

As bad as the U.S. housing bust has been, the falloff in sales has been cushioned by foreign buyers in such places as New York City and Florida. Anne Marie Moriarty, a vice president of Corcoran realtors, says residential real estate sales to foreigners have doubled in the past 15 months. The uptick in foreign interest helps explain why New York real estate prices are up 11% from last year in an otherwise tanking marketplace. "It's bucking the trend," says Moriarity of the Manhattan market. "[Foreigners] see it as a long-term investment. Part of it for them is owning a piece of New York."

Similar thinking is behind Mainetti's purchase. He has been building his Michelangelo Fund around investments in so-called "trophy" properties, which have historical or architectural value beyond the typical calculus of location and square footage. In 2005, he bought a 27% stake in the company that owns the Chrysler Building. A year later he acquired a minority share in the Flatiron, which today is valued at a total of $180 million. With the latest deal, he now holds a 53% share of the famous building. "The Flatiron is expensive, but with the [cheap] dollar, it made sense to increase our share," said Mainetti. "The stability of the New York real estate market is unique. This current crisis will pass, and the dollar will reestablish itself. We are confident."

Foreign companies were the buyers in four of the top 13 U.S. commercial real estate deals in 2007, according to Real Estate Alert newsletter. Another foreign acquisition of notable Manhattan real estate was the Dubai-based Jumeirah group's 2006 purchase of the Essex House on Central Park South.

Michael Seton, a managing director in the New York office of German-based property lender Eurohypo AG, said foreigners view the U.S. market as a long-term investment. "They're less rattled by the subprime crisis and short-term gyrations in the market," Seton explains. "Their horizon is longer, which in the end is good for the real estate business. These are properties that are meant to be held onto." The new Italian owners of the Flatiron say they're in for the long haul, and plan to seek city approval for a new project to illuminate the exterior by Vittorio Storaro, the Oscar-winning director of photography for Apocalypse Now and Little Buddha. Just a touch more glamor, perhaps, for the real-life publishing company employees who occupy its offices — not to mention Peter Parker and his Daily Bugle colleagues

Were African-Americans at Iwo Jima?

2008-06-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

Sixty-three years after U.S. forces vanquished the Japanese and planted their flag on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi, the remote outpost in the Volcano Islands is the focus of another pitched battle. This time, acclaimed film directors Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee are engaging in verbal warfare over the verisimilitude of Eastwood's two films about the epic clash, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. Lee has claimed that by soft-pedaling African-American contributions to the battle, Eastwood is misrepresenting history.

"Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen," Lee said at the Cannes Film Festival. "In his version of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist." Eastwood's counter: "Has he ever studied history? [African-American soldiers] didn't raise the flag," he said. "If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, they'd say, "This guy's lost his mind.'" Eastwood also told Lee to "shut his face," prompting Lee to amplify the racism charge: "[Eastwood] is not my father and we're not on a plantation, either," he fumed. "I'm not making this up. I know history."

History, as it turns out, is on both their sides. Lee is correct that African-Americans played an instrumental role in World War II, in which more than 1 million black servicemen helped defeat the Axis Powers. Those efforts include significant contributions to the fight for Iwo Jima. An estimated 700 to 900 African-American soldiers participated in the epic island battle, many of whom were Marines trained in segregated boot camps at Montford Point, within Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Those soldiers were restricted from front-line combat duty, but they played integral noncombat roles. Under enemy fire, they piloted amphibious truck units during perilous shore landings, unloaded and shuttled ammunition to the front lines, helped bury the dead, and weathered Japanese onslaughts on their positions even after the island had been declared secure. According to Christopher Moore, the author of a book about African-Americans' myriad contributions during World War II, "thousands" more helped fashion the airstrips from which U.S. B-29 aircrafts could launch and return from air assaults on Tokyo, about 760 miles northwest. Hosting that air base, Moore says, was Iwo Jima's primary strategic importance.

Eastwood's portrayal of the specific battle is, if narrow, also essentially accurate. Flags Of Our Fathers zeroes in on the soldiers who hoisted the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi, and this task, memorialized in a famous staged photograph, was accomplished by five white servicemen and a sixth, Ira Hayes, of Pima Indian descent. (His other entry in the Iwo Jima category, Letters from Iwo Jima, is told largely from the perspective of Japanese soldiers.)

Eastwood is also correct that black soldiers represented a small fraction of the total force deployed on the island. That argument doesn't placate Yvonne Latty, a New York University professor and author of a book about African-American veterans. Black soldiers "had the most dangerous job," she says. "If you were going to show the soldiers' landing, you'd need to show [African-Americans] on the beach." In Flags of Our Fathers, which shows the landing in significant detail, African-Americans appear only in fleeting cutaway shots and in a photograph during the film's closing credits.

Moore lauds Eastwood's rendering of the battle, but laments the limited role accorded to African-Americans. "Without black labor," he says, "we would've seen a much different ending to the war."

Senate Oil Tax Plan Blocked

2008-06-10T23:07:00.000-07:00

(WASHINGTON) — Senate Republicans blocked a proposal Tuesday to tax the windfall profits of the largest oil companies, despite pleas by Democratic leaders to use the measure to address America's anger over

The Democratic energy package would have imposed a tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies and given the federal government more power to address oil market speculation that the bill's supporters argue has added to the crude oil price surge.

"Americans are furious about what's going on," declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and want Congress to do something about oil company profits and "an orgy of speculation" on oil markets.

But Republicans argued the Democratic proposal focusing on new oil industry taxes is not the answer to the country's energy problems.

"The American people are clamoring for relief at the pump," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., but if taxes are increased on the oil companies "they will get exactly what they don't want. The bill will raise taxes, increase imports."

The Democrats failed, 51-43, to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster and bring the energy package up for consideration.

Separately, Democrats also failed to get Republican support for a proposal to extend tax breaks for wind, solar and other alternative energy development, and for the promotion of energy efficiency and conservation. The tax breaks have either expired or are scheduled to end this year.

The tax provisions were included in a broader $50 billion tax measure blocked by a GOP filibuster threat. A vote to take up the measure was 50-44, short of the 60 votes needed.

The windfall profits bill would have imposed a 25 percent tax on profits over what would be determined "reasonable" when compared to profits several years ago. The oil companies could have avoided the tax if they invested the money in alternative energy projects or refinery expansion. It also would have rescinded oil company tax breaks — worth $17 billion over the next 10 years — with the revenue to be used for tax incentives to producers of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources as well as for energy conservation.

The legislation also would:

• Require traders to put up more collateral in the energy futures markets and open the way for federal regulation of traders who are based in the United States but use foreign trading platforms. The measures are designed to reduce market speculation.

• Make oil and gas price gouging a federal crime, with stiff penalties of up to $5 million during a presidentially declared energy emergency.

• Authorize the Justice Department to bring charges of price fixing against countries that belong to the OPEC oil cartel.

Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has acknowledged that Americans are hurting from the high energy costs but strongly opposes the Democrats' response and has ridiculed those who "think we can tax our way out of this problem."

"Republicans by and large believe that the solution to this problem, in part, is to increase domestic production," McConnell said.

A GOP energy plan, rejected by the Senate last month, calls for opening a coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil development and to allow states to opt out of the national moratorium that has been in effect for a quarter century against oil and gas drilling in more than 80 percent of the country's coastal waters.

The Cheaper, Faster iPhone

2008-06-10T22:57:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs did something never before seen in the history of Apple: he unveiled a cutting-edge product that's relatively cheap

The iPhone 3G handles data at nearly three times the speed of its predecessor and has built-in global positioning via satellite, and it costs $199 — $400 less than the original iPhone, unveiled almost a year ago. The phone will be available in the U.S. and 21 other countries on July 11; within a few months of that, the phone will be available in a total of 70 countries, including Japan and the burgeoning markets of Brazil and India.

The 3G phone is "one of the most amazing products I've ever had the privilege to be associated with," Jobs told a capacity crowd of 5,000 software developers and reporters. Wearing his trademark black mock turtleneck and jeans, Jobs demonstrated the new phone's speed, which he says rivals the performance of home wi-fi networks. With the old iPhone (which ran on AT&T's Edge network) on one side and the new one (which runs on AT&T's 3G network) on the other, Jobs loaded a photo-heavy Web page at nationalgeographic.com. It took 21 sec. on the 3G phone, versus 59 sec. on its predecessor. (While 21 sec. may be slow compared with the near instantaneous access on a high-speed wired desktop computer, the AT&T Edge network is the state-of-the-art wireless system in the U.S.)

While techies have fretted that the 3G phone would consume too much juice, Jobs claimed that the new phone can get 300 hours of standby time, five hours of talk time on a 3G network, five to six hours of high-speed Web browsing, seven hours of video and 24 hours of audio.

Jobs said the new iPhone has already sold 6 million units, and analysts expect Apple to blow through the company's estimate of 10 million units sold worldwide by the end of 2008. Already bullish about Apple before the announcements were made, analysts were thrilled by what they heard from Jobs about the availability of the new iPhone. They were particularly excited by the prices for the new models. In the U.S., the 8-gigabyte version, which sold for $399 previously, is only $199 in its new incarnation; the 16GB model will sell for $299. (The first-generation iPhone models have been discontinued.)

That said, Apple's stock price dropped over 2% because AT&T will no longer pay a subsidy to Apple to sell iPhones, as it did for the 1.0 versions. Jobs is clearly expecting to make up that shortfall by selling even more handsets, in the U.S. and abroad, much faster than anyone imagined. Purchasers will still need to sign a two-year contract with AT&T to use the phone. And the price for a basic plan increases by $10 for 3G usage (that is, $30 a month for unlimited data, with voice plans starting at $39.99 a month). Unlimited 3G data plans for business users will be available for $45 a month.

Apple also unveiled MobileMe, which allows home users to do the kinds of things that were formerly the domain of business users. E-mail, calendars, contacts and photos can now be automatically wirelessly synched among a user's iPhone and computers. The service, which comes with 20GB of storage, costs $99 a year.

Users of iPhone 1.0 will be able to download new software via the iPhone App Store, which will launch with the new phone. But those pioneers won't get the faster speeds or true global positioning due to hardware reasons. The older phone triangulates a user's position via cell-phone towers. The new one has a GPS receiver that can track a user in real time. Jobs showed off the GPS capabilities with a recording that showed a 3G user driving down San Francisco's winding Lombard Street. As a tiny dot appeared on a Google map and slowly wended its way down the street, the crowd roared its approval.

A number of developers showed off applications that will be ready for the iPhone in the coming weeks and months. Sega, for instance, demoed an arcade game, Super Monkey Ball, whose fluid 3-D quality was on par with what one would find on, say, a Sony PSP. On the iPhone, users navigate by tilting the motion-sensitive device. Another application, which takes advantage of the phone's GPS, is a location-aware social network; fire up the app and you can see whether any friends or people in your contact list are nearby. "We make serendipity happen," said Loopt founder Sam Altman. For the first time, one could be walking down a street in New York City and realize, for instance, that a college roommate is nearby. The Loopt application will be free at the iPhone App Store; Monkey Ball will cost $9.99. Phil Schiller, who heads Apple's marketing department, said in an interview later that he had no idea how many apps would be available when the store launched, but "I think many applications, if not most, will be available for free."

Gas Stations in Spain Running Out

2008-06-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

(MADRID, Spain) — Gas stations in Madrid and the northeastern Catalonia region began running out of fuel Monday as an indefinite strike by truckers began to bitehe protest over soaring fuel costs began at midnight Sunday.

Antonio Onieva, president of Madrid's station owners organization, told reporters that by 5:30 p.m., 15 percent of the capital's outlets had run out of fuel. Manuel Amado, president of Catalonia's owners' federation, said 40 percent of Catalonia's 1,714 stations had sold out.

The stoppage led to lengthy lines at many gasoline stations across the country as drivers rushed to fill up.

Truckers also blocked a number of roads around the country, including some leading into the center of Barcelona and the international border with France.

"We are the ones who move the goods that this country needs to keep working. If we stop because we haven't got the money to buy fuel then the country will stop," Julio Villascusa, president of the transport association Fenadismer, told Cadena SER radio.

Fenadismer said more than 90,000 drivers have been called to take part in the strike.

The strike was not expected to have a major effect on city food markets until later in the week.

There was almost no movement of trucks early Monday at Mercamadrid, the main wholesale food market for the Spanish capital.

Development Ministry transport chief Juan Miguel Sanchez said the government will guarantee market supplies.

Fenadismer representatives and Development Ministry officials met Monday morning for four hours and were meeting again in the early evening.

A strike by fishermen across Spain also protesting fuel costs has entered a second week. News reports said smaller boats that fish closer to the coast had now joined the protest, which began May 30.

The stoppages are part of Europe-wide protests against rising prices.

Shroud Of Turin Jesus,Spreading 4 time exhibition every 100 years

2008-06-09T18:37:00.000-07:00

The Christ sage body wraps corpse cloth , also call Shroud of Turin, be a piece of fourteen chis preserving in one Turin first Sunday of a fourteen-day work system hall in Italy five inches of strong point , three chis of eight inches broad cloth , the cloth being considered being to be used to bind up the Jesus dead body. In one minor church of seat of the aristocratic family who introduces the Safuwa duke within Italy Turin cathedral range, a piece of fourteen chis five inches long , three chis eight inches broad cloth preserving, has spread the portrait predecessor and the back of a garment having one people dimly. Every 100 years approximately takes out this piece of cloth doing four time of public exhibitions , the exhibition at every time , the religious believer of distance by the thousands and tens of thousands looks with reverence coming rushing. They believe that what be seen that is that Christly real contains.

This piece of cloth it is the well-known Shroud of Turin , is also that Christianity preserves the closest in the whole world , arouses a piece of things left behind by the deceased of maximal argument, let alone that is a priceless treasure. That somebody believes that this piece spreads is that Christ is used to wrap a corpse being buried after the nail dying on the cross. Have spread the image being printing him seemingly, the negative is the same like the photograph. Academic circles neither has demonstration clear and definite so far pointing out its real false

Japan Reeling from Stabbing Spree

2008-06-09T18:23:00.001-07:00

Tokyo's Akihabara district, a popular shopping area for consumer electronics, was still in shock on Monday following a killing spree by a 25-year-old man who plowed a rented truck into an intersection full of pedestrians, then began stabbing bystanders at random. The rampage, which left seven dead and 10 injured, was another reminder of a violent side of Japan that is not often discussed

Japan has one of the lowest crime rates in the developed world, yet the country still sees spasms of stunningly brutal, often random killings. The June 8 Akihabara massacre occurred exactly seven years after a former school janitor with a history of mental illness stabbed eight children to death and injured many others at their elementary school near Osaka. The nation has seen a spate of stabbings already this year, including a shopping-mall knife attack in March in which one was slain and seven were injured.

Such crimes are often perpetrated by mentally unstable men in their 20s and 30s, but experts say that gruesome acts committed by adolescents and teenagers have been on the rise for the last five years. The infamous 1997 Kobe case of a 14-year-old boy who strangled and decapitated an 11-year-old friend of his brother and displayed the child's head on a school gate was followed last year by a 17-year-old boy who cut off his mother's head as she slept and delivered it, wrapped, to the nearest police box the following morning. In January, a 16-year-old boy attacked five people with kitchen knives in Tokyo.

In an attempt to make sense of the senseless, experts point to many possible reasons for these violent outbursts. Because of the stigma of mental illness that exists in Japan, the mentally ill often go untreated. Economic conditions are also blamed. "The gap between wealth and poverty has widened for the past five years," says Mitsuyuki Maniwa, professor emeritus of criminal sociology at Shizuoka University. Society's have-nots "lose everything, from hope to motivation in life, pride, and self-esteem." Maniwa points out that the alleged Akihabara killer, whom police identified as Tomohiro Kato, was "not making an easy living" as a temporary factory employee. "This kind of society and the way it works causes this kind of crime," Maniwa maintains.

Japanese youth face similar pressures because of the country's demanding and competitive educational system. "Young people have been pushed into a corner," says Maniwa. Teachers and parents hold children personally responsible for their failures, so kids "blame themselves and run into a brick wall."

While mass murderers are sometimes too mentally unstable to explain their acts, the suspect in the Akihabara killings gave police reasons that were chillingly mundane. After his arrest, the left side of his face smeared with blood, Kato allegedly told police that he was tired of life and came to Akihabara to kill people — and it didn't matter who they were. The killer, according to the Mainichi newspaper reportedly posted details of his plans in a series of 28 messages on an online discussion board. The postings were sent through his mobile phone. The last came 20 minutes before the rampage began. It read: "It's time

McDonald's Pulls Sliced Tomatoes

2008-06-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

McDonald's said Monday it has stopped serving sliced tomatoes in its U.S. restaurants over concerns about salmonella food poisoning linked to some uncooked varieties

The grocer Winn-Dixie Stores said it was also taking some tomatoes off its shelves. Other restaurant and supermarket chains reportedly halted some tomato sales as federal health officials worked to trace the source of the outbreak.

McDonald's Corp., the world's largest hamburger chain, stopped serving sliced tomatoes on its sandwiches as a precaution until the source of the salmonella is known, according to a statement Monday from spokeswoman Danya Proud.

McDonald's will continue serving grape tomatoes in its salads because no problems have been linked to that variety, Proud said.

Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. said it was voluntarily taking tomatoes involved in a Food and Drug Administration warning off its shelves. The Jacksonville, Fla.-based retailer operates 521 stores in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi.

The source of the tomatoes responsible for the illnesses in at least 16 states has not been pinpointed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said at least 23 people have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported.

The FDA is investigating the source of the outbreak, FDA spokeswoman Kimberly Rawlings said in an e-mail. The FDA said Saturday the outbreak was linked to certain varieties of raw tomatoes including red plum, red Roma and red round.

In Pittsburgh, KDKA-TV reported that Giant Eagle supermarkets have removed several kinds of tomatoes from their shelves.

Fast-food chains Taco Bell Corp. and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. also have halted serving tomatoes, the Los Angeles Times reported. And supermarket chains Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons have stopped the selling red plum, red Roma or round red tomatoes cited by the FDA, the newspaper said.

Football:The American Game

2008-06-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

Claudio Reyna has a unique perspective on European soccer. One of the first Americans to feature regularly in Europe, he captained Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga, led Manchester City in the English Premiership, and won a championship with Glasgow Rangers in Scotland; he's played against 11 of the national teams heading for Euro 2008, including Italy, whom the U.S. fought to a wild 1-1 draw in the last World Cup. "They are born tacticians," says Reyna of the Italians. "They force you into positions. Watching them defend as a national team, it's really an art."

Italy is a favorite to create another masterpiece in Euro 2008, which is being hosted this year — with restrained enthusiasm — by Austria and Switzerland. The Italians, of course, are not a sure thing. They will be challenged by France — whom they defeated in the World Cup final — the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Croatia ... in other words, the usual suspects. (Four years ago, Greece miraculously beat stratospheric odds to win, a performance unlikely to be repeated.) And as is also now usual, the tournament will be followed on televisions not just in Europe, but everywhere from Kunming, China to — well, to Kearney, N.J., actually. And thereby hangs a tale.

"The beauty of [European football]," says Reyna, "is that you have countries that border each other, yet they all have a distinct style." Americans didn't have to go to Europe to be exposed to such variety. It's been on view in the U.S. for 150 years. Whenever the 11th man from any European town emigrated to the States, a football team got organized. Football, the real variety, is an American game, too. Since the 19th century, whether it was Scottish mill hands in New Jersey, Portuguese fishermen in Massachusetts, Ukrainian steel workers in Pennsylvania, Italian masons and Irish sandhogs in New York City, or German brewers and shopkeepers in Missouri, one ethnicity after the next established its community and its football, not necessarily in that order.

With those immigrants came an approach to the game as distinct as their cuisines. Long before I ever watched the European championships — the cable sports network ESPN didn't televise any games in the U.S. until 1996 — I was familiar with Europeans' football. I had been seeing it on the field, first as a kid living in an immigrant-enriched community near Newark, N.J. — where one learned that Portuguese teams have flair and fire, and that a Scotsman has a very broad view as to what constitutes a fair challenge. My European education would continue in the Cosmopolitan Soccer League, in New York City. The CSL began life in 1923 as the German-American Soccer League, but has long served as a melting pot of teams: Blau Weiss Gotchee, Brooklyn Italians, Greek-American Atlas, Polonia NY, Hungaria, FC Bulgaria, NY Albanians, CD Iberia.

When I got to Europe as a journalist (and as a player when my club team toured) it was amusing to see teams replicate what I'd experienced in New York: the way an Irish team plays the offside trap; an Italian midfielder's pass to an outside back that is as predictable as pasta for dinner; the steely play of the Poles contrasted with the passion of the Greeks. New York City's Croatian teams impressed me with their technical approach; the Hungarians, once powerhouses, have faded; the Greeks are defending champions. Sound familiar?

I learned, also, that the farther south in Europe your opponent's roots, the more dazzling the footballing and the hotter the tempers. Get the Italians mad at each other, and you've got a good shot at winning. Get ahead of a Greek team, and get ready for a fightback. Or at least a fight: the Greeks are people with a tremendous culture and history — and they play every game like it's a World Cup — but my experience has been that when a Greek walks onto the pitch his passion for the game is such that he's one whistle away from snapping. It's not surprising that it took a German, Otto Rehhagel, to channel that energy into the kind of disciplined defense that allowed Greece to beat France, the Czech Republic and (speaking of passion) Portugal, to win in 2004. In Greek neighborhoods such as Astoria, in the New York borough of Queens, the joy was explosive.

A Rush to Judgment at Guantanamo?

2008-06-08T21:10:00.001-07:00

Although Osama bin Laden remains at large as President Bush's tenure winds down, the Administration clearly hopes that legal proceedings begun last week against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators will offer a public demonstration that the alleged principal planners of the 9/11 attacks are finally being brought to justice. But their arraignment at Guantanamo on Thursday suggested that the political overtones of the case could call that effort into question and overshadow strictly legal aspects of the trial

For the Bush Administration, which has held some of the defendants for five years of interrogation and torture at secret locations, the trial offers a timely opportunity to remind Americans of the terrorist threat. Showcasing sensational evidence of the 9/11 conspiracy will not only assist the trial and possible execution of its alleged perpetrators, it will bolster the administration's approach to its continuing "global war on terror." Although few observers expect the latest court deadline to be met, prosecutors say they will be ready to start the trial on September 18, close to the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — and also the point at which U.S. voters start turning their attention to election issues such as national security.

Preparations for the trial have already featured accusations of political manipulation, notably set forth by Air Force Col. Morris Davis, Guantanamo's former chief prosecutor. He has said under oath that the top legal advisor to Guantanamo's military commissions, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, interfered in his planning of trials at the base by demanding that he drum up "sexy", high-profile cases "with blood on them" to attract public support for convictions. That charge led a military judge several weeks ago to exclude Hartmann from further involvement in a prominent case. Davis has also accused the Pentagon's second-ranking civilian of telling him to quickly charge "high value" prisoners — like Mohammed — "because there could be strategic value before the (November) election." Both Hartmann and the Pentagon civilian, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, have disputed those allegations, though not under oath.

The accused, meanwhile, may have a political agenda of their own in the proceedings: Mohammed and some of the other defendants have said explicitly that they do not recognize the authority of the court, branding it a political trial. At the apparent direction of Mohammed, confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, the accused have also told the court they will represent themselves, albeit with some assistance from professional military and civilian lawyers. Mohammed, who repeatedly appeared to give courtroom instructions to his co-accused on Thursday, explained that he rejects the authority of the U.S. legal system and instead follows "God's law." He also said he welcomes a death penalty in order to "martyr" himself.

Lawyers for the accused also suspect a political motivation in the timing of the case, since both presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, have said they would like to close down Guantanamo. Given that possibility, and an expected Supreme Court ruling later this month on the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo, it is almost certainly in the legal interests of the accused to see trial proceedings delayed — at least until a new administration in Washington potentially takes a different legal approach to dealing with terror suspects. The possibility of bringing the five accused to the U.S. and charging them in Federal court would grant them more legal rights than they enjoy under the Guantanamo system of military commissions.

Thursday's opening round suggested, however, that the case will pivot on two factors: the rulings and conduct of Judge Ralph Kohlman, the Marine colonel presiding over the trial; and the wily intentions of Mohammed, who seems to be guiding his fellow defendants and setting defense strategy.

Judge Kohlman must soon rule, for example, on whether Guantanamo's top legal adviser, Brig. Gen. Hartmann, has unduly interfered in the case. If the ruling should go against Hartmann, many observers believe he could be removed or forced to resign. And that might be important, because Hartmann has recently pushed hard to conduct trials as quickly as possible, although that haste was not evident during years when the accused were held in prison after their capture.

The Judge will also have to respond to new complaints from defense lawyers that Mohammed is intimidating and trying to exercise control over at least two of his co-defendants, pressuring them to reject legal advice.

Mohammed and the others accused could also decide to remain in their cells and avoid future court appearances, an option Judge Kohlman has said they are free to exercise. Since all five have opted to legally represent themselves, if they also decided not to show up, that could, speed the proceedings along, by cutting down on legal maneuvers or the number of objections. A smoother, faster trial might well please the Bush administration and perhaps even the al-Qaeda prisoners themselves, who are seeking to delegitimize the U.S. legal process and, if Mohammed is to be taken at his word, to pursue "martyrdom." Should the two sides concur on speeding the legal process for their own political reasons, the resulting trial is unlikely to create a convincing appearance of justice being done. And that, in the court of international public opinion, would probably register as a victory for al-Qaeda.

Why Didn't More Women Vote for Hillary?

2008-06-08T21:01:00.000-07:00

Amy Klobuchar was a swing voter this year. At the outset of the 2008 race, the 48-year-old Senator from Minnesota was exactly the kind of voter Hillary Clinton's campaign was counting on. Women a generation older would be safely in their camp. Younger women would be susceptible to Obamamania. Clinton's team thought that those in Klobuchar's demographic--professional, well-educated women who came of age during the modern women's movement--would be moved by the very real opportunity to put one of their own in the White House

It hasn't quite worked out that way. While Klobuchar's 80-year-old mother is an ardent Clinton supporter and her adolescent daughter is "all about Barack," the Senator voted for Obama. "He has transcended traditional politics," she says.

One of the Democratic campaign's great misperceptions has been that Clinton held an overwhelming advantage among women voters. But that isn't the case. As expected, Clinton captured the over-65 vote, and Obama won over younger women. But women in the middle split almost evenly between the two. And while both Senators boasted historic candidacies, Obama's seemed to resonate more deeply, translating into 70%, 80% and even 90% of the black vote in primary contests. No one expected Clinton to sweep 90% of Democratic women voters, but 60% wouldn't have been an unreasonable accomplishment for the first woman to have a serious chance of winning the presidency. Instead, Clinton won just over a majority of women's votes.

So what does that mean? Clinton and her supporters have charged that sexism is responsible for her loss of the nomination. But it seems more likely that women themselves cost her the nod. The reasons more women haven't voted for Clinton tell us something about the evolution of feminism and what the future may hold for female politicians.

Clinton's run has exposed a divide between what could be termed optimist and pessimist feminists. It's a split between those who see Clinton's candidacy as groundbreaking--as the first of many serious runs by strong women--and those who count backward to Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and conclude that this kind of opportunity comes along only once in a generation. For this latter group, Clinton's candidacy took on a pressing urgency: If not now, when? If not her, who?

What unites the pessimists--many of whom are older women or women who don't work outside the home--is the persistent belief that women continue to face sexism and barriers in the workplace. Some may have an outmoded sense of the obstacles women face on the job, while others may well have left a workplace that made it hard for them to maintain a work-life balance. In both cases, they're more likely to place value in the symbolic power of electing a woman President.

Optimist feminists, on the other hand, don't question that a woman can become President or that it will occur in their lifetime. When these women look around, they see themselves making up half of business- and medical-school classes. They are law partners, CEOs and university presidents. And they don't want to rally behind a female candidate simply because she is a woman.

Women often tell me it's important to get more of them elected so they can change the tenor of politics. But that goal has faced some tough choices in the Democratic contest. "He's the girl in the race," explains Marie Wilson, head of the White House Project, a nonprofit that helps women move into positions of leadership. "Clinton came out tough; she voted for the war. Obama came out as the person bringing people together and offering messages of hope and reconciliation."

Although Klobuchar approvingly cites Obama's practice of feminine politics ("He uses things like the Jeremiah Wright controversy as teachable moments"), she knows as well as anyone that female politicians still face some skepticism. Three months into her Senate tenure, Klobuchar was in an elevator with some aides when a gop colleague entered and gently chided them for taking the Senators-only elevator.

Yet Klobuchar doesn't feel she has to prove she belongs. And thanks to Clinton, neither will the next women who run for President. Clinton has shattered long-standing assumptions about whether a woman could seriously compete for the White House. She not only avoided the label of "novelty candidate," but embraced that of "inevitable nominee." She mopped the floor with her opponents in debates. "This will only help women candidates," says Klobuchar. In that sense, the biggest legacy of Clinton's run may prove to be some sisterly competition the next time around.

Will the Olympics Not Be Televised?

2008-06-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

(BEIJING) — Television networks that will broadcast the Beijing Olympics to billions around the world are squaring off with local organizers over stringent security that threatens coverage of the games in two months.

Differences over a wide range of issues — from limits on live coverage in Tiananmen Square to allegations that freight shipments of TV broadcasting equipment are being held up in Chinese ports — surfaced in a contentious meeting late last month between Beijing organizers and high-ranking International Olympic Committee officials and TV executives — including those from NBC.

In response to the complaints from broadcasters, Sun Weijia, head of media operations for the Beijing organizers, asked them to put it in writing, only to draw protests about mounting paperwork.

"I think what I have heard here are just a number of conditions or requirements that are just not workable," said IOC official Gilbert Felli, according to minutes of the May 29 meeting obtained by The Associated Press. "There are a number of things that are just not feasible."

Despite the outburst, Sun asked again to have the complaints in writing.

"I just wish to have a kind of document to help me identify the key points," he said, drawing immediate protest.

"How many times do we have to do that?" asked Manolo Romero, an Olympic broadcasting official.

With time running out before the games open on Aug. 8, the minutes hint that procedures broadcasters have used in other Olympics are conflicting with China's authoritarian government. Some plans are months behind schedule, which could force broadcasters to compromise coverage plans.

The meeting in Beijing included representatives of nine broadcasters, each of which has paid for the rights to broadcast the Olympics. Top IOC officials and Beijing organizers were also on hand in what one TV executive termed an "emergency meeting."

Non-rights holding broadcasters — news organizations that have not bought TV rights to cover Olympic action at the venues — did not attend the meeting but also are concerned about delays and security restrictions.

"We are two weeks away from putting equipment on a shipment and we have no clearance to operate, or to enter the country or a frequency allocation," said Sandy MacIntyre, director of news for AP Television News. APTN is the television arm of The Associated Press.

Unnerved by protests on international legs of the Olympic torch relay following the outbreak of deadly rioting March 14 in Tibet, China's communist government seems to be backtracking on some promises to let reporters work as they have in previous Olympics.

The government also has tightened visa rules in the last several months. One target has been students. The government fears many would side with activist groups if protests break out.

The minutes of the meeting show behind-the-scenes dialogue that differs markedly from the IOC's public statements about smooth cooperation with Beijing organizers. In an interview, one broadcaster who attended the meeting summed up the problem.

"The Chinese are very concerned about something going wrong — and so they are in Olympic gridlock," said John Barton, director of sport for the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, which represents broadcasters in 57 countries.

"This is the greatest moment in their sporting history," Barton said. "They've built a stage on which they want to perform, but they are rather queasy about how it should be shown."

"They are suffocating the television coverage in the crazy pursuit of security. They can't secure the event. Nothing can be totally secure, yet they are trying to do that."

Chinese officials say more than 500,000 people will handle security during the games, equaling the number of foreign visitors expected. Public security officials said a few days ago that protests won't be allowed — unless protesters get a permit — with arrests or expulsion likely. Some athletes in Beijing also are expected to speak out against Chinese policies on Tibet or Darfur.

The World Need $45 Trillion to Fight Warming

2008-06-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

(TOKYO) — The world needs to invest $45 trillion in energy in coming decades, build some 1,400 nuclear power plants and vastly expand wind power in order to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, according to an energy study released Friday

The report by the Paris-based International Energy Agency envisions a "energy revolution" that would greatly reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels while maintaining steady economic growth.

"Meeting this target of 50 percent cut in emissions represents a formidable challenge, and we would require immediate policy action and technological transition on an unprecedented scale," IEA Executive Director Nobuo Tanaka said.

A U.N.-network of scientists concluded last year that emissions have to be cut by at least half by 2050 to avoid an increase in world temperatures of between 3.6 and 4.2 degrees above pre-18th century levels.

Scientists say temperature increases beyond that could trigger devastating effects, such as widespread loss of species, famines and droughts, and swamping of heavily populated coastal areas by rising oceans.

Environment ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized countries and Russia backed the 50 percent target in a meeting in Japan last month and called for it to be officially endorsed at the G-8 summit in July.

The IEA report mapped out two main scenarios: one in which emissions are reduced to 2005 levels by 2050, and a second that would bring them to half of 2005 levels by mid-century.

The scenario for deeper cuts would require massive investment in energy technology development and deployment, a wide-ranging campaign to dramatically increase energy efficiency, and a wholesale shift to renewable sources of energy.

Assuming an average 3.3 percent global economic growth over the 2010-2050 period, governments and the private sector would have to make additional investments of $45 trillion in energy, or 1.1 percent of the world's gross domestic product, the report said.

That would be an investment more than three times the current size of the entire U.S. economy.

The second scenario also calls for an accelerated ramping up of development of so-called "carbon capture and storage" technology allowing coal-powered power plants to catch emissions and inject them underground.

The study said that an average of 35 coal-powered plants and 20 gas-powered power plants would have to be fitted with carbon capture and storage equipment each year between 2010 and 2050.

In addition, the world would have to construct 32 new nuclear power plants each year, and wind-power turbines would have to be increased by 17,000 units annually. Nations would have to achieve an eight-fold reduction in carbon intensity — the amount of carbon needed to produce a unit of energy — in the transport sector.

Such action would drastically reduce oil demand to 27 percent of 2005 demand. Failure to act would lead to a doubling of energy demand and a 130 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, IEA officials said.

"This development is clearly not sustainable," said Dolf Gielen, an IEA energy analyst and leader for the project.

Gielen said most of the $45 trillion forecast investment — about $27 trillion — would be borne by developing countries, which will be responsible for two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Most of the money would be in the commercialization of energy technologies developed by governments and the private sector.

"If industry is convinced there will be policy for serious, deep CO2 emission cuts, then these investments will be made by the private sector," Gielen said.

America's Medicated Army

2008-06-07T22:21:00.000-07:00

Seven months after Sergeant Christopher LeJeune started scouting Baghdad's dangerous roads — acting as bait to lure insurgents into the open so his Army unit could kill them — he found himself growing increasingly despondent. "We'd been doing some heavy missions, and things were starting to bother me," LeJeune says. His unit had been protecting Iraqi police stations targeted by rocket-propelled grenades, hunting down mortars hidden in dark Baghdad basements and cleaning up its own messes. He recalls the order his unit got after a nighttime firefight to roll back out and collect the enemy dead. When LeJeune and his buddies arrived, they discovered that some of the bodies were still alive. "You don't always know who the bad guys are," he says. "When you search someone's house, you have it built up in your mind that these guys are terrorists, but when you go in, there's little bitty tiny shoes and toys on the floor — things like that started affecting me a lot more than I thought they

So LeJeune visited a military doctor in Iraq, who, after a quick session, diagnosed depression. The doctor sent him back to war armed with the antidepressant Zoloft and the antianxiety drug clonazepam. "It's not easy for soldiers to admit the problems that they're having over there for a variety of reasons," LeJeune says. "If they do admit it, then the only solution given is pills."

While the headline-grabbing weapons in this war have been high-tech wonders, like unmanned drones that drop Hellfire missiles on the enemy below, troops like LeJeune are going into battle with a different kind of weapon, one so stealthy that few Americans even know of its deployment. For the first time in history, a sizable and growing number of U.S. combat troops are taking daily doses of antidepressants to calm nerves strained by repeated and lengthy tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The medicines are intended not only to help troops keep their cool but also to enable the already strapped Army to preserve its most precious resource: soldiers on the front lines. Data contained in the Army's fifth Mental Health Advisory Team report indicate that, according to an anonymous survey of U.S. troops taken last fall, about 12% of combat troops in Iraq and 17% of those in Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants or sleeping pills to help them cope. Escalating violence in Afghanistan and the more isolated mission have driven troops to rely more on medication there than in Iraq, military officials say.

At a Pentagon that keeps statistics on just about everything, there is no central clearinghouse for this kind of data, and the Army hasn't consistently asked about prescription-drug use, which makes it difficult to track. Given the traditional stigma associated with soldiers seeking mental help, the survey, released in March, probably underestimates antidepressant use. But if the Army numbers reflect those of other services — the Army has by far the most troops deployed to the war zones — about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq were on such medications last fall. The Army estimates that authorized drug use splits roughly fifty-fifty between troops taking antidepressants — largely the class of drugs that includes Prozac and Zoloft — and those taking prescription sleeping pills like Ambien.

In some ways, the prescriptions may seem unremarkable. Generals, history shows, have plied their troops with medicinal palliatives at least since George Washington ordered rum rations at Valley Forge. During World War II, the Nazis fueled their blitzkrieg into France and Poland with the help of an amphetamine known as Pervitin. The U.S. Army also used amphetamines during the Vietnam War.

The military's rising use of antidepressants also reflects their prevalence in the civilian population. In 2004, the last year for which complete data for the U.S. are available, doctors wrote 147 million prescriptions for antidepressants, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical-market-research firm. This number reflects in part the common practice of cycling through different medications to find the most effective drug. A 2006 federally funded study found that 70% of those taking antidepressants along with therapy experience some improvement in mood.

When it comes to fighting wars, though, troops have historically been barred from using such drugs in combat. And soldiers — who are younger and healthier on average than the general population — have been prescreened for mental illnesses before enlisting.

The increase in the use of medication among U.S. troops suggests the heavy mental and psychological price being paid by soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pentagon surveys show that while all soldiers deployed to a war zone will feel stressed, 70% will manage to bounce back to normalcy. But about 20% will suffer from what the military calls "temporary stress injuries," and 10% will be afflicted with "stress illnesses." Such ailments, according to briefings commanders get before deploying, begin with mild anxiety and irritability, difficulty sleeping, and growing feelings of apathy and pessimism. As the condition worsens, the feelings last longer and can come to include panic, rage, uncontrolled shaking and temporary paralysis. The symptoms often continue back home, playing a key role in broken marriages, suicides and psychiatric breakdowns. The mental trauma has become so common that the Pentagon may expand the list of "qualifying wounds" for a Purple Heart — historically limited to those physically injured on the battlefield — to include posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on May 2 that it's "clearly something" that needs to be considered, and the Pentagon is weighing the change.

Using drugs to cope with battlefield traumas is not discussed much outside the Army, but inside the service it has been the subject of debate for years. "No magic pill can erase the image of a best friend's shattered body or assuage the guilt from having traded duty with him that day," says Combat Stress Injury, a 2006 medical book edited by Charles Figley and William Nash that details how troops can be helped by such drugs. "Medication can, however, alleviate some debilitating and nearly intolerable symptoms of combat and operational stress injuries" and "help restore personnel to full functioning capacity."

Which means that any drug that keeps a soldier deployed and fighting also saves money on training and deploying replacements. But there is a downside: the number of soldiers requiring long-term mental-health services soars with repeated deployments and lengthy combat tours. If troops do not get sufficient time away from combat — both while in theater and during the "dwell time" at home before they go back to war — it's possible that antidepressants and sleeping aids will be used to stretch an already taut force even tighter. "This is what happens when you try to fight a long war with an army that wasn't designed for a long war," says Lawrence Korb, Pentagon personnel chief during the Reagan Administration.

Military families wonder about the change, according to Joyce Raezer of the private National Military Family Association. "Boy, it's really nice to have these drugs," she recalls a military doctor saying, "so we can keep people deployed." And professionals have their doubts. "Are we trying to bandage up what is essentially an insufficient fighting force?" asks Dr. Frank Ochberg, a veteran psychiatrist and founding board member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Such questions have assumed greater urgency as more is revealed about the side effects of some mental-health medications. Last year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urged the makers of antidepressants to expand a 2004 "black box" warning that the drugs may increase the risk of suicide in children and adolescents. The agency asked for — and got — an expanded warning that included young adults ages 18 to 24, the age group at the heart of the Army. The question now is whether there is a link between the increased use of the drugs in the Iraqi and Afghan theaters and the rising suicide rate in those places. There have been 164 Army suicides in Afghanistan and Iraq from the wars' start through 2007, and the annual rate there is now double the service's 2001 rate.

At least 115 soldiers killed themselves last year, including 36 in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army said on May 29. That's the highest toll since it started keeping such records in 1980. Nearly 40% of Army suicide victims in 2006 and 2007 took psychotropic drugs — overwhelmingly, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Zoloft. While the Army cites failed relationships as the primary cause, some outside experts sense a link between suicides and prescription-drug use — though there is also no way of knowing how many suicide attempts the antidepressants may have prevented by improving a soldier's spirits. "The high percentage of U.S. soldiers attempting suicide after taking SSRIs should raise serious concerns," says Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, who teaches psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "And there's no question they're using them to prop people up in difficult circumstances.

Icahn: Yahoo Should Set $49.5B Price

2008-06-06T20:04:00.000-07:00

(SAN FRANCISCO) — Hoping to negotiate a compromise, activist investor Carl Icahn urged Yahoo Inc. to declare it's willing to sell for $49.5 billion — about $2 billion above Microsoft Corp.'s last offer for the Internet pionee Icahn recommended the price tag, which works out to $34.375 a share, in a letter he sent Friday to Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock.

It marks the first time that Icahn has publicly indicated what price he has in mind as he tries to force Yahoo's sale before the Sunnyvale-based company's annual meeting on Aug. 1.

If a deal isn't done before August, Icahn will try to replace Yahoo's board with a slate of his own directors and then fire company co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive.

Should the mutiny succeed, Icahn said Friday he would then hire a "talented and experienced" CEO in the mold of Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt before trying to sell Yahoo to Microsoft.

Yahoo said it would be "ill-advised" to publicly set a specific sales price.

Microsoft declined to comment.

Merger talks between the two high-tech powerhouses fell apart May 3 when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer withdrew an oral offer of $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, after Yang asked for $37 per share — a price that Yahoo's stock hasn't reached since January 2006.

By suggesting a sales figure for Yahoo, Icahn clearly hopes to spur Yahoo to seek more expansive discussion with Microsoft, said Peter Falvey, managing director of Revolution Partners, which specializes in high-tech deals.

Microsoft has been exploring a partial deal involving Yahoo's search and advertising operations — a concept that has been panned by Icahn, along with many industry analysts who believe the companies need to combine completely to counter the dominance of Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc.

"This (sales figure) keeps the pressure on Yahoo," Falvey said. "It could also act as a sort of fig leaf so they can start talking about a sale again without it seeming like they are crawling back to Microsoft. They can now say to Microsoft, 'Look, we need to have these conversations now.' "

Many analysts have been predicting all along that Microsoft and Yahoo would eventually agree to a deal at somewhere between $34 and $35 per share. At least two major Yahoo shareholders, Capital Research Global Investors and Legg Mason, have publicly pushed for a deal in the same price range.

While emphasizing it isn't currently interested in buying Yahoo in its entirety, Microsoft also has stressed it hasn't ruled out the possibility of making another takeover bid.

For now, Falvey thinks it makes sense for Microsoft to let Icahn agitate for a deal so the software maker doesn't risk alienating many of the Yahoo workers that it hopes to retain.

Wall Street's hopes that a friendly deal might still be worked out has helped cushion the blow to Yahoo's stock since the takeover talks unraveled. Yahoo shares gained 37 cents to $26.73 amid a sharp downturn in the overall stock market.

Icahn recently helped pick up the pieces of fractured sales talks between software makers Oracle Corp. and BEA Systems Inc. After Oracle withdrew a takeover offer of $17 per share when BEA insisted on $21 per share, Icahn helped negotiate a sale at $19.375 per share, or $8.5 billion.

Microsoft's withdrawal of its $47.5 billion offer outraged many Yahoo shareholders who believe their company's board allowed Yang's emotions ruin a chance to sell at a price far above Yahoo's market value before Microsoft made its bid Jan. 31.

At $33 per share, Yahoo shareholders would have received a 72% premium, based on the company's $19.18 stock price at the time of Microsoft's offer.

Yang maintains Yahoo is poised to bounce back from a financial malaise that caused the company's stock to crumble. He has promised his business strategy will generate more online ad sales and increase Yahoo's net revenue by at least 25% in 2009 and 2010. Yahoo's net revenue has recently been rising at about 12%, far behind Google's first-quarter pace of 46%.

Besides imploring Yahoo to set a sales price, Icahn on Friday reiterated an earlier demand for Yahoo to eliminate an employee severance plan that could trigger up to $2.4 billion in additional payments if Microsoft bought the company at $35 per share.

The estimated costs of the plan, adopted 12 days after Microsoft's initial bid, surfaced earlier this week when a Delaware court unsealed documents in a Yahoo shareholder lawsuit alleging the company improperly tried to avoid a takeover.

Yahoo once again defended the retention program as a good thing for shareholders because it will help retain top workers while the company's fate remains in limbo.

* Buzz up!on Yahoo!

Oil Jumps $10 to New Record High

2008-06-06T19:52:00.000-07:00

(NEW YORK) — Oil prices shot up more than $10 to a new record above $139 Friday after a major investment bank predicted a spike to $150 in the coming weeks and rising tensions in the Middle East left investors uneasy about supply The meteoric surge, which pushed prices more than 8 percent higher in a single day, built on a huge jump the Thursday and capped oil's biggest two-day gain in the history of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The burst higher raised the prospect of accelerating inflation, including a continuing advance in gasoline prices that are now averaging just under $4 a gallon nationally. That gloomy outlook sent stocks tumbling, taking the Dow Jones industrials down more than 300 points.

A further weakening of the dollar helped send oil prices higher by enticing overseas buyers armed with stronger currencies and others looking for a hedge against the greenback. But it also represented a stampede by bullish traders and optimistic computer models betting that prices still have further to rise.

Light, sweet crude for July delivery jumped as high as $139.01 on the Nymex, before easing slightly to $138.39, up $10.60. Prices hit a previous record of $135.09 a barrel on May 22, and settled Thursday at $127.79.

Prices pushed sharply higher Friday after Morgan Stanley analyst Ole Slorer predicted strong demand in Asia could drive prices to $150 by Independence Day, when millions of Americans are expected to take to the roads. Slorer said shipments from the Middle East are mimicking patterns seen in the third quarter last year, when Morgan Stanley based an oil price spike prediction on falling supplies in the Atlantic.

"We made the same call using the same parameters, but now we are starting from much lower inventory levels," Slorer said.

Traders also zeroed in on remarks by an Israeli Cabinet minister, who was quoted as saying his country will attack Iran if it doesn't abandon its nuclear program. Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz added that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "will disappear before Israel does," the Yediot Ahronot daily reported.

Iran is the second-biggest producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, and traders worry that any conflict with Israel could disrupt global supplies.

Friday's surge builds on a $5.49 gain Thursday, which was the biggest single-day price increase in the history of the Nymex crude contract. That spike came as the dollar fell after the European Central Bank suggesting it could raise interest rates.

"With oil pushing back up to the mid-$130s, it's the make it or break it point. If we go past that, we set the course for uncharted waters and head up toward $150," said Stephen Schork, an analyst and trader in Villanova, Pa. "

Meanwhile, U.S. gas prices at the pump continued to hover just shy of an average $4 a gallon, easing only 0.3 cent from Thursday's record.

Drivers are now paying an average of $3.99 for a gallon of regular gas nationwide, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service; in many parts of the country, consumers are already paying well over $4. Retail diesel slipped a penny overnight to $4.76.

Pump prices are bound to rise even further if oil sustains its advance. James Cordier, president of Tampa, Fla.-based trading firm Liberty Trading Group, predicted prices could rise to $4.25 as early as the end of the month.

"Unfortunately, drivers cutting back isn't going to lower the price of gasoline any time soon," he said.

The dramatic reversal in what had been a weakening oil market began Thursday after ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet suggested the bank could raise interest rates and the euro climbed against the dollar. When interest rates rise in Europe, or fall in the U.S., the dollar tends to weaken against the euro.

Many traders buy commodities such as oil as a hedge against inflation when the dollar is falling, and a weaker dollar makes oil cheaper for investors dealing in other currencies. Analysts believe the dollar's protracted decline has been a major reason why oil prices have nearly doubled in the past year.

The euro strengthened further against the greenback Friday. A Labor Department report showing the U.S. unemployment rate jumped half a percentage point to 5.5 percent last month — its biggest monthly increase since 1986 — could drag the dollar even lower in the days ahead.

"Unemployment jumping as it did today will be in the market for a long time and will continue to pressure the U.S. dollar," Cordier said.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures rose 23.72 cents to $3.918 a gallon while gasoline prices rose 15.7 cents to $3.4915 a gallon. Natural gas futures rose 25 cents to $12.769 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, July Brent crude shot up $7.75 to $135.30 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Who Will Rule The New Internet?

2008-06-05T12:22:00.000-07:00

An anonymous wit scratched those lines on the side of a junked car door and lugged it to a trail near my home in Northern California. The middle of a pristine, ancient redwood grove is the wrong place to find a rusted-out car door, but the words magically transformed the thing from an aggravating piece of junk into art. I Googled the quote as soon as I got home, of course, but found nothing. (Thanks to Google, we live in a world where "I don't know" has become an unacceptable response. So my inability to identify the author there is driving me crazy.)

My town is pretty close to Silicon Valley, and most of my neighbors make their living in technology, while I make mine writing about it. All of us, though, worship at the altar of bright and shiny things. These days, it's the impending launch of Apple's next-generation iPhone that has the faithful davening. If the whispers of pending miracles are to be believed, this new phone could end up becoming the next big "platform."

A platform, to computer people, is the software code on which third-party applications function. There are scores of big platforms out there—something like three dozen in the international mobile-phone business alone. But a truly successful one can extend far beyond its immediate group of users and effectively create and control an enormous market. In the computer industry, IBM dominated the first commercial platform with its expensive mainframes and operating systems, aimed at corporate users. Seemingly overnight, IBM was supplanted by Microsoft and its Windows operating system as the PC revolution took hold. Windows, in turn, is now losing its power as the Web—owned by no one, accessible to all—becomes the dominant platform. (Yes, the Web is nothing more than a big layer of code; all those websites we visit are merely applications that sit atop it.)

Every major player in Techland wants to create the next great platform, of course. What's new here is that it's possible for any number of them to succeed. "Among the things that are different from the old status quo is the idea that one will win," says Marc Andreessen, who helped write the first widely adopted browser, Mosaic, which popularized the Web. The Internet is a much larger playing field than PC operating systems. "Trying to decide which will win," Andreessen adds, "is kind of like debating whether beef, chicken or lobster is going to win the market for food."

Still, for wonks like me, it's been riveting to watch three of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley—each representing a fundamental phase of the information era—battle it out. Apple, Google and Facebook are, respectively, an icon from the pioneering days of personal computers; the biggest, most profitable company yet born on the Web; and a feisty upstart whose name is synonymous with the current migration to social networks.

In many ways, these companies are technology's standard-bearers, though their guiding philosophies differ. Google, for instance, advocates an "open" Web and tends to push for open standards and alliances among developers. Facebook, with its gated community of 70 million active users, offers a more controlled experience and, so far at least, wants to keep its users safely within its walls. Apple comes from the old world. Its elegant products cocoon customers from the chaos of the information age, but the Apple experience tends to be highly controlled, with Apple hardware at the end points and Apple software and services, like the iTunes Music Store, in between.

The winners of the platform wars stand to make billions selling devices, selling eyeballs to advertisers, selling services such as music, movies, even computer power on demand. Yet the outcome here is far more important than who makes the most money. The future of the Internet—how we get information, how we communicate with one another and, most important, who controls it—is at stake.

USA Time Magazine"Top ten News at middle East of 2007"

2008-06-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

Synthetical foreign news agency reports , Middle East contradicting in recent years, interweaving are always the focal point that the whole world shows solicitude for. From the beginning of this year, core crisis is once escalated , Palestine two big groups of arms conflict is aggravated to wait for event effect , situation of the middle east by Iran still in flux

Recently, USA "Time " has judged out top-ten Middle East news in 2007.

1, Iraq augmenting forces

This January, USA reinforcements begins to arrive in Iraq capital Bagdad in succession. American Army hopes that armed forces improves domestic safe Iraq circumstances as soon as possible , the divergence returning to normal social order , resolving the mutual room's for Iraq political faction establish a basis by increasing by. Till June, the middle ten days of a month , appointment have 30000 American Army reinforcements to march into Iraq and station there. To November, he|she's within the territory force activity has decreased by halves , Iraqi who lives in exile abroad has started a part coming back to Bagdad , USA has also begun to fall off encamping in he|she's American Army number. Despite of however, safe circumstances is better, in the Iraq leader of religious sect realizing national reconciliation aspect and not getting big progressing.

2, Iran nuclear plan dispute

USA country intelligence estimates that the report comes to a conclusion on December 3,as far back as Iran having ended the nuclear weapon project right away in 2003. Though reporting that the conclusion pointing out the civil nuclear plan of Iran still being able to provide the convenient, but relative Iran nuclear plan for the person makes a nuclear weapon dodges beyond doubt to do one's utmost to exaggerate Iran nuclear threat recently, ponderance and view enlarge really embarrassed handful punishing the dynamics united states government on Iraq. But, the USA part eagle has sent pair of Iran nuclear facilities that the personage and the Israel leader advocate before this to adopt military operations's as if the plan also becoming more and more distant.

3, Palestine civil war

Palestine Fatah and the strained Hammas relation between two groups of arms escalate on June 14, Hammas arms the controlling power having striven for Gaza area from safe armed force led by chairman of Palestinian National Authority Abbas in hand. Palestine is split in fact for Jordan river West Bank that Fatah controls and the Gaza area that Hammas controls , the latter contact with the external world is cut off already basically.

4, he|she is US first high-rise talks

USA Ambassador to Iraq Rui An City- Keluoke and Iran Ambassador to Iraq Hassan- Kaqimi- warehouse hold talks meter on May 28, this is both countries within close time in 30 first more high-grade other bilateral talks. July, both sides has held second talks with regard to safe Iraq situation problem. Both countries relation is as before strained however, USA censures Iran for participating in inciting force inside Iraq to use personal influence , Iran requires that American Army releases the Iran personnel who is detained but then.

5, Israel air raid Syria

The Israel air force dispatches a fighter to have assaulted Syria north part it is said that one being in the building building nuclear facilities on September 6, Israel refuses to disclose detailed air raid condition , Syria also carefully avoids mentioning this matter with USA aspect. Still be that some pertinent detail is revealed out however , recently, israel aspect thinks that being raided a target is Syria some kind of core facilities constuct with under helping in Korea , Syria aspect already denies but.

6, Annapolis peace conference

Bush has suggested that down in the American president on November 27, has broken off the Middle East Peace Process for 7 years again starting, Israel and the Palestine both countries head have been on the march in the divergence resolving both countries various a long time right away on Annapolis convention consulting with. Though that Israel and palestinian leader are able to return to showing up asking good offices, but the external world giving the credit to American to think that Arab is much state leaders in the conference table front again is really whether this peace process weight open can get key to success.

7, Turkey crosses the border illegally cracking down on

Turkish parliament authorizes soil troops to take out of range action on October 18, cross Turkey and the Iraq border, north part on Iraq Kuerde separates doctrine Kuerde worker of organization Party carrying out strike , splittist activity of Kuerde worker Party brings about several tens Turk death before this. Although USA lists Kuerde worker Party as terroristic organization, also worry about that soil carries out military operations in Iraq within the territory is able to bring about bad consequence. Under gradually growing pressure, the Iraq government agrees to adopt more forceful measure , attacks Kuerde worker Party.

8, Lebanon authority vacuum

Tenure of office of Lebanese President Lahude is over on November 23,since but the divergence between Prime Minister that the west supports and the opposition faction that Syria and Iran support is difficult to make concessions , the plain fixes the presidential election holding on this September 25 be postponed many times , the successor has no way to elect all the time , lead to Li president posts always vacant position. But negotiation is still continuing at present , appeal that Lebanon carries out conversation quickly , resolves the authority vacuum problem in connection with every Fang Jin though international community is common, only current circumstances comes, the short-term inner very difficult to is found resolving way.

9, British army hostage event

Soldier who has detained 15 british navy on March 23, since Iran troops borders water area in Iran and Iraq, lead to bay regional situation is abruptly tight. The Iran government claims that British is caught a place being located in Iran water area , United Kingdom denies but this one statement. One times of course both countries government room is negotiated, Iran british navy soldiers having been released by detention in 13 days later.

10, iraqi refugee crisis

The Iraq government fits, because of he|she's safe circumstances of in the homeland improvement on November 19,postwar go into exile the Syrian refugee is coming back to Iraq with 1000 people' speed in every day. Have 2000 Iraqis go into exile right away before two months, every day Syria, makes domestic iraqi refugee of Syria quantity reach 1,500,000. Somebody thinks that these refugees returning back to homeland , are because of already having no way to exist in Syria however , also. Very few somebody chooses 750,000 more better-off Iraqis who by contrast, run away to Jordanian right away returning back to homeland.

The world the first surpasses the luxurious airship soon oral quiz maiden voyage in 2020

2008-06-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

Super luxurious prancing says that the airship will open the new midair tour air or shipping line

And according to everyday science net reports [Sohu science information] famous mechanical engineering designer Zhan- horsepower- Masuerde who comes from French recently has designed that successfully being known as the most luxurious airship of world, be named for "speeding across the sky"this the super luxurious airship estimates the U. S. dollar costing 15 billion , the maiden voyage ceremony general holds on 2020.

Famous mechanical engineering designer Zhan- horsepower- Masuerde had once designed the famous perfume bottle of world and the submarine , had designed that this attracting worldwide attention airship will become his most complacent work therefore. On the grounds of news report, he starts the draft designing this new model airship's as far back as five years ago right away. This project already studies the bureau has begun to work together at present with France country aerospace , prepare to develop the world super luxurious the first tours airship.

The airship bename to "speeding across the sky as at present, the tentative plan "according to french designer , airship "Hanging Gardens of Babylon that can be a modern printing plate"not only having the unique form, may become the best of the world even. The airship (balloon part and hull) is able to have 5600000 foot of squares according to that design, speeds across the sky area, speed per hour may reach 169 kilometres per hour , allocate upper required all luxurious yacht facilities and , will may carry the extravagant work of art being more luxurious even. The bureau studying on the grounds of France country aerospace is disclosed, this luxurious airship will carry 55 passengers flying to tourist attraction Madagascar from Paris , time is 4 day. Being making designer proud more, in the process of the 4 days flying, even if in 9800 feet of high altitude, the passenger also feels the effect less than air current jolt and air pressure , entire route is very comfortable and quiet.

According to expert's estimate this super luxurious "prancing says that the "airship will may create a brand-new aviation tourist market , the France country aerospace studies the bureau is based on in the past few years already the airship design draft this touring, function and the function flying having designed the model airship, and aerodynamics having tested it in country cavity laboratory decreasing pro rata. On this spring, the France country aerospace studies the bureau is fairly confidential having held a minitype trying taking advantage of that an activity. According to reports try taking advantage of that the god of the earth who flies has carried fifteen passengers this time, the speed per hour flying only has 129 kilometres per hour. Masuerde introduces , fabrication saves U. S. dollar to say that the airship needs to cost 15 billion at least on the grounds of the designer, estimate maiden voyage being in progress "speeding across the sky in 2020

France News:The rubbish Bin is food of poor people.

2008-06-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

Is "this to be shooting a film? On "Paris Duomeini street, one pedestrian asks road. Person has also stopped coming down , eying each other other. Paris busy streets, men and women approximately 15 is surrounding 3 garbage cans readjusting oneself to a certain extent in one supermarket outside. They are crowded each other , the mood is out of control a little bit. The quilt has ripped a bag apart , several sacks of dessert have lost to come out. Leben has been received sack lining together with lettuce , Pisa cake and fruit by the stopper. The minute is almost front , all on these cart ladders from east to west all in shop. Among them some have approached guarantee quality scheduled time, but major part have been fairly very good, package has damaged only.

The manager introduces a supermarket saying , this medium-sized supermarket needs to clear up out three big chockful garbage cans kinds or types of goods every day. This part commodity needs to consume 100,000 Euro every year. The manager feels that self seems as if this wastes the phenomenon accomplice right away.

One empty space is cleared up right away short of 10 minutes , commodities of garbage can on every side , a little overdue beef , lettuce leaf , cardboard box and plastic is left only. Again, the garbage can cover finishes building , places an original place back, wait for the neighbourhood cleaner to come sweep.

And, one kind , final one of 41-year-old Patricks (alias) leave habitually in the past. He finishes punishing a few final rubbishes scattering to in the field. He said "Come what may , ought to stress on decorum. If lose be got along being, the manager of supermarket should have been looked for trouble by the municipal government. He has let us draw near a garbage can right away no longer. The "Patrick son with wife and 10-year-old lives within 12 Paris area set of cheap rent houses. Patrick becomes deformity in one accident before 9 years , every moon draws industry is lowest self's pay by his deformity allowance and wife now living. He said "Our condition can not improve. We will have second children , prices goes up unceasingly ……Therefore, I can not stop turning over looking for a garbage can. Have had this , our to save down almost all food budget can. "

Mother , personnel , deformed man , the life waiting for employment retiring ensure a gold receiving person, receive every industry minimum salary person, people who still has earn a large income few even ……Being based on authoritative figures , their incompletely is a poor people , they still go to turn a garbage can over, because of "life becomes expensive but ", food inside the garbage can is free of charge but.

"Price goes up , takes a look at the thing that we find from inside! "Nadiya finds a sack filling olive cheese biscuit to full juat now , biscuit will exceed the time limit in 4 days later. Seek the cheapest commodity between rushing about before Nadiya in different shop all day long. For 3 years in the front, she has discovered wealth inside the supermarket garbage can.

Nadiya seeks useful thing in the garbage can every day all to the supermarket, but her husband and child be kept in the dark. Be close to the bell at 7 o'clock in the evening in every day, Nadiya is penetrating a piece of clean wool opening a shirt , is wearing one Beilei cap going out , is informing family of her needing to participate in the association activity or is going to shopping. One goes out , she is changed for another piece of overcoat immediately, be wearing one exaggerated epithet used to harm a person, if station supermarket being staring at neighbourhood another one side in a public transit bus station stage, have debuted a garbage can. Not frigidity, rains or the day is secret , but the day is fairly bright "feel bad most, the proprietor is staring at us. Continue the nice according to that what whose religion shows is on the march giving in charity , often being able to close to Gusigusi (one kind of food- - - reports notes originally) finding li in garbage can be cooked queen as well as arriving at an association "as Moslem Nadiya.

The more than 60-year-old Francines same insist on the outlook on values "working in unity and close cooperation. She depends on Paris not to sell the food life going to in one 18 area supermarkets right away now. As here predecessor"she debuts in the garbage can maintaining the order when coming, again and again face person instils "social etiquette other": "I send a thing what to give those to found or come to the late people. Some moment , my person that can distribute food to Paris being homeless in Bei Zhan

Is this to be shooting a film? On "Paris Duomeini street, one pedestrian asks road. Person has also stopped coming down , eying each other other. Paris busy streets, men and women approximately 15 is surrounding 3 garbage cans readjusting oneself to a certain extent in one supermarket outside. They are crowded each other , the mood is out of control a little bit. The quilt has ripped a bag apart , several sacks of dessert have lost to come out. Leben has been received sack lining together with lettuce , Pisa cake and fruit by the stopper. The minute is almost front , all on these cart ladders from east to west all in shop. Among them some have approached guarantee quality scheduled time, but major part have been fairly very good, package has damaged only.

Nadiya seeks useful thing in the garbage can every day all to the supermarket, but her husband and child be kept in the dark. Be close to the bell at 7 o'clock in the evening in every day, Nadiya is penetrating a piece of clean wool opening a shirt , is wearing one Beilei cap going out, inform family of her needing to participate in the association activity or go to shopping. One goes out , she is changed for another piece of overcoat immediately, be wearing one exaggerated epithet used to harm a person, if station supermarket being staring at neighbourhood another one side in a public transit bus station stage, have debuted a garbage can. Not frigidity, rains or the day is secret , but the day is fairly bright "feel bad most, the proprietor is staring at us. Continue the nice according to that what whose religion shows is on the march giving in charity , often being able to close to Gusigusi (one kind of food- - - reports notes originally) finding li in garbage can be cooked queen as well as arriving at an association "as Moslem Nadiya.

Oil price height anxiously expects the USA vehicle city local territory firm selling amounts falling greatly gradually being to flaunt self superiorit

2008-06-03T21:05:00.000-07:00

Since the gasoline price storm rises, the consumer gets rid of Pika and SUV that high oil consumes waiting for a bus the type , main automobile manufacturers of USA are applied or used universally , Ford , the Chrysler 5 months local territory automobile sell amounts surname than two-digit number all appears to conquer. Meanwhile, Japan automobile company goes upstream, market share expanding further in US.

According to the marketing data that every firm announces in succession,5 month general motors sell amounts gliding compared with the same period of last year

Ford Motor sells almost 30%, amounts gliding to be close to 19% , Chrysler sells amounts letting down 5% but Japan firm achievement makes people shave an eye then. Honda and the automobile producing per day sell amounts having risen by 11% and 4% respectively in the same month. Toyota has glided despite of selling amounts 8%, but gap holding with eldest child "general motors in marketplace decreases further.

Besides, Honda sells amounts in the same month in American automobile exceeding Chrysler , row first fourth. But this Tian Si region , elegant cabinet , abundant Tian Ji Mei omen and Carola motorcycle type pin amounts have exceeded the Ford F series Pika. This is also that some one type saloon monthlies sell amounts over the past 1991 exceeding durable not decline of Ford first selling well lathing the F series.

The data demonstrates , 5 month entire US automobiles always sell amounts to secretly scheme against according to annual rate for 14,250,000, that the month is equal lower than 14,400,000 of 4 months and one quarter 15,200,000.

Since USA economic growth is lag, oil price rushes height unceasingly , every big automobile manufacturers is confronted with bigger pressure , the marketplace is also experiencing significant adjustment. General motors 5 months local territory market share glides to have arrived at 19%'s history minimum level. Also indicate that even if being Toyota, need to want to reach us market last year marketing set a record the altitude is already unrealistic

The Brazil of Petrobr ás will gain the first boat LNG from United Kingdom gas company next month

2008-06-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

On the grounds of USA Pengbo news agency news report on June 3 , the general of state-owned Brazil petroleum magnate Brazil national petroleum company (Petrobras), on this year, 7 months receive the first boat liquefied natural gases from United Kingdom gas magnate United Kingdom gas company (BG) for the person is located in the Brazil Northeast Pecem terminal (LNG).

The United Kingdom gas company who is set up in England Lei Ding says general headquarter in a declaration today , owes a company the fuel cooling down to providing this to at present in course of excessively from Petrobras company a another terminal being constuct with in Rio de Janeiro.

The declaration says , the agreement that both sides signs will allow LNG to be provided to any terminals, this will depend on Brazil local market need. A which terminal the Petrobras company hands over the general who decides LNG to, but, the declaration does not disclose price or quantity.

Maximal petroleum company of Europe imperial family Holland shell plate company verification today says , is a company's turn to will hand over shipping LNG to Brazil on 2009 from whose whole world in extent of supply also. The company provides shell plate in one's refusal to do in Londonish spokesman in connection with this year early moment agreement detail that both sides signs.

Brazil is that Argentina 2nd of hereafter passes the shipping way Latin American countries from abroad entrance LNG then this year. That Brazil economic growth rate last year is 5.4%, has been 1 year be hit by economic growth most quickly for 3 years in the past , speedy economic growth has stimulated an energy

UK strategy research institute: India already becomes the maximal the whole world armament entrance country

2008-06-03T20:34:00.001-07:00

news net military affairs information publishes recently on the grounds of United Kingdom "The Daily Telegraph " says USA begins to attempt to build The article that Jiangsu strategy Bund relation by a series of armament coming the contract with this India south asian countries. At the same time, India already becomes one of the maximal the whole world military equipment entrance country.

Not too long before US Secretary of Defense Gates visiting New Delhi,and, India reaches the common position specifically for Chinese.

At the time of visiting India in Gates, USA Luokexide ·The Martin company and Boeing Company rectify and Russia and the Europe opponent juggle for one of upper maximal India history weapon contract. General value is 5 billion U. S. dollar contracts according to this , supply of material business will provide India air force with 126 fighter planes.

But, the broader scale contend is to contend for the effect in Asian then. USA tries to assume Bund balancing Chinese democratic regime India building-up experiment nature with being looked at.

One India high-ranking officers said seal army weapon now stock is buy self Russia and the former Soviet Union mainly , mostly already obsolete. Washington hopes that the hardware supplying with 1/4's military affairs within the coming 10 for India is equipped with. He said "Washington regards New Delhi as Asia area strategy assets having representativeness. "

Because of Communist opposing of India,the civil beautiful seal core agreement is at a deadlock now. India communist party thinks that USA chooses here is to enslave "Indian hegemony trick. But, a lot of analytical personage thinks, with queen cold war

Times strategy benefit again arrangement, American-India concern litre of temperature will be inevitable.

This pair of cold war era's opposes informal Bund of Su with USA and China beginning to be vigilant against each other , China is in harmony , unifies statement gradually in the diplomacy field and the Russia sharpening.

Meanwhile, USA looks upon this former India having accepted Moscow support as a natural ally then.

Nearest, USA former defense secretary Wilhelm ·Cohen's a armament holding in New Delhi says on exhibitation: The core agreement fails to succeed "if seal US is civil , the military relation that both countries develops gradually may not accept effect. In fact, I think that both countries military relation is further developing. "

Data according to United Kingdom International Institute for Strategic Studies, India has grown by 24% before expenses of military expenditure last year is compared with each other for 1 year , India has already become one of maximal armament buyer. According to the forecast , India, army in 2012 buys the U. S. dollar expending to will increase by to 15 billion. To 2022, this one figure will increase till 40 billion U. S. dollar

Global movie big baked wheaten cake foot loses several tens of million U. S. dollar 12 hours

2008-06-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

On 2nd, one fire engine is in USA local time that field is sliced already by the earth burning through gravely.

New net of middle June 3 USA Los Angeles Hollywood has sliced the conflagration on 1st , has burned down the circumstances being shot very much by the decor , many classical film and TV that the visitor welcomes , has brought about several tens of millions U. S. dollar loss and as many as 50,000 work image belt and glue roll. Big baked wheaten cake is extinguished fully 12 hours just now , the water fire control authority is referred to slice field is lowered, the irrigation having been procrastinated rescues process, order prompt Manyan of fire tendency.

And according to Hong Kong "Wenhui Daily " reports be on fire piece on 04:45 before dawn, New York circumstances , meeting are puffed from 30 meters high machinery Buddha's warrior attendant , film "old thousand meters very best a alley in talent " scaring a visitor coming out by including burning down , "are returned to classics decors such as future " , the "guest is weak " and "horrifying" plus, one still shoots circumstances in TV play in being put into use.

Besides, one be used to store the building that the old friend does burning down, film Kunei is burnt down as many as 50,000 box image belt and Feilin rolls. However global piece of Chief Executive Officer Maier expression, being had a temperature all is to copy capital , the host film warehouse storing a negative has not been affected then. Authority dispatches 500 firemen and 60 fire engines to dive to save , 10 firemen are slightly wounded.

Fire control authority indicates that two degree once lacked for water, when fighting the fire , lowers because of water, the water cannon can only shoot to 10 meters of height , they are forced to save from slicing the inner spot imitation pool and slicing the external faucet pumping water drinking wine , two waterwheels supply water in addition again coming Zhao. The neighbourhood is narrow , the blockage fire engine enters besides they are referred to slice field, system has question plus movie inner watering , make up into irrigation rescuing difficulty. Authority already gives an order of unfolding investigation with regard to water pressure problem , also worry about that deleterious dense smoke diffuses , appeal for the vicinity resident dispersed.

The France train and the school bus bump against each other 7 people died and 27 wounded

2008-06-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

A train happened in the Haute-Savoie province on 2nd and the school school bus bumps against each other in new net of middle June 3 France the accident, brings about at least 7 students death , 27 people at present already being wounded.

Railway company makes a speech person, level crossing mouth "operation has been regular time thing hair ", some passengers have slightly been wounded on the train also.

The school bus is to be bumped against but become two section , the driver who not having been wounded accepts good fortune exceeding frighten, the event makes explanation not at this point.

France minister of the interior Aliao ·Mali composes in reply Secretary of Transportation Dominic ·Busailu hurries to all already common accident president now Sakeqi express shock and show sympathy for , will go to a site of an accident in early local time room on 3rd express sad memory and.

This a comparatively grave school bus traffic accident being that France happens in recent years, cause of the accident inquires into middle at present in course of.

A tie getting an accident on the grounds of France media reports , this happen in France the Alps area small town Meixinre delivers the crossing place. Xu , a train collided with one school bus just wanting to traverse rail at 2 o'clock in afternoon that very day , had 50 students about at that time on the school bus.

The France police says new net of middle June 2 on 2nd , France eastern region, a train happened in that very day and the school school bus bumps against each other accident, bring about at least, 5 people dies , 12 people is wounded.

According to afp reported, this gets an accident child putting down the relationship crossing place , the local official saying five dead all are to be at school in one of France the Alps area small town Meixinre (Mesinges) happened. At that time the school bus upload had about 50 student.

Local official said "except that five school-kid die , has six people serious injury , six people slight wounds in addition. "

State-operated railway company of France SNCF daughter makes a speech person, some passengers have slightly been wounded on the train also.

France minister of the interior Aliao ·Mali composes in reply Secretary of Transportation Dominic ·Busailu hurries to all already the accident scene.

The SNCF daughter makes a speech person , that company inside data display, that the level crossing mouth "operates a thing when getting rich is regular ".

Shareholder petition reveals Yahoo: Microsoft Zeng bid 40 U. S. dollar per share

2008-06-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

Media reports , USA Delaware have weighed and considered one judge of court in order to uphold justice on the grounds of abroad doing out adjudication , have made the petition content that the shareholder of Yahoo charges board of directors with known to the public, the improper method of work , petition reveal a few in having listed Yahoo among them boycotting Microsoft buying process , Microsoft quotes the price, but is turned down once in buying bringing forward 40 U. S. dollar per share to Yahoo in January , 2007.

The plaintiff acts for a lawyer that the petition original is announced going ahead to website , accompanies a judge among them being related to open petition carrying out the interpretive letter. Wilhelm ·Judge Changdeer (William Chandler) fits ", the defendant (board of directors of Yahoo) fails to fulfil doing out interpretive rational duty to already open petition content , does not provide more utensil stringency reason. "

Register a legal complaint accusing Yahoo CEO poplar of causing David who distant , allies self with a founder ·Be entrusted that Luo (David Filo) and Yahoo-consuming entire director has violated to the shareholder fulfils one's duty duty, buying not declining Microsoft directly is more about than, be to interpose an obstacle obstructing trading but, for instance , having worked out the new back-off plan , leave a company when encouraging an employee to buy once initiating evil intention in Microsoft, to gain higher reparation.

"Poplar has maximal be entrusted cause the distant and Luo-consuming face to face entire shareholder is defeated duty. "Legal action fits"but benefit needs the aversion reaching to Microsoft out of, that they insist that the Rangya tiger keeps an independence but , they do not need to have carried out the sincere thinking and response about to Microsoft buying, makes Yahoo and interests of shareholders be derided thereby. "

That petition has pointed out , poplar "has adopted cause distant and wasting Luo ODE makes Yahoo to threaten Microsoft with the means that oneself is damaged, for instance , having abandoned the long range commerce strategy that Yahoo works out before this , song choosing with grain works together but , the major objective that this lifts is the obstacle increasing inspection and legal action for Microsoft buys Yahoo".

Besides, petition has revealed a information rarely known by people: Microsoft once suggested that 40 U. S. dollar buys Yahoo with every share as far back as in January , 2007,but in allowing CEO exceptional when by Yahoo ·Saimeier (Terry Semel) is declined.

Be related specifically for the judge makes the shareholder petition known to the public, the Yahoo spokesman says "feeling disappointed to here Monday ", say this is just legal procedure but at the same time, meeting creation direct effect "to legal action result. Yahoo is said content however a few are fragmentary by open mail , is misinterpreted because of context is very easy to be short of, be the company plan's turn to make all relevance letter content known to the public on the later Monday.

Japan decides not to dispatch a self-defence troop participating in an earthquake for the moment rescue

2008-06-02T08:05:00.000-07:00

Earthquake-stricken area conveys Japan government decision not dispatching the air self-defence force transport plane for the moment to Chinese Sichuan rescuing goods and materials , may switch over to ship goods and materials from civil aviation chartered airplane.

The Japan government official house commanding officer raised path village believes that filial piety convenes a reporter on 30th has been able to fromally announce this one information , he indicates that ", this is to give consideration to attitude of Chinese in the homeland part personage cautious of what this holds. "

That Kyodo News analysis thinks that such changes plan possibility abruptly, may cause certain effects on midday bilateral relation.

Japan defends the province copy of the first edition plan sending the C-130 transport plane to herd the base (be located in the love magistrate of a county herding a city for a short time) for a short time from air self-defence force starting off , eight number of runs or flights in total transport goods and materials within three days time till being away from the nearest disaster area Chengdu airport , air self-defence force aspect already does preparation easy to start off most long ago on 31th before this. Since the goods and materials quantity needing transporting is ample,the government carries out a task together also in the transport plane studying chartered airplane coordinates a self-defence troop from civil aviation.

The raised path village fits in once made an explanation reporter on 28th at the meeting ", our understanding is, what Chinese hopes is not airport carrying out an activity, but being that tent and woollen blanket etc. is transported to China in disaster area (self-defence troop). Man of virtue and ability expresses before this also the high village of "japanese foreign minister exactly ", goods and materials China side is expressed being transported by the self-defence troop also may, agreement "emphasizing to transport goods and materials by the self-defence troop already getting China side.

After the Japan government adopts a decision of not sending the self-defence troop aircraft to convey goods and materials relieving the victims of a disaster to China for the moment, the inside defending the province and the self-defence troop varies in reaction. Somebody feel disappointed to lose the chance salvaging a neighbour's , somebody also thinks that self-defence troop copy of the first edition is inadvisable to carry out this mission right away. The affection japanese media being reported , defending the province and the self-defence troop for looking after the Chinese public, uses the common people clothing be considering Young Pioneer who dodges to participate in transportation even. Dispatch a mission cancel some self-defence troop cadres complain afterwards, to be said "by politics

Hollywood Happened Conflagration Fire

2008-06-02T06:29:00.000-07:00

Local time (Beijing in the small hours of 1st at 04:45 time Los Angeles global image city film studio area dashes forward at 19:45), sending out a conflagration, until being extinguished just now at noon that very day. The film exterior view burning down about two block together builds a conflagration , several tens of thousand visitors fail to enter a garden going sight-seeing therefore.

According to what introduced by global image city company, big famous public square bells wait for this conflagration in having burned down the famous Buddha's warrior attendant "spot, "spider chivalrous swordsman a courtyard, "return to future of 2 "" , the well liked " film studio travel "project accepts the "New York street damaging , depicting the city inner gravely and the "New England street is "also burned by fire broadly.

The conflagration has been being burned global a film company audio-video materials custodial warehouse , has been being burned down about 5000 the piece of video tape and magnetic tape , the global image city chief has been being said the data all has a back-up only. Cause is hit by fire outbreaking out at present as early as investigation.

Earthquakes of magnitude 6.1 over the past 2000 the most intense Iceland once (global)

2008-06-01T23:21:00.000-07:00

Famous Iceland the southern part tour city Sai Er Fu Si City nearby, the occurrence 6.1 on the Richter scale earthquake, brings about the part building being derided , 30 people is wounded approximately in the afternoon on 29th. Urban residents evacuates vicinity emergently.
Many people is wounded The earthquake happens in local time (Beijing time at 15:46 23:46) or so , usa's geology exploration bureau determines, earthquake earthquake magnitude is 6.1 on the Richter scale , epicenter Sai Er Fu Si City getting along approximately 50 kilometres in capital Reykjavik southeast. The centre depth is 10,000 meters only.
The earthquake brings about many people being wounded. The Iceland police said 30 people is wounded approximately in the earthquake , does not have but severely wounded person. The highway between Saierfusi and Reykjavik is closed behind the earthquake.
The Saierfusi police said the earthquake brings about local few buildings and the road being derided, but destroy condition is not grave. Saierfusi rescues personnel Sophia ·The masses west Yu Er Zhaduodi said local possessions rescues a team already having gone into the street , helping in danger to be stricken by disaster, go to fields such as hospital , school observe.
She said "Many people has all been frightened , has not discovered somebody being wounded gravely yet but. "Saierfusi has 6300 residents approximately.

Evacuate emergently After the earthquake occurred, the Saierfusi resident runs numerously and confusedly go ahead to the main street. One toggery sales clerk Keerbulven ·West Yu Er Zhaduodi said "I once begin not to know what has come about. I feel that the floor is swaying suddenly , the cart ladder and the wall are swaying also all. I run as quickly as possible go ahead to the main street , street is person everywhere. I have a pregnant woman to have been badly scared near by , we have not all come to yet now. My very happy most people all is at leisure. " Saierfusi local one hospital head nurse Siwen ·Yingewasong said a few inpatients demand to change after the earthquake occurred ,the yard decides not to evacuate for the moment but after method examining a building , only a sickbed is moved away from wall edge , stop using an electric elevator at the same time.
Feel except Saierfusi , Reykjavik wait for a field to have an earthquake. All things are all swaying , the proprietor is afraid all very much when one Reykjavik resident doctrine , earthquake.

Continue many times aftershock happened in the Iceland southwest part after the first time earthquake. Hot spring city lotus Weilagedi getting along to the east approximately 45 kilometres in Reykjavik, the police uses trumpet to communicate resident taking refuge in the outside by tele-equipment , let them should not be interior coming back to. The beginning already puts up local few residents setting up a tent. Island country earthquake Own approximately, 300,000 population Icelands are the island country , are located in North Atlantic Ocean. But here, in June , 2000 once, 6.6 on the Richter scale earthquake happened , brought about a few buildings collapsing, do not bring about casualties. Iceland meteorological department geologist Ainaer ·Jiyaertansong said this time of earthquake is over the past Y2K the most intense earthquake.

Saierfusi vicinity hot spring health resort "blue Haff "boiling spring receptionist Kelisitelven ·Bulajiaduodi said she had also experienced the similar earthquake previously, she thinks that the current earthquake is "very big ".
Iceland geology activity the geyser and the volcano frequently, are known to all , far and near. But between Jiyaertansong said Iceland is located in Asia-Europe plate and North America plate, big this liang of plate bleaches in course of mutually be away from, be not more and more close. Come to say the area that two big plate squeezes mutually is easy to strong earthquake takes place the sort. Before Y2K, Iceland already has 88 not to violent earthquake happened.

The Hotmail consumer is extorted Caused by hacker

2008-05-31T23:17:00.000-07:00

Be able to there is such segment of words in subject fence following after information , the email assuming that once , you receive the friend or the family on June 1: That "you give me a reply today is very important ". Can perceive the email account significance to the consumer from here.

But, according to CNET website, account of a few Hotmail consumers has been died lately by the lock. Somebody has broken consumer's account , has issued and an email frenzied, ability returns to after requiring that this account occupant pays return an account back to it's.

Microsoft does not announce direct review to this information. One representative of Microsoft fits ", the consumer can contact with our customer technology hold out team directly if the consumer doubts that his Hotmail email account has been visited by illegal consumer. "

One Hotmail account is said by dead consumer of lock , his technology hold out having stood to Microsoft MSN net branch is complained. Be a branch's turn to require that he fills in a table. This Hotmail account occupant says after several weeks, he does not still get the Microsoft reply.

The Microsoft representative fits , Microsoft is duty-bound to help a consumer to enjoy safety and experiences that actively on line. Microsoft already helps some consumers to have restored the visit to self email account , some consumer's problem does not solve. But, Microsoft fits, if the consumer uses an email more cautious. Cannot the consumer maybe only is capable to do coming across this problem.

The Microsoft representative has mentioned

APEC trade Council of Ministers opens in Peru

2008-05-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation trade Council of Ministers opens in Peru the southern part Arequipa province capital Arequipa on 31th.

The APEC trade of 21 members minister or the representative more than 200 people in total that the high-ranking official and the world commerce organize other have attended convention. The chinese delegation being led by minister Chen De Ming of Department of Commerce has also attended convention.

Peru foreign trade composes in reply tour minister Meisaide

Silk ·Alaosi says to the reporter before convention opens , convention is listed in in closing the door lasting for two day, the conferee will emphasize the food price arousing because of world grain crisis right away going up all round , problem such as improving APEC member market access condition , driving WTO Doha round negotiation actively carries out investigation and discussion.

That trade Council of Ministers is one time of important convention , purpose that Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation holds in the year every year is that the international and the significant area economy and trade problem are in progress right away discuss that, be that APEC holding in second half of the year leaders meeting makes preparation. Leader of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation this year convention holds Yu middle ten days of a month in November in Peru's capital Lima

United Kingdom William Prince may chase poison to Caribbean Sea buy and resell

2008-05-31T21:09:00.000-07:00

United Kingdom officers of ministry of national defence says Wilhelm Prince is scheduled to start his two months training in british navy on next week on May 31. During this period, his mission possibility buys and resells including chasing poison in Caribbean Sea. Reuter's News Agency news report says , Wilhelm Prince will be deployed in Caribbean Sea area during the period of navy accepts training. The mission that his possibility comes across provide assistance to including being furacan disaster area

British navy official Robert ·Warehouse forest says navy is unable to look after Wilhelm Prince peculiarly. Warehouse forest says ": He arrives in the queen will be same as other young officer , does all things that other young officer essential points does. "Wilhelm Prince is United Kingdom Crown Prince Charles eldest son. One spokesman says the Prince Charles mansion house Clarence palace previously , Wilhelm Prince will become the United Kingdom king and the United Kingdom armed forces commander in chief in the days to come. This spokesman confirms , the Wilhelm Prince driving this April one "global despot "C-17 type transport plane secret goes to Afghanistan the southern part city Kandahar , visits the local British army

Afghanistan Bamiyan Ruin Rock,most antiquited oil painting at the world.

2008-05-31T20:57:00.000-07:00

The property research institute waits for investigation , the Afghanistan Bamiyang ruin rock cave inner 7 centuries Buddhism fresco till 10 centuries is the most antiquited oil painting of in the world after Tokyo culture. The most antiquited oil painting affirming that according to engage in archaeological studies expert introduction , before this is a Swedish "Passion of 12 centuries image ", finds that newly with rewriting art history.

The son who "reports , participates in the teaching assistant of University of Tsukuba valley entrance sun investigating whether has introduced a name on the grounds of Kyodo News , the queen has discovered , 12 rock caves fresco among them has used oily oiliness coating material to approach walnut oil or meconium seed very much by the fact that component carries out chemical analysis on 50 ruin middle rock caves fresco coating material.

"And the synchro France "Europe radiation laboratory that the component being responsible analyses "issued a statement , determining "this is the most antiquited oil painting of in the world, what the artist who guesses that fresco may be to Silk Road have leaked draws.

Element age determines the radioactive carbon that enough set seat Buddha colour fresco carries out by that the research institute unites with Nagoya University , already ascertaining is the 7 centuries work till 10 centuries.

The Bamiyang ruin meets with the taliban regime destroying in 2001 , important two Buddhas set up an image from east to west being destroyed , fresco destroys or steals about most probably , Shangcun's fresco ages also unceasingly. Tokyo culture the property research institute cooperates with Afghanistan government departments , the protection beginning to carry out a ruin's since 2003 works.

"Discover "hashastening to international space station

2008-05-31T20:44:00.000-07:00

Xin Hua news agency USA Kanaweilaer angle May 31 EDT (Beijing on May 31 at 01:02 time 05:02) on June 1, the Discovery shuttle launches lift-off , flies to international space station from Florida Kennedy aerospace center.

The weather conditions launching a time interval is fine , cloud is no much , groundless very small. The instruction after the end , lighting the fire makes the launch countdown known to lower levels ", Discovery rises straight from the ground , fling to the skies. Enormous roar resounds through the entire nesting place. In people's cheers, the shuttle keeps away from gradually row gradually, ready-made a small white spot until shrinking , disappear in ken middle.

Estimate that Discovery will fly support international space station two days later. That this time of flying will continue for the about 1 day , the mainest mission is to hope that large-scale "number outer space experiment cabin main part- - hyperbaric chamber Duan has given to a space station with Japan. There are still going up to the sky in accompany with hyperbaric chamber Duan one hopes the "number machinery arm system.

Hope that "number volume is enormous , need a shuttle to be allotted 3 second ability all luck fixes a space station. Hope that the "number storeroom is already transported till international space station this March.

Discovery still has several pieces of quite amusing goods in the bellyhold cargo bay ", includes the toilet pump that the astronaut expects make a space station 3 encamp in a station most among them. The space station goes to Russia system toilet being in charge of liquid waste treatment part having put up problem lately , astronauts are forced to change with gathering the filth device for a short time , are rather inconvenient. Come a new toilet pump and part, to come into contact discovering a "number NASA being transported thereupon emergently from Russia. People calls brigade play of current shuttle space station delicate provision of waterpipe therefore "dropping in to be maintained ".

Discovery launching in 61 "children's day eve forget a festival is pleasantly surprised to children neither. Famous Disney outer space toy "Bass occupies a corner light-year "also in Discovery bellyhold cargo bay. Spaceman "Bass appears publicly first among light-year of "animated cartoon "toy general mobilization " debuting in 1995 in Disney , becomes children one of the Disney toy being fond of most. "Bass mounts the "several months living light-year "with depending on a space station , this is NASA "toy part "planning in outer space , purpose is to arouse the children interest in outer space and the fond dream. (Reporter Zhang Zhong Xia )