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NEW YORK – Is there anything Jamie Foxx can’t conquer? His first try at the Apollo, apparently.
The singer/actor/comedian says the first time he tried his stand-up act on the famed stage, he was roundly booed.
Foxx gave up the goods on himself as the New York City theater celebrated its 75th anniversary this week. He says it wasn’t about his act — the audience heard “He’s from L.A.” and just started booing.
And he says they were quite animated about it: “They booed me in opera,” he jokes, and then began singing a “boo” riff.
Foxx didn’t get booed offstage at Monday night’s celebration, but says it still remains his favorite memory of the place.

Los Angeles (E! Online) –
Mel Gibson's soon-to-be ex-wife doesn't want anyone peeping at her payback.
Robyn Denise Moore-Gibson has been granted a request to keep the details of the dueling couple's divorce case confidential.
The protective order covers expert witness reports, tax returns and financial records, as well as videotaped depositions and other family-related material. Team Mel backed the move, which also prevents the Gibsons from discussing the case publicly.
In other words, we won't be privy to all the details, like how much the star is actually worth—reportedly upward of 900 million—and how much his missus is requesting to keep for herself.
The pair signed the agreement in April, but it was not granted by Los Angeles Superior Judge Frederick Shaller and filed by the court until June 5.
Robyn initially filed for divorce from her husband of 28 years in April, admitting that the two had been living apart for nearly three years. Gibson's current girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, is pregnant with the actor's eighth child.
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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) –
California's government risks a financial “meltdown” within 50 days in light of its weakening May revenues unless Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers quickly plug a $24.3 billion budget gap, the state's controller said on Wednesday.
Underscoring the severity of California's cash crisis, Controller John Chiang, who has previously warned the state's government risks running out of cash without a budget deal, said revenues in May fell by $1.14 billon, or 17.7 percent, from a year earlier.
Additionally, the revenues of the government of the most populous U.S. state fell short of estimates in Schwarzenegger's budget plan by $827 million, Chiang said.
He warned California's state government is speeding toward a financial disaster unless officials act urgently to balance its books.
“Without immediate solutions from the governor and legislature, we are less than 50 days away from a meltdown of state government,” Chiang said in a statement.
California's revenues have been on a dramatic slide as a result of recession, rising unemployment and its lengthy housing downturn.
The state's revenues from personal income taxes tumbled by 39.3 percent in May from a year earlier while revenues from corporate taxes fell by 52.1 percent and revenues from sales taxes sagged by 7.6 percent, according to a report released by Chiang's office.
“A truly balanced budget is the only responsible way out of the worst cash crisis since the Great Depression,” Chiang, a Democrat, said.
DUELING BUDGET CONCEPTS
Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has proposed filling the state's budget gap with deep spending cuts, borrowing from local governments and by scrapping some state programs, including its welfare program.
Democrats who control the legislature are crafting a rival budget plan that includes spending cuts and saves programs Schwarzenegger has proposed eliminating. They instead would use reserves estimated in his budget to narrow the budget gap.
State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said on Tuesday he wants a budget agreement by the end of this month.
California's new fiscal year begins on July 1. The sooner the state has a budget the better poised it will be to raise short-term cash to fund its operations by selling revenue anticipation notes, or RANs, on the municipal debt market.
If pressed, California could sell revenue anticipation warrants, or RAWs, an idea floated by Schwarzenegger when he unveiled his budget plan last month. But he quickly shelved it amid opposition from lawmakers.
“No one wants to issue RAWs for our cash-flow borrowing,” said Tom Dresslar, a spokesman for State Treasurer Bill Lockyer. “Everyone would prefer to issue RANs for the obvious reason: It costs less.”
Lockyer, a Democrat, supports a budget with the reserve Schwarzenegger has proposed. That would increase confidence among investors that California has cash to pay the $7 billion to $9 billion in short-term debt notes that Lockyer's office assumes the state will need to sell, Dresslar said.
(Editing by Carol Bishopric)

‘Hidden cost’ of Colombian biofuel
By Margarita Rodriguez
BBC Mundo, Colombia
Colombia’s government proudly claims that it is the biggest producer of biodiesel and ethanol in Latin America after Brazil, but human rights groups do not share that enthusiasm.Critics warn that the cultivation of palm trees to produce biodiesel is a threat to Colombia’s indigenous groups and other minorities, including Afro-Colombians. In rural areas, there is evidence that some people have been forcibly displaced to make way for biofuel production. Last year, the United Nations stopped its investment in the sector in Colombia. But while ethanol production in Brazil has been pored over by experts and activists, the challenges faced by Colombia remain relatively unexamined. Colombia’s agriculture minister, Andres Fernandez, stresses that one of the main aims of President Alvaro Uribe’s administration is to keep the production of biofuels “on a growing path”. Mr Fernandez argues that this is “not one government’s policy, but State policy”. He dismisses accusations that the production of biofuels squeezes food output. “There are 4.5 million hectares of cultivated land and another 4.5 million of hectares of uncultivated land, [but] that land would not be used for food production – it would stay just as it is,” he says. Fuel or food?Last year, UN food chiefs warned that governments had to review urgently their policies on growing crops for biofuels. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said biofuels were of “limited use” for solving the planet’s energy needs. At the same time, they pushed up food prices by diverting valuable crops such as sugar maize and oilseed from food use to energy use.
Mr Fernandez says he respects the UN viewpoint and its decision to suspend investment in biofuels in Colombia, but he says his country has its own perspective. He argues that bio-fuels have had a “wonderful effect” and have led to investment in deprived areas of the country benefiting peasants and minority groups. But this effect is not viewed quite as wonderfully by many rural workers in the Choco province, in north-west Colombia. They complain of being forced off their land to make way for palm trees – and accuse the government of being deaf to their pleas for help. One of the workers, Eustaquio Polo Rivera, told BBC Mundo that he lost his land after an incursion by right-wing paramilitaries in 1996. “We used to produce what we needed for ourselves: bananas, corn, rice. But one day, soldiers just arrived and took our land. They destroyed everything in the community,” he says. “They told me they needed the land to fight the guerrillas, but we soon realized that the point was to take our land. “We tried to resist, but the armed men warned us they would take no responsibility for the families who decided to stay.” Violations denouncedAccording to Mr Polo, more than 500 people fled immediately. “When we tried to go back, our land was planted with palm trees,” he says. “In my own community, there are between 30 and 40 hectares of palm trees. “The government hasn’t shown any interest in returning our land because the paramilitaries carry on moving from one location to another and the big companies have powerful allies.” Fidel Mingorance is chairman of Human Rights Everywhere (HRE), one of several NGOs denouncing the forced displacement of communities, often of African descent, to make way for palm trees. “It all started in Tumaco, in South Colombia, and now there are all sorts of violations – forced displacement, assassinations, property invasion,” he says. Leonidas Tobon, the director of technological development at the Ministry of Agriculture, accepts there was a case of forced displacement in Choco, but says it was a one-off. “The cultivation of palm trees is concentrated in four regions. Only 10% of it is in areas occupied by Afro-Colombians and 30% of land used to grow the trees belongs to small farmers in any case,” he says.

Source:BBC

Seeking television justice in China
By Chris Hogg
BBC News, Shanghai

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In China, if you fall out with a neighbour or a relative over money or property it can be hard to find anyone to help you resolve the dispute.Often people feel the justice system does not have any answers for them, it is not geared up to deal with small claims, and many ordinary Chinese do not really understand where else they can go for help. Zhu Can Mei lives on the tiny island of Heng Sha, about an hour by fast ferry from Shanghai. It is a rural area but not that poor by Chinese standards. Mrs Zhu has owned her home for eight years, but now she fears she might lose it. It is a two-storey building, the rooms are pretty bare inside but it is comfortable enough for her family of four. Outside there are animal sheds she has built to house the ducks she raises. At the front, she has planted neat lines of vegetables.
Mrs Zhu bought the property from a distant relative when plots were being sold more cheaply because people could not afford land taxes. These days a lot of the taxes in rural areas have been reduced and land values have risen as a result. Her relative wants the land back. Although Mrs Zhu says she bought the land, at the time she did not check whether he had transferred ownership to her officially. “I’m really feeling the pressure,” she complains as she sits in her bare bedroom knitting furiously. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. When I get really angry I feel like I want to burn his house down.” Mrs Zhu has appealed to the authorities because she is sure she bought both the house and the land but they say it is nothing to do with them. Unless the row escalates and she or her relative breaks the law, the courts will not get involved, she says. Viewing hitSo Mrs Zhu is trying something completely different. She has decided to appeal to a different kind of justice, the court of public opinion.
That is why she finds herself perched on the edge of a deep-red velvet couch under bright lights, looking somewhat nervous as technicians fuss around her. She has travelled to Shanghai, not to petition officials again to hear her case, but to take part in a popular television show. As the director starts the countdown, she stares at the relative who wants her property. He is sitting on another couch a few feet away from her on the other side of the studio. He has agreed to come on the show with her but he does not look that happy about it either. In charge is Bai Wanqing, a fierce judge whose no-nonsense style has made her a hit with viewers. The show airs on a Shanghai TV station seven nights a week with different “mediators”, as they prefer to be called, in charge. Aunty Bai, as she is known, makes no apologies for her aggression with the participants during the recording of the show. “If people are insisting they’re right, then I need to apply some pressure,” she says.
The taping gets under way. Mrs Zhu has her say. Her relative tells his side of the story. The argument goes back and forth with Aunty Bai wading in to scold or cajole at regular intervals. The arguing can go on for hours. Today, Aunty Bai has news for Mrs Zhu. According to the law, she owns the house but her relative has a legitimate claim to the land it is built on. The decision makes Mrs Zhu’s home all but worthless. Once the show is finished, Aunty Bai explains that she sees rows like this all too often in her studio. “Going to court is expensive,” she says. “They need to pay fees and the law is applied without mercy. “Here both sides can tell their story, get their feelings off their chests and we can try to sort it out. So often, we get a good result.” ‘Real crisis’
Afterwards, both parties sign handwritten notes promising to abide by the ruling. They are not binding of course, but the fact that the argument, and the final decision, is aired on television often ensures that both parties keep to what has been agreed, the production staff say. Mrs Zhu is not happy with the result but she says she will accept what Aunty Bai has told her. “I’ve watched this show for more than half a year,” she explains. “It solves problems in a straightforward way. People like me from rural areas don’t always know the law. “Now I understand it, so although I have to return the land, I suppose that’s OK. All I ever wanted was to get this sorted out.” She trudges off down the corridor looking fed up, passing two other participants heading for the studio; a couple who have come to try to resolve a dispute about a relationship in the next show.
It is not just property disputes that get solved here. Arguments over who should care for an elderly relative, rows between husbands and wives – all sorts of problems are debated in front of the TV judges. The show’s producer, Yin Qingyi, claims they solve about two-thirds of the disputes on the show. Sometimes disputes are passed on to them by local officials he says, suggesting it has their tacit approval. It is not always easy to get people to appear though. “They want mediation, but they don’t want to wash their dirty linen in public,” he says. “But most of our participants are very poor. If they have a property problem for example, it’s a real crisis for them, possibly a fight for survival. “That’s why they will come on the show to try to get it resolved.”

Source:BBC

China’s computers at hacking risk
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Every PC in China could be at risk of being taken over by hackers because of flaws in software that the government has mandated its citizens use.The potential faults were brought to light by Chinese computer experts who said the flaw could lead to a “large-scale disaster”. The Chinese government has mandated that all computers in the country must have the screening software installed. It is intended to filter out offensive material from the net. The Chinese government said that the Green Dam Youth Escort software, as it is known, was intended to push forward the “healthy development of the internet” and “effectively manage harmful material for the public and prevent it from being spread.” “We found a series of software flaws,” explained Isaac Mao, a blogger and social entrepreneur in China, as well as a research fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. For example, he said, tests had shown that communications between the software and the servers at the company that developed the program were unencrypted. Mr Mao told BBC News that this could allow hackers to “steal people’s private information” or “place malicious script” on computers in the network to “affect [a] large scale disaster.” For example, a hacker could use malicious code to take control of PCs using the software. “Then you have every computer in China potentially as part of a botnet,” Colin Maclay, also of Harvard, told BBC News. A botnet is the name given to a network of hijacked computers that can then be used to pump out spam or launch concerted attacks on commercial or government websites. No one from Jinhui Computer System Engineering, the company that developed Green Dam, was available for comment. ‘Naked pig’The software has also caused a backlash amongst privacy experts, academics and some Chinese citizens. It has also raised the scorn of the blogosphere inside the country who feel the system is no match for tech-savvy teenagers.
One blogger posted a screenshot of the software purportedly blocking an attempt to visit a porn site using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But, he said, there was no problem accessing the site using the Firefox web browser. Others have reported that the system only runs on Microsoft Windows, allowing Mac and Linux users to bypass the software. It is thought that at least 3m computer users have already downloaded the software, opening them up to potential security problems. Another formal study by the Open Network Initiative into the risks posed by the software is expected soon. However, many people in China who have been forced to use the software are already reporting other problems. For example, the system reportedly blocks legitimate as well as banned content. For example, it designed to identify the proportion of skin colour in a picture to determine whether it is pornography. But comments on a bulletin board run by the software company that designed the system, suggest the system does not work perfectly.
“I went on the internet to check out some animal photos. A lovely little naked pig was sent onto the black list. Pitiful little pig!,” read one comment. “I was curious, so I looked up some photos of naked African women. Oh, they were not censored!” Another message read: “We were ordered to install the software. So I have to come to this website and curse. After we installed the software, many normal websites are banned.” The forum was taken down after it was seemingly flooded with complaints. A message on the site said says it is being “upgraded”. Mr Mao told BBC News that they believed there was a new guideline from the country’s central propaganda department “to comb all media and online forums to block critics and discussion over the issue.” Firewall flawThe government may be keen to shut down discussion to quell rumours that the system could be used to monitor its citizens. “Once you’ve got government-mandated software installed on each machine, the software has the keys to the kingdom – anything can be logged or affected,” said Professor Jonathan Zittrain, also of Harvard’s Berkman Center.
“While the justification may be pitched as protecting children and mostly concerning pornography, once the architecture is set up it can be used for broader purposes, such as the filtering of political ideas.” In particular, the system could be used to report citizens’ web habits. “It creates log file of all of the pages that the users tries to access,” Mr Maclay told BBC News. “At the moment it’s unclear whether that is reported back, but it could be.” A twitter user in China claims that the software transmits reports to Jinhui – the maker of the software – when the user tries to access blacklisted websites. However, Zhang Chenmin, general manager of the developer of Green Dam, told the China Daily newspaper last year: “Our software is simply not capable of spying on internet users, it is only a filter.” Although many countries around the world routinely block and filter net content, China’s regime is regarded as particularly severe. “There is no transparency about what they are blocking,” said Mr Maclay. Free speech campaigners are concerned that the list could be tweaked to suits the government’s aims. Recently, there has been a web black out across China in advance of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Website such as Twitter and the photo-sharing site Flickr were blocked in an attempt by the government to prevent online discussion on the subject. However, some users were able to bypass the filters to distribute pictures and commentary including links to photos of plain-clothes policemen blocking the lenses of foreign journalists with their umbrellas. The country is able to take action like this because it already has a sophisticated censorship regime, including the so-called Great Firewall of China. However, it is known to have some flaws. A 2007 study by US researchers showed that the system was much more porous than previously thought. It found that the technology often failed to block content banned by the Chinese government, allowing web users to browse unencumbered at least some of the time. Filtering and blocking was “particularly erratic”, they said, when large numbers of people were online in China. Despite the failures, the researchers said, the idea of the firewall was more effective than the technology at discouraging talk about banned subjects. This kind of social pressure was also key to another tactic used by the Chinese government to make sure its citizens only use sanitised portions of the web. In 2007, the government introduced virtual policemen that pop-up onscreen when web surfers visit many of China’s popular website to remind them to stay away from illicit content. In addition, the government expects internet service providers in China to actively monitor and censor published content, such as blogs. Experiments have suggested that this approach is hit-and-miss, with some organisations more proactive than others. However, these systems, combined with the new software, will allow the Chinese government to sanitise the web for most of the 300m of China’s population of 1.3bn have access to the net. “I think this is intended as a sort of belt-and-braces approach, said Professor Zittrain.

Source:BBC

Los Angeles (E! Online) –
• Looks like some of Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler's parental issues that were playing out over Twitter yesterday have been resolved and the rocker got to spend some quality time with his little ones. “Alabama's bday party is this weekend. She's born on XMAS eve so we celebrate half year. I asked her what she wanted, she said just u Daddy:)” “Being a Dad is the best,” he wrote later. (If you're craving more proud papas, check out our new Hollywood's Hottest Dads gallery!)
• In case you've never felt a moment of jealousy towards Kim Kardashian, this ought to welcome you to the club. “Just met Prince Albert again! We are at the palace in Monte Carlo!!! We talked about his mom Grace Kelly! WOW.”
• Choreographer-director-judge Adam Shankman is schooling So You Think You Can Dance fans on their shooting schedule and getting us all jazzed about tonight's episode! “No joke: tonight is one of the best sytycd dance eps ever. The 20 brought it! Amazing.”
• Let the outrage begin. Dita Von Teese hates Robert Pattinson. “This vampire mania is driving me crazy. Now a MiniCooper billboard. “feel the wind in your fangs” ?? I'm boycotting all new vampire media!”
• Michael Ian Black, funny guy that he is, posed a statement that had fans and stars, well, twitterpated. “Dirtiest candy bar name: Butterfinger.” Rainn Wilson got in on the action, asking, “What about Mounds?” Christina Applegate suggests “abba zabba” or “chocolate vag bar.”
• Bridget Marquardt has a great reason to be excited! “Congratulations @KendraWilkinson!! Does this make me “Auntie Bridget”???? LOL.”
As you follow Kendra Wilkinson to read about her every pregnant craving, make sure you're following us too @eonline!
··· THEY SAID WHAT? Get today's most commented stories now at www.eonline.com

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia A hundred years ago a Brazilian physician, Carlos Chagas, showed that monkeys were susceptible to a rare parasitic illness carried by a particular Latin American bug.
A mother and baby visit a clinic in Bolivia to get tested for Chagas.
Today an estimated 16 to 18 million people are infected with Chagas, as the disease is now known, and it claims some 50,000 lives each year. Yet most people have never heard of it. Chagas disease is exclusive to Latin America, and kills more people there than any other parasitic illness, including malaria. In Bolivia, an estimated one in five people are infected. So why is so little known about the disease? One crucial reason is that it only affects the poor. In the mud and thatch homes of rural villages and urban slums, bugs known locally as vinchuca, make their home in cracks in the walls and holes in the roofs. The bugs carry the parasite that causes chagas, in their saliva and their feces.
Vital Signs
Each month CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta brings viewers health stories from around the world.
See more from the show »
Infection occurs when they bite, or if their are unknowingly eaten in uncooked food, or rubbed in the eye. Infected women can transfer chagas to their child during pregnancy, delivery or while breastfeeding. In its early stages, Chagas it is eminently treatable, but there are many problems. “Most people don’t know they’ve been infected,” says Dr. Tom Ellman, who works in Bolivia with humanitarian agency, Doctors Without Borders. He told CNN: “Many of them will drop down dead usually from heart problems cause by the disease 10, 20, 30 years after they’ve been infected and no one will know why.” For Dr. Ellman, this lack of effective treatment is a symptom of a much sadder cause.
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“In terms of getting better treatment, you’re not going to have the interest of pharmaceutical companies, who will only investigate new drugs if there is a market that is willing to buy them. “What we need now is more interest. We’re still using drugs invented over forty years ago, that have huge numbers of side effects and take sixty or ninety days to work,” he told CNN. Even after these extensive courses of anti-parasitic drugs, there is no definitive test to see if the patient has been cured. Doctors can only advise patients to return in two years. Dr. Ellman also has particular concerns for children over the unavailability of new drugs: “At the moment we have to cut adult doses of tablets into much smaller sizes for children which brings pricks of getting the dosage wrong and makes it much more complicated.” Chagas can be detected via blood test. In the clinics where Doctors Without Borders work, they advise parents to have themselves and their children tested whenever they visit a clinic. But the challenge they face is vast. How to make a population wise to the threat of a disease that is already plaguing them, and that many have still never heard of.
Source:CNN

China’s computers at hacking risk
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
Every PC in China could be at risk of being taken over by hackers because of flaws in software that the government has mandated its citizens use.The potential faults were brought to light by Chinese computer experts who said the flaw could lead to a “large-scale disaster”. The Chinese government has mandated that all computers in the country must have the screening software installed. It is intended to filter out offensive material from the net. The Chinese government said that the Green Dam Youth Escort software, as it is known, was intended to push forward the “healthy development of the internet” and “effectively manage harmful material for the public and prevent it from being spread.” “We found a series of software flaws,” explained Isaac Mao, a blogger and social entrepreneur in China, as well as a research fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. For example, he said, tests had shown that communications between the software and the servers at the company that developed the program were unencrypted. Mr Mao told BBC News that this could allow hackers to “steal people’s private information” or “place malicious script” on computers in the network to “affect [a] large scale disaster.” For example, a hacker could use malicious code to take control of PCs using the software. “Then you have every computer in China potentially as part of a botnet,” Colin Maclay, also of Harvard, told BBC News. A botnet is the name given to a network of hijacked computers that can then be used to pump out spam or launch concerted attacks on commercial or government websites. No one from Jinhui Computer System Engineering, the company that developed Green Dam, was available for comment. ‘Naked pig’The software has also caused a backlash amongst privacy experts, academics and some Chinese citizens. It has also raised the scorn of the blogosphere inside the country who feel the system is no match for tech-savvy teenagers.
One blogger posted a screenshot of the software blocking an attempt to visit a porn site using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. But, he said, there was no problem accessing the site using the Firefox web browser. Others have reported that the system only runs on Microsoft Windows, allowing Mac and Linux users to bypass the software. It is thought that at least 3m computer users have already downloaded the software, opening them up to potential security problems. Another formal study by the Open Network Initiative into the risks posed by the software is expected soon. However, many people in China who have been forced to use the software are already reporting other problems. For example, the system reportedly blocks legitimate as well as banned content. For example, it designed to identify the proportion of skin colour in a picture to determine whether it is pornography. But comments on a bulletin board run by the software company that designed the system, suggest the system does not work perfectly.
“I went on the internet to check out some animal photos. A lovely little naked pig was sent onto the black list. Pitiful little pig!,” read one comment. “I was curious, so I looked up some photos of naked African women. Oh, they were not censored!” Another message read: “We were ordered to install the software. So I have to come to this website and curse. After we installed the software, many normal websites are banned.” The forum was taken down after it was seemingly flooded with complaints. A message on the site said says it is being “upgraded”. Mr Mao told BBC News that they believed there was a new guideline from the country’s central propaganda department “to comb all media and online forums to block critics and discussion over the issue.” Firewall flawThe government may be keen to shut down discussion to quell rumours that the system could be used to monitor its citizens. “Once you’ve got government-mandated software installed on each machine, the software has the keys to the kingdom – anything can be logged or affected,” said Professor Jonathan Zittrain, also of Harvard’s Berkman Center.
“While the justification may be pitched as protecting children and mostly concerning pornography, once the architecture is set up it can be used for broader purposes, such as the filtering of political ideas.” In particular, the system could be used to report citizens’ web habits. “It creates log file of all of the pages that the users tries to access,” Mr Maclay told BBC News. “At the moment it’s unclear whether that is reported back, but it could be.” A twitter user in China claims that the software transmits reports to Jinhui – the maker of the software – when the user tries to access blacklisted websites. However, Zhang Chenmin, general manager of the developer of Green Dam, told the China Daily newspaper last year: “Our software is simply not capable of spying on internet users, it is only a filter.” Although many countries around the world routinely block and filter net content, China’s regime is regarded as particularly severe. “There is no transparency about what they are blocking,” said Mr Maclay. Free speech campaigners are concerned that the list could be tweaked to suits the government’s aims. Recently, there has been a web black out across China in advance of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Website such as Twitter and the photo-sharing site Flickr were blocked in an attempt by the government to prevent online discussion on the subject. However, some users were able to bypass the filters to distribute pictures and commentary including links to photos of plain-clothes policemen blocking the lenses of foreign journalists with their umbrellas. The country is able to take action like this because it already has a sophisticated censorship regime, including the so-called Great Firewall of China. However, it is known to have some flaws. A 2007 study by US researchers showed that the system was much more porous than previously thought. It found that the technology often failed to block content banned by the Chinese government, allowing web users to browse unencumbered at least some of the time. Filtering and blocking was “particularly erratic”, they said, when large numbers of people were online in China. Despite the failures, the researchers said, the idea of the firewall was more effective than the technology at discouraging talk about banned subjects. This kind of social pressure was also key to another tactic used by the Chinese government to make sure its citizens only use sanitised portions of the web. In 2007, the government introduced virtual policemen that pop-up onscreen when web surfers visit many of China’s popular website to remind them to stay away from illicit content. In addition, the government expects internet service providers in China to actively monitor and censor published content, such as blogs. Experiments have suggested that this approach is hit-and-miss, with some organisations more proactive than others. However, these systems, combined with the new software, will allow the Chinese government to sanitise the web for most of the 300m of China’s population of 1.3bn have access to the net. “I think this is intended as a sort of belt-and-braces approach, said Professor Zittrain.

Source:BBC

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – The idea was for Phil Mickelson to return to a routine as best as possible in his world now shaken with fear.
It has been three turbulent weeks since he announced his wife, Amy, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Mickelson has always felt like he was in control, even if his golf at times suggested otherwise. Now he feels helpless.
“I’ve never been this emotional, where if I’m driving alone or what have you, I’ll just start crying,” he said Wednesday at the St. Jude Classic, his eyes tinged with streaks of pink, his voice no longer steady and sure.
“We’re scared, yeah,” he said. “I think a lot of it is the unknown.”
Tests on his 38-year-old wife have provided enough optimism that surgery has been pushed back to the first week of July, allowing Mickelson to return to competition this week, then go to the U.S. Open in New York, where he is beloved under normal circumstances.
His wife faces treatment for at least a year, so they decided to do what they normally would — play golf tournaments, take their three children to camps and activities. They plan a tropical vacation after the U.S. Open and before Amy’s surgery.
Even so, this was not a normal routine for Mickelson in Memphis.
Some 300 fans lined the walkway at the bottom of the stairs leading to the clubhouse where Mickelson had lunch, waiting for autographs or pictures, some wearing pink shirts in support.
Mickelson, however, went around the front of the clubhouse to avoid the crowd, setting up shop at the far end of the range that had been reserved for the amateurs before his pro-am round, far away from his peers. Woody Austin, his partner at the Presidents Cup last time, and defending champion Justin Leonard walked over to welcome him back with a handshake that turned into a hug.
He does not know what to expect from his game. Mickelson said he would hit balls for an hour while his wife was resting, and he feels he is not far off from earlier this year, when he won at Riviera and Doral.
“But certainly, I haven’t played in a while,” he said. “I had an emotional month, and I don’t know where I will be on the golf course as far as being able to focus. I don’t know that yet.”
If nothing else, Mickelson said he looked forward to being inside the ropes, allowing him to get his mind off cancer.
But there was no escaping it Wednesday.
He started on No. 10, hitting driver down the hill into the water, hitting the next one in a bunker. Then came the par-3 11th over water, and a tournament tradition that hit home like never before.
Patients at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital caddie for the professional on this hole. Mickelson met Michael Anderson, 27, who is coming off his fourth surgery for a brain tumor. A half-dozen children suddenly surrounded him, most of them losing their hair.
Lefty knelt to speak to them, giving each a golf ball and a glove until he had to send his caddie, Jim Mackay, back to the bag for more.
“I can’t shake hands,” one girl said to Mickelson, steadying herself with a crutch.
“Well, you have a very strong hug,” Mickelson said after leaning in to embrace her.
Anderson had enough strength to lug Mickelson’s bag to the green — “It’s heavier than mine,” he said with a smile — but Mickelson wouldn’t discharge him of his duties until he read the birdie putt. He just missed.
They talked briefly about his outlook, and Anderson inquired about Amy.
“We think they caught it early,” Mickelson said. “The treatment is going to be tough. But let’s whip this.”
Mickelson spent seven hours Tuesday practicing at Bethpage Black, where he was runner-up to Tiger Woods in 2002. He has never finished worse than fourth in a U.S. Open held in New York.
“I’m not just playing to play,” Mickelson said. “I think Bethpage is a golf course that suits my game. I love playing that course, I love playing in the New York area. I’m playing here because I believe I can win next week. Again, there’s a lot of question marks that I have. But that’s the goal.”
Mickelson’s parents are taking his children camping this week, as Amy stays at home with her best friends. He said it was unlikely she would go to Bethpage — Amy rarely misses a major — because of the raw emotions that await of seeing so many friends.
“When you see people, and they’re crying and so forth, it’s just not easy to go through that,” he said.
It’s what Mickelson avoided as best he could before teeing off in the pro-am.
Stephen Ames, among the few who can appreciate what Mickelson is going through, was surprised to see him. Ames’ wife, Jodi, had breast cancer at age 38 during the summer of 2005. He missed the cut at the British Open and went through the motions at the PGA Championship, not clearing his mind until she was headed toward recovery.
“But he’s a different fish,” Ames said. “To be that good, to be where he is in the world, you’ve got to be mentally tough. I feel badly for him. This is not something nice to go through.”
The support continues to amaze Mickelson. He began his press conference by talking about Saturday at the Colonial, the famous “Pink Out” when players, wives, fans and TV personalities wore pink in honor of his wife.
“I don’t know how to express the emotions that we felt because of that,” Mickelson said. “It was just a very special thing for us.”
He does not know how much he will play the rest of the year. Everything hinges on the surgery, when they find out the scope of the cancer and the treatment required.
But he wants to make the most of the time he is back on the job.
“I don’t think it’s going to affect how I play,” Mickelson said. “I’m going to still play aggressively. There’s not really a carry-over effect there. It’s just that off the course, I’ve never felt something like this.”

GENEVA (Reuters) –
The World Health Organization has called an emergency meeting of experts on Thursday to discuss the spreading H1N1 flu outbreak, in a sign the U.N. agency may be poised to declare a pandemic.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, who consulted health officials in affected countries on Wednesday, was drawing up her own evaluation ahead of the meeting set to begin at midday (1000 GMT), a spokesman said.
“She is looking for some detailed epidemiological explanation for what is going on,” WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told Reuters. “She is making her own assessment based on information gathered today and running it by the Emergency Committee tomorrow.”
Thompson declined to say whether the WHO would declare a full-blown pandemic after the closed-door talks, saying he did not want to prejudge the experts' recommendations.
Chan had sought further information from some countries to clarify news reports that they were detecting sustained transmission of the new virus in the community, and not just imported cases, he said.
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the expert committee would consult “on the state of the outbreak.” The strain, which emerged in April in Mexico and the United States, has spread widely in places including Australia, Britain, Chile and Japan.
The agency said on Tuesday it was on the verge of declaring the first influenza pandemic in more than 40 years, but wanted to ensure countries were well prepared to prevent a panic over the disease, widely known as swine flu.
Chan, a former health director in Hong Kong, has previously consulted the group of international experts before raising the alert level.
Confirmed community spread in a second region beyond North America would trigger moving to phase 6 — signifying a full-blown pandemic — from the current phase 5 on the WHO's 6-level pandemic alert scale.
GEOGRAPHIC SPREAD
There have been 27,737 cases reported in 74 countries to date, including 141 deaths, according to the WHO's latest tally.
Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director-general, told reporters late on Tuesday that a move to phase 6 would reflect the geographic spread of the new disease.
“It does not mean that the severity of the situation has increased or that people are getting seriously sick at higher numbers or higher rates than they are right now,” he said.
“One of the critical issues is that we do not want people to 'over-panic' if they hear that we are in a pandemic situation,” Fukuda told reporters at the time.
The WHO wants to avoid causing undue alarm over a virus that has been largely mild in most countries, while warning it could still mutate into a more virulent form.
Members such as Britain have called on the WHO to revise its scale to reflect severity in future.
The WHO and its 193 member states were working hard to prepare for a pandemic, for instance developing vaccines and building up supplies of anti-viral drugs, Fukuda said.
Drug makers are on track to have a vaccine against the new strain ready for the northern hemisphere autumn after receiving seed virus samples, company officials said.
(For more Reuters swine flu coverage, please click here:
http://www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/swineflu )
(For WHO information on swine flu, go to:
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html )
(Editing by Jonathan Lynn)

Los Angeles (E! Online) –
She may have left The Hills, but that doesn't mean Lauren Conrad is done with television.
The former MTV darling tells me she's determined to get her debut novel, L.A. Candy, adapted for the small screen.
“It's one of my hopes,” said Conrad, who will hold court tonight at her book party at the Thompson Hotel in Beverly Hills. “We're going to start working on that when I get back from my book tour.”
She also may be working on another reality show. She refused to hear any pitches after the cameras stopped rolling on her last season of The Hills, but now…
“I actually asked not to hear them,” she said. “I said, 'Don't tell me anything.' So problem solved, and I got to enjoy some time away. But my two months is up now.”
And she's also not giving up her fashion collection. “I have my line at Kohl's but I'm also working on putting back together my original line,” she said. “I want to change it up, working on a new name…”
One thing you're likely not catch her doing? Checking out Kristin Cavallari's debut on The Hills. “I probably won't watch it,” Conrad said. “I'm not a huge TV person.”
________
Get More Marc on Twitter @marcmalkin

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TROY, Va. – For more than a year, Virginia’s largest women’s prison rounded up inmates who had loose-fitting clothes, short hair or otherwise masculine looks, sending them to a unit officers derisively dubbed the “butch wing,” prisoners and guards say.
Dozens were moved in an attempt to split up relationships and curb illegal sexual activity at the 1,200-inmate Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, though some straight women were sent to the wing strictly because of their appearance, the inmates and corrections officers said.
Civil rights advocates called the moves unconstitutional punishment for “looking gay.” The warden denied that any housing decisions were made based on looks or sexual orientation, and said doing so would be discriminatory. The practice was stopped recently after the Associated Press began questioning it, according to several inmates and one current employee.
Two current guards and one of their former co-workers said targeting masculine-looking inmates was a deliberate strategy by a building manager. Numerous inmates said in letters and interviews that they felt humiliated and stigmatized when guards took them to the separate wing — also referred to by prisoners and guards as the “little boys wing,” “locker room wing” or “studs wing.”
“I deserved to go for my crime and I did my time there,” said Summer Triolo, who spent nearly six years at Fluvanna for theft before being released in February 2008. “But my punishment was by the judge to do time in prison away from my family and home. That was my punishment, not all the extra stuff.”
Living conditions in wing 5D weren’t worse than the rest of the prison, and no prisoner said she was denied services other inmates received. However, the women said they were verbally harassed by staff who would make remarks such as, “Here come the little boys,” when they were escorted to eat, and they were taken to the cafeteria first or last to keep them away from other inmates. The three guards confirmed such remarks were made.
The two current guards and former guard William Drumheller said Building 5 manager Timothy Back, who is in charge of security and operations for that area, came up with the idea to break up couples by sending inmates to the wing. Gradually, they said, the 60-inmate wing was filled with women targeted because of their appearance. The current employees asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing their jobs.
“I heard him say, ‘We’re going to break up some of these relationships, start a boys wing, and we’re going to take all these studs and put them together and see how they like looking at nothing but each other all day instead of their girlfriends,’” Drumheller said.
Drumheller said Back told him the plan one day in a prison office. The other two guards, who are both female, said Back’s reasons for moving the prisoners were commonly known among guards, though officials would deny the reasons for the moves if inmates asked or complained.
Warden Barbara Wheeler called the policy a figment of the inmates’ imaginations.
“With female offenders, relationships are very important, and often times when they’re separated from those relationships they might perceive it as punitive,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler said her employees wouldn’t segregate inmates based on looks or sexual orientation, and she wouldn’t condone it.
“That’s like saying I want to put all the blacks in one unit and all the whites in one unit,” something federal courts have ruled illegal, she said.
A dozen inmates interviewed in person or by letter contradicted Wheeler, saying there’s no doubt why they were moved. Triolo said she had gone four years without getting in trouble until she shaved her shoulder-length brown locks. She soon was moved to 5D, away from her girlfriend.
Triolo and Trina O’Neal were two of the first inmates sent to 5D in the fall of 2007.
“I have been gay all my life and never have I once felt as degraded, humiliated or questioned my own sexuality, the way I look, etc., until all of this happened,” O’Neal, 33, who is serving time for forgery and drug charges, wrote to the AP.
Drumheller worked at Fluvanna for two years but said he quit in August because he didn’t like the inmates’ treatment.
The prison declined repeated requests for an interview with Back, and the AP could not find a working home telephone number for him.
Sex — whether forced, coerced or consensual — is forbidden in prisons primarily to prevent violence and the spread of diseases.
Segregating gay inmates in men’s prison has been upheld by federal courts to protect them and maintain order, though courts have ruled against total isolation or harsher conditions.
Separating women based on appearance, though, violates the Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection and freedom of expression, said Helen Trainor, director of the Virginia Institutionalized Persons Project.
“Point blank, this institution is ran by homophobes, and the rules instated here are based on your sexual preference not what is right or wrong,” wrote inmate Casey Lynn Toney.

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) –
Major powers on Wednesday agreed on a package of expanded sanctions, including tougher cargo inspections and a tighter arms embargo, to punish North Korea for its recent nuclear test and missile firings.
Diplomats said the 15-member Security Council was virtually assured to adopt the text, worked out following two weeks of hard-nosed bargaining by envoys of seven nations, during a vote expected by week's end.
The compromise draft was submitted to the full Security Council Wednesday by Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations, on behalf of the five permanent council members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Japan and South Korea.
She said that if adopted, the draft will send the message that “North Korea's behavior is unacceptable, (that) they must pay a price, they are to return without conditions to a process of negotiation and that the consequences they will face are significant.”
Turkey's UN Ambassador Baki Ilkin, the council chair this month, said members would now “evaluate the draft resolution, send it to their capitals and will request instructions on how to proceed.”
Adoption of the text is virtually assured now that the key players have endorsed it, diplomats said.
“We hope that it will be adopted as soon as possible, certainly before the end of the week, and if possible tomorrow (Thursday),” France's UN Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert told reporters.
Speaking in Moscow Wednesday after talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: “We expect a vote (on the North Korean sanctions) at the Security Council by Friday at the latest.”
Rice singled out in the draft tougher rules for inspection of cargo on air, land and sea to interdict banned material related to North Korea's nuclear and missile activities as well as a tighter arms embargo to choke off “a significant source of revenues for North Korea.”
The text makes an exception for “small arms and light weapons and their related materiel” although it requires states to notify the Security Council sanctions committee “at least five days prior to selling, supplying or transferring small arms to the DPRK.”
Rice said the proposed regime “creates an unprecedented detailed set of expectations and obligations regarding the inspection of suspect cargo believed to be carried goods prohibited” under Security Council resolution 1718 adopted in 2006 and under the current draft.
She noted that states “are expected to inspect suspect contraband cargo in their territory (land air or sea) and to “consent to inspections on the high seas” if one of their vessels is involved.
“States that refuse to be inspected on the high seas are obliged under international law to proceed to an appropriate, convenient port for mandatory inspections,” said Rice, making it clear that contraband items found must be seized and disposed of by the state that finds them.
Rice's Russian counterpart, Vitaly Churkin, said the text was “balanced” and “carefully targeted at the nuclear and ballistic missile program of North Korea.”
He added that “any measures which might involve the use of force are ruled out under this resolution.”
The draft “condemns in the strongest terms” North Korea's May 25 underground nuclear test in violation of UN resolutions and “demands that the DPRK (North Korea) not conduct any further nuclear test or any launch using ballistic missile technology.”
It declares that Pyongyang “shall abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner and immediately cease all related activities.”
The Stalinist regime is also required to “immediately retract its announcement of withdrawal from the NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty)” and return immediately to the six-party talks on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula without precondition.
The draft calls on states to prevent the provision of financial services or the transfer of any financial or other assets or resources that could contribute to the DPRK's nuclear related, ballistic missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programs or activities.
North Korea launched a long-range missile in April, triggering a rebuke from the UN Security Council. Pyongyang then retaliated by announcing May 25 that it had staged a second nuclear weapons test, following one in 2006.
It also has declared the armistice ending the 1950-53 Korean War was void.

The “black box” is actually an orange cylinderabout 13 pounds of metal wrapped around a stack of memory chips and designed to withstand the force of being slammed high-speed into a brick wall.
Recovery efforts have found several items confirmed to have come from Air France Flight 447.
One such devicecurrently sitting more than two miles below the surface of the Atlantic Oceanis now the object of a massive international search and could hold the answer to why Air France Flight 447 mysteriously plunged into the sea off the coast of Brazil last week with 228 people on board. “These record many, many parameters of the flightthe aircraft, its altitude, even the amount of force that one of the pilots might put on a pedal,” John Perry Fish, an underwater recovery expert, told CNN. “It’s very important to find these in order to find out what happened to the flight.” In the wake of nearly every air disaster, search and rescue efforts immediately segue into quests for the boxes, which have been in wide use on commercial flights since shortly after World War II. Actually a pair of devicesthe flight data recorder and a voice and audio recorderthe equipment records virtually everything about how an airplane is working. The time of day, air pressure, the plane’s speed and altitude, how much fuel a plane has and whether that fuel is flowing properlyall are recorded by sensors throughout the plane. Functions that can change quickly, such as the position of rudders and flight stabilizers, are checked as often as eight times per second, said Chris Benich, director of aerospace regulatory affairs with Honeywell, the company that made the recorders aboard the Air France flight. See a timeline of the Air France flight » Microphones in the cockpit record not just conversations between the pilot and other crew members, but can pick up anything from a loud bang to the sound of a switch being flicked on or off.
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“When you put all that together, you can start to back it up to a point where you can see the triggering event, or events, that caused a chain of things to happen,” Benich said. Made of several layers of aluminum, insulation and stainless steel, the devices are designed to survive high temperatures, strong impact and tons of pressurelike what would be experienced at the bottom of the ocean. There’s nothing magical that keeps them together when an entire aircraft has been destroyed, according to Benich. “It’s not as much about the materials as it is about the design,” he said. The exact origin of the term “black box” is unclearwith some sources citing descriptions of early flight-data recorders and others saying it stems from a generic reference to electronic equipment. The French nuclear submarine and other vessels now searching for the recorders are focusing on its underwater locator beacona device that sends acoustic pulses, or “pings,” to searchers. The U.S. Navy is contributing two high-tech acoustic devicesso-called “towed pinger locators”that will be attached to French tug boats and can search to a maximum depth of 20,000 feet. The wreckage is believed to be about 15,000 feet deep, amid underwater mountains and mixed in with tons of sea trash. By comparison, the wreckage of the space shuttle Challenger was found in about 1,000 feet of water. Still, experts like Fish say they’re confident the box can be found. “The pressure is high, but instruments are produced and designed and developed and we currently use them that work at those depths … ,” said Fish, vice-president of American Underwater Search and Survey in Cataument, Massachusetts. “I do think it’s possible to find. It’s just going to take a little longer and require a greater effort working in this deep water.” The batteries that power the locator beacon are designed to last for about 30 days. But the box is designed to keep its contents safe for much longer.
In January 2007, a Boeing 737 crashed into about 5,600 feet of water off the coast of the Philippines. Recovery crews located the black box about 25 days later, but weren’t able to retrieve it for about eight months. The data were still intact when it was found. “I think this will be as challenging a recovery as we’ve seen,” Benich said of the Air France search. “But as long as we know where they’re at, we’ve got some time to go get them.”
Source:CNN

HELENA, Mont. – Christopher Lloyd plans to rebuild on the Southern California site where wildfire destroyed his house last fall.
Lloyd’s 11 million house was among hundreds lost in the fires that swept the state. He spoke about the home while in Montana promoting a new movie, “Call of the Wild 3D.”
Lloyd says the fires were an “awesome” experience and left the neighborhood looking like a war zone.
The actor, who played the scientist sidekick to Michael J. Fox’s character in the “Back to the Future” movies, says he had been preparing to sell the house so most of his belongings were in storage. Still, he says he lost some pictures, family memorabilia and other personal items.
He says the rebuilt property will be better built to cope with wildfire.

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s auto task force told skeptical lawmakers Wednesday the government had no plans to pump more dollars into General Motors and Chrysler and that the public had a “reasonable probability” of getting its money back.
Ron Bloom, a senior adviser to the task force, faced numerous questions about the roughly 80 billion in federal aid to the car companies, their lending affiliates and suppliers. He said the Obama administration’s efforts had given the automakers “a chance to become viable, competitive businesses with bright futures.”
“We strongly believe this is the last money that GM will require. I cannot make a promise about the future but I can assure you that it has been a vigorously debated and thought about question,” Bloom told the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
“I do believe that there is a reasonable probability that we can get most if not all of our money back,” Bloom said. He said the companies had faced “uncontrolled bankruptcies and almost certain liquidation” that would have caused “substantial job loss with a ripple effect throughout our entire economy.”
The hearing gave lawmakers their first public crack at task force members whose decisions have left taxpayers on the hook for billions and forced some dealers into oblivion.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, the committee chairman, said he wanted the government’s intervention to end as soon as possible.
“The administration believes that this structure avoids the imposition of further debt on these companies,” said Dodd, D-Conn. “But it also begs the question: How will the government extricate itself from such a commitment in the future?”
Sen. Richard Shelby, a bailout critic, questioned how the Treasury Department “intends to get out.”
Pressed by Shelby, R-Ala., on how long the government’s involvement would last, Bloom said there was not “a specific target in terms of years.” The financial markets, he said, would help answer that question.
Bloom said it was the administration’s “absolute intent” not to provide more funding to GM and Chrysler. “You never say never in this world,” Bloom said, but “it is our belief that this will be the last trip to the well.”
When Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., asked whether the taxpayers would get their money back, Bloom said the task force examined “scenarios where over time a very substantial portion and potentially all of the taxpayer investment in General Motors would be returned.”
But, he added, “by no means would say I am highly confident that that would occur. I think there are reasonable scenarios where it could occur.”
General Motors Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 1. Company leaders have said they hope to emerge as a new company in 60 days to 90 days. Italian automaker Fiat Group SpA closed a deal on Wednesday to become the new owner of most of Chrysler’s assets, saving the company from liquidation. The new company will be called Chrysler Group LLC.
Bloom said the White House was a “reluctant shareholder” in GM, but determined that “piling on irresponsible amounts of new debt” onto the company would have “repeated the mistakes of the past.”
Bloom told lawmakers the administration has stayed clear of business decisions such as dealership closings, a sore subject among many lawmakers.
“There are profitable dealers that are being closed — not just underperforming,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. “How is it a drag on the company?”
Bloom said cutting dealerships was one of the “deep and painful sacrifices from all stakeholders,” including the United Auto Workers union and bondholders, that was required to help the companies rebound.
Edward Montgomery, who serves as Obama’s director of recovery for auto communities and workers, described the administration’s work to help Midwest communities dependent upon the auto industry.
“There is no magic bullet. The challenges that the regions face did not appear overnight and will not be resolved overnight,” Montgomery said.

Indian sex workers learn karate

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Prostitutes in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu have begun taking karate lessons to protect themselves from violent customers and pimps.The women say they were so fed up with abuse that they approached a local community group for help. The organisers hope the course in the ancient self-defence technique sends a message that violence against sex workers must stop. India is thought to have nearly three million sex workers. Most live on the fringes of society and have few legal rights. Correspondents say that means they often have little or no choice but to put up with violence and harassment. ‘I will kick him’Dressed in white and wearing masks, the first 75 women to take the karate course in the coastal city of Madras (Chennai) had to brave intense heat as they practised their moves.
They trained together for nearly five hours a day, mostly learning how to fight. Now the women say they feel more able to protect themselves. “Even though I may not be able to attack a group of five men when they attack me, I am fully confident now that I can escape,” one sex worker, Santhi (not her real name), told the BBC Tamil service. “I think I can easily handle one man at any given time. I face physical abuse on a daily basis and have been abused and been beaten up by my clients many times. “A thug once stripped me of my clothes and told me to run naked. From now on, I think nobody can do that to me. I will kick him.” The Indian Community Welfare Organisation is providing the training free of charge. Its founder secretary, AJ Hariharan, said Tamil Nadu state alone was thought to have about 90,000 commercial sex workers. “Many of them, particularly those who operate individually on the streets face physical abuse on a daily basis – not only from their customers, but also from local thugs and policemen,” he told the BBC Tamil service. “They attack these commercial sex workers, rob their money and force them into having unprotected sex. We want to train them in karate so that they can protect themselves from these violent attacks.” Mr Hariharan said the aim was to build the self esteem and self confidence of the women. “We are going to train 300 sex workers in the second phase and 500 sex workers after that. “We are trying to send a loud and clear message to those who abuse these sex workers that they cannot abuse them any more.

Source:BBC

Disputed Peru land laws suspended
Peru’s parliament has suspended two land laws that triggered deadly clashes between police and protesters.At least 54 people, including some police officers, died after violence erupted on Friday between security forces and indigenous protesters. The laws are designed to regulate investment in the Amazon, but indigenous groups say they will lose control of their natural resources. They have been demonstrating for months, blocking roads and waterways. On Wednesday, the head of Peru’s single-chamber parliament said it had voted to suspend the land decrees for 90 days. President Alan Garcia has 15 days to either sign the suspension order or return it to Congress. The laws are part of a series of recent measures on foreign investment, some of which remain in place. Opponents had called for them to be overturned. The suspension order is considered a compromise that could give time for negotiations between the presidency and indigenous groups. The recent protests were the worst violence seen in Peru in a decade. Indigenous groups say more than 100 protesters cannot be accounted for.

Source:BBC

England 6-0 Andorra
England took another step towards World Cup finals qualification by hammering hapless minnows Andorra at Wembley.In an embarrassingly one-sided contest Wayne Rooney hit the crossbar before he headed home Glen Johnson’s cross. Frank Lampard converted Theo Walcott’s pull-back and Johnson fired in another centre for Rooney to volley his second. Johnson teed up Jermain Defoe to glance in England’s fourth, Defoe bundled in another soon after and Peter Crouch tapped in a sixth with 10 minutes left. More to follow.

Source:BBC

SEATTLE – The Seattle Times reports that the son of former NFL great Joe Montana has decided to play football at Washington.
Nick Montana, from Oaks Christian School in Westlake Village, Calif., is rated among the top quarterbacks in the class of 2010.
The Times reported Wednesday that Montana called Washington coach Steve Sarkisian on Tuesday night and said he would become a Husky. Montana had scholarship offers from Ohio State, LSU, Alabama, Georgia and his dad’s alma mater, Notre Dame.
Montana says he isn’t deterred by Washington’s 0-12 record last season. He visited the campus last weekend with his parents.
Washington fans will get a chance to see Montana on Sept. 18 when Oaks Christian plays Seattle-area power Skyline at Qwest Field.
___
Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com

PARIS – From behind prison bars, the view never changes. From behind the handlebars of racing bikes, dozens of French inmates are seeing the vineyards of Provence, the sun-drenched Mediterranean coast and the majestic spires of the Alps in their own special Tour de France.
The convicts are cycling in the inaugural “Tour de France Penitentiaire” — an event whose goal is not just to physically challenge the prisoners, organizers say, but also to instill self-respect and pride that will help prepare their return to normal life.
There are differences, of course, from the real Tour de France: The prisoners’ two-week, 1,370-mile event, which began June 4, is not as grueling as the 2,100-mile, three-week Tour. Any “breakaways” or “escapes” from the pack are strictly forbidden. And the inmates’ guards are riding along with the convicts in the peloton, or pack, with a police escort among the support vehicles.
It’s not a competition, prison officials say, but rather an exercise in commitment, solidarity and grit.
“It’s a beautiful gift they’re giving me,” said Olivier, an inmate at a prison in Montmedy, near Luxembourg, who is scheduled for release in two months. He gave only his first name in accordance with French judicial regulations.
“It brings a close to my situation perfectly, spot-on,” he added. “It’s the icing on the cake.”
Officials chose the nearly 200 participating inmates from across France, prisoners with terms as short as two years and as long as 25. They are men and women, young and old, petty crooks and hardened criminals — including rapists and killers.
Most of the inmates have been training since January. The event’s 15 stages average about 90 miles, with some stretching to more than 135 miles.
Starts and finishes were selected for their proximity to penitentiaries, where the tour picks up or drops off inmates and prison personnel as it circles France. A core group of six prisoners and a dozen guards is riding the entire course, which finishes in Paris, like the real Tour — minus the champagne and fanfare.
Wardens, guards, judges and prisoners ride shoulder-to-shoulder, indistinguishable from one another in their matching white jerseys, helmets and cycling shorts.
The prison peloton has rolled through villages and hamlets to applause. Cheering crowds have massed each stage’s finish line. It helps, perhaps, that the riders are unidentifiable as members of the penal system, except for the word “Penitentiaire” across the backs of their jerseys.
As prisons have become more crowded in recent years, officials have increasingly turned their attention to the ways of returning inmates to society.
“It’s an absolute innovation to take the risk — but which is a calculated risk — of sending out so many prisoners at the same time and for so long, and to expose them in such a willful and even deliberate way to the eyes of French society,” said Francois Grosvalet, director of athletic programs for French prisons.
Andrew Coyle, a professor of prison studies at King’s College, London, who spent 25 years as an overseer in British penitentiaries, acknowledges that some people won’t understand a program that allows inmates on even a supervised outing such as this.
“Invariably, when any prison administration does these things, people will say, ‘Hang on, why is this happening? Aren’t they in there to be punished?’” Coyle said. “But if we’re serious about helping prisoners to re-enter and to reintegrate, then we need to find opportunities to give them positive experiences.”
French victims’ groups agree.
“At a certain moment, you have to consider these people, these individuals, these prisoners as people who might one day once again take up the path of society, of community life,” said Sabrina Bellucci, director of the French National Institute for Victims’ Aid and Mediation.
Prison officials decided on cycling “because in the history of French sporting events, the Tour de France is something that finds itself very near the summit,” Grosvalet said, speaking by phone from a support vehicle behind the riders.
British cyclist David Millar, who has won several stages of the Tour de France, said the sport was well-suited to help the inmates.
“I can’t think of a better way to strip down a person to their basic human nature,” Millar said.
He knows something about rehabilitation. He returned to racing in 2006 after serving a two-year doping suspension.
“I have had my own personal struggles,” he said, “and it was cycling that gave me the peace and tranquility I needed to rediscover myself, then the passion and drive to better myself.”
Cycling’s simple elegance has long enchanted the French, who lionize their champion riders.
“Actually, it looks a bit like the Tour de France that we know,” said Thierry Huguenin, sponsorship director for Francaise des Jeux, a French lottery group that helped finance the event.
The company also sponsors a professional cycling team, a perennial competitor in the better-known Tour; in the past months, the pro racers and coaches visited prisoners to offer advice.
Huguenin himself has been pedaling in the pack.
“The guards and the prisoners, who are usually archrivals, are teammates here,” he said, speaking by phone as he refilled his water bottles during a sunny, 116-mile stage from Valenciennes to Montmedy, in the north.
The Tour de France Penitentiaire comes at a difficult moment for the country’s penal system.
French prisons, long viewed as brutal institutions, have seen a rash of suicides by both inmates and employees recently. Correctional workers blame living and work conditions in the aging, increasingly overpopulated facilities — many dating from before World War I — and the Justice Ministry says the system is more than 10,000 detainees over capacity.
But the riders have temporarily put such concerns out of mind, focusing instead on the whir and click of spinning chains and shifting gears, on the open road unfurling before them.
“We’re not here to remind them what they’ve done,” Huguenin said. “We’re here to talk about the future.”
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AP Sports writer Chris Jenkins in Milwaukee contributed to this story.

As Gabon begins a month of mourning and condolences pour in for President Omar Bongo, the world’s longest serving President who died Monday aged 73 in his 42nd year in power, it’s worth remembering that Bongo was precisely the kind of leader Gabon, and Africa, could have done without. Gabon has a tiny population (1.4 million) and vast oil reserves, and after four decades exporting hundreds of billions of dollars of crude, the biggest testament to the corruption and ineptitude of Bongo’s rule is that he somehow contrived not to turn his country into an African Kuwait.
A third of all Gabonese still live on less than 2 a day and as the oil fields begin to dry up, Bongo’s subjects are facing up to the reality that he sacrificed the country’s future to fund his own fantastically opulent lifestyle. The government has made no effort to build alternative industries that might replace oil when it runs out. Yet at the time of his death from cancer in a clinic in Barcelona, Bongo was facing French allegations of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds. (See pictures of Africa.)
The investigation, carried out by a French magistrate responding to a lawsuit filed by the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, has established that the Bongo family owns at least 33 luxury properties worth a total of 190 million in France, including a Paris villa bought in 2007 for 26 million and a Paris mansion bought the same year for a further 25 million. That last pile was officially bought by Bongo’s two children, Omar Denis and Yacine Queenie, who were 13 and 16 at the time. The family, through Bongo, consistently denied corruption, although not that they owned the properties.
This is not the first time Bongo had been exposed. In 1999, an investigation by the American Senate into Citibank estimated the Gabonese president held 130 million in the bank’s personal accounts, money which the Senate report said was “sourced in the public finances of Gabon.” Earlier last decade, another French inquiry into the state-owned oil firm Elf-Aquitaine also named Bongo as the beneficiary of millions of dollars in slush funds. (See pictures of the global financial crisis.)
Bongo was far from the only post-colonial African head of state to take his country’s riches as a personal reward for the burdens of office. The French property portfolios of two others – Sassou Nguess of Congo Brazzaville and Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea – are also under investigation and the French have made inquiries into the assets of Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Blase Compaore of Burkina Faso. Like Bongo, all have denied any wrongdoing. But Bongo was one of the greediest and, coming to power at 31 just seven years after independence in 1967, also one of the first. As such, he set and maintained the catastrophically low standard for African leadership that would ensure a continent bursting with natural resources would remain the poorest and most war-ravaged place on earth for the past four decades.
The President’s disastrous legacy is only too apparent in Gabon’s two main cities, the capital Libreville and the economic center of Port Gentil. Dealerships selling Land Rovers and Hummers (to negotiate all those giant potholes) thrive, while hypermarkets sell 400 bottles of wine, and the city’s restaurants and bars serve more champagne per capita than Paris. But the riches enjoyed by a few have made Libreville and Port Gentil among the most expensive on earth. Despite its large size and seas teeming with fish, almost all food is imported from Europe, entrepreneurialism has all but evaporated and the majority of Gabonese survive on the margins in ramshackle slums. On a visit to the capital in 2007, I found a community of thousands living on a rubbish tip behind one hypermarket, feeding themselves on the food thrown out for being past its sell-by date. Bongo, meanwhile, could be seen overhead twice a day, flying the few kilometers from his presidential mansion to his office in the presidential helicopter, then back again in the evening. (Read “The Enrichment of Africa’s French Allies.”)
Bongo set the paradigm for Africa in other ways too. What money he did spend on Gabon went on white elephant prestige construction projects – a raft of new government buildings and a 2 billion transnational railway – which, when oil prices dipped, were funded by debt that spiraled out of control and threatened to bankrupt the country. And in politics, Bongo fixed elections for himself and bought off political opposition with money or power – despite its small size, Gabon has more than 40 cabinet ministers – or worse. Several opposition members were killed in the 1970s. In 1990, the mysterious death of opposition leader Joseph Redjambe sparked riots. And late last year, two journalists and three civil society leaders investigating Bongo’s finances were arrested. In February, the U.S. State Department classified the human rights record of Bongo’s Gabon “poor,” and listed such problems as “limited ability of citizens to change their government; use of excessive force, including torture … arbitrary arrest and detention … restrictions on freedom of speech, press, association, and movement … widespread government corruption.”
There is hope that Bongo’s death may help set a new pattern for Africa, opening the way for a new era of reform and shared prosperity. Across the continent, the old “Big Men” dinosaurs are dying off. Gone are Adi Amin of Uganda, Mobotu Sese Seko of Zaire, Hastings Banda of Malawi and Charles Taylor of Liberia. Those that remain are precariously long in the tooth: Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi has been in power for 39 years, while dos Santos of Angola and Obiang of Equatorial Guinera have ruled for 29 and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe for 28. Sadly, for Gabon, a fresh start is far from assured. In another move also widely imitated across Africa, Bongo tried to ensure that his family’s hold on power survived him. His daughter Pascaline was his chief of staff, his son Ali is defense minister. They have consistently denied all allegations of corruption. Both are believed to want to succeed their father.
Read: “Africa’s Oil Dreams.”
See pictures of the Pope in Africa.
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BROWNSVILLE, Texas – Nearly six months after the U.S.-Mexico border fence ordered by the Bush administration was supposed to be finished, its completion is in limbo while a judge waits answers to questions about private property in the fence’s path.
About 630 miles of the promised 670-mile-long vehicle and pedestrian barrier is complete, with the unfinished portion in deep south Texas where opposition is fierce and the government has struggled to get the land it needs.
The biggest unfinished segment is a 13-mile stretch that runs east of Brownsville through rich farmland toward the Gulf of Mexico.
While the government has taken steps to smooth the project’s path — such as paying to relocate 300 native palm trees from a section near Brownsville — some of its promises are coming under intense scrutiny.
Government possession of several pieces of farmland needed for that final stretch was suspended last month by the judge.
Government lawyers are now scrambling to meet the judge’s orders and provide written answers to landowners’ most basic questions: What precisely is the government taking, and how will property owners access the thousands of acres of land stranded between the border fence and the Rio Grande?
The answers to those questions could have implications for the dozens of cases scheduled for trial next year to determine how much the government will pay landowners.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen had, until recently, assumed — as did many landowners — that gates the government planned in the fence would always be there to provide access to property on the other side. The Rio Grande’s sharp curves and the border fence’s relatively straight path leave large swaths of farmland isolated between the river and the fence.
But lawyers for several landowners suggested that the government could someday close or remove the gates. The potential loss of access begged the question of whether the government should pay for not only the land under the fence but also the land stuck between the fence and river that would become worthless.
Hanen asked Justice Department lawyers to lay out the physical land they’re taking as well as access to other land.
“Because if I can’t get through it (the gate) or I can’t get to it without driving 10 miles down the road, I mean, you’ve taken the back 40,” Hanen said during a hearing last month. “If there’s not going to be a gate, then that changes the rules.”
In that case, Hanen said, every landowner would argue to a jury that the government was taking all of their land down to the riverbank.
“We felt absolutely compelled to raise these issues with the court and every landowner out there whose property is being taken by the government should do the same,” Kimberli Loessin, attorney for several property owners covered by the judge’s order, said in an e-mail Wednesday. “Otherwise, lawsuits move forward, fence gets built, and compensation gets determined without the government ever admitting to what it is really taking away from landowners.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Hu told Hanen last month that a delay could cost the government 10,000 to 15,000 per day because the construction contract was already awarded and crews were set to begin work. However, the government has itself now asked for an extension until June 19.