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CANBERRA, Australia – Scientists have confirmed for the first time that Australia was once home to a dinosaur that was big, fast and terrifying, and they’ve named it like something from an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Meet the Australovenator.
The beast was a 1,100 pound (500 kilogram) meat-eating predator with three slashing claws on each of its powerful forelimbs that stalked the Outback 98 million years ago, researchers said in a report published Friday.
Fossilized remnants of its limb bones, ribs, jaw and fangs were found — along with bones of two other new species of gigantic, long-necked herbivores weighing up to 22 tons (20 metric tons) — in Queensland state over the past three years.
The discovery, analyzed in a 51-page report published in the peer-reviewed online science journal PLoS ONE, was the first substantial find of large dinosaurs in Australia to be revealed in 28 years.
Paleontologists have described Australia as new frontier in vertebrate paleontology and an untapped resource in the world’s understanding of the dinosaur age because so few fossils have been found there. This is largely because the relatively flat continent has long been geologically stable. The movement of tectonic plates in other continents has forced layers of rock bearing fossils tens of millions of years old to the surface making them easier to find.
In the latest Queensland find, paleontologists bulldozed top soil more than three feet (a meter) deep to expose the sandy clay that held the fossils.
The finders nicknamed the 16-foot (5-meter) long carnivore, Australovenator wintonensis (pronounced oss-tra-low-VEN’-ah-tor win-TON’-en-sis), “Banjo,” after the poet A.B. “Banjo” Paterson who in 1885 penned Australia’s unofficial anthem “Waltzing Matilda” on a sheep ranch near Winton — a cattle town that lies closest to where the dinosaur bones were found. Banjo’s Latin name means “Winton’s Southern Hunter.”
“The cheetah of his time, Banjo was light and agile,” the report’s lead author, Scott Hocknull, a Queensland Museum paleontologist, said in a statement.
“He’s Australia’s answer to Velociraptor, but many times bigger and more terrifying,” Hocknull added, referring to the turkey-sized prehistoric predators recreated with artistic license in the “Jurassic Park” movies.
The other two finds — 52-foot- (16-meter-) long herbivores — were previously unknown types of titanosaur, the largest dinosaurs that ever lived. The giraffe-like Wintonotitan wattsi (pronounced win-ton-oh-TIE-tan wot-SIGH) and nicknamed Clancy translates from Latin as “Watts’ Winton Giant.” The Diamantinasaurus matildae (pronounced dye-man-TEEN’-ah-sor-us mah-TIL’-day) resembled a hippopotamus and has been nicknamed Matilda; the Latin name translates as “Matilda’s Diamantina River Lizard.”
All three lived in the mid-Cretaceous period which extended from 145 million years to 65 million years ago.
Matilda’s and Banjo’s bones were mingled; Hocknull suspects Matilda became stuck in river mud and that Banjo fell into the same fatal trap while moving in for the kill.
“The jewel in the crown for us is Banjo because it’s the most complete meat-eating dinosaur ever found in Australia,” Hocknull said.
“All of the carnivorous dinosaurs that we’ve had in the past were only known from a single bone or tooth,” he added.
John Long, a Museum Victoria paleontologist who was not connected with the find, said it was “very exciting stuff.”
Long said the last “truly big” dinosaur found in Australia was the partial skeleton of a 30-foot- (9-meter-) long herbivore named Muttaburrasaurus which was found near the Queensland town of Muttaburra in 1981.
Long said only single large dinosaur bones had been found since then.
“This is the first time we’ve got partially articulated skeletons,” Long said. “There is enough of the bones to reconstruct them quite confidently.”
“We know so little about the Australian dinosaur fauna that any major paper like this is a massive advance on our previous knowledge,” he said.
Hocknull said his team would continue unearthing more bones of the three dinosaurs as well as other sites in the Winton area, where fossil bones have been found scattered on the surface since the 1930s.
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On the Net:

http://www.plos.org

LOS ANGELES – Madonna is paying tribute to Michael Jackson in the same arena where he was to stage his great comeback.
The superstar is preparing a special part of her concert Saturday at O2 arena. Madonna publicist Liz Rosenberg says she is going to unveil a special choreographed dance in honor of Jackson.
Michael Jackson was to perform his comeback concerts at O2 starting July 13. He died last week at 50. He had been rehearsing for those shows in his final days.

WASHINGTON – The Founding Fathers left one legacy not celebrated on Independence Day but which affects us all. It’s the national debt.
The country first got into debt to help pay for the Revolutionary War. Growing ever since, the debt stands today at a staggering 11.5 trillion — equivalent to over 37,000 for each and every American. And it’s expanding by over 1 trillion a year.
The mountain of debt easily could become the next full-fledged economic crisis without firm action from Washington, economists of all stripes warn.
“Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently told Congress.
Higher taxes, or reduced federal benefits and services — or a combination of both — may be the inevitable consequences.
The debt is complicating efforts by President Barack Obama and Congress to cope with the worst recession in decades as stimulus and bailout spending combine with lower tax revenues to widen the gap.
Interest payments on the debt alone cost 452 billion last year — the largest federal spending category after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense. It’s quickly crowding out all other government spending. And the Treasury is finding it harder to find new lenders.
The United States went into the red the first time in 1790 when it assumed 75 million in the war debts of the Continental Congress.
Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, said, “A national debt, if not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.”
Some blessing.
Since then, the nation has only been free of debt once, in 1834-1835.
The national debt has expanded during times of war and usually contracted in times of peace, while staying on a generally upward trajectory. Over the past several decades, it has climbed sharply — except for a respite from 1998 to 2000, when there were annual budget surpluses, reflecting in large part what turned out to be an overheated economy.
The debt soared with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and economic stimulus spending under President George W. Bush and now Obama.
The odometer-style “debt clock” near Times Square — put in place in 1989 when the debt was a mere 2.7 trillion — ran out of numbers and had to be shut down when the debt surged past 10 trillion in 2008.
The clock has since been refurbished so higher numbers fit. There are several debt clocks on Web sites maintained by public interest groups that let you watch hundreds, thousands, millions zip by in a matter of seconds.
The debt gap is “something that keeps me awake at night,” Obama says.
He pledged to cut the budget “deficit” roughly in half by the end of his first term. But “deficit” just means the difference between government receipts and spending in a single budget year.
This year’s deficit is now estimated at about 1.85 trillion.
Deficits don’t reflect holdover indebtedness from previous years. Some spending items — such as emergency appropriations bills and receipts in the Social Security program — aren’t included, either, although they are part of the national debt.
The national debt is a broader, and more telling, way to look at the government’s balance sheets than glancing at deficits.
According to the Treasury Department, which updates the number “to the penny” every few days, the national debt was 11,518,472,742,288 on Wednesday.
The overall debt is now slightly over 80 percent of the annual output of the entire U.S. economy, as measured by the gross domestic product.
By historical standards, it’s not proportionately as high as during World War II, when it briefly rose to 120 percent of GDP. But it’s still a huge liability.
Also, the United States is not the only nation struggling under a huge national debt. Among major countries, Japan, Italy, India, France, Germany and Canada have comparable debts as percentages of their GDPs.
Where does the government borrow all this money from?
The debt is largely financed by the sale of Treasury bonds and bills. Even today, amid global economic turmoil, those still are seen as one of the world’s safest investments.
That’s one of the rare upsides of U.S. government borrowing.
Treasury securities are suitable for individual investors and popular with other countries, especially China, Japan and the Persian Gulf oil exporters, the three top foreign holders of U.S. debt.
But as the U.S. spends trillions to stabilize the recession-wracked economy, helping to force down the value of the dollar, the securities become less attractive as investments. Some major foreign lenders are already paring back on their purchases of U.S. bonds and other securities.
And if major holders of U.S. debt were to flee, it would send shock waves through the global economy — and sharply force up U.S. interest rates.
As time goes by, demographics suggest things will get worse before they get better, even after the recession ends, as more baby boomers retire and begin collecting Social Security and Medicare benefits.
While the president remains personally popular, polls show there is rising public concern over his handling of the economy and the government’s mushrooming debt — and what it might mean for future generations.
If things can’t be turned around, including establishing a more efficient health care system, “We are on an utterly unsustainable fiscal course,” said the White House budget director, Peter Orszag.
Some budget-restraint activists claim even the debt understates the nation’s true liabilities.
The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, established by a former commerce secretary and investment banker, argues that the 11.4 trillion debt figures does not take into account roughly 45 trillion in unlisted liabilities and unfunded retirement and health care commitments.
That would put the nation’s full obligations at 56 trillion, or roughly 184,000 per American, according to this calculation.
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On the Net:
Treasury Department “to the penny” national debt breakdown: http://tinyurl.com/yrxrsh
Peter G. Peterson Foundation independent assessment of the national debt: http://www.pgpf.org/
“Deficits do Matter” debt clock: http://tinyurl.com/l6mvjb

NEW YORK – In the fight of pachyderms vs. people — the pachyderms now have the upper trunk.
Three circus elephants scored a decisive victory over three human competitive eaters at a cross-species eating contest Friday, chomping down on 505 hot dog buns in six minutes. The humans forced down only 143 buns in the bout at Brooklyn’s Coney Island.
The elephants, Bunny, Susie and Minnie — all in their 40s — ate at what appeared to be a leisurely pace from behind a table piled high with buns. They even paused to eat some fresh fruit, which was not counted toward scoring.
Their human competitors were far more focused. Eric “Badlands” Booker, a New York City subway conductor who is the world champion in corned beef hash eating, took a double-fisted approach, dipping two buns at once into liquid to make them go down easier.
Juliet Lee, a petite 43-year-old who started the contest with her midriff exposed, pushed several buns into her stretched mouth simultaneously. Originally from China, Lee is the world cranberry sauce champion, a title she won by eating 13.23 pounds of the sauce in eight minutes.
Tim “Gravy” Brown, whose claim to fame is having eaten 8.47 pounds of blueberry pie in an eight-minute, handsfree competition, rounded out the team.
“We went all out, hungry and focused,” said Booker, who like the others was preparing for Saturday’s annual Fourth of July hot dog eating contest. Friday’s match was sponsored by Major League Eating and Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.
Contest organizers called the results a “setback for humanity,” but the two sides may not have been fairly matched. The humans weigh about 500 pounds collectively, while the Asian elephants weigh about 9 tons, the organizers said.

LONDON, England The number of Internet scammers offering fake anti-swine flu drug Tamiflu has surpassed those selling counterfeit Viagra, a UK body said Friday.
Anti swine-flu drug Tamiflu is now the most spammed drug on the Internet, experts say
Since the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, was declared a global pandemic last month, there has been an increase in the number of Web sites and junk emails offering Tamiflu for sale. More than 70,000 people have now been infected with the virus, according to the World Health Organization. The increase in the number of cases has, in turn, led to a surge in the number of cyber criminals seeking to cash in on the pandemic. David Pruce, Director of Policy for the UK’s Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) told CNN: “From looking at sites that used to sell Viagra and the amount of spam emails we’re having reported to us, we think that Tamiflu is now the most spammed drug on the Internet. “Since the outbreak, every Web site that used to sell Viagra is now selling Tamiflu. We are pretty sure that the same people are making the Tamiflu as are making the Viagra.” The RPS research suggests more than two million people regularly buy medicine over the Internet. However, the majority of those are from registered online pharmacies. Pruce cautioned against buying Tamiflu over the Internet, saying, “we know that half the Viagra on the Internet is fake and half the Tamiflu that’s around will probably be fake as well. “The fake drugs could have anything from sugar to another drug that’s similar, or often it’s a lower dose of the drug, or even rat poison.”
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His views were echoed by the UK government’s chief medical officer who warned the public against panic-buying anti-swine flu drugs online. Liam Donaldson said in an interview with breakfast program GMTV that Britain had a massive stockpile of Tamiflu and would be one of the first countries to have access to a vaccine, with the first supplies arriving at the end of next month. The warning comes as it emerged Friday that a 19-year-old man has become the first person to die in London after contracting swine flu. The teenager, who was suffering from other undisclosed serious health problems, tested positive for the virus following his death on Wednesday, according to a statement from the country’s National Health Service. He is the fourth person in the UK to die from the virus. Britain’s Health Secretary Andy Burnham Thursday issued a warning in the House of Commons that 40 Britons a day could die from the illness. He also said the government’s emergency response had moved from containing the swine flu outbreak into the “treatment phase.” The change in the government’s swine flu strategy came as the World Health Organization warned that the spread of swine flu was now “unstoppable,” with a total of 112 countries reporting nearly 77,201 infected people and 332 deaths since April. Dr Margaret Chan, the WHO director general, told an international conference on swine flu in Mexico: “With well over 100 countries reporting cases, once a fully fit pandemic virus emerges its further international spread is unstoppable.” She added that while most deaths had so far occurred in people with serious underlying medical conditions, there were a few exceptions that caused concern. “For reasons that are poorly understood, some deaths are occurring in perfectly healthy young people,” she said.
Source:CNN

LONDON, EnglandSix people were killed, including three children, when a fire broke out in a high-rise apartment building in south London on Friday afternoon, officials said.
A 3-week-old and a 7-year-old died in the blaze, London Metropolitan Police say.
The fire started on the fourth floor at 4:30 p.m. then rapidly spread to the 11th floor, eventually engulfing 12 floors and gutting apartments along the way, fire officials said. A 3-week-old, a 7-year-old and an unidentified woman were pronounced dead at a hospital, London Metropolitan Police said. Personnel declared three others dead at the scene: a 6-year-old, a woman in her 30s and an unidentified adult, police reported. Firefighters rescued 30 people, 13 of whom were taken to a hospital, many suffering from smoke inhalation, the London Fire Brigade said. London police, however, reported that only 12 people were hurt. One-hundred firefighters using 18 engines battled the blaze in the heavily populated Camberwell area of London, fire officials said. The high-density area is mostly residential, many with young children, reported CNN’s Phil Black in London. By 9 p.m., the blaze was under control but not extinguished, firefighters said. Meanwhile, firefighters were searching the building for anyone who might be trapped. Firefighters have yet to begin an investigation into the cause of the fire, but it does not appear suspicious, according to the fire brigade.
Source:CNN

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) –
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate in 2008, said on Friday she will resign this month, an unexpected move that could signal a run for higher office.
Palin took no questions after a brief news conference in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, members of her state Cabinet by her side. She gave no indication of her future plans.
“I'm not seeking re-election” in 2010, Palin said, adding she would transfer authority to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell on July 26.
Palin, Arizona Sen. John McCain's surprise pick as his running-mate in the 2008 presidential race, rallied the party's conservative base but alienated others who believed she did not have the experience to be vice president.
She has been mentioned as one of the top three Republicans who could vie for the party's presidential nomination in 2012. Those mentioned most often include Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
“We are not retreating, we are advancing in a different direction,” Palin said. “We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time.”
Palin, 45, said her decision came after much “prayer and consideration.” She said she did not want to waste time on “political blood sport” and cited public criticism of her actions and her family since the 2008 campaign.
“You are naive if you don't see a full-court press right now on the national level picking apart a good point guard,” Palin said, using a basketball analogy.
Palin complained during the unsuccessful 2008 campaign about having her comments “filtered” by the mainstream media.
WHAT LIES AHEAD
But the announcement at the beginning of a three-day holiday weekend, with little Washington news expected, could give her wide access to the airwaves and make for a strong start at gaining public attention.
Republican strategist Sophia Nelson said on Huffington Post that Palin vowing to work for change “from outside government” was “code for 'I'm running for president.'”
Other analysts wondered if it was a smart political move.
Andrew Halcro, a Republican who ran against Palin in 2006, said he did not think resigning would help her chances.
“If she was trying to transition to the national stage, there was a much better way to do it,” he said.
Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer said Palin's future in public life depends on the reason she stepped down.
“If there is any evidence that the decision was a result of political problems or looming scandals, she is done,” he said.
“The Republican Party already feels to be in a moment of crisis,” after losing the presidency and control of Congress to the Democrats. He noted that in 2008 “she revealed many weaknesses … limited policy knowledge, association with fringe groups, weak performances on television and more.”
Palin faced criticism and ridicule from Republicans and Democrats alike after several embarrassing television interviews that raised questions about her knowledge and experience.
During the campaign, the mother of five revealed her unmarried 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant but planned to marry the baby's father. The couple split in March.
Palin was cleared in November of wrongdoing in an abuse-of-power investigation into the firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner.
In May, Palin signed a book deal to tell her own story, for an undisclosed sum, with News Corp's HarperCollins.
Palin established herself as a party outsider by promoting a natural gas pipeline project opposed by Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski. She ran against the governor in 2006, defeated him in the primary and then won the general election.
The project to ship abundant North Slope gas reserves to U.S. markets has been dimmed by the current recession and a recent sharp dip in natural gas prices.
“I think it's good news for both the governor and for Alaska,” said Gerald McBeath, a political science professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Her immediate future is not in elected office, but as a media personality, he said. “And media personalities often end up in high political office.”
(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York, Robert Campbell in Mexico, Andrea Shalal-Esa, Chris Wilson, Jeff Mason in Washington; writing by Doina Chiacu, editing by Jackie Frank and Todd Eastham)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) –
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican Party's vice presidential candidate in 2008, said on Friday she will resign this month, an unexpected move that could signal a run for higher office.
Palin took no questions after a brief news conference in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, members of her state Cabinet by her side. She gave no indication of her future plans.
“I'm not seeking re-election” in 2010, Palin said, adding she would transfer authority to Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell on July 26.
Palin, Arizona Sen. John McCain's surprise pick as his running-mate in the 2008 presidential race, rallied the party's conservative base but alienated others who believed she did not have the experience to be vice president.
She has been mentioned as one of the top three Republicans who could vie for the party's presidential nomination in 2012. Those mentioned most often include Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.
“We are not retreating, we are advancing in a different direction,” Palin said. “We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time.”
Palin, 45, said her decision came after much “prayer and consideration.” She said she did not want to waste time on “political blood sport” and cited public criticism of her actions and her family since the 2008 campaign.
“You are naive if you don't see a full-court press right now on the national level picking apart a good point guard,” Palin said, using a basketball analogy.
Palin complained during the unsuccessful 2008 campaign about having her comments “filtered” by the mainstream media.
WHAT LIES AHEAD
But the announcement at the beginning of a three-day holiday weekend, with little Washington news expected, could give her wide access to the airwaves and make for a strong start at gaining public attention.
Republican strategist Sophia Nelson said on Huffington Post that Palin vowing to work for change “from outside government” was “code for 'I'm running for president.'”
Other analysts wondered if it was a smart political move.
Andrew Halcro, a Republican who ran against Palin in 2006, said he did not think resigning would help her chances.
“If she was trying to transition to the national stage, there was a much better way to do it,” he said.
Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer said Palin's future in public life depends on the reason she stepped down.
“If there is any evidence that the decision was a result of political problems or looming scandals, she is done,” he said.
“The Republican Party already feels to be in a moment of crisis,” after losing the presidency and control of Congress to the Democrats. He noted that in 2008 “she revealed many weaknesses … limited policy knowledge, association with fringe groups, weak performances on television and more.”
Palin faced criticism and ridicule from Republicans and Democrats alike after several embarrassing television interviews that raised questions about her knowledge and experience.
During the campaign, the mother of five revealed her unmarried 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant but planned to marry the baby's father. The couple split in March.
Palin was cleared in November of wrongdoing in an abuse-of-power investigation into the firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner.
In May, Palin signed a book deal to tell her own story, for an undisclosed sum, with News Corp's HarperCollins.
Palin established herself as a party outsider by promoting a natural gas pipeline project opposed by Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski. She ran against the governor in 2006, defeated him in the primary and then won the general election.
The project to ship abundant North Slope gas reserves to U.S. markets has been dimmed by the current recession and a recent sharp dip in natural gas prices.
“I think it's good news for both the governor and for Alaska,” said Gerald McBeath, a political science professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
Her immediate future is not in elected office, but as a media personality, he said. “And media personalities often end up in high political office.”
(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York, Robert Campbell in Mexico, Andrea Shalal-Esa, Chris Wilson, Jeff Mason in Washington; writing by Doina Chiacu, editing by Jackie Frank and Todd Eastham)

Russia ‘agrees US troop transit’
A senior Obama administration official has told the BBC that Russia has agreed to let US troops bound for the war in Afghanistan fly through its airspace.The deal, which opens up an important new corridor for the US military, is to be officially announced when President Barack Obama visits Moscow next week. Speaking separately, a Kremlin official confirmed a deal was on the table but suggested it referred to weapons only. The reported agreement marks a major development in US-Russian relations.
Until now Russia has restricted use of its territory for the Afghan conflict, only allowing the US to transport non-lethal supplies to Afghanistan by train, the BBC’s Jon Donnison reports from Washington. The Obama official who spoke to the BBC said that, under the new agreement, US military planes carrying weapons as well as troops would be allowed to make thousands of flights a year through Russian airspace. In recent years, Moscow and Washington have not seen eye to eye, with disagreements over Nato expansion into Eastern Europe, Russia’s conflict with Georgia and America’s plans for a missile defence shield. This new co-operation over the Afghan war could pave the way for an improvement in diplomatic relations, our correspondent says. ‘No troop request’Mr Obama is due to visit Moscow between 6 and 8 July when he and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, are due to discuss reducing each other’s nuclear stockpile, as well as Iran and North Korea. Sergei Prikhodko, Mr Medvedev’s top foreign policy adviser, said on Friday that the two presidents planned to sign a “joint agreement on military transit to Afghanistan”. Transit would be by both land and air but mostly by air, he said. He added that it was unclear if US soldiers or other personnel would be permitted to travel through Russian territory or airspace. “They haven’t asked us for it,” he told reporters at the Kremlin. The Kremlin adviser added: “Today we sense a desire of our American partners to combine wide co-operation… with a readiness to breathe new life into bilateral trade and economic cooperation.” America’s normal supply route to Afghanistan via Pakistan has come under repeated militant attack, and the US and Nato are keen to find alternative supply routes through Russia and the Central Asian states. The US has about 56,000 troops in Afghanistan while its Nato partners have some 32,000 deployed. Russia’s powerful Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has urged the US to move relations forward by shelving plans for a missile defence shield in Europe. He also fended off a call by Mr Obama this week for Russia to end “old Cold War approaches” to relations. Replying to the US leader’s suggestion that he, Mr Putin, had one foot in the past, he said: “We [Russians] don’t stand bowlegged. We stand solidly on our own two feet and always look to the future”.

Source:BBC

UN chief to hold more Burma talks
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is set to hold a second meeting with Burma’s top military leaders.Mr Ban has asked to meet jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and says he is awaiting a reply while he remains in the country. In his first meeting with General Than Shwe, Mr Ban asked for the release of all Burma’s political prisoners. Ms Suu Kyi’s trial on charges of breaking the terms of her house arrest was postponed again on Friday. A BBC correspondent says these delays suggest Burma’s military rulers may be having second thoughts about the trial. Two-hour meetingMr Ban’s two-hour meeting with Gen Than Shwe took place in the remote administrative capital Nay Pyi Taw on Friday.
“I told him [Gen Than Shwe] that I wanted to meet her [Aung San Suu Kyi], but he told me that she is on trial,” Mr Ban later told reporters. “I told him that this is my proposal, and this is important, and I am waiting for their reply.” Mr Ban said he had been assured that elections planned for 2010 would be “held in a fair, free and transparent manner”. The UN chief’s second meeting with the Burmese leader is scheduled for Saturday morning and later he is due to make a speech outlining his vision for Burma. If Mr Ban is allowed to meet Ms Suu Kyi, he would be the first UN secretary general to do so. Ms Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, has spent much of the past two decades in prison or under house arrest. She was transferred from house arrest to prison in May after an American man swam to her lakeside house. She faces up to five years in jail if convicted. Next year’s elections are part of the military government’s “roadmap to democracy,” but critics say they will be a sham designed to strengthen the generals’ four-decade grip on power. Opposition activists say Ms Suu Kyi’s trial is designed to keep her out of the way until after the elections.

Source:BBC

Fears grow for Iranian detainees
By Sarah Rainsford
BBC News
First the mass protests were suppressed by force, then came the mass arrests.Three weeks after Iran’s disputed presidential election, scores – possibly hundreds – of opposition supporters and prominent reformists remain in prison. Their families have had little or no information about their fate. Most are too worried to speak to the press now. They describe a climate of terror in Tehran. But I met one woman at her university here in England who wanted to tell me what had happened to her husband. She only asked me not to use their real names.
Ali, as I will call him, is an opposition activist who worked for the presidential candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, at the elections. He was arrested in Tehran two weeks ago, and disappeared. “It was just a terrible moment. I could not stop crying,” Zahra told me. “I just thought, why should he be in jail? What was wrong with what we did in Tehran? It was the basic right of all Iranians to take part in the election and we did the same.” Solitary confinementFor nine days, Zahra had no idea where he had been taken. Then he was able to make a brief call to his brother, saying only that he was in prison, in solitary confinement. He has been denied access to a lawyer and to his family. Zahra has no way of knowing how he is being treated. “They don’t let my husband call me. They don’t let me know what his future will be. This is torture,” Zahra said, her eyes defiantly lined in green, the colour of Iran’s reformist opposition. But her main concern is that Ali – and the other detainees – are being pressured into signing false confessions which could have serious consequences.
Last week, state TV broadcast what it said were the confessions of demonstrators. Their faces obscured, men and women claimed that the protests last month were part of a violent, Western-backed plot to topple Iran’s government. A senior cleric has now announced that other detainees, staff at the British Embassy in Iran, have admitted they were planning a “Velvet Revolution”. “Many of the detainees, especially the higher-ranking leaders of the opposition, are coming under a great deal of pressure to make false confessions which we fear may be used in show trials in the future,” says Tom Porteous, London director of Human Rights Watch. “There are very long interrogation sessions. We have heard that detainees are being beaten up. There are real grounds for concern about their treatment.” He calls the scale of the clampdown unprecedented. There is particular concern about the health of one detainee, Saeed Hajjarian, who has been severely disabled since an attempt on his life in 2000. Iran’s chief of police announced this week that just over 1,000 people were arrested in total during the post-election unrest, but said that “most” had been released.
There are no official statistics, and reports from Iran say the arrests continue. Some people, like the wife of another Iranian I spoke to here in the UK, were set free after several degrading days in custody. The man asked me not to use their names. His wife was arrested along with several friends at a silent street protest in Tehran to demand a re-run of the controversial election. Now in London, she has told her husband what happened. “They had nine to 12 people in the same cell for five days. There was no proper light, no bathroom, no proper food. “The entire thing has been humiliation: intimidating and terrifying them so when they come out they will not take part in any demonstrations,” he told me, describing his wife as still traumatised by her experience.
It is thought that scores of Mousavi supporters remain in jail
“She told me they gave them papers to sign and they had to give a commitment they would not go to more demos. They asked everyone, who did you vote for? “They were creating terror in the hearts of anyone who voted for Mousavi,” the man said. He is convinced the more prominent detainees – still in prison – will be dealt with far more harshly than his wife. “They won’t be released soon. Something very bad has happened, the authorities didn’t expect this. And now they’re taking revenge on these people. They are going to be tough,” he said. That is what Zahra is afraid of. The prosecutor in charge of investigating the unrest is a known hardliner; last week, a senior cleric called for leading protesters accused of violent protest to face the death penalty. “I hope they don’t accuse people of very serious accusations and then execute them. But in such a situation anything is possible. They will do anything to keep power,” Zahra told me. “The only way we have at this point is just to wait. And this wait is unbearable.”

Source:BBC

ATLANTA – Colin Daymude was out of work last year after his business failed and eagerly filed his taxes in mid-January, figuring he’d get his refund sooner. He was wrong.
It took the 44-year-old entrepreneur more than six months to get his 1,300 check — money that he needed to pay living expenses while he worked a few side gigs.
Tax day — April 15 — has long since come and gone, but sharp budget cuts and falling revenues have forced many states to delay income tax returns for months — and left taxpayers longing for their money.
“I’m just trying to get my money back,” said a frustrated Daymude. “It’s my money anyways.”
Some states say plummeting tax collections drove them to hold on to the money so they can make ends meet. Others complain of not being able to keep up because the economic downturn has forced staffing cuts in revenue departments.
But critics worry governments are withholding funds that rightly belong to taxpayers when they need the extra cash the most. And some of the tardy states are fast approaching a stiff deadline of their own: The longer they wait, the more likely they’ll have to pony up interest from thinning state coffers.
That prospect could soon become a reality in Georgia and Alabama, where tax officials are racing to beat a mid-July deadline to send hundreds of thousands of tax refunds or risk racking up millions of dollars in interest.
“I know some of the taxpayers are wondering if the state is going to pay the refund,” said Carla Snellgrove of the Department of Revenue in Alabama, where more than 120,000 taxpayers are waiting for at least 63 million in income tax refunds.
“You talk with them and assure them they’ll get the refund, it’s just much slower this year,” she said. “And if we don’t meet the July 15 deadline, then the state will pay interest — that provides them some assurance.”
In Georgia, tax officials say that more than 320,000 returns still need to be processed. If they are not completed by July 16, the state may have to dish out 1 percent interest for each month it is late.
State tax officials say it’s not an issue of money, but an issue of staffing. Georgia Revenue Commissioner Bart Graham said the department had to cut about 280 jobs since October, including more than 150 processors who helped file refunds.
The funding problems have become familiar in cash-squeezed states.
California, which faces a deficit that could top 24.3 billion, may have to issue about 3 billion worth of promissory notes this month to state contractors, college students and taxpayers owed refunds unless there is a budget-balancing agreement.
Smaller states have also had trouble. Freda Warfield of the Kansas Department of Revenue said tax officials are hoping to send out 31 million in refunds by next week — but she knows residents are getting anxious. The returns average 500 a person.
“The revenue receipts have just been down,” she said. “There’s not enough coming in to issue all of our refunds. Tough decisions needed to be made, and one of the things that we could do is to hold our refunds.”
It quickly became a touchy subject there, where thousands of people still haven’t gotten refunds. Republican state Sen. Jeff Colyer said he raised the alarm that the state may not be able to make the payments back in August.
“It’s unfair to taxpayers,” said Colyer, a surgeon from Overland Park. “It’s creating a cash-flow concern for these people. They rely on tax refunds for a big purchase, or to make a house payment. People have already budgeted how that money will be spent.”
Other states have had to be a bit more inventive.
Missouri, which delayed issuing income tax refunds earlier this year, ultimately used 250 million of federal economic stimulus money to pay hundreds of thousands of refunds.
And Maryland, which still has about 3,000 filings left, dipped into a 366 million reserve account that many lawmakers didn’t even know existed. Legislators hope to pay it back in 10 years.
Meanwhile, analysts say the delays essentially rob the poor of what had become an extra paycheck.
“Low-income families rely on that money getting reimbursed to them in the spring,” said Mike Herald, a lobbyist for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group for the poor. “They pay bills with that money, they buy furniture — a lot of people rely on that income.”

Del Boy returns to TV as teenager
Only Fools and Horses wide-boy Derek Trotter is returning to BBC One in a comedy drama about his teenage years.Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Chips, set in 1960 and written by Only Fools scribe John Sullivan, will also focus on Del’s “tarty” mother, Joan, and father, Reg. Sullivan said it would give viewers an insight “into why Del and Rodney turned out they way they did”. Filming for the one-off 90-minute show, which will be shown next year, will start on location in London in August. The Trotter brothers, Del – played by David Jason – and Rodney – played by Nicholas Lyndhurst – first hit television screens in 1981. Dodgy Del Boy, whose catchphrases including “you plonker!” and “lovely jubbly”, is one of the UK’s best loved TV characters – with Only Fools and Horse consistently topping the polls for best comedy programmes. ‘Ruffled feathers’Sullivan said the new show would be “set in the real 60s, before The Beatles and Mary Quant made London the coolest place on the planet”.
“The drama will feature South London at its least glamorous, where money was scarce, the staple diet was rock salmon and chips, and the flicks offer the only hint of glamour,” he said. The BBC said that, while the Trotter family had not yet moved into their flat in Nelson Mandela House, other familiar settings, including the Nag’s Head, would appear. The plot will revolve around the release of safe cracker Freddie Rodbal from prison after serving a 10-year sentence which will “ruffle some feathers in the Trotter household”. A teenage Trigger will also appear in the show, as well as Boycie and Denzel. BBC head of comedy Mark Freeland said the prospect of “once upon a time in Peckham” was “incredibly tantalising”. “Nearly 30 years since Only Fools And Horses hit our screens, now we’ll have the chance to see the vivid, bittersweet drama that underpinned the iconic series,” he said. Meanwhile, the BBC has also announced that the classic children’s book Just William is to be made into a Sunday afternoon TV series. Just William will be adapted by Men Behaving Badly writer Simon Nye for BBC One.

Source:BBC

LOS ANGELES – A Missouri mother said she never should have been prosecuted for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old girl who ended up committing suicide.
A federal judge said Thursday that he has tentatively thrown out Lori Drew’s convictions, acquitting her of misdemeanor counts of accessing computers without authorization. U.S. District Judge George Wu stressed the ruling was tentative until he issues it in writing.
Drew showed no reaction to the decision in the courtroom. In a statement read on NBC’s “Today” show Friday, said she agreed with it and felt she never should have been prosecuted.
“In my view, it was proper that this case was dismissed, primarily because I simply did not do what the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles accused me of doing,” Drew said.
Drew was convicted in November, but the judge said that if she is to be found guilty of illegally accessing computers, anyone who has ever violated the social networking site’s terms of service would be guilty of a misdemeanor. That would be unconstitutional, he said.
“You could prosecute pretty much anyone who violated terms of service,” he said.
Prosecutors had sought the maximum three-year prison sentence and a 300,000 fine, but it had been uncertain going into Thursday’s hearing whether Drew would be sentenced.
Wu had given a lengthy review to a defense request for dismissal, delaying sentencing from May to go over testimony from two prosecution witnesses.
Wu said he allowed the case to proceed to trial when Drew was charged with a felony, but she was convicted only of the misdemeanor and that presented constitutional problems.
Defense attorney Dean Steward said outside court that Los Angeles federal prosecutors should not have brought the charges in a case that originated in Missouri and was rejected by prosecutors there.
“Shame on the U.S. attorney for bringing this case. The St. Louis prosecutors had it right,” Steward said. “The cynic in me says that (U.S. Attorney) Tom O’Brien wanted to make a name for himself or to keep his job.”
O’Brien told a press conference that after prosecutors see the written ruling they will consider options, including an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“I’m proud of this case,” he said. “This is a case that called out for someone to do something. It was a risk. But this office will always take risks on behalf of children.”
Steward said the ruling should mark the end of Drew’s criminal case.
“It’s not the end of the road, it’s the end of the chapter on the criminal side, which is pretty clearly the end,” he said.
The parents of Megan Meier, the teenager who killed herself, were in court for the ruling. Later, her mother, Tina Meier, said that in spite of the disappointment, she felt that justice was done because “we got the word out.”
Tina Meier said she is devoting her life to educating parents and teachers about potential threats to their children lurking in the Internet.
Much attention has been paid to Drew’s case, primarily because it was the nation’s first cyberbullying trial. The trial was held in Los Angeles because the servers of the social networking site are in the area.
Prosecutors say Drew sought to humiliate Megan by helping create a fictitious teen boy on the social networking site and sending flirtatious messages to the girl in his name. The fake boy then dumped Megan in a message saying the world would be better without her.
She hanged herself a short time later in October 2006 in the St. Louis suburb of Dardenne Prairie, Mo.
Drew was not directly charged with causing Megan’s death. Instead, prosecutors indicted her under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which in the past has been used in hacking and trademark theft cases.
Wu acknowledged in May he was concerned that sending Drew to prison for violating a Web site’s service terms might set a dangerous precedent. Wu at the time noted that millions of people either don’t read service terms, as happened in Drew’s case.
During the trial, prosecutors argued that Drew violated MySpace service rules by setting up the phony profile for a boy named “Josh Evans” with the help of her then-13-year-old daughter Sarah and business assistant Ashley Grills. They posted a photo of a bare-chested boy with tousled brown hair.
“Josh” then told Megan she was “sexi” and assured her, “i love you so much.”
Prosecutors believe Drew and her daughter, who was friends with Megan, created the profile to find out if Megan was spreading rumors about Sarah. Grills testified she received a message from Megan in mid-2006, calling Drew’s daughter a lesbian.
Grills, who testified under a promise of immunity, allegedly sent the final, insulting message to Megan before she killed herself. Prosecutors said Megan sent a response saying, “‘You are the kind of boy a girl would kill herself over.’”
Jurors decided Drew was not guilty of the more serious felonies of intentionally causing emotional harm while accessing computers without authorization. The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on a felony conspiracy charge. The judge dismissed it Thursday at the request of prosecutors.

CIUDAD JUAREZ (AFP) –
At least four men have been found decapitated and 12 others murdered in suspected drug violence in the last 24 hours, Mexican officials said.
Three decapitated bodies were found in Mexico state, which surrounds the capital, and a fourth was discovered in southern Guerrero state, police and government sources said.
Two of the grisly findings, which come three days before Mexicans vote in legislative elections, were made near Teotihuacan, home to some of Mexico's most famous pre-Hispanic pyramids.
“Two decapitated males, whose identities are still unknown (were found) by the side of the road,” an official from the attorney general's office told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Another decapitated body was found in Tecamac and a head was found in Naucalpan, both in Mexico State.
It is unclear whether the head belongs to any of the bodies discovered on Thursday.
Another decapitated head found in Guerrero was that of a 33-year-old man, and was found in a “black plastic bag,” a government prosecutor said.
Decapitation is frequently used by Mexico's bloody drug cartels as a way of settling scores.
The drug gangs are engaged in a brutal turf war for control of drug routes to the United States that has killed an estimated 7,700 people since the beginning of 2008.
Once epicenter of the violence has been the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, a stone's throw from El Paso, Texas.
Around 1,650 people were killed in drug-related violence in Ciudad Juarez last year. At least eight more were killed on Wednesday night, authorities said.
The city of 1.3 million people is now home to 8,500 troops who have been deployed by the government of Felipe Calderon, who has bet his presidency on a muscular campaign to clamp down on the cartels.
That gamble will be put to the test on Sunday in mid-term elections, when voters will choose who will occupy 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and scores of governorships and mayoralties around the country.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The Americas’ top international diplomat flew to Honduras on Friday to give the coup-backed government a firm ultimatum: Restore the president within 24 hours or face crippling sanctions.
The head of the interim government rallied thousands of supporters in front of the national palace and pledged to stand firm in the face of the international pressure.
“I am the president of all Hondurans,” Roberto Micheletti proclaimed.
Jose Miguel Insulza, who heads the Organization of American States, was meeting with leaders of Honduras’ Supreme Court and Congress — institutions that approved Sunday’s coup — “basically to clarify exactly what our position is.”
That position is that President Manuel Zelaya must be restored to power unconditionally, or Honduras will be suspended from the OAS on Saturday. He admitted his mission was unlikely to succeed: “It will be very hard to turn things around in a couple of days,” he said before setting out.
“We are not going to Honduras to negotiate. We are going to Honduras to ask them to change what they have been doing,” he said.
Micheletti displayed little intention of ceding to the OAS’ demands. He led a raucous chant of “Democracy!” before a giant crowd waving blue-and-white Honduran flags in front of the palace that Micheletti has occupied since Zelaya was seized by soldiers and flown into exile.
“They said we were afraid, but here is the proof that the people are not afraid,” Micheletti screamed. “We are asking Hondurans to communicate with their relatives throughout the world to tell them that no coup took place here.”
A rival rally by thousands of Zelaya backers marched to the offices of the OAS. Marchers carried a banner with a picture of Zelaya and the words: “Mel our friend, the people are with you!” Labor and farm leaders who back Zelaya said they would meet with Insulza on Friday afternoon.
Despite feared violence, the two groups did not clash. Police helicopters circled overhead and dozens of soldiers and police guarded the palace.
Micheletti’s foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, who was designated to meet with visiting OAS officials, said Friday that Insulza “can negotiate all he wants, except for Zelaya’s situation.”
“That is not negotiable because he cannot return to Honduras, and if he does he will be arrested and tried,” Ortez said.
Insulza said he would not meet with members of Micheletti’s government to avoid legitimizing it.
Micheletti’s supporters say the army was justified in ousting Zelaya — on orders of Congress and the Supreme Court — because he had called a referendum which they claim he intended to use to extend his rule. Zelaya denies that and has said he will no longer press for constitutional changes.
Micheletti, who faces almost complete international isolation over his refusal to restore Zelaya, instead offered to move up presidential elections, scheduled for Nov. 29.
Nations around the world have promised to shun Micheletti, who was sworn in after the coup, and the nation already is suffering economic reprisals.
Neighboring countries have imposed trade blockades, major lenders have cut aid, the Obama administration has halted joint military operations and all European Union ambassadors have abandoned the Honduran capital.
Micheletti’s government is so eager to find a friend that it announced it had been recognized by Israel and Italy — surprising the governments of those countries. Italy withdrew its ambassador to protest the coup, and Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said: “All rumors about Israeli recognition of the new president are wholly unfounded.”
And contrary to Micheletti’s assertion, Interpol on Friday released a statement saying it had not received any request to issue an arrest warrant for Zelaya.
Zelaya was in El Salvador on Friday for a meeting with President Mauricio Funes, then flew to an unidentified country. He has said he will return home over the weekend, and Micheletti has vowed to arrest him if he does.
Funes said Zelaya has sworn off any idea of re-election and is willing to drop plans to rewrite the constitution that led to his ouster.
Micheletti asked Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu to help mediate the conflict, and she arrived in Tegucigalpa on Friday.
“I come to try to talk with anyone who wants to listen to search for peace for this country,” she said.
The OAS says it will suspend Honduras if Zelaya isn’t back in office by Saturday. That move could encourage other organizations and countries to suspend international aid and loans to one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere.
Ousted Honduran Finance Minister Rebeca Santos on Friday told international finance ministers in Chile that the coup has already hurt the economy. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank have suspended between 300 million and 450 million in financing.
___
Associated Press writers contributing to this report included Freddy Cuevas in Tegucigalpa; Bert Wilkinson in Georgetown, Guyana; Juan Zamorano in Panama City; Angela Charlton in Paris and Mark Lavie in Jerusalem.

Jackson custody case: the legal issues
Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe is reportedly considering whether to fight for custody of the couple’s two children.The BBC News website asked Professor Scott Altman, an expert in family law from the University of Southern California, to explain the legal issues surrounding the custody battle.
Who will win custody of Michael Jackson’s three children? Many variables seem like they could affect the outcome. Jackson’s will names his mother as guardian (or in her absence, Diana Ross). His ex-wife Debbie Rowe tried to disclaim her status as a legal parent, and then returned to court and had the termination of her rights overturned. And Jackson’s youngest child seems to have no legal mother, having been born to an as-yet-unknown surrogate. Genetic test?Bizarre and complex as these facts seem, most of the legal issues raised have been long settled in California (where admittedly bizarre and complex family disputes are more common than elsewhere). In California, children born to a married couple are strongly presumed to be the spouses’ legal children. In this case, no one will be able to dispute Jackson’s or Ms Rowe’s status as parent to the older children. Nor will Ms Rowe’s early effort to terminate her parental right be final, because parents cannot terminate their own rights without a judicial investigation. Likewise, Jackson’s will should not affect child custody.
Although parents regularly indicate in a will who should be named guardian in case of their death, these designations typically become effective only upon the death of both parents. One parent’s will cannot unilaterally deprive the other parent of custody. So how will the court decide? California law presumes that minor children belong in the custody of a legal parent – in this case Ms Rowe. The law also allows judges to override this presumption if parental custody would be detrimental to the children. So a court will need to see evidence. If, as has been widely speculated, Ms Rowe has rarely visited her children over many years and has almost no relationship with them, a court could easily deny her custody. But if the children know her as a mother and have seen her frequently, she will almost certainly win. This leaves the question of the youngest child. Ms Rowe has no claim to be his legal mother. She did not give birth to him, and was not married to Jackson when the child was born. Certainly a court might award Ms Rowe custody of all three children – most courts favour keeping siblings together.

Source:BBC

JUNEAU, Alaska – The National Society of Newspaper Columnists chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the winner of its annual Sitting Duck Award, a tongue-in-cheek honor that pokes fun at the most ridiculed newsmakers in the United States.
Palin beat out Democrat Rod Blagojevich, the ousted former governor of Illinois allegedly caught trying to sell President Barack Obama’s Senate seat.
Blagojevich was the runner-up. Palin was noted for making headline after headline, month after month.
The selection was made last week at a conference in Ventura, Calif.
There’s no physical award to go with the Sitting Duck title.

CLEVELAND (Billboard) –
Alice in Chains singer-guitarist Jerry Cantrell and drummer Sean Kinney say the band's new album, their first in nearly 14 years, doesn't stray too far from the Seattle band's influential catalog.
“Black Gives Way to Blue,” due out September 29 on Virgin/EMI,is also the group's first effort with new singer-guitarist William DuVall.
“It's nice to sound like yourself,” Kinney says with a laugh. “It's not really that hard, actually. I know people are blown away that we really sound like ourselves, and I understand the apprehension, but it's not really that big a stretch to sound the way that you sound.”
Adds Cantrell, “We were just hoping to make the best record we possibly could, and we did that. Sean and I talk a lot about (how) when you do a record, you've been working on it a long time and you're pretty sick of it by the time somebody else hears it. You're already thinking of the next thing. And we're still listening to this. It's still like really exciting to listen to, and that's really good.”
The group has booked a brief European run in August with a monthlong Stateside tour in September. Cantrell hints that more legs are due to follow.
“We're not going to stop touring when the record comes out,” Cantrell tells Billboard.com. “That would be like an old pattern we're trying not to do again.”
The album's lead single hasn't been announced, but new track “A Looking in View” is streaming on aliceinchains.com. Other new songs include “Your Decision” and “Check My Brain.” Kinney says the 11-track album continues in the Alice in Chains tradition of tackling different styles and sounds, from the hard rock nature of “Dirt” to the acoustic-minded “Jar of Flies.”
As for the recording of a new album, the band's first since its 1995 self-titled effort and the 2002 death of original singer Layne Staley from a heroin/cocaine overdose, nothing was certain when the band members reunited in 2006.
“It's been a really slow process,” Kinney says. “As long as it felt genuine and it came from the right place, and we all were cool with it, then we'd take another little step. Two years ago we really weren't talking about doing a record. We were on tour and we've been playing and jelling together, and Will (DuVall) was getting incorporated into how things are going down. But we always had a jam space backstage where riffs and stuff started happening.”
Both Alice in Chains members said the spirit of Staley remains with the band.
“He's always a part of my everyday life,” Kinney says. “There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of him. And there's a lot to address, with all of that stuff coming to the forefront. A lot has happened since 1995, a lot has happened in our lives and we've never talked about it or discussed it publicly. So some of that is what's addressed here. That's the way we operate, it's about what really happened in life. We're not really the fast-cars-and-chicks songs. It's basically what's happened in life, but a lot has happened since the last record. And it's on this record.”
(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)
(please visit our entertainment blog via www.reuters.com or on http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)

MOSCOW (Reuters) –
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday rejected U.S. President Barack Obama's charge that he was mired in Cold War thinking, setting the scene for a stormy first meeting at a Moscow summit next week.
In a pre-trip interview, the U.S. leader told the Associated Press that Putin needed to “understand that the Cold War approach to U.S.-Russian relationship is outdated” and that Putin had “one foot in the old ways of doing business.”
Putin — who once described the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the century” — hit back, saying Russians were standing firmly on both feet.
“We are standing firmly on both feet and always look to the future. That is the peculiarity of Russia. That has always allowed Russia to move forward and get stronger. That will continue,” Putin was shown saying with a smile on state television.
Putin remains the dominant force in the Russian power structure after stepping down as Kremlin chief in 2008. His meeting with Obama next week is likely to set the tone for relations between the world's two biggest nuclear powers.
Putin also called on the United States to move relations forward by shelving plans for a missile defense shield in Europe and called for Washington to change its approach to expanding the NATO military alliance.
“If we see (that) our American partners refrain from deploying new missile complexes, anti-missile defense systems, or for example review their approach to widening military-political blocs, or generally refrain from bloc-like thinking, this would be a big movement forward,” Putin said.
MISTAKEN IMPRESSIONS
In keeping with protocol, Obama will spend more time with Putin's hand-picked successor as president, Dmitry Medvedev.
In his interview comments, the U.S. leader was more complimentary about Medvedev. He said he thought the Russian president understood the need for cooperation.
Putin, a former KGB spy, developed a good personal rapport with Obama's predecessor George W. Bush. This endured despite Russia-U.S. relations hitting their post-Cold War lows. He will meet Obama for the first time for 1 1/2 hours on Tuesday.
When asked about Obama's comments, a spokesman for Putin said the prime minister would use the summit to relieve the president of his mistaken impressions.
“I see that he does not possess full information. After visiting Moscow, President Obama will know the realities better,” said Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
“Judging by these statements it is very good that the meeting with Prime Minister Putin is on President Obama's agenda. I am sure that after the meeting with Putin, President Obama will change his point of view,” Peskov added.
Putin complained that the United States had kept in place trade restrictions, some of them dating back to the Cold War years, such as the 1974 Jackson-Vanik amendment, which tied trade relations with the Soviet Union to the rights of religious minorities to emigrate.
He said that if it was repealed it would help move relations forward.
“We are ready for effective cooperation, we really expect a lot of the new administration,” Putin said on an agricultural inspection in Russia's southern Krasnodar region.
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Richard Balmforth)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) –
Moderate drinkers are wealthier, more educated and less likely to be disabled than teetotalers, which explains some, but not all, of the association between moderate alcohol consumption and longer life, according to a new study.
Having one drink a day halved a person's risk of dying over the next four years, Dr. Sei J. Lee of San Francisco VA Medical Center and colleagues found. After accounting for several factors that could influence alcohol use and mortality, the effect was weakened, but moderate drinkers were still 28% less likely to die than non-drinkers.
The first study to show that moderate drinkers live longer than either teetotalers or heavy drinkers was published in 1923. But the jury is still out on whether moderate drinkers are simply healthier overall than non-drinkers, or if alcohol itself used in moderation does benefit health, Lee and colleagues note.
They investigated the role of two risk factors associated with mortality that, to their knowledge, have not been studied together: functional disability and socioeconomic status (SES).
They looked at 12,519 men and women, aged 55 and older, enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study. During four years of follow-up, 14% of the non-drinkers died, compared to 7% of moderate drinkers and 12% of people who consumed three or more drinks daily.
According to Lee and colleagues, people who had a drink a day had a significantly higher socioeconomic status than non-drinkers, as measured by income, wealth, and years of education. For example, 37% of drinkers had a college education, compared to 14% of non-drinkers, and 52% of drinkers had $300,000 in assets, while 21% of non-drinkers did.
Non-drinkers also were more likely to have functional disabilities, for example difficulties in completing self-care activities like getting dressed or going to the bathroom, as well as problems with more complex activities such as making meals or managing their finances.
Forty-one percent of non-drinkers had trouble walking for several blocks, compared to 18% of moderate drinkers.
Overall, the moderate drinkers were half as likely to die as the non-drinkers, according to a report of the study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
After the researchers adjusted for traditional risk factors such as illness, smoking and obesity, the moderate drinkers were still 43% less likely to die during follow up. Once the researchers adjusted for SES and disability, the lower death risk for moderate drinkers compared to non-drinkers shrank to 28%.
“The results significantly strengthen the evidence that moderate drinking leads to lower rates of overall mortality,” the researchers write. But, they add, moderate drinkers could have yet more beneficial characteristics not examined in the study, and it's possible “that adjustment for these characteristics could fully explain the alcohol-mortality relationship.”
The only way to truly answer the question of whether moderate drinking is, in itself, beneficial would be to do a randomized, controlled trial, the researchers argue. Such a trial would present serious “logistical and ethical” hurdles, they note, but given the lack of consensus on the overall benefits and risks of moderate alcohol use, “the time has come to perform such a trial.”
SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, June 2009.

WICHITA, Kan. – A man charged with shooting a prominent Kansas doctor who performed late-term abortions has been advocating through mailings from his jail cell that such killings are justifiable and communicating with individuals on the fringes of the anti-abortion movement, weeks after suggesting others might be planning similar attacks.
Scott Roeder, 51, is charged with first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the May 31 death of Dr. George Tiller — an attack that reignited the national debate over late-term abortion and gave Roeder icon status among extremists in the anti-abortion movement.
From his cell in Sedgwick County jail, Roeder has been sending anti-abortion pamphlets that laud Paul Hill, who was convicted of murdering an abortion provider in 1994, as an “American hero,” and include examples of Hill’s writings about how the killing of abortion providers is justifiable.
Hill was executed in 2003 for killing Dr. John Bayard Britton and his bodyguard outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic.
Roeder has also been corresponding with Rev. Donald Spitz — whose Army of God group’s Web site celebrates Hill and who says he sent Roeder seven of the pamphlets at Roeder’s request — and Linda Wolfe, an Oregon activist who has been jailed about 50 times for anti-abortion activities and who is close friends with a woman convicted of shooting Tiller in the arms in 1993. She says Roeder mailed her one of the pamphlets.
No one has accused Roeder of breaking any laws because of his jailhouse correspondence. But local and federal law enforcement agencies took seriously a threat Roeder made during a June 7 interview with The Associated Press that there are “many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal.” A judge raised Roeder’s bond to 20 million, citing his comment to the AP, after a prosecutor argued Roeder’s ability to get his message widely disseminated should lead a reasonable person to believe he is engaged in “alleged acts of American terrorism.”
FBI and Justice Department officials declined to comment about whether they were concerned about Roeder’s jailhouse contacts. The Sedgwick County public defender’s office, which is representing Roeder, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. And the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s office declined to speak about the matter.
Sedgwick County Sheriff Robert Hinshaw said he has assigned a trusted person to read all of Roeder’s incoming and outgoing mail. He said Roeder has received about 100 letters.
Jail officials typically check incoming mail for contraband such as pornography or drugs but do not attempt to read all of the more than 97,000 pieces of mail inmates get each year unless there is a specific concern, such as in Roeder’s case. Outgoing mail is normally sealed by inmates and not read by prison officials.
Unless there is a blatant concern in an outgoing letter, such as escape plans, inmate mail is not censored. Less obvious issues are referred to the department’s law department for review because of First Amendment concerns, the sheriff said.
“Everyone in this jail has all the constitutional rights, except those I can restrict for the safety and security of the facility,” Hinshaw said.
Angel Dillard, a Christian music songwriter from Valley Center, Kan., said she’s been questioned several times since striking up a friendship with Roeder after the Tiller shooting.
“They just wanted to check us out and make sure we weren’t some nuts that were planning to pick up where Roeder left off,” Dillard said. “We have no plans to do anything of violence to anyone. We are reaching out to someone who we know is totally alone right now.”
Dillard and her husband have exchanged several letters with Roeder and spoken to him by phone, and she plans to visit him next week. She said Roeder has not spoken about Tiller’s killing, and has only shared Biblical scripture and asked her to pray for an end to abortion.
Spitz — whose Web site likens Tiller to Adolf Hitler and features multiple essays supporting “defensive action” and justifiable homicide — said he had never heard of Roeder until Roeder’s arrest and said they have never spoken specifically about the Tiller shooting.
“He did that out of the blue, came out of nowhere — a run-of-the-mill, pro-life guy and he goes out and does this,” Spitz said of the alleged shooter. “He is not a run-of-the-mill, pro-life guy any more though.”
Spitz, who said he became a good friend of Hill’s before his execution, said he sent Roeder seven pamphlets advocating justifiable homicide that Roeder wanted to mail others. He said authorities had not contacted him about Roeder and that he has no plans to kill an abortion doctor himself.
“You have to be called to do that because when one does that your life is basically over,” Spitz said.
Linda Wolfe, an anti-abortion advocate from McMinnville, Ore., who is friends with Shelley Shannon, who shot Tiller in both arms 16 years ago, said Roeder mailed her a pamphlet after she mailed him a 20 money order and a letter telling him why she no longer believed killing abortion providers was justifiable.
She said Roeder asked her to pass the pamphlet along to someone else if she agreed with it, or to mail it back to him if she didn’t. She said she threw it out.
“If he knew me, he wouldn’t send me a pamphlet on Paul Hill — who I saw on death row,” Wolfe said, explaining Hill had been a friend.

WASILLA, Alaska – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday she is resigning from office at the end of the month, raising speculation that she would focus on a run for the White House in the 2012 race.
The former Republican vice presidential candidate made the surprise announcement from her home in suburban Wasilla on Friday morning. She said she would step down July 26 but didn’t announce her plans.
“Once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional Lame Duck status in this particular climate would just be another dose of politics as usual, something I campaigned against and will always oppose,” Palin said in a statement released by her office.
“It is my duty to always protect our great state. With that in mind, my family and I determined that it is best to make a difference this summer, and I am willing to change things, so that this administration, with its positive agenda, its accomplishments, and its successful road to an incredible future, can continue without interruption and with great administrative and legislative success,” she said.
Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the governor’s picnic in Fairbanks at the end of the month, Palin spokesman Dave Murrow said.
Palin was first elected in 2006 on a populist platform. But her popularity has waned as she waged in partisan politics following her return from the presidential campaign. Her term would have ended in 2010.

Bored with Pearl, the cursing toddler landlord demanding rent money? Not amused by those cutesy pictures of cats with the baby-speak captions?
The Web is full of clever blogs and funny sites, including many that find comedy in real life.
Maybe you need some fresh sources of Internet humor. The Web is full of clever blogs and funny sites, including many that collect amusing gags from users and find comedy in real life. Click away from the cats and replenish your list of favorite bookmarks with these 10 new or lesser-known humor sites: Awkward Family Photos Snapping the perfect family photo creates stress for anyone involved. Should we go casual and wear blue jeans with polo shirts on a beach or be a bit crazy, wear matching outfits andwait for itlean toward the camera? Ah, choices. This user-powered blog highlights the most well, awkward, family photos submitted by its contributors. Just don’t show this to your mom for portrait suggestions. My Life is Average Breaking news: Your life is most likely mundane and not glamorous or melodramatic like “Gossip Girl.” Thankfully, someone has finally created a Web site for average people to commiserate about their average-ness. For a taste, here is a recent posting: “Today, I ate a “Fun Size” Snickers bar. I think that the regular size is more fun. MLIA (My life is average).” My Parents Joined Facebook Logging on to Facebook, one is bombarded these days with pointless quizzes, embarrassing photos and a friend request from … Mom? The inevitable has happenedyour parents are on Facebook. Using submissions from users, this site highlights just what a foreign place Facebook is to parents. If you think associating with them in person is uncomfortable, this blog highlights the awkwardness that comes when your mom takes a “What porn star are you?” quiz.
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Garfield Minus Garfield Someone has found a way to make the Garfield cat comic strip funny: edit out Garfield. The author, who recently released a book of these comic strips, digitally edits out Garfield for a less-than-flattering portrayal of Garfield’s owner, Jon Arbuckle. Without his lasagna-loving cat, he looks like a lonely man who talks to himselfand whose life resembles that of “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” Remember, if you are having a bad day, it could be worseyou could be Jon. Laser Portraits The 1980s brought great advancements in the photography world, such as the first SLR camera, the BetaCam and … laser backgrounds. It was a magical world back then, where little Jimmy posed for his school picture not against a typical light-blue background but a “Tron”-like video game gone awry. Looking at these pictures, one has to wonder if the use of those dangerous lasers injured any kids. Historical Tweets Who needs high school when history can be explained in 140 characters? Did you know the origin of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech? @martinlkjr tweets: “Bought a sleep journal. I keep having dreams but forget to write them down.” Safety Graphics Safety signs are supposed to protect us from the dangers of big, scary machines and equipment. But most of the time, the signs turn out to be a parody of themselves. This blog gathers photos of actual safety signs with symbols of people being electrocuted, crushed by garage doors and so on. The “No Weapons Allowed” sign would not deter any killer from shooting the place up. Someecards These electronic greeting cards offer wry commentary on everything from birthdays to topical events such as swine flu and the death of Michael Jackson. A recent Father’s Day card said, “You’re the best father I can imagine unless you lost my inheritance in the economic meltdown in which case I can imagine better.” Graph Jam The task of illustrating a depressing point, like a company’s plunging profits, always lands on the poor graph. But no one said the lowly graph always has to be bleakor boring. This Web site displays the best user-submitted graphs on a variety of oddball topics, from the percentage of people who dislike Michael Jackson to things people want to do in New Jersey (No. 1 option: Leave). Although GraphJam has been around for awhile, it remains one of the cleverest sites on the Internet. This is Why You’re Fat Feeling regretful about those French fries you had with lunch? Here is a site that makes those greasy treats look healthy. Witness the chicken finger bacon pizza, which is drenched in Thousand Island dressing and baked to golden perfection, or the Pattie LaBurger, a triple-bacon cheeseburger that uses deep-fried burger patties as buns. If you dare to eat any of these, make sure you have a cardiologist on speed dial.
Source:CNN