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Obesity Health Risk Cause found

Obesity health risk cause ‘found’
Scientists believe they may have uncovered a key reason why obese people have a raised risk of health complications such as type 2 diabetes.They blame a specific protein – pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) – which is secreted by fat cells. The Australian and US research on mice suggests blocking some of PEDF’s action may reverse some complications – raising hopes of new drug treatments. The study appears in the journal Cell Metabolism.
Because PEDF is produced by fat cells people who are overweight have higher levels of the protein in the bloodstream. The latest research shows that the protein sends a signal to other tissues in the body, triggering development of insulin resistance – a condition that often leads to type 2 diabetes – in the muscle and liver. Raised PEDF levels were also linked to a release of fats into the bloodstream, raising the risk of complications such as heart disease. MetabolismIn tests on obese mice, the researchers found that treatments designed to block the action of PEDF lowered the animals’ blood fat level and reversed some of their insulin resistance. Fat cells are known to play an important role in regulating the body’s metabolism by releasing hormones and other chemicals. This pattern of secretion is also known to change with the size of the fat cells. The latest study set out to identify which of these secretions had a profound general impact on metabolism.
The researchers took particular interest in PEDF because it was already known that levels of the protein were raised in people with type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome – a collection of risk factors including too much belly fat, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. They found that of all the molecules secreted by fat cells PEDF was among the most abundant. They also showed that PEDF levels fell in obese mice when they lost weight, either by using diet or drugs. When lean mice were injected with PEDF they showed signs of developing insulin resistance and inflammation in both muscle and liver. And in the long term, PEDF raised fat levels in the animals’ blood. These fats were transported into the muscle and liver, where they accumulated, raising the risk of insulin resistance still further. ComplicationsBut when obese mice were given treatment to neutralise PEDF their sensitivity to insulin improved, reducing their risk of diabetes, and the level of fats in their blood fell. Researcher Dr Matthew Watt, from Monash University in Australia, said: “In light of our findings, we believe that blocking PEDF will ameliorate several obesity-related complications.” He said previous research had suggested that PEDF also protects against furring of the arteries and excessive blood vessel growth and helps keep the nervous system healthy. But he said new drugs could be at least five years away. Dr Victoria King, of Diabetes UK, said: “While this study has been carried out in mice, there has been some indication from other studies that higher levels of this protein found in overweight people with type 2 diabetes could indicate that a similar process is occurring in humans. “But this would need to be studied further and verified.” Dr Ian Campbell, medical director of the charity Weight Concern, said: “If we were able to somehow switch off or limit the activities of this, or related compounds it could open up new possibilities for drug treatments, not for obesity, but for the secondary effects. “To date weight loss drugs though effective are often not effective enough. “Tackling insulin resistance directly, even in the absence of weight loss, could potentially strengthen our ability to help obese patients reduce their risk of life-shortening disease.” Professor Ian MacDonald, an expert in the chemistry of nutrition at the University of Nottingham, said PEDF was one of many chemicals produced by fat cells and it was unclear how they all interacted with each other.

Source:BBC

Number Of Profit Warnings falls

Number of profit warnings ‘falls’
The number of profit warnings by UK-listed firms fell in April-June to their lowest second quarter level since 2003, a report has said.There were 63 warnings issued by firms listed on the London Stock Exchange in the quarter, down 36% from a year ago, said accountants Ernst & Young (E&Y). The decline may add to the growing feeling that the UK is nearing the bottom of the recession, E&Y said. But it added that the economy still had a “difficult road ahead”. “Many companies have withdrawn profit guidance due to a difficult forecasting environment, while three successive quarters of negative growth have diminished market expectations,” said Keith McGregor, restructuring partner at E&Y. “Add in hamstrung banks and a lingering credit crunch, and it’s apparent that although the economy appears more stable and the outlook brighter than at anytime in the past year, UK plc still has a difficult road ahead.” Sector warningsThe report found that profit warnings increased in the support services sector to 17 in the quarter, from 12 a year earlier.
The rise was not surprising, said E&Y, “given the sector’s sheer size and exposures to the vagaries of the cycle”. Support services, which includes recruitment, is the largest FTSE industry grouping and makes up a large part of the economy. Six media companies put out warnings in the three-month period, down from 13 a year ago. But E&Y said this should not be taken as a sign that the media downturn is bottoming out. Media companies still have to deal with “cyclical challenges” such as cuts in advertising and consumer spending. Mr McGregor added that the number of profit warnings were unlikely to increase rapidly, even if the economy contracts further. “In this scenario profit warnings should stay relatively low,” he said. “However, if markets become buoyed by optimism too quickly, then we may see a further correction later in the year.” “But, still countering our ability to predict the outlook for profit warnings is the ongoing trend for companies to limit or stop their profit guidance. “Whatever companies decide on public guidance, it still does not remove their obligation to report material events that may impact profit as soon as possible to the market.”

Source:BBC

Cheney Told CIA To Withhold Information Report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
The CIA withheld information about a secret counter-terrorism program from Congress for eight years on orders from former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, the New York Times said on Saturday.
Citing two unidentified sources, the newspaper said Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta disclosed Cheney's involvement in closed briefings to congressional intelligence committees late last month.
Panetta, who was named to head the agency earlier this year by President Barack Obama, ended the program, which remains secret, when he first learned of its existence from subordinates on June 23, the Times said.
Intelligence and congressional officials told the newspaper the agency began the program after the September 11 attacks and said it never became operational and did not involve CIA interrogation programs or domestic intelligence activities.
The newspaper said its efforts to reach Cheney through relatives and associates were unsuccessful.
Asked about the Times report, CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said it was not the agency's practice to discuss classified briefings.
“When a CIA unit brought this matter to Director Panetta's attention, it was with the recommendation that it be shared appropriately with Congress. That was also his view, and he took swift, decisive action to put it into effect,” Gimigliano said, declining to comment further.
Cheney was a key advocate in the Bush administration of using controversial interrogation methods such as waterboarding on terrorism suspects and has emerged as a leading Republican critic of Obama's national security policies.
Panetta has vowed not to allow coercive interrogation practices, secret prisons or the transfer of terrorist suspects to countries that may use torture, a pledge seen as a break with the agency's policies under President George W. Bush.
Critics of the agency, however, want it to be more forthcoming about its secret programs.
Fears the CIA withheld key information from Congress were rekindled in May when House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, accused the agency of failing to reveal in 2002 that it was waterboarding a terrorism suspect.
Panetta has rejected the Democratic speaker's accusation.
U.S. law requires the president to make sure intelligence committees are kept fully informed of intelligence activities, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity.
But the government has some leeway in disclosing such information.
(Additional reporting by James Vicini; Writing by Paul Simao; Editing by Philip Barbara)

Israel In Sabbath Car Park Row

Israel in ‘Sabbath car park’ row

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Hundreds of ultra-orthodox Jews have clashed with police in Jerusalem for a third consecutive Saturday over a car park which opens on the Sabbath.Police said the protesters, wearing traditional Hassidic clothing, threw stones and jumped in front of vehicles. The Sabbath is observed by religious Jews as a day of rest, when working, driving and trading are forbidden. The protesters say the municipal car park will attract tourists and encourage business on the holy day. Protesters, praying and chanting “Shabbes” – the Yiddish word for Sabbath – gathered at a police cordon at the entrance to the car park, near Jerusalem’s Old City. Some lay in the road to prevent cars from entering. “Hundreds of ultra-orthodox tried to overrun police barricades and threw stones at our men in several sectors of Jerusalem,” police spokesman Schmuel Ben Rubi, told the AFP news agency . He said there had been no injuries or arrests so far. However, television footage showed people in religious clothing being moved by police or put into police cars. One man who had crawled underneath the wheels of a stationary bus was reported to have been taken away by police. There were also clashes in the nearby ultra-orthodox neighbourhood of Mea Shearim, where police had been deployed. The car park was opened by the Jerusalem municipality last month to provide extra facilities for visitors to the city. But the protesters are angry at what they see as a move which will “profane” the Sabbath. The row has highlighted tensions between Jerusalem’s ultra-orthodox Jews, known as Haredim, and the majority secular population.

Source:BBC

US President Sets Afghan Target

US president sets Afghan target
The increasingly deadly conflict in Afghanistan is a “serious fight” but one essential for the future stability of the country, the US president says.Insisting that US and allied troops have pushed back the Taliban, Barack Obama said the immediate target was to steer Afghanistan through elections. The country is due to hold a presidential vote in August. Mr Obama spoke to Sky News as concern grew in the UK at the rising British death toll in Afghanistan. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was also forced on Saturday to justify British involvement in Afghanistan. Mr Brown said the UK’s military deployment there was aimed at preventing terrorism in the UK. Fifteen British troops have died in the past 10 days, pushing the country’s number of deaths in Afghanistan past the number killed in action in Iraq. ‘Extraordinary role’Speaking during a day-long visit to Africa, Mr Obama also told Sky News that the battle in Afghanistan was a vital element in the battle against terrorism. He said the continued involvement of British troops in the conflict was necessary, right and was a vital contribution to UK national security.
“This is not an American mission,” Mr Obama said. “The mission in Afghanistan is one that the Europeans have as much if not more of a stake in than we do. “The likelihood of a terrorist attack in London is at least as high, if not higher, than it is in the United States.” He praised the efforts of all troops currently fighting the Taleban in gruelling summer heat, singling out British forces for praise when asked if their role was still important. “Great Britain has played an extraordinary role in this coalition, understanding that we can not allow either Afghanistan or Pakistan to be a safe haven for al-Qaeda, those who with impunity blow up train stations in London or buildings in New York. “We knew that this summer was going to be tough fighting. They [the Taliban] have, I think, been pushed back but we still have a long way to go. We’ve got to get through elections.” ‘Core mission’Since taking office in Washington in January of this year, Mr Obama has announced a troop “surge” in Afghanistan.
British troops have endured a deadly week in Afghanistan
The US has said it is sending up to 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan this year to take on a resurgent Taleban. They will join 33,000 US and 32,000 other Nato troops already in the country. He also replaced the incumbent US commander in the country, ousting Gen David McKiernan less than a year into his command. The new US chief in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, has a stellar reputation from his days commanding special forces operations in Iraq. He has been tasked with the mission of outsmarting the Taliban, who continue to win support among ordinary Afghans often caught in the crossfire of the bitter fighting. High numbers of Afghan civilian casualties have become an issue of major concern to the US. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has regularly called on the international forces to reduce the numbers of Afghans killed in its operations. Speaking to Sky News, Mr Obama said although forces were currently engaged in heavy fighting, new strategies for building bridges with Afghan society would be considered once the country had held its presidential election.
Afghan civilians often bear the brunt of the conflict with the Taliban
Afghanistan needed its own army, its own police and the ability to control its own security, Mr Obama said – a strategy currently being implemented in Iraq, where security is being handed over to Iraqi forces. “All of us are going to have to do an evaluation after the Afghan election to see what more we can do,” the president said. “It may not be on the military side, it might be on the development side providing Afghan farmers alternatives to poppy crops, making sure that we are effectively training a judiciary system and a rule of law in Afghanistan that people trust.” “We’ve got a core mission that we have to accomplish.”

Source:BBC

Are You Hot For Brno

Los Angeles (E! Online) –
Box-office analyst Jeff Bock has a theory about Sacha Baron Cohen's new comedy: “Brüno is going to teach a lot of people about gay sex whether they want to know or not.”
And you know what that'll mean to ticket sales…
“If it doesn't do what Borat does, or come close to the 40 million mark,” Bock says, “I'd be surprised.”
Opening Friday, Brüno is Baron Cohen's follow-up to 2006's Borat, the 18 million could-be cult movie that instead became a 262 million worldwide blockbuster.
Universal Pictures, which placed a 42.5 million bet on Baron Cohen and Brüno, is, as is a studio's right, downplaying the Borat connection, tamping down expectations and stressing the movie's, well, uniqueness.
“It's hard to project for a movie like Brüno,” says Nikki Rocco, Universal's president of domestic distribution. “You can't really use Borat for a comp[arable] for this. This is something so totally different, for me there is no comp to use.”
While few outside Universal aren't going to compare Brüno to Borat, which debuted to an eye-popping 26.5 million, fewer would seem to disagree that Brüno is very different than its Kazakhstani counterpart, if not most Hollywood-backed productions.
In his Brüno review for Variety, critic Todd McCarthy counted “three dildos, one gyrating, talking penis, [and one] anal bleaching.” Significantly, McCarthy also noted 61 laughs and predicted “some potent B.O. figures, at least at first.”
Exhibitor Relations' Bock concurs. On both box-office observations.
“[Baron Cohen is] really pushing the envelope on this one—there's no doubt about it, this burns the envelope up,” Bock says. “That's why I think 40 million is not out of the question—until word gets out how many penises are on the screen.”
Universal is ready for the quick strike, blasting Brüno onto 2,755 screens. By comparison, Borat debuted at 837 theaters.
“Borat was released at a different time,” Rocco says. “We're in the heart of summer playtime. We always planned to open in this time frame, and we always planned to open as a broad comedy.”
So far, so good. Brüno opened Wednesday in Australia to “terrific” business, Rocco says.
The big push makes sense to Bock who thinks after Friday's and Saturday's initial business, Brüno may have trouble playing to stateside audiences who don't live along a coastline. The movie itself spends a lot of time on landlocked Bible Belt folks interacting with Baron Cohen's very out-there Austrian reporter.
Rocco, for one, doesn't think Brüno has been a tougher sell than Borat, which was released by Fox and had its own challenges—namely, a then-largely unknown star.
“I have to look at where we need to be,” Rocco says. “If the film opens in the 20 million range or above, we are in such a great position.”
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Potter Cast Reflects On A Childhood At Hogwarts

NEW YORK – When the “Harry Potter” film series is completed, its three young stars — Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint — will have inhabited J.K. Rowling’s universe for half their lives.
Radcliffe, who is now 19, was 11 when he was cast as the boy wizard for the series’ 2001 debut. Watson, now 19, was 10 when she auditioned for the whip-smart Hermione Granger. Grint, the eldest of the trio, is 20.
“I’ve probably been Ron as long as I’ve been Rupert,” says Grint, who plays Ron Weasley, the ginger-haired, perpetually hungry friend of Harry and Hermione.
The cast and crew have taken a break from filming Rowling’s last “Potter” book — to be spread out in two films — to publicize the series’ sixth installment, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” which arrives in theaters Wednesday.
Early reviews of the movie, the second one directed by David Yates, have been positive; both Variety and The Associated Press suggested it was the best “Potter” film yet. The movies have become progressively more complex, darker and realistic — even amid the fantasy world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
As the films have matured, so has the cast.
More so than any other installment, “The Half-Blood Prince,” shows that Radcliffe, Watson and Grint have gone from children to young adults. With the end of the series and a sense of graduation looming, its young stars appear to have emerged from the most treacherous of adventures — child actor stardom — as remarkably grounded people and increasingly talented actors.
To watch the first “Potter” film is to be reminded how young the actors were when they began.
“For me to look back on the old films is an almost entirely destructive thing to do,” Radcliffe says. “I just torture myself over it. I mean, I was young. I can’t be held accountable for the performance I gave in the first two films: I was 11 and 12. I wasn’t like Dakota Fanning … who could seemingly just do it. It was very much a child’s performance.”
Such awareness is common for Radcliffe, who goes by “Dan.” Shy as a child, he has grown into a quick-witted, animated 19-year-old who relishes frantic chatter about indie music, the behind-the-scenes aspects of filmmaking and his burgeoning love of acting. Michael Gambon, the award-winning British stage and screen actor who plays Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore, says, “He’s not a boy anymore. … You can see it in his face.”
The many lauded Brit actors of the “Potter” films have influenced Radcliffe — perhaps none more than Gary Oldman, who played Sirius Black in several of the films, most notably the third, 2004′s “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Interestingly, Radcliffe pegs that film as the moment he realized he loved acting.
“Something happened at the age of 14,” he says. “I started taking it more seriously, which meant I started having more fun.”
He says his parents (who waited patiently in a room next door during the interview) always reminded him that he was “not obliged to just carry on doing this.” But Radcliffe grew more confident and began considering his active imagination, which he attributes to being an only child, as his greatest asset as an actor.
“I would have always wound up in the film industry somehow, probably as an assistant director or something like that. It just so happened that it turned out this way,” he says. “I want to be somebody who works with the crew rather than for himself.”
Since then, his progress has been apparent with each new “Potter” film — “a biannual review,” Radcliffe calls it. He has begun moving away from Harry Potter, including a hilarious cameo in Ricky Gervais’ TV series “Extras,” and a well-reviewed performance in a revival of Peter Shaffer’s “Equus,” which ran in London in 2007 and on Broadway in 2008. Radcliffe played a deranged stable boy who completely disrobes — a scene much written about media.
Radcliffe counts his last year as both his “biggest leap” and an “overwhelming blitzkrieg of camera flashes.”
The soft-spoken Yates — who is directing the final two films, to be released by Warner Bros. in November 2010 and summer 2011 — is credited with helping the young cast mature.
“They’re getting more experience outside of the film set and they’re bringing that to the floor,” he says. “People are acknowledging it for `Half-Blood Prince’ — but you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Watson has a hard time recalling the beginning.
“This all happened to me so young,” she says. “It’s very hard to go back to that time and be like, `Did I want to do this?’ It feels very foggy.”
Watson has acted in a few other films (a voiceover in 2008′s “The Tale of Despereaux” and the 2007 BBC film “Ballet Shoes”) but she has spent most of her spare time throughout “Potter” — and this is very Hermione-like — studying. This fall, she’ll attend Brown University, says producer David Heyman. (Watson isn’t discussing her plans publicly.)
“I would have exploded if I hadn’t had school to ground me and focus me,” Watson says.
She expects to continue acting, but says college felt like the obvious decision.
“The three of us have been working solidly since we were 10 years old,” she says. “I just need a little bit of normality for a while, just a little bit of space to work out what I want and who I am — all the usual stuff. It’s just something I always wanted to do.”
She plans to study literature and art, but she has also shown interest in fashion. She signed to a modeling agency about two years ago.
“Fashion’s great because you’re able to recreate yourself whenever you want,” Watson says. “Dan had time to go away and do `Equus’ on Broadway and break out of `Harry Potter’ a bit, and I was always studying. So my way of getting casting directors to look at me in a slightly different way was modeling.”
Heyman, who has been with the series from the start, said: “I see their individuality really shine through as actors and as people. But at the same time, I see the same kids who are very much still filled with a sense of wonder and still have a sense of humility and don’t believe the hype.”
The bemused Grint — whom “Azkaban” director Alfonso Cuaron once said was the one most likely to become a star — remains clearly grounded, even if he’s used his earnings to purchase a hovercraft. That playfulness is perhaps an essential quality to Grint, who was never inclined to view acting as a job.
“I don’t think I ever really made the connection of it being a career,” he says. “It was just something that was fun to do. In the early ones, I don’t think I took the acting too seriously. I just read the lines and got on with it. Over the years, you start to take it more seriously with different directors coming in.”
Grint has starred in two films not yet released: “Cherrybomb,” a boozy teen comedy set in Belfast, Ireland; and “Wild Target,” a film about a retiring hit man that stars Bill Nighy and Emily Blunt.
He says he’s enjoyed the “more adult” roles and feels more comfortable in front of the camera after an awkward adjustment: “This is something I was kind of thrown into,” he says.
Teenage years are typically uncomfortable ones — years that few would want stored on celluloid. Grint compares the “Potter” films to “a really expensive home video.”
“I guess we’ve all kind of grown up,” he says.
The paychecks have grown in tandem, too. Forbes reports that Radcliffe made 25 million last year. They are all legally adults now and are beginning to live on their own.
It’s clearly a strange ride for the trio, who have only a vague sense of how this all began for themselves. Though they don’t generally socialize offset, the camaraderie of going through it together has clearly helped.
“To have someone that’s in the same boat as you is a relief,” Watson says. “I wish in a way that there had been a fourth in the trio that was perhaps a girl, but they’ve been pretty great.”
All three are certain of one thing: When they wrap the last “Harry Potter” scene, there will be tears. Their adolescence is forever intertwined with the movies.
“These are some of the most important years of my life and I won’t be able to look back on any frame of this film without it being linked to a dozen memories,” Radcliffe says.

Taller People Earn More Money

There's a growing body of research that finds taller people make more money.
The latest study, in Australia, found that being 6-foot tall brings
raises annual income nearly 1,000 compared to men two inches shorter.
“Taller people are perceived to be more intelligent and powerful,” according to the study, published recently in the Economic Record.
“Our estimates suggest that if the average man of about 178
centimeters [5 feet 10 inches] gains an additional five centimeters [2
inches] in height, he would be able to earn an extra 950 per year -
which is approximately equal to the wage gain from one extra year of
labor market experience,” said study co-author Andrew Leigh, an
economist at the Australian National University.
Other studies in the United States and Britain put the extra earnings at nearly that much per inch.
“The truth is, tall people do make more money. They make 789 more
per inch per year,” says Arianne Cohen, author of “The Tall Book”
(Bloomsbury USA, June, 2009).
There's nothing else physically measurable about tall people that
explains the salary boost, however, Cohen explained recently on
American Public Media's radio program Marketplace. “They're not nicer.
They're not prettier. They're not anything else. But they've sort of
gotten a halo in society at this point.”
Serious money over time
As the inches mount, the salary continues to, too.
Cohen's number is based in part on a 2003 review of four large U.S.
and UK studies led by Timothy Judge, a management professor at the
University of Florida. Judge and his colleague concluded that someone
who is 7 inches taller – for example, 6 feet versus 5 feet 5 inches -
would be expected to earn 5,525 more per year.
Height was found to be more important than gender in determining
income (though that claim is debatable, depending on how you analyze
the gender salary gap) and its significance doesn't decline with age.
“If you take this over the course of a 30-year career and compound
it, we're talking about literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of
earnings advantage that a tall person enjoys,” Judge said then.
Being tall may boost self-confidence,
helping to make a person more successful and also prompting people to
ascribe more status and respect to the tall person, Judge said.
Of course all such studies generate averages. A shorter person can
certainly beat the odds, and not every tall person is raking it in.
Cohen, who is 6 foot 3 inches tall, says the pay advantage is conferred partly because taller people tend to exude leadership.
“Tall people tend to act like a leader from a very young age because
other children relate to them like a slightly older peer,” she said on
the radio program. “In the workplace, when you're automatically acting
as a leader, that's really important when it comes time for promotion.”
To some extent, then, the advantage of height may date back to youth.
A 2003 study of 2,000 U.S. men found that their height at age 16 had
a big effect on their salary as an adult, regardless of how tall they
ended up being. “We found that two adults of the same age and height,
who were different heights at age 16, were treated differently in the
labor market. The taller teen earned more,” said study team member
Nicola Persico of the University of Pennsylvania.
Vertically challenged
All is not rosy on high, however.
In her book, Cohen notes that being tall can cost more, from
additional food requirements to costlier clothes and the desire for
outsized things like high-ceilinged homes. (Interestingly, there's a
growing debate about whether obese people should pay for their excess footprint on society and the environment, yet nobody is calling for taxing the tall.)
The average height for American men is about 5 feet 9 inches nearly
5 feet 4 inches for women. In more than a century, no U.S. president
has been below average height (the last one was William McKinley, at 5
feet 7 inches, and he was ridiculed in the press as a “little boy,”
Judge said).
Judge figures the advantages of height today are rooted in our evolutionary decision-making regarding who was most powerful.
“When humans evolved as a species and still lived in the jungles or
on the plain, they ascribed leader-like qualities to tall people
because they thought they would be better able to protect them,” Judge
said. “Although that was thousands of years ago, evolutionary
psychologists would argue that some of those old patterns still operate
in our perceptions today.”
Tall Women More Likely to Have Twins
Men With Traditional Views on Sex Roles Earn More Money
Survey: Women Leaders Smarter, More Honest
In The Water Cooler, Imaginova's Editorial Director Robert Roy Britt looks at what people are talking about in the world of science and beyond. Find more in the archives and on Twitter.
Original Story: Taller People Earn More Money
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Two Share 44m Lottery Jackpot

Two share 4.4m lottery jackpot
Two winners shared Saturday’s lottery jackpot of 4.4m, operator Camelot has said.The winning numbers for the Lotto main draw were 4, 6, 10, 28, 35 and 39, and the bonus number was 8. The machine Sapphire and set of balls seven were used. The Thunderball numbers were 3, 14, 15, 23 and 34, and the Thunderball was 8. The winning numbers in the Lotto Dream Number game were 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 4 and 8. No-one won the top prizes in either Lotto Dream Number or Thunderball. Wednesday’s estimated jackpot is 2.4m.

Source:BBC

Chips In Official IDs Raise Privacy Fears

Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he’d bought on eBay for 190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car.
It took him 20 minutes to strike hacker’s gold.
Zipping past Fisherman’s Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians’ electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he’d “skimmed” the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet.
Embedding identity documents — passports, drivers licenses, and the like — with RFID chips is a no-brainer to government officials. Increasingly, they are promoting it as a 21st century application of technology that will help speed border crossings, safeguard credentials against counterfeiters, and keep terrorists from sneaking into the country.
But Paget’s February experiment demonstrated something privacy advocates had feared for years: That RFID, coupled with other technologies, could make people trackable without their knowledge or consent.
He filmed his drive-by heist, and soon his video went viral on the Web, intensifying a debate over a push by government, federal and state, to put tracking technologies in identity documents and over their potential to erode privacy.
Putting a traceable RFID in every pocket has the potential to make everybody a blip on someone’s radar screen, critics say, and to redefine Orwellian government snooping for the digital age.
“Little Brother,” some are already calling it — even though elements of the global surveillance web they warn against exist only on drawing boards, neither available nor approved for use.
But with advances in tracking technologies coming at an ever-faster rate, critics say, it won’t be long before governments could be able to identify and track anyone in real time, 24-7, from a cafe in Paris to the shores of California.
The key to getting such a system to work, these opponents say, is making sure everyone carries an RFID tag linked to a biometric data file.
On June 1, it became mandatory for Americans entering the United States by land or sea from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda and the Caribbean to present identity documents embedded with RFID tags, though conventional passports remain valid until they expire.
Among new options are the chipped “e-passport,” and the new, electronic PASS card — credit-card sized, with the bearer’s digital photograph and a chip that can be scanned through a pocket, backpack or purse from 30 feet.
Alternatively, travelers can use “enhanced” driver’s licenses embedded with RFID tags now being issued in some border states: Washington, Vermont, Michigan and New York. Texas and Arizona have entered into agreements with the federal government to offer chipped licenses, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has recommended expansion to non-border states. Kansas and Florida officials have received DHS briefings on the licenses, agency records show.
The purpose of using RFID is not to identify people, says Mary Ellen Callahan, the chief privacy officer at Homeland Security, but rather “to verify that the identification document holds valid information about you.”
Likewise, U.S. border agents are “pinging” databases only to confirm that licenses aren’t counterfeited. “They’re not pulling up your speeding tickets,” she says, or looking at personal information beyond what is on a passport.
The change is largely about speed and convenience, she says. An RFID document that doubles as a U.S. travel credential “only makes it easier to pull the right record fast enough, to make sure that the border flows, and is operational” — even though a 2005 Government Accountability Office report found that government RFID readers often failed to detect travelers’ tags.
Such assurances don’t persuade those who liken RFID-embedded documents to barcodes with antennas and contend they create risks to privacy that far outweigh the technology’s heralded benefits. They warn it will actually enable identity thieves, stalkers and other criminals to commit “contactless” crimes against victims who won’t immediately know they’ve been violated.
Neville Pattinson, vice president for government affairs at Gemalto, Inc., a major supplier of microchipped cards, is no RFID basher. He’s a board member of the Smart Card Alliance, an RFID industry group, and is serving on the Department of Homeland Security’s Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee.
Still, Pattinson has sharply criticized the RFIDs in U.S. driver’s licenses and passport cards. In a 2007 article for the Privacy Advisor, a newsletter for privacy professionals, he called them vulnerable “to attacks from hackers, identity thieves and possibly even terrorists.”
RFID, he wrote, has a fundamental flaw: Each chip is built to faithfully transmit its unique identifier “in the clear, exposing the tag number to interception during the wireless communication.”
Once a tag number is intercepted, “it is relatively easy to directly associate it with an individual,” he says. “If this is done, then it is possible to make an entire set of movements posing as somebody else without that person’s knowledge.”
Echoing these concerns were the AeA — the lobbying association for technology firms — the Smart Card Alliance, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Business Travel Coalition, and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives.
Meanwhile, Homeland Security has been promoting broad use of RFID even though its own advisory committee on data integrity and privacy warned that radio-tagged IDs have the potential to allow “widespread surveillance of individuals” without their knowledge or consent.
In its 2006 draft report, the committee concluded that RFID “increases risks to personal privacy and security, with no commensurate benefit for performance or national security,” and recommended that “RFID be disfavored for identifying and tracking human beings.”
For now, chipped PASS cards and enhanced driver’s licenses are optional and not yet widely deployed in the United States. To date, roughly 192,000 EDLs have been issued in Washington, Vermont, Michigan and New York.
But as more Americans carry them “you can bet that long-range tracking of people on a large scale will rise exponentially,” says Paget, a self-described “ethical hacker” who works as an Internet security consultant.
Could RFID numbers eventually become de facto identifiers of Americans, like the Social Security number?
Such a day is not far off, warns Katherine Albrecht, a privacy advocate and co-author of “Spychips,” a book that is sharply critical of the use of RFID in consumer items and official ID documents.
“There’s a reason you don’t wear your Social Security number across your T-shirt,” Albrecht says, “and beaming out your new, national RFID number in a 30-foot radius would be far worse.”
There are no federal laws against the surreptitious skimming of Americans’ RFID numbers, so it won’t be long before people seek to profit from this, says Bruce Schneier, an author and chief security officer at BT, the British telecommunications operator.
Data brokers that compile computer dossiers on millions of individuals from public records, credit applications and other sources “will certainly maintain databases of RFID numbers and associated people,” he says. “They’d do a disservice to their stockholders if they didn’t.”
But Gigi Zenk, a spokeswoman for the Washington state Department of Licensing, says Americans “aren’t that concerned about the RFID, particularly in this day and age when there are a lot of other ways to access personal information on people.”
Tracking an individual is much easier through a cell phone, or a satellite tag embedded in a car, she says. “An RFID that contains no private information, just a randomly assigned number, is probably one of the least things to be concerned about, frankly.”
Still, even some ardent RFID supporters recognize that these next-generation RFID cards raise prickly questions.
Mark Roberti, editor of RFID Journal, an industry newsletter, recently acknowledged that as the use of RFID in official documents grows, the potential for abuse increases.
“A government could do this, for instance, to track opponents,” he wrote in an opinion piece discussing Paget’s cloning experiment. “To date, this type of abuse has not occurred, but it could if governments fail to take privacy issues seriously.”
___
Imagine this: Sensors triggered by radio waves instructing cameras to zero in on people carrying RFID, unblinkingly tracking their movements.
Unbelievable? Intrusive? Outrageous?
Actually, it happens every day and makes people smile — at the Alton Towers amusement park in Britain, which videotapes visitors who agree to wear RFID bracelets as they move about the facility, then sells the footage as a keepsake.
This application shows how the technology can be used effortlessly — and benignly. But critics, noting it can also be abused, say federal authorities in the United States didn’t do enough from the start to address that risk.
The first U.S. identity document to be embedded with RFID was the “e-passport.”
In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks — and the finding that some of the terrorists entered the United States using phony passports — the State Department proposed mandating that Americans and foreign visitors carry “enhanced” passport booklets, with microchips embedded in the covers.
The chips, it announced, would store the holder’s information from the data page, a biometric version of the bearer’s photo, and receive special coding to prevent data from being altered.
In February 2005, when the State Department asked for public comment, it got an outcry: Of the 2,335 comments received, 98.5 percent were negative, with 86 percent expressing security or privacy concerns, the department reported in an October 2005 notice in the Federal Register.
“Identity theft was of grave concern,” it stated, adding that “others expressed fears that the U.S. Government or other governments would use the chip to track and censor, intimidate or otherwise control or harm them.”
It also noted that many Americans expressed worries “that the information could be read at distances in excess of 10 feet.”
Those concerned citizens, it turns out, had cause.
According to department records obtained by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, under a Freedom of Information Act request and reviewed by the AP, discussion about security concerns with the e-passport occurred as early as January 2003 but tests weren’t ordered until the department began receiving public criticism two years later.
When the AP asked when testing was initiated, the State Department said only that “a battery of durability and electromagnetic tests were performed” by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, along with tests “to measure the ability of data on electronic passports to be surreptitiously skimmed or for communications with the chip reader to be eavesdropped,” testing which “led to additional privacy controls being placed on U.S. electronic passports … ”
Indeed, in 2005, the department incorporated metallic fibers into the e-passport’s front cover, since metal can reduce the range at which RFID can be read. Personal information in the chips was encrypted and a cryptographic “key” added, which required inspectors to optically scan the e-passport first for the chip to communicate wirelessly.
The department also announced it would test e-passports with select employees, before giving them to the public. “We wouldn’t be issuing the passports to ourselves if we didn’t think they’re secure,” said Frank Moss, deputy assistant Secretary of State for passport services, in a CNN interview.
But what of Americans’ concerns about the e-passport’s read range?
In its October 2005 Federal Register notice, the State Department reassured Americans that the e-passport’s chip — the ISO 14443 tag — would emit radio waves only within a 4-inch radius, making it tougher to hack.
Technologists in Israel and England, however, soon found otherwise. In May 2006, at the University of Tel Aviv, researchers cobbled together 110 worth of parts from hobbyists kits and directly skimmed an encrypted tag from several feet away. At the University of Cambridge, a student showed that a transmission between an e-passport and a legitimate reader could be intercepted from 160 feet.
The State Department, according to its own records obtained under FOIA, was aware of the problem months before its Federal Register notice and more than a year before the e-passport was rolled out in August 2006.
“Do not claim that these chips can only be read at a distance of 10 cm (4 inches),” Moss wrote in an April 22, 2005, e-mail to Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance. “That really has been proven to be wrong.”
The chips could be skimmed from a yard away, he added — all a hacker would need to read e-passport numbers, say, in an elevator or on a subway.
Other red flags went up. In February 2006, an encrypted Dutch e-passport was hacked on national television, with researchers gaining access to the document’s digital photograph, fingerprint and personal data. Then British e-passports were hacked using a 500 reader and software written in less than 48 hours.
The State Department countered by saying European e-passports weren’t as safe as their American counterparts because they lacked the cryptographic key and the anti-skimming cover.
But recent studies have shown that more powerful readers can penetrate even the metal sheathing in the U.S. e-passport’s cover.
John Brennan, a senior policy adviser at the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, concedes it may be possible for a reader to overpower the e-passport’s protective shield from a distance.
However, he adds, “you could not do this in any large-scale, concerted fashion without putting a bunch of infrastructure in place to make it happen. The practical vulnerabilities may be far less than some of the theoretical scenarios that people have put out there.”
That thinking is flawed, says Lee Tien, a senior attorney and surveillance expert with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which opposes RFID in identity documents.
It won’t take a massive government project to build reader networks around the country, he says: They will grow organically, for commercial purposes, from convention centers to shopping malls, sports stadiums to college campuses. Federal agencies and law enforcement wouldn’t have to control those networks; they already buy information about individuals from commercial data brokers.
“And remember,” Tien adds, “technology always gets better … ”
___
With questions swirling around the e-passport’s security, why then did the government roll out more RFID-tagged documents — the PASS card and enhanced driver’s license, which provide less protection against hackers?
The RFIDs in enhanced driver’s licenses and PASS cards are nearly as slim as paper. Each contains a silicon computer chip attached to a wire antenna, which transmits a unique identifier via radio waves when “awakened” by an electromagnetic reader.
The technology they use is designed to track products through the supply chain. These chips, known as EPCglobal Gen 2, have no encryption, and minimal data protection features. They are intended to release their data to any inquiring Gen 2 reader within a 30-foot radius.
This might be appropriate when a supplier is tracking a shipment of toilet paper or dog food; but when personal information is at stake, privacy advocates ask: Is long-range readability truly desirable?
The departments of State and Homeland Security say remotely readable ID cards transmit only RFID numbers that correspond to records stored in government databases, which they say are secure. Even if a hacker were to copy an RFID number onto a blank tag and place it into a counterfeit ID, they say, the forger’s face still wouldn’t match the true cardholder’s photo in the database, rendering it useless.
Still, computer experts such as Schneier say government databases can be hacked. Others worry about a day when hackers might deploy readers at “chokepoints,” such as checkout lines, skim RFID numbers from people’s driver’s licenses, then pair those numbers to personal data skimmed from chipped credit cards (though credit cards are harder to skim). They imagine stalkers using skimmed RFID numbers to track their targets’ comings and goings. They fear government agents will compile chip numbers at peace rallies, mosques or gun shows, simply by strolling through a crowd with a reader.
Others worry more about the linking of chips with other identification methods, including biometric technologies, such as facial recognition.
The International Civil Aviation Organization, the U.N. agency that sets global standards for passports, now calls for facial recognition in all scannable e-passports.
Should biometric technologies be coupled with RFID, “governments will have, for the first time in history, the means to identify, monitor and track citizens anywhere in the world in real time,” says Mark Lerner, spokesman for the Constitutional Alliance, a network of nonprofit groups, lawmakers and citizens opposed to remotely readable identity and travel documents.
Implausible?
For now, perhaps. Radio tags in EDLs and passport cards can’t be scanned miles away.
But scientists are working on technologies that might enable a satellite or a cell tower to scan a chip’s contents. Critics also note advances in the sharpness of closed-circuit cameras, and point out they’re increasingly ubiquitous. And more fingerprints, iris scans and digitized facial images are being stored in government databases. The FBI has announced plans to assemble the world’s largest biometric database, nicknamed “Next Generation Identification.”
“RFID’s role is to make the collection and transmission of people’s biometric data quick, easy and nonintrusive,” says Lerner. “Think of it as the thread that ties together the surveillance package.”
___
On the Net:

http://www.dhs.gov/xprevprot/programs/gc(underscore)1200693579776.shtm

http://travel.state.gov/passport/eppt/eppt(underscore)2498.html

http://www.stoprealidcoalition.com/

http://www.smartcardalliance.org/pages/publications-realid

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/02/rfid-passports-scanned-car

http://epic.org/privacy/surveillance/spotlight/0907/

Japan To Vote In Key Tokyo Polls

Japan to vote in key Tokyo polls
By Roland Buerk
BBC News, Tokyo
People in Tokyo are preparing to vote in local polls considered a key test of popularity for Prime Minister Taro Aso.The polls in the capital come ahead of a general election which must be held by October. Taro Aso, whose Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has governed for almost all the past half-century, has approval hovering around 20%. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) is hoping to break the LDP’s grip on power. Voters are deciding who will sit on Tokyo’s metropolitan assembly, but the stakes could be higher than that for Mr Aso. If his LDP does badly, moves to oust him from the leadership could intensify. In the run up to the vote in Tokyo candidates, wearing white gloves and sashes, toured the streets in vans using loudspeakers to campaign. But many voters appeared largely indifferent. Some candidates resorted to making speeches in front of deserted city car parks, their words echoing off the surrounding apartment blocks. The LDP has governed Japan for the past half century, except for a break of less than a year in the 1990s. But Mr Aso, who is the fourth prime minister since the last election to the more powerful lower house in 2005, has dismal approval ratings. The opposition DPJ hopes to take power in the next general election, which must be held by October. It is promising to break the grip of the bureaucracy on policy making, and increase social welfare measures. But the opposition’s support has been eroded by fund raising scandals.

Source:BBC

Iraq Bombings Kill 8 In Capital Northern Village

BAGHDAD – A car bomb exploded in an alley Saturday in a village in northern Iraq, killing at least four people, wounding others and destroying eight homes, police said. Another six people died in bombings in Baghdad.
Thirty-eight people were wounded and several shops and cars were also damaged in the 3 p.m. explosion in the northern village of Kugjeli, according to a police officer in Ninevah Province, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
Most of the victims were inside their homes when the bomb exploded near the main street of the predominantly Shiite village, about five kilometers (three miles) east of the city of Mosul.
In the Baghdad attack, a bomb was placed at the gate of a billiards hall in the central district of Karrada. Four civilians died and 15 were injured, all of them youths in the hall, a police officer and a hospital medic said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
A bomb in the same area wounded four police on patrol.
In southwest Baghdad, a bomb planted on a car killed two people, including a junior Cabinet official, and injured 11 others, including the wife and child of the official, police and hospital officials said.
Violence remains at low levels in Iraq compared with previous years, but bombings continue to kill scores of people. The attacks have raised concerns as the U.S. military draws down troop numbers and Iraq prepares for parliamentary elections on Jan. 30.
U.S. combat troops in Iraq completed a withdrawal from urban areas to outlying bases at the end of last month, ahead of a planned pullout by all American forces by the end of 2011.
Separately, the U.S. military said an American soldier in Iraq shot and killed a truck driver, an Iraqi citizen, who did not respond to warnings to stop on a highway north of Baghdad.
The shooting happened at around 2:15 a.m. on Friday when the truck approached a U.S. logistics convoy that had stopped because one of its vehicles had broken down, the military said.
Soldiers flashed vehicle lights and shouted for the truck to stop, but it continued to accelerate, according to the military. A soldier thought the convoy was under attack and fired on the truck, the military said. A teenage passenger in the vehicle, identified by Iraqi officials as a brother of the driver, was not harmed.
Maj. Derrick Cheng, a U.S. military spokesman, described the killing as “tragic” and said the soldier acted in line with terms of a joint U.S.-Iraqi security deal. The soldier was unlikely to face any Iraqi prosecution because the security agreement allows for U.S. jurisdiction over American soldiers in cases when they are on duty and outside their bases.
U.S. and Iraqi forces were jointly investigating the incident, which occurred between the cities of Tikrit and Balad.
An Iraqi police officer and a medic said the truck driver was taken to a hospital in Dujail, where he died of his wounds. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Such incidents were common in the early years of the war in Iraq, deepening hostility toward U.S. forces. Diminishing violence and a more culturally sensitive approach by U.S. forces since 2007 have helped appease large segments of the population and isolated militants.
The U.S. military also reported the death of a civilian Iraqi motorist in a head-on collision Thursday night with a U.S. Army Stryker vehicle, the lead vehicle of a U.S.-Iraqi convoy in western Diyala province. The convoy slowed to let the car pass and the Stryker driver signaled with the horn and headlights, but the car did not alter speed or bearing, the military said. At least one soldier in the Stryker was injured.
___
Associated Press Writers Christopher Torchia and Mazin Yahya in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Obama Africa Aid Must Be Matched By Good Governance

ACCRA (Reuters) –
U.S. President Barack Obama told Africans on Saturday that Western aid must be matched by good governance and urged them to take greater responsibility for stamping out war, corruption and disease plaguing the continent.
Obama delivered the message on his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office in January as the first black U.S. president. He chose stable, democratic Ghana because he believes it can serve as a model for the rest of Africa.
Fresh from a G8 summit where leaders agreed to spend $20 billion to improve food security in poor countries, Obama spoke of a “new moment of promise” but stressed that Africans must also take a leading role in sorting out their many problems.
“Development depends upon good governance,” Obama said in a speech to Ghana's parliament. “That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa's potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.”
In an address that offered the most detailed view of his Africa policy, Obama took aim at corruption and rights abuses on the continent, warning that growth and development would be held back until such problems were tackled.
He said America would not impose any system of government, but would increase help for those behaving responsibly.
“The future of Africa is in the hands of Africans,” Obama told a crowd of several thousand, including dancers and drummers, seeing him off after the visit of less than 24 hours.
Addressing the young people of Africa, Obama said: “You have the power to hold your leaders accountable and to build institutions that serve the people.”
The visit has enormous resonance for Africa because of Obama's roots as the son of Kenyan immigrant. He laced his speech with tales of his background and the struggles of his forebears in the face of poverty and colonial rule.
“ENCOURAGEMENT”
“It will give encouragement to those fighting corruption and for democracy,” said African affairs commentator Joel Kibazo.
“He said it in a way that perhaps other presidents could not because he started by outlining his own connections,” said Kibazo, while noting Obama was less specific on promoting good governance than with a $63 billion health spending pledge.
MPs chanted “yes, we can” before Obama started and the president ended his address with that phrase — his old campaign slogan. The crowd's response was much warmer than the cordial but mostly chilly reception in Moscow earlier in the week.
“Obama's visit was a defining moment for Africa,” said Mohamed ibn Chambas, who heads regional bloc ECOWAS.
The language and cadence of Obama's speech was a mix of church sermon, campaign rally and university lecture.
“This encourages us also to sustain the gains that we have made in our democratic process,” said Ghanaian President John Atta Mills, elected in a transparent election that contrasted with stereotypes of chaos, coups and corruption in Africa.
Reforms in the cocoa and gold producing country, set to begin pumping oil next year, helped bring unprecedented investment and growth before the global financial crisis.
Ghanaians, many dressed in Obama t-shirts, packed into the streets of Accra in hope of glimpsing the president. They clustered around television sets in homes, bars and backyards to follow his words.
“The message he gave was covering the ways in we should change our lifestyles. I believe when we do that we will prosper,” said engineer Joseph Aboagye. “We need to change.”
But expectations were anchored in reality.
“I am not under any illusion that he's coming to solve our problems in one go,” said Janet Ashiboe, 42, a market trader.
Obama made a trip by helicopter to Cape Coast Castle, a former depot of the transatlantic slave trade and a reminder of one of the darkest chapters in African and American history.
“As painful as it is, I think that it helps to teach all of us that we have to do what we can to fight against the kinds of evils that sadly still exist in our world, not just on this continent but in every corner of the globe,” a somber-looking Obama told reporters at the white-washed fort.
Although Obama's ancestors were from Kenya, his wife Michelle is descended from slaves shipped from Africa. Obama, his wife and their two daughters left Accra to return to Washington.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Matthew Tostevin and Jon Boyle)

Iran Prepares Package To Offer West Minister

TEHRAN (Reuters) –
Iran is preparing a new package of “political, security and international” issues to put to the West, its foreign minister said on Saturday.
“The package can be a good basis for talks with the West. The package will contain Iran's stances on political, security and international issues,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday that the Group of Eight major powers would give Iran until September to accept negotiations over its nuclear ambitions or face tougher sanctions.
In Iran's first reaction to Sarkozy's statement at the G8 summit in Italy, Mottaki said the Islamic Republic had not received “any new message” from the summit.
“We have not received any new message from the G8. But based on the news we have received, they had different views on different issues which did not lead to a unanimous agreement in some areas,” Mottaki said.
Britain's Foreign Office said it could not comment on Mottaki's remarks as the package was still being prepared. The White House had no immediate comment.
U.S. President Barack Obama warned Iran on Friday that the world would not wait indefinitely for it to end its nuclear defiance, saying Tehran had until September to comply or else face consequences.
EU powers Britain, France and Germany have led negotiations with Iran over nuclear work that the West suspects is aimed at bomb-making.
Tehran says its nuclear work is wholly peaceful and remains defiant in the nuclear row with the West, saying Iran will not back down “even one step” over its disputed program.
Together with the United States, Russia and China, the EU nations have offered a package of economic and other incentives to Iran if it will stop enriching uranium, a process that can produce fuel for power plants, or, potentially, a nuclear bomb.
Iran has rejected the demand, saying it has the right to pursue such work as a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In a separate statement, the G8 said it was committed to finding a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program.
(Writing by Parisa Hafezi, Editing by Tim Pearce)

Obama Africa Aid Must Be Matched By Good Governance

ACCRA (Reuters) –
U.S. President Barack Obama told Africans on Saturday that Western aid must be matched by good governance and urged them to take greater responsibility for stamping out war, corruption and disease plaguing the continent.
Obama delivered the message on his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa since taking office in January as the first black U.S. president. He chose stable, democratic Ghana because he believes it can serve as a model for the rest of Africa.
Fresh from a G8 summit where leaders agreed to spend $20 billion to improve food security in poor countries, Obama spoke of a “new moment of promise” but stressed that Africans must also take a leading role in sorting out their many problems.
“Development depends upon good governance,” Obama said in a speech to Ghana's parliament. “That is the ingredient which has been missing in far too many places, for far too long. That is the change that can unlock Africa's potential. And that is a responsibility that can only be met by Africans.”
In an address that offered the most detailed view of his Africa policy, Obama took aim at corruption and rights abuses on the continent, warning that growth and development would be held back until such problems were tackled.
He said America would not impose any system of government, but would increase help for those behaving responsibly.
“The future of Africa is in the hands of Africans,” Obama told a crowd of several thousand, including dancers and drummers, seeing him off after the visit of less than 24 hours.
Addressing the young people of Africa, Obama said: “You have the power to hold your leaders accountable and to build institutions that serve the people.”
The visit has enormous resonance for Africa because of Obama's roots as the son of Kenyan immigrant. He laced his speech with tales of his background and the struggles of his forebears in the face of poverty and colonial rule.
“ENCOURAGEMENT”
“It will give encouragement to those fighting corruption and for democracy,” said African affairs commentator Joel Kibazo.
“He said it in a way that perhaps other presidents could not because he started by outlining his own connections,” said Kibazo, while noting Obama was less specific on promoting good governance than with a $63 billion health spending pledge.
MPs chanted “yes, we can” before Obama started and the president ended his address with that phrase — his old campaign slogan. The crowd's response was much warmer than the cordial but mostly chilly reception in Moscow earlier in the week.
“Obama's visit was a defining moment for Africa,” said Mohamed ibn Chambas, who heads regional bloc ECOWAS.
The language and cadence of Obama's speech was a mix of church sermon, campaign rally and university lecture.
“This encourages us also to sustain the gains that we have made in our democratic process,” said Ghanaian President John Atta Mills, elected in a transparent election that contrasted with stereotypes of chaos, coups and corruption in Africa.
Reforms in the cocoa and gold producing country, set to begin pumping oil next year, helped bring unprecedented investment and growth before the global financial crisis.
Ghanaians, many dressed in Obama t-shirts, packed into the streets of Accra in hope of glimpsing the president. They clustered around television sets in homes, bars and backyards to follow his words.
“The message he gave was covering the ways in we should change our lifestyles. I believe when we do that we will prosper,” said engineer Joseph Aboagye. “We need to change.”
But expectations were anchored in reality.
“I am not under any illusion that he's coming to solve our problems in one go,” said Janet Ashiboe, 42, a market trader.
Obama made a trip by helicopter to Cape Coast Castle, a former depot of the transatlantic slave trade and a reminder of one of the darkest chapters in African and American history.
“As painful as it is, I think that it helps to teach all of us that we have to do what we can to fight against the kinds of evils that sadly still exist in our world, not just on this continent but in every corner of the globe,” a somber-looking Obama told reporters at the white-washed fort.
Although Obama's ancestors were from Kenya, his wife Michelle is descended from slaves shipped from Africa. Obama, his wife and their two daughters left Accra to return to Washington.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Daniel Magnowski; Editing by Matthew Tostevin and Jon Boyle)

ManchesterMan Charged With Shop Gun Murder

Man charged with shop gun murder
Police investigating the killing of a shop worker who was shot at least six times in Greater Manchester have charged a 20-year-old man with murder.Nasar Hussain, known locally as Nasar Shazad, 30, was shot at Brookhouse Wines in Winton, Salford, on 4 July. Ryan Manning, of Higher Ince, Wigan, has been charged with murder, the police confirmed. A 17-year-old boy has also been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder and remains in custody. Eleven other people have been arrested on suspicion of the same conspiracy offence. The nine men and two women have been bailed until 17 August. Mr Manning will appear at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on Monday. Earlier this week, Mr Hussain’s father, who lives in a remote part of Pakistan, said he was devastated by his son’s death. Mr Hussain had only moved to the Salford area six months before his death.

Source:BBC

US Seeks Amnesty For Two Held In North Korea

WASHINGTON The United States has dropped its request that two American journalists imprisoned in North Korea be released on humanitarian grounds, and is seeking amnesty instead, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gives a news briefing Friday at the State Department.
A plea for amnesty implies forgiveness for some offense. The womenLaura Ling and Euna Leewere sentenced in June to 12 years in prison on charges of entering the country illegally to conduct a smear campaign. Laura Ling’s sister, Lisa Ling, told CNN Friday night that she feels the change in approach is significant, and could aid negotiations for the women’s freedom. Lisa Ling is a CNN contributor. “The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident, and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened,” Clinton told a State Department briefing Friday.
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“What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible,” she said. Laura Ling and Lee are serving their sentences in a prison that requires hard labor. Lisa Ling was able to speak to her sister by phone Tuesday night, according to CNN affiliate KOVR-TV in Sacramento, California. She told the station that her sister “was very specific about the message that she was communicating. According to Lisa Ling, her sister told her, “‘Look, we violated North Korean law and we need our government to help us. We are sorry about everything that has happened, but we need diplomacy.’” Ling said that without being able see her sister, it was difficult to tell how she was doing. The imprisoned women, who are reporters for California-based Current TVa media venture of former U.S. Vice President Al Gorewere arrested while reporting on the border between North Korea and China. “All we can say is they are journalists and they were doing their job,” said Lisa Ling.
Source:CNN

Searchers Shovel Northwest Dirt Seeking Giant Worm

MOSCOW, Idaho – The giant Palouse earthworm has taken on mythic qualities in this vast agricultural region that stretches from eastern Washington into the Idaho panhandle — its very name evoking the fictional sandworms from “Dune” or those vicious creatures from the movie “Tremors.”
The worm is said to secrete a lily-like smell when handled, spit at predators, and live in burrows 15 feet deep. There have been only a handful of sightings.
But scientists hope to change that this summer with researchers scouring the Palouse region in hopes of finding more of the giant earthworms. Conservationists also want the Obama administration to protect the worm as an endangered species, even though little research has been done on it.
The worm may be elusive, but there’s no doubt it exists, said Jodi Johnson-Maynard, a University of Idaho professor who is leading the search for the worm. To prove it, she pulled out a glass tube containing the preserved remains of a fat, milky-white worm. One of Johnson-Maynard’s graduate students found this specimen in 2005, and it is the only confirmed example of the species.
The worm in the tube is about 6 inches long, well short of the 3 feet that early observers of the worms in the late 1890s described. Documented collections of the species, known locally as GPE, have occurred only in 1978, 1988, 1990 and 2005.
The farmers who work the rich soil of the Palouse — 2 million acres of rolling wheat fields near the Idaho-Washington border south of Spokane — also have had little experience with the worm.
Gary Budd, who manages a grain elevator in Uniontown, said no farmer he knows has talked about seeing the worm. He compared the creature to Elvis.
“He gets spotted once in awhile too,” Budd joked.
Johnson-Maynard and her team of worm hunters are working this summer at a university research farm and using three different methods to try and find a living worm.
One involves just digging a hole and sifting the soil through a strainer, looking for any worms that can be studied.
The second involves old-fashioned chemical warfare, pouring a liquid solution of vinegar and mustard onto the ground, irritating worms until they come to the surface.
The third method is new to this search, using electricity to shock worms to the surface.
“The electro shocker is pretty cool,” said Joanna Blaszczak, a student at Cornell who is spending her summer working to find the worm alongside Shan Xu, a graduate student from Chengdu, China, and support scientist Karl Umiker.
The shocker can deliver up to 480 volts. That makes it dangerous to touch, and it could potentially fry a specimen.
On a recent day, Umiker drove eight 3-foot-long metal rods into the ground in a small circle and connected them to batteries. Then he flipped the switches. The only sound for several minutes was the hum of a cooling fan.
“I’m kind of bummed we haven’t seen anything yet,” Umiker said.
Eventually, a small rust-colored worm dug its way to the surface. It was not a GPE, but it was collected for study anyway.
The search for the giant worm is reminiscent of efforts in Louisiana, Florida and the swamps of eastern Arkansas to find the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker. The large, black-and-white bird was believed to be extinct until a reported sighting five years ago stirred national experts and federal funding to launch a full-blown campaign to verify its existence. Search efforts later dwindled after biologists and volunteers were unable to find the evidence they were looking for.
The GPE was described as common in the Palouse in the 1890s, according to an 1897 article in The American Naturalist by Frank Smith. Smith’s work was based on four samples sent to him by R.W. Doane of Washington State University in nearby Pullman.
Massive agricultural development soon consumed nearly all of the unique Palouse Prairie — a seemingly endless ocean of steep, silty dunes — and appeared to deal a fatal blow to the worm.
They were considered extinct when Idaho graduate student Yaniria Sanchez-de Leon in 2005 stuck a shovel into the ground to collect a soil sample and found the worm that now is in the tube in Johnson-Maynard’s office.
Conservation groups quickly petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the worm as an endangered species, citing as proof the lack of sightings. But the agency said there simply was not enough scientific information to merit a listing.
Conservationists recently filed a second request, saying they had more information. They are also hoping the Obama administration will be more friendly than the Bush administration. The GPE would be the only worm protected as an endangered species.
Doug Zimmer of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Seattle said the agency isn’t ready to comment on the petition.
“It’s always good to see new information and good science on any species,” Zimmer said.
Farmers are keeping a wary eye on the process.
“The concern is whether a listing is going to end up curtailing farming activities,” said Dan Wood of the Washington State Farm Bureau. “I don’t know if people plan to stop all farming for the possibility of a worm being somewhere.”
Most earthworms found in the Northwest originated in Europe, arriving on plants or in soil shipped to the New World. The giant Palouse earthworm is one of the few native species, and has become quite popular with the public.
While it’s tough to come by a live GPE, visitors seem happy to take a picture with a dead one. Johnson-Maynard said she has received calls from tourists who want to come to her office and be photographed with the specimen.
“A lot of people are curious about it,” she said.
___
On the Web:

http://www.palouseprairie.org/invertebrates/palouseworm.html

Thousands Gather For Steve McNairs Funeral

HATTIESBURG, Mississippi Thousands gathered Saturday for the funeral of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair, who was killed a week ago.
Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis arrives for Saturday’s funeral service.
“Steve was like a hero to me and heroes are not supposed to die,” Tennessee Titans quarterback Vince Young told the crowd, his voice cracking. “He inspired me,” Young said of his longtime mentor. “He has helped me on every decision I have made.” McNair’s casketsitting front and center at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Reed Green Coliseumwas draped with flowers. Adjacent to it was a large photograph of the slain quarterback, one of many. A floral wreath framed a No. 9 jersey. Among those in the audience were former NFL quarterback Brett Favre, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis and Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. Mississippi’s Oak Grove High School football team, for which Steve McNair Jr. plays, was also there, dressed in their game jerseys. “We are here to celebrate a king,” Lewis told the crowd.
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Titans coach Craig Johnson and McNair’s coach at Alcorn State University, Cardell Jones, also spoke. “Mississippi has lost a tremendous legend,” Jones said. Police in Nashville, Tennessee, said McNair, a 36-year-old married father of four children, was killed by his mistress on July 4 in what they have classified as a murder-suicide. Sahel Kazemi, 20, first shot McNair in his right temple, then fired three more shots at close range, most likely while he slept in his condo in downtown Nashville, police said. The young woman then sat on the couch next to his body and killed herself so that she would fall into his lap, police said. McNair spent 13 seasons in the NFL, mostly with the Tennessee Titans, where he excelled on the field as quarterback. He was named the NFL’s co-MVP in 2003 and spent his last two seasons with the Baltimore Ravens before announcing his retirement in April 2008.
Source:CNN

Italian Released In Philippines

Italian released in Philippines
An Italian Red Cross worker has been freed in the Philippines after being held hostage by Muslim rebels for nearly six months, officials say.Eugenio Vagni, 62, arrived at an army base on the restive southern island of Jolo with a local politician who had been mediating with the kidnappers. Mr Vagni and two co-workers were seized by Abu Sayyaf rebels as they visited a project at a jail on Jolo. The other two Red Cross staff were released in April.

Source:BBC

NASA Delays Shuttle Launch To Investigate Possible Lightning Damage

This story was updated at 11:44 a.m. EDT.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The oft-delayed space shuttle
Endeavour will have to wait at least one more day to launch while NASA
investigates whether lightning strikes near the launch pad yesterday caused any
damage.
No positive signs of harm to Endeavour have yet been found
from the violent lightning storm Friday afternoon, but mission managers called
for a 24-hour delay to investigate before resuming the countdown
to lift off.
“We need to be 100 percent confident that we have a
good system across the board,” said Mike Moses, Endeavour's mission
management team chairman, during a Saturday briefing. “We've seen nothing so
far that indicates anything was actually affected by the lightning strike. But we
have to check and that's what takes time.”
Thunderstorms have lately plagued the seaside region of the
Kennedy Space Center here, and sensors counted 11 lightning strikes within
about 0.3 miles of Endeavour's perch on Launch Pad 39A Friday.
Although no lightning directly impacted the orbiter, fuel
tank or solid rocket boosters (SRBs), a near enough strike could have induced a
strong current that could disable the sensitive electronics in the orbiter, or
the pyrotechnics in the SRBs.
“The concern is mostly in those pyrotechnic
systems,” Moses said. “There's a lot of things that have to go right.
That's why we need to double check everything.”
Mission managers hope an extra day will be enough time to thoroughly
check out Endeavour.
“I have high confidence we'll get there in 24 hours,
but I certainly cannot guarantee it,” Moses said.
If no serious signs of damage are found, Endeavour could try
to launch again as early as Sunday at 7:13 p.m. EDT (2313 GMT) on its planned
16-day construction mission to the International Space Station. The weather
outlook is slightly better for Sunday than today's forecast, with a 60 percent
chance of favorable conditions expected.
Repeated Delays
Endeavour's STS-127
mission has already been held at the ground after a persistent leak of
gaseous hydrogen twice prevented the shuttle from lifting off. NASA has said
the leak, a potentially dangerous gas flow from a vent pipe leading off the
vehicle's 15-storey external tank, has been fixed.
After a thorough investigation, ground crews traced the
problem to a misaligned plate on the tank. NASA repaired the plate and
successfully tested the system last week. Mission managers said they're
confident the issue won't pose a problem anymore.
Commanded by veteran shuttle
flyer Mark Polansky, Endeavour's STS-127 mission will launch toward the
International Space Station carrying vital spare parts and a Japanese-built
porch for the outpost's massive Kibo laboratory. The marathon 16-day mission
will also ferry rookie NASA astronaut Tom Kopra to the station to replace
Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, who has lived aboard the orbiting lab since
late March. Wakata is Japan's first long-duration astronaut and has watched
over his country's 1
billion Kibo laboratory at the station.
Set to launch spaceward aboard Endeavour with Polansky and
Kopra are STS-127 pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Chris Cassidy,
Julie Payette, Tom Marshburn and Dave Wolf. Payette represents the Canadian
Space Agency, while the rest are NASA astronauts. Five spacewalks are planned.
Kopra is beginning a three-month mission to the space
station as a flight engineer on the outpost's six-man Expedition 20 crew. He
will join two Russians, another American and astronauts from Belgium and Canada
on what is the station's first
full six-person crew.
Endeavour's 16-day mission will mark NASA's third shuttle
flight of the year and the second space station construction flight of 2009.
If Endeavour is unable to launch Sunday, a third attempt is
possible on Monday, with a 70 percent chance of good weather. NASA has until
July 14 to launch the shuttle before standing down to allow avoid a traffic
conflict with an unmanned Russian cargo ship also due at the space station this
month. If the mission is unable to launch by then, NASA can try again on July
27.
New
Video – The Kibo Lab: Japan's Hope in Space – Part 1, Part
2
Final
Countdown: A Guide to NASA's Last Space Shuttle Missions
SPACE.com
Special Report – THE MOON: Then, Now, Next
SPACE.com is providing continuous coverage of STS-127
with reporter Clara Moskowitz at Cape Canaveral and senior editor Tariq Malik
in New York. Click here
for mission updates and SPACE.com's live NASA TV video feed. Live launch
coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT).

Original Story: NASA Delays Shuttle Launch To Investigate Possible Lightning Damage
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Mississippi Remembers Steve McNair At Funeral

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Thousands turned out in Tennessee to say goodbye to Steve McNair, and people in his native state were doing the same Saturday to give the ex-NFL quarterback one of the biggest funerals in recent Mississippi history.
“We’re going to have church this morning, and we’re going to praise God for Steve’s life,” said gospel singer Dottie Peoples, a close friend of McNair’s mother, Lucille.
At least 4,500 turned out, though organizers anticipated a capacity crowd of 8,000 at Reed Green Coliseum on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi. Most of McNair’s hometown of Mount Olive also arrived thanks to buses rented by the McNairs, and hundreds came out Friday night for a visitation. A private burial was to follow in Mount Olive.
The hearse carrying McNair’s casket arrived a couple of hours before the funeral, escorted 30 miles down Highway 49 by nine police officers on motorcycles and several vehicles carrying family members.
A line outside the coliseum snaked down the sidewalk as early as 8 a.m., even with temperatures quickly rising into the low 90s on a humid day.
The hearse backed up next to the playing floor to deliver McNair’s silvery-gray casket. Police escorted McNair’s wife, Mechelle, and his mother, Lucille, into the stadium beforehand.
Brett Favre, who had a home near McNair’s here in Hattiesburg, sat a few rows behind the McNair family. Titans coach Jeff Fisher and quarterback Vince Young, Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis and Chicago quarterback Jay Cutler also attended. Doug Williams, the first black quarterback to win the Super Bowl, also was on hand.
Young was added to the service late, and the quarterback drafted by Tennessee to replace McNair in 2006 called his predecessor “Pops” — remembering how McNair served as his father and mentor since Young attended one of the man’s football camps as a teenager.
“Steve was like a hero to me, and heroes are not supposed to die,” Young said before stopping to rub his eyes.
Lewis said he once promised the McNairs he would visit with them in Mississippi. He played against McNair and was his teammate the final two years of his NFL career. Lewis talked of how he learned studying film and proper technique wouldn’t help him beat a quarterback fueled by will, heart and sacrifice.
“I find myself in awe when I speak about a man like Steve McNair,” Lewis said.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was among those who sent flowers. Titans owner Bud Adams attended the memorial service Thursday night in Nashville. Fisher was called up to speak from the audience, and he pulled Young up to the podium and led the audience in the Lord’s Prayer just as he did during 11 seasons with McNair before every kickoff.
McNair was shot and killed on the Fourth of July by Sahel Kazemi, a 20-year-old girlfriend who then shot herself in the head.
Bobby Hamilton, who played at Southern Miss and in the NFL with New England and Oakland, used to sleep on the floor of McNair’s oldest brother, Fred, when he played at Alcorn State. He also cheered on McNair during his career and recalled how McNair rallied Alcorn State by scoring two touchdowns with less than a minute left.
“It’s very painful. We know he was a warrior. … I can’t even say the word how this warrior went down,” an emotional Hamilton said.
The program included memories from McNair’s mother, his wife and sons, brothers, and nieces and nephews. Photos were also displayed of the quarterback who played 13 NFL seasons with Tennessee and Baltimore before retiring in 2008.
Coach Nevil Barr brought the entire jersey-clad Oak Grove High School football team to the service. Steve McNair Jr. attends Oak Grove, and his father joined Favre at a summer workout two weeks ago to play catch with the kids.
“He was on our sideline every Friday night supporting his son,” Barr said. “He loved to come watch Steve Jr., and we loved having him there. He always had that smile.”
Deloris Cagins traveled from nearby Columbia to attend the funeral. She wore the purple and gold of McNair’s alma mater, Alcorn State, and had a pompom tied to her walker. She has relatives who eventually joined her beloved Braves, where McNair made a Heisman Trophy run and set a number of NCAA Division I-AA records before going third overall in the NFL draft in 1995 to the then-Houston Oilers.
“Alcornites to me are a different breed of people,” she said. “It’s like a family. If you do something, we’ll support you.”
(This version CORRECTS day funeral is being held.)

Scrub Tech Causes Major Hepatitis Scare In Colo

DENVER – Kimberly Spencer’s 9-year-old son went to Audubon Ambulatory Surgery Center last month for what was supposed to be a routine surgery. The rambunctious child stuck a BB in his ear and doctors had to operate to remove it.
What happened next shocked the family. They were notified that their son is one of 6,000 patients who may have been exposed to hepatitis C by a painkiller-addicted technician who had the disease and allegedly passed on dirty syringes to patients.
The technician has been jailed, thousands of rattled patients have been getting hepatitis C tests, and two medical facilities where she worked have been bombarded with questions about how they let it happen. Ten cases of hepatitis C have been linked to Rose Medical Center, where Kristen Diane Parker worked until April.
“It was originally a humorous child story we could write about in his baby book and now it’s just gone south a little bit,” Spencer said Friday as she awaited results of her son’s blood test. “We’re very optimistic, we think it’s going to be just fine. It’s still unnerving.”
During a police interview videotaped June 30 that was played in court Thursday, the 26-year-old Parker told a detective that she kept dirty saline-filled syringes in her pocket and watched for opportunities when doctors and nurses left the room. She then allegedly stole syringes filled with Fentanyl from operating carts and replaced them with the used syringes.
“I didn’t want to make it obvious to everyone that I was using,” the 26-year-old Parker told the detective in the interview, saying she stole between 15 and 20 syringes of Fentanyl. “I knew my limit.”
Health officials are conducting tests to determine if the 10 hepatitis C cases are definitively linked to Parker. Many people with hepatitis C don’t know they are infected because they don’t develop symptoms until years later.
Parker said she used between 100 to 250 micrograms of the drug each time, roughly enough medication for a 500-pound person, according to medical malpractice attorney Dr. Eric Steiner, a former cardiac anesthesiologist.
Thousands of former surgery patients have contacted Denver’s Rose Medical Center and Audubon Ambulatory Surgery Center in Colorado Springs for free blood tests being offered by both facilities. More than 1,900 former Rose patients have been tested, said hospital spokeswoman Leslie Teegarden.
An Audubon spokesman did not return messages Friday, but state health officials said those at that facility, including Spencer’s son, will be tested again in about seven weeks because it takes that long for the disease to show up in the bloodstream. Hepatitis C is a treatable but incurable blood-borne disease that can cause serious liver problems.
Despite a hopeful attitude for Spencer, mundane every day occurrences have taken on disproportionate significance, such as Thursday when her son fell off his bike and skinned his knee.
“A simple little scrape to me is, ‘Oh my gosh,’ we need to take care of that, wash our hands, bandage him up. It makes you think twice, for everybody; the children he’s playing with, the children I have at home. At the same time I don’t want to overreact for him. He’s nine.
“It’s probably going to be like this for six more weeks until we know for sure.”
Parker’s case could end up being the first in Colorado where a patient got an infection from a health care worker who was tampering with drugs, said Dr. Ned Calonge, chief medical officer for the state health department.
Nationwide, there were four documented cases of nurses and doctors infecting patients with hepatitis C between 1992 and 2003, according to the latest information from Centers for Disease Control. A 1992 case cited in the CDC study involved a surgical technician who was using anesthesia medications.
Parker gave several reasons for using Fentanyl, which is a narcotic 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine: to deal with a custody battle with her ex-husband over her 2-year-old son; six-hour stretches of being on her feet; and back pain from the physical requirements of moving patients around the operating rooms.
She also said she had a problem with painkillers in the past and she may have gotten hepatitis C when she used heroin last summer while living in New Jersey.
“She’s going to take responsibility,” Parker’s attorney Gregory Graf said. He had argued that Parker should be released on bail because her cooperation with investigators proves she was not a flight risk.
A key point that could lead to more serious charges is whether she knew she was infected with hepatitis C.
She tested positive for the disease before starting her job at Rose in October, but she didn’t follow up when told about it because she didn’t have health insurance or money for a doctor and she got distracted with her new job.
She also said hospital officials didn’t make it clear she tested positive. A federal magistrate judge disagreed and declared her a danger to the community and ordered her held without bond, saying her actions showed significant disregard for the safety of others. Her next hearing is Oct. 6.
Those infected with hepatitis C are not barred from working in health services, so long as standard precautions are taken, according to the CDC.
“She knew she had hepatitis C, she’s a health care worker and she understands how this disease is spread,” said Pat Criscito, 56, an author and freelance writer from Monument south of Denver. She underwent back and hand surgery at Rose last fall and spent a sleepless night worrying about hepatitis C while she waited for her test results. Criscito said a positive result would have been meant certain death because years of arthritis treatment have severely weakened her immune system.
“If I was going to die, she deserves life in prison. I can’t understand how somebody can do that to another human being,” Criscito said, who tested negative and is waiting the results of a second test.
Hospital and state health officials aren’t sure how many people were injected with Parker’s dirty needles or with saline solution contaminated when Parker allegedly dipped her dirty needles to fill bogus syringes to cover her tracks.
Denver police launched a drug investigation in April and the state health department began its investigation June 1 after former Rose surgery patients began testing positive for hepatitis C. Parker was arrested June 30 on state drug charges, but Denver police turned the case over to federal agents when they discovered the tampering.
(This version RECASTS headlines to correct that defendant is a technician, not a nurse)

Scholar NKorea Wants US Show Of Remorse

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea wants the U.S. to show remorse for the actions of two American journalists convicted of illegally entering the country, and it might free the women if Washington does so, a scholar who visited Pyongyang said Saturday.
The comments by North Korean officials to University of Georgia political scientist Han S. Park came as analysts say the isolated communist regime intends to use the detention of Laura Ling and Euna Lee as bargaining chips in its ongoing standoff with Washington over the country’s nuclear and missile threats.
The journalists were detained in March near the North Korean border with China and sentenced last month to 12 years of hard labor for entering the country illegally and for “hostile acts.” The two — who work for former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s California-based Current TV media group — were in the area to interview North Korean refugees.
Park said Saturday that North Korean officials told him during his recent five-day visit that the U.S. should offer “a remorseful acknowledgment” over the journalists’ reporting, which they believe constituted “hostile acts” against their country because it would have cast the North in a negative light.
To help secure the women’s release, Park said the U.S. “should acknowledge” that, though he cautioned that such an expression alone might not guarantee their freedom.
Park, a frequent visitor to North Korea for academic purposes, arrived in Seoul on Thursday. He said he visited Pyongyang in a private capacity and was not representing the U.S. government.
He also said that he learned during the trip that the women are being kept in a Pyongyang guesthouse rather than being sent to a labor camp as their sentences stated.
The scholar said he heard the information from what he called “responsible government officials” in Pyongyang.
“I also think the fact that the sentence has not been carried out suggests that North Koreans are seriously interested in releasing them if the situation warrants, that is, their desired conditions are met,” Park said. He did not elaborate on what those conditions might be.
Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said the North’s confining the journalists in a guesthouse showed its intention to “use them as a negotiating card.”
The journalists’ continued detention comes as the U.S. is moving to enforce U.N. sanctions as well as its own measures to punish the communist regime for its May 25 nuclear test. The North also recently fired seven ballistic missiles in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Paik Hak-soon, an expert on North Korea at the Sejong Institute think tank in South Korea, said North Korea will use the journalists as a way to hold direct talks with the U.S.
“There is no other way,” Paik said. “The U.S. should accept what North Korea wants” to secure the release of the journalists.
The plight of the journalists is complicated by Washington and Pyongyang not having diplomatic relations. North Korea and the U.S. fought on opposite sides of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that the reporters have expressed “great remorse for this incident.” She called on North Korea to grant the two amnesty and allow them to quickly return home to their families. Clinton said “everyone is very sorry that it happened.”
The request for amnesty is a shift from previous U.S. calls for the women to be released on humanitarian grounds. It followed comments from Ling’s family that she had acknowledged breaking North Korean law during a recent phone call.
Park said Saturday that North Korean officials have made sure the reporters “are treated with a great deal of humanitarian concern” such as ensuring the delivery of medication sent from their families and allowing them to make phone calls to the U.S..
The scholar’s comments came days after Laura Ling told her sister, journalist Lisa Ling, during a 20-minute telephone call that she and Lee had broken the law in North Korea when they were captured in March and that a government pardon is their only hope for freedom.
A South Korean who helped organize the journalists’ reporting trip to China, the Rev. Chun Ki-won, said in April that Ling and Lee traveled to the border region with North Korea to interview women and children who had fled the impoverished country.
__
Associated Press writer Kwang-tae Kim contributed to this report.