Edisi 23 Juli 2009 | International Bali Post

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Armstrong and Contador ‘incompatible’ - Astana manager

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Iraq bomb attacks kill 21

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Police tighten watch on free chemical sales PAGE 6

Agence France Presse

MADRID - Astana’s Belgian manager Johan Bruyneel says there is a “certain incompatibility” between Spanish rider Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong of the United States even as he minimized the friction between the two team leaders on the Tour de France.

“There was never a ‘click’ between the two, I don’t know why,” he said in an interview published in top-selling daily newspaper El Pais, adding however that “there was never as much friction” between the two as was reported.

Relations between Contador and Armstrong, which were tense since the start of the Tour de France, appear to have improved since the Spanish rider took the yellow jersey on Sunday during the first Alpine stage of the race to become the favourite to win the event.

It was the first time that he pulled on the yellow jersey since his Tour win in 2007. Bruyneel said he “always thought that only Alberto could win” the Tour even if he was “surprised” by Armstrong’s level at some moments.

“The logic says that Contador was the strongest, before and during the race,” said Bruyneel who is a personal friend of Armstrong, a seven-time winner of the cycling race.

Bruyneel also confirmed that he would soon leave Astana to form a

new team with Armstrong, because it was “unthinkable” for him to continue to lead the Kazakhstan team in the event that Kazakh rider Alexandre Vinokourov returns to it after a suspension for doping as is expected.

Asked about Contador’s possible participation in this new project, he said it was unlikely because of the “incompatibility” between the two.

He also denied, in response to a question from El Pais, that Nike would be the sponsor of his new project, which will be formally announced on Wednesday.

Calendar talks a priority for F1 teams Formula 1 teams believe the future shape of the calendar must be high on the list of subjects that needs sorting out with Bernie Ecclestone, amid fresh doubts about the prospects for traditional races.

With the German Grand Prix the latest event to be in danger, after the Nurburgring said it will not host next year’s race unless fees are reduced, there is an increasing uncertainty about the fate for a number of historic events.

And with these including major markets for leading car manufacturers, including Britain, Japan, China and Germany, teams have admitted some concern about future schedules.

BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen thinks it inevitable that the matter will be brought up the next time the teams meet with Ecclestone.

“That is something we will certainly discuss with Bernie,” Theissen told AUTOSPORT. “We have to make sure that we are in the important markets.”

Theissen pointed out that concerns for his company were heightened by the fact that the three biggest markets for BMW - the United States, Germany and Britain – all could be absent from the calendar in the next few years.

“Obviously we have to discuss this situation, and Bernie understands it,” said Theissen. “It is al-

ways a matter of finding what the right balance is between what we can earn, what Bernie can earn, and what is important for the market.”

When asked if a new Concorde Agreement would allow a specific

veto on the calendar, Theissen said: “There is nothing explicit, but I would expect a much closer cooperation between the commercial rights holder and the teams if it comes to such decisions in the future.”

AFP PHOTO LIONEL BONAVENTURE

Tour de France winner and Kazakh cycling team Astana (AST)’s leader Alberto Contador of Spain (L) rides with teammate, seventimeTour de France winner and Kazakh cycling team Astana (AST)’s Lance Armstrong of the United States on July 21, 2009 in the 159 km and sixteenth stage of the 2009 Tour de France cycling race run between Martigny and Bourg Saint-Maurice.Spanish cycling team Euskatel-Euskadi (Eus)’s Mikel Astarloza of Spain won the stage ahead of French cycling team Francaise des Jeux (FDJ)’s leader Sandy Casar of France and French cycling team BBOX Bouygues Telecom (BBO)’s Pierrick Fedrigo of France.

Madonna back in Barcelona to resume tour PAGE 12

CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO

Residents gather to watch solar eclipse over southwest China’s Chongqing municipality on July 22, 2009, as the lunar shadow or “umbra” moves over the city. The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century cast its shadow over western India and headed for China on a path that was plunging hundreds of millions of people into temporary darkness.

Solar eclipse shrouds Asia in cloak of darkness Agence France-Presse

VARANASI, India - The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century plunged millions across Asia into temporary darkness on Wednesday, triggering scenes of religious fervour, fear and excitement in India and China.

Ancient superstition and modern commerce came together in what was likely to end up being the most watched eclipse in history,

WEATHER FORECAST TEMPERATURE OC

DENPASAR

22 - 32

JAKARTA

24 - 34

Agence France-Presse

BANDUNG

19 - 29

YOGYAKARTA

23 - 32

SURABAYA

23 - 34

JAKARTA - Indonesian police released digital images Wednesday of the reconstructed faces of two suspected suicide bombers thought to have attacked luxury hotels in Jakarta last week, killing seven people.

Police said the suspected bomber who killed six people including five foreigners at the JW Marriott was aged only 16 to 17 years old, while the man suspected of carrying out the Ritz-Carlton attack was aged from 20 to 40 years.

The images are being shown to witnesses as part of the investiga-

BRIGHT/CLOUDY

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The F1 race after the start. Formula 1 teams believe the future shape of the calendar must be high on the list of subjects that needs sorting out with Bernie Ecclestone.

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sands of devout Hindus had crowded the river Ganges at dawn.

Police said the 80-year-old fainted in the crush to enter a temple

Continued on page 6

Indonesia police release images of suspected bombers

CITY

SUNNY

due to its path over Earth’s most densely inhabited areas. A woman was killed in a stampede in the holy city of Varanasi where tens of thou-

near the banks of the river and suffocated, triggering panic. More than 20 people were injured.

With Hindu priests conducting special prayers, the crowds in Varanasi cheered and then raised their arms in salutation as the sun re-emerged from behind the moon, before they took a spiritually purifying dip in the river’s holy waters.

tion into Friday’s attacks on the luxury hotels in central Jakarta, the first major terror attack in Indonesia since 2005.

The images were based on two severed heads found at the blast sites which are believed to be those of the bombers, suspected members of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional extremist network or one of its offshoots.

“We found two severed heads on location and we can confirm that they are the suspected suicide bombers,” police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a press conference.

Continued on page 6

AFP PHOTO/Bay ISMOYO

Indonesian police spokesman Nanan Sukarna shows a sketch of the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel suicide bombers during the press conference in Jakarta on July 22, 2009. Indonesian police were closer to identifying the two suicide bombers in last week’s JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel attacks, as they questioned staff at an Islamic school and took DNA samples from relatives.

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International

Thursday, July 23, 2009

News

WORLD Obama in all-out push for US health reform NEWS

Agence France-Presse

Detention CAIRO - Saudi Arabia is holding more than 3,000 people in secret detention and has used torture to extract confessions in its anti-terrorism crackdown since the Sept. 11, 201 terror attacks, Amnesty International said in a report Wednesday.

Disputed region THE HAGUE - An international arbitration tribunal is ruling on the boundaries of a disputed oil rich region on the border between northern and southern Sudan. The Haguebased Permanent Court of Arbitration’s decision on the Abyei region’s borders is seen as a major test of the fragile 2005 peace deal that ended more than 20 years of civil war that killed more than 2 million people in Sudan.

Source: ap

AFP PHOTO/Nicholas KAMM

US President Barack Obama loo. It will break him,’” Obama said on Monday.

“This isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America’s families, breaking America’s businesses, and breaking America’s economy.”

In an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal, first published online late Tuesday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal — a potential Republican candidate to challenge Obama in

years to come — slammed the president for his efforts.

The “Democrats’ reforms are designed to push an ever-increasing number of Americans into a governmentrun health care plan,” Jindal wrote, saying authorities would compete “unfairly in the marketplace until private plans are driven out of business.”

The result, Jindal warned, would be higher costs for all Americans accompanied by an inevitable fall in health care quality.

Britain’s Brown braces for new poll test Agence France-Presse

Fascist SAO PAULO - Israel’s foreign minister runs into controversy on the first day of a Latin American tour after an official of Brazil’s ruling party reportedly calls him a “fascist.”

ing deficits — borne from efforts to battle the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s — and ever-rising unemployment, health care reform looks set to be Obama’s biggest test yet.

His far-reaching plans to bring affordable health insurance to all Americans have left many worrying who will end up footing the bill. Many players within his own Democratic party remain skeptical.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs admitted Tuesday that due to the recession-mired economy, with its smaller tax base, the government’s budget challenges “have only become greater.”

But Obama has personally invested much in the campaign, a cornerstone of his 2008 White House race that saw him defeat Republican rival John McCain to become the country’s first African-American president.

“Just the other day, one Republican senator said — and I’m quoting him now — ‘If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Water-

AFP PHOTO/Leon Neal

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

LONDON - Beleaguered British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is battling to avoid another poll rout this week, in his first electoral test since dire EU and local ballots and a near-fatal leadership crisis.

With general elections due in less than a year and his Labour Party trailing far behind the opposition Tories in the polls, Brown hopes the by-election in the eastern county of Norfolk on Thursday will not deal him a new ballot blow.

But opinion surveys suggest Labour faces an uphill struggle to keep the Norwich North seat, which it held by a majority of almost 5,500 at the last election from the Conservatives.

A strong showing by the Tories — whose leader David Cameron is widely tipped to oust Brown next year, three years after he succeeded Tony Blair —

Thursday, July 23, 2009

15

Tentative top seed Tursunov triumphs at Indy Agence France Presse

INDIANAPOLIS - Fragile Russian top seed Dmitry Tursunov received an unexpected confidence boost Tuesday as Michael Berrer made 16 double faults in a 6-3, 2-6, 6-0 loss at the ATP Indianapolis Championships.

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama is to hold a primetime news conference Wednesday as support for his six-month-old presidency dips and critics blast his handling of the economy and health care reform.

When Obama steps up to the dais for his fourth primetime conference since taking office, he does so as a USA Today/Gallup poll showed his approval rating slump to 55 percent and his disapproval rating jump 16 points to 41 percent.

Obama’s handling of the economy appears to be key to his fading popularity, as Americans have become more pessimistic about how long it will take the economic downturn to end.

White House adviser David Axelrod called the “turbulence” predictable, and expressed confidence in the public’s support for the president.

“People fundamentally like this president, and they believe he’s smart and capable and strong and trying to do the right thing,” he said.

But critically for Obama’s highstakes efforts to pass health care reform through Congress, the poll also found 50 percent of the US public disapproved of his health care policy, with 44 percent showing support.

Against the backdrop of mount-

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could even trigger fresh government turmoil, some say.

“It would reignite the leadership crisis, taking us back to the day after the European elections,” said Professor Brian Brivati of the University of Kingston, referring to the near-collapse of the government last month.

Labour’s gloom was unlikely to be helped by the news Tuesday that the Labour candidate, Chris Ostrowski, has suspected swine flu.

A parliamentary by-election was called after incumbent MP Ian Gibson was ejected by the Labour party for abusing his parliamentary expenses, part of a wider scandal that has rocked British politics but particularly Labour.

In power since 1997, Labour is suffering from a perception that it has run out of steam, while Brown’s handling of the economy in his previous job as finance minister has taken a battering amid the recession.

After historic defeats in European and local elections in May, which coincided with a string of ministerial resignations, the premier managed to stop the collapse in support for his party — but Thursday could change that.

The expenses row is likely to play a large part in the byelection, with some analysts expecting voters to punish all the main parties and instead back fringe parties such as the Greens or the British National Party.

An ICM survey for the News of the World newspaper at the weekend put the Conservatives on 34 percent in Norwich North, with Labour on 30 percent, the centrist Liberal Democrats on 15 percent and the Green party on 14 percent.

Nationally, the Conservatives are well ahead of Brown’s party, with three polls this week putting them on average 16 points in the lead.

z Founder : K.Nadha, z Chief Editor: ABG Satria Naradha z Managing Editor: Wirata z Editors: Alit Purnata, Alit Susrini, Alit Sumertha, Darmasunu, Daniel Fajry, Diah Dewi, Iwan Darmawan, Martinaya, Mawa, Palgunadi, Sri Hartini, Suana, Sueca, Sugiartha, Sutiawan, Wirya, Yudi Winanto zDenpasar: Dira Arsana, Giriana Saputra, Mas Ruscitadewi, Oka Rusmini, Umbu Landu Paranggi, Subagiadnya, Subrata, Suentra, Sumatika, Gregorius Rusmanda, Asmara Putra. Bangli: Pujawan, Buleleng: Adnyana, Gianyar: Agung Dharmada, Karangasem: Budana, Klungkung: Bali Putra Ariawan, Tabanan: Surpi. Jakarta: Nikson, Suharto Olii, Indu P. Adi, Ahmadi Supriyanto, Achmad Nasrudin, Hardianto, Darmawan S. Sumardjo, Heru B Arifin, Asep Djamaluddin, Ade Irawan, Ipik Tanoyo. NTB: Agus Talino, Syamsudin Karim, Izzul Khairi, Raka Akriyani, Nur Haedin, Suyadnya. Surabaya: Bambang Wilianto. z Development: Alit Purnata, Mas Ruscitadewi. z Office: Jalan Kepundung 67 A Denpasar 80232. Telephone (0361)225764, Facsimile: 227418, P.O.Box: 3010 Denpasar 80001. Bali Post Jakarta, Advertizing: Jl.Palmerah Barat 21F. Telp 021-5357602, Facsimile: 021-5357605 Jakarta Pusat. NTB: Jalam Bangau No. 15 Cakranegara Telp. (0370) 639543, Facsimile: (0370) 628257. Publiser: PT Bali Post

Tursunov, who won the Eastbourne grass title but lost in the Wimbledon first round a few days later, was hardly the picture of confidence, but he was not complaining at the end of the opening-round victory over his German opponent.

“I’m not serving that great now, as I haven’t played since Wimbledon,” said Tursunov. “I can hit two or three good shots and then a bad one. But today he served terrible and that helped me.

“I’m not playing that well myself right now - but I have to be patient.”

Tursunov, the 2007 Indy champion and last year’s runner-up to absent Frenchman Gilles Simon, will next face either American Taylor Dent or Brazil’s Marcos Daniel, who had trouble getting a timely air flight from Colombia where he won a Challenger at the weekend.

Surprising second seed Dudi Sela continued his recent red-hot pace as

the Israeli sent home American veteran Vince Spadea 7-5, 6-1.

The number 29 who helped his nation to a Davis Cup quarter-final upset of Russia after playing in the Wimbledon fourth round is taking full advantage of the highest tournament seeding of his career.

With most Europeans unwilling to travel to the US to start the hardcourt season a full six weeks before opening day at the US Open, willing outsiders like Sela are making up the numbers for the next few events.

“I may have been fifth or sixth before, but never second,” said 24-yearold Sela. “When you are ranked 29th, it’s not normal to be seeding this high.

“But I’ll take it. I think my game has really been improving a lot recently. I’m just playing more solid,” he said after advancing in an hour and a quarter.

Spadea, who recently turned 35, was a finalist here in 1999. He also

lost to Sela on hardcourt in Washington last summer.

Russian Igor Kunitsyn, member of the defeated Russian Davis Cup side, is another unlikely seed who shined, earning a defeat of Argentine Brian Dabul 6-4, 6-1. German fifth seed Benjamin Becker stopped Go Soeda, a Japanese qualifier, 6-2, 6-3.

Two American journeyman booked spots in the second round. Qualifier Jesse Levine beat Thai Danai Udomchoke 6-1, 7-6 (12/10) while Alex Bogomolov stopped Italy’s Flavio Cipolla 6-2, 6-3 to next face Sela.

Dmitry Tursunov of Russia returns a shot by Michael Berrer of Germany during the Indianapolis Tennis Championships at the Indianapolis Tennis Center July 21, 2009 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Chris Graythen/Getty Images/AFP

Krzyzewski to return as US Eriksson accepts Notts County job coach for 2012 Olympic run Agence France Presse

Agence France Presse

LAS VEGAS - Mike Krzyzewski, who guided the US Olympic basketball team to Beijing gold, will return to coach the squad of NBA stars through the 2012 London Olympics, USA Basketball announced on Tuesday.

The US squad, powered by NBA superstars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and guided by the veteran coach at Duke University, went 36-1 in a three-year run that culminated with Beijing Olympic gold.

“It was a huge honor to be selected as the US national team coach the first time. It is still a huge honor,” Krzyzewski said.

“The experience of being the head coach of the US national team for three summers was the best experience I’ve ever had in coaching. The upcoming three years will be a new experience and hopefully, it will be as rewarding.”

Krzyzewski will bring back his entire staff of assistants from Beijing New York coach Mike D’Antoni, Portland coach Nate McMillan and Syracuse University coach Jim Boeheim for the next run at Olympic supremacy.

“Coach K and the assistant coaches were a perfect fit. I’m confident they will again be a great fit for 2010-2012,” NBA Player of the Year James said.

“We worked together for three summers and we all developed a great respect and chemistry that was very im-

AP Photo/Isaac Brekken

Mike Krzyzewski portant in the successes we achieved.”

Krzyzewski first will guide the American squad at the World Basketball Championships next year at Istanbul, Turkey. Unless the US squad captures the world title and the 2012 London Olympic berth awarded to the champion, “Coach K” will be called upon to guide the US team into the Olympic qualifying Tournament of the Americas in 2011.

Assuming the NBA stars qualify for the 2012 Olympics, it will be Krzyzewski and his staff who guides their efforts on the court in London in three years.

“It is amazing that Jim, Mike and Nate would do this again. For the past three years, we’ve handled the staff as if we’re all co-coaches. That is how we’ll handle it again.”

USA Basketball opens a training camp on Thursday with 23 younger players, replenishing the talent pool in a program created by Krzyzewski and USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo.

“When you have a good thing going you don’t mess with it,” Colangelo said. “We accomplished a great deal last quadrennium and we want to keep the ball rolling in the right direction.”

Krzyzewski’s decision to return makes it more likely that the nucleus of talent which brought home gold from China will return in England. “Coach K has made such a big impact on my life and the 2008 Olympics was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had,” Denver star Carmelo Anthony said.

“I’m happy to see him and the assistant coaches come back to coach.”

NOTTINGHAM - Former England and Manchester City boss SvenGoran Eriksson has joined English Division Two club Notts County as director of football, the club confirmed on Wednesday.

The League Two (fourth division) club said the 61-year-old Swede would be joined by his long-term assistant Tord Grip, who will assume the role of general adviser.

The world’s oldest professional football club were recently taken over by a Middle Eastern consortium and had been in talks with Eriksson about taking up a senior position with the club.

“Sven will assume his role with immediate effect,” the club said in a statement. “He will be joining with his longterm assistant Tord Grip, who will assume the role of general advisor.”

Eriksson will look after the club’s youth academy as well as player development, transfer negotiations and building overseas links.

The Swede is looking forward to the challenge.

“I am particularly attracted to this role and the unique opportunity to help build a club over the longer term,” he said.

“I will be responsible for all aspects of the football side of the club and in line with the aspirations of the new owners, wish to build the club at the heart of the community.

“We hope to leave a long and lasting legacy for Notts County and its fans.”

The Munto Finance Ltd group, reportedly backed by Dubai tycoon Abdullah Bin Saeed Al Thani, made Eriksson their top target after being turned down by Glenn Hoddle, another former England coach.

Eriksson was approached last week and is believed to have agreed a contract worth around two million pounds a year after discussions with new County chairman Peter Trembling on Tuesday.

County’s current manager Ian McParland will remain in charge of coaching the team for the moment, but former England midfielder David Platt, who played under Eriksson at Sampdoria, has already been linked with the role.

County, founded in 1862, had an average gate of just 4,445 last season.

They spent 534 days in administration between 2002 and 2003 and finished 19th in League Two last term.

But the club’s new owners hope Eriksson can take them up two divisions into the Championship within five years.

Eriksson has worked with some of world football’s biggest names including David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, but now he will have to get the best out of less famous players like Graeme Lee, Ben Davies and Luke Rodgers.

His last match in English football was Manchester City’s 8-1 defeat at Middlesbrough in May 2008 and he will return to competitive action in England for County’s opening League Two match at home to Bradford on August 8.

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Sport

International

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Blues down former boss Jose keeper Vid Belec’s outstretched left hand and into the bottom corner of the goal.

The Londoners continued to play with purpose and fluency, highlighted in the 16th minute when Lampard and Branislav Ivanovic exchanged a onetwo down the right, the Serbian fullback advancing to the byline and centering for Drogba whose shot was straight at a grateful Belec.

Trailing 1-0 at the break, Inter’s first real chance came as Chelsea adjusted to the five changes made by Ancelotti at half-time.

With Carvalho making way for Alex in defence, the incoming centre-back gave the ball away to Mario Balotelli on halfway immediately following the restart and the through ball found Diego Milito who cut inside Terry but was blocked at his feet by Petr Cech, the Chelsea keeper making his first meaningful contribution of the game.

Daniel Sturridge, who scored on his debut at Seattle, and Nicolas Anelka had replaced Drogba and Kalou and they quickly caused problems. Deco, on for Malouda, sent Sturridge clear in the box in the 48th minute and when his cross from the left was blocked by Ivan Cordoba’s hand, Lampard was given the chance to add to his goal scored against the Sounders, converting the penalty, right footed into the bottom corner.

Ancelotti made further changes in the 64th minute, taking off Cech, Essien and Ivanovic for Ross Turnbull, Juliano Belletti and Michael Mancienne, who was called straight into the action, blocking a Balotelli bicycle kick on the six-yard line after Inter sub Zlatan Ibrahimovic had crossed from the right.

Late substitute Franco Di Santo nearly added a third for the Londoners in stoppage time, taking a delicate Deco chip over the top on his chest and shooting right-footed over the bar.

Agence France-Presse

AP Photo/David Longstreath, Pool

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton meets with Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Hirofumi Nakasone Wednesday, July 22, 2009, in Phuket, Thailand, prior to a bilateral meeting at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference (PMC).

Hillary Clinton declares the US ‘is back’ in Asia Associated Press Writer

PHUKET, Thailand - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived at a key security conference Wednesday carrying a no-nonsense message that the United States is ready to reengage with Asia after years of neglect.Clinton moved right into talks with Asian counterparts gathered for two days of international meetings to discuss North Korea, Myanmar and a range of other regional issues.

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Chelsea’s Didier Drogba, top, jumps over Inter Milan goalkeeper Vid Belec as he attempts to score during the first half of a World Football Challenge soccer match in Pasadena, Calif., Tuesday, July 21, 2009.

Inter and Eto’o close in on agreement Agence France Presse

Samuel Eto’o

BP/doc

ROME - Inter Milan are close to agreeing personal terms with Samuel Eto’o over a possible move from Barcelona, the Cameroon striker’s agent said on Tuesday.

Inter representatives met with Josep Maria Mesalles for four hours in Milan before the agent left to return to Spain.

But before leaving he told reporters: “The discussions are going well but now we’re trying to iron out the little details.

“There will be no more meetings today, I’m going back to Spain but maybe I’ll come back again tomorrow.”

Inter and Barcelona have worked out a swap deal involving Eto’o and around 40 million euros in exchange for Sweden for-

ward Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

The two clubs are trying to agree personal terms with the two players before the deal can be finalised.

Inter president Massimo Moratti admitted there was still a little way to go before a deal would be concluded.

“We’re a little far apart but that’s pretty normal,” he said. “We quickly found an agreement between the two clubs, now we’re negotiating with the interested parties and each one (Eto’o and his agent) is trying to get the most possible.”

Eto’o scored the opening goal for Barca in their 2-0 Champions League final victory over Manchester United in May while Ibrahimovic finished top scorer in Italy’s Serie A last season.

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Venezuela, Honduras face off amid crisis

PASADENA - Slick Chelsea defeated former boss Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan 2-0 at the Rose Bowl to get their World Football Challenge campaign off to a winning start in Pasadena, California.

Goals from Didier Drogba in the 11th minute and a Frank Lampard penalty just after half-time gave Chelsea the victory over the Italian champions in front of 81,224 fans.

The impressive nature of the Blues’ performance more than the scoreline, however, will have delighted new head coach Carlo Ancelotti, especially coming so soon into the ex-AC Milan chief’s first pre-season campaign and against his former cross-city rivals.

Mourinho, facing the club he led to two Premier League titles during his three seasons at Stamford Bridge between 2004-07, had seen his Inter team open its campaign with a penalty shoot-out defeat to Mexico’s Club America on Sunday. Chelsea, meanwhile, had warmed up with a 2-0 win over Major Seattle Sounders the previous day but had since lost German midfielder Michael Ballack to a broken toe.

Led once again by John Terry in central defence with Ricardo Carvalho, Chelsea fans at the Rose Bowl saw their African players start for the first time in pre-season, John Obi Mikel and Michael Essien returning to midfield with Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou in attack.

It was the central defenders, though, who had Chelsea’s first sights on the Inter goal, Florent Malouda receiving a short corner on the left and crossing for Carvalho to head over the bar at the near post in the second minute and Terry heading from the resultant Malouda corner from the right.

Chelsea were dominant throughout the opening half and Drogba opened the lead in the 11th minute, receiving a short pass from Lampard with his back to goal, turning and shooting unimpeded from 20 yards, the ball bouncing over Inter Milan

Thursday, July 23, 2009

She said she will sign the seminal Treaty of Amity and Cooperation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, a commitment to peacefully resolve regional disputes that already has been signed by more than a dozen countries outside the 10-nation bloc.

“The United States is back,” she declared upon arrival in the Thai capital Tuesday.

In an appearance Wednesday on a Thai TV talk show she said, “President Obama and I are giving great importance to this region,”

suggesting that the administration of former President George W. Bush neglected U.S. interests in Asia.

Evidence of the new U.S. approach, she said, is the fact that her first overseas trip, in February, was to Asia.

She also said the U.S. has a plan to prevent Iranian domination in the Middle East if it gets the nuclear bomb. “We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment: that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to develop the military capacity of those

(allies) in the Gulf, it is unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer.”

The U.S. signing of the ASEAN treaty will be by the executive authority of Obama and does not require congressional ratification, said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the move publicly.

The Bush administration had declined to sign the document, whereas Obama sees it as a symbolic underscoring of the U.S. commitment to Asia.

Ahmadinejad humiliated over vice president choice Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN - Iran’s semi-official media are reporting that Iran’s supreme leader has ordered the president, a close ally, to dismiss the vice president he chose last week.

The order, issued late Tuesday, is widely seen as a setback for

hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who had strongly defended his decision to appoint Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, his son’s father-in-law, as his first vice president.

Mashai angered hard-liners in 2008 when he said Iranians were “friends of all people in the world -

even Israelis.”

Ahmadinejad is already in a crisis over opposition claims he stole last month’s election from the proreform candidate.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei strongly defended Ahmadinejad, seen as his protege, at the time.

TEGUCIGALPA - Caracas has angrily rejected what it called an “absurd” demand from Honduras’s de facto government that gave Venezuelan diplomats until Friday to leave the country.

Caracas swiftly rejected an expulsion order that came Tuesday, saying it was issued by leaders of an illegitimate government that ousted President Manuel Zelaya in a coup late last month.

The Central American nation earlier accused President Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela of threatening to use force and meddling in its internal affairs, telling diplomats they had 72 hours to leave the country.

In a statement, Venezuela’s foreign ministry said it would not recognize an “absurd communication” from “the illegitimate authorities” in Honduras.

The toughened Honduran stance came after negotiations with Zelaya hit deadlock and amid international pressure for his reinstatement.

The European Union announced Tuesday that it would limit contacts with the interim government — which backed the army ouster of Zelaya on June 28 — following a new funding freeze.

But Roberto Micheletti, the man who took power after troops expelled Zelaya, has maintained his hardline position and promised Zelaya will be arrested if he returns to Honduras as

he intends to.

Nobel Peace laureate and crisis mediator Oscar Arias on Sunday warned that Honduras was on the brink of civil war and pleaded for crisis talks to resume after a 72-hour break.

Zelaya, who has promised on various occasions to return to Honduras, said Tuesday he would come back with a crowd gathered in neighboring Central American countries after Thursday, when Arias’ deadline was due to expire.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a key backer to Zelaya, who turned increasingly to the political left after taking power in 2005.

Chavez said Tuesday that Zelaya’s expulsion had also been an attack on Venezuela and regional leftist countries.

Sweden, current holder of the EU presidency, said in a statement that the EU would continue to restrict political contacts with the de facto government “until a peaceful negotiated solution has been found.”

The 27-nation bloc on Monday suspended 65.5 million euros in aid to Honduran institutions, although not humanitarian aid.

The US government warned Monday that stalled talks would have real consequences for the impoverished Central American nation, as aid freezes accompanied diplomatic isolation.

Washington has frozen military aid to Tegucigalpa, but it has also warned Zelaya against rash moves that might jeopardize dialogue.

Methodists arrested amid Fiji military crackdown Agence France-Presse

SUVA, Fiji - Fiji’s military-led government arrested eight Methodist leaders of the nation’s biggest church group, accusing them of pushing a political agenda, a spokesman said Wednesday, in the latest round of detentions since declaring emergency rule in April.

A prominent female indigenous chief, Ro Teimumu Kepa, was also taken into police custody overnight.

She had offered to host a conference of the influential Methodist Church in her province next month despite a government order to cancel it.

The military regime, led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama, took power in this Pacific island nation in a bloodless 2006 coup. It tightened its grip on power in April, imposing a state of emergency, sacking the judiciary and placing censors in newsrooms.

Dozens of opponents have been arrested, questioned and eventually released with warnings to stop their criticism of the regime, which plans to hold democratic elections only in 2014 despite international calls for a swift return to civilian rule.

Senior church leader, the Rev. Manasa Lasaro, was among the eight Methodists taken into custody for questioning, police spokeswoman Ema Mua said. Lasaro was also arrested in

June for a sermon demanding freedom of speech and subsequently released.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Neumi Leweni said Wednesday that the overnight arrests followed the Methodist Church leaders’ decision to include “political issues” in the program for the church’s annual conference rather than promoting “spiritual development.”

“This was a clear breach of the Public Emergency Regulation and also not a matter for the church to discuss,” he said. Under the regulation, meetings and protests are banned.

Leweni said the church leaders would be released when investigations were completed, but the conference was canceled.

Police said Kepa, the “paramount chief” of Rewa province, had been detained for “a form of incitement,” without giving details. She had earlier written to the Methodists inviting them to hold their conference in Rewa despite the government order to cancel.

Head of the Fijian Methodist Church in New Zealand, the Rev. Ilaitia Tuwere, said church members would be upset that Kepa had been taken into custody in the middle of the night. He said the latest detentions had brought into conflict the three pillars of Fiji society - church, people and state.

One-in-four of the mostly Christian nation’s 800,000 people are Methodists.

4

News

Thursday, July 23, 2009

International

Life Style

International

Myanmar deny lawyers access to Aung San Suu Kyi Associated Press Writer

YANGON - The legal team of Myanmar’s jailed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was denied access to the 64-year-old Nobel laureate on Wednesday, two days before her trial resumes for final arguments, her lawyer said.

Authorities in the military-ruled country denied permission for Suu Kyi’s lawyers to meet her to finalize the draft of their 23-page closing argument, said Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi’s defense lawyers as well as spokesman for her party.

“This (refusal by authorities) shows that the judicial system in the country is very weak,” said Nyan Win. “We need to see our clients to finalize the draft, and it was very bad that the right has been denied.”

Suu Kyi is charged with violating the terms of her house arrest by harboring an uninvited American man who swam secretly to her lakeside home and stayed for two days. She is being detained at Myanmar’s notorious Insein Prison.

The opposition leader, who was been under house arrest for nearly 14 of the last 20 years, faces a possible five-year prison term.

The refusal to allow legal access to Suu Kyi comes as Asian, U.S., and European ministers - including the top diplomat from Myanmar - meet in neighboring Thailand where the military regime’s human rights record is in the spotlight.

The trial has drawn condemnation from the international community and Suu Kyi’s local supporters, who worry the ruling junta has found an excuse to keep her detained through elections planned for next year. She is

widely expected to be found guilty when the verdict is delivered, expected sometime next month.

The final arguments will be presented Friday.

Nyan Win said the lawyers last met Suu Kyi last Friday to discuss the closing argument.

Also on trial, and facing the same charges as Suu Kyi, are two women members of her party who were her sole companions under house arrest. The American, John Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Missouri, is charged with trespassing.

The mostly closed-door trial started May 18. The court had approved 23 prosecution witnesses, of which 14 took the stand. Only two out of four defense witnesses were allowed to testify.

The last defense witness Khin Moe Moe testified on July 10, arguing that Suu Kyi was innocent because the military government charged her under a law that cites a constitution abolished two decades ago.

The defense has not contested the basic facts of the case, but they also assert that the security guards who ensure Suu Kyi remains inside her compound should also be held responsible for any intrusion on her property.

Yettaw has pleaded not guilty and explained in court that he had a dream that Suu Kyi would be assassinated and he had gone to warn her. Family and friends have said he was working on a book and wished to interview her.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under military rule since 1962.

Suu Kyi’s opposition party won national elections in 1990, but Myanmar’s generals refused to relinquish power.

The high court is pictured on Martyr’s Day on July 19, 2009 in Yangon. The legal team of Myanmar’s jailed prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was denied access to the 64-year-old Nobel laureate on Wednesday, two days before her trial resumes for final arguments, her lawyer said.

AFP PHOTO

Thursday, July 23, 2009

13

Fujifilm unveils 3D digital camera Agence France-Presse

TOKYO - Japan’s Fujifilm unveiled Wednesday a compact digital camera that can be used to shoot three-dimensional (3D) photos and movies that can be viewed without special glasses.

AFP PHOTO/JUNG YEON-JE

A South Korean opposition legislator (C top) scuffles with members of the ruling party at the parliament in Seoul on July 22, 2009. Scores of legislators scuffled inside South Korea’s parliament on July 22 as the conservative ruling party pushed through long-delayed bills easing curbs on media ownership. Dozens of people were injured and one opposition lawmaker was taken to hospital.

Media bills trigger scuffles in SKorea parliament Agence France-Presse

SEOUL - Scores of legislators scuffled inside South Korea’s parliament Wednesday as the conservative ruling party pushed through longdelayed bills easing curbs on media ownership.

Dozens of people were injured and one opposition lawmaker was taken to hospital, Yonhap news agency said. The nationally televised stand-off began after Speaker Kim Hyong-O called a vote on the bills, after months of negotiations between the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) failed.

GNP lawmakers occupied the speaker’s podium as colleagues tried to push away opposition lawmakers who had barricaded the entrance to the main chamber with sofas and chairs.

The bills were passed later de-

spite the opposition attempts to physically block the vote.

Voting finally got under way after dozens of GNP lawmakers, helped by aides, pushed their way into the hall to join their colleagues surrounding the podium.

A female DP lawmaker was knocked to the floor while some angry opposition legislators beat GNP members or tried to jump over their heads in an attempt to reach the podium.

Outside parliament, police stopped about 200 media union activists who wanted to protest.

The bills ease ownership barriers between print media and TV net-

works. One of them allows businesses including newspapers to buy up to 10 percent of a terrestrial TV channel, and up to 30 percent of a cable channel.

“We have endured to the best of our capacity. Now it’s time to act,” said GNP leader Park Hee-Tae. President Lee Myung-Bak wants sweeping deregulation of the media industry in what he says is a move to create new jobs and enhance competitiveness.

The opposition accuses Lee of paving the way for conservative newspapers and large businesses to control TV networks and restrict the free flow of information.

The ruling party controls 169 seats in the 299-seat parliament after a sweeping general election victory in April last year. The DP holds 84 seats.

Dozens wounded in Gaza wedding blast Agence France-Presse

GAZA CITY - Fifty-two people were wounded in Hamas-run Gaza after a blast ripped through a wedding of a relative of Mohammed Dahlan, an ex-strongman with the rival Fatah group, officials said on Wednesday.

The explosion came late on Tuesday under a street stage set up in the southern town of Khan Yunis for the marriage of Dahlan’s nephew, Mahmud, Palestinian medics said.

Dahlan himself was not present at

the festivities.

The blast wounded 52 people, among them women and children, and five were still listed in critical condition on Wednesday morning. The groom was among those badly hurt.

Ihab al-Ghussein, a spokesman for the Hamas-run interior ministry in the coastal territory, said the preliminary results of an investigation showed the explosion was caused by what he described as “a sound bomb.”

He added that three people had been arrested. Dahlan, the hated one-time chief of Gaza’s powerful

preventative security force, fled the Palestinian territory in June 2007 after the Islamist Hamas seized power there, ousting forces loyal to secular Fatah.

Over two decades, Dahlan has earned the hatred of Hamas for his efforts to keep the Islamists in check on behalf of Fatah.

A native of the Gaza Strip, Dahlan became head of the territory’s powerful preventative security forces in 1994 when he returned at the start of Palestinian self-rule following the 1993 Oslo accords.

REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

Customers look at the Apple iPhone 3GS at the company’s retail store in San Francisco, California June 19, 2009. Fans of fine art will be able to access some of their favourite paintings anywhere they choose through a new iPhone application launched Tuesday by the National Gallery in London.

Britain’s National Gallery offers its art on the iPhone Agence France-Presse

LONDON - Fans of fine art will be able to access some of their favourite paintings anywhere they choose through a new iPhone application launched Tuesday by the National Gallery in London.

About 250 of the gallery’s bestloved paintings, including by

Botticelli, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Jan van Eyck, are available to browse, using the zoom function to examine them in minute detail.

About 200 minutes of audio video content are also available on the application, including interviews and accounts of the stories behind the art.

The gallery said it was the first

museum to offer such an application, which will allow users to look at paintings at random or through 12 tours grouped by themes — love and death — or types.

“Designed to appeal to art enthusiasts and fans of the gallery, this application is the first of its kind to be released by a major gallery,” it said in a statement.

The FinePix REAL 3D W1 uses a “groundbreaking” system comprising two lenses whose images are merged in a single 3D picture or movie, the company said.

Users can view the images on the camera’s rear display screen or a larger separate monitor. Fujifilm said it would also offer a special

3D photo printing service.

“Viewed with just the naked eye, 3D images come alive with breathtaking reality and natural beauty,” Fujifilm said in a statement.

The gadget will go on sale in Japan early next month with a price tag of 60,000 yen (640 dollars), followed by overseas markets in late August.

Couch-potato lifestyle affects children’s sleep: study Agence France-Presse

PARIS - Young children take an extra three minutes to fall asleep for every hour of the day that was spent physically inactive, New Zealand researchers said on Thursday.

University of Auckland specialists investigated sleep patterns among 519 seven-year-olds, monitoring them with a gadget attached to their waist that can tell from a

child’s movements whether it is asleep, awake but inactive, or active.

After hitting the sack, the children fell asleep 26 minutes later on average, in a range of 13 to 42 minutes, and slept for an average of 10.1 hours.

Those who had been inactive during the day took longer to nod off. Every sedentary hour during daytime added 3.1 minutes to the time it took to fall asleep.

World’s first camel-milk chocolates going global Reuters

DUBAI - Dubai’s Al Nassma, the world’s first brand of chocolate made with camels’ milk, plans to expand into new Arab markets, Europe, Japan and the United States, its general manager said on Tuesday.

Martin Van Almsick said the United Arab Emirates company planned to enter Saudi Arabia first, followed by Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United States within the next few months.

The company plans to enter the Saudi market in a month through a partnership with a Jeddah-based distributor, said Van Almsick, adding the company plans to deliver the first tonne of chocolates to Saudi Arabia soon.

Al Nassma is also in talks with British department store Harrods and San Francisco’s Chocolate Covered to sell its products.

Al Nassma was formally estab-

lished in October last year and aims to produce 100 tonnes of premium camels’ milk chocolate a year.

In partnership with Austrian chocolate maker Manner, Al Nassma manufactures the end product at its Dubai facility.

With 3,000 camels on its Dubai farm, the company sells chocolates through its farm-attached store as well as in luxury hotels and private airlines. It plans to launch an online shopping facility within a month, Van Almsick said. The farm is controlled by the Dubai government.

The company is set to open its second store in the UAE in one of Dubai’s large malls and is in talks with mall operator Majid Al Futtaim and others, he said.

“We aim to be the Godiva of the Middle East,” Van Almsick said in an interview. “It’s a luxury product, so we will never be in supermarkets.

The plan is to be in one mall in each UAE city.”

Al Nassma is also looking at the possibility of setting up a store in Japan, where demand for the product is high, he said.

All chocolates are produced without preservatives or chemical additives with a range of locally popular spices, nuts and honey, the company says.

Camel milk contains five times more vitamin C than cow milk, less fat, less lactose and more insulin, making it a good option for diabetics and the lactose intolerant, Van Almsick said.

Dubai’s Al Nassma, the world’s first brand of chocolate made with camels’ milk, plans to expand into new Arab markets, Europe, Japan and the United States, its general manager said on Tuesday.

http://upload.wikimedia.org

12

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Entertainment

International

News

International

Madonna back in Barcelona to resume tour

REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Johnny Depp

Depp’s next role unclear as green lights delayed LOS ANGELES - Johnny Depp is coming off an acclaimed role in “Public Enemies” and stars in one of the most anticipated movies of this weekend’s Comic-Con, “Alice in Wonderland.”

But the Mad Hatter is facing an unusual situation: Like the character he plays in “Alice,” he soon could be killing time.

Depp is attached to a number of high-profile development properties but is facing a landscape devoid of “go” pictures — those ready for production. Instead, there are a dizzying number of possibilities and schedule permutations, none of which seems likely to result in a produced movie for him anytime soon.

Producers have been interested in Depp for the title role in Warner Bros.’ “The Incredible Mr. Limpet.” Kevin Lima’s remake of the 1964 fantasy comedy that would continue a whimsical, if slightly less drama-intensive, streak for the actor. He has not signed on, however, and in any event the pic would not go into production until next year.

Meanwhile, the fourth installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean” remains a priority for Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. At an earlier point, it was going to be the next picture for Depp, who toplines as Jack Sparrow. But with Gore Verbinski no longer directing the franchise, the ship has slowed.

Disney is seeking a new director, a process that could take time.

Although the studio is believed to want an established helmer of franchise and action fare, it has put the word out to agents that it would be open to younger directors and new ideas, potentially prolonging the process. That could mean as much as a four- or five-year hiatus since the 2007 release of the previous picture, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” Because of the “Pirates” lag, a Depp project that was supposed to go into production after the Sparrow-fest, “The Lone Ranger,” could end up getting pushed back further, though there’s also a pos-

sibility it could shoot ahead of the nautical tale.

For the moment, though, “Ranger” also remains locked in the stable. “Pirates” writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio have written a script for the Disney/Bruckheimer update, but the studio could wind up commissioning a polish or another draft. There’s also no director, and Depp is attached to play Tonto, with the title role still to be cast.

Finally, Warners’ feature update of the ghoulish TV series “Dark Shadows” — a Depp/Tim Burton collaboration that might have shot later this year or early next year — also might be back-burnered. Burton still has work to do on “Alice,” which opens in March, and tends to spend a lot of time on prep work.

What the possibilities boil down to, besides head spinning, is that there are projects with momentum that Depp has not signed for, and projects he has signed for that don’t have a lot of momentum.

In other words, it’s a very 2009 phenomenon brought on by a star’s choosiness on the one hand and studios’ increasing caution on the other. (In what might be an emerging mini-trend, Will Smith and Leonardo DiCaprio happen to find themselves in similar situations.)

The result is that Depp could face a year or longer without appearing on the big screen.

That might not sound like a major departure, but for moviegoers, it will seem like a shift. Depp has been in one of the most fertile periods of his career: The actor also stars in the Hunter S. Thompson adaptation “The Rum Diary” and had a supporting role in Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” which hasn’t yet been released in the U.S. In the past nine years, Depp has not had more than two movies come out in any 18-month period; if “Imaginarium” gets a release by the end of 2010, he’ll have had four.

Then again, the absence of a new role might mean a respite from his breakneck schedule. Even a pirate needs some time off.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Chinese worker commits suicide over missing iPhone

Agence France-Presse

Associated Press Writer

BARCELONA - Pop diva Madonna was back in Barcelona Tuesday to resume her tour after her Marseille date was cancelled following an accident that killed two stage hands setting up for the concert.

GUANGZHOU, China - An employee at a factory that makes iPhones in China killed himself after a prototype went missing, and Apple Inc. responded Wednesday by saying its suppliers are required to treat workers with dignity and respect.

The death might have been partly due to Apple’s notorious culture of secrecy, which tries to create a big pre-launch buzz about the company’s highly anticipated products and upgrades. Apple is also a constant target of prying journalists, rabidly faithful customers and competitors who make great efforts to try to steal a peek at its latest gadgets.

The dead worker, Sun Danyong, 25, worked in product communications at Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese firm that makes many Apple products at a massive factory in the southern city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong.

Although Apple and Foxconn have confirmed Sun’s suicide, they have not provided details about the death’s circumstances, which have been reported by the state-run Southern Metropolis Daily, one of the region’s most popular papers.

Sun was responsible for sending

The 50-year-old singer, who on Sunday flew to Marseille to visit the family of one of the dead workers and some of those injured when a crane toppled over, is due to give two more concerts in Spain.

She will sing at Madrid on Thursday and the northeastern city of Saragossa on Saturday, before continuing her “Sticky and Sweet” tour in Norway.

Two men, 52-year-old Frenchman Charles Criscenzo and 23-year-old Briton Charles Prow, were killed last Thursday and eight other workers injured when part of the stage being built at Marseille’s Stade Velodrome collapsed.

The accident happened when a crane toppled over as they were preparing the venue for Sunday’s concert, which was immediately cancelled.

AFP PHOTO/ LLUIS GENE Madonna has been touring since Au- US singer Madonna performs during her “Sticky & Sweet Tour” gust 2008 to promote her latest album, concert on July 21, 2009 at the Olympic Stadium “Lluis Companys” “Hard Candy”. in Barcelona.

Uma Thurman enlists for ‘Girl Soldier’ Agence France-Presse

LOS ANGELES - Uma Thurman is to star in an independent drama based on the 1996 abduction of 140 schoolgirls in Uganda forced to fight as child soldiers and serve as sex slaves, it was reported Tuesday.

Thurman, the 39-year-old star of “Pulp Fiction” and “Kill Bill,” will play the nun who tracked down the armed rebels responsible for the abduction and secured the release of 110 of the children, Variety reported.

The film, titled “Girl Soldier,” is based on Canadian journalist Kathy Cook’s book about the incident,

“Stolen Angels.”

“This is a film that had to get made,” Thurman was quoted as saying. “It’s beyond me that in this day and age the exploitation of child soldiers goes virtually unnoticed and unchecked by Western media.”

Filming is due to get underway in early 2010.

Actor Stephen Baldwin files for bankruptcy NEW YORK - Actor Stephen Baldwin, brother of Emmy winner and “30 Rock” star Alec Baldwin, filed for bankruptcy in New York on Tuesday, according to a court document that says he is millions in debt.

The 43-year-old actor filed for Chapter 11 protection claiming he owes more than $2.3 million and owns a New York property valued at only $1.1 million. His wife, Kennya Baldwin, also is named in the document.

Baldwin, who has appeared in films including “The Usual Suspects” in 1995 as well as more recently in U.S. celebrity and reality television shows, owes about $1.2 million on two mortgages on the New York property and more than $1 million in taxes. He also has credit card debt, court papers showed. A lawyer for Baldwin had no comment.

New York newspaper Newsday reported earlier this month that a homeless man who was allowed to

live on Baldwin’s property was arrested on heroin charges and suspected of dealing drugs.

Police told the newspaper that

Baldwin, who has described himself as a born-again Christian, was shocked and just trying to do a good deed.

REUTERS/Keith Bedford

Stephen Baldwin arrives for a special screening of the film Mission Impossible III at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York, May 3, 2006.

5

AFP PHOTO/MIKE CLARKE

A file picture taken on May 30, 2009, shows Hong Kong Democrat Martin Lee speaking to journalists in Hong Kong. The trial of the alleged masterminds behind a foiled plot to assassinate leading democrat Lee began in southern China on July 22, a report said.

Trial over plot to kill Hong Kong democrat begins: report Agence France-Presse

HONG KONG - The trial of the alleged masterminds behind a foiled plot to assassinate leading Hong Kong democrat Martin Lee began in southern China Wednesday, a report said.

A total of 13 defendants — including two suspected top Hong Kong gangsters — went on trial in Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, just over the border from Hong Kong, said the South China Morning Post on its website.

No-one from the court was able to confirm the trial had begun when contacted by AFP. Tung Nga-man, 67, and Yu Waishan, 63, who are thought to be leading members of the Triad organised crime group, face charges of attempted murder while the other defendants are charged with attempts to cause injuries, the Post said.

Journalists and some relatives of the defendants were prevented from entering the court, the Post reported.

The trial is expected to last several days.

A Hong Kong court earlier this month sentenced a mainland Chinese gunman to 16 years in jail for possessing firearms with the intention of harming Lee, a lawyer who has been at the forefront of the campaign for democracy in the southern Chinese city.

A second man was handed a three-year jail term for possessing firearms in connection with the plot which allegedly also targeted media mogul Jimmy Lai. Lai is chairman of Next Media, which runs newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong and Taiwan that are strongly critical of China’s ruling Communist Party.

The plot was foiled after an officer stopped the gunman by chance at a Hong Kong police checkpoint in August last year. He was found to have a homemade pistol and five rounds of ammunition in his bag.

Hong Kong and mainland China operate a separate legal system, as part of the deal agreed when the city was handed back by colonial power Britain in 1997.

iPhone prototypes to Apple, and on July 13 he reported that he was missing one of the 16 units in his possession, the newspaper reported. His friends said company security guards searched his apartment, detained him and beat him, the paper reported.

In the early morning of July 16, Sun jumped from the 12th floor of his apartment building, the paper said.

Jill Tan, an Apple spokeswoman in Hong Kong, would only issue a brief statement about the incident.

“We are saddened by the tragic loss of this young employee, and we are awaiting results of the investigations into his death,” Tan said. “We require our suppliers to treat all workers with dignity and respect.”

Foxconn said in a statement that its security chief has been suspended and turned over to the police.

But the security official, Gu Qinming, was quoted by the South-

ern Metropolis Daily as saying he never hit Sun. Gu reportedly said that after three security personnel searched Sun’s apartment and did not find the phone, the employee was ordered to go to Gu’s office on July 15.

The security chief said he didn’t think Sun was being truthful about the phone, the paper reported.

“I got a bit agitated. I pointed my finger at him and said that he was trying to shift the blame,” Gu was quoted as saying.

He added, “I was a little angry and I pulled his right shoulder once to get him to tell me what happened. It (the beating) couldn’t have happened,” the paper reported.

Local police declined to respond to questions from The Associated Press.

Foxconn executive Li Jinming said in a statement that Sun’s death showed that the company needed to do a better job helping its employees with psychological pressures.

“Sun Danyong graduated from a good school. He joined the company in 2008. He had an extremely bright future. The group and I feel deep pain and regret when a young person dies like this.”

‘Go ahead and hang me’: Mumbai gunman Agence France-Presse

MUMBAI - The sole surviving gunman of last year’s Mumbai attacks told the judge in his trial Wednesday that he was prepared to be put to death after making a dramatic confession of his role in the operation.

“Please go ahead and hang me,” Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani national, told Judge M.L. Tahaliyani in court.

The judge was considering how to proceed after Kasab’s sudden decision on Monday to confess, in lengthy detail, to being one of the 10 militant gunmen in the November attacks, which left 166 people dead and more than 300 injured.

“Whatever I have done, I have done in this world. It would be better that I be punished in this world. It

would be better than God’s punishment,” Kasab said.

“If anyone is worried that I’m trying to escape death by hanging, I’m not. If that’s the punishment, so be it.”

Kasab’s confession on Monday had taken the judge, prosecution and even his own lawyer by surprise.

He had initially pleaded not guilty to 86 charges, including one of waging war against India.

If convicted, he faces a possible death sentence. In his admission, Kasab told the court he had orders to take hostages at the city’s main railway station, where he and an accomplice, Abu Ismail, opened fire and threw grenades, killing 52 and injuring more than 100 others.

The rail station assault was the bloodiest episode of the 60-hour reign of terror against multiple targets in

south Mumbai.

Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam offered a sceptical take on Kasab’s confession, arguing that he had made only a partial and “half-hearted” admission, which did not cover all the charges.

Nikam also suggested that his apparent bravado over the death penalty was part of a strategy to save him from the hangman.

“Very shrewdly, very cleverly Kasab has tried to save his own skin by showing he was acting as a subordinate to Abu Ismail,” the lawyer said Wednesday.

“He knows that by denying a major role, no Indian court is going to award the death penalty,” he added. Defence lawyer Abbas Kazmi rejected the prosecution’s concept of a partial admission and argued that his client’s confession should either be accepted in its totality, or completely rejected.

5,000 adolescents killed each year in Brazil: study Agence France-Presse

BRASILIA - Five thousand adolescents a year are killed in Brazil’s cities and towns, most of them poor and uneducated black males, according to a joint study released Tuesday by UNICEF, the government and a slum-monitoring group.

“The majority are at risk of death because of the drug trade, generally for being users, not dealers,” Brazil’s undersecretary for human rights, Carmem Oliveira, explained.

The study, an Index of Homicides in Adolescence, showed that two in every 1,000 Brazilian children aged 12 will die before reaching 19 years.

The report’s focus was on 267 Brazilian cities and towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants.

Oliveira noted that the murder rate was 30 times that experienced in European countries.

She said that in Brazil, homicide was the cause of adolescent death in 45 percent of cases, followed by natural causes in 25 percent of cases

and accidents in 22 percent of cases.

The touristic town of Foz de Iguazu, which boasts spectacular waterfalls at the juncture of borders with Argentina and Paraguay in southern Brazil, was the most violent spot in the country for youths.

There, nearly one youth in 100 is killed.

Rio de Janeiro, the top tourist draw and the city most remarked for its street crime, came well behind, accounting for 10 percent of adolescent murders.

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

News

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Solar eclipse...

From page 1

AFP PHOTO / AHMAD AL-RUBAYE

Stalls owners help clear the debris from damaged shops in a market following last night’s double blast in the northeastern Baghdad neighbourhood of Husseiniyah, on July 22, 2009. Two explosions detonated, one along a street selling medical equipment and housing medical clinics and the another in a nearby popular market killing five people and wounding 21 others.

Iraq bomb attacks kill 21 Agence France-Presse

BAGHDAD - Twenty-one people were killed in a spate of bomb attacks across Iraq on Tuesday, one of the deadliest days of violence in the country since US troops left its cities three weeks ago.

More than 120 people were wounded in the attacks in Baghdad, Baquba to its north and Ramadi to its west, just a day after seven police officers and a soldier died.

In the deadliest single attack, five people were killed and 21 wounded by a bomb attack in the northeast Baghdad neighbourhood of Husseiniyah, security officials said.

The attack took place at around 8:15 pm (1715 GMT) in a popular market in the district.

In nearby Sadr City, a one-yearold baby and a girl of eight were among four people who died when a bomb exploded in a market, police and the defence ministry said.

Thirty-four people were wounded.

Police defused another bomb in the same market.

Another four people, all workers, were killed and 31 wounded in an earlier twin bomb attack in Sadr City, a sprawling, overwhelmingly Shiite neighbourhood.

Two people lost their lives and six were wounded in a car bombing in the south Baghdad neighbourhood of Dora, while a

company manager was killed by a sticky bomb in Taji, on the northern outskirts of the capital.

Water Resources Minister Abdel Latif Jamal Rashid narrowly escaped a bombing as his convoy drove through the central commercial district of Karrada, security sources said. His ministry denied Rashid was the target.

Six passers-by were wounded when the bombs exploded near a bridge.

Twelve members of the same family were wounded when the minibus they were travelling in was struck by a roadside bomb in the north Baghdad neighbourhood of Baab alMuadham.

They were taking the body of a dead relative from the mortuary to his burial when the minibus was hit.

In Baquba, a woman and her son were killed when the vegetable cart they were pushing struck a roadside bomb.

And in a second day of deadly attacks in the western city of Ramadi, three people were killed and 10 wounded in a double car bombing outside a restaurant, hospital officials

and police said.

On Monday, 10 people died, including seven policemen and a soldier, in attacks in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, once a bastion of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, and in the main northern city of Mosul.

Anbar had seen a sharp dropoff in violence over the past 18 months as local tribes allied themselves with US-led forces against AlQaeda and it foreign fighters.

But last week six people died in a suicide bombing near a mosque in Ramadi.

The latest attacks come just three weeks after US troops withdrew from urban centres in line with a security pact between Baghdad and Washington that calls for American forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

Violence has dropped markedly throughout the country in recent months, but attacks increased in the run-up to the US military pullback, with 437 Iraqis killed in June — the highest death toll in 11 months.

Attacks remain common in Baghdad and Mosul.

A total solar eclipse usually occurs every 18 months or so, but Wednesday’s spectacle was special for its maximum period of “totality” — when the sun is wholly covered by the moon — of six minutes and 39 seconds.

Such a lengthy duration will not be matched until the year 2132.

State-run China Central Television provided minute-by-minute coverage of what it dubbed “The Great Yangtze River Solar Eclipse” as the phenomenon cut a path along the river’s drainage basin.

Millions of people in areas of southwestern China enjoyed a clear line of sight, according to images broadcast on CCTV, but the view was obstructed along much of its path by cloudy weather.

Shanghai viewers braved rain and overcast skies to witness the spectacle as darkness shrouded China’s commercial hub at 9:36 am (0136 GMT).

“It’s like magic, the day turns into night in such a short period of time ...

I have no idea where I am right now.

It feels like a different world,” said Chen Hong, a biotech company chief executive.

Despite the weather, hotels along Shanghai’s famed waterfront Bund packed in the customers with eclipse breakfast specials.

Those who could afford it grabbed expensive seats on planes chartered by specialist travel agencies that promised extended views of the eclipse as they chased the shadow eastwards.

The cone-shaped shadow, or umbra, created by the total eclipse first made landfall on the western Indian state of Gujarat shortly before 6:30 am (0100 GMT).

It then raced across India and squeezed between Bangladesh and Nepal before engulfing most of Bhutan,

traversing the Chinese mainland and slipping back out to sea off Shanghai.

From there it moved across the islands of southern Japan and veered into the western Pacific.

In Mumbai, hundreds of people who trekked up to the Nehru planetarium clutching eclipse sunglasses found themselves reaching for umbrellas and rain jackets instead as heavy overnight rain turned torrential.

“We didn’t want to watch it on television and we thought this would be the best place,” said 19-year-old student Dwayne Fernandes. “We could’ve stayed in bed.”

Many did stay home, fearful of the effects of the lunar shadow which some believe can lead to birth defects in pregnant women.

“I was advised not to leave the house as the eclipse brings bad luck to you and your family,” said Deepa Shrestha, a 25-year-old housemaid in Kathmandu.

Superstition has always haunted the moment when Earth, moon and sun are perfectly aligned. The daytime extinction of the sun, the source of all life, is associated with war, famine, flood and the death or birth of rulers. The ancient Chinese blamed a sun-eating dragon.

In Hindu mythology, the two demons Rahu and Ketu are said to “swallow” the sun during eclipses, snuffing out its light and causing food to become inedible and water undrinkable.

Some Indian astrologers had issued predictions laden with gloom and foreboding, and a gynaecologist at a Delhi hospital said many expectant mothers scheduled for July 22 caesarian deliveries insisted on changing the date.

The last total solar eclipse was on August 1 last year and also crossed China.

The next will be on July 11, 2010, but will occur almost entirely over the South Pacific.

Indonesia police release...

From page 1 The men had short hair and looked Asian in appearance. The Marriott bomber was described as being 16 to 17 years old, fairskinned and 180-190 centimetres (5’9"-6’3") tall.

The Ritz-Carlton bomber was decribed as being 20 to 40 years old, with tanned skin and standing 165 centimetres tall.

However as police struggled to identify the bombers, Soekarna said DNA tests on the families of two men suspected of carrying out the attacks, named as Ibrahim and Nur Hasbi, had returned negative results.

“The DNA of the families have not matched the body parts that we have found,” Soekarna said.

“Concerning Ibrahim, we’ve done a DNA test and it’s not identical. Also (this is the case) for Nur Hasbi,” he said.

He said the sketches also did not match Ibrahim or Nur Hasbi, also known as Nur Said, who is a reported associate of alleged terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top. But police did not explicitly rule out either man as suspects in the

wider investigation into the attacks, which have rattled the foreign business and diplomatic community in Indonesia.

“The bodies on the site are not of Nur Hasbi and not of Ibrahim.

I’m not saying they’re not suspected. Anyone can be investigated,” he said.

Senior counter-terrorism officials and police have said the attacks look very much like the work of Noordin, the Malaysian-born leader of a Jemaah Islamiyah splinter group.

Police also confirmed that the Marriott bomber had stayed in room 1,808 of the hotel for two nights before launching his attack, which killed three Australians, an Indonesian and a New Zealander.

The victims at the Marriott were attending a weekly meeting of some of Indonesia’s most prominent foreign business executives in a room to the side of the main lobby.

Two people, believed to be a Dutch couple on vacation, were killed in the almost simultaneous attack at the Ritz-Carlton, adjacent to the Marriott.

11

BUSINESS European stocks slip as investors take breather Associated Press Writer

AFP/File/Ted Aljibe

A farmer throws rice seedlings into a rice paddy in Nueva Ecija, north of Manila. Asia-Pacific trade ministers meeting in Singapore have said that the worldwide economic slump may be nearing its end but warned against protectionism.

APEC trade ministers protectionism warning

LONDON – Stock markets slipped in Europe on Wednesday and rose only modestly in Asia, as investors stepped back from a week-long rally fueled by upbeat earnings to assess the outlook for corporate profits amid a still-weak global economy.

By midday in Europe, Germany’s DAX was down 29.96 points, or 0.6 percent, at 5,064.01, while Britain’s FTSE 100 slide 21.65 points, or 0.5 percent, to 4,459.52. France’s CAC 40 was down 28.81 points, or 0.9 percent, at 3,274.08.

The indexes had rallied for the past week on strong U.S. corporate earnings reports, with the latest from Caterpillar Inc., Apple Inc. and Coca Cola Inc. suggesting that the worst of the economic crisis is past.

That view was echoed by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who said Tuesday that the world’s largest economy was seeing some improvement.

However, while the news has bolstered risk appetite — with many Asian indexes eking out gains at the close Wednesday — investors seemed to believe that the good news has been mostly priced into the share values.

“We keep the view that the multiquarter outlook for developed economies does not look as bright as the

Yahoo to spend more after cost cuts lift 2Q profit

Agence France Presse

Associated Press Writer

SINGAPORE – Asia-Pacific trade ministers Wednesday said here that the worldwide economic slump may be nearing its end but warned against protectionism while pledging to work harder for a new WTO deal by 2010.

SAN FRANCISCO - Carol Bartz has already shown off her cost-cutting skills in her first six months as Yahoo Inc.’s chief executive.

Now, she will try to prove she isn’t making a a bad bet by spending more money while the Internet company’s advertising sales are still sagging.

The risky strategy caused investors to fret more about what might happen in Yahoo’s third quarter than to celebrate the 8 percent increase in second-quarter profit reported late Tuesday. It marked Yahoo’s first quarterly earnings improvement since the start of 2008, but Yahoo shares nevertheless slid 45 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $16.30 in Tuesday’s extended trading.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company wouldn’t have boosted its second-quarter profit if not for layoffs and other cost cutting that pared Yahoo’s operating expenses by nearly $150 million, or 15 per-

“The global economy appears to be bottoming out, but the outlook remains uncertain and significant risks remain,” the ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum said in a statement.

“We will therefore persist with efforts to support growth and facilitate trade and investment flows, keep our markets open, and give a new push to concluding the Doha Round.”

The World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round of talks were launched in the Qatari capital in late 2001 to forge a new deal on goods and services.

However, it has repeatedly foundered, notably over disputes between rich and developing nations on agricultural and industrial products.

The APEC ministers, whose economies account for half the world’s economic output, said the “best insurance” against protectionism will be a “suc-

cessful and speedy conclusion” of the Doha Round. APEC ministers will “identify specific gaps” where more needs to be done and “accelerate efforts to reach consensus in the more contentious areas of agriculture and manufactured goods.”

APEC members’ WTO negotiators in Geneva will be given “a stronger mandate to exercise maximum flexibility in the talks so that positions can converge further.”

Singapore Trade Minister Lim Hng Kiang, who chaired the APEC meeting, said at a news conference “we acknowledge that there are growing protectionist pressures worldwide.”

“We are very conscious that if protectionism is not controlled, this could be a severe setback to our growth prospects,” he said.

APEC members will “avoid implementing any measures that have protectionist effects even if they are com-

patible with WTO rules,” Lim said.

APEC was started 20 years ago to promote trade and strengthen economic cooperation in the Pacific rim.

Its 21 members — including the United States, China, Japan and Russia — account for more than half of the world’s gross domestic product and almost 44 percent of international trade.

The meeting in Singapore came two weeks after a Group of Eight summit in L’Aquila, Italy, where leaders of the world’s most powerful nations and emerging economies agreed to wrap up the Doha talks by 2010.

“A lot of progress has been made over the past eight years since the Doha round was launched and we intend to build on this progress,” Lim said.

“In this spirit, we agreed to instruct our officials to intensify their engagement in the process by exploring all avenues to get nearer to consensus,” the Singapore trade minister added.

current equity rally would suggest,” said Sebastien Barbe, analyst at Calyon.

In fact, Bernanke accompanied his forecast for an economic recovery with the warning that it would be slow due to rising unemployment. The Fed chairman will be watched for more comments in his testimony to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee today.

More and more investors are tiptoeing as they try to determine the actual shape of the rebound, said Thomas Lam, senior treasury economist at the United Overseas Bank in Singapore.

“The U.S. economy either has stabilized or is stabilizing, there’s no doubt about that,” Lam said. “We have transitioned from thinking it’s the end of the world to trying to see what the new world will look like.”

In the U.K., the Bank of England said was still considering whether to pump another 25 billion pounds into the financial system. In the minutes to its latest policy meeting, the bank’s rate-setters suggested they would wait until August to assess the need to create more money.

Like Bernanke, the Bank of England said that while the economy has stabilized somewhat, a quick recovery was unlikely as balance sheet constraints within the banks would continue to limit demand growth.

cent, from last year. The savings enabled Yahoo to shake off the biggest drop in its ad revenue since the dot-com bust at the beginning of the decade.

But Bartz raised questions about whether the earnings momentum will continue by vowing to spend at least $75 million more promoting Yahoo’s brand, hiring more engineers and improving some of its services during the third quarter. On top of that, Yahoo expects to surrender about $75 million in revenue by reducing the volume of ads that management has identified as being too obnoxious.

Those plans will squeeze profits unless Yahoo can snap out of slump that deepened in the third quarter with a 13 percent decline in ad sales.

Bartz said advertisers appear willing to spend a little bit more during the second half, although she stopped short of predicting better times ahead.

“There’s just so much conflicting information in the market that it’s just too early to call,” she told analysts in a Tuesday conference call.

10

Business

Thursday, July 23, 2009

International

International

Anger over California budget crisis deal Agence France Presse

LOS ANGELES – Anger over proposals to solve California’s budget crisis mounted as reports said the plan would see thousands of prisoners released and billions slashed from education spending.

AFP/Getty Images/File/David Mcnew

A demonstrator (left) mocks California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, during a rally by activists near Santa Monica Airport. Anger over proposals to solve the US state’s budget crisis are mounting as reports said the plan would see thousands of prisoners released and billions slashed from education spending.

The Los Angeles Times reported on its website that the budget deal, announced by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers from both parties on Monday, would involve the early release of thousands of inmates.

Republican legislators have since threatened to pull out of the deal, that could cut prison numbers by 27,000, the paper reported.

It is thought the reduction would be achieved through a combination of measures including allowing prisoners to finish their sentences on home detention and creating incentives for completion of rehabilitation plans.

The prison inmate proposal would help save the state 1.2 billion dollars in the coming fiscal year, the

International Bali Post Classifieds Contact us

Times reported.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca meanwhile condemned the budget, saying other cuts to local government would force authorities across the state to shut down jails or slash officers from street patrol.

“I think it is one thing to have a natural disaster... but it is another thing to have local cities and counties hit by a disaster predicated on the irresponsible actions of the state legislators,” Baca told the Times.

California’s fiscal woes have deepened as the state reels under the effects of the recession, which have sent unemployment and home foreclosures soaring and state revenues plunging to levels not seen since the 1990s.

The budget crisis pushed the state to the brink of bankruptcy and forced California to start paying its bills with IOUs earlier this month.

The details of the budget — designed to plug a 26.3-billion-dollar gap in California’s finances — have not been formally released. The budget plan is to be put before lawmakers in Sacramento for approval on Thursday.

However public employees and local governments voiced opposition to the proposed budget on Tuesday as details began to filter out.

Monday’s deal reportedly allows for some 15 billion dollars in spending cuts, including slashing around nine billion dollars from schools, community colleges and state university programs.

It also cuts around 1.3 billion dollars from a state health care program for the poor as well some 124 million dollars from a scheme to provide health insurance to more than 900,000 children in low-income households.

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Jakarta -Tax receipts in the first semester of 2009 fell 2.83 per cent as a result of the global financial crisis, a tax official said.

“The net receipts of the directorate general of taxes in the January-June 2009 period reached Rp253.18 trillion (US$25.3 billion), or a decline of 2.83 per cent

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from the same period last year,” Director General of Taxes Darmin Nasution said on Tuesday.

Tax receipts in the first semester of 2009 reached Rp260.56 trillion. If income tax on oil and gas were excluded from the net receipts in the first half of 2009, the amount would be Rp225.79 trillion, down 0.18 per cent from the same period a year earlier.

Indonesia: APEC needs to have regional trade financing cooperation Antara AFP PHOTO/TJAHJO ERANIUS

Indonesian policemen secure the area outside a clinic where on of their colleague’s remains were taken after a fatal car accident on the road that leads to the Freeport goldmine in Timika, in Indonesia’s Papua province, on July 22, 2009. One Indonesian policeman was killed in a traffic accident on a stretch of the road that runs from the coast to the highland mine, whilst three police were wounded in a shooting five miles further up the same road, police said. The police were wounded in an attack on a convoy of Freeport buses on the road to the mine, close to the site of a series of ambushes earlier this month that killed three people.

Three wounded in shooting near Indonesia mine: police TIMIKA - Three police were wounded in a shooting Wednesday near US mining company Freeport McMoRan’s massive gold and copper mine in Indonesia’s Papua province, police said.

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7

Thursday, July 23, 2009

First-semester tax receipts down 2.83%

Agence France Presse

THE CCTV SYSTEM TOTAL SOLUTION

The police were wounded in an attack on a convoy of Freeport buses on the road to the mine, close to the site of a series of ambushes earlier this month that killed three people, a police source who declined to be named told AFP. The earlier ambushes claimed the lives of two Freeport employees, including 28-year-old Australian technician Drew Grant, and one policeman.

Papua police spokesman

Nurhabri confirmed there was a shooting but said he had no details on the number or identity of victims.

One policeman was also killed in a traffic accident on a separate stretch of the road that runs from the coast to the highland mine, he said.

“It’s true that there are two cases, a car accident at mile 45 and a shooting at mile 51,” he said.

The Freeport mine sits on the world’s richest gold reserves and the US company’s local subsidiary is the

largest single taxpayer to the Indonesian government.

The military has pointed the finger at separatist rebels fighting for independence from Jakarta but police have so far said there is no indication that is the case.

Police on Tuesday arrested 14 Papuan men for questioning over the attacks, including six in connection with Grant’s killing, but have not officially declared them suspects.

Papua, a resource rich region on the eastern end of New Guinea Island, has been the site of a low-level separatist insurgency since its incorporation into Indonesia in the 1960s. Indonesia restricts access to Papua for foreign journalists and rights groups.

Jakarta - Indonesia has proposed the establishment of regional trade financing cooperation within the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

“What we have been after since yesterday is trade financing. We must continue cooperation (in the field) at APEC level. The cooperation so far is bilateral among individual members,” trade minister Mari Elka Pangestu said to newsmen through a teleconference from Singapore here on Tuesday.

She said trade financing was very important for developing small and medium-sized buinesses (UKM) particularly with regard to exports.

“It is the UKM that needs insurance. We hope there will be trade relations among UKMs of APEC members,” she said.

Trade ministers from APEC members gathered for an annual meeting on July 21-22 in Singapore to discuss progress of economic cooperation among APEC members in various fields.

In the session on “Addressing the Crisis, Preparing for Recovery” the ministers discussed efforts to facilitate trade financing through bilateral and regional cooperation networks.

“To recover from current crisis

it requires coordination and close linkage of steps in the financial and trade sectors,” she said.

In the meeting the ministers agreed that the dialogue process had to be continued and increased not only to overcome crisis and smoothen ways to recovery but also to create APEC economic resilience in the long term.

Mari said in the meeting Indonesia had given special emphasis on increasing social resilience through capacity development programs for UKMs, the poor and the workers.

“This is a very important shortand medium-term agenda for APEC especially with regard to helping the people and businesses that have been hit the hardest by the current crisis and to increasing regional economic and social resiliance to face possible similar crisis in the future,” she said.

The minister said APEC had to pay attention to capacity development programs that would affect UKMs and community groups badly in need of them.

APEC members total 21 namely Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chili, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the US and Vietnam.

Malaysia police arrest Indonesian pirates: official

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Indonesia Today

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KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian marine police have arrested five Indonesian pirates who were robbing a Honduran-registered ship, a senior official said Wednesday.

The pirates, who wore masks and were armed with machetes, attacked the vessel off the south Malaysian state of Johor near the Singapore Strait early on Tuesday, Johor’s chief of marine police, Khamsani Abdul Rahman, told AFP. “We received a tip-off on the attack and we managed to arrest the Indonesian attackers as they were

robbing the ship.

“The suspects are aged between 17 and 40 years old. But one managed to escape by jumping into the sea,” he said.

Khamsani said the pirates tied up the ship’s Indonesian captain and 15 Thai crew members but police managed to suprise the pirates as they were looting the ship.

Police seized four machetes, masks and binoculars from the pirates.

The pirates, who entered Malaysian waters legally, were probably involved in previous incidents such as a July 12 attack on a Singaporeregistered tug boat in the Singapore

Straits, said Khamsani.

“Based on their modus operandi, we believe that this group is linked to the Singapore case,” he said.

In February Malaysian marine commandos arrested seven suspected Indonesian pirates after a dramatic high-seas chase in the nearby Malacca Strait.More than 30 percent of world trade and half the world’s oil shipments pass through the Malacca Strait, which are shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

Piracy in the strait has declined in recent years but there are concerns the global financial crisis could lead to a rise in incidents.

Bp/doc

Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu

8

International

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Bali Today

Balinese Culture

Police tighten watch on free chemical sales Antara

Denpasar - Following the twin hotel bombings in Jakarta, Bali police have tightened surveillance of the sale of chemicals in the free market to prevent the substances from being used for unlawful purposes, production of explosives in particular.

Denpasar city police chief Senior Commissioner I Gede Alit Widana said here Tuesday police units in the field had been instructed to tighten surveillance over shops selling chemicals.

“We are doing this as a measure to help prevent terrorist activity following the bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta,” he said.

The free trade in chemicals was facilitating terrorists in obtaining the materials needed to assemble bombs, he said.

“Now we require chemical shops in Denpasar to keep a record of every sales transaction. We must know who the buyers of chemicals are, for what purpose they need the chemicals,” Widana said.

In addition, police have also in-

tensified security and patrols in commercial districts, hotels, tourist spots, sea and airports.

“We do not wish to be taken by surprise because Bali, based on past experience, is also a potential target of terrorist attacks,” he added.

All police precincts in the city had been ordered to conduct frequent checks on passengers and goods carried by incoming and outgoing vehicles in Denpasar and South Badung district, Widana said.

Police are patrolling throughout Bali. Bali police have tightened surveillance of the sale of chemicals in the free market to prevent the substances from being used for unlawful purposes, production of explosives in particular.

BP/Eka

Tumpek Wayang to Safeguard Balinese “Taksu” Japanese – ISI collaboration will produce monumental art

Balinese life is full of artistic colors. Since being conceived, a Balinese is introduced ritual of magedonggedongan implemented by means of sesaji offering arranged in such a way to contain full of artistic nuance, giving the sesaji both religious character and magical power expected to safeguard the baby in conception.

More over the sejaji instills a good taste to the baby making its mother to feel happy, full of eagerness and joy.

This ritual consequently sends vibration to the baby still being in conception.

Similar is the case with further phases of the baby life until becoming grown up. In this span of time a range of rituals take place respectively at the time of birth, of the age of one month and seven days, of three months, of six months or one oton (as Balinese mentions it), and so on, ending at a time when the man reaches grown up stage. At the latest phase of human development, the sesajen offered is very implicated, while its artistic value gets higher. Wealthy men would add an art show to the series of ritual.

Looking on such a phenomenon shown previously, M. Covarrubias, in his book entitled ‘Island of Bali’ termed all Balinese as artists. Following such a view of the Dutch writer, the Island of Bali had become more famous as ‘Island of Paradise’, while Balinese art has echoed throughout the world.

Nevertheless, it has remained a monopoly of only few people who know that Balinese artists own a spe-

cific day to keep taksu inner power and their profession intact, including their effort of care taking and safeguarding of their art implements by means of religious ritual procession. The specific day is termed as Tumpek Wayang or Tumpek Aringgit, observed on Saniscara (Saturday) Kliwon, Wuku Wayang, sixmonthly. This month, Balinese are to welcome Tumpek Wayang on 11 July 2009.

According to Sundarigama lontar, Balinese people are busy in ritual performance of ‘Tumpek Kandang’ Holy Day in prayer to ‘Dewa Iswara‘ Deity, manifesting God Almighty as creator of art and its implements, consisted of puppets, ‘aringit’ carved objects, idols, pratima sacred object, gong, musical instrument of gender, gambang, bell, wooden drum, and other Balinese gamelan Bali instruments.

Sesajen offered to art implements during Tumpek Wayang observance consists of implements known among Balinese as peras or ajuman, completed with white duck meat, fruits, such-called canang meraka and pesucian. Meanwhile, sesajen dedicated to safeguard taksu inner power, spiritual and bodily sacredness and safety of artists, consists of sesayut tumpeng boiled rice cone, big-sized sesayut tumpeng, ‘prayascita’, ‘penyeneng’, and so on, adapted to local tradition.

This Tumpek Wayang ritual means, as it proposed in Sundarigama Lontar Ancient Manuscript, that the observers ask for guidance from Dewa Iswara toward achieving blessing of all kinds of arts with capability of giving material and spiritual prosperity to the whole mankind. More

Thursday, July 23, 2009

over, artists could also achieve blessing safely in practicing their artistic skill.

Balinese artists, especially gamelan players, dancers and puppeteers, would be very busy in observing rituals and performing a variety of dances. Academy and schools of arts such Denpasar’s ISI Academy, Batubulan’s SMK Senior High School of Dance, and art groups, would take part in local temple ritual, while artists being engaged in stage performances, including all-night shows of shadow leather puppet dances.

The importance of shadow puppet-show of specific standard during the day is because of the shows being not merely a usual ones, but this is an occasion used by puppeteers to convey messages of morality filled with teachings of perfect morality and good conducts.

Wayang performances reflected the world of human kind, Balinese called bhuwana alit and the objective natural world with all of its contents, known among Balinese as bhuwana agung. Implements made used during wayang performance, contain specific meanings. Its screen signifies human being, petrol lantern reflects atma spiritual holy rays dwelling in human body, ‘gender’ musical instruments directing the wayang performance symbolizing human soul vibration. The puppeteer himself is reflecting the God as Jiwatman defining the fate of human beings and other creatures.

Antara

Denpasar - Cooperation between Japan’s Kanda University and the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) in Denpasar, Bali, is expected to produce a monumental work of art.

“Collaboration of the percussion art and Japanese-Balinese dances is expected to serve as a bridge between the Japanese community and the Island Paradise,” ISI rector Prof Dr I Wayan Rai sasid here Tuesday.

He said that the collaboration between arts and repercussions which will be developed by the two high

arts learning institutes in Japan and Bali will reflect the appreciation of the public in the two countries.

The Japan-Bali collaboration will be developed following the signing of cooperation between the Japanese university and ISI in Denpasar, Prof Rai said.

In this context ISI executives and lecturers will be visiting Kanda University in November 2009, where they will at the same time sign the cooperation.

The visit to Japan will get funding assistance from the High Learning Institutes Directorate General of the National Education Ministry.

Slamet’s death was not because swine flu Antara

DENPASAR – The death of Slamet Subagio who suspected to suffer from swine flu, was not because of the virus. He died after being treated for several hours in Sanglah hospital.

Nyoman Sutedja, the head of Bali’s Health Department, said “based on the test result from the lab in Jakarta, the late Slamet Subagio didn’t suffer from swine flu.”

Mr. Sutedje explained that even tough Subagio showed the symptoms of swine flu victim but he was not in-

fected by the disease. Subagio died because the lung and heart disease that he had since long time ago.

Subagia was coming from the country that considered as the swine flu pandemic country. He was traveling back and fourth from Bali to Singapore. That is the reason why the late Subagio was transferred into Nusa Indah isolation room in Sanglah hospital.

Slamet Subagio died on Tuesday, July 14th 2009 in Sanglah hospital. He worked as a plane technician in Lion Air Airlines so he often travels abroad.

SOTO BABAT

Six painters held exhibition

(Clear Tripe Soup) OVERVIEW: This is usually served with sambel tomat as a contrasting condiment. The sugar cane is used to help soften the tripe rather than to add any sweetness to the soup.

Antara

DENPASAR – Even Indonesia was hit by bomb blast on July 17th 2009, few painters still held exhibition in Bali. Six painters held an exhibition entitled “Six Masters From Bali” in Sanur. The exhibition also marked the opening of MahaArt Gallery, Bali Beach Golf Course.

Made Wianta, one of the six painters take part in the exhibition, said “we had been prepared the exhibition for two months so we wanted to keep on carried out the exhibition. We hope that the bomb blast will not affect the tourism.”

The painters who held the exhibition are AS Kurnia, Chusin Setiadikara, Mungu Putra, Sutjipto Adi, and Wianta. The exhibition will be held for one month started on Wednesday, July 22nd 2009.

In the exhibition, only several paintings from each painter are exhibited. Each painter only exhibited one and up to three paintings which is suitable with the current condition. Made Wianta exhibited a work entitled “karya ruang”, or space.

The painting is thick lines in various shapes and sizes on papers arranged on a wall.

Agus Maha Usadha, the manager

INGREDIENTS: 600 gr beef tripe, cleaned and washed well 3 liter water 1 liter beef stock 1 cup beef spice paste 5 cm sugar can stem, split lengthwise (optional) 2,5 cm ginger, peeled and sliced lengthwise 4 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced 1 tbsp distilled white vinegar 200 gr giant white radish, peeled and diced in 1 cm cubes 5 sprigs celery leaf chipped 1 tbsp fried shallots Bp/doc

Made Wianta explaining his work to a tourist of MahaArt Gallery, said “the unique work represent the need of room and space. Each line can be translated into various forms such as building architecture.”

Jean Couteau, a French artist who

has been living in Bali for 30 years, said that the exhibition showed the works that describe the current condition especially in Bali. Capitalism rules in tourism and art and culture preservation.

PREPARATION: Rinse tripe well under running water until very clean.

Bring water to boil in a large pan, add tripe and simmer until soft approx 1 hour.

Strain water and cool tripe in ice water. Cut in pieces approx 2,5 cm x 1cm. Bring beef, beef spice paste, sugar cane, ginger, garlic and vinegar to boil. Add tripe and radish. Simmer until vegetables are soft. Garnish with celery leaf and fried shallots.

Helpful hints: Any type of summer squash or Chinese winter melon can be used instead of giant white radish (Japanese daikon). This soup reheats well.sing cabbage, the cooking time will be much shorter. Season to taste with salt and pepper and garnish with fried shallots.

SAYUR PAKIS

(Fern Tips In Garlic Dressing) OVERVIEW: Fern tips also know as fiddleheads, have delightful, spinach like flavor.

INGREDIENTS: 400 gr (12 ½ oz) young fern tips 3 cloves garlic 4 cm (1 ½ in) kencur root, peeled and chopped 4 - 7 bird’s eye chilies 2 tbsp oil ½ tsp salt ¼ tsp black peppercorns, crushed PREPARATION: 1. Blanch fern tips in boiling water and cool under running water. Drain and dry thoroughly.

2. Place all remaining ingredients in a food processor and blend coarsely, or grind in a stone mortar.

3. Combine this mixture with the vegetables and mix well. Serve at room temperature.

9

8

International

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Bali Today

Balinese Culture

Police tighten watch on free chemical sales Antara

Denpasar - Following the twin hotel bombings in Jakarta, Bali police have tightened surveillance of the sale of chemicals in the free market to prevent the substances from being used for unlawful purposes, production of explosives in particular.

Denpasar city police chief Senior Commissioner I Gede Alit Widana said here Tuesday police units in the field had been instructed to tighten surveillance over shops selling chemicals.

“We are doing this as a measure to help prevent terrorist activity following the bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta,” he said.

The free trade in chemicals was facilitating terrorists in obtaining the materials needed to assemble bombs, he said.

“Now we require chemical shops in Denpasar to keep a record of every sales transaction. We must know who the buyers of chemicals are, for what purpose they need the chemicals,” Widana said.

In addition, police have also in-

tensified security and patrols in commercial districts, hotels, tourist spots, sea and airports.

“We do not wish to be taken by surprise because Bali, based on past experience, is also a potential target of terrorist attacks,” he added.

All police precincts in the city had been ordered to conduct frequent checks on passengers and goods carried by incoming and outgoing vehicles in Denpasar and South Badung district, Widana said.

Police are patrolling throughout Bali. Bali police have tightened surveillance of the sale of chemicals in the free market to prevent the substances from being used for unlawful purposes, production of explosives in particular.

BP/Eka

Tumpek Wayang to Safeguard Balinese “Taksu” Japanese – ISI collaboration will produce monumental art

Balinese life is full of artistic colors. Since being conceived, a Balinese is introduced ritual of magedonggedongan implemented by means of sesaji offering arranged in such a way to contain full of artistic nuance, giving the sesaji both religious character and magical power expected to safeguard the baby in conception.

More over the sejaji instills a good taste to the baby making its mother to feel happy, full of eagerness and joy.

This ritual consequently sends vibration to the baby still being in conception.

Similar is the case with further phases of the baby life until becoming grown up. In this span of time a range of rituals take place respectively at the time of birth, of the age of one month and seven days, of three months, of six months or one oton (as Balinese mentions it), and so on, ending at a time when the man reaches grown up stage. At the latest phase of human development, the sesajen offered is very implicated, while its artistic value gets higher. Wealthy men would add an art show to the series of ritual.

Looking on such a phenomenon shown previously, M. Covarrubias, in his book entitled ‘Island of Bali’ termed all Balinese as artists. Following such a view of the Dutch writer, the Island of Bali had become more famous as ‘Island of Paradise’, while Balinese art has echoed throughout the world.

Nevertheless, it has remained a monopoly of only few people who know that Balinese artists own a spe-

cific day to keep taksu inner power and their profession intact, including their effort of care taking and safeguarding of their art implements by means of religious ritual procession. The specific day is termed as Tumpek Wayang or Tumpek Aringgit, observed on Saniscara (Saturday) Kliwon, Wuku Wayang, sixmonthly. This month, Balinese are to welcome Tumpek Wayang on 11 July 2009.

According to Sundarigama lontar, Balinese people are busy in ritual performance of ‘Tumpek Kandang’ Holy Day in prayer to ‘Dewa Iswara‘ Deity, manifesting God Almighty as creator of art and its implements, consisted of puppets, ‘aringit’ carved objects, idols, pratima sacred object, gong, musical instrument of gender, gambang, bell, wooden drum, and other Balinese gamelan Bali instruments.

Sesajen offered to art implements during Tumpek Wayang observance consists of implements known among Balinese as peras or ajuman, completed with white duck meat, fruits, such-called canang meraka and pesucian. Meanwhile, sesajen dedicated to safeguard taksu inner power, spiritual and bodily sacredness and safety of artists, consists of sesayut tumpeng boiled rice cone, big-sized sesayut tumpeng, ‘prayascita’, ‘penyeneng’, and so on, adapted to local tradition.

This Tumpek Wayang ritual means, as it proposed in Sundarigama Lontar Ancient Manuscript, that the observers ask for guidance from Dewa Iswara toward achieving blessing of all kinds of arts with capability of giving material and spiritual prosperity to the whole mankind. More

Thursday, July 23, 2009

over, artists could also achieve blessing safely in practicing their artistic skill.

Balinese artists, especially gamelan players, dancers and puppeteers, would be very busy in observing rituals and performing a variety of dances. Academy and schools of arts such Denpasar’s ISI Academy, Batubulan’s SMK Senior High School of Dance, and art groups, would take part in local temple ritual, while artists being engaged in stage performances, including all-night shows of shadow leather puppet dances.

The importance of shadow puppet-show of specific standard during the day is because of the shows being not merely a usual ones, but this is an occasion used by puppeteers to convey messages of morality filled with teachings of perfect morality and good conducts.

Wayang performances reflected the world of human kind, Balinese called bhuwana alit and the objective natural world with all of its contents, known among Balinese as bhuwana agung. Implements made used during wayang performance, contain specific meanings. Its screen signifies human being, petrol lantern reflects atma spiritual holy rays dwelling in human body, ‘gender’ musical instruments directing the wayang performance symbolizing human soul vibration. The puppeteer himself is reflecting the God as Jiwatman defining the fate of human beings and other creatures.

Antara

Denpasar - Cooperation between Japan’s Kanda University and the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) in Denpasar, Bali, is expected to produce a monumental work of art.

“Collaboration of the percussion art and Japanese-Balinese dances is expected to serve as a bridge between the Japanese community and the Island Paradise,” ISI rector Prof Dr I Wayan Rai sasid here Tuesday.

He said that the collaboration between arts and repercussions which will be developed by the two high

arts learning institutes in Japan and Bali will reflect the appreciation of the public in the two countries.

The Japan-Bali collaboration will be developed following the signing of cooperation between the Japanese university and ISI in Denpasar, Prof Rai said.

In this context ISI executives and lecturers will be visiting Kanda University in November 2009, where they will at the same time sign the cooperation.

The visit to Japan will get funding assistance from the High Learning Institutes Directorate General of the National Education Ministry.

Slamet’s death was not because swine flu Antara

DENPASAR – The death of Slamet Subagio who suspected to suffer from swine flu, was not because of the virus. He died after being treated for several hours in Sanglah hospital.

Nyoman Sutedja, the head of Bali’s Health Department, said “based on the test result from the lab in Jakarta, the late Slamet Subagio didn’t suffer from swine flu.”

Mr. Sutedje explained that even tough Subagio showed the symptoms of swine flu victim but he was not in-

fected by the disease. Subagio died because the lung and heart disease that he had since long time ago.

Subagia was coming from the country that considered as the swine flu pandemic country. He was traveling back and fourth from Bali to Singapore. That is the reason why the late Subagio was transferred into Nusa Indah isolation room in Sanglah hospital.

Slamet Subagio died on Tuesday, July 14th 2009 in Sanglah hospital. He worked as a plane technician in Lion Air Airlines so he often travels abroad.

SOTO BABAT

Six painters held exhibition

(Clear Tripe Soup) OVERVIEW: This is usually served with sambel tomat as a contrasting condiment. The sugar cane is used to help soften the tripe rather than to add any sweetness to the soup.

Antara

DENPASAR – Even Indonesia was hit by bomb blast on July 17th 2009, few painters still held exhibition in Bali. Six painters held an exhibition entitled “Six Masters From Bali” in Sanur. The exhibition also marked the opening of MahaArt Gallery, Bali Beach Golf Course.

Made Wianta, one of the six painters take part in the exhibition, said “we had been prepared the exhibition for two months so we wanted to keep on carried out the exhibition. We hope that the bomb blast will not affect the tourism.”

The painters who held the exhibition are AS Kurnia, Chusin Setiadikara, Mungu Putra, Sutjipto Adi, and Wianta. The exhibition will be held for one month started on Wednesday, July 22nd 2009.

In the exhibition, only several paintings from each painter are exhibited. Each painter only exhibited one and up to three paintings which is suitable with the current condition. Made Wianta exhibited a work entitled “karya ruang”, or space.

The painting is thick lines in various shapes and sizes on papers arranged on a wall.

Agus Maha Usadha, the manager

INGREDIENTS: 600 gr beef tripe, cleaned and washed well 3 liter water 1 liter beef stock 1 cup beef spice paste 5 cm sugar can stem, split lengthwise (optional) 2,5 cm ginger, peeled and sliced lengthwise 4 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced 1 tbsp distilled white vinegar 200 gr giant white radish, peeled and diced in 1 cm cubes 5 sprigs celery leaf chipped 1 tbsp fried shallots Bp/doc

Made Wianta explaining his work to a tourist of MahaArt Gallery, said “the unique work represent the need of room and space. Each line can be translated into various forms such as building architecture.”

Jean Couteau, a French artist who

has been living in Bali for 30 years, said that the exhibition showed the works that describe the current condition especially in Bali. Capitalism rules in tourism and art and culture preservation.

PREPARATION: Rinse tripe well under running water until very clean.

Bring water to boil in a large pan, add tripe and simmer until soft approx 1 hour.

Strain water and cool tripe in ice water. Cut in pieces approx 2,5 cm x 1cm. Bring beef, beef spice paste, sugar cane, ginger, garlic and vinegar to boil. Add tripe and radish. Simmer until vegetables are soft. Garnish with celery leaf and fried shallots.

Helpful hints: Any type of summer squash or Chinese winter melon can be used instead of giant white radish (Japanese daikon). This soup reheats well.sing cabbage, the cooking time will be much shorter. Season to taste with salt and pepper and garnish with fried shallots.

SAYUR PAKIS

(Fern Tips In Garlic Dressing) OVERVIEW: Fern tips also know as fiddleheads, have delightful, spinach like flavor.

INGREDIENTS: 400 gr (12 ½ oz) young fern tips 3 cloves garlic 4 cm (1 ½ in) kencur root, peeled and chopped 4 - 7 bird’s eye chilies 2 tbsp oil ½ tsp salt ¼ tsp black peppercorns, crushed PREPARATION: 1. Blanch fern tips in boiling water and cool under running water. Drain and dry thoroughly.

2. Place all remaining ingredients in a food processor and blend coarsely, or grind in a stone mortar.

3. Combine this mixture with the vegetables and mix well. Serve at room temperature.

9

10

Business

Thursday, July 23, 2009

International

International

Anger over California budget crisis deal Agence France Presse

LOS ANGELES – Anger over proposals to solve California’s budget crisis mounted as reports said the plan would see thousands of prisoners released and billions slashed from education spending.

AFP/Getty Images/File/David Mcnew

A demonstrator (left) mocks California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, during a rally by activists near Santa Monica Airport. Anger over proposals to solve the US state’s budget crisis are mounting as reports said the plan would see thousands of prisoners released and billions slashed from education spending.

The Los Angeles Times reported on its website that the budget deal, announced by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers from both parties on Monday, would involve the early release of thousands of inmates.

Republican legislators have since threatened to pull out of the deal, that could cut prison numbers by 27,000, the paper reported.

It is thought the reduction would be achieved through a combination of measures including allowing prisoners to finish their sentences on home detention and creating incentives for completion of rehabilitation plans.

The prison inmate proposal would help save the state 1.2 billion dollars in the coming fiscal year, the

International Bali Post Classifieds Contact us

Times reported.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca meanwhile condemned the budget, saying other cuts to local government would force authorities across the state to shut down jails or slash officers from street patrol.

“I think it is one thing to have a natural disaster... but it is another thing to have local cities and counties hit by a disaster predicated on the irresponsible actions of the state legislators,” Baca told the Times.

California’s fiscal woes have deepened as the state reels under the effects of the recession, which have sent unemployment and home foreclosures soaring and state revenues plunging to levels not seen since the 1990s.

The budget crisis pushed the state to the brink of bankruptcy and forced California to start paying its bills with IOUs earlier this month.

The details of the budget — designed to plug a 26.3-billion-dollar gap in California’s finances — have not been formally released. The budget plan is to be put before lawmakers in Sacramento for approval on Thursday.

However public employees and local governments voiced opposition to the proposed budget on Tuesday as details began to filter out.

Monday’s deal reportedly allows for some 15 billion dollars in spending cuts, including slashing around nine billion dollars from schools, community colleges and state university programs.

It also cuts around 1.3 billion dollars from a state health care program for the poor as well some 124 million dollars from a scheme to provide health insurance to more than 900,000 children in low-income households.

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Antara

Jakarta -Tax receipts in the first semester of 2009 fell 2.83 per cent as a result of the global financial crisis, a tax official said.

“The net receipts of the directorate general of taxes in the January-June 2009 period reached Rp253.18 trillion (US$25.3 billion), or a decline of 2.83 per cent

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from the same period last year,” Director General of Taxes Darmin Nasution said on Tuesday.

Tax receipts in the first semester of 2009 reached Rp260.56 trillion. If income tax on oil and gas were excluded from the net receipts in the first half of 2009, the amount would be Rp225.79 trillion, down 0.18 per cent from the same period a year earlier.

Indonesia: APEC needs to have regional trade financing cooperation Antara AFP PHOTO/TJAHJO ERANIUS

Indonesian policemen secure the area outside a clinic where on of their colleague’s remains were taken after a fatal car accident on the road that leads to the Freeport goldmine in Timika, in Indonesia’s Papua province, on July 22, 2009. One Indonesian policeman was killed in a traffic accident on a stretch of the road that runs from the coast to the highland mine, whilst three police were wounded in a shooting five miles further up the same road, police said. The police were wounded in an attack on a convoy of Freeport buses on the road to the mine, close to the site of a series of ambushes earlier this month that killed three people.

Three wounded in shooting near Indonesia mine: police TIMIKA - Three police were wounded in a shooting Wednesday near US mining company Freeport McMoRan’s massive gold and copper mine in Indonesia’s Papua province, police said.

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

First-semester tax receipts down 2.83%

Agence France Presse

THE CCTV SYSTEM TOTAL SOLUTION

The police were wounded in an attack on a convoy of Freeport buses on the road to the mine, close to the site of a series of ambushes earlier this month that killed three people, a police source who declined to be named told AFP. The earlier ambushes claimed the lives of two Freeport employees, including 28-year-old Australian technician Drew Grant, and one policeman.

Papua police spokesman

Nurhabri confirmed there was a shooting but said he had no details on the number or identity of victims.

One policeman was also killed in a traffic accident on a separate stretch of the road that runs from the coast to the highland mine, he said.

“It’s true that there are two cases, a car accident at mile 45 and a shooting at mile 51,” he said.

The Freeport mine sits on the world’s richest gold reserves and the US company’s local subsidiary is the

largest single taxpayer to the Indonesian government.

The military has pointed the finger at separatist rebels fighting for independence from Jakarta but police have so far said there is no indication that is the case.

Police on Tuesday arrested 14 Papuan men for questioning over the attacks, including six in connection with Grant’s killing, but have not officially declared them suspects.

Papua, a resource rich region on the eastern end of New Guinea Island, has been the site of a low-level separatist insurgency since its incorporation into Indonesia in the 1960s. Indonesia restricts access to Papua for foreign journalists and rights groups.

Jakarta - Indonesia has proposed the establishment of regional trade financing cooperation within the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

“What we have been after since yesterday is trade financing. We must continue cooperation (in the field) at APEC level. The cooperation so far is bilateral among individual members,” trade minister Mari Elka Pangestu said to newsmen through a teleconference from Singapore here on Tuesday.

She said trade financing was very important for developing small and medium-sized buinesses (UKM) particularly with regard to exports.

“It is the UKM that needs insurance. We hope there will be trade relations among UKMs of APEC members,” she said.

Trade ministers from APEC members gathered for an annual meeting on July 21-22 in Singapore to discuss progress of economic cooperation among APEC members in various fields.

In the session on “Addressing the Crisis, Preparing for Recovery” the ministers discussed efforts to facilitate trade financing through bilateral and regional cooperation networks.

“To recover from current crisis

it requires coordination and close linkage of steps in the financial and trade sectors,” she said.

In the meeting the ministers agreed that the dialogue process had to be continued and increased not only to overcome crisis and smoothen ways to recovery but also to create APEC economic resilience in the long term.

Mari said in the meeting Indonesia had given special emphasis on increasing social resilience through capacity development programs for UKMs, the poor and the workers.

“This is a very important shortand medium-term agenda for APEC especially with regard to helping the people and businesses that have been hit the hardest by the current crisis and to increasing regional economic and social resiliance to face possible similar crisis in the future,” she said.

The minister said APEC had to pay attention to capacity development programs that would affect UKMs and community groups badly in need of them.

APEC members total 21 namely Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chili, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the US and Vietnam.

Malaysia police arrest Indonesian pirates: official

Specialis in :

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Telp. 254-908 ; 254-909 Fax. 254-961

Agence France Presse

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Indonesia Today

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KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysian marine police have arrested five Indonesian pirates who were robbing a Honduran-registered ship, a senior official said Wednesday.

The pirates, who wore masks and were armed with machetes, attacked the vessel off the south Malaysian state of Johor near the Singapore Strait early on Tuesday, Johor’s chief of marine police, Khamsani Abdul Rahman, told AFP. “We received a tip-off on the attack and we managed to arrest the Indonesian attackers as they were

robbing the ship.

“The suspects are aged between 17 and 40 years old. But one managed to escape by jumping into the sea,” he said.

Khamsani said the pirates tied up the ship’s Indonesian captain and 15 Thai crew members but police managed to suprise the pirates as they were looting the ship.

Police seized four machetes, masks and binoculars from the pirates.

The pirates, who entered Malaysian waters legally, were probably involved in previous incidents such as a July 12 attack on a Singaporeregistered tug boat in the Singapore

Straits, said Khamsani.

“Based on their modus operandi, we believe that this group is linked to the Singapore case,” he said.

In February Malaysian marine commandos arrested seven suspected Indonesian pirates after a dramatic high-seas chase in the nearby Malacca Strait.More than 30 percent of world trade and half the world’s oil shipments pass through the Malacca Strait, which are shared by Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

Piracy in the strait has declined in recent years but there are concerns the global financial crisis could lead to a rise in incidents.

Bp/doc

Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu

6

Thursday, July 23, 2009

News

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Solar eclipse...

From page 1

AFP PHOTO / AHMAD AL-RUBAYE

Stalls owners help clear the debris from damaged shops in a market following last night’s double blast in the northeastern Baghdad neighbourhood of Husseiniyah, on July 22, 2009. Two explosions detonated, one along a street selling medical equipment and housing medical clinics and the another in a nearby popular market killing five people and wounding 21 others.

Iraq bomb attacks kill 21 Agence France-Presse

BAGHDAD - Twenty-one people were killed in a spate of bomb attacks across Iraq on Tuesday, one of the deadliest days of violence in the country since US troops left its cities three weeks ago.

More than 120 people were wounded in the attacks in Baghdad, Baquba to its north and Ramadi to its west, just a day after seven police officers and a soldier died.

In the deadliest single attack, five people were killed and 21 wounded by a bomb attack in the northeast Baghdad neighbourhood of Husseiniyah, security officials said.

The attack took place at around 8:15 pm (1715 GMT) in a popular market in the district.

In nearby Sadr City, a one-yearold baby and a girl of eight were among four people who died when a bomb exploded in a market, police and the defence ministry said.

Thirty-four people were wounded.

Police defused another bomb in the same market.

Another four people, all workers, were killed and 31 wounded in an earlier twin bomb attack in Sadr City, a sprawling, overwhelmingly Shiite neighbourhood.

Two people lost their lives and six were wounded in a car bombing in the south Baghdad neighbourhood of Dora, while a

company manager was killed by a sticky bomb in Taji, on the northern outskirts of the capital.

Water Resources Minister Abdel Latif Jamal Rashid narrowly escaped a bombing as his convoy drove through the central commercial district of Karrada, security sources said. His ministry denied Rashid was the target.

Six passers-by were wounded when the bombs exploded near a bridge.

Twelve members of the same family were wounded when the minibus they were travelling in was struck by a roadside bomb in the north Baghdad neighbourhood of Baab alMuadham.

They were taking the body of a dead relative from the mortuary to his burial when the minibus was hit.

In Baquba, a woman and her son were killed when the vegetable cart they were pushing struck a roadside bomb.

And in a second day of deadly attacks in the western city of Ramadi, three people were killed and 10 wounded in a double car bombing outside a restaurant, hospital officials

and police said.

On Monday, 10 people died, including seven policemen and a soldier, in attacks in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, once a bastion of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, and in the main northern city of Mosul.

Anbar had seen a sharp dropoff in violence over the past 18 months as local tribes allied themselves with US-led forces against AlQaeda and it foreign fighters.

But last week six people died in a suicide bombing near a mosque in Ramadi.

The latest attacks come just three weeks after US troops withdrew from urban centres in line with a security pact between Baghdad and Washington that calls for American forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

Violence has dropped markedly throughout the country in recent months, but attacks increased in the run-up to the US military pullback, with 437 Iraqis killed in June — the highest death toll in 11 months.

Attacks remain common in Baghdad and Mosul.

A total solar eclipse usually occurs every 18 months or so, but Wednesday’s spectacle was special for its maximum period of “totality” — when the sun is wholly covered by the moon — of six minutes and 39 seconds.

Such a lengthy duration will not be matched until the year 2132.

State-run China Central Television provided minute-by-minute coverage of what it dubbed “The Great Yangtze River Solar Eclipse” as the phenomenon cut a path along the river’s drainage basin.

Millions of people in areas of southwestern China enjoyed a clear line of sight, according to images broadcast on CCTV, but the view was obstructed along much of its path by cloudy weather.

Shanghai viewers braved rain and overcast skies to witness the spectacle as darkness shrouded China’s commercial hub at 9:36 am (0136 GMT).

“It’s like magic, the day turns into night in such a short period of time ...

I have no idea where I am right now.

It feels like a different world,” said Chen Hong, a biotech company chief executive.

Despite the weather, hotels along Shanghai’s famed waterfront Bund packed in the customers with eclipse breakfast specials.

Those who could afford it grabbed expensive seats on planes chartered by specialist travel agencies that promised extended views of the eclipse as they chased the shadow eastwards.

The cone-shaped shadow, or umbra, created by the total eclipse first made landfall on the western Indian state of Gujarat shortly before 6:30 am (0100 GMT).

It then raced across India and squeezed between Bangladesh and Nepal before engulfing most of Bhutan,

traversing the Chinese mainland and slipping back out to sea off Shanghai.

From there it moved across the islands of southern Japan and veered into the western Pacific.

In Mumbai, hundreds of people who trekked up to the Nehru planetarium clutching eclipse sunglasses found themselves reaching for umbrellas and rain jackets instead as heavy overnight rain turned torrential.

“We didn’t want to watch it on television and we thought this would be the best place,” said 19-year-old student Dwayne Fernandes. “We could’ve stayed in bed.”

Many did stay home, fearful of the effects of the lunar shadow which some believe can lead to birth defects in pregnant women.

“I was advised not to leave the house as the eclipse brings bad luck to you and your family,” said Deepa Shrestha, a 25-year-old housemaid in Kathmandu.

Superstition has always haunted the moment when Earth, moon and sun are perfectly aligned. The daytime extinction of the sun, the source of all life, is associated with war, famine, flood and the death or birth of rulers. The ancient Chinese blamed a sun-eating dragon.

In Hindu mythology, the two demons Rahu and Ketu are said to “swallow” the sun during eclipses, snuffing out its light and causing food to become inedible and water undrinkable.

Some Indian astrologers had issued predictions laden with gloom and foreboding, and a gynaecologist at a Delhi hospital said many expectant mothers scheduled for July 22 caesarian deliveries insisted on changing the date.

The last total solar eclipse was on August 1 last year and also crossed China.

The next will be on July 11, 2010, but will occur almost entirely over the South Pacific.

Indonesia police release...

From page 1 The men had short hair and looked Asian in appearance. The Marriott bomber was described as being 16 to 17 years old, fairskinned and 180-190 centimetres (5’9"-6’3") tall.

The Ritz-Carlton bomber was decribed as being 20 to 40 years old, with tanned skin and standing 165 centimetres tall.

However as police struggled to identify the bombers, Soekarna said DNA tests on the families of two men suspected of carrying out the attacks, named as Ibrahim and Nur Hasbi, had returned negative results.

“The DNA of the families have not matched the body parts that we have found,” Soekarna said.

“Concerning Ibrahim, we’ve done a DNA test and it’s not identical. Also (this is the case) for Nur Hasbi,” he said.

He said the sketches also did not match Ibrahim or Nur Hasbi, also known as Nur Said, who is a reported associate of alleged terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top. But police did not explicitly rule out either man as suspects in the

wider investigation into the attacks, which have rattled the foreign business and diplomatic community in Indonesia.

“The bodies on the site are not of Nur Hasbi and not of Ibrahim.

I’m not saying they’re not suspected. Anyone can be investigated,” he said.

Senior counter-terrorism officials and police have said the attacks look very much like the work of Noordin, the Malaysian-born leader of a Jemaah Islamiyah splinter group.

Police also confirmed that the Marriott bomber had stayed in room 1,808 of the hotel for two nights before launching his attack, which killed three Australians, an Indonesian and a New Zealander.

The victims at the Marriott were attending a weekly meeting of some of Indonesia’s most prominent foreign business executives in a room to the side of the main lobby.

Two people, believed to be a Dutch couple on vacation, were killed in the almost simultaneous attack at the Ritz-Carlton, adjacent to the Marriott.

11

BUSINESS European stocks slip as investors take breather Associated Press Writer

AFP/File/Ted Aljibe

A farmer throws rice seedlings into a rice paddy in Nueva Ecija, north of Manila. Asia-Pacific trade ministers meeting in Singapore have said that the worldwide economic slump may be nearing its end but warned against protectionism.

APEC trade ministers protectionism warning

LONDON – Stock markets slipped in Europe on Wednesday and rose only modestly in Asia, as investors stepped back from a week-long rally fueled by upbeat earnings to assess the outlook for corporate profits amid a still-weak global economy.

By midday in Europe, Germany’s DAX was down 29.96 points, or 0.6 percent, at 5,064.01, while Britain’s FTSE 100 slide 21.65 points, or 0.5 percent, to 4,459.52. France’s CAC 40 was down 28.81 points, or 0.9 percent, at 3,274.08.

The indexes had rallied for the past week on strong U.S. corporate earnings reports, with the latest from Caterpillar Inc., Apple Inc. and Coca Cola Inc. suggesting that the worst of the economic crisis is past.

That view was echoed by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who said Tuesday that the world’s largest economy was seeing some improvement.

However, while the news has bolstered risk appetite — with many Asian indexes eking out gains at the close Wednesday — investors seemed to believe that the good news has been mostly priced into the share values.

“We keep the view that the multiquarter outlook for developed economies does not look as bright as the

Yahoo to spend more after cost cuts lift 2Q profit

Agence France Presse

Associated Press Writer

SINGAPORE – Asia-Pacific trade ministers Wednesday said here that the worldwide economic slump may be nearing its end but warned against protectionism while pledging to work harder for a new WTO deal by 2010.

SAN FRANCISCO - Carol Bartz has already shown off her cost-cutting skills in her first six months as Yahoo Inc.’s chief executive.

Now, she will try to prove she isn’t making a a bad bet by spending more money while the Internet company’s advertising sales are still sagging.

The risky strategy caused investors to fret more about what might happen in Yahoo’s third quarter than to celebrate the 8 percent increase in second-quarter profit reported late Tuesday. It marked Yahoo’s first quarterly earnings improvement since the start of 2008, but Yahoo shares nevertheless slid 45 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $16.30 in Tuesday’s extended trading.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company wouldn’t have boosted its second-quarter profit if not for layoffs and other cost cutting that pared Yahoo’s operating expenses by nearly $150 million, or 15 per-

“The global economy appears to be bottoming out, but the outlook remains uncertain and significant risks remain,” the ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum said in a statement.

“We will therefore persist with efforts to support growth and facilitate trade and investment flows, keep our markets open, and give a new push to concluding the Doha Round.”

The World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round of talks were launched in the Qatari capital in late 2001 to forge a new deal on goods and services.

However, it has repeatedly foundered, notably over disputes between rich and developing nations on agricultural and industrial products.

The APEC ministers, whose economies account for half the world’s economic output, said the “best insurance” against protectionism will be a “suc-

cessful and speedy conclusion” of the Doha Round. APEC ministers will “identify specific gaps” where more needs to be done and “accelerate efforts to reach consensus in the more contentious areas of agriculture and manufactured goods.”

APEC members’ WTO negotiators in Geneva will be given “a stronger mandate to exercise maximum flexibility in the talks so that positions can converge further.”

Singapore Trade Minister Lim Hng Kiang, who chaired the APEC meeting, said at a news conference “we acknowledge that there are growing protectionist pressures worldwide.”

“We are very conscious that if protectionism is not controlled, this could be a severe setback to our growth prospects,” he said.

APEC members will “avoid implementing any measures that have protectionist effects even if they are com-

patible with WTO rules,” Lim said.

APEC was started 20 years ago to promote trade and strengthen economic cooperation in the Pacific rim.

Its 21 members — including the United States, China, Japan and Russia — account for more than half of the world’s gross domestic product and almost 44 percent of international trade.

The meeting in Singapore came two weeks after a Group of Eight summit in L’Aquila, Italy, where leaders of the world’s most powerful nations and emerging economies agreed to wrap up the Doha talks by 2010.

“A lot of progress has been made over the past eight years since the Doha round was launched and we intend to build on this progress,” Lim said.

“In this spirit, we agreed to instruct our officials to intensify their engagement in the process by exploring all avenues to get nearer to consensus,” the Singapore trade minister added.

current equity rally would suggest,” said Sebastien Barbe, analyst at Calyon.

In fact, Bernanke accompanied his forecast for an economic recovery with the warning that it would be slow due to rising unemployment. The Fed chairman will be watched for more comments in his testimony to the U.S. Senate Banking Committee today.

More and more investors are tiptoeing as they try to determine the actual shape of the rebound, said Thomas Lam, senior treasury economist at the United Overseas Bank in Singapore.

“The U.S. economy either has stabilized or is stabilizing, there’s no doubt about that,” Lam said. “We have transitioned from thinking it’s the end of the world to trying to see what the new world will look like.”

In the U.K., the Bank of England said was still considering whether to pump another 25 billion pounds into the financial system. In the minutes to its latest policy meeting, the bank’s rate-setters suggested they would wait until August to assess the need to create more money.

Like Bernanke, the Bank of England said that while the economy has stabilized somewhat, a quick recovery was unlikely as balance sheet constraints within the banks would continue to limit demand growth.

cent, from last year. The savings enabled Yahoo to shake off the biggest drop in its ad revenue since the dot-com bust at the beginning of the decade.

But Bartz raised questions about whether the earnings momentum will continue by vowing to spend at least $75 million more promoting Yahoo’s brand, hiring more engineers and improving some of its services during the third quarter. On top of that, Yahoo expects to surrender about $75 million in revenue by reducing the volume of ads that management has identified as being too obnoxious.

Those plans will squeeze profits unless Yahoo can snap out of slump that deepened in the third quarter with a 13 percent decline in ad sales.

Bartz said advertisers appear willing to spend a little bit more during the second half, although she stopped short of predicting better times ahead.

“There’s just so much conflicting information in the market that it’s just too early to call,” she told analysts in a Tuesday conference call.

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Entertainment

International

News

International

Madonna back in Barcelona to resume tour

REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Johnny Depp

Depp’s next role unclear as green lights delayed LOS ANGELES - Johnny Depp is coming off an acclaimed role in “Public Enemies” and stars in one of the most anticipated movies of this weekend’s Comic-Con, “Alice in Wonderland.”

But the Mad Hatter is facing an unusual situation: Like the character he plays in “Alice,” he soon could be killing time.

Depp is attached to a number of high-profile development properties but is facing a landscape devoid of “go” pictures — those ready for production. Instead, there are a dizzying number of possibilities and schedule permutations, none of which seems likely to result in a produced movie for him anytime soon.

Producers have been interested in Depp for the title role in Warner Bros.’ “The Incredible Mr. Limpet.” Kevin Lima’s remake of the 1964 fantasy comedy that would continue a whimsical, if slightly less drama-intensive, streak for the actor. He has not signed on, however, and in any event the pic would not go into production until next year.

Meanwhile, the fourth installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean” remains a priority for Disney and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. At an earlier point, it was going to be the next picture for Depp, who toplines as Jack Sparrow. But with Gore Verbinski no longer directing the franchise, the ship has slowed.

Disney is seeking a new director, a process that could take time.

Although the studio is believed to want an established helmer of franchise and action fare, it has put the word out to agents that it would be open to younger directors and new ideas, potentially prolonging the process. That could mean as much as a four- or five-year hiatus since the 2007 release of the previous picture, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” Because of the “Pirates” lag, a Depp project that was supposed to go into production after the Sparrow-fest, “The Lone Ranger,” could end up getting pushed back further, though there’s also a pos-

sibility it could shoot ahead of the nautical tale.

For the moment, though, “Ranger” also remains locked in the stable. “Pirates” writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio have written a script for the Disney/Bruckheimer update, but the studio could wind up commissioning a polish or another draft. There’s also no director, and Depp is attached to play Tonto, with the title role still to be cast.

Finally, Warners’ feature update of the ghoulish TV series “Dark Shadows” — a Depp/Tim Burton collaboration that might have shot later this year or early next year — also might be back-burnered. Burton still has work to do on “Alice,” which opens in March, and tends to spend a lot of time on prep work.

What the possibilities boil down to, besides head spinning, is that there are projects with momentum that Depp has not signed for, and projects he has signed for that don’t have a lot of momentum.

In other words, it’s a very 2009 phenomenon brought on by a star’s choosiness on the one hand and studios’ increasing caution on the other. (In what might be an emerging mini-trend, Will Smith and Leonardo DiCaprio happen to find themselves in similar situations.)

The result is that Depp could face a year or longer without appearing on the big screen.

That might not sound like a major departure, but for moviegoers, it will seem like a shift. Depp has been in one of the most fertile periods of his career: The actor also stars in the Hunter S. Thompson adaptation “The Rum Diary” and had a supporting role in Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” which hasn’t yet been released in the U.S. In the past nine years, Depp has not had more than two movies come out in any 18-month period; if “Imaginarium” gets a release by the end of 2010, he’ll have had four.

Then again, the absence of a new role might mean a respite from his breakneck schedule. Even a pirate needs some time off.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Chinese worker commits suicide over missing iPhone

Agence France-Presse

Associated Press Writer

BARCELONA - Pop diva Madonna was back in Barcelona Tuesday to resume her tour after her Marseille date was cancelled following an accident that killed two stage hands setting up for the concert.

GUANGZHOU, China - An employee at a factory that makes iPhones in China killed himself after a prototype went missing, and Apple Inc. responded Wednesday by saying its suppliers are required to treat workers with dignity and respect.

The death might have been partly due to Apple’s notorious culture of secrecy, which tries to create a big pre-launch buzz about the company’s highly anticipated products and upgrades. Apple is also a constant target of prying journalists, rabidly faithful customers and competitors who make great efforts to try to steal a peek at its latest gadgets.

The dead worker, Sun Danyong, 25, worked in product communications at Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese firm that makes many Apple products at a massive factory in the southern city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong.

Although Apple and Foxconn have confirmed Sun’s suicide, they have not provided details about the death’s circumstances, which have been reported by the state-run Southern Metropolis Daily, one of the region’s most popular papers.

Sun was responsible for sending

The 50-year-old singer, who on Sunday flew to Marseille to visit the family of one of the dead workers and some of those injured when a crane toppled over, is due to give two more concerts in Spain.

She will sing at Madrid on Thursday and the northeastern city of Saragossa on Saturday, before continuing her “Sticky and Sweet” tour in Norway.

Two men, 52-year-old Frenchman Charles Criscenzo and 23-year-old Briton Charles Prow, were killed last Thursday and eight other workers injured when part of the stage being built at Marseille’s Stade Velodrome collapsed.

The accident happened when a crane toppled over as they were preparing the venue for Sunday’s concert, which was immediately cancelled.

AFP PHOTO/ LLUIS GENE Madonna has been touring since Au- US singer Madonna performs during her “Sticky & Sweet Tour” gust 2008 to promote her latest album, concert on July 21, 2009 at the Olympic Stadium “Lluis Companys” “Hard Candy”. in Barcelona.

Uma Thurman enlists for ‘Girl Soldier’ Agence France-Presse

LOS ANGELES - Uma Thurman is to star in an independent drama based on the 1996 abduction of 140 schoolgirls in Uganda forced to fight as child soldiers and serve as sex slaves, it was reported Tuesday.

Thurman, the 39-year-old star of “Pulp Fiction” and “Kill Bill,” will play the nun who tracked down the armed rebels responsible for the abduction and secured the release of 110 of the children, Variety reported.

The film, titled “Girl Soldier,” is based on Canadian journalist Kathy Cook’s book about the incident,

“Stolen Angels.”

“This is a film that had to get made,” Thurman was quoted as saying. “It’s beyond me that in this day and age the exploitation of child soldiers goes virtually unnoticed and unchecked by Western media.”

Filming is due to get underway in early 2010.

Actor Stephen Baldwin files for bankruptcy NEW YORK - Actor Stephen Baldwin, brother of Emmy winner and “30 Rock” star Alec Baldwin, filed for bankruptcy in New York on Tuesday, according to a court document that says he is millions in debt.

The 43-year-old actor filed for Chapter 11 protection claiming he owes more than $2.3 million and owns a New York property valued at only $1.1 million. His wife, Kennya Baldwin, also is named in the document.

Baldwin, who has appeared in films including “The Usual Suspects” in 1995 as well as more recently in U.S. celebrity and reality television shows, owes about $1.2 million on two mortgages on the New York property and more than $1 million in taxes. He also has credit card debt, court papers showed. A lawyer for Baldwin had no comment.

New York newspaper Newsday reported earlier this month that a homeless man who was allowed to

live on Baldwin’s property was arrested on heroin charges and suspected of dealing drugs.

Police told the newspaper that

Baldwin, who has described himself as a born-again Christian, was shocked and just trying to do a good deed.

REUTERS/Keith Bedford

Stephen Baldwin arrives for a special screening of the film Mission Impossible III at the Ziegfeld Theater in New York, May 3, 2006.

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AFP PHOTO/MIKE CLARKE

A file picture taken on May 30, 2009, shows Hong Kong Democrat Martin Lee speaking to journalists in Hong Kong. The trial of the alleged masterminds behind a foiled plot to assassinate leading democrat Lee began in southern China on July 22, a report said.

Trial over plot to kill Hong Kong democrat begins: report Agence France-Presse

HONG KONG - The trial of the alleged masterminds behind a foiled plot to assassinate leading Hong Kong democrat Martin Lee began in southern China Wednesday, a report said.

A total of 13 defendants — including two suspected top Hong Kong gangsters — went on trial in Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, just over the border from Hong Kong, said the South China Morning Post on its website.

No-one from the court was able to confirm the trial had begun when contacted by AFP. Tung Nga-man, 67, and Yu Waishan, 63, who are thought to be leading members of the Triad organised crime group, face charges of attempted murder while the other defendants are charged with attempts to cause injuries, the Post said.

Journalists and some relatives of the defendants were prevented from entering the court, the Post reported.

The trial is expected to last several days.

A Hong Kong court earlier this month sentenced a mainland Chinese gunman to 16 years in jail for possessing firearms with the intention of harming Lee, a lawyer who has been at the forefront of the campaign for democracy in the southern Chinese city.

A second man was handed a three-year jail term for possessing firearms in connection with the plot which allegedly also targeted media mogul Jimmy Lai. Lai is chairman of Next Media, which runs newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong and Taiwan that are strongly critical of China’s ruling Communist Party.

The plot was foiled after an officer stopped the gunman by chance at a Hong Kong police checkpoint in August last year. He was found to have a homemade pistol and five rounds of ammunition in his bag.

Hong Kong and mainland China operate a separate legal system, as part of the deal agreed when the city was handed back by colonial power Britain in 1997.

iPhone prototypes to Apple, and on July 13 he reported that he was missing one of the 16 units in his possession, the newspaper reported. His friends said company security guards searched his apartment, detained him and beat him, the paper reported.

In the early morning of July 16, Sun jumped from the 12th floor of his apartment building, the paper said.

Jill Tan, an Apple spokeswoman in Hong Kong, would only issue a brief statement about the incident.

“We are saddened by the tragic loss of this young employee, and we are awaiting results of the investigations into his death,” Tan said. “We require our suppliers to treat all workers with dignity and respect.”

Foxconn said in a statement that its security chief has been suspended and turned over to the police.

But the security official, Gu Qinming, was quoted by the South-

ern Metropolis Daily as saying he never hit Sun. Gu reportedly said that after three security personnel searched Sun’s apartment and did not find the phone, the employee was ordered to go to Gu’s office on July 15.

The security chief said he didn’t think Sun was being truthful about the phone, the paper reported.

“I got a bit agitated. I pointed my finger at him and said that he was trying to shift the blame,” Gu was quoted as saying.

He added, “I was a little angry and I pulled his right shoulder once to get him to tell me what happened. It (the beating) couldn’t have happened,” the paper reported.

Local police declined to respond to questions from The Associated Press.

Foxconn executive Li Jinming said in a statement that Sun’s death showed that the company needed to do a better job helping its employees with psychological pressures.

“Sun Danyong graduated from a good school. He joined the company in 2008. He had an extremely bright future. The group and I feel deep pain and regret when a young person dies like this.”

‘Go ahead and hang me’: Mumbai gunman Agence France-Presse

MUMBAI - The sole surviving gunman of last year’s Mumbai attacks told the judge in his trial Wednesday that he was prepared to be put to death after making a dramatic confession of his role in the operation.

“Please go ahead and hang me,” Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani national, told Judge M.L. Tahaliyani in court.

The judge was considering how to proceed after Kasab’s sudden decision on Monday to confess, in lengthy detail, to being one of the 10 militant gunmen in the November attacks, which left 166 people dead and more than 300 injured.

“Whatever I have done, I have done in this world. It would be better that I be punished in this world. It

would be better than God’s punishment,” Kasab said.

“If anyone is worried that I’m trying to escape death by hanging, I’m not. If that’s the punishment, so be it.”

Kasab’s confession on Monday had taken the judge, prosecution and even his own lawyer by surprise.

He had initially pleaded not guilty to 86 charges, including one of waging war against India.

If convicted, he faces a possible death sentence. In his admission, Kasab told the court he had orders to take hostages at the city’s main railway station, where he and an accomplice, Abu Ismail, opened fire and threw grenades, killing 52 and injuring more than 100 others.

The rail station assault was the bloodiest episode of the 60-hour reign of terror against multiple targets in

south Mumbai.

Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam offered a sceptical take on Kasab’s confession, arguing that he had made only a partial and “half-hearted” admission, which did not cover all the charges.

Nikam also suggested that his apparent bravado over the death penalty was part of a strategy to save him from the hangman.

“Very shrewdly, very cleverly Kasab has tried to save his own skin by showing he was acting as a subordinate to Abu Ismail,” the lawyer said Wednesday.

“He knows that by denying a major role, no Indian court is going to award the death penalty,” he added. Defence lawyer Abbas Kazmi rejected the prosecution’s concept of a partial admission and argued that his client’s confession should either be accepted in its totality, or completely rejected.

5,000 adolescents killed each year in Brazil: study Agence France-Presse

BRASILIA - Five thousand adolescents a year are killed in Brazil’s cities and towns, most of them poor and uneducated black males, according to a joint study released Tuesday by UNICEF, the government and a slum-monitoring group.

“The majority are at risk of death because of the drug trade, generally for being users, not dealers,” Brazil’s undersecretary for human rights, Carmem Oliveira, explained.

The study, an Index of Homicides in Adolescence, showed that two in every 1,000 Brazilian children aged 12 will die before reaching 19 years.

The report’s focus was on 267 Brazilian cities and towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants.

Oliveira noted that the murder rate was 30 times that experienced in European countries.

She said that in Brazil, homicide was the cause of adolescent death in 45 percent of cases, followed by natural causes in 25 percent of cases

and accidents in 22 percent of cases.

The touristic town of Foz de Iguazu, which boasts spectacular waterfalls at the juncture of borders with Argentina and Paraguay in southern Brazil, was the most violent spot in the country for youths.

There, nearly one youth in 100 is killed.

Rio de Janeiro, the top tourist draw and the city most remarked for its street crime, came well behind, accounting for 10 percent of adolescent murders.

4

News

Thursday, July 23, 2009

International

Life Style

International

Myanmar deny lawyers access to Aung San Suu Kyi Associated Press Writer

YANGON - The legal team of Myanmar’s jailed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was denied access to the 64-year-old Nobel laureate on Wednesday, two days before her trial resumes for final arguments, her lawyer said.

Authorities in the military-ruled country denied permission for Suu Kyi’s lawyers to meet her to finalize the draft of their 23-page closing argument, said Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi’s defense lawyers as well as spokesman for her party.

“This (refusal by authorities) shows that the judicial system in the country is very weak,” said Nyan Win. “We need to see our clients to finalize the draft, and it was very bad that the right has been denied.”

Suu Kyi is charged with violating the terms of her house arrest by harboring an uninvited American man who swam secretly to her lakeside home and stayed for two days. She is being detained at Myanmar’s notorious Insein Prison.

The opposition leader, who was been under house arrest for nearly 14 of the last 20 years, faces a possible five-year prison term.

The refusal to allow legal access to Suu Kyi comes as Asian, U.S., and European ministers - including the top diplomat from Myanmar - meet in neighboring Thailand where the military regime’s human rights record is in the spotlight.

The trial has drawn condemnation from the international community and Suu Kyi’s local supporters, who worry the ruling junta has found an excuse to keep her detained through elections planned for next year. She is

widely expected to be found guilty when the verdict is delivered, expected sometime next month.

The final arguments will be presented Friday.

Nyan Win said the lawyers last met Suu Kyi last Friday to discuss the closing argument.

Also on trial, and facing the same charges as Suu Kyi, are two women members of her party who were her sole companions under house arrest. The American, John Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Missouri, is charged with trespassing.

The mostly closed-door trial started May 18. The court had approved 23 prosecution witnesses, of which 14 took the stand. Only two out of four defense witnesses were allowed to testify.

The last defense witness Khin Moe Moe testified on July 10, arguing that Suu Kyi was innocent because the military government charged her under a law that cites a constitution abolished two decades ago.

The defense has not contested the basic facts of the case, but they also assert that the security guards who ensure Suu Kyi remains inside her compound should also be held responsible for any intrusion on her property.

Yettaw has pleaded not guilty and explained in court that he had a dream that Suu Kyi would be assassinated and he had gone to warn her. Family and friends have said he was working on a book and wished to interview her.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under military rule since 1962.

Suu Kyi’s opposition party won national elections in 1990, but Myanmar’s generals refused to relinquish power.

The high court is pictured on Martyr’s Day on July 19, 2009 in Yangon. The legal team of Myanmar’s jailed prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was denied access to the 64-year-old Nobel laureate on Wednesday, two days before her trial resumes for final arguments, her lawyer said.

AFP PHOTO

Thursday, July 23, 2009

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Fujifilm unveils 3D digital camera Agence France-Presse

TOKYO - Japan’s Fujifilm unveiled Wednesday a compact digital camera that can be used to shoot three-dimensional (3D) photos and movies that can be viewed without special glasses.

AFP PHOTO/JUNG YEON-JE

A South Korean opposition legislator (C top) scuffles with members of the ruling party at the parliament in Seoul on July 22, 2009. Scores of legislators scuffled inside South Korea’s parliament on July 22 as the conservative ruling party pushed through long-delayed bills easing curbs on media ownership. Dozens of people were injured and one opposition lawmaker was taken to hospital.

Media bills trigger scuffles in SKorea parliament Agence France-Presse

SEOUL - Scores of legislators scuffled inside South Korea’s parliament Wednesday as the conservative ruling party pushed through longdelayed bills easing curbs on media ownership.

Dozens of people were injured and one opposition lawmaker was taken to hospital, Yonhap news agency said. The nationally televised stand-off began after Speaker Kim Hyong-O called a vote on the bills, after months of negotiations between the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) failed.

GNP lawmakers occupied the speaker’s podium as colleagues tried to push away opposition lawmakers who had barricaded the entrance to the main chamber with sofas and chairs.

The bills were passed later de-

spite the opposition attempts to physically block the vote.

Voting finally got under way after dozens of GNP lawmakers, helped by aides, pushed their way into the hall to join their colleagues surrounding the podium.

A female DP lawmaker was knocked to the floor while some angry opposition legislators beat GNP members or tried to jump over their heads in an attempt to reach the podium.

Outside parliament, police stopped about 200 media union activists who wanted to protest.

The bills ease ownership barriers between print media and TV net-

works. One of them allows businesses including newspapers to buy up to 10 percent of a terrestrial TV channel, and up to 30 percent of a cable channel.

“We have endured to the best of our capacity. Now it’s time to act,” said GNP leader Park Hee-Tae. President Lee Myung-Bak wants sweeping deregulation of the media industry in what he says is a move to create new jobs and enhance competitiveness.

The opposition accuses Lee of paving the way for conservative newspapers and large businesses to control TV networks and restrict the free flow of information.

The ruling party controls 169 seats in the 299-seat parliament after a sweeping general election victory in April last year. The DP holds 84 seats.

Dozens wounded in Gaza wedding blast Agence France-Presse

GAZA CITY - Fifty-two people were wounded in Hamas-run Gaza after a blast ripped through a wedding of a relative of Mohammed Dahlan, an ex-strongman with the rival Fatah group, officials said on Wednesday.

The explosion came late on Tuesday under a street stage set up in the southern town of Khan Yunis for the marriage of Dahlan’s nephew, Mahmud, Palestinian medics said.

Dahlan himself was not present at

the festivities.

The blast wounded 52 people, among them women and children, and five were still listed in critical condition on Wednesday morning. The groom was among those badly hurt.

Ihab al-Ghussein, a spokesman for the Hamas-run interior ministry in the coastal territory, said the preliminary results of an investigation showed the explosion was caused by what he described as “a sound bomb.”

He added that three people had been arrested. Dahlan, the hated one-time chief of Gaza’s powerful

preventative security force, fled the Palestinian territory in June 2007 after the Islamist Hamas seized power there, ousting forces loyal to secular Fatah.

Over two decades, Dahlan has earned the hatred of Hamas for his efforts to keep the Islamists in check on behalf of Fatah.

A native of the Gaza Strip, Dahlan became head of the territory’s powerful preventative security forces in 1994 when he returned at the start of Palestinian self-rule following the 1993 Oslo accords.

REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

Customers look at the Apple iPhone 3GS at the company’s retail store in San Francisco, California June 19, 2009. Fans of fine art will be able to access some of their favourite paintings anywhere they choose through a new iPhone application launched Tuesday by the National Gallery in London.

Britain’s National Gallery offers its art on the iPhone Agence France-Presse

LONDON - Fans of fine art will be able to access some of their favourite paintings anywhere they choose through a new iPhone application launched Tuesday by the National Gallery in London.

About 250 of the gallery’s bestloved paintings, including by

Botticelli, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Vincent Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Jan van Eyck, are available to browse, using the zoom function to examine them in minute detail.

About 200 minutes of audio video content are also available on the application, including interviews and accounts of the stories behind the art.

The gallery said it was the first

museum to offer such an application, which will allow users to look at paintings at random or through 12 tours grouped by themes — love and death — or types.

“Designed to appeal to art enthusiasts and fans of the gallery, this application is the first of its kind to be released by a major gallery,” it said in a statement.

The FinePix REAL 3D W1 uses a “groundbreaking” system comprising two lenses whose images are merged in a single 3D picture or movie, the company said.

Users can view the images on the camera’s rear display screen or a larger separate monitor. Fujifilm said it would also offer a special

3D photo printing service.

“Viewed with just the naked eye, 3D images come alive with breathtaking reality and natural beauty,” Fujifilm said in a statement.

The gadget will go on sale in Japan early next month with a price tag of 60,000 yen (640 dollars), followed by overseas markets in late August.

Couch-potato lifestyle affects children’s sleep: study Agence France-Presse

PARIS - Young children take an extra three minutes to fall asleep for every hour of the day that was spent physically inactive, New Zealand researchers said on Thursday.

University of Auckland specialists investigated sleep patterns among 519 seven-year-olds, monitoring them with a gadget attached to their waist that can tell from a

child’s movements whether it is asleep, awake but inactive, or active.

After hitting the sack, the children fell asleep 26 minutes later on average, in a range of 13 to 42 minutes, and slept for an average of 10.1 hours.

Those who had been inactive during the day took longer to nod off. Every sedentary hour during daytime added 3.1 minutes to the time it took to fall asleep.

World’s first camel-milk chocolates going global Reuters

DUBAI - Dubai’s Al Nassma, the world’s first brand of chocolate made with camels’ milk, plans to expand into new Arab markets, Europe, Japan and the United States, its general manager said on Tuesday.

Martin Van Almsick said the United Arab Emirates company planned to enter Saudi Arabia first, followed by Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United States within the next few months.

The company plans to enter the Saudi market in a month through a partnership with a Jeddah-based distributor, said Van Almsick, adding the company plans to deliver the first tonne of chocolates to Saudi Arabia soon.

Al Nassma is also in talks with British department store Harrods and San Francisco’s Chocolate Covered to sell its products.

Al Nassma was formally estab-

lished in October last year and aims to produce 100 tonnes of premium camels’ milk chocolate a year.

In partnership with Austrian chocolate maker Manner, Al Nassma manufactures the end product at its Dubai facility.

With 3,000 camels on its Dubai farm, the company sells chocolates through its farm-attached store as well as in luxury hotels and private airlines. It plans to launch an online shopping facility within a month, Van Almsick said. The farm is controlled by the Dubai government.

The company is set to open its second store in the UAE in one of Dubai’s large malls and is in talks with mall operator Majid Al Futtaim and others, he said.

“We aim to be the Godiva of the Middle East,” Van Almsick said in an interview. “It’s a luxury product, so we will never be in supermarkets.

The plan is to be in one mall in each UAE city.”

Al Nassma is also looking at the possibility of setting up a store in Japan, where demand for the product is high, he said.

All chocolates are produced without preservatives or chemical additives with a range of locally popular spices, nuts and honey, the company says.

Camel milk contains five times more vitamin C than cow milk, less fat, less lactose and more insulin, making it a good option for diabetics and the lactose intolerant, Van Almsick said.

Dubai’s Al Nassma, the world’s first brand of chocolate made with camels’ milk, plans to expand into new Arab markets, Europe, Japan and the United States, its general manager said on Tuesday.

http://upload.wikimedia.org

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Thursday, July 23, 2009

Sport

International

News

International

Blues down former boss Jose keeper Vid Belec’s outstretched left hand and into the bottom corner of the goal.

The Londoners continued to play with purpose and fluency, highlighted in the 16th minute when Lampard and Branislav Ivanovic exchanged a onetwo down the right, the Serbian fullback advancing to the byline and centering for Drogba whose shot was straight at a grateful Belec.

Trailing 1-0 at the break, Inter’s first real chance came as Chelsea adjusted to the five changes made by Ancelotti at half-time.

With Carvalho making way for Alex in defence, the incoming centre-back gave the ball away to Mario Balotelli on halfway immediately following the restart and the through ball found Diego Milito who cut inside Terry but was blocked at his feet by Petr Cech, the Chelsea keeper making his first meaningful contribution of the game.

Daniel Sturridge, who scored on his debut at Seattle, and Nicolas Anelka had replaced Drogba and Kalou and they quickly caused problems. Deco, on for Malouda, sent Sturridge clear in the box in the 48th minute and when his cross from the left was blocked by Ivan Cordoba’s hand, Lampard was given the chance to add to his goal scored against the Sounders, converting the penalty, right footed into the bottom corner.

Ancelotti made further changes in the 64th minute, taking off Cech, Essien and Ivanovic for Ross Turnbull, Juliano Belletti and Michael Mancienne, who was called straight into the action, blocking a Balotelli bicycle kick on the six-yard line after Inter sub Zlatan Ibrahimovic had crossed from the right.

Late substitute Franco Di Santo nearly added a third for the Londoners in stoppage time, taking a delicate Deco chip over the top on his chest and shooting right-footed over the bar.

Agence France-Presse

AP Photo/David Longstreath, Pool

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton meets with Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Hirofumi Nakasone Wednesday, July 22, 2009, in Phuket, Thailand, prior to a bilateral meeting at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference (PMC).

Hillary Clinton declares the US ‘is back’ in Asia Associated Press Writer

PHUKET, Thailand - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived at a key security conference Wednesday carrying a no-nonsense message that the United States is ready to reengage with Asia after years of neglect.Clinton moved right into talks with Asian counterparts gathered for two days of international meetings to discuss North Korea, Myanmar and a range of other regional issues.

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Chelsea’s Didier Drogba, top, jumps over Inter Milan goalkeeper Vid Belec as he attempts to score during the first half of a World Football Challenge soccer match in Pasadena, Calif., Tuesday, July 21, 2009.

Inter and Eto’o close in on agreement Agence France Presse

Samuel Eto’o

BP/doc

ROME - Inter Milan are close to agreeing personal terms with Samuel Eto’o over a possible move from Barcelona, the Cameroon striker’s agent said on Tuesday.

Inter representatives met with Josep Maria Mesalles for four hours in Milan before the agent left to return to Spain.

But before leaving he told reporters: “The discussions are going well but now we’re trying to iron out the little details.

“There will be no more meetings today, I’m going back to Spain but maybe I’ll come back again tomorrow.”

Inter and Barcelona have worked out a swap deal involving Eto’o and around 40 million euros in exchange for Sweden for-

ward Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

The two clubs are trying to agree personal terms with the two players before the deal can be finalised.

Inter president Massimo Moratti admitted there was still a little way to go before a deal would be concluded.

“We’re a little far apart but that’s pretty normal,” he said. “We quickly found an agreement between the two clubs, now we’re negotiating with the interested parties and each one (Eto’o and his agent) is trying to get the most possible.”

Eto’o scored the opening goal for Barca in their 2-0 Champions League final victory over Manchester United in May while Ibrahimovic finished top scorer in Italy’s Serie A last season.

3

Venezuela, Honduras face off amid crisis

PASADENA - Slick Chelsea defeated former boss Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan 2-0 at the Rose Bowl to get their World Football Challenge campaign off to a winning start in Pasadena, California.

Goals from Didier Drogba in the 11th minute and a Frank Lampard penalty just after half-time gave Chelsea the victory over the Italian champions in front of 81,224 fans.

The impressive nature of the Blues’ performance more than the scoreline, however, will have delighted new head coach Carlo Ancelotti, especially coming so soon into the ex-AC Milan chief’s first pre-season campaign and against his former cross-city rivals.

Mourinho, facing the club he led to two Premier League titles during his three seasons at Stamford Bridge between 2004-07, had seen his Inter team open its campaign with a penalty shoot-out defeat to Mexico’s Club America on Sunday. Chelsea, meanwhile, had warmed up with a 2-0 win over Major Seattle Sounders the previous day but had since lost German midfielder Michael Ballack to a broken toe.

Led once again by John Terry in central defence with Ricardo Carvalho, Chelsea fans at the Rose Bowl saw their African players start for the first time in pre-season, John Obi Mikel and Michael Essien returning to midfield with Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou in attack.

It was the central defenders, though, who had Chelsea’s first sights on the Inter goal, Florent Malouda receiving a short corner on the left and crossing for Carvalho to head over the bar at the near post in the second minute and Terry heading from the resultant Malouda corner from the right.

Chelsea were dominant throughout the opening half and Drogba opened the lead in the 11th minute, receiving a short pass from Lampard with his back to goal, turning and shooting unimpeded from 20 yards, the ball bouncing over Inter Milan

Thursday, July 23, 2009

She said she will sign the seminal Treaty of Amity and Cooperation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, a commitment to peacefully resolve regional disputes that already has been signed by more than a dozen countries outside the 10-nation bloc.

“The United States is back,” she declared upon arrival in the Thai capital Tuesday.

In an appearance Wednesday on a Thai TV talk show she said, “President Obama and I are giving great importance to this region,”

suggesting that the administration of former President George W. Bush neglected U.S. interests in Asia.

Evidence of the new U.S. approach, she said, is the fact that her first overseas trip, in February, was to Asia.

She also said the U.S. has a plan to prevent Iranian domination in the Middle East if it gets the nuclear bomb. “We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment: that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to develop the military capacity of those

(allies) in the Gulf, it is unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer.”

The U.S. signing of the ASEAN treaty will be by the executive authority of Obama and does not require congressional ratification, said a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the move publicly.

The Bush administration had declined to sign the document, whereas Obama sees it as a symbolic underscoring of the U.S. commitment to Asia.

Ahmadinejad humiliated over vice president choice Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN - Iran’s semi-official media are reporting that Iran’s supreme leader has ordered the president, a close ally, to dismiss the vice president he chose last week.

The order, issued late Tuesday, is widely seen as a setback for

hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who had strongly defended his decision to appoint Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, his son’s father-in-law, as his first vice president.

Mashai angered hard-liners in 2008 when he said Iranians were “friends of all people in the world -

even Israelis.”

Ahmadinejad is already in a crisis over opposition claims he stole last month’s election from the proreform candidate.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei strongly defended Ahmadinejad, seen as his protege, at the time.

TEGUCIGALPA - Caracas has angrily rejected what it called an “absurd” demand from Honduras’s de facto government that gave Venezuelan diplomats until Friday to leave the country.

Caracas swiftly rejected an expulsion order that came Tuesday, saying it was issued by leaders of an illegitimate government that ousted President Manuel Zelaya in a coup late last month.

The Central American nation earlier accused President Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela of threatening to use force and meddling in its internal affairs, telling diplomats they had 72 hours to leave the country.

In a statement, Venezuela’s foreign ministry said it would not recognize an “absurd communication” from “the illegitimate authorities” in Honduras.

The toughened Honduran stance came after negotiations with Zelaya hit deadlock and amid international pressure for his reinstatement.

The European Union announced Tuesday that it would limit contacts with the interim government — which backed the army ouster of Zelaya on June 28 — following a new funding freeze.

But Roberto Micheletti, the man who took power after troops expelled Zelaya, has maintained his hardline position and promised Zelaya will be arrested if he returns to Honduras as

he intends to.

Nobel Peace laureate and crisis mediator Oscar Arias on Sunday warned that Honduras was on the brink of civil war and pleaded for crisis talks to resume after a 72-hour break.

Zelaya, who has promised on various occasions to return to Honduras, said Tuesday he would come back with a crowd gathered in neighboring Central American countries after Thursday, when Arias’ deadline was due to expire.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a key backer to Zelaya, who turned increasingly to the political left after taking power in 2005.

Chavez said Tuesday that Zelaya’s expulsion had also been an attack on Venezuela and regional leftist countries.

Sweden, current holder of the EU presidency, said in a statement that the EU would continue to restrict political contacts with the de facto government “until a peaceful negotiated solution has been found.”

The 27-nation bloc on Monday suspended 65.5 million euros in aid to Honduran institutions, although not humanitarian aid.

The US government warned Monday that stalled talks would have real consequences for the impoverished Central American nation, as aid freezes accompanied diplomatic isolation.

Washington has frozen military aid to Tegucigalpa, but it has also warned Zelaya against rash moves that might jeopardize dialogue.

Methodists arrested amid Fiji military crackdown Agence France-Presse

SUVA, Fiji - Fiji’s military-led government arrested eight Methodist leaders of the nation’s biggest church group, accusing them of pushing a political agenda, a spokesman said Wednesday, in the latest round of detentions since declaring emergency rule in April.

A prominent female indigenous chief, Ro Teimumu Kepa, was also taken into police custody overnight.

She had offered to host a conference of the influential Methodist Church in her province next month despite a government order to cancel it.

The military regime, led by Commodore Frank Bainimarama, took power in this Pacific island nation in a bloodless 2006 coup. It tightened its grip on power in April, imposing a state of emergency, sacking the judiciary and placing censors in newsrooms.

Dozens of opponents have been arrested, questioned and eventually released with warnings to stop their criticism of the regime, which plans to hold democratic elections only in 2014 despite international calls for a swift return to civilian rule.

Senior church leader, the Rev. Manasa Lasaro, was among the eight Methodists taken into custody for questioning, police spokeswoman Ema Mua said. Lasaro was also arrested in

June for a sermon demanding freedom of speech and subsequently released.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Neumi Leweni said Wednesday that the overnight arrests followed the Methodist Church leaders’ decision to include “political issues” in the program for the church’s annual conference rather than promoting “spiritual development.”

“This was a clear breach of the Public Emergency Regulation and also not a matter for the church to discuss,” he said. Under the regulation, meetings and protests are banned.

Leweni said the church leaders would be released when investigations were completed, but the conference was canceled.

Police said Kepa, the “paramount chief” of Rewa province, had been detained for “a form of incitement,” without giving details. She had earlier written to the Methodists inviting them to hold their conference in Rewa despite the government order to cancel.

Head of the Fijian Methodist Church in New Zealand, the Rev. Ilaitia Tuwere, said church members would be upset that Kepa had been taken into custody in the middle of the night. He said the latest detentions had brought into conflict the three pillars of Fiji society - church, people and state.

One-in-four of the mostly Christian nation’s 800,000 people are Methodists.

2

International

Thursday, July 23, 2009

News

WORLD Obama in all-out push for US health reform NEWS

Agence France-Presse

Detention CAIRO - Saudi Arabia is holding more than 3,000 people in secret detention and has used torture to extract confessions in its anti-terrorism crackdown since the Sept. 11, 201 terror attacks, Amnesty International said in a report Wednesday.

Disputed region THE HAGUE - An international arbitration tribunal is ruling on the boundaries of a disputed oil rich region on the border between northern and southern Sudan. The Haguebased Permanent Court of Arbitration’s decision on the Abyei region’s borders is seen as a major test of the fragile 2005 peace deal that ended more than 20 years of civil war that killed more than 2 million people in Sudan.

Source: ap

AFP PHOTO/Nicholas KAMM

US President Barack Obama loo. It will break him,’” Obama said on Monday.

“This isn’t about me. This isn’t about politics. This is about a health care system that is breaking America’s families, breaking America’s businesses, and breaking America’s economy.”

In an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal, first published online late Tuesday, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal — a potential Republican candidate to challenge Obama in

years to come — slammed the president for his efforts.

The “Democrats’ reforms are designed to push an ever-increasing number of Americans into a governmentrun health care plan,” Jindal wrote, saying authorities would compete “unfairly in the marketplace until private plans are driven out of business.”

The result, Jindal warned, would be higher costs for all Americans accompanied by an inevitable fall in health care quality.

Britain’s Brown braces for new poll test Agence France-Presse

Fascist SAO PAULO - Israel’s foreign minister runs into controversy on the first day of a Latin American tour after an official of Brazil’s ruling party reportedly calls him a “fascist.”

ing deficits — borne from efforts to battle the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s — and ever-rising unemployment, health care reform looks set to be Obama’s biggest test yet.

His far-reaching plans to bring affordable health insurance to all Americans have left many worrying who will end up footing the bill. Many players within his own Democratic party remain skeptical.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs admitted Tuesday that due to the recession-mired economy, with its smaller tax base, the government’s budget challenges “have only become greater.”

But Obama has personally invested much in the campaign, a cornerstone of his 2008 White House race that saw him defeat Republican rival John McCain to become the country’s first African-American president.

“Just the other day, one Republican senator said — and I’m quoting him now — ‘If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Water-

AFP PHOTO/Leon Neal

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

LONDON - Beleaguered British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is battling to avoid another poll rout this week, in his first electoral test since dire EU and local ballots and a near-fatal leadership crisis.

With general elections due in less than a year and his Labour Party trailing far behind the opposition Tories in the polls, Brown hopes the by-election in the eastern county of Norfolk on Thursday will not deal him a new ballot blow.

But opinion surveys suggest Labour faces an uphill struggle to keep the Norwich North seat, which it held by a majority of almost 5,500 at the last election from the Conservatives.

A strong showing by the Tories — whose leader David Cameron is widely tipped to oust Brown next year, three years after he succeeded Tony Blair —

Thursday, July 23, 2009

15

Tentative top seed Tursunov triumphs at Indy Agence France Presse

INDIANAPOLIS - Fragile Russian top seed Dmitry Tursunov received an unexpected confidence boost Tuesday as Michael Berrer made 16 double faults in a 6-3, 2-6, 6-0 loss at the ATP Indianapolis Championships.

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama is to hold a primetime news conference Wednesday as support for his six-month-old presidency dips and critics blast his handling of the economy and health care reform.

When Obama steps up to the dais for his fourth primetime conference since taking office, he does so as a USA Today/Gallup poll showed his approval rating slump to 55 percent and his disapproval rating jump 16 points to 41 percent.

Obama’s handling of the economy appears to be key to his fading popularity, as Americans have become more pessimistic about how long it will take the economic downturn to end.

White House adviser David Axelrod called the “turbulence” predictable, and expressed confidence in the public’s support for the president.

“People fundamentally like this president, and they believe he’s smart and capable and strong and trying to do the right thing,” he said.

But critically for Obama’s highstakes efforts to pass health care reform through Congress, the poll also found 50 percent of the US public disapproved of his health care policy, with 44 percent showing support.

Against the backdrop of mount-

Sport

International

could even trigger fresh government turmoil, some say.

“It would reignite the leadership crisis, taking us back to the day after the European elections,” said Professor Brian Brivati of the University of Kingston, referring to the near-collapse of the government last month.

Labour’s gloom was unlikely to be helped by the news Tuesday that the Labour candidate, Chris Ostrowski, has suspected swine flu.

A parliamentary by-election was called after incumbent MP Ian Gibson was ejected by the Labour party for abusing his parliamentary expenses, part of a wider scandal that has rocked British politics but particularly Labour.

In power since 1997, Labour is suffering from a perception that it has run out of steam, while Brown’s handling of the economy in his previous job as finance minister has taken a battering amid the recession.

After historic defeats in European and local elections in May, which coincided with a string of ministerial resignations, the premier managed to stop the collapse in support for his party — but Thursday could change that.

The expenses row is likely to play a large part in the byelection, with some analysts expecting voters to punish all the main parties and instead back fringe parties such as the Greens or the British National Party.

An ICM survey for the News of the World newspaper at the weekend put the Conservatives on 34 percent in Norwich North, with Labour on 30 percent, the centrist Liberal Democrats on 15 percent and the Green party on 14 percent.

Nationally, the Conservatives are well ahead of Brown’s party, with three polls this week putting them on average 16 points in the lead.

z Founder : K.Nadha, z Chief Editor: ABG Satria Naradha z Managing Editor: Wirata z Editors: Alit Purnata, Alit Susrini, Alit Sumertha, Darmasunu, Daniel Fajry, Diah Dewi, Iwan Darmawan, Martinaya, Mawa, Palgunadi, Sri Hartini, Suana, Sueca, Sugiartha, Sutiawan, Wirya, Yudi Winanto zDenpasar: Dira Arsana, Giriana Saputra, Mas Ruscitadewi, Oka Rusmini, Umbu Landu Paranggi, Subagiadnya, Subrata, Suentra, Sumatika, Gregorius Rusmanda, Asmara Putra. Bangli: Pujawan, Buleleng: Adnyana, Gianyar: Agung Dharmada, Karangasem: Budana, Klungkung: Bali Putra Ariawan, Tabanan: Surpi. Jakarta: Nikson, Suharto Olii, Indu P. Adi, Ahmadi Supriyanto, Achmad Nasrudin, Hardianto, Darmawan S. Sumardjo, Heru B Arifin, Asep Djamaluddin, Ade Irawan, Ipik Tanoyo. NTB: Agus Talino, Syamsudin Karim, Izzul Khairi, Raka Akriyani, Nur Haedin, Suyadnya. Surabaya: Bambang Wilianto. z Development: Alit Purnata, Mas Ruscitadewi. z Office: Jalan Kepundung 67 A Denpasar 80232. Telephone (0361)225764, Facsimile: 227418, P.O.Box: 3010 Denpasar 80001. Bali Post Jakarta, Advertizing: Jl.Palmerah Barat 21F. Telp 021-5357602, Facsimile: 021-5357605 Jakarta Pusat. NTB: Jalam Bangau No. 15 Cakranegara Telp. (0370) 639543, Facsimile: (0370) 628257. Publiser: PT Bali Post

Tursunov, who won the Eastbourne grass title but lost in the Wimbledon first round a few days later, was hardly the picture of confidence, but he was not complaining at the end of the opening-round victory over his German opponent.

“I’m not serving that great now, as I haven’t played since Wimbledon,” said Tursunov. “I can hit two or three good shots and then a bad one. But today he served terrible and that helped me.

“I’m not playing that well myself right now - but I have to be patient.”

Tursunov, the 2007 Indy champion and last year’s runner-up to absent Frenchman Gilles Simon, will next face either American Taylor Dent or Brazil’s Marcos Daniel, who had trouble getting a timely air flight from Colombia where he won a Challenger at the weekend.

Surprising second seed Dudi Sela continued his recent red-hot pace as

the Israeli sent home American veteran Vince Spadea 7-5, 6-1.

The number 29 who helped his nation to a Davis Cup quarter-final upset of Russia after playing in the Wimbledon fourth round is taking full advantage of the highest tournament seeding of his career.

With most Europeans unwilling to travel to the US to start the hardcourt season a full six weeks before opening day at the US Open, willing outsiders like Sela are making up the numbers for the next few events.

“I may have been fifth or sixth before, but never second,” said 24-yearold Sela. “When you are ranked 29th, it’s not normal to be seeding this high.

“But I’ll take it. I think my game has really been improving a lot recently. I’m just playing more solid,” he said after advancing in an hour and a quarter.

Spadea, who recently turned 35, was a finalist here in 1999. He also

lost to Sela on hardcourt in Washington last summer.

Russian Igor Kunitsyn, member of the defeated Russian Davis Cup side, is another unlikely seed who shined, earning a defeat of Argentine Brian Dabul 6-4, 6-1. German fifth seed Benjamin Becker stopped Go Soeda, a Japanese qualifier, 6-2, 6-3.

Two American journeyman booked spots in the second round. Qualifier Jesse Levine beat Thai Danai Udomchoke 6-1, 7-6 (12/10) while Alex Bogomolov stopped Italy’s Flavio Cipolla 6-2, 6-3 to next face Sela.

Dmitry Tursunov of Russia returns a shot by Michael Berrer of Germany during the Indianapolis Tennis Championships at the Indianapolis Tennis Center July 21, 2009 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Chris Graythen/Getty Images/AFP

Krzyzewski to return as US Eriksson accepts Notts County job coach for 2012 Olympic run Agence France Presse

Agence France Presse

LAS VEGAS - Mike Krzyzewski, who guided the US Olympic basketball team to Beijing gold, will return to coach the squad of NBA stars through the 2012 London Olympics, USA Basketball announced on Tuesday.

The US squad, powered by NBA superstars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and guided by the veteran coach at Duke University, went 36-1 in a three-year run that culminated with Beijing Olympic gold.

“It was a huge honor to be selected as the US national team coach the first time. It is still a huge honor,” Krzyzewski said.

“The experience of being the head coach of the US national team for three summers was the best experience I’ve ever had in coaching. The upcoming three years will be a new experience and hopefully, it will be as rewarding.”

Krzyzewski will bring back his entire staff of assistants from Beijing New York coach Mike D’Antoni, Portland coach Nate McMillan and Syracuse University coach Jim Boeheim for the next run at Olympic supremacy.

“Coach K and the assistant coaches were a perfect fit. I’m confident they will again be a great fit for 2010-2012,” NBA Player of the Year James said.

“We worked together for three summers and we all developed a great respect and chemistry that was very im-

AP Photo/Isaac Brekken

Mike Krzyzewski portant in the successes we achieved.”

Krzyzewski first will guide the American squad at the World Basketball Championships next year at Istanbul, Turkey. Unless the US squad captures the world title and the 2012 London Olympic berth awarded to the champion, “Coach K” will be called upon to guide the US team into the Olympic qualifying Tournament of the Americas in 2011.

Assuming the NBA stars qualify for the 2012 Olympics, it will be Krzyzewski and his staff who guides their efforts on the court in London in three years.

“It is amazing that Jim, Mike and Nate would do this again. For the past three years, we’ve handled the staff as if we’re all co-coaches. That is how we’ll handle it again.”

USA Basketball opens a training camp on Thursday with 23 younger players, replenishing the talent pool in a program created by Krzyzewski and USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo.

“When you have a good thing going you don’t mess with it,” Colangelo said. “We accomplished a great deal last quadrennium and we want to keep the ball rolling in the right direction.”

Krzyzewski’s decision to return makes it more likely that the nucleus of talent which brought home gold from China will return in England. “Coach K has made such a big impact on my life and the 2008 Olympics was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had,” Denver star Carmelo Anthony said.

“I’m happy to see him and the assistant coaches come back to coach.”

NOTTINGHAM - Former England and Manchester City boss SvenGoran Eriksson has joined English Division Two club Notts County as director of football, the club confirmed on Wednesday.

The League Two (fourth division) club said the 61-year-old Swede would be joined by his long-term assistant Tord Grip, who will assume the role of general adviser.

The world’s oldest professional football club were recently taken over by a Middle Eastern consortium and had been in talks with Eriksson about taking up a senior position with the club.

“Sven will assume his role with immediate effect,” the club said in a statement. “He will be joining with his longterm assistant Tord Grip, who will assume the role of general advisor.”

Eriksson will look after the club’s youth academy as well as player development, transfer negotiations and building overseas links.

The Swede is looking forward to the challenge.

“I am particularly attracted to this role and the unique opportunity to help build a club over the longer term,” he said.

“I will be responsible for all aspects of the football side of the club and in line with the aspirations of the new owners, wish to build the club at the heart of the community.

“We hope to leave a long and lasting legacy for Notts County and its fans.”

The Munto Finance Ltd group, reportedly backed by Dubai tycoon Abdullah Bin Saeed Al Thani, made Eriksson their top target after being turned down by Glenn Hoddle, another former England coach.

Eriksson was approached last week and is believed to have agreed a contract worth around two million pounds a year after discussions with new County chairman Peter Trembling on Tuesday.

County’s current manager Ian McParland will remain in charge of coaching the team for the moment, but former England midfielder David Platt, who played under Eriksson at Sampdoria, has already been linked with the role.

County, founded in 1862, had an average gate of just 4,445 last season.

They spent 534 days in administration between 2002 and 2003 and finished 19th in League Two last term.

But the club’s new owners hope Eriksson can take them up two divisions into the Championship within five years.

Eriksson has worked with some of world football’s biggest names including David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, but now he will have to get the best out of less famous players like Graeme Lee, Ben Davies and Luke Rodgers.

His last match in English football was Manchester City’s 8-1 defeat at Middlesbrough in May 2008 and he will return to competitive action in England for County’s opening League Two match at home to Bradford on August 8.

16

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Armstrong and Contador ‘incompatible’ - Astana manager

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Police tighten watch on free chemical sales PAGE 6

Agence France Presse

MADRID - Astana’s Belgian manager Johan Bruyneel says there is a “certain incompatibility” between Spanish rider Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong of the United States even as he minimized the friction between the two team leaders on the Tour de France.

“There was never a ‘click’ between the two, I don’t know why,” he said in an interview published in top-selling daily newspaper El Pais, adding however that “there was never as much friction” between the two as was reported.

Relations between Contador and Armstrong, which were tense since the start of the Tour de France, appear to have improved since the Spanish rider took the yellow jersey on Sunday during the first Alpine stage of the race to become the favourite to win the event.

It was the first time that he pulled on the yellow jersey since his Tour win in 2007. Bruyneel said he “always thought that only Alberto could win” the Tour even if he was “surprised” by Armstrong’s level at some moments.

“The logic says that Contador was the strongest, before and during the race,” said Bruyneel who is a personal friend of Armstrong, a seven-time winner of the cycling race.

Bruyneel also confirmed that he would soon leave Astana to form a

new team with Armstrong, because it was “unthinkable” for him to continue to lead the Kazakhstan team in the event that Kazakh rider Alexandre Vinokourov returns to it after a suspension for doping as is expected.

Asked about Contador’s possible participation in this new project, he said it was unlikely because of the “incompatibility” between the two.

He also denied, in response to a question from El Pais, that Nike would be the sponsor of his new project, which will be formally announced on Wednesday.

Calendar talks a priority for F1 teams Formula 1 teams believe the future shape of the calendar must be high on the list of subjects that needs sorting out with Bernie Ecclestone, amid fresh doubts about the prospects for traditional races.

With the German Grand Prix the latest event to be in danger, after the Nurburgring said it will not host next year’s race unless fees are reduced, there is an increasing uncertainty about the fate for a number of historic events.

And with these including major markets for leading car manufacturers, including Britain, Japan, China and Germany, teams have admitted some concern about future schedules.

BMW motorsport director Mario Theissen thinks it inevitable that the matter will be brought up the next time the teams meet with Ecclestone.

“That is something we will certainly discuss with Bernie,” Theissen told AUTOSPORT. “We have to make sure that we are in the important markets.”

Theissen pointed out that concerns for his company were heightened by the fact that the three biggest markets for BMW - the United States, Germany and Britain – all could be absent from the calendar in the next few years.

“Obviously we have to discuss this situation, and Bernie understands it,” said Theissen. “It is al-

ways a matter of finding what the right balance is between what we can earn, what Bernie can earn, and what is important for the market.”

When asked if a new Concorde Agreement would allow a specific

veto on the calendar, Theissen said: “There is nothing explicit, but I would expect a much closer cooperation between the commercial rights holder and the teams if it comes to such decisions in the future.”

AFP PHOTO LIONEL BONAVENTURE

Tour de France winner and Kazakh cycling team Astana (AST)’s leader Alberto Contador of Spain (L) rides with teammate, seventimeTour de France winner and Kazakh cycling team Astana (AST)’s Lance Armstrong of the United States on July 21, 2009 in the 159 km and sixteenth stage of the 2009 Tour de France cycling race run between Martigny and Bourg Saint-Maurice.Spanish cycling team Euskatel-Euskadi (Eus)’s Mikel Astarloza of Spain won the stage ahead of French cycling team Francaise des Jeux (FDJ)’s leader Sandy Casar of France and French cycling team BBOX Bouygues Telecom (BBO)’s Pierrick Fedrigo of France.

Madonna back in Barcelona to resume tour PAGE 12

CHINA OUT AFP PHOTO

Residents gather to watch solar eclipse over southwest China’s Chongqing municipality on July 22, 2009, as the lunar shadow or “umbra” moves over the city. The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century cast its shadow over western India and headed for China on a path that was plunging hundreds of millions of people into temporary darkness.

Solar eclipse shrouds Asia in cloak of darkness Agence France-Presse

VARANASI, India - The longest solar eclipse of the 21st century plunged millions across Asia into temporary darkness on Wednesday, triggering scenes of religious fervour, fear and excitement in India and China.

Ancient superstition and modern commerce came together in what was likely to end up being the most watched eclipse in history,

WEATHER FORECAST TEMPERATURE OC

DENPASAR

22 - 32

JAKARTA

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Agence France-Presse

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JAKARTA - Indonesian police released digital images Wednesday of the reconstructed faces of two suspected suicide bombers thought to have attacked luxury hotels in Jakarta last week, killing seven people.

Police said the suspected bomber who killed six people including five foreigners at the JW Marriott was aged only 16 to 17 years old, while the man suspected of carrying out the Ritz-Carlton attack was aged from 20 to 40 years.

The images are being shown to witnesses as part of the investiga-

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sands of devout Hindus had crowded the river Ganges at dawn.

Police said the 80-year-old fainted in the crush to enter a temple

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Indonesia police release images of suspected bombers

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due to its path over Earth’s most densely inhabited areas. A woman was killed in a stampede in the holy city of Varanasi where tens of thou-

near the banks of the river and suffocated, triggering panic. More than 20 people were injured.

With Hindu priests conducting special prayers, the crowds in Varanasi cheered and then raised their arms in salutation as the sun re-emerged from behind the moon, before they took a spiritually purifying dip in the river’s holy waters.

tion into Friday’s attacks on the luxury hotels in central Jakarta, the first major terror attack in Indonesia since 2005.

The images were based on two severed heads found at the blast sites which are believed to be those of the bombers, suspected members of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional extremist network or one of its offshoots.

“We found two severed heads on location and we can confirm that they are the suspected suicide bombers,” police spokesman Nanan Soekarna told a press conference.

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AFP PHOTO/Bay ISMOYO

Indonesian police spokesman Nanan Sukarna shows a sketch of the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel suicide bombers during the press conference in Jakarta on July 22, 2009. Indonesian police were closer to identifying the two suicide bombers in last week’s JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotel attacks, as they questioned staff at an Islamic school and took DNA samples from relatives.