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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Trulli mystified by tyre behaviour
Sport
usually making one of the compounds very hard to work with during GP weekends. Formula 1 tyre supplier Bridgestone announced earlier this month that it will reduce the disparity between the two compounds in the upcoming four races. Trulli believes that decision will help reduce the problems, but he thinks there is more to his team’s problems than just that. “We have all been complaining about this, and the rest of the season will probably be much better because of the decision by Bridgestone but I believe this cannot be the explanation, because if you have a problem you usually have a problem through the weekend, you don’t have it only on
PAGE 6
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nal budget cap have been dropped. And with Cosworth keen to avoid a confrontation with current manufacturers ahead of its re-entry into F1, it offered to accept a lower 18,000rpm limit rather than what was first proposed. Although that prompted speculation that it would cost new teams Manor Grand Prix, Campos Meta1 and Team US F1 in terms of performance, the company is adamant that there could in fact be benefits from the move. Tim Routsis, Cosworth’s CEO, told AUTOSPORT: “We suggested the 18,000rpm limit to remove potential tension, and a point
PAGE 6
one session, or any more in another or the race.” “I cannot blame [Bridgestone] for the problems we suffer. [But] for sure we can say that the tyre choice made up until now was not necessarily right, in terms of positioning the tyres.” The Italian driver reckons Toyota has a fight in its hands to stay in third place in the championship, with Williams and Ferrari edging closer. Williams is a threat to us, at the moment they are running very well and their car is running pretty good, and Ferrari is coming back, but we have the chance to fight for third in the Constructors’ Championship and this is the most important thing, after that the aim is to close on the gap in front.”
Formula 1’s new teams have been assured by Cosworth that they will have a very competitive engine next year
of possible conflict in agreeing terms. “We were confident that the engine in the return form would be utterly competitive providing we started early enough. I think the teams will not be any less competitive as a result of having a re-tuned engine. If anything, I think there are benefits to be had from reduced rejection of heat to oil, so radiators can get smaller, the drag goes down. Also, as an engine spins faster it consumed more fuel to overcome frictions, so by lowering the revs were are also going to improve the fuel efficiency.” Cosworth has conducted a detailed simulation of the engine performance of the new CA2010 power unit, based on 18,000 rpm figures, and the results suggest that it will be as competitive as most of the current manufacturers units in F1. And Cosworth has also been assured that it will not be further compromised by limiting itself to just five engines per car per season, as had been pushed for by some FOTA teams. The decision comes after Cosworth informed the manufacturers and the FIA that it would not be able to re-tune its engine as well as dramatically extend its engine life in the time left available before the start of next season. “Our position is that we are completely happy with this concept of reducing the revs to 18,000rpm but we only have a finite amount of time before we have to deliver engines,” explained Routsis.
U.S. soldiers from Dagger Company, 2-12 Infantry, 4th Brigade patrol the village of Kolack in the Pesh Valley in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province July 21, 2009. Taliban suicide bombers dressed in burkas tried to storm government buildings and a military base in two cities in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing up to six people, officials said.
Officers tightly guarded Bali’s entrances
Sony bids $50 million for Jackson rehearsal film PAGE 12
REUTERS/Tim Wimborne
Six killed as eight suicide bombers attack Afghan cities
Cosworth promises competitive engine Formula 1’s new teams have been assured by Cosworth that they will have a very competitive engine next year, despite the power units being reconfigured to run at 18,000rpm. Cosworth had initially been granted permission by the FIA to run at 20,000rpm in 2010, in a move to even up the competitiveness of the customer units against the more-developed current manufacturers. However, amid the backdrop of the regulations being tweaked to avert the threat of a breakaway, many of the concessions handed to the small teams as part of the origi-
16 Pages Number 417 1st Year
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Jarno Trulli says he has been baffled by the inconsistent performance of some Formula 1 teams this season as a result of their problems handling the tyres. “This year we have had a lot of troubles to predict and also during the weekend we have had tyre handling problems, warming them up, and not very good consistency so far,” said the Toyota driver. “The performance is good but sometimes we could not find an explanation on one car or another.” He added: “For me at Silverstone I had an incredible qualifying and the race was terrible. Even though I scored points it was such a difficult race, really, really bad, far off from where I should have been, and this is driving us mad a little bit. We don’t understand, we can see the area but we cannot understand why we have troubles. “This is what is happening this year, and honestly not only to us. It is difficult to explain and difficult to talk about, we are investigating but it is not an easy issue to solve.” Teams have complained that the difference between the two types of tyres used during races was too big,
Five dead, five missing in Japan mudslides
Jarno Trulli says he has been baffled by the inconsistent performance of some Formula 1 teams this season as a result of their problems handling the tyres
Agence France-Presse
KHOST, Afghanistan - Taliban suicide bombers dressed in burkas tried to storm government buildings and a military base in two cities in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing up to six people, officials said. Six suicide bombers, some of them also carrying guns, tried to enter several government buildings in Gardez in Paktia province but
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were shot dead before reaching their targets, provincial spokesman Rohullah Samoon told AFP. “One of the bombers detonated
in front of the intelligence department, killing three intelligence officers. The other bombers were killed by security forces,” he said.
Provincial police Chief Azizuddin Wardak said two police officers were also killed in the attacks and that two of the bombers managed to detonate explosives strapped to their bodies. “Two of the bombers exploded, one near the intelligence office and the other near the police station district one. Two police were killed,” he said. Continued on page 6
Indonesian police probe JI-linked school over attacks Agence France-Presse
JAKARTA - Indonesian police Tuesday questioned teachers at an Islamic boarding school amid reports a former student was one of two suicide bombers involved in last week’s Jakarta bombings. A teacher at the school confirmed that police had been questioning staff at the Al-Mukmin school in Ngruki, Central Java, for the past two days following Friday’s twin suicide bombings of luxury hotels. “The police came yesterday and today. It’s just ordinary chat. The po-
lice checking on us is normal,” AlMukmin deputy principal Muhammad Sholeh Ibrahim told AFP. The coordinated blasts at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in a central Jakarta business district popular with foreigners killed seven people including three Australians, a New Zealander and an Indonesian. Two other victims remain unidentified, possibly a Dutch couple who were reportedly guests of the Ritz-Carlton and have been missing since Friday. Continued on page 6
AFP PHOTO/ADEK BERRY
A member of the investigating team (R) ties the curtains together from the restaurant inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Jakarta on July 21, 2009 where the second bomb blast took place on July 17. Indonesian police on July 21 questioned teachers at an Islamic boarding school amid reports a former student was one of two suicide bombers involved in the July 17 Jakarta bombings which nine people in total.
2
International
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
News WORLD NEWS
Japan’s Hatoyama, the ‘alien’ promoting a fraternal society
Agence France-Presse
TOKYO - The man now frequently tipped as Japan’s next Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, is the scion of one of the country’s most influential political dynasties, sometimes likened to the Kennedys.
Apollo astronauts WASHINGTON The same question that could have been asked 40 years ago moments after Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon is still being asked today: Now what? On the 40th anniversary of man’s first moon landing, the Apollo 11 crew met with President Barack Obama, who used the opportunity to talk about inspiration and science and math education. He didn’t talk about going anywhere in space, not the moon or Mars.
War crimes AMSTERDAM Liberia’s former President Charles Taylor challenges anyone to find a bank account in his name holding illicit funds or “blood diamonds” from Sierra Leone’s civil war. In his second week of testimony at his war crimes trial, Taylor denies any role in forming the guerrilla force that invaded Sierra Leone in 1991, helping plan the rebel incursion, training rebel forces or commanding their operations. Source: ap
He is the grandson of a former prime minister, the son of a one-time foreign minister, and the brother of a recently resigned cabinet minister. Another of his grandfathers was the founder of the world’s largest tyremaker, Bridgestone. Soft-spoken Hatoyama, 62, was elected only two months ago as president of the party he co-founded a decade ago, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), to go head-to-head against Prime Minister Taro Aso, also a political blue blood. Despite his roots in the moneyed power elite, Hatoyama, Japan’s wealthiest parliamentarian has pledged to fight for the common man, often speaking of his vaguely-defined goal of “a fraternal society, to realise a politics of love.” He has also attacked Aso’s conservative ruling party for allowing bureaucrats to run the country and wasting taxpayers’ money, but he has stayed cautiously clear of outlining the DPJ’s policy platform in detail.
Hatoyama — whose centrist party comprises a wide spectrum, from pacifists to defence hawks — has also argued that Japan’s relations with its main ally the United States should be more “equitable.” An engineer by training, he allowed his party to poke fun at him when they nicknamed him “alien” in a jab at his appearance and sold cellphone straps portraying him as a bug-eyed extra-terrestrial when he was previously party leader in 2001. Hatoyama, a fourth-generation politician and one-time LDP member, argues he is “not a pure hereditary politician,” as his constituency in northern Hokkaido island is different from his father’s and grandfather’s. His brother Kunio Hatoyama served as internal affairs minister in Aso’s cabinet but resigned after a falling-out in June. Yukio Hatoyama previously served as the party’s secretary general and loyal lieutenant to his predecessor Ichiro Ozawa, de-
AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi
Yukio Hatoyama fending him through a political donations scandal that finally cost Ozawa his job. Under Hatoyama, the DPJ has submitted a bill to the parliament seeking to introduce a blanket ban on all political donations by companies and groups excluding registered political groups within three years. Ironically, Hatoyama himself came under fire in late June for the accounting irregularities of his fundraising body.
He said 21 million yen (220,000 dollars) had been wrongly recorded since 2005, an admission that followed media reports that the donors’ list included names of dead people and citizens who have denied giving him money. Hatoyama graduated from the University of Tokyo, received a Ph.D in engineering from the United States’ prestigious Stanford University, and was an assistant professor in the School of Economics at Tokyo’s Senshu University. In 1986, he first won a lower house seat in a Hokkaido constituency as a ruling LDP member, and he has been re-elected six times since then. He left the ruling party in 1993 and — after forming a now-defunct party with other LDP defectors to temporarily oust the ruling party — co-founded the DPJ in 1996, going on to lead it for the first time from 1999 to 2002. Hatoyama is married to a former actress, Miyuki, also famous for her cookbooks, and has one son, who teaches engineering at a university in Moscow. His hobbies, according to his website, include touch football, tennis, watching baseball, listening to music, karaoke and computing.
Peru’s Fujimori sentenced to 7.5 years for corruption Agence France-Presse
LIMA - Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori was on Monday sentenced to more than seven years in prison for embezzlement, deepening a fall into disgrace already crowned by his conviction three months ago for human rights abuses. Fujimori, 70, immediately said he would appeal the “invalid” verdict in the corruption case, which stemmed from his payment of 15 million dollars to his security chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, at the end of his 1990-2000 rules. The 7-1/2-year prison sentence was largely symbolic, given that Fujimori is already serving a 25year jail term for authorizing a secret army death squad to kill 25 people in 1991 and 1992. However he was also ordered to contribute to payment of a one-
million-dollar fine along with three of his ex-ministers also implicated in the embezzlement case. Under Peruvian law, sentences cannot be served consecutively, meaning that only the longest term is taken into account in multiple convictions. In Fujimori’s case, that means only the 25-year sentence will be applied, unless he wins an appeal against the death-squad conviction. Fujimori has been sentenced to six years in a previous third conviction, in which he was found guilty of abuse of power for ordering an illegal search on the home of Montesinos’s wife. In the embezzlement matter, Fujimori acknowledged he paid 15 million dollars to Montesinos in September 2000, but did not accept that awarding the money as a bonus amounted to a crime. The court found in favor of the
prosecution’s arguments, however. Lead prosecutor Avelino Guillen last week charged that “government officials at the highest level, among them cabinet ministers, looted the state coffers.” Guillen also said the ex-president “paid for the silence” of Montesinos in the final months of his time in power because the top aide knew all about corruption and rights abuses during Fujimori’s rule. Guillen had asked the special court for an eight-year prison term for Fujimori in the latest case, as well as 661,000 dollars in damages. Fujimori’s presidency collapsed in a whirlwind of scandal after secretly recorded videotapes of Montesinos bribing politicians and businessmen with piles of cash began to air on television. Montesinos, who fled on a private yacht just before Fujimori’s downfall, is currently serving a
lengthy prison term in Peru. Fujimori resigned via fax from a Tokyo hotel room in November 2000. The bespectacled former president, an agronomist by training, is the son of Japanese immigrants. He was arrested in November 2005 while traveling in Chile, and extradited to Peru to stand trial. Many Peruvians credit Fujimori with crushing two leftist insurgencies that plagued the country — the Tupac Amaru guerrillas and the Maoist Shining Path rebels — during his iron-fisted presidency. His brutal tactics came back to haunt him though in the courtroom. In April, a three-judge court in Lima sentenced Fujimori to 25 years prison after he was found guilty of authorizing the army death squad and ordering the kidnapping of a businessman and a journalist in 1992.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
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Benitez worried Man Utd will splash Ronaldo cash Agence France - Presse
BANGKOK – Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez said on Tuesday he fears Manchester United will use the war chest from the Cristiano Ronaldo mega-transfer to make the Premier League champions even stronger. “I am sure they will have money and they will buy some players,” Benitez said, with United profiting from Ronaldo’s record-shattering move of 80 million pounds (131 million dollars) to Real Madrid.
(AFP/Nicolas Asfouri)
Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez arrives to a press conference at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Bangkok. Benitez said on Tuesday he fears Manchester United will use the war chest from the Cristiano Ronaldo mega-transfer to make the Premier League champions even stronger.
But Benitez hopes that Liverpool, runners-up last season, can close the gap with new signing Glen Johnson providing the missing link. “We have to be strong next season — we have improved with Glen and hopefully we can do a little bit better and that will be enough,” said Benitez, who signed the England full-back from Portsmouth for 17 million pounds. Johnson agreed with his new boss that Liverpool could end their title drought in the coming season. “Liverpool are right up there with the world’s best. They showed that last season. A few minor errors can be cut out and that will lead to massive improvements,” he said “My early days at Liverpool have been fantastic. Everyone has been good to me and I think I am settling in fast.” Benitez does not often see eye to eye with United boss Sir Alex Ferguson and he dismissed suggestions by his rival that free-spending Manchester City would not pose a threat next season. “I think every club now is trying to improve and Manchester City is one of them,” he
said. “I would like to be there at the top of the table and be contending but I cannot say too much on the other teams.” Benitez refused to take questions on the future of Spanish midfielder Xabi Alonso, who is being chased by Real Madrid to join Ronaldo and Brazil’s Kaka in a new line-up of Galacticos. Alonso arrived with the squad for an exhibition match against Thailand taking place Wednesday night, and Liverpool’s local supporters have left him in no doubt that they want him to remain at Anfield. During a promotional event Tuesday at a Bangkok shopping mall, more than 250 fans chanted his name and waved banners reading “Alonso Please Stay”. He acknowledged the fans but made no comment about the transfer talk. Liverpool have made a slow start in their pre-season games, drawing 0-0 with Swiss club St Gallen and losing 1-0 to Rapid Vienna. After the match with Thailand, who are coached by former England international Peter Reid, Liverpool will take on the Singapore national team on Sunday.
United ‘Explored’ Ribery Deal Wenger admits interest in Chamakh LONDON - Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed Manchester United “explored” the potential for a deal to sign Bayern Munich star Franck Ribery. France international Ribery has been a target for many of Europe’s leading clubs, with Spanish rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid expressing an interest. Chelsea have also been linked with the winger, but Bayern have been adamant that the club will not be cashing in on the 26-year-old. United were rumoured to be readying a bid as they sought to spend some of the world-record windfall from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real. However, Ferguson confirmed a polite enquiry was met with a firm response from Bayern, who sold Owen Hargreaves to United two years ago. “We didn’t try to buy Ribery, we explored it in a nice, quiet way when David Gill was at one of his meetings with Bayern in March,” said Ferguson. “They told him, ‘absolutely no chance’ and the one thing you can say about Bayern is that, when they say something, they mean it. When we negotiated with them over Hargreaves, at the beginning they said ‘no’, but they also said that, if it ever changed, their minds, we’d be the first to know. It was exactly the same this time. There is no way that they will
Agence France - Presse
Ferguson has revealed Manchester United “explored” the potential for a deal to sign Bayern Munich star Franck Ribery sell Ribery.” Ferguson also considered signing Karim Benzema from Lyon, but conceded he did not want to pay over the odds for the Real new-boy. He added: “We tried to spend it (the Ronaldo money) on Karim Benzema as, at 21, I felt that there would be an improvement there. “He is tough, good physique, a good goalscoring record, so it was worth going a wee bit extra for him because of his age. But when it went to £42million, it was beyond his value. We went to £35million and I think that was fair.”
LONDON – Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has revealed he is considering a bid for French champions Bordeaux’ Moroccan international striker Marouane Chamakh. The 25-yar-old has been linked with a move to the Emirates Stadium as a possible replacement for Emmanuel Adebayor, who joined Manchester City for 25 million pounds last week, and Wenger has put the Morocco international near the top of his wanted list. “We keep an eye on him,” said Wenger on the club’s official website. “He is one of the players that we will follow and if we went for a striker then he would be one of the possibilities.” Chamakh, scorer of 13 goals last season, said his agent was in touch with a number of clubs, among them reportedly Arsenal, Sunderland, Blackburn, Tottenham and Fulham. Bordeaux manager Laurent Blanc is taking the squad to Canada on a pre-season tour on Thursday and Chamakh indicated a decision might be reached before then. Wenger also paid tribute to Adebayor and praised the Togo striker’s impact in his three years in north London. Wenger said: “Firstly, we must thank Emmanuel for his contribution to the club. Whenever he was on the pitch, he always gave absolutely everything to the team and since joining us in January 2006, he produced a number of match-winning performances. “Emmanuel leaves with our best wishes and we now look forward continuing our preparations for next season.”
(AFP/File/Pierre Andrieu)
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has revealed he is considering a bid for French champions Bordeaux’ Moroccan international striker Marouane Chamakh, seen here on July 16, 2009 .
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Sport
International
Cotto-Pacquiao bout set for November Associated Press Writer
News
International
Miguel Cotto is next on Manny Pacquiao’s hit list for what’s likely to be the biggest fight of the fall
Querrey leads US hopes at Indy tennis Agence France - Presse
INDIANAPOLIS – US third seed Sam Querrey fired 11 aces in a first-round victory over Frenchman Arnaud Clement, proving a competent fill-in for Andy Roddick at the ATP Indianapolis Championships. A 6-3, 6-4 victory in 73 minutes put Querrey alongside seventh-seeded Marc Gicquel of France and number eight Uzbek Denis Istomin in reaching the second round at the 450,000-dollar hardcourt tournament. Gicquel drove another spike into the heart of a losing season for once-promising Ernests Gulbis, hammering the Latvian 6-2, 6-3, while Istomin staged a comeback to eliminate American Kevin Kim 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Gulbis, a childhood Munich tennis academy friend of world number four Novak Djokovic, has gone badly off the boil this season, losing for the eighth time this year in a first round. The 20-year-old Latvian was playing for the first time in nearly a month after going out in the Wimbledon second round to another ex-junior rival, Britain’s Andy Murray. Gulbis stands a miserable 10-18 on the season and has not won two matches in a row since Cincinnati last August when he reached the quarter-finals against Djokovic. Querrey, ranked 37th and a losing finalist just over a week ago on grass in Newport to Indiana’s Rajeev Ram, won his way into a rematch against the local hero. Ram claimed the first title of his career
with his upset of Querrey in the recent final in Rhode Island. “It’s great to get another shot at Ram,” Querrey said. “He’s confident and he’s won seven out of his last eight matches if you count Newport qualifying. He plays well and has talent at the net. It will be a tough one for me. We may be playing in his hometown, but I have a decent support group of my own.” Querrey, a two-time Indianapolis semi-finalist, is the highestranking American in the field after Wimbledon finalist Roddick withdrew due to the hip flexor injury which bothered him during his AllEngland club loss to Roger Federer a fortnight ago.
“Maybe the sport spotlight is on me a bit but I don’t mind at all,” said Querrey. “Of course it would be better if Andy, James (Blake), Mardy (Fish) and the Bryan brothers were here. But they have other things going on.” Querrey’s friend and compatriot John Isner, playing only his second match since early May after suffering glandular fever, took a 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) victory over France’s Josselin Ouanna. Canada’s Frank Dancevic, the 2007 Indy runner-up, started with a 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) first-round triumph over Bobby Reynolds, winning his first match in the rivalry after losing to the American last year at Wimbledon and in the 2008 Indy first round.
Agence France-Presse
(AFP/Getty Images/Matthew Stockman)
US third seed Sam Querrey, seen here, fired 11 aces in a 6-3, 64 first-round victory over Frenchman Arnaud Clement, proving a competent fill-in for Andy Roddick at the ATP Indianapolis Championships
Cotto’s physical trainer. “With Manny, you don’t tell him who to fight,” Arum said. “He tells you who he wants to fight. He’s not afraid of anything. There’s a lot of easier guys he could fight, but he doesn’t want that. He wants the best, and that’s Miguel.” Cotto (34-1, 27 KOs) rebounded from his only loss to Antonio Margarito last summer by stopping Michael Jennings to claim the WBO welterweight title in February. Cotto, Puerto Rico’s most popular fighter, has fought in Las Vegas just once since December 2004, preferring to appear before his biggest fans in New York or Atlantic City. Cotto’s 11th-round stoppage loss to Margarito was his only previous main-event fight in Las Vegas, but Margarito’s suspension for illegal hand wraps at his next fight against Sugar Shane Mosley put the legitimacy of Margarito’s victory over Cotto into question.
Nash agrees to two-year extension with NBA Suns Agence France - Presse
PHOENIX, Arizona – Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Steve Nash has agreed on terms to a twoyear contract extension with the Phoenix Suns worth 22 million dollars, the star guard’s agent said. The 35-yearold Canadian playmaker, who will be paid 13 million dollars next season, will now stay with the Suns through the 2011-2012 campaign, according to agent Bill Duffy. Nash left the Dallas Mavericks for Phoenix in 2004 for a five-year deal worth 65 million dollars. Nash, who won NBA Most Valuable Player honors in 2005 and 2006, was drafted by the Suns in 1996 and traded to Dallas in 1998. The Suns missed the playoffs last season for the first time since Nash returned from Dallas and star forward Amare Stoudemire is entering the final season of his contract. Nash has averaged 17.1 points and 10.8 assists a game in his past five seasons with the Mavericks and 14.4 points and eight assists a game in his career. Meanwhile the Los Angeles Clippers have traded forward Quentin Richardson to the Minnesota Timberwolves for guard Sebastian Telfair and forwards Craig Smith and Mark Madsen, the NBA team announced on Monday. “This move really gives some much needed depth,” Clippers general manager and coach Mike Dunleavy said on the team’s website (www.nba.com/clippers).
3
Japan PM dissolves parliament ahead of election
Miguel Cotto is next on Manny Pacquiao’s hit list for what’s likely to be the biggest fight of the fall. Pacquiao and Cotto will meet Nov. 14 at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said Monday after finalizing the match between his company’s two most prominent boxers. The 145-pound bout will be shown on HBO pay-per-view. “There’s no messing about with either of these guys, and that’s what’s so exciting,” Arum told The Associated Press. “That’s why it’s an unbelievable fight, with two guys who really love to fight and don’t dance around.” Pacquiao (49-3-2, 37 KOs) has won titles in six weight divisions from 112 to 140 pounds, cementing the Filipino national hero’s status as the sport’s pound-for-pound champion. Pacquiao pummeled Oscar De La Hoya into retirement last December in his first welterweight fight, and he dramatically stopped 140-pound champion Ricky Hatton in the second round in May for his 10th consecutive victory. Pacquiao also attended Cotto’s brutal split-decision victory over Joshua Clottey in New York last June, building anticipation for their meeting. Both fighters were eager to face each other, making the negotiations relatively simple after Pacquiao agreed to the 145pound weight limit insisted upon by
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
TOKYO - Japan’s unpopular Prime Minister Taro Aso dissolved parliament Tuesday, paving the way for an election late next month seen likely to end his party’s more than half century of almost unbroken rule.
AFP PHOTO / TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso (C) bows as he attends the House of Representatives plenary session to approve his dissolution of the parliament in Tokyo on July 21, 2009. Japan’s unpopular premier dissolved parliament paving the way for an election late next month seen likely to end his party’s more than half century of almost unbroken rule.
The embattled Aso, who is lagging badly in opinion polls and has struggled to quell internal party revolt, offered a rare apology to his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for the government’s sagging support. “My statements and what have been characterized as my changing policy positions have led the Japanese people to worry about and grow distrustful of politics,” Aso said shortly before the lower house was dissolved. “As a result, the approval rating for the Liberal Democratic Party has fallen. I am deeply sorry,” said the 68-year-old premier. Aso’s LDP lost four percentage points to 20 percent from two weeks ago while support for the DPJ rose by six points to 31 percent, according to the latest poll, conducted by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper at the weekend. A succession of local election defeats, most recently in key Tokyo assembly polls this month, has
prompted rebel members of the LDP to try to push Aso out of power so the party can face the election under another leader. The premier’s allies and party leaders have tried to ease the internal dispute, and Aso on Tuesday vowed to stay on as party chief, but discontent is simmering among many ruling party lawmakers who are likely to lose their seats. Aso — a political blueblood from a top industrial family, known for his gruff demeanor — tried his best to rally the troops Tuesday. The premier — who took office in September as the world’s number two economy was sliding deep into recession amid the global downturn — was likely to highlight his economic stimulus measures in appealing to voters. The DPJ, led by fellow political blueblood and US University trained engineer Yukio Hatoyama, has promised reforms, including strengthening social welfare and reducing the influence of the pow-
Biden to reaffirm US support US to sign SE Asian treaty to counter China to Ukraine leaders Associated Press Writer
Agence France-Presse
(AFP/Getty Images/File/Jed Jacobsohn)
Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Steve Nash, pictured in March 2009, has agreed on terms to a two-year contract extension with the Phoenix Suns worth 22 million dollars, the star guard’s agent said. Telfair, a five-year NBA veteran, averaged 9.8 points and 4.6 assists with the Timberwolves last year. Smith scored 10.1 points per game and Madsen added 2.2 points while playing a reserve role. Richardson was reacquired by Clippers in a trade with Memphis on Friday. He averaged 10.2 points and 4.4 rebounds with the New York Knicks last season before being traded to Memphis in the off-season. “This move provides us additional flexibility as we continue to reshape our roster into one positioned for longterm success,” David Kahn, the Timberwolves president of basketball operations, said on the team’s website (www.nba.com/timberwolves).
erful state bureacracy. “This general election is not only about ending the LDP’s rule,” Hatoyama told a news conference. “This is an important revolutionary vote to create a new Japan with politician-led politics. The LDP has governed Japan continuously since the party’s foundation in 1955, except for one 10-month stretch in the early 1990s. But the party has suffered a leadership crisis in recent years, electing three prime ministers since the popular Junichiro Koizumi stepped down in 2006. The LDP lost to the DPJ in a 2007 upper house election. Since then, the opposition has controlled the less powerful upper house. Before the dissolution, Aso’s LDP held 303 seats in the lower house with 31 held by its sole coalition partner, New Komeito. The opposition DPJ had 112 seats, the Communist Party nine, and the Social Democratic Party seven.
PHUKET, Thailand - The signing by the United States this week of a friendship pact with Southeast Asia sends a strong signal of its desire to deepen ties and counter China’s increasing influence, diplomats said. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will ink the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation on Wednesday in the Thai resort of Phuket during a meeting with her counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Washington has been reluctant to sign the non-aggression pact for years, fearing it would leave little room for it to exert its influence on political and security issues in the region of nearly 600 million people. But a resurgent China signed the treaty in 2003 to broaden its influence, and amid lingering suspicions that the US refusal showed the region was beneath its diplomatic radar, Washington has finally relented. “Apparently the US has decided that the benefits of signing outweigh the costs,” former ASEAN secretary general Rodolfo Severino told AFP. The signing comes on the eve of the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia’s foremost
gathering on security issues involving countries such as China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the European Union. Southeast Asian ministers in a joint statement on Monday “welcomed the impending accession by the United States” to the treaty “as a strong signal of its commitment to peace and security in the region.” The comment reflected satisfaction after years of questions about US intentions in Southeast Asia and a perception that Washington had its mind on other regions. The treaty commits signatories to three basic principles: the peaceful settlement of disputes, non-recourse to the use of force and non-interference in domestic affairs. “The implication of not signing is this: if you are a power involved in the region and you don’t sign it, people might ask why the US doesn’t sign?” said Severino, now head of the Singapore-based ASEAN Studies Centre. “Does it mean that they (US) are not precluding the use of force in settling disputes, do they want to interfere in countries’ internal affairs?” Signing the treaty could also help extend US sway in an area where Asian giants China and India have been forging goodwill by
joining a number of regional bodies. China has emerged as a key player at meetings with ASEAN, which views it as a major trading partner and growing global power that should be kept firmly on side. Diplomats said Washington wants to use the treaty as a vehicle for membership in the East Asia Summit (EAS), which groups ASEAN and its six trading partners Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. Signing the treaty is a requirement for membership in the EAS, which is widely seen as a precursor to a pan-Asian economic and strategic community. “The East Asia Summit has the potential of emerging as a gargantuan trade and strategic bloc,” a Southeast Asian diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. “If the US is not on board, the United States will have little influence in such a bloc that includes China and India.” The United States still holds sway in the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) forum, a loose grouping of 21 economies stretching from Chile to China. The EU has also said it is willing to sign a similar pact with ASEAN, although the amity treaty is currently limited to sovereign states and not groupings.
KIEV, Ukraine - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to reaffirm Washington’s support for Ukraine’s pro-Western course in meetings with leaders and opposition representatives. During Tuesday’s meetings, Ukrainian leaders will be seeking reassurances that Washington’s efforts to jumpstart strained relations with Moscow will not come at the ex-
pense of Kiev’s drive to join NATO and integrate with the West. Moscow firmly opposes NATO membership for Ukraine and for Georgia, another pro-Western exSoviet republic, which Biden will visit Wednesday. Biden is set to meet Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as well as key opposition leaders, who all plan to participate in January’s presidential elections.
AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden waves upon his arrival to International Airport, Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, July, 20, 2009. Joe Biden arrived in Kiev to pledge continued support for Ukraine and was expected to calm fears that Washington’s efforts to improve relations with Russia may come at the expense of ex-Soviet nations.
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News
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
International
China blames separatists, not policies, for riots Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - China on Tuesday defended its policies on ethnic minorities, saying the violence in Xinjiang that killed nearly 200 people this month was triggered by separatists and not its treatment of Uighurs. During a televised news conference, the vice minister of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission blamed an underground separatist movement of Muslim, Turkicspeaking Uighurs and said China will never tolerate secession in its far western region. “We know those behind the violence were ... seeking the independence of Xinjiang. To this, I can clearly tell them it will never happen,” Wu Shimin said. “We can, however, continue to meet the reasonable demands to improve the lives of all ethnic groups in the Xinjiang region.” Wu said China intends to continue the “success” of its current ethnic policies that focus on the economic development of the rugged Central Asian region - policies that Uighurs say have diluted or repressed their religion, language and culture in favor of the dominant Han ethnic group. Tensions between the groups led to the country’s worst unrest in decades July 5. The government says 197 people died and more than 1,700 were wounded.
Most of the dead were Han Chinese, though Uighurs says they believe many more of their community was killed in the ensuing government crackdown. Chinese officials this week said police killed 12 people during the rioting - a rare acknowledgment by the government that security forces opened fire. Liu Wanqing, director of the supervision department of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, said the violence was not due to religious or ethnic tensions. “It should be said that people of all ethnic groups, including the Uighur people, were victims of the violent crimes. Therefore, we say that this was neither an ethnic issue nor an issue of ethnic relations nor does it affect the national unity of our country,” he said. China has repeatedly blamed outside agitators and the influence of the “three evil forces” - extremism, terrorism and separatism. Specifically, it has blamed leading Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer with instigating the protests that led to violence when police stepped in. In Washington, D.C., Kadeer, who lives in exile, has denied it. On Monday, she urged the Obama administration to more strongly condemn what she called China’s continuing crackdown on Uighurs. Kadeer told reporters that China was still “hunting down” Uighurs involved in the riots.
AP Photo/Xinjiang Government Press Office, File
In this file photo taken on Sunday, July 5, 2009 and released by the Xinjiang Government Press Office on Tuesday, July 7, 2009, a body and a burnt out car are left in a street following a riot in Urumqi, China.
RAMADI - Five people were killed and about 40 wounded in bomb attacks on Tuesday in Baghdad and the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, security and medical officials said. The deadliest attack was in Ramadi, where three people were
killed and 10 wounded in a double car bombing outside a restaurant in the northern district of Al-Jazira, hospital officials and police said. It was the second deadly car-bomb attack in as many days in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, once a bastion of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. In Baghdad, two people were killed
Associated Press Writer
Iran hardliners denounce referendum call Clouds ‘likely to block eclipse in Shanghai’ AP Photo/Office of the Supreme Leader
AFP/File/Deshakalyan Chowdhury
Astronomy researcher Debiprosad Duari explains the forthcoming solar eclipse at a citizen awareness camp in Kolkata on July 19. Heavy clouds and rain are likely to ruin the party for millions of people hoping to watch Wednesday’s solar eclipse in Shanghai and other parts of eastern China, meteorologists said.
Agence France-Presse
TEHRAN - Iranian hardliners denounced on Tuesday a call by reformists for a referendum to resolve the deepening political crisis in the Islamic republic, branding it a Western plot to cause more “havoc.” The Association of Combatant Clerics, a reformist group led by former president Mohammad Khatami, on Monday urged a referendum to try to end the turmoil gripping Iran since the June 12 disputed presidential election. “They have suggested yet another Western plot to raise havoc by proposing a referendum,” said Hossein Shariatmadari, managing director of the hardline newspaper Kayhan who is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “The main idea of this plan is to trigger tension. Their proposal is illegal amd impractical,” Shariatmadari wrote. He also said that if the referendum did take place, the result would be “more crushing” for the reformists than the presidential poll which saw hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected by a landslide. Khatami’s group had voiced concern that “public confidence in the system has been damaged” by the
election and its aftermath, which exposed deep divisions among Iran’s elite in the worst crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in the immediate aftermath of the vote and in the ensuing violence at least 20 people were killed and hundreds of protesters and reformists arrested by the regime. Khatami himself is a strong supporter of Iran’s main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi who lost to Ahmadinejad in a vote he charged was marred by widespread fraud. The conservative Khabar newspaper also rejected the idea of a referendum. “Such controversial proposals, despite their appeal to protestors... challenge the basis of the system,” the newspaper said in an editorial. “A referendum would create challenges which our country cannot harbour and it would incite unrest instead of building confidence.” Khamenei had warned on Monday against measures that could de-
stabilize the 30-year-old Islamic republic, which has a parliamentary system but overall clerical rule. “Anyone, no matter their rank or title, will be detested by the people if they lead our society towards insecurity,” the nation’s most powerful man said in a speech carried on state television. “Our leaders must be viligant. Any word or action which helps (the enemies) will be contrary to the interests of our people.” Khamenei, who has been in power for 20 years, also again accused foreign countries of interference in the violent aftermath of the election and seeking to destabilised Iran. But in a sign of the cracks emerging at the very heart of the regime, former president and powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Friday the regime had lost the people’s trust and that Iran was in “crisis.” “These are bitter times. I don’t think anybody from any faction wanted it to end like this. We have all lost. We need unity more than ever,” said Rafsanjani, who lost to Ahmadinejad in the 2005 election but heads two of the country’s top political bodies.
and 30 more wounded when two bombs exploded in the Shiite slum district of Sadr City on Tuesday, security sources said. Also in the capital, Water Resources Minister Abdel Latif Jamal Rashid escaped a bomb attack as his convoy drove through the central district of Karrada, the sources said. Six passers-by were wounded when
the bombs exploded near a bridge. On Monday, 10 people were killed, including seven policemen and a soldier, in attacks in Ramadi and the northern city of Mosul. The spate of 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 Ameri-
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
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Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily
This photo released by an official website of the Iranian supreme leader’s office shows Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sitting under a portrait of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Monday, July 20, 2009. Iranian hardliners denounced on Tuesday a call by reformists for a referendum to resolve the deepening political crisis in the Islamic republic, branding it a Western plot to cause more “havoc.”
Agence France - Presse
SHANGHAI – Heavy clouds and rain are likely to ruin the party for millions of people hoping to watch Wednesday’s solar eclipse in Shanghai and other parts of eastern China, meteorologists said. The Shanghai Meteorological Bureau has predicted thunderstorms for when the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century starts at 8:30 am (0030 GMT), according to a forecast released Tuesday evening. “It will be almost impossible to see the eclipse in Shanghai,” Li Jinyu, the bureau’s chief service operator, was quoted as telling the Shanghai Daily. Even if there is no rain, the heavy clouds will block the view,” he said. However people will still experience the sky changing from bright to dark, the report said. Eastern China has been regarded as one of the best places in the world to view the total eclipse, which is expected to last about six minutes and reach its midpoint around 9:30 am. The event is being described as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which, due to its trajectory over China and India, could end up being the most watched eclipse in history. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon is caught between the sun and
the earth while each of them moves along their fixed orbits. “This is a very important milestone. None of us will live long enough to see another one like it,” said Federico Borgmeyer, the German-based manager of the specialist travel agency Eclipse City, who is in Shanghai for the event. The travel agency said it would proceed with plans to take eclipse chasers to Shanghai’s Yangshan island to experience the event despite the forecast. Museums, observatories and specialty stores were sold out of solar eclipse glasses to protect eyes from the intense light, the Shanghai Daily reported. The phenomenon has sparked a mini-tourism boom for Shanghai and other parts of eastern China, such as his-
toric Hangzhou city. Thousands of tourists from around the world have already descended on Shanghai, with hotels and restaurants in marquee locations such as the Bund being quickly booked out. Hyatt on the Bund said its eclipse breakfast event remained fully booked and the weather concerns had not led to any cancellations. “People are just looking for a reason to get together,” hotel spokeswoman Meg Zhang said. “You can tell your boss: ‘It’s only once in 300 years’.” The next total solar eclipse will be on July 11, 2010 but far fewer people are likely to see it as it tracks across the South Pacific over French Polynesia and Easter Island to the southern tip of South America.
WASHINGTON – The best time to learn a foreign language: Between birth and age 7. Missed that window? New research is showing just how children’s brains can become bilingual so easily, findings that scientists hope eventually could help the rest of us learn a new language a bit easier. “We think the magic that kids apply to this learning situation, some of the principles, can be imported into learning programs for adults,” says Dr. Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington, who is part of an international team now trying to turn those lessons into more teachable technology. Each language uses a unique set of sounds. Scientists now know babies are born with the ability to distinguish all of them, but that ability starts weakening even before they start talking, by the first birthday. Kuhl offers an example: Japanese doesn’t distinguish between the “L” and “R” sounds of English — “rake” and “lake” would sound the same. Her team proved that a 7-month-old in Tokyo and a 7-month-old in Seattle respond equally well to those different sounds. But by 11 months, the Japanese infant had lost a lot of that ability. Time out — how do you test a baby? By tracking eye gaze. Make a fun toy appear on one side or the other whenever there’s a particular sound. The baby quickly learns to look on that side whenever he or she hears a brand-new but similar sound. Noninvasive brain scans document how the brain is processing and imprinting language. Mastering your dominant language gets in the way of learning a second, less familiar one, Kuhl’s research suggests. The brain tunes out sounds that don’t fit. “You’re building a brain architecture that’s a perfect fit for Japanese or English or French,” whatever is native, Kuhl explains — or, if you’re a lucky baby, a brain with two sets of neural circuits dedicated to two languages. It’s remarkable that babies being raised bilingual — by simply speaking to them in two languages — can learn both in the time it takes most babies to learn one. On average, monolingual and bilingual babies start talking around age 1 and can say about 50 words by 18 months. Italian researchers wondered why there wasn’t a delay, and reported this month in the journal Sci-
ence that being bilingual seems to make the brain more flexible. The researchers tested 44 12-month-olds to see how they recognized threesyllable patterns — nonsense words, just to test sound learning. Sure enough, gaze-tracking showed the bilingual babies learned two kinds of patterns at the same time — like lo-ba-lo or lo-lo-ba — while the one-language babies learned only one, concluded Agnes Melinda Kovacs of Italy’s International School for Advanced Studies. While new language learning is easiest by age 7, the ability markedly declines after puberty. “We’re seeing the brain as more plastic and ready to create new circuits before than after puberty,” Kuhl says. As an adult, “it’s a totally different process. You won’t learn it in the same way. You won’t become (as good as) a native speaker.” Yet a soon-to-be-released survey from the Center for Applied Linguistics, a nonprofit organization that researches language issues, shows U.S. elementary schools cut back on foreign language instruction over the last decade. About a quarter of public elementary schools were teaching foreign languages in 1997, but just 15 percent last year, say preliminary results posted on the center’s Web site. What might help people who missed their childhood window? Baby brains need personal interaction to soak in a new language — TV or CDs alone don’t work. So researchers are improving the technology that adults tend to use for language learning, to make it more social and possibly tap brain circuitry that tots would use. Recall that Japanese “L” and “R” difficulty? Kuhl and scientists at Tokyo Denki University and the University of Minnesota helped develop a computer language program that pictures people speaking in “motherese,” the slow exaggeration of sounds that parents use with babies. Japanese college students who’d had little exposure to spoken English underwent 12 sessions listening to exaggerated “Ls” and “Rs” while watching the computerized instructor’s face pronounce English words. Brain scans — a hair dryerlooking device called MEG, for magnetoencephalography — that measure millisecond-by-millisecond activity showed the students could better distinguish between those alien English sounds. And they pronounced them better, too, the team reported in the journal NeuroImage.
Huge Fossilized Dung Reveals a Hidden Ancient Ecosystem
Five killed in Iraq bomb attacks Agence France-Presse
Life Style
International
can forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011. Violence had 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.
The world might be knee-deep in cow patties and other animal waste today were it not for dung beetles. Dung beetles roll the waste of large animals into tiny balls that they bury underground to snack on later. Burying the dung fertilizes the soil and reduces disease, but the benefits don’t stop there. A new study of 30 million-year-
old fossilized mega-dung balls, as big as three inches (seven centimeters) in diameter and produced from the dung of extinct giant South American mammals, reveals that the dung was also a food source for a number of insects that would steal a bite while the dung beetles weren’t looking. “Traces [in the fossilized dung] record the behavior of animals ac-
tively stealing the food resources set aside by the dung beetles,” said Victoria Sanchez, a graduate student at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires and a co-author on the study. “The shapes and sizes of these fossilized burrows and borings in the dung balls indicate that other beetles, flies and earthworms were the culprits. Although none of these
animals are preserved in these rocks, the fossil dung balls preserve in amazing detail a whole dung-based ecosystem.” About 30 million years ago, South America was home to giant extinct herbivores that produced mega-sized dung. Paleontologists have dug up evidence of bone-covered armadillos the size of small cars, ground sloths
nearly 20 feet tall (6 meters tall) and elephant-sized hoofed mammals. Although the dung beetles themselves did not fossilize, the results of their work are preserved as fossil dung balls, some more than 40 million years old and as large as tennis balls, the researchers said. The study is detailed in the July issue of the journal Palaeontology.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Entertainment
International
News
International
Sony bids $50 million for Jackson rehearsal film
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Supporters of Manchester United wave before the start of a friendly match between Manchester United and Malaysia XI at Bukit Jalil National Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Monday, July 20, 2009. Police have detained a Malaysian woman who allegedly stabbed her husband in the chest for coming home late after watching a soccer match between Manchester United and Malaysia.
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES – Sony Corp.’s movie studio has bid $50 million to acquire the worldwide distribution rights to a film based on rehearsal footage for Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” comeback concert series, according to a person familiar with the bid. The person said Monday that the bid came after several studios, including Paramount, Universal and 20th Century Fox, were shown footage starting early last week. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the bidding had not been completed. None of the studios would comment on the record.
Michael Jackson
The winning studio would produce the film with Jackson’s concert promoter, AEG Live, and his estate. It would go a long way to helping AEG Live recoup some of the $30 million to $32 million it spent producing the concert before Jackson died June 25. The bidding was reported earlier by the Los Angeles Times and industry blogger Nikki Finke. Sony Pictures has a leg up on other bidders because Sony Music distributes Jackson’s music and is in a 5050 partnership with his estate in Sony/ ATV Music Publishing. Sony’s bid is on par with the cost of making a midrange budget movie, and is offset by the fact that the Sony group of companies would benefit from the music licensing rights attached to the film. There is also massive interest in
Jackson material worldwide. An estimated 31 million viewers in the U.S. alone watched the Jackson memorial service live earlier this month, according to Nielsen Media Research. That’s just shy of the 33 million U.S. viewers who watched Princess Diana’s funeral. “This type of a story, if put together right, could be very compelling and draw a very, very wide audience,” said Mark Fleischer, an entertainment attorney with Venable LLP and former executive at MGM Studios. The estate and AEG Live are also negotiating with several television networks and pay-per-view outlets on a TV special that would be a stage show featuring Jackson’s music and dancing. It would be directed by “This Is It” director Kenny Ortega.
The selling price being discussed for the rights to show the TV special is also in the tens of millions of dollars. General Electric Co.’s NBC has been in talks on the TV show, but the concept, air date and cost for the rights has not been finalized, said NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks. “We have no deal for the rights to the Michael Jackson special,” Marks said. The special administrators of Jackson’s estate, attorney John Branca and former music executive John McClain, have been moving quickly to secure Jackson’s assets and cut deals to capitalize on the surge in interest in the pop star since he died. Last week, Branca and McClain received signed court papers authorizing them to act on his estate’s behalf until another hearing Aug. 3.
Gerard Butler Represents Apologetic Chris Brown Asks For Fans’ Forgiveness Men In ‘The Ugly Truth’ Who better to represent men in the chick flick genre than the badass of 300, Gerard Butler? In The Ugly Truth, he plays a relationship guru forcing women to face the harsh realities of how men think. Butler keeps speaking on his gender’s behalf as he does press for the romantic comedy. “I think this is the first movie that really brings it up and strikes to the heart if it, how guys really think,” Butler said. “I swear, I know I’m going out on a limb here and ending my career, but it’s almost impossible for a guy to go, ‘You know what? There are times when I just turn around and look at an ass.’ We do that stuff. Now, we are much more complicated that than as well, and at the end of the day that’s what is beautiful and where the redemption is in the movie.” “ We all, at the end of the day, through our games and our weaknesses and our flaws, are after the same thing. We all want a partner, we all want companionship and we’re all beautiful and we’re all over the place. It comes together really well.” The battle of the sexes has been fodGerard der for rom-coms throughout the ages. Butler Butler expects this one to be more controversial. “I think that the battle of the sexes is the battle of the audiences in this movie. It’s so great because it really expounds both values. I think when this stuff is thrown out there it’s so shocking and unexpected. The guys are like, ‘Oh, thank God somebody said that.’ And the women are like ‘You know what? I knew it! I bloody well knew it!’ That’s why it’s a huge relief that this stuff is put out there. But it’s great the way we play with it here.” Perhaps women should be taking notes too. For example, when Butler’s character teaches a woman (Katherine Heigl) to play it cool and keep her dreamboat waiting, it does actually make him more interested. “Listen, this is why it’s called The Ugly Truth. There is an element of truth in that the second that you think the girl is maybe not quite as keen, there is a little more ‘Okay…’ Sometimes when its there right in front of you it’s not as interesting. Is that right?”
Chris Brown has begged for his fans’ forgiveness in a video apology in which he expresses his “deepest regret” for the February fight with exgirlfriend Rihanna. Brown pleaded guilty to hitting Rihanna in June and was sentenced to five years supervised probation and community service. He was also ordered to stay away from the “Umbrella” hitmaker. The fallen “Kiss Kiss” star has remained tight-lipped about the widelyreported February 8 incident since his arrest, but now he’s addressed his conviction in a video to his fans, which has been posted on TMZ.com. In the two minute tape, he says, “Hi, I’m Chris Brown. Since February my attorney has advised me not to speak out, even though ever since the incident I wanted to publicly express my deep-
est regret and accept full responsibility. Although I will do some interviews and answer questions in the future, I felt it was time that you heard directly from me that I’m sorry.” Brown admits he is “very ashamed” of his “inexcusable” actions and wishes he could go back in time to correct his mistakes: “I have tried to live my life in a way that would make those around me proud of me, and until recently I think I was doing a pretty good job. “I wish I had the chance to live those few moments again but unfortunately I can’t. I can’t go into what happened but most important (sic) I’m not gonna sit here and make any excuses. I take great pride in being able to exercise self control but what I did was inexcusable.
Valerie Bertinelli
Associated Press Writer
KUALA LUMPUR - Police have detained a Malaysian woman who allegedly stabbed her husband in the chest for coming home late after watching a soccer match between Manchester United and Malaysia. The man had promised to come back immediately after the match
in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday evening, but his wife was “very an-
gry” when he returned after midnight, district police Chief Abdul
Jalil Hassan said Tuesday. The woman stabbed him twice in the chest with a kitchen knife and then took him to a hospital, where a doctor reported the incident to police, Abdul Jalil told The Associated Press.
think I’m so high and excited and full of pride... that I probably won’t feel it for a couple days. I am in amazement. I can’t believe what a body can do if you believe in it.” Bertinelli’s trainer, Christopher Lane, is now eager for her to achieve another personal best by next year. She adds, “My trainer thinks I’m going to do a (full) marathon before I’m 50. I have till April. I’m not committing yet! I haven’t wrapped my head around it. We’re negotiating.”
“He was with friends after the match, so that’s why he came home late,” Abdul Jalil said. The man was recovering in the hospital and police have not decided whether to charge the woman with any offense.
Muslim woman to be flogged Ohio to execute man in Malaysia over beer convicted in ’92 killing spree Associated Press Writer
Valerie Bertinelli: ‘I Can’t Believe I Did It!’ Actress Valerie Bertinelli is celebrating after competing in her first ever road race in California on Sunday. Eddie Van Halen’s ex-wife, who has dropped 49 pounds since 2007, has been training for the 13.1 mile Napa-to-Sonoma Wine Country Half-Marathon for months. And the star is overjoyed she managed to cross the finish line in two hours, 12 minutes and 19 seconds. Speaking after the race, Bertinelli told People.com, “I can’t believe I did it! My legs are killing me, but I
Wife stabs husband late home after Man U match AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin
Associated Press Writer
Chris Brown
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COLUMBUS, Ohio - With no legal challenges expected, Ohio prepared Tuesday to execute a man who took part in a 1992 Christmas holiday killing spree that left six people dead and two wounded. Attorneys for Marvallous Keene, 36, said they planned no late appeals for a series of slayings that included an 18-year-old mother gunned down at a pay phone. Keene regrets the crimes and doesn’t want to die but opted not to fight the death sentence, public defender Rachel Troutman said. Keene, who was convicted in five of the murders, was scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville one week after Ohio’s last execution. It would be the fastest turnaround since the state executed two inmates in six days in 2004. Gov. Ted Strickland denied clemency last week for Keene, who didn’t request it. At a June 17 clemency hearing, Keene directed his attorneys not to present evidence on his behalf, saying he didn’t want to cause additional pain to his family or to the victims’ families.
Keene and three accomplices went on a three-day murder and robbery rampage in Dayton that began on Christmas Eve 1992. Victims included Sarah Abraham, 38, a convenience store clerk shot in the head after handing over $30 from a cash register, and Marvin Washington and Wendy Cottrill, two teenage acquaintances who Keene feared would tell police about his crimes. His three accomplices are serving life sentences. Keene was examined Monday by the prison’s medical staff for suitable injection sites. No problems with his veins were reported, prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said. He also ordered a special meal for dinner that included a porterhouse steak, jumbo deep-fried shrimp and German chocolate cake. Keene was calm and quiet and spent the day watching television and writing a letter, Walburn said. Seven members of the victims’ families were expected to witness Tuesday’s execution. Keene’s two defense attorneys were to be his only witnesses. Defense attorneys said Keene, who was 19 at the time of the
slayings, was despondent over the death of his brother, who was shot and killed a year earlier. At his trial, Keene also told a three-judge panel that a falling-out with his father contributed to his troubled emotional state. Prosecutors described Keene as the ringleader of a group that called itself the Downtown Posse. The killings began with 34-year-old Joseph Wilkerson. Keene and his accomplices arrived at Wilkerson’s home under the pretext of wanting to participate in an orgy, prosecutors said. They tied Wilkerson to his bed and ransacked the house, and when Keene found a .32-caliber handgun in the garage, he returned to the bedroom and shot Wilkerson twice. Later Christmas Eve, Keene and accomplice DeMarcus Smith approached 18-year-old Danita Gullette at a pay phone, took her jacket and shoes and fatally shot the woman, prosecutors said. Gullette was the mother of a 2-year-old girl. Washington, 18, and Cottrill, 16, were acquaintances who sometimes stayed at Keene’s apartment and observed Keene returning with stolen items, prosecutors’ aid. They were shot and killed behind a gravel pit.
KUALA LUMPUR - An Islamic court in Malaysia has sentenced a Muslim woman to be flogged with a rattan cane for having a beer in a nightclub, a court official said Tuesday. It is rare for a woman in Malaysia to be sentenced to caning – a punishment usually reserved for men in various crimes ranging from rape to bribery. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was sentenced Monday to six lashes and a fine of 5,000 ringgit ($1,400) for consuming alcohol, said a Shariah High Court official who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to make public statements. Shukarno, a 32-year-old model, pleaded guilty in the court in eastern Pahang state to a charge of drinking beer when Islamic authorities raided a hotel nightclub in August 2008. Consuming alcohol is a religious offense in Malaysia only for Muslims, who make up nearly two-thirds of the population. Offenders are prosecuted in Shariah courts, which handle cases mainly related to family and moral issues for Muslims.
Most offenders are fined, but the law also provides for a three-year prison term and caning. Shukarno was the only Muslim caught in the raid at the Pahang nightclub. Malaysian clubs and lounges typically serve alcohol but are not legally required to check if customers are Muslim before serving them, so the hotel nightclub operators were not charged with any offense. Shukarno plans to appeal the sentence, the New Straits Times daily reported. The punishment “is aimed at making the accused repent and serves as a lesson to Muslims,” the newspaper quoted Judge Abdul Rahman Yunus as saying. The judge did not elaborate on why he imposed a relatively severe sentence, but local media noted that he had a history of being tough on alcohol offenders. Rattan canes used in the punishment are made from palm plants common in tropical parts of Asia. They have been used for decades for corporal punishments in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. The caning sentence is generally carried out by specially trained officials at prisons.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
News
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Six killed... From page 1 “The other bombers were killed by our security forces before they reached their target of entering government buildings and offices to kill innocent people,” the police chief added. The police chief said the bombers entered the city wearing burkas — the traditional all-covering veil worn by Afghan women. Two other bombers were killed in gunfire with police in Jalalabad as they tried to fight their way into the city airport, a base for Afghan and foreign troops, said provincial government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai. Jalalabad is the capital town of Nangarhar province which sees regular Taliban violence, as does Paktia. Abdulzai could not give more details but a doctor in Jalalabad’s hospital told AFP that one dead
policeman was brought in. Tuesday’s coordinated attacks came with violence surging in Afghanistan ahead of presidential and provincial elections next month. The Taliban-led insurgency is at its deadliest since the US-led invasion of 2001. A Taliban spokesman said the Islamist militia claimed responsibility for both attacks. The rising violence has forced the United States to dispatch an extra 21,000 soldiers in a bid to stabilise the country ahead of the August 20 elections, in which President Hamid Karzai is standing for re-election. The Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001 until they were ousted by the USled invasion, are fighting to regain control of the vast, predominantly rural country and oust foreign troops.
Indonesian police... AFP PHOTO/JIJI PRESS
A picture shows the aftermath of mudslides in Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, around 750kms (470 miles) west of Tokyo on July 21, 2009. Torrential rains sparked floods and landslides, leaving at least five people dead and five others missing in the western Japanese prefecture of Yamaguchi, officials and media reports said on July 21.
Five dead, five missing in Japan mudslides Agence France-Presse
TOKYO - Torrential rains sparked scores of floods and landslides in western Japan on Tuesday, leaving at least five people dead and five more missing, officials and media reports said. A nursing home for the elderly was crushed by a large landslide in Hofu city, Yamaguchi prefecture, some 750 kilometres (470 miles) west of Tokyo, prompting the military to send in a rescue unit, the municipal office said. Three people died at the nursing home while two others were killed either in a landslide or drowned in a swollen river, Jiji Press said.
About 80 people were waiting for hours to be rescued at the nursing home, many of them on its roof. The city office could not immediately confirm the number of dead and missing when contacted by AFP. “The mountain behind the nursing home collapsed at about 1:30 pm and water gushed down in a mixture of red soil, mud and small rocks,” Jyunko Sasaki, a housewife
who lives near the facility, told Fuji television network. The city said there were 29 landslides and that rivers and canals flooded at 46 points. At least three cars were buried in mud and rocks, the city said. A flash flood swept a team of firefighters off their feet, although only one was injured, suffering a broken finger, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
Tourists banned as Philippine volcano shakes Agence France-Presse
MANILA - Tourists were ordered off an island volcano near the Philippine capital on Tuesday after seismologists detected ground shaking that they said could presage a minor eruption. “Significant volcanic and seismic events have been detected over the past months” and the main crater
of Taal “remains off limits to the public because steam explosions may suddenly occur or high concentrations of toxic gases may accumulate,” an official advisory said. The tiny crater island is surrounded by a lake that formed from a past eruption. Scores of visitors cross the lake by boat every day before making a short day hike to the 311-
metre (1,020-foot) high crater lip. Taal is one of the country’s 22 active volcanoes with 33 known eruptions in recorded history. Two weeks ago seismologists raised the second of a multi-stage volcano alert over Mount Mayon on the southern tip of the main island of Luzon following increased seismic activity.
From page 1 More than 50 people were wounded in the attacks, the worst in Indonesia since 2005. Police have not confirmed widespread reports in the Indonesian media that a graduate of the Ngruki school — most commonly identified as Nur Hasbi, alias Nurdin Aziz or Nur Sahid — was the Marriott bomber. Ibrahim said a former student called Nur Said had attended the school and graduated in 1994 along with Asmar Latin Sani, the suicide bomber who detonated a truck bomb outside the Marriott in 2003, killing 12 people. “He was just like normal students, nothing extraordinary about him. He graduated in 1994 with Asmar,” Ibrahim said of Nur Said. Police and senior counter-terror officials have said the bombings look like the work of Noordin Mohammed Top, one of Asia’s most wanted terrorists and the leader of an extreme offshoot of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network. Malaysia’s Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that based on police intelligence, the Malaysian-born militant was not in Malaysia, the Star daily said on its website. The Ngruki school was cofounded by Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah which is blamed for dozens of bombings across Indonesia since the late 1990s, including the 2002 Bali blasts which killed 202 people. The Islamic teacher denied the school was a hatchery for suicide bombers, although it is wellknown that several of its graduates have become Jemaah Islamiyah members and helped carry out terror attacks. “The Ngruki school is an educational institute. We have nothing to do with terrorism and I re-
fute reports saying that,” Ibrahim said. Local media have reported that police had collected DNA samples from Nur Said’s family as they try to identify the bombers using remains including a severed head, but this has not been confirmed. “We are still investigating,” deputy police spokesman Sulistyo Ishak told reporters Monday. Police also have not confirmed that the bomber was a man wearing a backpack on his chest and dragging a suitcase who was caught by security cameras entering the Marriott’s dining area shortly before the blast. A security guard reportedly asked him where he was going and the man, who looked Indonesian, replied that he was going to give something to his boss. New footage from the Marriott which was aired on local television Tuesday appeared to show the same man, wearing a suit coat and baseball cap, passing through the hotel’s airport-style security checks with his suitcase. The Marriott has defended its security measures as “very tight”. Police said an unexploded bomb left in a guest room of the Marriott resembled devices used in the 2002 Bali bombings and one discovered in a recent raid on a reported Noordin hideout in Central Java. A police crackdown — including key arrests and the inducement of militants to defect — has hobbled JI in Indonesia and severed its links to foreign funds in recent years. But while the network is diminished, analysts say JI has been able to fall back on a tight network of schools and marriages to maintain cohesion and possibly rebuild.
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BUSINESS Worst is behind us,’ says Australian treasurer Agence France Presse
MELBOURNE – Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan Tuesday said the worst of the global recession may be over as he welcomed a new report which predicted a rebound in the country’s growth next year. Swan said the government’s stimulus efforts had helped protect Australia from the downturn but warned of rising unemployment as “global headwinds” buffet the domestic economy. “It may well be that globally the worst is behind us,” Swan told public broadcaster ABC. “But there are still very substantial global headwinds affecting economies around the world and also affecting the Australian economy in particular. “We will see that in the dramatic drop in business investment, we’ll see that in the dramatic drop in the terms of trade. Those factors will push up unemployment locally.” Independent think-tank Access Economics said Australia would register growth of 0.4 percent in the year to July 2010, while the government projection shows a 0.5 percent contraction. Australia has so far avoided a technical recession, as defined by two successive quarters of negative growth, posting the strongest figures of any advanced economy during the downturn.
AFP/File/Antonio Scorza
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan has said the worst of the global recession may be over as he welcomed a new report which predicted a rebound in the country’s growth next year. Swan attributed the economy’s resilience to government stimulus packages totalling more than 50 billion dollars (40.8 billion US) handed out since late last year. “That’s why economic stimulus is important, to support employment and support business,” he said. Access said unemployment was likely to peak at 7.5 percent in 2010, up significantly on the current 5.8 percent but a full point down on the official forecast of 8.5 percent. It also stressed the importance of China to Australia, saying the Asian giant’s earlier-than-expected recovery had helped lift the outlook since the government’s last official forecasts in May.
Resource-rich Australia enjoyed a boom period of uninterrupted growth until this year as Chinese demand for its raw materials brought in a stream of export revenue. But Swan said he was not relying on China’s turnaround because it was too early to know whether it was sustainable. “Certainly the recent patterns (in China) have surprised on the upside and we certainly can’t count on that as we go forward and we haven’t been counting on that,” he said. China posted growth of 7.9 percent in the second quarter, bouncing back from 6.1 percent in the three months to March after Beijing unveiled a massive 580-billion-dollar stimulus package.
Bernanke preps for hot seat on bailouts, recovery Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke likely will face tough questions this week from lawmakers about taxpayer bailouts of financial companies, slow-moving government efforts to curb home foreclosures and the possibility that the Fed’s unprecedented steps to stimulate the economy could spur inflation later on. The Fed chief is scheduled to deliver a fresh report on the country’s economic and financial health in back-toback sessions on Capitol Hill starting Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. EDT with the House Financial Services Committee. Skeptical lawmakers also are expected to voice concern about an Obama administration proposal that would expand the Fed’s oversight duties over big, globally interconnected financial companies whose failure could imperil the national economy. Bernanke on Tuesday likely will repeat the central bank’s belief that the economy will start growing again sometime in the second half of this year helped by record low interest rates and President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package of tax cuts and increased government spending. Consumer spending appears to have stabilized, new-home sales are flattening out and declines in capital spending do not look as severe as they had at the beginning of the year, the Fed said last week. “Bernanke’s message: guardedly optimistic. We are seeing signs of the economy’s impending turnaround. But it is all pretty much impending still,” said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services. Steering the economy from reces-
sion to recovery will be a delicate move for Bernanke — both economically and politically. The economy sank at an average annual rate of 5.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year, the weakest performance in 50 years. Many analysts believe the economy didn’t shrink nearly as much in the AprilJune quarter. (The government releases results for the second quarter at the end of July.) Many believe the economy could start growing again as early as the current quarter, although the pace of the recovery is likely to be plodding, the Fed said last week. Because of that, the nation’s unemployment rate — now at a 26-year high of 9.5 percent — will keep climbing. Companies won’t be in any mood to ramp up hiring until they feel secure that the recovery has staying power. By the Fed’s own forecasts, the jobless rate could rise as high as 10.1 percent this year. Some Fed officials think it could hit 10.5 percent this year, and 10.6 percent in 2010. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982, when the country had suffered through a severe recession. Rising unemployment is making it harder for people to pay their monthly mortgage bills. The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes soared by nearly 15 percent in the first half of the year, according to RealtyTrac Inc. Experts expect foreclosures will peak in the middle of next year before heading downward. Housing, credit and financial debacles created a perfect storm for the economy at levels not seen since the Great Depression. Those negative forces plunged the economy into the longest recession since World War II.
Deutsche Bank managers leave amid spy probe: source Agence France Presse
FRANKFURT – Two managers at the biggest German bank, Deutsche Bank, have left amid a probe into alleged spying, a financial source told AFP on Tuesday. The head of security for the bank and its head of investor relations “have left the company,” the source said. Deutsche Bank declined to comment when contacted by AFP, saying that it was waiting for the results of an internal probe launched in May by an in-
dependent company. A spokesman did confirm however that prosecutors in Frankfurt, where the bank is based, were studying information provided by the public authority charged with the protection of personal data, based in nearby Darmstadt. That group has requested more information from Deutsche Bank on two cases and said it has passed some along to judicial officials. According to the business daily Handelsblatt, those cases concern alleged spying on supervisory board member Hermann-Josef Lamberti and outspoken share-
holder Michael Bohndorf. Prosecutors can take two to three weeks before deciding whether to launch a formal investigation that could then lead to legal proceedings. For the time being, Deutsche Bank has only acknowledged one case of spying on a union leader who was a former member of its supervisory board. Germany has been hit by several cases of corporate spying, at the telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom, the national railway Deutsche Bahn and the discount retail chain Lidl.
AFP/File/Marwan Ibrahim
Flared gas burns at the Kirkuk oil field, Iraq. Oil prices were flat on Tuesday when traders turned cautious ahead of key testimony from US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke, analysts said.
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Business
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Swedish truck maker Volvo logs record loss Agence France Presse
STOCKHOLM – Swedish truck maker Volvo Group posted its biggest-ever quarterly loss on Tuesday as write-offs amounting to more than three billion kronor dented profitability.
AFP/File/Olivier Morin
Swedish truck maker Volvo Group posted its biggest-ever quarterly loss on Tuesday as write-offs amounting to more than three billion kronor dented profitability.
The world’s second-biggest truck maker said it made a net loss of 5.57 billion kronor (722 million dollars, 507 million euros) in the period from April to June, down from a net profit of 5.15 billion kronor the same time a year ago. Credit losses, personnel cutbacks and the costs of a deal struck with the United Auto Workers Union over healthcare, deepened its losses by 3.2 billion kronor, Volvo said in a statement. The agreement with the US union representing auto workers absolves Volvo’s Mack brand of responsibility for healthcare benefits for retired employees. Volvo chief executive Leif Johansson said the company
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was also hit by weakening demand for its heavy goods and buses. “The second quarter of 2009 remained difficult in terms of earnings in the wake of the exceptionally rapid decline in demand that followed the crisis in the financial system,” Johansson said in the earnings statement. He said that the truck market “remains weak” in Volvo’s key markets of Europe, North America and Japan and reiterated the company’s industry forecast for the rest of the year. “We maintain our assessment that the total European market for heavy trucks will be at least halved in 2009 compared with 2008 and that the North American will decline by 30
percent to 40 percent,” he said in the statement. Volvo’s net sales fell by a third in the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier. The Swedish group?s net sales fell by 32.7 percent to 53.9 million kronor (about five million euros, seven million dollars) in the April to June period. Adjusted for currency changes and other factors, the decline was 45 percent. Evli Bank analyst Michael Andersson told Dow Jones Newswires that there were some positives in Volvo Group’s secondquarter performance, pointing to an increased cash flow in the company’s industrial operations, which includes its truck and bus divisions. “The worst bleeding has been stopped, that’s clear. I wouldn’t be surprised if the market reacts positively,” Andersson was quoted as saying.
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TIMIKA - Fourteen people have been arrested over a series of deadly ambushes near a giant Freeport gold and copper mine in Indonesia’s Papua province, police said Tuesday. Six of them were being investigated over ambushes earlier this month which killed an Australian mine technician Drew Grant, 29, and two Indonesians, provincial police chief Bagus Ekodanto told AFP. “We are investigating them on their involvement in any of the shootings,” he added. Eight other detainees included the alleged gunman who opened fire on the security convoy on July 12, killing a Freeport security guard, Ekodanto said earlier. A policeman who escaped the ambush was found dead in a ravine the following day. “We arrested eight people... one carried out the shooting and the other carried ammunition,” he added. “We are still investigating the other six.” Police have also retrieved hundreds of bullets, which were made for rifles and revolvers, from the scene. Ekodanto refused to name the suspects or say whether they belonged to the separatist Free Papua
Movement. The attack was one of several military-style ambushes on Freeport and police vehicles on the road between Timika town and the Grasberg mine which killed three people earlier this month. A day earlier gunmen had ambushed a Freeport vehicle on the same road, killing an Australian project manager at Grasberg, which is owned by the local subsidiary of US company Freeport McMoRan. Ekodanto said police were not “yet” linking the two attacks on July 11 and 12, although they took place within a short distance from each other on the same road leading to the mine. Military chief General Djoko Santoso has blamed separatist rebels for all of the attacks, but police have said there is no indication that is the case. Senior officials have said ex-soldiers or police could have been involved as part of a dispute over control of access to lucrative illegal mining operations using tailings from Grasberg.
AFP PHOTO/TJAHYO ERANIUS
Indonesian police continue searching for the perpetrators behind the July 11 ambush in Timika on July 20, 2009. Foreign countries could be behind a series of deadly ambushes near a US-owned goldmine in Indonesia’s remote Papua province that have killed three people, the defence minister said on July 16. The attacks by unidentified gunmen near Freeport McMoRan’s massive Grasberg gold and copper mine could be an effort by foreign competitors to close the mine down, Juwono Sudarsono told reporters.
Indonesia criticizes military-ruled Myanmar
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Fourteen arrested over Indonesian Papua attack: police
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
PHUKET - Indonesia, which has been pushing Southeast Asian nations for tougher action against human rights violators, said Tuesday that 2010 elections in military-ruled Myanmar would not be free and fair if democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi remained in detention. “We have been saying to them (Myanmar) directly that the process must be inclusive for all groups in society ... including Aung San Suu Kyi,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda told The Associated Press on the sidelines of a regional conference on this resort island. While still espousing its core doctrine of noninterference in the affairs of its members, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, has voiced sharp criticism of Myanmar and acknowledged it remains a burden and roadblock to its progress. “We should see whether from now until 2010 they develop a credible process leading to truly democratic elections acceptable to the international community,” Wirayuda said, noting Myanmar’s ruling junta changes “too slowly, and often a little change at a time.”
AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong
Hassan Wirajuda
He said the “big test” will be whether the regime’s promised elections next year are truly “multiparty, meaning inclusive in nature, but also whether the process is a democratic one.” Wirayuda said ASEAN has been “able to develop a more open, frank discussion with Myanmar.” But he acknowledged it is hard to determine whether that cooperation will make a difference inside the country. The Phuket meeting takes place amid international outrage over the trial of Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who faces up to five years in prison on charges of violating terms of her house arrest by allow-
ing an uninvited American to stay at her home. Myanmar’s dismal human rights record will certainly be stressed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who arrived in Thailand on Tuesday and is to take part Wednesday in the ASEAN Regional Forum - an annual gathering of 27 Asian, U.S., and European ministers to discuss key security issues. Clinton, who arrived from India, was to meet with Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in Bangkok. On Monday, the ASEAN foreign ministers approved the formation of a landmark human rights commission. But the new body cannot monitor or punish member nations such as Myanmar, also known as Burma – a weakness that prompted sharp criticism from activists and disappointment from some ASEAN members. “We deeply regret that our ministers finally adopted mechanisms that have less than minimal credibility in terms of protection. We are not living 40, 50 years ago,” said Rafendi Djamin of Solidarity for Asia Peoples’ Advocacy Task-Force on ASEAN and Human Rights, an umbrella group for some 60 non-governmental organizations.
Indonesia has fastest HIV transmission rate in Asia Antara
Bandung - The low knowledge of the public on the spread and prevention of Human Immuno Deficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), made Indonesia the country in Asia where HIV/ AIDS is transmitted most rapidly. Yudhi F Oktaviadhi, writer of “Syair Untuk Sahabat” (Poetry for a Friend) made the statement in the launching of the book, and an AIDS compaign at the Foreign Languages High School (STBA) Yapari ABA by the end of the week. She said that posters and advertisements on public service on HIV appeared to be ineffective in providing the general public with what they should know about the fatal disease. Many even misunderstood, especially youngsters, the message
which the posters on AIDS tried to convey. Realizing the minimum information on AIDS which can be obtained, Yudhi who is also a reporter of the Bola tabloid, tried to take part by writing the “Syair Untuk Sahabat”, which mainly contains true stories on the life of people with HIV/AIDS which she had collected since 2003. Actually, many books were already written on the subject, but since they had been written in a too technically way, her book had been written in a very popular manner easy to understand by lay people. It is the virus which actually needs to be avoided, not the carrier, there is no problem in shaking hands with or touching such a person, she said, adding that it is tragic indeed if such person is isolated by his or her family, or avoided even by a hospital..
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International
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Bali Today Officers tightly guarded Bali’s entrances Antara
Denpasar – The police tightly guarded the Gilimanuk harbor in western Bali in order to anticipate any security disturbances. The officers always inspected and searched people and vehicles entering Bali. The police officers checked the luggage and identity of the passengers arriving in the harbor from Java. Gde Sugianyar, the head of Public Relation division in Bali Police Department, said that the identity check was done in order to decrease the number of unauthorized people entering Bali. The police officers were assisted by the officers from the Residential Department. If someone was caught without identification in Gilimanuk harbor, then he or she will be sent back to Java through Ketapang harbor. Mr. Sugianyar said that the operation started after the bomb explosion in Jakarta on July 17th 2009 and several people had been sent back since. In addition to Gilimanuk harbor, other entrances to Bali also tightly guarded by the police, they are
Ngurah Rai Airport, Padangbai harbor in Karangasem regency, Benoa harbor in Denpasar, and Celukanbawang in Buleleng regency. The Car Brigade and anti-terror squad are also on guard in the areas in order to anticipate any terror that may happen in the island. Bali was hit by two bomb blast which killed many people. The first one was on October 12th 2002 which killed 202 victims and injured hundreds other. The second one was on October 1st 2005 that killed 23 people and injured a hundred people.
The police inspect a car in Gilimanuk harbor. The police tightly guarded the Gilimanuk harbor in western Bali in order to anticipate any security disturbances.
BP/doc
Hotel’s occupancy rate still normal Bali gained $148 million Antara
DENPASAR - Djinaldi Gosana, the Executive Director Bali Hotels Association (BHA), said that the hotel occupancy rate and the tourist visitation were still normal after the bomb blast in Jakarta. “Currently, we didn’t receive any report of cancellation made by the tourists who wanted to visit Bali,” he added. The number of occupancy rate for four and five star hotels in Bali is
up to 60% while the number is even higher for lower star hotels. The association worked hard in increasing the trust of the tourists to visit Bali. BHA constantly promotes and gives information the countries abroad especially to those that sent the most tourists to Bali. Mr. Djinaldi said “we will give the proper information regarding the present condition of Bali including the efforts done by the government to ensure the security of the tourists. This is very important to convince the people who wanted
to visit Bali.” There is great hope that the hotels and restaurants also take part in maintaining the security of the island. The must increase the inspection of the visitors and always alert for any security disturbances. They also must promote their tourism packages in order to attract more tourists. “Every national and international event must be promoted in order to increase the trust of the tourist,” said Mr. Djinaldi.
BP/doc
Tourists relax in the pool of a hotel. The hotel occupancy rate and the tourist visitation were still normal after the bomb blast in Jakarta.
from exports
Antara
DENPASAR – Bali gained $148 million from exports during January through April 2009 period. Wayan Kusumawathi, the head of Foreign Trade division in Bali Trade and Industry Department, said the total income from exports in the first four months of 2009 was $148 million while the imports were only $302,325. The imports were mostly the materials for small industries and handicrafts. The end product of the small industries and handicraft will be exported abroad. The highest Bali’s import happened in 2004 which was $89 million. The number decreased 40% in the next year and became $53 million in the following year. In 2006, the number of imports was only $4 million. The deceased was mostly because the bomb blast that affected the economy in Bali. In the last five years, Bali’s imports decrease 35%. Many factors affected Bali’s imports. There is a possibility that the local businessmen are able to make their own raw ma-
terials or they use the local materials. They choose local materials because the material from abroad is very expensive. While Bali’s handicraft exports were not affected by the bomb blast in Jakarta on July 17th 2009. Dewa Anom, a handicraft businessman, said that all businessmen in Bali should not worry about the effect of bomb blast because most of the people abroad didn’t too concern about the incidents. The people abroad who wanted to order Bali’s handicraft don’t have to come to Bali because the can order the items through internet. They can order based on the kinds, shapes and prices that they want. Mr. Anom said that the customer can also give their own design for the handicraft. There is great hope that more order will come during the end of the year because many important holidays are coming such as Christmas and New Year. Dew Ratna, another businesswoman, said that Bali’s exports had decreased in the past few years. The exports were affected by the financial crisis that happened throughout the world.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Balinese Culture A Hidden Treasure of Children Heritage Today, children have unlimited choices of games. They have been pampered by modern games, ranging from Turtle Ninja, Kung Fu, war games and many more. These can make them stay for hours in front of television or computer. Yet, behind this ease and enjoyment, they lose some values like creativity and do not know they have traditional games. It is said so because there is a trend where children, both in urban and rural areas, begin to leave their traditional games. Many game options have been available in the form of CD, DVD, Internet and cartoon in television. Just by CD rental or buying the cheapest one and sitting down sweetly, they could enjoy the games they like best. If the games contain competition, they will compete against machine or some times against friends. Without realized, this may result in sight disorder where children should gaze the monitor and finally require thick glasses at earlier age. Advancement is not always bad. However, parents should control them to what extent those games could drive good impact. Before the presence of these modern games, there were many traditional games. They are no less interesting than the modern ones. Many children even find it attractive and make them creative.
Art parade of Bali Arts Festival 2009 has shown the treasure of traditional games. This event is just like a kaleidoscope highlighting a variety of traditional games that ever existed within the life of Balinese children. To play one of the games, children should first search for its materials by themselves at backyard or garden. Actually, it is here where the challenge of the games begins. Sometimes, they got injury because they are unable to use a knife properly. It did not matter as intriguing power has superseded it. Among the parade, there was a space intended for children world where they displayed some bizarre games like coconut shell clog, walking on stilts, pulling friend by the sheath of areca nut, pulling rope ingroup and two-wheeled toy where its stick carried on shoulder. Meanwhile, the heavier one was gallivanting show by barong effigy. To play the coconut shell clog, for instance, they should keep their balance well. Standing on the tips of coconut shell is not easy. Moreover, they have to maintain the harmony of steps with the pulling of rope connected to each coconut shell. When the pull and steps can go harmoniously, the player can walk faster. Balance is also entailed in walking on stilts or tajog or egrang. This game is even riskier because the posi-
tion of pedal is higher from the ground. However, when a player can operate these stilts properly it is more challenging and pleasant. The higher the pedal the more challenging it is. Walking on stilts looks like a walking long-legged heron. It would be more interesting when passing through a muddy or kneedeep watery road. These games are often put into competition related to traditional sports. Another game requiring cooperation is pulling the sheath of areca nut. If the bean of areca nut is used by grandfathers or grandmothers for ingredient of chewing betel, the sheath of it is used by their grandchildren to make ‘a pulling vehicle’. Yellow leaf signifies it has been mature. It is time for children to take it. They just need to leave out the ribs of leaf. The main rib is not cut as it will be used to pull. One child serves as passenger while another as driver who pulls the sheath. This role is exchanged so both can have an opportunity to enjoy the ‘comfort’ of this vehicle game. Children also put an interest in dancing barong gallivanting show. For them, it has been designed a smaller-sized barong. Therefore, before growing adult they have been introduced to art world of adult people. By performing gallivanting show like this, they will obtain experience and earn money. However, the emphasis here is not on the money, but on the experience and fun. (BTN/punia)
SAUR
(Fried Shredded Coconut) INGREDIENTS: 1 cup finely grated fresh coconut, or desiccated coconut, moistened with warm water 2 tbsp spice paste for chicken 1½ tbsp oil 1 tbsp chopped palm sugar Pinch of salt PREPARATION: Combine coconut with spice paste. Heat oil in a wok or heavy sauce pan, add coconut mixture and palm sugar and sauté over low heat until the coconut turns golden brown. Allow to cool before adding salt. Stored in an airtight container it will keep fresh for several days
URUTAN CELENG (Fried Pork Sausages)
OVERVIEW: This is always found in stalls selling roasted whole pig. Be Celeng, better known to visitors to Bali by its Indonesian name, Babi Guling. Not one part of the pig is wasted, and even the skin is deep fried as a crisp garnish. In Bali, this sausage is usually hung in a tree to dry to keep it away from the dogs and chickens. INGREDIENTS: 600 gr (1¼ lb) boneless pork leg or shoulder, cut in 1 cm (1/2in) cubes ½ cup basic spice paste 1 tsp salt 1 tsp black peppercorns, crushed 2 tbsp tamarind pulp, seeds and fibres removed vegetable oil for frying 1 meter (3ft) pork intestine or sausage casings PREPARATION: Combine pork meat with basic spice paste, salt, pepper and tamarind paste. Mix well for 5 minutes. Tie one end of pork intestines with string. Insert large round nozzle into pastry piping bag and fill it with the meat mixture. Place open end of intestine over nozzle of piping bag and fill intestine tightly. Tie end with string. Dry sausage for 8 hours on wire rack in oven at very low heat. Deep fry in oil over medium heat until golden brown. This dish is traditionally served with lawar (Vegetable Salad made from green beans) or with young jackfruits.
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International
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Bali Today Officers tightly guarded Bali’s entrances Antara
Denpasar – The police tightly guarded the Gilimanuk harbor in western Bali in order to anticipate any security disturbances. The officers always inspected and searched people and vehicles entering Bali. The police officers checked the luggage and identity of the passengers arriving in the harbor from Java. Gde Sugianyar, the head of Public Relation division in Bali Police Department, said that the identity check was done in order to decrease the number of unauthorized people entering Bali. The police officers were assisted by the officers from the Residential Department. If someone was caught without identification in Gilimanuk harbor, then he or she will be sent back to Java through Ketapang harbor. Mr. Sugianyar said that the operation started after the bomb explosion in Jakarta on July 17th 2009 and several people had been sent back since. In addition to Gilimanuk harbor, other entrances to Bali also tightly guarded by the police, they are
Ngurah Rai Airport, Padangbai harbor in Karangasem regency, Benoa harbor in Denpasar, and Celukanbawang in Buleleng regency. The Car Brigade and anti-terror squad are also on guard in the areas in order to anticipate any terror that may happen in the island. Bali was hit by two bomb blast which killed many people. The first one was on October 12th 2002 which killed 202 victims and injured hundreds other. The second one was on October 1st 2005 that killed 23 people and injured a hundred people.
The police inspect a car in Gilimanuk harbor. The police tightly guarded the Gilimanuk harbor in western Bali in order to anticipate any security disturbances.
BP/doc
Hotel’s occupancy rate still normal Bali gained $148 million Antara
DENPASAR - Djinaldi Gosana, the Executive Director Bali Hotels Association (BHA), said that the hotel occupancy rate and the tourist visitation were still normal after the bomb blast in Jakarta. “Currently, we didn’t receive any report of cancellation made by the tourists who wanted to visit Bali,” he added. The number of occupancy rate for four and five star hotels in Bali is
up to 60% while the number is even higher for lower star hotels. The association worked hard in increasing the trust of the tourists to visit Bali. BHA constantly promotes and gives information the countries abroad especially to those that sent the most tourists to Bali. Mr. Djinaldi said “we will give the proper information regarding the present condition of Bali including the efforts done by the government to ensure the security of the tourists. This is very important to convince the people who wanted
to visit Bali.” There is great hope that the hotels and restaurants also take part in maintaining the security of the island. The must increase the inspection of the visitors and always alert for any security disturbances. They also must promote their tourism packages in order to attract more tourists. “Every national and international event must be promoted in order to increase the trust of the tourist,” said Mr. Djinaldi.
BP/doc
Tourists relax in the pool of a hotel. The hotel occupancy rate and the tourist visitation were still normal after the bomb blast in Jakarta.
from exports
Antara
DENPASAR – Bali gained $148 million from exports during January through April 2009 period. Wayan Kusumawathi, the head of Foreign Trade division in Bali Trade and Industry Department, said the total income from exports in the first four months of 2009 was $148 million while the imports were only $302,325. The imports were mostly the materials for small industries and handicrafts. The end product of the small industries and handicraft will be exported abroad. The highest Bali’s import happened in 2004 which was $89 million. The number decreased 40% in the next year and became $53 million in the following year. In 2006, the number of imports was only $4 million. The deceased was mostly because the bomb blast that affected the economy in Bali. In the last five years, Bali’s imports decrease 35%. Many factors affected Bali’s imports. There is a possibility that the local businessmen are able to make their own raw ma-
terials or they use the local materials. They choose local materials because the material from abroad is very expensive. While Bali’s handicraft exports were not affected by the bomb blast in Jakarta on July 17th 2009. Dewa Anom, a handicraft businessman, said that all businessmen in Bali should not worry about the effect of bomb blast because most of the people abroad didn’t too concern about the incidents. The people abroad who wanted to order Bali’s handicraft don’t have to come to Bali because the can order the items through internet. They can order based on the kinds, shapes and prices that they want. Mr. Anom said that the customer can also give their own design for the handicraft. There is great hope that more order will come during the end of the year because many important holidays are coming such as Christmas and New Year. Dew Ratna, another businesswoman, said that Bali’s exports had decreased in the past few years. The exports were affected by the financial crisis that happened throughout the world.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Balinese Culture A Hidden Treasure of Children Heritage Today, children have unlimited choices of games. They have been pampered by modern games, ranging from Turtle Ninja, Kung Fu, war games and many more. These can make them stay for hours in front of television or computer. Yet, behind this ease and enjoyment, they lose some values like creativity and do not know they have traditional games. It is said so because there is a trend where children, both in urban and rural areas, begin to leave their traditional games. Many game options have been available in the form of CD, DVD, Internet and cartoon in television. Just by CD rental or buying the cheapest one and sitting down sweetly, they could enjoy the games they like best. If the games contain competition, they will compete against machine or some times against friends. Without realized, this may result in sight disorder where children should gaze the monitor and finally require thick glasses at earlier age. Advancement is not always bad. However, parents should control them to what extent those games could drive good impact. Before the presence of these modern games, there were many traditional games. They are no less interesting than the modern ones. Many children even find it attractive and make them creative.
Art parade of Bali Arts Festival 2009 has shown the treasure of traditional games. This event is just like a kaleidoscope highlighting a variety of traditional games that ever existed within the life of Balinese children. To play one of the games, children should first search for its materials by themselves at backyard or garden. Actually, it is here where the challenge of the games begins. Sometimes, they got injury because they are unable to use a knife properly. It did not matter as intriguing power has superseded it. Among the parade, there was a space intended for children world where they displayed some bizarre games like coconut shell clog, walking on stilts, pulling friend by the sheath of areca nut, pulling rope ingroup and two-wheeled toy where its stick carried on shoulder. Meanwhile, the heavier one was gallivanting show by barong effigy. To play the coconut shell clog, for instance, they should keep their balance well. Standing on the tips of coconut shell is not easy. Moreover, they have to maintain the harmony of steps with the pulling of rope connected to each coconut shell. When the pull and steps can go harmoniously, the player can walk faster. Balance is also entailed in walking on stilts or tajog or egrang. This game is even riskier because the posi-
tion of pedal is higher from the ground. However, when a player can operate these stilts properly it is more challenging and pleasant. The higher the pedal the more challenging it is. Walking on stilts looks like a walking long-legged heron. It would be more interesting when passing through a muddy or kneedeep watery road. These games are often put into competition related to traditional sports. Another game requiring cooperation is pulling the sheath of areca nut. If the bean of areca nut is used by grandfathers or grandmothers for ingredient of chewing betel, the sheath of it is used by their grandchildren to make ‘a pulling vehicle’. Yellow leaf signifies it has been mature. It is time for children to take it. They just need to leave out the ribs of leaf. The main rib is not cut as it will be used to pull. One child serves as passenger while another as driver who pulls the sheath. This role is exchanged so both can have an opportunity to enjoy the ‘comfort’ of this vehicle game. Children also put an interest in dancing barong gallivanting show. For them, it has been designed a smaller-sized barong. Therefore, before growing adult they have been introduced to art world of adult people. By performing gallivanting show like this, they will obtain experience and earn money. However, the emphasis here is not on the money, but on the experience and fun. (BTN/punia)
SAUR
(Fried Shredded Coconut) INGREDIENTS: 1 cup finely grated fresh coconut, or desiccated coconut, moistened with warm water 2 tbsp spice paste for chicken 1½ tbsp oil 1 tbsp chopped palm sugar Pinch of salt PREPARATION: Combine coconut with spice paste. Heat oil in a wok or heavy sauce pan, add coconut mixture and palm sugar and sauté over low heat until the coconut turns golden brown. Allow to cool before adding salt. Stored in an airtight container it will keep fresh for several days
URUTAN CELENG (Fried Pork Sausages)
OVERVIEW: This is always found in stalls selling roasted whole pig. Be Celeng, better known to visitors to Bali by its Indonesian name, Babi Guling. Not one part of the pig is wasted, and even the skin is deep fried as a crisp garnish. In Bali, this sausage is usually hung in a tree to dry to keep it away from the dogs and chickens. INGREDIENTS: 600 gr (1¼ lb) boneless pork leg or shoulder, cut in 1 cm (1/2in) cubes ½ cup basic spice paste 1 tsp salt 1 tsp black peppercorns, crushed 2 tbsp tamarind pulp, seeds and fibres removed vegetable oil for frying 1 meter (3ft) pork intestine or sausage casings PREPARATION: Combine pork meat with basic spice paste, salt, pepper and tamarind paste. Mix well for 5 minutes. Tie one end of pork intestines with string. Insert large round nozzle into pastry piping bag and fill it with the meat mixture. Place open end of intestine over nozzle of piping bag and fill intestine tightly. Tie end with string. Dry sausage for 8 hours on wire rack in oven at very low heat. Deep fry in oil over medium heat until golden brown. This dish is traditionally served with lawar (Vegetable Salad made from green beans) or with young jackfruits.
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Business
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Swedish truck maker Volvo logs record loss Agence France Presse
STOCKHOLM – Swedish truck maker Volvo Group posted its biggest-ever quarterly loss on Tuesday as write-offs amounting to more than three billion kronor dented profitability.
AFP/File/Olivier Morin
Swedish truck maker Volvo Group posted its biggest-ever quarterly loss on Tuesday as write-offs amounting to more than three billion kronor dented profitability.
The world’s second-biggest truck maker said it made a net loss of 5.57 billion kronor (722 million dollars, 507 million euros) in the period from April to June, down from a net profit of 5.15 billion kronor the same time a year ago. Credit losses, personnel cutbacks and the costs of a deal struck with the United Auto Workers Union over healthcare, deepened its losses by 3.2 billion kronor, Volvo said in a statement. The agreement with the US union representing auto workers absolves Volvo’s Mack brand of responsibility for healthcare benefits for retired employees. Volvo chief executive Leif Johansson said the company
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was also hit by weakening demand for its heavy goods and buses. “The second quarter of 2009 remained difficult in terms of earnings in the wake of the exceptionally rapid decline in demand that followed the crisis in the financial system,” Johansson said in the earnings statement. He said that the truck market “remains weak” in Volvo’s key markets of Europe, North America and Japan and reiterated the company’s industry forecast for the rest of the year. “We maintain our assessment that the total European market for heavy trucks will be at least halved in 2009 compared with 2008 and that the North American will decline by 30
percent to 40 percent,” he said in the statement. Volvo’s net sales fell by a third in the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier. The Swedish group?s net sales fell by 32.7 percent to 53.9 million kronor (about five million euros, seven million dollars) in the April to June period. Adjusted for currency changes and other factors, the decline was 45 percent. Evli Bank analyst Michael Andersson told Dow Jones Newswires that there were some positives in Volvo Group’s secondquarter performance, pointing to an increased cash flow in the company’s industrial operations, which includes its truck and bus divisions. “The worst bleeding has been stopped, that’s clear. I wouldn’t be surprised if the market reacts positively,” Andersson was quoted as saying.
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International
International
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Agence France Presse
TIMIKA - Fourteen people have been arrested over a series of deadly ambushes near a giant Freeport gold and copper mine in Indonesia’s Papua province, police said Tuesday. Six of them were being investigated over ambushes earlier this month which killed an Australian mine technician Drew Grant, 29, and two Indonesians, provincial police chief Bagus Ekodanto told AFP. “We are investigating them on their involvement in any of the shootings,” he added. Eight other detainees included the alleged gunman who opened fire on the security convoy on July 12, killing a Freeport security guard, Ekodanto said earlier. A policeman who escaped the ambush was found dead in a ravine the following day. “We arrested eight people... one carried out the shooting and the other carried ammunition,” he added. “We are still investigating the other six.” Police have also retrieved hundreds of bullets, which were made for rifles and revolvers, from the scene. Ekodanto refused to name the suspects or say whether they belonged to the separatist Free Papua
Movement. The attack was one of several military-style ambushes on Freeport and police vehicles on the road between Timika town and the Grasberg mine which killed three people earlier this month. A day earlier gunmen had ambushed a Freeport vehicle on the same road, killing an Australian project manager at Grasberg, which is owned by the local subsidiary of US company Freeport McMoRan. Ekodanto said police were not “yet” linking the two attacks on July 11 and 12, although they took place within a short distance from each other on the same road leading to the mine. Military chief General Djoko Santoso has blamed separatist rebels for all of the attacks, but police have said there is no indication that is the case. Senior officials have said ex-soldiers or police could have been involved as part of a dispute over control of access to lucrative illegal mining operations using tailings from Grasberg.
AFP PHOTO/TJAHYO ERANIUS
Indonesian police continue searching for the perpetrators behind the July 11 ambush in Timika on July 20, 2009. Foreign countries could be behind a series of deadly ambushes near a US-owned goldmine in Indonesia’s remote Papua province that have killed three people, the defence minister said on July 16. The attacks by unidentified gunmen near Freeport McMoRan’s massive Grasberg gold and copper mine could be an effort by foreign competitors to close the mine down, Juwono Sudarsono told reporters.
Indonesia criticizes military-ruled Myanmar
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Fourteen arrested over Indonesian Papua attack: police
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
PHUKET - Indonesia, which has been pushing Southeast Asian nations for tougher action against human rights violators, said Tuesday that 2010 elections in military-ruled Myanmar would not be free and fair if democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi remained in detention. “We have been saying to them (Myanmar) directly that the process must be inclusive for all groups in society ... including Aung San Suu Kyi,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda told The Associated Press on the sidelines of a regional conference on this resort island. While still espousing its core doctrine of noninterference in the affairs of its members, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, has voiced sharp criticism of Myanmar and acknowledged it remains a burden and roadblock to its progress. “We should see whether from now until 2010 they develop a credible process leading to truly democratic elections acceptable to the international community,” Wirayuda said, noting Myanmar’s ruling junta changes “too slowly, and often a little change at a time.”
AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong
Hassan Wirajuda
He said the “big test” will be whether the regime’s promised elections next year are truly “multiparty, meaning inclusive in nature, but also whether the process is a democratic one.” Wirayuda said ASEAN has been “able to develop a more open, frank discussion with Myanmar.” But he acknowledged it is hard to determine whether that cooperation will make a difference inside the country. The Phuket meeting takes place amid international outrage over the trial of Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who faces up to five years in prison on charges of violating terms of her house arrest by allow-
ing an uninvited American to stay at her home. Myanmar’s dismal human rights record will certainly be stressed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who arrived in Thailand on Tuesday and is to take part Wednesday in the ASEAN Regional Forum - an annual gathering of 27 Asian, U.S., and European ministers to discuss key security issues. Clinton, who arrived from India, was to meet with Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in Bangkok. On Monday, the ASEAN foreign ministers approved the formation of a landmark human rights commission. But the new body cannot monitor or punish member nations such as Myanmar, also known as Burma – a weakness that prompted sharp criticism from activists and disappointment from some ASEAN members. “We deeply regret that our ministers finally adopted mechanisms that have less than minimal credibility in terms of protection. We are not living 40, 50 years ago,” said Rafendi Djamin of Solidarity for Asia Peoples’ Advocacy Task-Force on ASEAN and Human Rights, an umbrella group for some 60 non-governmental organizations.
Indonesia has fastest HIV transmission rate in Asia Antara
Bandung - The low knowledge of the public on the spread and prevention of Human Immuno Deficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), made Indonesia the country in Asia where HIV/ AIDS is transmitted most rapidly. Yudhi F Oktaviadhi, writer of “Syair Untuk Sahabat” (Poetry for a Friend) made the statement in the launching of the book, and an AIDS compaign at the Foreign Languages High School (STBA) Yapari ABA by the end of the week. She said that posters and advertisements on public service on HIV appeared to be ineffective in providing the general public with what they should know about the fatal disease. Many even misunderstood, especially youngsters, the message
which the posters on AIDS tried to convey. Realizing the minimum information on AIDS which can be obtained, Yudhi who is also a reporter of the Bola tabloid, tried to take part by writing the “Syair Untuk Sahabat”, which mainly contains true stories on the life of people with HIV/AIDS which she had collected since 2003. Actually, many books were already written on the subject, but since they had been written in a too technically way, her book had been written in a very popular manner easy to understand by lay people. It is the virus which actually needs to be avoided, not the carrier, there is no problem in shaking hands with or touching such a person, she said, adding that it is tragic indeed if such person is isolated by his or her family, or avoided even by a hospital..
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
News
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Six killed... From page 1 “The other bombers were killed by our security forces before they reached their target of entering government buildings and offices to kill innocent people,” the police chief added. The police chief said the bombers entered the city wearing burkas — the traditional all-covering veil worn by Afghan women. Two other bombers were killed in gunfire with police in Jalalabad as they tried to fight their way into the city airport, a base for Afghan and foreign troops, said provincial government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai. Jalalabad is the capital town of Nangarhar province which sees regular Taliban violence, as does Paktia. Abdulzai could not give more details but a doctor in Jalalabad’s hospital told AFP that one dead
policeman was brought in. Tuesday’s coordinated attacks came with violence surging in Afghanistan ahead of presidential and provincial elections next month. The Taliban-led insurgency is at its deadliest since the US-led invasion of 2001. A Taliban spokesman said the Islamist militia claimed responsibility for both attacks. The rising violence has forced the United States to dispatch an extra 21,000 soldiers in a bid to stabilise the country ahead of the August 20 elections, in which President Hamid Karzai is standing for re-election. The Taliban, who were in government between 1996 and 2001 until they were ousted by the USled invasion, are fighting to regain control of the vast, predominantly rural country and oust foreign troops.
Indonesian police... AFP PHOTO/JIJI PRESS
A picture shows the aftermath of mudslides in Hofu City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, around 750kms (470 miles) west of Tokyo on July 21, 2009. Torrential rains sparked floods and landslides, leaving at least five people dead and five others missing in the western Japanese prefecture of Yamaguchi, officials and media reports said on July 21.
Five dead, five missing in Japan mudslides Agence France-Presse
TOKYO - Torrential rains sparked scores of floods and landslides in western Japan on Tuesday, leaving at least five people dead and five more missing, officials and media reports said. A nursing home for the elderly was crushed by a large landslide in Hofu city, Yamaguchi prefecture, some 750 kilometres (470 miles) west of Tokyo, prompting the military to send in a rescue unit, the municipal office said. Three people died at the nursing home while two others were killed either in a landslide or drowned in a swollen river, Jiji Press said.
About 80 people were waiting for hours to be rescued at the nursing home, many of them on its roof. The city office could not immediately confirm the number of dead and missing when contacted by AFP. “The mountain behind the nursing home collapsed at about 1:30 pm and water gushed down in a mixture of red soil, mud and small rocks,” Jyunko Sasaki, a housewife
who lives near the facility, told Fuji television network. The city said there were 29 landslides and that rivers and canals flooded at 46 points. At least three cars were buried in mud and rocks, the city said. A flash flood swept a team of firefighters off their feet, although only one was injured, suffering a broken finger, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
Tourists banned as Philippine volcano shakes Agence France-Presse
MANILA - Tourists were ordered off an island volcano near the Philippine capital on Tuesday after seismologists detected ground shaking that they said could presage a minor eruption. “Significant volcanic and seismic events have been detected over the past months” and the main crater
of Taal “remains off limits to the public because steam explosions may suddenly occur or high concentrations of toxic gases may accumulate,” an official advisory said. The tiny crater island is surrounded by a lake that formed from a past eruption. Scores of visitors cross the lake by boat every day before making a short day hike to the 311-
metre (1,020-foot) high crater lip. Taal is one of the country’s 22 active volcanoes with 33 known eruptions in recorded history. Two weeks ago seismologists raised the second of a multi-stage volcano alert over Mount Mayon on the southern tip of the main island of Luzon following increased seismic activity.
From page 1 More than 50 people were wounded in the attacks, the worst in Indonesia since 2005. Police have not confirmed widespread reports in the Indonesian media that a graduate of the Ngruki school — most commonly identified as Nur Hasbi, alias Nurdin Aziz or Nur Sahid — was the Marriott bomber. Ibrahim said a former student called Nur Said had attended the school and graduated in 1994 along with Asmar Latin Sani, the suicide bomber who detonated a truck bomb outside the Marriott in 2003, killing 12 people. “He was just like normal students, nothing extraordinary about him. He graduated in 1994 with Asmar,” Ibrahim said of Nur Said. Police and senior counter-terror officials have said the bombings look like the work of Noordin Mohammed Top, one of Asia’s most wanted terrorists and the leader of an extreme offshoot of the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network. Malaysia’s Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said that based on police intelligence, the Malaysian-born militant was not in Malaysia, the Star daily said on its website. The Ngruki school was cofounded by Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual head of Jemaah Islamiyah which is blamed for dozens of bombings across Indonesia since the late 1990s, including the 2002 Bali blasts which killed 202 people. The Islamic teacher denied the school was a hatchery for suicide bombers, although it is wellknown that several of its graduates have become Jemaah Islamiyah members and helped carry out terror attacks. “The Ngruki school is an educational institute. We have nothing to do with terrorism and I re-
fute reports saying that,” Ibrahim said. Local media have reported that police had collected DNA samples from Nur Said’s family as they try to identify the bombers using remains including a severed head, but this has not been confirmed. “We are still investigating,” deputy police spokesman Sulistyo Ishak told reporters Monday. Police also have not confirmed that the bomber was a man wearing a backpack on his chest and dragging a suitcase who was caught by security cameras entering the Marriott’s dining area shortly before the blast. A security guard reportedly asked him where he was going and the man, who looked Indonesian, replied that he was going to give something to his boss. New footage from the Marriott which was aired on local television Tuesday appeared to show the same man, wearing a suit coat and baseball cap, passing through the hotel’s airport-style security checks with his suitcase. The Marriott has defended its security measures as “very tight”. Police said an unexploded bomb left in a guest room of the Marriott resembled devices used in the 2002 Bali bombings and one discovered in a recent raid on a reported Noordin hideout in Central Java. A police crackdown — including key arrests and the inducement of militants to defect — has hobbled JI in Indonesia and severed its links to foreign funds in recent years. But while the network is diminished, analysts say JI has been able to fall back on a tight network of schools and marriages to maintain cohesion and possibly rebuild.
11
BUSINESS Worst is behind us,’ says Australian treasurer Agence France Presse
MELBOURNE – Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan Tuesday said the worst of the global recession may be over as he welcomed a new report which predicted a rebound in the country’s growth next year. Swan said the government’s stimulus efforts had helped protect Australia from the downturn but warned of rising unemployment as “global headwinds” buffet the domestic economy. “It may well be that globally the worst is behind us,” Swan told public broadcaster ABC. “But there are still very substantial global headwinds affecting economies around the world and also affecting the Australian economy in particular. “We will see that in the dramatic drop in business investment, we’ll see that in the dramatic drop in the terms of trade. Those factors will push up unemployment locally.” Independent think-tank Access Economics said Australia would register growth of 0.4 percent in the year to July 2010, while the government projection shows a 0.5 percent contraction. Australia has so far avoided a technical recession, as defined by two successive quarters of negative growth, posting the strongest figures of any advanced economy during the downturn.
AFP/File/Antonio Scorza
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan has said the worst of the global recession may be over as he welcomed a new report which predicted a rebound in the country’s growth next year. Swan attributed the economy’s resilience to government stimulus packages totalling more than 50 billion dollars (40.8 billion US) handed out since late last year. “That’s why economic stimulus is important, to support employment and support business,” he said. Access said unemployment was likely to peak at 7.5 percent in 2010, up significantly on the current 5.8 percent but a full point down on the official forecast of 8.5 percent. It also stressed the importance of China to Australia, saying the Asian giant’s earlier-than-expected recovery had helped lift the outlook since the government’s last official forecasts in May.
Resource-rich Australia enjoyed a boom period of uninterrupted growth until this year as Chinese demand for its raw materials brought in a stream of export revenue. But Swan said he was not relying on China’s turnaround because it was too early to know whether it was sustainable. “Certainly the recent patterns (in China) have surprised on the upside and we certainly can’t count on that as we go forward and we haven’t been counting on that,” he said. China posted growth of 7.9 percent in the second quarter, bouncing back from 6.1 percent in the three months to March after Beijing unveiled a massive 580-billion-dollar stimulus package.
Bernanke preps for hot seat on bailouts, recovery Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke likely will face tough questions this week from lawmakers about taxpayer bailouts of financial companies, slow-moving government efforts to curb home foreclosures and the possibility that the Fed’s unprecedented steps to stimulate the economy could spur inflation later on. The Fed chief is scheduled to deliver a fresh report on the country’s economic and financial health in back-toback sessions on Capitol Hill starting Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. EDT with the House Financial Services Committee. Skeptical lawmakers also are expected to voice concern about an Obama administration proposal that would expand the Fed’s oversight duties over big, globally interconnected financial companies whose failure could imperil the national economy. Bernanke on Tuesday likely will repeat the central bank’s belief that the economy will start growing again sometime in the second half of this year helped by record low interest rates and President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package of tax cuts and increased government spending. Consumer spending appears to have stabilized, new-home sales are flattening out and declines in capital spending do not look as severe as they had at the beginning of the year, the Fed said last week. “Bernanke’s message: guardedly optimistic. We are seeing signs of the economy’s impending turnaround. But it is all pretty much impending still,” said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services. Steering the economy from reces-
sion to recovery will be a delicate move for Bernanke — both economically and politically. The economy sank at an average annual rate of 5.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year, the weakest performance in 50 years. Many analysts believe the economy didn’t shrink nearly as much in the AprilJune quarter. (The government releases results for the second quarter at the end of July.) Many believe the economy could start growing again as early as the current quarter, although the pace of the recovery is likely to be plodding, the Fed said last week. Because of that, the nation’s unemployment rate — now at a 26-year high of 9.5 percent — will keep climbing. Companies won’t be in any mood to ramp up hiring until they feel secure that the recovery has staying power. By the Fed’s own forecasts, the jobless rate could rise as high as 10.1 percent this year. Some Fed officials think it could hit 10.5 percent this year, and 10.6 percent in 2010. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982, when the country had suffered through a severe recession. Rising unemployment is making it harder for people to pay their monthly mortgage bills. The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes soared by nearly 15 percent in the first half of the year, according to RealtyTrac Inc. Experts expect foreclosures will peak in the middle of next year before heading downward. Housing, credit and financial debacles created a perfect storm for the economy at levels not seen since the Great Depression. Those negative forces plunged the economy into the longest recession since World War II.
Deutsche Bank managers leave amid spy probe: source Agence France Presse
FRANKFURT – Two managers at the biggest German bank, Deutsche Bank, have left amid a probe into alleged spying, a financial source told AFP on Tuesday. The head of security for the bank and its head of investor relations “have left the company,” the source said. Deutsche Bank declined to comment when contacted by AFP, saying that it was waiting for the results of an internal probe launched in May by an in-
dependent company. A spokesman did confirm however that prosecutors in Frankfurt, where the bank is based, were studying information provided by the public authority charged with the protection of personal data, based in nearby Darmstadt. That group has requested more information from Deutsche Bank on two cases and said it has passed some along to judicial officials. According to the business daily Handelsblatt, those cases concern alleged spying on supervisory board member Hermann-Josef Lamberti and outspoken share-
holder Michael Bohndorf. Prosecutors can take two to three weeks before deciding whether to launch a formal investigation that could then lead to legal proceedings. For the time being, Deutsche Bank has only acknowledged one case of spying on a union leader who was a former member of its supervisory board. Germany has been hit by several cases of corporate spying, at the telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom, the national railway Deutsche Bahn and the discount retail chain Lidl.
AFP/File/Marwan Ibrahim
Flared gas burns at the Kirkuk oil field, Iraq. Oil prices were flat on Tuesday when traders turned cautious ahead of key testimony from US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke, analysts said.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Entertainment
International
News
International
Sony bids $50 million for Jackson rehearsal film
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Supporters of Manchester United wave before the start of a friendly match between Manchester United and Malaysia XI at Bukit Jalil National Stadium in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Monday, July 20, 2009. Police have detained a Malaysian woman who allegedly stabbed her husband in the chest for coming home late after watching a soccer match between Manchester United and Malaysia.
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES – Sony Corp.’s movie studio has bid $50 million to acquire the worldwide distribution rights to a film based on rehearsal footage for Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” comeback concert series, according to a person familiar with the bid. The person said Monday that the bid came after several studios, including Paramount, Universal and 20th Century Fox, were shown footage starting early last week. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the bidding had not been completed. None of the studios would comment on the record.
Michael Jackson
The winning studio would produce the film with Jackson’s concert promoter, AEG Live, and his estate. It would go a long way to helping AEG Live recoup some of the $30 million to $32 million it spent producing the concert before Jackson died June 25. The bidding was reported earlier by the Los Angeles Times and industry blogger Nikki Finke. Sony Pictures has a leg up on other bidders because Sony Music distributes Jackson’s music and is in a 5050 partnership with his estate in Sony/ ATV Music Publishing. Sony’s bid is on par with the cost of making a midrange budget movie, and is offset by the fact that the Sony group of companies would benefit from the music licensing rights attached to the film. There is also massive interest in
Jackson material worldwide. An estimated 31 million viewers in the U.S. alone watched the Jackson memorial service live earlier this month, according to Nielsen Media Research. That’s just shy of the 33 million U.S. viewers who watched Princess Diana’s funeral. “This type of a story, if put together right, could be very compelling and draw a very, very wide audience,” said Mark Fleischer, an entertainment attorney with Venable LLP and former executive at MGM Studios. The estate and AEG Live are also negotiating with several television networks and pay-per-view outlets on a TV special that would be a stage show featuring Jackson’s music and dancing. It would be directed by “This Is It” director Kenny Ortega.
The selling price being discussed for the rights to show the TV special is also in the tens of millions of dollars. General Electric Co.’s NBC has been in talks on the TV show, but the concept, air date and cost for the rights has not been finalized, said NBC spokeswoman Rebecca Marks. “We have no deal for the rights to the Michael Jackson special,” Marks said. The special administrators of Jackson’s estate, attorney John Branca and former music executive John McClain, have been moving quickly to secure Jackson’s assets and cut deals to capitalize on the surge in interest in the pop star since he died. Last week, Branca and McClain received signed court papers authorizing them to act on his estate’s behalf until another hearing Aug. 3.
Gerard Butler Represents Apologetic Chris Brown Asks For Fans’ Forgiveness Men In ‘The Ugly Truth’ Who better to represent men in the chick flick genre than the badass of 300, Gerard Butler? In The Ugly Truth, he plays a relationship guru forcing women to face the harsh realities of how men think. Butler keeps speaking on his gender’s behalf as he does press for the romantic comedy. “I think this is the first movie that really brings it up and strikes to the heart if it, how guys really think,” Butler said. “I swear, I know I’m going out on a limb here and ending my career, but it’s almost impossible for a guy to go, ‘You know what? There are times when I just turn around and look at an ass.’ We do that stuff. Now, we are much more complicated that than as well, and at the end of the day that’s what is beautiful and where the redemption is in the movie.” “ We all, at the end of the day, through our games and our weaknesses and our flaws, are after the same thing. We all want a partner, we all want companionship and we’re all beautiful and we’re all over the place. It comes together really well.” The battle of the sexes has been fodGerard der for rom-coms throughout the ages. Butler Butler expects this one to be more controversial. “I think that the battle of the sexes is the battle of the audiences in this movie. It’s so great because it really expounds both values. I think when this stuff is thrown out there it’s so shocking and unexpected. The guys are like, ‘Oh, thank God somebody said that.’ And the women are like ‘You know what? I knew it! I bloody well knew it!’ That’s why it’s a huge relief that this stuff is put out there. But it’s great the way we play with it here.” Perhaps women should be taking notes too. For example, when Butler’s character teaches a woman (Katherine Heigl) to play it cool and keep her dreamboat waiting, it does actually make him more interested. “Listen, this is why it’s called The Ugly Truth. There is an element of truth in that the second that you think the girl is maybe not quite as keen, there is a little more ‘Okay…’ Sometimes when its there right in front of you it’s not as interesting. Is that right?”
Chris Brown has begged for his fans’ forgiveness in a video apology in which he expresses his “deepest regret” for the February fight with exgirlfriend Rihanna. Brown pleaded guilty to hitting Rihanna in June and was sentenced to five years supervised probation and community service. He was also ordered to stay away from the “Umbrella” hitmaker. The fallen “Kiss Kiss” star has remained tight-lipped about the widelyreported February 8 incident since his arrest, but now he’s addressed his conviction in a video to his fans, which has been posted on TMZ.com. In the two minute tape, he says, “Hi, I’m Chris Brown. Since February my attorney has advised me not to speak out, even though ever since the incident I wanted to publicly express my deep-
est regret and accept full responsibility. Although I will do some interviews and answer questions in the future, I felt it was time that you heard directly from me that I’m sorry.” Brown admits he is “very ashamed” of his “inexcusable” actions and wishes he could go back in time to correct his mistakes: “I have tried to live my life in a way that would make those around me proud of me, and until recently I think I was doing a pretty good job. “I wish I had the chance to live those few moments again but unfortunately I can’t. I can’t go into what happened but most important (sic) I’m not gonna sit here and make any excuses. I take great pride in being able to exercise self control but what I did was inexcusable.
Valerie Bertinelli
Associated Press Writer
KUALA LUMPUR - Police have detained a Malaysian woman who allegedly stabbed her husband in the chest for coming home late after watching a soccer match between Manchester United and Malaysia. The man had promised to come back immediately after the match
in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday evening, but his wife was “very an-
gry” when he returned after midnight, district police Chief Abdul
Jalil Hassan said Tuesday. The woman stabbed him twice in the chest with a kitchen knife and then took him to a hospital, where a doctor reported the incident to police, Abdul Jalil told The Associated Press.
think I’m so high and excited and full of pride... that I probably won’t feel it for a couple days. I am in amazement. I can’t believe what a body can do if you believe in it.” Bertinelli’s trainer, Christopher Lane, is now eager for her to achieve another personal best by next year. She adds, “My trainer thinks I’m going to do a (full) marathon before I’m 50. I have till April. I’m not committing yet! I haven’t wrapped my head around it. We’re negotiating.”
“He was with friends after the match, so that’s why he came home late,” Abdul Jalil said. The man was recovering in the hospital and police have not decided whether to charge the woman with any offense.
Muslim woman to be flogged Ohio to execute man in Malaysia over beer convicted in ’92 killing spree Associated Press Writer
Valerie Bertinelli: ‘I Can’t Believe I Did It!’ Actress Valerie Bertinelli is celebrating after competing in her first ever road race in California on Sunday. Eddie Van Halen’s ex-wife, who has dropped 49 pounds since 2007, has been training for the 13.1 mile Napa-to-Sonoma Wine Country Half-Marathon for months. And the star is overjoyed she managed to cross the finish line in two hours, 12 minutes and 19 seconds. Speaking after the race, Bertinelli told People.com, “I can’t believe I did it! My legs are killing me, but I
Wife stabs husband late home after Man U match AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin
Associated Press Writer
Chris Brown
5
COLUMBUS, Ohio - With no legal challenges expected, Ohio prepared Tuesday to execute a man who took part in a 1992 Christmas holiday killing spree that left six people dead and two wounded. Attorneys for Marvallous Keene, 36, said they planned no late appeals for a series of slayings that included an 18-year-old mother gunned down at a pay phone. Keene regrets the crimes and doesn’t want to die but opted not to fight the death sentence, public defender Rachel Troutman said. Keene, who was convicted in five of the murders, was scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville one week after Ohio’s last execution. It would be the fastest turnaround since the state executed two inmates in six days in 2004. Gov. Ted Strickland denied clemency last week for Keene, who didn’t request it. At a June 17 clemency hearing, Keene directed his attorneys not to present evidence on his behalf, saying he didn’t want to cause additional pain to his family or to the victims’ families.
Keene and three accomplices went on a three-day murder and robbery rampage in Dayton that began on Christmas Eve 1992. Victims included Sarah Abraham, 38, a convenience store clerk shot in the head after handing over $30 from a cash register, and Marvin Washington and Wendy Cottrill, two teenage acquaintances who Keene feared would tell police about his crimes. His three accomplices are serving life sentences. Keene was examined Monday by the prison’s medical staff for suitable injection sites. No problems with his veins were reported, prisons spokeswoman Julie Walburn said. He also ordered a special meal for dinner that included a porterhouse steak, jumbo deep-fried shrimp and German chocolate cake. Keene was calm and quiet and spent the day watching television and writing a letter, Walburn said. Seven members of the victims’ families were expected to witness Tuesday’s execution. Keene’s two defense attorneys were to be his only witnesses. Defense attorneys said Keene, who was 19 at the time of the
slayings, was despondent over the death of his brother, who was shot and killed a year earlier. At his trial, Keene also told a three-judge panel that a falling-out with his father contributed to his troubled emotional state. Prosecutors described Keene as the ringleader of a group that called itself the Downtown Posse. The killings began with 34-year-old Joseph Wilkerson. Keene and his accomplices arrived at Wilkerson’s home under the pretext of wanting to participate in an orgy, prosecutors said. They tied Wilkerson to his bed and ransacked the house, and when Keene found a .32-caliber handgun in the garage, he returned to the bedroom and shot Wilkerson twice. Later Christmas Eve, Keene and accomplice DeMarcus Smith approached 18-year-old Danita Gullette at a pay phone, took her jacket and shoes and fatally shot the woman, prosecutors said. Gullette was the mother of a 2-year-old girl. Washington, 18, and Cottrill, 16, were acquaintances who sometimes stayed at Keene’s apartment and observed Keene returning with stolen items, prosecutors’ aid. They were shot and killed behind a gravel pit.
KUALA LUMPUR - An Islamic court in Malaysia has sentenced a Muslim woman to be flogged with a rattan cane for having a beer in a nightclub, a court official said Tuesday. It is rare for a woman in Malaysia to be sentenced to caning – a punishment usually reserved for men in various crimes ranging from rape to bribery. Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno was sentenced Monday to six lashes and a fine of 5,000 ringgit ($1,400) for consuming alcohol, said a Shariah High Court official who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to make public statements. Shukarno, a 32-year-old model, pleaded guilty in the court in eastern Pahang state to a charge of drinking beer when Islamic authorities raided a hotel nightclub in August 2008. Consuming alcohol is a religious offense in Malaysia only for Muslims, who make up nearly two-thirds of the population. Offenders are prosecuted in Shariah courts, which handle cases mainly related to family and moral issues for Muslims.
Most offenders are fined, but the law also provides for a three-year prison term and caning. Shukarno was the only Muslim caught in the raid at the Pahang nightclub. Malaysian clubs and lounges typically serve alcohol but are not legally required to check if customers are Muslim before serving them, so the hotel nightclub operators were not charged with any offense. Shukarno plans to appeal the sentence, the New Straits Times daily reported. The punishment “is aimed at making the accused repent and serves as a lesson to Muslims,” the newspaper quoted Judge Abdul Rahman Yunus as saying. The judge did not elaborate on why he imposed a relatively severe sentence, but local media noted that he had a history of being tough on alcohol offenders. Rattan canes used in the punishment are made from palm plants common in tropical parts of Asia. They have been used for decades for corporal punishments in countries such as Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. The caning sentence is generally carried out by specially trained officials at prisons.
4
News
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
International
China blames separatists, not policies, for riots Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - China on Tuesday defended its policies on ethnic minorities, saying the violence in Xinjiang that killed nearly 200 people this month was triggered by separatists and not its treatment of Uighurs. During a televised news conference, the vice minister of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission blamed an underground separatist movement of Muslim, Turkicspeaking Uighurs and said China will never tolerate secession in its far western region. “We know those behind the violence were ... seeking the independence of Xinjiang. To this, I can clearly tell them it will never happen,” Wu Shimin said. “We can, however, continue to meet the reasonable demands to improve the lives of all ethnic groups in the Xinjiang region.” Wu said China intends to continue the “success” of its current ethnic policies that focus on the economic development of the rugged Central Asian region - policies that Uighurs say have diluted or repressed their religion, language and culture in favor of the dominant Han ethnic group. Tensions between the groups led to the country’s worst unrest in decades July 5. The government says 197 people died and more than 1,700 were wounded.
Most of the dead were Han Chinese, though Uighurs says they believe many more of their community was killed in the ensuing government crackdown. Chinese officials this week said police killed 12 people during the rioting - a rare acknowledgment by the government that security forces opened fire. Liu Wanqing, director of the supervision department of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, said the violence was not due to religious or ethnic tensions. “It should be said that people of all ethnic groups, including the Uighur people, were victims of the violent crimes. Therefore, we say that this was neither an ethnic issue nor an issue of ethnic relations nor does it affect the national unity of our country,” he said. China has repeatedly blamed outside agitators and the influence of the “three evil forces” - extremism, terrorism and separatism. Specifically, it has blamed leading Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer with instigating the protests that led to violence when police stepped in. In Washington, D.C., Kadeer, who lives in exile, has denied it. On Monday, she urged the Obama administration to more strongly condemn what she called China’s continuing crackdown on Uighurs. Kadeer told reporters that China was still “hunting down” Uighurs involved in the riots.
AP Photo/Xinjiang Government Press Office, File
In this file photo taken on Sunday, July 5, 2009 and released by the Xinjiang Government Press Office on Tuesday, July 7, 2009, a body and a burnt out car are left in a street following a riot in Urumqi, China.
RAMADI - Five people were killed and about 40 wounded in bomb attacks on Tuesday in Baghdad and the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, security and medical officials said. The deadliest attack was in Ramadi, where three people were
killed and 10 wounded in a double car bombing outside a restaurant in the northern district of Al-Jazira, hospital officials and police said. It was the second deadly car-bomb attack in as many days in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, once a bastion of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. In Baghdad, two people were killed
Associated Press Writer
Iran hardliners denounce referendum call Clouds ‘likely to block eclipse in Shanghai’ AP Photo/Office of the Supreme Leader
AFP/File/Deshakalyan Chowdhury
Astronomy researcher Debiprosad Duari explains the forthcoming solar eclipse at a citizen awareness camp in Kolkata on July 19. Heavy clouds and rain are likely to ruin the party for millions of people hoping to watch Wednesday’s solar eclipse in Shanghai and other parts of eastern China, meteorologists said.
Agence France-Presse
TEHRAN - Iranian hardliners denounced on Tuesday a call by reformists for a referendum to resolve the deepening political crisis in the Islamic republic, branding it a Western plot to cause more “havoc.” The Association of Combatant Clerics, a reformist group led by former president Mohammad Khatami, on Monday urged a referendum to try to end the turmoil gripping Iran since the June 12 disputed presidential election. “They have suggested yet another Western plot to raise havoc by proposing a referendum,” said Hossein Shariatmadari, managing director of the hardline newspaper Kayhan who is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “The main idea of this plan is to trigger tension. Their proposal is illegal amd impractical,” Shariatmadari wrote. He also said that if the referendum did take place, the result would be “more crushing” for the reformists than the presidential poll which saw hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected by a landslide. Khatami’s group had voiced concern that “public confidence in the system has been damaged” by the
election and its aftermath, which exposed deep divisions among Iran’s elite in the worst crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in the immediate aftermath of the vote and in the ensuing violence at least 20 people were killed and hundreds of protesters and reformists arrested by the regime. Khatami himself is a strong supporter of Iran’s main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi who lost to Ahmadinejad in a vote he charged was marred by widespread fraud. The conservative Khabar newspaper also rejected the idea of a referendum. “Such controversial proposals, despite their appeal to protestors... challenge the basis of the system,” the newspaper said in an editorial. “A referendum would create challenges which our country cannot harbour and it would incite unrest instead of building confidence.” Khamenei had warned on Monday against measures that could de-
stabilize the 30-year-old Islamic republic, which has a parliamentary system but overall clerical rule. “Anyone, no matter their rank or title, will be detested by the people if they lead our society towards insecurity,” the nation’s most powerful man said in a speech carried on state television. “Our leaders must be viligant. Any word or action which helps (the enemies) will be contrary to the interests of our people.” Khamenei, who has been in power for 20 years, also again accused foreign countries of interference in the violent aftermath of the election and seeking to destabilised Iran. But in a sign of the cracks emerging at the very heart of the regime, former president and powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Friday the regime had lost the people’s trust and that Iran was in “crisis.” “These are bitter times. I don’t think anybody from any faction wanted it to end like this. We have all lost. We need unity more than ever,” said Rafsanjani, who lost to Ahmadinejad in the 2005 election but heads two of the country’s top political bodies.
and 30 more wounded when two bombs exploded in the Shiite slum district of Sadr City on Tuesday, security sources said. Also in the capital, Water Resources Minister Abdel Latif Jamal Rashid escaped a bomb attack as his convoy drove through the central district of Karrada, the sources said. Six passers-by were wounded when
the bombs exploded near a bridge. On Monday, 10 people were killed, including seven policemen and a soldier, in attacks in Ramadi and the northern city of Mosul. The spate of 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 Ameri-
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
13
Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily
This photo released by an official website of the Iranian supreme leader’s office shows Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sitting under a portrait of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Monday, July 20, 2009. Iranian hardliners denounced on Tuesday a call by reformists for a referendum to resolve the deepening political crisis in the Islamic republic, branding it a Western plot to cause more “havoc.”
Agence France - Presse
SHANGHAI – Heavy clouds and rain are likely to ruin the party for millions of people hoping to watch Wednesday’s solar eclipse in Shanghai and other parts of eastern China, meteorologists said. The Shanghai Meteorological Bureau has predicted thunderstorms for when the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century starts at 8:30 am (0030 GMT), according to a forecast released Tuesday evening. “It will be almost impossible to see the eclipse in Shanghai,” Li Jinyu, the bureau’s chief service operator, was quoted as telling the Shanghai Daily. Even if there is no rain, the heavy clouds will block the view,” he said. However people will still experience the sky changing from bright to dark, the report said. Eastern China has been regarded as one of the best places in the world to view the total eclipse, which is expected to last about six minutes and reach its midpoint around 9:30 am. The event is being described as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which, due to its trajectory over China and India, could end up being the most watched eclipse in history. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon is caught between the sun and
the earth while each of them moves along their fixed orbits. “This is a very important milestone. None of us will live long enough to see another one like it,” said Federico Borgmeyer, the German-based manager of the specialist travel agency Eclipse City, who is in Shanghai for the event. The travel agency said it would proceed with plans to take eclipse chasers to Shanghai’s Yangshan island to experience the event despite the forecast. Museums, observatories and specialty stores were sold out of solar eclipse glasses to protect eyes from the intense light, the Shanghai Daily reported. The phenomenon has sparked a mini-tourism boom for Shanghai and other parts of eastern China, such as his-
toric Hangzhou city. Thousands of tourists from around the world have already descended on Shanghai, with hotels and restaurants in marquee locations such as the Bund being quickly booked out. Hyatt on the Bund said its eclipse breakfast event remained fully booked and the weather concerns had not led to any cancellations. “People are just looking for a reason to get together,” hotel spokeswoman Meg Zhang said. “You can tell your boss: ‘It’s only once in 300 years’.” The next total solar eclipse will be on July 11, 2010 but far fewer people are likely to see it as it tracks across the South Pacific over French Polynesia and Easter Island to the southern tip of South America.
WASHINGTON – The best time to learn a foreign language: Between birth and age 7. Missed that window? New research is showing just how children’s brains can become bilingual so easily, findings that scientists hope eventually could help the rest of us learn a new language a bit easier. “We think the magic that kids apply to this learning situation, some of the principles, can be imported into learning programs for adults,” says Dr. Patricia Kuhl of the University of Washington, who is part of an international team now trying to turn those lessons into more teachable technology. Each language uses a unique set of sounds. Scientists now know babies are born with the ability to distinguish all of them, but that ability starts weakening even before they start talking, by the first birthday. Kuhl offers an example: Japanese doesn’t distinguish between the “L” and “R” sounds of English — “rake” and “lake” would sound the same. Her team proved that a 7-month-old in Tokyo and a 7-month-old in Seattle respond equally well to those different sounds. But by 11 months, the Japanese infant had lost a lot of that ability. Time out — how do you test a baby? By tracking eye gaze. Make a fun toy appear on one side or the other whenever there’s a particular sound. The baby quickly learns to look on that side whenever he or she hears a brand-new but similar sound. Noninvasive brain scans document how the brain is processing and imprinting language. Mastering your dominant language gets in the way of learning a second, less familiar one, Kuhl’s research suggests. The brain tunes out sounds that don’t fit. “You’re building a brain architecture that’s a perfect fit for Japanese or English or French,” whatever is native, Kuhl explains — or, if you’re a lucky baby, a brain with two sets of neural circuits dedicated to two languages. It’s remarkable that babies being raised bilingual — by simply speaking to them in two languages — can learn both in the time it takes most babies to learn one. On average, monolingual and bilingual babies start talking around age 1 and can say about 50 words by 18 months. Italian researchers wondered why there wasn’t a delay, and reported this month in the journal Sci-
ence that being bilingual seems to make the brain more flexible. The researchers tested 44 12-month-olds to see how they recognized threesyllable patterns — nonsense words, just to test sound learning. Sure enough, gaze-tracking showed the bilingual babies learned two kinds of patterns at the same time — like lo-ba-lo or lo-lo-ba — while the one-language babies learned only one, concluded Agnes Melinda Kovacs of Italy’s International School for Advanced Studies. While new language learning is easiest by age 7, the ability markedly declines after puberty. “We’re seeing the brain as more plastic and ready to create new circuits before than after puberty,” Kuhl says. As an adult, “it’s a totally different process. You won’t learn it in the same way. You won’t become (as good as) a native speaker.” Yet a soon-to-be-released survey from the Center for Applied Linguistics, a nonprofit organization that researches language issues, shows U.S. elementary schools cut back on foreign language instruction over the last decade. About a quarter of public elementary schools were teaching foreign languages in 1997, but just 15 percent last year, say preliminary results posted on the center’s Web site. What might help people who missed their childhood window? Baby brains need personal interaction to soak in a new language — TV or CDs alone don’t work. So researchers are improving the technology that adults tend to use for language learning, to make it more social and possibly tap brain circuitry that tots would use. Recall that Japanese “L” and “R” difficulty? Kuhl and scientists at Tokyo Denki University and the University of Minnesota helped develop a computer language program that pictures people speaking in “motherese,” the slow exaggeration of sounds that parents use with babies. Japanese college students who’d had little exposure to spoken English underwent 12 sessions listening to exaggerated “Ls” and “Rs” while watching the computerized instructor’s face pronounce English words. Brain scans — a hair dryerlooking device called MEG, for magnetoencephalography — that measure millisecond-by-millisecond activity showed the students could better distinguish between those alien English sounds. And they pronounced them better, too, the team reported in the journal NeuroImage.
Huge Fossilized Dung Reveals a Hidden Ancient Ecosystem
Five killed in Iraq bomb attacks Agence France-Presse
Life Style
International
can forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011. Violence had 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.
The world might be knee-deep in cow patties and other animal waste today were it not for dung beetles. Dung beetles roll the waste of large animals into tiny balls that they bury underground to snack on later. Burying the dung fertilizes the soil and reduces disease, but the benefits don’t stop there. A new study of 30 million-year-
old fossilized mega-dung balls, as big as three inches (seven centimeters) in diameter and produced from the dung of extinct giant South American mammals, reveals that the dung was also a food source for a number of insects that would steal a bite while the dung beetles weren’t looking. “Traces [in the fossilized dung] record the behavior of animals ac-
tively stealing the food resources set aside by the dung beetles,” said Victoria Sanchez, a graduate student at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Buenos Aires and a co-author on the study. “The shapes and sizes of these fossilized burrows and borings in the dung balls indicate that other beetles, flies and earthworms were the culprits. Although none of these
animals are preserved in these rocks, the fossil dung balls preserve in amazing detail a whole dung-based ecosystem.” About 30 million years ago, South America was home to giant extinct herbivores that produced mega-sized dung. Paleontologists have dug up evidence of bone-covered armadillos the size of small cars, ground sloths
nearly 20 feet tall (6 meters tall) and elephant-sized hoofed mammals. Although the dung beetles themselves did not fossilize, the results of their work are preserved as fossil dung balls, some more than 40 million years old and as large as tennis balls, the researchers said. The study is detailed in the July issue of the journal Palaeontology.
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Sport
International
Cotto-Pacquiao bout set for November Associated Press Writer
News
International
Miguel Cotto is next on Manny Pacquiao’s hit list for what’s likely to be the biggest fight of the fall
Querrey leads US hopes at Indy tennis Agence France - Presse
INDIANAPOLIS – US third seed Sam Querrey fired 11 aces in a first-round victory over Frenchman Arnaud Clement, proving a competent fill-in for Andy Roddick at the ATP Indianapolis Championships. A 6-3, 6-4 victory in 73 minutes put Querrey alongside seventh-seeded Marc Gicquel of France and number eight Uzbek Denis Istomin in reaching the second round at the 450,000-dollar hardcourt tournament. Gicquel drove another spike into the heart of a losing season for once-promising Ernests Gulbis, hammering the Latvian 6-2, 6-3, while Istomin staged a comeback to eliminate American Kevin Kim 2-6, 6-4, 6-4. Gulbis, a childhood Munich tennis academy friend of world number four Novak Djokovic, has gone badly off the boil this season, losing for the eighth time this year in a first round. The 20-year-old Latvian was playing for the first time in nearly a month after going out in the Wimbledon second round to another ex-junior rival, Britain’s Andy Murray. Gulbis stands a miserable 10-18 on the season and has not won two matches in a row since Cincinnati last August when he reached the quarter-finals against Djokovic. Querrey, ranked 37th and a losing finalist just over a week ago on grass in Newport to Indiana’s Rajeev Ram, won his way into a rematch against the local hero. Ram claimed the first title of his career
with his upset of Querrey in the recent final in Rhode Island. “It’s great to get another shot at Ram,” Querrey said. “He’s confident and he’s won seven out of his last eight matches if you count Newport qualifying. He plays well and has talent at the net. It will be a tough one for me. We may be playing in his hometown, but I have a decent support group of my own.” Querrey, a two-time Indianapolis semi-finalist, is the highestranking American in the field after Wimbledon finalist Roddick withdrew due to the hip flexor injury which bothered him during his AllEngland club loss to Roger Federer a fortnight ago.
“Maybe the sport spotlight is on me a bit but I don’t mind at all,” said Querrey. “Of course it would be better if Andy, James (Blake), Mardy (Fish) and the Bryan brothers were here. But they have other things going on.” Querrey’s friend and compatriot John Isner, playing only his second match since early May after suffering glandular fever, took a 6-1, 7-6 (8/6) victory over France’s Josselin Ouanna. Canada’s Frank Dancevic, the 2007 Indy runner-up, started with a 6-2, 7-6 (7/5) first-round triumph over Bobby Reynolds, winning his first match in the rivalry after losing to the American last year at Wimbledon and in the 2008 Indy first round.
Agence France-Presse
(AFP/Getty Images/Matthew Stockman)
US third seed Sam Querrey, seen here, fired 11 aces in a 6-3, 64 first-round victory over Frenchman Arnaud Clement, proving a competent fill-in for Andy Roddick at the ATP Indianapolis Championships
Cotto’s physical trainer. “With Manny, you don’t tell him who to fight,” Arum said. “He tells you who he wants to fight. He’s not afraid of anything. There’s a lot of easier guys he could fight, but he doesn’t want that. He wants the best, and that’s Miguel.” Cotto (34-1, 27 KOs) rebounded from his only loss to Antonio Margarito last summer by stopping Michael Jennings to claim the WBO welterweight title in February. Cotto, Puerto Rico’s most popular fighter, has fought in Las Vegas just once since December 2004, preferring to appear before his biggest fans in New York or Atlantic City. Cotto’s 11th-round stoppage loss to Margarito was his only previous main-event fight in Las Vegas, but Margarito’s suspension for illegal hand wraps at his next fight against Sugar Shane Mosley put the legitimacy of Margarito’s victory over Cotto into question.
Nash agrees to two-year extension with NBA Suns Agence France - Presse
PHOENIX, Arizona – Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Steve Nash has agreed on terms to a twoyear contract extension with the Phoenix Suns worth 22 million dollars, the star guard’s agent said. The 35-yearold Canadian playmaker, who will be paid 13 million dollars next season, will now stay with the Suns through the 2011-2012 campaign, according to agent Bill Duffy. Nash left the Dallas Mavericks for Phoenix in 2004 for a five-year deal worth 65 million dollars. Nash, who won NBA Most Valuable Player honors in 2005 and 2006, was drafted by the Suns in 1996 and traded to Dallas in 1998. The Suns missed the playoffs last season for the first time since Nash returned from Dallas and star forward Amare Stoudemire is entering the final season of his contract. Nash has averaged 17.1 points and 10.8 assists a game in his past five seasons with the Mavericks and 14.4 points and eight assists a game in his career. Meanwhile the Los Angeles Clippers have traded forward Quentin Richardson to the Minnesota Timberwolves for guard Sebastian Telfair and forwards Craig Smith and Mark Madsen, the NBA team announced on Monday. “This move really gives some much needed depth,” Clippers general manager and coach Mike Dunleavy said on the team’s website (www.nba.com/clippers).
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Japan PM dissolves parliament ahead of election
Miguel Cotto is next on Manny Pacquiao’s hit list for what’s likely to be the biggest fight of the fall. Pacquiao and Cotto will meet Nov. 14 at the MGM Grand Garden in Las Vegas, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said Monday after finalizing the match between his company’s two most prominent boxers. The 145-pound bout will be shown on HBO pay-per-view. “There’s no messing about with either of these guys, and that’s what’s so exciting,” Arum told The Associated Press. “That’s why it’s an unbelievable fight, with two guys who really love to fight and don’t dance around.” Pacquiao (49-3-2, 37 KOs) has won titles in six weight divisions from 112 to 140 pounds, cementing the Filipino national hero’s status as the sport’s pound-for-pound champion. Pacquiao pummeled Oscar De La Hoya into retirement last December in his first welterweight fight, and he dramatically stopped 140-pound champion Ricky Hatton in the second round in May for his 10th consecutive victory. Pacquiao also attended Cotto’s brutal split-decision victory over Joshua Clottey in New York last June, building anticipation for their meeting. Both fighters were eager to face each other, making the negotiations relatively simple after Pacquiao agreed to the 145pound weight limit insisted upon by
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
TOKYO - Japan’s unpopular Prime Minister Taro Aso dissolved parliament Tuesday, paving the way for an election late next month seen likely to end his party’s more than half century of almost unbroken rule.
AFP PHOTO / TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso (C) bows as he attends the House of Representatives plenary session to approve his dissolution of the parliament in Tokyo on July 21, 2009. Japan’s unpopular premier dissolved parliament paving the way for an election late next month seen likely to end his party’s more than half century of almost unbroken rule.
The embattled Aso, who is lagging badly in opinion polls and has struggled to quell internal party revolt, offered a rare apology to his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for the government’s sagging support. “My statements and what have been characterized as my changing policy positions have led the Japanese people to worry about and grow distrustful of politics,” Aso said shortly before the lower house was dissolved. “As a result, the approval rating for the Liberal Democratic Party has fallen. I am deeply sorry,” said the 68-year-old premier. Aso’s LDP lost four percentage points to 20 percent from two weeks ago while support for the DPJ rose by six points to 31 percent, according to the latest poll, conducted by the Asahi Shimbun newspaper at the weekend. A succession of local election defeats, most recently in key Tokyo assembly polls this month, has
prompted rebel members of the LDP to try to push Aso out of power so the party can face the election under another leader. The premier’s allies and party leaders have tried to ease the internal dispute, and Aso on Tuesday vowed to stay on as party chief, but discontent is simmering among many ruling party lawmakers who are likely to lose their seats. Aso — a political blueblood from a top industrial family, known for his gruff demeanor — tried his best to rally the troops Tuesday. The premier — who took office in September as the world’s number two economy was sliding deep into recession amid the global downturn — was likely to highlight his economic stimulus measures in appealing to voters. The DPJ, led by fellow political blueblood and US University trained engineer Yukio Hatoyama, has promised reforms, including strengthening social welfare and reducing the influence of the pow-
Biden to reaffirm US support US to sign SE Asian treaty to counter China to Ukraine leaders Associated Press Writer
Agence France-Presse
(AFP/Getty Images/File/Jed Jacobsohn)
Two-time NBA Most Valuable Player Steve Nash, pictured in March 2009, has agreed on terms to a two-year contract extension with the Phoenix Suns worth 22 million dollars, the star guard’s agent said. Telfair, a five-year NBA veteran, averaged 9.8 points and 4.6 assists with the Timberwolves last year. Smith scored 10.1 points per game and Madsen added 2.2 points while playing a reserve role. Richardson was reacquired by Clippers in a trade with Memphis on Friday. He averaged 10.2 points and 4.4 rebounds with the New York Knicks last season before being traded to Memphis in the off-season. “This move provides us additional flexibility as we continue to reshape our roster into one positioned for longterm success,” David Kahn, the Timberwolves president of basketball operations, said on the team’s website (www.nba.com/timberwolves).
erful state bureacracy. “This general election is not only about ending the LDP’s rule,” Hatoyama told a news conference. “This is an important revolutionary vote to create a new Japan with politician-led politics. The LDP has governed Japan continuously since the party’s foundation in 1955, except for one 10-month stretch in the early 1990s. But the party has suffered a leadership crisis in recent years, electing three prime ministers since the popular Junichiro Koizumi stepped down in 2006. The LDP lost to the DPJ in a 2007 upper house election. Since then, the opposition has controlled the less powerful upper house. Before the dissolution, Aso’s LDP held 303 seats in the lower house with 31 held by its sole coalition partner, New Komeito. The opposition DPJ had 112 seats, the Communist Party nine, and the Social Democratic Party seven.
PHUKET, Thailand - The signing by the United States this week of a friendship pact with Southeast Asia sends a strong signal of its desire to deepen ties and counter China’s increasing influence, diplomats said. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will ink the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation on Wednesday in the Thai resort of Phuket during a meeting with her counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Washington has been reluctant to sign the non-aggression pact for years, fearing it would leave little room for it to exert its influence on political and security issues in the region of nearly 600 million people. But a resurgent China signed the treaty in 2003 to broaden its influence, and amid lingering suspicions that the US refusal showed the region was beneath its diplomatic radar, Washington has finally relented. “Apparently the US has decided that the benefits of signing outweigh the costs,” former ASEAN secretary general Rodolfo Severino told AFP. The signing comes on the eve of the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Asia’s foremost
gathering on security issues involving countries such as China, Japan, Russia, the United States and the European Union. Southeast Asian ministers in a joint statement on Monday “welcomed the impending accession by the United States” to the treaty “as a strong signal of its commitment to peace and security in the region.” The comment reflected satisfaction after years of questions about US intentions in Southeast Asia and a perception that Washington had its mind on other regions. The treaty commits signatories to three basic principles: the peaceful settlement of disputes, non-recourse to the use of force and non-interference in domestic affairs. “The implication of not signing is this: if you are a power involved in the region and you don’t sign it, people might ask why the US doesn’t sign?” said Severino, now head of the Singapore-based ASEAN Studies Centre. “Does it mean that they (US) are not precluding the use of force in settling disputes, do they want to interfere in countries’ internal affairs?” Signing the treaty could also help extend US sway in an area where Asian giants China and India have been forging goodwill by
joining a number of regional bodies. China has emerged as a key player at meetings with ASEAN, which views it as a major trading partner and growing global power that should be kept firmly on side. Diplomats said Washington wants to use the treaty as a vehicle for membership in the East Asia Summit (EAS), which groups ASEAN and its six trading partners Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. Signing the treaty is a requirement for membership in the EAS, which is widely seen as a precursor to a pan-Asian economic and strategic community. “The East Asia Summit has the potential of emerging as a gargantuan trade and strategic bloc,” a Southeast Asian diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. “If the US is not on board, the United States will have little influence in such a bloc that includes China and India.” The United States still holds sway in the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) forum, a loose grouping of 21 economies stretching from Chile to China. The EU has also said it is willing to sign a similar pact with ASEAN, although the amity treaty is currently limited to sovereign states and not groupings.
KIEV, Ukraine - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to reaffirm Washington’s support for Ukraine’s pro-Western course in meetings with leaders and opposition representatives. During Tuesday’s meetings, Ukrainian leaders will be seeking reassurances that Washington’s efforts to jumpstart strained relations with Moscow will not come at the ex-
pense of Kiev’s drive to join NATO and integrate with the West. Moscow firmly opposes NATO membership for Ukraine and for Georgia, another pro-Western exSoviet republic, which Biden will visit Wednesday. Biden is set to meet Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as well as key opposition leaders, who all plan to participate in January’s presidential elections.
AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden waves upon his arrival to International Airport, Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, July, 20, 2009. Joe Biden arrived in Kiev to pledge continued support for Ukraine and was expected to calm fears that Washington’s efforts to improve relations with Russia may come at the expense of ex-Soviet nations.
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International
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
News WORLD NEWS
Japan’s Hatoyama, the ‘alien’ promoting a fraternal society
Agence France-Presse
TOKYO - The man now frequently tipped as Japan’s next Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, is the scion of one of the country’s most influential political dynasties, sometimes likened to the Kennedys.
Apollo astronauts WASHINGTON The same question that could have been asked 40 years ago moments after Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon is still being asked today: Now what? On the 40th anniversary of man’s first moon landing, the Apollo 11 crew met with President Barack Obama, who used the opportunity to talk about inspiration and science and math education. He didn’t talk about going anywhere in space, not the moon or Mars.
War crimes AMSTERDAM Liberia’s former President Charles Taylor challenges anyone to find a bank account in his name holding illicit funds or “blood diamonds” from Sierra Leone’s civil war. In his second week of testimony at his war crimes trial, Taylor denies any role in forming the guerrilla force that invaded Sierra Leone in 1991, helping plan the rebel incursion, training rebel forces or commanding their operations. Source: ap
He is the grandson of a former prime minister, the son of a one-time foreign minister, and the brother of a recently resigned cabinet minister. Another of his grandfathers was the founder of the world’s largest tyremaker, Bridgestone. Soft-spoken Hatoyama, 62, was elected only two months ago as president of the party he co-founded a decade ago, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), to go head-to-head against Prime Minister Taro Aso, also a political blue blood. Despite his roots in the moneyed power elite, Hatoyama, Japan’s wealthiest parliamentarian has pledged to fight for the common man, often speaking of his vaguely-defined goal of “a fraternal society, to realise a politics of love.” He has also attacked Aso’s conservative ruling party for allowing bureaucrats to run the country and wasting taxpayers’ money, but he has stayed cautiously clear of outlining the DPJ’s policy platform in detail.
Hatoyama — whose centrist party comprises a wide spectrum, from pacifists to defence hawks — has also argued that Japan’s relations with its main ally the United States should be more “equitable.” An engineer by training, he allowed his party to poke fun at him when they nicknamed him “alien” in a jab at his appearance and sold cellphone straps portraying him as a bug-eyed extra-terrestrial when he was previously party leader in 2001. Hatoyama, a fourth-generation politician and one-time LDP member, argues he is “not a pure hereditary politician,” as his constituency in northern Hokkaido island is different from his father’s and grandfather’s. His brother Kunio Hatoyama served as internal affairs minister in Aso’s cabinet but resigned after a falling-out in June. Yukio Hatoyama previously served as the party’s secretary general and loyal lieutenant to his predecessor Ichiro Ozawa, de-
AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi
Yukio Hatoyama fending him through a political donations scandal that finally cost Ozawa his job. Under Hatoyama, the DPJ has submitted a bill to the parliament seeking to introduce a blanket ban on all political donations by companies and groups excluding registered political groups within three years. Ironically, Hatoyama himself came under fire in late June for the accounting irregularities of his fundraising body.
He said 21 million yen (220,000 dollars) had been wrongly recorded since 2005, an admission that followed media reports that the donors’ list included names of dead people and citizens who have denied giving him money. Hatoyama graduated from the University of Tokyo, received a Ph.D in engineering from the United States’ prestigious Stanford University, and was an assistant professor in the School of Economics at Tokyo’s Senshu University. In 1986, he first won a lower house seat in a Hokkaido constituency as a ruling LDP member, and he has been re-elected six times since then. He left the ruling party in 1993 and — after forming a now-defunct party with other LDP defectors to temporarily oust the ruling party — co-founded the DPJ in 1996, going on to lead it for the first time from 1999 to 2002. Hatoyama is married to a former actress, Miyuki, also famous for her cookbooks, and has one son, who teaches engineering at a university in Moscow. His hobbies, according to his website, include touch football, tennis, watching baseball, listening to music, karaoke and computing.
Peru’s Fujimori sentenced to 7.5 years for corruption Agence France-Presse
LIMA - Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori was on Monday sentenced to more than seven years in prison for embezzlement, deepening a fall into disgrace already crowned by his conviction three months ago for human rights abuses. Fujimori, 70, immediately said he would appeal the “invalid” verdict in the corruption case, which stemmed from his payment of 15 million dollars to his security chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, at the end of his 1990-2000 rules. The 7-1/2-year prison sentence was largely symbolic, given that Fujimori is already serving a 25year jail term for authorizing a secret army death squad to kill 25 people in 1991 and 1992. However he was also ordered to contribute to payment of a one-
million-dollar fine along with three of his ex-ministers also implicated in the embezzlement case. Under Peruvian law, sentences cannot be served consecutively, meaning that only the longest term is taken into account in multiple convictions. In Fujimori’s case, that means only the 25-year sentence will be applied, unless he wins an appeal against the death-squad conviction. Fujimori has been sentenced to six years in a previous third conviction, in which he was found guilty of abuse of power for ordering an illegal search on the home of Montesinos’s wife. In the embezzlement matter, Fujimori acknowledged he paid 15 million dollars to Montesinos in September 2000, but did not accept that awarding the money as a bonus amounted to a crime. The court found in favor of the
prosecution’s arguments, however. Lead prosecutor Avelino Guillen last week charged that “government officials at the highest level, among them cabinet ministers, looted the state coffers.” Guillen also said the ex-president “paid for the silence” of Montesinos in the final months of his time in power because the top aide knew all about corruption and rights abuses during Fujimori’s rule. Guillen had asked the special court for an eight-year prison term for Fujimori in the latest case, as well as 661,000 dollars in damages. Fujimori’s presidency collapsed in a whirlwind of scandal after secretly recorded videotapes of Montesinos bribing politicians and businessmen with piles of cash began to air on television. Montesinos, who fled on a private yacht just before Fujimori’s downfall, is currently serving a
lengthy prison term in Peru. Fujimori resigned via fax from a Tokyo hotel room in November 2000. The bespectacled former president, an agronomist by training, is the son of Japanese immigrants. He was arrested in November 2005 while traveling in Chile, and extradited to Peru to stand trial. Many Peruvians credit Fujimori with crushing two leftist insurgencies that plagued the country — the Tupac Amaru guerrillas and the Maoist Shining Path rebels — during his iron-fisted presidency. His brutal tactics came back to haunt him though in the courtroom. In April, a three-judge court in Lima sentenced Fujimori to 25 years prison after he was found guilty of authorizing the army death squad and ordering the kidnapping of a businessman and a journalist in 1992.
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Sport
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
15
Benitez worried Man Utd will splash Ronaldo cash Agence France - Presse
BANGKOK – Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez said on Tuesday he fears Manchester United will use the war chest from the Cristiano Ronaldo mega-transfer to make the Premier League champions even stronger. “I am sure they will have money and they will buy some players,” Benitez said, with United profiting from Ronaldo’s record-shattering move of 80 million pounds (131 million dollars) to Real Madrid.
(AFP/Nicolas Asfouri)
Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez arrives to a press conference at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Bangkok. Benitez said on Tuesday he fears Manchester United will use the war chest from the Cristiano Ronaldo mega-transfer to make the Premier League champions even stronger.
But Benitez hopes that Liverpool, runners-up last season, can close the gap with new signing Glen Johnson providing the missing link. “We have to be strong next season — we have improved with Glen and hopefully we can do a little bit better and that will be enough,” said Benitez, who signed the England full-back from Portsmouth for 17 million pounds. Johnson agreed with his new boss that Liverpool could end their title drought in the coming season. “Liverpool are right up there with the world’s best. They showed that last season. A few minor errors can be cut out and that will lead to massive improvements,” he said “My early days at Liverpool have been fantastic. Everyone has been good to me and I think I am settling in fast.” Benitez does not often see eye to eye with United boss Sir Alex Ferguson and he dismissed suggestions by his rival that free-spending Manchester City would not pose a threat next season. “I think every club now is trying to improve and Manchester City is one of them,” he
said. “I would like to be there at the top of the table and be contending but I cannot say too much on the other teams.” Benitez refused to take questions on the future of Spanish midfielder Xabi Alonso, who is being chased by Real Madrid to join Ronaldo and Brazil’s Kaka in a new line-up of Galacticos. Alonso arrived with the squad for an exhibition match against Thailand taking place Wednesday night, and Liverpool’s local supporters have left him in no doubt that they want him to remain at Anfield. During a promotional event Tuesday at a Bangkok shopping mall, more than 250 fans chanted his name and waved banners reading “Alonso Please Stay”. He acknowledged the fans but made no comment about the transfer talk. Liverpool have made a slow start in their pre-season games, drawing 0-0 with Swiss club St Gallen and losing 1-0 to Rapid Vienna. After the match with Thailand, who are coached by former England international Peter Reid, Liverpool will take on the Singapore national team on Sunday.
United ‘Explored’ Ribery Deal Wenger admits interest in Chamakh LONDON - Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed Manchester United “explored” the potential for a deal to sign Bayern Munich star Franck Ribery. France international Ribery has been a target for many of Europe’s leading clubs, with Spanish rivals Barcelona and Real Madrid expressing an interest. Chelsea have also been linked with the winger, but Bayern have been adamant that the club will not be cashing in on the 26-year-old. United were rumoured to be readying a bid as they sought to spend some of the world-record windfall from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo to Real. However, Ferguson confirmed a polite enquiry was met with a firm response from Bayern, who sold Owen Hargreaves to United two years ago. “We didn’t try to buy Ribery, we explored it in a nice, quiet way when David Gill was at one of his meetings with Bayern in March,” said Ferguson. “They told him, ‘absolutely no chance’ and the one thing you can say about Bayern is that, when they say something, they mean it. When we negotiated with them over Hargreaves, at the beginning they said ‘no’, but they also said that, if it ever changed, their minds, we’d be the first to know. It was exactly the same this time. There is no way that they will
Agence France - Presse
Ferguson has revealed Manchester United “explored” the potential for a deal to sign Bayern Munich star Franck Ribery sell Ribery.” Ferguson also considered signing Karim Benzema from Lyon, but conceded he did not want to pay over the odds for the Real new-boy. He added: “We tried to spend it (the Ronaldo money) on Karim Benzema as, at 21, I felt that there would be an improvement there. “He is tough, good physique, a good goalscoring record, so it was worth going a wee bit extra for him because of his age. But when it went to £42million, it was beyond his value. We went to £35million and I think that was fair.”
LONDON – Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has revealed he is considering a bid for French champions Bordeaux’ Moroccan international striker Marouane Chamakh. The 25-yar-old has been linked with a move to the Emirates Stadium as a possible replacement for Emmanuel Adebayor, who joined Manchester City for 25 million pounds last week, and Wenger has put the Morocco international near the top of his wanted list. “We keep an eye on him,” said Wenger on the club’s official website. “He is one of the players that we will follow and if we went for a striker then he would be one of the possibilities.” Chamakh, scorer of 13 goals last season, said his agent was in touch with a number of clubs, among them reportedly Arsenal, Sunderland, Blackburn, Tottenham and Fulham. Bordeaux manager Laurent Blanc is taking the squad to Canada on a pre-season tour on Thursday and Chamakh indicated a decision might be reached before then. Wenger also paid tribute to Adebayor and praised the Togo striker’s impact in his three years in north London. Wenger said: “Firstly, we must thank Emmanuel for his contribution to the club. Whenever he was on the pitch, he always gave absolutely everything to the team and since joining us in January 2006, he produced a number of match-winning performances. “Emmanuel leaves with our best wishes and we now look forward continuing our preparations for next season.”
(AFP/File/Pierre Andrieu)
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has revealed he is considering a bid for French champions Bordeaux’ Moroccan international striker Marouane Chamakh, seen here on July 16, 2009 .
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Trulli mystified by tyre behaviour
Sport
usually making one of the compounds very hard to work with during GP weekends. Formula 1 tyre supplier Bridgestone announced earlier this month that it will reduce the disparity between the two compounds in the upcoming four races. Trulli believes that decision will help reduce the problems, but he thinks there is more to his team’s problems than just that. “We have all been complaining about this, and the rest of the season will probably be much better because of the decision by Bridgestone but I believe this cannot be the explanation, because if you have a problem you usually have a problem through the weekend, you don’t have it only on
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e-mail: info_ibp@balipost.co.id online: http://www.internationalbalipost.com. http://epaper.internationalbalipost.com. Price: Rp 3.000,-
nal budget cap have been dropped. And with Cosworth keen to avoid a confrontation with current manufacturers ahead of its re-entry into F1, it offered to accept a lower 18,000rpm limit rather than what was first proposed. Although that prompted speculation that it would cost new teams Manor Grand Prix, Campos Meta1 and Team US F1 in terms of performance, the company is adamant that there could in fact be benefits from the move. Tim Routsis, Cosworth’s CEO, told AUTOSPORT: “We suggested the 18,000rpm limit to remove potential tension, and a point
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one session, or any more in another or the race.” “I cannot blame [Bridgestone] for the problems we suffer. [But] for sure we can say that the tyre choice made up until now was not necessarily right, in terms of positioning the tyres.” The Italian driver reckons Toyota has a fight in its hands to stay in third place in the championship, with Williams and Ferrari edging closer. Williams is a threat to us, at the moment they are running very well and their car is running pretty good, and Ferrari is coming back, but we have the chance to fight for third in the Constructors’ Championship and this is the most important thing, after that the aim is to close on the gap in front.”
Formula 1’s new teams have been assured by Cosworth that they will have a very competitive engine next year
of possible conflict in agreeing terms. “We were confident that the engine in the return form would be utterly competitive providing we started early enough. I think the teams will not be any less competitive as a result of having a re-tuned engine. If anything, I think there are benefits to be had from reduced rejection of heat to oil, so radiators can get smaller, the drag goes down. Also, as an engine spins faster it consumed more fuel to overcome frictions, so by lowering the revs were are also going to improve the fuel efficiency.” Cosworth has conducted a detailed simulation of the engine performance of the new CA2010 power unit, based on 18,000 rpm figures, and the results suggest that it will be as competitive as most of the current manufacturers units in F1. And Cosworth has also been assured that it will not be further compromised by limiting itself to just five engines per car per season, as had been pushed for by some FOTA teams. The decision comes after Cosworth informed the manufacturers and the FIA that it would not be able to re-tune its engine as well as dramatically extend its engine life in the time left available before the start of next season. “Our position is that we are completely happy with this concept of reducing the revs to 18,000rpm but we only have a finite amount of time before we have to deliver engines,” explained Routsis.
U.S. soldiers from Dagger Company, 2-12 Infantry, 4th Brigade patrol the village of Kolack in the Pesh Valley in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province July 21, 2009. Taliban suicide bombers dressed in burkas tried to storm government buildings and a military base in two cities in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing up to six people, officials said.
Officers tightly guarded Bali’s entrances
Sony bids $50 million for Jackson rehearsal film PAGE 12
REUTERS/Tim Wimborne
Six killed as eight suicide bombers attack Afghan cities
Cosworth promises competitive engine Formula 1’s new teams have been assured by Cosworth that they will have a very competitive engine next year, despite the power units being reconfigured to run at 18,000rpm. Cosworth had initially been granted permission by the FIA to run at 20,000rpm in 2010, in a move to even up the competitiveness of the customer units against the more-developed current manufacturers. However, amid the backdrop of the regulations being tweaked to avert the threat of a breakaway, many of the concessions handed to the small teams as part of the origi-
16 Pages Number 417 1st Year
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Jarno Trulli says he has been baffled by the inconsistent performance of some Formula 1 teams this season as a result of their problems handling the tyres. “This year we have had a lot of troubles to predict and also during the weekend we have had tyre handling problems, warming them up, and not very good consistency so far,” said the Toyota driver. “The performance is good but sometimes we could not find an explanation on one car or another.” He added: “For me at Silverstone I had an incredible qualifying and the race was terrible. Even though I scored points it was such a difficult race, really, really bad, far off from where I should have been, and this is driving us mad a little bit. We don’t understand, we can see the area but we cannot understand why we have troubles. “This is what is happening this year, and honestly not only to us. It is difficult to explain and difficult to talk about, we are investigating but it is not an easy issue to solve.” Teams have complained that the difference between the two types of tyres used during races was too big,
Five dead, five missing in Japan mudslides
Jarno Trulli says he has been baffled by the inconsistent performance of some Formula 1 teams this season as a result of their problems handling the tyres
Agence France-Presse
KHOST, Afghanistan - Taliban suicide bombers dressed in burkas tried to storm government buildings and a military base in two cities in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing up to six people, officials said. Six suicide bombers, some of them also carrying guns, tried to enter several government buildings in Gardez in Paktia province but
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were shot dead before reaching their targets, provincial spokesman Rohullah Samoon told AFP. “One of the bombers detonated
in front of the intelligence department, killing three intelligence officers. The other bombers were killed by security forces,” he said.
Provincial police Chief Azizuddin Wardak said two police officers were also killed in the attacks and that two of the bombers managed to detonate explosives strapped to their bodies. “Two of the bombers exploded, one near the intelligence office and the other near the police station district one. Two police were killed,” he said. Continued on page 6
Indonesian police probe JI-linked school over attacks Agence France-Presse
JAKARTA - Indonesian police Tuesday questioned teachers at an Islamic boarding school amid reports a former student was one of two suicide bombers involved in last week’s Jakarta bombings. A teacher at the school confirmed that police had been questioning staff at the Al-Mukmin school in Ngruki, Central Java, for the past two days following Friday’s twin suicide bombings of luxury hotels. “The police came yesterday and today. It’s just ordinary chat. The po-
lice checking on us is normal,” AlMukmin deputy principal Muhammad Sholeh Ibrahim told AFP. The coordinated blasts at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in a central Jakarta business district popular with foreigners killed seven people including three Australians, a New Zealander and an Indonesian. Two other victims remain unidentified, possibly a Dutch couple who were reportedly guests of the Ritz-Carlton and have been missing since Friday. Continued on page 6
AFP PHOTO/ADEK BERRY
A member of the investigating team (R) ties the curtains together from the restaurant inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Jakarta on July 21, 2009 where the second bomb blast took place on July 17. Indonesian police on July 21 questioned teachers at an Islamic boarding school amid reports a former student was one of two suicide bombers involved in the July 17 Jakarta bombings which nine people in total.