Hollywood actress Charlize Theron did not have the consent of South Africa's Nelson Mandela to auction off a meeting with him, his office says.
She reportedly sold a trip to the 2010 World Cup, a meeting with the anti-apartheid icon, and a kiss from her for $140,000 (£85,000) at a charity event.
But the Nelson Mandela Foundation told the BBC it has yet to receive a request from the South African-born actress.
A meeting with Mr Mandela required "a rigorous process", the foundation said.
"Not even the charity foundations Mandela himself established are allowed to auction off time with him," the NMF's chief executive Achmat Dangor Dangor said in a statement.
Kisses
The 34-year-old Oscar-winning star is reported to have taken part in the live auction during a fundraiser for charity in San Francisco on 22 October.
She was initially selling a trip to South Africa, which included World Cup tickets as well as a safari and a meet-and-greet with the 91-year-old former South African president.
Ms Theron upped the stakes when bidding stopped at $37,000 by adding the offer of a seven-second kiss to the highest bidder.
This raised the bids to $130,000 - then a woman offered $140,000 to make it a 20-second kiss from the actress.
Ms Theron agreed, sealing the bid by kissing her in front of the gathered audience.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Net pirates to be 'disconnected'
The UK government has been laying out some of the ways it intends to pursue persistent net pirates.
It comes as Lord Mandelson confirmed that he would introduce tough measures against illegal file-sharers.
Initially pirates could have download caps imposed or have their bandwidth restricted.
If that did not prove effective in reducing illegal file-sharing, the government will consider disconnecting them from the network.
The Department for Business, Skills and Innovation said the legislation will come into force in April 2010, with the tougher disconnection policy introduced in the spring of 2011 if necessary.
It has asked Ofcom to monitor levels of file-sharing.
ISP TalkTalk said the plans were "ill-conceived" and said it was prepared to challenge measures "in the courts".
"What is being proposed is wrong in principle and won't work in practice," the firm said.
"In the event we are instructed to impose extra judicial technical measures we will challenge the instruction in the courts."
Lord Mandelson emphasised that cutting off internet connections would be a "last resort".
ILLEGAL FILE-SHARING
File-sharing is not illegal. It only becomes illegal when users are sharing content, such as music, that is protected by copyrights
The crackdown will be aimed at people who regularly use technologies, such as BitTorrent, and websites, such as The Pirate Bay, to find and download files
There are plenty of legitimate services which use file-sharing technology such as some on-demand TV services
Q&A: Disconnecting file-sharers
"I have no expectation of mass suspensions. People will receive two notifications and if it reaches the point [of cutting them off] they will have the opportunity to appeal," Lord Mandelson told the audience at the C&binet Forum, a talking shop set up by government to debate the issues facing the creative industries.
The pay-off for tough penalties against persistent file-sharers would be a more relaxed copyright regime, Lord Mandelson said.
The details of it would need to be hammered out at European level but it would take account of the use of copyright material "at home and between friends", he said.
It would mean that, for example, someone who has bought a CD would be able to copy it to their iPod or share it with family members without acting unlawfully.
Lord Mandelson praised the UK's creative industries, which are worth around £16bn and employs 2 million people.
But it has been eroded in recent years, he said, by new ways of accessing content.
"I was shocked to learn that only one in 20 music tracks in the UK is downloaded legally. We cannot sit back and do nothing," said Lord Mandelson.
The fact that young people now expect to download content for free was "morally as well as economically unsustainable," he added.
Mere conduits
But he emphasised that "legislation and enforcement can only ever be part of the solution".
The long-term answer was for the industry to educate users and to offer new and cheaper ways to download content, he said. In addition, new copyright laws were needed to lift restrictions on how people moved content on to the various different devices that they owned.
CD and binary code, Eyewire
Anger at UK file-sharing policy
In France the government has just approved a so-called three strikes policy.
Under its system, those identified as illegally downloading content would initially be sent warning letters and, if they failed to comply, could be removed from the network for up to a year.
UK internet service providers have argued that it is not their job to police the network, claiming that there are "mere conduits" of content.
They also say that they should not have to bear the brunt of the costs.
In his speech, Lord Mandelson said that the costs of enforcing the policy would be "shared between ISPs and content providers".
The Internet Service Providers' Association thinks rightsholders should shoulder the burden for all costs, including the reimbursement of ISPs.
"This approach is consistent with the principle of beneficiary pays and would serve to incentivise rightsholders to develop new business models and ensure an effective and efficient use of notifications and targeted legal action," read a statement from ISPA.
ISP TalkTalk said that it would "continue to resist any attempts to make it impose technical measures on its customers".
It has set up a campaign called Don't Disconnect Us to lobby against the plans.
it said that it believed the "three-strikes" rule would lead to "wrongful accusations".
"The unintended consequence of Lord Mandelson's plan will be to encourage more wi-fi and PC hi-jacking and expose more innocent people to being penalised."
The firm recently demonstrated how someone could hi-jack unsecured wi-fi connections to download music illegally.
Dark net
The Open Rights Group, a digital rights lobby organisation, has long been opposed to a disconnection policy.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, is disappointed that the UK government is determined to introduce such legislation.
TalkTalk security expert Matt Roxburgh demonstrates the problem to Rory Cellan-Jones
"Even MI5 disagree with Mr Mandelson - they are convinced we will see a rise of a 'Dark Net' of infringers. Nobody at C&binet from an online music service, as opposed to an old media company, thought that peer-to-peer [file-sharing] was a threat to their businesses.
"Yet Mandelson seems determined to push forward with his plans for 'three strikes' - threatening to punish people extremely harshly, threatening their education, businesses and livelihoods for a relatively minor financial misdemeanour," he said.
There has been increasing pressure from the music industry to get tough on pirates.
Lily Allen has been spearheading a campaign against music piracy, with high-profile stars including Gary Barlow and James Blunt behind her.
Lily Allen
Lily Allen has spearheaded a campaign against music piracy
Music industry group BPI welcomed the move.
"The measures confirmed today by government are a proportionate way of encouraging illegal file-sharers to embrace the new services, and will drive further innovation that will benefit online consumers," said Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive.
But not all content providers agree. Fast-growing music streaming service we7 thinks the government has missed the point.
"Piracy is a reaction to an unsustainable situation, where reasonable, legitimate access to music has struggled to match demand," said chief executive Steve Purdham.
"A variety of reasonable and sustainable models for providing music to consumers is key to ending rampant piracy. This is the approach that should be taken by the government rather than criminalising consumers and driving pirates further into the undergrowth," he added.
It comes as Lord Mandelson confirmed that he would introduce tough measures against illegal file-sharers.
Initially pirates could have download caps imposed or have their bandwidth restricted.
If that did not prove effective in reducing illegal file-sharing, the government will consider disconnecting them from the network.
The Department for Business, Skills and Innovation said the legislation will come into force in April 2010, with the tougher disconnection policy introduced in the spring of 2011 if necessary.
It has asked Ofcom to monitor levels of file-sharing.
ISP TalkTalk said the plans were "ill-conceived" and said it was prepared to challenge measures "in the courts".
"What is being proposed is wrong in principle and won't work in practice," the firm said.
"In the event we are instructed to impose extra judicial technical measures we will challenge the instruction in the courts."
Lord Mandelson emphasised that cutting off internet connections would be a "last resort".
ILLEGAL FILE-SHARING
File-sharing is not illegal. It only becomes illegal when users are sharing content, such as music, that is protected by copyrights
The crackdown will be aimed at people who regularly use technologies, such as BitTorrent, and websites, such as The Pirate Bay, to find and download files
There are plenty of legitimate services which use file-sharing technology such as some on-demand TV services
Q&A: Disconnecting file-sharers
"I have no expectation of mass suspensions. People will receive two notifications and if it reaches the point [of cutting them off] they will have the opportunity to appeal," Lord Mandelson told the audience at the C&binet Forum, a talking shop set up by government to debate the issues facing the creative industries.
The pay-off for tough penalties against persistent file-sharers would be a more relaxed copyright regime, Lord Mandelson said.
The details of it would need to be hammered out at European level but it would take account of the use of copyright material "at home and between friends", he said.
It would mean that, for example, someone who has bought a CD would be able to copy it to their iPod or share it with family members without acting unlawfully.
Lord Mandelson praised the UK's creative industries, which are worth around £16bn and employs 2 million people.
But it has been eroded in recent years, he said, by new ways of accessing content.
"I was shocked to learn that only one in 20 music tracks in the UK is downloaded legally. We cannot sit back and do nothing," said Lord Mandelson.
The fact that young people now expect to download content for free was "morally as well as economically unsustainable," he added.
Mere conduits
But he emphasised that "legislation and enforcement can only ever be part of the solution".
The long-term answer was for the industry to educate users and to offer new and cheaper ways to download content, he said. In addition, new copyright laws were needed to lift restrictions on how people moved content on to the various different devices that they owned.
CD and binary code, Eyewire
Anger at UK file-sharing policy
In France the government has just approved a so-called three strikes policy.
Under its system, those identified as illegally downloading content would initially be sent warning letters and, if they failed to comply, could be removed from the network for up to a year.
UK internet service providers have argued that it is not their job to police the network, claiming that there are "mere conduits" of content.
They also say that they should not have to bear the brunt of the costs.
In his speech, Lord Mandelson said that the costs of enforcing the policy would be "shared between ISPs and content providers".
The Internet Service Providers' Association thinks rightsholders should shoulder the burden for all costs, including the reimbursement of ISPs.
"This approach is consistent with the principle of beneficiary pays and would serve to incentivise rightsholders to develop new business models and ensure an effective and efficient use of notifications and targeted legal action," read a statement from ISPA.
ISP TalkTalk said that it would "continue to resist any attempts to make it impose technical measures on its customers".
It has set up a campaign called Don't Disconnect Us to lobby against the plans.
it said that it believed the "three-strikes" rule would lead to "wrongful accusations".
"The unintended consequence of Lord Mandelson's plan will be to encourage more wi-fi and PC hi-jacking and expose more innocent people to being penalised."
The firm recently demonstrated how someone could hi-jack unsecured wi-fi connections to download music illegally.
Dark net
The Open Rights Group, a digital rights lobby organisation, has long been opposed to a disconnection policy.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, is disappointed that the UK government is determined to introduce such legislation.
TalkTalk security expert Matt Roxburgh demonstrates the problem to Rory Cellan-Jones
"Even MI5 disagree with Mr Mandelson - they are convinced we will see a rise of a 'Dark Net' of infringers. Nobody at C&binet from an online music service, as opposed to an old media company, thought that peer-to-peer [file-sharing] was a threat to their businesses.
"Yet Mandelson seems determined to push forward with his plans for 'three strikes' - threatening to punish people extremely harshly, threatening their education, businesses and livelihoods for a relatively minor financial misdemeanour," he said.
There has been increasing pressure from the music industry to get tough on pirates.
Lily Allen has been spearheading a campaign against music piracy, with high-profile stars including Gary Barlow and James Blunt behind her.
Lily Allen
Lily Allen has spearheaded a campaign against music piracy
Music industry group BPI welcomed the move.
"The measures confirmed today by government are a proportionate way of encouraging illegal file-sharers to embrace the new services, and will drive further innovation that will benefit online consumers," said Geoff Taylor, BPI chief executive.
But not all content providers agree. Fast-growing music streaming service we7 thinks the government has missed the point.
"Piracy is a reaction to an unsustainable situation, where reasonable, legitimate access to music has struggled to match demand," said chief executive Steve Purdham.
"A variety of reasonable and sustainable models for providing music to consumers is key to ending rampant piracy. This is the approach that should be taken by the government rather than criminalising consumers and driving pirates further into the undergrowth," he added.
Curry spice 'kills cancer cells'
An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.
The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.
Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.
Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments.
Dr Sharon McKenna and her team found that curcumin started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.
'Natural' remedy
The cells also began to digest themselves, after the curcumin triggered lethal cell death signals.
Dr McKenna said: "Scientists have known for a long time that natural compounds have the potential to treat faulty cells that have become cancerous and we suspected that curcumin might have therapeutic value."
Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This is interesting research which opens up the possibility that natural chemicals found in turmeric could be developed into new treatments for oesophageal cancer.
"Rates of oesophageal cancer have gone up by more than a half since the 70s and this is thought to be linked to rising rates of obesity, alcohol intake and reflux disease so finding ways to prevent this disease is important too."
Each year around 7,800 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in the UK. It is the sixth most common cause of cancer death and accounts for around five percent of all UK cancer deaths.
The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.
Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.
Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments.
Dr Sharon McKenna and her team found that curcumin started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.
'Natural' remedy
The cells also began to digest themselves, after the curcumin triggered lethal cell death signals.
Dr McKenna said: "Scientists have known for a long time that natural compounds have the potential to treat faulty cells that have become cancerous and we suspected that curcumin might have therapeutic value."
Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This is interesting research which opens up the possibility that natural chemicals found in turmeric could be developed into new treatments for oesophageal cancer.
"Rates of oesophageal cancer have gone up by more than a half since the 70s and this is thought to be linked to rising rates of obesity, alcohol intake and reflux disease so finding ways to prevent this disease is important too."
Each year around 7,800 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in the UK. It is the sixth most common cause of cancer death and accounts for around five percent of all UK cancer deaths.
Warships track 'hijacked yacht'
A yacht has been spotted by the European Union Naval Force Somalia in the search for a British couple thought to have been captured by pirates.
A spokesman said their warships were in "close vicinity' and radar range but were keeping their distance.
Paul and Rachel Chandler, aged 59 and 55, of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, sent a distress signal on Friday from the Indian Ocean near the Seychelles.
The Somali government said it was doing everything possible to locate them.
If warships surround us, we shall point our guns at the British tourists
Pirate quoted by Reuters news agency
The European Union Naval Force Somalia (EU NAVFOR) said on Wednesday the yacht they were tracking was heading northwest towards the Somali coast.
The BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner, said there was no doubt that the yacht was the one belonging to Mr and Mrs Chandler.
"They are being well treated, fed and looked after," he said.
However, Somali pirates have warned Britain not to try to rescue the couple.
A pirate called Hassan told the Reuters news agency: "If warships surround us, we shall point our guns at the British tourists.
"They are old and we will take care of them - that is if we are not attacked," he said.
Earlier, the prime minister of Somalia, Omar Ali Sharmarke, said he had discussed the case with the UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband and had met the family of Mr and Mrs Chandler.
'Fingers crossed'
Speaking in London, he told the BBC the government would eradicate Somali piracy by 2011.
"The pattern has been that they don't harm the captives, these pirates, because they want money.
"But I want to assure the family that we will not rest until until we see the freedom of this couple."
Mr and Mrs Chandler were heading on a 150 nautical-mile passage south-west to the Amirante Islands en route to Tanzania in their yacht the Lynn Rival when they used the distress beacon.
Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke met relatives of the couple
The route would have taken the couple near Somali waters which are notorious for pirate attacks on ships and smaller boats.
A Somali pirate told Reuters news agency they had captured the couple and they were healthy but ransom demands would follow.
The couple's family have expressed hope that the pair are safe.
Stephen Collett, of Ixworth, Suffolk, who is the brother of Mrs Chandler, said the family were "keeping their fingers crossed".
"It may still be that they're sailing across the Indian Ocean. We're not grossly over-worried at the moment."
Mr Chandler's sister, Jill Marshment, 69, of Bredon, Worcestershire, said the couple were unlikely to have money for a ransom.
"All their money is literally sunk in that boat as far as I know," she said.
"They haven't got wealth, they are just an ordinary couple enjoying early retirement, to do what they've always wanted to do."
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it still could not confirm whether pirates were involved.
Seychelles map
Paul and Rachel Chandler were on a 150 nautical-mile passage south-west to the Amirante Islands
A spokesman said their warships were in "close vicinity' and radar range but were keeping their distance.
Paul and Rachel Chandler, aged 59 and 55, of Tunbridge Wells, Kent, sent a distress signal on Friday from the Indian Ocean near the Seychelles.
The Somali government said it was doing everything possible to locate them.
If warships surround us, we shall point our guns at the British tourists
Pirate quoted by Reuters news agency
The European Union Naval Force Somalia (EU NAVFOR) said on Wednesday the yacht they were tracking was heading northwest towards the Somali coast.
The BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner, said there was no doubt that the yacht was the one belonging to Mr and Mrs Chandler.
"They are being well treated, fed and looked after," he said.
However, Somali pirates have warned Britain not to try to rescue the couple.
A pirate called Hassan told the Reuters news agency: "If warships surround us, we shall point our guns at the British tourists.
"They are old and we will take care of them - that is if we are not attacked," he said.
Earlier, the prime minister of Somalia, Omar Ali Sharmarke, said he had discussed the case with the UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband and had met the family of Mr and Mrs Chandler.
'Fingers crossed'
Speaking in London, he told the BBC the government would eradicate Somali piracy by 2011.
"The pattern has been that they don't harm the captives, these pirates, because they want money.
"But I want to assure the family that we will not rest until until we see the freedom of this couple."
Mr and Mrs Chandler were heading on a 150 nautical-mile passage south-west to the Amirante Islands en route to Tanzania in their yacht the Lynn Rival when they used the distress beacon.
Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke met relatives of the couple
The route would have taken the couple near Somali waters which are notorious for pirate attacks on ships and smaller boats.
A Somali pirate told Reuters news agency they had captured the couple and they were healthy but ransom demands would follow.
The couple's family have expressed hope that the pair are safe.
Stephen Collett, of Ixworth, Suffolk, who is the brother of Mrs Chandler, said the family were "keeping their fingers crossed".
"It may still be that they're sailing across the Indian Ocean. We're not grossly over-worried at the moment."
Mr Chandler's sister, Jill Marshment, 69, of Bredon, Worcestershire, said the couple were unlikely to have money for a ransom.
"All their money is literally sunk in that boat as far as I know," she said.
"They haven't got wealth, they are just an ordinary couple enjoying early retirement, to do what they've always wanted to do."
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it still could not confirm whether pirates were involved.
Seychelles map
Paul and Rachel Chandler were on a 150 nautical-mile passage south-west to the Amirante Islands
Islamist dies in FBI Detroit raid
The leader of a radical fundamentalist Islamic group has been shot dead in an FBI raid near the US city of Detroit, officials say.
Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, died in a firefight with agents in Dearborn after refusing to surrender, the FBI says.
The agency said it was trying to arrest Mr Abdullah and 10 followers on charges including conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal arms possession.
The FBI says the group's aim was to set up a Sunni Islamic state in the US.
Mr Abdullah, who was also known as Christopher Thomas, had regularly preached anti-government rhetoric, the agency says.
He had also reportedly urged his followers to engage in jihad, or holy war.
Officials said an FBI dog was also fatally wounded during Wednesday's raid in the US state of Michigan.
Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, died in a firefight with agents in Dearborn after refusing to surrender, the FBI says.
The agency said it was trying to arrest Mr Abdullah and 10 followers on charges including conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal arms possession.
The FBI says the group's aim was to set up a Sunni Islamic state in the US.
Mr Abdullah, who was also known as Christopher Thomas, had regularly preached anti-government rhetoric, the agency says.
He had also reportedly urged his followers to engage in jihad, or holy war.
Officials said an FBI dog was also fatally wounded during Wednesday's raid in the US state of Michigan.
Stellar blast is record-breaker
Astronomers have confirmed that an exploding star spotted by Nasa's Swift satellite is the most distant cosmic object to be detected by telescopes.
In the journal Nature, two teams of astronomers report their observations of a gamma-ray burst from a star that died 13.1 billion light-years away.
The massive star died about 630 million years after the Big Bang.
UK astronomer Nial Tanvir described the observation as "a step back in cosmic time".
Professor Tanvir led an international team studying the afterglow of the explosion, using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii.
Swift (Nasa)
Swift detects around 100 gamma ray bursts every year
He told BBC News that his team was able to observe the afterglow for 10 days, while the gamma ray burst itself lasted around 12 seconds.
The event, dubbed GRB 090423, is an example of one of the most violent explosions in the Universe.
It is thought to have been associated with the cataclysmic death of a massive star - triggered by the centre of the star collapsing to form a "stellar-sized" black hole.
"Swift detects something like 100 gamma ray bursts per year," said Professor Tanvir. "And we follow up on lots of them in the hope that eventually we will get one like this one - something really very distant."
Another team, led by Italian astronomer Ruben Salvaterra studied the afterglow independently with the National Galileo Telescope in La Palma.
Little red dot
He told BBC News: "This kind of observation is quite difficult, so having two groups have the same result with two different instruments makes this much more robust."
"It is not surprising - we expected to see an event this distant eventually," said Professor Salvaterra.
"But to be there when it happens is quite amazing - definitely something to tell the grandchildren."
A GAMMA-RAY BURST RECIPE
Artist's impression of GRB production (ESO)
Models assume GRBs arise when giant stars burn out and collapse
During collapse, super-fast jets of matter burst out from the stars
Collisions occur with gas already shed by the dying behemoths
The interaction generates the energetic signals detected by Swift
Remnants of the huge stars end their days as black holes
The astronomers were able to calculate the vast distance using a phenomenon known as "red shift".
Most of the light from the explosion was absorbed by intergalactic hydrogen gas. As that light travelled towards Earth, the expansion of the Universe "stretches" its wavelength, causing it to become redder.
"The greater that amount of movement [or stretching], the greater the distance." he said.
The image of this gamma ray burst was produced by combining several infrared images.
"So in this case, it's the redness of the dot that indicates that it is very distant," Professor Tanvir explained.
Before this record-breaking event, the furthest object observed from Earth was a gamma ray burst 12.9 billion light-years away.
"This is quite a big step back to the era when the first stars formed in the Universe," said Professor Tanvir.
"Not too long ago we had no idea where the first galaxies came from, so astronomers think this is a profound moment.
"This is... the last blank bit of the map of the Universe - the time between the Big Bang and the formation of these early galaxies."
Italian National Telescope Galileo (TNG)
Data from two powerful telescopes confirmed the result
And this is not the end of the story.
Bing Zhang, an astronomer from the University of Nevada, who was not involved in this study, wrote an article in Nature, explaining its significance.
The discovery, he said, opened up the exciting possibility of studying the "dark ages" of the Universe with gamma ray bursts.
And Professor Tanvir is already planning follow-up studies "looking for the galaxy this exploding star occurred in."
Next year, he and his team will be using the Hubble Space Telescope to try to locate that distant, very early galaxy.
In the journal Nature, two teams of astronomers report their observations of a gamma-ray burst from a star that died 13.1 billion light-years away.
The massive star died about 630 million years after the Big Bang.
UK astronomer Nial Tanvir described the observation as "a step back in cosmic time".
Professor Tanvir led an international team studying the afterglow of the explosion, using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii.
Swift (Nasa)
Swift detects around 100 gamma ray bursts every year
He told BBC News that his team was able to observe the afterglow for 10 days, while the gamma ray burst itself lasted around 12 seconds.
The event, dubbed GRB 090423, is an example of one of the most violent explosions in the Universe.
It is thought to have been associated with the cataclysmic death of a massive star - triggered by the centre of the star collapsing to form a "stellar-sized" black hole.
"Swift detects something like 100 gamma ray bursts per year," said Professor Tanvir. "And we follow up on lots of them in the hope that eventually we will get one like this one - something really very distant."
Another team, led by Italian astronomer Ruben Salvaterra studied the afterglow independently with the National Galileo Telescope in La Palma.
Little red dot
He told BBC News: "This kind of observation is quite difficult, so having two groups have the same result with two different instruments makes this much more robust."
"It is not surprising - we expected to see an event this distant eventually," said Professor Salvaterra.
"But to be there when it happens is quite amazing - definitely something to tell the grandchildren."
A GAMMA-RAY BURST RECIPE
Artist's impression of GRB production (ESO)
Models assume GRBs arise when giant stars burn out and collapse
During collapse, super-fast jets of matter burst out from the stars
Collisions occur with gas already shed by the dying behemoths
The interaction generates the energetic signals detected by Swift
Remnants of the huge stars end their days as black holes
The astronomers were able to calculate the vast distance using a phenomenon known as "red shift".
Most of the light from the explosion was absorbed by intergalactic hydrogen gas. As that light travelled towards Earth, the expansion of the Universe "stretches" its wavelength, causing it to become redder.
"The greater that amount of movement [or stretching], the greater the distance." he said.
The image of this gamma ray burst was produced by combining several infrared images.
"So in this case, it's the redness of the dot that indicates that it is very distant," Professor Tanvir explained.
Before this record-breaking event, the furthest object observed from Earth was a gamma ray burst 12.9 billion light-years away.
"This is quite a big step back to the era when the first stars formed in the Universe," said Professor Tanvir.
"Not too long ago we had no idea where the first galaxies came from, so astronomers think this is a profound moment.
"This is... the last blank bit of the map of the Universe - the time between the Big Bang and the formation of these early galaxies."
Italian National Telescope Galileo (TNG)
Data from two powerful telescopes confirmed the result
And this is not the end of the story.
Bing Zhang, an astronomer from the University of Nevada, who was not involved in this study, wrote an article in Nature, explaining its significance.
The discovery, he said, opened up the exciting possibility of studying the "dark ages" of the Universe with gamma ray bursts.
And Professor Tanvir is already planning follow-up studies "looking for the galaxy this exploding star occurred in."
Next year, he and his team will be using the Hubble Space Telescope to try to locate that distant, very early galaxy.
Size zero girls 'less attractive'
Young men find "normal" sized women more attractive than size zero celebrities, research has suggested.
Male students at St Andrews University were asked to rate female faces for attractiveness and health.
The study found that girls with an average weight and build were ranked as being the most attractive and healthy.
Researchers said the findings sent out a strong message to young women who believe being underweight is considered to be attractive.
The research was carried out by a team from the university's Perception Lab, who asked 84 female students a variety of questions on their health, took their blood pressure and photographed them.
People in the normal weight range were judged healthier and more attractive than under or overweight individuals.
Professor David Perrett
University of St Andrews
The photographs were then shown to a group of male students who were asked to rate them for health, attractiveness and weight.
Professor David Perrett, who supervised the project, said: "In our study, people in the normal weight range were judged healthier and more attractive than under or overweight individuals.
"This sends a strong message to all the girls out there who believe you have to be underweight to be attractive.
"The people making judgments in our study were all between the ages of 18 and 26 and they did not rate underweight girls most attractive. They preferred normal weight girls."
Lead researcher Vinet Coetzee said although people often often remark on how healthy or unhealthy someone looks, it can be very difficult to say precisely how we know this.
'Already suffering'
She added: "Scientists have been trying to answer this question for decades, and have made many breakthroughs in our understanding of health and attractiveness, but until now they have tended to overlook the influence of weight."
Ms Coetzee said students who were rated as being overweight reported more frequent and longer-lasting cold and flu bouts, used antibiotics more frequently and had higher blood pressure than the students who were considered normal weight.
"Even at this young age, their health was already suffering because they were overweight, and what is more, other people can spot this in their face," she added.
The findings have been published online by the scientific journal Perception.
Male students at St Andrews University were asked to rate female faces for attractiveness and health.
The study found that girls with an average weight and build were ranked as being the most attractive and healthy.
Researchers said the findings sent out a strong message to young women who believe being underweight is considered to be attractive.
The research was carried out by a team from the university's Perception Lab, who asked 84 female students a variety of questions on their health, took their blood pressure and photographed them.
People in the normal weight range were judged healthier and more attractive than under or overweight individuals.
Professor David Perrett
University of St Andrews
The photographs were then shown to a group of male students who were asked to rate them for health, attractiveness and weight.
Professor David Perrett, who supervised the project, said: "In our study, people in the normal weight range were judged healthier and more attractive than under or overweight individuals.
"This sends a strong message to all the girls out there who believe you have to be underweight to be attractive.
"The people making judgments in our study were all between the ages of 18 and 26 and they did not rate underweight girls most attractive. They preferred normal weight girls."
Lead researcher Vinet Coetzee said although people often often remark on how healthy or unhealthy someone looks, it can be very difficult to say precisely how we know this.
'Already suffering'
She added: "Scientists have been trying to answer this question for decades, and have made many breakthroughs in our understanding of health and attractiveness, but until now they have tended to overlook the influence of weight."
Ms Coetzee said students who were rated as being overweight reported more frequent and longer-lasting cold and flu bouts, used antibiotics more frequently and had higher blood pressure than the students who were considered normal weight.
"Even at this young age, their health was already suffering because they were overweight, and what is more, other people can spot this in their face," she added.
The findings have been published online by the scientific journal Perception.
Coyotes kill Canada woman singer
Two coyotes have attacked and killed a 19-year-old folk singer in a national park in eastern Canada, officials say.
Taylor Mitchell, 19, a promising musician from Toronto, died in hospital after the animals pounced as she hiked alone in Cape Breton park, Nova Scotia.
Walkers alerted park rangers after hearing her screams. The rangers shot one coyote, but were still searching for the second.
Attacks by coyotes on humans are rare; they usually prey on deer and hares.
Bleeding heavily from multiple bite wounds, the singer-songwriter was airlifted to a Halifax hospital, but died of her injuries on Wednesday morning, authorities said.
'Phenomenally talented'
"Coyotes are normally afraid of humans. This is a very irregular occurrence," Brigdit Leger, a spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told Reuters news agency.
She said the two coyotes were "extremely aggressive" when authorities arrived at the scene.
The small wolf-like animals are found from Central America to the United States and Canada.
Coyote
Coyotes are also known as prairie wolves
Ms Mitchell - touted as a rising star in the folk music scene - was nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award earlier this year in the youth category.
"Words can't begin to express the sadness and tragedy of losing such a sweet, compassionate, vibrant, and phenomenally talented young woman," Lisa Weitz, Ms Mitchell's manager, said in an e-mail to AP news agency.
"She just turned 19 two months ago, and was so excited about the future."
Taylor Mitchell, 19, a promising musician from Toronto, died in hospital after the animals pounced as she hiked alone in Cape Breton park, Nova Scotia.
Walkers alerted park rangers after hearing her screams. The rangers shot one coyote, but were still searching for the second.
Attacks by coyotes on humans are rare; they usually prey on deer and hares.
Bleeding heavily from multiple bite wounds, the singer-songwriter was airlifted to a Halifax hospital, but died of her injuries on Wednesday morning, authorities said.
'Phenomenally talented'
"Coyotes are normally afraid of humans. This is a very irregular occurrence," Brigdit Leger, a spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told Reuters news agency.
She said the two coyotes were "extremely aggressive" when authorities arrived at the scene.
The small wolf-like animals are found from Central America to the United States and Canada.
Coyote
Coyotes are also known as prairie wolves
Ms Mitchell - touted as a rising star in the folk music scene - was nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award earlier this year in the youth category.
"Words can't begin to express the sadness and tragedy of losing such a sweet, compassionate, vibrant, and phenomenally talented young woman," Lisa Weitz, Ms Mitchell's manager, said in an e-mail to AP news agency.
"She just turned 19 two months ago, and was so excited about the future."
UN chief condemns Kabul killings
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has condemned as "shocking and shameless" a Taliban raid which killed at least five UN workers in the Afghan capital Kabul.
Three Afghans also died when suicide bombers stormed a UN guesthouse in the city, but Mr Ban said the UN would not be deterred from its mission there.
The Taliban said the attack was the first step in its bid to disrupt next week's presidential run-off election.
But the White House said such attacks would not derail the vote.
In a separate attack, rockets were fired at the city's five-star Serena Hotel, but no-one was injured.
'Family loss'
The attack on the private Bekhtar guesthouse in the Shar-i-Naw district was the deadliest on the United Nations in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
These attacks on two high-profile targets have spread a lot of fear.
Every building where UN staff work or live has to conform to minimum security rules, and one question that will be asked is 'How did these gunmen get into this building?'
President Hamid Karzai has said he wants more security for foreign workers, but there is more security in place now than ever before, more concrete blast barriers, more troops in the street, but that still cannot prevent determined militants getting through.
Will sending more troops turn the tide? That is the question that right now US President Barack Obama is facing.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said they carried out the raid, in a telephone call to the Associated Press news agency.
He said it was the "first attack" in the run-up to the second round of the presidential election on 7 November.
In New York, Mr Ban said: "This is a sad day and a very difficult day for the United Nations."
"I want to extend my deepest condolences to the families, and to our UN family."
He condemned the "shocking and shameless act", but he said the UN would not be deterred from its "noble mission".
"We stand by the people of Afghanistan today, and we will do so tomorrow," he said.
Mr Ban pledged to review security procedures in Afghanistan and take all necessary measures to protect its staff there.
US reaction
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama was confident that existing security arrangements were appropriate.
"The administration is confident that there are the appropriate resources to conduct an election and that the will of the Afghan people won't be thwarted," Mr Gibbs told reporters in Washington.
The head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said he could not yet give details of the nationalities of the victims, although the US embassy has confirmed one of the dead was an American.
Map
UN officials initially said six of its workers had been killed, but later revised the figure to at least five dead and nine wounded.
In addition to the UN staff, two Afghan security personnel and a civilian were killed.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the attack was "an inhuman act".
Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also condemned the attack.
"The victims of these terrorist attacks were devoted to helping the Afghan people build better lives. In targeting them, the Taliban has demonstrated once again that it is truly an enemy of the Afghan people."
Brazen attack
The attack on the guesthouse, which is used by the UN and other international organisations, happened just before 0600 (0130 GMT).
KABUL YEAR OF VIOLENCE
28 Oct: Five UN staff and three Afghans killed in attack on UN guesthouse
8 Oct: Suicide bomber attacks Indian embassy, killing at least 17
17 Sept: Six Italian soldiers and 10 Afghans die in bomb attack on military convoy
18 Aug: Suicide car bomber kills 10 in attack on convoy of Western troops
11 Feb: Assault on three government buildings kills 27, including eight attackers
Eyewitness accounts
In pictures: Kabul UN attacks
US to pay Taliban to switch sides
UN rattled by Kabul attack
At least 25 UN workers were at the guesthouse, including 17 members of the election team.
Three Taliban militants with suicide vests, grenades and machine guns carried out the assault.
UN spokesman Aleem Siddique told the BBC there was gunfire and an explosion outside the guesthouse as UN employees tried to flee. The building was gutted by fire.
The three gunmen were shot dead and the incident ended at about 0830 local time.
There has been heightened tension in Afghanistan since the first round of the presidential election, which was marred by widespread fraud.
The UN is playing a leading role in organising the run-off vote, and the BBC's Ian Pannell in Kabul says the attack is clearly a tactic of the Taliban to prevent its staff from going about their business safely.
Mr Karzai will face his rival Abdullah Abdullah in the 7 November vote
Three Afghans also died when suicide bombers stormed a UN guesthouse in the city, but Mr Ban said the UN would not be deterred from its mission there.
The Taliban said the attack was the first step in its bid to disrupt next week's presidential run-off election.
But the White House said such attacks would not derail the vote.
In a separate attack, rockets were fired at the city's five-star Serena Hotel, but no-one was injured.
'Family loss'
The attack on the private Bekhtar guesthouse in the Shar-i-Naw district was the deadliest on the United Nations in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
These attacks on two high-profile targets have spread a lot of fear.
Every building where UN staff work or live has to conform to minimum security rules, and one question that will be asked is 'How did these gunmen get into this building?'
President Hamid Karzai has said he wants more security for foreign workers, but there is more security in place now than ever before, more concrete blast barriers, more troops in the street, but that still cannot prevent determined militants getting through.
Will sending more troops turn the tide? That is the question that right now US President Barack Obama is facing.
Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said they carried out the raid, in a telephone call to the Associated Press news agency.
He said it was the "first attack" in the run-up to the second round of the presidential election on 7 November.
In New York, Mr Ban said: "This is a sad day and a very difficult day for the United Nations."
"I want to extend my deepest condolences to the families, and to our UN family."
He condemned the "shocking and shameless act", but he said the UN would not be deterred from its "noble mission".
"We stand by the people of Afghanistan today, and we will do so tomorrow," he said.
Mr Ban pledged to review security procedures in Afghanistan and take all necessary measures to protect its staff there.
US reaction
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama was confident that existing security arrangements were appropriate.
"The administration is confident that there are the appropriate resources to conduct an election and that the will of the Afghan people won't be thwarted," Mr Gibbs told reporters in Washington.
The head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said he could not yet give details of the nationalities of the victims, although the US embassy has confirmed one of the dead was an American.
Map
UN officials initially said six of its workers had been killed, but later revised the figure to at least five dead and nine wounded.
In addition to the UN staff, two Afghan security personnel and a civilian were killed.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the attack was "an inhuman act".
Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also condemned the attack.
"The victims of these terrorist attacks were devoted to helping the Afghan people build better lives. In targeting them, the Taliban has demonstrated once again that it is truly an enemy of the Afghan people."
Brazen attack
The attack on the guesthouse, which is used by the UN and other international organisations, happened just before 0600 (0130 GMT).
KABUL YEAR OF VIOLENCE
28 Oct: Five UN staff and three Afghans killed in attack on UN guesthouse
8 Oct: Suicide bomber attacks Indian embassy, killing at least 17
17 Sept: Six Italian soldiers and 10 Afghans die in bomb attack on military convoy
18 Aug: Suicide car bomber kills 10 in attack on convoy of Western troops
11 Feb: Assault on three government buildings kills 27, including eight attackers
Eyewitness accounts
In pictures: Kabul UN attacks
US to pay Taliban to switch sides
UN rattled by Kabul attack
At least 25 UN workers were at the guesthouse, including 17 members of the election team.
Three Taliban militants with suicide vests, grenades and machine guns carried out the assault.
UN spokesman Aleem Siddique told the BBC there was gunfire and an explosion outside the guesthouse as UN employees tried to flee. The building was gutted by fire.
The three gunmen were shot dead and the incident ended at about 0830 local time.
There has been heightened tension in Afghanistan since the first round of the presidential election, which was marred by widespread fraud.
The UN is playing a leading role in organising the run-off vote, and the BBC's Ian Pannell in Kabul says the attack is clearly a tactic of the Taliban to prevent its staff from going about their business safely.
Mr Karzai will face his rival Abdullah Abdullah in the 7 November vote
Jon Gosselin is emotionally abusive, girlfriend says
(People.com) -- Jon Gosselin has more relationship drama on his hands.
Hailey Glassman said her reality star boyfriend is emotionally abusive -- and she's sick of it.
"He'll call me and take his anger out on me," Glassman, 22, said in a two-part interview scheduled to air on "The Insider" beginning Thursday. "He has 'mantrums.' I shouldn't have to put up with being emotionally abused. I cry and say, 'Why are you so mean to me?' "
But she may not get a straight answer. "Sometimes he has trouble with the truth," she said, "and he will dance and dance around his lies. He's like Jekyll and Hyde. But I still love him."
People.com: Kate Gosselin flooded with questions for TLC special
Ever since she started dating Gosselin, Glassman said her life has changed -- and not necessarily for the better.
"I met Jon in a bubble," she said. "I'd never seen the show. I had no idea."
After their trip to France in July, she said she's faced harsh criticism. "People judge me before they meet me. I get threats everyday. I get called a home wrecker and a fat whore. People will stare or point. It gets worse everyday."
People.com: Did Jon hack into Kate's emails?
She admitted their relationship is "not normal," but Glassman said she can't imagine leaving Gosselin. "I don't want to leave him all alone," she said. "At the end of the day, I love him but I dislike him at times. When I love someone I would never hurt them."
Hailey Glassman said her reality star boyfriend is emotionally abusive -- and she's sick of it.
"He'll call me and take his anger out on me," Glassman, 22, said in a two-part interview scheduled to air on "The Insider" beginning Thursday. "He has 'mantrums.' I shouldn't have to put up with being emotionally abused. I cry and say, 'Why are you so mean to me?' "
But she may not get a straight answer. "Sometimes he has trouble with the truth," she said, "and he will dance and dance around his lies. He's like Jekyll and Hyde. But I still love him."
People.com: Kate Gosselin flooded with questions for TLC special
Ever since she started dating Gosselin, Glassman said her life has changed -- and not necessarily for the better.
"I met Jon in a bubble," she said. "I'd never seen the show. I had no idea."
After their trip to France in July, she said she's faced harsh criticism. "People judge me before they meet me. I get threats everyday. I get called a home wrecker and a fat whore. People will stare or point. It gets worse everyday."
People.com: Did Jon hack into Kate's emails?
She admitted their relationship is "not normal," but Glassman said she can't imagine leaving Gosselin. "I don't want to leave him all alone," she said. "At the end of the day, I love him but I dislike him at times. When I love someone I would never hurt them."
Five arrested in alleged rape of girl at California high school
Richmond, California (CNN) -- Police investigating the rape of a 15-year-old girl have arrested five people, a police spokesman said Wednesday.
Three juveniles and two adults are in custody in connection with the rape Saturday, said the Richmond police spokesman, Lt. Mark Gagan.
Authorities have described the incident as a 2½-hour assault on the Richmond High School campus.
Gagan said police arrested three of the suspects Tuesday night. They included Salvador Rodriguez, 21, as well as a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old whose identities were not released because they are juveniles, he said.
Rodriguez faces numerous felony charges, including gang rape, he said. It was not immediately clear what charges the other two face.
A 19-year-old, Manuel Ortega, and an unidentified 15-year-old were arrested earlier, he said. They are expected to be arraigned Wednesday, and the others are expected to be arraigned later this week.
Gagan said the suspects are likely to face "several felonies" in connection with the incident.
Watch a discussion with Gagan Video
Earlier this week, police said Ortega -- who has been described as a former student at the school -- faced charges of rape, robbery and kidnapping, while the 15-year-old faced one felony count of sexual assault.
Gagan said Wednesday that police expect to make further arrests.
As many as 10 people were involved in the assault in a dimly lighted back alley at the school, police have said, while another 10 people watched without calling 911 to report it.
A 1999 California law makes it illegal not to report a witnessed crime against a child, but the law applies only to cases in which the child is 14 or younger.
Police have posted a $20,000 reward for anyone who comes to them with information that helps arrest and convict those involved in the attack.
"We do not have the ability to arrest people who witnessed the crime and did nothing," Gagan said. "The law can be very rigid. We don't have the authority to make an arrest."
The school said it would hold a safety meeting for parents and students Wednesday evening to address the alleged assault.
The attack occurred on school grounds as the annual homecoming dance was under way inside the school Saturday night, authorities said.
The victim was found unconscious and "brutally assaulted" under a bench shortly before midnight Saturday, after police received a call from someone in the area who had overheard people at the assault scene talking about the incident, police said.
The girl was flown by helicopter to a hospital, where she was admitted in critical condition. She was in stable condition Tuesday, police said. Investigators canvassed the community with fliers, which included the reward offer, hoping to identify more suspects.
Richmond is north of Oakland on San Francisco Bay.
Three juveniles and two adults are in custody in connection with the rape Saturday, said the Richmond police spokesman, Lt. Mark Gagan.
Authorities have described the incident as a 2½-hour assault on the Richmond High School campus.
Gagan said police arrested three of the suspects Tuesday night. They included Salvador Rodriguez, 21, as well as a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old whose identities were not released because they are juveniles, he said.
Rodriguez faces numerous felony charges, including gang rape, he said. It was not immediately clear what charges the other two face.
A 19-year-old, Manuel Ortega, and an unidentified 15-year-old were arrested earlier, he said. They are expected to be arraigned Wednesday, and the others are expected to be arraigned later this week.
Gagan said the suspects are likely to face "several felonies" in connection with the incident.
Watch a discussion with Gagan Video
Earlier this week, police said Ortega -- who has been described as a former student at the school -- faced charges of rape, robbery and kidnapping, while the 15-year-old faced one felony count of sexual assault.
Gagan said Wednesday that police expect to make further arrests.
As many as 10 people were involved in the assault in a dimly lighted back alley at the school, police have said, while another 10 people watched without calling 911 to report it.
A 1999 California law makes it illegal not to report a witnessed crime against a child, but the law applies only to cases in which the child is 14 or younger.
Police have posted a $20,000 reward for anyone who comes to them with information that helps arrest and convict those involved in the attack.
"We do not have the ability to arrest people who witnessed the crime and did nothing," Gagan said. "The law can be very rigid. We don't have the authority to make an arrest."
The school said it would hold a safety meeting for parents and students Wednesday evening to address the alleged assault.
The attack occurred on school grounds as the annual homecoming dance was under way inside the school Saturday night, authorities said.
The victim was found unconscious and "brutally assaulted" under a bench shortly before midnight Saturday, after police received a call from someone in the area who had overheard people at the assault scene talking about the incident, police said.
The girl was flown by helicopter to a hospital, where she was admitted in critical condition. She was in stable condition Tuesday, police said. Investigators canvassed the community with fliers, which included the reward offer, hoping to identify more suspects.
Richmond is north of Oakland on San Francisco Bay.
U.S. set to pay Taliban members to switch sides
(CNN) -- There is a well-known saying in Afghanistan: "You can rent an Afghan, but you can't buy him."
Some experts on the region believe a U.S. program to pay Taliban fighters to quit the organization is buying temporary loyalty.
President Obama on Wednesday signed a $680 billion defense appropriations bill, which will pay for military operations in the 2010 fiscal year. The bill includes a Taliban reintegration provision under the Commander's Emergency Response Program, which is now receiving $1.3 billion. CERP funding also is intended for humanitarian relief and reconstruction projects at commanders' discretion.
The buyout idea, according to the Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is to separate local Taliban from their leaders, replicating a program used to neutralize the insurgency against Americans in Iraq.
"Afghan leaders and our military say that local Taliban fighters are motivated largely by the need for a job or loyalty to the local leader who pays them and not by ideology or religious zeal," Levin said in a Senate floor speech on September 11. "They believe an effort to attract these fighters to the government's side could succeed, if they are offered security for themselves and their families, and if there is no penalty for previous activity against us."
But Nicholas Schmidle, an expert on the Afghanistan-Pakistan region for the non-partisan New America Foundation, said that while the plan has a "reasonable chance for some success," the old Afghan saying will eventually be borne out.
"So long as the Americans are keenly aware of this, you're buying a very, very, very temporary allegiance," he said. "If that's the foundation for moving forward, it's a shaky foundation."
The bill comes as an uptick in violence claimed the lives of several American troops in Afghanistan over the past few months. In the most recent attack on Tuesday, eight soldiers were killed in what officials are calling a well-coordinated attack in southern Afghanistan involving improvised explosive devices and small-arms fire.
CNN Security Analyst Peter Bergen said the idea of paying off Taliban members to quit is nothing new.
"There's been an amnesty program for low-level Taliban in place for many years now and thousands of people have taken advantage of it," he said. "So this is not entirely a new idea. The idea of bribing people, local guys, to come over. ... It's one of the most cost-effective ways to get people to lay down their arms, either to negotiate a peace or coerce them."
Levin touted the plan, using the 'Sons of Iraq' plan to drive home his point.
"Large numbers of young Iraqis, who had been attacking us switched over to our side and became the 'Sons of Iraq,'" he added. "They were drawn in part by the promise of jobs and amnesty for past attacks, and in part by the recognition that the status quo was creating horrific violence in their own communities. In their own interests and the interests of their nation, they switched sides and became a positive force."
But Bergen argues the comparisons are not analogous.
"In Iraq, they turned their guns on al Qaeda in Iraq, which was a foreign level organization that was imposing Taliban-style rule. And that didn't go down very well with the local Iraqi Sunnis," he said. But in Afghanistan, "The Taliban is the guy you grew up with. They're not some foreigners who came in and to be part of the jihad. ... The values they [Taliban] have are not far off from what rural Pashtuns have."
It's one of the most cost-effective ways to get people to lay down their arms
--CNN security analyst Peter Bergen
He added that al Qaeda in Iraq made a lot of mistakes - which was instrumental in getting Iraqis to "switch sides and get on the American payroll."
The top commander in Afghanistan has backed the plan for the Taliban.
"Most of the fighters we see in Afghanistan are Afghans, some with [a] foreign cadre with them," said Gen. Stanley McChrystal in a July 28 Los Angeles Times interview. Most are not ideologically or even politically motivated, he said in the interview. "Most are operating for pay; some are under a commanders charismatic leadership; some are frustrated with local leaders."
Some experts on the region believe a U.S. program to pay Taliban fighters to quit the organization is buying temporary loyalty.
President Obama on Wednesday signed a $680 billion defense appropriations bill, which will pay for military operations in the 2010 fiscal year. The bill includes a Taliban reintegration provision under the Commander's Emergency Response Program, which is now receiving $1.3 billion. CERP funding also is intended for humanitarian relief and reconstruction projects at commanders' discretion.
The buyout idea, according to the Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is to separate local Taliban from their leaders, replicating a program used to neutralize the insurgency against Americans in Iraq.
"Afghan leaders and our military say that local Taliban fighters are motivated largely by the need for a job or loyalty to the local leader who pays them and not by ideology or religious zeal," Levin said in a Senate floor speech on September 11. "They believe an effort to attract these fighters to the government's side could succeed, if they are offered security for themselves and their families, and if there is no penalty for previous activity against us."
But Nicholas Schmidle, an expert on the Afghanistan-Pakistan region for the non-partisan New America Foundation, said that while the plan has a "reasonable chance for some success," the old Afghan saying will eventually be borne out.
"So long as the Americans are keenly aware of this, you're buying a very, very, very temporary allegiance," he said. "If that's the foundation for moving forward, it's a shaky foundation."
The bill comes as an uptick in violence claimed the lives of several American troops in Afghanistan over the past few months. In the most recent attack on Tuesday, eight soldiers were killed in what officials are calling a well-coordinated attack in southern Afghanistan involving improvised explosive devices and small-arms fire.
CNN Security Analyst Peter Bergen said the idea of paying off Taliban members to quit is nothing new.
"There's been an amnesty program for low-level Taliban in place for many years now and thousands of people have taken advantage of it," he said. "So this is not entirely a new idea. The idea of bribing people, local guys, to come over. ... It's one of the most cost-effective ways to get people to lay down their arms, either to negotiate a peace or coerce them."
Levin touted the plan, using the 'Sons of Iraq' plan to drive home his point.
"Large numbers of young Iraqis, who had been attacking us switched over to our side and became the 'Sons of Iraq,'" he added. "They were drawn in part by the promise of jobs and amnesty for past attacks, and in part by the recognition that the status quo was creating horrific violence in their own communities. In their own interests and the interests of their nation, they switched sides and became a positive force."
But Bergen argues the comparisons are not analogous.
"In Iraq, they turned their guns on al Qaeda in Iraq, which was a foreign level organization that was imposing Taliban-style rule. And that didn't go down very well with the local Iraqi Sunnis," he said. But in Afghanistan, "The Taliban is the guy you grew up with. They're not some foreigners who came in and to be part of the jihad. ... The values they [Taliban] have are not far off from what rural Pashtuns have."
It's one of the most cost-effective ways to get people to lay down their arms
--CNN security analyst Peter Bergen
He added that al Qaeda in Iraq made a lot of mistakes - which was instrumental in getting Iraqis to "switch sides and get on the American payroll."
The top commander in Afghanistan has backed the plan for the Taliban.
"Most of the fighters we see in Afghanistan are Afghans, some with [a] foreign cadre with them," said Gen. Stanley McChrystal in a July 28 Los Angeles Times interview. Most are not ideologically or even politically motivated, he said in the interview. "Most are operating for pay; some are under a commanders charismatic leadership; some are frustrated with local leaders."
Obama signs hate crimes bill into law
Washington (CNN) -- President Obama on Wednesday signed a law that makes it a federal crime to assault an individual because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity.
The expanded federal hate crimes law, hailed by supporters as the first major federal gay rights legislation, was added to a $680 billion defense authorization bill that Obama signed at a packed White House ceremony.
The hate crimes measure was named for Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming teenager who died after being kidnapped and severely beaten in October 1998, and James Byrd Jr., an African-American man dragged to death in Texas the same year.
Shepard's mother, Judy, was among those at the ceremony that also included Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Eric Holder and leading members of Congress and the Pentagon, who were on hand for the appropriations bill signing.
To loud applause, Obama hailed the hate crimes measure in the bill as a step toward change to "help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray."
Video: Obama signs hate crime bill
He cited the work of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and others "to make this day possible."
Later Wednesday, Obama stood with Shepard's parents and relatives of Byrd at a separate White House event honoring passage of the expanded hate crimes law.
Noting reports of 12,000 crimes based on sexual orientation over the past 10 years, Obama called the bill another step in the continuing struggle for protecting human rights.
"Because of the efforts of the folks in this room, particularly those family members standing behind me, the bell rings even louder now," Obama said. When he finished his remarks, he hugged the weeping relatives as the audience applauded.
Several religious groups have expressed concern that a hate crimes law could be used to criminalize conservative speech relating to subjects such as abortion or homosexuality. However, Holder has said that any federal hate-crimes law would be used only to prosecute violent acts based on bias, not to prosecute speech based on controversial racial or religious beliefs.
Former President George W. Bush had threatened to veto a similar measure, but Obama brought a reversal of that policy to the White House.
When the bill won final congressional approval last week, Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese called the hate crimes measure "our nation's first major piece of civil rights legislation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people."
Earlier this month, Obama told the Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest gay rights group, that the nation still needs to make significant changes to ensure equal rights for gays and lesbians.
"Despite the progress we've made, there are still laws to change and hearts to open," he said in an address at the group's annual dinner. "This fight continues now and I'm here with the simple message: I'm here with you in that fight."
Among other things, Obama has called for the repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in the military -- the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. He also has urged Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and pass the Domestic Partners Benefit and Obligations Act.
The Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage, for federal purposes, as a legal union between a man and a woman. It allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages. The Domestic Partners Benefit and Obligations Act would extend family benefits now available to heterosexual federal employees to gay and lesbian federal workers.
However, some advocates for stronger rights for the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community have complained that Obama's administration is moving too slowly on his legislative promises.
Opponents of the expanded hate crimes bill challenged the need to specify one particular community in federal legislation. They contended that existing federal hate crimes laws were sufficient to protect the rights of people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
More than 77,000 hate-crime incidents were reported by the FBI between 1998 and 2007, or "nearly one hate crime for every hour of every day over the span of a decade," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June.
At Wednesday's signing, Obama also praised what he called a bipartisan effort to start changing the culture of military spending through the annual appropriations bill. He noted that Gates had worked with congressional leaders to end what Obama called wasteful projects like the F-22 fighter bomber and a new presidential helicopter that would have cost "almost as much as Air Force One."
"I won't be flying on that," the president said.
Noting that cost overruns in military projects total tens of billions of dollars, Obama called for further "fundamental" reforms in how the government and Pentagon do business.
"We all know where this kind of waste comes from," he said, citing "indefensible" no-bid contracts and special interests pushing unneeded weapons systems.
Such actions are "inexcusable", "unconscionable" and an "affront to the American people" as the nation faces two wars and an economic recession, Obama said.
"Today I'm pleased to say that we have proved that change is possible," he said.
The expanded federal hate crimes law, hailed by supporters as the first major federal gay rights legislation, was added to a $680 billion defense authorization bill that Obama signed at a packed White House ceremony.
The hate crimes measure was named for Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming teenager who died after being kidnapped and severely beaten in October 1998, and James Byrd Jr., an African-American man dragged to death in Texas the same year.
Shepard's mother, Judy, was among those at the ceremony that also included Vice President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Attorney General Eric Holder and leading members of Congress and the Pentagon, who were on hand for the appropriations bill signing.
To loud applause, Obama hailed the hate crimes measure in the bill as a step toward change to "help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray."
Video: Obama signs hate crime bill
He cited the work of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and others "to make this day possible."
Later Wednesday, Obama stood with Shepard's parents and relatives of Byrd at a separate White House event honoring passage of the expanded hate crimes law.
Noting reports of 12,000 crimes based on sexual orientation over the past 10 years, Obama called the bill another step in the continuing struggle for protecting human rights.
"Because of the efforts of the folks in this room, particularly those family members standing behind me, the bell rings even louder now," Obama said. When he finished his remarks, he hugged the weeping relatives as the audience applauded.
Several religious groups have expressed concern that a hate crimes law could be used to criminalize conservative speech relating to subjects such as abortion or homosexuality. However, Holder has said that any federal hate-crimes law would be used only to prosecute violent acts based on bias, not to prosecute speech based on controversial racial or religious beliefs.
Former President George W. Bush had threatened to veto a similar measure, but Obama brought a reversal of that policy to the White House.
When the bill won final congressional approval last week, Human Rights Campaign president Joe Solmonese called the hate crimes measure "our nation's first major piece of civil rights legislation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people."
Earlier this month, Obama told the Human Rights Campaign, the country's largest gay rights group, that the nation still needs to make significant changes to ensure equal rights for gays and lesbians.
"Despite the progress we've made, there are still laws to change and hearts to open," he said in an address at the group's annual dinner. "This fight continues now and I'm here with the simple message: I'm here with you in that fight."
Among other things, Obama has called for the repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in the military -- the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. He also has urged Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and pass the Domestic Partners Benefit and Obligations Act.
The Defense of Marriage Act defines marriage, for federal purposes, as a legal union between a man and a woman. It allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages. The Domestic Partners Benefit and Obligations Act would extend family benefits now available to heterosexual federal employees to gay and lesbian federal workers.
However, some advocates for stronger rights for the lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender community have complained that Obama's administration is moving too slowly on his legislative promises.
Opponents of the expanded hate crimes bill challenged the need to specify one particular community in federal legislation. They contended that existing federal hate crimes laws were sufficient to protect the rights of people based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
More than 77,000 hate-crime incidents were reported by the FBI between 1998 and 2007, or "nearly one hate crime for every hour of every day over the span of a decade," Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee in June.
At Wednesday's signing, Obama also praised what he called a bipartisan effort to start changing the culture of military spending through the annual appropriations bill. He noted that Gates had worked with congressional leaders to end what Obama called wasteful projects like the F-22 fighter bomber and a new presidential helicopter that would have cost "almost as much as Air Force One."
"I won't be flying on that," the president said.
Noting that cost overruns in military projects total tens of billions of dollars, Obama called for further "fundamental" reforms in how the government and Pentagon do business.
"We all know where this kind of waste comes from," he said, citing "indefensible" no-bid contracts and special interests pushing unneeded weapons systems.
Such actions are "inexcusable", "unconscionable" and an "affront to the American people" as the nation faces two wars and an economic recession, Obama said.
"Today I'm pleased to say that we have proved that change is possible," he said.
Census will report same-sex couples, gay groups see opportunity
October 28, 2009 7:53 p.m. EDT
The 2010 census is the first that will report the numbers of same-sex couples who describe themselves as married.
The 2010 census is the first that will report the numbers of same-sex couples who describe themselves as married.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* 2010 census is first that will report numbers of same-sex couples who use the terms husband and wife
* Same-sex couples numbers will be released separately says Census Bureau
* Demographers say new numbers are otherwise unavailable; will be helpful
(CNN) -- Peter Dziedzic and his husband, Jay Judas, aren't quite sure yet which of them will be designated the head of household when they fill out the 2010 census form in April.
Both are employed and make about the same amount of money, Dziedzic, 32, of Boston, Massachusetts, explained recently.
"We'll just pick ... maybe I'll give it to him, he's older," Dziedzic, who legally married Judas, 38, last year, joked.
Regardless of who fills out the census form, the Census Bureau will report their response as a married same-sex couple without changing it.
The 2010 census is the first that will report the numbers of same-sex couples who describe themselves as married, or more specifically, who use the terms husband and wife.
The number of same-sex couples who identify as married will be released separately from the national count on a state-by-state basis, according to Census Bureau reports.
Those couples will not be included in the official national count of married couples because the Census Bureau does not have time before April to change its editing processes -- which "recode" the answer of any person who says he or she is a spouse in a same-sex marriage to "unmarried partner."
Gay advocacy groups say the new numbers will highlight the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and its needs, and they are working to tell gay couples to honestly answer the census questionnaire questions.
Those opposed to same-sex marriage, meanwhile, say the move is just another example of the erosion of the Defense of Marriage Act. The act defines marriage for federal purposes as a legal union between a man and a woman. It allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages.
More than two dozen gay advocacy organizations have joined together in a coalition called "Our Families Count," which aims to educate the gay community about the census -- that it is confidential, and that people should answer the questions honestly -- something that some may hesitate to do because of fear of discrimination, said Che Ruddell-Tabisola of the Human Rights Campaign.
The numbers will help gays and lesbians in policy fights, he said, and help show their different demographics.
"One of the first challenges is to just be acknowledged," he said. "There are still policy makers who think they have no LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) constituents and don't need to worry about our basic rights," he said.
"There's nothing like the census that paints a picture of America ... and LGBT people are very much a part of that," he said.
"Our Families Count" plans to roll out a Web site next month, and will work at the local level to educate people, Ruddell-Tabisola said.
Although same-sex couples reported being married in the 1990 and 2000 census -- before any state legally allowed same-sex marriage -- the census did not release the data as such.
If members of a same-sex couple reported in 1990 that they were married, the Census Bureau, in its editing process, changed the sex of one to the opposite sex. A decade later, same-sex couples who reported being married were "edited" to be unmarried partners, according to Census Bureau data.
It did not release the unedited data from either year, because of the way the Bush administration interpreted the Defense of Marriage Act, said Derick Moore, a Census Bureau spokesman.
This summer the Obama administration reversed the Bush administration's policy, Moore said.
The data is expected to include thousands more same-sex couples than those who are legally married, and the Census Bureau emphasizes that the 2010 census is not an accurate count of legal marriages.
"What's going to be released is a count of how many couples use the term husband and wife," said Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California at Los Angeles.
In the 2000 census, 253,000 of the 594,000 same-sex couples originally reported themselves as married, the Census Bureau said in a report.
And in the American Community Survey in 2008 -- the bureau's annual survey as opposed to its once-a-decade national head count -- nearly 150,000 same-sex couples identified one partner as husband or wife, even though estimates suggest that by the end of 2008, only about 35,000 same-sex couples were legally married, Gates said.
The ACS 2008 survey marked the first time the census bureau released official estimates for the number of same-sex couples who identified one partner as husband or wife.
Currently, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa and Vermont allow gay marriage. New Hampshire will begin allowing them next year and voters in Maine, which passed legislation allowing same-sex marriage, will decide the issue in a referendum next month.
While gay advocacy groups see the census count as an opportunity to help them, conservative groups who are opposed to gay marriage say counting and releasing the data runs counter to the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.
"We see it as a violation to DOMA," said Tom McClusky, the vice president for Family Research Council Action, the legislative action arm of Family Research Council.
He said the group is trying to work with members of Congress to "see what can be done" as far as funding streams to the census.
Jenny Tyree, a marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said in a written statement that the move was "just another clear signal from the Obama administration that marriage is open to redefinition."
Demographers say the census count of same-sex couples who use the term husband and wife will help provide numbers that are otherwise unavailable.
"People far overestimate about how much data there are about the LGBT population," Gates said, noting that few surveys ever ask about sexual orientation.
"The census, while limited ... nonetheless is an enormous resource, at least for that component," he said.
William Frey, of the Brookings Institution, said the count "is a gauge of what people across the country are actually doing."
He said, "I think it reflects change in our society ... social change goes slowly and government statistics try to keep up with the social change, and I think this is an attempt to do that."
Dziedzic said that while he'd like his marriage to be included in the official national count, but that this was a good first step.
"I admire and appreciate the effort, but ... it leaves a little bit to be desired," he said.
The 2010 census is the first that will report the numbers of same-sex couples who describe themselves as married.
The 2010 census is the first that will report the numbers of same-sex couples who describe themselves as married.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* 2010 census is first that will report numbers of same-sex couples who use the terms husband and wife
* Same-sex couples numbers will be released separately says Census Bureau
* Demographers say new numbers are otherwise unavailable; will be helpful
(CNN) -- Peter Dziedzic and his husband, Jay Judas, aren't quite sure yet which of them will be designated the head of household when they fill out the 2010 census form in April.
Both are employed and make about the same amount of money, Dziedzic, 32, of Boston, Massachusetts, explained recently.
"We'll just pick ... maybe I'll give it to him, he's older," Dziedzic, who legally married Judas, 38, last year, joked.
Regardless of who fills out the census form, the Census Bureau will report their response as a married same-sex couple without changing it.
The 2010 census is the first that will report the numbers of same-sex couples who describe themselves as married, or more specifically, who use the terms husband and wife.
The number of same-sex couples who identify as married will be released separately from the national count on a state-by-state basis, according to Census Bureau reports.
Those couples will not be included in the official national count of married couples because the Census Bureau does not have time before April to change its editing processes -- which "recode" the answer of any person who says he or she is a spouse in a same-sex marriage to "unmarried partner."
Gay advocacy groups say the new numbers will highlight the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and its needs, and they are working to tell gay couples to honestly answer the census questionnaire questions.
Those opposed to same-sex marriage, meanwhile, say the move is just another example of the erosion of the Defense of Marriage Act. The act defines marriage for federal purposes as a legal union between a man and a woman. It allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages.
More than two dozen gay advocacy organizations have joined together in a coalition called "Our Families Count," which aims to educate the gay community about the census -- that it is confidential, and that people should answer the questions honestly -- something that some may hesitate to do because of fear of discrimination, said Che Ruddell-Tabisola of the Human Rights Campaign.
The numbers will help gays and lesbians in policy fights, he said, and help show their different demographics.
"One of the first challenges is to just be acknowledged," he said. "There are still policy makers who think they have no LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) constituents and don't need to worry about our basic rights," he said.
"There's nothing like the census that paints a picture of America ... and LGBT people are very much a part of that," he said.
"Our Families Count" plans to roll out a Web site next month, and will work at the local level to educate people, Ruddell-Tabisola said.
Although same-sex couples reported being married in the 1990 and 2000 census -- before any state legally allowed same-sex marriage -- the census did not release the data as such.
If members of a same-sex couple reported in 1990 that they were married, the Census Bureau, in its editing process, changed the sex of one to the opposite sex. A decade later, same-sex couples who reported being married were "edited" to be unmarried partners, according to Census Bureau data.
It did not release the unedited data from either year, because of the way the Bush administration interpreted the Defense of Marriage Act, said Derick Moore, a Census Bureau spokesman.
This summer the Obama administration reversed the Bush administration's policy, Moore said.
The data is expected to include thousands more same-sex couples than those who are legally married, and the Census Bureau emphasizes that the 2010 census is not an accurate count of legal marriages.
"What's going to be released is a count of how many couples use the term husband and wife," said Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California at Los Angeles.
In the 2000 census, 253,000 of the 594,000 same-sex couples originally reported themselves as married, the Census Bureau said in a report.
And in the American Community Survey in 2008 -- the bureau's annual survey as opposed to its once-a-decade national head count -- nearly 150,000 same-sex couples identified one partner as husband or wife, even though estimates suggest that by the end of 2008, only about 35,000 same-sex couples were legally married, Gates said.
The ACS 2008 survey marked the first time the census bureau released official estimates for the number of same-sex couples who identified one partner as husband or wife.
Currently, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Iowa and Vermont allow gay marriage. New Hampshire will begin allowing them next year and voters in Maine, which passed legislation allowing same-sex marriage, will decide the issue in a referendum next month.
While gay advocacy groups see the census count as an opportunity to help them, conservative groups who are opposed to gay marriage say counting and releasing the data runs counter to the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA.
"We see it as a violation to DOMA," said Tom McClusky, the vice president for Family Research Council Action, the legislative action arm of Family Research Council.
He said the group is trying to work with members of Congress to "see what can be done" as far as funding streams to the census.
Jenny Tyree, a marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said in a written statement that the move was "just another clear signal from the Obama administration that marriage is open to redefinition."
Demographers say the census count of same-sex couples who use the term husband and wife will help provide numbers that are otherwise unavailable.
"People far overestimate about how much data there are about the LGBT population," Gates said, noting that few surveys ever ask about sexual orientation.
"The census, while limited ... nonetheless is an enormous resource, at least for that component," he said.
William Frey, of the Brookings Institution, said the count "is a gauge of what people across the country are actually doing."
He said, "I think it reflects change in our society ... social change goes slowly and government statistics try to keep up with the social change, and I think this is an attempt to do that."
Dziedzic said that while he'd like his marriage to be included in the official national count, but that this was a good first step.
"I admire and appreciate the effort, but ... it leaves a little bit to be desired," he said.
Bay Bridge closure snarls traffic
CNN) -- The indefinite closure of a major artery linking the California cities of San Francisco and Oakland snarled traffic Wednesday and left commuters frustrated.
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was closed Tuesday night after pieces fell from the span onto the roadway. The 73-year-old bridge spans the San Francisco Bay and carries an average 280,000 vehicles daily, according to the state's Transportation Department.
"My wife actually drives over to the peninsula; she says it's taken her two hours to get to work so far and she's not there yet," commuter Seth Carp told CNN affiliate KTVU as he prepared to board a Bay Area Rapid Transit train.
"I tried to take the Golden Gate Bridge," said a woman who identified herself only as Yemi. "It was a big mistake." She gave up and wound up taking BART.
"Today was just jam-packed," said Christina Chou, who lives in Foster City near the San Mateo Bridge, which served as an alternate route for many. "It was back-to-back bumper, there were rows of cars everywhere," she said. "It was just horrible."
Map: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
Ridership increased on ferries, with some people finding a silver lining to the snafu. "I have been looking for an opportunity to go across the bay in the ferry," said Jack Pierce of Oakland. "I'm sorry the cable parted, but I am glad to get the opportunity."
Repair work began Tuesday and continued Wednesday. "All the materials are in place out on the Bay Bridge right now that arrived last night," Transportation Department spokesman Bart Ney told reporters Wednesday morning.
He said wind gusts were slowing the repair efforts.
"Our main concern is for worker safety at this point," he said. "They are going to be working about 120 feet off the upper deck of the Bay Bridge placing thousands of pounds of steel to complete this repair."
Travelers flocked to BART, which ran longer trains and extra trains. The rail line was on track to exceed its peak ridership of 405,000 in a single day, said BART spokesman Linton Johnson.
Were you there? Send photos and video
"We have called in extra personnel to help us make sure we operate with every available train car we have in order to provide as much capacity as possible," said BART's assistant general manager of operations, Paul Oversier.
Alameda-Contra Costa Transit said that for the Wednesday commute it was running regular weekday service, but its "buses will detour to four East Bay BART stations so that passengers can continue to San Francisco on BART."
Amtrak was running a shuttle between the San Francisco and Martinez Stations for Coast Starlight and California Zephyr passengers.
The pieces that fell, described as a cross beam and tie rods, came from the same section that was repaired over Labor Day weekend in September, when crews worked almost around the clock to fix a crack in the span.
A 50-foot section of the bridge collapsed in 1989 during the Loma Prieta earthquake, killing one person and prompting efforts to make the bridge quake-tolerant.
The whole bridge is slated to be replaced in 2013, said Patrick Siegman, a transportation planner at Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates, a national transportation planning firm based in San Francisco.
The bridge is "really showing its age," he said. "It's kind of a race against time to finish the new bridge before the next quake hits."
The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was closed Tuesday night after pieces fell from the span onto the roadway. The 73-year-old bridge spans the San Francisco Bay and carries an average 280,000 vehicles daily, according to the state's Transportation Department.
"My wife actually drives over to the peninsula; she says it's taken her two hours to get to work so far and she's not there yet," commuter Seth Carp told CNN affiliate KTVU as he prepared to board a Bay Area Rapid Transit train.
"I tried to take the Golden Gate Bridge," said a woman who identified herself only as Yemi. "It was a big mistake." She gave up and wound up taking BART.
"Today was just jam-packed," said Christina Chou, who lives in Foster City near the San Mateo Bridge, which served as an alternate route for many. "It was back-to-back bumper, there were rows of cars everywhere," she said. "It was just horrible."
Map: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
Ridership increased on ferries, with some people finding a silver lining to the snafu. "I have been looking for an opportunity to go across the bay in the ferry," said Jack Pierce of Oakland. "I'm sorry the cable parted, but I am glad to get the opportunity."
Repair work began Tuesday and continued Wednesday. "All the materials are in place out on the Bay Bridge right now that arrived last night," Transportation Department spokesman Bart Ney told reporters Wednesday morning.
He said wind gusts were slowing the repair efforts.
"Our main concern is for worker safety at this point," he said. "They are going to be working about 120 feet off the upper deck of the Bay Bridge placing thousands of pounds of steel to complete this repair."
Travelers flocked to BART, which ran longer trains and extra trains. The rail line was on track to exceed its peak ridership of 405,000 in a single day, said BART spokesman Linton Johnson.
Were you there? Send photos and video
"We have called in extra personnel to help us make sure we operate with every available train car we have in order to provide as much capacity as possible," said BART's assistant general manager of operations, Paul Oversier.
Alameda-Contra Costa Transit said that for the Wednesday commute it was running regular weekday service, but its "buses will detour to four East Bay BART stations so that passengers can continue to San Francisco on BART."
Amtrak was running a shuttle between the San Francisco and Martinez Stations for Coast Starlight and California Zephyr passengers.
The pieces that fell, described as a cross beam and tie rods, came from the same section that was repaired over Labor Day weekend in September, when crews worked almost around the clock to fix a crack in the span.
A 50-foot section of the bridge collapsed in 1989 during the Loma Prieta earthquake, killing one person and prompting efforts to make the bridge quake-tolerant.
The whole bridge is slated to be replaced in 2013, said Patrick Siegman, a transportation planner at Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates, a national transportation planning firm based in San Francisco.
The bridge is "really showing its age," he said. "It's kind of a race against time to finish the new bridge before the next quake hits."
Monday, October 26, 2009
Tale of two Pakistans
Pakistan has been described by Newsweek magazine as "the most dangerous place in the world". However, as intense fighting continues and casualties rise, Mohammed Hanif in Karachi says that for the moment there is still a thriving social life.
Last week I received an e-mail from the foreign editor of a European newspaper who said: "So I wonder if you could write a story for us about living in Pakistan which, looking from here, seems to be the bottom of hell."
Pakistani cricket fans celebrate their country"s team victory in the final of Twenty20 World Cup against Sri Lanka, in Islamabad, Pakistan on Sunday, June 21, 2009
Pakistan is also a place for celebrations following sporting victories.
I was tempted to write to him and tell him that we were not at the bottom of hell yet, but we were trying hard to get there.
Or something like, yes, we are at the bottom of the hell but at least the weather is fine.
I also thought of asking whether the bottom of hell is supposed to have hole-in-the-wall cash machines and art galleries.
Do they allow children to play cricket in the street there? Is dancing at weddings allowed?
'Bad name'
I did not write it because I realised that I was thinking like a certain kind of Pakistani.
There is a certain kind of man or woman here who is very concerned about the image of their country.
Not that they are unconcerned about suicide bombers, or about the electricity crisis or about urban slums or the fluctuating fortunes of the Pakistani cricket team.
They do care about these things. But they think that the Taliban and the power crisis and dropped catches are bad because they bring their beloved country a bad name.
Earlier this year there was a film celebrating the lives of four professional Pakistanis. According to the makers of Made in Pakistan, the show was a response to a Newsweek cover story which described Pakistan as "the most dangerous place in the world".
The documentary might not have made Newsweek change its editorial judgment but it played to packed houses with a red-carpet reception and half-a-dozen television crews.
A mother with her daughter who was injured in the bombing at Islamabad's Islamic University
During the first two weeks of October there were 13 attacks in Pakistan, including one on the Pakistani Army's headquarters
Image conscious Pakistanis are likely to point out that despite all the country's troubles it is a vibrant democracy.
They never forget to remind us that Pakistan has some of the liveliest pop music in South Asia, our contemporary art is hot property at Sotheby's, our writers are nominated for international awards and our philanthropists fund world-class hospitals.
They tend to forget that this is no consolation for someone trying to escape South Waziristan with American drones in the sky, the Pakistan army closing in and the Taliban digging in their heels for yet another last stand.
'Bottom of hell'
During the first two weeks of October there were 13 attacks in Pakistan, including one on the Pakistani army's headquarters.
During the same two weeks, a painfully detailed production of Chekov's The Seagull had a successful 10-day run in Karachi.
At another venue local actors put together a female version of The Odd Couple and the Abba musical Mamma Mia opened to a standing ovation.
There were scores of other events across the country, such as the 25th anniversary of a street theatre group, a film festival for children, dozens of music concerts, thousands of weddings and endless games of street cricket. One does not expect so many people frolicking at the bottom of hell.
Social networking sites were split between people who were commenting on the authenticity of the Mamma Mia costumes and those asking 'What is happening to my country?'
The other day I was reading an article by a friend who hates musicals. She had written that the Karachi opening of Mamma Mia might be the last stand against the Taliban, but it was still girls in spandex singing Abba songs.
While reading the piece, I turned on the TV and saw that the Taliban had been on the rampage in Pakistan's cultural capital, Lahore.
Recently these attacks have been happening with such frequency that I have come to believe that if you turn on a local news channel and stare at the screen long enough a bomb will go off somewhere.
On this morning, an explosion in Kohat killed more than 50 civilians. As I was reeling from the gory images, another story broke... an attack was under way on a police commandoes facility in Lahore. Then more breaking news... an investigation centre had been targeted.
Soon my TV screen was split in three and I could follow the progress of all three attacks.
'Bright spots'
Later in the day, social networking sites were split between people who were commenting on the authenticity of the Mamma Mia costumes and those asking "What is happening to my country?".
Searching for bright spots in Pakistan, many foreign newspapers have recently done soft stories on the country.
They have covered Pakistani painters, philanthropists, rock stars and, in one desperate piece, Facebook protesters.
What we tend to often forget is that the cultural activities we want the world to focus on take place in a middle-class, affluent bubble, with electricity generators on standby, private security guards with scanners, and which are often bankrolled by mobile-phone companies or fast food chains.
Outside this bubble, millions try to eke out a living, then go home to watch the horrors of the day on their split screens.
Not too many of them get to go to the theatre to sing along with those jaunty Abba songs even if Money Money Money is the only anthem allowed at the bottom of hell.
Last week I received an e-mail from the foreign editor of a European newspaper who said: "So I wonder if you could write a story for us about living in Pakistan which, looking from here, seems to be the bottom of hell."
Pakistani cricket fans celebrate their country"s team victory in the final of Twenty20 World Cup against Sri Lanka, in Islamabad, Pakistan on Sunday, June 21, 2009
Pakistan is also a place for celebrations following sporting victories.
I was tempted to write to him and tell him that we were not at the bottom of hell yet, but we were trying hard to get there.
Or something like, yes, we are at the bottom of the hell but at least the weather is fine.
I also thought of asking whether the bottom of hell is supposed to have hole-in-the-wall cash machines and art galleries.
Do they allow children to play cricket in the street there? Is dancing at weddings allowed?
'Bad name'
I did not write it because I realised that I was thinking like a certain kind of Pakistani.
There is a certain kind of man or woman here who is very concerned about the image of their country.
Not that they are unconcerned about suicide bombers, or about the electricity crisis or about urban slums or the fluctuating fortunes of the Pakistani cricket team.
They do care about these things. But they think that the Taliban and the power crisis and dropped catches are bad because they bring their beloved country a bad name.
Earlier this year there was a film celebrating the lives of four professional Pakistanis. According to the makers of Made in Pakistan, the show was a response to a Newsweek cover story which described Pakistan as "the most dangerous place in the world".
The documentary might not have made Newsweek change its editorial judgment but it played to packed houses with a red-carpet reception and half-a-dozen television crews.
A mother with her daughter who was injured in the bombing at Islamabad's Islamic University
During the first two weeks of October there were 13 attacks in Pakistan, including one on the Pakistani Army's headquarters
Image conscious Pakistanis are likely to point out that despite all the country's troubles it is a vibrant democracy.
They never forget to remind us that Pakistan has some of the liveliest pop music in South Asia, our contemporary art is hot property at Sotheby's, our writers are nominated for international awards and our philanthropists fund world-class hospitals.
They tend to forget that this is no consolation for someone trying to escape South Waziristan with American drones in the sky, the Pakistan army closing in and the Taliban digging in their heels for yet another last stand.
'Bottom of hell'
During the first two weeks of October there were 13 attacks in Pakistan, including one on the Pakistani army's headquarters.
During the same two weeks, a painfully detailed production of Chekov's The Seagull had a successful 10-day run in Karachi.
At another venue local actors put together a female version of The Odd Couple and the Abba musical Mamma Mia opened to a standing ovation.
There were scores of other events across the country, such as the 25th anniversary of a street theatre group, a film festival for children, dozens of music concerts, thousands of weddings and endless games of street cricket. One does not expect so many people frolicking at the bottom of hell.
Social networking sites were split between people who were commenting on the authenticity of the Mamma Mia costumes and those asking 'What is happening to my country?'
The other day I was reading an article by a friend who hates musicals. She had written that the Karachi opening of Mamma Mia might be the last stand against the Taliban, but it was still girls in spandex singing Abba songs.
While reading the piece, I turned on the TV and saw that the Taliban had been on the rampage in Pakistan's cultural capital, Lahore.
Recently these attacks have been happening with such frequency that I have come to believe that if you turn on a local news channel and stare at the screen long enough a bomb will go off somewhere.
On this morning, an explosion in Kohat killed more than 50 civilians. As I was reeling from the gory images, another story broke... an attack was under way on a police commandoes facility in Lahore. Then more breaking news... an investigation centre had been targeted.
Soon my TV screen was split in three and I could follow the progress of all three attacks.
'Bright spots'
Later in the day, social networking sites were split between people who were commenting on the authenticity of the Mamma Mia costumes and those asking "What is happening to my country?".
Searching for bright spots in Pakistan, many foreign newspapers have recently done soft stories on the country.
They have covered Pakistani painters, philanthropists, rock stars and, in one desperate piece, Facebook protesters.
What we tend to often forget is that the cultural activities we want the world to focus on take place in a middle-class, affluent bubble, with electricity generators on standby, private security guards with scanners, and which are often bankrolled by mobile-phone companies or fast food chains.
Outside this bubble, millions try to eke out a living, then go home to watch the horrors of the day on their split screens.
Not too many of them get to go to the theatre to sing along with those jaunty Abba songs even if Money Money Money is the only anthem allowed at the bottom of hell.
Doubts over Latvia 'meteor crash'
Scientists investigating a large crater in a field in northern Latvia, believed to have been caused by a meteorite, now suspect it was a hoax.
Fire crews were called to the scene on Sunday outside the town of Mazsalaca by locals who said something had fallen from the sky and set the land on fire.
One expert who had said the 9m (27ft) wide crater was caused by an impact, said he now thought it was artificial.
The hole was too tidy to have been caused by a meteorite, he said.
It would be unusual for such a large meteorite to hit the Earth, as most objects burn up in the atmosphere and never reach the surface.
In 2007, a meteorite ploughed into the countryside near the Andean town of Carancas in Peru, creating a 15m (50ft) wide crater.
'Pyrotechnic compound'
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the Latvian State Fire and Rescue Service said firefighters had been told by a witness about a fire in a field near Mazsalaca at 1730 (1530 GMT) the previous day.
"We concluded that the impact must have come from the air and this is why we believe it could have been a meteorite," Inga Vetere said.
Meteorites are not 'on fire' or even hot when they land on Earth
Caroline Smith, Meteorite Curator, Natural History Museum, London
A military unit sent to the site found normal radiation levels.
Uldis Nulle, a scientist at the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre, said his first impression after visiting the site late on Sunday had been that the crater was caused by a meteorite.
However, on closer inspection in daylight he found that the hole was too tidy to have been caused by a genuine impact.
"This is not a real crater. It is artificial," he told the Associated Press.
Caroline Smith, meteorite curator at London's Natural History Museum, told the BBC that the photographs and video footage of the site, and the material burning in the bottom of the hole, indicated that it was not an impact crater.
"Meteorites are not 'on fire' or even hot when they land on Earth," she said.
"Additionally, there have been no witness reports of any large 'fireball' sightings in the region on Sunday afternoon, when the crater was allegedly formed."
Latvian Geologist Dainis Ozols said he believed someone had dug a hole and tried to make it look like a meteorite crater by burning a pyrotechnic compound at the bottom.
It is thought the meteorite would have to have been at least 1m (3ft) in diameter to create a crater that size.
The owner of the land is now selling tickets to people who want to see the crater, reportedly to pay for wear and tear on the road.
Fire crews were called to the scene on Sunday outside the town of Mazsalaca by locals who said something had fallen from the sky and set the land on fire.
One expert who had said the 9m (27ft) wide crater was caused by an impact, said he now thought it was artificial.
The hole was too tidy to have been caused by a meteorite, he said.
It would be unusual for such a large meteorite to hit the Earth, as most objects burn up in the atmosphere and never reach the surface.
In 2007, a meteorite ploughed into the countryside near the Andean town of Carancas in Peru, creating a 15m (50ft) wide crater.
'Pyrotechnic compound'
On Monday, a spokeswoman for the Latvian State Fire and Rescue Service said firefighters had been told by a witness about a fire in a field near Mazsalaca at 1730 (1530 GMT) the previous day.
"We concluded that the impact must have come from the air and this is why we believe it could have been a meteorite," Inga Vetere said.
Meteorites are not 'on fire' or even hot when they land on Earth
Caroline Smith, Meteorite Curator, Natural History Museum, London
A military unit sent to the site found normal radiation levels.
Uldis Nulle, a scientist at the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre, said his first impression after visiting the site late on Sunday had been that the crater was caused by a meteorite.
However, on closer inspection in daylight he found that the hole was too tidy to have been caused by a genuine impact.
"This is not a real crater. It is artificial," he told the Associated Press.
Caroline Smith, meteorite curator at London's Natural History Museum, told the BBC that the photographs and video footage of the site, and the material burning in the bottom of the hole, indicated that it was not an impact crater.
"Meteorites are not 'on fire' or even hot when they land on Earth," she said.
"Additionally, there have been no witness reports of any large 'fireball' sightings in the region on Sunday afternoon, when the crater was allegedly formed."
Latvian Geologist Dainis Ozols said he believed someone had dug a hole and tried to make it look like a meteorite crater by burning a pyrotechnic compound at the bottom.
It is thought the meteorite would have to have been at least 1m (3ft) in diameter to create a crater that size.
The owner of the land is now selling tickets to people who want to see the crater, reportedly to pay for wear and tear on the road.
Call to act on maternal mortality
Health ministers from around the world have agreed that swift action must be taken to reduce the number of women dying during pregnancy and childbirth.
At the UN Population Fund meeting in Addis Ababa the ministers said the number of women dying in this way was actually increasing in some nations.
The ministers seemed to agree that family planning was the most cost-effective way of tacking the problem.
However, no unanimous declaration was adopted at the Addis Ababa talks.
Brain drain
The ministers said the world must act swiftly to stand any chance of reaching the UN's development goal of reducing global maternal mortality rates.
The ministers also recognised that more investment was needed in primary and emergency healthcare to save the lives of both mothers and babies in 15% of birth when complications arise, the BBC's Pascale Harter in Addis Ababa says.
But many governments - like that of the host company Ethiopia - have already invested heavily in training midwives only to have them work abroad. There are said to be more Ethiopian midwives working in Chicago now than in Addis Ababa, our correspondent says.
She adds that the Hamlin college of midwives in Ethiopia, however, is about to graduate its first intake of students and it believes it may have come up with a solution to the brain drain.
"We are actually hand-picking girls. Some of these girls wouldn't have the opportunities to go onto further education. We draw up a contract with their families that we will give them a full scholarship and if they work for six years post graduation back in their own area," says Annette Bennett, the college's dean.
"And many of them are really excited to be given this opportunity to then go back and work with their communities. They come from where the hardships are," she says.
But to really meet demand in countries like Ethiopia both government and aid donors would need to commit more money to this kind of primary healthcare, our correspondent says.
And yet while donor aid to fight HIV/Aids more than doubled earlier this decade, aid for primary healthcare dropped by nearly half, she adds.
At the UN Population Fund meeting in Addis Ababa the ministers said the number of women dying in this way was actually increasing in some nations.
The ministers seemed to agree that family planning was the most cost-effective way of tacking the problem.
However, no unanimous declaration was adopted at the Addis Ababa talks.
Brain drain
The ministers said the world must act swiftly to stand any chance of reaching the UN's development goal of reducing global maternal mortality rates.
The ministers also recognised that more investment was needed in primary and emergency healthcare to save the lives of both mothers and babies in 15% of birth when complications arise, the BBC's Pascale Harter in Addis Ababa says.
But many governments - like that of the host company Ethiopia - have already invested heavily in training midwives only to have them work abroad. There are said to be more Ethiopian midwives working in Chicago now than in Addis Ababa, our correspondent says.
She adds that the Hamlin college of midwives in Ethiopia, however, is about to graduate its first intake of students and it believes it may have come up with a solution to the brain drain.
"We are actually hand-picking girls. Some of these girls wouldn't have the opportunities to go onto further education. We draw up a contract with their families that we will give them a full scholarship and if they work for six years post graduation back in their own area," says Annette Bennett, the college's dean.
"And many of them are really excited to be given this opportunity to then go back and work with their communities. They come from where the hardships are," she says.
But to really meet demand in countries like Ethiopia both government and aid donors would need to commit more money to this kind of primary healthcare, our correspondent says.
And yet while donor aid to fight HIV/Aids more than doubled earlier this decade, aid for primary healthcare dropped by nearly half, she adds.
The man who walks with bears
Black bears are often considered among the most dangerous animals in North America, depicted down the years as ferocious predators threatening to man.
But, says one man, that perception could not be further from the truth.
For 43 years, Professor Lynn Rogers has studied wild bears, walking and playing with them, gaining amazing insights into their behaviour.
His studies reveal the bears as peaceful, playful creatures, which even hum when they are content.
The new understanding of wild black bear (Ursus americanus) behaviour unveiled by Prof Roger's research is depicted by the BBC natural history programme Natural World: "Bearwalker of the Northwoods".
For the first half of my life, I struggled to control my fear of bears. But bears like June have taught me that they are not the ferocious animals we once thought
Professor Lynn Rogers
As part of the programme, the BBC film crew working with Prof Rogers recorded wild black bears mating for the first time.
When the male bear mounts the female, his body shakes in a behaviour that Prof Rogers calls "fluttering".
Contrary to popular opinion, mating bears aren't particularly dangerous.
In all his years observing the black bears, he has never been threatened by a black bear that is attempting to attract or mate with another.
Following in a black bear's footsteps
In fact, he has never been attacked by any bear.
Black bear attacks on humans are incredibly rare, with most happening in the remote parts of Canada and Alaska, says Prof Rogers, who is director of the Wildlife Research Institute and the North American Bear Centre in Ely, Minnesota, US.
"In the eastern US, there have been only three fatalities caused by black bears in the last hundred years," he says.
Black bear drawing
A classic depiction of the black bear
When Prof Rogers started his research in the 1960s, they had to tranquilise bears to get close to them.
But now he has worked out how to get the bears' trust.
One bear, which Prof Rogers has named June, is particularly amenable, allowing him to walk and rest with her in the forest.
"Everyone warns you never to go near a mother bear with cubs," says Prof Rogers.
Yet he is able to sit alongside June and her cubs as they exit their den and play. He is also able to do the same with another bear, named Juliet.
Before June hibernates for the winter, the bear allows Prof Rogers to monitor her heart rate on a daily basis.
Each day, prior to her entering her den, June's heart rate falls.
BEAR FACTS
Bear cub
Black bears once ranged over most of the forested regions of North America. Their current distribution is restricted to relatively undisturbed forested regions
Their population is estimated at 750,000
Wild males weigh between 125 and 500lbs. Females weigh between 90 and 300lbs
Black bears groom each other for parasites as primates do
This species does not growl. Black bears make loud blowing noises and clack their teeth when frightened
"It is not that she likes me, she trusts me," says Prof Rogers.
"For the first half of my life, I struggled to control my fear of bears. But bears like June have taught me that they are not the ferocious animals we once thought."
A knee jerk fear of bears often leads to people attempting to hunt them, says Prof Rogers, even out of season when it is illegal to do so.
"Walking with bears allows us to see the dangers they face," says Prof Rogers.
"Some people are so afraid of bears, they shoot them on sight, even when they pose no threat."
In the film, Prof Rogers and his field researcher Ms Sue Mansfield can be seen approaching a 400lb male bear that they believe had earlier been shot and wounded by a hunter.
Yet even this wounded bear is not aggressive towards them.
During the six week annual hunting season, Prof Rogers and his team tie pink ribbons around the bears they are researching, so that they are obvious to hunters, which hopefully will spare the animals.
Bears temporarily marked in this way are four times less likely to be shot by hunters.
Suckle and hum...
There is also an assumption that feeding black bears may cause the animals to aggressively seek food out from walkers and campers.
"The funny thing is, there is no scientific evidence to support this," says Prof Rogers. "It is not what we see."
Other revelations gleaned by Prof Rogers during his research include the fact that black bears are susceptible to a parasite of deer.
Young bears can die after being infected by the pathogen, and Prof Rogers and his colleagues are now studying its impact on the black bear population.
Along with colleagues Dr Gustav Peters and Dr Megan Owen, Prof Rogers has also studied in detail a particular behaviour of bears, known as "humming".
While humming, bears will exhale producing a series of between nine and 15 loud sounds a second.
When they reach the end of each breath, they quickly and silently inhale, before exhaling loudly again, continuing the humming sound.
As yet, it is unclear why bears do this.
All bear species hum in this way, apart from giant pandas.
Natural World: 'Bearwalker of the Northwoods', Wednesday 28 October, 2000GMT, BBC Two
But, says one man, that perception could not be further from the truth.
For 43 years, Professor Lynn Rogers has studied wild bears, walking and playing with them, gaining amazing insights into their behaviour.
His studies reveal the bears as peaceful, playful creatures, which even hum when they are content.
The new understanding of wild black bear (Ursus americanus) behaviour unveiled by Prof Roger's research is depicted by the BBC natural history programme Natural World: "Bearwalker of the Northwoods".
For the first half of my life, I struggled to control my fear of bears. But bears like June have taught me that they are not the ferocious animals we once thought
Professor Lynn Rogers
As part of the programme, the BBC film crew working with Prof Rogers recorded wild black bears mating for the first time.
When the male bear mounts the female, his body shakes in a behaviour that Prof Rogers calls "fluttering".
Contrary to popular opinion, mating bears aren't particularly dangerous.
In all his years observing the black bears, he has never been threatened by a black bear that is attempting to attract or mate with another.
Following in a black bear's footsteps
In fact, he has never been attacked by any bear.
Black bear attacks on humans are incredibly rare, with most happening in the remote parts of Canada and Alaska, says Prof Rogers, who is director of the Wildlife Research Institute and the North American Bear Centre in Ely, Minnesota, US.
"In the eastern US, there have been only three fatalities caused by black bears in the last hundred years," he says.
Black bear drawing
A classic depiction of the black bear
When Prof Rogers started his research in the 1960s, they had to tranquilise bears to get close to them.
But now he has worked out how to get the bears' trust.
One bear, which Prof Rogers has named June, is particularly amenable, allowing him to walk and rest with her in the forest.
"Everyone warns you never to go near a mother bear with cubs," says Prof Rogers.
Yet he is able to sit alongside June and her cubs as they exit their den and play. He is also able to do the same with another bear, named Juliet.
Before June hibernates for the winter, the bear allows Prof Rogers to monitor her heart rate on a daily basis.
Each day, prior to her entering her den, June's heart rate falls.
BEAR FACTS
Bear cub
Black bears once ranged over most of the forested regions of North America. Their current distribution is restricted to relatively undisturbed forested regions
Their population is estimated at 750,000
Wild males weigh between 125 and 500lbs. Females weigh between 90 and 300lbs
Black bears groom each other for parasites as primates do
This species does not growl. Black bears make loud blowing noises and clack their teeth when frightened
"It is not that she likes me, she trusts me," says Prof Rogers.
"For the first half of my life, I struggled to control my fear of bears. But bears like June have taught me that they are not the ferocious animals we once thought."
A knee jerk fear of bears often leads to people attempting to hunt them, says Prof Rogers, even out of season when it is illegal to do so.
"Walking with bears allows us to see the dangers they face," says Prof Rogers.
"Some people are so afraid of bears, they shoot them on sight, even when they pose no threat."
In the film, Prof Rogers and his field researcher Ms Sue Mansfield can be seen approaching a 400lb male bear that they believe had earlier been shot and wounded by a hunter.
Yet even this wounded bear is not aggressive towards them.
During the six week annual hunting season, Prof Rogers and his team tie pink ribbons around the bears they are researching, so that they are obvious to hunters, which hopefully will spare the animals.
Bears temporarily marked in this way are four times less likely to be shot by hunters.
Suckle and hum...
There is also an assumption that feeding black bears may cause the animals to aggressively seek food out from walkers and campers.
"The funny thing is, there is no scientific evidence to support this," says Prof Rogers. "It is not what we see."
Other revelations gleaned by Prof Rogers during his research include the fact that black bears are susceptible to a parasite of deer.
Young bears can die after being infected by the pathogen, and Prof Rogers and his colleagues are now studying its impact on the black bear population.
Along with colleagues Dr Gustav Peters and Dr Megan Owen, Prof Rogers has also studied in detail a particular behaviour of bears, known as "humming".
While humming, bears will exhale producing a series of between nine and 15 loud sounds a second.
When they reach the end of each breath, they quickly and silently inhale, before exhaling loudly again, continuing the humming sound.
As yet, it is unclear why bears do this.
All bear species hum in this way, apart from giant pandas.
Natural World: 'Bearwalker of the Northwoods', Wednesday 28 October, 2000GMT, BBC Two
Indian royal splendour on display
When it comes to majestic grandeur, few monarchies in the world matched the opulence of India's royal courts in their heyday.
The Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum in London has brought some of that splendour to life in a new exhibition featuring more than 250 rarely seen objects, including thrones, gem-encrusted weapons and even a life-sized and bejewelled maharaja's model elephant.
Organisers say that Maharaja: The Splendour of India's Royal Courts is the first display that comprehensively explores the world of these exotic rulers and their rich culture.
The exhibition centres on the golden period of maharaja power: from the beginning of the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Many of the magnificent objects on display have been loaned by India's royal families.
The aim is to illuminate the plush and sometimes ostentatious lifestyles of maharajas that existed right up until the end of British rule in 1947.
'Fascinating story'
"There has never been an exhibition like this before, showing the spectacular treasures of the courts of the maharajas," said V&A director Mark Jones.
Howdah, 19th century
Exhibition in pictures
"Many of the objects have left India for the first time to come to the V&A.
"This exhibition shows that India's rulers were significant patrons of the arts, in India and the West, and tells the fascinating story of the changing role of the maharaja from the early 18th century to the final days of the Raj."
One of the most fascinating items on display is the Patiala Necklace - one of jeweller Cartier's largest single commissions. Completed in 1928, it originally contained 2,930 diamonds.
Divided into sections, the exhibition starts with a recreation of an Indian royal procession, before examining the political, religious and military leadership roles a maharaja had to assume.
A brilliant and no doubt priceless display of oils, watercolours and sketches show how the secular and sacred power of an Indian king was expressed most spectacularly in the grand public processions that celebrated royal events and religious festivals.
Lavishly dressed maharajas can be seen riding richly caparisoned elephants or horses, surrounded by attendants bearing the symbolic attributes of kingship: a royal parasol, fans and staffs of authority.
Justice and punishment
"The vision of a king in all his splendour was believed to be auspicious. It was central to the concept of darshan, the propitious act of seeing and being seen by a superior being, whether a god or a king," exhibition co-organiser Anna Watson told the BBC.
Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, Late 19th century
Maharajas have worn some of the world's most splendid jewellery
"Although originally a Hindu notion, the idea of darshan became an integral aspect of kingship throughout the subcontinent."
The exhibition also examines changes in the balance of power and changes in taste in the 18th and 19th centuries, including the disintegration of the Mughal empire and the impact of expanding British influence.
It explains how even under the British, Indian rulers were expected to exercise rajadharma - the duties and behaviour appropriate to a king.
These duties include the protection of their subjects, the adjudication of disputes, and the ministering of justice and punishment.
"Martial skills were as important as administrative and diplomatic ones; as well as being wise and benevolent, kings were expected to be fierce warriors and skilled hunters. Rajadharma was also exercised through the patronage of poets, musicians, architects, artists, craftsmen and religious foundations," Ms Watson is quoted as saying in exhibition publicity material.
When Mughal power collapsed completely in 1739, a new breed of maharajas popped up all over India to replace them.
'Modern maharajas'
The exhibition explains that they were seldom known as "maharajas" - a word meaning "great king".
Instead, they enjoyed a multiplicity of titles - Raja, Rana, Maharana, Nawab and Nizam.
Detail showing Maharana Ari Singh at the Jagmandir , 1767
Maharajas were renowned for their patronage of the arts
The final section explores the role of "modern" maharajas and the increasing European influence on their lives and possessions.
The exhibition explains the Raj essentially operated as a two-tier system - the British had direct control over three-fifths of the subcontinent, known as "British India", and indirect control over the remaining territory.
Although Indian rulers were guaranteed their borders and rights, the British continued to interfere in the day-to-day running of their states and to limit royal authority - most dramatically in deposing rulers they viewed as unsuitable.
Around this time the number of Indian princes - as rulers were now termed - grew enormously as the British bestowed titles on landowners and chieftains.
A system of imperial orders was introduced to integrate Indian rulers into a western-style feudal hierarchy.
The most important states were ranked within a system of gun salutes; Queen Victoria was entitled to 101 guns, the viceroy and members of the royal family to 31, while the princes had between 21 and nine depending on their status.
But just as Indian rulers began to become fully adapted to the new imperial regime - as they did with the Mughals centuries earlier - they had to change again when India became a republic after independence in 1947.
The Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum in London has brought some of that splendour to life in a new exhibition featuring more than 250 rarely seen objects, including thrones, gem-encrusted weapons and even a life-sized and bejewelled maharaja's model elephant.
Organisers say that Maharaja: The Splendour of India's Royal Courts is the first display that comprehensively explores the world of these exotic rulers and their rich culture.
The exhibition centres on the golden period of maharaja power: from the beginning of the 18th century to the mid-20th century. Many of the magnificent objects on display have been loaned by India's royal families.
The aim is to illuminate the plush and sometimes ostentatious lifestyles of maharajas that existed right up until the end of British rule in 1947.
'Fascinating story'
"There has never been an exhibition like this before, showing the spectacular treasures of the courts of the maharajas," said V&A director Mark Jones.
Howdah, 19th century
Exhibition in pictures
"Many of the objects have left India for the first time to come to the V&A.
"This exhibition shows that India's rulers were significant patrons of the arts, in India and the West, and tells the fascinating story of the changing role of the maharaja from the early 18th century to the final days of the Raj."
One of the most fascinating items on display is the Patiala Necklace - one of jeweller Cartier's largest single commissions. Completed in 1928, it originally contained 2,930 diamonds.
Divided into sections, the exhibition starts with a recreation of an Indian royal procession, before examining the political, religious and military leadership roles a maharaja had to assume.
A brilliant and no doubt priceless display of oils, watercolours and sketches show how the secular and sacred power of an Indian king was expressed most spectacularly in the grand public processions that celebrated royal events and religious festivals.
Lavishly dressed maharajas can be seen riding richly caparisoned elephants or horses, surrounded by attendants bearing the symbolic attributes of kingship: a royal parasol, fans and staffs of authority.
Justice and punishment
"The vision of a king in all his splendour was believed to be auspicious. It was central to the concept of darshan, the propitious act of seeing and being seen by a superior being, whether a god or a king," exhibition co-organiser Anna Watson told the BBC.
Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III, Late 19th century
Maharajas have worn some of the world's most splendid jewellery
"Although originally a Hindu notion, the idea of darshan became an integral aspect of kingship throughout the subcontinent."
The exhibition also examines changes in the balance of power and changes in taste in the 18th and 19th centuries, including the disintegration of the Mughal empire and the impact of expanding British influence.
It explains how even under the British, Indian rulers were expected to exercise rajadharma - the duties and behaviour appropriate to a king.
These duties include the protection of their subjects, the adjudication of disputes, and the ministering of justice and punishment.
"Martial skills were as important as administrative and diplomatic ones; as well as being wise and benevolent, kings were expected to be fierce warriors and skilled hunters. Rajadharma was also exercised through the patronage of poets, musicians, architects, artists, craftsmen and religious foundations," Ms Watson is quoted as saying in exhibition publicity material.
When Mughal power collapsed completely in 1739, a new breed of maharajas popped up all over India to replace them.
'Modern maharajas'
The exhibition explains that they were seldom known as "maharajas" - a word meaning "great king".
Instead, they enjoyed a multiplicity of titles - Raja, Rana, Maharana, Nawab and Nizam.
Detail showing Maharana Ari Singh at the Jagmandir , 1767
Maharajas were renowned for their patronage of the arts
The final section explores the role of "modern" maharajas and the increasing European influence on their lives and possessions.
The exhibition explains the Raj essentially operated as a two-tier system - the British had direct control over three-fifths of the subcontinent, known as "British India", and indirect control over the remaining territory.
Although Indian rulers were guaranteed their borders and rights, the British continued to interfere in the day-to-day running of their states and to limit royal authority - most dramatically in deposing rulers they viewed as unsuitable.
Around this time the number of Indian princes - as rulers were now termed - grew enormously as the British bestowed titles on landowners and chieftains.
A system of imperial orders was introduced to integrate Indian rulers into a western-style feudal hierarchy.
The most important states were ranked within a system of gun salutes; Queen Victoria was entitled to 101 guns, the viceroy and members of the royal family to 31, while the princes had between 21 and nine depending on their status.
But just as Indian rulers began to become fully adapted to the new imperial regime - as they did with the Mughals centuries earlier - they had to change again when India became a republic after independence in 1947.
Particle beams injected into LHC
Engineers working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have successfully injected beams of particles into two sections of the vast machine.
An LHC spokesperson said this was the first time particle beams had been inside the LHC since it was shut down late in September 2008.
Scientists working on the giant particle accelerator described the success as "a milestone".
They plan to circulate a beam around the 27km-long tunnel in November.
The LHC was closed down shortly after its switch-on last year, when a magnet problem called a "quench" caused a tonne of liquid helium to leak into its tunnel.
This is a work of synchronisation
Gianluigi Arduini, Cern
Since then, engineers have been working to repair the damage. Recently, all eight sectors of the LHC were cooled to their operating temperature of 1.9 kelvin (-271C; -456F) - colder than deep space.
On 23 and 25 October, beams of protons and of lead ions were injected into the LHC ring, and successfully guided both clockwise and anti-clockwise through two of the eight sectors. Each sector is approximately 3.5km long.
The extreme cold allows the magnets inside the LHC, which align and accelerate the beam, to become "superconducting". This means they channel electric current with zero resistance and very little power loss.
Gianluigi Arduini, deputy head of hardware commissioning for the LHC, told BBC News the beam test showed that the collider's machinery was operating properly.
LHC tunnel (Cern/M.Brice)
The LHC's tunnel runs for 27km under the Franco-Swiss border
"This is a work of synchronisation," he said.
"The fast magnets must be synchronised to accelerate the beam and transfer it from one accelerator to the next and eventually to the LHC, which must be synchronised to accept it.
"This whole process happens within a few hundred picoseconds - one picosecond is a millionth of a millionth of a second."
The beams were injected at 450 billion electron volts, only a fraction of the energy that scientists will aim for when they attempt to collide two particle beams.
Two beams of particles will be fired down pipes running through the magnets - travelling in opposite directions at close to the speed of light.
Mr Arduini said: "The aim once the beam is circulating is to accelerate [it] up to 3.5 [trillion electron volts].
"But that will be in stages. We will first go to one, then 3.5... then from 2011 we're going to try to go to seven."
At allotted points around the tunnel, the proton beams cross paths, smashing into one another.
Scientists hope to see new particles in the debris of these collisions that could reveal insights into the "Big Bang" and the nature of the Universe.
An LHC spokesperson said this was the first time particle beams had been inside the LHC since it was shut down late in September 2008.
Scientists working on the giant particle accelerator described the success as "a milestone".
They plan to circulate a beam around the 27km-long tunnel in November.
The LHC was closed down shortly after its switch-on last year, when a magnet problem called a "quench" caused a tonne of liquid helium to leak into its tunnel.
This is a work of synchronisation
Gianluigi Arduini, Cern
Since then, engineers have been working to repair the damage. Recently, all eight sectors of the LHC were cooled to their operating temperature of 1.9 kelvin (-271C; -456F) - colder than deep space.
On 23 and 25 October, beams of protons and of lead ions were injected into the LHC ring, and successfully guided both clockwise and anti-clockwise through two of the eight sectors. Each sector is approximately 3.5km long.
The extreme cold allows the magnets inside the LHC, which align and accelerate the beam, to become "superconducting". This means they channel electric current with zero resistance and very little power loss.
Gianluigi Arduini, deputy head of hardware commissioning for the LHC, told BBC News the beam test showed that the collider's machinery was operating properly.
LHC tunnel (Cern/M.Brice)
The LHC's tunnel runs for 27km under the Franco-Swiss border
"This is a work of synchronisation," he said.
"The fast magnets must be synchronised to accelerate the beam and transfer it from one accelerator to the next and eventually to the LHC, which must be synchronised to accept it.
"This whole process happens within a few hundred picoseconds - one picosecond is a millionth of a millionth of a second."
The beams were injected at 450 billion electron volts, only a fraction of the energy that scientists will aim for when they attempt to collide two particle beams.
Two beams of particles will be fired down pipes running through the magnets - travelling in opposite directions at close to the speed of light.
Mr Arduini said: "The aim once the beam is circulating is to accelerate [it] up to 3.5 [trillion electron volts].
"But that will be in stages. We will first go to one, then 3.5... then from 2011 we're going to try to go to seven."
At allotted points around the tunnel, the proton beams cross paths, smashing into one another.
Scientists hope to see new particles in the debris of these collisions that could reveal insights into the "Big Bang" and the nature of the Universe.
Net set for 'language shake-up'
The internet is on the brink of the "biggest change" to its working "since it was invented 40 years ago", the net regulator Icann has said.
The body said it that it was finalising plans to introduce web addresses using non-Latin characters.
The proposal - initially approved in 2008 - would allow domain names written in Asian, Arabic or other scripts.
The body said if the final plans were approved on 30 October, it would accept the first applications by 16 November.
The first Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) could be up and running by "mid 2010" said the president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).
"Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," said Rod Beckstrom at the opening of Icann's conference in Seoul, South Korea.
"So this change is very much necessary for not only half the world's internet users today but more than half, probably, of the future users as the internet continues to spread."
Relaxed rules
Plans for IDNs were approved at a meeting in June 2008. However, testing of the system has been going on for much longer, said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the board in charge of reviewing the change.
"You have to appreciate what a fantastically complicated technical feature this is," he said.
"What we have created is a different translation system."
The changes will be applied to the net's Domain Name System. This acts like a phone book, translating easily understood domain names such as bbc.co.uk into strings of computer readable numbers known as IP addresses.
The tweaks will allow this system to recognise and translate the non-Latin characters.
"We are confident that it works because we have been testing it for a couple of years," said Mr Dengate Thrush. "We're really ready to start rolling it out."
Some countries, such as China and Thailand, have already introduced workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language. However, these were not internationally approved and do not necessarily work on all computers.
The meeting in South Korea will also discuss its plans to introduce generic Top Level Domains (TLDs), such as .uk or .com.
Last year, the body voted to relax rules on TLDs meaning companies could turn brands into web addresses, while individuals could use their names.
Icann, set up by the US government, was founded in 1998 to oversee the development of the net.
Last month, after years of criticism, the US government eased its control over the non-profit body.
It signed a new agreement that gave Icann autonomy for the first time. The agreement came into effect on 1 October and puts it under the scrutiny of the global "internet community".
The body said it that it was finalising plans to introduce web addresses using non-Latin characters.
The proposal - initially approved in 2008 - would allow domain names written in Asian, Arabic or other scripts.
The body said if the final plans were approved on 30 October, it would accept the first applications by 16 November.
The first Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) could be up and running by "mid 2010" said the president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).
"Of the 1.6 billion internet users today worldwide, more than half use languages that have scripts that are not Latin-based," said Rod Beckstrom at the opening of Icann's conference in Seoul, South Korea.
"So this change is very much necessary for not only half the world's internet users today but more than half, probably, of the future users as the internet continues to spread."
Relaxed rules
Plans for IDNs were approved at a meeting in June 2008. However, testing of the system has been going on for much longer, said Peter Dengate Thrush, chairman of the board in charge of reviewing the change.
"You have to appreciate what a fantastically complicated technical feature this is," he said.
"What we have created is a different translation system."
The changes will be applied to the net's Domain Name System. This acts like a phone book, translating easily understood domain names such as bbc.co.uk into strings of computer readable numbers known as IP addresses.
The tweaks will allow this system to recognise and translate the non-Latin characters.
"We are confident that it works because we have been testing it for a couple of years," said Mr Dengate Thrush. "We're really ready to start rolling it out."
Some countries, such as China and Thailand, have already introduced workarounds that allow computer users to enter web addresses in their own language. However, these were not internationally approved and do not necessarily work on all computers.
The meeting in South Korea will also discuss its plans to introduce generic Top Level Domains (TLDs), such as .uk or .com.
Last year, the body voted to relax rules on TLDs meaning companies could turn brands into web addresses, while individuals could use their names.
Icann, set up by the US government, was founded in 1998 to oversee the development of the net.
Last month, after years of criticism, the US government eased its control over the non-profit body.
It signed a new agreement that gave Icann autonomy for the first time. The agreement came into effect on 1 October and puts it under the scrutiny of the global "internet community".
'Younger wife' for marital bliss
The secret to a happy marriage for men is choosing a wife who is smarter and at least five years younger than you, say UK experts.
These pairings are more likely to go the distance, particularly if neither has been divorced in the past, according to the Bath University team.
The findings predict a happy future for pop star Beyonce Knowles, 28, and rapper husband Jay-Z, 39.
The work is published in the European Journal of Operational Research.
The researchers studied interviews of more than 1,500 couples who were married or in a serious relationship.
Five years later, they followed up 1,000 of the couples to see which had lasted.
For better or worse
They found that if the wife was five or more years older than her husband, they were more than three times as likely to divorce than if they were the same age.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Not so long ago the husband had to be older than his wife in order to be able to support a family, but such criteria are not so relevant now women have been educated to be able to command good jobs, so I suggest the basis for a successful marriage should be tolerance
Marion Monahan, Bristol
Send us your comments
If the age gap is reversed, and the man is older than the woman, the odds of marital bliss are higher.
Add in a better education for the woman - Beyonce has her high school diploma, unlike husband Jay-Z - and the chances of lasting happiness improve further.
Those who have never divorced fare better too. But couples in which one member has been through a divorce in the past are less stable than those in which both members are divorcees.
Dr Emmanuel Fragniere and colleagues do say that men and women choose partners "on the basis of love, physical attraction, similarity of taste, beliefs and attitudes, and shared values."
But they say that using "objective factors" such as age, education and cultural origin "may help reduce divorce".
These pairings are more likely to go the distance, particularly if neither has been divorced in the past, according to the Bath University team.
The findings predict a happy future for pop star Beyonce Knowles, 28, and rapper husband Jay-Z, 39.
The work is published in the European Journal of Operational Research.
The researchers studied interviews of more than 1,500 couples who were married or in a serious relationship.
Five years later, they followed up 1,000 of the couples to see which had lasted.
For better or worse
They found that if the wife was five or more years older than her husband, they were more than three times as likely to divorce than if they were the same age.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Not so long ago the husband had to be older than his wife in order to be able to support a family, but such criteria are not so relevant now women have been educated to be able to command good jobs, so I suggest the basis for a successful marriage should be tolerance
Marion Monahan, Bristol
Send us your comments
If the age gap is reversed, and the man is older than the woman, the odds of marital bliss are higher.
Add in a better education for the woman - Beyonce has her high school diploma, unlike husband Jay-Z - and the chances of lasting happiness improve further.
Those who have never divorced fare better too. But couples in which one member has been through a divorce in the past are less stable than those in which both members are divorcees.
Dr Emmanuel Fragniere and colleagues do say that men and women choose partners "on the basis of love, physical attraction, similarity of taste, beliefs and attitudes, and shared values."
But they say that using "objective factors" such as age, education and cultural origin "may help reduce divorce".
Castro's sister 'spied for CIA'
A sister of Cuba's former long-time leader, Fidel Castro, has admitted spying for the CIA in the 1960s.
Juanita Castro, who now lives in Miami, said she had gathered sensitive information for the US for three years.
In her memoirs, she said she had fallen out with Fidel and her other brother Raul - Cuba's current president - over the killing of their opponents.
Ms Castro, 76, said she had helped to warn and hide Cuban dissidents before finally fleeing the island in 1964.
There has been no immediate reaction from the US or Cuban governments.
'Donna'
In her memoirs - Fidel and Raul, My Brothers, the Secret History - Ms Castro says she was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in Havana two years after the 1959 revolution brought Fidel Castro to power.
I didn't betray him. He betrayed me
Juanita Castro
She agreed to help because she had become disenchanted when Fidel abandoned the nationalist democratic revolution he promised and instead imposed a one-party Marxist state "simply out of the need to hold power", she said.
"Did I feel remorse about betraying Fidel by agreeing to meet with his enemies? No, for one simple reason: I didn't betray him. He betrayed me," she wrote.
"He betrayed the thousands of us who suffered and fought for the revolution that he had offered, one that was generous and just and would bring peace and democracy to Cuba, and which, as he himself had promised, would be as 'Cuban as palm trees'," she wrote.
Ms Castro said that at a meeting with a CIA officer called "Enrique" at a hotel in Mexico City in 1961, she was given the codename "Donna" and codebooks so she could receive instructions.
She agreed on the condition that she received no money and was not asked to participate in any violent acts against the Cuban government.
She would help people persecuted by the Cuban secret police escape capture, imprisonment and possible execution, often by sheltering them at the home of her mother, Lina Ruz Gonzalez, she added.
Ms Castro fled Cuba a year after her mother died, believing she would no longer be protected from the attention of the secret police, and settled in Miami, where she ran a pharmacy until 2007. Raul helped her get a visa to leave.
Fidel relinquished power to Raul in February 2008. He has not been seen in public since falling ill in July 2006.
Juanita Castro, who now lives in Miami, said she had gathered sensitive information for the US for three years.
In her memoirs, she said she had fallen out with Fidel and her other brother Raul - Cuba's current president - over the killing of their opponents.
Ms Castro, 76, said she had helped to warn and hide Cuban dissidents before finally fleeing the island in 1964.
There has been no immediate reaction from the US or Cuban governments.
'Donna'
In her memoirs - Fidel and Raul, My Brothers, the Secret History - Ms Castro says she was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in Havana two years after the 1959 revolution brought Fidel Castro to power.
I didn't betray him. He betrayed me
Juanita Castro
She agreed to help because she had become disenchanted when Fidel abandoned the nationalist democratic revolution he promised and instead imposed a one-party Marxist state "simply out of the need to hold power", she said.
"Did I feel remorse about betraying Fidel by agreeing to meet with his enemies? No, for one simple reason: I didn't betray him. He betrayed me," she wrote.
"He betrayed the thousands of us who suffered and fought for the revolution that he had offered, one that was generous and just and would bring peace and democracy to Cuba, and which, as he himself had promised, would be as 'Cuban as palm trees'," she wrote.
Ms Castro said that at a meeting with a CIA officer called "Enrique" at a hotel in Mexico City in 1961, she was given the codename "Donna" and codebooks so she could receive instructions.
She agreed on the condition that she received no money and was not asked to participate in any violent acts against the Cuban government.
She would help people persecuted by the Cuban secret police escape capture, imprisonment and possible execution, often by sheltering them at the home of her mother, Lina Ruz Gonzalez, she added.
Ms Castro fled Cuba a year after her mother died, believing she would no longer be protected from the attention of the secret police, and settled in Miami, where she ran a pharmacy until 2007. Raul helped her get a visa to leave.
Fidel relinquished power to Raul in February 2008. He has not been seen in public since falling ill in July 2006.
McDonald's pulls out of Iceland
McDonald's is to close its business in Iceland because the country's financial crisis has made it too expensive to operate its franchise.
The fast food giant said its three outlets in the country would shut - and that it had no plans to return.
Besides the economy, McDonald's blamed the "unique operational complexity" of doing business in an isolated nation with a population of just 300,000.
Iceland's first McDonald's restaurant opened in 1993.
'No sense'
For a kilo of onion, imported from Germany, I'm paying the equivalent of a bottle of good whiskey
Jon Gardar Ogmundsson
McDonald's Icelandic franchisee
The franchises are run by a firm called Lyst, with owner Jon Gardar Ogmundsson saying the decision was "not taken lightly".
He said that the restaurants imported the goods from Germany, but that costs had almost doubled, with the falling krona making imports prohibitively expensive.
Mr Ogmundsson said the restaurants had "never been this busy before... but at the same time profits have never been lower".
"It just makes no sense. For a kilo of onion, imported from Germany, I'm paying the equivalent of a bottle of good whisky," he added.
He now plans to run the restaurants under another name so that he is able to buy cheaper Icelandic products.
Iceland's banks collapsed at the height of the global credit crisis - wrecking the country's economy and forcing it to rely on as $10bn (£6.1bn) international aid package.
The fast food giant said its three outlets in the country would shut - and that it had no plans to return.
Besides the economy, McDonald's blamed the "unique operational complexity" of doing business in an isolated nation with a population of just 300,000.
Iceland's first McDonald's restaurant opened in 1993.
'No sense'
For a kilo of onion, imported from Germany, I'm paying the equivalent of a bottle of good whiskey
Jon Gardar Ogmundsson
McDonald's Icelandic franchisee
The franchises are run by a firm called Lyst, with owner Jon Gardar Ogmundsson saying the decision was "not taken lightly".
He said that the restaurants imported the goods from Germany, but that costs had almost doubled, with the falling krona making imports prohibitively expensive.
Mr Ogmundsson said the restaurants had "never been this busy before... but at the same time profits have never been lower".
"It just makes no sense. For a kilo of onion, imported from Germany, I'm paying the equivalent of a bottle of good whisky," he added.
He now plans to run the restaurants under another name so that he is able to buy cheaper Icelandic products.
Iceland's banks collapsed at the height of the global credit crisis - wrecking the country's economy and forcing it to rely on as $10bn (£6.1bn) international aid package.
Afghan rivals row over poll chief
Afghan rivals row over poll chief
Hamid Karzai andAbdullah
Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah have ruled out a power-sharing deal
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has rejected a call by rival presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah to sack the head of the Afghan election commission.
Mr Abdullah made his demand ahead of a 7 November run-off, after a UN-backed panel threw out first-round votes.
He said commission chief Azizullah Lodin had "no credibility", but Mr Karzai said he had done nothing wrong.
The row came as US President Barack Obama pledged not to "rush" a decision about whether to send extra US troops.
Mr Obama held a sixth meeting with his national security team on Monday to discuss the future US strategy in Afghanistan.
He then spoke at a military base in Florida, telling troops he would "never hesitate" to use force if necessary.
But, he added: "I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way."
'Legal duties'
In Afghanistan the incumbent president dismissed Mr Abdullah's allegations, saying that sudden upheaval could upset the voting process.
"The changes would not be helpful to the elections and the country," Hamid Karzai said.
Afghan employees from the Independent Election Commission (IEC) load ballot boxes into a truck to be sent to provinces, in Kabul on October 22, 2009
A UN-backed panel found evidence of widespread fraud in the first round
Mr Abdullah and his aides insist the IEC is dominated by officials loyal to Mr Karzai, and the challenger has called for some to be removed from their posts.
However, Mr Karzai, who appointed the commissioners, said they "have just done their legal duties".
There has been no statement from the IEC or Mr Lodin as yet.
Earlier, Mr Abdullah and Hamid Karzai earlier ruled out a power-sharing deal.
Both candidates told US media they were committed to another poll.
Speaking to CNN, Mr Karzai - who bowed to international pressure to hold a run-off - said a deal would be "an insult to democracy".
List of conditions
Mr Abdullah made his demand for Mr Lodin's dismissal during a news conference at which he outlined a list of conditions for a fair second round.
KARZAI V ABDULLAH
Hamid Karzai:
First popularly elected president of Afghanistan
Opposed Soviet occupation in 1980s
Critics say he has done little to rein in corruption
Abdullah Abdullah:
Tajik-Pashtun, doctor by profession
Senior Northern Alliance leader during Taliban rule
Removed from Karzai's cabinet in 2006
Profile: Hamid Karzai
Profile: Abdullah Abdullah
"He has left no credibility for the institution," Mr Abdullah was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.
"What's the solution? Another commissioner from the same commission should take his position," he said.
After the 20 August poll, initial results suggested that Mr Karzai had received 55% of the vote, and former foreign minister Mr Abdullah 28%.
But the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) deducted hundreds of thousands of votes from the main candidates.
Its investigation focused on 600 of the most serious complaints, and a sample audit of suspect votes at 3,377 polling stations. At 210 polling stations all the ballots were invalidated.
This meant Mr Karzai's total was reduced to below the 50% plus one vote threshold for outright victory, indicating a second round was needed.
The panel also recommended replacing thousands of officials and scrapping polling stations where the fraud was worst.
Officials involved in flawed polling are being removed ahead of the run-off, the UN has said.
But there are still concerns about the ability of the run-off to avoid mistakes made in the first round, correspondents say.
Campaigning officially began over the weekend but the Taliban threatened to launch a fresh wave of violence and urged people not to vote in what they called an "American process".
Hamid Karzai andAbdullah
Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah have ruled out a power-sharing deal
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has rejected a call by rival presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah to sack the head of the Afghan election commission.
Mr Abdullah made his demand ahead of a 7 November run-off, after a UN-backed panel threw out first-round votes.
He said commission chief Azizullah Lodin had "no credibility", but Mr Karzai said he had done nothing wrong.
The row came as US President Barack Obama pledged not to "rush" a decision about whether to send extra US troops.
Mr Obama held a sixth meeting with his national security team on Monday to discuss the future US strategy in Afghanistan.
He then spoke at a military base in Florida, telling troops he would "never hesitate" to use force if necessary.
But, he added: "I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way."
'Legal duties'
In Afghanistan the incumbent president dismissed Mr Abdullah's allegations, saying that sudden upheaval could upset the voting process.
"The changes would not be helpful to the elections and the country," Hamid Karzai said.
Afghan employees from the Independent Election Commission (IEC) load ballot boxes into a truck to be sent to provinces, in Kabul on October 22, 2009
A UN-backed panel found evidence of widespread fraud in the first round
Mr Abdullah and his aides insist the IEC is dominated by officials loyal to Mr Karzai, and the challenger has called for some to be removed from their posts.
However, Mr Karzai, who appointed the commissioners, said they "have just done their legal duties".
There has been no statement from the IEC or Mr Lodin as yet.
Earlier, Mr Abdullah and Hamid Karzai earlier ruled out a power-sharing deal.
Both candidates told US media they were committed to another poll.
Speaking to CNN, Mr Karzai - who bowed to international pressure to hold a run-off - said a deal would be "an insult to democracy".
List of conditions
Mr Abdullah made his demand for Mr Lodin's dismissal during a news conference at which he outlined a list of conditions for a fair second round.
KARZAI V ABDULLAH
Hamid Karzai:
First popularly elected president of Afghanistan
Opposed Soviet occupation in 1980s
Critics say he has done little to rein in corruption
Abdullah Abdullah:
Tajik-Pashtun, doctor by profession
Senior Northern Alliance leader during Taliban rule
Removed from Karzai's cabinet in 2006
Profile: Hamid Karzai
Profile: Abdullah Abdullah
"He has left no credibility for the institution," Mr Abdullah was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.
"What's the solution? Another commissioner from the same commission should take his position," he said.
After the 20 August poll, initial results suggested that Mr Karzai had received 55% of the vote, and former foreign minister Mr Abdullah 28%.
But the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) deducted hundreds of thousands of votes from the main candidates.
Its investigation focused on 600 of the most serious complaints, and a sample audit of suspect votes at 3,377 polling stations. At 210 polling stations all the ballots were invalidated.
This meant Mr Karzai's total was reduced to below the 50% plus one vote threshold for outright victory, indicating a second round was needed.
The panel also recommended replacing thousands of officials and scrapping polling stations where the fraud was worst.
Officials involved in flawed polling are being removed ahead of the run-off, the UN has said.
But there are still concerns about the ability of the run-off to avoid mistakes made in the first round, correspondents say.
Campaigning officially began over the weekend but the Taliban threatened to launch a fresh wave of violence and urged people not to vote in what they called an "American process".
Say farewell to GeoCities, the vintage Web-hosting site
(CNN) -- The flashing banner ads, questionable color schemes and omnipresent "Under Construction" signs of GeoCities are no more.
The personal Web-hosting site, launched in 1995 and owned by Yahoo Inc. since 1999, was to be shut down by Tuesday.
It's a move that will scrub from the Web a significant, albeit dated, piece of Internet history and the pages where millions first tried their hands at coding and designing.
GeoCities, in its heyday, was an online hub for Internet communities, connecting related pages through "web rings" that predated the massive footprints of MySpace and Facebook by nearly a decade.
For some, creating guest books, visitor counters and streaming HTML marquee tags on GeoCities was a stepping-off point into a new digital age.
Carrie Musgrave, a professional photographer from Toronto, said she got two Web-design jobs by showing off her GeoCities creation: a U2 fan page she coded by hand in her college library in 1998.
"There were a bunch of people who applied and they all had computer science degrees," she said of one of her interviews. "I showed them my U2 page and ended up getting the job."
She said she didn't think about the site for years, but after hearing news of GeoCities' pending closure, was surprised to find that her page, where she once got messages from fans thinking it was the band's official site, still existed.
"It's humorous somewhat to go back and look at it -- it's so simple compared to what Web sites are now," she said. "It almost seems innocent."
As the Web evolved, visits to the largely stagnant GeoCities declined sharply and had continued to fall in the months since April, when Yahoo announced the site would be closed.
In September, GeoCities pages had about 10.3 million unique users, according to analysts comScore Inc. That was a 16 percent drop from the 12.1 million they'd seen just a year earlier.
GeoCities was the third most-visited site on the Web in December 1998, behind AOL and Yahoo!, with 19 million unique visitors, according to a CNNMoney report.
In a message Monday on the GeoCities site, Yahoo urged users to try the company's pay Web-hosting service.
In a written statement, a spokeswoman said that Yahoo decided "after careful consideration" to shut down the site.
"We have enjoyed hosting Web sites created by Yahoo! users all over the world, and we're proud of the community that has been built," the statement said. "Yahoo! discontinued GeoCities on October 26, 2009, as part of our ongoing effort to prioritize our portfolio of products and services in order to deliver the best products to consumers."
The statement noted that other Yahoo features, including Yahoo! 360, My Web and Yahoo! Briefcase, have also been closed recently.
"We plan to share details of further changes with people who use our products in the months ahead," the statement said.
Yahoo will not be archiving user pages and has been encouraging GeoCities users to download content to their computers if they want to rebuild them on another site.
The online message notes that the Internet Archive, a nonprofit group trying to document as much of the public Web as possible, was working to record as many GeoCities pages as it could before the site went down.
While many Internet users have long abandoned GeoCities, the Web was filled with nostalgia on Monday. "RIP GeoCities" was a trending topic on Twitter, where one user summed up his feelings in a sub-140-word blast.
"If you're making fun of GeoCities dying," he wrote, "you're too young to understand."
The personal Web-hosting site, launched in 1995 and owned by Yahoo Inc. since 1999, was to be shut down by Tuesday.
It's a move that will scrub from the Web a significant, albeit dated, piece of Internet history and the pages where millions first tried their hands at coding and designing.
GeoCities, in its heyday, was an online hub for Internet communities, connecting related pages through "web rings" that predated the massive footprints of MySpace and Facebook by nearly a decade.
For some, creating guest books, visitor counters and streaming HTML marquee tags on GeoCities was a stepping-off point into a new digital age.
Carrie Musgrave, a professional photographer from Toronto, said she got two Web-design jobs by showing off her GeoCities creation: a U2 fan page she coded by hand in her college library in 1998.
"There were a bunch of people who applied and they all had computer science degrees," she said of one of her interviews. "I showed them my U2 page and ended up getting the job."
She said she didn't think about the site for years, but after hearing news of GeoCities' pending closure, was surprised to find that her page, where she once got messages from fans thinking it was the band's official site, still existed.
"It's humorous somewhat to go back and look at it -- it's so simple compared to what Web sites are now," she said. "It almost seems innocent."
As the Web evolved, visits to the largely stagnant GeoCities declined sharply and had continued to fall in the months since April, when Yahoo announced the site would be closed.
In September, GeoCities pages had about 10.3 million unique users, according to analysts comScore Inc. That was a 16 percent drop from the 12.1 million they'd seen just a year earlier.
GeoCities was the third most-visited site on the Web in December 1998, behind AOL and Yahoo!, with 19 million unique visitors, according to a CNNMoney report.
In a message Monday on the GeoCities site, Yahoo urged users to try the company's pay Web-hosting service.
In a written statement, a spokeswoman said that Yahoo decided "after careful consideration" to shut down the site.
"We have enjoyed hosting Web sites created by Yahoo! users all over the world, and we're proud of the community that has been built," the statement said. "Yahoo! discontinued GeoCities on October 26, 2009, as part of our ongoing effort to prioritize our portfolio of products and services in order to deliver the best products to consumers."
The statement noted that other Yahoo features, including Yahoo! 360, My Web and Yahoo! Briefcase, have also been closed recently.
"We plan to share details of further changes with people who use our products in the months ahead," the statement said.
Yahoo will not be archiving user pages and has been encouraging GeoCities users to download content to their computers if they want to rebuild them on another site.
The online message notes that the Internet Archive, a nonprofit group trying to document as much of the public Web as possible, was working to record as many GeoCities pages as it could before the site went down.
While many Internet users have long abandoned GeoCities, the Web was filled with nostalgia on Monday. "RIP GeoCities" was a trending topic on Twitter, where one user summed up his feelings in a sub-140-word blast.
"If you're making fun of GeoCities dying," he wrote, "you're too young to understand."
52 children recovered, 60 alleged child pimps arrested in crackdown
(CNN) -- Law enforcement authorities have recovered 52 children and arrested 60 pimps allegedly involved in child prostitution, the FBI announced Monday.
More than 690 people in all were arrested on state and local charges, the FBI stated.
The arrests were made over the past three days as part of a nationwide law enforcement initiative conducted on the federal, state and local levels, the bureau said.
"Child prostitution continues to be a significant problem in our country, as evidenced by the number of children rescued through the continued efforts of our crimes against children task forces," Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, said in a written statement.
"There is no work more important than protecting America's children and freeing them from the cycle of victimization."
The three-day operation, tagged Operation Cross Country IV, included enforcement actions in 36 cities across 30 FBI divisions nationwide. It is part of the FBI's ongoing Innocence Lost National Initiative, which was created in 2003 with the goal of ending sex trafficking of children in the United States.
The initiative, conducted with assistance from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, has so far resulted in the recovery of almost 900 children, according to the FBI. It has also led to more than 500 convictions.
More than 690 people in all were arrested on state and local charges, the FBI stated.
The arrests were made over the past three days as part of a nationwide law enforcement initiative conducted on the federal, state and local levels, the bureau said.
"Child prostitution continues to be a significant problem in our country, as evidenced by the number of children rescued through the continued efforts of our crimes against children task forces," Kevin Perkins, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division, said in a written statement.
"There is no work more important than protecting America's children and freeing them from the cycle of victimization."
The three-day operation, tagged Operation Cross Country IV, included enforcement actions in 36 cities across 30 FBI divisions nationwide. It is part of the FBI's ongoing Innocence Lost National Initiative, which was created in 2003 with the goal of ending sex trafficking of children in the United States.
The initiative, conducted with assistance from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, has so far resulted in the recovery of almost 900 children, according to the FBI. It has also led to more than 500 convictions.
30 children among 160 killed in Iraq bombings, Interior Ministry says
Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) -- At least 30 Iraqi children riding in a bus were among the 160 people killed in Sunday's twin car bombings in Baghdad, the Interior Ministry said Monday.
At least 540 people were wounded in Sunday's attacks, the deadliest in the capital in more than two years, the ministry said.
One of the bombs exploded outside Baghdad's governorate building, the other outside the Justice Ministry. The bombs detonated in quick succession about 10:30 a.m., officials said.
The children were packed in a mini bus that was outside the Justice Ministry building, a ministry official said.
The vehicle carrying the explosives that detonated outside the ministry building was a stolen white pick-up from Falluja, Baghdad Gov. Salah Abdul Razzaq told CNN during his inspection of the bomb site. Images from the time of the attack showed the truck, linked to the Department of Water, pull up to the side of the building and blow up, he said.
Plumes of smoke billowed from the sites as victims fled, some with blood streaming down their faces. The streets were strewn with debris, including charred cars and chunks of concrete. Some government buildings and others in the area were heavily damaged.
Video: Suicide bombings kill dozens
RELATED TOPICS
* Baghdad
* Iraq
* Iraqi Politics
Among the wounded were three American security contractors, the U.S. Embassy said, declining to provide further details. The area struck is close to the heavily guarded "Green Zone," which houses the embassy.
The blasts sparked questions about Iraq's security and national elections planned for January.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who visited the scene shortly after the explosions, said holding the elections as scheduled would send a strong message to the attackers.
"The cowardly attack ... should not affect the determination of the Iraqi people from continuing their battle against the deposed regime and the gangs of criminal Baath party, and the terrorist al Qaeda organization,'" al-Maliki said in a written statement.
U.S. President Barack Obama called the attacks an attempt to derail progress in Iraq, and pledged to work closely with the country as it prepares for elections. Obama spoke with the prime minister and President Jalal Talabani to express his condolences and reiterate U.S. support.
In August, more than 100 people were killed in a series of bombings that led to tightened security in Baghdad. Blast walls were installed across the city and checkpoints were added.
Two years earlier, three truck bombings killed hundreds in Qahtaniya, in northern Iraq. Sunday's attacks were the deadliest on Iraqi civilians since those blasts in August 2007.
A day before Sunday's explosions, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, visited Iraq for the first time. During her trip, she made a condolence stop at the Foreign Ministry, one of six sites attacked in August.
Iraqis are supposed to go to the polls January 16, but parliament has not passed key election legislation, putting the balloting in limbo.
The president, prime minister and other top officials are scheduled to meet Monday to discuss the elections law and security concerns.
CNN's Jomana Karadsheh, Mohammed Jamjoom, and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
At least 540 people were wounded in Sunday's attacks, the deadliest in the capital in more than two years, the ministry said.
One of the bombs exploded outside Baghdad's governorate building, the other outside the Justice Ministry. The bombs detonated in quick succession about 10:30 a.m., officials said.
The children were packed in a mini bus that was outside the Justice Ministry building, a ministry official said.
The vehicle carrying the explosives that detonated outside the ministry building was a stolen white pick-up from Falluja, Baghdad Gov. Salah Abdul Razzaq told CNN during his inspection of the bomb site. Images from the time of the attack showed the truck, linked to the Department of Water, pull up to the side of the building and blow up, he said.
Plumes of smoke billowed from the sites as victims fled, some with blood streaming down their faces. The streets were strewn with debris, including charred cars and chunks of concrete. Some government buildings and others in the area were heavily damaged.
Video: Suicide bombings kill dozens
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Among the wounded were three American security contractors, the U.S. Embassy said, declining to provide further details. The area struck is close to the heavily guarded "Green Zone," which houses the embassy.
The blasts sparked questions about Iraq's security and national elections planned for January.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who visited the scene shortly after the explosions, said holding the elections as scheduled would send a strong message to the attackers.
"The cowardly attack ... should not affect the determination of the Iraqi people from continuing their battle against the deposed regime and the gangs of criminal Baath party, and the terrorist al Qaeda organization,'" al-Maliki said in a written statement.
U.S. President Barack Obama called the attacks an attempt to derail progress in Iraq, and pledged to work closely with the country as it prepares for elections. Obama spoke with the prime minister and President Jalal Talabani to express his condolences and reiterate U.S. support.
In August, more than 100 people were killed in a series of bombings that led to tightened security in Baghdad. Blast walls were installed across the city and checkpoints were added.
Two years earlier, three truck bombings killed hundreds in Qahtaniya, in northern Iraq. Sunday's attacks were the deadliest on Iraqi civilians since those blasts in August 2007.
A day before Sunday's explosions, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, visited Iraq for the first time. During her trip, she made a condolence stop at the Foreign Ministry, one of six sites attacked in August.
Iraqis are supposed to go to the polls January 16, but parliament has not passed key election legislation, putting the balloting in limbo.
The president, prime minister and other top officials are scheduled to meet Monday to discuss the elections law and security concerns.
CNN's Jomana Karadsheh, Mohammed Jamjoom, and Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.
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