Wrestler's mystery Australian link

The anonymous Wikipedia editor who sparked an internet mystery by posting information about the death of pro wrestler Chris Benoit's wife 14 hours before police learnt of the double-murder suicide has revealed what really happened.

Benoit, his wife Nancy, and their seven-year-old son, Daniel, were found dead in their Atlanta home on Monday afternoon (US time).

Police believe the 40-year-old - whose nicknames included the Rabid Wolverine and the Canadian Crippler - strangled his wife and son on either Friday or Saturday and placed Bibles next to their bodies before hanging himself from a cable on his weight machine.

But in a bizarre twist, reports surfaced this morning that Benoit's Wikipedia page had been altered by Wikipedia users in the US and Australia to include details about his wife's death 14 hours before police found the bodies.

Wikinews this afternoon received correspondence from a person using a computer with the same unique internet protocol address from which the first edit to Benoit's Wikipedia page was made.

"I posted the comment we are all talking about and I am here to explain that it was A HUGE COINCIDENCE and nothing more,'' the poster said, declining to reveal their identity, "so I can keep me and my family out of this since they have nothing to do with anything".

The first edit to Benoit's Wikipedia page was in regard to a competition he was due to take part in at the weekend.

"Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the ECW Championship match at Vengeance, as Benoit was not there due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy,'' the anonymous editor wrote.

That post has since been traced to a location in Stamford, Connecticut, where WWE has its headquarters.

About an hour later, the post was taken down by a Wikipedia moderator, who said: "Need a reliable source. Saying that his wife died is a pretty big statement, you need to back it up with something.''

Then, an hour later, a second anonymous editor added more information about Benoit's no-show, saying: "... which according to several pro wrestling websites is attributed to the passing of Benoit's wife, Nancy."

The edit has since been traced to a computer hooked up to the Australian-based wireless internet service provider Unwired.

The Herald understands that the computer belongs to a Sydney resident.

Twenty minutes after the Australian-sourced edit appeared, the Wikipedia moderator again reversed the post, because: "saying 'several pro wrestling websites' is still not reliable information."

Wikinews said Cary Bass, a volunteer co-ordinator for the Wikimedia Foundation, informed Atlanta police about the unusual edits.

"It didn't become apparent until someone put the pieces together and realised that the comment was made by someone who apparently knew about the murders," Wikinews quoted Bass as saying.

The person who posted the explanation on Wikipedia this afternoon said they had heard Benoit had failed to appear at a wrestling competition because of a "family emergency'' and had found rumours and speculation online, one of which was that his wife may have passed away.

"I did the wrong thing by posting it on Wikipedia to [sic] spite there being no evidence. I posted my speculation on the situation at the time and I am deeply sorry about this, and I was just as shocked as everyone when I heard that this actually would happen in real life.

"That night I found out that what I posted, ended up actually happening, a 1 in 10,000 chance of happening, or so I thought.

"I was beyond wrong for posting wrongful information, and I am sorry to everyone for this ... I just posted something that was at that time a piece of wrong unsourced information that is typical on wikipedia, as it is done all the time.''

The person went on to say they were "stunned'' and "saddened" that what they wrote actually turned out to be true.

The person said they were not connected with WWE or Benoit in any way.

"I am just an everyday individual who posted a wrongful remark at the time that received so much attention because it turned out to actually happen.

"I will say again, I didn't know anything about the Benoit tragedy, it was a terrible coincidence that I never saw coming.

"Let this end this chapter of the Benoit story, and hopefully one day we will find out why this tragedy ever actually happened.''

Source : http://www.theage.com.au
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Touch me, call me, I am the iPhone

It has been dubbed iPerbole and it describes the fascination bordering on pathological obsession with Apple's iPhone that has gripped the United States since the device was dangled in front of the world in January.

"People are going to sell their kids to get this thing," predicts Leander Kahney, the managing editor of high-brow tech magazine Wired. "They are going to go mental for it. You'll be stopped in the street and people will ask to look at it. And you'll be lucky if you don't get mugged."

Kahney, who is also the author of two books about technology culture, is not the only one giving this type of enthusiastic assessment. Many technology pundits, industry analysts, stockbrokers and culture watchers are similarly convinced that this is shaping up to be a big one.

The JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg told the Associated Press this week that this is the "most anticipated phone since Alexander Graham Bell did his", referring to the Scottish-born inventor whose 1876 utterance - "Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you" - launched the age of telephony.

It's raps such as these from respected, impartial observers whose reputation is staked on their sagacity that is making many think that maybe iPhone mania is not all hot air.

Just how big is the buzz on the gadget? A Google search on "iPhone" returns about 80 million references, about the same as a search on Harry Potter. A "Paris Hilton" search gives you a choice of 77 million links to look through. As big as Harry, the franchise which has its climactic book and fifth movie released in July, and bigger than Paris, who emerged from jail this week. That's big.

And six months of pent-up anticipation comes to a head this morning, Australian time. Apple shops and AT&T outlets across the US are opening their doors and ushering in the long lines of Apple fans, early adopters and opportunists who have queued up outside - some since Monday morning. Thousands will walk out clutching a package containing either a $US499 model with four gigabytes of memory or a $US599 model with an eight-gigabyte storage capacity.

As they emerge - especially those from the larger Apple shops around the US - it'll be like hitting the red carpet at the Oscars. Scores of ordinary folk will find fleeting fame for no other reason than they bought a mobile phone. They will be mobbed by reporters, cameramen and photographers and asked: "How does it feel to own an iPhone?"

Source : http://www.smh.com.au
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3 Sunni mosques attacked in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Militants blew up three Sunni mosques south of Baghdad on Wednesday — apparently revenge strikes for a suicide truck bombing a day before that killed at least 87 people and badly damaged an important Shiite mosque in the capital.

U.S. forces expanded their push against insurgent strongholds outside Baghdad, meanwhile, as Iraqi units joined the offensive and took control of several districts in the key city of Baqouba, the military said.

The commander of U.S. ground forces, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, said the campaign seeks to uproot insurgents — including Sunni factions linked to al-Qaida — in areas north and east of Baghdad and allow Iraqi forces to take greater control over the four-month-old effort to restore control of the capital.

The offensive, launched Tuesday, "allows us to pressure" militants on the militant bases outside Baghdad, Odierno told CNN.

"More important, I'm hoping it will allow us to maintain it over a long period of time and continue to buy the time and space necessary for the Iraqi security forces to take over" in Baghdad, he said.

The U.S. military said at least 30 al-Qaida fighters were killed and several bombs and weapons caches destroyed as the soldiers fought their way through the streets of Baqouba.

The operation involves some 10,000 American soldiers in Diyala province, an al-Qaida bastion. It matched in size the force that American generals sent against the insurgent-held city of Fallujah in 2004. By late Tuesday, the military had reported only one American death, a Task Force Lightning soldier killed by an explosion near his vehicle.

Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said about 5,000 Iraqi soldiers and 2,000 paramilitary police were fighting. Iraqi forces said they took control of neighborhoods in Baqouba and were greeted by cheering people.

"Our goal is to have no safe havens in Iraq and of course the Iraqi security forces play a huge role in this and we're working very closely with them to make this happen," Odierno said.

The head of a Sunni insurgent group that has turned against al-Qaida and is cooperating with U.S. and Iraqi forces in the area said his fighters were participating in the operations and had succeeded in clearing several neighborhoods in eastern and western Baqouba.

The militant leader, who declined to be identified for fear of retribution, spoke as his fighters linked arms, chanted and danced while women ululated in celebration. An Associated Press reporter also saw residents in the Mustafa area in western Baqouba serving food to fighters who had battled al-Qaida and starting to repair their stores.

Wednesday's mosque bombings south of the capital caused no casualties, because no prayers were going on at the time.

Police said suspected Shiite militiamen detonated a bomb inside a Sunni mosque in Haswa, 30 miles south of Baghdad, at about 1 a.m. About six hours later, militants struck again at mosque near Hillah, about 60 miles south of the capital. A third Sunni mosque was attacked and damaged in an explosion in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad; the mosque was first attacked last week.

Police officials who reported the bombings spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution.

The attackers near Hillah also targeted the imam's house near the mosque, but the cleric fled when he saw them coming, according to the police.

Tuesday's suicide truck bombing against the Khulani mosque in central Baghdad was the deadliest single attack in Iraq since April 18, when at least 127 civilians were killed when a bomb detonated parked car at a mostly Shiite market in central Baghdad.

At a joint briefing with a U.S. military spokesman, Iraqi army spokesman Brig. Qassim al-Mousawi said the truck was carrying about 50 cooking gas cylinders and about 1,100 pounds of TNT.

Asked how the suicide bomber managed to drive his truck bomb through Baghdad and next to the mosque, al-Mousawi said that it was booby-trapped in the nearby industrial area of Sheik Omar. There were no checkpoints between there and the mosque, he said.

Authorities are planning to put security fences near the mosques.

Police initially said the bomb was hidden in a truck piled high with electric fans and air conditioners.

The U.S. military spokesman, Rear Adm. Mark Fox, acknowledged "an increasing pattern of attacks" against the Green Zone, a day after a mortar barrage against the heavily fortified area sent soldiers and contractors scrambling for cover.

Fox declined to provide details on the number of attacks against the Green Zone, which is also known as the International Zone, but said they were increasing.

"It's clear that there is an attempt to get lucky shots and there is unquestionably an increasing pattern of attacks here against the International Zone. There's no doubt about that," he said.

Battles also continued south of Baghdad between Iraqi security forces and Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Four soldiers were killed and a Humvee was burned in nearly two hours of clashes in the Shiite town of Numaniyah, 75 miles southeast of Baghdad, police said. The fighting erupted hours after five other Iraqi soldiers were killed and three were wounded by a roadside bomb in the mainly Sunni town of Madain, on the southeastern outskirts of Baghdad.

Farther south, the U.S. military said three militants had been killed, including a senior leader of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, and 45 detained after two days of clashes in Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad. Iraqi police and hospital officials put the casualty toll at 35 killed and 150 wounded.

A British soldier died Wednesday after an attack on a military facility in the southern city of Basra, the British defense ministry said in London.

In all, 142 people were killed or found dead in sectarian violence Tuesday, a toll reflecting carnage associated with the months before the U.S. security crackdown in the capital began Feb. 14.

U.S. and Iraqi soldiers found 24 severely malnourished children in a Baghdad orphanage — some tied to their beds and too weak to stand, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Labor and Social Affairs Minister Mahmoud Mohammed al-Radhi criticized publicity surrounding the boys and said news reports about the case were inaccurate.

"We totally reject the tricks they used to manipulate and distort facts and show the Americans as the humanitarian party. That could not be further from the truth," he said.

The minister said the institution in which the boys were housed had saved them from a certain death on the streets of Baghdad. All the boys, he said, were severely handicapped and abandoned by their families.

The U.S. military, which leaked the story and pictures of the orphanage to CBS News earlier this week, said they were all boys between the ages of 3 and 15. It said many of the youngsters were found naked in a dark room with no windows. Supplies of food and clothing were found in a nearby storeroom.

Associated Press writer Bushra Juhi in Baghdad contributed to this report.

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Gay Marriage Still OK in Massachusetts

In a huge victory for gay rights activists the state legislature of Massachusetts today defeated a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage. This ends a three-year campaign to overturn the legalization of gay marriage.

The Boston Herald reports that the ban was defeated in a roll-call vote of both houses of the Legislature. This dramatic legislative battle ended with the thunderous applause of gay couples seated in the Senate House. The final vote tally was 151-45, a slim 5 point margin of victory for gay marriage supporters.

Massachusetts is currently the only state where same-sex unions are legal. Today’s vote means the ban will be blocked from reaching the 2008 ballot, allowing gay marriage to clear its first hurdle since it was legalized in a historic 2003 state court ruling. The 2003 decision ruled that a ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional that paved the way for the country's first same-sex marriages the next year. According to Reuters, over 8,000 gay and lesbian couples have been married since then.

The proposed ban was defeated due to a number of lawmakers changing their votes, though it is still unclear why they did so.

Today’s vote caused quite a stir at the State House both supporters and protesters surrounded the building to voice their opinion. Those in favor of the ban voiced their disapproval of the decision. Chants of “let the people vote” could be heard before and after the decision. George Howe, an opponent of same sex marriage told Reuters, “Everybody comes from a man and a woman. That’s the basic fundamental group or unit of society. People get caught up in man-man or woman-woman relationships, they are missing the point.” Opponents say they want an investigation into whether ethics were violated in the lobbying process to get some lawmakers to change their vote.

Those who favor the ban however, could not be happier. Lee Swislow, executive director of Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, was reported as saying, by the Houston Chronicle, “We’re proud of our state today, and we applaud the Legislature for showing that Massachusetts is strongly behind fairness.”

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Several Mosques Attacked, but Iraq Is Mostly Calm

BAGHDAD, June 14 — A handful of Sunni mosques were attacked today in retaliation for the destruction of two minarets at one of Iraq’s most revered Shiite shrines on Wednesday, and there was scattered violence around the country, as has become the norm.

But for the most part, reaction to the devastating bombing of the Shiite mosque in Samarra, the second in a little more than a year, remained muted.

Four Sunni mosques in mixed Sunni-Shiite areas south of Baghdad were attacked, three in Iskandariya and one in nearby Mahaweel; some were destroyed and others severely damaged. There were less serious attacks on other Sunni mosques immediately following the Wednesday attack.

But in the southern city of Basra, Sunnis and Shiites marched together in a show of unity and to demonstrate against sectarian violence.

After the bombing Wednesday in Samarra, 75 miles north of Baghdad, Shiite political and religious leaders, as well as moderate Sunni politicians and the top two American officials in Iraq, appealed for calm.

By nightfall, with emergency curfews in Baghdad and several other cities, and Iraqi forces moving in to protect mosques across the country, there were only scattered reports of reprisal attacks.

In Basra, which has a heavy Shiite majority, representatives of radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr and local Sunni clerics met at the offices of the Sadr party on Wednesday night and proclaimed their unity, accusing Al Qaeda of trying to foment sectarian strife.

In Baghdad today, more than a dozen mortar rounds struck the Green Zone, where the Iraqi parliament and the United States embassy are located, causing some casualties, Reuters reported, citing the police.

The mortar shells fell while Deputy Secretary of State John Nogroponte was in a nearby building urging Iraqi officials to make rapid progress to help restore stability, according to Reuters.

Separately, an Iraqi group linked to Al Qaeda said it had killed 14 abducted Iraqi soldiers and police officers after the government failed to respond to an ultimatum, Reuters reported. The group posted a video on its website that appeared to show the killings, but its authenticity could not be verified, the agency said.

The attack on the Samarra mosque appeared to have been the work of Sunni extremists with links to Al Qaeda. They toppled the golden minarets that were most of what remained of one part of the shrine after the devastating bombing last year, attributed to Al Qaeda.

The aftermath of that bombing engulfed the country in a wave of sectarian killing that has pushed Sunnis and Shiites toward civil war. With American and Iraqi forces unable to restrain soaring levels of violence, with as many as 3,000 Iraqi civilians dying every month by the end of 2006, President Bush ordered that nearly 30,000 additional American troops be deployed to Iraq, aimed at pulling the country back from the abyss.

American commanders acknowledged that the war here has reached a “now or never” point: if the addition of the extra troops and other elements of the current security strategy do not lead to significant progress in stabilizing and pacifying the country by September, when the top American military commander here is to report to the president and Congress, there would appear to be little prospect of holding off pressure at home for withdrawal.

The Samarra bombing appeared to be aimed at derailing the American hopes for a turnaround by setting off renewed Shiite reprisals and refocusing the conflict on sectarian tensions, away from recent infighting between Sunni tribal groups and the Sunni insurgents who have links to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.

The explosions that destroyed the 120-foot-high minarets of the Askariya shrine occurred about 9 a.m. Wednesday. A statement by the American military command, quoting the Iraqi police, said that they “did not see any attackers in the vicinity,” suggesting that the bombings were an inside job.

Suspicion fell immediately on the guards protecting the shrine, a unit of a few dozen local men, almost all Sunnis, the population group that predominates in Samarra and has controlled the shrine since it was built in 1905. American and Iraqi commanders in the area had suspected the guard force of harboring Qaeda sympathizers.

Iraqis shopping in a local market said they heard the explosions, ran to look toward the shrine and saw as a cloud of dust and debris cleared that the minarets, used traditionally as the place from which Muslims are called to prayer, had vanished.

The bombings left the shrine, its soaring golden dome destroyed in the initial attack in February last year, with little left of its former grandeur but rubble overlooked by a blue-tiled archway and a golden clock tower. The mosque is located atop what is said to have been the burial site, in the 9th-century A.D., of two of the 12 imams, the apostles of the Shiite faith.

By JOHN F. BURNS and JON ELSEN

Published: June 14, 2007

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Meat supplier expands beef recall to 5.7 million pounds of beef

The Associated Press

Article Launched: 06/09/2007 06:47:26 PM PDT

LOS ANGELES—For the third time in a week, a meat supplier has expanded a ground beef recall to include about 5.7 million pounds of fresh and frozen meat because they may be contaminated with E.coli.

David Goldman, acting administrator of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, announced on Saturday that the recall would be expanded to include products with sell-by dates from April 6-April 20. The beef was distributed by California-based United Food Group LLC.

Goldman said that none of the latest batch of suspect beef is in stores now because the product would be well past its expiration date, but consumers may still have some of the meat at home.

"It is important for consumers to look in their freezers," Goldman said.

The meat has been blamed for an E. coli outbreak in the Western states that resulted in 14 illnesses, spanning April 25 through May 18. All the patients have recovered.

On Wednesday, United Food Group expanded an initial recall of 75,000 pounds of ground beef, adding another 370,000 pounds based on "unspecified concerns" raised by the California State Department of Health Services. This meat had sell-by dates from April 29-May 6.

The recalled products were shipped to stores in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. They were sold under the brand names Moran's All Natural, Miller Meat Company, Stater Bros., Trader Joes Butcher Shop,Inter-American Products, Inc., and Basha's.

The affected grocery stores included Albertson's, Basha's, Grocery Outlet, Fry's, "R" Ranch Markets, Save-A-Lot, Save-Mart, Scolari's Wholesale Markets, Smart and Final, Smith's, Stater Bros., and Superior Warehouse.

E. coli is a potentially deadly bacterium that can cause stomach cramps and diarrhea that may turn bloody. E. coli can sometimes lead to complications including kidney failure.

Customers with questions about the recall can call United Food Group's hot line at 1-800-325-4164. Those with recalled products should either throw the product away or return it to the point of purchase for a refund.

source : http://www.mercurynews.com

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Scientists Make Stem Cells From Skin Of Mice Instead Of Embryos

Three separate groups of scientists working in Japan and the US have used skin cells from adult mice to make cells that are inidistinguishable from embryonic stem cells. Scientists all over the world are now racing to replicate the remarkably simple method in humans, and if successful it could one day lessen or remove the need to use embryos.

The three studies are published in the early online edition of the journal Nature.

Embryonic stem cells are cells that can renew themselves indefinitely and can differentiate into any cell of the body. They have the potential to replace damaged tissue such as that found in degenerative diseases like Parkinson's but their therapeutic use is controversial because of the ethical questions surrounding the destruction of embryos and making human clones.

As well as posing ethical difficulties, harvesting stem cells from embryos for therapeutic use would be expensive and difficult. The genetic material from unfertilized eggs has to be replaced with that from a cell of the patient. After that several stages of division are necessary before the stem cells are ready to be harvested.

This latest method bypasses a lot of these difficulties.

Last year, a team of scientists from Kyoto University in Japan, led by Shinya Yamanaka, pioneered a method that uses mouse skin fibroblasts instead of eggs. Fibroblasts are a little bit like stem cells in that they synthesize a range of materials that make the "scaffolding" or stroma that connect cells together. They are the most common cell in connective tissue.

Yamanaka and colleagues used retroviruses to insert four transcriptor genes into fibroblast cells harvested from the skin of adult mice. The genes code for a range of transcription factor proteins that control the expression of other genes. Giving the fibroblast cells this power essentially makes them into "master" cells, like embryonic stem cells; they acquire the potential to become any cell.

"It's easy. There's no trick, no magic," said Yamanaka.

"Neither eggs nor embryos are necessary. I've never worked with either," he added.

Other scientists are excited by the ease of the process and have plans to start using it straight away. For example, Alan Trounson of Monash University in Victoria, Australia said he could think of a dozen experiments he could start working on immediately. "It would change the way we see things quite dramatically," he said.

There were problems with the first generation of cells that Yamanaka produced. They were almost but not quite like embryonic stem cells. They could do things like propagate indefinitely, make colonies and form the characteristic cancerous growths called teratomas, but they couldn't do other things that embryonic stem cells do, like make a chimeric mouse carrying DNA from the embryo and the new cells. Scientists were not happy then with the claim that these cells were truly "pluripotent" with all the potency of embryonic stem cells.

The latest research by Yamanaka and colleagues uses a second generation of modified fibroblast cells which do perform like embryonic stem cells. And two other teams, one based at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and another collaboration between the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the University of California, Los Angeles have also used the same four genes with similar results.

Yamanaka said he was relieved that others had managed to replicate their work, especially after the discovery that Woo Suk Hwang's cloning method was found out to be a fraud.

Yamanaka and colleagues improved on their previous method by making it easier to isolate the cells in which the reprogramming had been successful. Before, they had used protein markers that couldn't identify the successful cells, but this time they and the other two groups of scientists, used protein markers Nanog and Oct4, with much better results. All three teams were able to produce chimeric mice which also produced offspring with the new DNA.

The work has been described by other scientists as "unbelievable", and an accomplishment that is akin to Dolly the sheep.

While the method in theory is relatively simple compared to human cloning from eggs, it has not yet been developed for use with human cells. Yamanaka thinks it will probably need more transcription factors than the four they used in the mice.

While the scramble to replicate and build on this method in the laboratory has seized the mind of scientists all over the world, even if proved in humans there remain numerous challenges before it could be used therapeutically. For instance, one of the side effects is that the method could trigger cancer, as it did in some of the chimeric mice. Also, the method uses retroviruses.

Research using embryonic stem cells is likely to remain essential and continue for some time to come because of these safety considerations.

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G8 leaders agree 'breakthrough' climate change deal

Heiligendamm, Germany - Leaders of the world's key industrialized nations agreed a breakthrough deal on combating climate change, including a pledge to slash global greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2050. "We have a great success ... a major step forward," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after leaders at a Group of Eight (G8) summit in the Baltic resort of Heiligendamm gave their go-ahead to the climate change deal.

"I can very well live with this compromise," said Merkel. But she added that "none of these documents are binding."

The German leader, who is hosting the G8 meeting, said negotiations among G8 participants had been especially difficult on setting a precise 50-per-cent target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

She said it was significant that future climate change discussions would continue within the United Nations.

The G8 statement on climate change referred to the need for a UN "agreement" on climate change - rather than a "framework" - following the 2012 expiry of the current Kyoto Protocol on global warming, said Merkel.

The German leader said there was agreement that temperature rise this century would be limited to between 1.5-2 degrees Celsius.

The climate change pact is a major victory for Merkel who identified the fight against global warming as a major issue for the G8 talks.

The German leader obtained what she set out to achieve: that G8 members commit to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 compared to 1990 levels.

She also wanted them to increase fuel efficiency by 20 per cent and limit the world's temperature rise this century to 2 degrees Celsius.

However, US President George W Bush came to the G8 summit refusing to agree to specific targets for slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

But he made a surprise proposal last week for a meeting of the world's 15 top emitters for discussions on ways of combating global warming.

The US is not a member of the Kyoto Protocol.

G8 members include Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Japan, the United States, Canada and Russia. The European Commission is also a participant.

A summit statement said all G8 leaders were committed to taking "strong and early action" to tackle climate change.

"We will seriously consider the decisions made by the European Union, Canada and Japan which include at least a halving of global emissions by 2050," the statement said, adding: "We commit to achieving these goals."

The summit said all major emerging economies must also join the endeavour. "As climate change is a global problem, the response to it needs to be international," it underlined.

The statement pointed out that the "UN climate process is the appropriate forum for negotiating future global action on climate change."

As such, all nations must participate "actively and constructively" in the UN climate change conference to be held in Bali, Indonesia in December "with a view to achieving a comprehensive post-2012 agreement that should include all major emitters."

The framework for a new global climate change pact should be agreed by the end of 2008 and an agreement should be concluded by 2009, G8 leaders said.

Leaders also vowed to develop, deploy and foster the use of sustainable, less carbon intensive technologies in all areas of energy production.

"Private sector investment is and will remain the primary means of technology deployment and diffusion," they said.

The statement called on developing countries to curb deforestation and insisted that industrialized nations would work on improving energy efficiency.

Discussions on climate change will also top the agenda on Friday when G8 leaders meet their counterparts from China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa.

Copyright © 2007 Respective Author

Fighting Continues With Militants In Lebanese Refugee Camp

6/3/2007 6:23:01 AM Sunday,

Lebanese troops continued shelling the Palestinian refugee camp in Northern Lebanon targeting militant-hideouts deep within the camp, according to reports. The Lebanese troops may have made significant inroads into the refugee camp, as evidenced by the artillery shelling and smoke arising from within the camp. In previous attacks the army often targeted outer areas of Nahr el-Bared camp in their bid to make progress. The militants are believed to have been forced to the southern part of the camp after fierce fighting with troops in the north and east. Lebanese sources said a top Fatah Islam militant Naim Deeb Ghali was killed, however no official confirmation was available with the ban on media in place.

On Saturday, four soldiers were killed and 10 others injured in the fighting that ensued between government troops and militants. The Lebanese troops used air power, firing at least 2 missiles at suspected positions in an attempt to cut off fighters fleeing the via the Mediterranean side. The army has lost at least 38 soldiers in the last two weeks, while an estimated 20 civilians and 60 militants are believed to have perished in the fighting so far. The Lebanese government has warned the militants, demanding they give up arms and surrender to the troops to avoid further escalation.

TB patient's relative to be investigated

DENVER — A federal microbiologist, the father-in-law of the man quarantined with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, will be investigated to see how he was involved in the case, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.

Meanwhile, the CDC said it has withdrawn the federal isolation order for TB patient Andrew Speaker because a Denver health agency's order to detain him at a hospital there is sufficient to protect the public's health. The action ends the first federal quarantine order since 1963.

Speaker has said he, his doctors and the CDC all knew he had TB that was resistant to some drugs before he flew to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon last month.

Robert Cooksey, whose specialty at the CDC is TB and other bacteria, and who attended his daughter's wedding, has said he provided "fatherly advice" to Speaker about traveling with the illness.

Speaker said he was advised at the time by Fulton County, Ga., health authorities that he was not contagious or a danger to anyone. Officials told him they would prefer he didn't fly, but no one ordered him not to, he said.

Speaker was in Europe when he learned tests showed he had not just TB, but an extremely drug-resistant strain known as XDR.

Federal health officials said Friday that Cooksey had helped to find Speaker and diagnose his condition. They would not give any more information about the investigation.

Despite warnings from federal health officials not to board another long flight, Speaker flew back for treatment, fearing he wouldn't survive if he didn't reach the U.S., he has said. He said he tried to sneak home by way of Canada instead of flying directly into the U.S.

He was federally quarantined May 25, a day after he was allowed to pass through the border crossing at Champlain, N.Y.

The Denver health authority has ordered that Speaker be detained at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center until tests indicate he is no longer contagious, the CDC said.

Speaker settled in Saturday for what could be a two-month hospital stay by taking antibiotics and fielding phone calls. He had breakfast and spent much of the day on the phone with well-wishers, his nurses at National Jewish reported.

Accompanied by his new bride, the 31-year-old Georgia attorney also used a laptop to communicate from his second-floor isolation room, equipped with an exercise bicycle and a TV, hospital spokeswoman Geri Reinardy said.

Speaker was taking antibiotics to battle a tennis-ball-size infection in his lung, Reinardy said. Doctors said his treatment could include surgery to remove the infected tissue if the drugs don't work.

Tests so far indicate Speaker's risk of spreading the infection are low, doctors said. No medical briefings for the news media were planned during the weekend.

Doctors hope to determine where Speaker contracted the disease, which has been found around the world and exists in pockets in Russia and Asia. The tuberculosis was discovered when Speaker had a chest X-ray in January for a rib injury.

Since 2000, National Jewish has successfully treated two other patients with XDR. Dr. Gwen Huitt said they were under quarantine in their home counties, then placed under quarantine in Denver once they arrived at National Jewish, driven there nonstop by family members.

Health officials have contacted 160 of the 292 U.S. citizens who were on the May 12 flight from Atlanta to Paris, according to the CDC. That count includes all 26 who sat in the five rows around Speaker — the ones considered at greatest risk.

The CDC initially said there were 310 aboard the flight but reduced the number because of duplicate names.

By COLLEEN SLEVIN Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

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China rejects U.S. warning on toothpaste

By ANITA CHANG
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

BEIJING -- China rejected a warning issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration urging consumers to avoid using Chinese toothpaste because it may contain a poisonous chemical used in antifreeze.

Calling the FDA warning "unscientific, irresponsible and contradictory," China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said in a statement posted on its Web site late Saturday that low levels of the chemical have been deemed safe for consumption.

The FDA increased its scrutiny of toothpaste made in China because of reports that the products may contain diethylene glycol, a thickening agent used as a low-cost - but frequently deadly - substitute for glycerin, a sweetener commonly used in drugs.

The agency was not aware of any poisoning but found toothpaste with the chemical in a shipment at the U.S. border and at two bargain retail stores, a Dollar Plus in Miami and a Todo A Peso in Puerto Rico.

China's main food safety regulator said in its statement that the ingredients of toothpaste exported to the U.S. is offered to the FDA, showing the amount of diethylene glycol. Also, the toothpaste's labeling has already been registered with the FDA, allowing it to be sold in the U.S, the statement said.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said experts from the Health Ministry had deemed diethylene glycol a "low-level" poison that does not accumulate in the body and found no evidence the substance caused cancer or deformities.

It also said European Union standards allow for a certain amount of the chemical and cited a 2000 Chinese study that found toothpaste containing less than 15.6 percent diethylene glycol was not harmful. The Chinese toothpaste the FDA is concerned about contains between 3 percent to 4 percent of the drug, according to the FDA.

"Therefore the warning issued by the FDA ... is unscientific, irresponsible and contradictory," the agency said.

The agency "requests the U.S. clarify the facts in a scientific manner as soon as possible and properly handle the issue."

The FDA alert Friday said the agency found diethylene glycol, or DEG, in three products manufactured by Goldcredit International Trading in China: Cooldent Fluoride, Cooldent Spearmint and Cooldent ICE.

The agency also found the chemical in one product manufactured by Suzhou City Jinmao Daily Chemical Co. Analysis of that product, Shir Fresh Mint Fluoride Paste, found it contained about 1 percent DEG.

Phones at both companies rang unanswered Sunday.

Companies that make brands previously found with DEG will have to prove the toothpaste is free of the chemical before it's allowed into the U.S., the FDA said. Meanwhile, all other brands of Chinese-made toothpaste will be stopped for testing, something the FDA has been doing since May 23.

A slew of Chinese exports have recently been banned or turned away by U.S. inspectors including, wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine that has been blamed for dog and cat deaths in North America, monkfish that turned out to be toxic pufferfish, drug-laced frozen eel, and juice made with unsafe color additives.

DEG was blamed for the deaths of 51 people in Panama after they took tainted cold medicine. China has admitted it was the source of the deadly chemical but insists it was originally labeled as for industrial use only.

Officials in Panama and several other Latin American countries have removed tens of thousands of tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste from stores amid concerns that they contain DEG.

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