War crimes suspect Karadzic transferred to The Hague

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, caught a week ago after more than a decade on the run, arrived Wednesday in The Hague to be tried for some of Europe's bloodiest atrocities since World War II.

"Radovan Karadzic was today transferred in to the Tribunal's custody, after having been at large for more than 13 years," said the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in a statement.

"Karadzic, who was arrested in Serbia on 21 July 2008, has been admitted in the UN Detention Unit in the Hague."

Karadzic, who faces a trial for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, arrived at Rotterdam airport about 25 kilometres (15 miles away) shortly before 6:30 (0430 GMT).
He had arrived on a special flight from Belgrade, where he was arrested on July 21.

A motorcade entered the gates of the UN detention unit in The Hague, followed a short while later by two blue police helicopters, one of which landed inside the prison grounds.
The plane touched down just before 6:30 am (0430 GMT).

Karadzic faces charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for his leading role in the 43-month siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre, during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war.

Serbia's justice ministry confirmed it had authorised Karadzic's transfer to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague "on the basis of Serbia's law on cooperation with the tribunal".

"The decision was preceded by the decision of the District Court in Belgrade that all conditions have been met for the turnover of Radovan Karadzic to the ICTY," it added in a statement.
"The ministry sent its decision to the authorised agencies for its further execution."

Karadzic, 63, was arrested in Belgrade on July 21, after more than a decade on the run disguised as a bearded, long haired alternative medicine guru who specialised in "human quantum energy."

His clever disguise as Doctor Dragan Dabic stunned many. Serbian media said dozens of secret service agents had tracked Karadzic for months before his detention.

"I am proud how he has been hiding all these years and I am appalled how he was thrown in the jaws of the beast," said 55-year-old Karadzic's supporter, writer Momir Vasiljevic.

A close Karadzic ally, Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic, is still on the run. Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, another key figure in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, died while being tried by the ICTY.

Karadzic's transfer came only hours after Serbian riot police clashed with youths in central Belgrade at the end of an ultra-nationalist rally by more than 15,000 people opposed to the arrest of Karadzic, who remains an iconic figure among Serbian hardliners .

At least 25 police and 19 civilians, including a Spanish and a Serbian journalist, were injured in the clashes, hospital officials said.

Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the apparently drunken youths into streets surrounding the Serbian capital's main Republican Square.

Police set up cordons in the central district after the youths were cleared to allow the transfer to go ahead.

The violence erupted as ultranationalist Radical Party leader Tomislav Nikolic addressed the crowd. He had called for calm so that protestors could stage a "peaceful march" in Belgrade.
"Do not do it, children, we did not gather for that, we do not want to destroy Belgrade, but (President) Boris Tadic," Nikolic said.

Karadzic had been fighting a legal battle against his transfer to the UN tribunal in The Hague.
His entourage claimed he had sent an appeal against his transfer at the last minute on Friday, but the Serbian war crimes court denied that it had arrived on time.

According to the law, a three-judge panel of the court had three days upon receiving the appeal to decide on its merits before the justice ministry issued a final transfer order.

Dusan Ignjatovic, head of the Serbian government office for cooperation with the UN tribunal, expressed doubts about the appeal, which Karadzic's brother Luka has said was sent by regular mail.

The wartime Bosnian Serb leader has been indicted on playing a leading role in the siege of Sarajevo and the Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.
The 43-month siege of Sarajevo claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Karadzic vanished from public view in 1996, the year after the ICTY indicted him for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Qantas passengers arrive in Australia after mid-air drama

Qantas passengers who thought they were going to die when a mid-air scare left a gaping hole in their plane's fuselage finally completed a disrupted journey to Australia on Saturday.

They arrived in Melbourne on a replacement aircraft to an emotional welcome from family and friends and as reports emerged that the plane involved in the drama had a history of corrosion problems.

The passengers were flying over the South China Sea bound for Melbourne on Friday when a mid-air rupture punched a three metre (10 foot) hole in the belly of their Boeing 747, forcing the pilot make an emergency landing in Manila.

Many were still shaken by the ordeal which saw the aircraft plunge 6,000 metres (20,000 feet) before stabilising.

Steve Winchester said he thought he was going to die.

"Everyone was just thinking to themselves 'oh I think this is it'," he told reporters.

"I heard someone scream. People were just looking at each other in sheer terror."
Winchester said the fuselage breach caused a hole to open up in the cabin floor and sent debris flying through the plane's interior.

"It was everywhere, it was just like it was snowing in the cabin," he said.

Melbourne man David Saunders said he hugged his girlfriend and put his passport in his pocket so his body could be more easily identified as the plane dived towards the sea.

"I heard an enormous explosion, things went quiet, the cabin instantly lost pressure and the plane just started to dive. I thought we were going down into the sea," he said.

Meanwhile, investigators in Manila, including four officers from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, were poring over the stricken aircraft to try to find the cause of the problem.

Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported that engineers discovered a large amount of corrosion in the jumbo during a major refurbishment earlier this year.

Under the front page headline "Rust Bucket", the newspaper said the 17-year-old jet received a new interior at Melbourne's Avalon airport in March and said aviation sources had told it engineers had found a lot of corrosion.

A senior Qantas pilot told the Telegraph that Friday's drama may be related to the airline's decision to outsource aircraft maintenance to Malaysia.

"This could well be the direct result of Qantas having stand-in engineers, or from outsourcing maintenance to Malaysia," the unnamed pilot told the newspaper.

"It has been talked about a lot here and we have been told to be extra vigilant when you walk around the aircraft.

"With Qantas outsourcing maintenance to Malaysia, (it) is certainly worrying a lot of us pilots.".

The Boeing 747-400 took off from London with 346 passengers and 19 crew on board and was heading to Melbourne after a stopover in Hong Kong when the incident occurred.

Qantas Airways boasts of its safety record, having never lost a jet to an accident. In the 1988 film "Rain Man," an autistic character played by Dustin Hoffman insists on flying with the airline precisely for that reason.

7/25/2008 : Qantas jumbo lands with 'gaping hole' in fuselage

Qantas Boeing 747 flying to Melbourne made an emergency landing in Manila on Friday after a dramatic mid-air rupture that left a "gaping hole" in its fuselage, officials and passengers said.

Stunned passengers reported how the jumbo, which had taken off from London and stopped in Hong Kong, plunged 20,000 feet (6,000) metres in what one said was an "absolutely terrifying" ordeal.

An urgent investigation is underway into what punched a hole of about three metres (10 feet) in diameter into the fuselage near the right wing.

A Qantas spokeswoman said the plane, carrying 346 passengers and 19 crew, was now undergoing an inspection on the ground in Manila, where luggage could be clearly seen jutting out of the hole.

"There was a terrific boom, and bits of wood and debris just flew forward into first (class) and the oxygen masks dropped down," June Kane, a passenger from Melbourne, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"We were told that one of the rear doors, a hole had blown into it, but I've since looked at the plane and there's a gigantic gaping hole in the plane."

"It was absolutely terrifying, but I have to say everyone was very calm," she added, speaking from the Philippine capital.

Qantas chief executive officer Geoff Dixon said initial inspections showed the aircraft had sustained a hole in its fuselage, and it was being inspected by engineers.

He said the flight crew performed emergency procedures after oxygen masks were deployed and there were no reports of any injuries.

In a statement, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said the plane had been flying at 29,000 feet when the crew were forced into an emergency descent after a section of the fuselage separated and resulted in rapid decompression of the cabin.

It said the crew descended the aircraft to 10,000 feet "in accordance with established procedures" and diverted the plane safely to Manila.

The Bureau said it was sending four investigators to Manila to assist local authorities with the investigation.

Qantas flight QF30, which took off from Hong Kong at 9:00am (0100 GMT), had been due to arrive in Melbourne at 1145 GMT, according to the Qantas website.

Passenger June Kane said the problem had appeared to centre on the baggage compartment of the plane.

"I'm looking at the plane now and just forward of the wing, there's a gaping hole from the wing to the underbody," she said.

"It's about two metres by four metres and there's baggage hanging out so you assume that there's a few bags that may have gone missing.

Passengers praised the crew for landing the plane safely.

"We heard a very large bang, the oxygen masks came out. But the crew was very calm and everything was fine," said Phil Rescall, a 40-year-old man from England travelling to Australia for work.

"The shock came when many got off the plane and saw the hole," he told AFP. "You see the hole and you realise we were very lucky.

"Some people were crying, some people were pretty shaken when they saw the hole."
"The crew were terrific, they did a great job," another passenger, Brendan McClements, said. "Everyone gave them a round of applause as we landed."

Qantas said the 747-400 was not the one that was used to fly Pope Benedict XVI out of Australia earlier this month after his visit to Sydney.

Friday, 25 July 2008 : China unveils biggest-ever Olympic team

China on Friday announced it would field 639 athletes to compete at the Beijing Games, its biggest-ever Olympic team and over 40 more than the United States.

China on Friday announced it would field 639 athletes to compete at the Beijing Games, its biggest-ever Olympic team and over 40 more than the United States.

China are hoping their home advantage will help them knock the United States from the top of the medals table, after finishing just behind them at the 2004 Games in Athens.

Reigning 110m hurdles champion Liu Xiang and NBA basketball star Yao Ming were among the competitors announced Friday at a special ceremony in Beijing.

The ceremony was closed to the foreign press but details were posted on the website of the Beijing Olympic organisers.

In total, China will have a 1,099-member delegation, which includes coaches and officials.

The United States is sending 596 athletes to the Games, according to the country's Olympic website.
In Athens, Americans claimed 102 medals, 36 of them gold. Russians took 92 overall, 27 gold, while China had 63 overall with 32 gold.

The Games will take place from August 8-24, with most of the events taking place in the Chinese capital.

Newcastle disease

The illness, which can cause respiratory problems, swelling and, in extreme cases, death in birds, and conjuctivitis or flu-like symptoms in humans.

In late August 2007, 40 chicken and turkeys in Kravoder, Bulgaria died from the disease, which was confirmed through tests.

Name change for Talula Does The Hula from Hawaii

A New Zealand judge has ordered a name change for an embarrassed nine-year-old girl called Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii, a local newspaper reported Thursday.

The girl was so embarrassed that she had not revealed the name given by her parents to friends, who simply knew her as K, the Taranaki Daily News said.

Family court judge Rob Murfitt said in a judgement made in February -- but not released until Thursday -- that oddball monikers created social hurdles as children grew up.

"She fears being mocked and teased and in that she has a greater level of insight than either of her parents," he said of the girl.

The judge discovered New Zealand parents had given their children some other unusual names including Number 16 Bus Shelter and Midnight Chardonnay, both of which may relate to the conception of the child.

One child was named Violence and two pairs of twins were called Benson and Hedges and Fish and Chips. The children from one family were all named after six-cylinder Ford cars.

Agence France-Presse - 7/24/2008

French couple rapped for sex video at Canada WWI memorial

Canada World War I memorial

A French couple were given a four-month suspended sentence and made to pay one euro in damages to the Canadian state for making a porn video at a World War I memorial, officials said Wednesday.

The verdict came just six months after another couple were fined for taking nude photographs of themselves at the same memorial at Vimy in northern France, which pays tribute to the 60,000 Canadians who died in the Great War.

In the latest ruling Tuesday by a court in the town of Arras, the married couple in their thirties, who put the video on a paying website, were also fined 500 euros each after they were found guilty of exhibitionism.

The symbolic one euro in damages was ordered because the Canadian state was a civil plaintiff in the case.

"The memorial has been known for a long time as a place where exhibitionism and voyeurism is common," prosecutor Elise Bozzolo told AFP.

The memorial, two huge pylons that can be seen for miles around, was created in memory of the April 1917 battle of Vimy Ridge, a costly victory for Canada.

The site draws around half a million visitors each year.

Agence France-Presse - 7/23/2008

Bratislava's 'Old Bridge' to get a new look

The mayor of Bratislava announced Tuesday that the Slovakian's capital's "Old Bridge", a 118-year-old city icon that spans the Danube, is to undergo a costly reconstruction starting next year.

"The construction is expected to cost about one billion koruna (33 million euros, 53 million dollars)," Bratislava mayor Andrej Durkovsky told a press conference.

The "Stary most" (Old Bridge), which dates back to the Austro-Hungarian empire, does not meet road and water transport requirements. The narrow bridge is currently still used by cars and pedestrians.

Around 26,000 of the town's 400,000 inhabitants voted in an Internet survey to choose one of three options and over 11,000 -- the most -- had voted to change its current design, the mayor said.

The preservation of the bridge's old architecture was not possible due to the requirements of the Danube shipping commission, he added.

The bridge will double its width to 34 metres (120 feet) and raise its height over the water so that ships do not get trapped when the water rises. The distance between its pillars also has to be extended because of the construction of a hydro project in Austria.

The bridge will serve a new fast tram line expected to be finished by 2011 to link the city-centre to the communist-era suburb Petrzalka.

Opened in 1890 and originally named after the Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph I, the bridge was renamed after World War I in honour of one of Czechoslovakia's founders, Milan Rastislav Stefanik.

In 1945 the German troops blew up the bridge. The Soviet soldiers reconstructed it and changed its name again to "Red Army Bridge". The bridge was initially supposed to be temporary but lasted for many decades. It got its current name after the fall of the communist regime.

Bratislava now has five bridges spanning the Danube with the newest opened in September 2005.

7/22/2008

Name change for French wine to avoid link with nuclear plant

French wine could soon change its name before next year's grape harvest to avoid being associated with a uranium leak at an eponymous nuclear power facility.

"The idea is making progress and I hope it will be achieved before the 2009 harvest," said Henri Bour, president of the Coteaux du Tricastin controlled term of origin, or "appellation d'origine controlee".

"It is only a question of image," he said, adding that any association with the Tricastin nuclear site -- one of the biggest in the world, with four reactors -- was likely to be harmful to local wines.

A uranium leak at Tricastin on July 11 received extensive media coverage, although the authorities said later it had not posed any risk to public health or the environment.

Bour said a name change was first mooted around 10 years ago, but the French nuclear group Areva showed little interest in renaming its facility, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Avignon.

A meeting of the AOC administrative council is to be held August 5 to discuss a name change "as a precaution for the image," said Bour, with Grignan -- the name of a local village -- mooted as one possibility.

7/23/2008

Facebook expands winning open platform formula

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg painted a vision of an Internet future with the website in its soul to a faithful throng of software developers at the Internet firm's annual "F8" conference..

"Last year everyone here started a movement," Zuckerberg said Wednesday after cheers subsided.

"We changed the social graph from being an abstract concept to a social movement."
The social graph to which he referred is the network of family, friends, co-workers and casual associates in people's lives.

Facebook sees its role as using Internet technology to let people easily share personal information how and with whom they wish.

Last year, Facebook freed third-party developers to created hip, fun and functional applications that website members can put in profile pages.

"The last year has been pretty crazy," Zuckerberg said. "The results show that a lot of people all over the world are joining this movement and doing it using the applications we all built in this room."

The number of Facebook users has grown to 90 million people from 24 million people in the past year, Zuckerberg sad.

MySpace remains the most popular social-networking website with Facebook in second place but closing the gap, according to figures from industry-tracker Hitwise.

A multi-billion-dollar "ecosystem" has grown up around Facebook, with custom application creators including Zynga, Flixster and LivingSocial recently winning millions of dollars in funding from venture capitalists.

Zuckerberg humbly told the gathering that Facebook plans to work more closely with outside developers.

"We've made a lot of mistakes and there is a lot we have to learn," Zuckerberg said.

"We haven't done enough to reward the good citizens in our ecosystem and, on the flip side; we haven't done enough to punish the applications that have been abusive."

Facebook this week rolled out revamped profile pages and will launch a "Great Apps" program to give priority to programs that are "meaningful, trustworthy, and well designed."

Facebook has been expanding internationally and announced third-party developers can use its translation program to match languages to the those used everywhere the social-networking site is available.

Digg, Moveable Type and City Search have adapted their websites to connect with Facebook, and a software kit was made available on Wednesday.

Agence France-Presse - 7/24/2008 5:19 AM GMT

Arctic 'holds 90bln barrels of oil, mostly offshore'

Within the Arctic circle there are 90 billion barrels of oil and vast quantities of natural gas waiting to be tapped, most of it offshore, the government-run US Geological Survey said.

The top of the world, shared by half a dozen countries including the US, Russia, Canada, Sweden, Norway and Greenland, holds an estimated 90 billion barrels of crude, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of gas and 44 million barrels of natural gas liquids, the USGS said in a report.

Eighty-four percent of that potential energy resources is expected to lie offshore, said the report, which comes a week after the US government lifted a 17-year ban on offshore drilling hoping to ease a spiraling fuel price crisis.

"The resources account for about 22 percent of the undiscovered, technically recoverable resources in the world," the USGS said, meaning the estimated volume is not added to the world's known recoverable resources.

The Arctic estimate, said USGS geologist Donald Gautier, includes some degree of uncertainty.

Broken down, the Arctic energy reserves would account for about 13 percent of the undiscovered oil, 30 percent of the undiscovered natural gas, and 20 percent of the undiscovered natural gas liquids in the world, the report said.

The majority of the undiscovered 90 billion barrels of crude oil, USGS experts estimate, are lying in Alaska, where 30 billion are hiding, Russia's Barents Basins, East and West Greenland and East Canada.

"The Alaska platform really looms as the most obvious place to look for oil in the Arctic right now," said Gautier.

Some 40 billion barrels of oil and 1,100 trillion cubic feet of gas have already been found in the Arctic region.

By comparison, US oil reserves stand at 22 billion barrels, and its production level at 1.6 billion barrels per year.

Across the world, proven oil reserves stand at a record 1.24 trillion barrels. Production is stable but consumption -- some 30 billion barrels per day -- is on the rise.

The natural gas the Arctic region is estimated to hold, 1,670 trillion cubic feet, is potentially a more important find since it would represent nearly one third of all the undiscovered gas reserves in the world.

Most of the untapped gas reserves in the Arctic region (70 percent) lie in the West Siberian Basin and East Barents Basin, in Russia, and Arctic Alaska, the USGS said.
One cubic foot equals 0.028 cubic meters.

Agence France-Presse - 7/24/2008 8:27 AM GMT

Filipinos expelled from Malaysia's Sabah returning

Many Filipinos expelled from Malaysia's resource-rich state of Sabah for working illegally have already or planned to return despite fear of arrest, media reports said Thursday.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer said many were deciding to return to Sabah on Borneo island to work despite a Malaysia crackdown on illegal immigrants who risk being "arrested, jailed, humiliated and caned."

Sabah, which lies between the Philippines to the north and Indonesia's Kalimantan to the south, is a magnet for immigrant workers who for decades have travelled there to work on construction sites and oil palm plantations.

Malaysian authorities say 130,000 illegal migrants are in Sabah, but local politicians put the figure as high as 500,000.

According to the Philippine government, an estimated 200,000 Filipinos are living and working in Malaysia without valid visas and nearly 3,000 are in jail waiting to be deported.

The southern Philippine port city of Zamboanga has received more than 1,000 deportees since the crackdown, announced by Malaysian authorities this month, and has asked the government for help to house and resettle them.

The paper said many of those deported see little future in the Philippines and have expressed their intention to return.

The Philippines has a long-standing claim to Sabah which has been sitting with the international courts for years.

Basit Nur, 40, who worked as a carpenter in Sabah but was expelled after three months in a detention centre, said the risk of being rearrested was better than the alternative of seeing his family mired in poverty in the southern Philippines.

"Even if I don't have the money for processing of my (travel) papers ... I will find other ways to return. And I will make sure that I will outsmart the police there," he told the Inquirer.

Carpenter Maximo Abduraid, deported from Sabah just three weeks ago, has already slipped back there last week, his relatives told the paper.

Agence France-Presse - 7/24/2008 4:07 AM GMT