Glass Mind

GENEVA – Roman Polanski is finishing the edit of his latest movie "Ghost" from his house arrest in Switzerland, surrounded by family and bombarded by telephone calls of support, French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy said in an interview Sunday.
Levy, a friend of the 76-year-old director, told the Lausanne-based weekly Le Matin Dimanche that he visited Polanski in his chalet in the luxury Swiss resort of Gstaad about 10 days ago and found him like "a rock," working and confident, even though his family is worried about the U.S. extradition request hanging over him.
"It's in fact very impressive. He is in the process of finishing at a distance the editing of his next film, which I understand will be in the official selection at the next Berlin Festival," Levy said.
He said he was able to have a friendly dinner with Polanski in the chalet. Being able to entertain at home was one of the privileges the director received after his Dec. 4 transfer to house arrest from a Swiss jail after more than 60 days of detention.
Polanski has to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet around his ankle to guard against his leaving the grounds of the chalet, but he is able to receive guests inside or outside the house, work on his films, make telephone calls and send e-mails as much as he likes.
"The telephone doesn't stop ringing, the messages of support are pouring in, especially from his Swiss friends," Levy said.
He said Polanski told him Swiss officials were only doing their job in arresting him Sept. 26 and holding him in detention, but that all of them had treated him with kindness and appeared "extraordinarily embarrassed" by what he was going through.
Swiss authorities have said they will decide early next year whether to extradite Polanski to the U.S. where he is wanted in Los Angeles for sentencing for having sex in 1977 with a 13-year-old girl.
If Polanski breaks the conditions of his house arrest, the Swiss government would confiscate the $4.5 million bail he deposited. That substantial amount was a key element in granting the house arrest — a first in Switzerland for a detainee in an extradition case.
Polanski's two children — Elvis, 9, and Morgane, 16 — and his wife, French actress Emmanuelle Seigner, have been staying in the chalet with him.
The Oscar-winning director of "Rosemary's Baby," "Chinatown" and "The Pianist" was arrested as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award at a film festival.
Polanski was initially accused of raping the girl after plying her with champagne and a Quaalude pill during a 1977 modeling shoot. He was indicted on six felony counts, including rape by use of drugs, child molestation and sodomy, but he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sexual intercourse.
In exchange, the judge agreed to drop the remaining charges and sent him to prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation. The evaluator released Polanski after 42 days, but the judge said he was going to send him back to serve out the 90 days.
The filmmaker fled the U.S. on Feb. 1, 1978, the day he was to be formally sentenced. He has lived since then in France, which does not extradite its citizens.
Polanski has been getting help from his victim in the California case in a bid to have sex misconduct charges against him dismissed. The attorney for Samantha Geimer, who long ago publicly identified herself, argued earlier this month for an end to the case, saying she has repeatedly said she wants it dropped.
The California Second District Court of Appeal is being asked to decide if it should order a lower court to consider dismissing the case without Polanski's attendance in court.
Polanski claims that the U.S. judge and prosecutors acted improperly in his case.

USB Turntable

Connecting the T.90 to our Windows XP machine was an astounding success. The native USB audio drivers were recognized immediately, and no installations were required in order for our machine to recognize the T.90 as both a recording and a playback device. After installing and running Cakewalk Pyro 5 and selecting the "Make CDs from your cassettes and LPs" option from Pyro's menu, we were soon off and digitizing vinyl into WAV, MP3, and WMA files.

The Stanton T.90 turntable is a great tool for aspiring and professional DJs. If you're only looking for a means to digitize your collection of vinyl gems, you'd be much better off purchasing a simpler, consumer-grade USB turntable like the Ion iTTUSB or just purchasing a quality computer audio card and outfitting your existing turntable with a phono-to-line preamp such as the Rolls VP29.

NEW YORK (Billboard) –
Almost a decade after the major labels launched their legal assault on Napster, courts are still writing the rules of the road for the music business's digital future.

Companies can't set out to build a business based on their users' infringement of copyright, courts had already ruled. But the precise meaning of that dictate remains in doubt. What steps must sites take to combat infringement? What are the proper penalties for those who infringe? This year, courts inched toward resolution of these questions, giving labels, publishers and artists a bit more certainty as they decide whom to work with and whom to sue.

Below are 2009's top five cases that will shape the future of the music business.

UMG RECORDINGS V. VEOH NETWORKS

In September, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled decisively against Universal Music Group in the label's copyright suit against video-sharing site Veoh.com. UMG had argued to the court that Veoh was liable for copyright infringement by encouraging users to upload videos, which Veoh translated into the proper format, organized and categorized, then ultimately streamed to millions of Web surfers -- all without paying copyright owners. But the court held that Veoh qualified for a "safe harbor" under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, because the site followed a policy of promptly taking down videos upon notification from UMG and kicking "repeat infringers" off the site.

In the pre-Internet world, the burden was always on the distributor to obtain proper licenses before exploiting a copyrighted work. But the ruling in the Veoh suit dealt a significant blow to copyright owners' efforts to maintain total control. Under the court's interpretation of the DMCA, a Web-based company can enlist its users to upload unlicensed works, and it's up to the copyright owner to issue takedown notices -- sometimes multiple times. If upheld on appeal, the decision represents a major shift in power from copyright owners toward online companies that rely on user-generated content.

CAPITOL RECORDS V. THOMAS-RASSET; SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT V. TENENBAUM

Of the more than 17,000 individuals the major labels targeted for downloading and "sharing" songs through peer-to-peer networks, only Jammie Thomas-Rasset and Joel Tenenbaum fought all the way to trial. They both lost badly. A Minneapolis jury socked Thomas-Rasset with a whopping $1.9 million verdict for infringing 24 songs, and a Boston jury ordered Tenenbaum to pay $675,000 after he admitted to infringing 30 works.

The labels announced in late 2008 that they would stop initiating new suits against individual file sharers, so more such trials seem unlikely. But the enormous size of these verdicts could have a lasting impact on all copyright owners who litigate or even threaten lawsuits. The awards are under serious attack as unconstitutionally excessive, and in one or both cases, the court could take the unprecedented step of ruling that the Constitution limits copyright statutory damages. Since such a determination would deprive copyright owners of a powerful tactic, it would likely make the enforcement of their rights more complicated and more expensive. Depending on the outcome of post-trial motions and appeals, the labels' victories against Thomas-Rasset and Tenenbaum could prove Pyrrhic.

SWEDEN VS. THE PIRATE BAY

It wasn't your average legal proceeding -- it was part trial, part spectacle. And the case against the operators of the Pirate Bay, the world's most popular access point to the BitTorrent file-sharing network, was odd to U.S. legal observers for another reason: It combined a criminal case brought by the government of Sweden with a civil copyright action pressed by major record labels, movie studios and game publishers. But the result was familiar to that of similar fights in the United States against piracy facilitators like Napster, Grokster, Aimster, TorrentSpy and Usenet.com: a verdict for the plaintiffs and harsh punishment -- a year in prison and an award of $3.5 million in damages -- for the four individual defendants.

But as with the earlier victories, the practical import of the case is harder to pin down. Yes, it's another clear statement that facilitation of piracy is illegal. But the Pirate Bay's servers have already migrated several times to other countries, users can easily migrate to other similar sites, and appeals will drag on for years. The case is a stark reminder that even big legal victories don't necessarily translate into big reductions in copyright infringement. And there are lots of other Pirate Bay wannabes ready to step into the now-convicted defendants' shoes.

BRIDGEPORT MUSIC V. UMG RECORDINGS

If anyone still doubts that recording artists must obtain proper licenses before incorporating samples of others' works into songs, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit cleared up that confusion November 4. That's when the court issued a decision upholding a jury verdict of $88,980 against Universal for sampling George Clinton's lyric "Bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea" and the word "dog" from "Atomic Dog" in a 1998 song called "D.O.G. in Me" by R&B group Public Announcement.

Universal had contended that the sampling of the famous musical phrase was a fair use for which a license or payment wasn't required. But the jury didn't buy that argument, and the court of appeals held that the jury's verdict was "not unreasonable." The Sixth Circuit's ruling -- not to mention more than 500 similar sampling lawsuits filed by publisher Bridgeport -- sends a clear message to artists and labels: If you want to sample, first get a license. And don't expect the fair use defense to protect you.

ARISTA RECORDS V. USENET.COM

In 2005, copyright owners achieved one of their most significant legal victories, when the Supreme Court held in MGM v. Grokster that peer-to-peer infringement facilitators could be held liable for "inducing" their users to infringe. But the Grokster decision didn't wipe out piracy, and its strong endorsement of the inducement doctrine hasn't resulted in a slew of subsequent court victories for labels and studios. Nonetheless, a federal court's June 30 decision in Arista Records v. Usenet.com was another setback for sites that seek to build a business based on users' copyright infringement.

Among the factors the court cited as supporting liability were Usenet's overwhelming use of the service for infringement, the fact that the site advertised the availability of infringing works and the technical assistance it provided to users seeking pirated material. The court also noted that Usenet could have, but refused to, employ filters to block downloads of infringing material. Though Usenet may be a relatively small and obscure corner of the Internet, the ruling could still pressure other questionably legal online services to take concrete steps to combat user piracy. And the court's opinion will be cited for years to come by copyright owners seeking to shut down more visible, and harmful, piracy-facilitating sites.

Stress Balls

The term "stress" had none of its current general senses before the 1950s. As a semi-psychological term referring to hardship or coercion, it dated from the 14th century. It is a form of the Middle English destresse, derived via Old French from the Latin stringere – to draw tight. It had long been in use in physics to refer to the internal distribution of a force exerted on a material body, resulting in strain.

Its psychological uses are frequently metaphorical rather than literal, used as a catch-all for perceived difficulties in life. It also became a euphemism, a way of referring to problems and eliciting sympathy without being explicitly confessional, just "stressed out". It covers a huge range of phenomena from mild irritation to the kind of severe problems that might result in a real breakdown of health. In popular usage almost any event or situation between these extremes could be described as stressful. The most extreme events and reactions may elicit the diagnosis of Posttraumatic stress disorder.

Activision will reportedly release a censored version of Modern Warfare 2 in Japan that punishes you for shooting civilians. In Western versions, players can fire indiscriminately into crowds of people during the game's controversial "No Russian" level. In the Japanese version, however, players will automatically fail the mission if they shoot noncombatants thronging the level's realistic rendition of Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport.

Note that this information--an unconfirmed rumor, actually--stems from a tip passed to games-gossip blog Kotaku. I've dropped Activision a line requesting clarification.

If true, the retool would further obscure Activision's already tenuous rationale for the level. As noted in "Modern Warfare 2's Misunderstood Terrorist Level," I've argued the level comes off like a tabloid-caliber attention grab. It does nothing to involve me in the experience, placing me in media res with a bunch of guys my character's supposed to be thick as thieves with, but who I wouldn't know from Adam. It doesn't make me care that I'm shooting innocents, who might as well be ducks in a midway shooting game sporting human halloween masks and clothes. It's not the graphic violence I find disturbing, in other words, but Infinity Ward's willingness to embrace sensationalism over design fundamentals.

In a recent interview with GamePro, the game's lead writer Jesse Stern--also known for his work on CBS's NCIS--attempted to justify the level on the basis of its emotional effect:

It feels so real but at the same time it's a video game and the response to it has been fascinating. I never really knew you could elicit such a deep feeling from a video game, but it has.

It's easy to throw controversy in front of a camera and get a reaction from a crowd, but it doesn't tell you much about the endeavor's quality or worth.

In our impassioned and often necessary defense of games as "artful" and/or worthy of the same respect afforded other mediums, we don't want to make the mistake of defending the badly designed bits just because some game's designers claim they were trying to be intellectually provocative, when careful analysis suggests they've only succeeded in being crudely inflammatory.

Follow me on Twitter @game_on

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) –
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday there was no deal for now between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas on freeing an Israeli soldier held in Gaza.

Abbas, speaking after talks with President Hosni Mubarak, also said a European Union call for talks with Israel on the status of Jerusalem was important but fell short of Palestinian expectations after changes to an earlier draft.

Egypt has been trying to broker a deal in which Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, would release Shalit in exchange for Israel freeing of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

"The two sides have stopped at the details concerning the numbers and nature of people to be released ... I can tell you that for now there is no deal," Abbas told reporters.

Talks on a swap hit an obstacle in late November, a source close to the discussions said, after Israel refused to free a number of prisoners at the top of Hamas's list whom Israel accuses of making bombs that killed dozens of Israelis.

Days before, Israel and Hamas had come close to a deal when officials said Israel had dropped objections to freeing 160 prisoners whose freedom was sought by Hamas.

The European Union on Tuesday urged Israel to share Jerusalem with the Palestinians as part of a Middle East peace agreement and make the holy city the capital of two states, a position the current Israeli government rejects.

The status of Jerusalem -- a city holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians -- is a sensitive issue for Israel, which considers the city to be its indivisible capital. Palestinians want the eastern part of Jerusalem to serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.

Abbas said the EU statement had watered down an earlier Swedish draft, which had defined a state of Palestine as comprising "the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza."

"Regarding the position of the EU, we all know the Swedish draft was a good draft because it put in clear cut terms the issue of East Jerusalem. Then came the final, vague form," Abbas said after talks in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

"We can say it is an important decision but certainly does not fulfill or reach the level of the draft that was presented by Sweden that we agreed with and were satisfied with," he added.

Nabil Abu Rdainah, a top aide to Abbas, also told Reuters in Ramallah by telephone that the EU statement would not help to change the Palestinian position on resuming peacemaking efforts.

The Palestinian leadership refuses to resume peace talks with Israel, which have been suspended over the past year, until Israel freezes all settlement construction. They have rejected Israel's partial 10-month moratorium.

"What helps in returning to negotiations is halting settlement expansion and recognizing that the borders of the Palestinian state are the 1967 borders in full, including Jerusalem," Abu Rdainah said.

U.S. ally Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab state to sign a peace treaty with Israel, has also been hosting reconciliation talks between Abbas' Fatah group, which controls the Palestinian administration in the West Bank, and Hamas.

There has been little sign of progress after more than year of discussions.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Ramallah, Writing by Edmund Blair in Cairo; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

BOSTON – Massachusetts Republicans are getting back the political spotlight they've lacked for the past three years in the special election to fill Edward Kennedy's Senate seat.
State Sen. Scott Brown beat perennial candidate Jack E. Robinson on Tuesday to win the GOP primary. He'll face off Jan. 19 against Attorney General Martha Coakley, who won a four-way Democratic race.
Brown's challenge is overcoming the Democrats' advantage in a state where the party controls all statewide offices. Republicans haven't had one since former Gov. Mitt Romney completed his term in 2007 and ran unsuccessfully for president.
Coakley says she wants to go to Washington to help President Barack Obama achieve his agenda.
Kennedy died in August at age 77, ending a nearly 47-year political career that saw him become the fourth-longest-serving senator in U.S. history.

Noted as one of the world’s largest, most valuable, legally traded commodities after oil, coffee has become a vital cash crop for many Third World countries. Over one hundred million people in developing countries have become dependent on coffee as the primary source of income (Ponte 1). Coffee has become the primary export and backbone for African countries like Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and Ethiopia as well as other Central American countries (1)

The concept of fair trade labeling, which guarantees coffee growers a negotiated pre-harvest price, began with the Max Havelaar Foundation's labelling program in the Netherlands. In 2004, 24,222 metric tons out of 7,050,000 produced worldwide were fair trade; in 2005, 33,991 metric tons out of 6,685,000 were fair trade, an increase from 0.34 percent to 0.51 percent. A number of studies have shown that fair trade coffee has a positive impact on the communities that grow it. A study in 2002 found that fair trade strengthened producer organizations, improved returns to small producers, and positively affected their quality of life.

Green Mountain Coffee

Hedge funds have gained a reputation for aggressive currency speculation since 1996. They control billions of dollars of equity and may borrow billions more, and thus may overwhelm intervention by central banks to support almost any currency, if the economic fundamentals are in the hedge funds' favor.

Exchange-traded funds (or ETFs) are Open Ended investment companies that can be traded at any time throughout the course of the day. Typically, ETFs try to replicate a stock market index such as the S&P 500 (e.g. SPY), but recently they are now replicating investments in the currency markets with the ETF increasing in value when the US Dollar weakness versus a specific currency, such as the Euro. Certain of these funds track the price movements of world currencies versus the US Dollar, and increase in value directly counter to the US Dollar, allowing for speculation in the US Dollar for US and US Dollar denominated investors and speculators.

Forex Alerts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
The United States is ready to shift the focus of its global AIDS programs from emergency medical support to building sustainable health systems, U.S. officials said on Monday as they announced that Washington would host the world AIDS conference in 2012.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration was strengthening its commitment to fighting AIDS and would take a first step early next year by ending a longtime ban on HIV-positive foreign visitors.

"We have to make sure that our programs foster conditions that improve people's lives and in turn promote stability, prosperity and security," Clinton told a meeting to announce the decision to bring the 2012 world AIDS conference to Washington, the first time it will be held on U.S. soil since 1990.

"The return of the conference to the United States is the result of years of dedicated advocacy to end a misguided policy based on fear, rather than science," International AIDS Society President-elect Elly Katabira said in a statement.

Clinton and other officials said the broader change would center on PEPFAR, the $18.8 billion program begun by former President George W. Bush, which has become the largest international health initiative dedicated to a single disease.

Eric Goosby, President Barack Obama's global AIDS coordinator, said he would announce later this week a five-year strategy for PEPFAR that would see the emphasis shift from emergency interventions such as providing drugs to longer-term efforts to improve basic healthcare services.

DETAILS TO COME

Goosby said his review would include details of how PEPFAR will work with international partners and recipient governments to improve healthcare delivery and address stigma and discrimination in a "global response to a global responsibility."

The AIDS virus infects 33 million people globally and about a million in the United States, but more people are living longer thanks to HIV drugs, according to a recent U.N. report.

But more than half the people who need lifesaving drugs are not getting them, the World Health Organization and Joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS say.

Cocktails of drugs can control HIV but there is no cure and no vaccine.

PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, has been credited with helping to cut AIDS deaths by 10 percent in targeted African nations and saving more than a million lives, in large part by supplying HIV drugs.

The program has been less successful in reducing the number of people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, the researchers found.

Some activists voiced fears that Obama -- beset by problems ranging from the U.S. economy to the war in Afghanistan -- would be unable to follow through with the same level of commitment on AIDS.

"There are worrisome signs the U.S. government is considering a significant slowing in the scale-up of global AIDS prevention and treatment," Chris Collins, vice president of the American Foundation for AIDS Research, said in a statement.

"We need to increase overall investment in global health, not shift resources from one priority to another," he said.

(Reporting by Andrew Quinn; Editing by Maggie Fox and Peter Cooney)

Serena Williams was fined a record $82,500 for her tirade at a U.S. Open line judge and could be suspended from that tournament if she has another "major offense" at any Grand Slam in the next two years.
Grand Slam administrator Bill Babcock's ruling was released Monday, and he said Williams faces a "probationary period" at tennis' four major championships in 2010 and 2011. If she has another "major offense" at a Grand Slam tournament in that time, the fine would increase to $175,000 and she would be barred from the following U.S. Open.
"But if she does not have another offense in the next two years, the suspension is lifted," Babcock said in a telephone interview from London.
He said Williams is handing over $82,500 right now to the Grand Slam committee, already far more than the previous highest fine for a Grand Slam offense. In 1995, Jeff Tarango stormed off the court at Wimbledon and accused the chair umpire of showing favoritism to certain players in exchange for their friendship. Tarango was fined a total of $43,756, which was reduced to $28,256 on appeal, and barred from Wimbledon the next year.
Williams lashed out at a lineswoman after a foot-fault call at the end of her semifinal loss to eventual champion Kim Clijsters at the U.S. Open in September. It was a profanity-laced, finger-pointing, racket-brandishing display in which Williams approached the official with what U.S. Open tournament director Jim Curley called at the time "a threatening manner."
"I am thankful that we now have closure on the incident and we can all move forward," Williams said in a statement released Monday by her publicist. "I am back in training in preparation for next season and I continue to be grateful for all of the support from my fans and the tennis community."
She earned $350,000 by reaching the U.S. Open singles semifinals, part of her more than $6.5 million in prize money in 2009, a single-season record for women's tennis. Her career prize money tops $28 million.
The American is an 11-time Grand Slam singles champion and ended the 2009 season at No. 1 in the WTA rankings.
Williams' outburst drew a $10,000 fine from the U.S. Tennis Association in September — the maximum onsite penalty a tennis player can face. But because it happened at a Grand Slam tournament, Babcock was charged with investigating whether further punishment was merited.
He concluded that Williams violated the "major offense" rule for "aggravated behavior." The Grand Slam committee — with one representative from each of the sport's four major championships, including USTA president Lucy Garvin — approved his decision Saturday.
"As a voting member of the Grand Slam committee, the USTA agrees with the additional penalties levied against Serena Williams for her on-court behavior during her semifinal match at the 2009 U.S. Open," the USTA said in a statement released to the AP. "The USTA looks forward to Ms. Williams competing in the 2010 US Open."
Babcock said a "major offense" under Grand Slam rules is "any conduct that is determined to be the 'major offense' of 'aggravated behavior' or 'conduct detrimental to the game.'" There is no specific definition of what sort of actions constitute a "major offense."
He said the highest possible fine that Williams could face — $175,000, if she violates her Grand Slam probation — was chosen because it is the difference in winnings between reaching the quarterfinals and semifinals at the U.S. Open. The $10,000 Williams already was docked by the USTA will be counted toward that total; that's why she is paying half of $165,000 now.
During the Sept. 12 match at Flushing Meadows, the foot fault — a call rarely, if ever, made at that stage of such a significant match — resulted in a double-fault for Williams, moving Clijsters one point from victory.
Williams paused, retrieved a ball to serve again and then stopped. She stepped toward the official, screaming, cursing and shaking the ball at her. Williams was penalized a point. It happened to come on match point, ending the semifinal with Clijsters ahead 6-4, 7-5.

MOSCOW – Astronauts from Canada and Belgium and a Russian cosmonaut landed safely on the Kazakhstan steppe on Tuesday, wrapping up a six-month stint on the International Space Station.
The Russian Soyuz TMA-15 capsule carrying Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk, Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, and European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, of Belgium, touched down without a hitch near the town of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan's barren north, Russian Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said.
Parachutes slowed the craft to a soft touchdown at 10:15 a.m. Moscow time (0715 GMT), as scheduled.
Russian medical teams arrived in all-terrain vehicles to help the crew out of the capsule, in a carefully choreographed recovery operation. The crew is to be flown to Moscow later in the day.
A NASA doctor at the site of the landing reported that the three astronauts appeared to be doing very well after spending 188 days in space and their return to earth, according to a NASA Webcast.
The trio blasted off to the International Space Station on May 27. Their arrival marked the doubling of the station's permanent crew to six people.
With this mission, all five of the international partner agencies — NASA, Russia's Roscosmos, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency — were represented in orbit for the first time, helping burnish the station's international credentials.
The expedition was also a milestone for the Canadian space program, marking the first time a Canadian has taken part in a long-term mission.
NASA astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian Maxim Surayev remain on the station. They are to be joined later this month by Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, NASA's Timothy J. Creamer, and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
The first space station crew arrived in 2000, two years after the first part was launched. Until the May launch, no more than three people lived there at a time.
______
Associated Press writer Peter Leonard contributed to this report.

MANILA, Philippines – Philippine prosecutors charged the heir of a powerful clan with murder Tuesday in the massacre of 57 people, more than half of them journalists or their staff who were accompanying the family and supporters of an election candidate.
At least 10 witnesses will testify they saw Andal Ampatuan Jr. leading the gunmen, including police officers, who blocked his rival's election caravan moments before the Nov. 23 massacre, prosecutor Al Calica told The Associated Press.
Hours later, troops found the bullet-riddled and hacked bodies near the highway sprawled in the grass and hastily buried in three mass graves by a backhoe together with three vehicles.
Ampatuan turned himself in last week and denied the charges.
He is the scion of a clan allied with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo that has ruled southern impoverished Maguindanao province unopposed for years. His father, the family's patriarch, and six other family members also are considered suspects but have not been charged.
Prosecutors initially filed 25 murder charges against Ampatuan in southern Cotabato city, whose regional trial court is nearest to the massacre site in Ampatuan township.
The five prosecutors handling the murder case carried two boxloads of evidence and affidavits from witnesses from Manila to Cotabato city aboard two air force helicopters. They are expected to ask the court to try the case in Manila for security reasons.
"The evidence is strong," Calica said, adding that at least 10 witnesses provided written testimonies linking Ampatuan to the killings.
He said three of them were in the convoy carrying journalists and the wife, two sisters, an aunt and several supporters of Ampatuan's rival, Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu of Maguindanao's Buluan township.
Mangudadatu had sent his relatives to file his candidacy papers for governorship. Mangudadatu said Ampatuan had threatened to chop him to pieces if he attempted to challenge the Ampatuan family's ironclad control over the province. So, Mangudadatu sent female family members in the belief they would not be harmed.
Quoting the three witnesses, Calica said they managed to turn their cars from the tail end of the convoy and escaped after shots were fired and the gunmen hurriedly took control of the vans and sport utility vehicles in the caravan.
Police cars were parked along the road as the gunmen led the victims in their vehicles to a remote hilltop where they were butchered, Calica said.
Police said earlier they took into custody six officers, including the Maguindanao provincial police chief and his deputy. Two inspectors among them were allegedly seen during the massacre with Ampatuan, said Erickson Velasquez, head of the criminal investigation division.
Prosecutors said the killings were carefully planned and that more charges will follow. At least one witness alleged that the Ampatuan clan had gathered in the patriarch's mansion in the provincial capital of Shariff Aguak days before to plan the killings, said chief state prosecutor Jovencito Zuno.
The graves were dug in advance and a backhoe positioned to bury the bodies, prosecutors said.
The Ampatuans denied any responsibility in the killings in a rare news conference in Shariff Aguak on Sunday.
In Manila, about 1,000 journalists and activists marched Monday to demand justice for the single worst attack on the media anywhere in the world. Thirty of the victims were journalists or their staff. The protesters hackled Arroyo's spokesman Cerge Remonde when he tried to address them outside the president's office.
The carnage drew worldwide condemnation, including from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the U.S., Australia and EU governments.

Arroyo has declared a state of emergency in Maguindanao and a neighboring province and ordered troops and police to confiscate unlincensed weapons and restore order. But few think the measures will go far enough in a lawless region notorious for political warlords that has been outside the central government's control for generations.

___

Associated Press writer Teresa Cerojano contributed to this report.

LONDON (AFP) –
Five British sailors are being detained in Iran after Tehran's navy seized their yacht when it apparently strayed into Iranian waters, deepening tensions Tuesday between the two nations.

The five were sailing to the start of a race in Dubai when their yacht was stopped on November 25 in the Gulf, Britain's Foreign Office said.

"The yacht was on its way from Bahrain to Dubai and may have strayed inadvertently into Iranian waters," the Foreign Office said.

"The five crew members are still in Iran. All are understood to be safe and well and their families have been informed," it said in a statement.

The seizure echoed memories of the capture of 15 British sailors by Iran in 2007. They were released after around two weeks, but only after a tense diplomatic standoff between London and Tehran.

Relations between Tehran and the West have not improved since then -- and chilled further after the Islamic republic announced Sunday that it plans to build another 10 uranium enrichment plants.

The yacht may have been drifted into Iranian waters after breaking its propeller en route to the Dubai-Muscat Offshore Sailing Race which started last Thursday, British media reports said.

The crew on "The Kingdom of Bahrain" were Oliver Smith, Oliver Young, Sam Usher, Luke Porter and David Bloomer, according to informed sources in London.

Charles Porter said he had spoken to his 21-year-old son Luke on a mobile phone since the incident and he appeared to be in good spirits.

"From what we understand there was an oil field on their charts - which is a restricted area - so they chose to go one side of it," Porter said, adding the yacht may therefore have strayed too close to an Iranian island.

"He's a strong character but obviously we are very worried about him," he was quoted by the Daily Mail saying.

His mother, Beverley, said: "Apparently they are fine and are being well-looked after but are most of all frustrated. They didn't know they had strayed over this imaginary line."

The 60-foot Volvo racing yacht is owned by Sail Bahrain and backed by Team Pindar, a British racing team, which Monday confirmed the incident.

The Foreign Office said it had had some "limited indirect contact" with the five but could not say where they were being held or if they were in prison.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said British officials immediately contacted the Iranian authorities in London and in Tehran both to seek clarification and to try and resolve the matter swiftly.

"Our ambassador in Tehran has raised the issue with the Iranian Foreign Ministry and we have discussed the matter with the Iranian embassy in London," he said.

"I hope this issue will soon be resolved. We will remain in close touch with the Iranian authorities, as well as the families."

Miliband is also trying to set up a phone call with his Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, the Foreign Office said.

In the 2007 incident, eight sailors and seven marines were captured on March 23. Britain insisted they were in Iraqi territorial waters, while Tehran said they were in Iranian waters.

Britain pursued quiet diplomacy for the first few days, but after then foreign minister Margaret Beckett hit a dead end in talks with Mottaki, London's patience snapped.

During the 13 days they were held, the 14 men and one woman were not mistreated but were paraded on Iranian television, sparking anger from Britain and other Western governments.

That standoff damaged already fragile ties between Tehran and the West frayed by Iran's controversial nuclear programme, and had sent jitters through world oil and financial markets.

Previous incidents involving foreigners being seized by Iranian authorities include in November 2005 when Frenchman Stephane Lherbier and German Donald Klein were arrested for entering Iranian territorial waters in a fishing boat, and were each sentenced to 18 months in jail.

The two men said they had been misled by Emirati maps showing the waters as belonging to the UAE. Both were freed after serving 14 months.

And in March 2006, two Swedish nationals, Stefan Johanssen and Jari Hjortmar, were arrested for taking pictures of military installations on Iran's southern island of Qeshm and sentenced to two years in prison. They were released after a year behind bars.

HONG KONG (Reuters) –
Geely, the Chinese carmaker tagged as the preferred bidder for Ford Motor's (F.N) Volvo unit, is seeking at least $1 billion in loans from Chinese banks to finance its $1.8 billion bid, sources said on Tuesday.

At least three major Chinese banks including Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Export-Import Bank of China have agreed to offer loans to Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, said the banking sources briefed on the plan.

Export-Import Bank of China is a policy lender wholly owned by the Chinese government and directly led by the cabinet. Bank of China (3988.HK) (601988.SS) is China's top foreign exchange lender. China Construction Bank (601939.SS) (0939.HK) is the country's No.1 property lender. Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is the parent of Geely Automobile (0175.HK), listed in Hong Kong.

Bohai Industrial Investment Fund, a private equity fund backed by the Chinese government, is also in talks with Geely to support its bid for Volvo, said the sources.

Geely declined to comment. All the three banks involved could not immediately offer comments for this article.

(Reporting by George Chen and Prudence Ho; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

A chiptune, or chip music, is music written in sound formats where all the sounds are synthesized in realtime by a computer or video game console sound chip, instead of using sample-based synthesis. The "golden age" of chiptunes was the mid 1980s to early 1990s, when such sound chips were the most common method for creating music on computers. Chiptunes are closely related to video game music, which often featured chiptunes out of necessity. The term has also been recently applied to more recent compositions that attempt to recreate the chiptune sound for purely aesthetic reasons, albeit with more complex technology.

The Game Boy and Nintendo Entertainment System do not have a separate sound chip but both instead use digital logic integrated on the main CPU.

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SYDNEY (AFP) –
A leading climate-change sceptic seized control of Australia's opposition on Tuesday, vowing to kill carbon trading legislation ahead of key UN talks.

Right-wing maverick Tony Abbott ousted Liberal Party leader Malcolm Turnbull by just one vote, 42-41, in a result that should doom marathon attempts to pass emissions laws.

A second defeat of the government bill -- aiming to cut carbon pollution by between five and 25 percent of 2000 levels by 2020 -- would give the government powers to call a snap election.

"We will oppose the legislation in the Senate -- that is the right thing to do," Abbott told reporters, adding that he was "not frightened of an election on this issue".

Turnbull had sparked a party revolt by supporting the government's carbon legislation, and warned that the centre-right Liberals faced electoral disaster if an early election were called.

"I think climate change is real," Abbot said, brushing off earlier comments that global warming was a "load of crap" as "a bit of hyperbole", and drawing sarcastic laughs from journalists.

"I think man does make a contribution. There's an argument as to how great that contribution is, and second what should be done about it.

"The last thing we should be doing is rushing through a great big new tax just so (prime minister) Kevin Rudd can take a trophy to Copenhagen," he added.

Failure to pass the cuts ahead of the UN summit would be deeply embarrassing for Labor leader Rudd, who has said it would jeopardise Australia's ability to be "fully active in the negotiations".

"A failure to vote, or shall I say a vote to delay on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, is a vote to deny the climate-change science," he told reporters in Washington.

"A vote to delay this bipartisan Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is also to deny Australia's ability to act on climate change."

Australia, the developed world's worst per capita polluter, is responsible for about 1.5 percent of global emissions.

The Copenhagen talks, under the 192-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, aim to craft a new pact for curbing gases that drive global warming.

WASHINGTON -- It would seem at first, from the international news, that the elections to be held Sunday in Honduras might offer some resolution to the many political questions on the rise of the Far Left that has been sweeping the hemisphere over the last few years.

It may be, when a new president is chosen, that the 7 million largely impoverished Hondurans will have shown whether the region is moving toward the Cuba/Venezuela/Ecuador/Bolivia/Nicaragua "populist" -- or demagogic -- axis. Or whether the more traditional liberal/conservative party breakdown still reigns in the hearts of Latinos.

This is the election that was originally to have decided whether the already elected President Manuel Zelaya would stage a comeback or not. Zelaya, who put forward the imposing figure of a wealthy rancher-turned-Leftist, and whose symbol was the white cowboy hat, was ousted from office last June 28.

"Business as usual," many said at the time, except that this was no ordinary Latin military coup to install a caudillo, or strongman. Instead, that June overthrow introduced an entirely new concept, a coup by Supreme Court. Then-President Zelaya was attempting to follow in the Leftist footprints of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who had changed his country's Constitution to allow him to be re-elected to a second term -- and then, expectedly, just stay in power. But the Honduran court ruled a resounding "No," and the rest is history.

So what will happen on Sunday?

First, Zelaya himself won't be running -- although there is a whisper of a chance that the Congress could still vote to return him to office. Instead, the two major candidates are both traditionalists, Elvin Santos for Zelaya's Liberal Party and Porfirio Lobo for the conservative National Party.

Second, in the four months since the "coup," the economic model of Venezuela -- an economy wholly dependent upon government spending and where the country's rich oil has been nationalized -- has crashed to the ground, giving voters plenty of room for second thoughts about radical ideologies.

As the rest of the world's economies are beginning to pick up steam, Venezuela has been falling into a deepening recession, according to data recently released by the country's central bank. In the third quarter of 2009, economic output fell 4.5 percent compared with the same period a year ago. And the decline in oil prices from record levels in July 2008 forced Chavez to rein in spending this year, which of course cuts off social programs.

A similar slump has hit the little Andean nation of Ecuador, whose "Chavista" brother, President Rafael Correa, is finding support for his Leftist government falling dramatically. With the 40-year-old socialist leader's approval ratings only in the mid-40s, his "citizens' revolution" is not thriving -- nor is Bolivia's nor Nicaragua's, both of which are attempting to use the same tactics.

Third, another model is emerging -- that of a successful, large, genuinely democratic country, Brazil.

One of the hoary old truisms about humongous Brazil, with its enormous landmass and its 191 million people, is that "Brazil has always been the country of the future -- and it always will be." But those saucy words had recently gone flat.

When Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva, a union organizer from the poverty-stricken northeast who led strikes against the industrial giants backing Brazil's 1970s military dictatorships, was elected president in 2002, critics expected still another Leftist government. But "Lula," as everyone calls him, started off by writing an astonishing letter to the Brazilian people, assuring them he would honor ongoing government contracts with industry and that there would be no Leftist adventurism. It worked.

Since then, his moderate/centrist government, along with industry and labor, has embraced innovative programs like income transfers to pay poor mothers to keep their children in school and see that they get medical checkups (thus also making consumers of these parents, as opposed to Chavez' programs, which only pass out money and do not lead to such changes).

Indeed, this program alone has had such enormous success that 30 million Brazilians have emerged from poverty and 20 million have joined the middle class in only the past five years.

Lula has also been able to hew to a middle ground with the United States, remaining on excellent terms with Washington, even while welcoming visits from such Washington "undesirables" as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The visit caused nary a ripple because Lula conducted it in such a manner that it was a call for "engagement, not isolation" for Iran. He has also helped form a new world group of emerging economies, the Brics, made up of Brazil, Russia, India and China. It is too early to see what they will do.

And Brazil is, of course, not the only moderate democracy in Latin America, joined by Chile, Colombia and even Mexico.

Given these developments particularly of the last few months, the different political models available for Latin America are beginning to settle in, and Sunday's elections in Honduras are likely to offer still more clarification for political choices.

Which will it be? The Venezuelas, with no working economies to back them up but a lot of showy demagoguery on the part of their leaders? Or the Brazils, with their unique marriage of industry and labor and innovative social ideas?

It seems like an easy choice; but then, in Latin America, one never knows.