MCFI Mortgage

NEW YORK – Citadel Broadcasting Corp., the nation's third-largest radio broadcasting company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Sunday in an effort to restructure its hefty debt load.
In documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Las Vegas-based Citadel listed total assets at Oct. 30 of $1.4 billion and total debt of $2.46 billion.
Citadel owns and operates 224 radio stations and produces news and talk radio programing for 4,000 station affiliates and 8,500 program affiliates.
The company's largest shareholder, with a nearly 29 percent stake, is private equity firm Forstmann Little & Co. Creditors of some of its largest unsecured claims are: JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, whose claim was listed in the filing as "unknown," Wilmington Trust Co. with a $49.2 million claim and The Walt Disney Co. with an $11.2 million claim.

Property and casualty insurers currently make the most money from their auto insurance line of business. Generally better statistics are available on auto losses and underwriting on this line of business has benefited greatly from advances in computing. Additionally, property losses in the US, due to natural catastrophes, have exacerbated this trend.

Insurance companies are rated by various agencies such as A. M. Best. The ratings include the company's financial strength, which measures its ability to pay claims. It also rates financial instruments issued by the insurance company, such as bonds, notes, and securitization products.

Florida Life Insurance

As Congress gets closer to a final health care bill, many Americans want to know: What's in it for me?
The answer is: It depends.
On your age and household income. Whether you own a business and whether it's big or small. Whether you're insured now and who provides that insurance. In the end, it will depend on how House and Senate negotiators will merge the proposals, and how their vision gets translated into regulations.
Five Americans shared their stories with The Associated Press. Here's an educated guess on how the health care package taking shape in Congress might affect them.
___
Name: Holly Brown
Home: Round Lake, Ill.
Age: 28
Employment: Student, working part time, receiving unemployment benefits.
Household income: about $15,000.
Coverage: Insured, but struggling to afford it.
Brown was laid off last year from a job she'd held for four years. She's stayed insured because of the government COBRA program, which allows workers to remain on a health plan for 18 months after they leave their jobs, if they pay the premiums.
Brown works part time and studies medical imaging at College of Lake County. She has a chronic lung condition and was in the emergency room in November with flu and pneumonia. She's paid about $1,000 in medical bills this year that her insurance didn't cover.
She doesn't know how she'll pay her $500 premium this month because a government subsidy that helped her afford the premium has expired.
"It's scary to think about what's going to happen if I can't make the payment by the end of the month," Brown said.
The health care overhaul taking shape in Congress would require her to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. She could pick a plan offered through new state-based insurance exchanges and she would qualify for a subsidy to help pay her premiums because she makes less than 400 percent of the poverty level ($43,320 for an individual in 2009). But all those benefits wouldn't kick in until 2013 in the House bill (2014 in the Senate legislation). Because of her medical problem, she may be able to qualify for coverage during the transition period by going through high-risk insurance pools called for in the legislation.
___
Name: Glenn Nishimura

Home: Little Rock, Ark.

Age: 60

Employment: Consultant to nonprofit groups.

Household income: $55,000, including wife's earnings.

Coverage: Uninsured since COBRA expired in May.

Nishimura left a full-time job with benefits in October 2007 thinking he'd be able to find another good position.

Then the recession hit.

He's now a self-employed consultant. Since May, he's been without health insurance. For 18 months, he bought insurance through the COBRA program. When that ran out, he tried to find other coverage. He's been turned down by five insurance companies because he has high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels, even though he's otherwise healthy, has never been hospitalized and controls his conditions through diet and exercise.

"I could get H1N1 or get into an accident and I would be potentially bankrupt," Nishimura said. "It's an untenable situation."

The Medicare buy-in proposal considered in the Senate could have helped Nishimura get insurance, as would portions of both the House and Senate bills that would ban denials for pre-existing conditions. But opposition from moderates and a few liberals is forcing Senate Democratic leaders to scrap the idea of a buy-in to get a bill completed.

Nishimura said he e-mailed President Barack Obama suggesting that lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55 or 60 would create jobs. "I know a lot of people who would like to retire early, but can't because of health care," he said.

____

Name: David W. Brown

Home: Philadelphia

Age: 47

Employment: Owner of BrownPartners, an advertising and marketing agency. Seven employees. $336,000 in annual wages paid.

Household income: $150,000, including wife's earnings.

Coverage: Provides health, dental and vision coverage to employees.

An ad agency owner, Brown has been able to offer health insurance to his seven employees, but has had to cut benefits because of rising costs. Like other business owners, Brown is trying to figure out what will emerge from Congress and how it will affect him.

"We haven't been able to be as generous as we have in the past," Brown said of the insurance plan he offers his workers. "The good thing is, not a lot of folks are leaving because somebody else has a better plan."

Health care overhaul might help Brown and his wife with coverage for their daughters, now age 17 and 20. The proposals would allow young adults to stay on their parents' insurance plans as dependents into their mid-20s.

Brown would be able to shop for insurance for his workers through a health insurance exchange. Neither of the bills would require him to provide coverage. Both bills provide tax credits to help small companies with average wages of less than $40,000 provide health insurance. But pay levels in Brown's agency are above that cutoff.

___

Name: Robert Hansen

Home: Seattle homeless shelter

Age: 58

Employment: vendor, Real Change street newspaper.

Household income: $12,000, including tips.

Coverage: Uninsured.

Hansen used to work selling beer and peanuts at Seattle's now-demolished Kingdome. "Age caught up to me, running up and down the stairs, the physical labor," said the 58-year-old Seattle native.

Hansen has been homeless since 1994. A top-selling vendor of a weekly newspaper called Real Change, he makes about $1,000 a month. He eats his evening meal and finds a bed at a Catholic Community Services shelter.

The tingling in his feet and the occasional purplish color of his hands worry him. It's been so long since he's had a thorough physical exam that he's not sure if his symptoms could mean a serious health problem such as diabetes. He's uninsured and finds care in community clinics and emergency rooms.

Hansen and most other poor adults without young children don't qualify for Medicaid, the state-federal program that helps low-income families with health care. The proposals in Congress would expand Medicaid coverage to people such as Hansen.

In the leading Senate proposal, people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level ($14,404 for an individual in 2009) could enroll in Medicaid. The House bill makes the cutoff 150 percent of the poverty level ($16,245 for an individual in 2009).

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Name: Carol McKenna

Home: Pembroke Pines, Fla.

Age: 68

Employment: Retired payroll coordinator

Household income: About $39,000 from Social Security and some earnings by husband as mattress salesman.

Coverage: Medicare Advantage policy administered by AvMed Health Plans.

If McKenna believes the claims of the insurance industry and many Republicans, she and her husband are among the most at risk to be hurt by Congress' health proposals. If Democrats are telling the truth, they will be among those with the most to gain.

The 68-year-old retiree refrains from any worry, or any premature celebration. She simply believes, "It'll work out."

McKenna and her husband, Morty, who turns 78 on Sunday, are in private Medicare Advantage plans, which many Democrats have called wasteful and which have been made a prime target for major cuts. But Morty McKenna also falls in the coverage gap in Medicare's prescription drug program — the "doughnut hole" — that the health bills have promised to close. More than 3 million Medicare beneficiaries a year hit this gap and start paying the full cost of their drugs until they qualify for catastrophic coverage.

She said the government must "get rid of the abuses" and that pharmaceutical companies "need to step up and be accountable." For now, though, she's just waiting to see what actually happens.

___

Associated Press writers Matt Sedensky in Miami, Jesse Washington in Philadelphia and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington contributed to this report.

BOSTON – A toss left, a quick break past the defense, and it was obvious Philadelphia Eagles running back Herb Lusk was headed to the end zone. The real surprise came when he arrived 70 yards later.
Lusk dropped to a knee in the NFL's first public end zone prayer.
High-profile expressions of faith by athletes have become routine in pro sports since Lusk's October 1977 run. A new book by religion writer Tom Krattenmaker explores how it happened, and asks whether it's a good thing.
"Some love it, some really resent it. The comedians have a field day with it," said Krattenmaker, author of "Onward Christian Athletes."
From the numerous Lusk copycats, to prayer circles at the 50-yard line, to jubilant players praising God in postgame interviews, an often conservative voice of the Christian faith is now commonplace in American professional sports. That reflects decades of influence by evangelical Christian groups in locker rooms and a belief among some Christian athletes that their visibility is a gift they should use to proclaim their faith.
Krattenmaker says the problem is that they're reaching a sporting public with increasingly pluralistic religious convictions, or no religion at all.
"There are many secular fans who really feel annoyed by that kind of religious expression," he said in an interview. "Even people who are religious themselves often resent this situation where athletes talk about God in this big moment of victory, sometimes seeming to imply God gave them the victory."
But Tennessee Titans All-Pro center Kevin Mawae said his Christianity is part of who he is, and he can't separate it from his life as an athlete or anywhere else.
"The fact that some people are jaded toward religion or faith shouldn't stop a player from expressing his faith in public," Mawae said.
There's no intent to alienate people, only to share Biblical truth, said Vince Nauss, president of Baseball Chapel, which provides chaplains to every major league baseball team.
"If there's an exclusivity, it's because Jesus put it out there," Nauss said. "So I don't think there's anything to apologize for, or to dance around in a politically correct environment."
The influence of Christianity in locker rooms can be traced to people such as baseball pioneer Branch Rickey, the executive who brought Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1954, Rickey agreed to help college football coach Don McClanen found the influential Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Baseball Chapel was established for players like ex-New York Yankee Bobby Richardson, who was mobbed at local churches on Sundays, Nauss said. By 1975, it had established programs for every major league team.
Another prominent group, the international sports ministry Athletes in Action, places about half of the NFL's chaplains.
Krattenmaker said evangelical ministries have a near monopoly in pro clubhouses because they seized the chance, then won the teams' trust by not exploiting their access. Other faith groups simply haven't done the work, he said.
"The conservative Christians got their upper hand in the sports world the old fashioned way," Krattenmaker said. "They earned it."
Krattenmaker isn't asking pro athletes to stop talking about religion, just to be more sensitive in their tone and timing. He also sees a credibility-bruising selectivity in the theologically and politically conservative messages evangelicals in sports trumpet.
In his book, for instance, he highlights retired Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy's public stance against same-sex marriage. But Jesus's teaching that "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" doesn't get much attention among hyper-wealthy athletes, he said.

Joe Price, author of "Rounding the Bases: Baseball and Religion in America," said evangelicals are driven by a unique "missionary urgency" to fulfill Christ's call to spread the Christian message to all nations. But he said spontaneous witnessing on TV broadcasts was akin to "early Christian preaching on a street corner," and can be easily resented or ignored.

Retired NBA guard and 1993 Heisman Trophy winner Charlie Ward, an outspoken Christian, said when athletes publicly talk about Christianity, it's often just a reflection of the joy of the faith.

"When people are excited about something, they want to share good news with people," Ward said.

John White, who helped found Athletes in Action's sports ethics center, advocates training to help Christian pro athletes be reflective about what they say and aware of how their audience might respond.

"I think there could be more measured communication, just some wisdom," said White, now a professor at Cedarville College. "It would probably challenge me if I saw them equally thanking God after a loss."

Mawae said he knows outspoken Christian athletes will be held more accountable for what they say and do.

"If you're going to go out there and pray in the end zone at the end of the game and give it all up or whatever, at the same time your actions off the field have to reflect who you are on the field," he said.

Both Mawae and Ward have seen their character publicly questioned. Mawae is often named one of the NFL's dirtiest players in player polls — something he has attributed to playing hard until "the echo of the whistle." In the 1997 NBA playoffs, Ward was suspended after being part of an ugly brawl with the Miami Heat. In 2001, he apologized after saying Jews were "stubborn" because they didn't accept Christ and had "blood on their hands."

Ward said he tried to show his Christianity through his struggles.

"I wanted people to see that I was real, but also to wanted (them) to see humility and how you handle certain situations and allowing your faith to kind of be shown through your hang ups," he said.

Ward said he knows that everyone doesn't want to hear about his faith. But he said Christians are also exposed to messages in the media they don't want to hear, and there's a quick solution.

"They can turn off the television," he said.

_____

AP Sports Writer Teresa M. Walker contributed to this report from Nashville, Tenn.

MONDAY, Dec. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Better screening, healthier living
and new treatments have all continued to help cut the annual number of
cancer cases and deaths in the United States, a new report says.

The findings showed that new cancer cases and deaths from cancer have
declined significantly for both men and women and for most racial/ethnic
populations.

These decreases were largely due to decreased incidence and death from
lung, prostate and colon cancer among men and a drop in two of the three
leading cancers in women (breast and colon cancers). New diagnoses for all
types of cancer in the United States declined almost 1 percent per year
from 1999 to 2006 and cancer deaths dropped 1.6 percent per year from 2001
to 2006.

The report, which appears in the Dec. 7 online edition of
Cancer, was compiled from data by the American Cancer Society, the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. National Cancer
Institute and the North American Association of Central Cancer
Registries.

"For me, when I see the downturn in some cancers it says we can
actually address the cancer burden through a variety of efforts," said
report author Brenda K. Edwards, associate director of the Surveillance
Research Program at the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

But the battle against cancer continues, she stressed. "We see the
downturn in mortality, but we still have almost 1.5 million people with
new cancer diagnoses in 2009. So, we still have a large number of people
affected. For some of them, we have relatively effective treatments and
for others not so."

Edwards noted that for the cancers that have seen the biggest
decreases, such as breast and colon cancer, effective screening methods
probably explain the downward trend, although there are still too few
people who take advantage of them.

Cancer rates are still higher for men than for women, but men had the
biggest declines in new cases and death, the report showed.

This year's report focused on trends in colorectal cancer. Colorectal
cancer, the third most-diagnosed cancer in both men and women, is also the
second-leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. Overall, colon
cancer rates are declining, but the decline is mostly among those over 65.
Increasing numbers of cases in men and women under 50 is worrisome, the
report noted.

Among both men and women, there were major declines in colorectal
cancer cases from 1985 to 1995, minor increases from 1995 to 1998, and
significant declines from 1998 to 2006. Since 1984, death rates also
dropped, with accelerated rates of decline since 2002 for men and since
2001 for women.

In fact, from 1975 to 2000, cases of colorectal cancer fell 22 percent;
50 percent of which was most likely due to changes in lifestyle, and 50
percent to more people being screened.

In addition, deaths from colorectal cancer fell 26 percent during the
same time; 9 percent of the drop came from lifestyle changes, 14 percent
came from screening and 3 percent came from improved treatment, according
to the report.

Going forward, if there were no changes in lifestyle, screening or
treatment, there would be a 17 percent drop in colorectal cancer deaths
from 2000 to 2020. However, if current trends remain the same, there will
be a 36 percent drop in colorectal cancer deaths.

But, if more Americans adopted more healthy lifestyles, such as
quitting smoking, and were screened for colon cancer and had access to
optimal treatment (such as more effective chemotherapy), deaths from colon
cancer could be reduced by 50 percent by 2020, the report predicted.

Other highlights from the report were that among men, cases of
prostate, lung, oral cavity, stomach, brain, colon and rectum cancers have
declined, but cases of kidney/renal, liver and esophageal cancer, along
with leukemia, myeloma and melanoma, are increasing.

Among women, cases of breast, colorectal, uterine, ovarian, cervical
and oral cavity cancers decreased, but cases of lung, thyroid, pancreatic,
bladder and kidney cancers, along with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, melanoma and
leukemia are on the rise.

Where cancers have increased, Edwards noted that in most cases there
are no effective screening tests to catch the cancer early. In addition,
for many of these cancers, the causes aren't known and there aren't
effective treatments, she said.

Cancer death rates remain highest among blacks and lowest among
Asian/Pacific Islanders. Although death rates by race/ethnicity were
similar for most cancers, deaths from pancreatic cancer, the fourth most
common cause of cancer death in the United States, increased in white men
and women but dropped among black men and women.

Among men, except for Asian/Pacific Islanders, the three leading causes
of cancer death were lung, prostate and colorectal cancer. Among
Asian/Pacific Islanders, lung, liver and colorectal cancers were the top
three causes of cancer death.

For women, except Hispanic women, the three leading causes of cancer
death were lung, breast and colorectal cancer. For Hispanic women, breast
cancer was the leading cause of cancer deaths, the study authors noted.

These differences in death rates may be due to differences in risk
behaviors, socioeconomic status and access to and use of screening and
treatment, according to the report.

While these trends are expected to continue, they could be accelerated
if more people would make the lifestyle changes needed to reduce their
risk of cancer. These include not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight,
eating a healthful diet and exercising.

In addition, lives could be saved if more people were screened for
cancers such as breast and colon cancer, and if there was more access to
newer treatments, the report said.

Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale
University School of Medicine, said that "there is enormous detail in this
comprehensive report, but the take-away message is as clear as it is
compelling: the incidence and death toll from cancer are both steadily, if
gradually, declining."

That is not a new message, Katz noted.

"The gratifying conclusion is that we are effectively fighting cancer
at every level: preventing it outright by modifying cancer risk factors;
finding it early through effective screening; and treating it ever more
effectively. The benefits of screening suggested here are timely in light
of recent debate about the net benefits of mammography," he said. "The
overall news here is clearly good, and is something of a rebuke for those
who fear modern science rather than embracing the benefits it so often
confers."

More information

For more information on cancer, visit the
American Cancer Society.

LONDON (AFP) –
The government will make a budget statement on Wednesday to help fix public finances and lift its popularity before next year's election, amid reports of a windfall tax on bankers' bonuses.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling unveils his latest taxation and spending plans in the pre-budget report -- a curtain-raiser to the main budget in March or April -- before parliament at 1230 GMT.

Reports suggest Darling will clobber bankers amid deep public anger over the return of big bonuses in a sector that was bailed out by the taxpayer -- and blamed for the global financial crisis and subsequent worldwide recession.

Business Secretary Peter Mandelson, speaking on GMTV, said early on Wednesday that Chancellor of the Exchequer Darling would deliver a "strong message" to the banking sector on bonuses.

"We are seeing, in some respects, a return to the short-term bonus culture that got us into so much trouble in the past," Mandelson said.

"Therefore, I think it is reasonable for the Chancellor to deliver a message to the banks."

Britain is the last major world power in recession, with unemployment fast approaching 2.5 million people and the economy shrinking for the past six quarters.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, tipped to lose next year's election to the Conservatives, had outlined plans on Monday to help achieve his aim of halving the public deficit over the next four years.

Brown said he would seek to axe 3.0 billion pounds from government spending in new efficiency savings, and would also crack down on excessive public sector pay.

Mandelson, who is effectively Brown's deputy, added Wednesday that Darling would seek a path to a sustainable recovery -- but admitted that there would be painful measures.

"There will be belt-tightening, and there will be down-payments on reductions in public spending in coming years, so there will be some pain," he told GMTV.

"But it is not going to be destructive of the economy and the recovery that we have to sustain; after all, it is economic growth that we need most of all, to keep people in their jobs and their homes.

"But also to give us the means to pay down that deficit, to rebalance our public finances in the coming years, not doing so in a way that slams the brakes on and derails the recovery."

Darling is also expected to slash his growth forecasts for the economy, which is stuck in its longest recession since records began in 1955.

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that he will announce average spending cuts of 14 percent over three years, although not until 2011, with "frontline services" of schools, hospitals and the police spared the axe.

Darling is locked in a balancing act, trying to show voters he can protect essential services from cuts ahead of the election, and slash the deficit to please the markets, the Guardian newspaper added.

The pre-budget is widely predicted to show that public debt will exceed the official target of 175 billion pounds in the current financial year.

The public finances have buckled under the weight of huge bailouts of troubled banks and a vicious recession that has slashed tax revenues.

Concern is meanwhile growing that Britain could face the embarrassment of a credit rating downgrade due to the debt mountain.

"The focus of the budget will have to be on how the public finances are going to be reined in over an extended period," said IHS Global Insight economist Howard Archer.

"Failure to do so will intensify concerns over the creditworthiness of the UK."

Ratings agency Fitch recently warned that Britain was the country most at risk of losing its top-level AAA credit assessment owing to the state of its public finances.

And on Tuesday, Moody's indicated that Britain and the United States needed to take action to protect their AAA ratings.

A few years ago, an adviser went to Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum with a plan for a tall office building. "Only 90 stories?" the ruler of Dubai asked. The aide was sent back to the drawing board, with instructions to design the highest structure not just in Dubai, not just in the Middle East, but in the world. When the Burj Dubai has its grand opening in January, it will be an 818-meter monument to the visionary autocrat who dreamed the Dubai dream - and, as it turns out, a conspicuous symbol of the hyper-ambition that now threatens the emirate with financial ruin. (See the top 10 bankruptcies.)
Sheik Mo, as he's dubbed by the media, was tweeting in London last week when officials back home stunned financial markets by announcing a request for a six-month repayment standstill on part of the sheikdom's $80 billion debt. The immediate issue is Dubai's inability to come through on a $3.52 billion tranche due in mid-December. Yet, with some 400 property projects already reportedly frozen in Dubai, the news raised the specter of a gigantic default that would sink exposed creditors around the world. "Inspired by Islamic artifacts," read the sheik's post on Twitter during a visit to the British Museum as share prices from Tokyo to New York City were about to plunge in response to Dubai's announcement. (See a story about Dubai's debacle and the global financial crisis.)
While the Anglophile sheik kept a stiff upper lip, Dubai's inability to pay its debts is a heavy blow to an ego that easily dwarfs Dubai's gleaming new 160-story skyscraper. In the wake of the 2008 global financial meltdown, Sheik Mohammed repeatedly waved off predictions of Dubai's demise, staunchly defended his economic development model and dismissed Western media criticism as a bigoted slur on an Arab success story. "I can safely say that we have succeeded in containing the risks of the global financial crisis in record time," he said last April. Indeed, even as the property bubble was bursting and throwing thousands out of work in his realm a year ago, Dubai played host to probably the biggest party ever thrown in the Middle East: a $20 million red-carpet extravaganza, with fireworks visible from outer space, to celebrate the opening of the $1.5 billion Atlantis hotel and resort. (See a story about whether Dubai's problems will spread.)
Jealous rivals and cynical pundits will revel in Sheik Mohammed's fall from grace, but none can deny Dubai's remarkable accomplishments - or ignore the fact that only an ambitious dreamer could have made them happen. In the 1980s, when Dubai's neighbors were either hibernating behind a curtain of oil wealth or dabbling, sometimes disastrously, in Middle East politics, Sheik Mohammed began transforming oil-poor Dubai from an Arab backwater into a global city. Within a decade Dubai had a world-class air carrier in Emirates Airlines and a glamorous, iconic "seven-star" hotel, the Burj al-Arab, as high as the Eiffel Tower. Within another decade, Dubai had become truly a global hub - the largest international financial center between Singapore and Europe, a regional headquarters for global brands from investment banking to bespoke tailoring, and a destination for more than 6 million tourists a year.
"In the beginning," Sheik Mohammed once told an Arab journalist, "they said that Dubai was crazy." Certainly few Arab leaders have demonstrated such a relentless drive to succeed. He imagined Dubai as a great city from Islam's rich heritage, a Baghdad or a Cordoba. His immense appetite for work is matched by a passion for play. He is a world-class thoroughbred racer and breeder and, at 62, he remains a celebrated equestrian who engages in arduous endurance races across hundreds of miles of terrain. Doubtless it takes a politician of supreme self-confidence not only to write Arabic poetry but to post it in volumes on his website. In an interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper in 2003, the sheik explained what linked all his endeavors: "I love success. I despise failure."
It would thus be crazy to write off Sheik Mohammed, or Dubai, for that matter. The sheik is a hereditary leader whose ruling tribal lines date back to 1833. Although he only formally became Dubai's ruler in 2006 upon the death of a brother, he has been the driving force behind the emirate for three decades. Of equal importance, his ambition and competence have made him a leading figure - presently serving as Vice President, Prime Minister and Defense Minister - in the United Arab Emirates, the country created by a confederation of seven Arab sheikdoms in 1971. No leader in the U.A.E., or perhaps in the Arab world at large, can rival Sheik Mohammed's global connections in politics and business.
For a lifeline out of the crisis, Sheik Mohammed will certainly look again to Abu Dhabi, whose vast oil deposits make it by far the richest U.A.E. entity. It stepped up with $10 billion in support immediately after the global crash in 2008 and can be expected to do so once more; Abu Dhabi's ruling al-Nahyan family, as cautious as the al-Maktoums are daring, knows that it, too, will be dragged back by the demise of Dubai. A glance at the $600 billion–plus balance sheet of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund puts Dubai's debt crisis in a softer light. And, as far as Dubai's leaders are concerned, the problem is largely limited to egregious overborrowing by one company in one sector: Nakheel, the Dubai World subsidiary behind huge property projects like the Palm and the World, built on injected sand off the Gulf coast. "It will take a bit of time, but Dubai will come back," a Dubai insider told TIME. "It will come back stronger, because the crisis will help create a more sustainable model for the future."
That remains to be seen, but the world cannot afford the failure of Sheik Mohammed. Whatever Dubai's excesses, this metropolis on the desert edge - not Cairo, Beirut, Tehran or Tel Aviv - has become the Middle East's crossroads of cooperation. In a region where conflicts still rage, Dubai has become a place where Arabs and others have learned to go to build a future together. In a 2007 speech to international business leaders, Sheik Mohammed chastised Arabs who preferred "to sit around waiting, praising our glorious past and blaming others for our failures and our problems." Instead, he said, "We have to arm ourselves with courage and work quickly and seriously, to tackle the reasons that put our region behind the rest of the world." Sheik Mohammed is a dreamer whose ego proved too large to contain. But his big dream remains the Middle East's hope.
See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.
See pictures of the global financial crisis.
View this article on Time.comRelated articles on Time.com:Will Dubai's Financial Problems Spread Around the Globe? Dumping on Dubai: Have Hard Times Hit the Emirates? Can the Banks Force Dubai into Foreclosure? Inside Dubai Inc. How Wall Street's Bust Threatens Dubai's Boom

NEW YORK – The following stocks were among those that moved substantially or traded heavily Monday on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market:
NYSE:
American International Group Inc., down $4.90 at $28.40
A Sanford Bernstein analyst reportedly said the embattled insurer doesn't have enough reserves to pay some potential claims.
Las Vegas Sands Corp., down 47 cents at $15.32
The company's Sands China tumbled in its first day of Hong Kong trading after raising $2.5 billion in an initial public offering.
DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., up 94 cents at $33.47
An analyst upgraded DreamWorks and said the stock has fallen to more "reasonable" levels after speculation of a possible buyout faded.
US Bancorp, up $1.18 at $24.13
A RW Baird analyst said the stock price makes it an attractive buy and upgraded shares to the firm's highest investment rating.
Supervalu Inc., down 59 cents at $13.83
An analyst downgraded the stock and forecast trouble despite the grocer's attempts to lower prices and turn around its business.
Gamestop Corp., down 91 cents at $24.41
Investors worried hat video games may not sell as well early this holiday season as many had hoped.
Aflac Inc., up $2.38 at $46.03
An analyst upgraded the supplemental insurance provider, citing its ability to offset potential credit losses and an improving outlook.
NASDAQ:
Clarient Inc., up 20 cents at $2.55

The medical device maker signed an exclusive license to technology aimed making better tests for cancer.

WASHINGTON – Federal employees whose regional costs of living entitles them to higher compensation will see no increase in their "locality pay" percentages next year, President Barack Obama informed Congress on Monday.
Workers who receive pay over and above the base federal rates — because of higher living costs and greater private-sector pay in their regions — would have been entitled to an average 16.5 percent increase under a legal formula. But presidents can invoke emergency conditions to set their own pay plans.
Citing the current stress on the economy, Obama said current locality percentages would remain in effect in 2010.
In August, Obama announced he would reduce pay increases for all federal workers from 2.4 percent to 2 percent.
In his letter Monday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden, Obama noted that the initial pay formulas would have increased the salaries of many federal workers by an average of 18.9 percent. Biden received the letter in his capacity as president of the Senate.
"Our country continues to face serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare and most Americans would not understand or accept that federal employees should receive an average pay increase of 18.9 percent while many of their fellow citizens are facing employment cutbacks or unemployment," Obama wrote.
Paying the full increase, Obama said, would have cost $19.9 billion a year more than he had budgeted for 2010 with the 2 percent wage increase.
Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton invoked the same authority as Obama did to adopt their own pay plans.
As he did in August, Obama said he did not believe the decision would hurt the government's ability to attract or retain workers. He said any increase above the amount he budgeted would have required reductions in hiring to cover the costs.
There are more than 1.8 million civilian employees in the federal government, most of them working in one of 31 localities or regions where pay is adjusted according to local cost-of-living and private sector compensation rates.

KABUL – Afghan officials hope President Barack Obama's address on Afghanistan won't be weighted too heavily on an exit strategy — even though that's the message many Americans and Democrats in Congress want to hear.
If he talks extensively in his speech Tuesday night about winding down the war, Afghans fear the Taliban will simply bide their time until the Americans abandon the country much as Washington did after the Soviets left 20 years ago. That move plunged the nation into civil war and paved the way for al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 attacks.
Similarly, in neighboring Pakistan, too much talk of a finite U.S. troop presence gives commanders little reason to help fight Afghan militants — the very people they might eventually need to embrace as allies if the international community fails to secure Afghanistan and the Taliban retake Kabul.
From the Pakistani side of the volatile border, the fear is that a premature U.S. pullout would leave Pakistan vulnerable to an unchecked threat from Islamic extremists, who now control significant areas of the northwest.
"If the Americans leave the war unfinished — without stabilizing Afghanistan — it is bad for Pakistan," Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for Pakistan's tribal areas, said Monday. "Obama should announce a change of strategy that moves away from force to stabilization ... so that people will stop going to the Taliban in search of security."
So while Obama needs to reassure the American public that Afghanistan will not become his Vietnam, that message might be best muffled in the battle zones.
"Mentioning an exit strategy at the height of fighting is premature," said Hamid Gailani, majority leader in the Afghan parliament. Gailani hopes Obama's expected military buildup will be accompanied by a political plan that fosters economic development for his impoverished nation.
"If he speaks of a surge on the one hand and of an exit strategy on the other hand, it will not make any sense to people," Gailani said.
However, there is a case to be made for Obama to emphasize that U.S. forces aren't going to be in Afghanistan forever. That message could serve to undercut the argument of hardcore militants who lash out against foreign occupiers — and use it as a recruitment tool. It also could perhaps strengthen Afghan efforts toward reconciliation with some members of the Taliban, who say they won't negotiate until foreign forces leave.
"I think the insurgency has been very, very skilled at propaganda and I think that they will inevitably use the announcement of an increase in troop levels to make the case again and again that we're an occupation, that Karzai is a puppet," said Caroline Wadhams, senior national analyst at the Washington-based Center for American Progress think tank. "That's why I think it's so important that we continue to talk about how we're not going to be there forever."
On the other hand, Afghan officials worry that political pressure in the United States might encourage Obama to pull out before the Taliban have been seriously weakened.
Much of the relative success of the Iraq surge was that it changed perceptions — convincing both insurgents and government leaders alike that the U.S. would stay as long as it took to achieve its goals. That emboldened many Iraqi Sunnis to break with al-Qaida — a move that was a turning point in the war.
Afghans have a historic aversion to foreign occupation, but the repressive Taliban have little appeal to Afghans outside the rural areas dominated by ethnic Pashtuns. Still, Afghans tend to back whomever is winning.
When Obama rolled out his first strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan in March, nearly 700 U.S. service members had been killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Now, eight months later, that number has grown to at least 845.
Back in the spring, Obama deployed an extra 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. When he delivers his national address from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., he's expected to announce an increase of up to 35,000 more.
To win backing for the unpopular war, the White House has punctuated its message with talk about exit ramps.
Last week, Obama said he wanted to "finish the job." White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said recently, "We are not going to be there another eight or nine years."
Even Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is giving hints, albeit privately, about a possible endgame.

Rep. Mike Coffman, a Republican congressman from Colorado, said this week that during his visit to Kabul, he asked McChrystal: "If you get these troops that you are requesting, the 40,000, where's the tipping point? At what point will we begin to draw down?" According to Coffman, McChrystal responded: "Sometime before 2013."

A U.S. military spokesman in Kabul did not dispute the congressman's characterization of his conversation with McChrystal, but cautioned that the nature of the chat was purely speculative.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been talking about ways to exit, too. In announcing an international conference on Afghanistan Jan. 28 in London, Brown on Saturday handed Afghan President Hamid Karzai a page of "milestones on which he's going to be judged."

Besides stepping up training and deployment of Afghan security forces, reducing corruption and appointing local leaders, Brown stated that by the end of next year, the Afghan government should have trained another 50,000 troops and must take control of at least five districts from the NATO-led force.

"I hope we will see this process happening in a way that people can feel more secure, that side-by-side with the British troops, the Afghans are taking responsibility for themselves so we can look forward to a time in the future — there is no timetable at the moment — when Afghan forces can take responsibility in new areas and British forces are able to come home."

That's not reassuring to many Afghans in places like Helmand province in southern Afghanistan where Taliban influence is strong.

"We are not at the stage when international forces can leave Afghanistan," said Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the governor of Helmand. "For now, we're talking about international forces who are coming. Helmand is one of the provinces where terrorists and drug dealers and the Taliban are destroying security."

It's not that Ahmadi doesn't want U.S. forces to leave eventually. He spoke enthusiastically about how the Afghan government has approved a new seventh corps of the Afghan National Army — Corps 215 Maiwand — to be based in the Helmand capital of Lashkar Gah where the first fresh U.S. troops are expected to arrive. Brown has said that the Afghans have vowed to deploy 5,000 members of the new Afghan army corps to Helmand, to be partnered by British troops next year.

___

Associated Press Writers Kathy Gannon in Islamabad and Rahim Faiez in Kabul contributed to this report.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio – A paparazzo has testified that an Ohio police chief told him he had access to ultrasound photographs belonging to the woman who carried twins for Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick.
Justin Steffman of New York testified Tuesday in the trial of Barry Carpenter, the suspended chief of Martins Ferry, where surrogate Michelle Ross lived. Carpenter and Police Chief Chad Dojack from nearby Bridgeport are accused of scheming to sell items from Ross' home.
A special prosecutor has said Carpenter entered Ross' home in May and removed items that identified her as the surrogate.
Steffman says Dojack offered to sell him the surrogate's address and contact information for $1,000. He says Carpenter said he had access to the plaster cast and ultrasound photos.
Dojack faces trial in January.

WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she would be happy to talk to Sarah Palin over coffee.
In an interview for broadcast Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," Clinton says she's never met the one-time GOP vice presidential hopeful and former Alaska governor and thinks it would be very interesting to sit down and talk with her.
Clinton was responding to a question about a passage in Palin's new book. Palin writes that if she and Clinton ever meet for coffee, "I know that we would fundamentally disagree on many issues." But Palin says, "my hat is off to her hard work on the 2008 campaign trail."
Clinton, in Singapore for a meeting of world leaders, says she's ready to have a cup of coffee and maybe she could make a case on some of the issues on which the two women disagree.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
A congressional panel accused Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) on Tuesday of knowing about Merrill Lynch & Co's huge losses as early as November 2008, suggesting the bank lied to investors in saying it did not grasp the depth of the problems until the following month.

Democrats on the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee unveiled internal Bank of America documents they said show the bank was alarmed by the losses far before shareholders of both companies approved the merger last December 5.

The panel has for months been probing events leading up to the deal's completion on January 1. It has been trying to pinpoint when the bank knew Merrill was on its way to what would become a $15.8 billion loss. The panel has also been trying to determine whether Bank of America was prepared to try to stop the merger or seek government help to finish it.

On Tuesday, for example, the committee disclosed one handwritten note from an outside lawyer, dated November 12, 2008, that said Merrill "lost $7 billion in October."

The House committee is also investigating the government's role in encouraging the merger, which resulted in Bank of America receiving a $20 billion injection of taxpayer funds, on top of $25 billion it had previously obtained.

Tuesday's hearing was the committee's fourth to investigate the high-profile deal that occurred at the height of the U.S. financial crisis in late 2008.

Brian Moynihan, considered a frontrunner to replace outgoing Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis, was among those to testify at Tuesday's hearing.

Moynihan was the bank's general counsel when Bank of America closed its Merrill deal and is now the bank's retail banking chief.

Also testifying was Timothy Mayopoulos, the bank's general counsel until he was fired on December 10, 2008, and replaced by Moynihan.

Others to testify are two Bank of America directors, Charles "Chad" Gifford and Thomas May, who are part of a board committee to find Lewis' replacement.

Gifford is the former chief executive at FleetBoston Financial Corp, where he was Moynihan's boss. Bank of America bought FleetBoston in 2004.

The House panel has already questioned and faulted Lewis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson for how they handled the Merrill deal.

(Reporting by Rachelle Younglai and Jonathan Stempel, with additional reporting by Joe Rauch, editing by Matthew Lewis)

WASHINGTON – Soldier suicides this year are almost sure to top last year's, but a recent decline in the pace of such deaths could mean the Army is making progress in stemming them, officials said Tuesday.
Army Vice Chief of Staff General Peter Chiarelli said that as of Monday, 140 active duty soldiers are believed to have died of self-inflicted wounds. That's the same as were confirmed for all of 2008.
"We are almost certainly going to end the year higher than last year — this is horrible, and I do not want to downplay the significance of these numbers in any way," he said.
But Chiarelli said there has been a tapering off in recent months from huge numbers of January and February.
"I do believe we are finally beginning to see progress being made," Chiarelli told a Pentagon press conference.
He attributed that to some unprecedented efforts the Army has been trying to work with soldiers through new programs.
Using some U.S. bases as examples of the trend downward, Chiarelli said there were 18 suicides reported this year at Fort Campbell in Kentucky — and that 11 of those were in the first four months of the year.
At Schofield Barracks in Hawaii, there were seven all year so far — five in the first five months of the year and only two since.
The Army widened suicide prevention in March in an attempt to make rapid improvements in its programs and policies. Army efforts to curb suicides also were increased Oct. 1 with the beginning of the so-called Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program, which aims to put the same emphasis on mental and emotion strength as the military traditionally has on physical strength. Basic training now includes anti-stress programs as part of a broader effort to help soldiers deal with the aftereffects of combat and prevent suicides.
Still, another jump in suicide figures for 2009 would make it the fifth straight year that such deaths have set a record as troops continue to come under the stress of two overseas wars. It compares with 140 in 2008, 115 in 2007 and 102 in 2006.
The numbers kept by the service branches don't show the whole picture of war-related suicides because they don't include deaths after people have left the military. The Department of Veterans Affairs tracks those numbers and says there were 144 suicides among the nearly 500,000 service members who left the military from 2002-2005 after fighting in at least one of the wars.
The true incidence of suicide among military veterans is not known, according to a report last year by the Congressional Research Service. Based on numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the VA estimates that 18 veterans a day — or 6,500 a year — take their lives, but that number includes vets from all previous wars.

BERLIN – Afghanistan has slipped three places to become the world's second most-corrupt country despite billions in aid meant to bolster the government against a rising insurgency, according to an annual survey of perceived levels of corruption.
Only lawless Somalia, whose weak U.N.-backed government controls just a few blocks of the capital, was perceived as more corrupt than Afghanistan in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.
Iraq saw some improvement, rising to 176 of 180 countries, up two places up from last year. Singapore, Denmark and New Zealand were seen as the least corrupt countries in the list based on surveys of businesses and experts.
In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai's inability or unwillingness to tackle cronyism and bribery the past five years have resulted in an increase of support for the Taliban insurgents. That has prompted calls by the Obama administration for Karzai to tackle the practice or risk forfeiting U.S. aid.
Since 2001, the U.S. Congress has appropriated more than $39 billion in humanitarian and reconstruction assistance for Afghanistan, according to a report by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. European nations send about 1 billion euros ($1.49 billion) a year, a total of 9 billion euros since 2002.
International donors are increasingly questioning how much of the billions of dollars in aid might have been misappropriated.
The report said examples of Afghan corruption ranged from the sale of government positions to daily bribes for basic services.
Karzai unveiled an anti-corruption unit and major crime fighting force on Monday after heavy pressure from Washington.
In reaction to the report, Ershad Ahmadi, the deputy director general of the High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption in Afghanistan, said that "corruption is a phenomenon that will not go away overnight. It is a problem that will continue to be with Afghanistan for a long time.
"Until we achieve that sort of national awakening that business as usual is not in the interest of a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan, you will not be able to achieve success in your anti-corruption campaign," Ahmadi said.
Robin Hodess, Transparency's director of policy and research, said Tuesday that for a country to improve on the corruption perceptions index, it is imperative that "citizens believe that they have a government that works for them."
The governments have to show "that there is the political will to respond to the needs of the people," Hodess said.
In Iraq, corruption has become widespread since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 with scarcity of serious government measures against corrupted officials.
That has undermined the largest nation-building efforts with siphoning billions of dollars away from the country's struggling economy, increasing frustrations among Iraqis mainly over corruption, lingering violence and poor public services.
A Bertelsmann Foundation report used in the corruption index noted that in Iraq "non-security institutions remain weak and debilitated. The Iraqi leadership faces many structural constraints on governance, such as a massive brain drain, a high level of political division, and extreme poverty."
The United States, which was in 19th place compared with 18th last year, remained stable despite Transparency's concerns over a lack of government oversight of the financial sector.
The report also pointed out that the U.S. legislature is another reason for concern, as it is "perceived to be the institution most affected by corruption."
There were some bright spots in the new report — Bangladesh, Belarus, Guatemala, Lithuania, Poland and Syria were among the countries that improved the most.

___

Associated Press Writers Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad and Fisnik Abrashi in London contributed to this report.

___

On the Net: http://www.transparency.org

BERLIN – Afghanistan has slipped three places to become the world's second most-corrupt country despite billions in aid meant to bolster the government against a rising insurgency, according to an annual survey of perceived levels of corruption.
Only lawless Somalia, whose weak U.N.-backed government controls just a few blocks of the capital, was perceived as more corrupt than Afghanistan in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.
Iraq saw some improvement, rising to 176 of 180 countries, up two places up from last year. Singapore, Denmark and New Zealand were seen as the least corrupt countries in the list based on surveys of businesses and experts.
In Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai's inability or unwillingness to tackle cronyism and bribery the past five years have resulted in an increase of support for the Taliban insurgents. That has prompted calls by the Obama administration for Karzai to tackle the practice or risk forfeiting U.S. aid.
Since 2001, the U.S. Congress has appropriated more than $39 billion in humanitarian and reconstruction assistance for Afghanistan, according to a report by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. European nations send about 1 billion euros ($1.49 billion) a year, a total of 9 billion euros since 2002.
International donors are increasingly questioning how much of the billions of dollars in aid might have been misappropriated.
The report said examples of Afghan corruption ranged from the sale of government positions to daily bribes for basic services.
Karzai unveiled an anti-corruption unit and major crime fighting force on Monday after heavy pressure from Washington.
In reaction to the report, Ershad Ahmadi, the deputy director general of the High Office of Oversight and Anti-corruption in Afghanistan, said that "corruption is a phenomenon that will not go away overnight. It is a problem that will continue to be with Afghanistan for a long time.
"Until we achieve that sort of national awakening that business as usual is not in the interest of a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan, you will not be able to achieve success in your anti-corruption campaign," Ahmadi said.
Robin Hodess, Transparency's director of policy and research, said Tuesday that for a country to improve on the corruption perceptions index, it is imperative that "citizens believe that they have a government that works for them."
The governments have to show "that there is the political will to respond to the needs of the people," Hodess said.
In Iraq, corruption has become widespread since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 with scarcity of serious government measures against corrupted officials.
That has undermined the largest nation-building efforts with siphoning billions of dollars away from the country's struggling economy, increasing frustrations among Iraqis mainly over corruption, lingering violence and poor public services.
A Bertelsmann Foundation report used in the corruption index noted that in Iraq "non-security institutions remain weak and debilitated. The Iraqi leadership faces many structural constraints on governance, such as a massive brain drain, a high level of political division, and extreme poverty."
The United States, which was in 19th place compared with 18th last year, remained stable despite Transparency's concerns over a lack of government oversight of the financial sector.
The report also pointed out that the U.S. legislature is another reason for concern, as it is "perceived to be the institution most affected by corruption."
There were some bright spots in the new report — Bangladesh, Belarus, Guatemala, Lithuania, Poland and Syria were among the countries that improved the most.

___

Associated Press Writers Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad and Fisnik Abrashi in London contributed to this report.

___

On the Net: http://www.transparency.org

SAO SEBASTIAO DE CUIEIRAS, Brazil (Reuters) –
The task of harvesting the secrets of Brazil's vast Amazon rain forest that could help in the battle against cancer largely falls to Osmar Barbosa Ferreira and a big pair of clippers.

In jungle so dense it all but blocks out the sun, the lithe 46-year-old shimmies up a thin tree helped by a harness, a strap between his feet, and the expertise gained from a lifetime laboring in the forest.

A few well-placed snips later, branches cascade to a small band of researchers and a doctor who faithfully make a long monthly trip to the Cuieiras river in Amazonas state in the belief that the forest's staggeringly rich plant life can unlock new treatments for cancer.

They may be right.

About 70 percent of current cancer drugs are either natural products or derived from natural compounds, and the world's largest rain forest is a great cauldron of biodiversity that has already produced medicine for diseases such as malaria.

But finding the right material is no easy task in a forest that can have up to 400 species of trees and many more plants in a 2.5-acre (1-hectare) area, and in a country where suspicion of outside involvement in the Amazon runs strong.

"If we had very clear rules, we could attract scientists from all over the world," said the doctor, Drauzio Varella, with a mix of enthusiasm and frustration. "We could transform a big part of the Amazon into an enormous laboratory."

As it stands, though, foreigners are barred from helping oncologist Varella and the researchers from Sao Paulo's Paulista University, who are among a tiny handful of Brazilian groups licensed to study samples from the Amazon.

Varella, 66, believes his high profile has helped. He is a well-known writer and television personality who shot to fame in 1999 with a book and subsequent hit movie based on his work as a doctor in a brutal Sao Paulo prison called Carandiru.

But a move by his team in the 1990s to partner with the U.S. National Cancer Institute produced a storm of accusations of "bio-piracy" and for years it has been blocked from the international cooperation and funding that could increase the chances of finding the Holy Grail of a cancer cure.

Their work has also been regularly delayed by bureaucratic demands, once stopping their collections for two years.

In more than a decade of searching, the group has brought back 2,200 samples from this tributary of the mighty, tea-dark Rio Negro (Black River) to its laboratory in Sao Paulo, of which about 70 have shown some effect against tumors. Just those samples have given the team enough analysis work for 20 years, said Varella, a lanky marathon runner whose younger brother died of cancer.

"If we can find 70, imagine what a big university with international resources could do -- they could screen for an absurd amount of diseases," said Varella, who still spends part of his time treating prisoners in Sao Paulo.

"As well as the impact this could have on human health, it could bring resources for preservation and to improve the quality of life of people who live here."

Ironically, it was a foreigner who inspired Varella to begin his search. Robert Gallo, a U.S. researcher and leading AIDS expert who co-discovered the HIV virus, asked Varella during a trip to the Amazon in the early 1990s if anyone was researching the medical potential of the forest.

JIGSAW PUZZLE

Among the natural products being used to fight cancer today is Taxol, a chemotherapy drug that comes from the bark of the Pacific yew tree.

David Newman, head of the Natural Products Branch of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, said several promising cancer drugs derived from natural sources as varied as a deep-water sponges and microbes are currently going through clinical trials. Often the natural compounds are tweaked or mimicked to better fight cancer cells.

"It's a detective story and a jigsaw puzzle, but you don't know how many pieces there are or what the picture looks like," he said. "In one teaspoon of soil from the Amazon, you find over a thousand microbes that have never been isolated."

Out of an estimated 80,000 species of flower-bearing plants in the Amazon, only about a fifth have been identified.

Newman said progress in Brazil has been greatly hampered by the inability of companies to patent a natural product under legislation passed in the 1990s, leaving no incentive to invest in research.

He cited the example of a Brazilian viper snake whose venom proved vital to the development of blood pressure drug captopril in the 1970s, a find that might not have happened under today's laws.

Further analysis of the promising compounds found by Varella's team has been held up while the university waits for access to a nuclear-magnetic resonance machine that can isolate the active elements.

"We're still a long way from discovering an actual medicine that could cure a type of cancer but we have strong signs that some plants have substances that inhibit the growth of tumors," said Mateus Paciencia, a bearded 34-year-old botanist.

Their main hope is that growing concern over the environment and increasing government efforts to slow the destruction of the Amazon by ranchers and loggers will turn the tide in favor of sustainable forest industries, of which they say their work is a prime example.

"There is nothing more sustainable than this," said Paciencia. "We take a kilogram worth of samples from a tree that weighs a ton and get an extract that lasts 10 years."

As he hung from a tree trunk, Ferreira said his relationship with the forest had been transformed by his job. He used to cut down trees with a chainsaw and sell the lumber in the city of Manaus, about 80 km (50 miles) down river from the research site.

"I think we'll find a medicine, and it won't take too long," he said. "If I deforest, I'm killing not just one plant but destroying a lot of other plants as well. So the job we're doing here is much better."

(Editing by Kieran Murray)

LOS ANGELES — Exactly 12 months ago, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were surprised to be greeted by throngs of eager fans of the novel "Twilight" at the premiere of the big-screen adaptation.
What a difference a year makes.
The actors unveiled the sequel — "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" — at the same location Monday night in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. But this time they knew what was coming.
"I'm not as scared as I was last year," said Stewart, despite a brief touch-and-go moment as she signed autographs. "At some point, the security guy said, 'This is very unsafe.' And I was like, 'Uh.' Other than that, everything was cool."
Pattinson, who plays vampire Edward Cullen in this latest adaptation of author Stephenie Meyer's popular series, said this year's crowd of thousands of screaming fans was larger than the 2008 turnout.
"And it seems different to me because we have done this world tour in the last week and it has just been unbelievable in every single city," he said. "It is about 10 times bigger than any other city in the world."
Some "twi-hards" __ as they call themselves __ arrived as early as Thursday afternoon to secure a place in line for tickets allowing them to watch the stars' arrivals on the red carpet. The 800 available tickets were all distributed by Monday morning, but the line still stretched for blocks well after lunchtime.
Nicole Zamora, 36, was sixth in line after getting to Westwood on Thursday afternoon. She and her three sisters wore "New Moon" T-shirts they'd made for the occasion and said they spent the weekend "reading, listening to the iPod and trying to sleep — anything to pass the time."
Christina Fuentes and four of her friends traveled from New Jersey for the "New Moon" premiere. The 24-year-old wore vampire teeth ("They just clip on," she said) and carried a homemade sign that read, "We flew in from NJ! We've been camping out for three days just to see you!" She pasted her airline boarding pass to the poster as proof.
Scores of other fans — mostly young women — crowded onto street corners near the Mann Village and Bruin theaters, site of the premiere. They sat on beach chairs, displayed homemade signs and wore T-shirts proclaiming their allegiance to either the handsome vampire played by Pattinson or his werewolf rival, Taylor Lautner.
Lautner, who rises to headliner status in "New Moon," said he was also amazed by Monday's fan response.
"It's the amount of passion," he said. "It's not normal."
___
Associated Press entertainment writer Sandy Cohen contributed to this story.

Mobile phone banking presents a "mega market opportunity," says Carol Realini, CEO of Redwood City, Calif.-based Obopay.
Analysts, too, see big potential for bank accounts and payments tied to cell phones. They point 15ut that mobile banking has already taken off in emerging markets such as Kenya, where many handset owners previously didn't have access to banks.
Nokia (NYSE:NOK - News), the world's No. 1 maker of cell phones, has bet on growth in mobile banking by partnering with and investing $35 million in privately held Obopay. Other investors include Qualcomm (NasdaqGS:QCOM - News) and a number of venture firms.
In August, the Finnish cell phone maker said its soon-to-launch Nokia Money service would use Obopay's mobile banking platform. Obopay also has partnerships with other big firms such as MasterCard (NYSE:MA - News). It operates its own Obopay mobile payment service in the U.S. and India, and plans to expand soon into three more countries.
Realini recently spoke with IBD about mobile banking and how she got the idea for her four-year-old company while in Kenya in 2002.
IBD: So, you were in Kenya ... ?
Realini: I walked into a prepaid cell phone store in Kinshasa, and it looked exactly like a bank. People were standing in line with bags of money. The currency had been devalued, so it took basically a shopping bag of money to buy your prepaid minutes. I said, "This is interesting. What if we generalized the value that was being loaded on the phone?" If we did that, we could have a banking system, and people could have mobile bank accounts.
IBD: A KPMG survey said security and privacy are among the issues keeping people away from mobile banking. What's your take on that?
Realini: That's an academic question to people, because if they had a reason to want to do mobile financial services, they would get comfortable with these issues. People trust their mobile phones. They're already depending on mobile for essential services.
The other thing is, this is a regulated service. So anybody in any market will have to go out and get licenses from different agencies.
The one thing I laugh about with the KPMG thing is, it turns out that the mobile phone is inherently more secure than traditional banking products, like (debit) cards. Here's the reason: You know within six minutes if you've lost your mobile phone. It takes you (an average of about) 18 hours to know that you've lost your debit card.
IBD: What's different about mobile banking in emerging markets vs. developed nations?
Realini: One of the big differences is the application that's going to drive the initial adoption, because it's got to start somewhere. In the Philippines, it was prepaid "top off" -- a better way to prepay to top off your phone. In Kenya, it was domestic remittances (a family member working in a remote location sending money to family members at home) because there's a lot of urban migration going on.
IBD: What's the spark in the U.S.?
Realini: There are three things in the U.S. that we're seeing. One is what we call family transfer ... and that has two different pieces. One is a traditional remittance. This is: I'm working in Modesto (Calif.), but my family's in San Jose. I get paid, I send the money home. The second kind is more Remittances 2.0. Families are moving around, maybe the kids are in college, mom's at work and I want to provide an urgent transfer or an allowance to my kids.
The second thing we're seeing is there's a big desire for an easier and safer way to buy things online. Today you have to put your credit card information in, maybe give a lot of personal information on Web sites. We think that the mobile phone has the potential to make it (so you enter) less information and an easier way to (buy goods) online. That was the application that drove it in Korea -- I use my mobile phone number as my preferred way to (buy things) online.
No. 3 is budget control. This is where I want to have mobile banking on my phone because I want to check my balance before I spend money in the store.
IBD: What is Obopay's function in its partnerships with Nokia Money or MasterCard MoneySend?

Realini: We build the back-end platform and also the technology to reach all mobile phones. Then we get licenses from regulatory bodies to operate the service in the markets that we're in.

This is very similar to (No. 1 online payment service) PayPal's business model.

IBD: The players in mobile banking include eBay's (NasdaqGS:EBAY - News) PayPal Mobile and Safaricom, a Vodafone (NYSE:VOD - News) affiliate in Kenya. Who are key players?

Realini: I want to talk about one thing that makes us different. I want to go back to Nokia. Nokia is launching the service, but they really want and almost insist on it being an open system (where) we're going to support other handsets. And that's important because it's like text messaging. The value of this is going to be greater the more participants you have. Therefore, you don't want to create any sort of limits on who can use the system.

Now you had asked me about who are the other players. I think M-Pesa (in Kenya), and you have Smart and GCash (both Philippines-based) and (France Telecom's (NYSE:FTE - News)) Orange Money -- are all examples of carrier-specific money offerings. You also have some of the Internet players, whether it be Amazon (NasdaqGS:AMZN - News) or Pay-Pal, who are extending their Internet payment capabilities to mobile. Then there are other independent players. But a lot of those are technology providers who are helping banks or mobile carriers offer bank-specific or mobile-carrier-specific solutions.

IBD: What will be the next big developments in mobile banking?

Realini: The TowerGroup (research firm) summed up this market pretty succinctly (in a recent report): The biggest share of mobile banking/mobile payments users is going to be in the Asia-Pacific region through 2012. That is really where it's going to happen first in volume. It's going to be followed by Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

There are 4 billion phones and 1 billion banked people. So you're going to see a lot of people with mobile phones who have never been customers of banks.

This is going to be a mega market opportunity. We estimate it's going to be 7 trillion in annual (transaction) volume by 2020. Whenever you have a market that big, there's going to be a lot of success created within that market opportunity.

WASHINGTON – Americans seem to be cooling toward global warming.
Just 57 percent think there is solid evidence the world is getting warmer, down 20 points in just three years, a new poll says. And the share of people who believe pollution caused by humans is causing temperatures to rise has also taken a dip, even as the U.S. and world forums gear up for possible action against climate change.
In a poll of 1,500 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, released Thursday, the number of people saying there is strong scientific evidence that the Earth has gotten warmer over the past few decades is down from 71 percent in April of last year and from 77 percent when Pew started asking the question in 2006. The number of people who see the situation as a serious problem also has declined.
The steepest drop has occurred during the past year, as Congress and the Obama administration have taken steps to control heat-trapping emissions for the first time and international negotiations for a new treaty to slow global warming have been under way. At the same time, there has been mounting scientific evidence of climate change — from melting ice caps to the world's oceans hitting the highest monthly recorded temperatures this summer.
The poll was released a day after 18 scientific organizations wrote Congress to reaffirm the consensus behind global warming. A federal government report Thursday found that global warming is upsetting the Arctic's thermostat.
Only about a third, or 36 percent of the respondents, feel that human activities — such as pollution from power plants, factories and automobiles — are behind a temperature increase. That's down from 47 percent from 2006 through last year's poll.
"The priority that people give to pollution and environmental concerns and a whole host of other issues is down because of the economy and because of the focus on other things," suggested Andrew Kohut, the director of the research center, which conducted the poll from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4. "When the focus is on other things, people forget and see these issues as less grave."
Andrew Weaver, a professor of climate analysis at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said politics could be drowning out scientific awareness.
"It's a combination of poor communication by scientists, a lousy summer in the Eastern United States, people mixing up weather and climate and a full-court press by public relations firms and lobby groups trying to instill a sense of uncertainty and confusion in the public," he said.
Political breakdowns in the survey underscore how tough it could be to enact a law limiting pollution emissions blamed for warming. While three-quarters of Democrats believe the evidence of a warming planet is solid, and nearly half believe the problem is serious, far fewer conservative and moderate Democrats see the problem as grave. Fifty-seven percent of Republicans say there is no solid evidence of global warming, up from 31 percent in early 2007.
Though there are exceptions, the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is occurring and that the primary cause is a buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal.
Jane Lubchenco, head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told a business group meeting at the White House Thursday: "The science is pretty clear that the climate challenge before us is very real. We're already seeing impacts of climate change in our own backyards."
Despite misgivings about the science, half the respondents still say they support limits on greenhouse gases, even if they could lead to higher energy prices. And a majority — 56 percent — feel the United States should join other countries in setting standards to address global climate change.
But many of the supporters of reducing pollution have heard little to nothing about cap-and-trade, the main mechanism for reducing greenhouse gases favored by the White House and central to legislation passed by the House and a bill the Senate will take up next week.
Under cap-and-trade, a price is put on each ton of pollution, and businesses can buy and sell permits to meet emissions limits.
"Perhaps the most interesting finding in this poll ... is that the more Americans learn about cap-and-trade, the more they oppose cap-and-trade," said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., who opposes the Senate bill and has questioned global warming science.
Regional as well as political differences were detected in the polling.
People living in the Midwest and mountainous areas of the West are far less likely to view global warming as a serious problem and to support limits on greenhouse gases than those in the Northeast and on the West Coast. Both the House and Senate bills have been drafted by Democratic lawmakers from Massachusetts and California.

One of those lawmakers, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, told reporters Thursday that she was happy with the results, given the interests and industry groups fighting the bill.

"Today, to get 57 percent saying that the climate is warming is good, because today everybody is grumpy about everything," Boxer said. "Science will win the day in America. Science always wins the day."

Earlier polls, from different organizations, have not detected a growing skepticism about the science behind global warming.

Since 1997, the percentage of Americans that believe the Earth is heating up has remained constant — at around 80 percent — in polling done by Jon Krosnick of Stanford University. Krosnick, who has been conducting surveys on attitudes about global warming since 1993, was surprised by the Pew results.

He described the decline in the Pew results as "implausible," saying there is nothing that could have caused it.

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Associated Press Writers Seth Borenstein and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press: http://www.people-press.org

DULUTH, Minn. – A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized La-Z-Boy chair while drunk. A criminal complaint says 62-year-old Dennis LeRoy Anderson told police he left a bar in the northern Minnesota town of Proctor on his chair after drinking eight or nine beers.
Prosecutors say Anderson's blood alcohol content was 0.29, more than three times the legal limit, when he crashed into a parked vehicle in August 2008. He was not seriously injured.
Police said the chair was powered by a converted lawnmower and had a stereo and cup holders.
Sixth Judicial District Judge Heather Sweetland stayed 180 days of jail time Monday and ordered two years of probation for Anderson. His attorney, David Keegan, did not immediately return a call for comment.
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Information from: Duluth News Tribune, http://www.duluthsuperior.com

In the United States and some other countries, certain types of gifts above a certain monetary amount are subject to taxation. See gift tax for more information.

A gift or present is the transfer of something, without the need for compensation that is involved in trade. A gift is a voluntary act which does not require anything in return. Even though it involves possibly a social expectation of reciprocity, or a return in the form of prestige or power, a gift is meant to be free.

Gift Baskets

DUBLIN (AFP) –
Thousands of Boyzone fans gathered in Dublin on Friday when the body of singer Stephen Gately arrived home for his funeral following his death in Spain, police said.

People lining the roads outside a local funeral home applauded as a hearse carrying his coffin arrived.

His body had been escorted back to Ireland by the other members of the group: Ronan Keating, Mikey Graham, Shane Lynch and Keith Duffy.

With them on the private plane was Gately's partner Andrew Cowles, whom he married in a civil union in 2006.

Before leaving Palma airport on the Mediterranean island of Majorca, Keating read a statement and spoke of the band's grief.

"Last Saturday, our world changed forever when we lost our friend and brother Stephen."

He said the band and Gately's family had been overwhelmed by the messages of love and support they had received.

"What the future holds for the four of us now is too hard to even think about but we know that nothing will ever be the same without our dearest friend Stephen."

Keating promised an "unforgettable send-off" for Gately, 33, who was found dead on October 10 in his holiday apartment in the Majorcan town of Port Andratx.

Irish police have issued a special traffic management plan to deal with the large crowds expected to attend the funeral on Saturday at St Lawrence O'Toole's church in Seville Place, close to his family home.

Close family and friends paid their respects at the funeral home and there was to be a private family mass on Friday.

Local residents have been cleaning and painting the church for the funeral and the surviving members of the band were expected to hold an overnight vigil with Gately's remains.

The band's website says that Cowles has asked that rather than flowers people should make a donation to a children's charity for which Gately was an ambassador.

A further memorial service will be held in London, where Gately and Cowles lived.

An autopsy revealed Gately died due to excess fluid in his lungs, a court spokeswoman in Majorca said.

"He died a natural death of acute pulmonary oedema" which had nothing to do with any consumption of alcohol or drugs, the spokeswoman said.

A pulmonary oedema, or water on the lungs, can be due to either the failure of the heart to remove fluid from the lungs or direct damage to the lung tissue.

Gately joined the Irish pop band Boyzone in 1993 after answering an advert in Dublin for an audition.

The band went on to enjoy huge international success, but split up in 2000.

They reunited seven years later, but their recent 19-date Better tour failed to fill stadiums, despite offers of free tickets.

Gately also starred in West End musicals in London, including "Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat".

After taking withering criticism for the Department-of-Motor-Vehicles pace of its initial efforts to keep struggling borrowers out of foreclosure, the Obama administration proudly announced last week that it had hit its goal of 500,000 trial loan modifications almost a month ahead of schedule. But with the foreclosure rate hitting a new record in the third quarter, the government's ability to put a meaningful dent in the tally of housing-crisis victims faces renewed skepticism.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 937,840 homes in the three-month period, a 23 percent jump from a year earlier, according to a report real estate firm RealtyTrac released Thursday. Home foreclosures in September, meanwhile, decreased 4 percent from August but remained 29 percent higher than a year earlier. "REO activity increased from the previous quarter in all but two states and the District of Columbia, indicating that lenders may be starting to work through some of the pent-up foreclosure inventory caused by legislative delays, loan modification efforts, and high volumes of distressed properties," RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said in a press release. Here's a look at why home foreclosures continue to break records even in the face of the Obama administration's expansive efforts to prevent them.

[See Why Do Home Foreclosures Keep Rising? 6 Things You Need to Know.]

1. Initial foreclosure wave: Borrowers who overleveraged themselves--through exotic mortgage products like subprime or adjustable-rate home loans--played a central role in the foreclosure crisis when it first picked up steam. But as the housing crisis rumbles forward, lenders have witnessed a significant shift in the types of mortgages going delinquent. For example, the Mortgage Bankers Association's most recent National Delinquency survey, released in late August, found that although "the rate of new foreclosures started was essentially unchanged from last quarter's record high, there was a major drop in foreclosures on subprime ARM loans. The drop, however, was offset by increases in the foreclosure rates on the other types of loans, with prime fixed-rate loans having the biggest increase."

2. Current foreclosure crisis: Mounting mortgage delinquencies for borrowers with good credit is a key indication that the labor market--rather than resetting loans--is the most significant force behind the foreclosure crisis we see today. "Keep in mind that most of the foreclosures we saw a year ago [occurred] when the unemployment rate was 5 percent, so really the first wave of foreclosures were driven by subprime loans [and] resetting loans," says Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. Today, however, a national unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent is triggering "a whole new wave" of homeowners going into foreclosures on account of job losses, Cecala says.

[See Obama's Loan Modification Plan: 7 Things You Need to Know.]

3. Fighting the last war: The Obama administration announced in mid-February a sweeping effort to stabilize the housing market. A central plank was a $75 billion initiative to reduce monthly mortgage payments for as many as 4 million struggling homeowners through so-called mortgage modifications. But in order to obtain a mortgage modification, borrowers need an income stream, Cecala says. In a report released October 9, the congressional oversight panel monitoring the rescue suggested that the administration might be fighting the last war. "[The administration's mortgage modification program] was not designed to address foreclosures caused by unemployment, which now appears to be a central cause of nonpayment," the panel said in its report. "The foreclosure crisis has moved beyond subprime mortgages and into the prime mortgage market. It increasingly appears that [the program] is targeted at the housing crisis as it existed six months ago, rather than as it exists right now." In addition, foreclosure starts are occurring at more than twice the rate that trial modifications are extended, and there is no guarantee that homeowners won't simply redefault on their restructured mortgage, the panel said in the report.

4. Modified impact: Still, the administration's efforts are not without impact. "Originally, the expectations were that loan modifications were going to stop foreclosures and reduce the rate, and we would see immediate results. That was obviously wishful thinking," Cecala says. "Now we are of the belief that they are going to do absolutely nothing. The truth is somewhere in between." Celia Chen, the director of housing economics at Moody's Economy.com, expects that the program will modify around 1.5 million mortgages over the next three years. "That's a substantial number," she says. However, "even with those modifications, we expect that the number of foreclosure sales that will occur for this year will be around 1.9 million, and next year will just be a tad shy of that." (Chen is projecting roughly 1.8 million foreclosure sales in 2010.)

[See Principal Write-Downs Make for Better Loan Modifications--but Nobody Does It.]

5. Predicting the peak: Cecala says the unemployment rate will have to peak before we can expect to see a meaningful and sustainable reduction in the number of home foreclosures. In its 2010 economic forecast, the MBA projected that the unemployment rate would peak at 10.2 percent in the second quarter of next year. For that reason, Cecala expects home foreclosures to let up sometime in the middle of 2010. "We certainly have enough bad loans in the system . . . to keep foreclosures at record levels going through the first half of next year," he says. "So maybe a year from now we will see some letup, but we are not sure."

In Western culture, dresses are usually considered women's clothing. The hemline of dresses can be as high as the upper thigh or as low as the ground, depending on the whims of fashion and the modesty or personal taste of the wearer.

Potential drawbacks of dresses include being either too long or cumbersome for the performance of some physical activities such as climbing stairs or ladders. Their use can run contrary to the individual or wider public sense of modesty and decency, especially given their potential to intentionally or accidentally expose the wearer's underwear. In addition, some dress styles, particularly those with back closures, can be difficult or even impossible to don or remove without assistance.

Flower Girl Dresses

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) –
A twin suicide attack tore through a police compound in Pakistan on Friday, killing 11 people and heightening public anger over security breaches behind a wave of recent attacks.

Pakistan, a nuclear-armed power with a weak government on the frontline of the US-led war on terror, has been battered by assaults that have left more than 170 people dead in 11 days. Timeline of attacks

A woman suicide bomber on a motorbike and a car bomber unleashed fresh chaos Friday, detonating near a police investigations office in a garrison area of the northwestern city of Peshawar, bringing down a side of the building, police said.

"Police tried to intercept a woman sitting on a motorcycle ... She blew herself up and after that there was another blast when a suicide attacker sitting in a car exploded," said Liaqat Ali Khan, city police chief.

It was only the second suicide bomb attack by a woman in Pakistan. The twin blasts flung human limbs across the street, splattering blood on the ground and scattering shoes, said an AFP reporter.

"There are two women and a child among the dead. The car exploded close to the police building. The building was badly damaged," Sahibzada Mohammad Anees, the top administrative official, told reporters.

Officials said that 11 people were killed in all, including three policemen, and that seven wounded were in critical condition.

The blood-soaked identity card of a second-grade school boy lay on the ground as rescue workers pulled bodies and the wounded from the rubble.

The main gate of the two-storey police Central Investigation Agency building was destroyed, the upper portion of a mosque on the premises was damaged and a crater was punched out of the road in front, an AFP reporter at the scene saw.

"First I saw a blue flame then a loud explosion. When I got there I saw six bodies lying on the ground. I helped gather up body parts," witness Saadat Changhzi told AFP.

Home to 2.5 million Pakistanis, Peshawar is the largest city in the northwest and lies on the edge of the lawless tribal belt where Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants sheltered after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Critics rounded on the civilian authorities for being unable to act on intelligence to prevent militants, some in their teens, from blasting their way into police offices on Thursday and trading fire for up to three hours.

At least 40 people died Thursday in a string of assaults on security buildings in Lahore, at the heart of the country's political heartland, and in bombings in the northwest.

Residents in Lahore, the cultural capital noted for its secular elite, asked how militants could have penetrated so far and so easily from their sanctuaries in the deeply conservative tribal belt on the Afghan border.

At least 10 attackers blasted their way into the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) branch in Lahore, a police academy in the suburb of Manawan and an elite commando school on the outskirts.

Militants had already carried out bloody attacks on the Manawan academy in March this year and on the FIA building in March 2008.

"The second attack on Manawan was a major security lapse," a former member of parliament for the district, Khalid Javed Ghukri, told AFP. "People are scared of coming out of their houses."

The press was also scathing over the security lapses that allowed attackers to reportedly climb a wall into the commando school on Thursday and besiege army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi at the weekend.

"In times of war there can be no room for mistakes, especially ones that lead to death and destruction on this scale," wrote The News newspaper.

Police said dozens of people had been picked up in overnight raids in slum areas of Lahore and neighbourhoods populated by Afghans.

Although there was no formal claim of responsibility, suspicion has fallen on Pakistan's Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) movement and Al-Qaeda, as well as homegrown Islamist groups Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Officials have blamed militants from South Waziristan in Pakistan's tribal belt where the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are believed to have carved out safe havens and where an imminent military offensive is expected.

Cap Cana is located in the Eastern region of the Dominican Republic known as Juanillo. The site was founded as a new and more ambitious touristic site with contributions from international investors and strategic partners such as Ritz-Carlton, Sotogrande, Donald Trump and many others. The site has a Marina, Large resorts, beaches, and many others. Primarily founded as a site to attract international visitors. The Cap Cana Championship, a Champions Tour golf tournament, is held at Punta Espada Golf Club in Cap Cana, a course designed by Jack Nicklaus.

Cap Cana is a tourism development with an investment of upwards of two billion dollars in the eastern lands of the Dominican Republic. This area renown for its great hotels and beaches, lacks exclusivity to the high upper class which Cap Cana hopes, in part, to offer. The area was conceived with the backing both financially and publicly of "elites" such as Donald Trump, Jack Nicklaus, and other holders.

Cap Cana Villa

Highgate Cemetery was one of seven cemeteries built in London around 1839, after Victorians realized burial conditions had become intolerable due to overcrowding.
The population of London had almost trebled in the first 50 years of the 18th Century, London's church graveyards were unable to cope with the volume of the city's dead and the number of burials were seen as a hazard to health and an undignified way to treat the deceased.
The cemetery, which occupies a spectacular south-facing hillside site slightly downhill from the top of Highgate Hill, soon became the place for wealthy Victorians to be buried. When opened the average age of its interns was just 36-years-old.
The Western section holds a collection of Grade I listed Victorian mausoleums and gravestones. It brims with trees, wild flowers and shrubbery and is a haven for small animals such as foxes and birds.
In addition to such luminaries such as Karl Marx, Michael Faraday and George Eliot, Highgate is the final resting place for an eclectic assortment of notable figures. They include:
• Alexander Litvinenko (1962-2006), former Russian security official-turned-dissident who was mysteriously poisoned with radioactive polonium and died weeks later in a London hospital.
• Charles Cruft, (1852-1938), who founded Crufts dog show as a vehicle to market James Spratt dog biscuits, of which he was the general manager.
• Radclyffe Hall (1880-1943), author of 1928 lesbian classic "The Well of Loneliness," which was the subject of an obscenity trial in Britain which resulted in all copies being ordered destroyed.
• Thomas Sayers (1826-1865), an English bare-knuckle fighter who became the first boxer to be declared the World Heavyweight Champion.
• Douglas Adams (1952-2001), author of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and other novels.
• George Wombell (1777-1850), famous menagerie exhibitor who founded "Wombwell's Travelling Menagerie".
• Edward Richard Woodham (1831-1886), survivor of the Charge of the Light Brigade
There are over 168,000 people buried in more than 52,00 graves in Highgate's 37 acres, of which at least 850 are notable.

The Library Hotel in New York City is unique in that its ten floors are arranged according to the Dewey Decimal System.

Magician Criss Angel lives at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. As of late 2006 - present in the Presidential suite.

Myrtle Beach Resort

A bench is a piece of furniture, which mostly offers several persons seating. As a rule, benches are made of wood, but one can also find stone benches and benches made of synthetic materials. Many benches have arm rests. In public areas, benches are often donated by persons or associations, which may then be indicated on it, e.g. by a small copper plaque.

Often benches are simply called after the place they are used, regardless whether this implies a specific design Garden benches are very similar to public park benches set outdoors, but the former offer usually only two or three -, the latter mostly up to five persons sitting places. Picnic tables, or catering buffet tables have long benches as well as a table. These tables may have table legs which are collapsible, in order to expedite transport and storage. Church pews inside places of worship are equipped with an additional kneeling bench.

Park Benches