4VF News – Daily News Channel – Page 2040

British troops begin Iraq withdrawal

Brave Seve Ballesteros says that battling his brain tumor is like fighting for a sixth career major.
British troops began their formal withdrawal from southern Iraq Tuesday, "marking the beginning of the end of the UK’s six-year combat mission in Iraq," the Ministry of Defence announced.

Ballesteros has spoken publicly for the first time since being diagnosed with the disease last October after collapsing at Madrid’s Barajas airport. In the interview published in Spanish sports daily Marca, The Times and The New York Times, the five-time major champion speaks of the shock at being told by doctors the seriousness of his illness. “They were very clear with me,” he said. “They told me, ‘This is a tumor, it is lucky it is in a place on the right side (of the brain). “I was shocked. You are fine and suddenly they tell you that, can you imagine It is dreadful.” Ballesteros’ illness surfaced after he collapsed when about to fly to Germany to launch a new range of golf clubs. He recalls falling down an escalator at the airport but, not wanting to make a fuss, managed to drag his suitcase to where his nephew, Ivan, was waiting. “I just got into the car and told him, ‘If you knew what had happened to me’,” said the 51-year-old who was taken to Madrid’s La Paz hospital. Since then Ballesteros has had four operations and has just started his fourth course of chemotherapy. He has been given a fitness regime to follow. When admitted to hospital he weighed 90 kilos and is now 75kg, the weight he was when he became the youngest player to win the Masters in 1980, a record since surpassed by Tiger Woods. He admits he has not always been the perfect patient. “Some days the physiotherapist comes along and other days I have cognitive therapy,” he said. “I have to tell you that sometimes I have been rebellious. It has happened a couple of times.” In the English translation of the Marca interview he offered an insight into the lows he has had to endure over the last few months. “When you wake up in the morning, you do not want to get out of bed and you say, ‘Where do I go’. The problem is there when you are fully aware of what is happening, that is when you feel the inside pain. “But the way I look at it, this is the biggest battle of my life, this is the sixth major.” Seve is just glad to be around to fight that battle. “I have had the luck of getting a mulligan, which in golf is a second opportunity,” he said. “I have got a mulligan in life.”

Suspect package found near Bank of England

The Bank of England was expected to be the focus of protests Wednesday on the eve of the G-20 summit.
Authorities were investigating a suspicious package that was found Tuesday in the vicinity of the Bank of England, just two days before world leaders meet in London at the G-20 Summit.

CNN’s Paula Newton said a controlled explosion was heard shortly after the package was discovered. A spokesman for the Bank of England told CNN the building had not been evacuated. The Bank of England was expected to be the focus of mass protests by anti-capitalist and climate change campaigners Wednesday on the eve of the G-20 meeting of world leaders in London. Metropolitan Police leaders have warned that the city faces an “unprecedented” wave of protest in the run-up to Thursday’s summit talks on the state of the global economy and are set to deploy huge numbers of officers to maintain public order.

Seve: Battle for life is my sixth major

Brave Seve Ballesteros says that battling his brain tumor is like fighting for a sixth career major.
Spanish golf legend Seve Ballesteros says that fighting a brain tumor is the biggest battle of his life and in golfing terms like winning a sixth major title.

Britain’s Brown urges moral values at G-20

Leaders at this week’s Group of 20 summit must reshape the world’s economic system to reflect global values, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Tuesday.

World leaders also must manage globalization to prevent a repeat of the mistakes that led to the current financial crisis, Brown said during a meeting of faith groups and charities at London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. “Instead of a globalization that threatens to become values-free and rules-free, we need a world of shared global rules founded on shared global values,” Brown said. While globalization has benefited the world with more choices, lower prices and lifting people out of poverty, it also has overwhelmed the established rules and financial systems, Brown said. He said the old economic system must be reshaped to reflect the values shared around the world. Watch analysis of leaders’ reactions to President Obama’s policies »

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“The unsupervised globalization of our financial markets did not only cross national boundaries — it crossed moral boundaries, too,” Brown said. Markets need morals, Brown said, and they work best when the values are upheld. The prime minister said that “you don’t redesign a boat in the middle of a storm,” but he also said it would be foolish to do nothing amid this crisis. “We do not need the benefit of hindsight to know that the sheer scale, scope and speed of today’s global changes is throwing up problems which, if we do not address, will condemn millions around the world to a life that is unsustainable, insecure and unfair,” he said.

Leaders at Thursday’s summit must provide the “oxygen of confidence” to give people around the world hope for the future, Brown said. The G-20 summit is a meeting of the leaders of the world’s 20 largest economic powers to discuss the global financial crisis and decide new measures to set the world on a more stable economic footing.

Merkel backs creation of ‘European Opel’

German chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday pledged government support for potential investors in General Motors’ European subsidiary, Opel.

Her promise came in a speech to Opel autoworkers the day after U.S. President Barack Obama warned General Motors and Chrysler that they had limited time to “restructure in a way that would justify an investment of additional taxpayer dollars.” The U.S. government said both companies would receive financial support to keep operating for 60 days — time that would be used to find a viable solution for Opel, Merkel said. Opel employs about 25,000 people in Germany and has said it needs €3.3 billion ($4.4 billion) in state aid from European governments to save jobs and keep plants open, Reuters.com reported. GM Europe has said it will need an outside investor to push through its proposed rescue plan but so far there have been no serious public declarations of interest in Opel. “We will make use of those 60 days” to “quickly lay the foundation for creating a European Opel,” Merkel was quoted by Bloomberg.com as telling workers at Opel’s headquarters in Ruesselsheim, southern Germany.

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She added: “We have to work hard, we are going to create a ‘negotiation team’ with the participation of the German government, Opel and specialist and that team has to work out with GM and American government a new strategy for Opel.” She added that any new investor “will of course have state support.”

However, Merkel’s coalition, facing a national election in September, is split over ways to save the 110-year-old German carmaker that has been part of GM since 1929, Bloomberg.com reported. A decision on whether to take a stake in Opel has been pushed further back following the U.S. government’s less than enthusiastic response to GM’s plan to return to profit.

California girl, 8, disappears after playing with friend

Sandra Cantu, 8, disappeared on Friday, according to police in Tracy, California.
Eight-year-old Sandra Cantu came home from school, kissed her mother, and left to color and play with a friend who lived a couple of houses down.

That was at 3 p.m. Friday. By Tuesday — despite an intense search by hundreds of search-and-rescue personnel and volunteers over three days — the little girl in the pink Hello Kitty T-shirt and black leggings had yet to be found. The mysterious disappearance of Sandra from the Orchard Estates Mobile Home Park in Tracy, California — about 60 miles east of San Francisco — has baffled law enforcement officials. A dozen different agencies are looking for her. Watch Nancy Grace on the case » “The entire weekend was filled with just a massive search effort — a manhunt involving multiple freeways, agents checking cars, volunteers going door-to-door,” said Sebastian Kunz, a reporter with KNEW-AM radio in San Francisco, who is covering the case. “A lot of people are pulling for this little girl.”

Call with tips:Police in Tracy, California, are asking anyone with information about Sandra Cantu to call the Tracy Police Department at 209-831-4550 or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-843-5678.

On Monday night, Tracy police and FBI agents searched six locations, some in the mobile home park and some in Tracy, and all of them connected to two men. Authorities did not call the men suspects, and did not name them publicly. They said both live in the mobile home park but did not say how or if they are related to Sandra. “We’re looking for evidence that will lead to the discovery of Sandra’s whereabouts,” Tracy Police Sgt. Tony Sheneman told reporters Monday night. “We operate on the assumption she is alive and well.” Sandra came home from school about 3 p.m. Friday. She asked to go play with a friend who lived a few houses down in the same mobile home park. “I told her it was OK,” Sandra’s mother, Maria Chavez, told CNN’s Nancy Grace, dabbing tears. “And that was the last time I saw her.”

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Surveillance camera footage recorded the girl playing in the park. But her parents reported her missing about 8 p.m. Friday, when she was supposed to be visiting a second friend. “We just know that she had gone to the first house, and played for just a very short time. And then she was on her way to another friend’s house,” said Lisa Encarnacion, the spokeswoman for Sandra’s family. “And we don’t know, we can’t confirm that she was there or she was not.” The mobile home park has less than 100 units. There are about 80 registered sex offenders living in a five-mile radius around it. The family has not looked at the list of offenders to see if they may know any of them, Encarnacion told Nancy Grace. And so the search continues.

A reward fund set up for information leading to Sandra’s return grew to $7,000 Monday. More than 150 tips poured in, police said. But, at least for now, none has yielded information on the 4-foot-tall, brown-haired, brown-eyed girl.

Critics slam Microsoft bridge as waste of stimulus money

An artist's rendering shows how the proposed bridge would be constructed over a busy highway.
Should a bridge that would connect two campuses at Microsoft’s headquarters be funded with $11 million from the federal stimulus package?

Critics of using stimulus money for the bridge say it would give the software giant a break on a pet project. They also say it serves as a warning sign of how some stimulus money is not being used to finance new projects but is being diverted to public works already under way. Supporters argue the bridge is an ideal public-private partnership that will benefit an entire community while fulfilling the stimulus package’s goal of getting people back to work. “It’s going create just under 400 jobs for 18 months constructing the bridge,” says Redmond Mayor John Marchione. “It’s also connecting our technical sector with our retail and commercial sectors so people can cross the freeway to shop and help traffic flow.” See a larger image of the proposed bridge » Marchione applied for federal stimulus money after costs jumped on the project from $25 million to $36 million. Marchione says the increase in costs were due to a rise in construction prices and because the bridge will be built on a diagonal in order to connect Microsoft’s original East campus with a newer West campus that are split by a public highway. Microsoft is hardly getting the bridge for free. The company is contributing $17.5 million or a little less than half the tab of the $36 million bridge, which would be open for public use.

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And even though the bridge goes from a parking lot behind Microsoft’s West campus across a highway to an entrance of Microsoft’s East campus, Marchione says, people other than Microsoft employees would use the overpass. “We’re not a one-company town,” Marchione says. “Our traffic studies show that Microsoft traffic would be about 42 percent of the bridge, yet Microsoft is paying for about 50 percent of the bridge, so we think we are getting fair value. “The United States taxpayer is leveraging their dollars, and I think everyone is getting a fair deal.” But a watchdog group monitoring how stimulus money is being spent says the taxpayer in this case is getting ripped off. “This is $11 million where we are substituting public money for private money, and that means there’s some other project that would have a greater benefit than a bridge to Microsoft that’s not being built,” says Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. But without the stimulus money, Marchione counters, the bridge may not have been built. Microsoft had “capped out” its contribution to the project, he explains. And the economic tough times have affected even the biggest companies. “Microsoft laid off 5,000 people in January,” Marchione points out. Ellis doesn’t buy it. “Let’s face it. Microsoft is one of the most lucrative companies in the country,” Ellis says. “They could have easily funded this out of pocket change. This is really about getting while the getting is good. Uncle Sam has a big wallet that’s there for the taking, and Redmond wanted to take it — and Microsoft was happy to let them pick up that part of the tab.” Microsoft did not respond to CNN requests for an interview on the bridge project. But in a posting online, Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith wrote: “As the largest employer in Redmond, Microsoft takes its responsibility to the surrounding community seriously. We have spent over $50 million to assist the City of Redmond and other local governments with street construction, transit facilities, water and sewer facilities and fire equipment.” Last week, Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire certified 138 projects, including the bridge, to receive stimulus funding. Construction is expected to begin in June. Michael Ennis of the Washington Policy Center, a Seattle-based not-for-profit group that advises policy makers, said there are many reasons the bridge project is a good one. “Any time you can include the private sector in funding transportation projects, it’s a win-win situation,” Ennis explains. “The state has a monopoly on our roads system. Even if Microsoft wanted to pay for this project on their own, legally they are required to work with the public sector.” But Ennis also says the bridge does not fit with the kind of projects the stimulus plan is meant to bankroll.

“This project would have moved forward regardless of having the federal money or not, so it doesn’t have any additional benefit to the economy,” he says. As he pedaled on his bicycle to work, one Microsoft employee saw the issue in much simpler terms. “It’s going to cut about two miles off my ride each day,” he said.

End of ‘ER’ marks end of era

When the series "ER" airs its finale on Thursday, the event will not only mark the completion of one of NBC’s most successful shows, but it can also be viewed as the end of an era for the network.

“What’s so symbolic about ‘ER’ leaving is that that 10 o’clock Thursday night slot started out what I always called the beginning of the second golden age of television with ‘Hill Street Blues’,” said Robert Thompson, a professor and founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. “In almost a quarter of a century it went from ‘Hill Street Blues’ Thursday at 10 to ‘L.A. Law’ Thursday at 10 to ‘ER’ Thursday at 10. ‘ER’ is kind of occupying sacred space.” Beginning this fall, such prime time real estate, which also previously housed another acclaimed hospital drama, “St. Elsewhere.” will be occupied by a new talk show helmed by “The Tonight Show” host Jay Leno. It’s a significant move for NBC in an age where sitcoms and dramas have increasingly given way to the less-expensive-to-produce reality TV shows. “ER,” which at one point was paying millions of dollars per episode just in actor salaries, definitely fit into the realm of costly productions. Despite the price tag, the show ran for 15 seasons and is the most Emmy-nominated series in television history with 122 nominations, 22 of which resulted in wins.

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It almost never made it out of a pile of scripts. Created by the late author Michael Crichton and steered by the creative team at Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Television, the concept didn’t immediately tickle the fancy of television honchos. “Every network had passed on it, twice,” the show’s longtime executive producer, John Wells, told The New York Times. “It had all these characters and medical dialogue, and they found it utterly impossible to follow.” Once it did get the green light, it caught on like a house afire. “ER” quickly attracted legions of fans and catapulted many members of the ever-changing ensemble cast to superstar status — most notably George Clooney, who played hunky Dr. Doug Ross. Baltimore Sun television critic David Zurawik, who writes about the industry in the paper’s “Z on TV” blog, said there may never be another collection of such talent in an ensemble drama on network television. “There’s just no way in the business model of network television for a producer out in Hollywood to say ‘Here’s the concept, and I’ve got this star, this star and this star,’ ” Zurawik said. “By the time they got two sentences out, the production studio head they are pitching would say ‘Who’s going to be paying for that.’ The economics for that are just not there, and neither is the audience.” Zurawik noted that audiences and actors alike now have gravitated to cable television, where dramatic hits such as “Mad Men” and “Rescue Me” are being produced by the likes of AMC and FX. “Cable is growing whereas network TV isn’t,” Zurawik said. “The better actors, the ones who work in film and theater, really like doing cable because cable has been flexible. It’s not, if you sign on to this series you are going to do 22 episodes a year and you have to sign away five or six years of your life. Nobody wants to do that anymore.” Former Dallas Morning News TV critic Ed Bark, who now runs the site Uncle Barky’s Bytes, said he believes in the coming years most of the Emmy-caliber shows will be on cable. Cable television benefits, he said, from the double revenue stream of both money from advertisers and subscribers, so there is not the ratings pressure network television has. Moreover, high-quality dramas are valuable calling cards, he added. Cable stations have been successful at branding themselves based on some of the shows they are producing. “A lot of times, it takes one show to get people to look at your network as a place where you can see quality drama,” Bark said. “For FX, it was ‘The Shield.’ For TNT it was ‘The Closer.’ For AMC, it was ‘Mad Men.’ I think once you get an audience over there, you build on that.” However, at least some of cable’s audience gains come at the expense of network TV’s audience, which has shrunk substantially in the 15 years since “ER” went on the air. Indeed, the drama’s demise is symbolic of long-term programming trends, said Thompson.

The TV and pop culture professor, who has written several books on television, said NBC choosing to cede 10 o’clock to a talk show rather than another great drama speaks volumes, though he wouldn’t count out the genre entirely. “This is not a good time to buy television drama futures, but I don’t think they are going to die,” Thompson said. “The TV drama is going to be like the American bison. There used to be herds and herds of them roaming the country. They’re not dead, but there are just not as many.”

Cambodian war crimes court in corruption probe

Duch, a former prison chief with the Khmer Rouge, is on trial for allegedly participating in the killing of inmates.
A joint Cambodian-United Nations court, currently trying five former members of the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge group on war crimes charges, is itself facing allegations of corruption and bribery.

Two employees of the court’s Office of Administration told CNN of an ongoing kickback scheme involving Cambodian staff. The staffers asked their identities be protected out of fear of retribution to themselves and their families. “We are talking about 30 to 40 or even a little bit more … a month,” said one employee, referring to the total amount allegedly taken from employees. “Thousand dollars. Thirty or 40,000 dollars a month.” Cambodian staff at the office, they say, are forced to hand the money over — a chunk of their salaries — and the funds go to an official. “They are supposed to pay a certain amount (of) money — a certain percentage,” the employee said. “So every month, they have to put it in an envelope — and give it to … each section has one person go around to collect it … the money is in cash, in U.S. dollars.” There is no suggestion that the court’s judges or lawyers — who are hearing and presenting the case against the former Khmer Rouge leaders — are involved in the alleged corruption. The Cambodian government told CNN an official was investigated for corruption, but “they told me they cannot find any proof of kick-back or corruption,” said Khieu Kanharith, government information minister. “If you want the court — the trial — to go ahead, separate the two cases.” However, a defense attorney for one of the defendants said the trial and the allegations of corruption are inextricably linked. “What’s really disturbing is that by the time the judges make their decision, every piece of evidence, every bit that they look at and evaluate and deliberate on, will have passed through the office of administration and will have literally passed through the hands of people who we say have dirty hands,” said Andrew Ianuzzi, a consultant for defendant Nuon Chea’s legal team. Defense attorneys say they plan to bring up the corruption allegations during the trial in an effort to discredit the court.

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The Cambodian government refused United Nations requests for an independent international war crimes trial for the Khmer Rouge defendants, agreeing only to a joint trial where the government participates along with the international judges. Watch a report on the trial a Khmer Rouge torture camp commandant » Prosecutors are attempting to prove that the five defendants played a significant role in the deaths of as many as two million Cambodians during Khmer Rouge rule of the country from 1975 to 1979. The trial has already cost $56 million, more than $10 million per defendant. But the court has asked for another $50 million to carry it through the end of 2009. The total could go higher if the trial continues into 2010. The United Nations says its internal affairs body — the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) — is investigating the corruption allegations within the court, but won’t elaborate. “This matter has been under investigation by OIOS, whose work is confidential,” the United Nations said in a statement. “The result of the probe will be submitted to the Cambodian government for further action.” In a letter sent to attorneys for the trial defendants, Sean Visoth, the head of the court’s Office of Administration, writes that his office has “never tolerated any kind of corruption or malpractice.” Visoth says the court now has an anonymous “complaint mechanism” in place. Meanwhile, however, independent trial monitors say they believe a culture of fear prevents other current and employees from coming forward. “At the court, I have heard people express concerns about loss of their job, repercussions or retaliations against their families, and also some possibility of physical fears,” said Heather Ryan, a Khmer Rouge trial monitor.

The employees spoke out, saying they were fully aware of the risk. “To me, it is really sick. How can you take money from people each month and look people in the eye and say, ‘Oh, I don’t know anything about it'” one employee asked.

Hundreds of French workers take bosses hostage

Caterpillar's French staff say they are angry about a lack of negotiations over layoffs.
Hundreds of French workers, angry about proposed layoffs at a Caterpillar office, were holding company executives hostage Tuesday, a spokesman for the workers said.

The hostage taking is the latest in a string of protests in France sparked by the economic downturn and job losses. Last week French workers held the manager of a factory run by U.S. company 3M hostage in his office for more than 24 hours over a labor dispute. The new incident began Tuesday morning at the office of the construction equipment company in the southeastern city of Grenoble. The workers were angry that Caterpillar had proposed cutting more than 700 jobs and would not negotiate, said Nicolas Benoit, a spokesman for the workers’ union. The workers did not want to harm the Caterpillar executives but instead wanted to get them to negotiate, Benoit told CNN.

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The workers were inside the Caterpillar building holding five employees, including the head of operations, captive in their offices, Benoit said. About 500 employees were also outside the building protesting. CNN could not immediately reach a representative at Caterpillar for comment. Benoit said all the workers wanted to do was negotiate with Caterpillar and they were upset that the company did not show up to two earlier scheduled meetings. The workers being held in their office were being allowed to get food, Benoit added. Police had arrived at the scene two hours after the incident started but it had not been settled.