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NEC Fellowships

NEC Fellowships

New Europe College (NEC) is an independent Romanian institute for advanced study in the humanities and social sciences founded in 1994 by Professor Andrei Pleşu (philosopher, art historian, writer, Romanian Minister of Culture, 1990–1991, Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1997-1999) within the framework of the New Europe Foundation, established in 1994 as a private foundation subject to Romanian law.

Its impetus was the New Europe Prize for Higher Education and Research, awarded in 1993 to Professor Pleşu by a group of six institutes for advanced study (the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle Park, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences, Wassenaar, the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Uppsala, and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin).

New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study in Bucharest, Romania – announces the competition for Fellowships. The program targets young international researchers/academics working in the fields of humanities, social studies, and economics.

ELIGIBILITY
Applicants must be doctoral students in an advanced stage of their research, or hold a Ph.D. title. Preference is given to candidates under the age of 40, and to those who have not yet benefited from a NEC Fellowship.
Working languages: English, French, and German. A good command of English is desirable.

DURATION OF THE FELLOWSHIP:
a) a full academic year (10 months, October through July)
or
b) a one-term fellowship (October through February, or March through July). This second possibility is open only to international fellows.

LOCATION: New Europe College – Institute for Advanced Study, Bucharest, Romania.

THE FELLOWSHIP CONSISTS OF: a monthly stipend of 600 Euro (tax free), accommodation, international transportation to and from the home country of the Fellows at the beginning and the end of the Fellowship, as well as for season holidays. The Fellows who stay for the whole academic year are offered a one-month research trip abroad to an institution of their choice (2,600 Euro for transportation, accommodation, and per diem). As an alternative, they can opt for a field research, in Romania or outside it.
The Fellows are expected to work on their own projects, and take part in the scientific events organized by the New Europe College. At the end of their Fellowship, each Fellow is expected to hand in a research paper, reflecting the results of his/her work over the duration of the Fellowship. The papers will be included in a NEC publication.

HOW TO APPLY
Applications will be submitted in electronic format only, to the address: applications@nec.ro
Candidates are asked to enter in the Subject field of their e-mail message ”NEC International Fellowship”.


The deadline for the submission of applications is November 15.
Incomplete or late applications will not be taken into consideration.

The applicants will be notified on the results of the pre-selection at the beginning of the month of March, by e-mail. The shortlisted candidates will be invited to an interview, organized at the NEC in Bucharest, on April 8-10.

Contact detail: applications@nec.ro
Moreinfo: http://www.nec.ro/fundatia/nec/nec_intl_2011.htm

Posted by Jessie James

PhD scholarships at University of Copenhagen

LIFE - Faculty of Life Sciences is one of Europe's leading university environments in the areas of veterinary science, food and natural resources.

Through financial support from the Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, 8 PhD scholarships are available within Climate Change; Impacts, Mitigation and Adaptation. The three-year studentships are expected to be effective from 1 December or soon thereafter.

Applications are welcomed within the following 15 areas; please observe that only 8 PhD scholarships will be filled.


1.
Research to prevent methane emission from ruminant livestock and associated damage to the environment
2.
Downscaling climate change information for agriculture and natural resource management
3.
Spatial characterisation and modelling of bio-production, eco-systems and climate driven spatial change
4.
Climate change effects on ecology and pest status of noxious species
5.
Developing sustainable, climate-favorable fertilizer technologies for industrial and third world agriculture
6.
Waste management effects on GHG emissions and climate change – in a life cycle assessment perspective
7.
Climate Change and Mitigation: Forestry and land-use change
8.
Climate Change and Adaptation: Forestry and land-use change
9.
Impact of climate change on emerging plant diseases and their threat to food security
10.
Climate and contaminants in agricultural drainage water
11.
Climate change: Costal Flooding Impacts and Adaptation Strategies in Urban Planning
12.
Economics of Climate Change and Natural Resources Management
13.
Climate change- GIS-based models for assessing changes in transmission patterns and human health risks of food-borne zoonotic trematode infections in south-east Asia
14.
GIS-based models and risk assessment to establish effect of climate change on Salmonella in aquacultures in South-east Asia
15.
Effect of climate change on the disease biology of vector-borne helminth diseases in Africa


Qualification requirements

• In connection with the appointment to the post special importance will be attached to the applicant having the professional and personal qualifications stated below:
• Passed Master’s degree in relation to the above subject area(s)
• The PhD candidate is also required to have research potential, to be enterprising, to possess good interpersonal skills and to be qualified for enrolment into the PhD programme.

Terms of employment
The post will be filled in accordance with the Agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and the Danish Federation of Professional Associations. The post is covered by the Protocol on Job Structure.

The position as a PhD fellow requires the applicant to be approved for admission to the PhD programme of the university in question.


Questions
Questions related to a specific theme should be directed to the Contact person of the actual theme.

General questions regarding the Graduate School of Life Sciences at LIFE should be directed to Course Administration c/o special advisor Michael Cleve Hansen, ph. (+45) 3528 2056 (e-mail: mclh@life.ku.dk) or head clerk Lillian Zeuthen Bjørnseth, ph. (+45) 3528 2172 (e-mail: lzb@life.ku.dk). Further information on PhD programmes is available at http://www.life.ku.dk/English/education/phd.aspx



Application
No application form is needed. In order for your application to be taken into consideration you must meet the following requirements:

Your application must be sent by E-mail in pdf-format only. Please, include all the documents you wish to be evaluated in one single pdf-file. The application must include the following appendices marked with the stated appendix numbers:

Appendix 1: curriculum vitae with documentation of education.
Appendix 2: material required for expert assessment, including publications and documentation of work experience.

Foreign diplomas (Master, Bachelor and the like) must be provided in the original language as well as in an English translation. For all diplomas, Danish or otherwise, transcripts containing the names and grades/marks for all courses taken must also be included.

Please, indicate clearly which position you apply for.

In addition to the material the applicant wishes to be included in the assessment, the Assessment Committee may implicate additional material in the assessment of the applicant. In such circumstances, it is the responsibility of the applicant, on request, to send the material to the Committee.

The applicant will be assessed in accordance with the Executive Order no. 284 of 25 April 2008 of the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.

The applications marked 625-264 should be sent to by E-mail to anc@life.ku.dk, no later than 1 September

Moreinfo: http://www.life.ku.dk/English/education/phd/Available_Scholarships.aspx

Posted by Jessie James

Officials: Floods kill at least 267 in Pakistan

The death toll in three days of flooding in Pakistan reached at least 267 on Friday, rescue and government officials said, as rains bloated rivers, submerged villages, and triggered landslides.

The rising toll of the monsoon rains underscore the poor infrastructure in impoverished Pakistan, where under-equipped rescue workers were struggling to reach people stranded in far-flung villages.

Pakistani TV showed striking images of people clinging to fences and other stationary items as water at times gushed over their heads.

The northwest appeared to be the hardest hit, and Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for the province, said it was the worst flooding in the region since 1929.

At least 245 people died in various parts of that province over the last three days, said Mujahid Khan of the Edhi Foundation, a privately run rescue service that operates morgues and ambulances across the South Asian country.

In Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, at least 22 people had been confirmed dead as of Thursday evening, the area's prime minister, Sardar Attique Khan, told reporters.

The tolls from the deluge were expected to rise because many people were still missing. Poor weather this week also may have been a factor in Wednesday's Airblue plane crash that killed 152 people in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

In the Swat Valley, residents were forced to trudge through knee-deep water in some streets.

A newly constructed part of a dam in the Charsadda district collapsed, while the U.N. said it had reports that 5,000 homes were underwater in that area. Hussain estimated 400,000 people were stranded in various northwest villages.

"A rescue operation using helicopters cannot be conducted due to the bad weather, while there are only 48 rescue boats available for rescue," he said on Thursday.

Pakistan's poorest residents are often the ones living in flood-prone areas because they can't afford safer land.

Southwest Baluchistan province has also been hit hard by the recent rains. Last week, flash floods in that region killed at least 41 people and swept away thousands of homes. The U.N. statement Thursday said 150,000 people were affected there.

The U.N. said Punjab province in Pakistan's east was also hit by some flooding. Crops were soaked in farmlands throughout the country. The U.N. said the humanitarian community was trying to put together a proper response, but the rains were making many roads impassable, complicating efforts to assess needs.

Posted by Jessie James

PhD stipends at Aalborg University

Aalborg University (AAU) was inaugurated in 1974 and is thus a young and modern university which, over the years, has grown to become a large, well-established research and teaching institution in Denmark offering quite an untraditional range of educational programmes and research in the fields of Humanities, Social Sciences, Engineering, Science and Medicine.

The PhD stipends are offered via a grant to three departments at Aalborg University; Department of Electronic Systems, Department of Computer Science, and Department of Mathematical Sciences. The grant from The Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation covers 5 full financed PhD stipends. The driving hypotheses of the projects are the following:

A. Hypothesis: Adaptive signal processing algorithms implemented as embedded software can be used to linearize a highly nonlinear but energy efficient power amplifier core to yield an overall linear and energy efficient amplifier. The applicant needs competences in one or more of the areas: RF electronics and modelling, embedded systems, IC design, FPGA design, power amplifier design, and RF simulation techniques. Contact: Professor Torben Larsen (E-mail: tl@es.aau.dk, phone: +45 2020 6856).

B. Hypothesis: Bayesian statistical methods based on a unified approach for divergence approximations can be used to improve the performance of data receivers for mobile communications where the challenge is to make a decision on what data was originally sent by a transmitter or a group of transmitters, when the data is corrupted due to interferences, e.g. generated by other transmitters. Desired competences in one or more of the areas: Data receiver design, wireless communication, signal processing, and Bayesian statistics. Contact: Professor Bernard Fleury (E-mail: bfl@es.aau.dk, phone: +45 9940 8629).

C. Hypothesis: Quantitative model checking, simulation, static analysis and compiler optimizing methods may be used for designing and implementing optimal mappings and scheduling of embedded applications onto multi-core, multi-processor and networked architectures. Desired competences in one or more of the areas: Computer science, embedded systems, multi-core architectures, and verification and scheduling. Contact: Professor Kim Guldstrand Larsen (E-mail: kgl@cs.aau.dk, phone: +45 9940 8893).

D. Hypothesis: Advances in spatial and computational statistics are capable of improving the foundation for understanding and exploiting data-dependent characteristics of spatio-temporal indexing and query processing techniques for the mobile Internet, thus resulting in more effective techniques. Desired competences in one or more of the areas: computer science and statistics – in particular interest in the mobile Internet and spatial and computational statistics. Contact: Professor Jesper Møller (E-mail: jm@math.aau.dk, phone: +45 3057 3127).

E. Hypothesis: Utilizing simultaneous coverage from multiple wireless access devices and exploiting knowledge about typical spatio-temporal communication patterns obtained through spatio-temporal data mining techniques, it is possible to predict which links can be kept in a low power state at certain times, while still allowing data packets to be routed in the mobile core network, and thereby reducing the overall power consumption very significantly. Desired competences in one or more of the areas: databases, data mining, and/or spatio-temporal data management, combined with an interest in wireless communications. Contact: Professor Torben Bach Pedersen (E-mail: tbp@cs.aau.dk, phone: +45 9940 9975).

If you want to apply for more than one PhD position you must submit an application for each position. Please indicate in the comment box which stipend (A, B, C, D or E) you are applying for. Applications sent by email will not be accepted.

The projects are supported by three departments as mentioned earlier; Dept. of Electronic systems, Dept. of Computer Science, and Dept. of Mathematical Sciences. For all projects two supervisors will be appointed – a main supervisor and a co-supervisor. The two supervisors will always be from different departments. It is the plan to have some joint activities for all 5 PhD students – for example, a summer school is planned.

Requirements:
Since the PhD stipends have been funded by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation with the plan to improve mobility, you are not allowed to have a Masters degree from Aalborg University. As long as your qualifying masters degree has been received from any other university than Aalborg University you can apply – also if you have your degree from another Danish university.

The application:
The applicant must submit an application for each stipend he or she wishes to apply for. The application must include the following:

1. An application letter stating the motivation of the applicant to apply for precisely this stipend, applicants background, other relevant information etc. This letter must also include a list of submitted material.
2. A Curriculum Vitae.
3. Copies of all relevant degrees obtained as well as copies of relevant scientific papers etc. These must be in Danish or English (signed by an authorized translator). Exam papers in other languages can’t be assessed.
4. A maximum 2 page (11 point Calibri / 2 cm margins all sides) proposal for the research to be pursued in the project containing:
a. Suitable title.
b. Brief background for the project.
c. Initiating problem.
d. Short state-of-the-art in the field with use of a few key references.
e. Novel ideas to solve the proposed problem (in the form of bullet points).
f. Main challenges to work on in the project (in the form of bullet points).
g. A rough sketch of a time and work plan.
h. Up to 5 key references.

PhD stipends are allocated to individuals who hold a Masters degree. PhD stipends are normally for a period of 3 years. It is a prerequisite for allocation of the stipend that the candidate will be enrolled as a PhD student at the Doctoral School of the Faculties of Engineering, Science and Medicine, in accordance with the regulations of Ministerial Order No. 18 of January 14, 2008 on the PhD Programme at the Universities. According to the Ministerial Order, the progress of the PhD student shall be assessed every six months. It is a prerequisite for continuation of salary payment that the previous progress is approved at the time of the evaluation.

The qualifications of the applicant will be assessed by an assessment committee. On the basis of the recommendation of the assessment committee, the Dean of the Faculties of Engineering, Science and Medicine will make a decision for allocating the stipend.

For further information about stipends and salary contact Ms. Helen Kjerstein Kristensen, The Faculties of Engineering, Science and Medicine, phone: +45 9940 7373.

Moreinfo: http://www.cs.aau.dk/~kgl/?p=205

Posted by Jessie James

Plane with 152 on board crashes in Pakistan

A Pakistani passenger plane, with 152 people on board, crashed on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad on Wednesday.

So far, 10 bodies have been recovered from the crash site, said Imtiaz Elahi, a senior government official.

Also, five people have been found alive, said Rehman Malik, the Pakistani interior minister.

The Airblue plane was headed to Islamabad from the sea port city of Karachi when it crashed in a hillside while trying to land, said Pervez George, a spokesman for the country's civil aviation authority.

The plane was carrying 146 passengers and six crew members, George said.

Four rescue helicopters were on the scene, assisting with rescue efforts. The Margalla Hills are a series of small hills north of Islamabad.

Officials do not know if weather played a factor in the crash. Pakistan is in the midst of the annual monsoon season, when rain sweeps across the subcontinent from June till September.

Airblue, a private airline company, offers flights within Pakistan, as well as to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the United Kingdom. It makes a fuel stop in Turkey when it is flying from Manchester, England.

Irshad Kassim, the director of a local bank, flies to Islamabad every week on Airblue and was supposed to have been on the flight -- but changed his mind at the last minute Wednesday morning.

"I know Islamabad has a lot of mountains near the landing area, and there is a lot of lightning in the area," Kassim told CNN. "There was a prediction of heavy rain this morning.

"I was on the flight, booked and confirmed -- and I was going to take the flight. I decided at 6 o' clock to not take the flight because of the weather."

He said he received a call shortly after the plane went down from airline representatives asking if he knew whether a Mr. Kassim was on the flight.

"I told them 'I am so sorry, I did not cancel.' I said, 'Due to the rain, I decided not take this flight,'" Kassim said. "Then I asked 'Why are you asking? Is everything OK?'"

It was then that he found out that the plane had gone down.

"I am still numb. I am very numb. I just feel that it's fate, I guess," he said.

"After I looked at the television, I looked at the picture of my three daughters. That's a natural reaction for a father."

Posted by Jessie James

Off nearly tenfold, UN lowers number of condemned in Iraq

The United Nations on Tuesday corrected a news release issued July 8 that put the number of prisoners facing execution in Iraq at 12,000, nearly 10 times the true number.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said in a joint news release that the corrected figure was 1,254 prisoners as of December 31, 2009.

The report on the human rights situation in Iraq showed improvements in security but warned that the overall situation remained a matter of concern.

The Ministry of Human Rights said that 124 people -- four of them women -- had been executed since the practice resumed in May 2009: about 15 people per month.

The UN agencies expressed concern over death sentences in Iraq, recommending that a moratorium be declared on the death penalty pending a review of the practice.

"UNAMI continues to receive reports of persons detained or imprisoned on the basis of confessions obtained under duress or torture," the report said. "Until the issues surrounding such violations are addressed, the concern will remain that the use of death penalty may be arbitrary and contrary to international human rights standards."

The study, which covered July through December 2009, also documented killings of government officials, high-profile figures and journalists.

It cited Iraqi government figures that said at least 4,068 civilians were killed and 15,935 wounded in Iraq last year.

Posted by Jessie James

Pentagon: Leaked Afghan reports are not top-secret

U.S. officials from the president down tried Tuesday to downplay the leak of tens of thousands of documents about the war in Afghanistan, a disclosure experts are calling the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers about Vietnam.

Pentagon officials have not found anything top-secret among the documents, a Defense Department spokesman said.

"From what we have seen so far, the documents are at the 'secret' level," Col. David Lapan said. That's not a very high level of classification.

Lapan emphasized that the Pentagon has not looked at all of the more than 75,000 documents published on WikiLeaks.org on Sunday.

President Barack Obama said Tuesday that he is "concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information" about the U.S. mission in Afghanistan but asserted that the documents don't shed much new light on the issue.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, said Tuesday that the importance of the leak should not be overstated.

"I think it's important not to overhype or get excessively excited about the meaning of those documents," Kerry told the committee.

But, he said, the leak "breaks the law, and equally importantly, it compromises the efforts of our troops, potentially, in the field and has the potential of putting people in harm's way," he said.

The top-ranking U.S. military officer, Adm. Mike Mullen, said he was "appalled" by the leak but questioned the current significance of the documents, which date from 2004 to 2009.
Video: Congressmen talk WikiLeaks, war
Video: Pentagon responds to WikiLeaks

"Much has changed since 2009, particularly with respect to our focus, our new strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan," said Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in Baghdad, Iraq. "A lot of it is focused on the past, and I am very focused on the future."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered the Foreign Ministry and National Security Council to study the vast cache of documents, Karzai's office said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Army has expanded its criminal investigation into a soldier allegedly involved in the earlier leak of a combat video and thousands of military documents, according to Col. Lapan.

According to a U.S. military official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to talk about the investigation, the probe by the Army's Criminal Investigation Division into Pfc. Bradley E. Manning was expanded to look at potential accomplices and what military or U.S. government systems the information came from.

CNN was unable to reach Manning's attorney.

The leak of documents published by the website WikiLeaks.org is a "very big breach," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said on Monday.

The investigation was expanded because investigators believe Manning has a connection to a number, but not all, of documents released on WikiLeaks.org on Sunday. The Army is also working with other U.S. agencies in the investigation, according to Army CID spokesman Christopher Grey.

Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, earlier was charged with eight violations of the U.S. Criminal Code for allegedly illegally transferring classified data, including a video that wound up on WikiLeaks. He has been accused of "wrongfully introducing a classified video of a military operation filmed at or near Baghdad, Iraq" around July 12, 2007, "onto his personal computer, a non-secure information system."

The documents released by WikiLeaks Sunday are divided into more than 100 categories. Tens of thousands of pages of reports document attacks on U.S. troops and their responses, relations between Americans in the field and their Afghan allies, intramural squabbles among Afghan civilians and security forces, and concerns about neighboring Pakistan's ties to the Taliban.

And WikiLeaks has another 15,000 documents that it plans to publish after editing out names to protect people, according to the website's founder and editor in chief, Julian Assange.

He said on CNN's "Larry King Live" that the first-hand accounts represent "the cut and thrust of the entire war over the past six years," through the military's own raw data: numbers of casualties, threat reports and notes from meetings between Afghan leaders and U.S. commanders.

"We see the who, the where, the what, the when and the how of each one of these attacks," Assange said. That includes, he said, possible evidence of war crimes by both U.S. troops and the Taliban, the Islamic militia that has been battling U.S. troops since 2001.

Assange said some events listed in the reports are "very suspicious," such as reports of skirmishes in which "a lot of people are killed, but no people taken prisoner and no people left wounded."

"In the end, it will take a court to really look at the full range of evidence to decide if a crime has occurred," he said. But earlier, he noted, "This material does not leave anyone smelling like roses, especially the Taliban."

One leaked report shows that truckers moving vital supplies along the roads of war-torn Afghanistan have faced shakedowns by both the Taliban and Afghan authorities, with Taliban fighters charging up to $500 for safe passage.

A trucking company working in Afghanistan told American forces "that they were approached by Taliban personnel to talk about payment for the safe passage of convoys through their area," one 2007 report states. "The current price for passage is $500 US per truck from Kandahar to Herat, $50 US per truck from Kabul to Ghazni, $100 US per truck from Ghazni to Orgun-E, and $200-300 US per truck from Orgun-E to Wazi Kwah."

CNN has not independently confirmed the authenticity of the documents, but neither the White House nor the Pentagon has denied that they are what WikiLeaks claims they are.

"I don't think that what is being reported hasn't in many ways been publicly discussed -- whether by you or by representatives of the U.S. government -- for quite some time," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters. But he said an investigation into the source of the leak had begun by last week.

"There is no doubt that this is a concerning development in operational security," he said.

Assange said WikiLeaks withheld some documents that dealt with activity by U.S. Special Forces and the CIA, "and most of the activity of other non-U.S. groups."

But he said the documents reveal the "squalor" of war, uncovering how a number of small incidents have added up to huge numbers of civilian deaths.

"What we haven't seen previously is all those individual deaths," he said. "We've seen just the number. And like Stalin said, 'One man's death is a tragedy; a million dead is a statistic.' So, we've seen the statistic."

The release of the documents is being called the biggest intelligence leak in history, drawing comparisons to the disclosure of the Vietnam-era Pentagon Papers.

"There hasn't been an unauthorized disclosure of this magnitude in 39 years," said Daniel Ellsberg, the onetime Pentagon official who leaked that multiple-volume secret history of the conflict.

Others disagreed with the comparison. Bruce Riedel, an analyst at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, noted that the Pentagon Papers were part of a document prepared for U.S. leaders that analyzed how the United States got into Vietnam, "which assessed successes and failures in a comprehensive way."

"This is really the raw material of the war -- unassessed, raw, fragmentary data that I think in each case, you have to be very careful how much of a larger picture you can conclude from these fragments and snippets," Riedel said.

But Ellsberg said the documents, "low-level as they are," raise the question of whether the United States has a winning strategy in Afghanistan and whether it should continue to pursue the war.

"They do give us the sense of the pattern of failure, of stalemate, and why we're stalemated -- civilian casualties that recruit for the Taliban ... and raise the question of what we're doing there," he said.

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. The attacks were carried out by the Islamic terrorist network al Qaeda, which operated from bases in Afghanistan with the approval of the Taliban, the fundamentalist movement that ruled most of the country at the time.

The leaked documents provide fleeting glimpses into the possible whereabouts of Osama bin Laden in the years since his escape from American forces at Tora Bora in the Afghan mountains.

Documents published in the British newspaper The Guardian quoted intelligence sources as saying bin Laden wanted al Qaeda operatives disguised as journalists to attack Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a news conference in 2004. In 2005, his financial adviser and an Afghan insurgent leader reportedly were dispatched to obtain rockets from North Korea to use against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

In 2006, he was reported to be attending monthly meetings in the Pakistani city of Quetta with fellow fugitives from the leadership of the Taliban, the Islamic militia that hosted al Qaeda when it controlled most of Afghanistan. Another report the same year states that he arranged a marriage for a valued lieutenant, a specialist in building roadside bombs.

Neither the documents cited only by the Guardian, which had advance access to the Wikileaks documents released Sunday, nor the information contained in them could be independently verified by CNN. The CIA would not comment on secret documents. But a U.S. counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity that American authorities believe that the al Qaeda leader "has gone into deep hiding."

"We think he's spending a heck of a lot of time trying to avoid being captured or killed," the official said. "After all, he's seen many of his top lieutenants taken off the battlefield since 9/11 - and especially over the past two years. We haven't had a firm fix on his location for a number of years. If we did, he wouldn't be there. The aggressive search for him continues without pause."

Assange, meanwhile, said his website is not campaigning against the war.

"WikiLeaks does not have an opinion whether the war in Afghanistan should continue or not continue. ... It should continue in a just way if its to continue at all," he said.

Posted by Jessie James

Clinton announces new sanctions against North Korea

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced tougher sanctions Wednesday against North Korea, including freezing some assets in an attempt to keep the Communist dictatorship from buying and selling arms.

The announcement came as Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited South Korea, part of a rare high-level meeting with members of the government of the key Asian ally.

The U.S. delegation arrived in Seoul this week to show support for South Korea over the sinking in March of the warship Chenonan.

A multinational investigation found North Korea responsible for the torpedo attack that killed 46 South Korean sailors.

North Korea has denied any connection and said it is the victim of an international conspiracy.

Gates warned that North Korea might engage in other similar "provocations."

The United States and South Korea will remain vigilant and take steps toward deterrence, such as recently announced joint naval exercises, Gates said.

On the sanctions, senior U.S. officials said the aim is to go after North Korean sources of hard currency and to cut off military cooperation with some "unsavory actors" in the Middle East.

The United States is also targeting North Korea's elite and a variety of illegal trading in which they engage. This illicit sale of cigarettes, liquor and exotic food helps provide funding for North Korea's burgeoning nuclear program, U.S. officials said.

By targeting the approximately 5,000 North Korean elites, the United States hopes to put pressure on the government, the officials said. These elites are accustomed to being pampered and living in a certain way, and increased sanctions can disrupt that lifestyle, the officials said.

The United States also aims to crack down on diplomatic privileges, which have facilitated the illegal trading.

As part of their visit, Gates and Clinton toured the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing the two countries since the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War.

Both pledged support for South Korea while sending strong messages to the North.

Gates said South Korea has improved since the last time he was there 20 years ago.

"The North, by contrast, stagnates in isolation and deprivation. And as we saw with the sinking of the Cheonan, it continues its history of unpredictable and at times provocative behavior," Gates said.

Clinton also added a verbal jab.

"The Republic of Korea has made extraordinary progress," she said. "It has leaders who care about the well-being of the people. By contrast, the North has not only stagnated in isolation, but the people of the North have suffered for so many years."

Gates and Clinton also met with their South Korean counterparts in Seoul to discuss numerous diplomatic and military issues concerning North Korea.

Posted by Jessie James

Mangroves disappearing faster than land-based forests

The destruction of the world's mangrove forests is happening up to four times faster than the world's land-based forests, according to a new United Nations report.

A study commissioned by the U.N. Environmental Program (UNEP) reports that one fifth (around 35,500 square kilometers) of the world's mangroves -- forests straddling both land and sea -- have been lost since 1980.

Although the study reports that annual destruction has slowed to 0.7 percent a year, the authors of the "World Atlas of Mangroves" report warn that continued coastal destruction and shrimp farming could cause financial and ecologic havoc.

Studies estimate mangroves generate between U.S.$2000 to $9000 per hectare annually from fishing -- much more than the aquaculture, agriculture and tourism, which the U.N. says are the biggest drivers of mangrove loss.

Achim Steiner, U.N. Under-Secretary General and Executive Director, U.N. Environment Program (UNEP), said in a statement: "This atlas brings our attention onto mangroves and puts them up front and central, plotting where they are, describing where they have been lost, and underlining the immense costs those losses have had for people as well as nature."

Mangroves cover around 150,000 square kilometers and are found in 123 countries worldwide. The biggest concentration (21 percent) of the world's mangroves is in Indonesia, with Brazil home to around nine percent and Australia, seven percent.

Mark Spalding, lead author of the report and senior marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy, told CNN: "The value of mangroves has been hugely overlooked. Mangroves are incredibly valuable, left standing."

Preserving the environmental diversity of mangroves is essential to maintaining what Spalding calls "the real hard dollar values" for the people who live near them and depend on their survival.

Apart from providing a degree of coastal protection for communities -- there is evidence that mangroves reduced the impact of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 -- mangroves are also of vital economic importance to locals.

"There are a lot of fish that depend on mangroves - mud crabs, oysters, mussels - and there are also a lot of fish that don't seem to be connected to the mangroves but actually are. These fishing industries employ a lot of people," Spalding said.

The U.N. estimates that mangrove-related species support 30 percent of all fish catch and almost 100 percent of shrimp catch in southeast Asian countries. Mangroves and associated habitats in Queensland, Australia, are thought to support 75 percent of commercial fisheries species.

The forestry aspect of mangroves is also important economically.

The wood is dense, rot and termite resistant, Spalding says, making it good for use as timber or as charcoal, among the best in the world, he said.

"It's highly productive so you can continue to harvest it, which is rare," Spalding said.

It's taken Spalding five years to piece together the "World Atlas of Mangroves," and despite the findings, he remains positive that mangroves can be preserved.

"My sense is that we can turn this around into a good story," Spalding said.

"Knowing what we know now, mangroves can be restored and help us fight climate change," he said. They are incredibly resilient ecosystems, which aren't bothered by increasing temperatures, he said.

"These are habitats that are going to be around with us if we just look after them and the economic benefits will just accrue. There has been sustainable use of mangroves in Bangladesh and other parts of Asia for over a century."

Posted by Jessie James

Academy Scholars at Harvard Academy

The Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies is dedicated to increasing our knowledge of the culture, history, and institutions of the world's major regions and countries.

The Academy Scholars Program identifies and supports outstanding scholars at the start of their careers whose work combines disciplinary excellence in the social sciences (including history and law) with a command of the language, history, or culture of non-Western countries or regions. Their scholarship may elucidate domestic, comparative, or transnational issues, past or present.

The Academy Scholars are a select community of individuals with resourcefulness, initiative, curiosity, and originality, whose work in non-Western cultures or regions shows promise as a foundation for exceptional careers in major universities or international institutions.

Academy Scholars are appointed for 2 years by the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and are provided time, guidance, and access to Harvard facilities. They receive substantial financial and research assistance to undertake sustained projects of research and/or acquire accessory training in their chosen fields and areas. The Senior Scholars, a distinguished group of senior Harvard faculty members, act as mentors to the Academy Scholars to help them achieve their intellectual potential.


Terms
The competition for these awards is open only to recent Ph.D. (or comparable professional school degree) recipients and doctoral candidates. Those still pursuing a Ph.D. should have completed their routine training and be well along in the writing of their theses before becoming Scholars; those in possession of a Ph.D. longer than 3 years are ineligible.

Each year four to five Academy Scholars are named for two-year appointments. Scholars are expected to reside in the Cambridge/Boston area for the duration of their appointments unless traveling for pre-approved research purposes.

Post-doctoral Scholars will receive an annual stipend of $48,000, and pre-doctoral Scholars will receive an annual stipend of $28,000. This stipend is supplemented by funding for conference and research travel, research assistants, and health insurance coverage. Some teaching is permitted but not required.

Applications are welcome from qualified persons without regard to nationality, gender, or race.

How to Apply
Applications for the next class of Academy Scholars are due October 1 each year. There is no application form. The following materials are required for a complete application:

* a current curriculum vitae, including a list of publications (include 3 copies)
* a statement of the applicant's proposed research, including intellectual objectives and planned methodological and disciplinary work—no more than 10 pages double-spaced (include 3 copies)
* an official copy of each graduate transcript
* three letters of recommendation
* a cover letter which succinctly states the applicant's academic field, country or region of specialization, and proposed or actual research topic (include 3 copies)

Please do not staple materials. Faxed or e-mailed applications will not be accepted.

Finalists will be invited to Cambridge for interviews with the Senior Scholars on Monday, December 6, 2010.

Application materials should be mailed to:

The Academy Scholars Program
Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs
1727 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02138

All materials must be received by October 1. The selection process begins immediately thereafter. Applicants whose materials are late or incomplete are at a disadvantage when considered by the Selection Committee. Announcement of the awards will be made in January.

For additional information contact:

Kathleen Hoover, Program Coordinator
khoover@wcfia.harvard.edu

or

Laurence H. Winnie, Executive Officer
lwinnie@wcfia.harvard.edu

Phone: (617) 495-2137
Fax: (617) 496-9592
Moreinfo: http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/academy/academy_scholars_program.html

The Ginetta Sagan Fund of Amnesty International USA

The Ginetta Sagan Fund of Amnesty International USA is to recognizes and assists women who are working to protect the liberty and lives of women and children in areas where human rights violations are widespread. The Ginetta Sagan Award recognizes individual accomplishment, but also serves as a beacon of hope to women everywhere who are fighting for human rights.

Call For Nominations
The Ginetta Sagan Fund of AIUSA is now accepting nominations for its 2010 Annual Award for the Human Rights of Women and Children. We invite Amnesty International membership, organizations and individuals to take part in nominating an outstanding woman for this coveted award. This is your opportunity to shed light on human rights abuses around the world and honor the women that promote human dignity. Please submit your nominations for the Ginetta Sagan Award by completing the application form.

The Award:

* Recognizes outstanding achievement, often at great personal risk.
* Enhances the recipient's ability to live and work freely, and protects the recipient's capacity to continue her work, by bringing a new level of international attention to her accomplishments and the obstacles she faces.
* Brings increased international scrutiny to the crisis, region or issue for which the recipient works.

History of the Fund
For more than three decades, the late Ginetta Sagan, recipient of the 1996 Presidential Medal of Freedom, fought for the lives and rights of prisoners of conscience throughout the world. A tireless crusader and eternal optimist, Ginetta's passionate dedication inspired generations of human rights advocates. In honor of her humanitarian achievements, Amnesty International USA created the Ginetta Sagan Fund in 1994, one of AIUSA's first permanently endowed funds and the only fund that specifically addresses the needs of women and children. The Ginetta Sagan Fund ensures the continuation in perpetuity of Ginetta's human rights legacy and brings worldwide attention to the abuses perpetrated on women and children.

Support The Ginetta Sagan Fund
Your support of the Ginetta Sagan Fund will show women and children who are victims of human rights abuses that someone cares enough to intervene and raise awareness on behalf of their plight.

You may wish to consider the following options for contribution:

* Cash gifts
* Gifts of appreciated securities
* Gifts of real estate or charitable remainder interests
* Transfers of assets from another foundation
* Naming the Ginetta Sagan Fund as a beneficiary of a life insurance policy
* Including the Ginetta Sagan Fund in a will
* Cash and in-kind contributions to the Ginetta Sagan Fund are deductible under section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. Checks should be made payable to Ginetta Sagan Fund of Amnesty International USA.


Please mail contributions to:
The Ginetta Sagan Fund
c/o Amnesty International USA
5 Penn Plaza
New York, NY 10001

For questions about donations or more information
on the call for nominations please contact:
Ginetta Sagan Fund of Amnesty International USA
350 Sansome Street, Suite 210
San Francisco, CA 94104
(415) 288-1800 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (415) 288-1800 end_of_the_skype_highlighting ext. 1745
gsf@aiusa.org
Moreinfo: http://www.amnestyusa.org/page.do?n=23

BP "pleased" with containment cap operation so far

BP said Sunday that it is "pleased" with how the operation to place a new cap on its ruptured undersea well is proceeding.

Officials hope the containment cap will stop oil from gushing into the Gulf. But while robots replace the old cap, crude is flowing freely.

The procedure -- expected to take four to seven days -- continued to progress Sunday as crews worked to position a transition spool over the gushing well to prepare for the new connection, according to BP's Senior Vice President Kent Wells.

"We're pleased with how it's going," Wells said, but cautioned that the operation, which began Saturday with the removal of the old cap, is only in its second day.

Robots removed six giant bolts from the apparatus early Sunday so that the new cap could be positioned.

If successful, the effects of the containment cap operation could halt the oil gusher that started April 20 after a deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

But officials have said the new containment cap would be a temporary fix, and the permanent solution would still be completion of a relief well. There are two relief wells under construction.

Wells said Sunday that one of the relief wells could intercept the ruptured well as early as the end of July.
Video: Oil hits Mississippi marsh
Video: Oil containment cap removed
RELATED TOPICS

* BP
* Gulf Coast Oil Spill
* Thad Allen

"We're feeling very good about how we've positioned that well," he said.

The other relief well is expected to be completed in August.

The old cap had been diverting about 15,000 barrels a day (630,000 gallons) to a ship. BP still is recovering an additional 8,000 to 9,000 barrels a day (336,000 to 378,000 gallons) through a line connected to another vessel, the Q4000.

"As we start to ramp up the additional containment capacity, we should see less and less flow," Wells said.

The Helix Producer recovery vessel is expected to begin collecting oil Sunday evening, Wells said, and officials hope to reach its full collection capacity of 20,000 to 25,000 barrels (840,000 to 1.5 million gallons) per day within three days.

Over the next two to three weeks, 60,000 to 80,000 barrels (2.52 million to 3.36 million gallons) a day should be collected as part of the containment process, Wells said. Scientists estimate that 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil are spewing daily from BP's breached well.

BP says there will be a period of decreased oil and gas capture from the wellhead during the cap replacement. It said another recovery vessel, the Q4000, "should continue to capture and flare oil and gas." There will be other recovery vessels and skimmers deployed.

Two more oil skimmers were added to the Gulf Sunday bringing the total to 48 collecting an oil and water mix from the surface, BP officials said. And another 15 burns were conducted in calm seas.

"It was a good day in trying to contain the oil that made it out to the surface," Wells said.

Wells also said there will be "significant measurement capability" added to the new cap so officials can get a good idea of the flow rate.

BP said in a statement that the new cap "should improve containment efficiency during hurricane season by allowing shorter disconnect and reconnect times."

Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Friday that the new cap would allow responders to collect more accurate oil flow data and that, once the switch is complete, the resulting capacity to contain oil "will be far greater than the capabilities we have achieved using current systems."

Source: CNN

At least 9 killed in two Uganda bombings

At least nine people have died in pair of bombings that struck a restaurant and a rugby ground in Uganda's capital as patrons gathered to watch Sunday's World Cup final, police said.

Nine people died and five were wounded at an Ethiopian restaurant in Kampala, police spokeswoman Judith Nabakooba said. But there was a yet-undetermined number of fatalities and injuries at a rugby field where other fans gathered to watch Sunday night's match between Spain and the Netherlands, Nabakooba said.

Earlier, police indicated that at least 40 people had been killed in the two bombings.

The bombs went off within 25 minutes of each other shortly after 10 p.m. (3 p.m. ET), as fans gathered in both locations. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for what Nabakooba called "definite acts of terrorism."

Islamic militants battling Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government have threatened attacks on Uganda and Burundi, which contribute troops to an African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia. But Nabakooba said the investigation of Sunday's bombings is not yet focused on any specific group.

Spain win World Cup after Iniesta's extra-time goal


(CNN) -- FINAL RESULT: Spain 1-0 The Netherlands

Spain win the World Cup for the first time as an extra time goal from Andres Iniesta gives them a last-gasp victory over the Netherlands in the final at Soccer City.

A game littered with no less than 13 yellow cards and one red is settled by a moment of magic by the Barcelona midfielder after being played in by substitute Cesc Fabregas.

116 minutes: The goal all Spain and most neutrals have been waiting for as Andres Iniesta breaks the deadlock after clever work by Cesc Fabregas. 1-0 Spain. Iniesta is booked for his celebration but that hardly matters now.

115 minutes: Sneijder's free kick takes a double deflection but Spain escape with a goal kick.

110 minutes: Gregory van der Wiel becomes eighth Dutch player to be shown a yellow card.

108 minutes: Heitinga pulls back Iniesta and is the first man to be shown red, hardly surprising after a night of 11 yellow cards. Dutch down to 10 men but Spain waste free kick.

HALF-TIME IN EXTRA TIME: Goalless still. Penalties looming. Fernando Torres comes on for Villa for the final 15 minutes with Spain hoping he can work his magic when it matters.

104 minutes: Van Bronckhorst's career has ended with his substitution just before the end of the first half of extra-time. Edgar Braafheid comes on

100 minutes: Navas shot deflected wide by van Bronckhorst and into side netting.

98 minutes: Superb defending from van Bronckhorst keeps out Iniesta just before Dutch make subsitution as De Jong departs to be replaced by Rafael van der Vaart.

96 minutes: End-to-end goalmouth action and from a Dutch corner Joris Mathijsen is nearly an unlikely scorer.

95 minutes: Fabregas could have become super-sub as Iniesta puts him in the clear but Stekelenburg makes a superb save in the Dutch goal.

92 minutes: Strong Spanish appeals for a penalty are waved away by referee Howard Webb.

Extra time starts and we are perhaps 30 minutes away from the agony and uncertainty of penalties.

FULL-TIME: Still goalless and we're heading for extra-time. Both sides have had gilt-edged chances in the second half, with Robben twice denied by Casillas when clean through and Villa and Ramos going close for Spain.

86 minutes: Cesc Fabregas second Spanish subsitution for Alonso in an attacking move by Vicente Del Bosque.

82 minutes: Robben outpaces Puyol who does just enough to hinder his progress and Casillas gathers the ball. Robben is unhappy that he is not awarded a free kick and receives a yellow card. We are into double figures now.

81 minutes: Iniesta nearly squirms his way through but is denied by a last-ditch tackle from the Dutch man of the tournament Sneijder.

77 minutes: Iniesta has been subjected to some tough tackling all night and after another strong challenge from van Bommel extracts a little revenge and sees yellow. Almost losing count now but that's the ninth and apparently an unwanted World Cup record.

76 minutes: A totally unmarked Sergio Ramos meets a corner from just a few meters out and sends it over the crossbar. Everyone's head in hands !

71 minutes: Dutch make first change with Kuyt replaced by flying Eljero Elias.

69 minutes: Spain's best chance of the match quickly follows as Navas crosses for Villa, but sees his effort blocked by Heitinga, who had made the original mistake to let him in.

66 minutes: Perhaps a sign the Dutch are getting on top as Capdevila is forced to trip van Persie and sees yellow.

Casillas with a miracle save to deny Robben! Great chance squandered, tweets CNN's Ben Wyatt

GRAAAAAAANDE IKEEEEER!!!!!!. is the reaction of the Real Madrid official tweeter.

61 minutes: Golden, golden chance for the Dutch. Robben sent clean through by Sneijder and he must score but for a crucial touch by Spain keeper Casillas who sticks out his right leg to divert the ball for a corner.

60 minutes: First change of the match with Jesus Navas on for Spain in place of Pedro who has faded after a promising start.

55 minutes: Spain hearts in their mouths as Villa left writhing on the floor and John Heitinga goes into the book, number five for the Dutch.

53 minutes: Dutch captain Giovanni Van Bronckhorst marks his final game with a yellow card.

48 minutes: Puyol attacks the ball from a corner and it leaves Joan Capdevila with a chance but he fluffs his volley. Pity.

We're underway in the second half and fingers crossed for some goals and more entertainment to grace a World Cup final.

HALF-TIME: Goalless at the break in the 19th World Cup final which has seen five yellow cards with Nigel De Jong of the Netherlands lucky to still be on the pitch after a reckless challenge on Xabi Alonso.

Spain made the brighter start Sergio Ramos going close twice, but the Dutch finished the half looking a little stronger although winning few friends for their robust approach.

45 minutes: Dutch finish half on a high note as Arjen Robben's shot is tipped away by Casillas.

37 minutes: Pedro sends a shot wide after a promising attack but it's hardly a feast of attacking football.

Half an hour gone and after a promising start the 19th World Cup final is turning into an attritional battle with plenty of fouls, some unpleasant.

That's an outrageous challenge from De Jong. He's lucky to still be on the pitch. Alonso is lucky not to have cracked ribs, tweets a hot-under-the-collar CNN Armchair fan Matt Booth.

How is de Jong not sent off there?? Reckless challenge.. Again..tweets Stuart Holden and as a Premier League player with Bolton he should know.

27 minutes: How is de Jong not sent off there?? Reckless challenge.. Again.. Nigel De Jong takes out Alonso with a chest-high tackle and like van Bommel might have seen red on another day. Reckless.

22 minutes: Now Ramos has gone into the book for a sliding tackle on Kuyt. 2-2 on cards.

21 minutes: Mark van Bommel clatters into Andres Iniesta and is perhaps lucky just to escape with a yellow card.

17 minutes: Wesley Sneijder into action for first time with a low shot which might have tested Iker Casillas who safely gathers.

16 minutes: Spain central defender Carles Puyol joins van Persie in Howard Webb's book.

14 minutes: Further sign of Dutch frustration as Robin van Persie booked for a clumsy tackle.

See the latest tweets on CNN's Twitterbuzz

10 minutes: Ramos waltzes down the Dutch right and sends in a vicious cross shot which is cleared for a corner and in the follow up Xabi Alonso's cross finds David Villa who shoots into the sidenetting.

Looks like the jubilani for the final has gold rings instead of green and red. I wonder if this one works any better? CNN's armchair fan Matt Booth tweets rather cynically !

Seven minutes: First shot of the match for the Dutch - a long-range effort from Dirk Kuyt but Spain look the more menacing side by far.

Four minutes: Spain nearly take an early lead as Sergio Ramos sees his header tipped away by Maarten Stekelenburg.

The deciding match is upon us. SPA is the better side but I still believe HOL will win. Atmosphere at Soccer City has been electric all day, tweets CNN's Pedro Pinto

Teams are out the anthems have been played. Now let's get down to the action.

Nelson Mandela is in the crowd. WOW tweets CNN's Ben Wyatt.

Latest team news: European champions Spain left star striker Fernando Torres on the bench for the World Cup final against Holland as coach Vicente Del Bosque opted for the same starting line-up that beat Germany in the semifinals.

Young Barcelona winger Pedro will play up front again alongside the prolific David Villa.

As expected, the Dutch made two changes to their side from the one that beat Uruguay in their semi-final.

Ajax right-back Gregory van der Wiel and defensive midfielder Nigel de Jong, who both missed the win over Uruguay, returned after serving one-match suspensions.

Teams:

Netherlands: Maarten Stekelenburg; Gregory van der Wiel, John Heitinga, Joris Mathijsen, Giovanni van Bronckhorst (capt); Mark van Bommel, Nigel de Jong; Arjen Robben, Wesley Sneijder, Dirk Kuyt; Robin van Persie

Coach: Bert van Marwijk (NED)

Spain: Iker Casillas (capt); Sergio Ramos, Carles Puyol, Gerard Pique, Joan Capdevila; Sergio Busquets, Xabi Alonso; Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Pedro; David Villa

Coach: Vicente Del Bosque (ESP)

Referee: Howard Webb (ENG)

Source: CNN

Haiti tent cities pit landowners against homele

Vladimir Saint-Louis is glad to be back in business months after January's devastating earthquake in Haiti shut down his large athletic complex in the heart of Port-au-Prince.

Although he was unharmed, his father nearly lost his life when cement blocks fell on his car, injuring and trapping him for hours.

On this particular afternoon six months after the quake, customers worked out at Saint-Louis' main gym, some hitting the weights, others at the Ping-Pong table, a welcome break from all that still plagues Haiti.

Still, just footsteps away, stands a tent city erected by 7,000 homeless Haitians on the complex.

"This is a 400-meter track, and this is my soccer field; it's my land; it's part of the same property," Saint-Louis told CNN.

He said that on the night after the quake, desperate Haitians climbed over collapsed walls and found refuge on his land. At first, it was understandable, he said. But six months later, it's clear he has become frustrated.

"All the government officials we sent letters to, all the letters went unanswered," Saint-Louis said.

Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive says the government is working on a resettlement plan, not only to solve land disputes, but also to provide housing for all displaced. But he says the government's hands are tied until billions of pledged funds for Haiti come through.

"Even if we don't have the money, we should have a calendar," says Bellerive, stressing the need for a disbursement calendar.

And there's also the matter of priority.

"We have to understand that right now, the priority of the government is to protect the population from the next hurricane season," Bellerive said. "Most of our force is going in that direction."

Meanwhile, tent camps, thought to be temporary living arrangements in the aftermath of the quake, have become permanent fixtures all over the capital. More than 1,300 have sprouted -- hot, muddy from the rains, lacking water and proper sanitation, and in some cases breeding grounds for turf wars.

An estimated 1.5 million people are homeless and living in such conditions in Haiti. Many are on private property and the crisis is pitting landowners against the desperate.

At another tent camp pitched on private property, Aline Masselin washes clothes by hand in a plastic basin that sits on a dirt floor. She has lived in this camp since the night of the quake. Her daughter, Alexandra, was born here just weeks later.

Recently, a judge showed up at the site, warning the homeless it was time to go and that the owner was fed up. They missed the deadline to leave, and still they are waiting without a place to go. At a nearby camp, another landowner successfully evicted a group of homeless.

"It was 52 families," said Emmanuel Auguste, showing a lot that once housed quake victims who have now resettled in other camps.

Asked whether there will be a change six months from now, United Nations humanitarian spokesman Imogen Wall was blunt.

"It will take time to get 1.5 million people back into the kind of long-term living arrangements that they want and need," she said.

For Vladimir Saint-Louis -- whose athletic complex once boasted tennis and basketball courts, a soccer field and other recreational areas that have now become squatting areas -- news that this will take even longer does not sit well.

"There's a barbershop. There's a cyber cafe. There's a hotel in one of the tents, where people pay to stay there for the night -- I swear to God," he said.

So far, Saint-Louis has found a way to make peace with the homeless on his land, waiting for a solution to come to salvage his business that's taken a 50 percent hit since it became the site of a tent city.

Asked whether he can keep his business afloat, he replied, "God give the strength. God give me the strength."

BP works to replace containment cap over ruptured well

As oil again again flows freely, crews are working around the clock to replace a containment cap on the ruptured underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico, BP said Saturday.

The company hopes to install a better-fitting one in the coming days, BP senior Vice President Kent Wells said.

"We're on plan," he said hours after the old cap was removed.

Live video showed robots in the process of removing six bolts from the apparatus so that the new cap can be positioned. The bolts may all be removed by Sunday.

The old cap had been diverting about 15,000 barrels a day (630,000 gallons) to a ship. BP still is recovering an additional 8,000 to 9,000 barrels a day (336,000 to 378,000 gallons) through a line connected to another vessel, the Q4000.

Wells said the sealing cap operation is expected to take four to seven days, with favorable weather helping the process along. In upcoming weeks, there will be an increase in the current oil containment work. A fleet of skimmers will help recover the oil now making its way to the surface.

"As we start to ramp up the additional containment capacity, we should see less and less flow," Wells said.

Wells said crews are in the final stages of hooking up the Helix Producer, another oil recovery vessel, to the well. The vessel is expected to begin collecting oil by Sunday and officials hope to reach full collection capacity of 20,000 to 25,000 barrels (840,000 to 1.5 million gallons) per day within three days.

"We're in the final stages in doing the pressure testing" on the Helix Producer, Wells said.

If successful, the effects of the containment cap operation could halt the oil gusher that started April 20 after a deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Officials have said such a fix would be temporary, and the permanent solution would still be completion of a relief well. There are two relief wells under construction, with one expected to be completed in August. One could intercept the leaking well as early as the end of July.

Over the next two to three weeks, 60,000 to 80,000 barrels (2.52 million to 3.36 million gallons) a day should be contained, Wells said. Scientists estimate that 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil are spewing daily from BP's breached Macondo well.

The company also says the sealing cap work "is intended to run in parallel with the installation and start-up of the Helix Producer."

BP says there will be a period of decreased oil and gas capture from the wellhead during the cap replacement. It said another recovery vessel, the Q4000, "should continue to capture and flare oil and gas." There will be other recovery vessels and skimmers deployed.

"This can be done very effectively," Wells said.

Wells also said there will be "significant measurement capability" added to the new cap so officials can get a good idea of the flow rate.

BP said in a statement that the new cap "should improve containment efficiency during hurricane season by allowing shorter disconnect and reconnect times."

Wells echoed much of what retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Friday.

Allen said he approved the cap-switch plan in order to take advantage of favorable weather predicted for coming days and because, once the switch is complete, the resulting capacity to contain oil "will be far greater than the capabilities we have achieved using current systems."

Allen stressed that once the capping device is on, "we would get the most accurate flow rate to date," he said.

Meanwhile, Allen on Saturday announced that Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft is scheduled to relieve Rear Adm. James Watson as the federal on-scene coordinator Monday.

Zukunft, who has been in the region for several weeks overseeing strategic planning, is the Coast Guard's assistant commandant for marine safety, security and stewardship. Watson will return to his previous duties.

NY woman questioned again and again over ID mix-up

Sylvie Nelson's border crossings are anything but routine. Customs agents sometimes order her out of her car. Twice, they handcuffed her in front of her young children. Once, agents swarmed her car and handcuffed her husband, too.

She tells them: It's not me you want, it's a man with the same birth date and a similar name. Agents always confirm that and let her go.

Then it happens again. And again.

"I can understand one missed identification," Nelson said. "But over and over and over again?"

Nelson, a 44-year-old white woman, keeps getting snared at the Canadian border because she apparently shares some key identifying information with a black man, possibly from Georgia, who is in trouble with the law. While such cases of mistaken identity at border points and airports are not unique, Nelson's case is unusual in that only some of her crossings set off an alarm and because federal officials have not fixed the problem after almost two years.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials told The Associated Press they cannot discuss Nelson's case, and they have shared few details with her. Still, it's clear from their correspondence with Nelson and her congressman that they acknowledge the problem, saying they have taken "positive steps" to address it.

The nation's 4,000-mile boundary with Canada is tested regularly by people trying to smuggle cigarettes, drugs and illegal immigrants. In New York, the drive-through crossings also are kept busy by steady streams of shoppers, tourists and people with personal ties to both countries, like Nelson.

Nelson was born in Canada, married an American and lives with him, her 6-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son in Saranac Lake, where she runs the chamber of commerce. She became a U.S. citizen in 2008.

Nelson crosses the border several times a month to visit relatives, friends and her family's second home, using her Canadian passport to leave the country and her U.S. passport to get back in.

Her U.S. passport first triggered an alarm in August 2008. Agents told her the mix-up would be corrected, and she crossed without incident many times after that.

In December, she was ordered from her car and handcuffed as she came back from a Montreal shopping trip with her children. Nelson was mortified and melted into tears but was soon told she was free to go.

It happened again in February at a different New York crossing. Agents surrounded her car and her husband also was handcuffed. Again, she was let go.

"They never apologize," Nelson said. "They basically tell you that they're doing their job for the better good of the world."

Nelson has struggled to get information from Homeland Security officials. They will not tell her who she is being confused with or why the problem persists. She doesn't know why her passport triggers alarms some days but not others.

Much of what she knows comes from bits of information gleaned at her border stops or from U.S. Rep. Bill Owens, who has been trying to help her.

There is no indication Nelson is on the terror "watch list" that makes headlines when babies or politicians are mistakenly entered into the database. She believes another agency's computerized index of criminal justice information may be at fault.

Nelson says the man appears to be wanted in DeKalb County, Georgia, though neither the county sheriff's office nor the Georgia Bureau of Investigation came up with a match for a man with Nelson's birth date and last name.

Owens said he was told the problem endures because of a "technology issue."

Customs spokeswoman Joanne Ferreira said the agency cannot discuss individual cases for legal and enforcement reasons. Ferreira wrote in an e-mail to the AP that "CBP strives to treat all travelers with respect and in a professional manner, while maintaining the focus of our mission to protect all citizens and visitors."

A customs official told Owens in a May 19 letter that there were "positive steps" in Nelson's case. She triggered an alarm since then, though her last two crossings were uneventful. Nelson now warns agents at the border about her problem before they scan her passport. She is no longer handcuffed.

"I think it's been reduced from embarrassing and nerve wracking to just frustrating," Owens said.

The head of New York's Champlain crossing gave Nelson his cell phone number so she can call before crossings so he can help. She refuses to call ahead, reasoning that the government should be responsible for fixing its own problem.

"Right now, I'm frustrated," she said, "but the terrifying could be right around the corner. Who knows?"

It's official: LeBron heads to Miami


Sorry, Chicago, New York and New Jersey. Maybe next time around, Clippers.

LeBron James chose superstar help over the comforts of home and is heading for Miami because he wants to win a championship with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

NBA, get ready: A superstar trio has just been born.

Ending weeks of will-he-or-won't-he speculation, the two-time MVP said Thursday night that he's decided to join the Heat and leave the Cavaliers after an unsuccessful seven-year quest for the ring he covets.

``I can't say it was always in my plans, because I never thought it was possible,'' James said on a made-for-Lebron live show on ESPN. ``But the things that the Miami Heat franchise have done, to free up cap space and be able to put themselves in a position this summer to have all three of us, it was hard to turn down. Those are two great players, two of the greatest players that we have in this game today.''

Olympic teammates in Beijing, James, Bosh and Wade all helped deliver gold medals.

This time, it'll be about a gold trophy, the NBA championship one - the one Wade got in 2006, the one that James and Bosh have yet to touch.

``Winning is a huge thing for me,'' James said from a studio in Greenwich, Conn., where an audience of kids from the Boys and Girls club was present for the announcement.

It's a huge victory for the Heat, which got commitments from Wade and Bosh on Wednesday. That duo, along with James, formed the upper echelon of the most-celebrated free-agent period in league history.

Heat president Pat Riley landed them all, a three-pack of stars to help shape his quest for a dynasty in Miami.

``There's magic in the number three,'' Wade said, a nod to his jersey number.

And for Cleveland, a city scorned for generations by some of sports' biggest letdowns, James' long-awaited words represented a defeat perhaps unlike any other.

James is gone. Home sweet home no more.

He said he made the decision Thursday morning and knows it won't go over well in Ohio.

``They can have mixed emotions, of course,'' James said, adding that Akron will ``always be home for me.''

His new home - part-time or otherwise - wasted no time in beginning the celebration. Horns honked outside the arena and on Miami Beach, where Wade was watching the announcement with members of his inner circle.

``It's going to be crazy,'' Wade said.

In Cleveland, the immediate reaction was predictably filled with outrage. Television images showed at least one fan burning James' No. 23 wine-and-gold jersey.

``I can't get involved in that,'' he said. ``I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James ... At the end of the day, I feel awful. I feel even worse that I wasn't able to bring an NBA championship to that city.

``To my real fans out there, I hope that you'll continue to support me all the way to Miami.''

James met with six teams on the free-agent recruiting circuit, and said the process was ``everything I thought, and more.''

``We are disappointed that LeBron James did not pick the New York Knicks, but we respect his decision,'' Knicks president Donnie Walsh said.

Added Mikhail Prokhorov, the new owner of the New Jersey Nets, another club that swung and missed on landing James: ``We have a vision of a championship team and need to invest wisely and for the long term. Fortunately, we have more than one plan to reach success, and, as I have found in all areas of my business, that is key to achieving it.''

And Bulls general manager Gar Forman said he was convinced his organization ``made the strongest of bids to acquire LeBron James during this free agency period.''

James, Bosh and Wade entered the pros in the same year, the respective Nos. 1, 4 and 5 picks in the 2003 draft. They went their separate ways: James to Cleveland, Bosh to Toronto and Wade to Miami, where he won a championship partnered with center Shaquille O'Neal in 2006. That year, James, Bosh and Wade all signed matching contracts to make sure they were all unrestricted free agents at the same time.

Season-ticket sales for the Heat's coming 41-game season were suspended Thursday afternoon after the entire supply of available seats were sold out. Not every seat has been released for sale yet and some will be held back for single-game purchases at the 19,600-capacity arena.

``I'll believe it when I see it,'' Louisville coach Rick Pitino said while attending a tournament of high school stars at Cleveland State University, co-sponsored by James and Nike, one of the 25-year-old's corporate partners.

Believe it.

The Cavaliers, a franchise that was in ruins before winning a lottery drawing and bringing James up Interstate 77 from his Akron home, have had the upper hand - until now. They were able to offer him more money - $30 million more - than any other team.

This wasn't about money, though.

Wade and Bosh both said they would take fewer dollars to make this happen. And that, combined with what Riley and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said to James on the recruiting tour, was enough to pull off the stunner.

Because they have overspent while trying to please James and win the first title by any of Cleveland's three pro sports teams since 1964, the Cavs are strapped with a few big contracts that have eaten up salary-cap space and prevented them from making roster moves to improve the team.

They've come close to winning it all with James, who at 6-foot-8 and 260 pounds has the quickness of a point guard and brute force of an NFL defensive lineman.

With the possible exception of Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant, James is the NBA's premier player, but his legacy cannot be fulfilled until he wins a championship.

If it's going to happen soon, it'll happen in Miami.

Wade has shared the spotlight in the Heat locker room before, doing so when O'Neal was there for the 2006 title run. And James said that if Wade wasn't willing to make this megadeal happen, the trio wouldn't be together.

``At this point, D-Wade, he's the unselfish guy here,'' James said. ``To be able to have Chris Bosh and LeBron James, to welcome us to his team, it's not about an individual here. Because if that was the case, D-Wade wouldn't have asked us to join him or we wouldn't have asked him if it was OK to come down here. It's not about individuals. It's about a team.''

Source: NBA

Spy suspects plead guilty, will be expelled promptly

Ten Russian spy suspects in New York will be expelled from the United States in short order in exchange for the release of four Russian prisoners accused of spying for the United States, federal officials said Thursday.

In a case reminiscent of the Cold War, the expulsions are part of a plea agreement between Russia and the United States in which the four individuals in Russia will be released to the United States, the Justice Department said.

The announcement came moments after the 10 suspects pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday to failing to register as foreign agents.

"The Russian Federation has agreed to release four individuals incarcerated in Russia for alleged contact with Western intelligence agencies," the Justice Department said Thursday in a letter to Wood.

"Three of the Russian prisoners were convicted of treason in the form of espionage on behalf of a foreign power and are serving lengthy prison terms. The Russian prisoners have all served a number of years in prison and some are in poor health. The Russian government has agreed to release the Russian prisoners and their family members for resettlement."

The letter said the government was entering into the deal in consideration of two things: the defendants' guilty pleas and execution of a U.S.-Russian agreement.

A footnote reads: "In addition, other parts of the broader agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation include the specific mechanisms for implementing the agreement, and other steps designed to further United States-Russia relations and to enhance the national security of the United States. These parts of the United States-Russia Agreement were not discussed with the defendants or their counsel by the United States."

"Some of the Russian prisoners worked for the Russian military, and/or for various Russian intelligence agencies. Three of the Russian prisoners have been accused by Russia of contacting Western intelligence agencies while they were working for the Russian (or Soviet) government."

Under the plea agreements, the defendants disclosed their true identities in court and forfeited assets attributable to the criminal offenses, the Justice Department said in a news release.

"The defendants known as 'Richard Murphy' and 'Cynthia Murphy' admitted they are Russian citizens named Vladimir Guryev and Lydia Guryev and are agents of the Russian Federation," it said.

"Defendants 'Michael Zottoli' and 'Patricia Mills' admitted they are Russian citizens named Mikhail Kutsik and Natalia Pereverzeva, and are agents of the Russian Federation;

"Defendants 'Donald Howard Heathfield' and 'Tracey Lee Ann Foley' admitted they are Russian citizens named Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova, and are agents of the Russian Federation;

"'Juan Lazaro' admitted that he is a Russian citizen named Mikhail Anatonoljevich Vasenkov and is an agent of the Russian Federation; Defendants Vicky Pelaez, Anna Chapman and Mikhail Semenko, who operated in the United States under their true names, admitted that they are agents of the Russian Federation; and Chapman and Semenko admitted they are Russian citizens," the Justice Department said.

"This was an extraordinary case, developed through years of work by investigators, intelligence lawyers and prosecutors, and the agreement we reached today provides a successful resolution for the United States and its interests," Attorney General Eric Holder said.

The pleas came as part of a deal with the U.S. government that U.S. District Judge Kimba M. Wood accepted late in the day. Before accepting their pleas, Wood told the suspects and their attorneys it was her understanding that each of the accused wished to plead guilty. An attorney for each of the alleged spies stood up one by one and answered, "Yes."

A man convicted of spying for the United States in 2004 and possibly on a list for the swap -- left Russia Thursday and arrived in Vienna, Austria, Russia's state-run news agency RIA-Novosti reported. The scientist's family told CNN he was part of the exchange.

Thursday's hearing combined the five suspects arrested in New York with five others picked up out of state.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, had ordered that Semenko, Kutsik and Pereverzeva be moved to New York "promptly," according to court documents.

Bezrukov and Vavilova were moved to New York from Boston, Massachusetts, on orders of a federal judge there.

Prosecutors said that Kutsik and Pereverzeva admitted being Russian citizens living under assumed names soon after being arrested. Authorities found evidence to support that information, prosecutors said.

Semenko is accused of aiding the plot by allegedly using private wireless computer links to communicate with a Russian government official, court documents said.

In all, 10 suspects were arrested in the United States in connection with the alleged spy plot. An 11th suspect was detained in Cyprus and released on bail. His whereabouts are unknown.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for Igor Sutyagin, who was convicted in Russia in 2004 for spying for U.S. intelligence services, said Sutyagin arrived Thursday in Vienna, RIA-Novosti reported.

Attorney Anna Stavitskaya said her client could be part of a swap involving the suspected Russian spies detained in the United States in late June.

"Igor's father received a phone call at approximately 16:30 Moscow time (8:30 a.m. ET), and he was told that he [Sutyagin] was seen getting off a plane in Vienna," the news agency quoted her as saying.

Sutyagin's mother and brother have raised the possibility that he could be exchanged for one of the spy suspects in the United States. They talked to him on Wednesday at a prison in Moscow.

Svetlana Sutyagina told CNN Wednesday that her son said he was to be released Thursday from jail and sent to London, England, by way of Vienna. According to Sutyagina, her son was on a list of 11 names submitted by the United States for the exchange of the Russians detained in the alleged spy ring in the United States. She said her son remembers just one other name on this list -- Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer sentenced for spying.

Igor Sutyagin was convicted in 2004 of passing secret data to members of U.S. intelligence services acting as employees of a British company called Alternative Futures, in exchange for monetary rewards in 1998-1999.

But in Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner denied Thursday that Igor Sutyagin was a spy.

The former arms-control researcher with the Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences was convicted in 2004 on espionage-related charges. He has been serving a 15-year sentence in a maximum-security prison in Russia's far north for allegedly passing classified information about Russia's nuclear weapons to a London-based firm.

Human rights groups consider him a political prisoner and have said that he had no access to classified information. By convicting him, the rights groups have said, the Russian government was trying to intimidate others from sharing sensitive information with other countries.

Solar-powered plane completes 26-hour flight


A solar-powered aircraft, which a team hopes will one day circle the globe, completed a 26-hour test flight in Switzerland at 9 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) Thursday.

Solar Impulse took off shortly before 7 a.m. Wednesday from an airfield in Payerne, 80 miles northeast of Geneva.

The plane was piloted by Andre Borschberg, who flew to a height of nearly 28,000 feet (8,500 meters).

"I've been a pilot for 40 years now, but this flight has been the most incredible one of my flying career," Borschberg said, according to the New York Times.

"Just sitting there and watching the battery charge level rise and rise thanks to the sun. I have just flown more than 26 hours without using a drop of fuel and without causing any pollution."

During the evening, the plane slowly descended to an altitude of 4,500 feet (1,500 meters), where it remained for the rest of the night using battery power. An hour before dawn, the plane still had six hours of flying time left in its solar-fueled batteries.

Solar Impulse has a wingspan of more than 206 feet (63 meters) -- the same as an Airbus A340 -- and is nearly 72 feet (22 meters) long. It weighs about 3,500 pounds (1,600 kilograms) and has nearly 12,000 solar cells attached to its wings and horizontal stabilizers.

The plane is equipped with four electric engines and has a top speed of about 43 miles (70 kilometers) per hour.

"The goal of the project is to have a solar-powered plane flying day and night without fuel," said the co-founder of the project, Bertrand Piccard.

The Swiss adventurer, who piloted the first nonstop balloon flight around the world in 1999 in the Breitling Orbiter III, said the test flight was "crucial for the credibility of the project."

The challenge to fly a solar plane around the world was announced in 2003.

With the success of the test flight, a second airplane will be designed to fly much farther next year, with the aim of flying across continents and the Atlantic Ocean.

In 2012, the team hopes to fly Solar Impulse around the world in five stages.

U.N. recalling envoy, closing office in Sri Lanka

The U.N. secretary-general is recalling an envoy from Sri Lanka and closing a U.N. office there because authorities in that country "failed to prevent" protests disrupting the "normal functioning" of the world body's offices in Colombo, the nation's capital.

The move is a rare rebuke of a member U.N. state by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who on Thursday called the "unruly" demonstrations organized and led by a Cabinet minister "unacceptable."

Ban recalled U.N. Resident Coordinator Neil Buhne to New York for consultations and decided that the United Nations Development Program Regional Center in Colombo will be closed.

"The Secretary-General calls upon the government of Sri Lanka to live up to its responsibilities towards the United Nations as host country, so as to ensure continuation of the vital work of the organization to assist the people of Sri Lanka without any further hindrance," the United Nations said in a statement.

Wimal Weerawansa, the construction minister, began a "fast unto death" outside the United Nations compound in Colombo Thursday to demand that the organization stop its investigation into alleged war crimes.

He told reporters he would fast until Ban dissolves a panel made up of an Indonesian, a South African and an American.

Ban appointed the three-member panel to advise him on violation of human rights and related issues when Tamil Tiger rebels were militarily defeated in May last year. The move is prelude to a war crimes inquiry.

The United Nations has been concerned about accountability issues related to the rebels' defeat, including alleged war crimes by troops and rebels -- allegations that both parties deny.

"Ban's move is intended to bring President Mahinda Rajapaksa before a war crimes tribunal. We will not allow that to happen," Weerawansa told a news conference earlier in the week.

Nearly 100 Weerawansa supporters gathered Thursday morning outside the U.N. compound. The entrance to the complex was open, however, as some staff went about their work.

In New York, U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said Ban's chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, met with Sri Lanka's ambassador to the United Nations, Palitha Kohona, who gave "full and clear" assurances of U.N. staff safety and security.

He added that Weerawansa said U.N. staff would be allowed to move in and out of the compound.

"We trust that the government of Sri Lanka will honor the commitments made in ensuring the safety and security of our staff so that they can continue the vital work being carried out by the United Nations each day to help the people of Sri Lanka," Haq told reporters in New York.

The U.N. Country Team (UNCT) confirmed that essential staff will return to normal work starting Friday.

"However, as there are some indications of demonstrators remaining outside the compound, the UNCT will assess whether all staff could return soon," Haq said.

Opposition leader Ranil Wickremasing urged the government to make a statement on how a minister ended up staging demonstrations.

"Today, Sri Lanka is on the verge of being labelled as an international fugitive facing the risk of being hauled up before the International Criminal Court," Rajapaksa's one time foreign minister and now an opposition MP, Mangala Samaraweera, told parliament.

The two English morning national newspapers also criticized the move.

The Daily Mirror said in an editorial "after all this drama the government issued one of its silliest statements ever" justifying the siege as a "peaceful demonstration."

The Island newspaper said Weerawansa and his supporters "must be condemned unreservedly for their abortive bid to hold U.N. staff incommunicado."