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(CNN) -- Better late than never. Jerome Boateng, the man who once wore the blue of Manchester City, struck an 89th minute winner as Bayern Munich claimed a dramatic 1-0 victory in its opening game of the European Champions League. It was a goal which had seldom looked like coming given Bayern's profligacy in front of goal and the inspired performance of Joe Hart, the Manchester City goalkeeper. For 88 minutes, Bayern, champion in 2013, laid siege to the City goal with Hart producing save after save to thwart the German side. And then, with 89 minutes on the clock, Bayern finally made the breakthrough courtesy of Boateng. City, so disciplined in defense and having worked tirelessly throughout, failed to clear its lines and when the ball dropped to Boateng, the defender unleashed an unstoppable effort which brushed off the back of Mario Gotze and flew into the top corner. It was harsh on a City side, which although rarely looked like winning the contest, played with a determination and tenacity which almost earned it a point. For all the hype surrounding the fixture, this game failed to catch light with both teams struggling to produce their best form. Bayern, which was beaten on home turf by City in the group stage last season, wasted a number of opportunities to win the tie on a frustrating night at the Allianz Arena. But Boateng's late strike provided welcome relief and left City's players crushed. "We fought hard all night against a good team," Hart told Sky Sports. "You know what you get when you come here. "A nasty deflection at the end has done us and Jerome Boateng comes back to haunt us. "It would have been well deserved draw, we made them work hard for everything." City will now hope to record successes against Italian side Roma and Russian club CSKA Moscow if it is to have any chance of qualifying for the last-16. Manuel Pellegrini's side is more than capable of progressing to the next round and while defeat will be hard to take, it showed more than enough to suggest it can still enjoy success in this competition. Last season, City endured a disastrous opening 12 minutes at the Allianz Arena in which it conceded twice and threatened to implode. That it did not spoke volumes for the resilience and character of Pellegrini's players, who staged a sublime fightback to claim an unlikely 3-2 victory. On this occasion, it was indebted to its goalkeeper, Joe Hart, who produced a series of outstanding saves to keep Bayern on bay. Having already squandered a fine opportunity within the opening minute after Thomas Muller failed to convert from close range, Bayern was frustrated further by Hart. The England international produced a remarkable stop to deny Muller after the Bayern man's thumping header appeared certain to find the net. Hart was then called upon once again to push deal with Gotze's deflected effort as the home side exerted its dominance. City, which has failed to win either of its previous two Premier League games, was beginning to creak under the pressure and Hart was forced to palm away David Alaba's fierce drive. Bayern, which was humiliated on its last Champions League appearance by eventual winner Real Madrid last season, continued to dominate the tie. Robert Lewandowski, an off -season signing from rival Borussia Dortmund, was next to go close, running in behind the defense before dragging his effort wide from a tight angle. Bayern, without the injured Franck Ribery, continued to pressurize City after the interval but struggled to create a clear opportunity. And when it did, with 20 minutes remaining, Hart was in the right place at the right time to thwart Muller from close range. City, which had rarely looked like threatening, might have stolen victory late on had the referee awarded a penalty when Mehdi Benatia appeared to foul David Silva. But Bayern survived and only another wonderful save by Hart prevented Boateng's rasping effort from nestling in the far corner. That save appeared to have ensured City would escape with a point as the clock ticked down. But there was still one more twist in the tale and when City failed to clear Philipp Lahm's cross, Boateng struck a powerful effort which took the faintest of deflections off Gotze's back and flew past Hart. Boateng, who spent one season at City before moving to Munich in 2011, wheeled away down the touchline to celebrate with his manager, Pep Guardiola. Sergio Aguero, so often City's savior, almost carved out a late equalizer at the death but he struck his effort wide of the post after running through on goal. In the group's other game, Roma, which takes on City next, thrashed CSKA Moscow 5-1. Elsewhere, Barcelona gained a 1-0 win over Cypriot minnow Apoel, Chelsea was held 1-1 by Schalke and Ajax recorded a 1-1 draw with Paris Saint-Germain. Porto was the big winner of the night in Group H with a 6-0 victory over BATE Borisov.

Bayern Munich defeats Manchester City 1-0 . Jerome Boateng scores 89th minute winner . Barcelona defeats Apoel 1-0 at Camp Nou . Chelsea held to 1-1 draw by Schalke .

Mogadishu, Somalia (CNN) -- Bashir Osman moves hurriedly along a white sandy beachfront, giving instructions to a driver operating a bulldozer. Near them, a large truck is ferrying away piles of rocks, clearing a sun-soaked beach lapped by the azure blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Work here is well underway as Osman presses ahead with his new multi-million dollar project: to build a luxury beach resort in Mogadishu, the capital of war-torn Somalia. "I knew one day that Mogadishu will become peace and we'll get stability," says Osman, who already owns two hotels in the city. "That is why I started to buy that land." After more than 20 years of violence, Somalia moved a step closer to stability last September after picking its first president elected on home soil in decades. And now, hope is gradually returning to parts of the East African country. Read this: Peace concert rocks Mogadishu . Although security is still an issue, Mogadishu has been experiencing an economic renaissance in recent months, boosted by members of the diaspora returning home to rebuild the country, as well as the efforts of local businessmen who never left. Osman, who stayed in Somalia throughout its conflict, hopes his new development will attract holidaymakers from abroad. He says that he's already had American and British visitors staying in his hotels. "More than 20 tourists they came," he says. "Some of them they came with their family to show Somalia, especially Mogadishu," adds Osman. "And really when they went back, they were so excited when they saw how Mogadishu looks like, how beautiful city we have, how beautiful beach we have and that is what we want to show them again and again." Osman's ambitious new projects are part of a growing building activity that is reshaping many of the neighborhoods of bullet-ridden Mogadishu. "If you go to Mogadishu the construction is very, very booming," says Osman. "That is the sign of peace," he adds. "Especially the people who came back from America and Europe, they start to open the new businesses." Mogadishu's growing economy is manifested not just in real estate and the hotel sector. Telecommunications is also on the rise, while the aviation industry is spreading its wings too, with about 15 daily domestic and international flights. "We have six different routes and basically next we'll be eight," says Osman Abdullahi, a young Somali entrepreneur who set up the ODAY express airline. "There is a lot of airlines that are planning to (come to) this country and hoping to (have) a hub over here." Abdullahi admits that leaving the United States in 2010 to return home and start his business was a "100% huge risk." He says that when moved back back to Somalia, it was too dangerous to even drive in Mogadishu. "That picture is already gone. It's a different picture today," he says. This new picture can also be witnessed at Mogadishu's seaport -- Somalia's key national asset -- where creaking cranes lift goods from the commercial ships and boats lining the harbor. The wide array of imported construction materials, household goods and food are then loaded onto rows of waiting trucks. Read this: Somali women defy danger to write history . The customs revenue collected from here has increased exponentially in recent times. And while the system is far from perfect, the income is crucial to the newly formed government in rebuilding the city, whose basic infrastructure has been shattered by war. Currently, Somalia's economy is largely supported by aid from donor governments, while the relatively peaceful business environment is propped up by the African Union Mission in Somalia African (AMISOM). The security forces squeezed the al Qaeda-linked Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab out of Mogadishu, but the insurgents still lurk and periodically launch terror attacks. Read this: The global cost of Somali piracy . Brigadier Michael Ondoga, of AMISOM, told CNN recently that although Al-Shabaab was "largely defeated" in Mogadishu, there were still issues with its members "melting into the population" and taking advantage of the city's large size to hide. But Somali security forces have succeeded in pre-empting many suicide attacks and have arrested some of the Al-Shabaab operatives hiding among the capital's population. "The situation is generally good at the moment -- the security forces are controlling it very well," Ondoga said. "Here in the city now, the big guns are quiet, the streets are lit, many (in the) diaspora are coming back, new construction is going on, business is booming," he said. And despite the long list of challenges, Mogadishu businessmen like Osman are hopeful of a brighter future. "For me I was here (during the conflict) and the situation I see now is a situation I have never seen before. So the situation now is getting better," he says.

Mogadishu, the capital of war-torn Somalia, is experiencing an economic renaissance . Entrepreneurs hope tourists will return to the country . Both real estate and hotel sectors are growing as well as investment optimism . The resurgence is partly boosted by a returning diaspora .

(CNN) -- In European soccer, the punishment for racially abusing an opponent is a 10-match ban. In American football, the same offense could result in the offending team being penalized 15 yards. That's the proposal on the table when the NFL's Competitions Committee meets next week, as the body considers penalizing players for using abusive language during games. High on the list of derogatory slurs the NFL is trying to outlaw is use of the 'N-word', while penalties for homophobic comments are also being discussed. A second incident could result in ejection. "It is a potential rule modification being discussed by our Competition Committee," the NFL statement read. "The committee has not decided on a formal proposal to our clubs, who have to approve rule changes by a 3/4 vote (24 of 32 teams). "Rule change proposals are presented to our teams at our annual league meeting in late March. "The game officials already have substantial authority to police verbal abuse/unsportsmanlike conduct and they understand the league's focus on respect." Should the Competitions Committee decide to approve the proposal, the body will then present their findings to the NFL's owners at a meeting in March. Racism became a major issue in the NFL last year after the Miami Dolphins suspended offensive lineman Richie Incognito for detrimental conduct following allegations of misconduct from teammate Jonathan Martin. An independent investigation found continuing threats and verbal and physical abuse, text messages, racial slurs and vulgar sexual comments made about Martin's mother and sister by Incognito and some of his Dolphins teammates. Another Dolphins player, an unnamed offensive lineman, was allegedly subjected to homophobic name calling and improper physical touching. Incognito's lawyer said the report is replete with errors, adding: "The truth....is that Jonathan Martin was never bullied by Richie Incognito or any member of the Dolphins' Offensive line," said Attorney Mark Schamel, in a statement to CNN. In Europe, racism generated plenty of unwanted headlines throughout 2013 - a year which featured two walk-offs involving famous Italian side AC Milan. Former Ghana international Kevin-Prince Boateng led his team off during a friendly against lower tier Pro Patria in January, while Guinea's Kevin Constant simply left the pitch himself in a separate incident during a match against Serie A side Sassuolo in July. One of the most high profile cases came in 2011 when Liverpool star Luis Suarez was banned for eight games after a football association panel found him guilty of racially abusing Manchester United's Patrice Evra. In Italy, several clubs have been punished after their fans were adjudged to have racially abused visiting players - with Lazio alone having paid $300,000 in fines last year after being charged four times by European football's governing body UEFA. Last year, UEFA announced that players and officials will face a 10-match ban if found guilty of racist abuse. Hidden Dangers? In the United States, Ozzie Newscome -- general manager of the Baltimove Ravens and a member of the NFL's competition committee -- believes the proposals need thorough testing before any implementation. "With any rule that we put into play, we have to look at it from A to Z and find out what are the unintended consequences as much as the consequences," he was quoted as saying on the NFL website. "But as it was stated in our meeting, there are mics everywhere. So, if something is being said, it's probably going to be captured somewhere. So, it would be an opportunity to get it verified if we had to." Last week, the head of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, an organization dedicated to promoting diversity and equality of job opportunity in the NFL, said he would be surprised should the move fail to go through. "I will be totally shocked if the competition committee does not uphold us on what we're trying to do," said John Wooten, the group's Chairman, in an interview with CBSSports.com. "We want this word to be policed from the parking lot to the equipment room to the locker room. Secretaries, PR people, whoever, we want it eliminated completely and want it policed everywhere." Last December, shortly after the Incognito story broke, Fritz Pollard called on NFL players to stop using the 'N-word'. "Simply put, from this day forward please choose to not use the "N" word. Period!," their statement read. "Do not take the position that you are not bothered by the word. If you tolerate the language being used casually now, at some point in the future, either as a current or former player, you may hear it directed at you. How do you think you will respond?" In an interview with ESPN, Pittsburgh Steelers safety Ryan Clark, explained that the use of racial slurs is not always as it seems. "I think it's going to be really tough to legislate this rule, to find a way to penalize everyone who uses this word," said Clark. "And it's not going to be white players using it toward black players. Most of the time you hear it, it's black players using the word."

NFL Committee to decide on whether to punish slurs with on-pitch penalties . Team guilty of abusive language would be penalized 15 yards . Decision to change rules could take place as early as next month . Mooted change follows Miami Dolphins scandal of last year .

(CNN) -- In February 2009, President Barack Obama gave this stern warning to bailed-out banks: . "You are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you've paid taxpayers back," Obama said at a town hall meeting. "You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime." He should have added: "... unless you work for the federal government." Twenty months later, as we all now know, a government agency called the General Services Administration rolled into Vegas on $822,000 worth of taxpayers' dimes so that 300 federal employees could enjoy a luxury spa, a clown show and a mind-reader, among other "over the top" entertainments at a regional training conference. The revelation, unearthed by an internal inspector general, has resulted in two senior-level firings and the resignation of GSA chief Martha Johnson, while triggering the usual amount of political japery in Washington. But it's worth lingering on the contrast between this incident and Obama's original bank target. The bailed-out bank that had been planning to send its most valuable employees to Vegas -- as it had been doing for years -- was Wells Fargo. One fact largely overlooked in the national shaming campaign that proved effective enough to derail the trip was that Wells Fargo didn't want the bailout. Or at least said it didn't when then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson summoned the nation's top nine private bankers to Washington on October 13, 2008. Here's how Time magazine described the scene: "[T]he nine bank bosses, assembled in the Treasury's imposing boardroom, were each handed a piece of paper with the terms: $25 billion of preferred shares each from Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America. In return for the capital, the U.S. would collect a 5% dividend in the first five years. Although Wells Fargo chairman Richard Kovacevich resisted, Paulson gave the bankers no choice." Newsweek's Michael Hirsh put it even more explicitly, and presciently: "Richard Kovacevich had a point. Why should his company, Wells Fargo, sign its freedom (and his compensation) away to the U.S. Treasury when, unlike many other banks, it hadn't overloaded itself with risky, mortgage-backed securities? The Wells Fargo chairman eventually agreed Monday to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's capital injection plan -- it was, frankly, an offer he couldn't refuse -- but Kovacevich's objections still resonate. Amid the continuing market turmoil, there is a sense that all of us are being asked to assume collective guilt for the large, but still identifiable, group of rogues and villains who got us into this mess. And then we're supposed to just forget about it." A funny thing about collective shame -- we are happy to administer it on CEOs who get their arms twisted by the feds, yet we shy away from applying it to one of the only truly collective entities we have: taxpayer-funded government. We love to bash Goldman Sachs for trading exotic mortgage-backed derivatives, but we are far less likely to even point out that the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were trailblazers on the derivatives-trading fronts. It shouldn't be surprising in this climate that federal employees would assume they get to play under different ethical rules and public scrutiny than fat-cat bankers. After all, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, said last month that discretionary spending has been cut "to the limit," and Obama just this week thundered that the House GOP's recently proposed budget -- which, by the way, increases spending from $3.5 trillion to $4.9 trillion over the next decade -- amounts to "social Darwinism" that deliberately guts the middle class. And let's not forget what the GSA does: As The New York Times puts it, the agency is "essentially the government's personal shopper for big-ticket items, like buying and leasing buildings and cars." These are precisely the people tasked with making sure taxpayer dollars are spent most wisely. We have a federal government on autopilot, borrowing 40 cents on every dollar, after a decade-plus bipartisan spending binge that has doubled the budget in nominal terms. Washington is a boomtown, gentrifying rapidly as the rest of the country eagerly awaits the appearance of green shoots. The surprise isn't that a federal agency went wild, or even that it got caught. What remains a genuine stumper is that the rest of the country hasn't quite figured out that the real Sin City has relocated 2,500 miles east. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Matt Welch.

Matt Welch says Obama told bailed-out banks in 2009 to curb corporate junket spending . He says $822,000 GSA junket shows our lecturing government guilty of same thing . He says we like to shame bankers even as Washington wastes, overspends . Welch: Vegas junket not as surprising as Americans not seeing real Sin City is D.C.

(CNN) -- The Beatles appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on February 9, 1964, 50 years ago next month. Here are five things you need to know to understand Beatlemania and the significance of that performance. 1. Who was Ed Sullivan? Edward Vincent Sullivan was not what you think of as a TV personality. He was a baggy-eyed, malaprop-mouthed, stiff-bodied former newspaper columnist who looked like Richard Nixon. A wall had more charisma. Could Beatlemania happen today? But he was the perfect host. He said his introductions and got out of the way. His guests were the stars -- and he could book almost everybody, thanks to his deep contacts. You might compare his show to an hour of Web-surfing. It featured everybody from plate-spinners to comedians to theatrical performances to pop stars, all in one place. Animal acts, too. "The Ed Sullivan Show," originally called "Toast of the Town," went on the air in 1948 and lasted for 23 years. 2. Were The Beatles really unknown in America? Not completely. In Britain, they'd had No. 1 singles for several months, starting with "Please Please Me" in February 1963, and by fall Beatlemania was in full swing. (The word "Beatlemania" first gained wide currency in October after the band's performance on a major UK TV show, "Sunday Night at the London Palladium.") Sullivan first encountered the band by accident -- he was stuck at London's Heathrow Airport when they returned from Sweden to thousands of fans on October 31 -- but the group was on the show's radar before then, Sullivan staffer Vince Calandra says. The show put out a press release about The Beatles' three-show booking in mid-December, and The New Yorker ran a small item in its December 28, 1963, issue. The Beatles had also appeared in several U.S. news reports. Did you get swept up in Beatlemania? Share your memories here . In December, the band's U.S. label, Capitol Records, started a marketing blitz -- "The Beatles Are Coming!" -- and by January their songs were all over the radio. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" hit No. 1 in the United States on February 1, dethroning balladeer Bobby Vinton's "There! I've Said It Again." But for all that, The Beatles hadn't performed in America. With the Sullivan show, they had one of the biggest stages in the country. 3. Who was there? CBS received 50,000 requests for the 728 seats in New York's CBS Studio 50, since renamed the Ed Sullivan Theater and now home to "The Late Show with David Letterman." Among the celebrities who attended either the live show or the dress rehearsal: Kathy and Nancy Cronkite (Walter's daughters) Randy Paar (talk-show host Jack's daughter) and Julie and Tricia Nixon (Richard's daughters, invited by Randy Paar). Also there: future Monkee Davy Jones, who performed with the cast of "Oliver!" 4. Wait. It wasn't just The Beatles? No. The band played two sets, opening the show with "All My Loving," "Till There Was You" and "She Loves You" and returning with "I Saw Her Standing There" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand." In between, acts included magician Fred Kaps, impressionist (and future "Batman" Riddler) Frank Gorshin, comedians Charlie Brill & Mitzi McCall, Welsh singer Tessie O'Shea, Broadway star Georgia Brown and the "Oliver!" cast, and acrobats Wells & the Four Fays. 5. What happened after the show? Though the audience loved them and millions of new fans were created that night, some reviewers were less enthusiastic. "The cynical turnover in teen-age trauma received recognition last night in the businesslike appearance of The Beatles on the 'Ed Sullivan Show,' " wrote the unimpressed New York Times TV critic Jack Gould. The ratings, however, were spectactular: 45.3% of U.S. TV households tuned in, representing 73 million people -- a record for an entertainment program up to that time. From New York, The Beatles took a train to the nation's capital, where they played at the Washington Coliseum on February 11, then returned to New York for two Carnegie Hall concerts on February 12. Then it was off to Florida for the group's second Sullivan appearance -- a performance at Miami Beach's Deauville Hotel on February 16. The ratings for the second Sullivan show were almost as good as the first. On February 22, The Beatles returned to Britain, where they were greeted by 10,000 fans at Heathrow Airport. The third Sullivan appearance, taped before the February 9 show, aired the next day.

50th anniversary of Beatles on "Ed Sullivan Show" is February 9 . Sullivan was major TV figure of the time, hosted famed variety show . Among those at broadcast: future Monkee Davy Jones . Beatles were on Sullivan three straight weeks .

(CNN) -- Call it odd, but I'm a self-appointed airport sleuth. I apply this title to travelers who weave their way in and out of airport terminals, bypassing lines, crowds and stress, and ultimately finding devilish gratification in knowing what others don't. As a longtime resident of Atlanta, I've passed through the world's busiest airport hundreds of times and have a few handy tricks that make life a bit easier, faster and more comfortable. It's not very sleuth-like of me to share my secrets, but my hope is you'll share yours, and together, we can expand our sleuth-like ways ... 1. If you're dropping off or picking up someone from the north or south side, use the downstairs entrance instead of the upstairs. There are check-in kiosks and baggage services below (south side only) and barely any lines or even cops to tell you to keep moving. It's guaranteed to save you time. Plus, you avoid the crowds and chaos above as you slip past the masses with ease. 2. There's a lesser-known security checkpoint with six lanes by the American check-in counter on the north side. Also, on the south side past Delta ticketing and the Brooks Brothers store, you'll see Delta's own set of four security lanes. If the main security is super busy, try either of these as a possible faster option, no matter which airline you're flying. Road warriors' best tips for smooth travel . 3. If you're lucky enough to be departing from the T Gate, enter through the side security lanes, (either north or south) and then walk to the T Gate. This is actually faster than going through the main security and taking the tram. I love the T Gate! 4. When heading to baggage claim after your flight arrives (from A, B, C, D or E terminals), be sure to board the very first car of the tram. This will let you out in front of the hordes of people now behind you and up the escalator to baggage claim first. Freedom! It's one of my favorite secrets, so shhh ... 5. Wi-Fi isn't free at the airport, unless you're at the E Terminal food court. Hojeij Branded Foods provides the free service that can help time slip on by. So if you have a long layover, take the tram to E Terminal, and maybe you'll have the added benefit of meeting a cute international man (or woman) of mystery. What airport sleuth wouldn't love that? 6. Exhausted from traveling, and have a long layover? Go to Minute Suites at B Terminal. Here, full-service secluded napping stations are offered for $30 an hour. Minute Suites was the first of its kind in the country. (Philadelphia International Airport is now the second.) Besides a daybed and blankets, each suite offers a high-definition television and workstation with a phone, desk, office chair and Internet. As soon as you find out your flight is delayed, be the sleuth that you are and leave your irked co-passengers behind in exchange for some quiet time with your feet up, door shut, blanket tucked and the TV tuned to "Million Dollar Decorators." (Oh, how I love that show.) This isn't the airline I signed up for . 7. Flying can be uncomfortable enough, so I believe in making airport time a bit indulgent. Concourse A (across from the food court) and C (opposite Gate C37) have an XPresSpa. Prices are $20 for a manicure or $25 for a 10-minute massage. Or grab an old-fashioned shoeshine offered at gates A20 and B17. A bit of glam goes a long way for the airport sleuth. 8. Sign up for Trak-a-Flight, the free service offered by Atlanta Airport that provides updated flight information to e-mail accounts, PDAs or mobile devices. This service provides instant access to any changes made to your flight. Knowledge is key if you want to take this title seriously. 9. Want to forgo fast food for a fine dining experience? Then head to the E Concourse and grab a seat at "One Flew South." A couple of entree highlights are Thyme Roasted Pork Belly and Fennel and Coriander crusted Lamb Tenderloin. The restaurant also has an excellent sushi menu. For dessert, I suggest the sublime red wine and ginger-poached plums that make you forget you're at an airport. Or if you're just in need of a scrumptious cocktail, saddle up to the bar for the "Portrait of a Bartender," made with Finian's Irish Whiskey, St. Germain Elderflower and organic bitters. That delicious Elderflower makes me sigh with happiness every time. MatadorNetwork: Tips for speaking English abroad . Have some secret tips to share in navigating ATL or your own hometown airport? I want in on them! Please share your comments and suggestions below. And shhh ... let's keep this between us!

A self-proclaimed airport sleuth shares tricks to make traveling easier, faster and comfortable . Hartsfield International's E Terminal food court is the only area with free Wi-Fi . Minute Suites at B Terminal offers secluded napping stations for $30 an hour .

(CNN) -- Almost every American ally in the Middle East is desperately calling out for help, and we are ignoring them. Turkey, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain -- and behind closed doors, even Egypt -- want American involvement in Syria to stop the blood bath. But the twin ghosts of Iraq and Afghanistan seem to have paralyzed America in the Arab world. On Thursday, Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will visit President Barack Obama in Washington. This is an ideal opportunity to throw American weight behind greater Turkish leadership in resolving the Syrian conflict -- and declare as much from the White House. The conflict is spreading fast outside of Syria, and unless regional powers such as Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia are empowered to act militarily, and swiftly, many more lives will be lost and the Middle East further destabilized. Only this weekend, Bashar al-Assad's intelligence agencies were linked to two car bombings in Hatay, Turkey, that killed more than 50 people and injured more than 100. Syria is now home to radical Sunni Islamists from across the globe who want to bring down al-Assad, and Shiite fighters from Hezbollah who support the Syrian president. Beyond geopolitics and games of nation states, Syria is a raw human disaster: Some 80,000 people have been killed, 1 million refugees have fled to neighboring countries, and millions more are displaced inside Syria. For how much longer will we stand by and watch? I oppose direct U.S. military intervention in Syria, but recent actions by Israel, daring attacks on Turkey and last month's rapprochement between these two important nations means that there is now new scope for greater regional involvement in Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry is right to pursue a new diplomatic settlement through Moscow, but his hand is only as strong as the force gathering on al-Assad's doorsteps. In other words, let us say yes to diplomacy, but not be naïve and think that al-Assad and his Iranian backers cannot outmaneuver the wiliest diplomats. They have rebuffed at least five other such attempts. Diplomacy must be backed by force. Al-Assad understands the language of military strength -- of armies keeping fighting factions apart, aircrafts enforcing a "no-fly" zone, bombs on his runways, tanks outside his presidential palace, ships on the seas. That is not to say that the killings continue. Erdogan has been sensitive when dealing with PKK terrorists in not killing them for fear of collateral damage. That same spirit of protecting human lives must inform Turkish leadership in Syria. First, al-Assad and his family need to leave Syria for Russia, Iran or elsewhere. Their days of ruling like a mafia are over. Large segments of the Syrian people have lost their fear of al-Assad, and will not settle for anything less than his departure. He must either do so freely and immediately, or meet the fate of Moammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein. Second, al-Assad is not the protector of Syria's minorities, as many mistakenly believe. He is the cause of mass killings that are likely to get worse without external intervention. Genocide of Syria's minorities will have a ripple effect on tribes and religious minorities in Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan. Turkey and regional and NATO forces should make it their utmost priority to prevent it. Third, with all their divisions and sectarian pettiness, it is the Syrian opposition that must own Syria. Colin Powell's admonition that "If you break it, you own it" cannot be applied to outside countries with Syria -- the owners must be the Syrian opposition (with all its flaws), not Turkey, far less Israel or Saudi Arabia or others who "break" al-Assad's grip. Fourth, removing al-Assad and safeguarding Syrian communities is not the end, but a new beginning. Syria can go in any number of directions. The challenge from Islamist radicalism and terrorism inside Syria is real -- they can be confronted there, and prevented from traveling elsewhere and spreading their virus of violence. As Syria works toward rebuilding its infrastructure, economy, society and polity, the United States cannot turn its back on a country that shares borders with Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Israel and Lebanon. For now, Washington needs to respond to the calls of our allies in the Middle East, and in doing so, bring Turks, Israelis and Arabs closer in cooperation as they seek to liberate Syria from the clutches of a corrupt clan and ensure it remains free from the fanatics of Islamist fundamentalism. Closer engagement by these three regional forces through U.S. assistance now also puts in place roots for a post-al-Assad Syria that is less hostile to Israel. America does not need to lead always; it can and must support its allies. Follow CNN Opinion on Twitter. Join the conversation on Facebook. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ed Husain.

Ed Husain: Mideast allies want U.S. involvement to stop Syria violence, but U.S. reluctant . He says when Obama meets with Turkey's prime minister, he should back Turkey taking lead . Husain: Diplomacy needed, but Bashar-al-Assad is wily, understands force . He says Israelis, Arabs, Turks can cooperate to help rid Syria of al-Assad with U.S. help .

(CNN) -- Sid Caesar, who died Wednesday at 91, didn't saunter, glide, bounce or skip into your living room the way other comedy TV stars did. He came at you like a football lineman, charging, roaring, enveloping your senses and tickling them relentlessly with sounds and expressions you either didn't expect or had never heard before. It's hard to believe that someone who was so mercurial and explosive a physical presence could become so beloved and influential an icon of the "cool" medium of television in its early years. And yet, at the peak of his fame in the early and mid-1950s, Caesar's audience was broad enough to encompass both working and thinking classes. Imagine what could happen if a great silent-film comedian had passed a crash course in Borscht-belt patter with flying colors, slinging words as he executed pratfalls. Then again, don't imagine. Watch any vintage black-and-white video excerpt from "Your Show of Shows" (1951-1954) or "Caesar's Hour" (1954-1957). You'll see Caesar in sketches where his characters speak a faux-foreign dialect that, though it's gibberish in at least two languages, makes hilarious sense throughout. You'll see his big fleshy face in tight close-up forcing tears out of his eyes as the fiscally challenged suburban husband whose wife just charged a mink coat to his account. Watch the contortions he puts himself through as he plays a frantically reluctant featured guest on a spoof of the "This is Your Life" TV show. The words and comedy of Sid Caesar . You say you're not old enough to remember that vintage TV show? Doesn't matter. It may help to know something about the wretched excesses of 1950s pre-rock 'n' roll pop music to recognize what's being satirized by "The Three Haircuts," a trio of pompous, pompadoured vocalists played by Caesar and sidekicks Carl Reiner and Howard Morris. But if you don't, it won't keep you from laughing yourself stupid at the routine. By the same token, you don't need to have seen the 1953 Oscar-winning movie "From Here to Eternity" to appreciate the beautifully timed expression on Caesar's face at the climax of the parody version when he realizes -- never mind. Just watch it. Great comedy is evergreen, no matter what color it's shot in. Though the razzmatazz culture of post-war America inspired Caesar's all-star teams of writers, it was those same writers -- including Reiner, Mel Brooks, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Mel Tolkin -- who went on to establish and inspire American comedic standards for the remaining decades of the 20th century and into the next one. "Your Show of Shows," after all, aired live on NBC on Saturday nights just as "Saturday Night Live" has for almost 40 years. When you watch a classy contemporary sitcom, whether it's ABC's "Modern Family" or HBO's "Veep," the character-driven, sophisticated slapstick has its precedents in many of the domestic sketches and satiric skits of the Caesar shows. Caesar's roughneck persona seemed an unlikely vessel for such versatile, urbane humor. But along with his slam-bang agility, he displayed the instincts and timing of a classically trained musician. Much like the leader of a jazz ensemble, Caesar had a cultivated ear, willing to listen carefully and generously to both his writers and his fellow ensemble members Reiner, Morris, Imogene Coca and Nanette Fabray, who became as invaluable to the success of those classic shows as Caesar himself. He was also moody and temperamental. To the end of his life, he regaled interviewers with the story of how, one night in Chicago, he became so enraged at Mel Brooks that he dangled him from an 18th-story window. Brooks, apparently, didn't resent him for it, and cast Caesar in his 1976 "Silent Movie," which showcased the great man's genius for wordless wit. The years between the last "Caesar's Hour" in 1957 and "Silent Movie" were erratic and not always happy ones for Caesar. He subdued addictions to alcohol and pills, but never caught another wave like the one he rode in the Eisenhower years. Still, he lived long enough to savor the resounding impact he and his work would have on several generations of comics, most of whom, talented as they were, couldn't explode the way Sid Caesar could. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gene Seymour.

Gene Seymour: Sid Caesar was explosive, hilarious comic, very popular in TV's early days . He says in the '50s, Caesar's TV shows appealed to both working and thinking classes . His writers included Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Neil Simon; he was hugely influential . Seymour: He was impulsive, conquered addictions, lived long to see impact of his work .

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- A man suspected of murdering a doctor in Chicago, Illinois, is trying to skirt the U.S. justice system by fleeing to the French island territory of St. Martin, according to prosecutors. Dr. David Cornbleet, a dermatologist, was murdered in his Chicago office in October, 2006. "He's doing everything possible to protect himself," said Bernie Murray, chief of criminal prosecution for the Cook County State's Attorney's Office in Illinois. "At the end of the day, he's making a mockery of both French law and United States law." After fleeing to St. Martin, Hans Peterson, 29, turned himself in to French authorities and allegedly confessed to murdering Dr. David Cornbleet in October, 2006. Jon Cornbleet, Dr. Cornbleet's son, said he has seen a four-page confession in which Peterson admits to attacking and killing David Cornbleet in his Chicago office. Despite the alleged confession, Peterson is beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. As a French national on French soil, he cannot be sent to the United States for trial, according to a 2002 extradition treaty between the two countries. The United States, by contrast, is allowed to extradite U.S. citizens to France, under the treaty. U.S. Sens. Barack Obama and Dick Durbin, both of Illinois, sent letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking for help extraditing Peterson. In response to the senators, the State Department wrote it "will continue to make every effort with the government of France to see that justice is served in this case." Sens. Durbin and Obama also wrote the French government requesting extradition. French Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Francois Rivasseau, responded "the French government will not be able to extradite Mr. Peterson." "French laws provide in that case for trial on French territory by French justice," he said in a statement. Murray of the Cook County State's Attorney's Office said he favors extradition over a French trial because he believes French laws are more lenient. He said a life sentence there is only 22 years. In Illinois, Murray said, murder is punishable by a minimum of 20 years in prison and possibly much more. "It goes up to 60 or 80 or 100 years, possibly life, possibly the death sentence, depending on the facts surrounding the crime," Murray said. Hoping to persuade the French to extradite Peterson, Murray and the Cornbleet family said they would not seek the death penalty in the case. There is currently a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois. According to the victim's son, Jon Cornbleet, Peterson first met Dr. Cornbleet in 2002 when he was living in Chicago and went to see him for an acne problem. His father prescribed a popular acne medication, which, according to Jon Cornbleet, Peterson said made him impotent. It is believed this is the only time the two met before the night of the murder. Peterson's father, Dr. Thomas Peterson, said his son was an "okay kid who had a little depression." He said his son took just two pills, but that the acne medication made him psychotic. Dr. Cornbleet's daughter, Jocelyn, found his body in his office. "I could see on the second closed door that there was blood across it," she told CNN. "I knew that somebody had killed him." Jon Cornbleet said his father was stabbed more than 20 times. For months, the case went unsolved, even though authorities said there was DNA evidence at the scene. Then, over the summer, investigators got a tip from a U.S. Marine on leave from Iraq. The Marine said a friend told him, "I think my former roommate killed someone." The Marine reached out to the Cornbleets through a posting they had made on myspace.com and also contacted Chicago police. He told the Cornbleet family Peterson was living in New York around the time of the murder. The family believes Peterson drove from New York to Chicago, killed Dr. Cornbleet, and then drove back to New York, reportedly telling friends he had "completed his mission." The Cornbleet family said video surveillance from Dr. Cornbleet's office building shows Peterson entering and leaving the premises on the night of the crime. Using the Marine's tip, DNA evidence and the surveillance video Chicago police got a warrant to arrest Peterson. But before they could track him down, Peterson fled to St. Martin. So far, Peterson has yet to be charged with a crime. He is being held in jail on the French Island of Guadeloupe. The French government did not return CNN's phone calls for this story. Jocelyn and Jon Cornbleet said they will continue to fight for his extradition. "We're gonna go until there's absolutely nothing more we can do," Jocelyn Cornbleet said. "'Til we get justice." E-mail to a friend .

Hans Peterson suspected of a murdering a Chicago dermatologist . He fled to St. Martin, a French territory, before police could question him . Because he is a French national, the government won't extradite him . The victim's family and U.S. senators from Illinois lobby for extradition .

(CNN) -- Can I level with you? The guy made me nervous. All those flashy jump cuts and strobe-like visual progressions from one scene to another! I don't go to movies to make myself more nervous. I go to movies to slow time down or make it vanish altogether. The movies of Tony Scott, who jumped to his death Sunday from a bridge in Los Angeles, were high, hard adrenaline shots injected into the audience's collective nervous system to make time (and your head) explode. His name on the credits virtually assured the moviegoer of a ride that rivaled Disney World's Space Mountain for gut-wrenching, head-spinning thrills that would leave you wobbly at the end. British director Tony Scott dead after jumping from California bridge . They weren't to everyone's taste -- and not always to mine. And yet, I am altogether certain that over the next several decades, Scott's movies will be among the very first pored over by cinema scholars tracing the development of the action-movie genre, cultural historians seeking clues as to the jittery mood swings of the American mindset at the turn of the 21st century and aspiring filmmakers who simply want to know how the hell he mesmerized people in the first place. Establishing Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington as action movie icons, however considerable (or unlikely) that achievement, isn't even half of Scott's legacy. Unlike his older brother Ridley, whose credits roamed the categorical countryside from science fiction ("Blade Runner," "Alien") to period adventure ("Gladiator," "Kingdom of Heaven") to contemporary bloodbaths ("American Gangster," "Black Hawk Down"), Tony Scott maintained a signature style throughout his career that arguably yielded a steadier rate of success. His first feature, the 1983 erotic vampire mood piece "The Hunger," ended up a relative anomaly (except in sheer style) to such high-octane thrill machines as "Top Gun" (1986), "Revenge" (1990), "The Last Boy Scout" (1991), "True Romance" (1993), "Crimson Tide" (1995), "Enemy of the State" (1998), "Man on Fire" (2004), "Domino" (2005), "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" (2009) and "Unstoppable" (2010). "Top Gun" director left notes before jump . Most of these movies -- and their protagonists -- were governed by seemingly impossible deadlines. To watch "Last Boy Scout," "Crimson Tide," "Enemy of the State," "Pelham" and "Unstoppable" is to feel pressed for time. Their heroes had no time to think, and neither did you. Propulsion, urgency, energy-for-the-sake-of-its-expenditure were the only guiding principles of Scott's movies, and yet as you were pressed against your seat by their momentum, you somehow couldn't help being transfixed by the images. The change of each frame from oily to sooty, from sleek to parched, from cramped to wide-open, seemed at once abrupt and flowing. Maybe the din and distortions weren't your flagon of grog. But few filmmakers before or since have been able to consistently orchestrate such maddening elements into a metal rock flow. Having a good script always helps -- and Quentin Tarantino's contributions to both "True Romance" and "Crimson Tide" make those the Tony Scott movies that the smarty-pants critics like to single out. "Top Gun" will remain the first thing people mention when they mention his name, and there's a lot to be said for the charm and efficiency of the relatively laid-back but no less riveting "Unstoppable." (It's almost as if he was starting to calm down at last.) But grump that I am, the Scott movie I'm going to single out for special scrutiny is one of his least successful -- at least, financially. "Domino," whose story was inspired by the real-life adventures of a movie star's daughter turned bounty hunter (played by Keira Knightley) is one of the more subversive action epics ever made, precisely because of the things that drive you crazy about it: set pieces that make you dizzy and giddy at the same time, patchwork plot devices that literally veer all over the map, lighting and scenery oozing raw menace and hyperbolic performances that somehow stay fixed on the narrative core. I didn't always enjoy it as I was watching it. But parts of it stuck with me long afterward. I could say the same for most of Tony Scott's films -- and, for that matter, his entire career. Follow CNN Opinion on Twitter. Join the conversation on Facebook. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gene Seymour.

Gene Seymour says Tony Scott films were adrenaline shots injected into the audience . He says scholars will see them as emblematic of jittery U.S. mindset at dawn of 21st century . He says films' protagonists -- Washington, Cruise among them -- faced impossible deadlines . Seymour: Few could orchestrate maddening elements into metal rock flow like Scott .

(CNN) -- Only two people know how the affair started, but the world knows now about its inglorious end. Admitting to the extramarital affair, David Petraeus stepped down as director of the CIA on Friday in a surprise move that shocked the intelligence community just days after President Barack Obama was re-elected. Immediate praise for the man poured in. The president hailed Petraeus' dedication and patriotism, while leaders from both parties said he would be missed. It appeared an abrupt end to a spectacularly successful career in public service. "After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours," Petraeus said in a letter to colleagues, explaining his decision to step down. "Teddy Roosevelt once observed that life's greatest gift is the opportunity to work hard at work worth doing. I will always treasure my opportunity to have done that with you and I will always regret the circumstances that brought that work with you to an end," he said. According to a U.S. official, the FBI had a tip that Petraeus was involved with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, and investigated the alleged affair to determine whether it posed a security risk. The FBI was not investigating Petraeus for wrongdoing. The concern was that he could potentially be blackmailed or put "in a vulnerable spot," the official said. Broadwell spent a year with Petraeus in Afghanistan interviewing him for the book she co-wrote, "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus." It is not clear whether Broadwell is the woman with whom Petraeus has admitted having an affair. CNN has not been able to reach Broadwell for comment. Other sources close to the CIA director told HLN anchor Kyra Phillips that the woman involved in the affair was not under Petraeus' command. The woman was not a member of the armed forces and not a CIA employee, they said. Petraeus, 60, had a distinguished 37-year career in the military before joining the CIA, helping turn the tide against insurgents while commanding forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earning praise from both sides of the political aisle, the retired four-star general took the helm of the CIA in September 2011. Politicians react to the resignation . Director of National Intelligence James Clapper hailed Petraeus, saying his "decision to step down represents the loss of one of our nation's most respected public servants." Petraeus met with Obama on Thursday to offer his resignation and explain the circumstances behind it, according to a senior administration official. The president accepted Petraeus' resignation during a phone call Friday, said the official. "By any measure, he was one of the outstanding general officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end," Obama said in a statement. "As director of the Central Intelligence Agency, he has continued to serve with characteristic intellectual rigor, dedication and patriotism." The president expressed confidence that the CIA will continue to move forward, under the direction of Acting Director Michael Morell. Morell, a career agency officer, was sworn in as deputy director of the CIA in May 2010. He previously served as associate deputy director and director for intelligence. Petraeus assumed command of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces Afghanistan in July 2010, after serving for more than 20 months as commander of United States Central Command. He previously commanded multinational forces in Iraq, leading the so-called surge. The general literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency techniques by overseeing development of the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual. Before his nomination as CIA director, Petraeus was considered the nation's most well-known and popular military leader since Colin Powell. But his reputation was potentially tarnished by the controversy over the terror attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in September. Petraeus was expected to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee next week on the Benghazi attack. Morell will take his place, according to the office of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is chairman of that committee. "I wish President Obama had not accepted this resignation, but I understand and respect the decision. David Petraeus is one of America's best and brightest, and all Americans should be grateful for his service," she said. Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, described Petraeus as a "true American patriot." "This is a real loss for the country; a real loss for the CIA," he told CNN's Erin Burnett. Petraeus and his wife, Holly, live in Virginia. They have two grown children. CNN's Carol Cratty, Terry Frieden, Suzanne Kelly and Jill Dougherty contributed to this report.

David Petraeus, a retired four-star general, led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan . Source: The FBI investigated a tip that he was involved with his biographer . President Obama praises Petraeus' dedication and patriotism . He and his wife, Holly, live in Virginia, and have two grown children .

(CNN) -- Should the government keep its hands off online shopping? According to the massive response to our stories on a proposed Internet sales tax, many of you think so. On Monday, the U.S. Senate approved the Marketplace Fairness Act. It would allow governments to collect taxes on sales that Internet retailers, from titans such as Amazon and eBay to independent app developers, make in their state. The point, supporters say, is to put traditional brick-and-mortar retailers on equal footing with digital storefronts that, in many cases, haven't been required to add tax to their prices. But in an age when many of us have gotten used to one-click, 24-hour shopping on our laptops, tablets and phones, not many of the readers of our story Monday explaining the bill seemed overly excited at the prospect. "I will never set foot in another brick and mortar store again," wrote a commenter using the screen name Riynko (who was perhaps exaggerating to make a point). "Their whining just cost us all a lot of money. Let this be the nail in their coffin." A lot of the objections reflected traditional political arguments. Conservative-minded commenters looked at the bill not as a bid for fairness but as government digging into our wallets once again. "Its criminal how they tax every dollar you make several times over," wrote CNN commenter Diraphe. "They tax your earnings, tax your spending, tax your property, special taxes, tax your utilities, tax your gas. ... They even tax you when you die!" Added reader CactusThorn: "Politicians never saw a source of income they didn't want to tap. Then they waste the money on useless projects and regulations." But anti-tax arguments sometimes transcended the usual left-right battles. Some comments reflected the "keep your hands off our Internet" mindset that has grown among online users who fear the impact both government and big business could have on a free and open Web. Reddit co-founder: I'm not mayor of the Internet . The personal philosophies of billions of Web users obviously run the gamut. But the Internet has always had a sort of Wild West feel to it, and some commenters argue that is why it's grown into the unprecedented force its become. "Watching Congress debate the Marketplace Fairness Act, I'm reminded of the Aesop's fable where a man and his wife had a goose that laid golden eggs," commenter nutemanlll wrote. "Thinking there may be more value to what's inside the goose than the golden eggs it laid, they killed it, only to realize the value was the golden eggs." On Twitter, Cynthia Schames said that's what she's worried about. Schames runs Abbey Post, an online marketplace where users buy and sell plus-sized fashions. "Oh goody, more taxes!" was her immediate, sarcastic reaction to a post from the CNN Tech Twitter account. "Abbey Post is a 2-way marketplace. Individuals buy and sell. Only physical retailers and government wastrels want this new tax." In fairness, the bill as written would only tax sales by online businesses that do more than $1 million in sales annually outside states where they have physical operations. That would, at least in theory, exempt digital mom-and-pop shops and the random Etsy crafter. But corporations with tax attorneys on speed-dial have a way of negotiating such things, as one reader pointed out. "All it will do is rearrange the Internet businesses," commenter 412ctruth wrote. "If an eBay business does more than 1 million in business they just have to divide their company into segments. Say it is women's clothing store, they just create a women's shoe store, a women's coat and jacket store, and a women's clothing store, all doing less than 1 million dollars each and no taxes." IT pro and photographer Christopher Souser replied to us on Twitter: "It wont help small businesses, it will only help large retailers. Online and offline; choking out small online retailers." Of course, even among engaged Web users, disdain for the plan wasn't unanimous. Some people said that with e-commerce as prominent as it's become, it's only fair that states should get a cut. Others worried about a future in which Web-based sales destroy hometown operations. "As a small business owner (and right-leaning individual) I applaud this tax," commenter imo wrote. "As a consumer it is not welcomed, but as a small business trying to compete with large corporations it absolutely levels the playing field." Owning a company with stores in 16 states means having to collect sales taxes in all of them, while major Web players with operations in just one or two don't, the commenter wrote. "There are many taxes that I disagree with, but this is not one of them." For it to become a reality, the bill must now clear the Republican-controlled House and be signed by President Barack Obama. It got overwhelming support from Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, but the House, much like the Internet, has been known to dance to its own tune on such matters.

CNN commenters mostly dislike the idea of an Internet sales tax . Senate passed a bill that lets governments collect on sales in their states . Critics say plan would hurt small online retailers . Commenter: "Politicians never saw a source of income they didn't want to tap"

(CNN) -- Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi called Thursday for the U.N. Security Council to carry out an independent fact-gathering mission on Monday's NATO attack in the city of Surman, which resulted in civilian casualties. "The Security Council should hold an urgent meeting to discuss the matter and stop this barbaric attack," he said in a nationally televised address. In the attack, five houses were hit in Surman, which is west of Tripoli, and 15 people died, including three children, according to a government spokesman. NATO has said the target was a command-and-control communications node involved in coordinating attacks on the Libyan people. "While NATO cannot confirm reports of casualties, we would regret any loss of civilian life and we go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties," the organization said on its website. "This is in stark contrast to the Gadhafi regime, which continues its policy of systematic and sustained violence against the people of Libya." But Gadhafi angrily rejected the claim that the compound was anything but a residential area. "This is not a military factory, munition factory or military port or a fortified castle," he said as video lingered over rubble. "It has no military identity." "This is the jungle rule," he continued. "The infidels rule. You don't have any conscience." He blamed the members of the Security Council who approved the resolution in March that authorized the use of military force to protect unarmed anti-government Libyan demonstrators. "You will be responsible for any outcome," he threatened, "And you will regret it." Gadhafi singled out U.S. President Barack Obama for blame. "Originally, you're from Africa and originally Arab as well," he said. "You sold out to America. Where will you go? On Judgment Day, you will be in hell. Our dead will be in heaven, and your dead will be in hell. You ought to feel ashamed." Gadhafi then directed his vitriol toward the "so-called heroic pilots" who flew the NATO planes involved in the attack. "You know we don't have any air defenses or military planes," the Libyan leader said, referring to the no-fly zone that NATO has imposed over Libya. "You have long-range rockets and you have been flying over the Libyan air territory without any deterrent." He said NATO's true motivation was inspired by hatred. "You hate us because we are Muslims," Gadhafi said. "You hate Libya and people who bear witness to Allah and Mohammed. You bomb them." Gadhafi's late-night diatribe came hours after China embraced the Libyan opposition as "an important dialogue partner" and urged an end to the fighting and a political solution to the crisis, state media said. "China is not seeking any private interest concerning Libya, and believes the Libyan situation is essentially an internal issue," said Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi after meeting with Mahmoud Jibril, chairman of the executive board of Libya's National Transitional Council. Jibril's was the first visit by a Libyan opposition leader. He arrived in China on Tuesday, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. For the sake of the Libyan people, Yang called on the two sides to "truly give peace a chance." Also Wednesday, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini urged an end to the fighting in Libya to allow for humanitarian aid to flow to the war-devastated North African nation. Speaking in Parliament, Frattini said Italy backs a cessation to hostilities to negotiate a way for a humanitarian corridor. Frattini's comments came after he had been critical of reported civilian casualties in NATO airstrikes and said they threatened the credibility of the alliance. At a weekend summit in Cairo, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Libya was facing shortages of food, fuel and medical personnel and access to water services was dwindling. "The U.N.'s humanitarian efforts are taking place under extremely difficult circumstances," he said. The Libyan war erupted from anti-government protests in February. Following a U.N. mandate to protect civilians, NATO began bombing military targets in March. However, Gadhafi still maintains control in Tripoli and other cities. Meanwhile, pressure has mounted from U.S. lawmakers to withdraw backing for the mission. "The fact is the president has not made his case to the members of Congress, he has not made his case to the American people," House Speaker John Boehner said Wednesday. "We've been in this conflict for 90 days and the president hasn't talked to the American people for four or five weeks about why we're there, what our national interest is, and why we should continue," Boehner said. The day before, Senators John Kerry, D-Massachusetts, and John McCain, R-Arizona, introduced a resolution to counter some of the criticism about the U.S. role in Libya. That resolution authorizes the commitment of U.S. forces for one year while stressing the lack of support for any use of American ground troops.

NEW: "Stop this barbaric attack," Gadhafi pleads . A Libyan opposition leader is in China for talks . The United Nations has described dire needs in war-torn Libya . Some U.S. lawmakers want America to withdraw from the NATO mission .

(CNN) -- Despite public perception, Iceland is hot. Sure, summer temperatures rarely rise above 13 C, but the small Nordic country has become a holiday superstar. Tourism has nearly doubled since 2000 (last year saw over 565,000 visitors), but while tourism has helped jolt Iceland out of recession, the country is courting a different demographic: it wants to woo business travelers. "The tourism numbers fluctuate a lot, depending on the season, whereas corporate travel is distributed more evenly throughout the year," explains Thorsteinn Orn Gudmundsson, managing director of Meet in Reykjavik, the official convention bureau for the Icelandic capital. Hoping to tap into the events market, Reykjavik has set to work building its conference infrastructure. Perhaps the most prominent display of the city's corporate courtship is the newly built Harpa, a combo concert hall and convention center that opened May 2011. A joint effort by Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, Henning Larsen Architects and Batteriio Architects, Harpa is one of the most cutting-edge conference centers in the world. Its glittery, disco-like facade is meant to mimic the country's stunning glacial surrounds, while the interior evokes Iceland's lava fields. See also: Best business hotels 2012 . The acoustics, however, are the real star. Each of Harpa's four concert halls has a large overhead reflector system and acoustics control chambers, all of which are intended to produce a superior sound. "We may be a small country, but we've got big ideas," says Karitas Kjartansdottir, Harpa's conference director. Though the venue is in its early days, and Kjartansdottir reckons it takes up to five years to market a new conference hall, Harpa has already booked some big gigs. "If you're a manager, and you're risk-adverse, you might be hesitant to send several hundred of your best employees overseas somewhere, especially if you're not fully sure of how evolved the infrastructure is in that place," says Gudmundsson. "People who have been here already know how state-of-the art our technology and infrastructure are, but there are some who have no idea, and they might think of Iceland as primitive, in a sense. Our focus right now is in trying to shift that perception." See also: Iceland bouncing back on tourism boom . Another advantage that managers may not be privy to is the convenience of Iceland's location. Though it may seem like a distant land, the country is a mere three-hour flight from central Europe, and five hours from many North American destinations. Meet in Reykjavik has adopted the slogan "meet in the middle," a reference to both the country's handy midway coordinates, and to the historic Reykjavik Summit, where former U.S. President Ronald Reagan met with General Secretary of the Soviet Union's Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986, to negotiate arms control. "It will be a long time before we get another meeting as prominent as the Reykjavik Summit," says Gudmundsson. "Though one could say that it was the starting point for Iceland becoming a destination for meetings." The national carrier, Icelandair, has also been a major factor in developing the country's connectivity with the world. Over the last few years it has developed its flight network, increasing both the number and frequency of direct routes. "We have great connections from the [United] States to Iceland, and that puts us in a strong market position," notes Kjartansdottir. Watch video: Richard Quest's presidential tour of Iceland . But perhaps the country's greatest sell is its natural beauty. The Blue Lagoon -- the most visited sight in Iceland -- is also set up for meetings and conferences. There are board rooms and theaters that can accommodate up to 90 guests, and which overlook the lava fields, glaciers, waterfalls and the lagoon itself. Some companies even hold meetings in the midst of the steaming waters. "The Blue Lagoon brings more energy to business groups, and makes corporate events more fun and productive," notes Magnea Guomundsdottir, the director of public relations for Blue Lagoon Iceland. Gudmundsson attended one such meeting while a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. "There were 30 of us standing in the blue water, watching the snow come from the sky while discussing the values of the company," said Gudmundsson. "It literally blew the socks off everybody there. "Six weeks earlier, we'd had an event in New York. It was very nice, and memorable, but nothing close to how distinctive the Blue Lagoon was." As if the setting wasn't unique enough, Blue Lagoon has also arranged DJs, circuses and modern dance performers for corporate events. "It's in keeping with the spirit of the setting," notes Guomundsdottir.

Iceland is trying to attract more business travelers . It is pitching itself as a halfway point between Europe and the United States . High-tech Harpa is a state-of-the-art convention center . Famous Blue Lagoon springs is also set up for meetings and conferences .

(CNN) -- From the day of his capture, Ratko Mladic has been as combative in custody as he was as a battlefield commander during the bloody civil war that ripped apart Yugoslavia two decades ago and saw the worst slaughter in Europe since Nazi rule. Mladic, 70, is accused of orchestrating a horrific campaign of ethnic cleansing that included the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica. The former Bosnian Serb general has been indicted on 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 1992-95 war that killed 200,000 people and displaced another 2.2 million people from their homes. On Monday, his lawyers filed a petition to delay his trial by six months, contending the prosecution failed to share evidence in a timely manner and that the presiding Dutch judge was biased because of his role in other trials of Serbs. The court, however, said the trial is set to open as scheduled on Wednesday morning. Mladic will face his accusers at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands. Among those in the courtroom will be the families of Srebrenica victims. "Victims have waited nearly two decades to see Ratko Mladic in the dock," said Param-Preet Singh, senior counsel in the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "His trial should lay to rest the notion that those accused of atrocity crimes can run out the clock on justice." 2001: Ratko Mladic captured . Mladic's trial begins after a landmark war crimes ruling last month, when another international tribunal found former Liberian President Charles Taylor guilty of aiding and abetting war crimes in neighboring Sierra Leone's notoriously brutal civil war. "Both trials are evidence of the growing international trend to hold perpetrators of atrocities to account, no matter how senior their position," Human Rights Watch said. Mladic eluded authorities for nearly 16 years until his capture last May, when police burst into the garden of a small house in northern Serbia. Europe's highest-ranking war crimes suspect was discovered standing against a wall in a utility room normally used for storing farm equipment, according to a government minister. Though he was carrying two handguns, he surrendered without a fight. He was extradited for trial in the Netherlands. But from day one in custody, he has exhibited defiance and appears not to have relinquished his visceral antagonism toward his enemies. He drew a finger across his throat in court, a gesture aimed at some of the Srebrenica widows. At other times, he disrupted proceedings by putting on a hat in the courtroom and refusing to enter a plea. He has sought delays in his trial and said he is in failing health. But come Wednesday, Mladic's long-awaited trial is set to start. In July 1995, Mladic was in command of the Bosnian Serb Army and led his soldiers into the town of Srebrenica. In the days that followed, the soldiers systematically slaughtered nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys. Mladic was dubbed the "Butcher of Bosnia." Bosnia peace negotiator Richard Holbrooke once described Mladic as "one of those lethal combinations that history thrusts up occasionally -- a charismatic murderer." In the three decades leading up to the violent splintering of Yugoslavia, Mladic rose rapidly through the ranks of the Yugoslav army. In 1991, he served as a front-line commander spearheading Serb forces in a yearlong war with Croatia. By the time he took to Bosnia's battlefields, he had become a hero to many Serbs, seen as a defender of their dwindling fortunes. In May 1992, Bosnia's Serbian political leaders picked him to lead the assault on their Muslim enemies who clamored for independence. Mladic wasted no time galvanizing his heavily armed forces in a siege of Sarajevo, cutting the city off from the outside world. Serb forces pounded the city every day from higher ground positions, trapping Sarajevo's ill-prepared citizens in the valley below. More than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, perished. Some observers conjured images of Sarajevo in describing Syrian attacks on the besieged city of Homs earlier this year. As the war ended in the fall of 1995, Mladic went on the run. Shortly after Mladic was sent to The Hague last year, authorities nabbed former Croatian Serb rebel leader Goran Hadzic. He was the last Yugoslav war crimes suspect at large. Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested in 2008. And Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was arrested in 2001 but died before his trial could be completed.

Bosnian Serb Ratko Mladic's lawyers sought to disqualify the presiding judge . But the trial will open as scheduled Wednesday . Ex-general was indicted on 11 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity . Nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered in Srebrenica .

(CNN) -- For sailing fans, boxing references don't immediately spring to mind when describing the thrills and spills of their sport -- even if it is the biggest race of all: The America's Cup. At one stage Oracle Team USA were flat on the canvas facing the referee's count as they went 8-1 down in this year's competition against a dominant Emirates Team New Zealand. Read more: Miracle on the water still possible . Then suddenly it was "rope-a-dope" on the high seas. This year's hosts of the 163-year-old race had come to their senses -- with a little help along the way from a British Olympic legend -- staggered to their feet, then struck back to level the series at 8-8. While there's no suggestion this was a deliberate ploy to take the sting out of their opponents by taking a beating first, as Muhammad Ali famously did against George Foreman, the boxing great would have approved all the same. Even if you're not a sailing fan it's hard to beat this race for drama. "This is as exciting as #sailing gets, ever. 8-8," CNN.com Sports Editor Ben Wyatt posted on Twitter. Larry Ellison, the billionaire technology titan who bankrolls the U.S. team, even bailed from his keynote address at Oracle's annual conference on Tuesday to greet his crew in San Francisco Bay. Plaudits . The team's exploits have put this event in the spotlight like never before, with stars from other sports taking to Twitter to heap praise on Jimmy Spithill's crew. "Incredible comeback by the oracleteamusa boys in the @americascup marked by 7 straight victories ..." tweeted IndyCar racer JR Hildebrand. Fellow driver Dario Franchitti posted: "Fantastic recovery by @OracleTeamUSA @JSpithill and the boys!!!" It was an altogether different vibe on the other side of the world where the America's Cup is the next best thing for New Zealanders after Rugby Union and the beloved All Blacks. Auckland-based sports journalist Guy Heveldt, made a cheeky reference on Twitter to the "outside help" employed on the Team USA boat: "A Kiwi, an Aussie and an Englishman walk into a bar... And walk out with the America's Cup!" He was of course referring to the likes of skipper Spithill, an Australian, British Olympic sailing champ Ben Ainslie and Simon Daubney, a New Zealander. 'Massacre' But others struck a more sombre tone, intent on penning obituaries for Dean Barker's team, even before Wednesday's winner-takes-all decider. "This is a massacre. I hope the country does not tear Barker apart. But I fear it will happen. This could be worse than the public blood-letting post Rugby World Cup defeats," New Zealand sports broadcaster, Tony Veitch, posted on Facebook. "We've been sitting on match point for over a week. There's real heartbreak and despair here. Hard to know where this will go," TVNZ reporter Paul Hobbs told CNN. "This was meant to be a Disney finish -- a happy ending. Now it's turned into a Stephen King novel -- a horror show." "Emirates Team New Zealand aren't just battling for the America's Cup now. They may be fighting for their very existence," wrote Paul Lewis in the New Zealand Herald. He suggested the team's CEO, Grant Dalton, and main backer, Matteo de Nora may walk if they do lose. Lewis added that two lost campaigns in recent years "raises the issues in sponsors' minds of throwing good money after bad." And expensive it is -- Ellison spent an estimated US$100 million on winning the famous old trophy, known as the "Auld Mug." "But (Darth) Vadar likely poured money and effort into the Death Star. People cheered when that blew up, too," observed San Francisco-based journalist Joe Eskenazi sardonically. Lost faith . With a race to go, the American comeback has left most people in New Zealand and beyond very nervous -- even a former prime minister. "Hard to know what to say: Team New Zealand 8, Oracle 8 at America's Cup in San Francisco. All hangs on next race," tweeted Helen Clark, who was premier in Wellington between 1999 and 2008. "Looks like New Zealand is about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory after losing another race this morning in the #AmericasCup," posted Australian television presenter Lisa Wilkinson. Ominously, New Zealand bookmakers appear to have lost faith in their crew. The TAB has reduced its odds on a win for its boat as more people start to place bets on an American win. Even with the increased potential payout for a New Zealand victory "no-one is interested" in betting on the Kiwis, bookmaker Kieren McAnulty said, in quotes carried by stuff.co.nz.

Oracle Team USA fights back to tie series 8-8 after being 8-1 down . Their backer, billionaire Larry Ellison, bailed from Oracle conference to see crew . Journalist Paul Hobbs: Result greeted with despair in New Zealand . The America's Cup series will be decided in one final race on Wednesday .

(CNN) -- With Tuesday's recall vote, taxpayers in Wisconsin affirmed Gov. Scott Walker's reforms and put an end to the state's unholy alliance between big government and big labor. The reign of entrenched public sector unions may be over and a new era of self-governing fiscal responsibility beginning. The importance of Walker's victory cannot be understated. This is, after all, Wisconsin -- the birthplace of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees and the first state to permit collective bargaining. Not since Ronald Reagan in 1984 has Wisconsin voted Republican, and in 2008, Obama took the state by a whopping 14 points. Analysis: Wisconsin now tougher for Obama, but still uphill climb for Romney . And yet Walker won by seven points Tuesday, becoming the first governor in U.S. history to survive a recall election. Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch also beat the recall. The Wisconsin saga ends close to where it began: a sobering defeat for organized labor and a stunning victory for fiscal conservatives. Walker took office in 2011 facing a $3.6 billion budget hole. He had few options at his disposal to balance the budget: raise taxes, make draconian cuts or go after the sweetheart public employee pension and health care plans. He bravely chose the latter, requiring public employees to pay 5% of their salaries toward their pensions (they paid virtually nothing before) and 12.6% of their health care premiums (less than what private and federal employees pay). Furthermore, he ended collective bargaining except for wages and made automatic union dues optional. Walker's Wisconsin win big blow to unions, smaller one to Obama . Before Walker's reforms, Wisconsin state employees enjoyed salary and benefits that were about 28% higher than comparable private sector workers, according to a new study from the American Enterprise Institute. Even after his much decried reforms, Wisconsin public employees' total compensation is still about 22% greater -- $81,637 versus $67,068 -- than similar private sector workers. Yet how were Walker's proposals received? Democratic state senators fled to Illinois to avoid votes; up to 100,000 protesters stormed the state Capitol in Madison, climbing through windows and trashing the building; teachers handed out fake doctors' notes to skip school and protest, some even bringing their students with them; signs and fliers compared Scott Walker to Adolf Hitler; a Democratic state senator cursed out a Republican lawmaker; and lastly, Democrats initiated recall elections on state senators, the lieutenant governor and Walker. In the end, Democrats have little, if anything, to show for it. That's because Walker's reforms have done everything he promised. He recouped the state's budget shortfall without raising taxes. School districts that enacted his reforms were able to meet budgets without firing teachers, enlarging class sizes or cutting programs. In fact, some even reported budget surpluses. Property taxes fell for the first time in 13 years, and Walker cited figures that showed Wisconsin has added 35,000 jobs since he took office. The public sector union machine, once a colossus of Democratic power, looks weak in the wake of Walker's triumph. With mandatory union dues now extinct, union membership has withered in Wisconsin. AFSCME's Local 24 in Madison has seen its ranks drop from 22,300 to 7,100, while AFSCME's statewide membership has been cut in half. In short, Walker has broken the long running cycle of handoffs and paybacks between union leadership and state politicians. Where is the Democrat outrage? In 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama promised, "(I)f American workers are being denied their right to organize when I'm in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States." In February 2011, President Obama called Walker's proposals an "assault" on unions. But less than two years later, Obama wouldn't set foot in Wisconsin before the recall. His endorsement of Tom Barrett came via Twitter, hardly instilling confidence in the Democratic cause. Public sector unions were left out in the Wisconsin cold. On the other hand, the untold story of the Wisconsin saga may be the resurgence of the tea party. Local tea party groups, like the Racine tea party, and national groups, such as Americans for Prosperity, have hosted dozens of rallies for Walker, recruiting volunteers from around the country and pouring in campaign donations in unparalleled numbers. Any rumors of a tea party demise have been short-lived. Come November, Wisconsin will be the conservative rallying cry. Fittingly, the Badger fight song may very well be the anthem: . On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Plunge right through that line! Run the ball clear down the field, . A touchdown sure this time ... The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of William J. Bennett.

William Bennett: Recall vote a huge victory for conservatives, tea party . He says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker faced multibillion-dollar budget deficit . Bennett says cutting worker benefits erased deficit, lowered taxes, helped state economy . He says Obama didn't fulfill vow to stand with workers who lost collective bargaining on benefits .

(CNN) -- Ever wanted your own dinosaur? A rare Diplodocus longus perhaps? Answers to the name "Misty?" Well, here's your chance to add some prehistoric chic to your urban warehouse conversion. Forget feature wall, think feature fossil -- and a 17-meter long one, at that. Late Jurassic (150 million years ago, or so), is the new mid-century vintage, you know. "Misty" is the first complete skeleton of a large dinosaur to come up for sale at auction in Europe, but she hails from the U.S. state of Wyoming. The dinosaur appears alongside items including Dodo bones, a fossilized Ichthyosaurus (Ichthyosaurus communis) from southern England's Jurassic coast, and taxidermy and antique and modern artworks on a natural history theme in the "Evolution" sale at Summers Place Auctions in Billingshurst, southern England. Author and painter Errol Fuller, who is curating the exhibition and sale, says Misty was found in 2009 by the then 11 and 14-year-old sons of paleontologist Raimund Albersdoerfer. Dinosaur hunter Albersdoerfer had been excavating the fossil hotspot Dana Quarry in Wyoming, and sent his sons, Benjamin and Jacob, to a nearby area to dig around. "He directed them to this area -- just very close to, but not actually in the quarry --where he thought there might be some very worthless fragments and they came back at the end of the day and said they'd found an enormous bone," Fuller said. "They quickly realized that there was going to be many other bones... so they stopped work on the proper quarry." It took Albersdoerfer's team nine weeks to dig out the female Diplodocus longus skeleton. She was named Misty, Fuller said, after the site itself was branded the "mysterious quarry" because it had gone from being an area of which not much had been expected to one of great potential. While restrictions are placed on fossils found on U.S. government land, Fuller said Misty had been discovered on private property. "It's perfectly legal to bring it from America and legal to move it to any country in the world," he said. "Museum workers will sometimes try to stop these things... but almost every great fossil discovery was made by fossil collectors or dealers." Backhoe cuts into dinosaur's tail, revealing rare fossil find . Fuller estimated that there could be about half a dozen Diplodocus longus skeletons -- and several plaster casts of them -- in museums across the globe. Misty, he said "looks just like the one in [London's] Natural History Museum -- except that one is a plaster cast." So how would one display a dinosaur skeleton in one's warehouse, for example? Fuller said Misty's bones had been conserved and consolidated and she would be relatively robust as long as the skeleton was "reasonably carefully handled and reasonably carefully housed." It would take two or three people about a day to take it down and another to put it up again and Summers Place could arrange supervision of this, Fuller said. "It's been specially designed so that it can be dissembled and assembled again," he said. "There's no piece so heavy that two people couldn't lift it." That said, Misty in her entirety is "colossal," Fuller says. Her bones are secured to a metal armature, which can be taken apart and bolted together again. Designing it, he said, would have been "a conceptual puzzle" because the skeleton couldn't be arranged without the armature and it was hard to design the armature without knowing the exact size it needed to be. The result, Fuller said, is "a feat of engineering. It's maybe 60ft long by 12ft high and a colossal weight. There are quite a lot of safety considerations because you don't want pieces falling off." Summers Place has put an estimate of £400,000 to £600,000 ($640,000 to 960,000) on Misty. Fuller musingly compared the fossil to a Ferrari that sold for almost £18 million ($27 million) in August. Read more: Ferrari sells for record $27.5 million . "If I was a rich man, I could actually have a fossil dinosaur... that would impress my friends much more than a Ferrari and it would cost me just a fraction of £18 million," he said. "That is really incredibly cheap if you compare it with a collector's car and you've got a much more spectacular, gob-smacking exhibition." Talk about overtaking the neighbors. Evolution will open for viewing on November 23, ahead of the November 27 auction.

Diplodocus longus dinosaurs are believed to have roamed Earth 150 million years ago . Some museums house rare Diplodocus longus skeletons or plaster replicas . The sons of paleontologist Raimond Albersdoerfer found a complete skeleton in Wyoming . The skeleton -- known as "Misty" -- will be auctioned in late November in England .

(CNN) -- Formula 1's sole tire suppliers Pirelli -- whose products came in for yet more criticism during Sunday's stop-start Spanish Grand Prix -- have admitted that some of the testing they conduct on their tires is "inadequate". In 100 minutes of driving in Barcelona this weekend, a total of 82 pit stops were made by the field of 22 drivers -- prompting many involved at the top end of the sport to launch frustrated tirades about how intense tire degradation is ruining F1 racing. Milan-based Pirelli have revealed they are announcing changes to their range of F1 tires on Tuesday, which may delight those who point out that many of F1's biggest stars sometimes lap slower than their counterparts in GP2. "Winter tests are inadequate and carried out in conditions far from the reality of the season's races," Pirelli spokesman Francesco Tarallo told CNN. "The cars are much faster this year than last year (as well)." The admission of the inadequacy of the testing will increase the pressure on Pirelli, who were tasked in 2011 -- when they took on the sole supplier role -- with designing a less durable tire in order to force more pit stops and so create more unpredictable racing. Red Bull team boss Dietrich Mateschitz says this policy has gone too far, with the Austrian deeply critical of what he sees as the debilitating effects of fast-wearing tires after Sunday's fifth race of the season. Ferrari's Fernando Alonso won on home soil, with Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber finishing fourth and fifth respectively. "Everyone knows what is happening," Mateschitz told Austrian reporters. "This has nothing to do with racing any more. This is a competition in tire management." "Real car racing looks different. Under the given circumstances, we can neither get the best out of our car nor our drivers. There is no more real qualifying and fighting for the pole, as everyone is just saving tires for the race. "If we would make the best of our car we would have to stop eight or 10 times a race, depending on the track." Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya is always tough on tires, but even Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery felt that the level of pit stops -- with Alonso changing tires four times -- was too much. "Strategy was again at the forefront of the Spanish Grand Prix, which as usual was very demanding on the tires because of the unique characteristics of this circuit," the Briton said. "This is why we saw high levels of degradation, which should not be seen again to this extent for the rest of the year. Our aim is to have between two and three stops at every race, so it's clear that four is too many: in fact, it's only happened once before, in Turkey during our first year in the sport." In that 2011 Turkish Grand Prix, Red Bull duo Vettel and Webber finished first and second respectively but the German, a three-time world champion, concedes that his team's driving is having a negative effect on the Pirellis. "The first three cars were a little bit too fast for us and regarding looking after the tires, they did a better job," said Vettel, who leads the championship by four points from Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen (who finished second on Sunday). "We need to catch up; we're not going the pace of the car, we're going the pace of the tires and obviously we do something to make the tires wear more." Tire degradation was the major talking point on Sunday, with Force India driver Paul Di Resta so bewildered by the number of stops that he radioed his team during the race to ask: "Can anybody tell me what is going on?" Di Resta was the highest-placed Briton in the race, finishing seventh, just ahead of compatriot Jenson Button --- who shed further light on the effects of the tires in his post-race comments. "When we're going round doing laps three seconds slower than a GP2 car did in qualifying, and only six seconds quicker than a GP3 car did in the race, there's something wrong," the McLaren driver said. "This is the pinnacle of motor sport. We shouldn't be driving round so slowly to look after the tires." Button added that even the thrill of overtaking has diminished considerably, since drivers know that they are often going past because "the other guy's tires are destroyed", while the need to ensure that the tires do not get too hot or cold demand extreme concentration from those at the wheel. So drivers may be buoyed by the changes that Pirelli are set to announce on Tuesday. "We'll be looking to make some changes, in time for Silverstone, to make sure that we maintain our target and solve any issues rapidly," said Hembery. Before the British Grand Prix takes place on June 28-30, there are two more races where the drivers will have to use the existing tires. The first takes place on May 26 in Monaco, where tire degradation is rarely an issue given the narrow streets and slow corners, whereas next month's Canadian GP may well throw up similar issues to the pain in Spain suffered by most drivers on Sunday.

F1 supplier Pirelli admit inadequacies of winter testing . Admission comes on eve of Pirelli announcement on changing tires . Move comes after widespread criticism of tire degradation in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix .

(CNN) -- Manila's Payatas dump site is more than a simple landfill, it's an entire human eco-system. Located to the northeast of the Philippines' capital, it supports a population of almost half a million people many of whom eke out a precarious living sifting through garbage. Over the decades, an informal cottage industry grew up around women who earned money weaving recycled scrap fabric into rugs --- a job that allowed them to earn at least some money while they took care of their children at home. Their work came to the attention of middlemen who exploited them by controlling the supply of fabric as well as their access to the market. Eventually, many of the women were driven down below cost, producing the rugs for as little as 20 cents a day. In 2007, a group of young professionals came together to change the situation. Rags2Riches was set up to provide the women artisans of Payatas with a fair price and access to the formal market. With the help of some of the Philippines' top designers, including sought-after names such as Rajo Laurel, Amina Aranaz-Alunan, Olivia d'Aboville and Oliver Tolentino, the company began producing high-end fashion accessories made by the women of Patayas and other communities around the Philippines. According to Rags2Riches president Reese Fernandez-Ruiz, in a short six years the company has built an international brand with a growing reputation. "We are starting to sell to retailers like Anthropologie and our partnerships are just going to expand," she said. "We're doing our next fundraising within weeks and we'll be getting new investors in." The company has so far trained more than 800 artisans producing everything from handbags, wallets and even wine bottle covers that retail in fashion houses as far away as London and New York. It now operates in 21 different communities around Metro Manila and has expanded to other parts of the Philippines taking in designs and work from poor communities across the country. Creating chances for a better future . The company aims not just to pay its workers better but to provide financial, educational and health training that it says will pay dividends into the future. Fernandez-Ruiz stresses that the materials that go into the products are no longer sourced from the garbage dump -- the scene of a tragic landslip in 2000 that killed more than 200 people -- but come straight from textile manufacturers before they are dumped. As for taking on the middlemen, she says there was such little cohesion among them that simple market forces broke their grip on the trade. Rags2Riches, she says, pays an average of 400-700 pesos a day ($9-$16) to its artisans, making it an easy choice for women that once earned as little as 20 cents for every rug they made. "Funnily enough the middlemen made up a very informal group and a lot of middlemen didn't know that there were a string of middlemen involved in the operation," she said. "Some of them thought they were alone in this and some of them are actually artisans now," she said. "It wasn't really a gangster scene but it was more a group of people who really weren't aware of the opportunities that they had. "When they had information, it allowed them to make better decisions. By coming into the picture, we provide them with that avenue." Fernandez-Ruiz said the artisans are more than simply employees, and are integral to the operation of the company. "They have a voice here. They provide us with their feedback and input -- they are part of our management team and part of our board as well." Building a business . While the rag-pickers of Patayas had always made woven material to a high standard, she said that taking the products to the next level to allow them to be sold in international fashion houses had been an education for the artisans and the managers at Rags2Riches. "While quality might be an objective thing for people who know what that means, for people who have other things to think about like what their kids will eat, the idea of quality can seem very trivial. "We had to expose them to the market and understand how it works and why it has to work that way. "It took a while and it was a process but there's a very strong understanding of how the market works now and the artisans influence it themselves." In the often ego-driven world of high fashion -- where a designer's name drives the success of the brand -- Rags2Riches is turning many of the commonly held assumptions about brand success on their head. "Artisans come to us with their designs all the time," Fernandez-Ruiz said, adding that individual artisans put their name to every product. "We have a practice of collaborative design so it's not just one person calling the shots. "One person will know how one particular part of a bag works and another person will know another part. "We've found that if it's not collaborative, it's not as effective." Read more: Some Philippines children swim to school, but now their lives could change . Read CNN's sponsorships policy .

Payatas is home to one of the Philippines' largest garbage dumps . Half a million people live around the area with many surviving by scavenging . Rags2Riches set up to help give women chance to utilize weaving skills by making bags and fashion accessories .

(CNN) -- Making it to the top in one of the toughest and most fickle industries in the world, that of fashion design, requires a careful balance of knowing your own essence and giving the public what they expect. That's according to Paco Rabanne's Artistic Director Lydia Maurer, who claims one of the greatest challenges of being a designer is staying true to oneself while at the same time listening to comments from critics, journalists and clients, without getting pulled off course by them. "It's important to listen to it, but it's important to still stay yourself," she says. "Because as soon as you start losing your essence, you start becoming uninteresting. And I think that's what's the biggest challenge." Read more: Bolshoi Prima ballerina's grace under pressure . The 29-year-old replaced Indian designer Manish Arora as Women's Ready-to-Wear Artistic Director at the French fashion house in June. She began her career at Studio Berçot in Paris, then took up an internship at Yves Saint Laurent, before joining Martine Sitbon, helping her establish her private line Rue de Mail, followed by a few seasons at Givenchy. Maurer, who has just shown her debut spring/summer 2013 collection for Paco Rabanne at Paris Fashion Week, was born in Germany to a German father and a Colombian mother and at the age of three moved to Mexico. She spent her childhood traveling widely across South America before settling in Paris. She sees herself as a mix of her German side, the designer who thinks about utility and shape and her South American side, which is more instinctive and into meshing together textures and colors. The biggest reward, she says, is creating a collection that persists after the fashion show and seeing that people really want to wear the clothes and the garments do not live on the rack. Read more: Boxing's first female Olympic gold medalist: 'I thought I couldn't continue' Here she talks to CNN's Human to Hero about her childhood interest in fashion, her career to date and the challenges that she faces in her new job. On her childhood interest in fashion ... When I was a child I was always very interested in images, in materials and textures. I just tended to put them in a bag that I would always carry with me, and I would stitch them together or, like, staple them together and make sort of fabrics out of them. I felt that since my childhood I've always loved doing this, and it's what I do naturally -- I mean, I don't need to make an effort to do it. On the influence of living in South America .... I traveled a lot so I would just soak in a lot of feelings, a lot of colors ... and I've always been somebody who likes to record things, so I would ... start taking pictures and making drawings, or taking leaflets and pamphlets and postcards, fabrics, things everywhere and just collect them. It was also I guess my cultural background which is quite rich. I think that it's that sensibility to color also, to materials mostly that people always saw in me. On studying at Studio Berçot ... You have to know where you're going and what it is that attracts you to be there, to survive in a school like that. They expect collections from you, but no one tells you what to be inspired by ... It forces you to follow your own path, which I feel is the only key to being a good fashion designer. On being appointed Artistic Director of Women's Ready-to-Wear at Pace Rabanne ... I have to represent a company, a fashion house that is historic ... that's always attached to the '60s, and now the biggest challenge is to bring it forward to our times. This is not a fashion house that's purely about style, but mostly about handwork and craftsmanship, and texture and material. On her debut collection for Paco Rabanne ... Nowadays women want things that are ... more functional but at the same time we've such an affluence of clothes and brands that are very wearable, that we also are looking for things that are very precise and very special, like sort of extraordinary pieces. It's also important to balance for me in this collection, the wearable side with the extraordinary piece side. So I, I basically wanted to do something a little bit psychedelic, something that is a little bit '60s but in a ... magic way. Something mysterious. On where she gets inspiration ... We can have our phone and take photos with our iPhone anytime, any place. I travel and I love to bring things back ... even just books or even a shell. Anything can be interesting. On the real purpose of a fashion designer ... In the end, what you're doing is not just supposed to be living for one fashion show, and then you pack it and put it in the archives. It's about giving your creations an afterlife. Giving them the possibility to go out on the street, or to be worn by a celebrity for a show, for a premiere or for any kind of event.

Lydia Maurer is Artistic Director of Paris label Paco Rabanne Women's Ready-to-Wear . The 29-year-old replaced Indian fashion designer Manish Arora in June . Prior to that she worked for Givenchy and on Martine Sitbon's Rue de Mail label . The German designer has just shown her first collection at Paris Fashion Week .

Editor's note: CNN.com has a business partnership with CareerBuilder.com, which serves as the exclusive provider of job listings and services to CNN.com. (CareerBuilder.com) -- Work can't get much worse than when it stinks -- literally. For Stephen Viscusi, work stinks everyday. "I work near an executive (woman) that does work out at lunchtime," Viscusi says. "She returns smelling like body odor and Chanel No.5. It doesn't cut it." Rather than let his co-worker continue smelling up the office, Viscusi, author of "On the Job: How to Make It in the Real World of Work," took the high road and told his colleague she had a small problem. He says the sheer embarrassment motivated her to not only shower, but not to take it personally or hold a grudge. "Never be afraid to confront annoying co-workers head on," Viscusi says. "Remember they are peers, not the boss." There's (at least) one annoying co-worker in every office. Whether it's the chatty-Cathy, smelly-Steven, tag-along-Tammy, or just "that guy," difficult co-workers (unfortunately) are the standard in the workplace -- not the exception. Most difficult co-workers are oblivious to their nightmare behavior. Avoiding them is out of the question. If you do make a comment, they stare at you like you're from the moon. Your feelings have been building up for months -- maybe even years -- and it's time to do something about it. You can either pull your hair out over their obnoxious behaviors -- or, you can deal with them accordingly. Define the Problem (aka "Co-worker") In "The Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Work" (Chronicle Books), Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht describe four possible types of co-workers. The Talker... just won't shut up; engages in long-winded, one-sided conversations on relatively trivial subjects; and always has something to say about something (or someone). The Kiss-Up... craves approval mostly from the boss, but will also seek approval from you. The TMI (Too Much Information)... has no boundaries and no shame. He/she will share every piece of unpleasant and personal information with you, without sparing a detail. The Gossip... much like the TMI, will share any and every story -- as long as it's not theirs. Carly Drum, a workplace etiquette expert with New York-based executive search firm Drum Associates, offers these tips if a co-worker is annoying you: . Tip No. 1: Take a break. When you are spending more than 40 hours per week indoors with the same people, something is bound to bother you, Drum says. "Everyone is going to have some sort of mannerism that bothers you, whether they crack their gum too loud or just hold their pen wrong." Drum says. Step outside for a breath of fresh air or run out to get a cup of coffee, she suggests. "It's human nature to get bothered by the little things, so just accept it and take a break!" Tip No. 2: Be mentally tough. Don't let another colleague's bad habits hurt your concentration and productivity at work. Drum suggests ignoring him or her as best you can and limiting your daily interactions with them. "If career advancement is important to you, then always try to act professionally in the workplace regardless of what an annoying co-worker might do," Drum offers. Tip No. 3: Discuss the problem with your co-worker. (... In a non-judgmental, non-confrontational way of course...) Drum agrees with Viscusi that you shouldn't be afraid to say something to your co-worker. Depending on what the behavior is that's bothering you, it never hurts to approach your co-worker for a friendly little chat, Drum says. "Co-workers sometimes don't notice they are doing something really annoying because it's just by habit," Drum contends. "By saying, 'I don't know if you noticed but... (insert issue here)' -- a reasonable co-worker will usually be receptive to your feelings." Tip No. 4: Talk with your supervisor. If the friendly and polite one-on-one doesn't work (or turn out to be so friendly), another option is to bring up the issue with your supervisor. "From a managerial perspective, a difficult employee who is insensitive to other co-workers can poison a workplace environment and severely impact inner-office morale," Drum says. "Effective supervisors know how imperative it is to nip problems like this in the bud as soon as they arise." E-mail to a friend . Copyright CareerBuilder.com 2009. All rights reserved. The information contained in this article may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority . Rachel Zupek is a writer and blogger for CareerBuilder.com. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.

The Talker just won't shut up; engages in long, one-sided conversations . The Kiss-Up craves approval mostly from the boss . The TMI has no boundaries and no shame The Gossip will share any and every story -- as long as it's not theirs .

(CNN) -- Recent newspaper articles and a flurry of online responses have put the role of job training in our economic recovery under a microscope. Even in the midst of high unemployment, some industries are having trouble finding workers with the right skills. And yet some people graduating from federally funded workforce programs are still not able to find jobs. This "new" debate actually reflects a question policymakers have asked for several decades: Does job training work? But is this the right question to ask? Experts project an increasing gap between workforce skills and employer needs. The gap is already pressing in some places and will worsen as the economy recovers. For example, in Cleveland, Ohio, manufacturers have had difficulty finding people with the English, math and technical skills to operate the high-tech machinery that today's jobs require. Worker skills are a critical ingredient in making any business go -- ask any small or medium-sized business owner, particularly in industries facing global competition. Other national governments invest a much larger portion of their GDP in worker skills. Training cannot erase the job losses we have seen in the past year, but done right it could build worker skills and help American businesses compete in the global economy. If we want to deal with the skills gap and put more Americans to work, then training is the only option. So the question is not whether training works, but rather what kind of training is most effective? So what's wrong with the way training works now? Our current approach is built on the idea that getting someone quickly into the workforce is the best first step. Today, the lion's share of public workforce training dollars is spent on short-term job readiness training -- basic computer skills, interview prep, and resume development -- rather than on industry-specific skills. Organizations that offer workforce services are typically funded to get people quickly into jobs, an approach to workforce development that was built during the high-employment '90s when it was much easier to find a job. In this economy, that approach is not working as well. But there is an approach that works better. Some organizations -- swimming against the tide of public policy and supported in large part by private philanthropy -- have developed an approach known as sectoral employment. This approach cultivates a deep understanding of local industries and employers and provides training that is closely tailored to their needs. At Public/Private Ventures (P/PV), we have just completed a rigorous evaluation of three such programs: one in New York's South Bronx that prepares people for jobs in the IT industry, another in Boston, Massachusetts, that trains medical billers, and a third in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that focuses on both health care and construction. Following a two-year study funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the results are clear and difficult to dispute: Participants in these sector-based programs were more likely to be employed and found jobs with higher wages and better access to benefits than those who did not participate in the programs. They earned about $4,000 more, or 29 percent, in the study's second year alone. What makes these programs work? First, a flexible and nimble organization that has the ability to make connections between local employers and job seekers and that can marshal money from public and private sources to provide needed training. On their face, these programs might not look much alike, yet they share key elements, including an understanding of what local employers need and a focus on teaching relevant technical skills; a careful recruitment and screening process that helps ensure a good match between program participants and available jobs; and connections to resources that participants might need -- like child care subsidies and transportation assistance -- to complete training and succeed on the job. This study shows that job training can work -- if it is closely tied to local labor market needs and offered by organizations nimble enough to change as those needs, and the needs of workers, change. The study was referenced on July 19, as the House passed the Strengthening Employment Clusters to Organize Regional Success Act of 2010, with bipartisan support. This legislation is an effort to provide more resources for developing programs that bridge the gap between employer needs and worker skills -- a complex and vitally important task as the economy begins to recover. The SECTORS Act reflects a growing understanding on both sides of the aisle that investing in skills is critical to our economic recovery. The Senate should move to pass it quickly. But much more needs to be done to foster public policies that support effective sectoral programs -- and to expand our base of knowledge about successful approaches to training. We must invest in research that will help us better understand the many types of programs that fall under the umbrella of "sectoral employment," improve their ability to serve job seekers, and, crucially, forge a path by which effective approaches to training may be brought to scale. Among other things, this research should examine specific program practices and costs; the role of sector-based programs in supporting local businesses; and the most effective mix of services for different populations. The debate about whether or not training works is a distraction from the urgent need to learn more about and build on the specific strategies that have demonstrated success. Developing an effective workforce training system is too important for America's workers and businesses to let it be derailed by an outdated debate. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Sheila Maguire.

Experts have debated whether job training works, says Sheila Maguire . She says giving people basic job skills isn't enough . Maguire: New research says training people in specific industry sectors pays off . Job training needs to be tailored to the kinds of skills employers need, she says .

(CNN) -- "There's only one method of manipulation that has stood the test of time," begins the press release issued by Carrot Dating, a new dating app developed by MIT grad Brandon Wade. "Bribery." In fact, it's this alleged truism -- which, by the way, isn't true at all given that highly effective methods of manipulation such as lying, rationalization, denial and guilt are still very much going strong -- that inspired Carrot Dating, "the world's first bribe-for-a-date app." This app lets users entice potential partners into romantic outings by offering them gifts such as "plastic surgery or a tank of gas," because "messaging may get her interested, but bribery will get you a date." Good god. It's pretty clear the founders of this app, not to mention the author of the press release, are actively courting outrage -- a quote from the founder reads, goadingly, "Women like presents like dog like treats." But the fact that this level of misogyny is being monetized and marketed and put into practice is disturbing. Someone, after all, gave this guy the funds to build the app and its companion website; Wade told reporters Carrot already has 30,000 users of both genders signed up. And misogynistic it is: Although women can bribe men to go out with them, too, taglines that include "Dangle Your Carrot!" imply which scenario Carrot Dating is aiming at. Perhaps Wade is just trying to be cheeky. This isn't, after all, the first time he's been called a misogynist or sought to monetize sexism. Carrot is just the latest in a fleet of dating sites Wade has founded. They include SeekingArrangements.com, a "sugar daddy dating" site that pairs young women with rich, older men; WhatsYourPrice.com, where men bid on dates with women; and MissTravel.com, which links up "attractive" women with "generous" men who want a travel companion. All three have been accused of promoting prostitution, or at least a prostitutory ethos, and that's become something of a go-to for Wade. He gets bolder, not to mention richer, with every launch and with every piece of corresponding publicity, even if it's negative -- and unsurprisingly, most of it is. Such misogyny, even if employed as part of a marketing strategy or a business shtick, has considerable effects, none of which should be taken lightly. Misogyny is a serious form of bullying directed explicitly at women. Over time, it affects the way women think about themselves. By casting men as the chasers and women as the chased, the values and actions encouraged by Carrot Dating promote sexism, violence against women and other gender imbalances that men and women have worked for years to counter. A 2007 study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology even found that vicarious exposure to misogyny, just simply witnessing such hostility against others, can create lower well-being among those not directly harassed. Carrot Dating claims to be performing a service; that is, motivating people to go on dates with those they otherwise might reject, thereby removing some of the existing barriers to romance and "opening minds." Wade says Carrot Dating is entirely modern, set to even the playing field in a world where, he says, women have the upper hand and their pick of men. But his app seeks to do this by validating the notion that it's normal to expect something from a date other than, say, good conversation or pleasant company; that going on a date should only happen if there's something material in it for you. Not exactly a recipe for true love. But, then, Carrot Dating isn't really about opening people's minds and expanding their options. Or about true love. It's about stirring up controversy, with hapless Carrot Dating users. At the same time, what he's stirring up is not victimless controversy. At its core, Carrot reinforces the notion that women can, and should, be bought -- the same attitude, by the way, that has made human trafficking a $34 billion business. The upside: One could argue that sites such as Carrot Dating satisfy a certain, very specific demographic and serve to connect only like-minded singles. The site may be crass, superficial and self-loathing, but then again so are many people. Why not let them mate? Or at least meet. The more of these people who date each other using sites such as Carrot, the fewer of them remain among those who might be looking for more in a partner than a free haircut or a new nose. Those who are attracted to Carrot Dating, or sites like it, know what they're getting. As for everyone else, well, at least they know what they're not. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Peggy Drexler.

New app lets you bribe a potential date with "plastic surgery or a tank of gas" Peggy Drexler: Creator says "women like presents like dogs like treats"; is he serious? Drexler: "Sugar daddy" creator's been accused of promoting prostitution with apps . Go inside the "sugar daddy" dating scene on CNN's "This is Life with Lisa Ling"

(CNN) -- Mario Draghi is stepping on the gas, cutting interest rates to record lows, trying to funnel money into the real economy, and introducing a charge on banks that hold excess reserves with the European Central Bank. He is right to worry. Eurozone inflation is running at less than 1% a year, with several countries already experiencing falling prices. Deflation, and even very low inflation, can be a huge drag on economic activity. There's no encouragement to spend today to avoid higher prices tomorrow -- indeed, falling prices make putting off purchases attractive. Flat or falling prices also make it harder for businesses and consumers to pay off the debts left over from the financial crisis, increasing their reluctance to invest and spend. In the grip of these forces, Japan suffered two decades of stagnation. The eurozone's recovery is already stalling, and a deflationary downward spiral would be a disaster. Unfortunately, Draghi is likely to discover the ECB's gas pedal is already on the floor. There's no way to push money into the economy unless businesses and consumers are ready to borrow it to invest and spend. Today's measures are designed to encourage banks to look harder for borrowers. They aim to do this by lowering banks' costs of borrowing, by imposing some small costs on banks that sit on money rather than lending it out, and by making it cheaper for banks to borrow from the ECB to fund lending to small businesses. But the banks wouldn't be sitting on money in the first place if they had credit-worthy business clients eager to take out loans. Indeed, rather than clamoring for new loans from the ECB, the banks have been paying down existing ones. What is needed are policies addressed not to lenders, but to potential borrowers and spenders, who are holding back because of the dismal prospects for growth. A significant chunk of responsibility lies on the shoulders of Draghi and other ECB leaders for the eurozone's utter failure to construct a plausible model for growth since the crisis. After a brief period of fiscal stimulus in 2009, the eurozone has pursued an austerity agenda that compounds the weakness of private demand by shrinking public demand. Draghi and his predecessor Jean-Claude Trichet did all they could to ensure monetary easing was accompanied by fiscal tightening, in effect refusing to hit the gas pedal unless governments were standing on the brakes. This seemingly bizarre policy does have a rationale. The idea is to force the countries of the eurozone periphery become more competitive through cutting costs and especially wages, enabling growth through exports rather than domestic demand. To some extent, the policy has worked: savage levels of unemployment and ECB-backed measures to reduce labor bargaining power have lowered costs in the periphery. By the end of 2013, exports accounted for over 27% of eurozone GDP, up from 23% on the eve of the financial crisis. Further, the eurozone trade surplus exceeded 3% of GDP. These figures are the highest since the introduction of the euro. Despite these unprecedented developments, eurozone growth remains exceedingly weak. That demonstrates the deep intellectual failure behind the austerity-competitiveness agenda. The rickety export-led growth model faces another important threat: the euro's dramatic appreciation. Draghi's famous July 2012 pledge to do "whatever it takes" to preserve the euro stopped the flight from sovereign bonds and other euro-denominated financial assets. Trade surpluses also tend to promote currency appreciation. The stronger euro raises the prices of the currency bloc's businesses versus their competitors, reversing a substantial portion of the painfully won competitiveness gain. This accounts for the efforts of Draghi and others to talk the euro down, but the effect has not offset the appreciation. While Draghi clearly hopes that today's measures will further weaken the euro, they are unlikely to have much effect. For all their exceptional character, today's ECB measures are, at best, efforts to shore up a fundamentally misguided growth model that is doomed to collapse. A serious policy to fight deflation requires putting both feet on the gas, with monetary stimulus and fiscal stimulus working together, a model that has had some success in Japan. It requires abandoning the mirage of export-led growth as a savior for the eurozone, and vigorous efforts to stoke demand by increasing government spending and promoting wage growth. Only this will lead to a virtuous circle of borrowing, lending, and growth, and a sustainable rate of price growth. But Draghi's statement today revealed how very far he is from recognizing this point. He once again reiterated his support for austerity-led policies whose only coherent rationale is to promote falling (or at best stagnant) prices in the eurozone's periphery: in other words, precisely the deflation he claims to wish to avoid. Until this fundamental contradiction is resolved, the eurozone is going nowhere. Read more: ECB cuts rates to head off deflation risk . Read more: Europe may be recovering, but crisis not over for us . Read more: What will Europe do? The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

The ECB cut interest rates to a new record low in a bid to boost the economy . But economist David Woodruff says the approach will not work for the eurozone . What is needed are policies addressed to borrowers and spenders, he writes .

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- A third baby has died and at least 6,200 children have fallen ill after drinking formula tainted with the same chemical involved in a massive pet food recall last year, Chinese officials said Wednesday. China's largest producer of milk, Mengniu Dairy Group, announced the recall of three batches of formula made in January after tests showed they were contaminated with melamine, said Li Changjiang, China's director of quarantine and inspection. Though it should not be added to food ingredients, suppliers in China sometimes put it in food to make a product appear to be protein rich. Melamine has nitrogen, and standard tests for protein in bulk food ingredients measure levels of nitrogen. More than 1,300 infants are hospitalized with illnesses including malnutrition, kidney stones and acute renal failure. On Monday two brothers were arrested who Chinese officials say supplied three tons of milk each day to the Sanlu Group, which makes baby formula. Watch crowds of moms get their babies tested » . They could face death if convicted, according to state-run newspaper China Daily. The siblings' raw milk had been watered down and a chemical added to fool quality checks, the newspaper said. Watch who has been arrested » . Sanlu Group, one of China's leading dairy producers, has recalled more than 8,200 tons of the tainted formula following reports of sickened babies, news agency Xinhua reported. The manufactured also sealed off more than 2,100 tons of contaminated product, and another 700 tons still need to be recalled, according to Xinhua. Watch angry parents demand answers at Sanlu » . Investigators said the brothers confessed to watering down the raw milk and mixing in tripolycyanamide, also known as melamine. The paper reported the siblings did it to recover losses suffered when the factory rejected earlier milk shipments, and that 19 other people have been detained for questioning. Recalls of the products by the Yashili and Suokang companies have been made, and of China's 175 baby milk powder production companies, 66 have already stopped production, Li said. Investigators are testing samples at the remaining factories. Learn more about the chemical melamine » . China's Xinhua news agency reported that worried parents started lining up at 5 a.m. Wednesday to see doctors at Renmin Hospital in Shijiazhuang, the capital of the northern Hebei Province. Wang Lifang said she went to the hospital after medics at her local hospital 28 miles (45 kilometers) away in Xingtang County found problems with her two-month-old daughter. "The county hospital found my daughter has kidney stones that are smaller than 4mm [less than a fifth of an inch]," the farmer in her 30s told Xinhua. "My daughter is so young that the doctors worry the stones might not be washed out themselves so they told me to go to the provincial hospital." The report said the girl had drunk a little water. "Doctors said I better not feed her powdered milk," Xinhua quoted a "tearful" Wang as saying. "In the past few days, I fed her fresh milk bought from a neighbor who raises a cow but once I left home I did not know what to do." Other parents told Xinhua they wanted their children scanned for kidney stones as a precaution. Peng Jing, a mother in her 20s, said her 2-month-old son had drunk about two small bags of Sanlu powdered milk. "He seems OK, but we want to be 100 percent sure he is healthy so we came to have the tests," she told Xinhua at Renmin Hospital. The food safety scandal prompted China agricultural officials to start a nationwide inspection of its dairy industry. Health experts say ingesting melamine can lead to kidney stones, urinary tract ulcers, and eye and skin irritation. The chemical is commonly used in coatings and laminates, wood adhesives, fabric coatings, ceiling tiles and flame retardants. Chinese investigators have found melamine in nearly 70 milk products from more than 20 companies, Li said Wednesday. Products made by Sanlu had the highest concentration of the chemical. It is not the first time Sanlu has been connected to a scandal involving tainted milk powder, according to China Daily. In 2004, at least 13 infants in the eastern Anhui province died of malnutrition after drinking milk powder that had little to no nutrition. The illegally manufactured milk was falsely labeled with the Sanlu brand, according to the paper. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said no Chinese baby formula has been allowed on the market in the United States. In a statement on its Web site, the FDA said it had reached out to all five companies making formula in the United States and none has used formula or source materials from China. This episode marks the latest in a string of tainted products produced in China: . CNN's John Vause and Yuli Yang contributed to this story.

More than 6,200 babies now known to be ill, official says . China's largest milk, Mengniu Dairy Group, recalls three batches of formula . Concerned parents line up to get their infants scanned, Xinhua reports . Melamine in milk is same chemical that killed U.S. pets from tainted pet food .

(CNN) -- Al-Jazeera broadcast on Thursday an audiotape on which a voice identified as Osama bin Laden declares "Iraq is the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine." Terrorist leader Osama bin Laden spoke on a video released by al Qaeda in September. The voice calls on "Muslims in neighboring countries" to "do their best in supporting their mujahedeen brothers in Iraq." "My speech to you is about the siege of Gaza and the way to liberate it," he said. "The Gaza siege is a direct result of Annapolis," he adds, apparently referring to the site of November's summit in Annapolis, Maryland, where Israeli and Palestinian leadership agreed to work toward a two-state plan. He accused Arabs who supported the plan of having become "partners in this horrendous crime." And he predicted, "Palestine will be restored to us, with God's permission, when we wake up from our slumber and adhere to our faith and sacrifice our souls and belongings for it." The speaker called for armed revolt in the Middle East. "Palestine and its people have been suffering from too much bitterness for almost a century now on the hands of the Christians and the Jews. And both parties didn't take Palestine from us by negotiations and dialogue, but with arms and fire, and this is the only way to take it back," he said. Though the voice sounds like bin Laden, CNN has not been able to confirm that it is him. However, a radical Islamist Web site reported earlier Wednesday that a statement from bin Laden was coming soon. The notice appeared on Al-Ekhlaas, known for carrying statements and videos from al Qaeda and its allies. Analysis of previous statements has indicated that bin Laden was the speaker, and a U.S. intelligence official said there was no reason to think the recorded voice was not bin Laden's. The broadcast comes a day after another statement attributed to the al Qaeda leader condemned European countries for siding with the United States in Afghanistan and for allowing the publication of cartoons considered insulting to Islam's prophet, Mohammed. "This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and the reckoning for it will be more severe," the speaker in the five-minute audio recording says. The speaker said Muslims have not responded by mocking Jesus, whom they consider a prophet as well. "The laws of men which clash with the legislation of Allah the Most High are null and void, aren't sacred and don't matter to us," he said. The speaker dismissed claims of free speech in his statement, citing European countries' laws against denying the existence of the Holocaust. Bin Laden also said in his earlier message that "the crownless king in Riyadh" -- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah -- could have prevented the publication of the cartoons "if it mattered to him." "If there is no check on the freedom of your words, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions," he said. Bin Laden, who was behind the terrorist network's September 11 attacks, has been in hiding since the U.S. assault on Afghanistan that followed those strikes. His last public statement was an audio message issued in December, when he urged his followers in Iraq to continue battling U.S. troops there. Wednesday marked the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The latest statement included no date reference beyond the cartoon controversy, which began in late 2005 when a Danish newspaper published a dozen cartoons about Islam, including one that depicted Mohammed wearing a turban resembling a bomb. Violent protests erupted in early 2006 after other European newspapers reprinted the images as a matter of free speech. Some Muslims believe it is forbidden by the Quran to show an image of the prophet at all, and others were offended that the cartoon by artist Kurt Westergaard appeared to depict Mohammed as a terrorist. Westergaard said he wanted his cartoon to say that some people exploited the prophet to legitimize terror. Several newspapers in Denmark reprinted the controversial cartoons in February after Danish authorities arrested several people who were said to be plotting a "terror-related assassination" of the cartoonist. That sparked violent protests in three Afghan cities this month, with Muslim students burning flags and chanting anti-Western statements. The message said the publication of the drawings in question "came in the framework of a new crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican has played a large, lengthy role." Pope Benedict is scheduled to visit the United States next month, with scheduled stops at the White House, the United Nations and Ground Zero, where the Twin Towers stood until al Qaeda's attack. Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne of the New York City Police Department said the department "has been working closely with the United States Secret Service to provide the highest level of protection possible" during the Pope's visit to New York. E-mail to a friend . CNN's Octavia Nasr and Pam Benson contributed to this report.

NEW: Speaker: My speech is about "siege of Gaza and the way to liberate it" NEW: Iraq base is ideal "to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine," he says . NEW: Bin Laden allegedly urges support for "mujahedeen brothers in Iraq" The identity of the speaker has not been confirmed by CNN .

Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) -- Investigative newspaper reporter Ismail Saymaz thought he faced 10 criminal cases against him for articles he had written. But when he logged on to a Turkish government website to check his legal status, Saymaz discovered an unpleasant surprise: two new cases filed against him. "They are asking for up to 95 years imprisonment for me in these 12 [cases]," he said. The charges against Saymaz range from violating secrecy to influencing judicial processes. Media watchdog organizations warn growing numbers of Turkish journalists now face not only the threat of lawsuits and fines for their work, but also possible jail sentences. According to the International Press Institute, as of September 30, 50 press workers were incarcerated in Turkish prisons and at least 50 more were facing possible jail sentences. The climate of intimidation led the European Commission to accuse Turkey of not sufficiently guaranteeing freedom of expression. "Concerns remain as regards political attacks against the press," the European Commission announced Tuesday, in its annual progress report on Turkey's bid to become the first predominantly Muslim country to join the European Union. The European report comes on the heels of a decision by the association Reporters Without Borders to downgrade Turkey's rating on a press freedoms index. In two years, Turkey has dropped from 102 to 138 on the association's index, and now sits among the bottom 40 countries of the world when it comes to freedom of the press. "These declines can be explained," Reporters Without Borders wrote, "by the frenzied proliferation of lawsuits, incarcerations, and court sentencing targeting journalists." At a speech in England on Monday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul conceded his country faced shortcomings when it comes to freedom of the press. "There are unfortunately certain cases that have been brought before the courts about journalists and it is a cause of concern for us as well," Gul said. "There are certain legal amendments that will be introduced on this subject." Gul's Justice and Development Party, or AKP, has instituted historic reforms since it first swept to power in 2002. Strict taboos imposed by the once politically-dominant Turkish military have been relaxed. "The taboos have changed. The military is not taboo anymore," said Mehmet Ali Birand, a veteran journalist who was black-listed and lost his job for his critical reporting on the military-dominated regime. But as power has shifted over the past decade from military to civilian rule, the AKP government has introduced laws that make it easier to prosecute journalists. A 2005 change to the Turkish penal code established prison sentences for press-related crimes such as "breach of secrecy" and "influencing of a fair trial." The journalistic red lines are now much harder to discern, said Mehmet Ali Birand -- who anchors the prime-time evening news on Turkey's Kanal D. "We knew what the military censorship was," Birand said. "The problem with civilian government -- you don't know. ... It's very, very unpredictable now." Last year, the Turkish government slapped Birand's employer, Dogan Media Group, with a $2.5 billion fine for unpaid taxes. At the time the assets of Dogan Group, Turkey's largest media conglomerate (and a business partner of CNN's parent company Turner Broadcasting), was valued at $2.8 billion. Tuesday's European Commission assessment report argued the penalty against Dogan Group amounted to a political attack against the press. Throughout Dogan Group's subsequent battle over tax evasion charges, several journalists working for the conglomerate -- speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs -- told CNN they routinely self-censor reports to avoid arousing further anger from the government. But journalists said they are also frequently targeted by court cases launched by the political opposition. Investigative journalist Ismail Saymaz said roughly half the cases he faces stem from articles critical of the AKP government, while the other half come from articles critical of Turkey's older secular establishment. "In a country like Turkey, where political polarization is widening between traditional power-holders from the military and Kemalists on the one hand and conservative liberals on the other, ... we journalists become the ones who take the first bullet," he said. In 2007, Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink was gunned down outside his office in downtown Istanbul. The man accused of Dink's murder was caught on security camera moments after he allegedly shot the editor. Three years later, he has not been convicted. In the meantime, newspaper columnist Nedim Sener has been fighting in court after publishing a book accusing Turkish police of not doing enough to stop Dink's murder. At one point, Sener faced a possible 32 years in prison -- a stiffer penalty than the one potentially faced by the alleged murderer. Last summer, a court acquitted Sener. Several police officers named in his book are trying to appeal the decision, he said. During a state visit to England, Turkish President Abdullah Gul urged observers to appreciate the democratic reforms his government achieved over the past nine years.

Media watchdog organizations say Turkish journalists face lawsuits, jail sentenced . 50 press workers imprisoned in Turkey; 50 more facing possible jail sentences, says report . "Everyone in Turkey today can express their opinion," says Turkey's president .

(CNN) -- One of the exhibits at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry has come to life, literally. It's reminiscent of the wildly popular "Night at the Museum," movies, except this is real. Twenty-four-year-old Kate McGroarty is living at the museum for a month, roaming the large 14-acre space, exploring every nook and cranny at all hours of the day and night, sleeping where she wants, and basically seeing sights that most people never get to see. McGroarty won a "Month at the Museum" promotional contest, beating out 1,500 other applicants for the opportunity to call the museum home for a few weeks. She won based in part on her answer to a question about how a month in a museum could change or transform a person's life. "I've always loved this museum, and I've always really loved adventure. And I'm hugely passionate about education, and I saw this as really interesting social experiment and an interesting education-through-social-media kind of experiment," says, McGroarty, who will get $10,000 at the end of her month-long stay. Museum of Science Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Rob Gallus concedes that the "Night at the Museum" movies were part of the whole "whimsy" of the Month at the Museum promotion. "Everybody wonders, 'Wow, what would I do if I were alone in the museum at night? Where would I go? What would I see? What strange things do happen after dark in the museum?'" says Gallus. McGroarty, who works for a travel company in Chicago as well as working in local theater, moved into the largest science center in the Western Hemisphere last week. She has a couple of private rooms near the museum's administrative offices and a large, glass cube science office. It's her exhibit display case on the museum's main level, where she updates her daily online blog and tweets about what she's learning and seeing. "She has unlimited access to every nook and cranny of the museum. She can sleep on the U-505 submarine or in the smart home. She can get to all those out of the way places that people can't get to," Gallus told CNN Radio. Her meals are catered, and she can leave the museum as needed for errands or other reasons. Part of McGroarty's responsibilities for the month require that she mingle with museum guests. And she says that's been a lot of fun. She's become a sort of rock star of sorts, with crowds flocking to the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry to see her and follow her online. "I love, love interacting with the school groups that come by. They have the best questions," she says. "They're so inquisitive. They're so energetic. I love them. And just seeing how they react to all the exhibits is so exciting for me." At night, museum staff members are on duty as are the usual security personnel, but in the sprawling complex they may be under the same roof yet not-so-near at the same time. "It is a completely different world," says McGroarty. "It's not spooky. If anything it's just a very quick and hard transition from there being so many people -- like on Saturday, we had 4,200 people in attendance. Then to go from that to just the security staff -- it's a big staff, but it's also an enormous museum. So you can walk around for long periods of time without seeing absolutely anyone. I wouldn't call it scary. I would say it is a different kind of experience, maybe a little bit spooky, but nothing to keep me in my room at night." McGroarty doesn't have a set schedule of displays or exhibits she plans to explore during her month-long adventure, but she said she does have one very definite must-do before her adventure is over. She plans to climb to the top of the museum's dome to see the sunrise over Lake Michigan. McGroarty explains, "I've found that a key part of this program is trying to find a balance between experience and exploring things, and then interacting with people who are physically at the museum and interacting with people who are in the online community." McGroarty, originally from Minnesota, attended Northwestern University in Illinois and majored in theater. She graduated two years ago and has spent time teaching, performing and writing. She laughingly jokes, "I'm not certain if anyone ever had this particular job in mind." McGroarty says the whole experience, so far, has been very overwhelming. She's shot to sudden fame -- she's getting tweets from people around the country who are following her adventures in the museum. "Last night I was talking to a woman who said that her daughter, her 7-year-old daughter, is so into this, she comes home every day and checks to see if I've made a blog update," says McGroarty. "This is day five. And she has to tell her daughter that she has to finish her homework before she can read my blog post."

Kate McGroarty won a promotion contest to spend a month in a museum . She's in her second week at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry . McGroarty has developed a fan following on Twitter and among visitors to the museum . "I've always loved this museum, and I've always loved adventure," she says .

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- JetBlue Airways and two TSA screeners will pay $240,000 to settle an Iraqi man's claim he was denied access to a flight until he covered a T-shirt that read in English and Arabic, "We Will Not be Silent." JetBlue and two TSA screeners settled a lawsuit for $240,000, but denied any wrongdoing. In the settlement, JetBlue and the TSA screeners deny any wrongdoing, saying they only wanted to resolve the 2½-year-old federal lawsuit. But Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi who immigrated to the United States three years ago, cast the settlement as a victory, saying the payout would discourage airlines and airport security officials from imposing restrictions in the future. ACLU attorney Aden Fine, who represented Jarrar, also called it a victory. "A $240,000 award should send a clear and strong message to all TSA officials and to all airlines that what happened here is wrong and should not happen again," he said. The TSA screeners -- Garfield Harris and Franco Trotta -- declined comment, referring questions to their attorneys, who also declined comment, and the TSA. TSA spokesman Christopher White, while noting that the TSA was not a party to the suit, said "There is absolutely no intention to take disciplinary action against the employees involved." The incident occurred August 12, 2006 -- two days after the United Kingdom revealed a plot to bomb planes to the United States had been foiled. In response, the United States imposed a ban on carry-on liquids, and raised the threat level at airports. Jarrar, now 30, said he was attempting to travel on JetBlue flight 101 from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Oakland, California, when he was approached by TSA officers. The officers told him he'd have to cover his T-shirt. "When I asked why, one of the TSA officers said, 'Coming into an airport while wearing a T-shirt with Arabic letters on it was equivalent to going into a bank while wearing a shirt saying, 'I am a robber,' " Jarrar said. Jarrar said he originally refused to cover up the shirt, first asking to speak to a supervisor, and asking if there was a law prohibiting Arabic shirts. "I said, 'I think as a U.S. resident and taxpayer, I think it's my constitutional right [to express myself],' " said Jarrar, adding the T-shirt's message was not threatening. Jarrar said he finally relented when it became obvious he couldn't get on the plane without complying. The officials purchased a T-shirt for him to wear, he said. "They had actually a discussion in front of me. One said, 'Let's buy an "I [heart] New York" shirt.' And another said, 'No, we can't take him from one extreme to another.' " "I said, 'What makes you assume that I don't love New York?' " Jarrar said they eventually bought him a "generic gray" T-shirt with the words "New York" on it. "They tried to say this is a compromise ... I said, 'It is not a compromise, you are denying me my rights,' " Jarrar said. Airline officials also changed his seats without consulting him, forcing him to to sit in the back where flight attendants kept an eye on him, Jarrar claims. According to court documents, TSA screener Trotta said he remembers Harris telling Jarrar he "had perhaps not made the best choice of clothing" given the events two days earlier. But "at no point in time did he ever request or order that the passenger change his shirt or suggest that his failure to do so" would keep him off the flight. Jarrar said he is disappointed the TSA and airline did not apologize to him. In a written statement to CNN, JetBlue said it was pleased with the settlement. "The settlement amount represents a fraction of the amount originally sought by Mr. Jarrar," spokesman Bryan Baldwin said. "JetBlue continues to deny, outright, every critical aspect of Mr. Jarrar's version of events." "At no time did anyone from JetBlue ever say he could not board the aircraft unless he changed his T-shirt," Baldwin said. ACLU attorney Fine said Jarrar did not sue TSA directly because of "legal considerations." "It's much more difficult to sue a government agency than it is to sue the direct government employee that committed the unconstitutional act," he said. But the JetBlue settlement should accomplish the same goal, he said. "It's very difficult to bring these kinds of cases and to prevail on these kinds of cases, especially in a post 9/11 world in which airline officials and government officials have been given an extreme amount of latitude," Fine said. Jarrar said the slogan on the T-shirt -- "We Will Not Be Silent" -- originated in Germany as a campaign against the Nazi repression. He said artists in New York have printed it in various languages.

JetBlue and the TSA screeners denied any wrongdoing . JetBlue, TSA screeners, said they only wanted to resolve the 2½-year-old lawsuit . Iraqi Raed Jarrar immigrated to the United States three years ago . Jarrar cast the settlement as a victory .

(CNN) -- There are slews of apps and websites to help you make the most of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two mondo-consumerist U.S. holidays. But Pinterest, the out-of-nowhere social network that became wildly popular this year, may offer some of the freshest approaches to online gift-giving this season. "This holiday shopping season will mark a turning point for Pinterest," Julia Boorstin wrote on a CNBC blog. "The social scrapbooking platform valued at $1.5 billion isn't making money itself yet. But it's been helping retailers connect with customers since it launched a year and a half ago, and now it's actively trying to help brands cash in. And this all-important shopping season companies are increasingly using it to drive online sales." Here are five ways you can pin yourself to a more productive (and gift-filled) holiday. (Oh, and if you don't know what Pinterest is, read this before proceeding.) 1. Create a secret wish list: On November 8, Pinterest updated its site to allow users to create up to three private pin boards. You could use one of these to pin images of products that you'd like to receive during the holiday season, and then you could share that page with a couple of relatives. Since posts on Pinterest link back to the website where you found the image you're sharing, it makes it easy for Mom or Dad to find exactly the item you're looking for. The downside: This exercise in "give me this!" pinning could be a turn-off for family members who want to be more creative -- or for people who have only a vague idea of what gifts they would like to receive. "Whatever you pin appears to refer to specific brands, colors, or size, even if that's not what you intended," writes Jill Duffy for PC Mag. "Pinterest works wonderfully for sharing images of the exact tennis racquet you want, but isn't as good for convincing your family that any old tube socks will do." 2. Pin boards with gift ideas for others: If narcissism isn't your thing, you could use private Pinterest boards to make visual lists of the gifts you'd like to buy for friends or family members. Since Pinterest allows only three private boards per user, it might be smarter to make one board with gift ideas for everyone on your list. Download a browser extension for Pinterest that lets you share a photo to your board in a couple clicks. "This is one time I wish Pinterest offered more than three boards, as having one for each person on your holiday list could be most useful," writes Scott Kleinberg for the Chicago Tribune. "And if Santa uses Pinterest, this could change everything we know about making the list and checking it twice." Using Pinterest's mobile app, you could take these lists with you to the store. Or, of course, you could go all Cyber Monday on it and buy the goods online. 3. Get "30 Days of Pinspiration": In a blog post on Tuesday, Pinterest announced a guide to the holidays called "30 Days of Pinspiration" (not "perspiration," but we know you were thinking it, too). It works sort of like an online Advent calendar. Over the next month, the company will unveil "a series of holiday boards from people, businesses, non-profit organizations, celebrities, and more," it says. "From what to cook and how to decorate to ways to give back and health tips for the new year, there's a little something for everyone." Day 1: Thanksgiving traditions from Katie Couric. Follow the project at this site: http://holidays.pinterest.com. 4. Follow tastemakers and stores: Conveniently enough, Pinterest announced November 14 that it would allow business to create Pinterest pages. Before that, the company's terms of use prohibited a business to use the site for profit. The switch seems to be effective for websites. In a blog post, Pinterest said that Allrecipes, a cooking site, saw 50,000 recipes and 139 mililon impressions in a three-month trial period. Several retailers have set up Pinterest pages in time for the holidays. Among them: Gap, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Shopbop and Etsy. Many of these pages highlight women's apparel and accessories, which makes sense since most of Pinterest's users are female. But there are dude-specific boards too, including Dudepins and Manteresting. The Verge and Mashable, technology-focused websites, also have a robust set of gadget boards that may help you shop for that tech-head on your list. 5. Snoop on family members: Finally, and maybe this is an obvious one, but if your family members are active on Pinterest (or Twitter or Facebook), you could snoop through the products they've posted about to get ideas for gifts that may be appropriate. If your loved ones aren't freaked out by this invasion of their public-private life, they may thank you for it later. Do you have other ideas about interesting ways to use Pinterest this holiday season? What about online shopping tips in general? Let us know in the comments.

Pinterest gears up for the holiday season with new features . One feature lets people post secret shopping lists . Another lets businesses create pages to feature their products . Blogger: "This holiday shopping season will mark a turning point for Pinterest"

(CNN) -- It has been three days since Chris Stevens and three other Americans lost their lives in Benghazi, Libya. I lived and worked for four years in Libya, leaving hurriedly last year in an evacuation as the civil war began. I sit safely now in my new home in Qatar, and those who shared my Libyan experiences -- and who knew Chris -- are now spread out around the world. I know from their e-mails that, like me, they are also unspeakably sad. Every life on this good earth is precious, and all four Americans who lost their lives at the U.S. Consulate were in Benghazi to help the Libyan efforts. They will be very, very much missed. Because I knew and worked with Chris, I understand firsthand that the world has lost a true hero, and we seem to have precious few of those. Chris was smart, supportive, kind, approachable, very passionate about reestablishing a relationship between the United States and Libya and improving the lives of the Libyan people. He was a perfect candidate for his new role as ambassador. When someone like that is taken away, you don't just mourn the loss of a colleague or friend, you mourn the greater loss for our planet. We were both originally from northern California, but Chris and I first met in Libya, arriving around the same time in 2007. I was there as the new director of the fledgling American School of Tripoli and Chris had just been appointed U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission. The United States and Libya had reestablished diplomatic relations in 2004, but the U.S. Liaison Office had just been upgraded to a full embassy in 2006. Because no ambassador had yet been named, as deputy chief, Chris served as acting ambassador until the arrival of Ambassador Gene Cretz in January 2009. Working in Libya at that time was challenging. The infrastructure that the West left behind had long disappeared during the 30 years of sanctions, and we were all scrambling to develop our institutions and businesses from the ground up. Chris built a team of embassy personnel, negotiated with a quixotic Libyan government, helped the returning U.S. companies and served as chairman of the Board of Trustees of the American School. He loved the school and in an e-mail earlier this year shared how much he was looking forward to witness its eventual reopening. During the two years we worked together, I watched Chris serve with aplomb, patience, and an easy smile. If you sat and talked with him, it was clear that he was well-read and a deep thinker, but he was always humble. He was also extremely comfortable whether he was speaking with VIPs or Libyan farmers. I had the good fortune to sit with him on the Fulbright Scholarship Committee that helped Libyans further their education in America, one of the many tangible ways he demonstrated his dedication to the Libyan people. He traveled across the sparsely populated country savoring the rich archaeological sites, and broke bread with Berbers in their cave homes. Always gracious, he hosted receptions for Libyan ministers and businessmen and, just as often, was in khakis and a T-shirt, holding informal embassy gatherings on the roof of his villa, smiling and making sure that everyone was included. What really made Chris exceptional to me, however, was his ability to distance himself. Not the aloof kind of distancing that you might expect from someone in his position, but the kind where one puts emotion and ego aside in order to truly listen, to understand, and then to find a way to build bridges. It is extremely rare to find someone who can do that, consistently rising above the fray, and that's what makes his death so especially painful. Of course I feel anger at those horribly misguided people who are responsible for this tragedy, but I am also trying to rise above it, like Chris would. For those who find this yet another reason to vilify Muslims, I point to other examples of seemingly senseless violence like the Aurora movie theater shootings or the attack on Gabrielle Giffords, neither of which had anything to do with Islam. We live in a world where frustration and anger override the sanctity of life. We live in a world where it's easier to get our hands on weapons than to give each other a helping hand. We live in a world where too many people use religion as a vehicle for hatred, rather than love. I was extremely fortunate for a few years to have lived and worked under the light of Chris' grace and vision. I know he touched all who knew him. As I continue to watch the Libyans, who have only known oppression, try to dig out of the void left behind in the wake of Moammar Gadhafi's fall, I will always remember Chris and the legacy he has left them. We are all better for having known Chris. My hope is hope that Libya will flourish for its people and that we, each in our own way, will make him proud. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Judith Drotar.

Judith Drotar knew Christopher Stevens when she worked at American School of Tripoli . She says he was kind, smart, approachable and had passion for helping U.S.-Libya relations . She says they met when he was Deputy Chief of Mission; he helped her establish the school . Drotar: He had rare talent for listening, building bridges. His killing a profound loss .

(CNN) -- It should be time to celebrate key milestones in the fight against HIV and AIDS. Recently, the United Nations announced that new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths fell to their lowest levels since the epidemic's peak. Today, 6.6 million people in low- and middle-income countries are on life-saving antiretroviral therapy, and people with HIV are living longer. These gains are significant. But because of the shortsightedness of many wealthy countries, we are once again at risk of losing an opportunity to contain and control this deadly epidemic. The announcement by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) of these gains was quickly followed by much more sobering news. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- the main financier of HIV programs around the world -- reported deep funding shortfalls as Western countries shrink or skip their promised Global Fund payments. The Global Fund is freezing expenditures for existing HIV treatment programs and removing hundreds of millions in funding for new programs. The result? Fewer people on HIV treatment, more HIV, more AIDS, more orphans, more misery, more death. The world has been on the cusp of a promising new era in combating HIV before. At the 2005 G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, the globe's most powerful economies committed to fund universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care by 2010. The global community fell short by half. Because of that, there were millions of new -- preventable -- HIV infections, with widespread morbidity and mortality and massive economic and social costs. Tragically, the HIV pandemic continued to expand. Earlier this year, at the U.N., the same players renewed their pledge to fund universal access by 2015. Yet we now hear news of shrinking resources in the face of massive need. Let's be clear -- the United States is a leader in funding the fight against HIV. Since then-President George W. Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) launched in 2003, U.S. support has provided millions of HIV-infected people with access to antiretroviral therapy. Today, the U.S. commitment remains strong, through the Obama administration's National HIV/AIDS Strategy in America and Global Health Initiative, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's recent call for an AIDS-free generation. Clinton's goal hinges on a handful of key initiatives, including the immediate expansion of a program known as "treatment as prevention" and a corresponding increase in funding for the Global Fund. Treatment as prevention, which calls for widespread testing for HIV and treatment for those testing positive, was pioneered at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in British Columbia, Canada. Effective treatment of a person living with HIV puts the virus into virtual long-term remission and dramatically reduces its transmission, preventing further infections. Leading global health organizations such as the International AIDS Society, UNAIDS and the Clinton Foundation support the expansion of "treatment as prevention" programs worldwide, calling the preventive benefit of treatment a "game-changer" in the fight against HIV. Further compelling evidence that treatment as prevention works was provided by a U.S. clinical trial (HPTN052) in May 2011. It found that immediate antiretroviral treatment of an HIV-infected person whose partner does not have HIV reduced AIDS-related morbidity and mortality in the HIV-infected partner by 41% and decreased HIV transmission to the sexual partner by 96%. Together, these results were instrumental in persuading the international community to renew the universal access pledge. UNAIDS says that 12.2 million new HIV infections and 7.4 million HIV-related deaths could be averted between 2011 and 2020 if funding is scaled up to $24 billion annually by 2015. The dollars required are considerable, but -- considering that the G8 pledged $40 billion virtually on the spot for the Arab Spring -- fully affordable. Funding universal access is not just a moral and ethical obligation; it is also highly cost-effective. China gets it. The world's most populous country is implementing a national treatment as prevention strategy to help China meet its goal of bringing HIV and AIDS under control by 2015. Under its program, China conducted nearly 67 million HIV tests in the first 10 months of this year. The global effort to combat HIV cannot afford further delays, as the magnitude and impact of the pandemic grow relentlessly. Today, 34 million people live with HIV and 7.6 million people require treatment. We continue to play catch-up. For every one person who starts HIV treatment, two become infected with HIV. It is time to fully fund the Global Fund, so we can meet the universal access pledge and realize the goal of an AIDS-free generation. Millions of lives depend on it. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Julio Montaner.

Julio Monanter: UNAIDS announces HIV infections, AIDS deaths down from peak . Montaner: But these gains are threatened as West fails to meet funding obligations . Global Fund to fight AIDS has deep shortfalls, he writes, is cutting new programs . Wealthy nations must renew pledges, he says, or many more will die, become infected .

(CNN) -- We've been netiquette'ing for more than a year and a half now, and when we ask friends/acquaintances/the gaping maw of the Internet for their burning questions and column suggestions, one anxiety pops up again and again and again. Here it is, in Mad Libs form: . "My [aunt/boss/elderly neighbor] sent me a friend request on Facebook, and I don't want to accept because [she still thinks of me as a squeaky clean 11-year-old/I don't want him to see pictures of me in a bathing suit/he is freaking OLD]. But I know he or she will notice if I don't accept because [she only has 13 other friends/he said something about it at work/he is weirdly obsessed with me]. What do I dooo?" -- Every Young Person Ever . Well, EYPE, today is your lucky day. You've got several options, and we're going to present them all to you right here, rapid fire, so you can stop freaking asking us about it already. With that, we give you: The Ultimate Guide to the Unwanted Friend Request: . Option 1: Ignore . Freud was totally on to something with that whole repression thing. Treat this friend request like all the other vaguely uncomfortable social issues hovering around your shoulders like miniature dementors (the implied ask-out from that weird girl at work! That college student's persistent requests for an informational interview! The voice mails of murmured Fiona Apple lyrics you keep leaving on your ex-girlfriend's phone when you've been hitting the sauce!) and sweep the whole thing under the rug. Facebook even makes this the default now -- instead of totally rejecting a request, you simply hit "Not now," relegating it to the realm of "hidden requests." Hey, maybe your clueless would-be amigo will just think you never log into the ol' Book of Face. Option 2: Accept -- with caution . If you don't feel comfortable relegating your contact to Friend Request Limbo, you can instead send him or her to the halfway house of your limited profile. Then you tell Facebook to, for example, not let certain people read the stupid things your friends post on your wall. Mark Zuckerberg, of course, made this way more difficult than it needs to be. OK, deep breath: If you don't already have a Limited Profile list, click on "more" next to "Lists" in the left-hand column and then click "Create a list." Name it "Limited Profile," "Professional contacts," "Creepers," whatever. Now surf on over to "privacy settings" under the arrow that's always on the upper right. Now [another gasp] click on Privacy settings, "edit settings" next to "How you connect," and, next to the last option ("Who can see Wall posts by others on your profile?"), click "custom" and then provide the list name under the option "Hide from." Now accept your frenemy's friendship, hover your mouse over "Friends" and select your stealth list from the drop-down menu. This just takes care of others' wall posts -- you have to go through a whole 'nother rigmarole to block your photo albums, for example. Well, now that we're exhausted and in need of more caffeine from writing that all out, I think we can all acknowledge that Facebook privacy settings suck and this is probably the least time-efficient solution. But hey, if your boss really will freak out if you don't hit Accept, it may be worth the trouble. Option 3: Reject, and speak up . Sometimes, a little apologetic explanation will soothe the sting of rejection. Give the person you just turned down a legit-sounding excuse the next time you see them in person (or get them on the phone). "As a rule, I'm not really Facebook friends with people I know professionally, but let me add you on LinkedIn" is a perfectly reasonable thing to say, for example. Just do the explaining in an oh-by-the-way tone (NOT in a Facebook message or e-mail -- too awkward) and the person will mirror your niceness. We hope. Option 4: Clean up, already . Cue the Mom Voice: If you're really not happy with the sloppy disaster of a profile you're presenting, it might be time to clean up your image. Remember, recruiters and employers have an almost uncanny ability to find pictures and updates that you thought were private. (Mind-blowing actual exchange in Facebook's official Q&A: I set my photo album to Friends, but others are seeing, liking and commenting on my photos. The FB team responds with the digital equivalent of a dismissive wave of the hand.) And snap after snap of you passed out next to a toilet (or updates gleefully recounting your vomitacious episodes) are just, well, trashy. Rule of thumb: Don't put anything on Facebook that you wouldn't want your aunt/boss/creepy neighbor seeing, even if you give them the big Reject.

One of the ways to get around accepting a Facebook friend request is ignoring it . There's a lengthy yet effective process for limiting what info friends have access to . Another possible way to politely avoid someone is to reject them and give an explanation . Whichever tactic you use, now might be the time to clean up your Facebook profile .

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- In some countries, the written word brings more than just readers to those bold enough to publish. Local journalists who attach their names to scrutinizing articles in Afghanistan are often subject to threats of kidnapping, acid attacks and death -- especially if the writer is a woman. That's the daily reality for Afghan journalist Farida Nekzad, who says she's been threatened by extremist groups warning her against publishing articles that cast a critical lens on local customs and national politics. "You have to fight everyday," said the former managing editor of the Pajhwok News Agency, the country's largest local provider of independent news. "You have to accept the risk, and that's why we face such challenges." The once fledgling news agency began as a small project in 2003, and later flourished into a nation-wide network of correspondents with eight bureaus and an average output of three dozen stories per day, according to its website. Nekzad began as a journalist there, also having worked as a radio reporter. Earning her stripes covering the local effects of the U.S.-led war and her country in transition, she took over as managing editor and began training a corps of budding young journalists. Many of them were women. "Everyone needs information, particularly women need to know and have information for their awareness," she told CNN. "I think one of the ways we can do something is by starting with this profession." But after years of receiving threatening e-mails and phone calls, the prospect of violence became reality when a bomb detonated on the driveway of her home. "I was displaced from my home for nine to about 10 months," forced to leave because her neighbors complained. They said "you have to leave your building," according to Nekzad. Leaving Pajhwok in 2009 in an effort to lower her profile, the longtime journalist says she sought to avoid the limelight that had brought extremists to her door. "The threats and warnings scared me," said Nekzad, who at the time was pregnant with her daughter, Muska. But she had also laid the ground-work for what would become her next venture, working alongside her husband to set up a separate news agency called "Wakht," meaning "Time." Today, Nekzad is the agency's director, overseeing a staff of more than two dozen journalists who cover Afghanistan's forbidding terrain in an effort to root out stories in all of its 34 provinces. And again, many of her reporters are women. "She typifies the double jeopardy under which women journalists in Afghanistan are forced to operate," said Bob Dietz, Committee to Protect Journalists Asia Program Coordinator. "Reporting and editing and running a news operation is tough enough there, but doing it as a woman makes it much more of a challenge." Even after the ouster of the Taliban from Kabul in 2001, social and cultural restrictions against women in Afghanistan have remained heavy-handed. Despite the adoption of a constitution that greatly expands women's legal rights, most women are never taught to read. About 14% of Afghan women are currently literate, according to a statement from the Ministry of Education. They "are uneducated and away from education," said Nekzad. "Women need for women to share their experiences, share their problems and share their challenges of how they suffer." But with Internet access restricted and its penetration especially low in rural areas, online news agencies -- like Wakht -- struggle to deliver information beyond the country's few metropolitan areas. Still, there are signs afoot of a quietly developing women's rights movement. Last week, a handful of women -- mostly Kabul residents -- marched in the capital streets, carrying placards in protest of male harassment. And yet with NATO in the process of a drawn-down, handing over the first seven designated areas to Afghan Security Forces, many fear the effects of a resurgent Taliban or a negotiated settlement that allows militants to come back. "This is really a very critical question," said Nekzad. "The biggest problem is that there is no guarantee (for women's safety)." The veteran journalist said that while she supports negotiations that could lead to peace, she questioned "who will guarantee that the Taliban...will agree that women should be a part of the activity and a part of the society to work?" Although the troubles of Afghan women were there prior to the Taliban's arrival in the mid-90s, the hard-line group has traditionally taken a tough stance against them. "When the Taliban first entered Kabul, the religious police beat men and women in public for not having long enough beards or not wearing the burka properly," wrote Pakistani author Ahmed Rashid in his widely-acclaimed book "Taliban." Still, the costs of the near decade-long conflict seems to appeal less and less to the war-weary public of Europe and the United States, whose electorates are still reeling from the aftermath of recession. Last month, nearly three-quarters of Americans polled said they support the United States pulling out some or all of its forces out of the country. How those factors will affect international resolve to promote local institutions and bring about lasting security in Afghanistan is still unclear.

Afghan journalist Farida Nekzad says she's been threatened by extremist groups . A bomb once exploded outside her home . She is a director and cofounder of an independent news agency in Afghanistan . She trains journalists, and many of them are women .

(CNN)The video appears to give us a rare glimpse into a police officer's reaction after the fatal shooting of an unarmed man. Officer Grant Morrison approaches a patrol car and collapses. Fellow officers help him up, and he keels over the hood of the car, face in hand, sobbing. "I thought he was going to pull a gun on me," Morrison, an officer in Billings, Montana, tells one of the officers assisting him. Since Missouri teen Michael Brown's death prompted a move to put body cameras on all of America's policeman, Americans will likely witness more recordings of the crucial moment when an officer decides to pull the trigger. It's ugly, as a dash cam from Morrison's patrol car reminds us. The video was presented as part of a coroner's inquest into the April shooting of Richard Ramirez. A squad car's headlights shine on Morrison as he walks away from a dark driveway in the background, where he had pulled over a car carrying Ramirez, who Morrison thought was a suspect in an armed robbery and shooting. Morrison shot the man after he did not comply with orders to keep his hands in sight, dash cam video shows. When Morrison reaches his fellow officer's squad car -- with its dash cam also running -- he keels forward to the ground. He's not wounded, but he sounds as though he's hyperventilating. Morrison had just learned Ramirez, whom he shot three times, was unarmed. Morrison appears to sob when he stands back up, his voice squelching when he tells a colleague he thought his life was in danger. A colleague holds tight to Morrison as he appears to cry in heaves doubled over on the hood of the car. Another officer asks Morrison if she should call his wife. It was the second time the drug enforcement officer had shot and killed someone. Both times, dash cams were rolling. Both times Morrison faced an inquiry and the shootings were ruled justifiable, partly based on testimony analyzing the video, according to local media reports. In Ramirez's case, Morrison said he was facing a suspected armed robber and shooter who he thought might pull a gun on him, CNN affiliate KULR reported. "I wish I just knew he didn't have a gun but I couldn't take the risk," Morrison told a court earlier this month. "I couldn't take the risk of him having a gun. I wanted to go home to my family and I wanted to see my son grow up." Despite the emotional breakdown -- and despite the inquest clearing Morrison of wrongdoing -- responses to a message posted by the Billings police chief on Facebook indicate there are plenty who feel Morrison used excessive force. "He started out dropping f-bombs at the guy and then drew his pistol. He barely gave the guy a chance to surrender before plugging him three times at point blank range. This policeman is a murderer plain and simple," Tony Galasso wrote. "Even a blind man can see (and hear) that this was wrongdoing on the coward cop's part. He was all jacked up as soon as he got to the car. Swearing and yelling. He clearly knew who the guy he shot was and wanted to shoot him by the sound of his voice," Art Sharrard wrote. One person even invoked the so-called loud-music murder trial in Florida, in which Michael Dunn was convicted of murder, despite his claim that he saw a gun and acted in self-defense. "It's odd that Michael Dunn was convicted for murder in the first degree of Jordan Davis, even as his claim to self-defense against an imaginary weapon was nearly identical to Morrison's," Troy Crumbo wrote. Morrison and the Billings police had their supporters, too. "Folks, when a cop stops you, it's not about you. It's about law and order. Help out. Do what you're told," Mona Letourneau responded, while Bryce Saunders posted, "Well said, Chief!! Thanks for all you and your Department do for the Citizens of Billings keeping everyone safe." The other shooting involving Morrison happened in February 2013 in front of a suspected drug house. A man reached for a gun in his pocket. It turned out to be a BB gun, the Billings Gazette reported after the inquiry. That incident was also caught on video, and on it, you can hear Morrison and another man escalating into a shouting match. "Get on the ground now!" Morrison yells. "I'm going to (expletive) shoot you!" The male voice continues shouting at the officer, who keeps commanding him to get onto the ground. There's a pulsating electric sound -- perhaps a Taser -- then a bang that sounds like a gunshot. "You shot him?" a woman's voice later asks. "He had a gun in pocket," Morrison answers. "He had a BB gun," she yells. "I didn't know that," Morrison responds. The man later died of his wounds. Opinion: Police body cams: Will they really help?

An officer walks away from a suspect he has shot; he keels forward to the ground then sobs . Dash cams reveal the intense emotions of an officer who decided to pull the trigger . Officer cleared of wrongdoing, though many expressed doubts in Facebook posts to police chief .

(CNN) -- While America slept -- or at least while the left ate their organic ostrich burgers, drank their jackfruit-guava-flavored vitamin water and tweeted "cleverly" about Marco Rubio's "Watergate" -- Canada was preparing to counter a growing threat to the nation. Patriotic members of the Canadian Parliament stood up to political correctness last week by declaring that Canada will not tolerate an influx of zombies. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird even went as far as to boldly state that "Canada will never become a safe haven for zombies, ever." Of course, the lamestream media didn't cover this story. They prefer you worry about things like meteors and cruise ships instead of a growing zombie threat. But it's time for Americans to wake up! Canada's zombie preparedness means one thing for us: Zombies will be driven out of Canada and into the United States. And once they are here, good luck getting them out of the country. 'The Walking Dead': Five explosive moments . Sure, some will argue that we can make conditions so tough for zombies that they will self-deport. But I'm not buying it. Why? A few reasons. One, zombies have no sense of direction. Sure, you can point zombies in the direction of Canada and hope they keep walking as a pack over the border, but they're easily distracted. Second, Americans are fatter than Canadians, which means we are more appealing for zombies to eat than our slimmer northern neighbors. Third, and most important, America is the greatest country in the world, so why would a zombie want to live anywhere else?! I know some will dismiss me as an alarmist, but I wonder how you will feel when one these zombies steals your job. Sure, zombie expert Max Brooks, author of the books "The Zombie Survival Guide" and "World War Z," informed me that zombies can't be trained to take our jobs. But I have two things to say about Brooks. One, he's part of the liberal Hollywood elite who tries to sell us on the notion that zombies aren't a threat to our nation's exceptionalism. Check out the recent Hollywood film "Warm Bodies," which is a romantic comedy about a girl falling in love with a zombie. Sorry, Max and Hollywood: Zombies don't need a hug; they need a swift kick out of our country. What it takes to make a 'Walking Dead' zombie . Second, just because zombies aren't skilled enough to take our jobs today, what about in the future? The zombie virus could mutate, and before you know it, some undead person is doing your job for half the pay. I, for one, don't want to tell a red-blooded American human kid that his dream of being of a dog-walker is over because some zombie learned how to hold a leash. Plus, keep in mind that if even only a few zombies make it over the border, these "anchor zombies" will create more and more zombies. This is a threat to our very existence. I'm not just talking the danger of them eating our brains, which could happen. I'm talking about the greater risk they pose to our federal deficit because they will want handouts from our government. It's just a matter of time until Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York or House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says zombies should receive government benefits. How long after that do you think it will be until these people argue that zombies should be covered under Obamacare?! Keep in mind that zombies far outlive humans, so they will be a great drain on Medicare. Why zombies, robots, clowns freak us out . And we all know where this is all ultimately leading. Two words: zombie amnesty. The living dead will then have an easier path to citizenship than the living. Brooks and I did agree that we need the federal government to respond to the dangers posed by an influx of zombies. (While I'm usually against new government programs, I do support any that will benefit me directly.) But Brooks, in typical liberal fashion, advocates a coordinated global response to the zombie threat. Nice try, Max, but that's just another ploy by you and your elitist friends to get us to give up control of our nation to the United Nations. Not on my watch, buddy. I see these zombies for what they truly are: un-American. They don't speak English, they don't share our values, and they eat human beings. Plus, they're probably all liberals. After all, you can't be pro-life if you eat people. I hope my fellow Americans wake up before it's too late. We need to secure our borders now before we talk about allowing any zombie reform legislation allowing them to enter or remain in our country. If not, then I hope the Rosetta Stone starts teaching us how to speak zombie, because we are all going to need it. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dean Obeidallah.

Canadian politicians said Canada will not tolerate an influx of zombies . Dean Obeidallah: America needs to wake up and get ready for the growing zombie threat . Zombies far outlive humans, so they will be a great drain on Medicare, he writes . He says we can't allow zombie amnesty and give zombies an easier path to citizenship .

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The BBC is refusing to broadcast a plea from leading British charities for aid to Gaza, saying the ad would compromise the public broadcaster's appearance of impartiality. Demonstrators protest at the BBC's central London offices Saturday against the broadcaster's decision. The decision prompted weekend protests in England and Scotland, with one group saying Sunday that 100 people had occupied the foyer of the BBC building in Glasgow, Scotland and would not leave until the BBC runs the ad. The Disasters Emergency Committee, which includes the British Red Cross, Oxfam, Save the Children and 10 other charities, plans to launch the ad on Monday. British broadcasters, led by the BBC, originally declined to air the appeal -- but in the face of criticism from government ministers and others, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 changed their minds. CNN was not approached to broadcast the ad, a DEC spokesman said. About 5,000 people demonstrated in front of the BBC's Broadcasting House in central London on Saturday over the broadcaster's stance. Seven people were arrested. Watch protest against BBC decision » . In Glasgow, the London-based Stop the War Coalition said Sunday its supporters had moved into the foyer of the BBC building in what the group described as a peaceful protest. The group did not plan to move beyond the foyer but intended to stay there until the BBC changes its decision, said Keith Boyd, a coalition member who called CNN on Sunday. "Primarily we are asking that the ad be shown," Boyd said. The BBC press office would not confirm whether its Glasgow office was being occupied or if protesters were even there. "We don't comment on individual demonstrations," a statement from the BBC press office said. The BBC is standing by its decision to not air the ad, director general Mark Thompson wrote in a blog post on the corporation's Web site. "We concluded that we could not broadcast a free-standing appeal, no matter how carefully constructed, without running the risk of reducing public confidence in the BBC's impartiality in its wider coverage of the story," he wrote Saturday. "Inevitably an appeal would use pictures which are the same or similar to those we would be using in our news programs but would do so with the objective of encouraging public donations. The danger for the BBC is that this could be interpreted as taking a political stance on an ongoing story," Thompson said. "Gaza remains a major ongoing news story, in which humanitarian issues -- the suffering and distress of civilians and combatants on both sides of the conflict, the debate about who is responsible for causing it and what should be done about it -- are both at the heart of the story and contentious," he added. The BBC, which is funded by an obligatory license fee paid by every British household with a television, is required by its charter to be impartial. It does not carry commercial advertising but does broadcast charity appeals. The DEC is "disappointed that the BBC declined to support the Gaza appeal," the spokesman told CNN. "It might limit the reach of our key message to the general public." The spokesman, who asked not to be named, said the BBC had to make its own decision about impartiality. "That is a decision they must make. We have no view on that subject," he said. Many readers of Thompson's blog post did have a view, however. The statement got hundreds of comments, most of them critical of the BBC. A commenter who signed in as "bully--baiter" said the BBC was taking a side, no matter what it did. "Sorry Mr. Thompson but you cannot have it both ways. If deciding to accede to the DEC request would be seen as political then deciding not to accede to it is also political. Don't insult me with your disingenuous attempts to suggest it is otherwise," the commenter wrote. Other commenters simply rejected Thompson's position out of hand. "I think the reasons for blocking help for a grave humanitarian disaster are simply astounding," "brit--proud" wrote. "How can simply bringing food, medicines and homes to hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians be seen as political impartiality? How stupid do the BBC think the British public are?" But the corporation had its defenders as well. "The last thing I want to do, is fund the BBC to broadcast propaganda," "SternG" wrote: "There's no way I will pay the BBC to air the DEC's politically-motivated 'appeal' for Gaza. Gaza is run by a government which is internationally recognized as a terrorist group, including by the EU. There is no doubt that some aid/fund will be 'procured' by Hamas. ... Good decision BBC." British broadcasters have refused to air some previous DEC appeals, the umbrella organization's spokesman said. A planned 2006 appeal for aid to victims of the war in Lebanon was scrapped because "there were genuine concerns, shared by the aid agencies, about the deliverability of aid." Thompson cited doubts about whether DEC members could get aid to Gaza as a secondary reason for declining to take the ad.

NEW: Protesters occupy part of BBC building in Scotland, group says . U.K. charity group Disasters Emergency Committee to launch appeal for Gaza aid . BBC refuses to broadcast ad, says would compromise appearance of impartiality . BBC, funded by obligatory license fee, is required by charter to be impartial .

(CNN) -- "Did you hear the news? Anderson Cooper came out," I heard one guy tell another on the elevator at the magazine where I work. "Is it really 'coming out' when everyone already knew you were gay?" the other guy joked. To media insiders in New York City, Cooper's sexuality may have been no secret, but to the rest of the world, his romantic inclinations were a mystery -- an ever-present and provocative question mark. As an out lesbian and journalist, I've always felt conflicted about the uncertainty of Cooper's sexuality. On the one hand, I can delight in the mystery of a person's unspoken and enigmatic preferences, wondering: Is he gay? Straight? Bi? Maybe he's asexual. On the other, before he came out I couldn't help but wonder if he'd felt the need to veil his homosexuality to make himself palatable to the masses. It's irksome to think that he'd have to cater to the ignorant until he could secure a large following. Hopefully his coming out will blast the perception that you can't be openly gay and a widely respected public figure. When I put on my journalistic hat, I can definitely vouch for his point in an e-mail to The Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan about the advantages of remaining unreadable to your interviewees. It's easier to forge a bond and to gain the trust of your subjects if the conversation isn't crowded with your slant on hot-button issues. If they see you as neutral -- or a blank page -- they can assume (albeit, often falsely) that you share their core values and beliefs, which elevates their level of comfort and opens them up. Anderson Cooper: The fact is, I'm gay . The truth is I can see the massive benefits of Cooper wanting to secure his professional standing before coming out. As a nationally beloved commentator, he'll successfully test the hearts and minds of viewers who may not be comfortable with homosexuality but respect and admire him. He couldn't have managed that had he come out before amassing a large and loving audience. The political impact of him revealing his same-sex preferences now, as opposed to when his career first launched, are far greater. But even now that he's out, I can't quite put away the idea that there's something wildly subversive and compelling about people who refuse firm categorization. I'd even argue that it's more radical -- maybe even more progressive -- to resist publicly categorizing one's sexuality, especially given the dark underbelly of those categories, which work to classify, police, target and judge bodies, particularly those imbued with desires and pleasures society terms "deviant." It may unsettle people to not know whether they are looking at a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered person, but in the space of uncertainty and discomfort is a possibility for growth. My Take: Will there be gays in heaven? We're forced out of lazy habits of thought and compelled to keep questioning and wondering when the nature of something or someone is uncertain. In some ways, sexual identity categories foreclose this opportunity by locking us into place and stemming the possibility of reconceiving and reimagining the world. That said, I know that there's a pragmatic purpose and power in numbers and visibility -- and that gay role models are as important as ever. With the epidemic of bullying in our country and the shocking number of high-profile gay teen suicides in recent years, Cooper's announcement is no small coup for gay youths. Role models are important for all kids, but especially for those who've been maligned and marginalized because of their difference. I can testify firsthand how important they were to me. Chely Wright: The cost of coming out . I didn't have any gay role models until I got to college. At UC Berkeley, in the late '90s, I majored in English with a concentration on gender and sexuality. My professors were a wild pack of queer and feminist thinkers intent on dismantling social hierarchies and trying to reassemble the world for the betterment of the misfit and mistreated. It was like living in a John Waters film, where all the freaks got center stage and were made to relish their queerness and triumph in their status as outsiders. Being in a room with an openly lesbian professor and knowing that I was valued, rather than vilified, for the ways in which I didn't fit in was a soothing antidote to all those adolescent years of self-loathing and doubt. When powerful pop cultural icons like Cooper affirm their homosexuality, it serves a similar purpose for gay kids. They are better able to see their way toward a brighter future and drum up the strength and courage to withstand the scorn and alienation that come -- far too often -- with being gay. But I'm still fixing my hopes on the day when you won't be marked -- for better or worse -- for whom you choose to love. Opinion: Thank you, Anderson . Overheard: Celebs, readers 'proud' of Anderson Cooper .

Writer Stephanie Fairyington says she's felt conflicted about Cooper's silence on his sexuality . As a journalist, Fairyington understands Cooper's not wanting to become the story . As a gay youth, Fairyington found she lacked role models . She hopes Cooper's coming out encourages gay youths to be proud of their identity .

(CNN) -- Casey Anthony's defense team was expected to call more witnesses Friday, a day after presenting testimony that seemed to try to create doubts about forensic evidence presented earlier in the case. On Thursday, the first day the defense began calling witness, Anthony's attorney Jose Baez called several to testify about the evidence. Two of them were FBI examiner Heather Seubert and Orange County, Florida, Sheriff's Office crime scene technician Gerardo Bloise who said that testing found no blood on any of Anthony's clothes, in her car trunk or in the interior of the car. Prosecutors allege that Anthony, 25, killed Caylee in 2008 by using chloroform on her and putting duct tape over her nose and mouth. They allege she then put the little girl's body in black garbage bags and stored it in her trunk before dumping it in woods near her home. Caylee's skeletal remains were found December 11, 2008. Although she was last seen June 16 of that year, her disappearance was not reported until July 15, after Anthony's mother demanded answers from her daughter about Caylee's whereabouts. Anthony faces seven counts in Caylee's death, including first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and misleading investigators. If convicted, she could face the death penalty. She has pleaded not guilty, and her defense attorney has said that when all the facts are known, his client's innocence will become clear. The defense has said Caylee was not killed but rather drowned in the family pool June 16. Baez told jurors in his opening statements that Anthony and her father, George Anthony, panicked when they discovered the body and covered up her death. George Anthony rejected that scenario in his testimony the first week of the trial. Bloise discussed the execution of a search warrant at the Anthony home on August 6, 2008, and his duties, which were to examine the clothing in Anthony's closet with an alternative light source for any stains. Bloise testified that no stains were found on the pants Anthony wore June 16, 2008, the day Caylee was last seen. However, he acknowledged to prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick on cross-examination that Anthony's mother, Cindy, told authorities she had washed the pants after that day. Seubert, who was a forensic DNA examiner for the FBI in 2008, told jurors in the Orlando courtroom that testing showed an indication of possible female DNA on a shovel. Previously, the Anthonys' next-door neighbor, Brian Burner, testified that Anthony asked to borrow the shovel from him June 18, 2008, saying she wanted to dig up a bamboo root. Burner said she returned the shovel shortly afterward. However, Seubert said the amount on the shovel was so small she could draw no scientific conclusions from it. Testing showed no blood present in Casey Anthony's trunk, she said. "If a method is used to kill someone that doesn't involve bloodshed, then the absence of blood doesn't really say it didn't happen, correct?" prosecutor Jeff Ashton asked Seubert. "Correct," she replied. "I can't speak to whether it happened or not." But she told Baez that as fluids leave the body during decomposition, it is likely that blood could be among them -- if there is a hole in the plastic bag holding a body, for instance. Seubert also tested three pieces of duct tape found at the scene where Caylee's remains were recovered, two of them covering the mouth portion of her remains. She testified that a DNA profile generated on the outside of the tape matched another FBI forensic examiner, Lorie Gottesman. Testing on the inside of the tape was inconclusive, but a possible indication of DNA there did not appear to match Caylee, Casey Anthony or George Anthony, she said. Outdoor elements such as sunshine and water can degrade DNA, she said. Also testifying Thursday was Ronald Murdock, a supervisor in the Orange County Sheriff's Office forensics unit. Murdock testified that a piece of cardboard with a heart-shaped sticker on it was found about 30 feet from where Caylee's skull was discovered. An FBI technician previously testified that heart-shaped adhesive was seen on the duct tape covering the mouth portion of the remains. Sheets of heart-shaped stickers have been introduced into evidence after being found at the Anthony home, but FBI analysis showed that the sticker found near the remains did not match those taken from the home. Gottesman testified that she examined the duct tape for any heart-shaped sticker residue but was unable to see it, even using specialized tools. She said she had no idea how her DNA wound up on the duct tape. In Session's Mayra Cuevas, Ilana Rosenbluth and Michael Christian contributed to this report. Watch Nancy Grace Monday through Sunday starting at 8 p.m. ET on HLN. For the latest from Nancy Grace click here.

Casey Anthony is accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, in 2008 . Anthony faces seven counts in Caylee's death, including first-degree murder . Her defense maintains the child drowned in the Anthony pool .

Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- The running battle between Egyptian police and protesters outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo continued for a fourth straight day Friday, leading to scores more arrests and at least one death, according to state authorities. A demonstration in Tahrir Square -- which in early 2011 was the hub of activity in the revolution that led to the ouster of longtime President Hosni Muhbarak -- was peaceful. But as it has since Tuesday, unrest continued outside the American embassy as riot police clashed sporadically with protesters. One hundred forty-five protesters were arrested Friday and 53 policemen were injured, seven by bird shot, said Interior Ministry spokesman Alaa Mahmoud. The Interior Ministry later issued a statement stating that one protester -- who was described as an ex-convict with an extensive criminal record -- was killed by birdshot. At least 15 protesters were injured Friday from tear gas inhalation and eye irritation, said Health Ministry spokesman Mohamed Sultan. Eleven protesters have been hospitalized in the past couple of days, he said. The tensions in Cairo flared amid widespread rage over an anti-Islam film made in the United States and posted online. Shortly after dawn on Friday, officers carrying shields and batons and backed by an armored personnel carrier rushed a group of several hundred protesters to quell a violent demonstration that had raged through the night. After the rush, a smaller number of demonstrators regrouped near the U.S. Embassy across from police lines, and stones and tear-gas canisters once again crossed in the air. Police fired rubber bullets at protesters. The army began constructing a wall of concrete blocks about 10 feet (3 meters) high across the road leading to the embassy, located about 25 meters (roughly 25 yards) away. By Friday afternoon, youths climbed the newly built wall and threw rocks at police, witnesses said. Security forces fired tear gas and used water cannons to hold off the rioters. But 100 to 200 meters away, in Tahrir Square, a few thousand protesters congregated peacefully. More than 250 people have been injured and 40 arrested this week as riot police faced off against protesters, state media said. Nearly three dozen of those hurt were members of the nation's security forces, state media said. Those arrested faced charges that included thuggery, assaulting police officers and vandalism near the embassy. Both the police clampdown and the cancellation of nationwide protests come during a delicate period across the restive Middle East. In recent days, residents across the region and North Africa have taken to the streets to protest the film. The region is on edge after the killings of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other American officials at the U.S. Consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi. Ties between the United States and Egypt have cooled since the overthrow last year of Mubarak and the election of President Mohamed Morsy, the country's first democratically elected leader. Before he became president, he was a leader in the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, the popular Islamist movement. U.S. President Barack Obama said that relations with Egypt will be shaped by how the country responds to the violence. "I don't think that we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy," Obama told Telemundo in an interview that aired Thursday. If Egypt takes actions that "indicate they're not taking responsibilities, as all other countries do where we have embassies, I think that's going to be a real big problem," Obama said. Obama's comments were widely seen as a warning to Egypt, which was considered a staunch U.S. ally under Mubarak and remains a major recipient of American foreign aid. It is the most populous and one of the most influential nations in the Arab world. When the protests began Tuesday, police and Egyptian troops formed defensive lines around the embassy to prevent demonstrators who had also gathered there from advancing, but not before the protesters had scaled the embassy fence and placed a black flag atop a ladder in the American compound. Police arrested a handful of protesters at the time, but the failure of Egyptian authorities to take action sooner has been widely questioned, as has Morsy's delayed condemnation of the attacks on American diplomatic missions. Morsy initially focused his criticism on the anti-Muslim film as an unacceptable slap at Islam. But after speaking with Obama, Morsy on Thursday directly criticized the violence. "Those who are attacking the embassies do not represent any of us," he said from Brussels, Belgium, where he was visiting the headquarters of the European Union. CNN's Ben Wedeman, Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Ian Lee in Cairo, and Caroline Faraj, Brian Walker, Elise Labott, Paul Cruickshank and Tracy Doueiry contributed to this report.

NEW: An Interior Ministry spokesman reports 145 arrests and 53 policemen injured . NEW: 1 protester, an ex-convict, is killed by birdshot, the Interior Ministry adds . There have been scores of injuries over the last four days near the U.S. embassy . One analyst said Obama put Morsy "on notice" to tamp down violence .

(CNN) -- We are the most narcissistic generation in American history. And when I say "generation" -- I'm not pointing my finger at millennials, gen X/Yers, or baby boomers. The generation I speak of is defined by people who use social media to incessantly share information about their favorite topic: themselves. I, too, am part of this "selfie generation." (And if you don't know what "selfie" means, you're not.) We knew "selfie" had become emblematic of who we are when the Oxford Dictionary recently named it as 2013's word of the year. "Narcissistic?" you say. "What can you mean?" Well, the new craze of "funeral selfies" is a clue: People snap a self-portrait in front of the body at a wake and share it on social media. For some, these selfies may actually be a way of grieving, but for others, it's clearly about drawing attention to themselves—even away from the recently deceased. Selfies are but the tip of the iceberg for my "selfie-centered" generation. We have already seen how Twitter has allowed so many, including myself, to tweet their most inane thoughts: a shared delusion that everything we say is so interesting/compelling/funny that it must be immediately offered to the world. And, of course, Facebook, the granddaddy of social media, is a great way to share every mundane event in your life. We've all read Facebook status updates like: "I'm eating potato chips" or "Have to use bathroom, be back soon." Now there's also photobombing, where people sneak into the background of a photo being taken of someone else right before it's snapped. Even celebrities are photobombing. Just last week, actor Zach Braff (allegedly) photobombed a couple taking wedding photos. He promptly tweeted this, causing the photo to go viral. And I say Braff "allegedly" photobombed the couple because there are now apps that enable you to photobomb yourself into any picture. Some of these pictures can truly be funny, but there's no denying that many photobomb because they want to upstage the photo's intended subjects --another example of our desperate, never-ending need for attention. To be clear, I'm in no way judging others in in my "selfie generation," although funeral selfies are kinda creepy. Sharing our thoughts and experiences on social media is now part of our DNA, a reflex action without a second thought. Most of us are aware of our collective self-centeredness. In fact, when I was contemplating writing this article, I tweeted out the question: "Are we the most self-absorbed generation?" The response was overwhelmingly: "Yes." But I did hear this defense often: If the generations before us had access to the same technology we do, they would have acted just like us. Hard to argue with that. Why wouldn't Neil Armstrong have taken a selfie after he stepped onto the moon with the Earth positioned behind him? (Which would've been one of the greatest selfies ever.) Are you saying no one would have photobombed pictures taken at Woodstock or at anti-Vietnam war rallies? Or that Elvis wouldn't have tweeted photos of himself wearing a new sequin-studded jumpsuit that would have quickly gone viral? This is who we are and there's no chance of going back. In fact, future technological advancements will undoubtedly make it even easier for us to share information about ourselves in ways we can't imagine now. But the legacy of our "selfie generation" must be more than just photobombing a friend's picture or gloating when one of our tweets is retweeted to infinity. Our generation has an opportunity with these social media platforms to raise awareness about issues we personally believe need to be addressed. It can be as simple as taking a selfie as you walk past a soup kitchen—or better yet, help out in one-- and sharing it on social media. Maybe that will inspire others to volunteer at one or at least make a donation. Why not use a photobomb app to insert yourself into an image of an impoverished child to bring attention to the 16 million children in the United States who live below the poverty line? Or tweet a photo of a U.S. military veteran to raise awareness about the 22 veterans who commit suicide every day or the wounded veterans who still need our support. The list of issues, from countering domestic violence to the bloodshed in Syria, goes on and on. Let's use our love for sharing information about ourselves to also share information about the issues for which we feel passionate concern, especially during this holiday season. OK, be self-absorbed, but be self-absorbed for a cause. To me, that's the good kind of self-centered. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dean Obeidallah.

Dean Obeidallah: The social media generation is the most narcissistic generation . He says new example is "funeral selfies" -- posing with dead person -- to draw attention . Twitter, Facebook have long allowed this self-centeredness. Why not turn it to good cause? Obeidallah: Photobomb to raise awareness of causes you care about: a good self-centeredness .

LONDON, England (CNN) -- For Roland Emmerich, the easy choice would have been to join the family business. Roland Emmerich and his younger sister Ute as children in Germany. They now work together in Hollywood. His father had founded a thriving garden machinery company, but young Roland's interest in lawnmowers, and their like, was limited. "I knew very early that I didn't want to do that," Emmerich says. "But I also didn't know what I wanted to do, so I was dabbling in a lot of things. And then actually after a while, it slowly occurred to me that maybe film would be great." He entered film school with the intention of becoming a production designer but came out a director. "In film school, I had to make movies, so I made movies and was quite successful and all of a sudden I was a director." The way he tells it makes it sound simple. And maybe it was. He went to one of Germany's leading film schools, The University of Television and Film Munich, which boasts an impressive alumni of respected directors: Wim Wenders, Bernd Eichinger, Uli Edel and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, among others. He had the backing of a loving family; according to his sister Ute his "very, very supportive" father lent him office space in his factory and helped finance his early films. Ute shows Revealed the family album » . Nor was he the first German director to make it big in Hollywood; Ernst Lubitsch and Billy Wilder had well and truly paved the way. What made Roland Emmerich different, and his Hollywood assent difficult, was his near obsession with special effects and monumental disasters; explosions, floods, tidal waves, and general destruction, both alien and earthly. Not only were his films expensive to make, but gallingly for German critics they weren't, well, very German. "I was making movies like I'm doing now, but it was like a whole different world at that time in Germany," Emmerich says. "They did Wim Wenders movies and all these kind of German movies and I just couldn't make movies like that. I wanted to make movies like Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. I just did it and they were relatively successful, but critically more and more hated. They said: 'Why is he making movies like this here?'" So now he's making films in Los Angeles, where he has a home just a few minutes drive from Hollywood, and his younger sister Ute. Roland gives Revealed a tour of his home » . "Ute was like me," Roland says. "She didn't want to work in the family company and it was a good opportunity to work for me, it was more exciting." The siblings set up their own production company, Centroplis Entertainment, through which they've made 14 feature films. The move to Hollywood came after Roland directed "Moon 44", released in 1990; a science fiction action film set in 2038 about robots, convicts and companies fighting over mining rights in outer space. It earned him an invitation to Los Angeles and a job directing "Universal Soldier." Ute remembers, "It was decided that we close our office [in Germany] and just try and see how it would work out for a year. Our parents, I think, were hoping that we would come back within a year, but eighteen years later, and so many movies and successes later, we are still here," she says. Roland has made himself very much at home in Los Angeles. Ten years ago he bought a house -- his own slice of Hollywood history -- a three bedroom mansion built in 1919 by Jesse Lasky, who, with Cecil B. DeMille, produced "The Squaw Man," Hollywood's first feature film. "I told Constance, my real estate broker, 'Look, don't come to me with something which doesn't have either Hollywood history or a really, really big garden'. I just wanted to have a big garden because I grew up in a house with a big garden." In the end, he got both. The garden is an impressive oasis of towering palms, tangled vines and lush ferns, all lining an imposing staircase that leads to a pool where the director hosts parties for friends and colleagues. While Hollywood has embraced Roland Emmerich's action-packed, effect-laden style of epic story-telling, the director is less than enamored with its lifeblood, the film industry. "I don't really like the movie business, I have to say. It's a very cold, brutal business. It's not a cozy living. But, on the other hand, I really like making movies," he says. "I'm constantly torn between, should I keep going or not. And then I always want to make another movie and then I have to deal with it. But every time I come into a situation, I'm always talking about early retirement, which makes all my friends laugh out loud." They might laugh out louder if he ever contemplated a return to the family business.

Roland Emmerich gave up potential role in family business to go to film school . Initially wanted to become a production designer, but was drawn to directing . Left Germany for Hollywood to direct "Universal Soldier", released 1992 . Emmerich: "I don't really like the movie business. It's not a cozy living"

Los Angeles (CNN) -- "Shield" actor Michael Jace, appearing in a Los Angeles court Wednesday, entered a not guilty plea in the slaying of his wife. His attorney did not object when the judge set bond at $2 million and ordered Jace, 51, to have no contact with his two children. A preliminary hearing, in which investigators are expected to testify about why they arrested Jace in the May 19 shooting death, is set for August 1. April Jace, 40, died from "multiple gunshot wounds," according to preliminary autopsy results. The Los Angeles County coroner ruled the death a homicide, Deputy Chief Coroner Ed Winter said. Jace, who played a Los Angeles cop in TV's "The Shield," wore a yellow jail jumpsuit and was kept handcuffed while in a glass holding area for Wednesday's hearing. 'Shield' actor Michael Jace charged with wife's murder . Police found April Jace shot to death in her south Los Angeles home the evening of May 19, Detective Lyman Doster said. Michael Jace called 911 to report that his wife had been shot, Detective Dean Vinluan said, adding that he "was on the phone with the operator." Neighbors who heard gunshots also called 911, he said. Jace's father-in-law also called 911 as he drove to his daughter's home after receiving a message from Jace about the shooting. "My son-in-law called me and texted me and said come get the kids because he shot April, our daughter," he said in a recording released by the Los Angeles Fire Department. "At this moment, the motive of the murder is believed to be domestic violence," a police statement a day after the killing said. Two children were in the Hyde Park-area home when their mother was shot, Vinluan said. Investigators have found no reports of domestic violence between the husband and wife at their residence, another Los Angeles Police Department detective said. A woman described as a close friend of Jace's first wife said in a sworn statement that she witnessed Jace physically abusing his wife in 1997. The declaration was in court records from Jace's 2005 custody case concerning his son with Jennifer Bitterman. Jace "choked and hit" his wife and "slammed her against the wall while (their infant son) screamed in his crib next to her," Maria De Le Vegas said in the sworn declaration obtained by CNN. Jace "was raging and out of control, and seeing the extent of his anger was one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen," she said. Jace appeared to suffer severe financial strain in recent years, according to court documents obtained by CNN. The actor filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in March 2011, citing $500,000 in debts and an annual income of around $80,000 from residuals from his TV and film work, the documents said. Jace had defaulted on the $411,000 mortgage on the south Los Angeles home where his wife died, according to the documents. He married April Jace in June 2003, a year after divorcing his first wife, with whom he shared a son who is now a teen. The FX police drama "The Shield" provided the biggest and longest-running role in Jace's 22-year acting career. He appeared in 89 episodes as Julien Lowe, who started as a rookie officer in an inner-city Los Angeles police precinct in 2002 and rose through the ranks to become a detective before the series ended in 2008, according to the Internet Movie Database. He acted on several episodes of "Southland," another TV drama about Los Angeles police, between 2009 and 2012. Jace often played a law enforcement or military officer on television shows. He is credited with roles in "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "Private Practice," "The Mentalist," "Burn Notice" and "NYPD Blue." He had the title role of Michael Jordan in the 1999 TV movie about the NBA star, "Michael Jordan: An American Hero." Jace played Officer Brown in Russell Crowe's 2009 film "State of Play," and he portrayed a Black Panther member in the 1994 blockbuster movie "Forrest Gump." April Jace had worked for the past year as a financial aid counselor at Biola University, a private school in La Mirada, California, according to the school. "We are obviously shocked and saddened by this terrible news, to lose a wonderful colleague, mother and friend," Biola President Barry Corey said in a written statement. "April's radiant personality brought great energy to the financial aid office," financial aid director Geoff Marsh said. "Her love for helping students and families and her great work ethic earned the respect and love of her coworkers. Her smiling face and helpful spirit will be missed by all."

A preliminary hearing for Michael Jace is set for August 1 . The judge set bond at $2 million and ordered Jace to have no contact with his two children . Jace wore a yellow jail jumpsuit and was handcuffed in a glass holding area for the hearing . April Jace, 40, died from "multiple gunshot wounds," according to a coroner .

(CNN) -- Coming home from Asia, Barack Obama is obviously going through another rough patch in his presidency. But this time, it could be more dangerous: He is perilously close to becoming a lame duck 33 months before he leaves office. That is bad for him, bad for the country and bad for the world. The second term of a presidency often follows an arc. As Lyndon Johnson told his aides after his landslide victory in 1964, you've got about a year to get things done at home. And second-term presidents have often seized on those early months for domestic accomplishments. After that, Washington becomes mired in midterm politicking, and in your third year, people start looking over your shoulder at who is coming next. With power seeping away at home, second-termers increasingly turn their attention overseas, where they can still get big things done as commander in chief of the most powerful nation in history. That's why presidents spend so much time on the road in their final years. Obama's second term is a total aberration. Resisted by obstructionists among Republicans and plagued by his own mistakes, the first 12 months after re-election were a bust. Why he and his team didn't take more care in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act website will remain one of the great mysteries for historians. But it has now become equally puzzling why he has not become more sure-footed in foreign affairs. He is one of the brightest men ever to occupy the office, and yet his learning curve has been among the flattest. Talking to players on the world stage -- most of whom still want him to succeed -- one finds them genuinely rattled, worried about a lack of national will and operational competence. On the tail end of his Asia trip, Obama told the press that in foreign policy, he thinks a president hits mostly singles and doubles and an occasional home run. It was odd enough that given his huge power and influence, he thinks small ball. But he also raised the question: Why so long between home runs? When was the last one? Three years ago with Osama bin Laden? Not to overdo his analogy, but the years since have brought a notable string of strikeouts. The administration would vigorously disagree, but just how much success can it genuinely claim in Syria, Egypt, Libya or even Iraq? Or the Russian reset? Or Ukraine? The administration's increasing focus on Asia is a welcome move, but it too has gone less well than expected. Experts have long said that much of the success of the famous "pivot" will depend upon completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the most important trade agreement in decades. To its credit, the administration has aggressively pursued the deal but to little avail. The President's trip to Tokyo revealed that the partnership is in serious trouble, mired down by domestic politics in both the U.S. and Japan. Obama did provide much-needed assurances to Japan about American credibility as a military ally. Still, the facts remain that even as the U.S. cuts defense spending, China is boosting its defense budget by 12% and flexing its muscles off its shores. With nationalism on the rise across Asia and sparks starting to fly, who can be certain that America will be there to put out a fire? The net result is of a president who sadly seems diminished both at home and abroad. He appears to have only minimal objectives with the current Congress -- passage of a higher minimum wage and pieces of an immigration bill -- and may not get either. Most Americans still want him to succeed, but when television executives put him on the air, audiences often melt away. Even before the midterms, voters are looking over his shoulder at who comes next. "Waiting for Hillary" is a bigger story than "What Happened to Obama?" And there are few prospects for home runs overseas. This is bad news and not just for the President's personal fortunes. America needs a strong, effective president year in, year out, to help propel us forward. Our success as a people has depended on our capacity to solve the problems of today so we can move on to tomorrow. The endless evasions and diversions are tying us in knots and draining our spirits. The world needs strong, effective American leadership as well; for all our mistakes like Iraq, the U.S. is the one nation that still has the power to keep world order. But in the twinkle of an eye, we have gone from being indispensable to indisposed. There is no obvious game plan for Obama to bounce back. It would help if he and his team promised less and delivered more. It would help if more Republicans put the country first. The White House must also avoid the clear danger of so eagerly wanting a big breakthrough -- say, in negotiations with Iran -- that it weakens our security. No deal is always better than a bad deal. But mostly, the Obama team probably has to be patient. Fresh opportunities for leadership will come; they always do at the White House. And for all his troubles, the President retains enormous powers and public good will. It is in not in our national interest to have a lame duck for 33 months.

David Gergen: Obama is experiencing another low point in his presidency . He says there's a risk Obama could be seen as a lame duck for next 33 months . Gergen: A second-term president still can be a strong leader, particularly overseas . He says Obama shouldn't diminish the potential impact of his decisions .

(CNN) -- When the University of California regents were looking for a new president for perhaps the best public university system in the world -- with 10 campuses and more than 230,000 students -- they chose Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano? What? Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio wasn't available? At UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the other UC campuses, students who are undocumented immigrants -- the so-called DREAM'ers -- should be packing their stuff and seeking sanctuary at the nearest community college. One day, all UC students might need to produce their green cards, birth certificates, or proof of citizenship when they enroll. Soon there will be a new sheriff in town. One who makes Wyatt Earp look like Andy Taylor. It's easy to see why Napolitano might wants this plum assignment -- outgoing president Mark Yudof makes $591,000, triple her salary at DHS. (Yudof's total compensation: $847,149). The real question is why should Californians want her? After all, this is a state where the population is more than 38% Hispanic. And, in the first three years of the Obama administration, with Napolitano -- a former Arizona governor -- at the helm riding herd over Obama's immigration policy, Hispanics were vocal in expressing their anger with them. The president was heckled at the National Council of La Raza conference in July 2011 over the failure to honor his campaign promise to make immigration reform a priority, the record number of deportations on his watch, and his refusal to grant deferred status to DREAM'ers. In Dec 2011, a survey by the Pew Hispanic Center found that Hispanics disapproved of the administration's handling of the immigration issue by a ratio of more than 2 to 1 -- 59% to 27%. In June 2012, Obama announced an accommodation for DREAM'ers where they could apply for deferred status, get a work permit and avoid deportation for two years. But those early years, 2009 to 2011, were terrible, and Napolitano took much of the flak. She is still persona non grata in parts of the Hispanic community. In a statement last week, Arturo Carmona, executive director of Presente.org, a grass-roots organization that goes to bat for immigrants and seeks to give Latinos a voice in politics, was refreshingly direct. Napolitano will, he said, "go into the halls of history as President Barack Obama's go-to person for implementing the most repressive anti-Latino and anti-immigrant policies our nation has ever seen." Meanwhile, Obama said this: "Since Day One, Janet has led my administration's effort to secure our borders, deploying a historic number of resources, while also taking steps to make our immigration system fairer and more consistent with our values." At current rates, by the end of 2014 the Obama administration will have deported 2 million people, forced local police departments across the country through the Secure Communities program to enforce federal immigration law in an Arizona-crackdown style, divided hundreds of thousands of families, and -- according to data recently obtained by the Chicago-based National Immigration Justice Center through the Freedom of Information Act -- held hundreds of immigrant minors in adult detention facilities without access to legal counsel, for periods ranging from three days to six months. Are these the values you're talking about, Mr. President? Napolitano is a convenient villain for the Left. Yet she merely carried out the president's immigration strategy, which is three parts heavy-handed enforcement to one part feel-good rhetoric about supporting immigration reform with little action to back up the words. This is the game that Obama and Napolitano have been running. Obama would talk about how he'd like to suspend the deportations; then Napolitano would deliver the reality check and say: "No way, Jose." Obama would address a Latino group and assure them -- falsely it turns out -- that the only people being deported are violent criminals; and Napolitano would brag to Congress about how her department has deported record numbers of people with all sorts of backgrounds and promise to remove more next year. Obama was the good cop, and Napolitano was the bad cop. Now the bad cop is on her way out, and we're going to see how "good" the good cop really is. Now that Napolitano is headed to California, many of us are holding our breath. Who knows what is coming our way? Meanwhile, immigration reform advocates should hold their applause. Her boss is still in Washington, and he is still in charge of an immigration policy that has, for the last four and a half years, wreaked havoc on countless lives. Regardless of who replaces Napolitano, expect more of the same. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Ruben Navarrette.

Ruben Navarrette: Napolitano DHS deportation record should worry students at UC . He says her boss, Obama, lagged on immigration reform, but not on record deportations . He says Napolitano has been "bad cop" to Obama's empty "good cop" rhetoric on immigration . He says reform advocates should be concerned over whom Obama taps next for her job .

(CNN) -- Jeff Romig kept putting it off. He knew the doctor would give him bad news. He'd known it for years; he needed to lose weight. But as he sat in the doctor's office a few weeks ago and listened to his numbers -- cholesterol and blood pressure, both too high -- he resolved to change. This time, he decided to do something different, something drastic. After 10 years of talking about losing weight without much success, Romig decided to put his health and family first by leaving his high-pressure politics job. "I knew I was doing the right thing, but I felt terrible," said Romig, 34, who lives in Georgia. While the tactic might be unusual, Romig is hardly alone in his struggle with weight gain or his reluctance to try to lose it. More than 30% of men older than 20 are overweight, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Men face the issue at the same rate as women, but until recently, ads for weight loss products mostly featured female faces and voices. According to ad industry watchers, the female-centric advertising had the inadvertent effect of scaring men away. Enter a slew of new ads from the biggest names in dieting: Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig. Weight Watchers took a direct approach, with television spots that explicitly tell men it's OK to diet. One commercial proclaims "Weight Watchers online is for men, too," and, as a nod to the brand's more feminine advertising of yore: "It's not all rainbows and lollipops." "Women really appreciate the fact that we are recognizing it as a widespread societal problem," said David Burwick, president of Weight Watchers North America. Beyond the multimillion-dollar campaign lies the hope for company expansion. Burwick estimated that only one-quarter of men who have weight problems actively seek to lose weight. That means plenty aren't spending money on weight loss products and programs, at least not yet. Aside from the attention paid by Madison Avenue, some men said they're learning they need more than just a plan; they need people to hold them accountable and to relate to their struggles. Lloyd Dinwiddie, an entertainment correspondent who goes by the name Gyant, said men don't often talk about their diets with other men, something he said he wishes would change. Though his nickname comes from his 6-foot-8-inch frame, Dinwiddie said not everyone appreciates his desire to slim down, and after years of diets, he's trying new techniques. "Women look at me like I'm crazy. They say, 'You're just big, Gyant,'" he said. "At 310 pounds, every book in the world is telling me I need to lose weight." Revealing journey as woman reduces weight by half . Dinwiddie said he applauds Weight Watchers and other companies that focus on men's health, but an "average Joe"-style spokesman would work better than a Charles Barkley or Mariah Carey, who have trainers and chefs to keep them focused. Dinwiddie's current dieting effort includes a lot more chicken salads and outdoor activities, with a goal of losing 80 pounds. He has turned to an online community, hoping the discussion will serve as communal motivation. "It's actually been a collective support system in a roundabout way 'cause in six months, if I'm not following it, they are going to be like, 'Yo, what's going on?'" Romig, the man who quit his politics job, said he started using Weight Watchers in 2003, after his weight grew to 225 pounds. He lost 30 pounds then, but the positive momentum slowed after a big move and a new, stressful job. Through a few more jobs and one more move, Romig kept his Weight Watchers account, although he wasn't using it much. "Every month, there goes that $16.95," he joked. CNN anchor: Dangers of labels and my bulimia . Work and volunteer commitments soaked up his time. To make decisions about lifestyle changes, he sat with his wife of nine years and ran through scenarios, including how to handle fatigue and soreness during weight loss, and questions about whether he could keep up the momentum. It all added up to one thing: Making time to get healthy, even if it meant reducing his work hours and relying more heavily on the income of his wife, an attorney. Social media has already proven to be helpful on the journey, he said. When he shared news of his resignation and intention to run in a 5K on Facebook, he got all positive comments, he said. Romig keeps himself honest with his phone and other technology that allows him to keep tabs on his progress; his goal is to go from 241 to 180 pounds. But those hyper-masculine ads? Romig said they didn't have much effect on him. The real motivation came from his wife, who told him, "I worry that you're not going to be here." Since last week, Romig has lost 9 pounds. He said everything else, even his job, is now secondary.

Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, featuring men in ad campaigns . More than 30% of men older than 20 are overweight . Estimates say only one-quarter of overweight men actively seek to lose weight .

(CNN) -- What was supposed to be a straightforward cash deal to carry a child for desperate parents has turned into an international spat over who said what, and exposed the darker side of a business credited with creating happiness for many couples. At the center of the debate is Gammy, a seven-month-old Down Syndrome baby with a congenital heart condition who is currently receiving treatment for a lung infection at a private hospital in Thailand. For days, Gammy's surrogate mother, 21-year-old Thai food stall worker Pattharamon Chanbua, has been telling local and foreign press that the couple abandoned their son, taking home his healthy sister. After initially denying they knew about baby Gammy, a friend of the couple issued a statement to a local Australian newspaper saying the pair only left Gammy because they were told he was likely to die. "Gammy was very sick when he was born and the biological parents were told he would not survive and he had a day, at best, to live and to say goodbye," the unnamed friend told the Bunbury Mail, in Western Australia, where the couple live. Fear and lies . The friend said the surrogate mother gave birth at a different hospital to the one agreed upon, which made the surrogacy agreement void. The couple was scared, she said, that Pattharamon would change her mind about the second child, and they'd have to leave Thailand with no children at all. According to the report, the friend noted that the backdrop to the surrogacy row was a military coup in the country and "it was very difficult to get around." The takeover took place in the early hours of May 22, 2014 when Commander of the Royal Thai Army General Prayuth Chan-chua announced in a national broadcast he was now in charge. "This has been absolutely devastating for them, they are on the edge," the friend added, referring to the days of media scrutiny and debate over their decision, months after they returned home. Pattharamon claimed the couple asked her to terminate the Down Syndrome child when she was seven months pregnant. Not true, the couple's friend said. After the babies' birth, Pattharamon claimed they bought nappies and milk for the baby girl, but "didn't even look at the boy." Also a lie, the friend added. Whatever the details of who said what, the case has attracted attention to a largely unregulated industry subject to a confusing tangle of laws and loopholes. Surrogate 'is legal parent' In the state of Western Australia, where the couple is from, it's legal to seek surrogacy abroad. There are no checks for criminal history, and no counseling is required for couples seeking offshore surrogacy, said Jenni Millbank, an expert in Australian surrogacy law from the University of Technology in Sydney. "If surrogacy were taken onshore there would be counseling protocols prior to conception, as well as a welfare report after birth required before legal parentage is transferred; but these are not steps that occur with offshore surrogacy," said Millbank. She said the surrogate mother is the legal parent regardless of whose egg was used. The rights of the genetic father are also "uncertain" as "different judges have taken varied approaches," she said. Australian authorities are looking into the case, as are Thai authorities, who had already announced a crackdown on the industry amid claims rules were being flouted. Pattharamon said she agreed to be paid 300,000 baht ($9,300) for carrying the couple's babies, money she needed to help care for her own two children, aged six and three. After she voiced concerns about how she was going to pay for Gammy's care, funds started flowing to an online campaign, which to date has raised more than $237,000 (US$220,000). Could baby girl be returned? Pattharamon said she's prepared to take the baby girl back if the Australian couple is are "not ready" to take care of her. She said she doesn't intend to pursue legal action against the parents, though Millbank says she could apply to the Family Court of Australia to have the child returned. "The Family Court of Australia has jurisdiction over anyone who has an interest in the care, welfare and a development of a child so (the intending parents) could still make their case and argue for the baby to live with them," Millbank said. "The court would examine the competitive proposals of the parties, probably appoint an independent children's lawyer and do a welfare assessment of the child's needs and then make a decision." The Australian courts have only ever heard one case involving a child born via surrogacy, Millbank said. It involved a child called "Evelyn" whose birth was the result of an agreement between friends that went wrong. "That was in the 1980s and they ended up removing the child from the family that had been raising her and taking her to the other family," Millbank said. "It was an altruistic arrangement where the birth mother changed her mind about seven months later. And she ultimately won. She got the child back."

Australian couple say they were told male twin, Gammy, would die . Boy is now seven months old and in the care of his Thai surrogate mother . Couple said they were scared the surrogate would change her mind about the girl . Surrogate accused couple of abandoning Down Syndrome boy in favor of healthy sister .

(CNN) -- Getting ahead in your career is not just about being successful; it's about being noticed. So how do you stand out to be hired by potential employers? How do you stand out for a promotion to a superior? How do you stand out as loyal to the people you are leading? It's simple: do the things that others aren't willing to do. Whether you're a leader, a team member, or a candidate, success comes from having the discipline to do the things that you know you should be doing, even when you don't feel like doing them. When you practice this kind of self discipline regularly, you'll naturally stand out from the pack -- because most people avoid the hard stuff. It's just easier to put it off. But the truth is that what feels easy now creates problems down the line. And what feels hard now -- doing the stuff you don't feel like -- makes everything easier in the long-term. Self discipline doesn't have to be hard -- you just have to change the way you think about it. Read more: Ambition could make you reach, but not happy . Successful people have mastered the art of self discipline. I've spent the last 10 years studying and coaching some of the most successful people in business, figuring out what makes them different. They're not smarter or more talented than the average person -- they just consistently do what others aren't willing to do by keeping three principles in mind: . Do it scared. Fear is one of the biggest saboteurs of our goals, because it inhibits action. The next time you feel yourself putting something off because you're afraid -- of uncertainty or failure -- just "do it scared." I once heard a true story of a woman who was trapped in a burning building on the 80th floor. She was terrified of heights and enclosed spaces, and when the fire alarm went off, she refused to follow her colleagues into the stairwell to evacuate to safety. The firemen did a sweep of the building and found her hiding under her desk, waiting to die. She was screaming "I'm scared, I'm scared!" as the firemen insisted she walk down the stairwell. Until one fireman said: "that's OK, just do it scared." He repeated it all the way down the 80 flights of stairs, until he brought her to safety. We've all faced these moments in our careers -- when you know what has to be done, but your fear holds you back. In order to stand out, you must develop the habit of acting in the face of fear. It's fine to be scared -- do it scared. It's fine to be unsure -- do it unsure. It's fine to be uncomfortable -- do it uncomfortable. Just do something. This is the attitude of the most disciplined and successful people on the planet. They might be scared, but they do it anyways. And by just doing something, you create movement and momentum that will lead to progress and results. Read more: Realize your potential, 'dare to be different' Habits, not results. Perfectionism is one of the most common reasons people procrastinate, and we've all done it at some point. The best way to overcome this impulse is to put your self esteem into stellar work habits instead of results. It can take a while to see the fruits of your labor -- whether you're spearheading a new initiative, trying to launch a business, or planning a second act career. To keep yourself motivated, take pride in sticking to your work habits, rather than looking for immediate results. In time, success will follow. Remember the big picture. The pursuit of any goal will inevitably face a number of obstacles. The difference between those who stand out in the careers and those who blend in lies in what you do when you reach these critical turning points. Do you hesitate and turn back? Or do you press forward? When you feel frustrated, depressed, or disappointed, don't give up -- just get some perspective. I have a mental reminder that helps me push past these hurdles. I hold my pen up to my eye and stare directly down the barrel. Then, I pull it away and look at it in its entirety. It's a quick way to remind myself to look at my life in the same way. Stop fixating on the here and now, and think about the big picture. Today's challenges may not make sense, but you must have faith that over the long-term, they will be nothing more than blips on the radar screen. Having this perspective and faith will help you press forward at the moments when others turn back. Contrary to popular belief, people who have reached the highest levels in their careers aren't necessarily better educated, more talented or better connected. Neither are they simply more motivated or harder workers. Rather, successful people have realized that getting to the top means that they first have to do the things that they don't want to do related to their goals. It's not about enjoying self discipline -- it's about adopting a few new ways of thinking that simply make discipline easier to endure. And when you develop the habit of doing things that others won't do, you're putting yourself on the fast track to the route to the top. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Rory Vaden.

Successful people consistently do the things that others aren't willing to do, says Rory Vaden . If you feel yourself putting something off because you're afraid, do it anyway, he says . Vaden argues that we must stop fixating on the here and now, and think about the big picture .

Durban, South Africa (CNN) -- For centuries, the massive sand dunes overlooking the warm waters off the South African east coast have created a majestic scenery, acting as a natural wall between the sea and the land environment. Lashed by strong winds, the imposing dunes tower above the acacia-dotted landscape, supporting a vibrant ecosystem that thrives along the scenic coastline near the city of Durban. In recent years, mining companies have been eager to dig inside these dunes to extract the valuable minerals they contain. At the same time, environmentalists have been campaigning against mining, fighting to keep the dunes pristine and preserve the region's splendid natural habitat. Watch: Investing in Africa's mining sector . One mining company operating in the area is Richards Bay Minerals (RBM). The firm has been extracting minerals from the region's coastal sand dunes for more than three decades, having set up a massive operation along the shore. "These sands are mineralized," says Andrew Denton, general manager of mining at RBM. "They've got a total heavy mineral content in them, which is ilmenite, rutile, zircon," he explains. While carrying its mining operations, the company says it is committed to achieving a high standard of environmental care. It has put in place a rehabilitation program that aims to reshape the dunes and bring the forest to its pre-mining state by putting the indigenous plants back into the ground after the extraction process. "Clearly, this [mining] is a large scale operation that's got significant impact," says Denton. "What's important to us is that we can rehabilitate the ground, restore the indigenous forest after we mined it and that the communities around us and the society which we operate receive benefits from being in proximity to this mining area. That's key to our operation." According to RBM, the minerals removed from the sand through mining comprise about 5% of the dunes' total volume. The company stockpiles the topsoil which contains the nutrients, organic debris and plant seeds that are stripped away during mining. After the dunes are reshaped, the topsoil is spread over the bare sand in a thin layer, triggering the natural processes that facilitate the recovery of the dunes. Windbreaks are erected to protect the emerging seedlings from damage and to help in the stabilization of the dune. Read more: Romancing the dune in Namibia . Michelle Boshoff, the company's environmental manager, describes the procedure as a natural restoration process that takes decades to be finalized. She says the program is being followed by a number of stakeholders, including the University of Pretoria which conducts studies in the area. "There's a way to lessen the impact and do mining and development side by side," she says. "We can prove it [natural restoration] is viable. It's a good option." Yet, dune mining is being staunchly opposed by many environmentalists who say that the process is damaging the region's ecosystem. Environmental lawyer Jeremy Ridl is part of a group of eco-activists who successfully blocked dune mining in the area of St. Lucia -- north of where RBM is currently working -- in the 1990s. That area is now a world heritage site. Ridl describes mining operations in the region as "completely destructive." "It's a major change to the landscape," he says. "The vegetation gets cleared. Then anything up to 80 meters of dune gets completely mangled up and rehashed. They put humpty dumpty back together again and you have this sort of consolation that the shape will be the same." Yet, even critics such as Ridl acknowledge that there are benefits stemming from the post-mining efforts to rehabilitate the ecosystem. Watch: Growing cost of mining gold in Africa . "I've got no complaints about that," he says. "Not only are they trying very hard, they are producing excellent results, but in my mind it's too early to proclaim this as a rehabilitation of the dunes back to its natural state." Some voices argue that eco-tourism could provide a small but possible alternative to mining, helping local communities generate income and also preserve the ecosystem. Ridl says that eco-tourism has the potential to benefit the area but warns that its development should take into consideration the sensitivity of the local environment. "We need to think ahead -- if we're promoting eco-tourism as an opportunity and form of development, then we've got to apply all the same controls and look at it critically, like the mining operation," he says. "Eco-tourism does have the advantage provided its beneficiaries are local. Now I'm talking about everybody -- owners of resorts, people employed, skills development is very important because these tourism ventures are located in areas where people lack capacity and skills. "So unless you link tourism in other community-based initiatives and end up having these ventures and all the benefits living in community, eco-tourism has potential to be just as bad as we perceive mining to be."

South Africa's sand dunes have been supporting a thriving ecosystem for centuries . Mining companies are eager to dig inside them for the minerals they contain . Environmentalists are campaigning for the protection of the massive dunes . Some argue that eco-tourism can be a valuable alternative to mining .

(CNN) -- Ever since his blistering debut as an angry, disenfranchised ghetto kid in "La Haine", Vincent Cassel has gained a reputation for giving the kind of performances it's hard to ignore. Cassel has won plaudits for his virtuoso turn as a French gangster in the movie "Mesrine." Angular and athletic with a menacing pout and searing blue eyes, the French actor has made his name playing hard-edged, morally compromised, often unlikeable characters. Away from the onscreen bad boys, he's one half of France's most glamorous screen couple. His wife, the Italian actress Monica Belluci is a big name in her own right, and has starred in the last two films of the "Matrix" trilogy as well as acting alongside Cassel in a number of movies. A huge star at home, Cassel has enjoyed critical success abroad with roles in films like "Eastern Promises", David Cronenburg's 2007 tale about the Russian mafia in London, and is one of only a handful of French male stars to get parts in Hollywood. He has enjoyed cameos in "Ocean's Twelve" and "Ocean's Thirteen" as well as voicing the character of Monsieur Hood in the "Shrek" cartoon. That said he's yet to score a real Hollywood hit in his own right. The moment for that may not be far away, especially after his recent virtuoso turn in the French blockbuster "Mesrine". In the film he plays the real-life French gangster Jacques Mesrine. His performance helped make the film a huge hit in France and netted him a best actor César, the French equivalent of the Oscars. "(Cassel) is viewed in France as a very good actor with charisma and intelligence," Agnes Poirier, a London-based French film critic told CNN. "Like most intelligent actors, he's politically aware and doesn't mince his words." France's most wanted criminal in the seventies, Mesrine is a controversial figure in his native land. A charismatic and psychotic criminal, he courted the press and was known for daring bank heists and prison breaks. He was eventually gunned down by police on the streets of Paris in 1979. The two-part movie --released in the UK and the U.S. this month -- is the perfect showcase for Cassel's muscular brand of acting and pairs him up with the grand old master of French cinema, Gerard Depardieu, who plays the head of Mesrine's band of hoodlums in the film. "He's not yet seen on a par with Depardieu," said Poirier. "Not being of a classic beauty, Cassel belongs to the "gueules cassées" (which literally means "broken faces") such as Jean-Paul Belmondo before him. It's French gallic charm with character." Cassel's first movie role was in "La Haine" (or "Hate" in English) the 1995 indie hit about a group of youths living on a Paris housing estate. Directed by "Amelie" star Matthieu Kassovitz, the film stirred controversy because of its stark depiction of racial tensions. In it Cassel plays an angry young boxer with a Robert De Niro obsession. The middle-class son of the popular film actor Jean-Pierre Cassel, he was not an obvious choice to play the part of a disenfranchised street kid. Even so, he made the part his own and still maintains the movie is one of his proudest moments. "I love that "La Haine" is still so accurate, but that also horrifies me," Cassel told London's Observer newspaper in an interview earlier this year. He told the paper that he didn't think France was a racist place but that the country still had "many problems with our immigrant past." The 42-year-old Parisian didn't rest on his laurels following "La Haine." He made a string of hard-hitting films, the most controversial of which by far was the 2002 movie "Irréversible." The film is told backwards and features an excruciating 10-minute rape scene in which Belluci, his wife, plays the victim. In spite of the raw subject matter, the experience of filming with his wife on "Irréversible" is something Cassel clearly enjoyed since the two have appeared with each other in eight other movies. The golden couple of the Gallic movie scene have a daughter together but France's strict privacy laws mean they're afforded a degree of freedom not always permitted to their Hollywood counterparts. "The French press is famously respectful of personalities' private lives especially if those celebrities don't play with the fire of self-seeking publicity," said Poirier. "Mesrine: Killer Instinct" is in UK cinemas now. "Mesrine: Public Enemy No.1" is in UK cinemas 28 August .

In his latest role Vincent Cassel plays a famous French gangster . For his part in "Mesrine" Cassel gained nearly 20 kilos . The actor has made his name playing screen tough guys . He has a daughter with the Italian actress and ex-model Monica Belluci .

(CNN) -- Vacation is a time to relax, revert to simpler times, disconnect from our 18 electronic devices and get back to the basics, but not so much that it means waking up to the rooster's crow at the break of dawn or shelling field peas all day. So, we're taking you around the world to five resorts where all the roots are planted for the ultimate rustic retreat without getting your hands too dirty. Blackberry Farm Walland, Tennessee . This luxurious Rocky Top retreat is just 25 minutes from Knoxville. The 4,200-acre Relais & Châteaux member since 1994 is located in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, and recently ranked as the No. 1 hotel in the United States and Canada in Travel + Leisure's annual World's Best Awards. Spend a misty Tennessee morning fly fishing or gardening before an afternoon of cheese making, horseback riding, cycling or kayaking. Or you could simply laze the day away on a rocking chair with handcrafted whiskey if that's more your speed. Close out each night in The Barn as Executive Chef Joseph Lenn and his team prepare multicourse menus of "foothills cuisine" from the farm's bakery, butcher, creamery and 8,000-square-foot wine cellar. Rates start at $890 a night. Gibb's Farm Karatu, Tanzania . This working farm built in 1929 is on the slopes of the Ngorongoro Forest Reserve. Explore Tanzania's national parks during the day before retreating to the veranda to watch the African sunset over the sweeping coffee fields from the main farmhouse. The 20 guest cottages are situated on a working dairy and pig farm, and 90% of the food served at Gibb's Farm is grown on the property, whether from the 10-acre organic fruit and vegetable garden or 5-acre flower and herb garden. Even the organic coffee served with breakfast is grown and roasted on site. Relax after an afternoon safari or hike to the nearby waterfall with a floral foot soak, coffee scrub or one of the other healing traditions of the Maasai in The African Living Spa. Or let horticulturist Lazaro Msasi Gwandu take you on a guided tour of the eight formal English gardens. Rates start at $367. Romaneira Quinta dos Sonhos Cotas, Portugal . You will be hard-pressed to find fault with anything that means "house of dreams," Quinta dos Sonhos, in Portuguese. The nearly 1,000-acre villa estate sits on a vineyard on the banks of the River Douro, a World Heritage Site. Be prepared to completely unplug during your stay at the Relais & Châteaux property as there are no telephones, televisions or even reception. You won't even need to decide what or where you want to eat as the chef decides on the menu daily, and each meal is set on a different part of the estate each day. Bask in the Portuguese sun by the L-shaped pool overlooking the Douro, enjoy a rustic picnic under the olive trees or a boat excursion through the grassy banks before retreating to your guest room for a glass of evening port from one of the old cellars. And for the chocolate lovers, there is a chocolate factory on site for your daily antioxidant fix. Rates start around $670, including meals. Palmlea Farms Lodges and Bures Labasa, Fiji . When one thinks "green acres," the tropical destination of Fiji probably doesn't spring to mind, but Palmlea Farms nestled on Vanua Levu is a new breed of eco-agritourism. The eco-resort overlooking the spectacular Great Sea Reef operates on solar energy and fresh water from the nearby mountain. They also grow much of their own food on the farm using organic processes, and support local growers and north shore fishermen at The Lodge Restaurant on site. Surfing, snorkeling and lagoon swimming are just some of the aquatic activities to take advantage of during your stay. Or for the more manual labor-inclined, try your hand at farming, learning tropical techniques, or crabbing with a local guide. Rates start at approximately $120, including breakfast. The Farm at Cape Kidnappers Hawke's Bay, New Zealand . Talk about a cliff-hanger: The 6,000 acre working sheep and cattle farm sits atop green cliffs with breathtaking views of Hawke's Bay. The world-renowned golf course designed by Tom Doak offers another dose of green (or bunkers depending on your handicap). Embrace your own Kiwi sense of adventure rafting, fishing, horseback riding or four-wheel drive along a private beach. The lodge situated in Hawke's Bay Wine Country makes it the perfect getaway to discover the best estates that New Zealand has to offer. Rates start around $910 a night.

Explore these five resorts, where all the roots are planted for the ultimate rustic retreat . Gibb's Farm is a working farm, and 90% of the food served is grown on the property . Palmlea Farms operates on solar energy and fresh water from the nearby mountain .

(CNN) -- With his nine special-needs children in his house and one of them with him in the master bedroom, a Florida man was on his knees when an armed intruder shot him in the face, then fired twice more after the victim had fallen face down on the floor, a medical examiner said Wednesday. Byrd Billings died execution-style the night of July 9, 2009, as did his wife, Melanie, after a band of people dressed as ninjas broke into their Beulah, Florida, home. Prosecutors say Leonard Gonzalez Jr., 35, led six other men into the house looking to steal an expected $13 million and personally killed the defenseless couple. Dr. Andrea Minyard testified Wednesday, the second day of Gonzalez's first-degree murder trial in Escambia County Circuit Court in Pensacola. She pinned needles on human-sized dummies to show how nine bullets hit the Billings' couple. Video footage aired earlier in the trial showed a masked, armed man hovering over a shirtless Byrd Billings in the palatial home's living room shooting a shirtless Byrd Billings twice, with one shot in each leg. Frederick Thornton -- part of the group who testified after pleading guilty to second-degree murder -- fingered Gonzalez as the man who fired the shots, then led the couple into the first-floor bedroom. After shooting Byrd Billings the first time, Gonzalez said "where's the money at, and he told him to get up," said Thornton, 20. Defense attorneys dispute Thornton's assertion, claiming he's not a credible witness and saying another masked man fired the shots. The Billingses had 16 cameras around their home, set up to keep tabs on the nine special-needs children for whom they cared. There was no camera in the master bedroom, but prosecution witnesses Wednesday cited DNA tests as showing that Gonzalez likely handled the rifle used in the fatal shootings. One of the videos aired in court Tuesday shows the scene from one girl's bedroom as a red van packed with people arrives outside the house. The girl gets up out of bed as the masked men enter the house, then hides under the covers pretending to sleep after hearing the commotion nearby. The team had started, then called off, an armed invasion at the home on July 4. Before the second try, Rakeem Florence -- who, like Thornton, plead guilty to second-degree murder for his role and testified for the prosecution -- said there was no mention anyone would be killed until he overheard Gonzalez minutes before they went to the house. "He said he was going to kill somebody," Florence, now 18, said of Gonzalez. Florence and Thornton claimed Gonzalez captained the scheme, leading pre-invasion meetings, supplying the firearms and all-black clothing, and ordering they destroy the clothing afterward. Florence testified that he was told the plotters were trying to get laundered cash believed to be in a safe at the house, as the Billings family was "washing money from the Mexican mafia." Defense attorneys for Gonzalez questioned the credibility of the two witnesses, since they are related (Florence is the father of a child born to Thornton's sister) and had changed the stories they told their family and police, saying they had "practiced lying." Also Wednesday, the jury of 11 women and two men saw prosecutors try to establish the guns used in the crime, as well as see the safe taken from the Billings' home. Prosecutors say a small safe containing prescription medication, family documents and some jewelry was later was found in the backyard of a woman who said she was a friend of Gonzalez, authorities said. Two sources familiar with the investigation told CNN that a second safe at the home contained at least $100,000. The defendant's wife, Tabitha Gonzalez, testified Tuesday that the family's business, a karate school, had gone under. Byrd Billings had even donated $5,000 to the Gonzalez's school. Prosecutors argue this indicates that financial gain was Leonard Gonzalez's overriding motive in the armed invasion. "He was so broke ... that his mother had to buy him a car, which turned out to be a big red van that was used in the murders," prosecutor Bill Eddins said in his opening statements of Gonzalez, who had six children with Tabitha. Of the eight people arrested in the case, seven males faced charges of murder and home invasion robbery. Two of them have already pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charges. The woman is accused of being an accessory after the fact. The remaining males, including a 16-year-old charged as an adult, have pleaded not guilty to the charges. If convicted, Gonzalez could be sentenced to death. In Session's Jean Casarez and Nancy Leung contributed to this report.

Medical examiner claims Florida man was shot twice when he was face down . Byrd and Melanie Billings died after masked invaders fired nine bullets at them . Two men involved in invasion say Leonard Gonzalez Jr. was ringleader, shooter . Florida couple known for caring for special-needs kids were shot and killed in 2009 .

(CNN) -- Chikungunya -- a tropical disease with a funny name that packs a wallop like having your bones crushed -- has finally taken up residence in the United States. Ever since the first local transmission of chikungunya was reported in the Americas late last year, health officials have been bracing for the arrival of the debilitating, mosquito-borne virus in the United States. Just seven months after the first cases were found in the Caribbean, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first locally acquired case of chikungunya in Florida. Even though chikungunya is not on the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System list, 31 states and two U.S. territories have reported cases of the disease since the beginning of the year. But only Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands reported locally acquired cases. All the other cases were travelers who were infected in countries where the virus was endemic and were diagnosed upon returning to the United States. That ended Thursday, when the CDC reported a man in Florida, who had not recently traveled outside the country, came down with the illness. As of right now, the Florida Department of Health confirmed there are at least two cases. One case is in Miami Dade County and the other is in Palm Beach County. Its arrival did not surprise the chair of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control Board. "It was just a matter of when. We are prepared in the Keys and have been prepared for some time to deal with chikungunya," Steve Smith said. "From what I am seeing, I'm sure there are more cases out there that we don't know about. It's really a matter of time." The CDC is working closely with the Florida Department of Health to investigate how the patient came down with the virus. The CDC will also monitor for additional locally acquired U.S. cases in the coming weeks and months. The virus, which can cause joint pain and arthritis-like symptoms, has been on the U.S. public health radar for some time. Usually about 25 to 28 infected travelers bring it to the United States each year. But this new case represents the first time that mosquitoes themselves are thought to have transferred the disease within the continental United States . "The arrival of chikungunya virus, first in the tropical Americas and now in the United States, underscores the risks posed by this and other exotic pathogens," said Roger Nasci, chief of CDC's Arboviral Diseases Branch. "This emphasizes the importance of CDC's health security initiatives designed to maintain effective surveillance networks, diagnostic laboratories and mosquito control programs both in the United States and around the world." The virus is not deadly, but it can be extremely painful, with symptoms lasting for weeks. Those with weak immune systems, such as the elderly, are more likely to suffer from the virus' side effects than those who are healthier. About 60% to 90% of those infected will have symptoms, says Nasci. People infected with chikungunya will often have severe joint pain, particularly in their hands and feet, and can also quickly get very high fevers. The good news, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, is that the United States is more sophisticated when it comes to controlling mosquitoes than many other nations and should be able to keep the problem under control. "We live in a largely air-conditioned environment, and we have a lot of screening (window screens, porch screens)," Shaffner said. "So we can separate the humans from the mosquito population, but we cannot be completely be isolated." Mosquito-borne virus worries CDC . Chikungunya was originally identified in East Africa in the 1950s. Then about 10 years ago, chikungunya spread to the Indian Ocean and India, and a few years later an outbreak in northern Italy sickened about 200 people. Now at least 74 countries plus the United States are reporting local transmission of the virus. The ecological makeup of the United States supports the spread of an illness such as this, especially in the tropical areas of Florida and other Southern states, according to the CDC. The other concern is the type of mosquito that carries the illness. Unlike most mosquitoes that breed and prosper outside from dusk to dawn, the chikungunya virus is most often spread to people by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes, which are most active during the day, which makes it difficult to use the same chemical mosquito control measures. These are the same mosquitoes that transmit the virus that causes dengue fever. The disease is transmitted from mosquito to human, human to mosquito and so forth. A female mosquito of this type lives three to four weeks and can bite someone every three to four days. Shaffner and other health experts recommend people remember the mosquito-control basics: . -- Use bug spray if you are going out, especially in tropical or wooded areas near water. -- Get rid of standing water in empty plastic pools, flower pots, pet dishes and gutters to eliminate mosquito breeding grounds. -- Wear long sleeves and pants.

The first local cases of chikungunya arrived in Florida . The mosquito-borne virus creates painful arthritis-like symptoms . The Florida Keys Mosquito Control Board chair says more cases likely .

(CNN) -- Mexican authorities have rescued six undocumented Cuban migrants who had been held for ransom for a month in Cancun, a vacation hotspot on the nation's Yucatan Peninsula, the state-run Notimex news agency reported Wednesday. The abductors, who were not apprehended in Tuesday night's rescue, were seeking between $8,000 and $10,000 from relatives in Florida for each of the five men and one woman they had been holding in a series of safe houses, Notimex said. The Cubans said they arrived in Cancun on a raft and were picked up from the streets of Cancun by men in a pickup truck, the news service said. The Yucatan Peninsula, particularly the municipalities of Cancun, Isla Mujeres and Cozumel, is a major landing point for smugglers who bring Cubans into Mexico and take them to the U.S. border. "It's a major receiving dock for things coming from the Caribbean," said Samuel Logan, founding director of Southern Pulse, an online information network focused on Latin America. "It's a pretty important reception point." Human smugglers charge up to $10,000 per person to transport them by boat from Cuba, usually from the westernmost province of Pinar del Rios, and then overland in Mexico to the U.S. border. Mexican and Cuban officials estimate that up to 10,000 Cubans are smuggled into Mexico each year, the online Diario de Cuba publication said Wednesday. The Cancun area has become more popular with human smugglers in the past decade because the 135-mile-wide Yucatan Channel is not heavily patrolled by the U.S. Coast Guard as other parts of the Caribbean Sea. Most U.S. interdiction efforts occur in the Straits of Florida between Cuba and Florida. Cuban smugglers have been working with drug-trafficking organizations in the Yucatan area, particularly the Beltran-Leyva and Zetas cartels, authorities say. Lately, officials say, the Cuban smugglers have been branching out into trafficking cocaine from Colombia. The Noticaribe online publication said in November that a group of Cuban migrants had reported being tortured in Cancun by abductors who demanded $10,000 from family in Miami, Florida. Of the 34 killings in the Cancun area in 2007, Noticaribe said, many of them were Cubans involved in human trafficking. Tuesday's rescue of the six Cubans came one week after Mexican authorities discovered the bodies of 72 migrants from Central and South America on a ranch in Tamaulipas state. Officials are investigating whether the Zetas cartel killed the migrants and for what reason. It's possible the migrants refused to work for the cartel or were unable to obtain ransom money. "Sometimes the Mexican organized crime group says, 'The hell with it. We're not going to deal with these people,' and they kill them all," Logan said. Elements from the Mexican navy, army and state and local police made Tuesday's rescue of the six Cubans after authorities received a telephone tip. The hostages said they were guarded at their last house by three abductors, two Mexicans and a Cuban. The Cubans ranged in age from 22 to 46 years old, Notimex said, and were identified as Lazaro Hernandez Albeja, Eusebio Galaz Sabrino, Dandy Acosta, Edel Eime Gama, Daniel Cardo Rodriguez and Suramy Acosta Camber. In Mexico, human smuggling is a $15 billion- to $20 billion-a-year endeavor, second only to drug trafficking, Logan said. That money, which used to go mostly to smugglers, now also flows into the hands of drug cartel members. The drug-trafficking organizations charge the smugglers a price per person for the right to cross over their territory, a practice called "derecho de piso," or right of passage. Or they often abduct the migrants and hold them for ransom. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan, nonprofit policy institute based in Washington, noted in an August report that human smuggling and other illegal activities are playing an increasingly important role as narcotraffickers diversify their activities. "The drug cartels have not confined themselves to selling narcotics," the report said. "They engage in kidnapping for ransom, extortion, human smuggling and other crimes to augment their incomes." Some cartels have come to rely more in recent years on human smuggling. "For the Zetas, it's been one of their main revenue streams for years," Logan said about the vicious cartel, which operates mostly in northeastern Mexico.

Abductors wanted between $8,000 to $10,000 for each Cuban from relatives in Florida . The Cubans had been held in a series of safe houses in Cancun for a month . The Yucatan Peninsula has become a major landing point for Cubans smuggled into Mexico . Smugglers charge up to $10,000 per person to bring the Cubans into Mexico and north to the U.S. border .

Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) -- The villagers' faces light up as Evans Wadongo arrives. Men, women and children sing and gather around as he shows how his invention -- a solar-powered LED lantern -- will soon light up their homes. "These families, they are so poor. They don't have electricity," said Wadongo, a native of rural Kenya. "It's only kerosene and firewood that they use for lighting, cooking. "The amount of money that every household uses to buy kerosene every day -- if they can just save that money, they can be able to buy food." Wadongo, 23, not only is giving his country's rural families a way to replace the smoky kerosene and firelight with solar power, he says he also hopes his invention will ultimately improve education and reduce poverty and hunger. And he's providing it for free. Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2010 CNN Heroes . The youngest of four children, Wadongo grew up in a home that stressed the importance of education -- his father was a high school teacher. But years of exposure to smoke while studying by kerosene and firelight left Wadongo with eyesight problems. With a lack of good light to study by -- Wadongo often had to share one lantern with his siblings and other family members -- he remembers the frustration of unfinished homework and poor exam performance. "I couldn't compete effectively with other kids who had access to lighting," he said. "In every home in the village it was the same. Many children drop out of school for these reasons ... so they remain poor for the rest of their life. All along I was asking myself if there is anything that can be done to improve this situation." In 2004, while attending a Kenyan university for agriculture and technology, Wadongo found his answer. He was fiddling with a dorm experiment involving the timing of LED (light-emitting diode) Christmas lights when it struck him: The environmentally friendly light source could be used to light rural homes. "I knew it would have to be sourced by the sun to be useful to people in rural areas," he said, "but [I] had never seen a solar panel small enough for individual homes." Then, while walking home from visiting a friend, Wadongo stumbled upon a broken-off piece of a discarded solar panel. With it, he was able to light a small number of LEDs. His project -- Use Solar, Save Lives -- was born. "I immediately knew the impact that [it] would have on the rural communities," he said. An artisan helped him design the solar lantern, which Wadongo calls MwangaBora -- Swahili for "good light." To help get the project started, Wadongo's family and friends subsidized his student loans for two years. Production of the lanterns was slow until Wadongo attended a leadership training program sponsored by the nonprofit Sustainable Development for All-Kenya. When the group heard about his MwangaBora, it immediately committed to help, eventually bringing Wadongo on as a partner and chairman of the board. The group has helped reduce production costs to $20 per lantern. Costs are covered by donations. Volunteers help build the lanterns and work with local government and women's groups to determine the communities most in need. The group sets a small percentage of the cost of each lamp to go toward the volunteers. "We're helping them to earn a living. They're able now to sustain their families," he said. Wadongo works on the lantern project full time without pay and eats only one meal a day to help save money and build more lanterns. He said he expects costs to decrease further as the program grows. The group buys excess pieces of solar paneling, cut from commercially sold panels, in bulk from an overseas company. In an outdoor metal shop, Wadongo and volunteers hammer scrap metal for the frame of the lantern. Wadongo estimates he's distributed 10,000 lanterns -- and he has no plans for slowing down. "I want to reach out to as many rural communities as possible," he said. "The impact is saving lives." Children can now study. Households can buy food with the money they save on kerosene, reducing hunger in communities. The solar lanterns help reduce carbon emissions, too. Wadongo said that when the time and need arises, he intends to service, replace and recycle his lanterns. For villager Julia Dzame and her three children, life will change dramatically thanks to Wadongo and his solar lantern. "I am so grateful for the lights," she said. "My children will have light to read, and I'll have my own light to cook in the kitchen. No more sickness brought [on] by smoke." For Wadongo, the satisfaction comes in knowing that he's helping to lift people out of poverty. "I just feel like it's right," he said. Want to get involved? Check out the Use Solar, Save Lives Web site and see how to help.

A 23-year-old Kenyan's solar-powered LED lantern helps light rural homes . With help of nonprofit, he estimates he's distributed 10,000 lanterns -- for free . Villagers can buy food with money saved on kerosene, firewood, he says . Do you know a hero? Nominations are open for 2010 CNN Heroes .

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- Soccer fans have never been shy about expressing their opinions, but this year's World Cup in South Africa -- which will be the first of the "social media age" according to many -- may see record levels of global interactivity. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were in their infancy in 2006, when the last World Cup took place in Germany, but have since exploded in popularity. Social media now connects millions around the world -- 50 million tweets are sent daily while Facebook boasts more than 400 million active users -- a development that will allow fans separated by distance to celebrate goals or critique referee decisions together online. "Football is the world's biggest sport, so the world will practically stop for the month of the World Cup," Matt Stone, head of new media for world soccer's governing body FIFA, told CNN. "There will be so much more media consumed, used and published in 2010 than in 2006. Social media can bring fans closer together and give fans more opportunity to communicate with each other," he added. FIFA has its own social-networking service on FIFA.com -- called "The Club" -- which has 1.6 million members, but the organization is about to make a bigger push into social media. Stone said that Facebook Connect, which allows Web sites to be shared on Facebook, will be incorporated into FIFA.com and that FIFA plans to launch official Twitter accounts for the World Cup too. Stone would not give specifics but he said the accounts may include tweets from people in the "top echelons" of FIFA. Could that mean tweets from FIFA president Sepp Blatter himself? Stone wouldn't say, but he promised some "exciting announcements in May." Regardless of who does the tweeting for FIFA, expect to see a lot of tweets flying back and forth between fans when the action starts on June 11. The match between the United States and England on the tournament's second day should be particularly fun to monitor on Twitter. "Our notion is that [the World Cup] will eclipse everything we have seen so far [on Twitter] including the U.S. election, the Oscars or the Super Bowl, simply because it is so international," Robin Sloan, a Twitter employee that works on media partnerships, told CNN. Sloan suspects that during the month-long tournament, terms related to the World Cup will rank highly among the service's "Trending Topics," a measure of the most popular discussions on Twitter. And during the last few days of the tournament, he expects World Cup discussion to "absolutely take over Twitter." So far, many fans have been using the Twitter hash tag#WC2010 when they tweet about the World Cup. Although Twitter is based in the U.S., where soccer is not as popular in other parts of the world, the service is seeing its fastest growth outside of America, Sloan said. The service is now available in six languages, there are plans to add more, and a recent report found that only half of all tweets are in English. Twitter is also striking deals with mobile providers in other countries so that it is free for subscribers to send and receive tweets on their phones. Sloan said this is particularly important in countries such as South Africa, where access to computers and smart phones is limited. And it won't be just fans tweeting about the World Cup. Several top players including Brazil star Kaka and Landon Donovan of the U.S. are active on Twitter. Stone said FIFA has issued guidelines that players should not tweet from inside the World Cup stadiums, and it is up to individual nations to impose further restrictions. Already, England coach Fabio Capello has reportedly banned his players from posting to Twitter or Facebook during the World Cup. When there is a great goal, or a controversial penalty, fans will likely turn to video sharing site YouTube to watch the watch plays, create parody or "mashup" videos and record their own reactions. "Things like the World Cup really excite us because we see a level of engagement and interaction beyond what we normally see," YouTube's sports manager Andrew Bangs told CNN. "Within minutes of the World Cup starting, we will certainly see thousands and thousands of uploads about the World Cup." In 2006, after French player Zinedine Zidane head-butted Marco Materazzi of Italy, hundreds of videos parodying the play were posted on YouTube. Some videos placed Zidane in a video game while others showed him in well-known movie scenes. YouTube's popularity has surged since 2006 thanks in part to the advent of inexpensive video cameras and cell phones that can record and instantly upload video to the Web. Bangs predicts there will be more mashups and parodies during the World Cup as well as videos examining the political implications of an African nation hosting the tournament for the first time. He also says there will be lots of videos where fans put the camera on top of their television and record themselves reacting to a goal or red card decision, a relatively new phenomenon. "We will see no limit to the uses and creativity that emerge around the World Cup," Bangs said. Be sure to follow @WorldCupCNN on Twitter for all the latest World Cup news and information.

FIFA has social-networking service called "The Club" with 1.6 million members . "[The World Cup] will eclipse everything we have seen so far" -- Twitter . "Within minutes of the World Cup starting, we will see thousands of uploads" -- YouTube .

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A manufacturing defect blamed for the mid-air breakup of an F-15 Eagle fighter may cause the Air Force to ground a quarter of its fleet of those warplanes permanently, a top general said Thursday. The mid-air breakup of an F-15 fighter jet is being blamed on a a manufacturing defect. Gen. John Corley, the head of the U.S. Air Combat Command, said about 160 of the jets may never return to service after an investigation into the November 2 crash that left the plane's pilot seriously injured. The single-seat F-15C broke up in a 500-mph turn during a combat training mission over Missouri, with its fuselage breaking in half behind the cockpit, an Air Force probe of the crash determined. Investigators concluded that a critical piece of the jet's airframe broke during the flight because of a manufacturing defect. A defective longeron -- a metal strut that runs lengthwise down the fuselage -- was cut improperly by the manufacturer, Boeing, and led to a series of cracks over the plane's lifespan, Corley said. Watch a report on the plane and its problems » . "Some of these airplanes will never return to flight," Corley said. "The age, the fatigue on these airplanes has been manifest as we looked under the hood extensively over these last two months." The Air Force has been flying the twin-engine, supersonic F-15 since the early 1970s. The C model involved in November's crash is credited with 34 of the 37 "kills" credited to Air Force pilots in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, according to Thursday's report on the accident. The service has about 700 F-15s in its fleet, all of which were grounded after the November crash. Most were returned to service after being checked out, but about 40 percent of the Air Force's 442 F-15 models A through D remain grounded. "I flew these airplanes 30 years ago," Corley told CNN "This is a fleet of airplanes that's 25-plus years old on average. That constant pulling and pushing and twisting has also caused fatigue." If the grounded planes are retired, the Air Force would still have about 240 of the older fighters and nearly 300 of the newer F-15E, a two-seat version used for ground-attack missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Investigators released the results of the Missouri crash at a news conference Thursday in the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton, home of the Air National Guard wing involved in the accident. The pilot, 37-year-old Maj. Stephen Stillwell, told reporters that his plane broke up in a turn that produced about eight times the force of gravity. "I had no idea what was happening," he said. "I knew something bad was happening, but I didn't know what it was." Stillwell suffered a broken arm and still has problems with his shoulder. He credited his survival to the training he received. "You always prepare for the worst-case scenario," he said. "I think luck played a small part in it, but a large part of it was due to the training I received and my faith in God," said Stillwell, who is also a pilot for Northwest Airlines. Col. Bob Leeker, the wing's commander, said the first four of his F-15s took off Thursday after receiving clearance. Six other planes in the 131st Fighter Wing have not been released, but three are expected to be once additional examinations are completed, he said. The F-15 was first built by McDonnell-Douglas, and it's now manufactured by Boeing. The service is trying to determine whether Boeing would be liable for the defect after 30 years. The A through D models are used in the United States for air-defense missions. After the initial grounding, the service had to move F-16s to cover for F-15 missions, and Canadians had to help cover missions over Alaska, according to Air Force officials. The defect was discovered as the Air Force continues to fight for more advanced F-22 Raptors, seen as the future of the service's fighter fleet. Congress allowed the purchase of only 183 of the almost 400 the Air Force wanted, but the service continues to ask for another 200. Corley said suggestions that the service is trying to use the problems with the F-15 as leverage to get more of the Lockheed-built F-22s "makes me just outraged, because it's just flat wrong." "I'm the one who looks into the eyes of the moms and dads, the sons and daughters, the husbands and wives that I put in that airplane," he said. "To think that I would put one of those individuals at risk, to almost kill one aviator and to risk other aviators, that is beyond my possible belief." E-mail to a friend .

NEW: General: Manufacturing flaw may lead to suspension of quarter of fleet . F-15C Eagle broke apart in mid-air in November; the pilot survived . Report: Defective metal beam in the airframe disintegrated during flight . Some aircraft remain grounded as the Air Force continues to investigate .

(CNN) -- Dr. Jason Diamond knows what it's like to be sought after. The Beverly Hills plastic surgeon -- first made famous by reality show "Dr. 90210" -- has operated on a range of A-list celebrities (though he declines to name them). Yet even he was unprepared for the clamor that met him when he first visited Dubai in what was meant to be a one-time gig as a guest surgeon. "For that week, I literally had people waiting until 2am for a consultation. The waiting room was filled 20 people-deep all day long," he recalls. That was in 2009. Since, Diamond has returned to the city every two to three months as part of a partnership with the American British Surgical and Medical Centre. Over the years, he has enlisted the Who's Who of Beverly Hills surgeons to join him at the practice. "Every time I go, I don't even sit down. I'm running around from 7am until midnight. The demand is literally out the door," he says. In the last couple of years, Dubai has become a nip-and-tuck hub. Where once residents from throughout the GCC would venture to Beverly Hills, Brazil or Beirut for treatments, these days, they're staying closer to home to have work done. "In Lebanon, I'd say it's been about a 30-40% drop [in business]," says Dr. Sami Saad, the national secretary for the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) in Lebanon. "A lot of surgeons are leaving. They're moving to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Kuwait. These countries are safer and more attractive for plastic surgeons," he says. The Botox Brigade . Diamond notes that these days, "there is no paucity of plastic surgeons" in Dubai. According to the Emirates Plastic Surgery Society, their membership has jumped from 60 in 2006 to 150 this year. In fact, there are more cosmetic surgeons per citizen in the UAE than in either Brazil or the United States -- two nations lauded for their love of the scalpel. "The market is very saturated," notes Dr. Luiz Toledo, a plastic surgeon who moved his practice to Dubai from Brazil in 2005 who is also on the scientific committee of the Emirates Plastic Surgery Society. "Every day I get emails [from surgeons] saying, 'I heard Dubai is good for business. I want to come and visit, do some work, then come back home.' Everybody thinks Dubai is this mecca full of rich people. They think they'll come over and find gold on the streets. It's not like that; it's hard work," he says. Despite the influx, experts say demand for plastic surgery is on the rise. According to the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), in 2012, medical tourists made up 8.7% of total health sector revenue, with many seeking cosmetic procedures. "The industry is growing very fast," notes Vasilica Baltateanu, founder of Dubai plastic surgery consultancy Vasilica Aesthetics. She says the city's healthcare market is expected to grow 11.4% over the next two years. A beauty smorgasbord . As Dubai is one of the most multicultural cities in the world (200 different nationalities call the emirate home), it's no surprise that surgeons are noticing a broad demographic willing to go under the knife. "Last year, I saw patients from 73 nationalities, which is a record," says Toledo. Though patients come from as far afield as Africa and Eastern Europe, the majority, he says, come from the GCC, with many making the trip from Saudi Arabia. Diamond also reports having operated on many Saudi woman, who traditionally wear a veil in their day-to-day lives. "In America, you're not exposed to too many people who cover their face, and you assume those who do don't care about their appearance because they never show it off. But once you get to know the culture, you realize they're not that different from us. Middle Eastern women love looking good just as much as American women do," he says. And it's not just women investing in their looks. Surgeons in the area have reported seeing a growing number of men in their clinics, as well as teenagers (Baltateanu estimates that 15% of plastic surgery patients in the UAE are under 23). She adds that in her experience, Arab patients are often more gung-ho than their Western counterparts. "In Europe, America and Australia, people will try to adopt their lifestyle first. Liposuction, for instance, would be a last resort after you've tried everything else. Here, it's more, 'I've gained some weight, I'll get some lipo,' and they'll get the treatment four or five times, which is when it becomes dangerous," she warns. Part of her job, she says, is discouraging patients from over-indulging in treatments.

Dubai has dethroned Lebanon as plastic surgery capital of Middle East . There are nearly 3 times as many plastic surgeons in Dubai as there were in 2006 . 15% of surgeries are performed on men .

(CNN) -- Tyra Banks has gone from supermodel to super businesswoman. Tyra Banks shows off her real hair during an appearance on "Larry King Live." With her successful TV talk show, "The Tyra Show," as well as her duties as host/creator and executive producer of "America's Next Top Model, it would seem that Banks has scant room left on her plate. But she recently launched an online magazine called "TYRA: Beauty Inside and Out." Banks talked to CNN's Larry King about her career aspirations, the "F" word and the story behind her "real hair." The following is an edited version of the interview. Larry King: Are you looking to be Oprah? Is that it? Tyra Banks: Am I looking to be Oprah? Oh, Lord, if I tried, I would fail. King: But you're approaching it -- magazines, shows, specials. ... Banks: She is like the -- the Godmama, you know? There will never be another. There never has been and never will be another. But looking to be her -- no. I mean, I -- I started as a model, so there's a path that's quite different. King: The last time you were on you were dealing with the "F" word, meaning fat. You were fighting back. There [was] a nonflattering tabloid photo of you -- remember? In the swimsuit? Banks: Yes. King: You lost weight since then. Banks: Yes. King: Do you still feel an image pressure? Do you think -- you think like a fat person? Banks: I don't actually. You know, when I -- when I told the world to kiss my fat -- I can say "ass" right? King: Yes, you can. Banks: Yes. When I told the world to kiss my fat ass, I remained that size for two years. I maintained it with my ice cream and my salad with ranch and dressing and croutons and bacon bits. Like I -- I didn't look at myself even on television and think that I was too big or -- I don't know. I didn't -- it didn't connect. But since I have lost a lot of weight, and it started with the -- a weight loss challenge, actually at the top of this year. So I'm two years after "kiss my fat ass." King: When you look in the mirror, are you happy with the way you look? Banks: I've -- OK, I might be doing a little TMI -- do you know what TMI is? Too much information? Watch Banks discuss her body image » . King: Well, give it to me anyway. Banks: I always feel great when I don't have clothes on. So at home, by myself, walking past ... King: Oh, we're glad you mean that now. Banks: Just too much information. But I always feel good that way. King: So you don't look at yourself nude and say, "Oh, I don't like this." You like it? Banks: No, unless the lighting is bad in the dressing room. But, no. I always feel good. But sometimes certain clothes, when I put them on and they don't fit the way that I would like them to, that's when I tend to get self-conscious. King: All right. You kicked off season five of your talk show by revealing your real hair. Banks: Let's talk about my hair right now. I know it's been a big mystery. And I was like it was an unsolved mystery, and I felt like I needed to solve this mystery. Like I've worn weaves and wigs and pieces and clip-ons and clip-outs and clip-downs and around since I was 17, 18, and I wanted to show the real me. I wanted to show the raw me, and I just got out of the shower -- beat the face first of course, you all -- and then came out of here -- on this stage, and this is me, you all. This is me. King: How did that feel? Banks: Oh my God, it felt so liberating. It felt so liberating. I have worn fake hair since I was 17 years old. King: This -- is this real? Banks: Yes. This is me. You want to feel my scalp? King: Yes. Banks: Yes? It's a little kinky in the scalp. That's like real black girl hair. But -- go -- go in there. Yes. That's -- yes. It's kinky. Exactly. My natural hair texture is very kinky. You felt my real hair texture. This is straightened. This part is straightened. This part is not, inside. But, I mean, hair for black women, we spend $9 billion a year on hair products -- black women do. So growing up as a young girl and seeing images in the media where they're saying that a certain type of hair is beautiful and yours isn't is very difficult for a black woman -- for black women and it's a -- it's a long, political thing that we can do a whole show about. But I felt it was my responsibility to show as much of my real hair as possible.

Tyra Banks tells Larry King she is happy with her body image . Unflattering photos of the former model had appeared earlier . Since then, Banks says she's lost weight . Banks also shows off her natural hair .

Paris (CNN) -- In politics, a week may feel like an eternity. Exactly a week ago, French President Francois Hollande suffered a momentous blow, the first real shock of his presidency. His recently dismissed Budget Minister, Jerome Cahuzac, a former hair implant surgeon-turned-socialist, confessed on his blog that he had been lying for the last four months and that he had, in fact, a hidden Swiss bank account which the French inland revenue services never knew about. In other words, the man in charge of tackling tax evasion was admitting to being a fraudster. Not only this, but he had lied outright in parliament, in front of the nation's representatives. To utter lies in Parliament may not constitute a crime (unlike in the USA, there is no such thing as perjury in France), however, the French were shocked to discover that a minister had had the nerve to deny the truth in the Republic's most symbolic and sacred of places. A few hours later, Hollande pre-recorded a message to his fellow countrymen. He would take immediate measures, he said, to restore the country's confidence in its political class and, no, he knew nothing of his Budget minister's wrongdoings. From left to right, everyone in France was reeling from the news. Polls suggested that 65% of the French wanted Parliament to be dissolved and new elections to take place, others that 60% of the French people wanted, at the very least, a cabinet reshuffle or change of government. While Hollande had to leave for an official two-day visit to Morocco, his Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault announced that anyone found guilty of tax-dodging would be banned from holding public office. The opposition immediately accused Pierre Moscovici, the economy minister to whom Cahuzac reported, of acting too slowly, and too late. Mediapart, the news website which broke the story over Cahuzac's Swiss account last November, asserted that Moscovici had effectively tried to shield his colleague. The atmosphere became toxic; rumours started circulating about other potential tax fraudsters serving in government. Daily newspaper Liberation was this week heavily criticised for making allegations without giving any evidence. Today, its editor apologised and recognized his mistake. In another televised message -- the second within a week -- Hollande gave his ministers until Monday April 15 to reveal their personal assets; parliament is to consider a bill making such disclosures compulsory for the entire political class. Until now, France and Slovenia were the only two countries to have opted out from this measure of financial transparency, already implemented at a European level. President Hollande also announced that he was creating a new agency to fight financial fraud, and appointing a special prosecutor to deal with financial crime. He said banks would now be forced to detail all their activities in tax havens, with the publication of all their international affiliates and subsidiaries, country by country. A few discordant voices from Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing UMP party complained that revealing private assets amounted to "voyeurism" and "hypocrisy". Resorting to irony, Jean-Marie le Pen of the far-right Front National declared on national radio: "My Swiss bank account was always known to the French tax revenue and I wear pants made in France". However, the mood of the public in France is very much in favor of a moralization of public life and Hollande's measures have been received with guarded optimism. It is indeed not the first time a French president has promised to crush immorality in politics. "L'Affaire Cahuzac" has struck French consciences as deeply as Dominique Strauss-Kahn's sex scandal in 2011. Tax evasion, a national sport in France till the 1980s and a massive crackdown by then Prime Minister Raymond Barre, was thought, in the main, to be a thing of the past. But suddenly it has made a come-back at the most sensitive of times. France has 3 million unemployed people and faces deep economic problems, including a loss of competitiveness. Could Hollande's government fall over this sleaze scandal? It could if more tax evasion revelations affecting members of the government were to come out but it probably won't if it acts swiftly and Cahuzac remains the only black sheep on the horizon. The question now is, will Hollande take advantage of "L'affaire" to form a new government with a new prime minister? Significantly, centrist François Bayrou, whose last-minute decision to back François Hollande was a crucial factor in Hollande's presidential election victory, and who has campaigned for years to clean up French political life, made a public statement and declared himself ready to serve. Having reached a new low in the popularity polls, with only 27% of the French supporting him, President Hollande may be tempted to look for a new Prime Minister with a strong image of integrity. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Agnes Poirier.

France's ex-budget minister reveals hidden Swiss bank account, sparking outrage . French President Francois Hollande vows to take action on tax evasion scandal . Agnes Poirier: Public mood is very much in favor of a moralization of public life . Poirier: Questions as to whether Hollande may reshuffle cabinet, bring in new PM .

(CNN) -- World leaders are often measured by what they do in their first 100 days in office. But what about business leaders? As of Friday, it has been 100 days since Apple co-founder and longtime CEO Steve Jobs passed the company torch to Tim Cook. Since that first day, August 24, Wall Street and legions of Apple fans have had their gazes fixed on Cook. As the man heading arguably the most influential and valuable technology company in the world, Cook wields a great deal of power. After Cook took over, Jobs held the role of executive chairman but lost his long battle with cancer some six weeks later, on October 5. The day before Jobs died, Cook led a news conference to announce the iPhone 4S. "I consider it the privilege of a lifetime to have worked here for 14 years," Cook said at that event. "I am so incredibly proud of this company." Analysts described the presentation as crisp but lacking the excitement of a Jobs production. "It's not going to be the Steve Jobs show that generates headlines worldwide," John Jackson, an analyst at Boston-based market research firm CCS Insight who attended the keynote, said in a recent interview. "These events aren't going to be the same as they ever were." Even without Jobs' dramatic stage presence, the iPhone 4S became the fastest-selling phone over its launch weekend, selling 4 million units worldwide. Financial analysts worried that the aging glass-and-steel design would stunt sales, but the faster processor, better camera and Siri voice assistant -- plus the addition of a third major carrier, Sprint Nextel -- helped the smartphone maintain momentum. Siri, which Apple describes as beta software, has experienced occasional outages since its October launch, but iCloud has fared much better than Apple's previous endeavors into Internet services. About 20 million people activated their free iCloud accounts in its first week, Apple said. ITunes Match, a $25-a-year music synchronization service, was delayed by a few weeks but has received positive reviews. Like Jobs had done, Cook began e-mailing with some customers. He also personally addressed an inquiry by e-mail from Nancy Keenan, the president of a pro-choice foundation who was writing in response to a controversy over Siri directing abortion questions to pro-life clinics. "These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone," Cook wrote. So after a few robust launches, and a few bumps in the road, where do Cook and Apple go from here? Jobs recruited Cook from Compaq Computer in 1998 to run Apple's operations. People who have worked with Cook at Apple describe him as quiet and confident, the peacekeeper at the conference room table. He'd entrust a roomful of Apple employees with company secrets and expect trust in return, according to Michael Grothaus, a former consultant for the company. Jobs was hands-on in product development and had a knack for identifying which markets were ripe for invasion. Walter Isaacson's new "Steve Jobs" biography reveals that digital textbooks and Internet-enabled TV sets were among Jobs' next areas of focus for Apple. In the book, Jobs said Cook is "not a product person." Analysts say Jobs provided guidance on products that wouldn't see store shelves for at least another year. But by August 2013, Jobs' magic touch is likely to have worn off and the products will be those of a Cook regime, said Gartner analyst Michael King. Cook hasn't been given reasons to run away from the challenge. He will be able to lean on a "strong bench" of executives that Jobs recruited and that Cook has long worked with, said Jackson, the analyst. "It's going to be business as usual for Apple in Steve's absence," he said. Shortly after taking over, Cook broadened the role of Eddy Cue, a longtime executive working with Jobs. Cue is now the senior vice president of cloud services, which includes overseeing iCloud and iAds, the fledgling mobile advertising unit. To give Cook a strong financial incentive to stay, Apple's board of directors granted him a million shares of restricted stock. The first half will be made available to him five years from when Cook officially became CEO, and the rest will vest five years after that, as long as he stays. Cook had promised in a recent e-mail to his staff that Apple wouldn't change under his leadership, but he introduced at least one corporate program that would have been out of character for Jobs. In September, Apple began matching employees' charitable contributions up to $10,000. Jobs was not much of a philanthropist. "Steve made our world a better place," Cook said at the Apple memorial for Jobs. "He left his fingerprints all over society, all over the world. He also leaves behind a company that only he could have built and a spirit that will be the foundation for this company forever." Cook has instilled confidence in investors during his brief stints as CEO. In the last 100 days, Apple stock has gone up 4.3%. Now, he will need to continue to build on Jobs' steady foundation.

Friday is Tim Cook's 100th day as official Apple CEO . Cook took over for Steve Jobs on August 24, 2011 . Analysts say Cook has passed his first tests as Apple's leader .

London (CNN)It flew for 10 years, crossed millions of miles of space, bounced over the surface of a comet and returned heaps of data ... and then quietly faded away. The little spacecraft Philae that has captured the imagination of thousands with endearing tweets to the comet-chasing mother ship Rosetta stopped transmitting when its batteries drained. "@ESA_Rosetta I'm feeling a bit tired did you get all my data? I might take a nap ..." The forlorn message was picked up by followers of @Philae2014 shortly before it fell silent. Rosetta and Philae's love affair . The Rosetta orbiter mission will continue to track Comet 67P on its journey around the sun in the coming months but after the final transmission from Philae, the lander mission appeared to be over. But is it? Scientists from the European Space Agency (ESA), which is leading a consortium that includes NASA to find out more about the composition of comets and how they interact with the sun, say there's still a good chance that Philae will revive. And the malfunction that caused the probe to bounce in the very weak gravity might actually turn out to be a blessing. "It's good luck through bad luck," said lander system engineer Laurence O'Rourke. "Yep, we're stuck against a wall. But when you look at the original location of where we were supposed to land -- it's a beautifully flat area -- we would never have seen the images and the structures of the comet wall unless we landed where we did. We'd have been in a dust field," he told CNN. "We've had a number of happy accidents. It's bad luck that we bounced but the good luck is that all the instruments were on ... so what you have is a major scientific benefit -- results from two different locations when we were only expecting one." Lander problems started when a thruster and harpoons designed to anchor the small probe to the comet failed. Philae bounced away from the original target touchdown area and appears to have settled under the face of a cliff. Project scientists are still not exactly sure where, even though the lander performed its experiments and sent back data. Philae falls silent . O'Rourke said the team are still searching for it and that the location will be key to estimating when a new signal might come from the spacecraft. He explained that the final resting place of Philae did not allow enough sunlight to fall on the solar panels so the probe ran out of power. It was able to complete its original mission, operating on the comet from the initial battery charge. But before Philae closed down, engineers managed to rotate the probe so a larger solar panel would be exposed to sunlight and they believe this will be enough to automatically restart the spacecraft when the comet's orbit takes it closer to the sun. Again, scientists think this shadowy spot on the comet might be another stroke of luck. The original landing zone would have exposed Philae to temperatures that would have burned out the electronics -- probably after about three months. "The lander has the ability of keeping itself warm but doesn't have the capability to cool itself down," O'Rourke told CNN. "The current environment benefits the lander because we're not worried about it overheating any more. We can keep it warm if we get enough power," he said. O'Rourke believes that if the lander comes back online there's a high chance it will survive until the comet's closest approach to the sun in August next year. So how does Philae come back from the dead? O'Rourke explains the sequence: . - If enough sunlight falls on the solar panel, Philae will reboot- It then needs more energy to warm the batteries- Once warmed, the batteries will start recharging- When it has enough power Philae will try to contact the orbiting Rosetta -- for two minutes every 30 minutes. - If it fails to make contact, Philae will power down the transmitter and try again 30 minutes later . The power it needs is tiny -- roughly equivalent to the output of two or three domestic AA batteries -- but it will be enough to restart the lander mission. When the Rosetta team find Philae they will then be able to estimate the point at which enough sunlight falls on the solar panel to expect a transmission from the probe, announcing that it's still alive. As long as it doesn't get too cold there's still hope. In a statement, lander project manager Stephan Ulamec said he was confident that contact could be resumed -- probably in the spring of 2015. In the meantime, scientists are sifting through the data from Philae's 10 instruments to see what they may have already discovered. "When you look at what Philae's done -- it's been quite extraordinary," said O'Rourke. "A little satellite placed on a comet so far away -- you're always rooting for it. To give it that extra chance to have more power felt really good," he said. Watch Rosetta's 10-year chase across the solar system . Interactive: Rosetta and its mission .

The comet lander Philae fell silent when its batteries drained . Scientists are confident communication can resume when sun warms the spacecraft . Rosetta will continue to orbit Comet 67P into 2015 as it tracks around the sun . Project members are trying to find Philae after it bounced across comet's surface .

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Cheryl Reed's morning routine starts like that of millions of other mothers around the country. She makes breakfast for her 8-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter, piles them into a minivan and drops them off at school. Cheryl Reed has a rare form of breast cancer that mostly affects young African-American women. It's the next stop that sets Reed apart from other women. Three weeks a month, she heads to the infusion center at the Emory Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta, Georgia, for chemotherapy treatments. Reed, 40, has breast cancer; not just any form of the disease, but a rare, aggressive and difficult to treat version called triple negative. Of the estimated 180,000 women who learn they have invasive breast cancer this year in the United States, about 15 percent will have triple negative. Like Reed, the majority of triple negative patients will be young African-American women. "It never occurred to me that I'm going to die from this," Reed said. "I was like, 'I've got breast cancer, let's take care of it.' " Reed did take care of it. For eight months during 2006, she endured chemotherapy and radiation treatments. She thought the cancer was in remission, but it returned last November. This time, it had spread to her liver, lungs and chest wall. "Triple negative cancers do tend to be aggressive in their natural histories, so they have a very high rate of recurrence or relapsing," explained Dr. Ruth O'Regan, Reed's oncologist at the Winship Institute. She's one of several breast cancer experts around the country who are trying to learn more about what causes triple negative and how to treat it more effectively. Dr. Funmi Olopade, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, was at the forefront of identifying triple negative and the trend among African-American women. She said what makes it different from other types of breast cancer is that women with the disease lack three hormone receptors known to fuel most breast cancer tumors: estrogen, progesterone and HER2. Health Minute: More on triple negative breast cancer » . "When you have triple negative, it means that we cannot use hormone therapy. ... The only way we can treat that type of breast cancer is to use chemotherapy," Olopade said. Tamoxifen and Herceptin, two of the most effective medications for treating breast cancer, don't work for triple negative breast cancer patients. But if a patient responds well to chemotherapy, Olopade said, there's a very good chance of curing the disease. "The challenge we have is when the cancer comes back," she added. "Right now, we don't have any effective way to treat it, and that's why when it comes back, it tends to be deadly." Reed is enrolled in a clinical trial at the Winship center where she's receiving chemotherapy along with a drug called Avastin, which cuts the blood supply to cancer cells. Olopade is hoping better drugs will be available in the next two to five years that will help eradicate triple negative cancer cells. In the meantime, she stressed, early detection is the key to recovery, especially for women at highest risk. "In this country, what we have found was young African-American women have a rate that is higher than young white women, and we don't know if that is because of a gene or other risk factors," Olopade said. "We know that women with a family history of breast cancer who have a BRCA1 mutation are most at risk," she said. BRCA1 is a major breast cancer-causing gene that was identified 14 years ago. Olopade said women born with the defective gene have a higher chance of getting breast cancer and at a younger age. Olopade also wants to explore further whether triple negative rates are higher among women who do not breastfeed their children. "It's that first pregnancy and first breastfeeding that really allows the breast to become fully mature," she said. She worried that in general, "African-Americans are not likely to breastfeed, as they are getting in the work force and returning to work soon after childbirth." Even with several clues, Olopade acknowledged that researchers still don't know a lot about triple negative breast cancer and more study is needed. She encouraged all young women, no matter what their race, to talk to their doctor about doing a risk assessment for the BRCA1 gene. If there is a family history of the gene mutation, some physicians may tell a woman not wait until she turns 40 to get her first mammogram. "We begin screening as early at 25," Olopade said. "Many of the women are surviving. They are beating the odds of dying because they know they can do preventive approaches to reduce their risk of dying." Reed is trying to increase her chances of survival by getting experimental treatment in the clinical trial. She seems to be responding well, but she's realistic. "There's always the possibility that once this is done, it could be two years and I'm back in treatment again," she said. "It really is a part of my life now. ... I'm a survivor." CNN's Sabriya Rice contributed to this report.

Triple negative breast cancer is rare, aggressive and difficult to treat . Most triple negative patients are young African-American women . Early detection is the key to recovery, says Dr. Funmi Olopade .

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- There was stone cold silence in the car, as the Kumars drove home. Salwan Montessori School in New Delhi received 2,500 applications -- for 150 spots -- for the 2009 school year. The married couple had stopped speaking out of sheer frustration and disappointment. They had been rejected for the 10th time. Their three-year-old daughter, Janhavi, would not be attending any of the nursery schools to which they had applied. "There's been a ban on children interviews," said the girl's mother, Geeta Kumar. "But the schools being very smart, acting very smart they want to meet parents informally, informal interaction they are calling and they are scoring on us." "We are being tested," Puneet Kumar, Janhavi's father, interrupted. "Yeah we're being tested for our child's admission." Geeta added. "It's the worst thing we've been through," Puneet said with a sigh. It may sound over dramatic but it is a sentiment held by many parents who suffer through sleepless nights, endless anxiety, and are sometimes reduced to tears, as they try to get their children admitted to nursery schools with good reputations. At one of these schools, the headmistress has seen more than her share of desperation. "I've never seen a man crying, until now," said Anuadha Mathur, the headmistress of Salwan Montessori School. Watch a visit to one of New Delhi's most exclusive nursery schools » . "But when a parent comes and he's literally begging and saying, 'Ma'am where do I take my child,' and he's got tears in his eyes, he's shivering. Believe me, it's heartbreaking." "The thing is, everybody wants their child to be in the best school," Geeta Kumar said. "And there are very few." The problem is particularly acute in the capital of New Delhi, where getting your child admitted to any one of the top 10 sought-after nursery schools is harder than it would be for a college-aged student to gain admission to Ivy League schools in the United States, such as Harvard or Yale. Why? In India it is almost always about the numbers. There are a billion people in this country, and more and more of them are moving into urban areas trying to make a living -- which translates into more students trying to get a seat in schools that already have long waiting lists. Take, for example, Salwan Montessori School in New Delhi. They received 2,500 applications -- for 150 spots -- for the 2009 school year. Only 6 percent of those who applied got in, and Salwan is not the most sought-after school. Some schools have places for less than 4 percent of applicants. Compare that to the Harvard University class of 2009: . Of the 22,796 students who applied, 2,074 got in for a 9.1 percent admission rate. You might be wondering why nursery school admission is so important since the child will have a lot of schooling to go through before thinking about university. The answer: Many students spend 14 years in one school, so where they go to nursery school determines the next 14 years of their education. What kind of education does one of these sought after schools offer? At Salwan Montessori, the children learn public speaking, music, several sports, and social skills along with their basic education. It is just the kind of thing parents are looking for because they know education is key to their child's chance at a better life. But there are other institutions that are not so cramped: Government schools. Just the mention of it sent shivers down the Kumars' spines. "The grooming would not be good, the child won't grow, the mind won't grow," Geeta Kumar said with a deep frown, her husband itching to chime in. "Nearest school to my place is a government school, but the infrastructure is very bad," Puneet Kumar added. Parents complain some of the government schools are falling apart. The toilets are broken, there is no running water, and teachers sometimes simply fail to show up for class. The fight for good education is fierce. But Salwan Montessori Headmistress Mathur said parents need to realize that just because they do not get the school of their choice does not mean their child will be unsuccessful. She also noted that not all government schools were unfit. For the meantime, the Kumars are still tied in knots. Their daughter Janhavi was forced to go to a lesser known private school in their neighborhood. Now four years old, Janhavi seems oblivious to it all. She is a smart little girl. Before even showing up at school she could speak Hindi, some English and Japanese. As she sits on her bed counting to 10 in Japanese, her parents are counting the months before the next admission process starts. They are planning on going through the process all over again next year. "Obviously," Geeta Kumar said. "You aim for the best."

More Indians moving to urban areas, hence longer waiting lists for nursery schools . Some schools have places for less than 4 percent of applicants . Chosen nursery school determines 14 years of a student's education, opportunities . Parents prefer private schools, complain some government schools are falling apart .

(CNN) -- We've all wondered what it's like to die. Now there's a game that claims it can fulfill our curiosity, without actually killing us. "Samadhi -- 4D Experience of Death," is a morbid "escape room" game that uses dramatic special effects to bring players close to what its creators imagine is an experience of death. When it opens in Shanghai in September 2014, it will invite participants to compete in a series of challenges to avoid "dying." Losers get cremated -- or are at least made to lie on a conveyor belt that transports them through a fake funeral home incinerator to simulate death rites. The faux cremator will use hot air and light projections to create what the organizers call "an authentic experience of burning." After "cremation," participants are transferred to a soft, round, womb-like capsule, signifying their "rebirth." And the winner? "He'll also have to die of course," says the game's fatalistic co-founder Ding Rui. As in life, he explains, "everyone will die eventually, no matter what they've survived." Life and death . Ding and his partner Huang Wei-ping went to great lengths researching their game, investigating the cremation process that typically awaits 50% of Chinese people after death. The pair visited a real crematorium and asked to be sent through the furnace with the flames turned off. "Ding went in the crematory first and it was stressful for me to observe from the outside," says Huang. "The controller of the crematory was also very nervous; he usually just focuses on sending bodies in, but not on bringing them back out." When it came to Huang's turn, he found it unbearable. "It was getting really hot. I couldn't breathe and I thought my life was over," he said. The pair say realism is essential to provoke participants into thinking about life and death. They'll operate the game while also running Hand in Hand, an organization that specializes in providing hospice support to dying patients in an oncology hospital. Soul searching . Huang says his interest in death emerged during a period of soul searching after a lucrative but spiritually unrewarding career as a trader. "China made me rich, but it didn't teach me how to live a rich life. I was lost," he says. He went on to study psychology and volunteered to help in the aftermath of a 2008 earthquake in China's western Sichuan province, launching Hand in Hand shortly after. "It opened a new door for me -- I went there to help but I was also saved." Ding, meanwhile, had undertaken his own search for a meaning to life by organizing seminars with experts on the subject. "I invited 'life masters' from different religions and other fields to come and talk about what life is," he says. "I did that for two years before realizing that, instead of sitting here and listening passively, I could also do something." That was when the two hooked up to create the "4D Experience of Death." Morbid curiosity . The pair were initially unsure of the appetite for their morbid concept, even though similar ventures have already opened in South Korea and Taiwan. Voluntary work in a hospice showed them that few people wanted to confront the idea of death, even when it was at hand. "The saddest part of the job wasn't seeing the patients passing away but how the families refused to face death -- the final days with their loved ones consisted of kind but shallow lies," says Ding. "We lack understanding of death and the fear can become so overwhelming." To sound out the idea, Huang and Ding first started a fundraising campaign on jue.so, the Chinese version of Kickstarter. "We received more than RMB 410,000 ($67,000) in three months, surpassing our target," says Huang. "It turns out many people in China are curious about death." Ding says they hope the experience will promote "life education" -- prompting people to ask questions about what they are doing with their lives and guiding them to face death in a personal way. "There aren't any model answers in life and death education, unlike those courses that teach you to be rich and successful," says Huang. "It is more important for people to experience it personally." "I was in a car crash once and the only thought in my mind then was 'why didn't I buy insurance?'" says Huang. "It wasn't what I had imagined for the final moments of my life. That romantic idea of having a flashback of one's entire life in the last moments before death -- that did not happen." Samadhi -- 4D Experience of Death will be completed at the end of August and is scheduled to open in September. Sessions will be conducted in Chinese. Tickets RMB249 ($40). 101-104, Building 2, Gongyi Xintiandi, 105 West PuYu Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai .

"Samadhi -- 4D Experience of Death" uses special effects to recreate an imagined experience of death . The death-themed game was created to provoke people into considering the meaning of life . "Samadhi" creator: "China made me rich, but it didn't teach me how to live a rich life"

Silverstone, England (CNN) -- Fortune can be a fickle mistress in Formula One. Home hero Lewis Hamilton was dejected and apologetic after a mistake in qualifying but Silverstone rang with fans chanting his name as he fought back to win the British Grand Prix. His victory was won at the expense of his Mercedes teammate and title rival Nico Rosberg, who retired with a broken gearbox. The German had taken pole position and was leading at just over the halfway point before the pendulum of bad luck swung his way on lap 29. It was the first time Rosberg has retired this season while, in contrast, Hamilton had failed to cross the finish line twice. "Yesterday was a really difficult day," Hamilton, who was knocked back to sixth on the grid after choosing to pit rather than finish a final timed lap in qualifying, told reporters at the historic Silverstone circuit. "You could say it was a real kick in the balls. I really had to pull up my socks and get on it. "I went away feeling terrible. I felt I really let the fans, the team and myself down. Determined Hamilton . "Coming back today to turn that emptiness around was really my priority. This weekend showed you never give up." Hamilton's second British GP victory -- earned exactly six years after his fantastic 2008 win in the wet -- was not only about personal redemption, it was also about closing the gap in the F1 world championship. Luck has been on Rosberg's side at the previous three races, the 29-year-old winning in Monaco and Austria and finishing second in Canada. Hamilton's home win means he is now just four points behind Rosberg, who was still smiling as he chatted to reporters in the Mercedes motor home after the race. The Mercedes duo will now renew their rivalries at the German Grand Prix on 20 July -- and Mercedes chairman Niki Lauda, a three-time world champion himself, is predicting fireworks now Hamilton is back to his best. "Lewis from the beginning of the season was on a very good stable level and Nico after Monaco had everything going for him," Lauda said. "But now Lewis is back on track so I tell you the next couple of races are going to be interesting. Highly motivated . "He is highly motivated and for me the most important thing is that this victory gives him a real push about his qualities, what he can achieve so there will be no ups-and-downs with him anymore. "Everything is reset like before. So they will fight until the end like you do not believe to be world champion. "It's interesting to watch now because they are exactly the same level." Rosberg: Mercedes has not peaked yet . There was also a turnaround in fortune for the Williams team, who saw their cars start out of position after failing to choose the right tires in a rain-hit qualifying. Valterri Bottas hustled his way through the field with some impressive overtaking to finish a brilliant second in the car Susie Wolff had driven on Friday for four laps before it ground to halt with an engine problem. "We're on the right way," said the Finn, who finished third last time out in Austria. "One step more to go. "You see how quick the car is. It was a pleasure to drive. I was able to go through the field. I'm really, really happy." Fine third . Daniel Ricciardo finished third for Red Bull Racing, the same position his teammate Sebastian Vettel had started the race from. While the four-time world champion came in for fresh tires twice, Ricciardo switched to a one-stop strategy, which moved him onto the podium. "I didn't intend on doing a one-stop but we were able to keep the pace, so we stayed on and just held on at the end," the Australian explained. "It was awesome. All three of us had a bit of redemption on our plate today. It was a pretty dismal Saturday for us so we're all pretty happy. This is definitely one of my best podiums this year." A bit further down the road, Vettel found himself engaged in a thrilling duel with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso. Both drivers flexed their egos, complaining about each other's driving style on the pit-to-car radios but in the end Vettel swooped past Alonso for fifth place. Early incident . The dramatic race had been delayed for an hour after a crash involving Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari on the opening lap. The Finn, who has had a difficult season since returning to the Italian team, lost control as he turned into the Wellington Straight. As he rejoined the track at speed, the car kicked out into repeated spins. The Finn plunged into the barriers on the right and then collided with Felipe Massa's Williams -- the damage enough to end the Brazilian's 200th grand prix in miserable fashion. The Ferrari spokesman told the media: "Kimi is OK. He obviously got a big hit. He only seems to be having some bruises to his ankle and a little bit on his knee." The bruising 2014 championship continues at the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim in two week's time.

Lewis Hamilton wins British GP in front of home fans . Hamilton closes gap on title leader Nico Rosberg . Pole sitter Rosberg fails to finish after gearbox problems . Valtteri Bottas and Daniel Ricciardo complete podium positions .

(CNN) -- Two women in veils and voluminous white gowns kneel in front of a statue of the Buddha, exchanging vows and prayer beads to the languorous intonations of Buddhist chants. This unconventional ceremony on Saturday was the first same-sex Buddhist wedding held in Taiwan, where a landmark bill to legalize same-sex marriage has been pending since 2003. No countries in Asia have legalized same-sex marriages so far, although there have been signs of progress in some -- most recently in Vietnam and Nepal. Germany's high court expands gay rights . Huang Mei-yu said she and her partner of seven years, Yu Ya-ting, decided to hold a Buddhist wedding to acknowledge their own faith, as well the predominant religion of the nation, according to the Taipei Times newspaper. They hoped the ceremony, which was performed by a renowned Buddhist master, would encourage Taiwanese society to accept same-sex marriage. "Of course it helps (promote same-sex marriage), said Wu Hsiao-wen, Secretary of the Taiwan LGBT Family Rights Advocacy, saying that the ceremony set a strong example for the Buddhist community. She added that its legitimacy was bolstered in the public's eyes by its blessing from Shih Chao-hwei, a highly-respected Buddhist social activist, who presided over the ceremony. Shih founded the Hong-Shih Buddhist College and the Research Centre for Applied Ethics at Hsuan Chuang University. The Buddhist ceremony followed a mass same-sex wedding extravaganza last August, where 80 lesbian couples participated in a "Barbie and Barbie's wedding" in the capital city of Taipei, attracting over 1,000 guests and curious onlookers. Taiwan was the first nation in Asia to introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples. Drafted in 2003 under former president Chen Shui-bian, it has made little headway in Taiwan's legislature, however. Wu said the issue of same-sex marriage is often given lip service during electoral campaigns, but there is little effort to push the bill forward once the winning candidate takes office. At a gay rights awareness event in 2006, when the current president, Ma Ying-Jeou, was the mayor of Taipei, he said homosexuality was a "natural phenomenon" and "gay rights are part of human rights." Since taking office in 2008, he has been mostly silent on the issue. Gay men, straight women: enduring bonds . The government is also under pressure from Christian groups -- who comprise a small but vocal religious minority in Taiwan — Wu said. Given the little political will at present, she said the pressure to push the bill through needs to come from the grassroots level. She is optimistic that same-sex marriage legislation will be passed in the next few years, saying the "gay and lesbian community is getting stronger and stronger." Taipei's annual gay pride parade has become Asia's largest since its inception in 2003, according to organizers, attracting 50,000 people last October. Wu said this year's parade will focus for the first time on same-sex marriage rights. Elsewhere in the region, Vietnam held its first gay pride parade on August 5, attended by around 100 people in the capital of Hanoi. It followed inaugural gay pride parades in Myanmar and Laos in May and June, respectively. In July, Vietnam's Justice Ministry announced it would consider including a provision for same-sex marriage rights in a proposal to the National Assembly next year, as part of an amendment to the country's marriage laws. While LGBT activists are unsure how far the government will truly take the matter, it appears the decision may stem from practicality. "It's time for us to look at the reality," Justice Minister Ha Hung Cuong said in an online debate. "The number of homosexuals has mounted to hundreds of thousands. It's not a small figure. ... They may own property. We, of course, have to handle these issues legally." In May, Nepal's Home Ministry announced it would include an "others" category to recognize the alternative gender identities of LGBT people on citizenship certificates and other official government and business documents. Woman who had gay slurs carved in her body speaks out . Nepal's Supreme Court ruled in favour of granting full rights to LGBT people in 2008, including the right to marry. But the Nepalese LGBT community is still waiting for these rights to be written into the country's new permanent constitution, which has been dogged by repeated delays and protracted negotiations. "I remember when I told my parents that we would get married, their first question was, 'Is this legal?'" Huang told reporters at her wedding. "I could only say to them that it would (become legal) soon, but I didn't know when would be considered soon. So we hope it will become legal. For us and for our families, it is very important."

Taiwan's first same-sex Buddhist wedding ceremony held Saturday . Couple hopes ceremony will promote same-sex marriage to predominantly Buddhist society . Taiwan was first nation in Asia to introduce bill to legalize same-sex marriage, though it has stalled . Vietnam and Nepal taking small steps to recognizing LGBT rights .

(CNN) -- Between GPS devices on your car's dashboard and digital maps of almost any locale in the world on your smartphone or laptop, it's hard to get lost these days. Each orange Tele Atlas mapping van has six cameras, two side-sweeping lasers and a GPS on its roof. We may take these 21st-century services for granted. But someone still needs to do the actual legwork of mapping these places and making sure the information is accurate. Meet the people at Tele Atlas, the company that provides so-called "base maps" to such high-profile clients as Google, MapQuest and RIM, the maker of the BlackBerry. Tele Atlas also provides digital-mapping services for its corporate owner, the portable-navigation company TomTom. You can't say the company isn't ambitious. "Our ultimate goal would be to map the entire world," says Pat McDevitt, vice president of engineering at Tele Atlas, which is based in the Netherlands and has its U.S. headquarters in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Base maps are the raw data -- highways, streets, stop lights and exit signs -- that navigation companies use as a starting point before adding their own applications. Most of the industrialized world has been base-mapped already. But Tele Atlas is constantly updating pre-existing maps to include new roads, traffic signals and buildings. Tele Atlas gets this information by combining satellite imagery, local, state and federal maps and most importantly, putting the rubber to the road in its Mobile Mapping Vans. See how it works » . Pimp my ride . Six cameras, two side-sweeping lasers and a GPS sit atop each bright orange Mobile Mapping Van, making them, as McDevitt says, "look a little bit like something out of 'Ghostbusters.' " The cameras point in all directions, capturing a 360-degree view of everything the van encounters. And the GPS lets Tele Atlas know -- within a meter --everywhere the van has been. A computer screen sits next to the driver's seat so the driver can monitor images captured by the cameras above. "The driver is really responsible for making sure the images coming from the camera are actually of high enough quality to be used on our production floor," says Kamron Barron, technical process manager at Tele Atlas. That means when a bug splatters on a camera's lens, the driver gets out to clean it off. This happens a lot. And if you think the vans must poke along, causing traffic jams on the roads they're mapping, you'd be wrong. The vans drive at normal speeds while snapping about three images per second. That's more than 100 million images per year, per van. When you consider Tele Atlas has dozens of vans worldwide, you begin to get a sense of the scope of the company's work. "We have about 200 countries for which we have good navigable street maps, and that's expanding on a monthly basis," says McDevitt. Tele Atlas is constantly discovering parts of the world that have never been digitally mapped, he says. Instead of bench seats and fidgeting kids, Mobile Mapping Vans hold a metal cabinet with two hard drives. After about two weeks of crisscrossing everything from major highways to small country roads, the hard drives get full. One gets sent to awaiting Tele Atlas cartographers and analysts; the other stays with the driver as a backup. At Tele Atlas headquarters in New Hampshire, analysts pore over the data for updates and inconsistencies: changes in roads, speed limits and even how many lanes are on a highway. Once confirmed, the changes make their way into Tele Atlas software and eventually to cell phones, navigation systems and home computers. Base maps are updated every few months. Mapping goes 3-D . Images collected by the vans' cameras don't make it to the public because Tele Atlas doesn't have an application like Google Street View. But it soon may have something that's arguably even better. That brings us to the vans' side-sweeping lasers. As the vans drive, their lasers constantly scan the road and everything around it, recording information that Tele Atlas calls the "first reflective surface." This includes the width, height and contours of every building the van passes. This data, when combined with the images captured by the cameras, will help Tele Atlas create a 3-D world. Three-dimensional digital maps already are common in Japan and Western Europe. But 3-D maps are still in their primitive stages in the U.S., where their quality depends on the type of device they're displayed on. Cell phones might show gray amorphous blocks representing buildings. A laptop might show more detailed buildings with doors and windows. Within 18 months, Tele Atlas hopes to develop a powerful navigation system whose images will look almost identical to the surroundings through which we travel. "It's a virtual reality experience for that customer," says McDevitt. "As they go around, the buildings match, the roads match, the entire navigation experience matches what they would find in the real world." In other words, we soon may have even less of an excuse for getting lost.

CNN goes behind-the-scenes at Tele Atlas, which does digital mapping . The company crisscrosses the globe in vans with cameras, lasers and GPS . Tele Atlas creates "base maps" for Google, MapQuest and others . Next step will be to combine lasers and camera images to make detailed 3-D maps .

Dallas (CNN)Oklahoma's first scheduled execution since last April's controversial botched lethal injection is now in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court to decide. Charles Frederick Warner, who was convicted in 2003 for the first-degree rape and murder of his then-girlfriend's 11-month-old daughter in summer 1997, is scheduled to be executed Thursday at 6 p.m. CT at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, about 130 miles east of Oklahoma City. Botched execution haunts inmate as death nears . Warner's attorney, Dale Baich, filed a motion with the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday asking for a stay of execution, and is also asking the court to review Oklahoma's lethal injection policies in general, after a federal appeals court rejected his appeal Monday. "Oklahoma's current execution protocol creates a substantial risk of severe pain, needless suffering and a lingering death," Baich told CNN. Jerry Massie, public information officer with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, said Warner is scheduled to be executed using a three-drug combination of midazolam, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride. Ohio changing execution drugs . Midazolam, a benzodiazepine that is still not FDA approved, is supposed to render the prisoner unconscious. Vecuronium bromide is a paralytic, which is meant to paralyze all muscle movement and stop respiration. Potassium chloride's role is to activate nerves and induce cardiac arrest. Baich said the existing Supreme Court protocol and precedent under review, 2008's Baze V. Rees case, is no longer relevant or used in any jurisdiction because different types of drugs are now used. He argued that the changes that have been made over the years are significant and "create a significant risk of harm." "Of particular concern is the use of midazolam, which has been involved in several extremely problematic executions, including the gruesome and horrific execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma and the two-hour prolonged death of Joseph Wood in Arizona in July 2014," Baich said. "In Baze v. Rees, the court acknowledged that administering a paralytic and potassium chloride to someone who is not deeply unconscious would inflict an unconstitutional degree of pain and suffering. Midazolam is not capable of producing a deep, unconscious state." Massie said the Oklahoma Department of Corrections will have "no further comments" until it sees what the Supreme Court decides. Jennifer Moreno, a staff attorney with the Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic, said the big issue in front of the Supreme Court is whether midazolam can reliably produce the level of unconsciousness needed to complete an execution. "It's uncontested that administering those two drugs [vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride] to somebody who is conscious would cause unnecessary pain and suffering," Moreno said. "The real issue is that because there are issues about midazolam's ability to induce the necessary level of unconsciousness, and Oklahoma intends to paralyze the prisoner, that we'll never know if he regained consciousness and experienced the effects of the second and third drugs. In all three executions where medazline has been used without a paralytic, we have seen problems that raised questions about the appropriateness of the drug. Paralyzing them doesn't make the problem go away, it just hides them from us." Warner was originally scheduled for execution on the same night as Lockett, April 29, 2014, but the execution was called off after the state took 43 minutes to execute Lockett, a controversial event that was witnessed by media and state officials. Witnesses said Lockett was convulsing and writhing on the gurney, as well as struggling to speak, before officials blocked their view. The execution was halted, but Lockett eventually died. A team of medical examiners ruled that Lockett died from the state's lethal injection. The report, which was released in September by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, called the manner of death a "judicially ordered execution." Lockett's execution was the first time Oklahoma had used midazolam as the first element in its three-drug cocktail, the same three-drug combination that is scheduled to be used in Warner's execution. Midazolam is generally used for children "before medical procedures or before anesthesia for surgery to cause drowsiness, relieve anxiety and prevent any memory of the event," the U.S. National Library of Medicine said. "It works by slowing activity in the brain to allow relaxation and sleep." Stay motions have also been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court for three other Oklahoma death row prisoners scheduled to be executed soon: Richard Glossip, scheduled to be put to death on January 29; John Marion Grant, scheduled to be executed on February 19; and Benjamin R. Cole, scheduled to be put to death on March 5. Chemical mix and human error lead to controversial executions . CNN's Steve Almasy contributed to this report.

Charles Frederick Warner is to be executed Thursday; he raped and murdered an 11-month-old . His lawyer says "protocol creates a substantial risk of severe pain, needless suffering and a lingering death"

(CNN) -- It's been a long time. A very long time. But I cannot forget my first school lunch. Call it free or call it charity, but it was a good meal that provided me, and so many others, with sustenance that made our school days more delightful. Our meals honored the traditions of the time -- red beans and rice with smoked sausage, bread and perhaps dessert. And of course every Friday we had fish sticks, potato salad or French fries. We've come a long way since then. Today, most public school children get perfectly balanced meals. School chefs use food selected to provide maximum nutrition, food that will enhance a student's well-being and learning abilities. Their standards come from federal nutrition experts in the U.S. Department of Agriculture who survey what important foods are missing from children's diets. More than 90% of the nation's schools follow these criteria. Come September, guidelines for healthier snacks will be added. Still, for all our efforts, the White House reports that, because of a poor diet, one-third of our children are on the path to diabetes. Regulations implementing the nutritional guidelines must be legislated by Congress. As it considers the Agriculture Appropriations Bill, Congress -- especially House Republicans -- will have to decide if it represents the interests of our children or of special food lobbyists. For example, the Maryland-based School Nutrition Association has sought, and received, congressional support to grant a one-year waiver from the standards to schools that can demonstrate six months of financial loss. The group represents 55,000 school lunch workers and nutritionists. But The Washington Post quoted a health professional who said the group reflects its funders, who are mostly frozen food and agribusiness interests. Getting our children healthy lunches has had bipartisan origins. The healthy school lunch program was put forth during the George W. Bush years, and strengthened with the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act Michelle Obama saw successfully to adoption in 2010. Implementing USDA healthy lunch standards has met with some schools' resistance, according to the Government Accountability Office and the School Nutrition Association. But why? After all, a USDA study found only 0.15% of the schools surveyed said they were having difficulty complying with the healthy foods standards. And the same study found that upward of 90% of the schools involved are successfully meeting the guidelines. That finding confirms another study done in 2012 by the Kids' Safe and Healthful Foods Project, "a collaboration between The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that provides nonpartisan analysis and evidence-based recommendations" on food standards. It found 94% of school districts were on board to meeting the healthy food guidelines. Jessica Donze Black, a nutritionist and director with Pew, told the press, "We are disappointed (with this waiver) that would weaken national nutrition standards for foods served in schools." Indeed, more than 100 child nutrition experts at national, state and local levels released a petition to Congress on May 19, requesting lawmakers fight, and end, the waiver to opt out of all the breakfast and lunch standards for schoolchildren. We are beginning to reverse childhood obesity; it has fallen among preschoolers. But childhood obesity doubled during the past 30 years. Our progress is tiny but encouraging. The proposed waiver appears to be an attempt to buy time so the frozen food industry and agribusinesses can worm their foods into the schools. The provision is opposed by hundreds of nonpartisan, nonprofit nutrition organizations and supported by just a handful of powerful junk food interests. Congress appears willing to gamble with our children's health at the same time Olivier De Schutter, a U.N. health expert, declares that "unhealthy diets are greater threat to health than tobacco." Ironically, De Schutter calls for global regulation of salty, sugary foods, just when some members of Congress seem ready to abandon our own standards. Providing our children with healthy food will reduce future health care costs. So why is this too being turned into a partisan dodge? Republicans in Congress have limited a pilot program that will test efficient ways to deliver foods during the summer only to children in rural low-income households. (This is not to be confused with the Summer Food Service Program, which will continue to deliver meals to urban and rural children alike.) The excuse given by a House Agriculture spokeswoman is that rural children are scattered over wider areas and so "have some unique challenges." As if urban children going hungry don't face "unique challenges." The House version of the Agriculture Appropriations Bill also seeks to add starchy, white potatoes to the list of "qualified vegetables" under the Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, supplemental feeding program for pregnant women and young children. This move comes after heavy lobbying by the white potato industry, which wants the prestige of qualifying for WIC and the marketing advantage that comes with it. Congress should say no to the special interests, stop turning the well-being of our children into a partisan tool and focus on our children's health and their future. Join us on Facebook.com/CNNOpinion.

Donna Brazile says Republicans want to undo Michelle Obama's gains in healthy lunches . House bill would grant waivers, allow potatoes to be considered as "qualified" vegetable . Brazile: Frozen food, agribusiness want to whittle away at healthy lunch programs .

(CNN) -- She stumbled into the business naked, bleeding and burned. And in desperate need of help. This 16-year-old girl thankfully got it, and more than a month later is in good condition at a hospital and undergoing rehab, Charles City County, Virginia, sheriff's Capt. Jayson Crawley said. And the man accused of doing this to her? Authorities say they think he is now in custody in Maryland, where he was caught coming out of a vehicle with a woman he'd allegedly abducted Sunday night in Philadelphia. The suspect in both cases is Delvin Barnes, 37. Talking about Barnes, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said authorities "don't know much (about him) other than the fact he's a thug and this is what he does, apparently." "People like this, there's nothing that makes sense," Ramsey told reporters. "Don't even try to find it." Abducted Philadelphia woman found alive . Official: Teen doused with gas, bleach, set on fire . There's no way of avoiding the horror, however, of what at least two young women endured about 275 miles away and just over a month from each other. The Virginia teen went missing first, with her family calling the Charles City County Sheriff's Office on October 1. Her nightmare began when, she later told police, the teenager was hit in the head with a shovel and stuffed into the trunk of a car, according to Crawley. The girl told police that her abductor took her to his parents' house in Charles City County and sexually assaulted her. (Barnes' parents don't remember whether they were home at the time, the sheriff's captain said.) He then showed her pictures of other girls, claiming he'd done the same thing to them, according to the 16-year-old. Two days later, the suspect allegedly brought the then-naked girl into the backyard, poured bleach and gasoline on her, burned her clothes and dug a hole. "How do you want to die?" he asked, the teenager told police. When he got distracted, the girl fled into the woods. Two miles away, employees at a Charles City County business spotted her and brought her inside, Crawley explained. She was suffering from third-degree burns, but she was alive. Chief calls Barnes 'a vicious predator' DNA from the victim was put into a national database to try to find her abductor. On October 28, that test matched with Barnes -- the same man the teenage girl ID'd from a photo lineup of mug shots, according to Crawley. After all, Barnes had been in jail before. Crawley said that Barnes had an extensive criminal history, and an online public records search bears that out. It shows dozens of charges from over the years, from traffic infractions to use of a firearm in a robbery to aggravated assault and false imprisonment. Then there are the charges of attempted capital murder, abduction, forcible rape, malicious wounding and malicious wounding using a chemical, in the Virginia case. The latest allegation comes from Philadelphia, one of a few places (along with Charles City, Virginia Beach and Richmond in Virginia) where Barnes has lived. That's where video, released by police, showed 22-year-old Carlesha Freeland-Gaither walking just blocks from her home when she is brought to the ground and forced into a vehicle Sunday. Her glasses and cell phone drop onto the road during the struggle. But, even after she breaks out a passenger's side window, her efforts prove futile as the car pulls away. As with the Virginia case in October, authorities don't believe the victim knew her abductor. Freeland-Gaither and Barnes were found three days later in Jessup, Maryland, 15 miles southwest of Baltimore. A big reason authorities managed to track them down had do with Barnes' past, but not the criminal variety. A car dealer who had sold the vehicle allegedly used in Freeland-Gaither's abduction tipped off authorities after recognizing Barnes from a surveillance video released by police, Ramsey said. The dealer had placed a GPS in the car because of worries about Barnes' bad credit, according to Crawley. Videos, tips lead authorities to alleged abductor . Following his arrest, Barnes was booked into the Baltimore County detention center in Towson at 3:40 a.m. Thursday. He waived his extradition to Virginia. Barnes is scheduled to make an appearance in court November 12, according to Crawley. The Philadelphia police commissioner hopes Barnes will always be in the sights of law enforcement. "He's a vicious predator. He's off the streets. And hopefully he'll be in jail for the rest of his life," Ramsey said. "That's the only thing he deserves." CNN's Tina Burnside, Jean Casarez, Lawrence Crook III, Chuck Johnston and Mary Kay Mallonee contributed to this report.

Sheriff's captain: Suspect asked teen girl in Virginia, "How do you want to die?" The girl says she was hit in the head with a shovel, stuffed in the trunk of a car . Delvin Barnes is being held in connection with a young Philadelphia woman's abduction . He also faces abduction, forcible rape and other charges out of Virginia, official says .

(CNN) -- Like all online businesses, the marketing industry is being radically changed by the creeping ubiquity of mobile devices. This shift to the smaller screen will inevitably have profound implications on both global marketing companies like WPP and Omnicom as well as on Internet companies like Google and Facebook whose revenue is mostly derived from online advertising. It was no surprise, therefore, that one of the major themes his weekend at Stream, the annual WPP "unconference" about digital advertising and marketing, was the growing importance of mobile. Held each September in the delightful Greek seaside resort of Marathon, Stream is distinguished by the audience-generated content from the 400 entrepreneurs, and advertising and marketing executives invited to the event. Talks by participants this year at Stream thus had titles like "Monetizing social discussion," "Banners are dead," "Mobile payments At scale," "Who will own your mobile wallet" and "Unlocking $50 billion in digital brand spend." Yet for all the talk about mobile, Stream was, in part, characterized by a deep uncertainty about its impact on the industry. As Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP's long-time CEO, said in response to a question about whether Facebook can successfully monetize mobile technology: "We don't know the answer." But I had a simpler question for the Stream attendees that I met in Marathon over the weekend. Is it possible, I asked, that the digital marketing industry could be destroyed by mobile? Could the shift to smaller screens actually kill online marketing? "The small screen will disrupt but not kill the advertising industry," Jeff Pulver, a serial American internet entrepreneur and a regular Stream attendee, explained to me. Perhaps. But that disruption, many people at Stream acknowledge, will be deeply challenging. It's a challenge, SessionM Chief Revenue Officer Bill Clifford told me, is to "create big moments on a small screen." Clifford describes himself as an "inventor of new ad models in mobile." But those new ad models being developed by Clifford at SessionM are still, at best, in their infancy. And as Amy Gershkoff, the Global Director of Analytics at the PR agency Burston-Marsteller, told me, mobile will only successfully monetized when the advertising industry understand that mobile isn't just a smaller screen version of traditional Internet media. "We need to rethink advertising," Gershkoff insists. We need to think about it, she says, as a personal service to mobile users. Many Stream attendees agreed with Gershkoff that both the challenge and opportunity of mobile lies with its intensely personalized nature. "The days of dumb advertising are over," Randall Rothenberg, the President and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) told me over breakfast at Stream. Bill Clifford's "big moments" must then, in fact, be big "personal" moments if the marketing industry is to successful transition to mobile media. Perhaps the best description of the challenge was expressed to me in Marathon by the legendary investor and WPP board member Ester Dyson, who said that the advertising industry needed to "deliver value rather than just describing value." Because we look at our mobile devices all the time, Dyson told me, this media should be "every advertisers dream." But the industry needs to learn to create useful products to consumers, such as Delta airline's bag tracking app, rather than just gratuitously impersonal advertising. Mobile advertisers, Dyson explained, need to distinguish between media as a mirror and a painting. In the old days of television or desktop Internet advertising, advertising was like a painting that we could all admire without seeing ourselves. But today, Dyson says, advertising has a mirror with personalized information unique to us if we are to pay for information or products. Amy Gershkoff sees three promising models for a mobile marketers and advertisers. The first is way in which Amazon is enabling consumers to scan products in stores with their mobile devices to get their online price. The second is Starbucks initiative to enable their customers to pay for their coffee via mobiles. And the third is the geo-targeted and content-targeted advertising that YouTube has developed specifically for mobile devices. No event like Stream would, of course, be complete without the radical optimists -- the "Unlocking $50 billion in digital brand spend" crowd - who believe that mobile will trigger a unique cornucopia of opportunities for the advertising industry. But, as the IAB's Rothenberg told me, the funny thing about the advertising industry is its constancy. From 1917 onwards, he explained, advertising has always made up around 2% of US GDP. So, while - to borrow some words of wisdom from WPP's Martin Sorrell - "we don't know the answer" to how exactly the small screen revolution will change advertising, mobile probably won't radically alter the size of the industry. The more things change then, the more they stay the same. Which is why it is probably appropriate that Stream is held each year in Marathon - the little town outside Athens that knows all about the unchanging and challenging nature of the long distance race.

Mobile is changing the face of marketing but no one is sure what the long-term impact will be . U.S. entrepreneur Jeff Pulver says small screen will disrupt, but not kill the industry . But PR agency director Amy Gershkoff says the industry still doesn't get mobile media . Mobile advertisers need to deliver value, not just describe it, says investor Ester Dyson .

(CNN) -- There's more to do in Cairo than just protest. Just look at lifestyle website CairoScene. On Tuesday, for instance, there's Johnny's Karaoke Night, Culturewheel's Mime Festival and the Arab Music Festival Ceremony at the Cairo Opera House. You can get one pizza free if you buy another at Boosters, and it's ladies night at Yasso Lounge. The young Egyptians who put out CairoScene work at a building in an upscale Cairo neighborhood. It's next to Nahda Square, where the Muslim Brotherhood staged a sit-in, and the protests sometimes prevented them from getting to work. Today, the Brotherhood protesters are gone and there's no missing the military presence outside the building. At one intersection, troops stand guard from an armored personnel carrier as pedestrians stroll by. Inside CairoScene's offices, young Egyptians huddle around sparkling white tables and lounge on white couches, peering into computers. They talk about their latest stories and the unrest raging across Egypt. Top Muslim Brotherhood figure among scores arrested . "We asked for this," site co-founder Timy Mowafi said. "The Egyptian people asked for the army to intervene." Among many in the newsroom, the military crackdown against supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsy is necessary, if unfortunate. "It's devastating to think of the numbers who have died on either side, but there were armed people on the streets," Mowafi said. "This would not be acceptable in any other country." But not everyone agrees wholeheartedly. "Personally, I'm not with the military, but I'm also definitely not with the Brotherhood," said Eihab Boraie, a senior writer for the site. "We will have to take up Tahrir again," he said, referring to the landmark Cairo square that served as the backdrop for the 2011 protests that led to the ouster of longtime Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak. "And when we take up Tahrir," he said, "it will be against the Brotherhood and against the military, and it will be for peaceful transition to immediate election." Opinion: Can anyone save Egypt from the brink? 'In God's hands' With hundreds dead, funerals are frequent. One recent day, relatives held the funeral for Ammar Badie, the slain son of the now-arrested leader of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was shot twice in the head last week as security forces clashed with protesters. On this hot, sunny Cairo day, mourners carried his plain wooden coffin into a crypt. Men wept, shook hands, said goodbye. "It's a disgrace people were saying he was a terrorist," said Ammar Badie's cousin, Omar Rabiya. "He was not -- he was a person of peace, a smart guy -- and he just wanted his country to be free." Ammar's brother Bilal told mourners not to cry. "This is in God's hands," he said. Egypt's cycle of violence . 'The church is my home' Outside Cairo last week, 67-year-old Shenouda el Sayeh swept up ashes amid the burned ruins of the Virgin Mary Church. The church was one of at least 30 attacked last week amid backlash over the military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood. The Rev. Boktor Saad, the church's pastor, said Islamists were behind the attack. "They started organizing marches and demonstrations, chanting outside the church, chanting down with the church," he said. To el Sayeh, the church, now charred and gutted, was home. "I'm sad," he said. "My religion tells me to come clean. I clean the church. The church is my home." 'I feel frustrated' Life amid the chaos isn't terrifying for 20-year-old student Mayar Adly. It's boring. "I don't go out as much as I used to go before," she said. "I'm so bored. My life sucks." And there are moments of panic. A couple of days ago, the family heard gunshots outside during a protest. "I thought it was fireworks, but they told me it was gunshots" Adly said. "My mom told me to stay away from the window. It was kind of freaky. I was scared." Barred from protesting by her father, she spends most of her time in a three-room high-rise apartment with her two younger brothers, her parents and five cats. A local market delivers their groceries, and she gets to go out only rarely -- to a cleaning job at a nearby bank. She spends time on Facebook, reading and watching television -- but not the news. "I'm fed up with news," she said. "I used to be interested in the news, but I'm not as interested as I used to be." I feel frustrated," she said. "I worry about how much longer I'll have to stay at home." U.S. temporarily holds up some military aid to Egypt . CNN's Ian Lee and Arwa Damon contributed to this report.

Egyptians describe life during the country's violent protests . "I worry about how much longer I'll have to stay at home," says a 20-year-old student . Protests prevent many Egyptians from going to work .

Washington (CNN) -- This weekend we pause to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation that set in motion the freeing of the slaves throughout the South. But as we focus on Abraham Lincoln's action on September 22, 1862, we should also realize that there was another crucial date in the story of freedom. Perhaps the most significant event in American history --other than the creation of the documents that created our nation -- was Abraham Lincoln's emancipation of the slaves in the District of Columbia on April 16, eight and a half months before the historic signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was the most significant because it began the process of stopping the one thing that could have ended this nation: slavery. The D.C. proclamation predated the Emancipation Proclamation by months, but it received no less attention from the nation. It was a highly controversial document, and it was the first and only time that the government tried to compensate owners for freeing the enforced laborers. Owners loyal to the United States were paid $300 per person, and each freed man, woman or child was paid $100 -- almost one-third of a working man's yearly wage in 1862 -- for those people who chose to return home. Compensating slaveholders was never tried again. Washington was a hub of the slave trade. Slaves were sold across from the White House in Lafayette Park. Slave pens, or jails, holding the slaves for sale were located throughout the District. Charles Ball, a slave in Washington, would take walks to Georgetown. "I frequently saw large numbers of people of my color chained together in long trains, and driven off towards the South," he wrote. Frederick Douglass was one of Lincoln's most severe critics. For those unfamiliar with him, among man, Douglass stands beside Lincoln as a towering giant of the Civil War. Born a slave, Douglass, in his own words, "stole this body" and escaped to New Bedford, Massachusetts. Self-educated, Douglass became known nationwide. Lincoln invited him to the White House four times. (Twice for meetings, once to his second Inauguration and once to the Summer White House, which Douglass declined because he had a speaking engagement.) The first meeting changed Douglass' tune. After that conversation Douglass said, "I felt as if I had known him all my life." What was most important, Douglass had Lincoln's ear; the president listened. Ending the sale of slaves in the District was a thing of wonder. The act, said Douglass, was "a priceless and an unspeakable blessing." A District citizen (an African-American who was a free man all his life), wrote a friend in Baltimore, "Were I a drinker I would get on a Jolly spree today, but as a Christian I can but kneel in prayer and bless God for the privilege I've enjoyed this day." Because of the Civil War, the District's Emancipation Day was not formally celebrated until 1866, when 5,000 marched from the U.S. Capitol up Pennsylvania Avenue to Franklin Square, cheered by a crowd of 10,000 lining the way. Earlier this year, the District's non-voting member of Congress, the Honorable Eleanor Holmes Norton, led Washington's celebration of Emancipation Day. Many years ago, her great-grandfather, Richard, lived in the city. President Lincoln's signature didn't free him. He freed himself when he walked away from a slave plantation in Virginia in the 1850's. But Lincoln's mighty pen made 3,100 men, women and children equal in the laws of the land. The congresswomen did more than simply honor legacy; she brought the emancipation legacy home to us now. She said that the city, unlike the 3,100 who were emancipated, could free itself of congressional rule. (Washington's citizens do not have senators and have but one non-voting representative in Congress. Congress must approve all legislation Washington's City Council enacts.) Norton said, "Our freedom is locked up in the U.S. Capitol. We can claim it, or leave it there. "We can claim it, or leave it there." This fall, the descendants of slaves, millions of ethnic and religious minorities from other lands, African-Americans and immigrants -- Latinos, Asians, Europeans -- and women, as well as working- and middle-class Americans, will decide whether to claim their future. We are all in this together. All Americans will have a chance to move Lincoln's vision forward to help close the opportunity gap, to end the economic inequality resulting from government policies that favor a handful over the many who work equally hard. Abraham Lincoln would be proud to see the progress we have made. But he also would understand that there is still more work to do. Together. Claim it. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Donna Brazile.

Donna Brazile: Weekend marks 150th anniversary of preliminary Emancipation Proclamation . She says April 16, 1862 also was significant in struggle for freedom . On that date, Lincoln signed bill to free the slaves in the District of Columbia . She says it began the process, which continues today, of seeking freedom and justice .

(CNN) -- It´s the ultimate repair tool. A silicone material that can be shaped like playdough, can bond to almost any surface and after a few hours of exposure to air becomes a super tough, durable rubber. "Sugru" - coming from the Irish word for "play" - is now being used to fix leaky pipes, create custom-made handles and even help a disabled, fingerless canoeist modify one of her paddles. Unlike existing moldable putty, Sugru doesn't go rock hard when dry, but stays flexible, waterproof and heat resistant up to 180 degrees Celsius (356 degrees Fahrenheit). "We think that Sugru can be something as big or bigger than duct tape, superglue or anything else that you use to repair," says its Irish-born inventor Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh. However, like many great inventions before, it only came into existence by chance. Ni Dhulchaointigh, a design student at the Royal College of Art in London at the time, had been messing around in the workshop, trying out new combinations of materials when she started mixing silicone adhesive and wood-waste into small balls. They looked like wood when finished, but when you threw them on the floor they would bounce. "I thought, that's random," says Ni Dhulchaointigh, who admits many other designers might have then left it at that. "But for me, I knew that there was something there. There was something a little bit magical. I just didn't know what it was." It was only as she began using bits of the material around her home to repair things that she had what she calls her "eureka moment" and came to realize its real usefulness and application. "Every time I'd make up a batch of it for my experiments, I'd have bits left over. I hate wasting stuff so I started using the leftovers around my house just to fix little things, I modified a kitchen knife that was really uncomfortable. My sink plug was just slightly too small, so I just made a little ring to make that work. "I was doing it completely unconsciously. And I was there beating myself up going, I can't find the application for this material, until my boyfriend James said to me one night, maybe there's not this one perfect thing for this material. Maybe what you're doing in the kitchen is actually the thing." It took six years of hard work before the first packs of her material were being sold to consumers. Her story from the workshop to marketplace, together with the help of business partners and friends, has been a familiar one of luck, near bankruptcy and late salvation. "It has been a long journey," she says. "First of all, the technology has been difficult to invent. But second of all, you know, we're not a big company with big budgets behind us." Send your photos of Sugru fixes to CNN's iReport . "We've been doing it on a shoestring for years. And anyone who's ever pitched for investment funding will know it's a bitch. It's really difficult for an unlikely group of people to get investment funding. I mean, we probably pitched to over 100 investors where we got, maybe two or three over the years." Around 2008, five years after she first came up with the idea, with a product almost ready to launch, Jane and her small team of partners found themselves close to running out of money, as promised investment from major manufacturers failed to materialize. Watch: See how versatile and strong Sugru is . In a last ditch attempt, they decided to scrape together enough money to build their own "little cottage industry factory" and do it themselves. And with the help of family and friends they put together 1,000 packs. "What we're quite good at is design, it's what we do, so we had a fantastic package design and a really great website design. When we went live it looked like we were much bigger than we were." From that point, the investors came on board fast and in less than three years they have ballooned to annual sales of $2 million, a staff of 25 and a customer base of more than 100,000 across 100 countries. Perhaps, the most unique thing about Sugru is that its practical uses is being demonstrated not by its inventor, but by the general public. Thousands of people have posted comments and pictures on Twitter, YouTube and other websites showing how they have put the material to good use. "We get emails every day with pictures and stories of what people have done. They do things with it that we couldn't have dreamed of. It feels like magic sometimes." Ni Dhulchaointigh says her product is the ultimate tool in the battle against wastefulness. "I think it can really benefit our urban way of life, where we depend so much on buying new things all the time and replacing them if they're not quite right. It's not only wasteful, but it doesn't make the most of us as human beings with all the potential that we have."

Sugru is a self-setting rubber material which sticks tight to almost any surface . Irish inventor tells CNN about how she created the versatile product and its worldwide success . Silicone-based product molds like putty but remains extremely strong and supple . Sugru hacks regularly posted on Twitter and YouTube by satisfied customers .

(CNN) -- For many Americans, summer vacation is over and the kids are headed back to school. The temperatures are still sweltering in much of the country and many of us could use a good book to escape these dog days. Whether you're firing up the e-reader or headed to your local library, here are a few ideas on some hot reads, from the supernatural to surfing, plus a pair of top shelf puzzlers. If you're tired of the "Twilight" saga, and have seen every episode of "True Blood," then sink your teeth into Glen Duncan's "The Last Werewolf." Readers are devouring this elegantly written and darkly humorous tale. Critics are universal in their praise, calling it howling good. In the book, Jake Marlowe is the last of his kind, a charming but lonely lycanthrope who's fond of single-malt scotch, camel cigarettes and expensive prostitutes. When the moon becomes full, Jake transforms into a bloodthirsty beast, who craves human flesh. Now 200 years old, haunted by his past and tired of battling werewolf hunters and vampires, Jake is ready to turn himself in to his enemies and end his life but author, Duncan throws in a twist that changes Jake's resolve and will keep readers absorbed to the very end. This a blood spattered page turner, full of violence and sex, not for the squeamish but a thrilling read nonetheless. Hollywood agrees, Oscar-nominated director, Ridley Scott has optioned the film rights and Duncan is already working on a sequel. Check out a video trailer for "The Last Werewolf." If you didn't make it to the beach in person this year, Don Winslow's "The Gentlemen's Hour" may be the next best thing. Winslow is an award winning veteran of the summertime crime novel. He captivated readers and critics with his best-seller, "Savages" last year, which is being turned into a big-budget movie by Oscar-winning director, Oliver Stone. Now Winslow's out with a sequel to 2009's "The Dawn Patrol," featuring the return of Boone Daniels, a former cop turned private investigator, who would rather surf than work. This time out, Daniels is investigating the death of a local surfing hero, but he'll have to face down some Mexican gang bangers, neo-Nazis and a reclusive billionaire before he can get to the truth. Winslow is a former P.I. and his prose drips with authentic detail, capturing the seedy side of the San Diego surfing scene as well as the beauty of sundown on the southern California coast. Even if you don't know the difference between hanging ten and a "gremmie" Winslow's novel will have you craving waves. For anyone who loves a good puzzle, John's Verdon's "Shut Your Eyes Tight" is the easy answer. Verdon is a retired advertising executive who waited until his late sixties to try his hand at writing. The result was his 2010 bestselling debut, "Think of a Number." Now in Verdon's sophomore novel, superstar detective Dave Gurney is once again making a go at retirement with his wife, Madeleine. However, when a young bride is gruesomely murdered at her own wedding reception, the puzzle proves too tempting for Gurney to resist. Well-known mystery writers like David Baldacci, Nelson DeMille and Tess Gerritsen are rallying behind Verdon for his clever plots and nuanced characters. A slew of reviewers, including the New York Times have heaped praise on Verdon, even comparing his whodunits to the classic Sherlock Holmes tales. Speaking of Baldacci and Gerritsen, they're among the "murderer's row" of writers who penned "No Rest for the Dead." As the book jacket says, there are twenty-six writers and one mystery. Andrew Gulli, editor of the Strand, a mystery magazine organized this effort, bringing together more than two-dozen bestselling writers, each contributed a chapter to this hard-boiled collaboration. Combined these authors have sold hundreds of millions of books, and their expertise is not wasted here. The mystery revolves around an old murder in San Francisco and a detective who might have helped convict the wrong person. The novel reconstructs the crime, weaving back and forth through time and through various characters points of view. "No Rest for the Dead" is more than just a stunt. Anyone who loves a good mystery will love this book and to top it off proceeds go to a good cause. Gulli is donating a healthy portion of the books profits to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in honor of his late mother. Read an excerpt of "No Rest for the Dead." Whatever your choice, you can't go wrong with any of these hot reads. So happy reading!

If you're tired of the "Twilight" saga, sink your teeth into Glen Duncan's "The Last Werewolf" For anyone who loves a good puzzle, John's Verdon's "Shut Your Eyes Tight" is the easy answer . A "murderer's row" of 26 writers penned one mystery in "No Rest for the Dead"

(CNN) -- It's been billed as an astronomical equivalent of the Large Hadron Collider, offering new insights into the formation of the universe and so powerful that it might even detect alien life. The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is an international effort to build the world's largest radio telescope, one which will probe the dark heart of space shedding new light on dark matter, black holes, stars and galaxies. "It will have a deep impact on the way we perceive our place in the universe and how we understand its history and its future," says Michiel van Haarlem, interim director general of the SKA project. "We know we are going to discover things that we haven't already. It's going to be very exciting," van Haarlem said. Taking its name from the total size of its collecting area, the SKA telescope will consist of 3,000 dish antennas, each one around 15 meters wide. Construction is slated to begin in 2016. Collectively the surface area of all the dishes will amount to one square kilometer -- hence the name -- all combining to detect radio waves that penetrate the Earth's atmosphere, emitted by stars, galaxies and quasars. Two other types of radio receptors -- aperture antennas and array antennas -- will combine with the dishes to provide continuous frequency coverage from 70 MHz to 10 GHz. "It's not like an optical telescope where you see an image of the sky directly. What you do is measure signals from the antennas and process them," van Haarlem says. Around half the antennas will sit in a "central core region" made up of three separate five-kilometer clusters. The remainder will extend out in five carefully aligned "spiral arms" stretching out ever more sparsely over an area in excess of 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) or more. The configuration, say scientists, will create the most sensitive radio telescope ever built. Currently, that honor is held by the Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico, says Alastair Edge, from Durham University -- a leading UK center for astronomical research. "(VLA has) just undergone a very large refit. Telescopes themselves haven't changed but the computing at the back end has changed dramatically," Edge said. See also: Mapping out a new era in brain research . At the moment, we simply don't have the computing power for the SKA telescope to perform at full tilt, Edge says. Van Haarlem concurs. "We're talking about huge computing hardware that still needs to be developed. There's a big challenge there," he said. Supercomputers capable of performing billions and billions of operations per second will be required, but the results will be spectacular, van Haarlem says. "We will have high-resolution images where we will actually peer into the center of what is going on in galaxies," van Haarlem said. "We will also have the big picture where we can make surveys of vast areas of the sky to map out the large-scale structure of the universe." The project is entering a crucial stage with an announcement on where the array will be based expected imminently. Two locations, one in South Africa's Northern Cape, the other in western Australia, are in the running. Brian Boyle, project director of the Australia/New Zealand bid, extols the virtues of Western Australia's "intrinsic radio quietness" and the "excellent geophysics" of the proposed Australian site. Meanwhile, SKA South Africa project director Bernie Fanaroff says hosting the "world's largest science project" would be extremely important to the country and the continent. "It could carry immense importance for the perception of Africa -- by Africans and by the rest of the world," Fanaroff said. "It has already attracted a lot of young people into science and mathematics in South Africa and from other African countries and it's attracted a lot of top-rate scientists," he added. Recent reports suggest that South Africa is favorite to host the SKA, but van Haarlem wouldn't be drawn on the matter. Wherever the location, the effort to build and operate the SKA will be an international one, with 20 countries and 70 institutions already on board, as well as private backers. And whatever the outcome of the bids, it will be a while before the array is up and running with construction slated to start four years from now and full operation not expected until 2024. The total cost is estimated at €1.5 billion (around $2 billion). But it will be money well spent van Haarlem thinks. "If it only tells us when the first stars and galaxies formed then it would have already contributed a huge amount to our understanding." Alastair Edge agrees. "It is possibly the most complex experiment we could possibly do. It has huge potential for allowing us to determine the distance to every galaxy in our local universe," Edge said. "The Large Hadron Collider produces a certain amount of data per hour. This will produce the same amount of data in the space of a couple of minutes."

The world's largest radio telescope will uncover secrets of the history and future of the universe . Extraterrestrial life may also be detected by Square Kilometer Array telescope . 3,000 dishes will be used in an array which will spread over massive area . South Africa and Australia bidding to host the project which will start construction in 2016 .

(CNN) -- Two words are nowhere to be found in the pages of text that spell out a new interim nuclear deal with Iran: Saeed Abedini. Now some supporters of the American pastor, who's been detained in Iran for more than a year, are accusing U.S. officials of betraying Abedini by signing off on an agreement that doesn't get him out of prison. "We were across the table from the Iranians, and we did not bring home Americans. To me that's a tragedy and that's outrageous," said Jay Sekulow, the chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, which represents Abedini's family in the United States. While analysts debated the nuclear agreement's pros and cons, Abedini's wife, Naghmeh, said she was trying to comfort her two young children. "It's very painful," she told CNN's "The Lead" on Monday. "My kids were crying this morning, saying, 'God, don't let Daddy die. Bring him home.' " Abedini, a 33-year-old U.S. citizen of Iranian birth, was sentenced to eight years in prison earlier this year, accused of attempting to undermine the Iranian government and endangering national security by establishing home churches. At the time, an Iranian state news agency said he would soon be released on bail -- but Abedini's family says he remains behind bars in a dangerous prison, wrongfully imprisoned because of his Christian faith. Family members who visited him in prison recently said his health had deteriorated, Naghmeah Abedini said. And U.S. officials should do more to push for his release, she said. "I expect them to speak out and say, 'We asked for his release, and this is horrible what has happened,' " she said. "And he's not going to survive even a few months in that prison." U.S. President Barack Obama pushed for the release of Abedini and two other detained Americans -- Robert Levinson and Amir Hekmati -- when he spoke on the phone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in September. It was the only issue other than Iran's nuclear program that Obama brought up, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said. "He asked for Rouhani's assistance in freeing them and allowing them to return to the United States, and Rouhani said that he would look into it," Blinken said. Asked why Abedini's fate wasn't part of the interim nuclear deal with Iran, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the Geneva talks "focused exclusively on nuclear issues." White House officials told CNN that negotiations for Abedini and other detained Americans in Iran are ongoing. "We've been repeatedly clear that we're calling on Iran to release them," Blinken said. "The president' raised it, we will continue to raise it, and we hope to see them return home." One analyst told CNN Monday that focusing on nuclear policy was the right approach for the talks. "In any negotiation, you've got to decide how much you're going to try to accomplish, and just tackling all the dimensions of the nuclear agreement is ambition enough," said Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. But Naghmeah Abedini and her attorney argued that officials could have done more, making the Americans' release a precondition for any sanctions relief. "It is disheartening and discouraging that fighting for religious freedom and wrongful imprisonment of a U.S. citizen is no longer a priority for a country that was founded on such values," she said in a written statement to CNN. Saeed Abedini converted to Christianity from Islam and then became a pastor, living in Boise, Idaho. He regularly made trips to Iran and was working on a government-approved orphanage when he was arrested last year, his family said. He was on a bus crossing from Turkey into Iran last summer when immigration officials took away his passport. He was later put under house arrest. Authorities took him to the notorious Evin prison in September 2012 while he awaited trial. In January a judge from the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Court sentenced him to eight years in prison. On a Facebook page dedicated to pushing for Abedini's freedom, dozens of supporters criticized the nuclear deal and said they were praying for the pastor's release. "It's so senseless that our government would betray an American citizen like this ... especially under these unique circumstances. ... They had the opportunity," Gina Lewis Morrison wrote. Abedini's wife said Monday that she won't stop fighting for her husband's freedom. She told "The Lead" that she had a message for her husband. "Hang in there. I'm spending every waking moment working to get you out," she said. "The kids and I miss you and we're proud of you for standing up for what you believe and your values." CNN's John Berman, Wolf Blitzer, Jamie Crawford and Shirzad Bozorgmehr contributed to this report.

NEW: Administration officials: Push for Saeed Abedini's release will continue . Wife: "He's not going to survive even a few months in that prison" Abedini's supporters say the Obama administration betrayed him . An interim nuclear deal reached with Iran doesn't secure the pastor's release from prison .

Stockholm, Sweden (CNN) -- WikiLeaks founder and editor Julian Assange said Swedish authorities reached "the height of irresponsibility" by issuing an arrest warrant alleging rape against him, then revoking it less than a day later. "It is clearly a smear campaign," Assange told Arabic news network Al-Jazeera in a live telephone interview Sunday. "... The only question is, who was involved?" Asked who he thinks was behind the accusations, Assange told the network, "We have some suspicions about who would benefit, but without direct evidence, I would not be willing to make a direct allegation." Meanwhile, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said in an update on its website that Assange's name was leaked to the media, and the authority -- which does not normally publish the names of suspects -- "did not in this case initiate publication." However, the office did confirm Assange's identity and later published his name in statements about his arrest and the subsequent revocation. An arrest warrant was filed against Assange in absentia on Friday. Swedish media, citing unnamed sources, reported that two women, ages 20 and 30, reported the allegations to police, leading to the warrant being filed. The AftonBladet, a respected Swedish daily, said the 30-year-old told the newspaper that the younger woman had approached her with a story similar to hers -- that she had consensual sex with Assange but that the situation had turned abusive. Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, would not confirm the reports. But on Saturday, less than full day later, Chief Prosecutor Eva Finne said in a statement posted on the authority's website that Assange was "no longer wanted" and "is not suspected of rape." The prosecution authority said on its website Sunday, "When Ms. Finne became in charge of the matter on Saturday, she had more information than the first prosecutor had on Friday night. Decisions on coercive measures, like arrest, should constantly be re-evaluated during an investigation and must always be based on the actual information." "The decision to appoint Eva Finne as prosecutor in charge was made on Saturday," the authority said. "Under most circumstances the duty prosecutors on Monday morning hand over all weekend matters to different prosecutors who will be in fully in charge of the investigations." However, serious crimes or high-profile matters can be handed over earlier to lessen the burden on the duty prosecutors, the posting said. "The matter concerning Mr. Assange was judged as such a matter." Rosander told CNN affiliate TV4 that the decision to issue the warrant was made by an "on-call prosecutor" and that Finne revoked the warrant on Saturday. Such differences in prosecutorial judgment are common in Sweden, she said. The arrest warrant also mentioned a molestation charge, but molestation -- which is not limited to child victims in Sweden -- is not a crime punishable by jail time. Rosander told TV4 Assange is still under investigation for molestation. Asked about that investigation by Al-Jazeera, Assange -- who said he is on holiday in the north of Sweden -- said, "I have no details on what that is about. I cannot imagine any event where that would be credible." He said he has not been contacted by Swedish police, but has directed his attorney to contact them. Assange told the network he was warned of an impending smear campaign. In a posting Saturday on the WikiLeaks Twitter page, Assange said, "the charges are without basis and their issue at this moment is deeply disturbing." Asked if he had anything to tell Swedish authorities, Assange said he would ask that they be cautious "and not issue statements and retract them six hours later" given the seriousness of the situation. Finne, the posting Sunday said, "will work with the investigation" next week. "At the moment, it is not possible to estimate when more information can be given or which decisions will be made." WikiLeaks has triggered controversy by recently posting some 76,000 U.S. documents related to the war in Afghanistan. An elusive figure, Assange reportedly lives part-time in Sweden. He told the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet last week that he had been in Sweden because he wanted a safe-place to go after the high-profile document leak -- which has been called the biggest leak since the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam War. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized the leak, saying it would have a significant negative impact on troops and allies, revealing techniques and procedures. And Afghan President Hamid Karzai has expressed concern that the leaks will put informants' lives at risk. Asked Sunday by Al-Jazeera about Karzai's comment that he has blood on his hands, Assange said it was "extraordinary thing to hear, a comment like that, from a man like that, who has waded his whole life in blood." He pointed out that the Pentagon has said it was not aware of anyone coming to harm because of the documents' release. Another 15,000 documents are being reviewed and will be released soon, Assange said. CNN's Per Nyberg contributed to this report.

WikiLeaks founder won't say who he thinks is behind allegations . Swedish authorities alleged rape in warrant, then revoked it . Authorities said Assange's name was leaked to the media . WikiLeaks is at the center of controversy after posting U.S. documents .

(CNN) -- The Emmys will be Sunday night at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, and AMC, HBO and Showtime have nabbed a huge chunk of the major nods this year. This yet again sparks the question that has been looming around the industry for years: Is the quality of programming from the major broadcast networks on the decline? Numbers don't lie . When the nominations for the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards were announced, HBO received 104, the most of any network for the 11th year in a row. With multiple opportunities to win for "Mildred Pierce" (21), "Boardwalk Empire" (18), "Game of Thrones" (13) and the miniseries "Too Big to Fail" (11), the cable network (which is owned by CNN's parent company) is poised to show up strong at this year's awards. However, to be fair, major network comedies also received multiple nominations, including ABC's "Modern Family" (17); NBC's "Saturday Night Live" (16) and "30 Rock" (13); and FOX's "Glee" (12). Still, it's hard not to notice the lack of major network dramas in that list. For some perspective, here is a breakdown of the most nominated networks for the 2011 Emmy Awards: . HBO: 104 . CBS: 50 . NBC: 46 . PBS: 43 . Fox: 42 . ABC: 40 . AMC: 29 . Showtime: 21 . Comedy Central: 11 . ReelzChannel: 10 . Major network nominations total 188, while cable television nominations earned a grand total of 271. PBS received 43 nominations. So, one can't help but wonder: What is cable doing that major networks aren't, in terms of drama? No more drama? "Mad Men" creator and executive producer Matt Weiner has his own theory. He told the Los Angeles Times: "Cable has found a way to tap into a lot of frustrated creativity and exploit it financially. I can literally look at these shows on basic cable and pick where they would have been 10 years ago on network TV; some would not have been on at all." Also, for the most part, cable series have shorter seasons than those on major networks. They usually run 10 to 13 episodes, as opposed to network television's 23 episodes a season. Shorter seasons tend to mean tighter storytelling and less "filler" episodes. ("Desperate Housewives," we are looking at you.) A perfect example of this is AMC's dramatic series "The Killing," which based its entire short season on one murder. Every episode of "The Killing" had the viewer glued to the small screen, thanks to the show's tight storytelling, outstanding acting and production qualities. It is much easier to keep a narrative interesting over 13 shows (without having to include unnecessary storyline filler) as opposed to a typical network season of 22 shows. While a longer season is perfect for procedural dramas like "CSI," "Criminal Minds" and "Law & Order: SVU," shows that rely heavily on episodic storytelling have huge advantages with a shorter season. Another thing cable networks are doing extremely well is delivering shows with outstanding production values. Shows featured on HBO and AMC often have lavish, visually striking sets that could easily be the backdrop of a major motion picture. Last but not least, cable networks are blessed with the freedom to program to a niche audience. Network programming has been forced to cast a wider net, playing to the lowest common denominator. For instance, ABC's forthcoming remake of "Charlie's Angels" is a show that viewers would probably never see on an AMC network because of the pure fluff factor. Typically, cable networks tend to focus on producing intelligent shows that don't necessarily rely on gimmicks like the expected jiggle factor on a show like "Charlie's Angels." "The Good Wife" is good drama . However, one quality drama on network TV does stand out among the crowd. CBS's "The Good Wife" starring Julianna Margulies is arguably the best drama on network television right now. The combination of a stellar cast, high-quality writing and a compelling long-term story arc is superior to any other drama airing on the big four networks. The show's writers clearly value the intelligence of the show's viewers, and the actors are more than up to the task. Other networks need to look to "The Good Wife" and start taking more risks. One may argue that there is something for everyone on television these days. However, I'd like to see more shows in the vein of HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" gracing the television landscape, as opposed to more reboots like CBS's "Hawaii Five-O" and shows like the NBC dramedy "Harry's Law."

The Emmys will be Sunday night at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles . AMC, HBO and Showtime have nabbed a huge chunk of the major nods this year . HBO received 104 nominations, the most of any network for the 11th year in a row .

(CNN) -- How do you like your sport? Blood, sweat, tears and a nailbiting finish, no doubt. But what about death? If it were highly likely at least one competitor would die during a race, would you still watch it on TV? Or place a bet on the outcome? And how different would your answer be if the athletes were not humans, but horses, asks animal welfare activists. Those uncomfortable questions are unlikely to deter the 600 million people in 140 countries tuning in on Saturday to watch the hardest -- and most spectacular -- horse race of its kind in the world; Britain's Grand National. Each year, around 40 thoroughbreds leap over 30 fences in a thrilling 10-minute dash, with more than $300 million bet on the race in the UK alone. Part of the Grand National's huge appeal is the difficult and unpredictable 7.24 kilometer course. But with that difficult and unpredictable course comes a cost -- in the last 50 years of the race, 36 horses have died before crossing the finish line. For animal rights campaigners, the competition is viewed as a cruel death trap. For organizers, and indeed the 70,000 punters attending each year, it's the country's biggest, brightest sporting event. "If you totally nullify the risk of the course, then you also nullify any element of challenge -- and the Grand National is the ultimate challenge," David Williams, spokesman at betting agency Ladbrokes, told CNN. "Each of us has to look into our own souls and ask ourselves if that risk is a price we're willing to pay, and that's not an easy answer." Rich betting tradition . From schools, to offices, and local pubs across the country, the Grand National sweepstake -- in which everyone is allocated a horse to bet on -- is an annual fixture. "It is the biggest betting event of the entire year. It's a very British tradition," Williams said. "Children are brought up with it. I remember watching it with my grandparents and betting with matchsticks." Launched in 1839, the historic race holds a special place in the public's imagination, transcending the sports pages with its dramatic Aintree course and flamboyant Liverpool crowd. And despite two horses fracturing their legs and later being euthanized at last year's race -- including the favorite, Synchronized -- enthusiasm for the competition doesn't appear to be waning. "The bottom line is, it hasn't had a significant impact at all," Williams said. "The betting public don't appear to be particularly put off by the issue of horse welfare." Death trap? Thoroughbreds usually die by falling on one of the fences, breaking a limb, and later being put down. Some also die from injuries during the race or heart attacks. "Other jump races have uniform fences with a standard height of 4 foot 6 inches (1.4 meters)," Dene Stansall, horse racing consultant at Animal Aid, told CNN. "But at the Grand National each fence is a different height, style or slant. The ground might be lower or higher on the take-off or landing side and all these things throw the horse's center of gravity." He said punters remained largely apathetic about horse deaths, continuing to bet in droves. "A lot of people are very blase about it, they don't have any emotional interest other than monetary gain and the thrill of the race," he added. "What you don't see on TV is the horse with a broken back or a bullet in its head. It's horrific to see an animal so desperate to keep up with the pack, struggling to get up on three legs with that one snapped leg just swinging round and round." Or ultimate challenge? Aintree bosses have made safety improvements to the course in recent years, including moving the starting gate 100 yards away from the noisy crowd, and padding the fences with softer materials. "We're working very hard to reduce injuries, but unfortunately you can never totally reduce risk," the race course's managing director, John Baker, told CNN. "Horse deaths are part-and-parcel of life in general. A horse can get injured just as easily exercising in a field." Qatar's six-star luxury hotel...for horses . Baker stressed how well cared-for the thoroughbreds were by dedicated teams of trainers, stablehands and jockeys. Similarly, jockey Katie Walsh, who finished third on Seabass last year, told London's Radio Times this week that the horses were looked-after "better than some children". Asked if he thought the public had been put off by nine horse deaths in the last 10 years, Baker pointed to the huge numbers still watching the race every year. "Eleven million people watched it on the BBC last year -- more than the football, which is supposed to be our national sport," he said. "It suggests that the Grand National remains extremely popular and there's no sign of that decreasing."

Britain's most popular sporting event, The Grand National, will be run on Saturday . Forty horses jump over 30 fences in world's toughest steeplechase race . Thirty-six horses have died in last 50 years in "cruel sport" say animal rights activists . Organizers say it is the greatest challenge for jumps horses, continuing to attract punters .

(CNN) -- The Iraq War ended in December, and veterans and other citizens throughout the country have begun clamoring for local parades to celebrate the return of our Iraq veterans -- yet only one city in the nation, St. Louis, has held one. In New York, which this week hosted a ticker-tape parade for the New York Giants after they won the Super Bowl, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he will hold off on a celebration for Iraq veterans, as the Department of Defense has suggested, because he agrees the time is not right. And President Obama has yet to call for broader ceremonies besides a small state dinner to be held later this month for only 200 Iraq veterans. The question of whether we should commemorate our Iraq veterans is controversial in a way that it shouldn't be. This isn't about claiming "mission accomplished" prematurely. The troops are finally home, and Americans across the political spectrum ought to recognize and celebrate their service. As an Iraq War veteran, I can tell you: This isn't about glorification. Nobody joined the military so they'd one day get to walk under a hail of confetti. But a commemoration isn't about that; it's about validating the morally and politically difficult task of serving your country in war. While most veterans will tell you about receiving hearty thank-yous from strangers or a spontaneous round of applause every now and then, what they seldom mention are the people who feel compelled to qualify their appreciation by noting that they opposed the war. It's time for that to end. Less than 1% of this country has served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and this has created a civil-military divide that has alienated and isolated this generation of veterans. It has tangible consequences across issues of mental health, employment and education. Our government has expanded on the best public policy program of the last century by creating the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Yet some veterans struggle to use the program because of the challenge of attending class alongside students with little understanding of the experiences they've faced. With new veterans facing 12% unemployment last year, an epidemic of suicides, and the legacy costs of war, we not only need this country's unreserved support -- we need its sacrifice. Americans need to hire our veterans, invest in their education, and expand on services that will help them heal from the scars of war. Instead, we risk repeating our society's Vietnam-era mistake of marginalizing and ignoring returning service members. Already there's been a grass-roots effort in St. Louis to turn this around. On January 28, two civilians got on Facebook and organized a parade there that drew 100,000 supporters and 20,000 veterans from throughout the country. More importantly, though, the event was bookended by a resource fair for veterans. My organization, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, was one of those providing employment, health and education resources to veterans after the parade. This kind of on-the-ground resource is important, because while the federal government has a critical role to play in funding services to veterans, it's in the cities and local communities that veterans actually are administered the support they need. For example, San Francisco has created a 311 line that connects veterans with local services to give them resources beyond what the Veterans Administration can provide alone. That's why the decision of the mayor of one of the greatest cities in the world not to be at the forefront of these efforts is so disappointing. Mayor Bloomberg, we exercised leadership overseas -- why can't you do the same thing at home? To the argument that holding parades while we're fighting in Afghanistan would be premature, I say consider this: In 2002, the first of this generation of veterans left the military behind to rejoin their civilian counterparts. Since that time, the number has swelled to more than a million. We can't afford to wait for these wars to end to start taking care of those that fought in them. These two wars are inexorably intertwined in the American consciousness, but for many, they remain separate. When the last troops return from Afghanistan in a few years, the Iraq War will be a distant memory. For those who served, there will never be closure, but there can be reconciliation. I know firsthand, having protested the Iraq War and then served in it, how complicated the politics of the last decade were. But this isn't about a war overseas; it's about a struggle here at home to take care of this generation's veterans, that we'll carry with us into old age. As a country, we're at a critical point where our approach to this generation of veterans will define whether we become the Next Greatest Generation or simply forgotten veterans of a forgotten war. I've seen the tremendous accomplishments of my fellow veterans overseas when we all worked together. Now it's time to do the same thing here at home. Will you have our backs? Follow CNN Opinion on Twitter. Join the conversation on Facebook. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Timothy Kudo.

Timothy Kudo: Some are clamoring for parades and recognition for returing Iraq vets . He says Bloomberg and Pentagon want to wait, but vets need acknowledgment now . He says civil-military divide alienates vets, slows connection with needed services . Kudo: U.S. must step up, validate the morally, politically tough task of serving one's country in war .

(CNN) -- Gov. Mitt Romney got himself into a bit of a pickle Monday when he was quoted saying that he liked to "fire people." Many have jumped onto this line as evidence of the candidate's callousness toward working people in a bad economy. Even his Republican primary competitors latched onto the comment, especially as it might relate to his work at Bain Capital Ventures, to show that Romney is in the business of making people unemployed. There's much more smoke here than fire, but some of it, unfortunately, is Romney's fault. He was the one, after all, who tried to pitch his time at Bain as evidence of his success as a "job creator." Specifically, in the GOP candidates' debate on Saturday he said, "In the business I had, we invested in over 100 different businesses and net-net, taking out the ones where we lost jobs and those that we added, those businesses have now added over 100,000 jobs." Turns out this isn't entirely correct. When pressed, his campaign released figures that showed that a number of companies helped by Bain under Romney's tenure, such as Staples, the Sports Authority, and Domino's, have added more than 100,000 jobs since then. But there are two problems with that figure. The first is that it's the number of jobs in all the time since Romney started at Bain, including many years after he left. The second is that there are no figures that show how many jobs were added or lost at other companies Bain managed, so a claim of a "net" addition is unproven. Bain could release comprehensive figures, but it's not likely it will. Nor should it. Bain isn't running for office, and I'm sure it considers the information proprietary. The larger issue, though, is that many people were fired through Bain's work. That is what often happens when venture firms take over businesses through leveraged buyouts. These stories make for compelling campaign commercials and news pieces. They don't paint Romney in as nice a light. That's compounded when he claims to "enjoy" firing people. But let's be fair. The governor is having his words taken out of context. Here's the full quote: . "I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep people healthy. It also means if you don't like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. If someone doesn't give me the good service I need, I'm going to go get somebody else to provide that service to me." Romney isn't talking about his time at Bain. He's talking about health insurance. Specifically, he's talking about how he'd like insurance to work. He would rather everyone be personally responsible for buying insurance, instead of getting it from the government. Then, he says, if the insurance company did a bad job, people could fire them. That sounds much better, right? Unfortunately, it's not. The first problem is that Romney ascribes motives to the insurance companies that make no sense. If you would just leave the insurance company if it did a bad job, then there is no incentive for it to keep you healthy. Healthy people are cheap for insurance companies, and sick people are not. If you go from being healthy to being sick, it's in an insurance company's best interest that you leave. That's an economic fact, not a moral judgment. It's only if you can't leave, if you have to remain on their books no matter what, that the company has an incentive to keep you healthy. The second problem is worse, though. Healthy people often don't know their insurance plans are bad until they get sick. Healthy people, after all, don't make as much use of their plans. Once they fall ill, though, it means now they have a pre-existing condition, which will make it almost impossible to them to get a new plan if they decide to fire their old insurance company. The way the private insurance market works today, almost no one has the luxury of firing the insurance company once he or she figures out it isn't doing a good job. That's not true in Massachusetts, of course. Thanks to Romney's legislation there, insurance companies can't deny you coverage and also can't charge you more for being sick. There, thanks to Romney, you can fire your insurance company and be assured of finding a better one. It will also be true for many more people once President Obama's Affordable Care Act gets fully under way in 2014. Since Romney seems so enamored of firing bad insurance companies, you might think he'd want to protect and promote other people's ability to do so. Instead, he opposes the Affordable Care Act, which would do the same thing nationally that his law did for the people of Massachusetts. Join CNN Opinion on Facebook and follow updates on Twitter. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Aaron Carroll.

Aaron Carroll: Romney comment on firing people is mostly out of context; smoke, not fire . But it calls attention to his questionable record as "job creator" at Bain, he says . His quote involved firing health insurers; but sick people don't have luxury of doing that . Carroll: In Massachusetts they can, under Romney health law; yet he opposes national reform .

(CNN) -- "Let Allah sort it out." That is Sarah Palin's succinct argument against U.S. intervention into Syria. And I have to be honest: I'm impressed with Palin on this one. Not with her horribly callous recommendation, made via Facebook late last week, but because she appears to speak some Arabic. I'm not saying Palin is fluent in the language, but she did use the Arabic word "Allah." She could've simply used the word "God" instead of Allah since it has the identical meaning. (Christian Arabs use the word Allah when speaking of God in Arabic.) I think deep down she wanted to show off her language skills. Could Palin know even more Arabic? She did go on to say that both sides fighting in Syria are, "shouting 'Allah Akbar' at each other." She could've easily translated "Allah Akbar" into English, noting that the combatants were screaming, "God is great." Or as Sen. John McCain remarked Tuesday on Fox News, "Allah Akbar" is no different than an American Christian saying, "Thank God." Opinion: GOP shouldn't bail out Obama's floundering foreign policy . But Palin went with the Arabic. Why? Because I think deep down she loves the language. And I bet Palin knows even more Arabic words such as humus, falafel and possibly babaganoush. So, let's get back to her statement, "Let Allah sort them out." Now, there is a possibility that Palin believes that Muslims worship a different God than Christians and Jews. If she does, is she's actually saying that we should sit back and revel in watching Muslims slaughter each other? Could that be her barbaric message? Possibly. But my cynical side tells me that Palin was just trying to use inflammatory language to get attention. (I know what you're saying: "No, our Sarah Palin would never do that.") But let's not forget what Palin said about President Barack Obama's comments on Libya: "Obama's shuck and jive shtick with these Benghazi lies must end." Palin was roundly criticized for using "shuck and jive," which is a term dating back to 1870s and was originally a "Southern 'Negro' expression for clowning, lying, pretense." Palin denied she was being racially insensitive in using that phrase. Was it just an inadvertent slip or a ploy to draw media coverage? So what's the genesis of Palin's statement, "Let Allah sort it out"? The big debate: Should U.S. strike Syria? Well, it appears to be based on the infamous phrase: "Kill them all, let God sort them out." This term reportedly comes from the time of the Crusades. You know, those "holy wars" waged by Christians that Sarah might refer to in her Arabic as a "jihad." However, this expression was not coined in a battle between Muslims and Christians. Rather, legend has it that it was uttered by a Catholic monk in the 13th century as Crusaders were about to lay siege to the French city of Beziers, a town filled with Cathars, who were considered heretics to the Catholic Church. When the monk in charge of the assault, Arnaud Amalric, was asked by the military commander how to distinguish between heretics and Christians, the monk responded: "Kill them all, God will know his own." Consequently, 20,000 people were slaughtered, including women and children. It's unclear if Palin comprehends the origins of the phrase she used, but what's abundantly clear is that she believes that the U.S. should do nothing while people are being slaughtered in Syria. I'm not sure to what God she prays, but I can assure her that the God of Christians, Jews and Muslims demands more than silence in the face of mass killings -- some 100,000 people, including scores of women and children. Many of us would prefer a political solution that ends this conflict. Opinion: Don't use Syria to pump up Pentagon spending . Former President Jimmy Carter has called for a peace summit to try and end the bloodshed while we await a vote by Congress' on military action in Syria. Regardless of how we end the violence, silence is not a morally acceptable option. In the future, if Sarah Palin is going to show off her Arabic vocabulary, it's my hope that she doesn't use it to encourage the world to turn a blind eye as innocent people are butchered. Instead, she might use an Arabic word such as "salaam," which means "peace," and encourages people to support a policy that brings an end to the fighting. After all, peace means the same thing in every language. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dean Obeidallah.

Dean Obeidallah: Sarah Palin wrote "Let Allah sort it out," referring to possible U.S. action . He asks who knew she spoke Arabic? But does she know where that phrase comes from? He says Catholic monk said it before 13th-century siege that killed 20,000 . Obeidallah: She seems to believe slaughter of innocent Syrians should be met with silence .

(CNN) -- The Australian cruiser met the disguised German vessel in the waters off western Australia two years after the two became enemies in World War II. The gun turret of the Sydney II was discovered with the rest of the vessel in March 2008. The Australian ship approached, trying to determine whether the vessel was friendly. It wasn't. What resulted was Australia's worst naval disaster: the sinking of the Australian ship and the loss of its entire crew of 645. The wreckage wasn't found until last year, leading to decades of conspiracy theories about what actually happened. On Wednesday a long-awaited report on the sinking of the Sydney II ended the mystery that began when it met its fate, November 19, 1941. Made to look like a cargo ship, the German vessel was in fact a military raider that fired on the Australians when they got close. The Sydney fired back and, in the end, both ships went down. More than 300 of the sailors on board the German vessel, the Kormoran, survived. But because they were the only witnesses to the disaster, some doubted their accounts, leading to various theories about the real fate of the Sydney. After the wrecks of both ships were located in March 2008, an Australian commission began an inquiry to formally close the book on the loss of the Sydney. The results confirm the accounts provided by the German sailors. They said the Sydney closed in on the Kormoran until it was parallel with the German ship, little more than 1,000 yards away. "Sydney obviously thought the ship was friendly and was taken by surprise when, after she asked what she believed to be (a friendly ship) to give her secret call sign, the response was a number of salvos that destroyed Sydney's bridge and amidships superstructure and a torpedo strike that crippled the ship and her forward guns," the report said. The Sydney had given up its tactical advantage of speed and armaments by getting so close to an unknown vessel, the report said. While that may have been an error of judgment by the Australian captain, Joseph Burnett, the report accepted that other factors -- which may never be known -- influenced his decision. "It can never be known what matters were, in fact, operating in Capt. Burnett's mind when he decided to take the Sydney to the position described. Nor can it be known what advice, if any, he sought from or was given by other officers on the bridge," the report says. "What is known, however, is that, in trying to identify the sighted ship, Capt. Burnett was performing his duty as a commanding officer." The German ship inflicted "enormous damage" on the Sydney during a battle that is believed to have lasted about 35 minutes and left 70 percent of the Sydney's crew dead or incapacitated, said Cmdr. Jack Rush, the lawyer who presented the evidence gathered by investigators to a commission of inquiry led by a retired judge. It is likely that Burnett, the navigator, and all of the Sydney's senior officers were taken out on the first salvo, Rush said. A torpedo tore into the Sydney's bow, flooding the forward end of the ship, while the Kormoran fired an estimated 87 rounds from its 15-cm (5.9-inch) guns into the Australian cruiser. The Sydney limped away and sank sometime between 2 hours to 4 1/2 hours later, Rush said. During the battle, however, the Kormoran itself was hit by an Australian shell that damaged its engines and set the vessel ablaze. With hundreds of mines aboard, its captain ordered the crew to abandon ship, fearing the fire would set those off. Charges were set and the ship was scuttled. About 80 of the Kormoran's crew of nearly 400 were lost. A search began only five days after the battle, when the Sydney failed to return to port in Fremantle. And an 11-day delay by Australia's government in announcing the ship's loss fueled what a 1999 parliamentary report called "a proliferation of theories" about the fate of the crew -- that the ship was actually sunk by a Japanese submarine, that survivors were machine-gunned in the water or that the government hid bodies after they washed up on the beach. The commission thoroughly investigated all the theories and speculations surrounding the disaster and found no substance in any of them, said Terence Cole, president of the commission. Researchers found the Sydney's wreckage in the Indian Ocean, about 207 km (128 miles) off Australia's west coast. The commission was appointed in May 2008 and began its inquiry in January. "For a long time our nation has struggled to understand how our greatest maritime disaster occurred. The unanswered questions have haunted the families of those brave sailors and airman that never came home," Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, the chief of the Australian Defence Force, said in a written statement.

Finding: Sydney's captain, senior officers likely to have died in first salvo . Sinking of Sydney II and loss of crew of 645 was Australia's worst naval disaster . German vessel, the Kormoran, was made to look like a cargo ship . Both ships went down; more than 300 on Kormoran survived; wrecks found last year .

(CNN) -- In today's world of catchy buzzwords, a current favorite is "Africa is rising." Africa's tech scene is a soaring firebird and all the techies on the continent will tell you something game-changing is coming and Africans will build it. In case you haven't heard, apparently the next Facebook, Google or Microsoft will come from Africa. That's what the young mavericks are working towards. In Africa, we worship at the altar of innovation . Innovation is the fountain from which most African entrepreneurs drink -- their raison d'etre. This is hardly surprising on a continent that leapfrogged the tech scene, producing insanely useful mobile solutions. It seems it is only logical that the continent will build the next big thing. But innovation has become quite formulaic for the quick-talking 20-somethings just itching to change the world. Just like any formula, it has strict rules: find a problem, build an app to solve it, develop for smartphone and add social integration. Read more: Why tech innovators are Africa's future . The tech ecosystem is desperate to set itself up as the next Silicon Valley -- a playground for mavericks, dropouts and wheeler-dealers who want to turn an industry on its head. The current atmosphere is electrifying with possibilities for a continent primed as an innovation and entrepreneurial destination. But businesses are so desperate to innovate that solid business models seem to be missing in their plans to take over the world. Good, solid businesses are become boring, and making money is an afterthought. Right now there is nothing sexier than Africa's trendy and attention-grabbing tech scene. It's like the hero of a great tale: down and out, talented, with nothing to lose. Innovation is the watchword. Investors make no secret that they prefer companies that are innovative, mentors recommend it and journalists dedicate headlines to the most innovative companies. Like a ferocious monster, its appetite is insatiable and most startups are victims of it. At this stage we might have to rename Africa "the place where good companies die of too much innovation." Read more: "Africa's tallest building" set for $10 billion tech city . I recently attended an event where a group of startups in an incubator pitched their companies after eight weeks in the program. One of the companies that was profitable in the beginning with a solid business model (but which could be considered run of the mill) had pivoted so it could do something more innovative. Truth is, chances of the new business making money are very unlikely. In an environment where all the other companies around it seemed to be innovating in an interesting way with new technology, the pressure to innovate killed a good business. Solve a real problem, damn it . Interestingly, Africa's key drivers in terms of innovation came from very simple products that wanted to solve real problems. The continent that brought Ushahidi, M-Pesa and EC2 cloud found a real gap in the market and developed solutions for it. Africa's pool of talented developers and entrepreneurs want to prove that they can compete on the same stage with more mature markets. They can, but the rules are different. Africa hasn't solved some of the basic problems that mature markets have solved. Building bandwidth-heavy apps is not a good idea because the majority of the continent just isn't ready. As much as almost everyone in Africa uses a mobile device, the data problem is still a key thought. So perhaps, for one unimaginable moment, we should forget about building the next Facebook, Google or Apple. Think about using your vast technical skills; solve the simplest problem Africa faces -- service delivery. Think of the innovation that would come with that, think how very big that would be. Hipsters don't build boring companies . In Africa's tech entrepreneurship scene everyone walks around like mavericks, but it is all a show. There is a fundamental lack of passion. In a bid to be different there is sameness. Being a tech entrepreneur seems to be more about joining the sexy cool kids in the ongoing exclusive party where the tech scene is glamorized, workaholism is something to boast about and arrogance slowly becomes familiar. How to run a real business seems to be of very little consequence. More entrepreneurs need to consider bootstrapping their companies with the many free services out there until they are profitable enough to invest in more infrastructure. A crazy idea like that might work and even attract the much sought-after foreign investment that entrepreneurs covet. Read more: Africa hungry for homegrown online content . Before I get charged with treason, I'd like to point out that there is nothing wrong with innovation. However, not all businesses are meant to be crazy innovators. Some of the more successful businesses work on an old-fashioned business model that comes with a twist. Bells and whistles or fancy technology aren't always cool, but a good, sensible way of doing business that provides jobs is. It's easy to get caught up in Africa's tech scene, to feed its appetite for innovation, to hype up the novelty while encouraging the wannabe mavericks. But first, perhaps, it is time for tech entrepreneurs to ask what Africa needs. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Michelle Atagana.

African entrepreneurs place too much importance on innovation, says Michelle Atagana . Startups are forgoing solid business models in favor of trendy concepts, she says . Tech wizards should first tackle the problem of service delivery .

(CNN) -- The Boston Marathon bombings shook the nation. With one suspect killed and the other captured Friday night, there are far more questions than answers at this point. While authorities unravel details in the coming days and weeks, many people are curious about Chechnya and its history, hoping to better understand the background of the two suspected bombers. The important thing to keep in mind right now is that 26-year-old Tamarlan Tsarnaev had a green card, and 19-year-old Dzhokar Tsarnaev became a naturalized U.S. citizen in September 2012. Assuming that their motives are related to their Chechen origins would be like assuming that Timothy McVeigh's motives were related to his Scottish/Irish origins. Although the Tsarnaev brothers are of Chechen ethnic background, they are from the neighboring republic of Dagestan -- a tremendously diverse region that differs from Chechnya in many ways. According to press reports, they fled Dagestan for distant Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia sometime before or during the second Chechen war with Russia, which started in 1999 and spilled over into Dagestan. It is likely that they found many Chechen contacts in these new homes, which still have a Chechen diaspora remaining from Joseph Stalin's forced deportation of the Chechen people to those republics in 1944. From Kyrgyzstan, they emigrated to the United States in 2002. Chechnya is a small republic within the Russian Federation of about a million people located in the Caucasus between the Black and Caspian seas. The Chechens have a long history of intense conflict with Russia. In fact, even after encircling the region through the conquest of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan to the south in 1801, it still took the mighty Russian army 60 more years to conquer the region. In 1944, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin accused the Chechens of treason and deported every man, woman and child to locations scattered through Soviet Central Asia in a brutal action with high death rates. The deported Chechen people were only allowed to return in 1957, four years after Stalin's death. It is quite likely that the grandparents or great-grandparents of the Tsarnaevs suffered through these horrible actions. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, 15 constituent republics became independent countries, but Chechnya was just an autonomous region within the Russian Federation, and Russian President Boris Yeltsin refused to allow Chechnya to break free and form an independent state. In 1994, he ordered the invasion of Chechnya to reverse its declaration of independence and to force the region back under Moscow's control. The two-year war and the years that followed were filled with violence, chaos and lawlessness. Estimates of Chechens killed in the 1990s run as high as 100,000. Dagestan was for the most part able to avoid the violence of the 1990s and stayed relatively quiet. Both Tsarnaev brothers most likely heard a lot about the second war between Russia and Chechnya that started in 1999, a war that this time involved parts of Dagestan as well. This time, a radical Chechen warlord named Shamil Basaev tried to spread anti-Russian unrest to the much larger neighboring region of Dagestan. With a small army, he took several towns in Dagestan and a month later four residential apartments were blown up in Moscow and two other Russian cities, killing and injuring hundreds. He found little support from the peoples of Dagestan and instead spurred newly appointed Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to launch a new war against Chechnya. This round of fighting was even more brutal than the first war. Extreme Chechen groups turned to guerrilla warfare in the mountains, and horrific acts of terror in Russia, including the Beslan elementary school siege that ended with 334 people dead, including 186 children. Other acts included setting off bombs in the Moscow subway system and taking an entire Moscow theater hostage. Both the pro-Russian Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his various Chechen underground jihadist and nationalist opponents have denied any connection to the Tsarnaevs. The question of their links to any groups will be one of the most important questions for the investigation to come. In the past few years, both the Tsarnaevs excelled in sports and academics, and seem to have lived apparently normal lives. It remains to be seen whether their life experiences, nationalist or religious ideas led them to the Boston Marathon bombings -- or if their motives were more akin to the domestic mass killers we have seen far too often in places like Aurora, Newtown, Tucson, Columbine, and elsewhere. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Eric Lohr.

The two suspected bombers of the Boston Marathon are of Chechen ethnic background . Eric Lohr: People are curious about Chechnya and want to know more about the suspects . He says Chechnya went through wars and chaos . Lohr: It's hard to tell whether their life experiences or other factors led them to their actions .

Washington (CNN) -- Gen. David Petraeus on Wednesday issued a new "tactical directive" for forces in Afghanistan that emphasizes guidance for the use of force by troops operating in the country. "We must continue -- indeed, redouble -- our efforts to reduce the loss of innocent civilian life to an absolute minimum," the directive states in part. "Every Afghan civilian death diminishes our cause. If we use excessive force or operate contrary to our counterinsurgency principles, tactical victories may prove to be strategic setbacks." The directive states that before firing, the commander authorizing a strike must determine that there are no civilians present. If the status of civilians is unknown, firing is prohibited except when certain types of risk to troops exist. In another unclassified portion of the document, Petraeus states, "Protecting the Afghan people does require killing, capturing, or turning the insurgents. Indeed, as I noted earlier, we must pursue the Taliban tenaciously. But we must fight with great discipline and tactical patience." According to the directive, some civilian casualties result from misunderstandings or ignorance of local customs or behaviors. To reduce that, NATO forces partner with Afghan troops in their operations. Petraeus stressed the importance of these partnerships, saying that he expects every operation and patrol to be partnered. "(Afghan troop's) presence will ensure greater situational awareness. It will also serve to alleviate anxiety on the part of the local population and build confidence in Afghan security forces," the directive states. Most of the directive is classified. U.S. and coalition military officials told CNN that that Petraeus was not expected to reverse existing directives issued by the previous commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, but instead characterized the new directive as a clarification of the rules he put into place emphasizing protection of civilians on the battlefield. The directive does that by spelling out more clearly under what circumstances units must get permission to launch attacks to defend themselves. Troops were awaiting the directive with some anticipation. Some troops on the ground complained about the McChrystal directives, saying they unduly hampered troops from defending themselves in favor of protecting civilian populations. Those McChrystal directives limited the use of airstrikes, night raids and other firepower against civilians. In Wednesday's directive, Petraeus notes that this order, as with the previous directive, does not prevent use of force in self-defense. At his confirmation hearing last month to take command in Afghanistan, Petraeus explained a tactical directive is "designed to guide the employment, in particular, of large casualty-producing devices, bombs, close air support, attack helicopters, and so forth." The concern, however, is that implementation has been uneven, leading some units to be overly restrictive. "We have to be absolutely certain that the implementation of the tactical directive and the rules of engagement is even throughout the force," Petraeus said, "that there are not leaders at certain levels that are perhaps making this more bureaucratic or more restrictive than necessary when our troops and our Afghan partners are in a tough spot. And when they are in a tough spot, it's a moral imperative that we use everything we have to ensure that they get out of it." Petraeus made clear he is aware of the troop's worries. "I am keenly aware of concerns by some of our troopers on the ground about the application of our rules of engagement and the tactical directive. They should know that I will look very hard at this issue." On Sunday, Petraeus issued a more general, public list of guidelines for counterinsurgency warfare in which he urged American troops and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force to learn and adapt to the culture of Afghanistan while battling the Taliban insurgents and their allies. While Petraeus called on the troops to "pursue the enemy relentlessly" and "seek out and eliminate" insurgents who threaten Afghan civilians, he also urged coalition forces to fight "with discipline" and be careful to avoid civilian casualties. Petraeus' directive comes shortly after the Taliban released its own directive late last month. That directive, from Mullah Omar, called for insurgents to avoid harming civilians. In a news release Wednesday, the International Security Assistance Force said that despite Mullah Omar's call, 43 Afghan civilians have been killed and 65 injured by insurgents since the directive came out. The casualties included five children who were killed in Kandahar on Monday by a suicide bomber, ISAF said. Others were killed by improvised explosive devices. "Mullah Omar's new directive has done nothing to protect the Afghan people from further harm," said Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz, ISAF spokesman. "This is either a smokescreen to repair the Taliban's well-earned reputation for brutality, or insurgent groups are simply ignoring their leader. In either event, the Afghan people will continue to suffer from oppression and indiscriminate violence until the insurgents are defeated." CNN's Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

Petraeus issues new "tactical directive" The directive spells out more clearly when units must get permission for attacks . Some troops had complained about previous directives . Petraeus has made clear he is aware of the troops' concerns .

London (CNN) -- Bruce Springsteen had been waiting for this moment for a long time. "I gotta tell you," he said to the 76,000-strong crowd, "I've been trying to do this for 50 years." For the finale of his headline slot in London's Hyde Park on Saturday, he'd arranged a very special treat: An onstage collaboration with Beatles legend Paul McCartney. But the rock megastar hadn't banked on the local London council deciding to show him who was boss. At the climax of his three-hour set, Springsteen and McCartney, backed by the E Street Band and Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, played a storming rendition of "I Saw Her Standing There" to a rapturous crowd. Springsteen's delight was palpable: He grinned throughout, his face lit up like a child with a super-sized Christmas gift. The supergroup then segued into a sizzling version of "Twist and Shout" -- but as the night peaked against a backdrop of fireworks, a drably dressed man with sensible hair could be seen waving frantically at the back of the stage, indicating the rock legends' time was drawing to a close. Then, at 10:40 p.m. local time, as Springsteen and McCartney were winding up the extended "Twist and Shout," the sound suddenly dampened, and went quiet. At first, the Boss didn't seem to notice. He attempted to address the crowd, apparently unaware that they couldn't hear him. But as it became clear that there was no amplification, he and lead guitarist Stevie Van Zandt played what looked to be a brief a cappella goodnight for the benefit of the front rows, shrugged, and left the stage. Van Zandt tweeted later, "I'm sorry but I have to be honest I'm pissed ... It didn't ruin the great night. But when I'm jamming with McCartney don't bug me!" He also implied his fans were denied their final number, saying, "We would have been off by 11 if we'd done one more." London's Westminster Council confirmed that concert organizers Hard Rock Calling had cut the power, saying they "were sticking to their license for the event." According to the Hard Rock Calling website, Springsteen had been due to finish his set at 10:15 p.m. But Van Zandt tweeted, "Hard Rock would have let us play all night," adding, "Feel bad for our great fans ... It's some City Council stupid rule." Audience reaction from CNN reporter on the scene . Conditions for holding concerts in London's biggest central park have been tightened in the past year, the BBC reported, due to a rise in complaints from local residents. The Conservative-run council received 130 complaints about popular music events in the park in 2011. The events, which bring vital funding to the parks management, have been cut in number from 13 to nine and crowd size has been reduced from 80,000 to 65,000 maximum. Campaigners in the well-heeled borough have also sought a reduction in permitted noise levels. A spokesman for concert operator Live Nation said: "It was unfortunate that the three hour plus performance by Bruce Springsteen was stopped right at the very end but the curfew is laid down by the authorities in the interest of the public's health and safety. Road closures around Hyde Park are put in place at specific times to make sure everyone can exit the area safely." Properties around Hyde Park are some of the most desirable in London, and popular with bankers, foreign investors and politicians. Springsteen is known for his marathon sets. This night was no different. He'd come on stage at 7:30 p.m. and played without breaks for just over three hours, from a beautiful acoustic "Thunder Road" through an extensive list that included "Badlands," "Because the Night," "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" and "The River." He then hit his high-energy closing set of "Born in the USA," "Born to Run," "Glory Days" and "Dancing in the Dark" before bringing on the former Beatle for the finale. But that wasn't enough to satisfy his fans, who were left baffled, then angry that their idol's set had been cut short. "Ashamed to be British right now. Springsteen and McCartney playing 'Twist & Shout' in Hyde Park and council pulled the plug cos of curfew," tweeted actor and comedian Stephen Merchant. British journalist Richard James tweeted, "Springsteen and McCartney: Only in Britain could a local council pull the plug on the greatest artists of the last 50 years giving it all." Fan Liz Chong demanded the concert organizers apologize for cutting Springsteen and McCartney off mid-song, saying "Won't come again."

Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney have sound cut off at London festival . Fans left angry and disappointed as rock idols are forced to cut set short . Concert organizers pull the plug in line with local council's strict curfew . NEW: Lead guitarist says: "When I'm jamming with McCartney don't bug me!"

(CNN) -- Mickey Rooney, who died Sunday at 93, may have been the most unusual major star in the history of Hollywood. Why? For one thing, at the peak of his fame, he was only a youth. In the late 1930s into the 1940s when he topped the Hollywood box office, earning the then huge sum of $150,000 a year, there were few child actors with his clout. In fact, unlike today, there weren't many child actors at all. Only Shirley Temple and Deanna Durbin could begin to rival him. Then there was his size, even into adulthood. There were other diminutive stars in Hollywood's Golden Age, such as Jimmy Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, Humphrey Bogart, but no one as pint-sized as Rooney, who topped out at just 5-foot-2. We like our stars to be outsized. Rooney was definitely undersized. But Rooney had something else that no other star had. Male stars -- then as now -- were largely figures of power: not just Cagney and Bogart, but Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, even Spencer Tracy. Moviegoers were attracted to their ability to dominate, to bend the world to their will. Rooney didn't exude power. He exuded pluck. Rooney never played the conventional hero vanquishing forces of evil. He was best known as Andy Hardy in a series of films at MGM: the quintessential young man in the quintessential small town with the quintessential family and honoring quintessential American values. About the only things he vanquished in these movies were his own doubts or his own lovesickness or his own moral quandaries. Andy was eager, loving, decent, thoughtful -- not the qualities we ascribe to movie heroes but the very qualities Americans, particularly as they emerged from the Great Depression -- liked to ascribe to themselves. He didn't conquer through strength. He succeeded through sheer energy. "Let's put on a show," the joking line attributed to Rooney in those Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland pictures, expressed what Rooney was about: not American muscle, but American determination. And if Rooney didn't convey power, he didn't convey manliness either. (Hell, he wasn't even a grown man in his heyday.) The great male stars of his time didn't cry. They didn't even wince. They were stoics patrolling America's mean streets. Only Jimmy Stewart among them even seemed to have a tender side. But Rooney was no stoic. He did cry. He was open and vulnerable and wounded and occasionally scared. Think of the last scene in "The Devil Is a Sissy" where he stares into the night after his prisoner father is executed. He couldn't stare down the world the way the other male stars did. He could only stare into it, often with wonder and pain. After all, he was still a boy, he could expose his heart. He could be hurt. And there was one more thing about Rooney that made him an unusual star in the Hollywood constellation. Almost every great star then, male and female, was a cynic. They were hard-boiled, had learned to survive life, but lived without illusions. Think of Bogart in "The Maltese Falcon" or "The Big Sleep" or Bette Davis in just about any of her pictures. Rooney, again partly because of his youth, was devoid of that cynicism. He was hopeful, idealistic, utterly sincere. In a movie world of doubt, Rooney alone was a true believer. In these three ways -- pluck and heart and idealism -- Rooney may have come closer to the American ethos in Depression-era America than any other star. He was loved not because he expressed what we could only hope to be, but because he expressed what we liked to think we actually were. Take Rooney in what is arguably his best role, as Homer Macauley in Clarence Brown's screen version of William Saroyan's World War II novel, "The Human Comedy," from 1943. Homer's job is to deliver telegrams, including those informing families of their sons' death in battle -- more Rooney sadness. This was MGM head Louis B. Mayer's favorite film because it captured the idealized way he viewed America, with Rooney as the idealized American boy--though the director Billy Wilder once recalled to me a time he found Mayer throttling Rooney on the lot after some transgression and yelling, "You're Andy Hardy! You're America!" That Rooney was. His death is a reminder of an earlier time when Americans had a more innocent vision of themselves. Rooney's persona may not have worn well over time -- it was a young man's persona -- but in the '30s and '40s he was the personification of that innocence, and a vestige of it has passed with him.

Neal Gabler: Rooney was very unusual in Hollywood. A child actor with enduring success . He says he had quality unlike male stars of Golden Age: not powerful, but plucky, vulnerable . He conquered through energy, determination, not strength. His image was hopeful, sincere . Gabler: He expressed how Americans wanted to see themselves .

Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) -- The opening theme's the same and the concept's no different, but "Arab Idol" is much more than just a popular singing competition. Now in its second season, the Middle Eastern version of "American Idol" is the feel-good story of the year. At a time when the Arab world is so concerned about conflicts growing and sectarianism increasing, the show has done the near impossible: It's given the troubled region something to smile about. "You should vote for, only for music," a grinning and relaxed Ahmad Jamal says during rehearsal. "Not for nationality, not for religion, not for political issues," adds the 25-year-old Egyptian contestant. "You just vote for music and the one you love, the one you want to be a star." It's a sentiment echoed by other contestants when explaining the popularity of the show and how lucky they feel to be a part of it. Take Farah Youssef, for example. The 25-year-old almost didn't make it out of Syria. Her car was caught in the middle of a shootout as she left Damascus to audition in Beirut. Watching her practice before the show, you'd never guess the amount of stress she's under. Frankly, she seems quite happy while hitting the high notes. As it turns out, the pressure of performing is nothing compared with how overcome she becomes when she thinks and talks about the civil war back home. "I see all that stuff happening in my country," she says. "It's kind of devastating." Her words trail off as she is overcome with emotion. "I'm sorry," she says as she starts to cry. "The people, they have no future. I thank my God that I'm here, I'm building myself up, I'm trying to be good. I'm trying to make people love one another again." Suddenly, as if remembering the healing power of music, she declares, "And actually I feel like I'm doing a good job." Clearly the show's millions of loyal viewers believe so too, as Youssef has advanced to "Arab Idol's" finale, which airs this weekend. But she has stiff competition from fan favorite Mohamad Assaf, also a finalist -- one who's become a heartthrob and a hero. Making the difficult journey out of Gaza, the 23-year-old Palestinian barely made it to the tryouts in Cairo. When he arrived at a hotel for the tryouts, he was late and had to jump over a wall and evade security to enter the venue. "There was a man who gave me his number -- who sacrificed his place for my sake when he heard my voice," Assaf recalls. "I still ask myself how all this happened." Nicknamed "The Rocket," Assaf's on a fast track to stardom, but the patriotic Palestinian also wants to inspire his people. "Anybody who has hope for a better future, and who has dreams and ambitions to make his dreams a reality, will make it," he says confidently. "Arab Idol" Executive Producer Alex Meouchy couldn't be happier about the effect the show's having. "I'm very proud of the success of the show," he says. "I'm very proud that we were able to achieve something that all of the Arab world was able to unite around." Broadcast on the MBC1 network, the show's stellar ratings have increased all season long. "Arab Idol" is now considered a sensation. On the show, contestants, regardless of their religious or cultural background, sing songs from all over the region. Meouchy explains how the diversity on display has made the show even more popular: . "An Egyptian (contestant) would come and say I want to sing in Lebanese (dialect)," he says, "and I want to sing in Gulf dialect and it's really quite beautiful how ... the unity of the Arab world was shown in the show through the power of songs and entertainment." This season even featured the show's first Kurdish contestant, Parwas Hussein. Even the show's panel of judges, made up of music superstars of the Arab world, prefers to be positive. "We are the real leader now," explains head judge Ragheb Alama, known as the "Elvis of Lebanon." "People are talking to us and watching us. You know, today, two (regional) presidents called me and talked to me about this program, about the contestants." "You cannot imagine how this makes me feel that we are the real medicine," says Alama, "the real smile between the sad environments." Perhaps it's all summed up best by former Lebanese contestant Ziad Khoury. "We're sending a message and unifying the Arab people," the beaming 25-year-old says. "A message of happiness and peace." Here, they've decided to focus on excellence rather than extremism, to highlight music instead of misery.

Middle Eastern version of "American Idol" is the feel-good story of the year . Performers say they're lucky to be part of show, talk about its power to bring people together . "I'm trying to make people love one another again," Syrian singer says . Executive producer's proud to be part of "something that all of the Arab world" can unite on .

Cairo (CNN) -- In Cairo, where huge protests are now in their fourth day, the angry protesters in Tahrir Square are reclaiming the pro-democracy revolution they started January 25. Since it took control of the management of the transitional process, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces -- appointed by the former president, Hosni Mubarak -- has been following a three-sided strategy to contain and even frustrate the persistent demands for handing over power to a civilian authority and establishing an effective democratic system. The military council is breaking the revolutionary will of the protesters by arresting many and putting them in military courts (12,000 civilians so far); deliberately humiliating them (torturing many and exposing female protesters to virginity tests); making ordinary people feel disillusioned and even hate the revolution by failing to take tough measures against anarchy and restore law and order; and finally, encouraging fragmentation and discord among the country's political actors. Like Mubarak, the military council has adopted the policy of "me or anarchy." Over the past few months, Egyptians have used enormous demonstrations to press their demands, starting with insisting on dismissing the government that Mubarak had appointed before he was ousted, purging the security forces and cleaning the Ministry of Interior, trying Mubarak and those responsible for the death of more than 800 peaceful protesters and the injury of thousands, and setting a clear and specific timetable for handing over power to civilians. The military council has been reluctant to respond, and when it has, it has completely emptied these demands of any meaningful effect. Indeed, it appointed a new Cabinet in March but deprived it of any effective authority. It changed the name of the state security force while maintaining its old structure and savage practices, and it reluctantly put Mubarak and some of his aides before trial, but none has been indicted, and the process has been incredibly slow. With parliamentary elections set to begin on November 28, the military council wanted to secure its position in the transitional process and threw a wrench in the form of a draft of supra-constitutional principles that, if it were to be agreed upon by the major political forces, would grant the military council a special status in the new political process. It would make the council sovereign above all other state institutions, including the parliament. The proposed principles would prevent civilian control or overseeing powers over any of the military's affairs, grant the military veto powers over the laws and strip the elected parliament of some of its authority. The document revealed the military council's insecurity about the results of the coming elections and the fear that Islamists might win a majority. It also engendered a deep state of polarization among the country's political forces. Many liberals and secularists supported the document, while Islamic parties and youth movements rejected it and organized a massive demonstration Friday under the name "The Friday of Protecting Democracy." Several youth and grass-roots movements joined the demonstrations and continued with sit-ins, insisting on a specific timeframe for transitioning authority. The security forces brutally cracked down on the protesters, igniting further clashes over the past few days. To many protesters, what Egypt is witnessing is "phase two" of the January revolution. One cannot ignore the striking similarities between the two phases, particularly the snail-paced responses of the military council and Mubarak and the unjustifiable use of force against unarmed civilians. I was in Tahrir Square on Saturday when army soldiers clamped down on thousands of peaceful protesters, killing two in their initial thrust and savagely beating many of them. This excessive use of force was a major factor contributing to the fall of Mubarak. The military council also repeats another fatal mistake by responding too late with too little, leading protesters to raise the ceiling of their demands. What started as protests calling for protecting democracy and a timetable for transferring power under the management of the military council has become firm demands for ending the rule of the council and the military generals. Despite this revolutionary situation, and perhaps because of it, Egypt has great hopes in transitioning to democracy. Several steps need to be taken. The military council needs to bring to justice those responsible for the death and injury of peaceful protesters, including the immediate dismissal of the minister of interior and his aides. A new national salvation government has to be formed of credible public figures to manage the transitional process -- writing a new constitution, restoring order and reviving the country's economy. Finally, sticking to a clear road map that allows timely legislative elections to be held under the immediate supervision of the newly formed government, followed by presidential elections, would position Egypt on a stable path toward democratic transition. The military council might try to exploit this precarious situation to impose martial law and postpone or even cancel the parliamentary elections. This will prove counterproductive and, in fact, disastrous because Egyptians will then have nothing to lose and will continue with their revolution to end military rule and earn their democracy. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Emad El-Din Shahin.

Emad Shahin: Military government in Egypt has been blocking transition to civilian rule . He says the armed forces are standing in the way of democracy . Protesters had to return to the streets to reset the revolution, he says . Shahin: Military using violence, arrests and torture to repress those seeking change .

(CNN) -- Anger is growing in Mexico over a fire at a government-run day care center that claimed its 46th child this weekend. Maria Jesus Coronado Padilla mourns for her 2-year-old daughter, who died in the Hermosillo fire. Parents of the dead children and their supporters have held two noisy rallies in Hermosillo, the city in northwestern Mexico where the fire broke out June 5. They blame the government for laxity in enforcing safety regulations, for conducting a weak investigation and for failing to punish anyone in the 10 days since the fatal blaze. "It is my fault for trusting them," parent Roberto Zavala said at a rally Saturday in front of the Sonora governor's office. "I am responsible for the death of my child. Mr. Governor: Here is one of those responsible you are looking for. Come get me. I am waiting for you." The rally was televised nationwide by CNN affiliate TV Azteca. "If there is no justice from the authorities, there will be vengeance from the people," Zavala shouted to great cheers. The crowd chanted "renuncia, renuncia" ("resign, resign") toward the office of Sonora Gov. Eduardo Bours Castelo. He did not appear at the rally. Bours told CNN on Monday that he understands parents' anguish but has not heard any calls for his resignation. "What we are seeing is natural," he said. "There are destroyed families. It's natural that people express their sadness and, in some cases, anger. And there are those who are using this for political purposes." The investigation, he said, is "complex and advancing." Mexican President Felipe Calderon has promised a full investigation. Officials have said an air-conditioning unit in a government-run warehouse in the same building as the ABC day care center caused the fire. The privately owned day care was leased by the government to provide low-cost service to parents. Many prominent Mexicans have joined the parents in saying the government is not doing enough to find out what happened and to punish the responsible parties. "There are 46 children, and nothing is happening," said radio and TV commentator Eduardo J. Ruiz-Healy. "Nobody is responsible. Federal authorities say nothing major happened. There are 46 dead children, and no one will go to jail for it." Ana Maria Salazar, another TV and radio commentator, also has voiced her anger -- in newspaper columns, on Facebook and on her blogs. Salazar, who lives in Mexico City, grew up in Sonora state and traveled to Hermosillo last week. "I just returned from Hermosillo, Sonora," she wrote Wednesday on her blog. "Sorrow for the death of the [then] 44 children is now transforming into outrage. The death of these children has impacted Hermosillo, the state of Sonora and Mexico." She's still angry, she told CNN on Monday. "My concern is that there are 46 children who died in what appears to be negligence and that nobody's going to be punished," Salazar said. In addition, she said, the government has not conducted any investigations to see if other day care centers are safe. "What is unacceptable," Salazar said, "is that nothing has been done to make sure this doesn't happen again." The United Nations Children's Fund's representative in Mexico, Susana Sottoli, said all day care centers in the nation should be investigated, the state-run Notimex news agency reported Monday. Last week, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said officials had found safety irregularities at the ABC day care center in 2005. He declined to detail those irregularities but said authorities are investigating if anything was done about them. ABC day care officials denied Monday ever being told of safety problems. Critics point to cozy business relationships between the owners of the ABC day care and government officials. News reports have said one of the co-owners is a cousin of Calderon's wife. Two state government officials whose wives also are ABC co-owners resigned last week. In all, six officials have resigned or been fired since the blaze. The well-regarded El Universal newspaper published a column and a story Monday taking the government to task. The article says a Universal investigation revealed that family members and political allies of the governor own at least 13 day care centers in Sonora state. The ABC day care is not one of them. Bours, who was elected governor in 2003, called the article "malintentioned." "Some of my relatives had those [day care centers] since before I was governor," he said. "This is a low blow by people who want to link one thing with another." But Ruiz-Healy calls the day care industry in Mexico "a business run by politicians and politicians' wives." And he rails at what he sees as arrogance by government officials, whose actions, he said, have led to "a total crisis of credibility." "There have been a series of events that insult our intelligence," Ruiz-Healy said. "The political class is divorced from reality and from the rest of the country."

Parents, their supporters have rallied in Hermosillo, where fire broke out June 5 . They say government didn't enforce safety rules, is conducting weak investigation . Sonora governor says investigation is "complex and advancing" UN representative says all day care centers in Mexico should be investigated .

(CNN) -- The investigation into the controversial shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by a police officer in a St. Louis suburb has been completed, the St. Louis County prosecutor's office said Wednesday. Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed the 18-year-old in the middle of the day on August 9 after telling Brown and a friend to get out of the street. Authorities could have charged Wilson themselves by filing a criminal complaint, but St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch instead opted to present the case to a grand jury to decide whether to indict the officer. Ferguson mayor: Our eyes opened to racial problems . "The investigation has been basically completed that is being conducted by both the FBI and St. Louis County PD," Ed Magee, the spokesman for the prosecutor's office, told CNN. A grand jury is expected to decide by mid-November whether Wilson will be charged criminally for the shooting, which sparked weeks of unrest on the streets of Ferguson and calls for a federal civil rights investigation. The white police officer's shooting of the black teenager was heavily debated throughout the nation. The grand jury, which began meeting in August, is expected to consider whether a crime was committed and if "probable cause" exist that Wilson committed that crime. Some witnesses have said Brown assaulted the officer at the outset and tried to grab his gun. Others fingered Wilson as the aggressor. A private autopsy conducted for the Brown family showed that Brown had been shot at least six times, including twice in the head. Last month, two contractors doing construction work in Ferguson on the day Brown was killed, describe the teenager with his hands up in the air as he was gunned down. The men, who asked not to be identified after CNN contacted them, said they were about 50 feet away from Wilson when he opened fire. A video captured their reactions during the moments just after the shooting. "He had his f**n hands up," one of the men said in the video. The men said they didn't see how the confrontation started. Dueling narratives in Michael Brown shooting . Feds scrutinizing shooting, police department . Federal officials are conducting two civil rights investigations -- one into Brown's killing and the other into Ferguson Police Department's overall track record with minorities. One investigation will review the shooting by Wilson, a 28-year-old officer with six years of experience, including four in Ferguson. A civil rights violation would require that Wilson had shown "racial hostility" against Brown in the shooting, legal analysts have said. The U.S. Justice Department also announced a second inquiry to examine accusations that the police department as a whole practiced racial profiling and heavy-handed tactics. The shooting ignited angry protests and instances of looting on the streets of Ferguson. Community leaders criticized what they said was an excessive show of force by police to the demonstrations. Local officials have failed to soothe public outrage. Last week, even after apologizing for his department's actions following the shooting, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson, insisted that he's not stepping down. "This is mine," he told CNN. "I'm taking ownership of it." Jackson acknowledged that he's heard calls for his ouster but that doesn't mean he'll answer them. "I've talked to a lot of people who have initially called for that and then changed their mind after having meetings and discussions about moving forward," Jackson said. "Realistically, I'm going to stay here and see this through." An apology, with continued unrest . The Brown shooting stirred complaints of widespread racial profiling in Ferguson, which Jackson has rejected. "It's never been the intention of the Ferguson police department -- or any police department that I know -- to intentionally target individuals because of race," the chief said. "If there is that happening, it's a crime and it needs to be addressed." Jackson released a video apology to Brown's parents and the peaceful demonstrators who took to Ferguson's streets to protest the young man's death. In that video, the chief expressed regret that it took investigating officers four hours to remove Brown's body from the street after he was shot dead. The St. Louis suburb of 21,000 erupted again last week after one of three Brown memorials at the site of the shooting burned. While many peaceful protesters took to the street September 23, violent elements within the demonstration stoked chaos, attacking police with guns, rocks and bottles and vandalizing and looting businesses, Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson said. One person threw a Molotov cocktail at a parking structure, and there was an attempt to set a gasoline fire at a custard shop, he said. Two officers were injured, one of whom was struck by a rock below the eye, Johnson said. The City Council has recently taken up measures to reform court procedures and the way the city handles certain fines. The council is also considering a citizen review board to monitor the police department. Complete coverage of Brown shooting and protests . CNN's Sara Sidner in Ferguson contributed to this report.

Investigation into police shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown is complete, prosecutor's office says . Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed the 18-year-old on August 9 . A grand jury is expected to decide by the middle of next month whether Wilson will be charged .

(CNN) -- On the first anniversary of an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling platform, which triggered the biggest oil disaster in U.S. history, BP filed suit Wednesday against the manufacturer of the rig platform's blowout preventer. "BP has sued Cameron for its faulty design and manufacture of the blowout preventer (BOP) and its negligence in the maintenance and modification of the BOP, a critical safety device that failed to prevent the blowout of the Macondo well," BP spokesman Scott Dean said in a statement. "When activated in a loss-of-control situation, a BOP, through one of its preventers known as the blind shear rams, is designed to cut through drill pipe that may be across the BOP and seal the well to contain the hydrocarbons and keep them from flowing to the rig," Dean said. A report released March 23 determined that the oil spill was caused by a piece of drill pipe trapped in the rig platform's blowout preventer, a device intended to stop oil from flowing into the Gulf. The report was commissioned by various U.S. agencies, including the Interior Department and the Department of Homeland Security. The Interior Department has said a much broader report that relies on additional sources of data, including eyewitness accounts and photos, will be released this summer. Meanwhile, officials in Louisiana Wednesday called on BP to make good on its promises to make everything right. "We continue to call on BP to fulfill the promises of their ads," said Gov. Bobby Jindal. "We continue to call on BP to truly make it right, here in Louisiana. We have 300 miles of our coast that continue to be oiled." Jindal said he has called on BP "not to wait five years, 10 years, 20 years," to make key payments as part of the Natural Resources Damage Assessment process. "We know those payments could be hundreds of millions, maybe even billions of dollars. We again call on BP to make these payments within days, not weeks, not months ... so we can proceed with restoring our coast. "We stood here with some leaders from BP toward the end of last year and they made promises -- promises about replanting oysters, promises about building a saltwater hatchery -- and those promises have still not been kept." Jindal said he was also calling on both BP and the U.S. Coast Guard to continue to clean up the shoreline, noting that "40% of the Louisiana coastline that had been oiled during this spill continue to be oiled today." The oil spill has prompted a flood of lawsuits against BP, Transocean and Halliburton from a variety of plaintiffs, including owners of Gulf businesses who say they suffered heavy financial losses because of the spill. Transocean owned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. Halliburton installed the rig's cement casing. The plaintiffs also include Transocean shareholders who contend the company falsely claimed it had remedied past safety problems with its blowout preventers before the Gulf spill. Dean said BP is filing suit "as part of the legal process to ensure that all parties involved in the Macondo well are appropriately held accountable for their roles in contributing to the Deepwater Horizon accident." Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, was among the officials joining Jindal at a news conference. "We need to see the sense of urgency," Nungesser said. "I stand here today, a year later, and I still can't look you in the eye and tell you who's in charge," he said, repeating a statement he made Tuesday night in an interview with CNN's "In The Arena" host Eliot Spitzer. "We need to make sure we begin coastal restoration this week -- not next year, not the following year," Nungesser added. Jindal and other officials remembered the 11 people killed on the Deepwater Horizon, saying they were heroes. In a statement, BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said, "We remember 11 fellow workers and we deeply regret the loss of their lives." The company said its thoughts are with their families, friends and colleagues. "We also remember those who were injured and affected in other ways by the accident and the subsequent oil spill," Dudley said. "We are committed to meet our obligations to those affected by this tragedy and we will continue our work to strengthen safety and risk management across BP." On its website, BP lays out numerous steps it has taken, including payments made. The company says it paid nearly $400 million in response to more than 150,000 individual and business claims. It also paid $1.14 billion to federal, state and local governmental entities to cover claims, response and removal costs and payments. In 2010, BP paid $5 billion into a $20 billion trust designed to satisfy claims adjudicated by the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, and the company "is committed to making additional payments of $1.25 billion each quarter until the end of 2013," it says. CNN's Eric Gershon contributed to this report.

NEW: BP claims blowout preventer had faulty design and manufacture . Gov. Jindal: Some BP promises "have still not been kept" "We need to see the sense of urgency," a parish president says . 11 victims are remembered as heroes .

London, England (CNN) -- When Queen Elizabeth II stayed away from a grief-stricken London after the 1997 death of Princess Diana, she was criticized for being aloof and failing to respond to public anger and loss. But, according to a new account offered by one of the monarch's closest friends, the truth behind the queen's decision to temporarily abandon her people was her overwhelming concern for the welfare of Diana's sons, Princes William and Harry. Margaret Rhodes, the queen's first cousin and one of her oldest companions, revealed in an interview with CNN that the queen chose to remain at her Scottish residence, Balmoral, because she put her duties as a grandmother over those as a monarch. "She was castigated... for staying up at Balmoral with the two little boys," Rhodes said, speaking ahead of celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the queen's succession. "She was being a proper granny. What was the point of bringing the boys down to sit in London with nothing to do but sit there feeling sad about mum. Personally I think I would have behaved in exactly the same way." Interactive: Who's who in the House of Windsor . The days after Diana's death were among the darkest of the 86-year-old queen's reign. Her failure to appear even as tributes left by thousands of mourners transformed the streets near Buckingham Palace into a sea of flowers, was at the time blamed on an antipathy towards Diana that clashed with public affection for the "people's princess." It was only when Tony Blair, then the prime minister, intervened that she returned to London and acknowledged the outpouring of grief -- a gesture that helped win back waning affections for the royal family. "It was very sensible, maybe not as queen," said Rhodes. "But she made it all right in the end by coming down and looking at all the flowers." Born just a few months after the queen, Rhodes has known the monarch her whole life and is widely seen as one of the greatest sources of insight on life within the royal family. After working as a secretary for British the intelligence agency MI6 during World War II, she served as a lady-in-waiting to the queen's mother and was one of the queen's bridesmaids. The two have remained steadfast friends throughout their lives. Rhodes lives in a house close to the royal residence at Windsor Castle, west of London, where she regularly serves the queen a morning tipple of her favorite "booze." "I do see the queen most Sundays," Rhodes told CNN. "We go to the same little church in the park here on Sunday and, unless she's very busy, she comes in and has a drink after church so it keeps up the relationship. Gin and Dubonnet is her booze in the morning." Rhodes also offered insight on the queen's relationship with Prince Philip, claiming it was love at first sight when the future monarch, barely into her teens, first encountered the dashing young naval officer, then aged 17. "I think she fell in love when she was 13," she said. "God he was good looking. You know he was a Viking god. She has never looked at anybody else ever and I think he really truly has been a rock." Both as a young girl and in later years, Rhodes paints a picture of her friend as an ordinary woman who is capable of throwing off the airs of royalty. She tells of the time, after victory was declared in Europe at the end of World War II, that Rhodes accompanied the queen and her sister as they celebrated incognito among the crowds outside Buckingham Palace. "We all surged up to Trafalgar Square. Everybody was kissing everybody and putting on policemens helmets on their heads, you know that sort of thing. It went on for four nights running. Interactive: A year in the life of the queen . "We came back to Buckingham Palace and started yelling for the king, the king and queen to come out on the balcony. Their two daughters were yelling, which was also the first time they had seen the balcony from down below, so it was a magical moment. "We did it for several more nights. There certainly was one occasion when we were doing the conga. We went in one door of the Ritz and congaed our way through and came out the other door. It was all part of the jollifications." Speaking about the marital troubles that have blighted three of the queen's four children -- Prince Charles, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew -- she described the situation as "terribly sad." However, she added, the queen has a sense of humor and an ordinary side to her personality that, had she not taken the throne, would have allowed her to enjoy life outside of royalty. "If you are the queen you have to be queenly. On her own she's rather like one of us, she laughs at the same jokes. "I mean if she didn't happen to be born as queen she would be the owner of, hopefully, a rather nice country estate where she would have lots and lots of dogs and horses and she'd be happy."

Queen's first cousin Margaret Rhodes says monarch put family before country after Diana's death . Rhodes says queen visits her most weeks for a tipple of gin and Dubonnet . Queen fell in love with her future husband, Prince Philip, when she was just 13 , Rhodes says .

Berkeley, California (CNN) -- At some point, the "rush to rehab," reached the ridiculous. Does a week pass without some celebrity, politician or famous athlete heading to a rehabilitation treatment center? And often with the cameras rolling. Rehab is getting a bad name from this, and I worry that this will rub off on our perceptions of the average alcoholic or drug addict who works hard to stay clean and sober, takes responsibility for his or her actions -- and knows that there is still work to do after the first 30 days. Doubt it? Then how to explain the cynical jokes on late-night TV, the tearful confessions from the talk-show couch, or this: "Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew," a VH1 reality show that features famous or almost famous people in treatment for addiction or behavioral issues. The cases of Lindsay Lohan (in and out of rehab; now off to jail) and Mel Gibson (reportedly in therapy after the release of the alleged tirade tapes) are just the most recent examples of a high-profile practice in vogue since the 1980s, when Betty Ford opened her famous center in Rancho Mirage, California. The celebrities followed. Of course, there are famous people who benefit greatly from a stay in treatment, who do it privately and with sincere purpose. But it's common, too common, to see the well-known on TV, after completing a 30- or 45-day program, proclaim themselves "saved," only to show up on TMZ the next week partying or running people over with their cars. This "rehab-abuse" (used maybe to wait out a public relations storm after bad behavior, or draw attention to a stalled career?) devalues and trivializes the very real, very unglamorous struggle of pulling free of addiction and making amends for harmful behavior. More than others, the famous have a responsibility to treat the process with respect. As a former drug and alcohol abuser (clean and sober for more than 26 years), I know something about the work that goes into transforming a life. One of the first things I learned in Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous was that alcoholism and drug addiction are not excuses for injuring yourself or others. Part of recovery is making a list of people you've harmed, making amends to them personally and accepting the consequences of your past actions. I didn't make an announcement to the world and I still don't think I have all the answers, but I came out of it knowing a lot more. I also learned that I need to have a connection to something greater than myself, which to me is a higher power that I call God. Like other recovering substance abusers, I know I'm not the center of the world and life doesn't start and end with me. I've found that people who stay clean and sober the longest have some kind of spiritual belief, whether it's God, life force, universal energy or a sense of oneness with the world. They also realize that amends and apologies have to mean something and indicate a change in actions and thought processes. "Apologies by proxy"-- when celebrities (or noncelebrities, for that matter) make inappropriate, racist remarks, then apologize to well-known people from the group targeted by the comment -- just don't cut it. Entering treatment for addiction means you get treatment for your addiction. Any other changes you make are up to you. That also means that a racist alcoholic who gets treated for alcoholism can still be a sober racist, anti-Semite, homophobe or engage in inappropriate behavior. Someone who spews hateful prejudices can stay in rehab forever, but unless he has some education, time for self-examination and the willingness to get to see people from diverse backgrounds as human beings and understand their lives and experiences, he'll be the same. The media could stem this perverse fascination by remembering the young people (and older people, too) struggling with substance abuse who see "role models" regress on national TV and feel hopeless for their own chance for recovery. What else can they think but, "What's the use? If they can't stay clean with so many people helping, how can I?" In the last 26 years, I've experienced the death of my parents, the death of my partner of 18 years and a new life as a single parent. I was hospitalized and came close to death. I was run over and couldn't work for a year. I didn't use drugs or alcohol as a way to deal with these experiences. Life happens to everyone. Let's stop glamorizing these celebrity addicts and adding to their out-of-control drama. Let's get real about their addictions and the impact on their families. Let's discuss solutions, and all the options for help. Let's sensationalize being clean and sober. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Simma Lieberman.

Simma Lieberman says it's routine to see celebrities very publicly checking into rehab . This trivializes the hard work of rehab, she says, makes it fodder for late-night gags and reality TV . When celebs lapse, seem not to take treatment seriously, she says, it sends harmful message . Lieberman: Let's stop feeding fascination; get serious about addiction's costs, responsibilities .

Abidjan, Ivory Coast (CNN) -- At least nine unarmed protesters in Ivory Coast's largest city were shot and killed by security forces Thursday, eyewitnesses told Amnesty International. The violence erupted as troops loyal to the incumbent president and supporters of his challenger confronted each other on the tense and chaotic streets of Abidjan. "Amnesty International is appalled by this completely unjustified and disproportionate use of force and calls on the Ivorian security forces to stop these killings immediately," said Salvatore Sagues, the West Africa researcher for Amnesty, a human rights group. "Those who opened fire on these people, as well as those who gave the order, will have to account for their acts," he said. The demonstrators -- part of mass street protests called by the presidential challenger, Alassane Ouattara -- had been marching from various locations in Abidjan "in an attempt to seize the state-run RTI" broadcasting offices when security forces fired on them, Amnesty said. Witnesses told CNN that exchanges of fire also raged outside a hotel that is serving as the headquarters of Ouattara, a former economist and prime minister who ran for president against incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo in a November 28 runoff. The West African nation has been in a political stalemate over the disputed election, in which both men claim victory. The country's Independent Electoral Commission said Ouattara won the runoff, but the country's Constitutional Council invalidated those results and declared Gbagbo the winner. Ever since, tension has filled the air in Abidjan. On Tuesday, Amnesty International said, "Ouattara called for mass street protests to seize state radio and government buildings, still held by officials loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, who is refusing to leave office." Eyewitnesses told Amnesty International at least six people were shot dead by security forces in the neighborhood of Abobo. "When we saw security forces near the police station of the 21st arrondissement, we raised our hands and told them that we were unarmed. They refused to answer and threw tear gas grenades. Then immediately they shot at us. I saw dead bodies in the street. I know three of them," one eyewitness told Amnesty International. Security forces near the Makassi crossroads shot tear gas and then fired on another group of protesters, killing three people, the human rights organization said. "A young man, a car washer, who was not participating in the demonstration, was shot dead by two men wearing military uniforms, with hoods. The young man was standing in front of the garage waiting for drivers in order to wash their vehicles when two military (personnel) arrive. One of them tripped him up, he fell down. One of the military who was wearing sunglasses shot at him at point blank with a gun," an eyewitness told Amnesty International. CNN witnesses saw at least two dead bodies. One of the bodies was seen in front of U.N. headquarters, where there was a tent for the wounded. Another was seen in a slum near the Hotel Golf. Witnesses said he was a pro-Ouattara supporter who was shot by police because he was armed, but that account could not be confirmed. Heavy gunfire and mortars could be heard for at least an hour and up to three miles away from the hotel, where people protecting the Ouattara headquarters exchanged fire with forces loyal to Gbagbo. Soldiers loyal to Gbagbo were in combat posture, hiding in the bush around the hotel. Ex-rebel forces were trying to free blockades held by the pro-Gbagbo forces on the sole access road to the hotel. Witnesses spoke of confrontation at the RTI building, which has been surrounded by armored vehicles and troops loyal to Gbagbo since the crisis began. Also, police forces fired shots to disperse demonstrators in a pro-Ouattara neighborhood, witnesses said. The United Nations, African Union, European Union and other international bodies and leaders have called on Gbagbo to step down, but he has declined to do so. Read about the deadline set for Gbagbo to leave Ivory Coast . On Wednesday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that the stalemate could lead to renewed fighting in a country that was wracked by civil war for several years. "The situation is taking a worrying turn with unfolding events that could lead to widespread violence," Ban said in a written statement. The developments include recent threats by some commanders of the national security forces to resort to military options and also clashes on Monday between them and ex-rebels supporting Ouattara, the internationally recognized winner of the election. The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, told French media that he would prosecute people responsible for any deadly post-election violence. Sagues also warned that Ivory Coast is close to another civil war. "Every effort must be made to prevent an escalation of violence. There is a very real threat that many more lives will be lost if the security forces continue to shoot at protesters indiscriminately," Sagues said. Journalist Eric Agnero contributed to this report .

NEW: Amnesty International says nine were killed on Thursday . NEW: The people were killed in two locations . Ban Ki-moon has warned "the situation is taking a worrying turn"

(CNN) -- House Republicans are going forward with plans to sue President Barack Obama and will base their legal case on the sweeping health care law he championed and they despise. Speaker John Boehner said the suit, which also highlights an ironic Obamacare twist, will follow the argument Obama violated the Constitution by circumventing Congress and alone delaying the law's requirement for businesses to provide coverage. "In 2013, the President changed the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law by literally waiving the employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it," Boehner said in a statement. "That's not the way our system of government was designed to work. No president should have the power to make laws on his or her own," he added. The Republican-led House is expected to vote on a resolution authorizing legal action against the President over Obamacare at the end of the month, just before lawmakers head home for August to campaign for midterm votes. Boehner then is expected to hire attorneys to actually file the suit in federal court. But the timing of that is unclear. The Rules Committee plans to hold a hearing on the matter with outside legal experts. White House calls it a 'stunt' The White House expressed disappointment in a statement, saying Boehner and Republicans are wasting time and taxpayer resources on a "political stunt." "As the President said today, he is doing his job -- lawsuit or not -- and it's time Republicans in Congress did theirs," the statement said. Obama defiantly challenged Republicans last week, saying he would continue to take steps he felt were necessary with or without the support of congressional Republicans. "So sue me," he dared them. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi also dismissed the suit as a political "stunt." The case magnifies a toxic partisan climate that has engulfed Congress and come to define Obama's relations with Republicans in general. Some arch-conservatives in the party want him impeached. Pushing forward . Boehner doesn't agree with such a step, but he's plowing ahead with an unusual legal challenge built around Republican claims Obama has abused his authority at the expense of the legislative process. Boehner's staff has consulted experts and considered several options for the legal basis needed to make the case. Another key area of contention was Obama's move in 2012 to defer deportations of children who enter the country illegally -- a hot button issue today with thousands of minors crossing the southern border unaccompanied. Also, environmental regulations and the Taliban prisoner exchange that freed Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl were criticized. But a senior House Republican leadership aide said the health care case gives the House "the best chance of success in the courts." So far, the House has passed two bills aimed at curbing executive orders. Neither has gone anywhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Must prove harm . Many legal experts have already said any lawsuit of this kind would face challenges. In order for it to be formally considered by the courts, House Republicans must prove that the chamber was somehow injured as an institution. Obamacare has been a partisan flashpoint since it's passage in 2010 with no GOP support. The House has approved dozens of bills aiming to weaken or repeal it. The Obama administration a year ago postponed a requirement that businesses with more than 50 workers provide their employees with health insurance. The so-called employer mandate now won't take effect until 2015. Ironically, the same lawmakers pressing the lawsuit on Thursday actually voted on House legislation a year ago that would have delayed the mandate. But pushing that measure through the Democratic-controlled Senate would have required debate, possibly other changes, and a likely delay just as the administration was gearing up to put the measure into practice. Justifying the apparent contradiction of suing the President over taking action they actually supported initially, Republican aides said it is up to Congress to make those changes in law, not the President. Not personal . Another centerpiece of the initiative required individual Americans to obtain health insurance from Obamacare or on the private market, or face a possible fine. So far 9 million people have signed up for plans under the health law, the administration has said. It's the signature domestic policy achievement of Obama's presidency so far and a rallying cry for Republicans, especially on the midterm campaign trail. Earlier in the day, Boehner argued a suit wasn't simply a personal issue, but a move to defend Congress as an equal branch of government. "It's not about Republicans versus Democrats. This is about the legislative branch that's being disadvantaged by the executive branch. And it's not about executive actions. Every president does executive orders," Boehner said. Saying most presidents act lawfully, Boehner said Obama "is basically rewriting law to make it fit his own needs." Read the resolution (PDF) Boehner op-ed: Why we must now sue the President . Opinion: Dear Speaker Boehner: Do your job instead . CNN's Dana Davidsen contributed to this report.

Republicans say Obama changed the employer mandate on his own, violated Constitution . House Speaker John Boehner promised a lawsuit over claims Obama abused his authority . The White House called the suit over Obamacare a "political stunt" NEW: Some Republicans backing the suit approved a bill to make the same change in law .