Rafael Benitez unveiled new boy Glen Johnson today and took a swipe at Manchester City with their "money, money, money" approach to the transfer market.
The Liverpool boss has spent £17m on the England full-back, a large chunk of which is wiped out by the cash Portsmouth still owe the Anfield club from the Peter Crouch deal.
And while Benitez played hardball with Xabi Alonso and Javier Mascherano over their long-term futures, he accepts that the market was now "crazy" and dominated by money.
He even admitted that he had tried again to sign Gareth Barry this summer from Aston Villa, but he eventually went to City.
Benitez said: "We had to pay big money, the market is now crazy. It is all money, money, money now. But we were signing a good player, an England player, and that is very positive.
"He has a good mentality, and when I spoke to him first it was clear he wanted to come here.
"Things have changed. You have to adapt to a situation. Manchester City and big clubs in Europe are spending big money, so the market has changed and we have to work harder.
"You have to do that to stay at the level we are at because of the big money being spent here and abroad."
City also wanted Johnson, but Benitez said: "It was difficult, some clubs are offering big money. But he wanted to come here, that was the difference.
"We did go back again for Barry, but as I said. it is all about money, money, money. It is as simple as that."
On City's influence on the market and their prospects for next term, Benitez added: "City have signed a lot of good players, but that is no guarantee they will win anything. But it will be interesting to see what happens next season.
"But whatever happens, experience is more important and we feel that we have that to be in the top positions.
"If you spend big it is always easier to perform well. But when you have a good understanding between players that is also important. If they are together, they work hard, that is just as important."
Benitez has also had to contend with a summer of transfer speculation over Alonso, wanted by Real Madrid, and Mascherano, a target for European champions Barcelona.
But although it is believed both players are being swayed by the advances of the Spanish club, Benitez made it clear that he does not want to sell and would like some loyalty shown by the pair.
He said: "I do not think Alonso or Mascherano will go. It is clear that they both are under contract with long-term agreements. That is it.
"There has been a lot of things written, a lot of rumours, but both players are under contract and we have no more need to talk about things.
"They are both very good players and I will be very pleased to keep them. They both have very good contracts.
"We signed them both from different situations. Alonso was coming from Real Sociedad and nobody had really heard much of him outside of Spain, he did well and we renewed his contract because of that.
"Mascherano came from West Ham where he had not been doing well. We brought him here and gave him a good contract, so we are very pleased with them both and that Liverpool has been very good to them."
Benitez also dismissed rumours that full back Fabio Aurelio will be out for six months with a knee injury.
He said: "One, maybe two months, I expect him back by then. Certainly not six."
Friday, July 10, 2009
Jon Gosselin Responsible For Kate Rumors?!?!
This is worse than high school! It turns out Jon Gosselin intentionally started the rumors that his ex, Kate, was having an affair with their bodyguard Steve Neild. “Jon wanted a divorce and he also wanted to throw attention away from himself, so he spread that rumor,” says a source.
G-8 climate talks divide rich and poor countries
L'AQUILA, Italy – The chasm between rich and poor on how to address climate change burst into the open at the G-8 summit Thursday, showing how difficult it will be to persuade the world to make lifestyle and economic sacrifices needed to save the planet from global warming.
President Barack Obama urged emerging economies to do more to curb global warming, while the U.N. chief demanded developed countries set an example and take more concrete steps to reduce pollution.
Especially reluctant to commit to change were two budding powers that are just now getting comfortable economically: India and China.
Obama said industrialized countries, the United States included, had a "historic responsibility" to take the lead in emissions reduction efforts because they have a larger carbon footprint than developing nations.
"And I know that in the past, the United States has sometimes fallen short of meeting our responsibilities. So, let me be clear: Those days are over," he said.
But he said developing nations have to do their part, as well.
"With most of the growth in projected emissions coming from these countries, their active participation is a prerequisite for a solution," Obama said.
Two days of negotiations between the world's major industrial polluters and developing nations failed to make any major breakthrough on firm commitments to reduce carbon emissions. While both sides said for the first time that global average temperatures shouldn't rise over 2 degrees Celsius, they didn't set any joint targets to reach that goal.
And significantly, the Group of Eight industrialized nations made no firm commitment to help developing countries financially cope with the effects of rising seas, increased droughts and floods, or provide the technology to make their carbon-heavy economies more climate friendly.
The results indicate how difficult it will be to craft a new climate change treaty by December, when nations from around the world will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to negotiate a successor to the 1987 Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012.
"That leaves us with quite a lot of work to do," said the chief U.N. climate change negotiator, Yvo de Boer.
The comments came at the conclusion of a meeting of the 17-nation Major Economies Forum, which includes the G-8 — Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and the United States — and other emerging countries: China, which has overtaken the U.S. as the world's biggest polluter, and India, which is close behind. Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Australia, South Korea and the European Union also are in that club of the world's major polluters.
The G-8 did set a long-term commitment to reduce their carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. But they made no shorter-term target, despite warnings from a U.N. panel that they must cut emissions between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020 to keep average global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees above preindustrial levels 150 years ago.
Most scientists agree that even a slight increase in average temperatures would wreak havoc on farmers around the globe, as seasons shift, crops fail and storms and droughts ravage fields.
Countries like China and India — the next generation of big polluters — want the industrial countries to commit to reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent over the next decade before they commit to any reductions of their own. Without that commitment from the G-8, they refused to make any targets of their own.
"The ground for a breakthrough can only be prepared if the G-8 leaders reach consensus on the midterm binding goals of cutting greenhouse emission and stop asking the developing nations to act first as an excuse for their not committing to the binding goals," China's official Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary earlier this week.
The failures earned the G-8 a sharp rebuke from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"The policies that they have stated so far are not enough, not sufficient enough," Ban said Thursday. "This is the science. We must work according to the science. This is politically and morally imperative and a historic responsibility for the leaders for the future of humanity, even for the future of planet Earth."
Obama did announce Thursday that the Group of 20 major economies would take up the climate financing issue at their meeting in September in Pittsburgh — a move environmentalists said could help break the logjam while sending developing countries a signal that the G-8 is serious about financing.
"To get the finance ministers focused on this topic is a useful way of pushing forward one of the key agenda items," de Boer said.
He stressed that it was perfectly understandable for developing countries to refuse to commit to reduction targets when they have no idea how they're going to pay for them or what industrialized countries are going to commit to in the short term.
That failure of the G-8 "made it very much a black box for the developing countries ... because if you don't know what the industrial countries are going to commit to by 2020 and you don't know what financing is going to be on the table for developing countries, it becomes very much a leap of faith."
Annie Petsonk, lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, said that the outcome of the talks were natural given that there are five months to go before the Copenhagen treaty summit.
"It's no surprise if developing nations aren't rushing in to sign up for new goals and targets right away," she said. "This is a negotiation after all. But the starting gun has sounded and everyone knows they need to go home and start thinking seriously about what they can bring to the table."
President Barack Obama urged emerging economies to do more to curb global warming, while the U.N. chief demanded developed countries set an example and take more concrete steps to reduce pollution.
Especially reluctant to commit to change were two budding powers that are just now getting comfortable economically: India and China.
Obama said industrialized countries, the United States included, had a "historic responsibility" to take the lead in emissions reduction efforts because they have a larger carbon footprint than developing nations.
"And I know that in the past, the United States has sometimes fallen short of meeting our responsibilities. So, let me be clear: Those days are over," he said.
But he said developing nations have to do their part, as well.
"With most of the growth in projected emissions coming from these countries, their active participation is a prerequisite for a solution," Obama said.
Two days of negotiations between the world's major industrial polluters and developing nations failed to make any major breakthrough on firm commitments to reduce carbon emissions. While both sides said for the first time that global average temperatures shouldn't rise over 2 degrees Celsius, they didn't set any joint targets to reach that goal.
And significantly, the Group of Eight industrialized nations made no firm commitment to help developing countries financially cope with the effects of rising seas, increased droughts and floods, or provide the technology to make their carbon-heavy economies more climate friendly.
The results indicate how difficult it will be to craft a new climate change treaty by December, when nations from around the world will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, to negotiate a successor to the 1987 Kyoto protocol, which expires in 2012.
"That leaves us with quite a lot of work to do," said the chief U.N. climate change negotiator, Yvo de Boer.
The comments came at the conclusion of a meeting of the 17-nation Major Economies Forum, which includes the G-8 — Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and the United States — and other emerging countries: China, which has overtaken the U.S. as the world's biggest polluter, and India, which is close behind. Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Australia, South Korea and the European Union also are in that club of the world's major polluters.
The G-8 did set a long-term commitment to reduce their carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. But they made no shorter-term target, despite warnings from a U.N. panel that they must cut emissions between 25 percent and 40 percent by 2020 to keep average global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees above preindustrial levels 150 years ago.
Most scientists agree that even a slight increase in average temperatures would wreak havoc on farmers around the globe, as seasons shift, crops fail and storms and droughts ravage fields.
Countries like China and India — the next generation of big polluters — want the industrial countries to commit to reducing carbon emissions by 40 percent over the next decade before they commit to any reductions of their own. Without that commitment from the G-8, they refused to make any targets of their own.
"The ground for a breakthrough can only be prepared if the G-8 leaders reach consensus on the midterm binding goals of cutting greenhouse emission and stop asking the developing nations to act first as an excuse for their not committing to the binding goals," China's official Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary earlier this week.
The failures earned the G-8 a sharp rebuke from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"The policies that they have stated so far are not enough, not sufficient enough," Ban said Thursday. "This is the science. We must work according to the science. This is politically and morally imperative and a historic responsibility for the leaders for the future of humanity, even for the future of planet Earth."
Obama did announce Thursday that the Group of 20 major economies would take up the climate financing issue at their meeting in September in Pittsburgh — a move environmentalists said could help break the logjam while sending developing countries a signal that the G-8 is serious about financing.
"To get the finance ministers focused on this topic is a useful way of pushing forward one of the key agenda items," de Boer said.
He stressed that it was perfectly understandable for developing countries to refuse to commit to reduction targets when they have no idea how they're going to pay for them or what industrialized countries are going to commit to in the short term.
That failure of the G-8 "made it very much a black box for the developing countries ... because if you don't know what the industrial countries are going to commit to by 2020 and you don't know what financing is going to be on the table for developing countries, it becomes very much a leap of faith."
Annie Petsonk, lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, said that the outcome of the talks were natural given that there are five months to go before the Copenhagen treaty summit.
"It's no surprise if developing nations aren't rushing in to sign up for new goals and targets right away," she said. "This is a negotiation after all. But the starting gun has sounded and everyone knows they need to go home and start thinking seriously about what they can bring to the table."
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Huge crowd seen for star-packed Michael Jackson memorial
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Michael Jackson fans will crowd into downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday for a star-packed memorial to the King of Pop, whose sudden death nearly two weeks ago shocked the world.
Pop music singers Mariah Carey, Usher and Jennifer Hudson will mix with R&B veterans Smokey Robinson, Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder while sports stars like Kobe Bryant and other celebrities such as Brooke Shields also are expected to turn out.
Some 18,000 fans and friends will crowd into the Staples Center sports arena and a nearby, overflow theater for the two-hour ceremony memorializing pop star Jackson, who died June 25 after suffering cardiac arrest in his Los Angeles mansion.
Police estimate more than 250,000 people will cram onto the sidewalks outside the arena to pay their final respects to the "Thriller" singer and one-time member of Motown legends the Jackson 5, who was 50 years old when he died.
"This is certainly a momentous occasion that is probably as big, if not bigger than, when Elvis (Presley) passed away," said Steve Howard, a resident of Glendale, California, who won a ticket in an online lottery.
"The impact he had on American music and world music crossed all boundaries," said Howard, who expects the service to feature performances by Jackson's friends and fellow singers, along with eulogies for the fallen pop star.
Two people who will not be there are Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, who said on Monday her attendance might be a distraction, and longtime Jackson friend actress Elizabeth Taylor, who said she was asked to speak but was too overcome by grief.
Media reports have said Jackson is expected to be buried in a private family service in Los Angeles ahead of the memorial, but a family spokesman declined to comment on that.
Questions persist over who will pay for police security and other services such as sanitation required for such a massive gathering. Cost estimates were hard to come by, but Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine estimated as much as $2.5 million.
Like other cities, Los Angeles is strapped for cash in the current recession, and people have complained that public money should not be used for what is, in some ways, a private event.
Still, acting Mayor Jan Perry has said police and other agencies have contingency budgets for events such as this.
About 1.6 million people registered to be among the 8,750 who won two free tickets to the event, and police expect many who did not win tickets to show up outside.
The memorial will be televised live on major U.S. networks, as well as streamed on the Internet.
Actually, the memorial is also being coordinated through AEG, an ironic twist. Just a few thousand out of 1.6 million submissions were granted Staples Centertickets in a drawing that closed Saturday. But the real swarm will happen across a myriad of media channels - print, television, online, mobile, and even file-sharing networks. Or, outside of the Staples Center - and neighboring Nokia Theatre - thousands could create an ad-hoc vigil, and many have already made the pilgrimage.
Sounds chaotic, and Los Angeles police will have another hectic event to patrol. But scalpers will probably not be in force - the lucky winners are being given unique codes and wristbands to accompany their tickets. Distribution is also happening just one day ahead of the celebration. That certainly does not rule out some aftermarket sales - online or off - though the Jackson family is already urging lottery winners not to attempt resales.
Pop music singers Mariah Carey, Usher and Jennifer Hudson will mix with R&B veterans Smokey Robinson, Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder while sports stars like Kobe Bryant and other celebrities such as Brooke Shields also are expected to turn out.
Some 18,000 fans and friends will crowd into the Staples Center sports arena and a nearby, overflow theater for the two-hour ceremony memorializing pop star Jackson, who died June 25 after suffering cardiac arrest in his Los Angeles mansion.
Police estimate more than 250,000 people will cram onto the sidewalks outside the arena to pay their final respects to the "Thriller" singer and one-time member of Motown legends the Jackson 5, who was 50 years old when he died.
"This is certainly a momentous occasion that is probably as big, if not bigger than, when Elvis (Presley) passed away," said Steve Howard, a resident of Glendale, California, who won a ticket in an online lottery.
"The impact he had on American music and world music crossed all boundaries," said Howard, who expects the service to feature performances by Jackson's friends and fellow singers, along with eulogies for the fallen pop star.
Two people who will not be there are Jackson's ex-wife, Debbie Rowe, who said on Monday her attendance might be a distraction, and longtime Jackson friend actress Elizabeth Taylor, who said she was asked to speak but was too overcome by grief.
Media reports have said Jackson is expected to be buried in a private family service in Los Angeles ahead of the memorial, but a family spokesman declined to comment on that.
Questions persist over who will pay for police security and other services such as sanitation required for such a massive gathering. Cost estimates were hard to come by, but Los Angeles City Councilman Dennis Zine estimated as much as $2.5 million.
Like other cities, Los Angeles is strapped for cash in the current recession, and people have complained that public money should not be used for what is, in some ways, a private event.
Still, acting Mayor Jan Perry has said police and other agencies have contingency budgets for events such as this.
About 1.6 million people registered to be among the 8,750 who won two free tickets to the event, and police expect many who did not win tickets to show up outside.
The memorial will be televised live on major U.S. networks, as well as streamed on the Internet.
Actually, the memorial is also being coordinated through AEG, an ironic twist. Just a few thousand out of 1.6 million submissions were granted Staples Centertickets in a drawing that closed Saturday. But the real swarm will happen across a myriad of media channels - print, television, online, mobile, and even file-sharing networks. Or, outside of the Staples Center - and neighboring Nokia Theatre - thousands could create an ad-hoc vigil, and many have already made the pilgrimage.
Sounds chaotic, and Los Angeles police will have another hectic event to patrol. But scalpers will probably not be in force - the lucky winners are being given unique codes and wristbands to accompany their tickets. Distribution is also happening just one day ahead of the celebration. That certainly does not rule out some aftermarket sales - online or off - though the Jackson family is already urging lottery winners not to attempt resales.
The Game Drops Jay-Z Freestyle Diss, "F*ck Jay-Z, Old A** N*gga" [Video]
Just days after Jay-Z's recent Las Vegas freestyle, wherein he mentioned The Game and other rap rivals, the LA-based rapper has responded by dropping a freestyle of his own aimed at the hip-hop mogul.
The leaked footage appears to show Game at a concert in Madrid over the weekend, telling the crowd to join him in his diss.
"Nah we ain't come to play no games today," Game says in his mini-freestyle. "I'm with this ace of spades and I'ma tell you like this, it's what I got to say/And how I'm coming out today/F*ck Jay-Z...This is a Black Wall Street party, f*ck Jay-Z. F*ck Jay-Z. F*ck Jay-Z. F*ck Jay-Z. F*ck Jay-Z! F*ck Jay-Z! Old a** n*gga. Old a** n*gga. Old a** n*gga. Old a*ss n*gga. Old a** n*gga. All this talk about autotune sh*t, somebody tell Hova to get off his honor's d*ck...F*ck Jay-Z! F*ck Jay-Z!" (Dime Wars)
Game also made a video blog while in Spain attacking Jay and Roc-A-Fella Records.
"Zoom in on this [toilet lid]. That say Roca. It's like half of Jay-Z. So basically anything with the Roc in it, I take a sh*t on. You know what I'm saying? That's a Roc-A-Fella toilet and I sh*t on it. Oh, a Roc-A-Fella a** splash toilet. You know what I'm saying? You know Roc-A-Fella got a couple of h*mo n*ggas, couple of suckers so, this is the a** splash toilet. Basically after they write them trash-a** a** raps, them n*ggas sit down and wash they booty off. Them n*ggas are dirty a** n*ggas with wack a** rhymes, man. It's the Roc-a**-sh*t toilet. That's it, zoom in. Sucker n*ggas sit on that and wipe they a**. Cleanse yourself from those bum a** raps." (Lamborghini Tour Blog)
The rapper recently questioned whether Jay was subliminally dissing him in a freestyle last week.
"AIGHT SO, AFTER ABOUT 10,000 RESPONSES.. THE RESULTS READ THAT HE AINT DISSIN ME. & AS BAD AS I WANT TO RESPOND TO HIS OLD AZZ, HE CAN SLIDE..." (The Game's Twitter)
Jay performed a freestyle in Las Vegas where he name dropped past associates Jim Jones, Jaz-O and Damon Dash.
"For what people be talking about all the time," Jay raps on-stage. "Are we talking about fiction or are we talking about fact/You talking about fiction, hold up, pardon my back/I'm talking about life and all I hear is/Oh yeah he's talking about cripe/I ain't talking about profit, I'm talking about pain/Talking about the city, talking about shame/I ain't talkin' about gossip, I ain't talkin' 'bout Game/I ain't talkin' about Jimmy, I ain't talkin' about Dame/I'm talkin' about real sh*t, this here is pain/Whatcha talkin' about, I don't know what y'all saying/Dudes keep talkin' about/'Hov take it back'/I'm doing better than before, why would I do that...People trying to re-write history let's talk about that/Dame made millions, even Jaz made some scraps/He could have made more but he ain't sign his contract."
US serial killer 'shot by police'
Police in the US say they have shot dead a serial killer who had terrorised a town in South Carolina.
Patrick Tracy Burris, 41, was killed during an attempted burglary 30 miles (48km) from Gaffney, South Carolina.
Bullets in his gun reportedly matched those used in the murders, which saw five residents of Gaffney shot and killed within a few days of each other.
Police said Burris had a long criminal record, and had been released on parole in April after serving eight years.
"Look at this," State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) Chief Reggie Lloyd told a press conference, waving a copy of Burris' criminal record.
"This is like 25 pages. At some point the criminal justice system is going to need to explain why this suspect was out on the street."
Previous charges filed against Burris included larceny, forgery and breaking and entering in several states in the south-eastern US.
Police say they still do not know the motive behind the killings.
"He was unpredictable. He was scary. He was weird," the deputy director of the SLED, Neil Dolan, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
"We have him. He's our serial killer," Mr Dolan added.
The killings all occurred over six days within about 10 miles (16km) of each other in Cherokee County, a rural community some 50 miles west of Charlotte, North Carolina.
A peach farmer was killed on 27 June, an 83-year-old woman and her daughter were found bound and shot four days later, and the following day a father and his teenaged daughter were shot in their family's furniture shop.
Burris was shot dead by officers responding to a burglary complaint at a home in Gastonia, in neighbouring North Carolina.
Police say an investigation is under way to determine if he was involved in other unsolved crimes in the area.
Patrick Tracy Burris, 41, was killed during an attempted burglary 30 miles (48km) from Gaffney, South Carolina.
Bullets in his gun reportedly matched those used in the murders, which saw five residents of Gaffney shot and killed within a few days of each other.
Police said Burris had a long criminal record, and had been released on parole in April after serving eight years.
"Look at this," State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) Chief Reggie Lloyd told a press conference, waving a copy of Burris' criminal record.
"This is like 25 pages. At some point the criminal justice system is going to need to explain why this suspect was out on the street."
Previous charges filed against Burris included larceny, forgery and breaking and entering in several states in the south-eastern US.
Police say they still do not know the motive behind the killings.
"He was unpredictable. He was scary. He was weird," the deputy director of the SLED, Neil Dolan, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
"We have him. He's our serial killer," Mr Dolan added.
The killings all occurred over six days within about 10 miles (16km) of each other in Cherokee County, a rural community some 50 miles west of Charlotte, North Carolina.
A peach farmer was killed on 27 June, an 83-year-old woman and her daughter were found bound and shot four days later, and the following day a father and his teenaged daughter were shot in their family's furniture shop.
Burris was shot dead by officers responding to a burglary complaint at a home in Gastonia, in neighbouring North Carolina.
Police say an investigation is under way to determine if he was involved in other unsolved crimes in the area.
Can't sleep? Go online for insomnia therapy
CHICAGO - Sleepless people sometimes use the Internet to get through the night. Now a small study shows promising results for insomniacs with nine weeks of Internet-based therapy.
No human therapist is involved. The Internet software gives advice, even specific bedtimes, based on users' sleep diaries. Patients learn better sleep habits — like avoiding daytime naps — through stories, quizzes and games.
"This is a very interactive, tailored, personalized program," said study co-author Frances Thorndike of the University of Virginia Health System, who helped design the software, called Sleep Healthy Using the Internet, or SHUTi.
Such software could one day be a low-cost alternative for some patients, Thorndike said. And it could be the only non-drug option for people who live in areas without trained specialists, she said.
Prior research has shown face-to-face cognitive behavioral therapy can have long-lasting results for insomniacs without the side effects of medication. The SHUTi program is based on that style of therapy, which helps patients change thinking patterns that contribute to poor sleep.
In the new study, released Monday in Archives of General Psychiatry, the researchers recruited 45 adults with moderate insomnia and randomly assigned 22 of them to try the Internet program.
Better sleep even six months later
The group who got the treatment woke up fewer times and spent fewer minutes awake during the night. The control group's scores didn't change. Even after six months, the Internet group's scores remained improved.
The response was "fairly impressive and comparable to what you see with more intensive sorts of interventions," said Jack Edinger, a sleep disorder specialist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., who wasn't involved in the study.
Participants were highly educated and had no sleep apnea or psychiatric problems. Testing the approach on a larger, more diverse group could determine which patients benefit most, Edinger said.
No human therapist is involved. The Internet software gives advice, even specific bedtimes, based on users' sleep diaries. Patients learn better sleep habits — like avoiding daytime naps — through stories, quizzes and games.
"This is a very interactive, tailored, personalized program," said study co-author Frances Thorndike of the University of Virginia Health System, who helped design the software, called Sleep Healthy Using the Internet, or SHUTi.
Such software could one day be a low-cost alternative for some patients, Thorndike said. And it could be the only non-drug option for people who live in areas without trained specialists, she said.
Prior research has shown face-to-face cognitive behavioral therapy can have long-lasting results for insomniacs without the side effects of medication. The SHUTi program is based on that style of therapy, which helps patients change thinking patterns that contribute to poor sleep.
In the new study, released Monday in Archives of General Psychiatry, the researchers recruited 45 adults with moderate insomnia and randomly assigned 22 of them to try the Internet program.
Better sleep even six months later
The group who got the treatment woke up fewer times and spent fewer minutes awake during the night. The control group's scores didn't change. Even after six months, the Internet group's scores remained improved.
The response was "fairly impressive and comparable to what you see with more intensive sorts of interventions," said Jack Edinger, a sleep disorder specialist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., who wasn't involved in the study.
Participants were highly educated and had no sleep apnea or psychiatric problems. Testing the approach on a larger, more diverse group could determine which patients benefit most, Edinger said.
Ronaldo Fulfils Real 'Childhood Dream'
The world's most expensive footballer Cristiano Ronaldo said he has fulfilled a "childhood dream" as he was unveiled by new club Real Madrid.
Around 80,000 fans were at the home ground, the Bernabeu, to welcome Ronaldo following his record transfer.
The current world player of the year was signed by the Spanish giants from Manchester United in a deal worth £80m.
The Portuguese international had passed a medical examination earlier in the day to complete his move.
He told supporters: "I am just so happy to be here. For me, I have made my childhood dream a reality, which was nothing less than playing for Real Madrid.
"I didn't expect a jam-packed stadium - this is truly impressive."
Ronaldo then led the crowd into a cry of "Viva Madrid!"
The forward, who signed a six-year contract, has been given the number nine shirt - the same as Madrid great Alfredo di Stefano.
The 24-year-old was greeted by Di Stefano as well as Portuguese legend Eusebio and Florentino Perez, the club president whose re-election prompted his signing from United.
Ronaldo is the jewel in the crown of Perez's self-styled "spectacular sporting project".
After bringing "galacticos" David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo to the club during his previous term, Perez has spent around £185m on Ronaldo, Brazilian playmaker Kaka, French striker Karim Benzema and defender Raul Albiol.
He is hoping the signing of such high-profile players will help Real take the Spanish and European Champions League crowns from arch-rivals Barcelona.
He also aims to boost revenue via the sale of replica merchandise and marketing rights.
Madrid had been chasing Ronaldo since 2006. He won the third of three successive Premier League titles last season.
Fans had queued outside the Bernabeu from early on in the day to catch a glimpse of their latest star.
Around 80,000 fans were at the home ground, the Bernabeu, to welcome Ronaldo following his record transfer.
The current world player of the year was signed by the Spanish giants from Manchester United in a deal worth £80m.
The Portuguese international had passed a medical examination earlier in the day to complete his move.
He told supporters: "I am just so happy to be here. For me, I have made my childhood dream a reality, which was nothing less than playing for Real Madrid.
"I didn't expect a jam-packed stadium - this is truly impressive."
Ronaldo then led the crowd into a cry of "Viva Madrid!"
The forward, who signed a six-year contract, has been given the number nine shirt - the same as Madrid great Alfredo di Stefano.
The 24-year-old was greeted by Di Stefano as well as Portuguese legend Eusebio and Florentino Perez, the club president whose re-election prompted his signing from United.
Ronaldo is the jewel in the crown of Perez's self-styled "spectacular sporting project".
After bringing "galacticos" David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and Luis Figo to the club during his previous term, Perez has spent around £185m on Ronaldo, Brazilian playmaker Kaka, French striker Karim Benzema and defender Raul Albiol.
He is hoping the signing of such high-profile players will help Real take the Spanish and European Champions League crowns from arch-rivals Barcelona.
He also aims to boost revenue via the sale of replica merchandise and marketing rights.
Madrid had been chasing Ronaldo since 2006. He won the third of three successive Premier League titles last season.
Fans had queued outside the Bernabeu from early on in the day to catch a glimpse of their latest star.
Obama heading for Putin meeting
US President Barack Obama is due to hold his first meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Mr Obama's meeting with the man widely regarded as the most powerful in Russia will begin the second day of the American leader's visit to Moscow.
On Monday, Mr Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed eight separate agreements.
They included a pact to negotiate a new arms control treaty to replace the 1991 Start I pact which expires in December.
A new agreement could see the two countries reducing their nuclear warheads by up to the third, to below 1,700 each within seven years of the treaty's signing.
'Old ways'
Also on Tuesday, Mr Obama is due to deliver a major speech on democracy, the global economy and the US-Russian relationship.
US-RUSSIA NUCLEAR DEAL
Each country to cut deployed nuclear warheads to 1,500-1,675 (currently 1,700-2,200)
Delivery systems to be within 500-1,000 range (currently 1,600)
Reductions so be achieved within seven years of new treaty
Treaty to be signed before Start I expires in December and include "effective" verification measures
See graph of US and Russian nuclear weapon stockpiles
Mr Obama said last week that he thought Mr Putin, the former Russian president turned prime minister, had "one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new".
Mr Putin responded: "We stand solidly on our own two feet and always look into the future."
But on Monday, the US leader struck a more diplomatic tone.
"My interest is in dealing directly with my counterpart, the president [Medvedev], but also to reach out to Prime Minister Putin and all other influential sectors in Russian society," Mr Obama was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
A BBC correspondent at Monday's talks said the two presidents seemed to have taken a significant step towards improving US-Russian relations, which have been badly strained in recent years.
Separately, Russia also agreed to allow the US military to fly troops and weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, allowing it to avoid using supply routes through Pakistan that are attacked by militants.
However, on the contentious issue of US plans to base parts of a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, the presidents merely said they had agreed to a joint study into ballistic missile threats and the creation of a data exchange centre.
Graph showing US and Russian nuclear weapon stockpiles
Mr Obama's meeting with the man widely regarded as the most powerful in Russia will begin the second day of the American leader's visit to Moscow.
On Monday, Mr Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed eight separate agreements.
They included a pact to negotiate a new arms control treaty to replace the 1991 Start I pact which expires in December.
A new agreement could see the two countries reducing their nuclear warheads by up to the third, to below 1,700 each within seven years of the treaty's signing.
'Old ways'
Also on Tuesday, Mr Obama is due to deliver a major speech on democracy, the global economy and the US-Russian relationship.
US-RUSSIA NUCLEAR DEAL
Each country to cut deployed nuclear warheads to 1,500-1,675 (currently 1,700-2,200)
Delivery systems to be within 500-1,000 range (currently 1,600)
Reductions so be achieved within seven years of new treaty
Treaty to be signed before Start I expires in December and include "effective" verification measures
See graph of US and Russian nuclear weapon stockpiles
Mr Obama said last week that he thought Mr Putin, the former Russian president turned prime minister, had "one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new".
Mr Putin responded: "We stand solidly on our own two feet and always look into the future."
But on Monday, the US leader struck a more diplomatic tone.
"My interest is in dealing directly with my counterpart, the president [Medvedev], but also to reach out to Prime Minister Putin and all other influential sectors in Russian society," Mr Obama was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
A BBC correspondent at Monday's talks said the two presidents seemed to have taken a significant step towards improving US-Russian relations, which have been badly strained in recent years.
Separately, Russia also agreed to allow the US military to fly troops and weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, allowing it to avoid using supply routes through Pakistan that are attacked by militants.
However, on the contentious issue of US plans to base parts of a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, the presidents merely said they had agreed to a joint study into ballistic missile threats and the creation of a data exchange centre.
Graph showing US and Russian nuclear weapon stockpiles
Friday, July 3, 2009
Posh & Becks: Naked Together!
Sizzling!!!!!
New pics from the upcoming Emporio Armani campaign, featuring David & Victoria Beckham.
The new advertising campaign was shot in Milan, once again by renowned fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.
Hot hot hot!!!!!!
Talk about distracting: The images are slated for billboards in N.Y.C., L.A., London, Rome, Paris and Tokyo
As if David and Victoria Beckham’s individual campaigns for Emporio Armani underwear weren’t scorchingly hot enough, the gorgeous couple has come together to pose for the newest round of ads for the fall 2009 campaign. Photographed by renowned fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, the campaign was shot in Milan, where Armani is headquartered. You can expect to see the sexy ads not only in fashion magazines, but also on major billboards in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, London, Milan, Rome, Paris and Tokyo starting this month. Hopefully they won’t distract too many drivers on the road!
Uefa tightens anti-racism rules
Uefa has given referees the power to abandon matches in the event of racist chanting inside a stadium.
European football's governing body has implemented a three-step procedure that comes into force with immediate effect.
The referee should first demand over the public address system that fans' racist behaviour should stop.
The next step is to suspend the match for up to 10 minutes with the teams sent to the dressing room. If that does not work, the game should be abandoned.
Uefa president Michel Platini said there would be no compromise in his organisation's stance against racism in football.
"Our policy on racism is one of zero tolerance," said Platini.
"It was necessary to give the pitch people the means to do something, and we have determined the parameters and lines of conduct, whereby in important cases of racist behaviour in a stadium, a referee must stop the match.
"There are people of authority such as the referee and match delegate who can consult before deciding to temporarily suspend a match for five or 10 minutes, in agreement with officials responsible for security - and from then, if the atmosphere remains negative, the match must be stopped."
What do you make of the decision?
BBC Sport's Peter Scrivener
Platini first revealed plans to abandon matches in April of this year after Inter Milan striker Mario Balotelli was racially abused by Juventus fans.
The Italian authorities ordered Juve to play their next home league game behind closed doors.
England players Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips were subjected to racial abuse when they played against Spain at Real Madrid's Bernabeu Stadium in 2004.
The decision was taken at a meeting of Uefa's executive committee in Vilnius, Lithuania.
European football's governing body has implemented a three-step procedure that comes into force with immediate effect.
The referee should first demand over the public address system that fans' racist behaviour should stop.
The next step is to suspend the match for up to 10 minutes with the teams sent to the dressing room. If that does not work, the game should be abandoned.
Uefa president Michel Platini said there would be no compromise in his organisation's stance against racism in football.
"Our policy on racism is one of zero tolerance," said Platini.
"It was necessary to give the pitch people the means to do something, and we have determined the parameters and lines of conduct, whereby in important cases of racist behaviour in a stadium, a referee must stop the match.
"There are people of authority such as the referee and match delegate who can consult before deciding to temporarily suspend a match for five or 10 minutes, in agreement with officials responsible for security - and from then, if the atmosphere remains negative, the match must be stopped."
What do you make of the decision?
BBC Sport's Peter Scrivener
Platini first revealed plans to abandon matches in April of this year after Inter Milan striker Mario Balotelli was racially abused by Juventus fans.
The Italian authorities ordered Juve to play their next home league game behind closed doors.
England players Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips were subjected to racial abuse when they played against Spain at Real Madrid's Bernabeu Stadium in 2004.
The decision was taken at a meeting of Uefa's executive committee in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Jennifer Lopez gives birth to twins
Jennifer Lopez gave birth to twins - a boy and a girl - on Friday morning after one of pop music's most closely-watched pregnancies.
The boy and girl, delivered in a Long Island, New York, hospital, were the first for the 38-year-old actress and singer, whose efforts to become pregnant have filled tabloid pages in the past few years.
Anthony, a 39-year-old salsa singer, has a daughter and two sons from two previous relationships.
Lopez did not confirm her much-rumoured pregnancy until early November, when she announced the news to a Miami audience while on a concert tour with her husband.
The babies were born at 12.45am local time (5.45am UK time) on Long Island, New York State. Lopez, 39, and husband Marc Anthony, 38, married in 2004. The twins are her first children, and his third and fourth.
Lopez's publicist Simon Fields said: "Jennifer and Marc are delighted, thrilled and over the moon."
Her father, David Lopez, told a TV station earlier this month that she was expecting twins.
Owen could be on brink of Man Utd move
Former European Footballer of the Year Michael Owen may be on the verge of joining Manchester United from relegated Newcastle United, according to several media reports Friday.
The England international could move to the Premier League champions if he passes a stringent medical examination, said the reports.
A Manchester United spokesman told the BBC the club would not comment on the speculation.
Owen shot to fame with Liverpool and England before joining Real Madrid in 2004. He had a single, frustrating season at the Bernabeu, where he played well but never managed to cement a first team place, before moving to Newcastle in 2005.
Owen has since struggled for form and fitness and fallen out of favour with England manager Fabio Capello.
Last month he said he would be leaving Championship side Newcastle within weeks.
He won the European Footballer of the Year award in 2001.
(Writing by Tony Jimenez; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)
The England international could move to the Premier League champions if he passes a stringent medical examination, said the reports.
A Manchester United spokesman told the BBC the club would not comment on the speculation.
Owen shot to fame with Liverpool and England before joining Real Madrid in 2004. He had a single, frustrating season at the Bernabeu, where he played well but never managed to cement a first team place, before moving to Newcastle in 2005.
Owen has since struggled for form and fitness and fallen out of favour with England manager Fabio Capello.
Last month he said he would be leaving Championship side Newcastle within weeks.
He won the European Footballer of the Year award in 2001.
(Writing by Tony Jimenez; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)
Paris Hilton will star in lesbian TV show
Even though Paris Hilton has denied being a lesbian, the latest news is that she will be starring in a lesbian TV show.
The American celebrity and heiress has confirmed that she will be appearing in the US drama 'The L Word', a show depicting the lives of a group of lesbian and bisexual women in West Hollywood.
"It's true. I have no idea what kind of character I'll be playing, but it's a good show," the Sun reported Paris as having told Parade magazine.
Paris is very enthusiastic about the show, and it can be seen through the method acting training she has been doing for her role.
She was spotted last month leaving a lesbian nightclub holding hands with a lady, and she was also caught making out with 24-year-old Elisha Cuthbert on another night out.
The former hotel heiress also had some thoughts about being rich and famous.
When asked what she prefers of being rich or famous, she says, "I think it would be better just to be rich, because then you don't have to deal with anything else. You can just have everything you want and not have to deal with the press and people following you.
But being rich doesn't even matter, either. I have both, and it doesn't even make any difference. I could be happy if I had nothing. So it's not, it's not really about money to me."
Spread of swine flu far from over, officials warn
CANCUN, Mexico — World health experts warned Thursday that the global swine flu outbreak that so far has sickened nearly 4,000 Texans and killed 17 is all but certain to worsen in the coming months.
“We are really at the start of a global phenomenon,” said Keiji Fukuda, assistant director general of the World Health Organization. “This is a very humbling virus.”
Hundreds of specialists from 40 countries meeting at a posh beach side resort in this tourist mecca were plotting strategies for what many dread could become an outbreak rivaling a 1918 flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people.
Health officials in the United States, Mexico and Canada fear that a strengthened virus will return north with the winter cold. And the United Kingdom’s health minister warned this week that the flu could strike as many as 100,000 Britons a day by the end of August.
“We need to plan for the most extreme scenarios as well as for the likely scenarios,” said Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Influenza is perhaps the most unpredictable of infectious diseases.”
This swine flu strain — which scientists call A-H1N1 — was first noticed in late April in Mexico City. The virus was later traced to cases in early March, one of them fatal, in the Mexican states of Veracruz and Oaxaca as well as two near San Diego, Calif.
In just three months the virus has zipped around the world, sickening at least 80,000 and killing 327 in 121 countries. It now stalks the southern hemisphere, where winter flu season rages.
“Watching how quickly H1N1 spread globally was quite disconcerting,” said Canada’s Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq. “It is so important for countries to have a plan in place to be able to respond.”
The WHO declared a pandemic last month. Vaccines are being developed, and it is being effectively treated with anti-viral medicines.
“It really makes sense that the origin was Mexico,” said Nancy Cox, the CDC’s leading flu expert. “We don’t know how long it circulated in humans before it was detected.”
Unlike seasonal flu, which kills tens of thousands of toddlers and the elderly each year, H1N1 has mostly sickened young adults and been deadliest in older children and teens. Experts worry that it could mutate into strains for which most people have no immunity.
“We are really at the start of a global phenomenon,” said Keiji Fukuda, assistant director general of the World Health Organization. “This is a very humbling virus.”
Hundreds of specialists from 40 countries meeting at a posh beach side resort in this tourist mecca were plotting strategies for what many dread could become an outbreak rivaling a 1918 flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people.
Health officials in the United States, Mexico and Canada fear that a strengthened virus will return north with the winter cold. And the United Kingdom’s health minister warned this week that the flu could strike as many as 100,000 Britons a day by the end of August.
“We need to plan for the most extreme scenarios as well as for the likely scenarios,” said Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Influenza is perhaps the most unpredictable of infectious diseases.”
This swine flu strain — which scientists call A-H1N1 — was first noticed in late April in Mexico City. The virus was later traced to cases in early March, one of them fatal, in the Mexican states of Veracruz and Oaxaca as well as two near San Diego, Calif.
In just three months the virus has zipped around the world, sickening at least 80,000 and killing 327 in 121 countries. It now stalks the southern hemisphere, where winter flu season rages.
“Watching how quickly H1N1 spread globally was quite disconcerting,” said Canada’s Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq. “It is so important for countries to have a plan in place to be able to respond.”
The WHO declared a pandemic last month. Vaccines are being developed, and it is being effectively treated with anti-viral medicines.
“It really makes sense that the origin was Mexico,” said Nancy Cox, the CDC’s leading flu expert. “We don’t know how long it circulated in humans before it was detected.”
Unlike seasonal flu, which kills tens of thousands of toddlers and the elderly each year, H1N1 has mostly sickened young adults and been deadliest in older children and teens. Experts worry that it could mutate into strains for which most people have no immunity.
Obama's climate leadership faces test at G8 forum
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, buoyed by a domestic victory on climate policy, faces his first foreign test on the issue next week at a forum that could boost the chances of reaching a U.N. global warming pact this year.
Obama, who has pledged U.S. leadership in the fight against climate change, chairs a meeting of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters at the G8 summit in Italy on July 9.
Known as the Major Economies Forum, the grouping includes 17 nations that account for roughly 75 percent of the world's emissions, making any agreement from its leaders a potential blueprint for U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December.
Meetings of the forum, which Obama relaunched earlier this year, have so far failed to achieve major breakthroughs.
Developing countries want their industrial counterparts to reduce emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, while rich nations want developing states to commit to boosting their economies in an environmentally friendly way.
Those debates and others will be featured at the Italy meeting, the first at a heads of state and government level, and all eyes will be on Obama, whose climate initiatives European leaders have lauded while privately pressing him for more.
Europeans "want to seize this moment to push as hard as they can on the Americans to get significant ... targeted commitments on carbon emissions reductions," said Heather Conley, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies.
"They know that this is going to be a very careful walk along the road to Copenhagen in December and they're going to publicly praise and privately push hard."
A Democrat, Obama has reversed the environmental policies of Republican predecessor George W. Bush by pressing for U.S. greenhouse gas emission cuts and a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon dioxide (CO2) output from major industries.
The House of Representatives helped turn that vision into a potential law last week by passing a bill that would require large companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, from 2005 levels.
CHALLENGES, LEADERSHIP
But those figures are still below what many scientists say is necessary and -- potentially more dangerous for the Copenhagen process -- the measures face obstacles to their passage through the U.S. Senate.
Washington has resisted calls to endorse the aim of limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius at the G8 summit, though a European official said on Wednesday the United States was now on board for that goal.
"The politics of climate change are stuck, despite Obama coming in," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He said the United States was still on the defensive in comparison to the more progressive European Union.
Despite those challenges, White House officials said the president would carry momentum to the G8.
Obama, who has pledged U.S. leadership in the fight against climate change, chairs a meeting of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters at the G8 summit in Italy on July 9.
Known as the Major Economies Forum, the grouping includes 17 nations that account for roughly 75 percent of the world's emissions, making any agreement from its leaders a potential blueprint for U.N. talks in Copenhagen in December.
Meetings of the forum, which Obama relaunched earlier this year, have so far failed to achieve major breakthroughs.
Developing countries want their industrial counterparts to reduce emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, while rich nations want developing states to commit to boosting their economies in an environmentally friendly way.
Those debates and others will be featured at the Italy meeting, the first at a heads of state and government level, and all eyes will be on Obama, whose climate initiatives European leaders have lauded while privately pressing him for more.
Europeans "want to seize this moment to push as hard as they can on the Americans to get significant ... targeted commitments on carbon emissions reductions," said Heather Conley, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic & International Studies.
"They know that this is going to be a very careful walk along the road to Copenhagen in December and they're going to publicly praise and privately push hard."
A Democrat, Obama has reversed the environmental policies of Republican predecessor George W. Bush by pressing for U.S. greenhouse gas emission cuts and a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon dioxide (CO2) output from major industries.
The House of Representatives helped turn that vision into a potential law last week by passing a bill that would require large companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 17 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, from 2005 levels.
CHALLENGES, LEADERSHIP
But those figures are still below what many scientists say is necessary and -- potentially more dangerous for the Copenhagen process -- the measures face obstacles to their passage through the U.S. Senate.
Washington has resisted calls to endorse the aim of limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius at the G8 summit, though a European official said on Wednesday the United States was now on board for that goal.
"The politics of climate change are stuck, despite Obama coming in," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. He said the United States was still on the defensive in comparison to the more progressive European Union.
Despite those challenges, White House officials said the president would carry momentum to the G8.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Jackson Lawyer Says Michael Loved His Abusive Father
Michael Jackson once admitted that he was prone to vomit in fear whenever he was in his father's presence. If that doesn't scream "loving relationship", we're not sure what does!
The Jackson family lawyer, Brian Oxman, went on The Early Show this morning to discuss some of the rumors circulating about Michael's personal affairs, especially the long-time bad blood between Michael and his father, Joe Jackson.
Despite actual confirmation from Michael Jackson himself that their relationship was tumultuous at best, Oxman insists that through it all, Michael loved Joe:
"No question about it. We hear all kinds of things to the contrary. But that's just part of the storm that's surrounded Michael Jackson's life. I mean, it's an unbelievable description of a storm. I only know what I saw. I only know the conversations and the dealings that I saw. And that is that Michael loved his dad, and the fact that he wouldn't be mentioned in a will is not all that surprising. He had a great relationship with his mother, and I think that you have to take it on face value. "
Yeah, and face value to us means that he knew and hated his dad enough to know that he could not be trusted with his money. That doesn't imply love to us!
Of course, the existing will has yet to be reviewed by Oxman or any member of the Jackson family.
Oxman explains:
"Katherine Jackson has filed a petition in the court in Los Angeles saying that they have not seen any will. And no one that I know of has ever seen the will, so we simply don't know. That will will be presented in time. I think that it's a little slow in being presented. But if it is Michael's will, certainly that's got to be his desires. That's got to be his case. But as of this moment, no one has seen the will or even knows about it."
Yeah, well when that will finally does surface, we know for certain there still won't be anything in there for Joe.
The Jackson family lawyer, Brian Oxman, went on The Early Show this morning to discuss some of the rumors circulating about Michael's personal affairs, especially the long-time bad blood between Michael and his father, Joe Jackson.
Despite actual confirmation from Michael Jackson himself that their relationship was tumultuous at best, Oxman insists that through it all, Michael loved Joe:
"No question about it. We hear all kinds of things to the contrary. But that's just part of the storm that's surrounded Michael Jackson's life. I mean, it's an unbelievable description of a storm. I only know what I saw. I only know the conversations and the dealings that I saw. And that is that Michael loved his dad, and the fact that he wouldn't be mentioned in a will is not all that surprising. He had a great relationship with his mother, and I think that you have to take it on face value. "
Yeah, and face value to us means that he knew and hated his dad enough to know that he could not be trusted with his money. That doesn't imply love to us!
Of course, the existing will has yet to be reviewed by Oxman or any member of the Jackson family.
Oxman explains:
"Katherine Jackson has filed a petition in the court in Los Angeles saying that they have not seen any will. And no one that I know of has ever seen the will, so we simply don't know. That will will be presented in time. I think that it's a little slow in being presented. But if it is Michael's will, certainly that's got to be his desires. That's got to be his case. But as of this moment, no one has seen the will or even knows about it."
Yeah, well when that will finally does surface, we know for certain there still won't be anything in there for Joe.
Jackson’s hospital known for ‘raising the dead’
When Michael Jackson went into cardiac arrest, rescuers took him to a place known for bringing the dead back to life. A world-renowned surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center has pioneered a way to revive people that most doctors would have long written off, including a woman whose heart had stopped for 2 1/2 hours.
Tested on a few dozen cardiac arrest patients, 80 percent survived. Usually, more than 80 percent perish.
"They took people who were basically dead, not all that different than Michael Jackson, and saved most of them," said Dr. Lance Becker, an emergency medicine specialist at the University of Pennsylvania and an American Heart Association spokesman.
Could Jackson, too, have been saved?
It's impossible to know. Doctors at the hospital worked on him for an hour. The UCLA expert, cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Gerald Buckberg, said he was not personally involved in Jackson's treatment, and that too little is known about what preceded it.
"We have no idea when he died versus when he was found," Buckberg said in a telephone interview.
Slideshow
Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley at Neverland Ranch
Michael Jackson: 1958 - 2009
Click to see pictures from the highs and lows of Michael Jackson's career.
‘The Lazarus syndrome’
However, the results in other patients show that "the window is wide open to new thinking" about how long people can be successfully resuscitated after their hearts quit beating, Buckberg said. "We can salvage them way beyond the current time frames that are used. We've changed the concept of when the heart is dead permanently."
They call it "the Lazarus syndrome" for the man the Bible says Jesus raised from the dead.
Let's be clear: No one is saying that people long dead without medical attention can be revived. The lucky ones in Buckberg's study received quick help, and the reason they suffered cardiac arrest was known and could be fixed: blocked arteries causing a heart attack, in most cases.
Buckberg's method requires:
* Prompt CPR — rhythmic chest compressions — to maintain blood pressure until the patient gets to a hospital.
* Use of a heart-lung machine to keep blood and oxygen moving through the body while doctors remedy what caused the heart to quiver or stop in the first place, such as a drug overdose or a clogged artery.
* Special procedures and medicines to gradually restore blood and oxygen flow, so a sudden gush does not cause fresh damage.
Without all three elements, patients might suffer brain damage if they survive at all.
"You can save the heart and lose the brain," Buckberg explained.
UCLA and hospitals in Birmingham, Ala.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and in Germany tested Buckberg's method on 34 patients who had been in cardiac arrest for an average of 72 minutes. All had failed resuscitation methods with standard CPR and defibrillation to try to shock their hearts back to beating.
Only seven died. Only two survivors were left with permanent neurological damage. Results were published in 2006 in the journal Resuscitation.
Michael Jackson, 1958-2009
Jermaine Jackson: ‘I wish it was me’
Jackson’s mom retains control of 2,000 items
Will Neverland be the next Graceland?
Staples Center offers to host Jackson memorial
Jackson left behind many unreleased tracks
Apollo’s amateur show dedicated to Jackson
Source says Jackson will gives mom custody
The ‘King of Pop’ is dead, long live the ‘King’
Insomniac Michael Jackson begged for sedative
Dr. Constantine Athanasuleas, a surgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, treated one man in the study who had been in cardiac arrest for about an hour and a half. The man's wife, a nurse, did CPR until a helicopter brought him to the hospital.
"He was flatlined," with a heart "as still as your dining room table," Athanasuleas said.
Doctors put him on a heart-lung machine, whisked him to the catheterization lab to see if he had artery blockages, then did bypass surgery to detour around them.
"The guy went home and was neurologically perfect" at least two years later, the doctor said.
‘He's doing extraordinary things’
Buckberg treated a woman who had been in cardiac arrest for 2 1/2 hours.
He would not send her to the operating room until her CPR and blood pressure could be maintained so further treatment could be attempted, he said.
Sadly, the woman survived all this but died several weeks later from an infection.
Buckberg has taken his work further in experiments with pigs in cardiac arrest. He deliberately deprived their brains of blood flow for half an hour, then used his resuscitation techniques to bring them back, with normal or near-normal function. Results presented at a heart association conference last fall stunned many, including Dr. Myron Weisfeldt, a cardiologist and chairman of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
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"He's doing extraordinary things. You almost don't believe the results that he got," Weisfeldt said of Buckberg. "Most of us carry around in our head that if somebody's brain is deprived of blood flow for 10 to 15 minutes that we're just not going to get them back to any useful function. His data suggest it's possible."
Doctors in Japan, Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia have tried approaches similar to Buckberg's with excellent results, said Becker, who is about to try it in Philadelphia.
"It takes training. It takes rethinking" to get doctors to adopt something this new, and funding for bigger studies to prove it works, Buckberg said.
Tested on a few dozen cardiac arrest patients, 80 percent survived. Usually, more than 80 percent perish.
"They took people who were basically dead, not all that different than Michael Jackson, and saved most of them," said Dr. Lance Becker, an emergency medicine specialist at the University of Pennsylvania and an American Heart Association spokesman.
Could Jackson, too, have been saved?
It's impossible to know. Doctors at the hospital worked on him for an hour. The UCLA expert, cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Gerald Buckberg, said he was not personally involved in Jackson's treatment, and that too little is known about what preceded it.
"We have no idea when he died versus when he was found," Buckberg said in a telephone interview.
Slideshow
Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley at Neverland Ranch
Michael Jackson: 1958 - 2009
Click to see pictures from the highs and lows of Michael Jackson's career.
‘The Lazarus syndrome’
However, the results in other patients show that "the window is wide open to new thinking" about how long people can be successfully resuscitated after their hearts quit beating, Buckberg said. "We can salvage them way beyond the current time frames that are used. We've changed the concept of when the heart is dead permanently."
They call it "the Lazarus syndrome" for the man the Bible says Jesus raised from the dead.
Let's be clear: No one is saying that people long dead without medical attention can be revived. The lucky ones in Buckberg's study received quick help, and the reason they suffered cardiac arrest was known and could be fixed: blocked arteries causing a heart attack, in most cases.
Buckberg's method requires:
* Prompt CPR — rhythmic chest compressions — to maintain blood pressure until the patient gets to a hospital.
* Use of a heart-lung machine to keep blood and oxygen moving through the body while doctors remedy what caused the heart to quiver or stop in the first place, such as a drug overdose or a clogged artery.
* Special procedures and medicines to gradually restore blood and oxygen flow, so a sudden gush does not cause fresh damage.
Without all three elements, patients might suffer brain damage if they survive at all.
"You can save the heart and lose the brain," Buckberg explained.
UCLA and hospitals in Birmingham, Ala.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; and in Germany tested Buckberg's method on 34 patients who had been in cardiac arrest for an average of 72 minutes. All had failed resuscitation methods with standard CPR and defibrillation to try to shock their hearts back to beating.
Only seven died. Only two survivors were left with permanent neurological damage. Results were published in 2006 in the journal Resuscitation.
Michael Jackson, 1958-2009
Jermaine Jackson: ‘I wish it was me’
Jackson’s mom retains control of 2,000 items
Will Neverland be the next Graceland?
Staples Center offers to host Jackson memorial
Jackson left behind many unreleased tracks
Apollo’s amateur show dedicated to Jackson
Source says Jackson will gives mom custody
The ‘King of Pop’ is dead, long live the ‘King’
Insomniac Michael Jackson begged for sedative
Dr. Constantine Athanasuleas, a surgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, treated one man in the study who had been in cardiac arrest for about an hour and a half. The man's wife, a nurse, did CPR until a helicopter brought him to the hospital.
"He was flatlined," with a heart "as still as your dining room table," Athanasuleas said.
Doctors put him on a heart-lung machine, whisked him to the catheterization lab to see if he had artery blockages, then did bypass surgery to detour around them.
"The guy went home and was neurologically perfect" at least two years later, the doctor said.
‘He's doing extraordinary things’
Buckberg treated a woman who had been in cardiac arrest for 2 1/2 hours.
He would not send her to the operating room until her CPR and blood pressure could be maintained so further treatment could be attempted, he said.
Sadly, the woman survived all this but died several weeks later from an infection.
Buckberg has taken his work further in experiments with pigs in cardiac arrest. He deliberately deprived their brains of blood flow for half an hour, then used his resuscitation techniques to bring them back, with normal or near-normal function. Results presented at a heart association conference last fall stunned many, including Dr. Myron Weisfeldt, a cardiologist and chairman of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
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"He's doing extraordinary things. You almost don't believe the results that he got," Weisfeldt said of Buckberg. "Most of us carry around in our head that if somebody's brain is deprived of blood flow for 10 to 15 minutes that we're just not going to get them back to any useful function. His data suggest it's possible."
Doctors in Japan, Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia have tried approaches similar to Buckberg's with excellent results, said Becker, who is about to try it in Philadelphia.
"It takes training. It takes rethinking" to get doctors to adopt something this new, and funding for bigger studies to prove it works, Buckberg said.
Kenya unveils renewable energy drive
NAIROBI (AFP) – Kenya on Wednesday unveiled extensive plans to invest in renewable energy, including free distribution of one million energy-saving light bulbs in exchange for ordinary bulbs.
The measures announced by Prime Minister Raila Odinga also include subsidising the price of solar water heaters for public institutions, firms and households.
"The free distribution of energy-saving bulbs is expected to save 49 megawatts of power," Odinga said after an inaugural meeting of the country's National Task Force on Accelerated Development of Green Energy.
The move came a day after Kenya's power generating company announced the closure of one of its the hydroelectric plants due to low water levels caused by drought.
In addition, firms investing in local production of energy-saving bulbs, solar water heaters and other energy-saving devices will be offered interest free, long-term loans.
Kenya also plans to produce an additional 2,000 megawatts of electricity in the next three years through geothermal, wind and other sources such as solar, biogas and solid waste, Odinga said.
Currently the country of 37 million people produces 1,080 megawatts of power and consumption reaches close to 1,000 at peak hours. It has also been recording an eight percent increase in electricity demand every year.
The measures announced by Prime Minister Raila Odinga also include subsidising the price of solar water heaters for public institutions, firms and households.
"The free distribution of energy-saving bulbs is expected to save 49 megawatts of power," Odinga said after an inaugural meeting of the country's National Task Force on Accelerated Development of Green Energy.
The move came a day after Kenya's power generating company announced the closure of one of its the hydroelectric plants due to low water levels caused by drought.
In addition, firms investing in local production of energy-saving bulbs, solar water heaters and other energy-saving devices will be offered interest free, long-term loans.
Kenya also plans to produce an additional 2,000 megawatts of electricity in the next three years through geothermal, wind and other sources such as solar, biogas and solid waste, Odinga said.
Currently the country of 37 million people produces 1,080 megawatts of power and consumption reaches close to 1,000 at peak hours. It has also been recording an eight percent increase in electricity demand every year.
Making the most of her tour break in the States, Britney Spears treated her two boys, Jayden James and Sean Preston, to a day full of fun on Tuesday (June 30).
The “Gimme More” singer and her family first headed out on a yacht in Marina Del Rey for a relaxing boat ride, joined by a few of her trusty helping hands.
JACKSON’S BODYGUARD: MICHAEL HAD SECRET LONG-TERM GIRLFRIEND
MICHAEL Jackson’s bodyguard has revealed the singer had a secret long-term girlfriend.
Matt Fiddes, from Barnstaple, Devon, who was introduced to the pop star around 10 years ago by psychic Uri Geller, said there was “someone special” in Jackson’s life, but refused to identify the mystery woman.
He said: “I’m not going to name who she is but I think the family were aware that there was someone special in his life who he loved and adored and had his ups and downs with.
“I don’t know how long they’ve been a couple. I know she’s been with him for some time in different capacities but...it’s up to her if she wants it to come out or the family to speak about this very private information.”
The 30-year-old martial arts expert blamed the singer’s death last Thursday on doctors who had supplied him with unnecessary medication, claiming they had “blood on their hands”.
He was previously married to Debbie Rowe
He also described how he and Geller tried to hide drugs and syringes from Jackson.
Fiddes said: “I never witnessed him actually taking drugs but I knew they were there and I confiscated packages, and Uri did too.
“And Uri confiscated injection equipment from his room ... Uri would scream at Michael, you know, intensely, to stop doing this but we were getting pushed out.
“The doctor had such an influence over Michael that we felt our efforts were falling on deaf ears.
“As far as I’m concerned they have Michael’s blood on their hands, they know what they’ve done and there’s people out there who could have helped, could have stepped in but didn’t do for financial reasons.
Matt Fiddes, from Barnstaple, Devon, who was introduced to the pop star around 10 years ago by psychic Uri Geller, said there was “someone special” in Jackson’s life, but refused to identify the mystery woman.
He said: “I’m not going to name who she is but I think the family were aware that there was someone special in his life who he loved and adored and had his ups and downs with.
“I don’t know how long they’ve been a couple. I know she’s been with him for some time in different capacities but...it’s up to her if she wants it to come out or the family to speak about this very private information.”
The 30-year-old martial arts expert blamed the singer’s death last Thursday on doctors who had supplied him with unnecessary medication, claiming they had “blood on their hands”.
He was previously married to Debbie Rowe
He also described how he and Geller tried to hide drugs and syringes from Jackson.
Fiddes said: “I never witnessed him actually taking drugs but I knew they were there and I confiscated packages, and Uri did too.
“And Uri confiscated injection equipment from his room ... Uri would scream at Michael, you know, intensely, to stop doing this but we were getting pushed out.
“The doctor had such an influence over Michael that we felt our efforts were falling on deaf ears.
“As far as I’m concerned they have Michael’s blood on their hands, they know what they’ve done and there’s people out there who could have helped, could have stepped in but didn’t do for financial reasons.
Miracle Jet Crash Girl Reunited With Father
The sole survivor of a Yemeni jet that crashed into the Indian Ocean has been reunited with her father back in France.
Bahia Bakari clung on to floating debris for more than 12 hours before search teams spotted her struggling in rough seas near the archipelago of Comoros.
Rescuers have failed to find any of the remaining 152 passengers and crew since the Yemenia Airbus 310 jet crashed in rough weather on Tuesday.
Bahia, thought to be between 12 and 14 years old, spent a day recovering in hospital in the capital of Comoros, Moroni, before heading home.
"I am torn between relief and sadness. I am happy to see my daughter but her mother did not come back," her father Bakari Kassim said at Roissy Airport in Paris.
He has has revealed that his daughter was not wearing a life jacket during her ordeal and could not swim.
In two days we haven't found a body, any large pieces of debris or suitcases floating on the water.
Disaster centre member Ibrahim Abdourazak
When rescuers found her in the dark she was amid a sea of bodies, clinging to a piece of debris and surrounded by a fuel slick, and was too weak to react.
Comoran doctors, who marvelled at Bakari's escape with little more than cuts, bruises and a fractured collar bone, said she was discharged on her father's request.
"It was on the demand of her father in France. The girl was regaining her spirit and was in a satisfactory physical state," said Dr Jean Youssef.
Television images showed her lying weakly in a poorly-equipped intensive care bed, unaware her mother had died in the crash.
Bahia Bakari clung on to floating debris for more than 12 hours before search teams spotted her struggling in rough seas near the archipelago of Comoros.
Rescuers have failed to find any of the remaining 152 passengers and crew since the Yemenia Airbus 310 jet crashed in rough weather on Tuesday.
Bahia, thought to be between 12 and 14 years old, spent a day recovering in hospital in the capital of Comoros, Moroni, before heading home.
"I am torn between relief and sadness. I am happy to see my daughter but her mother did not come back," her father Bakari Kassim said at Roissy Airport in Paris.
He has has revealed that his daughter was not wearing a life jacket during her ordeal and could not swim.
In two days we haven't found a body, any large pieces of debris or suitcases floating on the water.
Disaster centre member Ibrahim Abdourazak
When rescuers found her in the dark she was amid a sea of bodies, clinging to a piece of debris and surrounded by a fuel slick, and was too weak to react.
Comoran doctors, who marvelled at Bakari's escape with little more than cuts, bruises and a fractured collar bone, said she was discharged on her father's request.
"It was on the demand of her father in France. The girl was regaining her spirit and was in a satisfactory physical state," said Dr Jean Youssef.
Television images showed her lying weakly in a poorly-equipped intensive care bed, unaware her mother had died in the crash.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Facebook taps ex-Genentech CFO for finance chief
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Internet social network powerhouse Facebook has hired the former chief financial officer of Genentech as its CFO, filing a spot that has been empty for about three months.
Facebook said on Monday that David Ebersman will join the company in September. Ebersman served as CFO of Genentech from 2006 until April this year, when the biotech company was acquired by Roche Holding.
"His success in scaling the finance organization of a fast-growing company will be important to Facebook," Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. He noted that Ebersman oversaw Genentech's financial operations during a time when the company's revenue tripled.
In March, Facebook announced that CFO Gideon Yu was leaving the company and that it was seeking a replacement with "public company experience."
Facebook's comments at the time sparked speculation that the company was preparing for an initial public offering. But Zuckerberg said in May that any IPO was still "a few years out."
Facebook is the world's No.1 Internet social networking site with more than 200 million active users. Last month, Facebook received $200 million in funding from Russian Internet investment firm Digital Sky Technologies.
In hiring a CFO from Genentech, Facebook is branching out from the pool of Internet executives, as it copes with rapid growth and an uncertain economy.
Earlier this month, Yahoo Inc appointed Tim Morse, a longtime executive from General Electric Co, to be its new CFO.
The moves reflect the demand among some Internet companies for CFOs with strong financial engineering skills rather than operational experience in the Internet business, said Broadpoint.Amtech analyst Ben Schachter.
"You certainly can have a lot of lessons from someone in a high-growth company" like Genentech, said Schachter.
Facebook said on Monday that Ebersman will become part of the company's executive management team, reporting to Zuckerberg and overseeing the company's finances, accounting, investor relations and real estate functions.
Facebook said on Monday that David Ebersman will join the company in September. Ebersman served as CFO of Genentech from 2006 until April this year, when the biotech company was acquired by Roche Holding.
"His success in scaling the finance organization of a fast-growing company will be important to Facebook," Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. He noted that Ebersman oversaw Genentech's financial operations during a time when the company's revenue tripled.
In March, Facebook announced that CFO Gideon Yu was leaving the company and that it was seeking a replacement with "public company experience."
Facebook's comments at the time sparked speculation that the company was preparing for an initial public offering. But Zuckerberg said in May that any IPO was still "a few years out."
Facebook is the world's No.1 Internet social networking site with more than 200 million active users. Last month, Facebook received $200 million in funding from Russian Internet investment firm Digital Sky Technologies.
In hiring a CFO from Genentech, Facebook is branching out from the pool of Internet executives, as it copes with rapid growth and an uncertain economy.
Earlier this month, Yahoo Inc appointed Tim Morse, a longtime executive from General Electric Co, to be its new CFO.
The moves reflect the demand among some Internet companies for CFOs with strong financial engineering skills rather than operational experience in the Internet business, said Broadpoint.Amtech analyst Ben Schachter.
"You certainly can have a lot of lessons from someone in a high-growth company" like Genentech, said Schachter.
Facebook said on Monday that Ebersman will become part of the company's executive management team, reporting to Zuckerberg and overseeing the company's finances, accounting, investor relations and real estate functions.
Jackson's death unleashes barrage of online scams
SAN JOSE, Calif. -
Minutes after any big celebrity dies, Internet swindlers get to work. They pump out specially created spam e-mails and throw up malicious Web sites to infect victims' computers, hoping to capitalize on the sudden high demand for information.
Michael Jackson's death was no different, and security experts say the fraud artists are just getting started.
The scams started cropping up almost instantaneously as Jackson's death was still hitting the news. As days have gone by, they've gotten more sophisticated — and dangerous.
Jackson's death "took a lot of people by surprise — the spammers, too," said Dermot Harnett, principal analyst for anti-spam engineering at Symantec Corp., a security software maker. "It might take them some time to really pounce on this issue. They are catching up pretty quickly, though."
Any major world event, such as the recent protests in Iran, triggers a barrage of Internet attacks. Security experts say the malicious traffic associated with Jackson's death will likely match and perhaps exceed those of other big spamming campaigns, such as those connected with the swine flu outbreak and Saddam Hussein's execution.
Spam is the most common way for fraudsters to find victims after these types of events. They can use a shotgun approach with a boilerplate message about Jackson, taking advantage of people's interests in the topic to improve their batting average over their usual spam campaigns.
By enticing users with such messages and tricking them into clicking on e-mail attachments, scammers can easily infect victims' computers and take command of them for more nefarious activities.
The spam about Jackson's death gets more convincing every day.
One message promises a YouTube video showing the exclusive "last work of Michael Jackson." Instead, victims get a malicious program that steals their passwords. Another promises to show the "latest unpublished photos" of Jackson if you click on a link — one that also tries to install a password-stealing program on your machine.
Others purport to be from legitimate news outlets and may contain accurate enough information to convince viewers they're real enough to click on. Others promise access to secret songs.
The effects of specific spam campaigns, like the one surrounding Jackson's death, are hard to quantify, though. Spam levels are already so high that there might not be a noticeable increase in overall spam levels, Harnett said. By some estimates spam accounts for more than 90 percent of all e-mail sent around the world, though the bulk of the messages get filtered out before ever reaching the user.
Celebrity deaths are a gold mine for criminals because lots of people go online looking for news. Google Inc. says the spike in searches for news stories about Jackson's death was so sharp the company initially mistook it for an automated attack.
Many of the information-seekers can be tricked, via e-mail, into visiting malicious Web sites. That opens the door to all kinds of nastiness, like spying on what someone's typing or using the hijacked machine to send spam.
There are also so many more Web sites about celebrities after their deaths that it's hard to figure out which ones are legitimate fan sites, and which ones were created by criminals.
Registrations of domain names related to Jackson have spiked since the pop icon died Thursday afternoon. A leading registration company, GoDaddy.com, said it registered about 7,500 such names since then. Actress Farrah Fawcett, who died the same day, got about 100 domains in the same period. GoDaddy said, however, that it had yet to get any complaints that any of those addresses were used for scams.
Within minutes of Jackson's death hitting the news, scammers started sending out spam e-mails with links purportedly to provocative news stories or videos about Jackson. The news stories, of course, never appear. Instead, people who click on those links are often directed to sites that try to install viruses.
Another thing to remember: It's not wise even to just "check out" a link you're interested in if you suspect the site might be bogus. Sometimes just visiting a malicious Web site is enough to get you infected, and you don't need to actively download anything at all.
Many scams do ask people to download a video player or other piece of software — supposedly so they can see the video or hear the audio — that winds up being a piece of malicious software.
The lesson for users is, as always, avoid unsolicited links from senders you don't know, and don't install any programs that an unknown site is telling you need.
Minutes after any big celebrity dies, Internet swindlers get to work. They pump out specially created spam e-mails and throw up malicious Web sites to infect victims' computers, hoping to capitalize on the sudden high demand for information.
Michael Jackson's death was no different, and security experts say the fraud artists are just getting started.
The scams started cropping up almost instantaneously as Jackson's death was still hitting the news. As days have gone by, they've gotten more sophisticated — and dangerous.
Jackson's death "took a lot of people by surprise — the spammers, too," said Dermot Harnett, principal analyst for anti-spam engineering at Symantec Corp., a security software maker. "It might take them some time to really pounce on this issue. They are catching up pretty quickly, though."
Any major world event, such as the recent protests in Iran, triggers a barrage of Internet attacks. Security experts say the malicious traffic associated with Jackson's death will likely match and perhaps exceed those of other big spamming campaigns, such as those connected with the swine flu outbreak and Saddam Hussein's execution.
Spam is the most common way for fraudsters to find victims after these types of events. They can use a shotgun approach with a boilerplate message about Jackson, taking advantage of people's interests in the topic to improve their batting average over their usual spam campaigns.
By enticing users with such messages and tricking them into clicking on e-mail attachments, scammers can easily infect victims' computers and take command of them for more nefarious activities.
The spam about Jackson's death gets more convincing every day.
One message promises a YouTube video showing the exclusive "last work of Michael Jackson." Instead, victims get a malicious program that steals their passwords. Another promises to show the "latest unpublished photos" of Jackson if you click on a link — one that also tries to install a password-stealing program on your machine.
Others purport to be from legitimate news outlets and may contain accurate enough information to convince viewers they're real enough to click on. Others promise access to secret songs.
The effects of specific spam campaigns, like the one surrounding Jackson's death, are hard to quantify, though. Spam levels are already so high that there might not be a noticeable increase in overall spam levels, Harnett said. By some estimates spam accounts for more than 90 percent of all e-mail sent around the world, though the bulk of the messages get filtered out before ever reaching the user.
Celebrity deaths are a gold mine for criminals because lots of people go online looking for news. Google Inc. says the spike in searches for news stories about Jackson's death was so sharp the company initially mistook it for an automated attack.
Many of the information-seekers can be tricked, via e-mail, into visiting malicious Web sites. That opens the door to all kinds of nastiness, like spying on what someone's typing or using the hijacked machine to send spam.
There are also so many more Web sites about celebrities after their deaths that it's hard to figure out which ones are legitimate fan sites, and which ones were created by criminals.
Registrations of domain names related to Jackson have spiked since the pop icon died Thursday afternoon. A leading registration company, GoDaddy.com, said it registered about 7,500 such names since then. Actress Farrah Fawcett, who died the same day, got about 100 domains in the same period. GoDaddy said, however, that it had yet to get any complaints that any of those addresses were used for scams.
Within minutes of Jackson's death hitting the news, scammers started sending out spam e-mails with links purportedly to provocative news stories or videos about Jackson. The news stories, of course, never appear. Instead, people who click on those links are often directed to sites that try to install viruses.
Another thing to remember: It's not wise even to just "check out" a link you're interested in if you suspect the site might be bogus. Sometimes just visiting a malicious Web site is enough to get you infected, and you don't need to actively download anything at all.
Many scams do ask people to download a video player or other piece of software — supposedly so they can see the video or hear the audio — that winds up being a piece of malicious software.
The lesson for users is, as always, avoid unsolicited links from senders you don't know, and don't install any programs that an unknown site is telling you need.
Digital TV now in 90% of UK homes
Almost 90% of British homes are using digital TV, reveal figures from Ofcom.
The latest statistics on take-up of digital TV in the UK suggest that 18 million households, 89.2%, have a DTV receiver.
Digital video recorders, that can store, pause, or rewind live TV, are also proving popular.
Ofcom reports that about one million were sold in the first three months of 2009, taking the total in UK homes to 8.9 million.
Switch over
The figures, gathered by Ofcom, suggest that five million of those recorders are Sky+ boxes, a further 2.6 million are Freeview recorders, and the remaining 1.2 million is split between Virgin Media's V+, BT Vision and Top Up TV.
The Ofcom report noted a drop of 28% in the sales of Freeview set-top boxes, as TVs with a digital tuner built-in start to take over from the stand-alone devices. Sales of TVs with an integrated tuner have now hit 20 million.
The figures also give insights into how Britain is switching to digital TV in advance of the analogue switch-off, due to be completed by 2012.
Analogue signals have already been turned off in a few areas in the UK including the West Country, Scottish borders, and the Isle of Man.
With almost 90% of TVs converted to digital, many homes were starting to update older sets.
Ofcom estimates that by the end of March 2009, 61% of secondary TV sets were capable of showing digital TV. They also think that about 27% of the TV sets in use in the UK are still only capable of receiving analogue signals.
The latest statistics on take-up of digital TV in the UK suggest that 18 million households, 89.2%, have a DTV receiver.
Digital video recorders, that can store, pause, or rewind live TV, are also proving popular.
Ofcom reports that about one million were sold in the first three months of 2009, taking the total in UK homes to 8.9 million.
Switch over
The figures, gathered by Ofcom, suggest that five million of those recorders are Sky+ boxes, a further 2.6 million are Freeview recorders, and the remaining 1.2 million is split between Virgin Media's V+, BT Vision and Top Up TV.
The Ofcom report noted a drop of 28% in the sales of Freeview set-top boxes, as TVs with a digital tuner built-in start to take over from the stand-alone devices. Sales of TVs with an integrated tuner have now hit 20 million.
The figures also give insights into how Britain is switching to digital TV in advance of the analogue switch-off, due to be completed by 2012.
Analogue signals have already been turned off in a few areas in the UK including the West Country, Scottish borders, and the Isle of Man.
With almost 90% of TVs converted to digital, many homes were starting to update older sets.
Ofcom estimates that by the end of March 2009, 61% of secondary TV sets were capable of showing digital TV. They also think that about 27% of the TV sets in use in the UK are still only capable of receiving analogue signals.
Facebook, Twitter and peers for sale _ privately
NEW YORK (AP) -- Scott Painter makes his living betting on startup companies, having played a role in launching 29 of them over the years. But with the bad economy choking initial public offerings and acquisitions, Painter is now backing an idea that makes it easier for insiders like him to sell shares in their companies even before they go public.
SharesPost, which was founded by Painter's business partner, Greg Brogger, launched publicly in June. Through SharesPost's Web site, Painter is trying to sell shares in several companies he helped found, including car pricing startup TrueCar.com. He also wants to buy shares in companies that are far from an IPO, like short-messaging site Twitter and business-networking site LinkedIn.
SharesPost is one of a few private stock exchanges that are emerging to fight what venture capitalists call a liquidity crisis. These exchanges give stakeholders an alternative way to trade their shares in hot startups like Facebook for cold, hard cash - without having to wait years for an IPO.
Employees at startup employees often put in long hours but get salaries that can be 20 percent less than their peers at public companies. In return, they get stock or options that they hope will be a path to sports cars and summer homes after their company goes public or is bought out.
Given this, services like SharesPost could help startup workers get some cash while awaiting a distant IPO that might never even get off the ground. Most people won't be in on the action, though, since these exchanges are only open to a small pool of buyers.
And it's not clear how much - or how little - stock has changed hands through them. In its short life, Santa Monica, Calif.-based SharesPost said it has executed one $25,000 transaction, while another service, New York-based SecondMarket, said it has completed about 40 transactions in the past year worth about $150 million.
Still, if they manage to thrive, these exchanges could help the economy. By selling shares on a private exchange, an investor can free up funds to put into other startups. And institutional investors could use these services to broaden their holdings to include fast-growing companies that have yet to go public.
The methods of these private exchanges vary. SharesPost uses an online bulletin board to introduce buyers and sellers. SecondMarket links the parties and lets companies set up their own mini-markets that they control, while Redwood City, Calif.-based XChange is rolling out an online system that will allow buyers and sellers to connect and directly trade shares for cash.
All are open just to institutional investors - organizations like venture capital firms or pension funds that manage at least $100 million in assets - and individual accredited investors. That category includes people with a net worth of at least $1 million, or salary of at least $200,000 for the last two years.
The concept is not entirely new. Nyppex, formed in 1998, facilitates private-company stock trades, and a few companies with similar offerings emerged during the last economic downturn but failed to gather much steam. Among the problems: Determining a fair price for a private company's stock is tough without much public information.
This time, however, employees and investors are more aggressively looking for a way to get a return on their dedication and funding. More than a dozen companies have priced IPOs in the U.S. this year, down from 35 in the first half of 2008, according to research firm Renaissance Capital. In the same period of dot-com-crazy 2000, there were 219 IPOs in the U.S.
Besides the economy, startup investors say the high costs and regulatory requirements associated with going public have also stymied many smaller, younger companies. According to the National Venture Capital Association, the median span from a company's founding to its IPO was 9.6 years in 2008. In 1998 it was 4.5 years.
One factor is compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-fraud law, which was enacted in 2002 after accounting scandals at companies like Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. A key part of this law requires public companies to file reports on the strength of internal financial controls and fix any problems - steps that can be costly for a startup.
Issues like this have "just made it more and more difficult for companies to make it to that next step," said Thomas Foley, chief executive of XChange, which he developed with venture capitalist Tim Draper.
SharesPost founder Greg Brogger believes his site has one solution to the slowdown in IPOs: Bulletin boards for more than 100 startups that allow buyers and sellers to post the price and number of shares they want to purchase or unload, and the ability to e-mail one another directly.
Parties wishing to make a deal can find the relevant contracts on the site to sign, and an escrow company completes the transaction, charging both sides $2,500. So far, a $25,000 deal - the site's minimum transaction size - has been completed for 2,500 shares of electric car startup Tesla Motors at $10 apiece.
That reflects a great deal of optimism for a company that has only sold roughly 500 cars and had to get additional funding from the U.S. Energy Department. A report from one of SharesPost's research providers, NeXt Up Research, valued Tesla at $1 billion, or $9 per share. The car company had no comment.
Anyone can sign up for free to see startups listed on SharesPost. Only qualified investors can buy shares, and SharesPost makes money by charging buyers and sellers $34 a month.
XChange, meanwhile, enables buyers and sellers to share confidential information necessary for making informed purchases, and it has a platform for users to trade shares. When it is fully launched later this year, XChange will be an automated online exchange, much like E-Trade, where users can instantly trade shares for cash.
But while these services may be able to speed up dealmaking, users must still grapple with another key issue: how to determine a fair price for stock in a company that isn't required to regularly disclose its financial information and doesn't have that many potential buyers or sellers.
At SharesPost, Brogger wants to solve the problem by offering as much information as possible about companies it lists, from analysts at Next Up Research and VC Experts. SecondMarket CEO and founder Barry Silbert said companies can decide to share some details with investors and potential bidders on his site.
SharesPost doesn't believe the research on its site will cause any problems should the company file for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as these types of analyses are published by investment banks during the IPO process.
Still, the lack of public disclosure and limited number of traders on these services makes Kathy Smith bristle. A market with limited transparency, participation and disclosures "is not a solution to the markets we have now," said Smith, a principal at Greenwich, Conn.-based Renaissance Capital.
And trading is not always as simple as posting a sales opportunity and an asking price. Startups often restrict what their employees can do with their shares and stock options - commonly imposing the "right of first refusal." That generally means employees who find buyers for their shares have to let the company decide if it wants to buy the stock back instead, for the same price. Companies can use this stipulation to keep competitors from snagging a stake.
Even if these services help startup employees and investors, they're not likely to eliminate the need to someday go public.
For one thing, this kind of market can only get so big. Private companies with more than $10 million in assets are required to file annual reports with the SEC if they have more than 500 shareholders of record. This rule prodded Google Inc. into filing for its IPO in 2004, and it could happen to others as these exchanges distribute shares among more shareholders.
Several of the private exchanges say it's up to companies to keep track of their total shareholder count. Foley said XChange helps companies keep tabs by revealing who their shareholders are at any given time.
Another reason IPOs won't vanish: Companies usually go public first to raise cash for their operations, and then to set a price that will eventually let insiders turn their holdings into cash. While some of the private exchanges do let startups themselves - and not just their employees and investors - sell stock, it's not likely to be lucrative without a large base of potential buyers.
Still, some buyers, sellers and startups may see trading through these services as the way to go until the IPO market improves.
"At the very least, it's going to be spring training for companies before they go public," SecondMarket's Silbert said.
SharesPost, which was founded by Painter's business partner, Greg Brogger, launched publicly in June. Through SharesPost's Web site, Painter is trying to sell shares in several companies he helped found, including car pricing startup TrueCar.com. He also wants to buy shares in companies that are far from an IPO, like short-messaging site Twitter and business-networking site LinkedIn.
SharesPost is one of a few private stock exchanges that are emerging to fight what venture capitalists call a liquidity crisis. These exchanges give stakeholders an alternative way to trade their shares in hot startups like Facebook for cold, hard cash - without having to wait years for an IPO.
Employees at startup employees often put in long hours but get salaries that can be 20 percent less than their peers at public companies. In return, they get stock or options that they hope will be a path to sports cars and summer homes after their company goes public or is bought out.
Given this, services like SharesPost could help startup workers get some cash while awaiting a distant IPO that might never even get off the ground. Most people won't be in on the action, though, since these exchanges are only open to a small pool of buyers.
And it's not clear how much - or how little - stock has changed hands through them. In its short life, Santa Monica, Calif.-based SharesPost said it has executed one $25,000 transaction, while another service, New York-based SecondMarket, said it has completed about 40 transactions in the past year worth about $150 million.
Still, if they manage to thrive, these exchanges could help the economy. By selling shares on a private exchange, an investor can free up funds to put into other startups. And institutional investors could use these services to broaden their holdings to include fast-growing companies that have yet to go public.
The methods of these private exchanges vary. SharesPost uses an online bulletin board to introduce buyers and sellers. SecondMarket links the parties and lets companies set up their own mini-markets that they control, while Redwood City, Calif.-based XChange is rolling out an online system that will allow buyers and sellers to connect and directly trade shares for cash.
All are open just to institutional investors - organizations like venture capital firms or pension funds that manage at least $100 million in assets - and individual accredited investors. That category includes people with a net worth of at least $1 million, or salary of at least $200,000 for the last two years.
The concept is not entirely new. Nyppex, formed in 1998, facilitates private-company stock trades, and a few companies with similar offerings emerged during the last economic downturn but failed to gather much steam. Among the problems: Determining a fair price for a private company's stock is tough without much public information.
This time, however, employees and investors are more aggressively looking for a way to get a return on their dedication and funding. More than a dozen companies have priced IPOs in the U.S. this year, down from 35 in the first half of 2008, according to research firm Renaissance Capital. In the same period of dot-com-crazy 2000, there were 219 IPOs in the U.S.
Besides the economy, startup investors say the high costs and regulatory requirements associated with going public have also stymied many smaller, younger companies. According to the National Venture Capital Association, the median span from a company's founding to its IPO was 9.6 years in 2008. In 1998 it was 4.5 years.
One factor is compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley anti-fraud law, which was enacted in 2002 after accounting scandals at companies like Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. A key part of this law requires public companies to file reports on the strength of internal financial controls and fix any problems - steps that can be costly for a startup.
Issues like this have "just made it more and more difficult for companies to make it to that next step," said Thomas Foley, chief executive of XChange, which he developed with venture capitalist Tim Draper.
SharesPost founder Greg Brogger believes his site has one solution to the slowdown in IPOs: Bulletin boards for more than 100 startups that allow buyers and sellers to post the price and number of shares they want to purchase or unload, and the ability to e-mail one another directly.
Parties wishing to make a deal can find the relevant contracts on the site to sign, and an escrow company completes the transaction, charging both sides $2,500. So far, a $25,000 deal - the site's minimum transaction size - has been completed for 2,500 shares of electric car startup Tesla Motors at $10 apiece.
That reflects a great deal of optimism for a company that has only sold roughly 500 cars and had to get additional funding from the U.S. Energy Department. A report from one of SharesPost's research providers, NeXt Up Research, valued Tesla at $1 billion, or $9 per share. The car company had no comment.
Anyone can sign up for free to see startups listed on SharesPost. Only qualified investors can buy shares, and SharesPost makes money by charging buyers and sellers $34 a month.
XChange, meanwhile, enables buyers and sellers to share confidential information necessary for making informed purchases, and it has a platform for users to trade shares. When it is fully launched later this year, XChange will be an automated online exchange, much like E-Trade, where users can instantly trade shares for cash.
But while these services may be able to speed up dealmaking, users must still grapple with another key issue: how to determine a fair price for stock in a company that isn't required to regularly disclose its financial information and doesn't have that many potential buyers or sellers.
At SharesPost, Brogger wants to solve the problem by offering as much information as possible about companies it lists, from analysts at Next Up Research and VC Experts. SecondMarket CEO and founder Barry Silbert said companies can decide to share some details with investors and potential bidders on his site.
SharesPost doesn't believe the research on its site will cause any problems should the company file for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as these types of analyses are published by investment banks during the IPO process.
Still, the lack of public disclosure and limited number of traders on these services makes Kathy Smith bristle. A market with limited transparency, participation and disclosures "is not a solution to the markets we have now," said Smith, a principal at Greenwich, Conn.-based Renaissance Capital.
And trading is not always as simple as posting a sales opportunity and an asking price. Startups often restrict what their employees can do with their shares and stock options - commonly imposing the "right of first refusal." That generally means employees who find buyers for their shares have to let the company decide if it wants to buy the stock back instead, for the same price. Companies can use this stipulation to keep competitors from snagging a stake.
Even if these services help startup employees and investors, they're not likely to eliminate the need to someday go public.
For one thing, this kind of market can only get so big. Private companies with more than $10 million in assets are required to file annual reports with the SEC if they have more than 500 shareholders of record. This rule prodded Google Inc. into filing for its IPO in 2004, and it could happen to others as these exchanges distribute shares among more shareholders.
Several of the private exchanges say it's up to companies to keep track of their total shareholder count. Foley said XChange helps companies keep tabs by revealing who their shareholders are at any given time.
Another reason IPOs won't vanish: Companies usually go public first to raise cash for their operations, and then to set a price that will eventually let insiders turn their holdings into cash. While some of the private exchanges do let startups themselves - and not just their employees and investors - sell stock, it's not likely to be lucrative without a large base of potential buyers.
Still, some buyers, sellers and startups may see trading through these services as the way to go until the IPO market improves.
"At the very least, it's going to be spring training for companies before they go public," SecondMarket's Silbert said.
Pirate Bay retrial call rejected
A Swedish court has thrown out a request for a retrial by the four men behind The Pirate Bay website.
The four were found guilty of promoting copyright infringement in April and face jail sentences and hefty claims for damages.
The Pirate Bay's lawyers called for a retrial when it emerged that one of the judges in the case belonged to several copyright protection groups.
The Swedish court said the judge's affiliations did not bias the case.
The Svea Court of Appeal said Judge Tomas Norstrom should have declared that he was a member of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Swedish Copyright Association before the case went to trial.
"The fact that he failed to shed light on this does not however mean that there was any wrongdoing during the proceedings that would require a retrial," said the court in a statement.
"This was not a case of bias," concluded the court.
No appeal is allowed against the judgement.
The Pirate Bay is well-known for hosting lists of links that give people access to pirated copies of movies, music, software and TV shows.
The Pirate Bay defended itself saying that it did not infringe copyright because none of the pirated material is stored on its servers.
The court found them guilty because, it said, they continued to operate the service even when they knew users were being pointed to pirated material.
The four men behind The Pirate Bay, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde, were sentenced to one year in jail and told to pay damages of 30m Swedish kronor (£2.3m, 2.7m euros) to entertainment companies such as Warner Bros and Sony Music Entertainment.
In response to the ruling Peter Sunde said The Pirate Bay would now file charges against Sweden for violating the human rights of the defendants.
The four were found guilty of promoting copyright infringement in April and face jail sentences and hefty claims for damages.
The Pirate Bay's lawyers called for a retrial when it emerged that one of the judges in the case belonged to several copyright protection groups.
The Swedish court said the judge's affiliations did not bias the case.
The Svea Court of Appeal said Judge Tomas Norstrom should have declared that he was a member of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property and the Swedish Copyright Association before the case went to trial.
"The fact that he failed to shed light on this does not however mean that there was any wrongdoing during the proceedings that would require a retrial," said the court in a statement.
"This was not a case of bias," concluded the court.
No appeal is allowed against the judgement.
The Pirate Bay is well-known for hosting lists of links that give people access to pirated copies of movies, music, software and TV shows.
The Pirate Bay defended itself saying that it did not infringe copyright because none of the pirated material is stored on its servers.
The court found them guilty because, it said, they continued to operate the service even when they knew users were being pointed to pirated material.
The four men behind The Pirate Bay, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Carl Lundstrom and Peter Sunde, were sentenced to one year in jail and told to pay damages of 30m Swedish kronor (£2.3m, 2.7m euros) to entertainment companies such as Warner Bros and Sony Music Entertainment.
In response to the ruling Peter Sunde said The Pirate Bay would now file charges against Sweden for violating the human rights of the defendants.
Full ticket refunds: Jackson's London promoters
LONDON (AFP) – The organisers of Michael Jackson's comeback tour dates in London have announced they would offer full ticket refunds following his death last week.
"AEG Live (UK) Ltd, concert promoters, announced that full refunds will be available to fans who purchased tickets through authorised agents for any of the 50 Michael Jackson 'This Is It' concerts which were to take place at The O2 Arena in London," AEG Live announced in a statement.
Jackson's fans from around the world had rushed to snap up tickets for the performances, which were due to start on July 13.
British media reports said about 50 million pounds (59 million euros, 83 million dollars) has been spent on 750,000 tickets.
Fans had also queued for hours to watch the reclusive star's final public appearance when he unveiled the gigs here in March, promising to play his classic tunes.
"The world lost a kind soul who just happened to be the greatest entertainer the world has ever known," said Randy Phillips, president of AEG Live.
"Since he loved his fans in life, it is incumbent upon us to treat them with the same reverence and respect after his death."
AEG Live said the refunds would include all ticket service charges and said all details would be available at www.michaeljacksonlive.com from July 1.
Fans who would prefer to keep the ticket as a piece of memorabilia will have the option to be sent the actual piece of paper, which AEG said had been "inspired and designed by Michael Jackson".
Trading website eBay, where tickets had fetched prices of up to 1,300 pounds, has already said that fans who had bought seats for the shows through its website would receive a refund.
"AEG Live (UK) Ltd, concert promoters, announced that full refunds will be available to fans who purchased tickets through authorised agents for any of the 50 Michael Jackson 'This Is It' concerts which were to take place at The O2 Arena in London," AEG Live announced in a statement.
Jackson's fans from around the world had rushed to snap up tickets for the performances, which were due to start on July 13.
British media reports said about 50 million pounds (59 million euros, 83 million dollars) has been spent on 750,000 tickets.
Fans had also queued for hours to watch the reclusive star's final public appearance when he unveiled the gigs here in March, promising to play his classic tunes.
"The world lost a kind soul who just happened to be the greatest entertainer the world has ever known," said Randy Phillips, president of AEG Live.
"Since he loved his fans in life, it is incumbent upon us to treat them with the same reverence and respect after his death."
AEG Live said the refunds would include all ticket service charges and said all details would be available at www.michaeljacksonlive.com from July 1.
Fans who would prefer to keep the ticket as a piece of memorabilia will have the option to be sent the actual piece of paper, which AEG said had been "inspired and designed by Michael Jackson".
Trading website eBay, where tickets had fetched prices of up to 1,300 pounds, has already said that fans who had bought seats for the shows through its website would receive a refund.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Swine flu confirmed in Kenya
The first case of H1N1 (swine) flu in Kenya has been confirmed!!!
Kenya’s minister for Public Health and Sanitation Mrs Beth Mugo held a press conference Monday morning in Nairobi to confirm the case. The new case is different from a false suspect which had been reported last week in Nairobi.
The confirmed case involves a man, a British national, who had jetted into the country from the UK over the weekend.
A strain of the lethal virus was detected in samples taken from the UK student, who is part of a group that is in Kisumu in Western Kenya for a medical camp. The student had travelled from Nairobi to the lakeside city in a bus with fellow students
Nyanza Provincial Director of Public Health Dr Jackson Kioko confirmed that the samples had tested positive for the virus.
Confirmatory tests had been carried out at three different laboratories at the institution as per World Health Organisation guidelines.
The three labs include that operated by Kemri itself, a second one run by the US Centres for disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a third one operated by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research also of the US. All the three are hosted at the Kemri headquarters in Nairobi.
Dr Kioko, however, added that only mild strains of the virus had been found out.
“It is not a serious case and there is no cause for panic,” he said.
He added that the student had presented symptoms of the disease on Saturday night.
Samples were taken on Sunday morning and by evening, they had been confirmed as positive.
On Monday, the public health officials isolated the student in a hotel room as arrangements were made to transfer him to a hospital.
Kenya’s minister for Public Health and Sanitation Mrs Beth Mugo held a press conference Monday morning in Nairobi to confirm the case. The new case is different from a false suspect which had been reported last week in Nairobi.
The confirmed case involves a man, a British national, who had jetted into the country from the UK over the weekend.
A strain of the lethal virus was detected in samples taken from the UK student, who is part of a group that is in Kisumu in Western Kenya for a medical camp. The student had travelled from Nairobi to the lakeside city in a bus with fellow students
Nyanza Provincial Director of Public Health Dr Jackson Kioko confirmed that the samples had tested positive for the virus.
Confirmatory tests had been carried out at three different laboratories at the institution as per World Health Organisation guidelines.
The three labs include that operated by Kemri itself, a second one run by the US Centres for disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a third one operated by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research also of the US. All the three are hosted at the Kemri headquarters in Nairobi.
Dr Kioko, however, added that only mild strains of the virus had been found out.
“It is not a serious case and there is no cause for panic,” he said.
He added that the student had presented symptoms of the disease on Saturday night.
Samples were taken on Sunday morning and by evening, they had been confirmed as positive.
On Monday, the public health officials isolated the student in a hotel room as arrangements were made to transfer him to a hospital.
The Death of Michael Jackson - Rumors of Suicide
Michael Jackson, also known as the "King of Pop", and the "the guy who bleached his skin white", was set for a highly anticipated comeback featuring an unprecedented 50 shows in London when he was found dead on Thursday. He was 50 years old.
We are hearing stories that the following was posted on Wikipedia but has been deleted until confirmed by the authorities:
A "senior source" close to the Police Authorities are suggesting that they are treating the death of Michael Jackson as "suspicious" but will not confirm anything on the record.
The cause of his death is unknown at this time, but it is believed that he suffered cardiac arrest; and some believe that he committed suicide by downing a few dozen sleeping pills.
Michael Jackson's death brought an end to a tragic, bizarre, and sometimes questionable series of events that he is famously known for. He was renown for his 1982 album "Thriller", and was the center of attention in the sexual scandals of his Neverland ranch.
Michael Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being found in his house at Holmby Hills. Paramedics tried feverishly to resuscitate him for 45 minutes, then rushed him to the hospital where doctors continued the fight even further - hoping to keep him alive long enough to perform the first set of shows at a London arena.
Okay, maybe this isn't the time for jokes. Rest in Peace, Mike.
We are hearing stories that the following was posted on Wikipedia but has been deleted until confirmed by the authorities:
A "senior source" close to the Police Authorities are suggesting that they are treating the death of Michael Jackson as "suspicious" but will not confirm anything on the record.
The cause of his death is unknown at this time, but it is believed that he suffered cardiac arrest; and some believe that he committed suicide by downing a few dozen sleeping pills.
Michael Jackson's death brought an end to a tragic, bizarre, and sometimes questionable series of events that he is famously known for. He was renown for his 1982 album "Thriller", and was the center of attention in the sexual scandals of his Neverland ranch.
Michael Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being found in his house at Holmby Hills. Paramedics tried feverishly to resuscitate him for 45 minutes, then rushed him to the hospital where doctors continued the fight even further - hoping to keep him alive long enough to perform the first set of shows at a London arena.
Okay, maybe this isn't the time for jokes. Rest in Peace, Mike.
Brazil wins 2009 Confederations Cup
Team USA empowered by a mighty victory over the 2008 European champions team Spain in semifinals has reached today's finals of the Confederations Cup with great confidence. They opened the first period strong with Fulham's FC winger Clint Dempsey scoring the first goal of the final game in the 10th minute of the match. Than, a heavy wave of bombardment from Brazil's offense ensued. However, American goalkeeper Tim Howard was superb, defending his gates to the best of his ability throughout the game. He later went on to win the Golden Glove award for best goalkeeper of the tournament. In the 26th minute of the first half, a mistake by Brazilian midfield lead to a goal scored by LA Galaxy striker Landon Donovan.
All throughout the first half, Americans played a very smart game, exceptionally strong in defense and efficient in offense. Brazilians, on the other hand, looked perplexed and uncomfortable, despite having had 10 shots on goal while the US had only 4 by the end of the first half. Americans left for the change rooms with a solid 2-0 lead over Brazil, the same score that they have crushed team Spain with.
Second period
In the second period, the situation changed drastically in the first minutes of the game, when the goal of Brazil's Luis Fabiano found the gates of Tim Howard, bringing Brazil the much needed first goal in the game. It was also Fabiano's fourth goal of the tournament. Fabiano's goal has reversed the mood on the pitch, with Americans now starting to feel the pressure. Brazil pushed on and in the 60th minute, Kaka drove a powerful header into the post of Howard, who managed to grab the ball and kick it out, although the ball has already crossed the line. The Swedish referee Martin Hansson did not call the goal, provoking a lot of anguish from the Brazilian team. Perhaps, it was this anguish that caused Brazil's Fabiano to score an equalizer in the 75th minute, getting his fifth goal of the tournament that later landed him the Golden Boot award as the top scorer of the tournament. The tie-goal caused the US coach to make hasty substitutions. But, except for the occasional bouts of offensive game from the Americans, the game was slowly but surely slipping away from the US team. Team Brazil took full control in the 85th minute with the decisive third goal scored by Brazil's captain Lucio with the help from Elano's corner kick.
In the end, it was team Brazil's determination and will to win that broke the game. The US challenged well and almost made history today, but it was not their night to win. Team US heads back home proud of beating the almighty Spanish team, who many have felt played too gracefully and not powerfully enough to advance to the finals. Despite all odds, team US has made a strong statement a year ahead of the 2010 World Cup, and it will be interesting to see how strong they come out in a year's time in South Africa. Meanwhile, team Brazil is jubilant in their victory today. However, statistics has it that team Brazil has never won the World Cup after winning the Confederations Cup a year before. Perhaps, team Brazil will overturn this statistical record in 2010.
Meanwhile, there are 347 days to go before the 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off in South Africa, and the whole world is waiting in anticipation of the big game.
Game Statistics:
USA Line-up
* 1 Tim HOWARD (GK)
* 3 Carlos BOCANEGRA (C) Yellow Card
* 5 Oguchi ONYEWU
* 8 Clint DEMPSEY Goal
* 9 Charlie DAVIES
* 10 Landon DONOVAN Goal
* 13 Ricardo CLARK Out (-88' )
* 15 Jay DeMERIT
* 17 Jozy ALTIDORE Out (-75' )
* 21 Jonathan SPECTOR
* 22 Benny FEILHABER Out (-75' )
Brazil Line-Up
* (GK) JULIO CESAR 1
* MAICON 2
* Goal Yellow Card (C) LUCIO 3
* Yellow Card FELIPE MELO 5
* GILBERTO SILVA 8
* Goal Goal LUIS FABIANO 9
* KAKA 10
* ROBINHO 11
* LUISAO 14
* (-66') Out Yellow Card ANDRE SANTOS 16
* (-67') Out RAMIRES 18
USA (USA) Statistics Brazil (BRA)
9 Shots 31
4 Shots on goal 13
2 Goals Scored 3
17 Fouls Committed 11
11 Fouls Suffered 15
5 Corner kicks 10
9 Free kicks Shots (scored) 21
0 / 0 Penalty Kicks (Goals/Shots) 0 / 0
1 Offsides 6
0 Own goals 0
1 Yellow cards 3
0 Second yellow card and red card 0
0 Red Cards 0
27 Actual playing time 40
41% Possession (%) 59%
All throughout the first half, Americans played a very smart game, exceptionally strong in defense and efficient in offense. Brazilians, on the other hand, looked perplexed and uncomfortable, despite having had 10 shots on goal while the US had only 4 by the end of the first half. Americans left for the change rooms with a solid 2-0 lead over Brazil, the same score that they have crushed team Spain with.
Second period
In the second period, the situation changed drastically in the first minutes of the game, when the goal of Brazil's Luis Fabiano found the gates of Tim Howard, bringing Brazil the much needed first goal in the game. It was also Fabiano's fourth goal of the tournament. Fabiano's goal has reversed the mood on the pitch, with Americans now starting to feel the pressure. Brazil pushed on and in the 60th minute, Kaka drove a powerful header into the post of Howard, who managed to grab the ball and kick it out, although the ball has already crossed the line. The Swedish referee Martin Hansson did not call the goal, provoking a lot of anguish from the Brazilian team. Perhaps, it was this anguish that caused Brazil's Fabiano to score an equalizer in the 75th minute, getting his fifth goal of the tournament that later landed him the Golden Boot award as the top scorer of the tournament. The tie-goal caused the US coach to make hasty substitutions. But, except for the occasional bouts of offensive game from the Americans, the game was slowly but surely slipping away from the US team. Team Brazil took full control in the 85th minute with the decisive third goal scored by Brazil's captain Lucio with the help from Elano's corner kick.
In the end, it was team Brazil's determination and will to win that broke the game. The US challenged well and almost made history today, but it was not their night to win. Team US heads back home proud of beating the almighty Spanish team, who many have felt played too gracefully and not powerfully enough to advance to the finals. Despite all odds, team US has made a strong statement a year ahead of the 2010 World Cup, and it will be interesting to see how strong they come out in a year's time in South Africa. Meanwhile, team Brazil is jubilant in their victory today. However, statistics has it that team Brazil has never won the World Cup after winning the Confederations Cup a year before. Perhaps, team Brazil will overturn this statistical record in 2010.
Meanwhile, there are 347 days to go before the 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off in South Africa, and the whole world is waiting in anticipation of the big game.
Game Statistics:
USA Line-up
* 1 Tim HOWARD (GK)
* 3 Carlos BOCANEGRA (C) Yellow Card
* 5 Oguchi ONYEWU
* 8 Clint DEMPSEY Goal
* 9 Charlie DAVIES
* 10 Landon DONOVAN Goal
* 13 Ricardo CLARK Out (-88' )
* 15 Jay DeMERIT
* 17 Jozy ALTIDORE Out (-75' )
* 21 Jonathan SPECTOR
* 22 Benny FEILHABER Out (-75' )
Brazil Line-Up
* (GK) JULIO CESAR 1
* MAICON 2
* Goal Yellow Card (C) LUCIO 3
* Yellow Card FELIPE MELO 5
* GILBERTO SILVA 8
* Goal Goal LUIS FABIANO 9
* KAKA 10
* ROBINHO 11
* LUISAO 14
* (-66') Out Yellow Card ANDRE SANTOS 16
* (-67') Out RAMIRES 18
USA (USA) Statistics Brazil (BRA)
9 Shots 31
4 Shots on goal 13
2 Goals Scored 3
17 Fouls Committed 11
11 Fouls Suffered 15
5 Corner kicks 10
9 Free kicks Shots (scored) 21
0 / 0 Penalty Kicks (Goals/Shots) 0 / 0
1 Offsides 6
0 Own goals 0
1 Yellow cards 3
0 Second yellow card and red card 0
0 Red Cards 0
27 Actual playing time 40
41% Possession (%) 59%
Friday, June 26, 2009
Singer Michael Jackson dies at 50
Pop star Michael Jackson has died in Los Angeles, aged 50.
Paramedics were called to the singer's Beverly Hills home at about midday on Thursday after he stopped breathing.
He was pronounced dead two hours later at the UCLA medical centre. Jackson's brother, Jermaine, said he was believed to have suffered a cardiac arrest.
Jackson, who had a history of health problems, had been due to stage a series of comeback concerts in the UK on 13 July.
Speaking on behalf of the Jackson family, Jermaine said doctors had tried to resuscitate the star for more than an hour without success.
He added: "The family request that the media please respect our privacy during this tough time."
"And Allah be with you Michael always. I love you."
HAVE YOUR SAY
Can't believe it. I'm gutted. RIP Michael, thanks for everything you gave us.
Tommy, Cardiff
Send us your comments
TV footage showed the star's body flown from UCLA to the LA County Coroner's office where a post-mortem is expected to take place on Friday.
Concerns were raised last month when four of Jackson's planned comeback concerts were postponed, but organisers insisted the dates had been moved due to the complexity of staging the show.
A spokeswoman for The Outside Organisation, which was organising the publicity for the shows, said she had no comment at this time.
Broadcaster Paul Gambaccini said: "I always doubted that he would have been able to go through that schedule, those concerts. It seemed to be too much of a demand on the unhealthy body of a 50 year old.
"I'm wondering that, as we find out details of his death, if perhaps the stress of preparing for those dates was a factor in his collapse.
"It was wishful thinking that at this stage of his life he could be Michael Jackson again."
Uri Gellar, a close friend of the star, told BBC News it was "very, very sad".
Michael Jackson in 1972
Jackson's contribution to music
Speaking outside New York's historic Apollo theatre, civil rights activist Rev Al Sharpton paid tribute to his friend.
"I knew him 35 years. When he had problems he would call me," he said.
"I feel like he was not treated fairly. I hope history will be more kind to him than some of the contemporary media."
Melanie Bromley, west coast bureau chief of Us Weekly magazine, told the BBC the scene in Los Angeles was one of "pandemonium".
"At the moment there is a period of disbelief. There are hundreds of people outside UCLA waiting for news.
"He was buying a home in the Holmby Hills area of Los Angeles and the scene outside the house is one of fans, reporters and TV cameras - it's absolute craziness.
"I feel this is the biggest celebrity story in a long time and has the potential to be the Princess Diana of popular culture."
Musical icon
MICHAEL JACKSON 1958-2009
Full name: Michael Joseph Jackson
Born: August 29, 1958, Gary, Indiana, US
Also known as: The King of Pop, Wacko Jacko
Biggest hits: I Want You Back, Don't Stop Til You Get Enough, Billie Jean, Bad, Black or White, Earth Song
Obituary: Remarkable talent
Life in pictures
Tributes paid to Michael Jackson
Paramedics were called to the singer's house in Bel Air at 1221 (1921GMT) following an emergency phone call.
They performed CPR on Jackson and rushed him to the UCLA medical centre.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Department said the robbery and homicide team was investigating Jackson's death because of its "high profile", but there was no suggestion of foul play.
Jackson began his career as a child in family group The Jackson 5.
He then went on to achieve global fame as a solo artist with smash hits such as Billie Jean and Bad.
Thriller, released in 1982, is the biggest-selling album of all time, shifting 65m copies, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
He scored seven UK number ones as a solo artist and won a total of 13 Grammy awards.
"For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don't have the words," said Quincy Jones, who produced Thriller, Bad and Off The Wall.
Jackson's body was flown to the LA coroner's office
Jackson's body was flown from hospital to the LA coroner's office
"He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I've lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him."
The singer had been dogged by controversy and money trouble in recent years, becoming a virtual recluse.
He was arrested in 2003 on charges of molesting a 14-year-old boy, but was found not guilty following a five-month trial.
The star had three children, Michael Joseph Jackson Jr, Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince Michael Jackson II.
He is survived by his mother, Katherine, father, Joseph and eight siblings - including Janet, Randy, Jermaine and La Toya Jackson.
Lucky Brazil
Brazil defeated host South Africa 1-0 in the hard-fought second semi-final of the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup in Johannesburg Thursday.
Substitute Daniel Alves scored the goal from a free kick just outside the box in the 88th minute.
It was a hard loss for the hosts, who had the backing of most of the 48,000 vuvu zela-blowing fans at the stadium, especially because they succeeded in containing defending champi on Brazil until the late goal.
Brazil, which advanced to its fourth final in the Confederations Cup, will meet the US in Sunday's final at the Ellis Park in Johannesburg.
Substitute Daniel Alves scored the goal from a free kick just outside the box in the 88th minute.
It was a hard loss for the hosts, who had the backing of most of the 48,000 vuvu zela-blowing fans at the stadium, especially because they succeeded in containing defending champi on Brazil until the late goal.
Brazil, which advanced to its fourth final in the Confederations Cup, will meet the US in Sunday's final at the Ellis Park in Johannesburg.
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