Hitachi Ready To Launch 1-TB Drive

Hitachi Ready To Launch 1-TB Drive

Hitachi's soon-to-debut Deskstar 7K1000 will offer a full terabyte of storage that might seem enormous to those who can remember when hard drives were still measured in the megabytes; but at $399, Hitachi's new terabyte drive will cost just under 40 cents per gigabyte, on par with other drives on the market.
In a neck-and-neck race with Seagate Technologies, Hitachi has announced not one but two terabyte-sized hard drives for home users whose thirst for storage space never ends.

The Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000 is designed for gaming and high-end PCs, such as those found in home entertainment systems where high-def videos chew up a hard drive's space as quickly as broadband connections can download them.

The drive will debut at next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where almost every gizmo- and gadget-maker on the planet will show off the latest cutting-edge toys. At a suggested retail price of $399, the Deskstar costs just under 40 cents per gigabyte.

Hitachi also has announced the CinemaStar 7K1000 for DVRs and computers that record TV directly to hard drives. Like the Deskstar, it can hold up to 1 TB of storage and will be released to consumers in the first half of 2007. Hitachi plans to release a business model later this year, too.

How Much Is Enough?

A full terabyte of storage -- 1,000 or 1,024 gigabytes, depending on which definition you use -- might seem enormous to those who can remember when hard drives were still measured in the megabytes.

"We all know that the demand is growing for digital content storage like audio and video downloads, home movies, pictures, etc., but would one really need or want a 1-TB drive?" asked Shawny Chen, analyst and storage expert at research firm Current Analysis.

But Chen and her firm track a national retail panel that includes Best Buy, CompUSA, Circuit City, RadioShack, and Staples -- and the data is surprising.

"The 500-GB to 999-GB capacity band for internal desktop drives is the only one showing significant growth year-over-year," she said. "It still represents about 6 percent of hard drive unit sales; but a year ago, that figure was a mere 0.3 percent and this is the only capacity band that shows significant year-over-year unit growth."

And the Answer Is...

"Yes, eventually consumers will get to 1 TB," said Chen, who herself remembers when her mother bought a 1-GB external drive that, years ago, seemed huge.

Yet Hitachi's new drives beat older models in more than just space. The Deskstar offers increased shock protection and three "idle" modes designed to help the drive consume less power. In turn, the CinemaStar boasts Smooth Stream Technology designed to maximize the performance of audio and video applications.

When all is said and done, the terabyte mark remains the drives' best selling point, of course -- and a true beachhead.

In a published statement, Hitachi's Shinjiro Iwata, the company's chief marketing officer, said, "The industry's first one-terabyte hard drive represents a milestone that is 50 years in the making."

Hyperbole? Perhaps. But not without at least some cause.

'Proof' of methane lakes on Titan

'Proof' of methane lakes on Titan

The Cassini probe has spotted what scientists say is unequivocal evidence of lakes of liquid methane on Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

Radar images reveal dark, smooth patches that range in size from three to 70km across (two to 44 miles).

The team says the features, which were spied in the moon's far north, look like crater or caldera lakes on Earth.

The researchers tell the journal Nature that everything about the patches points to them being pools of liquid.

"They look very similar to lakes on Earth," explained Dr Ellen Stofan, a Cassini radar team member from Proxemy Research in Washington DC, US.

"They have channels feeding into them just like you have rivers feeding into lakes on the Earth. Their shapes, their shore-lines, all of those geologic aspects are actually very familiar."

Northern strip

The atmospheric chemistry on Titan is dominated by nitrogen and carbon-based compounds.

And with temperatures on the Saturnian satellite rarely venturing above -179C (-290F), it has long been hypothesised that abundant volumes of methane should pool on the surface into lakes, and even large seas.

But evidence for current bodies of liquid material on the surface has until now been sparse and equivocal.

Cassini must use radar to pierce the photochemical haze that obscures Titan's surface from its optical camera system.

The latest data was obtained last July, when the probe made its most northern radar pass of Titan to date.

The spacecraft imaged a narrow strip about 250km wide and over 1,000km long. It was found to contain more than 75 lakes.

Everything scientists know about the atmospheric chemistry on Titan suggests the liquid in the lakes should be predominantly methane, with some ethane also mixed in.

Some of the liquid would be expected to rain out of the sky, some could have welled up from below the surface.

Methane cycle

"The methane-ethane would become transparent, the way water is on Earth; it would be behaving like water, the lakes could have small waves on the surfaces," speculated Dr Stofan.

"So if it was possible for you to stand on Titan and look at the lakes, you wouldn't really know it's this weird chemistry."

On Earth, the cycling of water between the atmosphere, the land and oceans is known as the hydrological cycle. Titan would appear to be the only other place in the Solar System to have a similar, active fluid cycle. Scientists have already dubbed it the "methane-ologic cycle".

Last month, it was announced that the radar instrument on Cassini had found an enormous mountain range on Titan.

The range lies south of the equator and is about 150km long (93 miles), 30km (19 miles) wide and about 1.5km (nearly a mile) high.

Scientists told the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting that the range was probably as hard as rock, but made of icy materials.

The mountains appeared in the radar images to be coated with layers of material that researchers thought could be methane "snow".

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of the US space agency (Nasa), the European Space Agency (Esa) and the Italian Space Agency (Asi).

Boeing Sets Record for Airplane Orders

Boeing Sets Record for Airplane Orders

SEATTLE — Aerospace giant Boeing Co. on Thursday said it recorded 1,044 net commercial airplane orders during 2006, setting a new record for the second straight year.

Boeing recorded 1,002 net orders in 2005.

Gross orders last year, which exclude cancellations and conversions, totaled 1,050, compared with 1,029 gross orders in 2005.

The 737 program achieved a record with net orders of 729 airplanes, up from 569 in 2005.

Seventy-six different customers ordered Boeing airplanes in 2006, including passenger airlines, cargo carriers, leasing companies and private customers, according to a company release.

Shares of Chicago-based Boeing added 12 cents to $89.29 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Patent Lawsuit Filed Over Bluetooth

Patent Lawsuit Filed Over Bluetooth

Three major electronics makers have been accused of violating patented work from the University of Washington with their use of the Bluetooth wireless technology found in millions of computers, cell phones and headsets.

Japan's Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. and Finland's Nokia Corp. were accused of illegally incorporating unlicensed Bluetooth chip sets in a variety of products. The federal lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and an injunction barring the companies from selling those products.

Matsushita, known globally for its Panasonic brand products, and Samsung produce a wide range of electronics products, while Nokia is the world's largest manufacturer of cellular telephones. Bluetooth, whose products feature a distinctive, blinking blue light, enables wireless exchanges of data between cell phones, computers, headsets and other devices.

The lawsuit was filed late last month in U.S. District Court in Seattle by the Washington Research Institute, a nonprofit group that seeks commercial uses and enforces patents for technology developed at Washington's public universities.

Analysts said Wednesday that consumers likely won't be affected by the legal wrangling.

Defendants would be quick to settle if it appeared the case was immediately threatening their product lines, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group.

But Enderle said Broadcom Corp. of Irvine, Calif., the only chip manufacturer that has licensed the technology, stood to profit mightily until the dispute is resolved.

"This is like a blazing advertisement for Broadcom," he said. "As long as this is in play, they can say, 'If you want to do Bluetooth products without problems, we're the only guys you can license it from.' This is a huge potential competitive advantage."

He also said timing was fortuitous, coming just ahead of next week's International Consumer Electronics Show, when many buyers and sellers are making design decisions about future products.

Nokia officials, following long-standing policy, would not comment on the lawsuit early Wednesday. A Samsung representative acknowledged that the lawsuit had been filed but would not comment further. No one answered a telephone call to Matsushita after business hours.

According to the lawsuit, Bluetooth-based computers, cell phones and headsets made by the companies have violated four patents, including one issued for research done in the mid-1990s by Edwin Suominen when he was an undergraduate student at the University of Washington. All four patents are now held by the Washington Research Institute.

The institute's principal lawyer, Michael Lisa, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that the court filing followed three years of informal attempts to resolve the issue.

Any damages received will go to the university and to Suominen, who is serving as a technical adviser in the case, John D. Reagh, the institute's manager of business development and legal affairs, told The Seattle Times.

Institute officials did not immediately return a call Wednesday from The Associated Press.

The three manufacturers use chip sets made by CSR PLC of Cambridge, England, which has not licensed the disputed technology. CSR said in a filing with the London Stock Exchange that the suit is without merit and that the company will "vigorously" defend its products. CSR shares fell 2.9 percent to close Wednesday at 640 pence ($12.60) on the LSE.

Lisa said the institute was targeting the product manufacturers rather than the chip makers because "their products sell for more and yield higher profits and royalties."

Shares in Matsushita slipped 6 cents to close at $20.03 on the New York Stock Exchange, while Nokia shares rose 34 cents, or 1.67 percent, to finish at $20.66 on the NYSE.

Bird flu raging in Vietnam’s Mekong delta

Bird flu raging in Vietnam’s Mekong delta

Nguyen Hien Trung, head of Hau Giang’s animal health department, said a new site had been identified in Vi Thuy district yesterday after a dead bird had tested positive for the deadly H5N1 virus strain.

A total of three communes in two districts had bird flu, he said.

Luong Ngoc Lan, head of Bac Lieu’s department of agriculture and rural development, said more poultry deaths had been reported in Hong Dan, Hoa Binh, Vinh Loi, and Gia Rai districts on Sunday.

The dead birds had tested H5N1 positive in Hong Dan and Hoa Binh while results were awaited from the other two districts, Lan said.

In Ca Mau many poultry reportedly died Monday.

The peidemic has hit at least 13 districts in the three provinces, prompting the slaughter of tens of thousands of fowl. Four people in Bac Lieu and two in Soc Trang provinces have been hospitalized with bird flu symptoms.

Last week Vietnam launched a national anti-bird flu campaign to stamp out the epidemic.

The World Bank has approved a US$10 million grant for a program to combat bird flu.

At least 42 people have died of the H5N1 virus in Vietnam since 2003 with the latest case reported in November 2005.

The disease has killed 157 of the 261 people infected globally since 2003.

Bungee-Powered Backpack Can Lighten Your Load

Bungee-Powered Backpack Can Lighten Your Load

December 30, 2006 Biologists at the University of Pennsylvania have announced details for a suspended-load ergonomic backpack that reduces the force of a backpacks load on the wearer by 86%, allowing wearers to run far more comfortably with heavy loads. The backpack was created with soldiers and emergency workers in mind and could prevent the sort of muscle and joint injuries associated with running while carrying heavy items. The backpack will also benefit schoolchildren, since heavy school bags have been linked to muscle and orthopedic injury. "For the same energetic cost, you can either carry 48 pounds in a normal backpack or 60 pounds in a suspended-load ergonomic backpack," Larry Rome, a professor in Penn's Department of Biology, said. "It is like carrying an extra 12 pounds for 'free.'"

The backpack is based on a rigid frame pack, much like the type familiar to hikers everywhere; however, rather than being rigidly attached to the frame, the sack carrying the load is suspended from the frame by bungee cords.

Last year, Rome, an expert in the physics of muscle movement, introduced a power-generating backpack that converts mechanical energy from walking into as much as 7.4 watts of electricity, more than enough energy to power a number of portable electronic devices at once. His findings were published in Science.

The suspended-load ergonomic backpack has a similar sliding motion as the electricity generating-backpack, but it is tuned differently. Rather than having stiff springs, the load is suspended by very compliant bungee cords.

"The ergonomic backpack reduces the force of the load on the wearer by reducing the effect of the load as it shifts up and down," Rome said. "What is striking is that you can feel the 86% reduction in force with every step."

With a normal backpack, the peak force exerted by the load on the body during walking is twice as high as the static force, and during running its three times as large, exerting extreme forces on the joints.

The backpack shifts the timing of how force is applied as the wearer takes a step.

Essentially, the bungee cords permit the load to stay at nearly constant height from the ground while the wearer walks or runs around it, Rome said. The pack actually reduces the metabolic cost of walking from one point to another by about 40 watts, or the equivalent of carrying 12 extra pounds.

Penn researchers involved in development and testing of the Suspended-load Backpack at the Rome laboratory at Penn are Louis Flynn, an engineer, and postdoctoral fellow Taeseung D. Yoo. Funding for this research comes from the National Institutes of Health and the Office of Naval Research.

Bush mulls plan as US toll hits 3000

Bush mulls plan as US toll hits 3000

WASHINGTON - American deaths in the Iraq war reached the sobering milestone of 3,000 on Sunday even as the Bush administration sought to overhaul its strategy for an unpopular conflict that shows little sign of abating.

The latest death came during one of the most violent periods during which the Pentagon says hate and revenge killings between Iraq‘s sects are now a bigger security problem than ever.

President Bush is struggling to salvage a military campaign that, more than three-and-a-half years after U.S. forces overran the country, has scant support from the American public. In large part because of that discontent, voters gave Democrats control of the new Congress that convenes this week. Democrats have pledged to focus on the war and Bush‘s conduct of it.

Even so, the steadily mounting toll underscores the relentless violence that the massive U.S. investment in lives and money — surpassing $350 billion — has yet to tame, and may in fact still be getting worse.

From mid-August to mid-November, the weekly average number of attacks in the country increased 22 percent from the previous three months. The worst violence was in Baghdad and in the western province of Anbar, long the focus of activity by Sunni insurgents, said a December report.

The American death toll was at 1,000 in September of 2004 and 2,000 by October 2005.

"The most painful aspect of the presidency is the fact that I know my decisions have caused young men and women to lose their lives," Bush said.

"We will be fighting violent jihadists for peace and security of the civilized world for years to come. The brave men and women of the U.S. military are fighting extremists in order to stop them from attacking on our soil again," Stanzel said.

"Last year, America continued its mission to fight and win the war on terror and promote liberty as an alternative to tyranny and despair," Bush said in the statement released from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he and first lady Laura Bush are spending New Year‘s Eve with friends.

In an interview on Dec. 21 with The Associated Press, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the war was "worth the investment" in American lives and dollars.

In his strategy reassessment, Bush has consulted Iraqis, his uniformed and civilian advisers, an outside bipartisan panel that studied the failing war, and other defense and foreign policy experts. New Defense Secretary Robert Gates journeyed to Iraq in his first week on the job in December to confer with American commanders and Iraqi leaders.

Among the president‘s options was a proposal to quickly add thousands of U.S. troops to the 140,000 already in Iraq to try to control escalating violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Others believe too much blood and money already have been sacrificed. Democrats have wanted Bush to move toward a phased drawdown of forces, while the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended removing most U.S. combat forces by early 2008 while shifting the U.S. role to advising and supporting Iraqi units.

Having launched the war against the advice of a number of nations, the Bush administration never got a huge international contribution of troops, meaning foreign forces helping the Iraqis are overwhelmingly American.

The death toll shows it. As of late December, the British military has reported 126 deaths in the war so far; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 18; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; and Denmark, six. Several other countries have had five or less.

Rival to IVF 'is safer and cheaper'

Rival to IVF 'is safer and cheaper'

Women who have difficulty conceiving will be able to benefit from a new method of IVF that is cheaper and safer than conventional fertility treatments, doctors say.

Clinical trials in Denmark have shown that a pioneering technique known as in-vitro maturation (IVM) has a success rate of 30 per cent, comparable to standard IVF procedures. The patient, however, does not have to take expensive fertility drugs that can carry serious side-effects.

With conventional IVF doctors stimulate the release of mature eggs using hormone drugs and collect them during a woman’s monthly cycle before fertilising them in the laboratory with a man’s sperm.

The IVM method involves taking undeveloped eggs from ovaries and maturing them in the laboratory before fertilisation, while using hardly any drugs or no drugs at all.

More than 400 healthy babies have so far been born to women using the technique, which could reduce the cost of fertility treatment by up to half and give thousands more women the chance to conceive.

Professor Svend Lindenberg, a Danish scientist who has helped more than 1,000 women become pregnant using IVM, told a London fertility conference that the process had now achieved “stunning results”.

“We have demonstrated that it is possible to take an egg and fertilise it without having to use the heavy-duty drug approach,” he said. “We are achieving results that are better than nature and as good as high-stimulation IVF, without the risk of potentially life-threatening ovarian hyperstimulation and, of course, saving thousands of pounds per cycle in the cost of drugs.”

Professor Lindenberg, who works at the Nordica Fertility Centre in Copenhagen, explained: “We give a very low dose of a stimulating drug for three days early in the cycle and rescue up to ten eggs. For the first 24 hours a tiny amount of stimulating hormone is added to the culture, in fact one hundreth of the dose the woman would receive, and after that the eggs go on to mature in the culture alone.”

Under present IVF methods many women have been reluctant to donate their eggs for IVF because the drugs they must take can lead to life-threatening complications and an increased risk of cancer.

The demand for donor eggs is huge — potential recipients outnumber donors by two to one in Britain. In Denmark the move to IVM has been driven by women who are reluctant to take drugs, often because the problem lies with the male partner and not themselves, Professor Lindenberg said.

The technique is not suitable for all women; it works best in those who are under 37 years of age, have regular cycles or polycystic ovary syndrome, where women frequently fail to ovulate naturally. “This is part of a worldwide move against high-dose stimulation IVF,” Professor Lindenberg said. There was now no excuse to continue giving women high dosages of stimulation to the detriment of their health and their financial and emotional wellbeing.

IVM has previously been successful in creating animal embryos but the process has only recently been tried on human eggs. It was originally developed by Bob Edwards who, with Patrick Steptoe, were resposible for Louise Brown, the world’s first IVF baby.

It has been made easier by the development of finer needles to aspirate the eggs from an ovary and new scanning techniques that now show doctors the best follicles to select when seeking eggs to remove.

Bush Delights at Hussein Execution

Bush Delights at Hussein Execution

Washington, Dec 30 (Prensa Latina) The execution of ex Iraqi president Saddam Hussein pleased US President George W. Bush, after a difficult year for his troops in the Arab country.
In brief declarations to the press at his ranch Crawford in Texas the leader said the Hussein death is a milestone for the nation of the Persian Gulf.
Bush recognized that things have gone wrong since the ex chief of the Iraqi government was defeated by the English-US invasion on March 2003.
Hussein s execution won t end violence in Iraq, noted the president, in agreement with analysts that the sentence could bring about armed actions of rebel groups against the occupying forces.
The New York Times daily news said Bush is considering increasing the number of Pentagon soldiers in Iraq from 17 to 20 thousand.
The White House is also looking at new economic initiatives for the Middle East nation, which along with the increase of soldiers will help stabilize the country.
The republican leader held a closed-door meeting with his National Security team this Thursday to consider strategy changes in Iraq.

US forces ready for any surge in violence in Iraq

US forces ready for any surge in violence in Iraq

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon said Friday that U.S. forces in Iraq are braced for any violence that may follow the execution of former President Saddam Hussein.

''U.S. forces in Iraq are obviously at a high state of alert anytime because of the environment that they operate in and because of the current security situation,'' said spokesman Bryan Whitman. ''They'll obviously take into account social dimensions that could potentially led to an increase in violence which certainly would include carrying out the sentence of Saddam Hussein.''

Saddam has been in U.S. custody since he was captured in December 2003, and his lawyers said Friday that he had been handed over to Iraqi authorities. But there was conflicting information.

Tom Casey, deputy spokesman at the State Department, said in early afternoon that ''there has been no change in his status'' and that Saddam remained in American hands. In Baghdad, an Iraqi government official who refused to be identified by name because he was not authorized to release the information said authorities there were not yet in control of Saddam.

Casey said the information he had was provided by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

''I don't have any more details to offer you,'' he told reporters at the State Department. Casey reiterated the Bush administration's view that ''we think it's very important there be acountability.'' He said ''it was up to the Iraqis'' to formally request that Saddam be brought forward for execution.

Asked when that might occur, Casey said, ''I really don't have a timeline on this.''

The White House declined to comment on the timing of the execution.

Deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel, talking to reporters Friday from Crawford, Texas, where President Bush was vacationing, said the hanging of Saddam was a matter for the sovereign Iraqi government. Earlier, the White House said the appeals court decision to uphold the sentence marked an important milestone for the Iraqi people's efforts to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law.

Said Whitman: ''Our forces stay at a constant state of high readiness in Iraq and I would expect through this period they would do the same.''

He wouldn't comment further on any potential troop movements to strengthen security for the execution, but said the commanders in Iraq have the ability to move forces as they deem appropriate based on conditions on the ground.

Whitman also said he wouldn't comment on anything that President Bush might be contemplating in terms of changing U.S. war policy in Iraq or in connection with the intensive administration review now under way on American strategy there.

US Board Probes Incident of Plane Carrying Blair (Update2)

US Board Probes Incident of Plane Carrying Blair (Update2)

Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. safety board said it's investigating an incident in which a British Airways Plc jet carrying U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair overshot a runway after landing at Miami International Airport yesterday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said statements will be taken from the flight crew and damage to two runway lights has been documented. While the NTSB doesn't always examine such incidents, ``this involved a jumbo jet at a major airport'' with a government leader on board, spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz said today in an interview.

No one was hurt when Flight 209 from London, with 343 people on board, rolled off the runway at 6:15 p.m. Miami time, the NTSB said in a statement. The Boeing Co. 747 returned to London after an airport inspection found no damage to the jet, the board said.

The plane after landing ``taxied beyond the end of the runway and went into the paved runway overrun area,'' the NTSB said. British Airways spokesman John Lampl in a telephone interview yesterday disputed that the aircraft overshot the runway, saying there was ``no emergency, no overrun.''

After landing, the pilot couldn't see the correct taxiway because of poor lighting, Lampl said. The pilot stopped the plane, radioed for help and was guided to the gate, he said.

Lopatkiewicz said the incident doesn't count as a runway overrun because the plane had already landed successfully and was taxiing to the gate when it ran over the lights. The plane was towed from the overrun area to a taxiway and then went to the gate under its own power.

Brendan O'Grady, a spokesman for Blair's office in London, said the prime minister was on vacation and occasionally uses commercial flights.

A call to British Airways' press office today wasn't immediately returned.

Saddam offers self as sacrifice

Saddam offers self as sacrifice

Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein said in a letter released on Wednesday that he would go to the gallows as a “sacrifice” and called on his former Iraqi subjects to unite against their enemies.

Saddam, in a letter written to the Iraqi people from his cell before his appeal against a death sentence failed, said, “I sacrifice myself. If God wills it, he will place me among the true men and martyrs.”

Defence counsel Khalil Dulaimi said in Jordan that Saddam had written the letter in November when he was first sentenced to death and that it had been released to the public after the news that his appeal had failed. “Its release was delayed by the length of the procedures imposed by the Americans,” Dulaimi said, by way of explanation.

On Tuesday, a panel of appeals court judges confirmed Saddam’s conviction for crimes against humanity and ordered that he be hanged within 30 days. In what might therefore be his final message, Saddam blamed his old enemies the United States and Iran for the bloodshed engulfing Iraq, which is in the grip of a sectarian war between Sunni and Shiite factions.

“The enemies of your country, the invaders and the Persians have found your unity a barrier between you and those who are now ruling you. Therefore, they drove their hated wedge among you,” he declared.

“O faithful people, I bid you farewell as my soul goes to God the compassionate,” he wrote. “Long live Iraq. Long Live Iraq. Long live Palestine. Long live jihad and the mujahideen. God is great.”

Sudan Agrees To Hybrid Peacekeeping Force

Sudan Agrees To Hybrid Peacekeeping Force

The Sudanese government agreed in a letter to the United Nations to accept a joint United Nations and African Union peacekeeping effort in the country's war-torn Darfur region, according to a copy of the document obtained Tuesday.

In a letter to outgoing Secretary General Kofi Annan obtained by Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, Sudan's President Omer Hassan Ahmed Al- Bashir said his country is ready to accept the conclusions of a November conference in Addis Ababa, in which the UN offered to send military advisers and logistical support to the AU mission in Darfur.

Al-Bashir urged the UN Security Council to endorse the plan and authorize financial support for peacekeeping in the region.

The cash-strapped AU mission comprises a force of around 7,000 soldiers patrolling an area the size of France. Critics charge it cannot adequately protect civilians under its mandate.

Sudan last month reportedly agreed to the joint mission, but later sent conflicting signals with some top officials suggesting UN troops would be allowed on the ground, while others said Sudan would only accept UN financial and logistical support.

Couple sees what Brown can do for them

Couple sees what Brown can do for them

A Calumet Region couple was swiping gifts as fast as the UPS driver could deliver them, police in Illinois and Indiana say.

Charges against Marcus McCoy, 30, and Tanya White, 37, likely will include theft, burglary, forgery and unlawful use of a credit card, authorities said. Police listed two addresses for McCoy and White, 4849 Gladiola Ave. in East Chicago and 14915 Main St. in Harvey.

After a 4 p.m. Friday raid on the East Chicago address, Lake County sheriff's police confiscated "tens of thousands of dollars" worth of merchandise, including a collector's edition light saber worth about $800, Chicago White Sox American League Championship plaques, a flat-panel plasma TV, stereo systems, clothing and toys.

The loot packed the back of a Lake County Sheriff's Department van and the trunk of a police car, and poured onto the lawn as officers waited for a cargo truck.

"These are truly the grinches that stole Christmas from kids all over this area," said Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Nick D'Angelo, who was present at the Indiana search.

Police say the couple stole packages from people's porches, used stolen credit cards to buy merchandise online and burglarized homes.

McCoy and White were arrested about 1:45 p.m. Wednesday by the Lansing officers who responded to a call about a suspicious vehicle following a UPS truck.

Lansing police Sgt. Chris Mizner said the couple was following the United Parcel Service vehicle and waiting for the driver to drop off packages so they could steal them.

The UPS driver told police he had noticed the same van following him a week earlier. A customer told the driver he saw a man get out of the van and take a package from someone's front porch, a police report said.

After noticing the suspicious vehicle Wednesday, the UPS driver pulled over and waited for the van to drive past him. He then wrote down the licence plate number, police said.

Police followed a trail of empty UPS boxes littering the road, and found the burgundy full-size Chevrolet van with Illinois license plates on 178th Street and Arcadia Drive. White and McCoy were in the van, along with the couple's 2-week-old baby, according to police.

As an officer waited for the van to be towed, he noticed a brown UPS box between the two front seats. The officer then looked in the back of the van and saw the vehicle was filled with various consumer products.

Police said White's father came to the station and took custody of the child. Police also contacted the Department of Child and Family Services.

McCoy and White are suspected of stealing gifts or scamming them in Homewood, Flossmoor and Lansing in Illinois, D'Angelo said.

Police in Indiana towns, including Munster and Hammond, also are checking their cases for possible connections.

"We're happy to arrest a grinch anytime," said Lake County Sheriff Rogelio "Roy" Dominguez, whose department assisted in the investigation. "During the holiday season, these people never take a break."

Along with the stolen items, the department confiscated a printer with journal paper that officials said they believe the couple was going to use to print receipts to return items for profit.

They also found mounds of shredded wrapping paper removed from merchandise. Cmdr. Shaw Spurlock, of the Lake County Sheriff's Department, pulled crumpled red wrapping paper with a tag "Love Grandma Mary and Aunt Renee" still attached.

D'Angelo said a true value couldn't be placed on the stolen presents.

"To the kids who aren't going to get any Christmas gifts because of these guys, it's priceless," he said.

Residents who believe they are missing gifts that should have arrived can call (219) 755-3246.

City of Amsterdam announces experiment

City of Amsterdam announces experiment

The City of Amsterdam said Friday it will spend euro300,000 (US$400,00) testing open source software in two administrative districts in 2007, in a potential blow for the city's current main supplier, Microsoft Corp.

Open source software is developed for free by volunteer programmers, and leased by providers who usually only charge for service and support.

City spokeswoman Marjolijn van Goethem said Amsterdam's housing department and one of its borough offices _ Zeeburg _ would test a Linux-based operating system on city computers, and open-source document software, replacing Microsoft Windows and Office.

Numerous European towns and cities, notably Munich, Germany, and Vienna, Austria, have switched partially or mostly to open source systems but they remain a tiny slice of the overall market.

"Earlier this year, a study ordered by the (Amsterdam) city council showed that an 'open' software strategy leads to more independence from suppliers," the city said in a statement. "In addition, the use of open software can lead to better exchange and storage of information, without unacceptable financial or logistical risks."

The test is scheduled to run during the first half of 2007, and, if successful, the rest of the city may start using open source software, the city statement said.

It said it didn't plan to stop using Microsoft software entirely in any case, but "it is the expectation that a new contract with ... Microsoft will be smaller." The current contract expires in at the end of 2008.

The statement did not reveal further details of the Microsoft contract.

Nine other Dutch cities, including Haarlem, Groningen, Eindhoven and Nijmegen have joined in signing Amsterdam's "manifesto for open software in government," penned earlier this year.

But Van Goethem said it was up to each city individually to decide how it will honour that statement of principle.

The Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming!

The Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming!

One right-wing politician voiced his alarm that the election of more Muslims to high office could diminish American values. His solution was to severely limit immigration. This alarmism is not a political gaffe, but is rather a rabble-rousing way to stake out his corner of the right-wing circus.

Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) wrote a letter to select supporters opposing Muslim representative-elect Keith Ellison's (D-MN) choice to swear in on the Qur'an. He also warned that ignoring his immigration plan would result in "many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Qur'an." He wanted to end visas "allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country."

Ignoring FDR’s call to fear nothing but fear itself, he wrote: "I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped."

We may never have come across this insight into the art of religion-baiting if the letter was not accidentally sent to the chair of the local Sierra Club chapter. This letter was revealed by Charlottesville's alternative newspaper, the C-Ville Weekly.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reported that Members of Congress came out against his statement. Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr. wrote him a letter saying he was "greatly disappointed and in fact startled" by the letter. Rep. Pascrell pointed out that they are both "committed to fighting extremism." However, this "’fight’ will not be confused or misdirected to discriminate against any race, religion or ethnicity."