Sydney Pollack dies in Los Angeles

Above: Producer-director Sydney Pollack at the 59th Cannes Film Festival in a May 2006 photo. Pollack, who earned an Oscar for the epic romance "Out of Africa" and also won praise as an occasional actor, died on Monday at age 73, after a battle with cancer, The New York Times reported.

REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni
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Hollywood filmmaker Sydney Pollack, who won a pair of Academy Awards for the epic romance "Out of Africa" and earned praise for acting stints in films including "Tootsie" and "Michael Clayton," died on Monday after a battle with cancer, his spokeswoman said. He was 73.

During a varied career spanning almost half a century, Pollack directed such stars as Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in "The Way We Were," Tom Cruise in "The Firm" and Dustin Hoffman in "Tootsie." Redford starred in seven of his films, including "Out of Africa," alongside Meryl Streep.

Pollack died at his home in the coastal Los Angeles suburb of Pacific Palisades at about 5 p.m. local time. He was diagnosed with cancer about 10 months ago, but doctors were never able to determine the primary source of the disease, said spokeswoman Leslee Dart.

At the time of the diagnosis, he was directing the HBO movie "Recount," but left the project to seek medical treatment. The political drama about the controversial Florida presidential vote in 2000 premiered on the cable network on Sunday.

The tall, curly-haired Indiana native, who started out as an acting coach and TV director, focused on producing and acting in later years.

He received a best picture Oscar nomination this year for producing the George Clooney legal thriller "Michael Clayton," in which he had a supporting role as an attorney. He is featured in the newly released romantic comedy "Made of Honor" as actor Patrick Dempsey's serial-dating father.

HAMMER IN THE FOREHEAD

Pollack's final directing efforts were the 2005 thriller "The Interpreter," starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, and the 2006 documentary "Sketches of Frank Gehry," about the famed architect.

"Every time I am directing, I question why in God's name I'm doing it again," he told Entertainment Weekly in 2005. "It's like hitting yourself in the forehead with a hammer."

But Streisand praised him in a statement as "a great actor's director ... And he was a very good friend, someone I even shared secrets with."

His biggest triumph was the 1985 drama, "Out of Africa." Streep played the Danish owner of a coffee plantation in Kenya, and Redford the adventurer with whom she falls in love.

Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, the film ended up with seven statuettes including Pollack's Oscars for best picture and director.

He reunited with Redford five years later for the flop "Havana." Other setbacks included 1995's remake of "Sabrina" and 1999's "Random Hearts."

Still, Pollack scored many more triumphs. The first of his six Oscar nominations was for directing Jane Fonda in the 1969 Depression-era drama "They Shoot Horses, Don't They."

He also received directing and producing nominations for his 1982 smash "Tootsie," which starred Dustin Hoffman as a cross-dressing actor. Pollack himself played a small but memorable role as Hoffman's agent.

Born on July 1, 1934 in Lafayette, Indiana, Pollack sought his fortune as an actor in New York City after graduating high school. He studied under Sanford Meisner, and went on to assist the legendary acting coach. He secured acting work in television before moving behind the camera. He made his feature directorial debut in 1965 with "The Slender Thread," starring Sidney Poitier and Anne Bancroft.

He is survived by his wife of 40 years, Claire; two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel; and six grandchildren. Services will be private.










Source: Reuters

World leaders to tackle food crisis at Rome summit

Above: vendor (R) sells dried fruit at a market in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, May 27, 2008.
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It has been described as a global crisis pushing 100 million people into hunger, threatening to stoke social and political turmoil and set the fight against world poverty back by seven years.

Now, the food price crisis will be tackled by world leaders who meet in Rome next week to seek ways of reducing the suffering for the world's poorest people and ensure the Earth can produce more food to sustain an ever growing population.

"It's time for action," said Jacques Diouf, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) who called the summit late last year before the full extent of the food price crisis was clear.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick underlined the urgency of the problem, announcing $1.2 billion in loans and grant financing for countries struggling with food and fuel costs.

"It is crucial that we focus on specific action," he said. "This is not an issue like HIV/AIDS where you need some research breakthrough. People know what to do."

A combination of factors, including poor harvests, low stocks and rising demand, have collided over the last one to two years to cause massive, sudden rises in many food commodity prices which very few people saw coming.

Food prices will remain high over the next decade even if they fall from current records, the FAO said in a report.

Diouf said he expected some 40 heads of state or government at the meeting on Tuesday to Thursday next week.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has set up his own task force, will attend, as will the leaders of France, Spain, Japan, Brazil, Argentina and some African nations.

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is also expected for his first trip to Western Europe as president and first major appearance in the West since addressing the U.N. in New York last year.

Delegates from 151 countries can be expected to make worthy statements on beating poverty, but the talks may reveal divisions on several underlying food and hunger-related issues: free trade, biofuels and genetically modified organisms.

PLAGUE

"World problems are much more complex than saying something is bad and something is good," Diouf told Reuters when asked whether he expected the summit to criticize the rise of bio-fuels -- usually energy made from foodstuffs -- in the United States and Europe for contributing to food price spikes.

"What is sure is that diverting around 100 million tonnes of cereals to biofuel has had an impact on food prices," he added.

Diouf has said he wants to get emergency aid to those worst affected, seeds and fertilizers to farmers who can no longer afford them and plough investment into agriculture to ensure poor countries can feed themselves in the future.

Josette Sheeran, head of another Rome-based food agency, the World Food Program, had to appeal for an extra $755 million to cover the additional cost of food aid caused by the price hikes.

With that shortfall now covered by donor countries, Sheeran said the crisis should be seen as "a wake up call to act now to defeat the plague of hunger once and for all".

Future rules on trade in agricultural products are seen as a key part of a long-term strategy to reduce poverty and hunger.

Developing countries have long complained about heavily subsidized food from Europe and North America being dumped on their markets, damaging their own farmers.

The summit's timing, as the "Doha" world trade talks approach a critical phase, will ensure trade is a hot topic in Rome and the summit may serve to remind trade negotiators of what is at stake in the so-called "development round".



As food costs around the world continue to increase, scavengers known as 'freegans' are raiding supermarket bins to find edible food.

Staples such as rice and bread are getting much more expensive for the world's hungry. But people in the Western world are still throwing out huge amounts of food - those in the UK throw away around one third of the food that is purchased.

One group of people trying to combat the amount of waste are so-called freegans who raid supermarket dumpsters to salvage food that is otherwise tossed out as rubbish.

Major UK supermarkets tell Reuters they're working to reduce this kind of waste by improving packaging and portion sizes - but only a few lock their bins. So for the freegans, the discarded food is there for the taking.



With food costs rising and supplies falling, some students in Argentina have developed a "Super Soup" to help feed the poor.

An estimated 3.5 million people live in severe poverty in Argentina.

Source: Reuters

Crane collapses in New York City: fire dept

Above: Damage is seen at the site of a crane collapse in New York May 30, 2008.

REUTERS/Chip East
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A large crane has collapsed damaging an apartment building on Manhattan's upper east side and injuring at least two people, the New York City Fire Department said on Friday.

"It's a big one," said the fire department spokesman. "Two people have been pulled out in an unknown condition."

A local media service, Breaking News Network, which monitors emergency services, reported that two people may have been killed in the collapse on 91st street near First Ave.

The collapse happened shortly after 8 a.m. EDT beside "The Electra" apartment building, which is more than 20 floors high. The crane appeared to be working on a building under construction across the street from the apartment building.

Grant Disick, a doctor who was just a few blocks away when the crane collapsed, was one of the first people on the scene to offer assistance.

"At least one person is still pinned under there," Disick told Reuters. "I felt the pulse on the first guy, I could see half of his body."

He said he saw another injured man across the street, who was "alert and conscious."

Television footage showed the crane in a crumpled mess in the street and a corner apartment at the top of the building that had been demolished. Balconies had been ripped from apartments on the building as the crane fell.

A giant crane fell in March and crushed a residential building in midtown Manhattan, killing seven people and injuring more than 10 others.


Source: Reuters

Coming up roses in Japan

Tens of thousands gather for a rose and gardening show on the outskirts of Tokyo.

An estimated 250,000 visitors are expected to visit the Tenth International Rose and Gardening Show over five days. The rose does not have a long history in Japan compared to the chrysanthemum or the cherry blossom, which are Japan's "national flowers", but its popularity is definitely blooming!




Source: Reuters

Tiger and Dalmatian

A White Tiger and Dalmatian dog appear best of friends in an odd example of cross-species bonding.

Bombay - the White Tiger - was born in captivity in America but was rejected by her mother and sent to Germany, ending up in Circus Williams where she was introduced to Jack, a four year-old Dalmatian.

The two have developed a relationship and circus animal trainer Manuel Willie says there is no danger for the dog.



Source: Reuters

U.N. chief sees devastation on Myanmar aid mission

Above: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon (L) is videotaped by a Myanmar soldier during a stop in Mawgyon, Myanmar, May 22, 2008.

REUTERS/Stan Honda/Pool
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U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon saw flooded rice fields and destroyed homes during his mission on Thursday to bring large-scale international aid to 2.4 million people left destitute by Cyclone Nargis.

On a helicopter tour of the Irrawaddy Delta and a visit to one of the military government's relief camps and a distribution centre, Myanmar officials told the U.N. secretary-general the situation was under control.

But Ban said his main concern was to get his message across that the generals needed to open up to more foreign aid and expertise, which has been limited since the May 2 storm and sea surge left nearly 134,000 dead or missing.

"I am so sorry, but don't lose your hope," Ban told one woman as he peered into a blue tent at the Kyondah relief camp 75 km (46 miles) south of Yangon. "The United Nations is here to help you. The whole world is trying to help Myanmar."

Only a quarter of those in need have been reached after one of Asia's worst cyclones in decades destroyed entire villages. Relief experts fear more will die of disease and injuries if they do not receive a steady supply of food, medical care and equipment in the coming months.

For the trip by Myanmar military helicopter, Ban changed from a business suit into a beige casual jacket, baseball cap and slacks. His three-hour tour included flying over flooded rice fields, many covered with brown sludge, to get to the camp.

He saw extensive damage to trees, homes and other structures.

MODEL CAMP

Energy Minister Brigadier General Lun Thi briefed Ban at the camp, the same one diplomats were shown at the weekend.

"All efforts are being made towards the relief of the victims and for the country to soon return to normal," Lun Thi said at the camp, where 100 new blue tents were neatly lined up in rows, inhabited mostly by women and small children.

State-run TV showed footage of the official tour, Ban shaking hands and talking to survivors.

Prime Minister Thein Sein was quoted as saying in Yangon that "politics should not be intertwined with humanitarian needs" and that the government was not impeding the flow of aid.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said there were no strings attached to international aid.

"This is a humanitarian response being made to a natural disaster that is being turned into a man-made catastrophe. We are trying to send aid there for purely humanitarian purposes. There is no ulterior motive," Miliband said on a trip with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to California.

Rice said: "One has to worry about the proper distribution of the aid, about the ability to get that aid to people who need it. We have been working our way through these things in a frustratingly slow pace."

The United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is one of 10 members, are preparing for a donor-pledging conference in Yangon on Sunday.

LACK OF INFORMATION

ASEAN Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan told reporters in the Thai capital, Bangkok, that countries would be reluctant to commit money until they are allowed to assess the damage for themselves.

"The shared concern is we don't know the extent of the damage. We don't know the number of the dead, the number of the missing or the number of the displaced," said Surin, who was told by officials that Myanmar needed $11 billion in pledges.

Ban was to meet Senior General Than Shwe on Friday in Naypyidaw, a new capital 390 km (250 miles) north of Yangon, where the junta lives in isolation from the rest of the country.

Ban's visit was the talk of Yangon for people desperate for political change after 46 years of harsh military rule. But deep down they accepted that the visit would not stray from its humanitarian mission.

"I don't think we can expect much out of his visit because the U.N. has not been able to influence the regime at all concerning our situation," lawyer Nyunt Aung said.

The generals' normal distrust of outsiders is even greater after worldwide outrage and heightened sanctions imposed after the army's crackdown on pro-democracy protests in September.

Sunday's conference coincides with the expiry of the latest year-long detention order on opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. But nobody expects her to be released from five years of house arrest.

European Union lawmakers kept up pressure on Myanmar's military by voting overwhelmingly on Thursday in favour of a resolution urging the U.N. Security Council to consider whether forced aid shipments were possible.

The government has allowed planes from several countries, including the United States, its fiercest critic, to land with emergency supplies, but not more western disaster experts.

Medical teams from India, China, Thailand, Laos and Bangladesh were working in the Irrawaddy Delta along with thousands of local medical and other volunteers, state-run TV reported.




Source: Reuters

China sends emergency relief to quake-hit pandas

Above: A panda cub plays at the Research and Conservation Center for Giant Panda in Wolong Nature Reserve, southwest China's Sichuan province, January 11, 2007. China has sent emergency bamboo-shoot rations to pandas at a reserve in the Sichuan earthquake zone because no one there is collecting it for them, state media said on Thursday.

REUTERS/China Daily
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China has sent emergency bamboo-shoot rations to pandas at a reserve in the Sichuan earthquake zone because no one there is collecting it for them, state media said on Thursday.

China's most devastating earthquake in decades killed 47 people around its largest panda breeding centre in the southwest, a government website said on Wednesday.

Thirty-five others at the Wolong Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda were seriously injured, the State Forestry Administration said.

The government had sent 4,500 kg of bamboo, 1,050 kg of bamboo shoots and huge quantities of apples, soybean, eggs, milk powder and other food items to feed the giant pandas at the centre, the newspaper said.

"The supply of bamboo had been suspended because people stopped collecting it from the mountains after the quake," the China Daily quoted a wildlife protection official as saying.

Two of the centre's 53 pandas were injured and six went missing. But four had returned by Tuesday and the injured had received medical treatment, the newspaper said.

Eight pandas, chosen to entertain tourists during the Olympic Games, have been sent to the provincial capital of Chengdu and will be flown to Beijing on Saturday.

The centre suffered extensive damage because it is just 30 km from the epicenter of the May 12 quake which is estimated to have killed 50,000 people.

"There was only water (for the pandas) for a few days after the quake," Xiong Beirong, a Sichuan provincial forestry department official, was quoted as saying.

Most of the about 1,590 pandas living in China's wild are found in Sichuan. The rest of them are in Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Another 180 have been bred in captivity.

The Wolong centre is deep in the mountains north of Chengdu along a winding, two-lane road that was partially blocked by landslides after the quake.





Source: Reuters

Hungry world eyes onset of U.S. wheat harvest

Above: Wheat grows at a greenhouse of the wheat breeding program at the Nebraska university in Lincoln, Nebraska, May 5, 2008.

REUTERS/Carlos Barria
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Kansas wheat farmer Arland Stephens has his shiny red combine ready to roll.

Oklahoma grain dealer Joe Cullins is busy contracting semitrailer trucks needed to haul millions of bushels of hard red winter wheat -- America's main bread-making wheat -- in from the countryside. And in Texas, the golden kernels are already stacking up in storage bins.

The 2008 U.S. wheat harvest is under way, and this year's harvest marks not only the end of another growing season for a key U.S. crop but also the arrival of a short-in-supply food staple demanded by a hungry world.

Adverse weather could still damage crop prospects; farmers know too well not to count on their bushels until they are in the bin. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts that U.S. farmers this year will bring in 1.78 billion bushels of winter wheat during a summer harvest that stretches across more than 30 states. Harvesting of spring wheat will follow for a total of 2.4 billion bushels expected for 2008/09, 16 percent more than a year earlier.

Indeed, the United States, the top global exporter of wheat, is among the first of a group of major exporting nations to begin replenishing supplies for world wheat millers and bakers. The harvest this year is critical as world supplies have dwindled so low that sharp price increases and food shortages have hit markets around the globe.

"We're watching it very carefully. We've got extremely low stocks right now and there is no room for error," said American Bakers Association CEO Robb MacKie. "Our hope is the crop will be strong and the quality will be good."

CAN'T COME TOO SOON

Following the United States, Canada, another of the world's largest wheat exporting nations, will begin cutting its new wheat crop in August, while Australia and Argentina -- also key exporters to the rest of the world -- expect to begin harvesting in October.

Together the four are projected to produce 129.1 million tonnes of wheat this year, about 20 percent of the global total.

Big wheat crops and exportable supplies are also expected in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. The biggest producers in the world -- the European Union nations, China and India -- consume most if not all of what they produce.

Overall, USDA has forecast world wheat production at a record 656 million tonnes in 2008/09, up 8 percent from a year earlier.

The harvest can't come too soon. After poor production last year in the United States, Australia and elsewhere, global wheat supplies are at their lowest levels in roughly 30 years and are seen remaining tight amid increased consumption, according to a USDA Foreign Agriculture Service report issued this month.

"The concerns about food shortages ... are real. We have a lot of concerns," said Betsy Faga, president of the North American Millers' Association.

This year will mark only the first time in the last three years that production exceeds global consumption which is projected at 642 million tonnes. A series of big wheat crops will be needed to alleviate a continuing supply squeeze.

"It's too early to exhale," said Alan Tracy, president of U.S. Wheat Associates, a government- and industry-funded group that markets U.S. wheat supplies to foreign buyers. "It all depends on how production comes together around the world. That will determine whether we get to the point where we can breathe more easily about supply."

PRICE RELIEF?

Industry experts say the new harvest should help partially staunch a surge in food prices that has hit bread, cereals and other products on grocery shelves over the last year.

Bread prices in the United States are up more than 14 percent from a year ago, and they increased 1.5 percent in April alone over the previous month, according to the Department of Labor's consumer price index. Greater increases have been seen abroad.

Prices for U.S. wheat futures contracts spiked to all-time highs earlier this year. Spring wheat futures led increases, rising to $25 a bushel, three times the price of a year ago. Prices came down as harvest neared, with spring wheat futures back to the $10 range this week.

Yet many onlookers expect further price relief will be only mild at best as harvest advances. Over the long term, the fact that farmers are planting more corn and other crops instead of wheat is a factor that could keep wheat supplies thin for years even as a growing world population and a rising middle class in developing nations keep wheat and other crops in high demand.

"I think it is way too early to say we're out of the woods on the food price situation," said Tom Jackson, an economist for Global Insight. "It is certainly pretty critical that the U.S. have a good wheat harvest."

For Stephens, who has farmed outside the tiny rural town of Norwich, Kansas, for decades, the onset of wheat harvest means long days of hard work. But his mood is upbeat.

"This is just the start of harvest," he said. "But when you're looking over the fields ... it really is a beautiful sight. It looks now like it will be a good crop."


Source: Reuters

More than 80,000 dead or missing in China quake

Above: Soldiers clear debris from a collapsed building in the earthquake-hit area of Shang Er, Sichuan province, May 22, 2008.

REUTERS/Nicky Loh
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More than 80,000 people are dead or missing from China's worst earthquake in decades, the government said on Thursday, as concerns rose that disease, the rainy season and aftershocks could bring yet more pain.

Previously, authorities had said they expected the final death toll to exceed 50,000.

Ten days after the magnitude 7.9 quake rocked the mountainous southwest of the country, relief efforts focused on the 5 million homeless and the millions of others facing disease and possible "secondary disasters".

The government implored the international community to provide more relief aid, saying they needed more than 3 million tents and that just 400,000 had so far reached the disaster zone.

As a measure of the urgency, Chinese President Hu Jintao made a personal visit to tent producers in the wealthy eastern province of Zhejiang to chivvy them on.

"To have enough tents is an urgent task for us," Hu said.

Hospitals in Sichuan province were overwhelmed by the nearly 300,000 hurt, prompting the government to send extra trains to ferry the injured to other parts of the country, state media said. Convoys of ambulances also carried the injured out.

Rain and aftershocks have exacerbated the dangers faced by more than 100,000 troops assisting in the relief effort.

"There have been constant aftershocks and the rainy season starts in June ... the earthquake has loosened the mountains," said Yun Xiaosu, Vice Minister of Land and Resources.

"It is very likely to cause frequent geological disasters and to once again bring major losses to the quake area."

Engineers are also monitoring more than 30 new lakes formed by landslides into river valleys, worried they could burst causing flashfloods into towns and tent cities.

PLAGUE, MENINGITIS

More than 5,000 health workers have fanned out to disinfect the hundreds of wrecked villages, and doctors and nurses are stationed round the clock in refugee camps.

"We are most worried about plague, so environmental hygiene is of top importance. Such a huge movement of people inevitably means that all sorts of viruses and bacteria move with them. We are also afraid of meningitis," a health official in Mianyang told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Plague is carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas. Meningitis, an inflammation of membranes covering the brain and spinal cord, is caused by bacteria and viruses. It can be fatal without prompt treatment.

More than 20,000 survivors are packed into the Jiujiang Sports Stadium in Mianyang city, about a two-hour drive from Sichuan provincial capital Chengdu.

The government ordered the urgent shipment of millions of doses of hepatitis, encephalitis, hemorrhagic fever and cholera vaccines to the area, state media reported.

"LONG AND ARDUOUS TASK"

Government figures showed the number of dead on Thursday exceeded 51,000, an increase of 10,000 on the previous day's toll. It said more than 29,000 were still missing.

The possibility was raised that U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon might visit Sichuan after his trip to cyclone-struck Myanmar.

Meanwhile, Premier Wen Jiabao returned to the wrecked county of Beichuan, where two-thirds of the population were killed.

"It will be a long and arduous task for us to relocate the people and reconstruct the region," Wen said, according to state television.

Local authorities plan to rebuild the Beichuan county seat at a new site in Anxian county, according to a preliminary plan yet to be approved by government.

"Safety is the top priority in selecting a new location and reconstruction," Xinhua news agency quoted Beichuan's Communist Party chief, Song Ming, as saying.

"We plan to build a monument and a memorial to commemorate the quake victims on the previous location."

Even as rescuers pulled more bodies from the rubble of what was a primary school in Yingxiu, workers set off explosives in other parts of the town to clear the debris and engineers and soldiers worked on building a temporary bridge.

Residents picked through the rubble of their homes.

Liu Suqing, 33, said she would not leave the town until her 8-year-old son had been found. "We're still waiting for them to pull out his body. There are many still buried under the rubble."




Source: Reuters

Buddhist Thought for the Day

We imagine that waking-life is real and that dream-life is unreal, but there does not seem to be any evidence for this belief. Chuang Tzu, in the third century B.C., put it in an amusing way; having dreamed that he was a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, he stated that he was now wondering whether he was then a man dreaming he was a butterfly or whether he was now a butterfly dreaming he was a man.

-- Wei Wu Wei "Fingers Pointing Toward the Moon"...

Myanmar mourns dead as U.N. reports aid progress

Above: Red Cross workers distribute relief supplies and provide assistance to cyclone-affected villagers in Bogale in the Irrawaddy Delta in this undated picture released May 20, 2008.

REUTERS/International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies/Handout
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Flags flew at half-mast across Myanmar on Tuesday for the victims of Cyclone Nargis as the U.N.'s top aid envoy pressed the military government to allow foreign helicopters to fly in supplies to survivors.

The first day of the three-day mourning period passed in torrential rain and diplomatic prodding of the reclusive generals to allow more international aid after a cyclone that struck two weeks ago, leaving nearly 134,000 dead or missing.

"There are still a lot of supplies needed to get in the future in terms of food, but not just for now but for some months to come," U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Thein Sein.

He said military-run camps in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta for the homeless "seemed well organized" but most survivors were still without shelter.

Holmes said he had discussed the use of helicopters with the general, who "took note" of his suggestion.

Myanmar has allowed relief flights to deliver supplies to Yangon but balked at any aerial access to the southwestern delta, where an estimated 2.4 million people were left destitute.

"I hope we can reach agreement on that," Holmes said. "I think the use of more helicopters from outside would be most welcome."

The army's declaration of a mourning period after the first visit on Monday to the delta since the cyclone by 75-year-old junta supremo Than Shwe, was taken as a possible sign the leadership had woken up to the scale of the catastrophe.

"The old man must have been shocked to see the real situation with his own eyes," one retired government official said in Yangon, the former capital where the start of the monsoon season has caused more flooding and misery for storm victims.

The top general, who has run the country since 2005 from Naypyidaw, a new capital 250 miles north of Yangon, was shown on state-run TV touring hard-hit towns and again on Tuesday, offering words of encouragement and giving orders.

U.N. BOSS ON THE WAY

In another high-level diplomatic mission, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was to arrive in the Thai capital Bangkok on Wednesday and go to Myanmar on Thursday.

Asked by reporters before his departure whether he would meet Than Shwe, Ban said: "I will be, I hope I will be meeting Senior General Than Shwe and other senior government officials."

In Tokyo, the Southeast Asian country's ambassador told the foreign ministry it would allow Japanese relief workers in to help victims, a ministry official said.

Until the last few days, the junta's attention appeared to have been on a May 10 referendum on an army-drafted constitution intended to precede multiparty elections in 2010. The vote was postponed to May 24 in areas worst-hit by the cyclone.

The official toll is 77,738 killed and 55,917 missing, one of the worst cyclones to hit Asia in decades. The government has estimated the damage at $10 billion.

Than Shwe's appearance coincided with moves by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, and the U.N. to convene an aid pledging conference on Sunday in Yangon and work on a bigger aid delivery plan.

Historically the military in the former Burma has been suspicious of foreign interference. That distrust has deepened since the wave of international outrage and tighter sanctions following last year's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

Flags flew at half mast from government buildings and a few private buildings amid growing criticism of the slow and insufficient measures mustered by the military.

But the New Light of Myanmar, the junta's main mouthpiece, quoted Than Shwe as saying the government "took prompt action to carry out the relief and rehabilitation work shortly after the storm".

Some donors returning from the outskirts of Yangon said the authorities were handing out leaflets telling people not to hand donations directly to victims, but to do it under their management.

The leaflets said the handouts might make victims "lazy and more dependent on others", people who were given them said.

"One young man felt very sad to see what was written in the leaflet," one woman said. "He murmured 'what are we supposed to do if we don't depend on donations in this situation?'."

Although there is little detail of how ASEAN will carry out what it called an aid "mechanism", Western governments and relief groups know it is the only option acceptable to the generals.

"It's a face-saving way to get them to admit outside help, but we'll have to wait and see if it works or if it's a fudge," one humanitarian official told Reuters.

The United States and France have naval vessels waiting in waters near Myanmar ready to deliver supplies, but whether or not the generals will permit them to do so is still not known.






Source: Reuters

Quake mourners pile flowers in Sichuan's capital

Above: girl mourns her relatives who died during the earthquake, at a square in Chengdu, Sichuan province May 19, 2008. The banner on the ground reads in Chinese, "Friends, have a smooth journey".

REUTERS/Stringer
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Mourners placed white funeral flowers on Tuesday in the main square of Chengdu, the capital of China's Sichuan province, to commemorate the 70,000 people killed or missing after last week's earthquake.

Traditional Chinese flower arrangements leaned against a flagpole in Tianfu Square, where the flag was at half-mast as part of three days of national mourning.

Hundreds of bouquets of yellow or white flowers were piled around the flagpole, and citizens had covered bushes on the square with white paper flowers, tied on with black gauze. White is the traditional color of mourning in China.

Thousands of people later gathered on the square after dark, chanting "Go Sichuan! Go China," provincial television reported. It ran footage of masses of people chanting and crying.

Emotions are particularly raw in Chengdu, which is only an hour's drive from the rubble, death and tent cities of the disaster zone.

Predictions of a strong aftershock sent people into the streets to sleep for a second night on Tuesday.

A silent crowd had gathered earlier in the evening to sign a white banner expressing their condolences.

State television reported candlelight vigils by Chinese people in New York and Germany, and carried condolences delivered by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Chinese.

Source: Reuters

China says over 70,000 dead or missing from quake

Li Yue, 11, an earthquake survivor who was rescued after being buried for 70 hours under the rubble, receives medical treatment at a hospital in Mianyang, Sichuan province, May 18, 2008.

REUTERS/China Daily
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China raised the number of dead or missing from a devastating earthquake to more than 70,000 on Tuesday, as rescuers found more survivors eight days after the huge tremor hit.

A government statement said the number killed had now topped 40,000, and state news agency Xinhua reported that a further 32,000 were missing.

Authorities had previously said they expected the final death toll to exceed 50,000. More than 247,000 were injured.

Anger was building among bereaved parents in Sichuan over the way many school buildings had collapsed, burying whole classrooms full of children. In one town, in a rare public protest, hundreds demanded punishment for anyone guilty of shoddy construction.

Xinhua reported a 60-year-old woman was rescued in Pengzhou, more than 196 hours after the May 12 quake struck. It said she had survived on rainwater.

In Wenchuan county, epicenter of the quake in mountainous Sichuan province, Ma Yuanjiang, 31, was found alive. His body was "as fragile as that of a newborn baby", Chongqing Xinqiao hospital president Wang Weidong said, according to Xinhua.

Rescuers also pulled about 10 people off a mountain near Shifang town where they had been building an electricity generation station when the quake struck.

Li Tengchang, 38, said 40 of his colleagues had been killed by falling boulders, and that others were still alive on the mountain.

"When the wait wore on, we thought no one would come save us and we would probably die," said Li, who was being treated for kidney damage. "I survived purely on my will. I told myself I had to live and I had to survive. I have a 60-year-old mother, a wife and two young children."

Meanwhile, nearly 9,000 people were evacuated from the base of Shiziliang Mountain near Guangyuan city over concerns about huge cracks on its slopes. And Beichuan, one the of the worst hit towns, was closed off after official warnings of fresh tremors.

AFTERSHOCK CONCERN

In the provincial capital of Chengdu, tens of thousands of people were preparing to sleep another night in the open, despite pleas by authorities for calm after a television prediction of another powerful earthquake.

That report, along with fresh aftershocks and forecast heavy rain, compounded the difficulties for military, government and private workers trying to ensure millions of homeless are fed and housed.

Hundreds of aftershocks have been felt over the past week, bringing down more buildings and causing landslides.

The quake warning also prompted panic in neighboring Chongqing municipality and Guizhou province.

But there was no sign of panic, just quiet resignation that more aftershocks were inevitable as darkness fell over Chengdu.

"Last night the predicted aftershock didn't happen," said Wang Jun, as she set up a tent in the city. "Anyway it's nicer outside, it's better for your health."

ANGER OVER SCHOOLS

The most lamented victims of the quake have been the thousands of children who died when school buildings collapsed.

In Juyuan town, hundreds of grieving parents demanded an annual memorial day for their children, punishment of officials or builders responsible for shoddy schools and compensation.

"How come all the houses didn't fall down, but the school did? And how come that happened in so many places?" demanded Zhao, whose two daughters were crushed to death.

"We want a memorial day for the children, but we also want criminal prosecution of those responsible, no matter who they are."

As China's ruling Communist Party seeks to maintain a staunch front of unity and stability after the quake, the incipient protests by parents could be troublesome, for many of them blame official graft and laxity, more than nature, for the deaths.

State media quoted a military source as saying rescuers had reached all the villages and towns in Sichuan province by Tuesday evening.

Whole towns have been flattened in mountainous areas north and west of Chengdu, and about 5 million people are homeless, prompting the government to seek foreign help in the form of tents.

The quake has prompted a huge outpouring of public sympathy both at home and abroad, with 13.9 billion yuan raised to date.

($1=6.990 Yuan)

---------------------------------------------
Flags fly half mast as China mourns the victims of the quake.

Sirens wailed as China paused in grief on Monday (19 May, 2008) as the country began three days of mourning for the tens of thousands of victims of the earthquake that struck a week ago in Sichuan.Public entertainment has been suspended and flags kept at half-mast.

In Chengdu - the largest city in the main earthquake zone - a bouquet of white flowers laid on steps in the central Tianfu Square has a note which reads: "Victims, farewell - from Citizens, 2008-5-19."



-----------------------------------------------------

Source: Reuters

Sub-aqua sardine ballet

Japanese are mesmerised by a show starring ten thousand sardines.

Ten thousand sardines swirl and dance with sharks in a mermerising display at an aquarium in Japan.



Source: Reuters

Films in competition in Cannes 2008

Sun bathers enjoy the weather in front of luxury boats moored in the Bay of Cannes as the 61st Cannes Film Festival continues May 15, 2008.

REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
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Cannes film festival, the world's largest, opened on Wednesday.

Following is a list of films in the main competition for the coveted Palme d'Or award this year. Hundreds of other films will be showing out of competition.

* Blindness -- Fernando Meirelles (Brazil)

* Entre les murs (Between the Walls) -- Laurent Cantet (France)

* Two Lovers -- James Gray (United States)

* Uc Maymun (Three Monkeys) -- Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey)

* Le Silence de Lorna (The Silence of Lorna) -- Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Belgium)

* Un conte de Noel (A Christmas Tale) -- Arnaud Desplechin (France)

* The Changeling -- Clint Eastwood (United States)

* Adoration -- Atom Egoyan (Canada/Egypt)

* Waltz with Bashir -- Ari Folman (Israel)

* La frontiere de l'aube (The Frontier of Dawn) -- Philippe Garrel (France)

* Gomorra (Gomorrah) -- Matteo Garrone (Italy)

* 24 City -- Jia Zhangke (China)

* Synecdoche, New York -- Charlie Kaufmann (United States)

* My Magic -- Eric Khoo (Singapore)

* La Mujer sin cabeza (The Headless Woman) -- Lucrecia Martel (Argentina)

* Serbis - Brillante Mendoza (Philippines)

* Delta - Kornel Mundruczo (Hungary)

* Linha de Passe (Line of Passage) - Walter Salles, Daniela Thomas (Brazil)

* Che -- Steven Soderbergh (United States)

* Il Divo -- Paolo Sorrentino (Italy)

* Leonera -- Pablo Trapero (Argentina)

* The Palermo Shooting -- Wim Wenders (Germany)

Sourace: Reuters

Film tackles IRA leader Bobby Sands hunger strike

Above: Fresh flowers lay by the grave of Irish Republican hunger striker Bobby Sands who died in 1981 in the Miltown Cemetery of the Falls Road in Belfast October 27, 2001.

REUTERS/Jeff J Mitchell
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The director of a powerful film about the final days of Bobby Sands said he had not made a hero of the IRA prisoner whose death in a 1981 hunger strike made him one of the most prominent symbols of opposition to British rule in Northern Ireland.

"Hunger", the graphic, often brutal feature debut by British artist Steve McQueen, screened at the Cannes film festival late on Thursday and has impressed critics with its portrayal of the violence and horror of life in the notorious Maze prison.

Some predicted that the film would prove controversial because of what they saw as McQueen's sympathetic treatment of Sands, played by Irish actor Michael Fassbender.

"The sympathetic portrait within this excellent film will cause much debate, and outrage," wrote the Independent newspaper.

McQueen said the only controversy surrounding "Hunger" was one created by the media.

"If anyone comes out of there thinking that I'm thinking that Bobby Sands is a martyr should basically watch the film again and look and listen," he told Reuters in an interview.

Sands, convicted of firearms offences, was elected as a member of the British parliament during his hunger strike, ensuring worldwide media coverage of his death. His image still looks down from a giant mural on Belfast's Falls Road.

"In 'Hunger' there is no simplistic notion of 'hero' or 'martyr' or 'victim'," McQueen adds in production notes.

He said the film also portrays other inmates and a prison guard who is shot dead by the IRA. In a long, central scene, Sands debates the morality of the hunger strike with a priest.

PARALLELS WITH PRESENT

McQueen, who has won the Turner art prize, drew parallels between abuses by British authorities in the Maze prison and the treatment of inmates at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

"The fact of the matter is that history does repeat itself," said McQueen, who first conceived the idea of making a film about Sands before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The latter part of "Hunger" portrays what Sands went through during his 66-day hunger strike that resulted in his death, aged 27, in 1981.

Close-ups of bed sores and his decaying body are as difficult to watch as earlier scenes of cell walls smeared in feces and ritual beatings of inmates by riot police.

Fassbender lost around 15 kg through a strict diet of nuts, berries and sardines for weeks.

He said he was nervous playing such a controversial figure from Northern Ireland's recent past.

"It worries me very much," he told Reuters. "It worried me when I decided to do the project because all my relatives are up there," added Fassbender, who is from the Republic of Ireland but whose mother comes from the partitioned North.

"The last thing I want to do is be part of something that sparks up aggression," he said.

A 1998 peace agreement largely ended 30 years of violence in the province between minority Catholics seeking a united Ireland and the pro-British Protestant majority. The conflict killed more than 3,600 people.

Sands was the first of 10 Maze prisoners to die in the hunger strike, which they staged in order to win IRA prisoners political status.

Hundreds of prisoners had refused to wear prison clothing and used only blankets in what became known as the "dirty protest" because they smeared excrement on their cell walls.

Source: Reuters

Rain deepens Myanmar misery; death toll spikes

Above: Buddhist monks from the Sitagu Missionary Association keep watch on a boat carrying donated rice for cyclone victims as they travel from Kyaiklat to Bogalay, one of the worst-hit areas by Cyclone Nargis, May 14, 2008.

REUTERS/Aung Hla Tun
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Torrential rain lashed victims of Cyclone Nargis on Friday as Myanmar's junta admitted more than 130,000 people were dead or missing, putting the disaster on a par with a 1991 cyclone that killed 143,000 in neighboring Bangladesh.

In a shock update to a death toll that had consistently lagged behind international aid agency estimates, state television in the army-ruled former Burma said 77,738 people were dead and another 55,917 missing.

The May 2 storm has left another 2.5 million people clinging to survival in the delta, where thousands of destitute victims are lining roadsides, begging for help in the absence of large-scale government or foreign relief operations.

In the storm-struck town of Kunyangon, around 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Yangon, men, women and children stood in the mud and rain, their hands clasped together in supplication to the occasional passing aid vehicle.

"The situation has worsened in just two days," one shocked aid volunteer said as crowds of children mobbed his vehicle, their grimy hands reaching through the window for scraps of bread or clothing.

Their desperate entreaties expose the fragility of the military government's claims to be on top of emergency aid distribution for victims of the cyclone, which flooded an area of delta the size of Austria.

Aid groups, including United Nations agencies, say only a fraction of the required food, water and emergency shelter materials is getting through, and unless the situation improves thousands more lives are at risk.

Given the junta's ban on foreign journalists and restrictions on the movement of most international aid workers, independent assessments of the situation are difficult.

EU ENVOY FAILS

The generals insist their relief operations are running smoothly, justifying their refusal to allow major aid distribution by outside agencies and workers.

They also issued an edict in state-run media saying legal action would be taken against anybody found hoarding or selling relief supplies, amid rumors of local military units expropriating trucks of food, blankets and water.

With international pressure and outrage at the generals' intransigence growing, the European Union's top aid official flew to Yangon to push for more access for foreign aid workers and relief operations before the death toll spikes even higher.

Like so many envoys before him, the EU's Louis Michel came away empty-handed but continued to urge the reclusive junta to shelve its pride and paranoia about the outside world and admit foreign help before it is too late.

"Time is life," he told reporters at Bangkok airport. "No government in the world can tackle such a problem alone. This is a major catastrophe."

Many cyclone refugees, crammed into monasteries, schools and other temporary shelters after the devastating storm, have already gone down with diarrhea, dysentery and skin infections.

In an ominous development, officials said one international health agency had confirmed cholera in the delta, although the number of cases was in line with normal levels at this time of year in a region where the disease is endemic.

"We don't have an explosion of cholera," World Health Organization (WHO) official Maureen Birmingham said in Bangkok.

PHASE TWO?

Earlier, the reclusive generals, the latest face of 46 years of unbroken military rule, signaled they would not budge on their position of limiting foreign access to the delta, fearful that doing so might loosen their vice-like grip on power.

"We have already finished our first phase of emergency relief. We are going onto the second phase, the rebuilding stage," state television quoted Prime Minister Thein Sein as telling his Thai counterpart this week.

Underlining where its main attentions lie, the junta this week announced an overwhelming vote in favor of an army-backed constitution in a referendum held on May 10 despite calls for a delay in the light of the disaster.

Two weeks after the storm, food, medicine and temporary shelter are still only getting through in dribs and drabs.

Ordinary people were taking matters into their own hands, sending trucks into the delta with clothes, biscuits, dried noodles, and rice provided by private companies and individuals.







Source: Reuters

U.S. helps China with satellite data on quake

Above: A covered body is laid in front of the ruins of a destroyed old city district, near a mountain at the earthquake-hit Beichuan county, Sichuan province, May 16, 2008.

REUTERS/Jason Lee
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The United States has provided China with satellite images of earthquake-stricken areas, and will provide two planeloads of relief for quake victims this weekend, the State Department said on Friday.






"I think we have provided them some overhead imagery," the department's spokesman, Sean McCormack, told reporters.

China on Thursday had requested high-resolution imagery of the region surrounding the south-central Chinese city of Chengdu to help find victims and identify damaged infrastructure.

China has said it expects the death toll from the quake four days ago to exceed 50,000, and about 4.8 million people have lost their homes

The Bush administration has offered spy satellite images and analysis to foreign governments coping with natural disasters in recent years to help organize rescue and recovery operations.

U.S. satellite imagery could produce highly detailed pictures of damage to roads, railways, tunnels, ports and coastlines. An official at the Chinese Embassy in Washington said the data could also help save lives by locating desperate victims.

McCormack said the United States will send two C-17 military cargo planes -- the Pentagon's most modern strategic airlifter -- with relief supplies to China. They will carry tents, food, blankets, generators and other items, he said.

They will be the first U.S. relief supplies to be airlifted in to China since the quake. Earlier Washington had provided $500,000 in cash assistance to China through the Red Cross.

The Chinese government had put out a list of needed items, and the U.S. government chose items that it could provide, McCormack said, adding: "There is always the possibility of more."

Because it can use short and unfinished runways and has high maneuverability on the ground, the C-17 can operate in spots normally accessible only to smaller airlifters.

Asked about possible quake damage to Chinese nuclear facilities, McCormack said he was not aware of any information that would indicate a leak of nuclear material, but "it's something that we're watching."









Source: Reuters

Buddhist Thought for the Day

Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,
The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain.
The pine sings, but there's no wind.
Who can leap the world's ties
And sit with me among the white clouds.

-- Han-shan
Cold Mountain Poems
Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, 1990, p.46
Translated by Gary Snyder

"In the Heights" leads Broadway's Tony nominations

Above: Actors David Hyde Pierce and Sara Ramirez announce the nominees for the 62nd Annual Tony Awards in New York May 13, 2008.

REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
---------------------------------
"In the Heights," an original musical written by a university student about life in a working-class New York neighborhood, led the nominations for Broadway's top theater honors, the Tony Awards, on Tuesday.

Among the 13 nominations for "In The Heights" were best musical, best original score, best performance by a featured actor in a musical for Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also wrote the musical, and best direction of a musical for Thomas Kail.

Miranda wrote the musical, set in Manhattan's largely Hispanic Washington Heights neighborhood, while in his second year at Wesleyan University and after graduating he and Kail reworked it for a larger audience. It first played in Connecticut before moving to an off-Broadway theater and then making its Broadway debut on March 9 this year.

"Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific" picked up 11 nominations, followed by "Sunday in the Park with George" with nine. Both received a nod for best revival of a musical, along with "Grease," the only nomination for that musical, and "Gypsy," which had seven nominations.

After an award-winning run in London's West End, "Macbeth," starring Patrick Stewart, moved across the Atlantic this year to pick up six nominations, including best revival of a play, best performance by a leading actor for Stewart, and best performance by a leading actress for Kate Fleetwood.

"It's so deeply satisfying to find that the production has been recognized across the creative board," Stewart told Reuters. "Macbeth does not have too glowing a history with Tony voters."

Also up for best revival of a play is "Boeing-Boeing," which grabbed six nominations; "Les Liasons Dangereuses," which had five; and "The Homecoming" with three nominations.

Pulitzer Prize-winning play "August: Osage County" received seven nominations, including best play, for which it is competing against Tom Stoppard's "Rock 'n' Roll" and "The Seafarer" -- each with four nominations -- and "The 39 Steps," which ended up with six nominations.

"Passing Strange," a tale of a young American's travels from black, middle-class America to Amsterdam and Berlin that was written by a performance artist known as Stew, pulled in seven nominations, including best musical.

Also nominated for best musical were "Xanadu" and "Cry-Baby," which both received a total of four nominations, and "In The Heights."

The complete list of Tony Award nominations can be found at www.tonyawards.com. The awards will be presented June 15.



Source: Reuters

Sex and The City quartet back with movie

Above: Actresses (L-R) Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall and Sarah Jessica Parker arrive for the world premiere of ''Sex And The City: The Movie'' at Leicester Square in London, May 12, 2008.

REUTERS/Dylan Martinez
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Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda are back -- The "Sex and the City" TV stars took to the big screen on Monday with the world premiere in London of their tales of love and high fashion in New York.

The film takes up four years on from where the hit series left the sassy singletons, who were so blatantly honest in their desire to have "sex like men" but also lusted as much for a new pair of Manolo Blahnik heels as they did for the perfect beau.

The stars were greeted by hordes of screaming fans in London's Leicester Square where Sarah Jessica Parker said "This is a movie for all genders, gays, straights and everybody in-between."

"Men are not vilified. It's a movie for everyone," she told Sky News.

Parker, who plays Carrie and is also a producer of the film, said she had been working on the project for 2-1/2 years. But getting everyone together again was not easy.

There were reports that when talks about a film began, Kim Cattrall, who plays Samantha, had demanded more money and creative control.

"It was a really hard time," said Cattrall, who at the time was in the midst of a divorce. Her father had also just been diagnosed with dementia.

"I needed to spend time with my real family and I'm really glad that I did because in the four years, you know, coming back, I think the film is where it should be," Cattrall told Reuters in New York before the film's London launch.

Asked why it was being premiered in Britain, Cattrall said "We are very New York-based, three of us live in New York and most of the crew is in New York. We shot in New York."

"But I also think it's not just a show about New York anymore. In the four years we were not making the show, it went all over the world," she told BBC TV.

"SEXIST" GOSSIP

Kristin Davis, who plays Charlotte, said she was tired of hearing endless gossip that the quartet of stars did not get along on the film set.

"It's a sexist thing really," she told Reuters, complaining that magazines "don't talk about how the Sopranos all fought or whatever."

"We've got a woman running for president, we need to get with the times. Not all women are bitchy to each other," she added.

The film takes off from where the TV series ended.

Carrie is still working out of her Upper East Side apartment, but now she is a contributing editor to Vogue and is working on her fourth book.

Charlotte is living out her dream on Park Avenue and Samantha has followed her actor boyfriend to Los Angeles.

Miranda is still in Brooklyn, missing Manhattan, and is grappling with the demands of motherhood.

Chris Noth is back as Carrie's love interest Mr. Big, and actress Candice Bergen also returns as Carrie's editor Enid Frick at Vogue.

There is a new addition to the cast too, Louise, Carrie's assistant, played by Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson.

Cynthia Nixon, who plays Miranda, says making the film "was bigger in every way. We're a little older now and the issues we're dealing with are less silly and squabbly and more profound, I would say."



Source: Reuters

American artist Robert Rauschenberg dies

Above: Seminal North American pop artist Robert Rauschenberg stands in front of Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum in this November 20, 1998 file photo.

REUTERS/Vincent West
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Acclaimed American artist Robert Rauschenberg died at his home on Captiva Island in Florida at the age of 82, his gallery said on Tuesday.

Rauschenberg, labeled a titan of American art by The New York Times, had been ill for a while and died Monday night, Jennifer Joy of the Pace Wildenstein gallery in New York said.

Rauschenberg, born in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1925, spearheaded a style in the 1950s he came to call "combines," which incorporated aspects of painting and sculpture and eventually included objects such as a stuffed eagle or goat and street signs.

He became one of the most influential artists reacting against Abstract Expressionism, according to a Guggenheim Museum biography, while a Pace Wildenstein biography said Rauschenberg's work was part of "virtually every important international collection of contemporary art."

"Robert Rauschenberg felt art should reflect the real world, three-dimensionally," said Catherine Saunders-Watson, editor-in-chief of arts publications Style Century Magazine.

"In some ways, his genius could be compared to that of Picasso, who found inspiration in the common objects of everyday life," she said. "Rauschenberg viewed virtually any physical object as having exploitable artistic potential."

In the 1960s, he began silk-screen paintings and then embarked on a period of more collaborative projects that included performance art, choreography, set design and art-and-technology combinations.

In 1970 Rauschenberg established a permanent studio on Captiva island, off Florida's Gulf coast, where he made his home.

"I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop," he said in an interview in 2000, the Times reported.

"At the time that I am bored or understand -- I use those words interchangeably -- another appetite has formed. A lot of people try to think up ideas. I'm not one. I'd rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can't ignore.

"Anything you do will be an abuse of somebody else's aesthetics. I think you're born an artist or not. I couldn't have learned it. And I hope I never do because knowing more only encourages your limitations."



Source: Reuters

Jack Black's panda posse

As the Cannes Film Festival gets underway, Jack Black promotes his new film in typically zany fashion.

Arriving at the Carlton Hotel pier in a water taxi and then dancing with some 40 giant 'pandas' comic actor Jack Black seemed in high-spirits as he promoted the new Dream Works Animation movie, Kung Fu Panda.

Black's co-stars in the movie include Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie and Lucy Liu.

The movie, which is screening out of competition, will have its premiere at the festival ahead of its worldwide release.



Source: Reuters

Vatican scientist says belief in God and aliens is OK

Above: Father Emmanuel Carreira operates the telescope at the Vatican Observatory in Castelgandolfo, south of Rome, in this June 23, 2005 file photo.

REUTERS/Tony Gentile
-------------------------------
The Vatican's chief astronomer says there is no conflict between believing in God and in the possibility of "extraterrestrial brothers" perhaps more evolved than humans.

"In my opinion this possibility (of life on other planets) exists," said Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, a 45-year-old Jesuit priest who is head of the Vatican Observatory and a scientific adviser to Pope Benedict.

"How can we exclude that life has developed elsewhere," he told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview in its Tuesday-Wednesday edition, explaining that the large number of galaxies with their own planets made this possible.

Asked if he was referring to beings similar to humans or even more evolved than humans, he said: "Certainly, in a universe this big you can't exclude this hypothesis".

In the interview headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother," he said he saw no conflict between belief in such beings and faith in God.

"Just as there is a multiplicity of creatures on earth, there can be other beings, even intelligent, created by God. This is not in contrast with our faith because we can't put limits on God's creative freedom," he said.

"Why can't we speak of a 'brother extraterrestrial'? It would still be part of creation," he said.

Funes, who runs the observatory which is based south of Rome and in Arizona, held out the possibility that the human race might actually be the "lost sheep" of the universe.

"There could be (other beings) who remained in full friendship with their creator," he said.

THE "BIG BANG"?

Christians have sometimes been at odds with scientists over whether the Bible should be read literally and issues such as creationism versus evolution have been hotly debated for decades.

The Inquisition condemned astronomer Galileo in the 17th century for insisting that the earth revolved around the sun. The Catholic Church did not rehabilitate him until 1992.

Funes said dialogue between faith and science could be improved if scientists learned more about the Bible and the Church kept more up to date with scientific progress.

Funes, an Argentine, said he believed as an astronomer that the most likely explanation for the start of the universe was "the big bang", the theory that it sprang into existence from dense matter billions of years ago.

But he said this was not in conflict with faith in God as a creator. "God is the creator. There is a sense to creation. We are not children of an accident ...," he said.

"As an astronomer, I continue to believe that God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the product of something casual but children of a good father who has a project of love in mind for us," he said.

Source: Reuters

Polar bears listed as U.S. threatened species

Above: Polar bears in a March 2008 photo. Polar bears were listed on Wednesday as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act because their sea ice habitat is melting away, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced.

REUTERS/Mathieu Belanger
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Polar bears were listed on Wednesday as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act because their sea ice habitat is melting away.

However, this new protection does not aim to reduce climate change -- which environmentalists see as the cause of the bears' disappearing habitat -- or Arctic drilling for the fossil fuels that spur the climate-warming greenhouse effect.

In announcing the government's decision one day ahead of a court-ordered deadline, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne acknowledged that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions contribute to the global warming that is damaging the polar bears' habitat.

However, he stressed that the threatened status could not properly be used to regulate greenhouse emissions.

"While the legal standards under the Endangered Species Act compel me to list the polar bear as threatened, I want to make clear that this listing will not stop global climate change or prevent any sea ice from melting," he said at a briefing.

"Any real solution requires action by all major economies for it to be effective," Kempthorne said. He also noted he was taking administrative and regulatory action to ensure this decision is not "abused to make global warming policies."

The proper forum for combating climate change is among the world's major economies, Kempthorne said. The Bush administration has convened the world's worst greenhouse polluting nations in a series of international meetings.

Polar bears live only in the Arctic and depend on sea ice as a platform for hunting seals. The U.S. Geological Survey said two-thirds of the world's polar bears -- some 16,000 -- could be gone by 2050 if predictions about melting sea ice hold true.

This is the first time climate change has been a factor in proposing a threatened status for any U.S. species, and was spurred on by environmentalists who claimed a limited victory in Kempthorne's announcement.

"MAJOR STEP FORWARD" WITH "LOOPHOLES"

"Protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act is a major step forward, but the Bush administration has proposed using loopholes in the law to allow the greatest threat to the polar bear -- global warming pollution -- to continue unabated," Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement.

John Kostyack of the National Wildlife Federation, while gratified at the listing, saw little practical effect given the limits of Kempthorne's regulations.

"By denying a direct link between the sources of global warming pollution and the loss of the polar bears' sea ice habitat, and by denying that the polar bear will be protected from oil and gas development, they're willing to sit by and let the polar bear go extinct," Kostyack said by telephone.

The Endangered Species Act requires that decisions to protect wildlife be based solely on science, not on economic factors.

Kempthorne said his administrative rule aims at defining the scope of the decision, and at "limiting the unintended harm to the society and the economy of the United States."

Bill Kovacs of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the decision and its accompanying regulations, calling is a "common sense balancing" between environmental and business concerns.

Without the limiting regulations, Kovacs said, all carbon-emitters in the contiguous United States would have to go through a consultation process, which he said would have literally shut down federal activity overnight.

Wednesday's decision was one day ahead of a court-ordered deadline. The U.S. government was initially supposed to decide in January but postponed its decision, citing the volume of scientific data to be considered.

In February, the Interior Department sold oil and gas rights across some 29.7 million acres of the Chukchi Sea off the Alaskan coast -- including prime polar bear habitat -- for a record $2.66 billion.

Canada, home to two-thirds of the world's polar bears, will not for now follow the U.S. lead in listing the animals as threatened, Environment Minister John Baird indicated.

The government of Nunavut, a territory that is home to most of Canada's Inuit people and which manages or co-manages some 15,000 polar bears, expressed disappointment in the U.S. decision.

"It is unfortunate the (U.S. government) has decided to disregard facts collected by those who have the greatest contact and longest history with polar bears," Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik said in a statement. "The truth is that polar bear populations are at near record levels."

Source: Reuters