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WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has hammered out an agreement with industry to freeze interest rates for certain subprime mortgages for five years in an effort to combat a soaring tide of foreclosures, congressional aides said Wednesday.

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These aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not yet been released, said the five-year moratorium represented a compromise between desires by banking regulators for a longer time frame of as much as seven years and industry arguments that the freeze should only last one to two years.

Another person familiar with the matter said the rate-freeze plan would apply to borrowers with loans made at the start of 2005 through July 30 of this year with rates that are scheduled to rise between Jan. 1, 2008, and July 31, 2010.

The administration said that President Bush will speak on the agreement at the White House on Thursday and the Treasury Department announced that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson would hold a joint news conference Thursday afternoon with officials of the mortgage industry.

Treasury also announced that there would be a technical briefing to explain more of the details of the proposal.

Paulson, who has been leading the effort to craft a plan, said on Monday that the program would only be available for owner-occupied homes — as a way to make sure that the break is not granted to real estate speculators.

The plan emerged from talks between Paulson and other banking regulators and banks, mortgage investors and consumer groups trying to address an avalanche of foreclosures that are feared as an estimated 2 million subprime mortgages reset from lower introductory rates to higher rates.

The higher rates in many cases will boost monthly payments by as much as 30 percent, making it extremely difficult for many people to keep current with their loans.

The plan is aimed at homeowners who are making payments on time at lower introductory mortgage rates but cannot afford a higher adjusted rate.

Through October, there were about 1.8 million foreclosure filings nationwide, compared with about 1.3 million in all of 2006, according to Irvine, Calif-based RealtyTrac Inc. With home loan defaults still rising, the trend is expected to worsen next year.

The plan represents an about-face for Paulson, who until recently had insisted that the mortgage crisis could be handled on a case-by-case basis. However, he and other administration officials became convinced that the tide of foreclosures threatened by the mortgage resets represented such a severe threat that a more sweeping approach was needed along the lines of a plan put forward in October by Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Paulson and other federal regulators began holding talks with some of the country's biggest mortgage lenders, mortgage service companies, investors who hold mortgage-backed securities and nonprofit groups that provide counseling for at-risk homeowners.

Under the typical subprime loan, those offered to borrowers with spotty credit histories, the rates for the first two years were at levels around 7 percent to 9 percent. But after two years, those rates were scheduled to reset to levels around 9 percent to 11 percent.

For a typical $1,200 monthly mortgage payment, the reset could add another $350 to the monthly payment, greatly raising the risks of loan defaults by homeowners struggling with the current payment.

The wave of mortgage foreclosures threatened to make the most severe slump in housing even worse by dumping more foreclosed properties onto an already glutted market, further depressing home prices and shaking consumer confidence.

The deepening housing slump has already roiled financial markets, starting in August, as investors grew increasingly concerned about billions of dollars of losses being suffered by banks, hedge funds and other investors.

The administration plan is designed to deal with the crisis by allowing subprime borrowers who are living in their homes and are current on their payments to avoid a costly reset for five years. The hope is that by that time the housing downturn will have stabilized, clearing out the glut of unsold homes and halting the steep slide in prices that is occurring in many parts of the country.

With sales and prices once again rising, the expectation is that homeowners will be able to renegotiate their current adjustable rate mortgages into a more affordable fixed-rate plan.

The housing crisis has become an issue in the presidential race with Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards putting forward their own proposals this week that would go further than the administration.

Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com, said while the administration plan is a good first step, eventually the government will have to go further because of the size of the problem and the threat to the economy.

"This is the most serious housing downturn we have seen in the post World War II period," he said. "It is a threat to the broader economy. The risks of a recession are very high."
Associated Press reporters Deb Reichmann and Nedra Pickler contributed to this report.

Iran: Nuke report means US should ease By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
44 minutes ago

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Tuesday touted a new U.S. intelligence report as vindication that its nuclear program is peaceful. But it was unclear if the finding would lead to any immediate warming in U.S.-Iranian relations, including on key issues like Iraq.

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Iranian officials insisted Washington should take a less hawkish stance and drop attempts to impose new sanctions in light of the report's conclusion that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in late 2003 and has shown no signs of resuming.

President Bush ruled out any change in policy. He said sanctions were still needed to force Iran to stop uranium enrichment, which he warned could be used for building atomic warheads someday. France and Britain also said pressure must be maintained on Tehran.

Even Russia, which urges continued negotiations rather than more sanctions, said Iran must open its nuclear program fully to international scrutiny and keep it under control of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, meanwhile, disputed the U.S. conclusions, saying Israeli intelligence believes Iran is still trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said that "it is vital to continue efforts to prevent Iran from attaining (nuclear) capability." Israel is believed to have its own arsenal of nuclear weapons, the only stockpile in the Mideast.

But Iran is clearly hopeful the unclassified summary of the National Intelligence Estimate, released Monday, will weaken the Western push for new sanctions over Tehran's refusal to obey a U.N. Security Council order to suspend uranium enrichment.

"The U.S. and its allies should accept nuclear rights of the Iranian nation. There is no other way, of course," President Mahmoud Ahmadeinejad said during a meeting with the Swedish ambassador, without directly mentioning the new report, according to the presidency Web site.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the U.S. will face more failure if it doesn't change its stance. "Our advice is that they correct their mistakes regarding Iran's nuclear issue," he told state television.

Mottaki's spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said the U.S. report prove Washington's warnings over the danger of the Iranian nuclear program "are baseless and unreliable."

The report, a dramatic change from past U.S. intelligence assessments that Iran was determinedly pursuing a nuclear weapon, will "certainly undercut any push to get new sanctions," said Suzanne Maloney, a foreign policy senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Russia and China, which have veto power as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council along with the U.S., Britain and France, already were arguing against a third round of sanctions against Iran.

They are likely to push harder for a focus on further negotiations with Tehran to resolve international desires that Tehran agree on ways ensure its nuclear program is not used for developing weapons.

Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged all sides to "enter without delay into negotiations," saying the U.S. report "should help to defuse the current crisis."

China's ambassador to the United Nations, Wang Guangya, said the U.S. report made the prospect of new U.N. sanctions less likely. "I think the council members will have to consider that, because I think we all start from the presumption that now things have changed."

Still, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the top Iranian nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, that Iran must cooperate fully with the U.N. investigation of the nuclear program.

"We expect that your programs in the nuclear sphere will be open, transparent and be conducted under control of the authoritative international organization," Putin said at the start of a meeting with Jalili in Moscow.

Anthony Cordesman, Mideast expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said there could be a window of opportunity if the West puts forward incentives for Iran, "such as investment with Europe and the U.S."

But "negotiations will probably grow harder rather than easier in the near future," he said.

That view was echoed by Maloney, who said the report could make both sides less willing to compromise.

"The U.S. doesn't want to be in a supplicant position to Iran ... and if anything the Iranian reaction has been to exult in what they describe as an American mistake," she said.

Movement on the nuclear issue could also become tangled in other disputes between the U.S. and Iran, as Washington tries to stem what it says is increasing Iranian influence in the Middle East.

Last week's U.S.-sponsored Mideast peace conference was widely seen as an attempt to rally Arab moderates to isolate Iran and even try to woo away Tehran's close ally Syria. Iran denounced the meeting.

U.S. officials accuse Iran of supporting Palestinian and Lebanese militants and of arming Shiite militants in Iraq who have been involved in attacks on U.S. forces.

In recent weeks, U.S. military officials said the flow of weapons from Iran to Iraqi Shiite militias appeared to have been curtailed, although the Americans were careful to say it was too early to say whether this represented a change in Tehran's policy.

Iraqi officials say the Iranians pledged to stop the weapons flow during a visit to Tehran last August by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

___

Associated Press writers Lily Hindy and Carley Petesch in New York contributed to this report.

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ACCRA, Ghana - Coby Asmah is a success in a part of the world that is hardly ever equated with success.

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The design and printing business he launched from his dining room table 14 years ago now employs 54 people. He drives a new gold SUV, dresses as sharply as any Madison Avenue executive and vacations in the United States. And despite winning U.S. citizenship, he has chosen to stay in Ghana.

Asmah belongs to an Africa all but unknown outside the continent — one of growth and business opportunity, with a tiny but rapidly spreading middle class.

Fifty years after Ghana became the first African country to gain independence, Africa's economies are expanding by 5.4 percent a year — compared to a world average of 4.2 percent — and are projected to hit almost 7 percent next year. Investments are up. Banking firm Merrill Lynch & Co. concluded that Africa now offers investors as much potential as Russia.

These signs of economic hope come as the world is increasingly aware of its broader stake in Africa. Rich countries fear any disruption in the flow of resources out of Africa, which now rivals the Middle East in the quantity of oil it sends to the United States. Terrorism has revealed the danger of failed states, and hundreds of thousands of African immigrants flee to America, Europe and the Middle East every year.

The picture across the 48 countries of sub-Saharan Africa is still very much a patchwork. But a yearlong exploration by The Associated Press shows that progress — while fragile — is finding a foothold, in spheres ranging from democracy to education. Perhaps most strikingly, after few results from five decades of advice and $568 billion in aid, today's developments in business, education, government and other areas are being led by Africans themselves.

There is a new sense among many Africans that it is up to them to rethink their continent and challenge the West to do the same. The change shows up all over — in newspaper editorials, in a regional partnership for African leadership, in the revamping of the African Union, in a newly aggressive stance for fairer terms in agricultural trade, and in the confidence of entrepreneurs like Asmah.

"The change of thinking has been coming from Africa," says economist George Ayittey, a Ghanaian teaching at American University in Washington, D.C. "Civil society in Africa is becoming more and more empowered and emboldened, and they are driving the agenda."

___

Signs of prosperity are everywhere in this country of about 23 million people on the west coast of Africa. New roads are choked with cars, construction cranes dominate the skyline and shops brim with televisions, air conditioners and luxury goods. Real estate prices in the capital, Accra, rival those of an average American city, with a four-bedroom home in a nice area selling for over $500,000.

Asmah's office and printing press are located in a middle-class neighborhood of older homes converted for business.

Asmah, 42, was an artist in the Ministry of Education in 1993 when he first started selling graphic designs to friends. Soon he was ready to give up the secure government job, which for most of Africa's history was the hallmark of success.

He launched Type Company with money borrowed from family and friends. Business grew rapidly — almost too rapidly. Type Company had to outsource printing to others in Ghana, and the quality fell.

So Asmah bought a state-of-the-art, custom-made printing press and other equipment from Germany for more than $1 million. He diversified into security printing for banks, colorful packaging for local products and annual reports for dozens of businesses, which, like his, are homegrown and growing.

"Once you have a solution to someone else's problem, you have a business," says Asmah, whose polished appearance and calm demeanor project the image he wants for his high-end designs, despite a cluttered office full of computers and printers. "There is a lot of opportunity, because here, there is not a lot that is done right." Things not done right trip up businesses like his. It took five years to persuade a bank to help him lease $10,000 worth of equipment. Financing in Africa is hard to get, with high interest rates and stringent requirements. Government tariffs on paper and ink also drive up his costs, and he can't compete with preprinted imports because they are not taxed.

But Asmah says the odds of success in Africa are greater than anywhere else, including America.

Asmah is part of what economist Ayittey calls Africa's "cheetah generation" — young entrepreneurs who are fast, smart, adaptable and ready to tackle Africa's problems. Eventually — and it will take time — he predicts the cheetahs could overtake the bureaucrats and dictators who blame Africa's problems on colonialism and don't address them.

It is already happening in Ghana. Democracy is strong, and the economy is growing by 6 percent a year. The World Bank recently praised Ghana as one of the leading business reformers in the world. Ghana's debt is down by more than two-thirds, and inflation is under control.

Economic stability in turn draws investment. Foreign investment in Africa rose to a record $39 billion in 2006 from $31 billion just a year earlier, only partly because of oil revenues.

"It's a young economy and anyone who looks into that will see that Ghana is a safe terrain to be in," notes Asmah, who says his business exceeds $1 million a year in revenue and brings profits of 30 percent. "Returns on investment here are 20 percent higher than anywhere else."

___

Accra's first suburbs sprawl northward from the Atlantic Ocean, low-slung bungalows that stretch out on generous plots surrounded by high brick walls. Wide roads are laid out in a perfect grid. The neighborhood is in various stages of construction, but the shade trees around the more established homes hint at its future charm.

Mavis Boakye, 30, shares one of the new four-bedroom, cream-colored bungalows with her banker husband, her four-month-old son and her mother. Every workday morning, she climbs into a taxi for the 45-minute drive into her office in town.

Boakye is a department head at Type Company who supervises the digital graphic design team. The daughter of a poor civil servant laborer, she spent two years of mandatory government service producing drawings for Ministry of Health brochures. Afterward, she went straight to work because she could not afford university.

Now Type Company is paying $800 a month for her to go to university part-time, and she lives a solidly middle-class life. She and her husband watch Christian satellite television on a Sony Corp. home theater system. They shop at a new mall. They eat pizza at a South African fast food chain, and belong to a middle class sometimes nicknamed "black diamonds."

"I am making three times or four times what my father was making, and sometimes he looks at me and marvels and says, `I am happy you are doing well in life,'" Boayke says.

Boayke is an example of how wealth from companies is slowly trickling down through communities, in a part of the world where each worker supports six people on average.

In 2000, Africa's middle class of 12.7 million people made up just 2 percent of the population, according to the World Bank. By 2030, it is expected to more than triple to 43 million, or 4 percent of the population.

However, Africa remains overwhelmingly poor. Ten percent of the world's poor people now live in Africa, and that is expected to rise to 13 percent in the next 25 years.

The best hope for the poor could be private enterprise, which creates 90 percent of the jobs in developing countries. But business is dragged down by a lack of education, unreliable power, bad roads, disease and a long list of other problems.

Choking bureaucracy means that it takes 95 days to start a business in Tanzania, 138 days in Ghana and 177 days in Chad. In Australia, it takes one day.

Recently, African countries have begun to cut business costs and red tape, according to the World Bank. Ghana lowered corporate taxes and slashed paperwork at customs. Tanzania has reduced the cost of starting a business by 40 percent. Kenya is simplifying its business licenses.

Boayke has been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug herself.

"The plan is that in three years, I will start something on my own," she says. "My husband wants me to start now because he thinks I will make more money, but I think I need to make more contacts before I start."

___

Near the port in Accra, the Ghanaian government has set up duty-free industrial zones to spur international trade. Hand-painted logos adorn the walls of the warehouse-style buildings, and their large wooden doors open off the loading docks. At lunchtime, women sell hot meals of beans and rice to workers in the shade of the eaves.

This is where Nora Bannerman's factory makes dresses and clothes sold in American department stores and lab coats worn by pharmacists at Walgreens and CVS in the United States.

Bannerman, who has made clothes since she was nine years old, is an icon in Ghana. She wears designer sunglasses as she drives through town in her cobalt-blue Mercedes Benz. She will not reveal her age except to say she was born in the Gold Coast, Ghana's name before independence. Her fashion design school has trained more than 100 students, and many have since set up their own businesses.

Bannerman's story shows how globalization both helps and hurts Africans in their desire to move ahead.

Easier trade gives Africans access to millions of people with money to spend, and Bannerman's designs sell in the United States, France, Germany and Switzerland. But it also brings competition, especially from China, which plays a growing role in Africa.

China imports raw materials from all over Africa, such as Ghana's timber and minerals. In 2005 Ghana's trade with China increased 35 percent to $816 million, making China its top trading partner. And China is investing — it loaned Ghana $30 million to build a national fiber optic network.

Yet China also floods the world with goods so cheap that Africans can't compete. Bannerman says Chinese companies mass-produce, without permission, her designs and traditional African fabrics at prices below her cost of production.

"China has been going all over Africa, picking out the good ideas," says Bannerman, sitting in her factory office. "While we were still doing high-value, hand-woven kente cloth, China came out with kente prints that are selling well to the United States."

Bannerman says her American buyers constantly pressure her to cut prices. But she won't and can't cut wages — the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act requires African exporters to meet human rights standards that do not apply to China, because of international trade rules.

Bannerman also has to pay high taxes on all imported cloth and thread that further raise her costs to export. And she competes within Africa against second-hand clothes from international donors that are not taxed.

She says all she and other African business people need to succeed is a fair playing field. "We don't want a situation where we are asking for aid all of the time," she says.

Africa has a long history of international trade. The 1st century gold coins of the royal families of Axum, in present-day Ethiopia, have been found as far away as India. Yet the continent today accounts for only 4 percent of global trade.

On the roads in almost every town, small-scale entrepreneurs balance on their heads everything from vegetables and ice cream to DVD players and television aerials as they sell to drivers stuck in traffic. But most of those goods come from overseas — $273 million left the continent in 2005.

Capital inflow to some African countries, including Ghana, is now rising. And so is hope.

This year's study by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that despite crushing poverty, majorities in nine out of 10 African countries surveyed believe their lives will be better five years from now. Surveys in 12 African countries from 1999 to 2006 by the Afrobarometer Network, an independent research group, also found growing optimism.

Asmah says Africans can and will work hard to succeed, and he is trying to spread the wealth in his country.

He supports a business plan competition that gives advice to 60 promising entrepreneurs and helps them build contacts, in partnership with business promoter TechnoServe and Google.org, the Internet company's philanthropic arm. The top 20 winners get a jump start in their new enterprise.

The name of the competition: "Believe, Begin, Become."

World Aids Day: the battle has only just begun

The Independent, December 01, 2007

Paul Vallely

Last year, a special issue of The Independent, edited by Bono, introduced a new way of raising money to fight HIV/Aids. Since then, the (Red) initiative has raised more than $50m and helped more than one million people. In an exclusive interview, Bono tells Paul Vallely why people in rich nations can make a difference to the Aids disaster

In a world of calibrated cynicism here's something unabashedly positive to celebrate today to mark what is the 20th occasion that people across the globe have commemorated – if that's the right word – World Aids Day. The words come from the man who is now as honoured as a campaigner against extreme poverty as he is as front man for the world's biggest-selling rock band.

"Three years ago," says Bono, the lead singer of U2, "there was virtually no one in Africa on antiretroviral drugs. Now you'll have two million by the end of this year."

Two million is, of course, only a fraction of those affected by the disease which has to date killed more than 25 million people – making it one of the most destructive epidemics in human history. Another estimated 40 million people are now living with HIV. But the international community is, for the first time, showing real signs of progress in combating the disease on a significant scale.

That fact is, in no small measure, down to the campaigning of the impassioned Irish vocalist, who has lobbied governments for action and corralled some of the world's biggest businesses into playing their part – which is why this newspaper, for the fourth time, turns itself (Red) today.

Since it was founded 20 months ago, (Red) has donated an extraordinary $50,005,410 (£24,324,379) to the Global Fund to fights Aids, TB and Malaria. "Do the maths," says Bono. "It costs about $5 a week to pay for the two pills a day it takes to keep someone with HIV alive."

Aids is no longer a death sentence. Antiretroviral medication will bring someone who is at death's door back to virtually full health. Doctors call itthe Lazarus effect.

More than 20 per cent of all funding to fight Aids now comes from the Global Fund. An extra $50m in its coffers means that a million people who would previously have died have are being kept alive, day in day out, seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year. That is in addition to the extra anti-Aids drugs being provided by governments under the Gleneagles promises. It is nearly double the numbers treated by the Global Fund the year before. "That's what readers of The Independent helped kick off and there's a lot more where that came from."

Bono continues to ride two horses in all this. Yesterday he was holed up in a studio in the south of France with the rest of his band working on the next U2 album.

"We're just beginning the processes. We did some recording in Morocco last year. All the band went to an amazing religious music festival in Fez with some incredible sufi singers. It was a real humbling thing for a punk rock shouter, listening to these people who just close their eyes for 40 minutes and sing the most sophisticated melodies.

"We got this little riad, a small hotel with a courtyard in the middle and set up the band there, with a square of sky over our head. The two great catalysts of U2's recording life, Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, joined us. We'd record during the day and then disappear into windy streets of the medina at night.It was an inspiring experience and a drummer's paradise."

Now, he says, they are trying to get their heads around what they recorded. "World music this is not," he says, though U2 fans will "feel the difference". Polyrhythmic is the word he chooses with a self-deprecating laugh. "U2 in dancefloor shock. Normally when you play a U2 tune, it clears the dancefloor. And that may not be true of this. There's some trance influences. But there's some very hardcore guitar coming out of The Edge. Real molten metal. It's not like anything we've ever done before, and we don't think it sounds like anything anyone else has done either."

Yet, for all that, campaigning for Africa has claimed a significant part of Bono's time over the past 12 months. He has travelled extensively to check on whether the promises of increased aid and debt cancellation made at Gleneagles after Live8 have been made good. "The most important thing to tell people is that, according to figures to be announced by the World Bank and OECD next week, an extra 26 million African children are going to school now because of debt cancellation."

In Tanzania he saw the impact of that in the classroom. "Two years ago an extra 1.5 million went to school. Last year that figure went up to three million. Where there were seven children to a desk now there's four. Instead of one book per desk there's now three.

"In Ghana there's a ghetto just outside Accra called Nima." Some 70,000 people lived there without any sanitation whatsoever when he visited five years ago. "I was back there last year and peeing in this public bathroom and looked up and saw a sign saying paid for by HIPC – that's the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative. That's debt relief."

What has been preoccupying him is building a movement to do in the United States what Make Poverty History did in the UK. "The British people and government have been global leaders in the fight against poverty, and the recent spending review confirms that. So people here forget that things are nowhere near so advanced in other places."

The lobbying organisation he and Bob Geldof founded, DATA, ran a massive campaign to lift global poverty up the domestic agenda in Germany before the last G8 there, with a level of success which surprised many commentators. They are doing the same in Japan ahead of the next G8. But the market to crack is the United States. "We need a Make Poverty History in the United States and we're working on one. It's called The One Campaign and we have 2.5 million Americans signed up." But they need far more.

That is, in part, what the (Red) campaign is about. Shopping is what Bono calls the gateway drug to wider activism. "A lot of the time we're working on governments, and talking about billions in debt relief and multibillion-dollar Aids initiatives launched by the G8. But there's something personal about (Red). People are always asking: 'What can I do personally?' And we always say get out on the streets, get organised, sign up to Oxfam or Save the Children or Christian Aid. But they say: 'What else can I do?' And (Red) gives them that, even while they're buying their Christmas presents."

There are some sceptics to be convinced. Organisations like BuyLessCrap.com have accused (Red) of encouraging over-consumption. Others say that what goes to the Global Fund is only a fraction of what (Red) partners – like Armani, American Express and Apple – spend on marketing. Bono is unimpressed. "Our attitude is that if people make the right choices then buying more stuff is buying also more Aids drugs for Africans."

Buying a pair of Armani sunglasses pays for 53 doses of nevirapine which prevents the transmission of HIV from mother to child during child birth. "I'm not going to challengepeople's buying habits. That's a matter for them. But if they want to buy an iPod they might as well buy a (Red) one and know that somebody's little sister or somebody's big brother is going to see another year."

(Red) has another key component. "What people in the UK don't understand is that in the US – though we had the churches and the campuses, Hollywood and the hip-hop community – we never had the shopping malls." Going about their ordinary business in their constituencies it was easy for US politicians to forget that 5,500 people are dying a day of a preventable disease. They can't forget that now. It's in their face, courtesy of Gap or Motorola. If they walk into an Armani to buy a party frock they'll see a gigantic collection of (Red) clothes beautifully designed by Giorgio." The potent ads of these big business now scream Aids awareness messages.

If (Red) has made things personal so has some of the criticism. Bono has been attacked for being "both a punk rocker and a multimillionaire. They see a contradiction in that. Well I don't. I'd much rather be known as tough in business than some kind of Mother Teresa figure. I don't buy into this idea that all artists are above material stuff. People sense the bullshit in that. You've got to go back to why you joined a band in the first place. We always had two instincts. We wanted to have fun. And we wanted to change the world. And if we could do both at the same time then we'd be happy."

As to the notion that all commerce is tainted: "People who know anything about extreme poverty know that the way to get people out of it is not aid but trade, it's commerce".

He tells a story of how he was booed at a conference in Africa recently. "I was accused of just being about aid and not business enough. Africans have this deep desire to be in charge of their own destiny. They are instinctively entrepreneurial and they know that if they can get a level playing field on trade they are more than capable of getting themselves out of extreme poverty.

"Those who say that commerce is part of the problem not the solution should tell that to someone in Lesotho whosefactory has closed down because the manufacture has moved to China," he says, with a rare touch of asperity to his tone.

He is equally impatient with African ideologues who say that all aid is bad for the continent. "Whenever you see Africans saying they don't want aid it's pretty clear it's not their sisters, brothers, cousins who are dying for lack of the few cents a day for the two little pills that would keep them alive."

His key message is that individuals – whether they are punk rockers marching with priests and nuns on the G8 or Christmas shoppers in high-street stores – can make a difference. "People need to know that by marching on Gleneagles they made the world a better place. It was a real moment in history. Naysayers who belittle that take the wind out of the sails of momentum. We mustn't lose momentum."

For Bono that message is both personal and political. He hopes to have a new U2 album out next year. "We have enough material for two albums but it has to be extraordinary. And I think we've got that." On the (Red) front he is no more modest. He has two "gigantic" new partners to be announced in January and, on Valentine's Day, a (Red) Art Auction with many of the world's top living artists contributing major pieces.

"Next year is going to be a great year for (Red). But The Independent should be very proud because it was our first associate. A $50m contribution to the Global Fund is about the best Christmas present anyone could ever have."

Putin's party wins Russia election By LYNN BERRY, Associated Press Writer
21 minutes ago

MOSCOW - Vladimir Putin's party won a crushing victory in parliamentary elections Sunday, paving the way for the authoritarian leader to remain in control even after he steps down as president.

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The vote followed a tense Kremlin campaign that relied on a combination of persuasion and intimidation to ensure victory for the United Russia party and for Putin, who has used a flood of oil revenues to move his country onto a more assertive position on the global stage.

"The vote affirmed the main idea: that Vladimir Putin is the national leader, that the people support his course, and this course will continue," party leader and parliament speaker Boris Gryzlov said after exit polls were announced.

Several opposition leaders accused the Kremlin of rigging the vote, and the Bush administration called for a probe into voting irregularities. Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov called the election "the most irresponsible and dirty" in the post-Soviet era.

With ballots from 54.7 percent of precincts counted, United Russia was leading with 62.9 percent, while the Communists — the only opposition party to win seats — trailed with 11.7 percent, the Central Election Commission said. Exit polls seemed to corroborate the partial results.

The Kremlin portrayed the election as a plebiscite on Putin's nearly eight years as president — with the promise that a major victory would allow him somehow to remain leader after his second term ends next year.

Putin is constitutionally prohibited from running for a third consecutive term, but he clearly wants to stay in power. A movement has sprung up in recent weeks to urge him to become a "national leader," though what duties and powers that would entail are unclear.

Pollsters said United Russia's performance would give it an overwhelming majority of 306 seats in the 450-seat State Duma, or lower house. The Communists would have 57 seats.

Two other pro-Kremlin parties — the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party and populist Just Russia — also appeared to have made it into parliament, with 9 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively, in the early count.

One Liberal Democratic Party deputy will be Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer and chief suspect in the poisoning death of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko in London last year. Russia has refused to hand Lugovoi over to Britain, and the Duma seat provides him with immunity from prosecution.

No other parties passed the 7 percent threshold for gaining seats in the legislature. Both opposition liberal parties were shut out, predicted to win no more than 2 or 3 percent of the vote each.

Many Russians complained Sunday about being pressured to cast their ballots, with teachers, doctors and others saying they had been ordered by their bosses to vote at their workplaces.

"People are being forced and threatened to vote; otherwise they won't get their salaries or pensions," said Boris Nemtsov, leader of the liberal Union of Right Forces party.

Dozens of voters reported being paid to cast ballots for United Russia, said Alexander Kynev, a political expert with election monitoring group Golos. In the town of Pestovo in the western Novgorod region, voters complained they were given ballots already filled out for United Russia, he said.

In Chechnya, where turnout was over 99 percent, witnesses reported seeing election authorities filling out and casting voter ballots in the suburbs of the regional capital, Grozny.

There was a tense, subdued mood at some polling stations. Yelena, a 32-year-old manager in St. Petersburg, refused to give her last name out of fear of official retaliation for voting for the liberal Yabloko party.

"We live in a country with an absence of democracy and freedom of speech," she said.

Many voters were reluctant to discuss their vote — a shift since the late 1980s, when Russians complained loudly about their government. One elderly woman, a veteran of a defense research institute, refused to give her name and only admitted that she had voted for Yabloko when she was certain no one else was listening.

The authorities, she said, would not let Yabloko win seats.

"That's why we have about 300 fools, I'm sorry to say, in our Duma," she said. "And I don't believe Putin: He is an ordinary man, we must not give him absolute power."

The Kremlin appeared determined to engineer a resounding victory. But Putin, credited with rebuilding Russia after the poverty and uncertainty of the 1990s, has support from many Russians.

"Today everything is clear and stable in life. The president's words always coincide with what he does. As for the other candidates we don't know yet where they would take us to," said Raisa Tretyakova, a 61-year-old pensioner in St. Petersburg.

The Bush administration Sunday called on Russia to investigate claims the vote was manipulated.

"In the runup to election day, we expressed our concern regarding the use of state administrative resources in support of United Russia, the bias of the state-owned or influenced media in favor of United Russia, intimidation of political opposition, and the lack of equal opportunity encountered by opposition candidates and parties," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council.

Turnout was about 62 percent Sunday, the Central Elections Commission said, up from 56 percent in the last parliamentary elections four years ago.

All seats will be awarded according to the percentage of the vote each party receives; in previous elections, half the seats were chosen among candidates contesting a specific district, allowing a few mavericks to get in. About 109 million people are eligible to vote.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, regarded in the West as the most authoritative election monitor, canceled plans to send observers.

Putin claimed the pullout was instigated by the United States to discredit the elections. But the OSCE said Russia delayed granting visas for so long that the organization would have been unable to meaningfully assess election preparations.

___

Associated Press writers Steve Gutterman, Maria Danilova and Bagila Bukharbayeva in Moscow, Natalia Zaitseva in Petrozavodsk and Irina Titova in St. Petersburg contributed to this report.

AP
Oil Prices Jump on Hurricane Concerns
Monday September 3, 1:45 pm ET
Oil Prices Rise As Traders Track Potentially Destructive Storms That Could Hit Gulf of Mexico

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Oil futures rose Monday as traders tracked potentially destructive storms that could hit the Gulf of Mexico region.
Trading was sluggish, however, as the U.S. financial markets were closed due to the Labor Day holiday.

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Worries over a Category 5 Atlantic storm, Hurricane Felix, eased somewhat as it churned its way into the open waters of the Caribbean Sea Sunday and looked less likely to hit the Gulf of Mexico, where key refineries are located.

Still, the National Hurricane Center in Miami advised workers on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to monitor the progress of Felix and said the storm could reach the area in four to five days.

Rebecca Waddington, a meteorologist with the center warned that both hurricane Felix and tropical storm Henriette could shift course.

"Even if the forecast is perfect, that's only forecasting where the center of the storm is going to go," she said. "So everyone in the area needs to be aware of it, because the storms are quite large."

Light, sweet crude for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 47 cents to $74.51 a barrel in electronic trading by evening in Europe.

Oil prices have also been supported by U.S. government reports that consumer spending and factory orders rose in July. Energy investors pay close attention to economic data because an economy's strength is seen as a barometer of demand for oil and gasoline.

October Brent crude gained 55 cents to $73.24 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange in London.

Nymex heating oil rose by over 2 cents to $2.0800 a gallon while gasoline prices were up 1 cent, fetching $1.9745 a gallon.

Natural gas futures fell nearly 9 cents to $5.38 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Stranger Than Paradise
Friday August 31, 2007
A catchy summary of Stranger Than Paradise is not really possible, since this movie is little more than plotless until its last twenty minutes. The film centers on a bohemian (John Lurie) living in a New York "economy" apartment; his aunt calls to say that his cousin will be coming from Hungary to stay with him for a few days. The cousin arrives, and during the next few days the two bond by watching television and eating TV dinners. Eventually she leaves to visit her aunt in Cleveland... More...

Vertical Limit - BD
Friday August 31, 2007
Director Martin Campbell (Goldeneye, The Mask of Zorro) brings higher adventure (pun intended) to the big screen in a predictable, yet well executed action flick set on one of the most difficult mountains in the world to climb, K2. It’s the story of a brother and sister who care deeply for one another, but are estranged, the fallout from a tragic climbing mishap involving their father, Royce (Stuart Wilson). Peter Garrett (Chris O'Donnell) has been drawn to the mountain to photograph... More...

Notting Hill – HD DVD
Friday August 31, 2007
Thanks to a very clever and witty script by Richard Curtis and charming performances by Hugh Grant as William Thacker, Julia Roberts as Anna Scott, and a very fine supporting cast, Notting Hill is a delightful romantic comedy. Anna Scott is one of the world's most famous actresses. William Thacker is an anonymous bookshop owner in Notting Hill. Through a chance encounter, the two begin a whirlwind friendship turned romance. But can William handle the price of Anna's fame, or is Anna the one with... More...

8 Simple Rules: The Complete First Season
Wednesday August 29, 2007
This one’s hard, man – very hard. 8 Simple Rules’ first season really strives for greatness – it doesn’t contain real greatness, mind you, but it strives for it. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that if John Ritter hadn’t passed away tragically mid-way through the show’s second, 8 Simple Rules would have really catapulted itself to the top tier of broadcast sitcom TV (it could have been at least as big as, say, Two and a Half Men). But it... More...

National Lampoon’s Van Wilder - BD
Wednesday August 29, 2007
The venerable National Lampoon has scored some notable hits, including the Chevy Chase Vacation series and, of course, Animal House, but they've also had more than their fair share of misses. With Van Wilder, we have the self- proclaimed "Animal House for the next generation." Alas, Van Wilder does not come up to that John Landis and John Belushi comedic romp; it’s only occasionally funny and reaches very low for much of its humor. Despite the film’s marketing campaign... More...

Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars
Wednesday August 29, 2007
The Baker Street Irregulars are secondary characters in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes writings. This is a group of young street urchins that Holmes employed as information gatherers. Usually inconspicuous because of their ages, or simply unseen due to their wily ways, they are an unconventional force sent out on various forays by an unconventional detective. In 2007, the BBC presented a two-part miniseries that shifted the focus from the famous consulting... More...

Rowan Atkinson Live!
Monday August 27, 2007
I’ve been lucky to have experienced theater performances in London’s West End and, since I’m located in the Metropolitan New York area, on Broadway. Of dozens of plays and reviews, my best night at the theater was spent watching Peter Cook and Dudley Moore perform in their two-man show called Good Evening. It was a revival of sorts, a blend of new sketches and material culled from Beyond the Fringe, an earlier comedic review in which they starred with Alan Bennett... More...

Year of the Dog
Monday August 27, 2007
Peggy, the hero of writer Mike White’s directing debut has a lot of love to give. But on the bad side of 40, the only recipient of that love is her dog Pencil. As played by SNL alum Molly Shannon, Peggy is wide-eyed and bushytailed, much like Pencil. There’s something strange about single people with pets, especially woman. Dogs love unconditionally, and require only food, water, and a daily walk. People love conditionally, and require physical, emotional, and sexual upkeep. Dogs are... More...

More DVD Reviews...

Meet Justine Ezarik and Justin Kan. These "lifecasters" live their lives in front of mobile webcams, for anyone to see.

By KEVIN SITES, TUE AUG 28, 5:13 PM PDT

Justin Kan met a girl and things were going well.
So well, in fact, that after a couple dates she invited him up to her bedroom. Why not? After all, 24-year-old Justin is a Yale grad with a major in physics and philosophy. He was also successful, having pocketed some decent cash after selling an Internet startup.

Justine Ezarik, 23, has become one of the most popular "lifecasters" on the Web.
There was just one hitch: Justin had a live webcam mounted on his hat, making his every move viewable by anyone who happened to be watching his site, Justin.tv.

But voyeuristic viewers of Justin.tv ended up disappointed that evening.

"I put the camera off to the side and turned off the microphone," Justin says. "I wanted to keep it, kind of, like, kid safe. And you know, I don't really have any desire to be a porn star on the Internet."

Justin may not be a porn star, but he has become a web celebrity of sorts since attaching a camera to the brim of his baseball cap and live-streaming every moment of his life through the cellular WiFi-connected Sony Vaio notebook computer in his backpack.

Well, not every moment. "I've stopped taking it in public bathrooms," he says. "That's criminally prosecutable in California."

Justin.tv is one of new breed of live video sites that feature people doing... whatever it is that they are doing, live. Sites like Justin.tv, Stickam, Operator 11, and Ustream offer home-made reality TV, uploaded by users around the world.

The idea isn't necessarily new — in 1996, Jennifer Ringley set up a webcam in her college dorm room. "JenniCam" documented her daily life, whether she was painting her nails or having sex with her boyfriend. She continued the practice, wherever she was living, for the next seven years. But Justin is taking it to a new level, thanks to wireless technology that allows the live feed to go mobile.

Justin.tv started with just one "channel" — all Justin, all the time. Now the site features numerous other "lifecasters," such as a guitar-strumming, underwear-clad minstrel in New York City known as the Naked Cowboy. It's even had a presidential candidate: Ron Paul has been doing a bit of lifecasting on Justin.tv.

The site also has a burgeoning star, Justine Ezarik, a 23-year-old graphic designer from Pittsburgh area.

It's easy to see why she's already had so much success. She has model good looks and easy cyber savvyness that attracts both technophiles and casual users alike.

I met up with both Justin and Justine at an outdoor mall in Santa Monica, Calif. While Justin's trucker cap headcam seems to peg out the nerdy-meter, Justine pulls off the tech-heavy setup with style, wearing a green sundress and camera mounted to a floppy Greek fisherman's cap which, despite the dangling cables, still allows her to appear more woman than Borg.

They were lifecasting as we spoke, simultaneously answering my questions and addressing their viewers, who ping them via live chat. Justine's viewers were urging her to head to the nearby beach, in the hopes of seeing her in a bikini.

"Guys, can you just be nice?" she said, addressing her webcam. "Come on. Why does this always have to be like that?"

Justine says she gets a lot of those kind of messages, but her "channel," like Justin's, is strictly PG.

While 24/7 live streaming is an obvious burden for the "lifecaster," it's also not always the most compelling for viewers either. Justin and Justine both turn the cameras on themselves during the day, but much of their streams are point-of-view shots of them sitting at their computers or walking. The images lack drama and can appear muddy when there's a lot of movement.

Justin Kan, 24, has been wearing a live webcam since launching Justin.tv in March.
When viewers don't like what they're seeing, they sometimes take matters into their own hands.

One person called 911 with a false report of a stabbing at Justin's apartment. Police burst in with guns drawn — and it could all be seen online.

Other prank calls involved suicide jumpers and fires. Worse was a bomb threat. "We were at a convention-type thing," Justin recalled.

For Justin and Justine, wearing a live camera can have unintended consequences. While we were talking at the mall, a thief swiped a man's cell phone and darted right past us. Justin caught the incident on his headcam and told the victim he could use the video to identify the crook.

I mentioned to him that the cam could potentially make him a tool for police — a sort of mobile, public, closed-circuit television camera. He conceded it's something he hasn't given much thought to.

We turned away and began watching a young violinist playing for passersby. It occurred to me that Justin now was a potential promotional tool for this musician.

It was a dizzying array of funhouse mirrors all within a few hours of one afternoon. Sometimes, while these lifecasters are occupied with capturing the moments of their lives — they are also missing them completely.

"I'm, like, ‘Wow, I really wish I could have actually enjoyed that moment,'" Justine said. "But instead I was too busy."

As an experiment, I asked Justine to briefly shut down her camera. She gratefully complied and pulled of her cap. At once the conversation seemed more relaxed and natural.

She admitted that it was difficult to have people watching her all day — and judging her, in public. And she said that viewers can be cruel.

So why lifecast at all, then?

Well, there's the money. Justin and his partners received startup financing from an Internet investment group to launch Justin.tv. Viewership has grown; Justin says the site currently gets between 30,000 and 40,000 visitors a day.

And then there's the fame. Justin.tv may not have a large audience compared with "The Real World" or "The Surreal Life," but consider this: within weeks of launching her channel on Justin.tv, Justine was in Los Angeles, meeting with one of Hollywood's most powerful and influential talent agencies.

-Producer: Robert Padavick
-Video editor: Didrik Johnck

The watch and the verification reports and IAEA in nuclear facilities in North
Korea distribute it to the director country.

【 Vienna = Ishiguro 】Secretary-general Elbaradai of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) brought the report concerning the watch and the verification activity of nuclear facilities in North Korea together on the 17th, and distributed it to the director country.

The report of page 3 confirms the installation of the watch equipment such as cameras was in order in five facilities such as 5000-kilowatt black lead furnaces in Yongbyon for the stop by the one based on the activity that IAEA inspection group is continuing in North Korea from last month the 14th. Moreover, the report became a content that impressed the cooperation of North Korea as the point etc. that North Korea agreed to IAEA worker's entry to all necessary places according to taking a picture of facilities.

Experienced travelers know that setbacks can often be opportunities in disguise. Too rainy to hit the botanical gardens? You might discover a new favorite indoor café. Missed the train to your next stop? Extend your stay and check out that exhibit you didn't have time for. And currently, the unfavorable euro-dollar exchange rate provides a truly exciting opportunity: a chance to explore some remote corners of the map that might have escaped your attention before. These up-and-coming destinations offer many of the attractions of an Old-World European vacation at refreshingly reasonable prices.
Often referred to as the Paris of South America, Buenos Aires offers European elegance at down-to-earth prices.
If You Love: History

Instead of: Athens | Try: Istanbul

Athens may be the more obvious destination of choice for history buffs, but Istanbul — just across the Aegean — has an equally storied past, and buildings to rival the Acropolis (the breathtaking Hagia Sophia was a finalist in the recent New Seven Wonders of the World contest). For a bit more background, try Elizabeth Kostova's bestselling novel, The Historian, which provides beautiful descriptions of the ancient city.

Sample Savings: You can find a moderate hotel in Athens for about $180/night. Similar accommodations would cost about $120/night in Istanbul.

If You Love: Art

Instead of: Paris | Try: Culver City

For viewing art's heavy hitters, there's no match for the justifiably famous museums of Paris. But, if you want to check out some hot up-and-comers, head towards the burgeoning art scene in Culver City, California. The former "Heart of Screenland" has experienced a recent rebirth, complete with a 4-5 block strip of contemporary art galleries that the New York Times compared to a "nascent Chelsea." For those interested in starting their own collection, it's possible to find original works for $1,000 or less.

Sample Savings: Admission to the Louvre is roughly $12, Musée d'Orsay is $10, and Centre Pompidou is $13.50. The galleries in Culver City are open to the public for free.
Photo by: lucky kt

If You Love: Food

Photo by: jackol Instead of: Barcelona | Try: Bangkok

Although Barcelona's avant-garde food scene makes foodies swoon, halfway around the world, traditional Thai food provides a similar sense of novelty and delight to diners. For those not used to the unique flavors of true Thai cuisine, a meal featuring bitter eggplant, sour larb salad, or pungent durian can hold as many surprises as the culinary foams and flavored essences served at El Bulli.

Sample Savings: Dinner for two in Barcelona costs about $100. In Bangkok, expect to pay closer to $15.

If You Love: Shopping

Instead of: Milan | Try: Buenos Aires

The combination of the devalued peso and a slew of traditional artisans and fashion-forward boutiques makes Buenos Aires a true shoppers' paradise. Pick up leather goods, silverware, and antiques for a song. San Telmo is the spot for antiques shopping, while the trendy Palermo Soho district gives its NYC and London counterparts a run for their money.

Sample Savings: A leather jacket in Milan costs at least $250, but you can find one in Buenos Aires for around $100.