Wednesday, 25 May 2011

  • NY judge agrees to new DSK house arrest location (AP)

    Strauss-Kahn lawyers deny contacting accuser

    NEW YORK ? New York court officials say a new, more permanent location has been found for Dominique Strauss-Kahn's house arrest on sexual assault charges.

    The Office of Court Administration says the judge received a phone call from all parties Wednesday and a new location was agreed upon. Spokesman David Bookstaver did not say where the new housing is or when the former leader of the International Monetary Fund will move. He is free on $1 million bail and under house arrest temporarily in an apartment in lower Manhattan.

    The one-time French presidential contender was jailed for about a week in New York City after he was arrested May 14. A hotel maid says he sexually assaulted her in his hotel room. His attorneys have said Strauss-Kahn is not guilty.

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  • Ai Weiwei work on show at key Hong Kong art fair (AFP)

    HONG KONG (AFP) ? A leading international art fair is to display a provocative work by detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in Hong Kong in a show of solidarity with the outspoken dissident amid a government crackdown.

    Director Magnus Renfrew said the organisers of ART HK shared the concerns of the international community over Ai's fate, and called for "due process" of the law to be upheld in his case, which has sparked an international outcry.

    "Ai Weiwei's works have been greatly admired," he said.

    The fair, starting Thursday, is to display Ai's 2007 sculpture "Marble Arm", which depicts an outstretched arm and hand -- with its middle finger raised.

    The artist was taken into custody in Beijing last month during the government's biggest crackdown on dissidents and activists in years, with authorities later saying he was suspected of unspecified "economic crimes".

    The US and European Union have called for Ai's release, but Beijing has rejected such calls, denouncing them as interfering and inappropriate.

    "Marble Arm" was brought to the fair by Switzerland-based Galerie Urs Meile, which also run a gallery in Beijing.

    "By presenting his work, we believe his situation will be discussed," the gallery's assistant Rene Meile told AFP.

    Chinese police alleged last week that a firm controlled by Ai had evaded taxes, in a move that appeared to be aimed at building their case against the detained artist.

    Hong Kong maintains semi-autonomous status from China and enjoys civil liberties not seen on the mainland. Artists and campaigners have staged a series of protests there calling for Ai's release.

    ART HK, which is now in its fourth year, will see a record 260 galleries from 38 countries taking part in the four-day fair. It is expected to draw at least 45,000 visitors to see work by over 1,000 artists.

    The city, which has become the world's third-biggest auction hub behind London and New York, has ambitions to establish itself as a centre for art in Asia.

    The fair will also show new works by cutting-edge artist Barnaby Furnas and an acclaimed anamorphic projection by South African artist William Kentridge.

    Organisers said they expect to see tens of millions of dollars in sales over the four days, but could not provide a forecast for the private transactions.

    Several auctioneers, including Christie's and Sotheby's, are holding Hong Kong art sales expected to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming week.

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  • Anti-Americanism rife in Pakistan army institution: Wikileaks (Reuters)

    By Zeeshan Haider

    ISLAMABAD (Reuters) ? Officers received training biased against the United States at a prestigious Pakistan army institution, according to Wikileaks, underscoring concern that anti-Americanism in the country's powerful military is growing amid strains with Washington.

    A U.S. diplomatic cable said the former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, found officers at the National Defense University (NDU) were "naive and biased" against the United States, a key ally which gives Pakistan billions of dollars of aid to help fight Islamist militants.

    Fears the military could be harboring militant sympathizers have grown since U.S. forces found and killed Osama bin Laden this month in a Pakistani garrison town, where the al Qaeda leader had probably lived for several years.

    Pakistan's military also controls the country's nuclear arms, and a series of attacks against military installations has heightened fears about the safety of those weapons.

    "The elite of this crop of colonels and brigadiers are receiving biased NDU training with no chance to hear alternative views of the U.S.," the Wikileaks cable, which was published in the Dawn newspaper, quoted Patterson as saying.

    "Given the bias of the instructors, we also believe it would be beneficial to initiate an exchange program for instructors."

    Some of the officers believed the CIA was in charge of the U.S. media, the report said.

    Anti-Americanism runs high among many of Pakistan's mainly Muslim people but it has deepened after bin Laden's killing in a secret U.S. raid which many Pakistanis see as breach of sovereignty.

    Patterson said the United States must target a "lost generation" of military officers who missed training programs in the United States after Washington imposed sanctions against Pakistan in the 1990s for its nuclear program.

    The cables also documented the account of a U.S. army officer, Colonel Michael Schleicher, who attended a course at NDU and corroborated the views expressed by Patterson.

    "The senior level instructors had misperception about U.S. policies and culture and infused the lectures with these suspicions, while the students share these misconceptions with their superiors despite having children who attended universities in the U.S. or London," the cables quoted Schleicher as saying.

    Hamayoun Khan, a teacher at NDU, however denied that anti-Americanism was being taught at the university.

    "I haven't seen bias which she has mentioned here," he said.

    Dawn said dozens of cables from U.S. embassies around the world also showed that the United States continued to intensely monitor Pakistan's nuclear and missiles programs.

    In 2008, the U.S. deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Nancy McEldowney, detailed her discussions with Turkish authorities about the U.S. desire to see action taken against suspicious shipments to Pakistan.

    U.S. officials, according to the cable, "urged the GOT (government of Turkey) to contact the governments of Japan and Panama to request the shipment be diverted to another port and returned."

    Pakistan's nuclear program came under increasing international scrutiny after the 2004 confessions of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atom bomb, about his involvement in sales of nuclear secrets to Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

    The government pardoned Khan but put him under house arrest. A court in 2009 ordered his release.

    A militant raid on a navy base in the southern city of Karachi this week has raised fresh anxiety about the ability of Pakistani security forces to protect installations and the country's nuclear arsenal.

    A Taliban spokesman said militants had "so far" no plans to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

    "We will protect these weapons from dangers from foreigners," Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

    Many Pakistanis believe the United States and India would like to confiscate their nuclear weapons.

    (Additional reporting by Haji Mujtabad; Editing by Alistair Scrutton and Robert Birsel)

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  • British airspace clear of ash for now (AFP)

    LONDON (AFP) ? British air traffic returned to normal Wednesday after ash from an Icelandic volcano moved towards Germany, a day after hundreds of flights were cancelled, air traffic controllers said.

    The airspace above Britain was expected to remain clear of high density ash from the Grimsvoetn volcano until at least 1800 GMT, said a spokesman for NATS (National Air Traffice Services).

    Transport Minister Philip Hammond said the ash cloud was expected to come back to Britain on Friday but it could return at such high altitude that aircraft may be able to fly beneath it.

    Around 500 flights, mainly in Britain, were grounded on Tuesday as ash from Grimsvoetn's most powerful eruption in half a century swept across northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

    German air safety officials announced that no flights would land or take off from Bremen Airport and Hamburg Airport from Wednesday morning as the cloud drifted towards continental Europe.

    The disruption comes barely a year after a similar eruption in Iceland forced the biggest closure of European airspace since World War II.

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Monday, 23 May 2011

  • Ex-teammate hits at Armstrong for doping (AFP)

    LOS ANGELES (AFP) ? Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong was part of a sophisticated doping program according to a former teammmate who testified before a grand jury investigating the US cycling icon.

    In an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS television's "60 Minutes", admitted dope cheat Tyler Hamilton detailed what he told a Los Angeles grand jury and said team and world cycling officials helped keep Armstrong's doping a secret.

    "There are a lot of other cheats and liars out there too who have gotten away with it. It's not just Lance," Hamilton said. "With a little luck I would still be out there today being a cheat and a liar."

    Hamilton said he saw Armstrong receive a blood transfusion during the 2000 Tour and inject EPO during the 1999 Tour and before the 2000 and 2001 Tours.

    "I saw him inject it more than one time like we all did, like I did many, many times," Hamilton said. "He was the leader of the team. He doped himself like everybody else, being part of the culture of the sport."

    The report, citing unnamed sources, also said George Hincapie, an Armstrong friend and ex-teammate who did not speak with CBS, told the grand jury that he and Armstrong supplied each other with EPO (erythropoietin), a banned endurance booster, and spoke of using testosterone.

    "We are confident that the statements attributed to Hincapie are inaccurate and that the reports of his testimony are unreliable," Armstrong said on his facts4lance website.

    "George Hincapie and his counsel have publicly said that they did not reveal any aspects of his testimony. The only others with access to Hincapie?s testimony, government investigators and prosecutors, have likewise assured us that they are not the source of the information attributed by CBS to Hincapie."

    Federal investigators are looking into whether the success of the US Postal Service team anchored by Armstrong, who retired in February, was the result of doping and thereby potentially resulting in fraudulent claims to sponsors.

    Armstrong "took what we all took, really they're no different than anyone else in the pelaton," Hamilton told CBS. "There was EPO, testosterone and I did see a blood transfusion."

    Hamilton said team doctors helped him with doping schedules that enabled him to evade doping tests and that Armstrong, now 39, once sent him a package with EPO when doctors said his blood was too clean.

    "I reached out to Lance Armstrong and he helped me out," Hamilton said. "The next day or two a packet arrived with enough EPO. Lance confirmed he would send me something and it did arrive.

    "Sure it was an illegal doping product. But he helped out a friend. I would have done the same thing for Lance."

    Armstrong, who won every Tour de France from 1999 through 2005, has denied ever taking performance-enhancing drugs and Mark Fabiani, a counsel for Armstrong, cited Armstrong's spotless doping test record in a statement Sunday.

    "Throughout this entire process CBS has demonstrated a serious lack of journalistic fairness and has elevated sensationalism over responsibility," Fabiani said.

    "CBS chose to rely on dubious sources while completely ignoring Lance's nearly 500 clean tests and the hundreds of former teammates and competitors who would have spoken about his work ethic and talent."

    Hamilton, whom CBS reported received limited liability from prosecution for his testimony provided he was not found to have lied, said he was certain Armstrong would attack his credibility.

    "I'm telling the truth," Hamilton said. "I'm sure he will come out with accusations. To Lance I feel bad I had to come here and do this but long term, the sport is going to be better off for it.

    "If I could have pressed a button, deleted my memory, I would have."

    Hamilton said Armstrong "recommended it was a good idea for the team and myself I take some 'therapy'. He was recommedning I take EPO."

    Hamilton countered Armstrong's claim of having never failed a drug test by saying that Armstrong told him in a relaxed, "off the cuff" manner that Armstrong had failed a test at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland.

    "People took care of it," Hamilton said. "I don't know all the exact details but Lance's people and people from the other side, people I believe from the governing body of the sport, figured out a way for it to go away. I was told this (by) Lance."

    The report had no hard evidence that International Cycling Union (UCI) officials were enablers to Armstrong evading a doping suspension, but cited a Swiss lab director's statement to the FBI that said a UCI official wanted the matter of a "suspicious" test to go no further and set up a meeting with Armstrong and team officials.

    In a letter obtained by CBS from Armstrong's lawyers, the UCI said there was no positive test at the 2001 Swiss race by Armstrong. The CBS report noted Armstrong donated $25,000 and $100,000 to the UCI for anti-doping work.

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