Playboy dollars help save Hollywood sign

By Alan Duke, CNN

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner, who made his fortune showcasing one type of Hollywood beauty, is sharing his wealth to save another.

A $900,000 donation from Hefner gives fundraisers the $12.5 million needed to buy and protect the 138 acres behind the world-famous Hollywood sign, they announced Monday.

A public land trust was formed to buy the land out of fear that luxury homes would be built near the landmark.

"Today, we have the Hollywood ending we hoped for, and now, Cahuenga Peak will be forever protected by adding it to Griffith Park," trust President Will Rogers said.

Fundraisers covered the famous sign for several days earlier this year to make their point about its importance. Instead, it read, "Save the Peak".

Hefner called the sign "Hollywood's Eiffel Tower".

"My childhood dreams and fantasies came from the movies, and the images created in Hollywood had a major influence on my life andPlayboy," Hefner said.

The land was once bought by aviation pioneer and movie mogul Howard Hughes, who reportedly planned to build a love nest on the peak.

The land is zoned for luxury homes, but no one has ever built on it.

CNN

Kenyan Islamic group cracks down on soccer, films

By Sahra Abdi

Reuters

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A group of Islamic clerics in northeastern Kenya said on Monday it was cracking down on public broadcasts of soccer and films because it feared young Kenyan Muslims were shunning Islamic traditions.

The group based in the town of Mandera on the border with Somalia said it had also put pressure on local administrators to back their television bans in a soccer-mad nation eagerly awaiting the World Cup in South Africa.

"If we come to a place where movies or watching football goes on we simply take everything and destroy the disc and repay the owners. We have now succeeded in 10 places," Sheikh Daud Sheikh Mahmud, head of the group, told Reuters.

"We will not stop until we have destroyed totally all the cinemas showing movies and football in this area," he said by phone from Mandera.

Kenya said such bans could never be enforced legally.

"This is a secular country so our people have the freedom to do whatever they want within the law, which includes watching football," government spokesman Alfred Mutua told Reuters.

"On our side of the border is a nation of law and order where there is no legal restriction on showing football".

The region of Somalia that borders Kenya is largely controlled by the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group, a rebel militia which enforces a harsh version of sharia law that includes banning school bells and music on radios.

The Kenyan group denied any link to al Shabaab.

"MISLEADING PLACES"

Sheikh Daud Sheikh Mahmud said they were worried youths in the predominantly Muslim region were being distracted by television broadcasts in bars and cafes.

"We realized that our children were spending the whole night in those misleading places ... this is something against our Islamic religion and we are the leaders of the people," he said.

Many Kenyan Muslim leaders support a more moderate interpretation of Islam, although one said restrictions on television were possible if young Muslims were indeed spending too much time transfixed by light entertainment.

"Our religion isn't against football as it is also healthy exercise," Sheikh Nor Barud Gurhan, a Nairobi-based Muslim scholar, told Reuters.

"We could ban it if the people are busy only watching and playing football without doing the obligatory actions of Islam like praying," he said.

The northern Kenyan group pledged to step up its anti-soccer drive in Kenya as Africa waits to hosts its first World Cup in June, a point of great pride for many Kenyans.

Writing by Jeremy Clarke; Editing by David Clarke

The Washington Post

Exxon Mobil Corporation donates funds to University

By Aziza Musa, Daily Texan Staff

The University will receive more than $1 million in donations from Exxon Mobil Corp. in May, as part of a grant from the annual ExxonMobil Foundation’s 2009 Educational Matching Gift Program, in which employees and retirees donate money to higher educational institutions across the nation.

Exxon Mobil matches those donations by a ratio of 3 to 1. In Texas alone, contributions totaled $7.9 million to 83 colleges and universities. For UT, the $1 million funding is the largest amount Exxon Mobil has given through the matching-gift program.

Employees and retirees of the company will determine exactly where the money will go, but they encouraged the University to spend a portion of it on science and mathematics programs because Exxon Mobil is a technology company, Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Karen Matusic said.

Matusic said some funds, however, are unrestricted and can be used in whatever way the college would like.

Mark Blount, the University’s director of corporate relations, said he expects the funds to benefit the entire campus.

“The majority of contributions [have gone] to the Cockrell School of Engineering, McCombs School of Business, Jackson School of Geosciences, LBJ School of Public Affairs and the School of Law because of the number of alumni that are working for the company,” Blount said.

He said that as the number of alumni who are current or past employees of the company has increased throughout the years, so has the amount of funding.

“They’re tremendously helpful and valued across the University, [especially in the midst of budget cuts],” Blount said. “It will allow us to do things we wouldn’t be able to do without it, like support students, faculty, important programs and areas of research”.

The University will celebrate this year’s matching-gift contribution May 3, the same day it will receive the funding.

The Daily Texan

Iceland airport reopens with connecting flights to US and Europe

Keflavik International Airport in Iceland has today reopened after being closed over the weekend due to ash clouds in the surrounding area. Now, Iceland’s main airport, which is just a 35 minute drive from the capital city Reykjavik, is making preparations for the extended summer flight schedule that will begin over the following months.

In order to accommodate all the holiday makers that want to travel to and from Iceland, as well as on to further destinations across Europe and the USA this summer, Icelandic airline companies are beginning to extend their flight plans. Transatlantic and European flights connect via Keflavik International Airport, allowing passengers the option to stopover in Iceland at no additional airfare.

Connecting flights through Iceland allows travellers to stopover and gives them the chance to explore the beautiful country and experience all that it has to offer. The recent volcanic eruption has only affected a very small area of Iceland on the south coast, the vast majority of the island remains unaffected and is still extremely safe to travel around. So with no real dangers, there are still numerous day trips and guided tours exploring the untouched beauty of the island.

Over the past week hundreds of volunteers have been working in the south to help those in the area surrounding the volcano. Those mainly affected are farmers located to the south of the volcano where the majority of volcanic ash has fallen, damaging farmland and this year’s crops. However, the recent ash fall will prove to be beneficial next year due to the fact it acts as a great fertiliser for the crops. The cleanup operation involves numerous search and rescue teams as well as many other individuals helping out their fellow countrymen in true Icelandic spirit.

With the cleanup operation well under way and Keflavik International Airport reopening today, the situation seems to be improving.

Additional information about connecting flights via Iceland and the summer flight schedule can be accessed at www.kefairport.is/English

IceNews

Charges, divisions trouble Nigeria's ruling party

By Camillus Eboh

ABUJA (Reuters) - A crisis in Nigeria's ruling party deepened on Monday as a group of rebel members won the right to appeal against their suspension and corruption charges were filed against the party chairman.

Disagreement over who the People's Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in next year's presidential elections should be risks tearing apart the grouping that has dominated Nigeria's politics since the country returned to democracy just over a decade ago.

A split could radically alter the political landscape in Africa's most populous nation, raising the prospect of more than one candidate credibly contesting next year's polls.

The PDP suspended a group of 19 senior members last week after they launched an open rebellion calling for reforms which could break the stranglehold of a small elite over the party and throw the presidential race wide open.

The group, known as the PDP Reform Forum, on Monday won an appeal allowing them to challenge their suspension in court and preventing the party from holding a key meeting due on Tuesday to approve rules for the presidential primaries.

"I am of the view that it is in the interest of justice to grant the application and the application is hereby granted," Justice Abubakar Talba told a high court in Abuja.

The Reform Forum had argued that should Tuesday's meeting go ahead in their absence, their interests as party members would not be represented.

CORRUPTION CHARGES

The ruling dealt a second blow to party chairman Vincent Ogbulafor, hours after another Abuja court charged him and four others with 16 counts of "conspiracy and fraud" relating to his time as a government minister in 2001.

The charges filed by Nigeria's anti-fraud agency the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (IPCP) accuse Ogbulafor of conspiring to siphon off 233 million naira in public funds.

"The prosecution is at liberty to apply for an arrest warrant if there is any likelihood that any of the accused may decide not to come that day," Justice Ishaq Bello said, setting Ogbulafor's arraignment for May 3.

The rift in the PDP centres around who should stand as the party candidate in next year's presidential race.

The sickness of President Umaru Yar'Adua, who returned from a Saudi hospital in February but remains too ill to rule, had already raised the prospect of rifts within the PDP if it struggled to agree on who his successor should be.

Ogbulafor said last month that the PDP candidate in 2011 should be from Yar'Adua's Muslim north, abiding by the terms of an unwritten agreement that power rotates between north and the mostly Christian south every two terms.

But Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, a southern Christian, has not ruled himself out of the race and some northerners have said they would support him.

Posters backing his candidacy appeared around Abuja over the weekend, although they appeared to have been posted by a little-known northern youth group.

Reuters Africa

EDITORIAL: China's aggressive navy

Twice in recent weeks, a Chinese navy ship-based helicopter veered dangerously close to a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer engaged in patrol and surveillance activity.

On both occasions, the chopper could have struck the ship, but China expressed no regret for the incidents.

Instead, Beijing appeared to be watching to see how Tokyo would react. It was an unacceptable attitude.

If China keeps up with these provocations, it will risk harming relations with Japan by creating concern about its intentions among the Japanese public.

The Japanese government failed to respond adequately to China's provocative behavior. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama didn't bring up the issue at his recent meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Washington.

With this, Hatoyama sent the wrong signal to Beijing that Tokyo had no intention of making the incident into a diplomatic issue. That's deeply regrettable.

One big security challenge facing Japan is how to respond to the rapid expansion of China's naval activities.

Ten warships of China's East Sea Fleet including two destroyers and two submarines carried out drills involving ship-based helicopters in the East China Sea. Then the flotilla passed through international waters between Okinawa's main island and Miyakojima island as it sailed into the Pacific on the night of April 10.

The number of warships was larger than in similar maneuvers in the past, and unusually, the submarines traveled on the surface.

It was obvious saber-rattling.

On April 8, a Chinese ship-based helicopter buzzed an MSDF destroyer, coming within about 90 meters horizontally. Despite Japan's request to China for an examination of the facts concerning the helicopter's actions, a similar incident happened again April 21.

The Chinese government claimed these actions were necessary defensive measures in response to Japan's surveillance activities.

In addition, the International Herald Leader, a publication affiliated with the state-run Xinhua News Agency, commented that Japan, a seafaring country, is sensitive to and nervous about the Chinese navy's operations.

The publication went so far as to say, in an admonishing tone, that Japan should become accustomed to Chinese warships sailing frequently on to the high seas.

The PLA Daily of the People's Liberation Army described the maritime drills as "exercises on a rare scale and in a complicated environment aimed at enhancing (China's) comprehensive defense capabilities."

The daily also reported that China will carry out exercises for "three wars"--the war for public opinion, in which media are employed to establish faits accomplis; the psychological war to demoralize the enemy; and the legal war to win international support by making effective use of international law.

There is good reason to believe that the Chinese navy fully anticipated the series of events and that the drills were partly designed to test Japan's reaction.

If so, China's disregard for Japan's request for information is all the more unacceptable. The situation is testing Japan's diplomatic ability to deal with an increasingly assertive China.

Japan and China have set a common goal of building strategic, mutually beneficial bilateral relations. On the security front, the two countries have agreed to make cooperative efforts to secure regional stability through defense dialogue and exchanges.

Tokyo and Beijing are also working together to create a communications system to avoid accidental clashes.

The Hatoyama administration, however, has not been pouring enough energy into talks between the two governments over crisis management and military issues.

China's navy, which is expanding the scope of its operations in the Pacific and other oceans, should behave in a way that doesn't provoke negative reactions from the rest of the world.

The Japanese government, for its part, should put more pressure on China to take steps to strengthen mutual trust through diplomatic efforts anchored by its security alliance with the United States.

The Asahi Shimbun

Hatoyama decision OK'd by inquest panel

Prosecutors were correct not to indict in political money scandal

Kyodo News

A prosecution inquest committee said Monday it has decided that the decision by prosecutors not to indict Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama over allegedly false reporting of political donations by his fund management bodies from 2004 to 2008 was appropriate.

The panel of 11 citizens selected by lottery reached the decision last Wednesday in closed-door consultations after a citizens' group filed a complaint against the prosecutors' decision not to indict the prime minister.

It is the first decision of its kind involving a sitting prime minister.

The panel said it reached the decision because no one related to the case except a former secretary to Hatoyama had knowledge about the false reporting of the funds. The panel also couldn't find a reason why Hatoyama would deliberately take part.

The decision came after the Tokyo District Court's decision Thursday to sentence Keiji Katsuba, 59, the former government-paid secretary of Hatoyama, to two years in prison, suspended for three years, for falsifying political funding reports at the prime minister's fund management and political organizations.

Hatoyama's approval ratings have since sagged ahead of this summer's Upper House election. He was not indicted due to insufficient evidence of his involvement.

However, prosecutors indicted without arrest another former secretary who has already been fined ¥300,000 in the case.

The panel, however, said some members questioned the petition Hatoyama submitted to the prosecutors, in which he said he knew nothing about the false reporting and the huge amount of funds, worth some ¥1.25 billion, his mother provided for his political activities between 2002 and 2009.

The panel also said some members thought the Political Funds Control Law should be revised to toughen its rules because it falls in favor of politicians.

Under the revised inquest of prosecution law, 11 citizens chosen by lottery look at a decision by prosecutors and are able to issue a judgment that a person should be indicted, a power that had been given only to prosecutors.

The panel's move was welcomed by DPJ members, including its Upper House lawmakers who will be fighting for their seats in the July election.

"Frankly speaking, I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard the news," said the DPJ's Michiyoshi Yuzuki, a Lower House representative from Okayama Prefecture.

He added that a decision to indict by the panel would have been the last nail in the coffin, with the administration already driven into a corner over the relocation issue involving U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.

Yoetsu Suzuki, a DPJ Upper House member facing the July election, said the inquest panel made the right decision, but the campaign won't be any easier because of it.

The Japan Times