Brazilian police chief shot dead while giving radio interview on drug violence

Commander of Camacari force was discussing fight against traffickers when he was assassinated on way to work

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro

For police chief Clayton Leão Chaves it was supposed to be another day at the office. At around 9.40am this morning, he was making his daily journey to the police HQ in Camacari, a small city in Bahia state, and giving an interview to local radio on his mobile phone about the police's struggle against local drug traffickers.

Then something went badly wrong.

"I heard some bangs," one of the shows two presenters announced, perplexed, as the police chief's voice disappeared.

"Something serious has happened to our chief. It can't be anything else," said his co-presenter, adding: "The chief was just talking to us. We don't know what has happened. There is a lady weeping".

According to local media reports, Chaves had been killed as he spoke to journalists from Bahia's Lider FM radio station and to thousands of local listeners about attempts to improve security.

FIFA providing 150,000 more World Cup tickets

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - An extra 150,000 tickets for all 64 World Cup matches will be put on sale on Friday after 96 per cent of seats were sold, FIFA secretary-general Jerome Valcke said.

At a ceremony officially handing over Cape Town's majestic new seaside stadium for the World Cup, Valcke said that if the additional tickets were sold the tournament would reach almost 98 percent capacity across all the 10 stadiums.

A total of nearly 2.9 million seats were available for the world's most watched sporting event, which runs for a month from June 11.

Turkish PM stresses Brazil ties on unprecedented visit

SAO PAULO — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan talked up budding ties between Brazil -- notably their diplomatic cooperation over Iran's nuclear program -- as he made an unprecedented visit to the South American nation.

Speaking to a business conference in Sao Paulo on Wednesday, Erdogan stressed that the two countries -- temporary members of the UN Security Council -- had the courage to tackle the issue that was "making the international community very uncomfortable".

He did not dwell on the subsequent dismissal in the Security Council of the May 17 agreement he and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva negotiated with Iran by major powers the United States and Russia.

But he said that and partnerships in other areas "show we work well together".

He said Brazilian and Turkish businessmen should "take advantage of this relationship to explore opportunities," and talked up what he said was a strong investment environment in his country.

Erdogan's visit to Brazil was the first by a Turkish prime minister.

Madagascan bird declared extinct

By Matthew Knight, for CNN

London, England (CNN) -- The Alaotra Grebe, a small diving bird native to Madagascar has been officially classified extinct, according to a leading bird conservation organization.

BirdLife International reported that the species, once found on Lake Alaotra, the largest lake in Madagascar, declined rapidly due to carnivorous fish being introduced to the lake and the use of nylon gill nets by local fishermen.

"No hope now remains for this species. It is another example of how human actions can have unforeseen consequences," Dr Leon Bennun, BirdLife International's director of science, policy and information said in a statement.

Invasive alien species are causing extinctions around the globe, Bennun says, and are one of the major threats not just to birds but to other wildlife.

BirdLife International's report is the latest update to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species for birds and highlights additional cases of the negative impact of invasive species on bird life.

Kingston residents trapped inside homes as Jamaican death toll rises

Police hold 500 after raid in search of 'Dudus' Coke, but soldiers order journalists away at gunpoint

Ross Sheil in Kingston and Caroline Davies

The civilian death toll from street fighting in downtown Kingston reached 44 last night and was expected to climb further as Jamaican security forces continued efforts to flush out alleged drugs baron Christopher "Dudus" Coke.

The latest figures followed a visit by an independent assessment team to the Tivoli Gardens district, scene of the worst fighting, which described appalling conditions for residents trapped in houses.

Public defender Earl Witter said the majority of the corpses at the morgue "appeared to be those of males under 30. There were no women among the dead".

Four soldiers and police have also died in three days of violence after the storming of the ghetto on Monday in search of Coke, 42, wanted on drugs and gun-running charges in the United States, where he faces a life sentence if convicted.

At least 37 people are reported to have been injured. The ministry of national security said police had more than 500 people, mostly men, in custody after the Tivoli operation. Coke is still at large.

Kagan sparks little debate as hearings approach

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS (AP)

WASHINGTON — When President Barack Obama brought Republicans his wish list over lunch this week, GOP senators criticized virtually every goal — except confirming Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.

In an election year consumed by fights over health care, Wall Street and the big oil spill, Kagan's quiet march toward a lifetime seat on the nation's highest court is, at least for now, causing little stir.

That's no accident. Republicans and Democrats alike acknowledge privately that one of Kagan's major selling points as a Supreme Court nominee is the fact that just over a year ago, the Senate vetted her for the post of solicitor general — the top lawyer who argues the government's cases before the court — and she won confirmation with seven Republican votes.

That made her an easy pick for a president battling low approval ratings and juggling an ambitious agenda — and one that ranks fairly low on lawmakers' radar screens.

"So many of our members on both sides are involved in so many other issues," said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee that will hold Kagan's confirmation hearings.

Google faces German Street View data blunder deadline

Google has not handed over sensitive data requested by German authorities, despite a deadline of 26 May.

Dr Johannes Caspar, the Information Commissioner for Hamburg, Germany, told BBC News that there was "no sign" of the requested hard disk.

The firm has until midnight to hand over data harvested by its Street View cars from private wi-fi networks.

A spokesperson for Google declined to comment further, but indicated that it would say more on the matter later.

The Hamburg commissioner also expects answers to a range of questions his office posed four weeks ago.

Art Linkletter, TV Host, Dies at 97

By The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Art Linkletter, whose ''People Are Funny'' and ''House Party'' shows entertained millions of TV viewers in the 1950s and '60s with the funny side of ordinary folks and who remained active as a writer and speaker through his ninth decade, died Wednesday. He was 97.

Linkletter died at his home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles, said his son-in-law, Art Hershey, the husband of Sharon Linkletter.

''He lived a long, full, pure life, and the Lord had need for him,'' Hershey said.

Linkletter had been ill ''in the last few weeks time, but bear in mind he was 97 years old. He wasn't eating well, and the aging process took him,'' Hershey said.

Linkletter hadn't been diagnosed with any life-threatening disease, he said.

Linkletter was known on TV for his funny interviews with children and ordinary folks. He also collected their comments in a number of best-selling books.

''Art Linkletter's House Party,'' one of television's longest-running variety shows, debuted on radio in 1944 and was seen on CBS-TV from 1952 to 1969.

Though it had many features, the best known was the daily interviews with schoolchildren.

Crop circle season arrives with a mathematical message

By Matilda Battersby

It is perhaps little known that the beautiful county of Wiltshire, famed for Stonehenge and the white horses carved into its hills, is the most active area for crop circles in the world, with nearly 70 appearing in its fields in 2009.

It is unsurprising then, that the appearance of a phenomenally complex 300ft design carved into an expanse of rape seed on a Wiltshire hillside has caused excitement. But it's not just the eye-pleasing shape which has drawn attention to it. The intersected concentric pattern has been decoded by experts as a “tantalising approximation” of a mathematical formula called Euler’s Identity (e ^ ( i * Pi ) + 1 = 0), widely thought be the most beautiful and profound mathematical equation in the world.

The design (pictured above) appeared beside Wilton Windmill late on Friday night. Lucy Pringle, a founder of the Centre for Crop Circle Studies, was one of the first on the scene. She says: “What has happened in this particular crop circle is that there are 12 segments and within each segment there are 8 partly concentric rings. Each of these segments indicates a binary code based on 0 and 1. If you use an Ascii Table [computer calculation system], the pattern transposes itself into a tantalising approximation of Euler’s equation”.

Söderling reaches third round at French Open

Robin Soderling took just 71 super-charged minutes to sweep aside haplessAmerican Taylor Dent on Wednesday to reach the third round of the French Open.

The Swedish fifth seed, who famously handed Rafael Nadal a first career defeat here last year before finishing as runner-up, crushed Dent 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 and will next face 29th seed Albert Montanes from Spain.

"I didn't expect to win so easily in the second round of a Grand Slam. I can't remember playing such a short match," said the 25-year-old Swede, who lost just five games in his opening round. "But you have to keep your focus because a match can change very quickly".

Soderling's quickfire victory equalled the 71 minutes it took Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber to beat Australia's Bernard Tomic 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 last year. The shortest match remains the 1970 final when Jan Kodes defeated Zeljko Franulovic in 68 minutes.

CIA's secret Iraq weapon revealed: a Saddam gay sex tape

Bizarre US plots included exploding cigars to kill Fidel Castro and fake video of Osama bin Laden's campfire drinking

Paul Harris in New York

In their time, America's secret agencies have tried some outlandish schemes to attack their country's enemies, including, most famously, an attempt to do away with Cuba's Fidel Castro by using an exploding cigar.

But in a scenario more the preserve of careless Hollywood starlets such as Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, the CIA appears to have plotted to undermine Saddam Hussein with a gay sex tape.

According to the Washington Post's security blog, some of America's spooks believed that shooting a fake video of Saddam cavorting with a teenage boy might destabilise his regime in the runup to the US-led invasion in 2003. "It would look like it was taken by a hidden camera. Very grainy, like it was a secret videotaping of a sex session," the Washington Post quoted one former CIA official as saying.

Nor was the Saddam sex tape the only idea floating around the more bizarre corners of the CIA's Iraq Operations Group. Other ploys involved interrupting Iraqi television with a false newsflash that would announce Saddam was handing over power to his hated and feared son Uday. The presumed idea was to shock the Iraqi people into rising up against their leaders and thus make the invasion a lot easier.

Perhaps thankfully, the tape and fake news broadcast were never made and the Post reported that top CIA brass repeatedly rejected the ideas.

S. African paper to apologise for cartoon: Muslim group

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - A South African weekly, which angered Muslims by publishing a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad, agreed to issue an apology after a meeting with the United Muslims Forum of South Africa on Wednesday, the group said.

Group representatives met Mail & Guardian editor Nic Dawes and cartoonist Zapiro after the paper published a drawing last week depicting the prophet on a psychologist's couch saying his followers have no sense of humour.

This angered Muslims, who consider as offensive any depiction of the founder of Islam, and raised fears of reprisals during next month's World Cup. In 2005, a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Mohammad, sparking violent protests that killed several dozen people.

"The Mail and Guardian have agreed to issue a press release in which they record (that the paper) regrets the harm caused by the publication of the cartoon and apologises for the effects thereof," said a statement from the Muslim group.

Neither Dawes nor anyone at his newspaper were immediately available for comment.

Kuznetsova survives scare to reach third round at French Open

(CNN) -- Defending women's champion Svetlana Kuznetsova survived four match points before scraping into the third round of the French Open on a rain-interrupted fourth day at Roland Garros.

The sixth seeded Russian was on the brink of losing to 41st-ranked German Andrea Petkovic but rallied to prevail 4-6 7-5 6-4.

Petkovic served for the match at 5-4 in the second set but produced unforced errors on all four of her match points.

Kuznetsova raced into a 5-2 lead in the decider and eventually clinched her fourth match point to prevail.

India's approach self-delusional: Pak

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has asked the US to nudge India to address contentious issues in order to bridge the trust deficit between the two countries instead of looking at the distrust solely through the prism of terrorism, a media report said on Wednesday. 

"We want the US to encourage India to take steps for improving the human rights situation in Kashmir, moving forward on Siachen and Sir Creek and agreeing to arbitration on the Kishanganga hydropower project," a senior unnamed diplomat was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper. 

The message was conveyed by the Pakistani leadership to the US administration through diplomatic channels even as Pakistan and India move towards a phased process worked out by their Foreign Ministers for building trust and confidence before the revival of peace talks suspended in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Mahindra eyes global electric car entry with Reva buy

By Arup Roy Choudhury & Janaki Krishnan

MUMBAI/BANGALORE (Reuters) - Utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra agreed to buy a 55 percent stake in pioneering electric car maker Reva, aiming to be a significant player in the global electric vehicle industry.

The deal gives Mahindra a foothold in the small but increasingly crowded electric vehicle industry, which is attracting global players such as Toyota and General Motors as they search for cleaner alternatives to gasoline.

"Mahindra wants to consolidate its position as a company which wants to manufacture everything on wheels," said Arun Kejriwal, director of KRIS Research. "This acquisition would go a long way in helping achieve this".

Mahindra is taking the majority stake in Reva Electric Car Company by buying a part of the founder's stake, and investing an additional 450 million rupees ($9.5 million) in fresh equity.

It did not disclose details of how much it was paying for the entire holding.

Govt crushes AI strike; 17 union men sacked, several suspended

NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The government on Wednesday crushed the two-day-old strike by Air India unions that was launched 72 hours after the horrific crash at Mangalore and affected about 30,000 passengers. 

The union leaders, who were protesting against a gag order, withdrew the strike in the face of a tough management and a Delhi high court order that termed the action illegal and directed the 14,000-odd workers to resume duties immediately. 

The AI management, meanwhile, has launched a massive crackdown on the powerful unions. It had by 9pm either dismissed or suspended about 50 union leaders and sources said more action could follow through the night.

The move came even as civil aviation minister Praful Patel said that the unions had gone a bit too far and that the AI management had a free hand in dealing with the issue. By Thursday afternoon, the airline had issued a statement saying that it had never issued a gag order based on which the employees had gone on strike. 

AI said the recent order merely reiterated it's July 2009 communication, which had said "...all concerned employees are advised to desist from going public with their statements that have the potential of harming the company's revenue earning possibility" or they would face disciplinary action.

Mega-China Changing Japan-China relations / Chinese Navy shows flag off Okinotorishima

The Yomiuri Shimbun

China's rapid rise is causing ever-widening repercussions in its relationship with Japan. This is the third installment in a series of articles examining new currents in bilateral relations.

In the early morning of April 7, a fleet of five Maritime Self-Defense Force training ships moored off Okinotorishima, Japan's southernmost island in the western Pacific.

Small boats were lowered into the water and 188 new graduates of the Maritime Officer Candidate School were taken ashore.

It was the first time they had stepped onto the small island, which is really an atoll surrounded by a reef. They were allowed to stay there for about 20 minutes.

Rear Adm. Shinichi Tokumaru, commander of the fleet, said, "I want future leaders to realize that Japan has a huge maritime area to protect".

A week later, a fleet of 10 Chinese Navy ships sailed to an area about 450 kilometers west-southwest of the island to conduct large-scale exercises, included a mock battle with a submarine.