Kyrgyzstan's interethnic clashes death toll rises to 138

The death toll in Kyrgyzstan's interethnic clashes has risen to 138, the AKIpress news agency reported late on Monday citing data from the country's Health Ministry.

The ministry added that over 1,750 were injured in clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbek groups that swept through the country's second-largest city of Osh and another southern city of Jalal-Abad starting on Friday and continuing throughout Saturday and Sunday.

The border between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan was closed following the riots, during which cars were set on fire, and stores, markets and residential buildings smashed and looted.

Kyrgyz and Uzbek ethnic leaders in Kyrgyzstan agreed late on Sunday to begin reconciliation talks.

Officials from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) also agreed to gather to discuss ways of resolving the crisis in Kyrgyzstan, including possible deployment of a peacekeeping contingent.

Tally ho! Sarah Palin hopes to meet Margaret Thatcher in London

Former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been a busy bee on her Facebook page.

A few hours ago, the former Alaska governor posted that she has "received an invitation" to cross the pond and go to London where she would meet with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, one of her "political heroines".

"I would love to meet her and hope I'll be able to arrange the trip in the future," says Palin, noting she was following up on tidbit over the weekend by a British publication. (Note that theDaily Mail says Palin's representatives approached Thatcher about a meeting.) Palin also offers her insights into the "special relationship" between the Iron Lady and President Ronald Reagan.

Palin also did some politicking of her own on Facebook, giving her seal of approval to Republican challenger John Koster.

Koster, a lawmaker in Snohomish County, Wash., is hoping to unseat Democratic incumbent Rick Larsen in Washington's 2nd Congressional district.

China's AgBank eyes record $23 billion IPO

(Reuters) - The Agricultural Bank of China is seeking to raise over $23 billion by listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai in what would be the world's biggest IPO, as China's banks shore up their capital base after a lending spree.

In addition to new financial information about the issue on Monday, Asia's third and fourth richest individuals have signed up as cornerstone investors, a report said.

Cheung Kong (Holdings) (0001.HK) chairman Li Ka-shing and chairman of Henderson Land (0012.HK) Lee Shau Kee will each subscribe to HK$1 billion ($128.3 million) of AgBank shares, Infocast News reported on Monday.

Li, Asia's third wealthiest person who Forbes says is worth $21 billion, and Lee routinely subscribe to large, Hong Kong IPOs.

The initial public offering by AgBank, founded by Mao Zedong in the 1950s as the central bank's rural arm, had previously been touted as high as $30 billion, but has been scaled back as China's stock market has dropped by more than a fifth this year and global markets have been spooked by a euro zone debt crisis.

AgBank's ABC.UL offering comes as China's second-largest wind turbine maker, Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co, pulled a $1.2 billion IPO, the fifth Hong Kong offering to be shelved since last month, citing weak markets.

Around $3.8 billion in public offerings has been shelved in Hong Kong in recent weeks.

While backing from the state and the presence high-profile cornerstone investors should ensure the offering goes ahead despite weak market sentiment, there have been question marks over AgBank's value and performance.

New economic forecasts spark war of words on cuts

Forecasts from the new independent watchdog for the UK's public finances sparked a war of words today a week before Chancellor George Osborne's emergency Budget.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) gave positive news on borrowing, which will be £8 billion below the £163 billion feared in the March Budget and £23 billion lower over the next five years.

But it also slashed growth forecasts - leaving a bigger black hole to fill with tax hikes or spending cuts and prompting warnings that sharpening the axe next week could scupper the UK's sluggish recovery.

TUC leader Brendan Barber said the figures showed slashing spending would be "increasingly unnecessary and dangerous".

But Mr Osborne retorted that the forecasts were "damning evidence that the mess the previous Government left behind is even bigger than we thought".

The OBR has prepared its report without ministerial interference and will update the forecasts again to take into account policy moves to be unveiled in the Budget.

The watchdog pencilled in growth of 2.6% in 2011 - well below the 3.25% predicted in March's Budget - with a 2.8% forecast for both 2012 and 2013, which is again far below the previous Government's prediction.

The OBR said "trend growth" for the UK economy will be dragged back for some time by the financial crisis.

This leaves the UK's structural deficit - which is impervious to the economic cycle - bigger than feared over the next five years.

AT&T Apologizes to IPad 3G Users for Security Breach

June 14 (Bloomberg) -- AT&T Inc. apologized to Apple Inc. iPad 3G tablet computer users whose e-mail addresses were exposed during a security breach disclosed last week.

“No other information was exposed,” Dorothy Attwood, AT&T’s chief privacy officer, said in an e-mail sent yesterday to iPad accounts that may have been affected. “We apologize for the incident and any inconvenience it may have caused”.

As many as 114,000 e-mail addresses were uncovered through a program on AT&T’s website by Goatse Security, Escher Auernheimer, an analyst with the nine-person group, said on June 11, after the leak was made public earlier in the week.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has begun an inquiry, Lindsay Godwin, a bureau spokeswoman, said in a June 11 interview, declining to give more specifics. Goatse said it obtained access to the e-mail addresses of New York Times Chief Executive Officer Janet Robinson and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, among others.

“The hackers deliberately went to great efforts with a random program to extract” the information, Attwood said in the e-mail. “They then put together a list of these emails and distributed it for their own publicity”.

Goatse, which helps Web firms close security gaps, said in a blog posting today that it uncovered the iPad flaw in about an hour and publicized it in the interest of user safety.

“The potential for this sort of attack and the number of iPad users on the list we saw who were stewards of major public and commercial infrastructure necessitated our public disclosure,” Auernheimer said in the blog post.

Hope on the horizon for limitless bluefin tuna

Just as people in Japan had begun to resign themselves to the idea that eating coveted fatty tuna may soon no longer be possible, mackerel has appeared as an unexpected savior.

The background to this was a proposal to ban international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna. The proposal was defeated at the recent meeting of parties to the Convention of International Trade on Endangered Species (CITES), but it could be reactivated at any time.

It turns out there may be a way to bolster the tuna population by using mackerel to breed the much sought-after fish.

Though female tuna release hundreds of thousands of eggs at each spawning, the number that reaches maturity in the wild is close to zero. However, if mackerel raised in captivity for about a year can be made to lay tuna eggs, tuna fry could be obtained inexpensively and in large amounts.

This would not only be useful for aquaculture, if the fry were released back into the ocean, but overfished wild tuna could be saved from extinction as well.

So, is it really possible for mackerel to produce the eggs of a tuna? And even if it is, wouldn't the result be some kind of bizarre tuna-mackerel hybrid?

"It's not a problem. We're just using the mackerel as a surrogate, so to speak. The resulting fry are 100-percent genuine bluefin tuna," explained a grinning Goro Yoshizaki, 44, an associate professor of aquatic bioscience at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology who has been researching the subject for close to 12 years.

Germ cells--the early stage stem cell of sperm and eggs--are present in male and female adult tuna. If the cells can be transplanted into the mackerel and they take hold, the female mackerel's ovary will produce tuna eggs while the male mackerel's testes will produce tuna sperm. Should these male and female mackerel meet and duly spawn, tuna fry will be the end result.

Getting toddlers to like bikes

The Local’s series “Made in Germany” presents the best the country has to offer, including the innovative toddler training bikes by Kokua.

From luxury cars to precision machinery, “Made in Germany” still means quality craftsmanship around the world. But the Teutonic attention to detail goes far beyond engineering. This series will feature a diverse array of products from both well-known German brands and less famous firms. But no matter big or small, all of them are focused on being the best at what they do.

When their son Niklas was two years old, Rolf Mertens and his wife Beatewanted to encourage his love of movement but knew he wasn’t old enough to ride a bicycle. So Mr. Mertens, a trained product designer, set about creating a special wooden vehicle back in 1997. A bicycle without pedals, little Niklas could sit and push with his feet to ride around. “We wanted to test and see if he could keep his balance,” said Mrs. Mertens. “He loved to move all the time, running around, climbing, and we wanted to give him a toy that let him live out this love of movement”.

The test proved more successful than they could have anticipated. “We were absolutely surprised he could manage the balance nearly right away,” said Mrs. Mertens. “He loved it! After a while he only put it down to eat and sleep”.

The daily World Cup roundup

The Local’s World Cup blog offers an outsider’s perspective on Germanfootball as Die Mannschaft goes for glory in South Africa. Don’t miss our daily roundup!

A day after Germany decimated Australia's Socceroos, our bloggers sifted through the portent for the rest of the tournament. We also found out theGermans don't need the UK media to make dumb Nazi references for them and uncovered a technical solution to those annoying vuvuzela horns.

Berlin and Paris plan new fiscal rules for EU, G20

France and Germany will table joint proposals at a European Union summit this week to withhold voting rights from countries that break the bloc's fiscal rules, the leaders of the two countries said on Monday.

"Our position is of course unified on the need to maintain and strengthen the (EUstability and growth) pact, on sanctions, and on the proposal that we are making together of a suspension of voting rights," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said after talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin.

The two leaders also said they would jointly call for a bank levy and a tax on financial market transactions at the next meeting of the G20.

"We have agreed that we will write a joint letter to the current president of the G20, Stephen Harper ... making clear our expectations for a successful G20," said Merkel.

The leaders of EU heavyweights Germany and France were keen to patch up fundamental differences on how the bloc should change in response to a crisis that has shaken it to its core.

Three days before a full EU summit, France and Germany tried to hammer out how to run European economic policy and on the extent of coordination between the 27 members and the 16 countries that use the euro single currency.

US military to punish culprits behind toxic waste dumping in Iraq

The American military has announced an investigation into its disposal of hazardous material in Iraq and declared its intention to prosecute anyone violating environmental standards.

The announcement comes after The Times disclosed that private contractors employed on US military bases had been dumping large quantities of oils, acids, filters and batteries in Iraqi scrapyards.

Three American generals faced a barrage of questions on environmental damage at a press conference called to explain the closure of US bases during the troop withdrawal that started last January and will end in December 2011.

Brigadier-General Kendall Cox, who is responsible for engineering and infrastructure in Iraq, said: “I share your concern with regards to anything that may or may not be left here in Iraq. As you know we have been here for over seven years. In that period we have accumulated several million pounds of hazardous waste”.

Anyone involved in the improper disposal of the waste is to be prosecuted. Brigadier-General Stephen Lanza, the US military spokesman in Iraq, said: “Those responsible for this will be punished. It is something that once brought to our attention, we take very seriously”.

The generals will send teams of experts to comb Iraqi and US facilities, hoping to establish how and where hazardous material was dumped.

The most likely culprits are private contractors employed by the Americans — Western and Arab — who dispose of the waste generated at the 500 bases that America at one time operated in Iraq. The number is down to fewer than 130, mirroring the reduction of troops from 176,000 at the height of the insurgency to 85,000 today.

78 Indians evacuated, many stranded in Kyrgyzstan

Seventy-seven Indian students and a professor, who were trapped in Kyrgyzstan's southern Osh city hit by ethnic violence, have been safely evacuated, sources in the External Affairs Ministry said.

Most of the one hundred and sixteen Indians are still stranded in the strife-torn southern Krygyzstan and a majority of them – 114 – are students. While the city of Jalal-Abad has 15, in the city of Osh, there are 99 students, a professor and a businessman, the Ministry of External Affairs has said.

The Indian mission in Bishkek was in close and regular touch with several of the Indians and also with the relevant departments of the Kyrgyz government, its Foreign Ministry and security agencies. “Everything possible is being done to ensure the safety and well-being of the Indian nationals, within the constraints posed by the difficult ground situation,'' the Ministry said in a statement.

The mission was monitoring the developments and would take additional steps as soon as the situation in that country became more conducive, the statement added.

Bulgaria's Top Cop Blames Court for Mafia Bosses' Acquittal

Bulgaria's Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, blamed once again Monday the judicial system for the acquittal of alleged crime bosses, Krasimir and Nikolay Marinovi aka The Marguin Brothers.

Tsvetanov said the reason for the not-guilty verdict are the courts which still need to undergo the much anticipated judicial reform.

“But the verdict is here and we must comply with it regardless of our likes or dislikes; this is the rule of the Court. I hope to see guilty verdicts in the other upcoming high-profile criminal cases,” the Minister stated.

When asked by a reporter if the acquittal was due to lack of solid evidence in the case, Tsvetanov declined comments.

UC Irvine seeks to suspend Muslim student group

The Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine should be suspended for one year for its involvement in repeated disruptions of a February speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, according to a disciplinary report released by the university.

The Muslim Student Union has appealed the recommendation.

The speech about U.S.-Israeli relations was interrupted 10 times by students who got up and yelled out things like, "Michael Oren, propagating murder is not an expression of free speech".

Eleven UC Irvine and UC Riverside students were arrested and cited for disturbing a public event, but none have been charged. The student group maintained that the disruptions were done by individuals and not organized by their group, but the report cited internal Muslim Student Union e-mails and meeting agendas that indicated they planned a disturbance.

The group's attorney Reem Salahi emphasized that a suspension has not yet been implemented but was still disheartened by the report's recommendations. "It's collective punishment," she said. "You have an entire Muslim student body that's being punished for the actions of a few".

Cameron plays down terrorist threat

The terrorist threat to Britain from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region has fallen, David Cameron disclosed on Monday.

He warned the public, however, to be “ready for further casualties” from a summer of hard fighting.

In a sombre report to parliament after his first trip to Afghanistan as prime minister, Mr Cameron revealed that intelligence no longer supported Gordon Brown’s claim that three-quarters of the most serious plots against Britain were linked to the border areas.

But, while stating he wanted troops to return home “the moment it is safe to do so”, Mr Cameron went on to warn that “the threat to the UK would rise” should Nato forces leave Afghanistan prematurely and allow al-Qaeda to return.

The sentiment was echoed by Liam Fox, defence secretary, who said Britain would not “lose our nerve” in Afghanistan, in spite of the “brutal” spending cuts required as a result of the black hole in the public finances.

Mr Cameron told the Commons: “I do not pretend it will be easy. We must be ready for further casualties over the summer months as the so-called fighting season resumes and as Isaf [International Security Assistance Force] extends its activity”.

Mr Fox was even more specific on the measures of achievement, saying he expected Nato troops to “show significant progress” by the end of 2010, including consolidating the Nato position in central Helmand province and accelerating the training of the Afghan national security forces.

In his first speech on the defence review, Mr Fox laid the ground for painful cuts to programmes, warning that the government would have to be “very, very brutal about getting costs down. It is inevitable that there will be the perception of winners and losers as we go through this process. But defence as a whole must come out in a stronger position”.

The equipment procurement programme was unaffordable, he said.

Barcelona to ban veil in public buildings

(Reuters) - Barcelona on Monday became the first big city in predominantly Catholic Spain to forbid full face veils in public buildings such as markets and libraries.

Full veils are banned in all public spaces in small towns Lerida and El Vendrell, which like Barcelona are in the northeastern region of Catalonia.

"Barcelona will forbid the use of the burqa, niqab and any other item which hinders personal identification in any of the city's public installations," a statement from the Barcelona municipal government said.

The French cabinet approved a bill last month to outlaw the wearing of niqabs and burqas in public, and Belgium's lower house has voted in favor of prohibiting the full veil, provoking strong reaction and stoking debate across Europe.

Barcelona Mayor Jordi Hereu resisted calls to impose a ban on full face veils in all public spaces in Spain's second-largest city because he said it was outside the jurisdiction of a municipal government.