Protesters call for boycott of Guerlain following racist remarks

Paris, France (CNN) -- Dozens of protesters wearing black crowded the sidewalk Saturday outside the Guerlain boutique in Paris, France, calling for a boycott of the cosmetics company following racist remarks made by a former executive on French TV this month.

Jean-Paul Guerlain -- who is no longer connected with the company that bears his name -- uttered a racial slur twice during an October 15 interview on France 2 about his career and the making of the Samsara perfume.

Guerlain has apologized for the comments, saying, "My words do not reflect in any way my profound thoughts but are due to an inopportune misspeaking which I vividly regret".

The racial epithet was used as he was describing how he was inspired to create the perfume while trying to impress a woman.

"One day I told her -- and I still called her Madame -- 'What would seduce you if one was to make a perfume for you?' and she told me, 'I love jasmine, rose and sandalwood,' " Guerlain recalled. "And for once I started working like a [racial epithet]. I don't know if [racial epithet] ever worked that hard," he said.

Saturday's protest was mobilized by a Facebook group called Boycott Guerlain, which called on protesters to don black and gather outside the boutique on Paris' famed Champs-Elysee.

CNN

Group: Investigate reports of torture in Iraq WikiLeaks documents

London, England (CNN) -- Human Rights Watch on Saturday urged the Iraqi and U.S. governments to launch investigations into reports of torture and detainee abuse after the WikiLeaks website published thousands of classified military documents detailing the war in Iraq.

The release includes evidence that Iraqi security forces tortured and killed prisoners, the group said. Human Rights Watch called on the Iraqi government to prosecute those responsible.

It also urged the U.S. government to look into whether its forces broke international law by transferring thousands of detainees to Iraqi custody despite what Human Rights Watch called "the clear risk of torture".

"These new disclosures show torture at the hands of Iraqi security forces is rampant and goes completely unpunished," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "It's clear that U.S. authorities knew of systematic abuse by Iraqi troops, but they handed thousands of detainees over anyway".

Also Saturday, anti-war activists said at a news conference that the WikiLeaks release revealed that 15,000 more Iraqi civilians died during the conflict than previously thought.

CNN

Jane Austen's style might not be hers, academic claims

The elegant writing style of novelist Jane Austen may have been the work of her editor, an academic has claimed.

Professor Kathryn Sutherland of Oxford University reached her conclusion while studying 1,100 original handwritten pages of Austen's unpublished writings.

The manuscripts, she states, feature blots, crossing outs and "a powerful counter-grammatical way of writing".

She adds: "The polished punctuation and epigrammatic style we see in Emma and Persuasion is simply not there".

Professor Sutherland of the Faculty of English Language and Literature claims her findings refute the notion of Austen as "a perfect stylist".

It suggests, she continues, that someone else was "heavily involved" in the editing process.

She believes that person to be William Gifford, an editor who worked for Austen's publisher John Murray II.

BBC News

Czech opposition gains control of senate

The opposition Social Democrats have won control of the Czech senate in mid-term elections, allowing them to slow government plans to cut spending.

Voters were choosing 27 of the 81-seat chamber and the left-wing Social Democrats now have 41 seats.

The gains could allow them to block the ruling right-wing Civic Democrats' plan to send more troops to Afghanistan.

The Social Democrats' leader said their goal was to make the government's reforms "socially more tolerable".

The Civic Democrats formed a coalition government after May's parliamentary elections and now proposes to cut government spending to reduce the country's budget deficit.

The plans, including a 10% cut in the wages of public sector workers, provoked a large protest in Prague last month.

"We are ready to discuss future reforms with the cabinet," said the Social Democrats' acting chairman Bohuslav Sobotka.

"The goal is to make them fair, balanced, socially more tolerable," he said.

Prime Minister Petr Necas said the election result would slow legislation but he was willing to work with the Social Democrats.

BBC News

Celine Dion gives birth to twins

(CNN) -- Singer Celine Dion, 42, gave birth Saturday to premature twin boys.

The yet-to-be named boys were delivered by cesarean section and are healthy, according to St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, Florida.

One infant weighs 5 pounds, 10 ounces, while the other is 5 pounds, 4 ounces, the hospital said.

Obstetrician Ronald Ackerman, in announcing the births, called Dion and husband Rene Angelil two of "the most caring and kind individuals" that the hospital has seen.

Dion checked into the hospital October 16 as a precaution "to prevent the early delivery of her babies," the medical center said.

Her doctors had wanted Dion to remain there at least until the first week of November, when she would be 37 weeks along in her pregnancy, her representative said this week.

Dion, 42, revealed in July that she was pregnant with twins after her sixth round of in vitro fertilization.

The couple has a 9-year-old son, Rene-Charles.

CNN

Swedish police hunt serial shooter

Stockholm, Sweden (CNN) -- A suspected serial shooter is keeping a city in southern Sweden on edge.

Police say as many as 15 shootings in Malmo over the last year may be linked to a single perpetrator who is targeting immigrants living in the city. Investigators have no suspects.

The shootings have all been well planned, under the protection of darkness and at places familiar to the shooter, according to CNN's Swedish affiliate TV4, citing police.

Several of the shootings have occurred in recent weeks, police say.

On Thursday evening, two immigrant women were wounded when shot through their apartment window.

"I'm almost afraid of turning on the light in my apartment at night now," Shukrije Berisha, who lives in the same building, told the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet.

In similar incidents, two men of an "ethnic minority background" were recently shot while waiting at bus stops, according to police.

One of them "was lucky to be alive after being shot in the torso," Malmo police superintendent Hans Nilsson told CNN.

"The shooter was most likely waiting in the bushes before firing his weapon," Nilsson said.

Victim Basi Hassan told TV4, "I was standing here at the bus stop when I suddenly heard a shot. I don't know where it came from. Then I saw my own blood and I started feeling dizzy".

The latest report of a shooting came late Friday evening, when a male immigrant reported he was shot at while riding his bicycle.

The Swedish National Murder Commission and the Swedish National Criminal Police have launched a major operation together with local police to find the gunman.

A group of psychologists is trying to profile the shooter's behavior before, during and after the attacks.

Police have also increased the number of officers and K-9 units patrolling the city.

CNN

Iraqi PM criticises timing of Wikileaks disclosure

Iraq's prime minister has criticised the timing of the release by Wikileaks of almost 400,000 secret US military documents about the conflict there.

Nouri Maliki's office accused it of trying to sabotage his bid to form a new government by stoking up anger "against national parties and leaders, especially the prime minister".

Mr Maliki is struggling to keep his job after inconclusive elections in March.

Wikileaks said the disclosure was aimed at revealing the truth about the war.

Its founder, Julian Assange, said the records showed there had been "a bloodbath on every corner" and provided evidence of war crimes.

"We hope to correct some of that attack on the truth that occurred before the war, during the war and which has continued on since the war officially concluded," he told a news conference in London.

But the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm Mike Mullen, strongly condemned the disclosure of classified information.

In a posting on Twitter, he called Wikileaks "irresponsible" and said the website puts "lives at risk and gives adversaries valuable information".

BBC News

'Several dead' in helicopter crash in Mourne Mountains

A number of people are feared dead after a helicopter crash in the Mourne Mountains in County Down on Saturday afternoon.

It is not known how many people were on board but local MLA Jim Wells said he believed that several had been killed.

He added that it happened in an area known locally as Leitrim Lodge between Hilltown and Rostrevor.

The aircraft is believed to have left St Angelo Airport in Enniskillen earlier on Saturday.

It is understood to be a medium-sized Agusta helicopter capable or carrying up to eight people.

Eyewitnesses first reported an aircraft in distress in the Mournes at about 1600 BST.

Police are leading the operation assisted by the Mourne Mountain Rescue Team, the Fire and Rescue Service and the Ambulance Service.

Keiron Tourish, reporting for the BBC from the scene, said a picnic area at Leitrim Lodge had been cordoned off.

A police spokesperson said that the Air Accidents Investigation Branch had been informed.

BBC News

Borneo's majestic rainforest is being killed by the timber mafia

The cows are afloat, with squawking chickens sharing their sturdy bamboo rafts. Children splash and swim in and around their homes, keeping away from the deeper channel of peat-coloured water that powers through the village of Meliau. Adults tightrope-walk across makeshift paths of hardwood thrown over huge floating logs. Others paddle around in long wooden boats. Everything that floats is lashed to everything that doesn't.

The monsoon rains are not due for a month or so, but the "dry" season for people in West Kalimantan province in Indonesian Borneo has been marked by three months of unrelenting floods. The sky is clear and blue and the stilted long houses and huts are reflected in mirror image on the water: it is a strangely scenic backdrop to one of the largest unfolding disasters on the planet – the stripping of the Borneo rainforest.

Indonesia has one of the world's largest areas of remaining forest but also one of the highest deforestation rates, ranking only behind Brazil. The vast green rainforest carpet has become a patchwork with more than half of Borneo's tree cover and peat swamps – which absorb much of the planet's carbon excesses – already gone after a decade's "goldrush" of uncontrolled timber logging that was at last partially curtailed in 2006.

But now the rest is being pillaged by palm oil and pulpwood plantations and networks of illegal loggers – the "timber mafias" – in an onslaught that is endangering not only the wildlife and the people but also contributing to global climate change on a scale far out of proportion to the island's size on the map. Indonesia's carbon emissions as a result of its deforestation and land use changes put it in third place of the world's worst offenders, behind only the US and China.

The timber from its rare 100- to 200- year-old diptocarp trees, each one the home of hundreds of insects, is eagerly snapped up, keeping consumers and the construction industry in the UK and elsewhere in tables, patio chairs, trinket boxes, doors and plywood. When consumers buy paper, furniture or even charcoal on the British high street there is an estimated more than 80% chance they are buying into this destruction.

Only four of the 300 timber concessions currently logging in West Kalimantan have written sustainability into their methods and only 16% of the world's timber goes through members of the WWF Global Forest & Trade Network, companies who commit to choosing sustainable wood where they can. Meanwhile, where the trees once stood and acted as a natural barrier, the floods rage.

Kalimantan is the largest chunk of Borneo. Brunei and Malaysia occupy the top third. Divided into three provinces – east, west and central – Kalimantan has almost 10% of the world's tropical forest and an extraordinary biodiversity that constantly multiplies with three new species being discovered there on average every month. It is the only home of some of the world's most endangered mammals: the pygmy elephant, the clouded leopard, the sun bear and the orangutan. All of them face extinction if the ancient forest is destroyed.

Already along many of West Kalimantan's rivers the black totem poles of dead and dying trees stand stark where rainforest once flourished. Indiscriminate chopping down of the big trees kills off the surrounding flora, too, a degradation that allows the free flow of flood waters to drown more trees, insects and plants and erode the habitat of apes and the resources of locals.

The Guardian

Hamas, Fatah to hold "decisive" reconciliation talks next week

Representatives of rival Palestinian parties Hamas and Fatah will hold a meeting next week expected to become a final step towards a long-awaited reconciliation, the Maan news agency reported.

The talks were to take place in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Wednesday, but were cancelled after Fatah, which controls the West Bank, proposed to hold the meeting in another location, accusing Syria of "humiliating" the party at a recent Arab League summit in Libya.

Hamas leader Salah Al-Bardawil was quoted by the news agency as saying that the place of the meeting would be agreed upon later and that Damascus could still be an option.

Al-Bardawil called on the rival party not to "project their political program on Hamas," but said their program could "come closer" if Fatah agreed not to recognize the Israeli "occupation," and establish a Palestinian state on 1967 borders "while preserving our right in all of Palestine," Maan said.

Senior Fatah official Azzam Al-Ahmad was quoted as saying that the next meeting, expected to focus on the outstanding security issue, would be "decisive and final." Following the talks, a date will be set for the ratification of the Egypt-backed reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah, he said.

The two largest Palestinian factions split in June 2007, about 18 months after Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006. In the ensuing armed clashes between the two parties, Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip and pushed the ruling Fatah movement out of the enclave.

RIA Novosti

U.S. swimmer dies during event in United Arab Emirates

(CNN) -- A 26-year-old member of the U.S. national swimming team died Saturday during an open-water race in the United Arab Emirates, according to event officials.

Fran Crippen died during the last leg of the 10-kilometer Marathon Swimming World Cup in Fujairah, said the International Swimming Federation, or FINA.

The cause of death is under investigation, FINA said. Swimming World magazine reported that Crippen fell unconscious during the event and was found by deep-sea divers two hours later near the race's final buoy.

The U.S. Olympic Committee issued a statement Saturday saying it was "extremely saddened" to learn of Crippen's death.

"We send our condolences and deepest sympathies to the Crippen family as well as to our entire swimming community," the USOC statement said. "While details of this tragedy are still forthcoming, we shall keep this outstanding young athlete and his family in our thoughts and prayers".

Crippen won bronze in the 10-kilometer event at the 2009 FINA World Championships and was the gold medalist in the same event at the 2007 Pan American Games, according to USA Swimming.

CNN

New video messages from militant cleric, U.S.-born al Qaeda spokesman

(CNN) -- Yemeni-American cleric and militant Anwar al-Awlaki appeared in a new video message Saturday, saying that Islam is in "severe need for guidance in these dark situations" and that the religion is "exposed to fateful dangers".

In the limited portion of the video that was immediately available to CNN, al-Awlaki called on Muslim scholars to help address the situation.

Al-Awlaki has been linked to al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen, where he is believed to be in hiding.

U.S. officials say al-Awlaki helped recruit Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines trans-Atlantic flight as it landed in Detroit, Michigan, on Christmas Day.

Al-Awlaki is also said to have exchanged e-mails with accused Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan.

U.S. officials have confirmed that he is on a CIA and military hit list to be captured or killed.

CNN could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video, including when or where the taping took place. The video message was posted Saturday on the jihadist website Shumoukh al-Islam.

The video's release came on the same day that an American-born al Qaeda spokesman urged Muslims to carry out individual jihad in the United States and Europe in a new video.

CNN

British release secret UFO files

Plenty of things about modern-day football are alien to fans – but that was even truer in 1999 when a UFO was reported over Stamford Bridge!

The revelation about the incident at a game between Chelsea and Manchester United came as authorities in Britain released previously secret files containing 6,000 pages full of UFO and alien sightings.

Did aliens really hover over Stamford Bridge?

A policeman reported suddenly seeing four bright lights move silently over the pitch before they disappeared in a diamond-shaped formation during the game.

He later said that he had never seen anything like it. A colleague who was also there confirmed the observation.

And the sighting was far from the only one in the UK over the past few years.

The British Ministry of Defence (MOD) has made dossiers open to the public for the fifth time, in which extraterrestrial sightings are reported.

Many documents even contain sketches of UFOs and aliens.

A further 25 files have now been released and have been published on the National Archives website. The files contain around 6,000 pages, which were filed between 1995 and 2000.

The most bizarre cases:

• In July 1994 an electrician from Annandale saw a UFO in the shape of a Toblerone chocolate bar hover close to the ground. The man got in his car and drove to where he thought it had landed.

His car conked out when he arrived there and his torch didn’t work any more. There was no trace of the UFO. He nevertheless reported the case to the Ministry of Defence’s UFO department.

• On August 18, 1997 four fishermen on a trawler in the North Sea saw a flat, shiny and round object hovering above the Scottish town Fraserburgh. They could even follow it for a few seconds on their radar before it disappeared.

• Bonnybridge, which is about 35 km West of Edinburgh, is particularly known for extra-terrestrial sightings.

Local councillor William Buchanan even wrote to former Prime Minister Tony Blair because there had been alleged 600 UFO sightings in his district. He asked for an official investigation.

He wrote: “UFO over 3,000 people have witnessed. I have tried to get an answer for the people and have been ridiculed for it [sic]".

• A man from Ebbw Vale in Wales reported to the police that his car suddenly was caught in a mysterious “light tunnel” on January 27, 1997. Since then he suffered from a strange 'skin change'.

The police report confirmed this and recommended that the man should visit the doctor.

• During a flight from London to Hong Kong in 1983, an eyewitness suddenly saw an unrecognisable but very bright object next to his plane.

Bild