Irish Republic 'to get 85bn-euro EU and IMF bail-out'

The EU and IMF have extended 85bn euros of emergency loans to the Republic of Ireland, according to reports on Irish state television.

But the Irish finance ministry claimed the report is premature, and details of the bail-out are still being finalised.

The widely anticipated bail-out package comes after a day of sharp falls in global share prices and the euro.

Markets are concerned that despite the rescue package, the debt crisis could spread to other European countries.

Dublin is also expected to publish a four-year austerity plan on Wednesday amid fears the government could fall.

"It's just speculation," said a finance ministry spokesman, referring to the report of the bail-out terms by Irish state broadcaster RTE.

"The technical teams are still trying to work out what the package will be. We are expecting these discussions will take a couple of weeks. They only started on Monday".

BBC News

Report due in Natalee Holloway case

ORANJESTAD, Aruba, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Authorities say although the jawbone found on an Aruban beach is human it does not belong to Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, missing since 2005.

The Aruban Public Prosecutor's Office said testing by the Netherlands Forensic Institute in The Hague "excludes the possibility that the bone material found in Aruba is that of Natalee Holloway".

Spokeswoman for the Aruba prosecutor's office, Ana Angela, said police Monday obtained a second bone found on the beach earlier this month by a New Jersey family, CNN reported Tuesday.

"It does not appear to be human," said Richard Roy, general manager of the Westin Hotel.

Holloway was last seen in the early hours of May 30, 2005, leaving a nightclub with local resident Joran van der Sloot and two other men.

Van der Sloot was detained twice but never charged in Holloway's disappearance.

He is currently awaiting trial in Lima, Peru, on a homicide charge in the death in May of Peruvian student Stephany Flores.

UPI

Benedicto XVI: un religioso homosexual no puede ser considerado sacerdote

CIUDAD DEL VATICANO (Notimex) — El papa Benedicto XVI reconoció que hay sacerdotes homosexuales en la Iglesia, pero éstos son incompatibles con el ejercicio del ministerio sacerdotal pues “contradice el plan original de Dios” para el hombre.

En un pasaje del libro-entrevista Luz del mundo, que se puso a la venta este martes, el Papa aceptó que la homosexualidad de algunos clérigos es “una de las dificultades de la Iglesia” y que “los afectados tienen que procurar, por lo menos, no practicar activamente esa inclinación a fin de permanecer fieles al cometido interior de su ministerio”.

“Tenemos que sostener esto aún cuando no le guste a la época”, insistió Benedicto XVI.

Asegura que aquellos que tienen inclinaciones homosexuales “profundamente arraigadas” viven una “gran prueba”, pero que eso no significa que la homosexualidad sea correcta, “sino que sigue siendo algo que está en contra de lo que Dios ha querido originalmente”.

La soltería sacerdotal

El libro Luz del mundo es una recopilación de seis horas de conversaciones que sostuvo Benedicto XVI cara a cara con el periodista alemán Peter Seewald.

En varias de las 227 páginas, el Papa habló de temas controversiales dentro de la Iglesia, como el uso del preservativo; el seguimiento a lasacusaciones de pederastia del fundador de los Legionarios de Cristo, Marcial Maciel; el celibato de los sacerdotes; la homosexualidad, entre otros.

Sobre estos dos últimos, aclaró que la atracción por las personas del mismo sexo no es compatible con la vocación sacerdotal, pues con ellael celibato no tiene sentido como renuncia.

CNN México

Tim Burton pide colaboración de los 'tuiteros' para completar su historia

LOS ÁNGELES (EFE) — Tim Burton ha emprendido una iniciativa en la red social Twitter, para que los usuarios completen con sus ideas una historia sobre uno de los personajes del cineasta, llamado Stainboy, según la página oficial de esta campaña.

El proyecto, Cadavre Exquis, que sirve para presentar la muestra sobre su obra a cargo del Festival Internacional de Cine de Toronto, organizada por el Museo de Arte Moderno de Nueva York, comenzó con una frase escrita por el propio director en Twitter, bajo el usuario @BurtonStory.

"Stainboy, usando sus dotes expertas, fue llamado para investigar unamisteriosa sustancia pegajosa en el suelo de la galería", tecleó el realizador de obras como Batman, Sleepy Hollow y Big Fish.

A partir de ahí, los usuarios pueden aportar sus ideas usando la etiqueta #BurtonStory y los mejores, a juicio de Burton, se irán incorporando al relato de la historia, que comenzó este lunes y terminará el 6 de diciembre, según las bases publicadas en la página oficial de la propuesta.

Hasta ahora se han publicado 13 respuestas, que mantienen la continuidad de la historia.

La primera vez que Burton presentó a este personaje fue en The World of Stainboy, una serie de cortos animados hechos en 2000, y volvió a aparecer en el libro The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy.

CNN México

Isabel Miranda de Wallace recibirá el Premio Nacional de Derechos Humanos

(CNNMéxico) — Isabel Miranda de Wallace, conocida por investigar por sí misma el secuestro de su hijo, Hugo Alberto Wallace Miranda, recibirá el Premio Nacional de Derechos Humanos 2010.

"Su trabajo, reconocido a nivel nacional e internacional, ha estado enfocado a brindar ayuda a las víctimas del secuestro y a promover cambios por una mejor impartición de justicia que acabe con la impunidad de ese delito”, señaló en un comunicado la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos.

Tras la desaparición de su hijo, Miranda Torres inició una investigación para dar con quienes lo secuestraron. Más tarde fundó la asociación civil Alto al secuestro, en la que ofrece apoyo a víctimas de este delito.

También colaboró en la iniciativa de la Ley para Prevenir y Sancionar los Delitos en Materia de Secuestro, aprobada por la Cámara de Diputados el pasado 7 de octubre.

Miranda Torres es maestra de profesión, y ha declarado que no fue por decisión propia que decidió convertirse en activista social, sino por laincapacidad de las autoridades para encontrar a su hijo de 31 años, secuestrado en el 2005.

Ella colocó espectaculares en la ciudad de México, en los que ofrecía una recompensa a cambio de encontrar a quienes desaparecieron a su hijo. Sus acciones llevaron a la detención de cinco personas.

Cuando las autoridades concluyeron que el joven había sido asesinado, ella se concentró en tratar de recuperar el cadáver. Todavía no lo consigue.

CNN México

Brazil police battle Rio de Janeiro gang violence

Police in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro have launched a major operation to try to stop a wave of violence by criminal gangs.

For three days, suspected gang members have been blocking roads, burning cars and shooting at police stations.

Military police have been deployed in 17 different slum districts.

Rio's governor says the violence is retaliation by drugs gangs who have been driven out of some areas by a police pacification programme.

More than 1,000 officers have been taken away from desk jobs to join the surge on the streets, the military police said, and 300 extra motorcycle police are on patrol.

Rio de Janeiro's state governor Sergio Cabral has also asked the central government for police reinforcements from outside Rio to keep the main highways open.

At least one suspected gang member has been shot dead.

More than eight others have been arrested, including four suspects who were found with petrol bombs in the Copacabana beach neighbourhood.

BBC News

UK government agrees on skilled migration cap

The government has announced a cap of 21,700 on the number of skilled workers from outside the European Economic Area allowed into the UK.

The figure is a cut of 6,300 on the equivalent figure for 2009.

It excludes employees transferred by companies from abroad - in future they will be allowed to stay for up to five years if their salary exceeds £40,000.

Home Secretary Theresa May said immigration would become "sustainable", but Labour called the plans "a con".

The exclusion from the cap of intra-company transfers - for example someone working for a large US company taking up a job in their London office - is seen as a success for the business lobby.

BBC News

26 terror suspects arrested in Europe

BRUSSELS, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Authorities arrested 26 suspects in a major anti-terror operation spanning several European countries, Belgian officials said Tuesday.

Eleven suspects were arrested after a months-long investigation in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. They are suspected of plotting attacks on an unspecified target in Belgium. Officials said they used a jihadist Web site to plan terror attacks.

It was "clear to us that the target was Belgian soil, just not clear enough to say where and when," Belgian public prosecutor Lieve Pellens told CNN.

Police arrested seven people in Antwerp, Belgium, three in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and one near Aachen, in Germany. Those arrested are of Belgian, Dutch, Moroccan and Chechen nationalities, authorities said.

Some of the arrested are suspected of belonging to a Chechen militant group called the Caucasus Emirate. They reportedly tried to raise money and recruit jihadists for the Caucasus Emirate, which aims to create an Islamic emirate in Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia.

In an anti-terror operation that wasn't immediately linked to the first one, Belgian police later Tuesday raided several apartments in Brussels and arrested another 15 terror suspects.

Neither operation is linked to the recent terror warnings in Germany, France and Britain, officials said.

An intelligence source told CNN that U.S. intelligence sources tipped off their Belgian counterparts, which in late 2009 launched the investigation. Pellens said, however, that Belgian authorities were alerted to the group because it used prominent Islamist Web site Ansar al-Mujahideen.

UPI

Brazil central bank head 'ousted' as inflation rises

Brazil's hawkish central bank head, Henrique Meirelles, is to be replaced, a local newspaper has said.

His successor will be the central bank's financial regulation head, Alexandre Tombini, according to a report in Folha de San Paulo.

The widely expected move by recently elected President Dilma Rousseff may pave the way for interest rate cuts.

Yet data released on Tuesday showed that inflation is on the rise again, hitting 5.47% in November.

This is well above the central bank's year-end target of 4.5%.

The choice of Mr Tombini, an economist, from within the bank's ranks may provide some reassurance to financial markets that President Rousseff will not push as aggressively as previously feared for looser monetary policy.

BBC News

NZ mine bore hole shows high gas levels

Rescuers trying to reach 29 men trapped in a New Zealand coal mine say a bore hole has shown high gas levels and little oxygen near where the men are believed to be.

Police Supt Gary Knowles, co-ordinating the rescue effort, said it was still not safe to send in rescue teams.

Two robots have been sent into the mine and a third is on its way, a news conference was told.

There has been no contact with the miners since an explosion on Friday.

Supt Knowles said air samples from the bore hole showed high levels of carbon monoxide and methane and low levels of oxygen.

He said the samples had been sent away for analysis.

Relatives of the missing men - 24 New Zealanders, two Australians, two Britons and a South African - are facing an agonising wait for news, but officials say the risk of a secondary explosion at the mine remains high.

BBC News

U.N. laments low Sudanese voter turnout

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- Low turnout for voter registration for a January referendum in Sudan is a sign of a lack of political interest, a U.N. official said.

Sudan as part of a 2005 comprehensive peace agreement votes in January to break into northern and southern states. Members of the U.N. Security Council welcomed the Monday start to the voter registration for the effort.

Benjamin Mkapa, a Tanzanian diplomat and head of a three-member U.N. panel on Sudan, said he was concerned the turnout for the voter registration was low.

"In the north, turnout remains extremely low," he was quoted by the United Nations' news agency as saying. "Many southern Sudanese appear uninterested or unwilling to register".

U.N. delegates during a recent debate at the General Assembly for funding for the U.N. mission in Sudan said the implications of the January measure would have wide-reaching effects.

Grum Abay, the Ethiopian envoy to the United Nations, said he felt the referendum would "reverberate across Africa".

UPI

Asian Games: Somdev rushes to a new frontier with singles gold

GUANGZHOU: Somdev Devvarman scaled a peak on Tuesday from where he wouldn't want to look back. In a magical men's singles tennis final where Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin's game slid beyond recognition, the Indian had to only hold his nerve before taking a bow on the podium for his second gold at the 16th Asian Games. 

Somdev collared a hopelessly off-form Istomin in one hour and 22 minutes, the 6-1, 6-2 victory giving India the first singles gold in tennis at an Asian Games. Coming as it did with gold in the doubles on Monday, it's a feat that will need some matching. 

The last time India won a medal was in 1998, when Mahesh Bhupathi and Prahlad Srinath were each awarded bronze for reaching the Bangkok semis. The first singles bronze had come in Hiroshima 1994, thanks to Leander Paes. "It's a moment that I cannot describe in words; it's a dream for me. Hope this sinks in soon," said Somdev, quite at loss for words. 

The discomfiture was hardly there minutes earlier, when the Indian pummelled an unusually error-prone Istomin. 

The victory came when the Uzbek sent a return wide, prompting Somdev to go down on his knees, lie flat on his back and allow a nanosecond to pass. The hints were all there: he had to make sure he was on terra firma. 

The reconfirmation wasn't necessary though, as Somdev had beaten a drab world No. 40, who wasn't getting anything right this day. Maybe, Istomin would have played better had the net not been there - only around 48 per cent of his first serves were in, he had a total of 46 unforced errors, eight double-faults. With feet that seemed to have a 1000 tons of lead tied to them and a temperament that forced him to show his football and throwing skills more than his tennis skills, Somdev's task was made that much easier. 

It was a final that belied the hopes of the spectators who had turned out in large numbers. Four breaks in the first set for one player are hardly the right signs for a gold medal match but that was the way it panned out. 

Somdev broke him in the first, third and fifth for a 5-0 lead, Istomin handing him points on a platter by hitting the ball into the net or spraying them wide. He had five double-faults in the first set, two of them giving Somdev the first and the fifth games. There was the eight-deuce third game too were Istomin saved four break-points but couldn't prevent the Indian from pocketing the game. 

There were times when the Uzbek dropped hints of delicate net-play and firm volleying ability but they were too few and far between to alter the course of the match. The applause was instantaneous when Istomin made the first impact on the scoreboard in the sixth game but that came a little too late for the top seed. 

Somdev is the first player in 24 years to win both the men's singles and doubles titles at the Asian Games. Yoo Jin Sun of Korea had achieved it previously in 1986. Somdev and Yoo were preceded by three other players with a similar performance: Raymundo Deyro (Phi 1958), Osamu Ishiguro (Jpn 1966), Toshiro Sakai (Jpn 1974). 

The Times of India

Running the Polar Circle marathon

A full-length trail marathon across the ice-cap and through Arctic desert and frozen tundra always promised to be tough – and the Polar Circle marathon didn't disappoint.

But the beauty of the undulating course run over the harsh ice, past jagged blue glaciers and grey frozen lakes was worth the pain – the eerie silence of minimalist Greenlandic wilderness broken only by the sounds of my breathing and my shoes hitting the track.

Unseasonably good weather and perfect blue skies meant the 60 or so runners on the 26.2-mile course had no need for any Inuit words for snow. (As Geoffrey Pullum pointed out in the Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, Inuit languages like the west Greenlandic Kalaallisut spoken in Kangerlussuaq, are polysynthetic. They use a root such as "snow on the ground" aput, and add suffixes. For example, "a patch of snow on the ground" is aputitaq. So the number of words you can create is in fact only limited by your patience - which worked the same way with the English language experiment I conducted during the run to list 100 marathon runners' words for pain using Anglo-Saxon modifiers like 'ow', and 'fucking-ow'.)

The flip side of the lack of snow, which looked as though it would make the course easier, was that the ice cap had no covering to offer grip. This made the initial section of the race treacherous, like running up and down a steeply pitched 100m-thick ice cube. With the ambient temperature at the start recorded at -10C – and with a biting wind coming straight down from the north pole making it feel far colder than that – the race was living up to its "coolest marathon on Earth" nickname.

Race organisers Albatros had prepared us for the worst and recommended we bring spikes that slipped over ordinary running shoes to provide grip – but to be honest the few millimetres of carbide steel provided scant purchase on the hard ice and I might have been faster in mountain boots and crampons.

My race plan was to try to keep up with the leaders on the steep climb to the ice cap and over the ice, gambling that I could recover on the downhill section, and see what happened after that. This worked well enough until we came to run down a slope of solid ice, my feet disappeared from under me and my teeth jarred together as my left thigh connected with the ice. I could do nothing to stop myself sliding another 30 ft downhill and off course. Adrenaline helped me pick myself up and gingerly make my way back to the marked path and off the ice cap – but I had a feeling I would pay for it later.

The Guardian

Beatles albums sales top 450,000 on iTunes

EMI has sold more than 450,000 Beatles albums via Apple's iTunes store in the seven days since the band's entire back catalogue was made available to download digitally.

The music company said 2 million Beatles singles have also been downloaded. An EMI insider hailed it as "a pretty amazing achievement".

Despite that success, however, only one song – Hey Jude – had reached the British top 40 on Sunday.

Take That's first album since Robbie Williams rejoined the group, Progress, sold just under 520,000 in all formats – digital and CD – to make No 1 this week. It was the quickest-selling album for 13 years, however.

The two best-known Beatles greatest hits compilations – the "blue" album and the "red" album – were the only LPs to chart in the UK.

There was an expectation that the group would dominate the charts, particularly after The X Factor dedicated its show on Saturday to Beatles numbers.

Industry observers have said the back catalogue may have fared better in the charts if they had staggered the digital releases rather than putting the entire Beatles output on iTunes simultaneously.

EMI and Apple Corps struck a deal with Apple to finally make Beatles tunes available on iTunes last week.

The Guardian

Spartak crash to Marseille defeat, out of Champions League

Spartak Moscow fell to a 3-0 defeat to Marseille on Tuesday evening, the defeat spelling the end of their 2010/11 Champions League campaign.

The Russian club had won their first two matches in their group, including a 1-0 victory in France against Tuesday night’s guests, but failed to pick up any points in their next two games against Chelsea.

However, a win against Marseille would have guaranteed Spartak progress to the next stage of the tournament for the first time since 2001.

It was not to be though, French international Mathieu Valbuena giving the visitors the lead in the 18^th minute with a powerful shot after Spartak had failed to clear.

Marseille doubled their lead 13 minutes after the break, Loïc Rémy’s fortunate mishit giving him space to fire past Spartak keeper Andriy Dykan, his shot bouncing off both posts before coming to rest in the back of the net.

Spartak striker Welliton was then shown the red card in the 64^th minute for pushing Souleymane Diawara, his departure meaning the Muscovites now had an even greater mountain to climb.

Brazilian striker Brandao rifled in number three in the 68^th minute, Spartak’s defence seemingly having decided that the match was over already.

Which it soon would be, and with it Spartak’s Champions League’s hopes. Even if Marseille lose their final group game to Chelsea and Spartak beat Zilina, meaning both sides finish with 9 points, the French club will take the second qualifying spot by virtue of their better head-to-head record.

RIA Novosti

Tbilisi Prepares to Fight Sochi Olympics

Georgia is preparing a campaign against the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, developing as-yet unspecified measures that analysts warned might fuel violence in the Caucasus.

Three committees of the Georgian parliament met behind closed doors last week to discuss the campaign, which may call on the international community to relocate the games for security, environmental and historical reasons, news reports said.

“We should take all possible efforts to inform the international community and seek for relocation of the Olympics from Sochi to a different venue,” lawmaker Shota Malashkhia said, news site Newsgeorgia.ru reported.

The parliament said on its web site that the committees are supposed to develop elements for the campaign that will be submitted to the entire chamber for approval.

Lawmaker Nugzar Tsiklauri said talks were already being held with Chechens, internally displaced people and Abkhazia’s exiled government, Newsgeorgia.ru reported. He did not elaborate.

Malashkhia said a full-scale international boycott of the Sochi Olympics was “highly unlikely,” but added that Georgia hoped to receive support from the European Union, which has criticized Russia’s policy toward Georgia.

Georgia, which fought a five-day war with Russia after attempting to retake its breakaway province of South Ossetia in 2008, appealed in November that year to the International Olympics Committee to relocate the Olympics from Sochi because of the possibility of conflict in neighboring Abkhazia, another separatist Georgian region.

The committee ignored the request.

Maxim Agarkov, an analyst with the SK Strategia think tank, said a peaceful campaign against the Olympics was not likely to bear fruit because all possible damage to Russia’s image in the West has been already done.

“The only possible option is destabilizing the situation in the region,” Agarkov said by telephone, adding that Georgia could use existing local ethnic conflicts and separatists to influence the situation.

Moscow has accused Tbilisi on numerous occasions of supporting Islamist rebels in the North Caucasus, but no concrete evidence to back up the claims has surfaced.

The 2014 Winter Olympics have been opposed by various groups, including environmentalists and the Circassian diaspora.

Circassians, a Muslim indigenous people from the northwest Caucasus who scattered across the globe after a 19th-century massacre that left about 300,000 of them dead around Sochi, have compared the plan to holding the games in the city to staging the Olympics in the Nazi death camp Auschwitz.

The Moscow Times

Yandex Names Moscow's Worst Traffic

The Yandex.Probki online traffic monitoring service identified the 30 road bottlenecks that cause the longest jams during rush hours citywide, listing them in a report released Tuesday.

The research, based on October data, examined spots on Moscow roads where vehicles have to slow down the most before getting a chance to speed up for at least three kilometers afterward. Perpetually jammed lanes were not covered by the study.

The list for the morning rush hour on weekdays is topped by the crossing of Volgogradsky Prospekt and Lyublinskaya Ulitsa, in southeastern Moscow, which takes drivers about 32 minutes to pass through at an average speed of three kilometers per hour, the report said.

Other troublesome morning bottlenecks include the crossing of Ulitsa Lyotchika Babushkina with Prospekt Mira by the Shosse Entuziastov metro station in the northeastern part of the city and Kashirskoye Shosse near the Kashirskaya metro station in the south. Drivers lose at least 30 minutes at each spot, the report found.

In the evening, the intersection of Leningradskoye Shosse and the Moscow Ring Road on the city's northern outskirts is the worst bottleneck, with motorists losing an average of 30 minutes in the area, the report said.

The inner side of the Third Ring Road beyond the overpass above Shmitovsky Proyezd in western Moscow and the downtown 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya Ulitsa, near Belorussky Station also made the list of evening's worst bottlenecks, the report said.

The researchers wanted to examine not just Moscow's busiest roads, but spots that “lead to the appearance of traffic jams in the city,” Tatyana Komarova, a spokeswoman for Yandex.Probki, told The Moscow Times.

Traffic jams were recently highlighted as the city's most urgent problem by both President Dmitry Medvedev and Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. Earlier this month, City Hall released a draft of its plan to improve the situation, complete with measures such as creating toll roads and new parking lots, removing many pedestrian street crossings, and banning trucks from entering the city during daylight hours.

Komarova said Yandex.Probki decided to conduct the study based on City Hall's initiatives, although the authorities did not directly ask them to conduct it. Moscow authorities did not comment on the research Tuesday.

“I doubt that we would have done the research without the vivid public interest about the problem, which was sparked by City Hall's plans,” Komarova said by e-mail.

U.S. search giant Google also launched a traffic service in Moscow earlier this year, although Yandex, the local market leader, remains the most used service for live updates on the city's congested roads.

The Moscow Times