Lehman was expected to appeal the matter

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc will appeal a court order upholding the rushed sale of its North American business to Barclays PLC nearly three years ago, a deal Lehman said afforded Barclays an $11 billion (6.7 billion pounds) "windfall."

In court papers filed late Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, Lehman said it will appeal to Manhattan federal court the February ruling from Judge James Peck, who presides over Lehman's bankruptcy.

Lehman was expected to appeal the matter, aspects of which have already been appealed by Barclays and by the trustee liquidating Lehman's brokerage.

Lehman's creditors' committee also filed an appeal notice Thursday, saying it would seek review of a related order rejecting the committee's objections to the Barclays deal.

A Lehman spokeswoman declined to comment. A Barclays spokeswoman said the company did not have a statement.

Lehman said Barclays got a sweetheart deal in acquiring its U.S. investment banking and brokerage operations in the days following its filing of the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. It said Barclays failed to make key disclosures in the $1.85 billion deal, resulting in a windfall of about $11 billion.

Peck called the sale process "imperfect," but said any disclosure lapses were not serious enough to affect the fairness or outcome of the sale.

James Giddens, the bankruptcy trustee for Lehman's brokerage, a week ago appealed a separate aspect of Peck's ruling entitling Barclays to $1.1 billion in money held to facilitate the clearance of securities trading.

A week before that, Barclays appealed still another element of the ruling handing the trustee $4 billion in so-called margin assets, collateral Lehman posted to cover outstanding derivatives trades.

Lehman declared bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, listing $639 billion in assets, six times more than any other bankrupt U.S. company. The filing was a major factor in the financial crisis.

It is scheduled to ask Peck on August 30 for authority to hold a creditor vote on a roughly $65 billion payout plan to exit bankruptcy.

The case is In re Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 08-13555.

U.S. automaker hopes to avoid a strike

Ford Motor Co's labor chief said the U.S. automaker hopes to avoid a strike in its talks for a new labor deal with the United Auto Workers union, which officially began on Friday.

"The last thing we want to do is incur a strike," said Marty Malloy at the kickoff ceremony at a Ford truck assembly plant in Dearborn, Michigan. "We work great with the UAW."

At the ceremony at the Ford factory, the UAW negotiating team was dressed in sky blue pullover shirts, while Ford executives wore dark business suits and ties. Despite the sartorial differences, both sides voiced optimism about the talks.

Ford, which has not suffered a UAW strike since 1976, was the last of the three U.S. automakers to open talks with the UAW, following Chrysler on Monday and General Motors Co on Wednesday. While the UAW cannot strike GM or Chrysler, it has no such limitation with Ford.

However, UAW President Bob King reiterated: "I don't think about strikes. We don't collectively think about strikes." He said the UAW might seek the members' permission to strike, but that was routine and had been done many times in the past.

In the four years since the union and the three Detroit automakers last negotiated labor deals, the companies were pushed into crisis by collapsing vehicle demand and the financial convulsion of 2008. Both GM and Chrysler, now controlled by Italy's Fiat , filed for bankruptcy and were bailed out by the Obama administration in 2009.

Ford did not take any bailout money as it mortgaged almost all its assets in late 2006 before the financial crisis hit.

Since then, however, the automakers have returned to profitability, and the UAW has emphasized job security as its top priority. Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally reiterated that the company plans to hire 7,000 workers in the United States in the next two years.

Mulally said he wanted to make the No. 2 U.S. automaker more competitive in these talks.

One desire of Ford and its rivals is to lower the total labor costs they incur compared with those paid by their foreign rivals at their U.S. plants. Malloy said Ford's total costs were about $58 an hour per hourly worker, $8 more than its foreign rivals.

King saw the numbers differently, however. "We would respectfully do our math a little bit differently, but we'll talk about that at the bargaining table," he said.

King said one of his proposals in the talks will be for the union, which represents about 41,000 hourly workers at Ford's U.S. plants, to get seats on the company's board of directors. That repeats a goal he has laid out for all the automakers.

Ford global manufacturing chief John Fleming said the current economic troubles would not "color" the negotiations.

Merck & Co Inc plans to cut another 12,000 to 13,000 jobs by late 2015

Merck & Co Inc plans to cut another 12,000 to 13,000 jobs by late 2015 to wring out additional annual cost savings of up to $1.5 billion that can be plowed back into research and deal making.

The No. 2 U.S. drugmaker eliminated 12,465 positions last year, offset by almost 6,500 new hires, reducing its workforce to 91,000 employees as of June 30.

The company, which also reported quarterly earnings in line with forecasts, said on Friday it would cut its workforce by an additional 12 percent to 13 percent from the 100,000 employees it had at the end of 2009 after buying Schering-Plough Corp.

A company spokesman declined to peg the planned size of its workforce, saying the job cuts would be substantially offset by new hires in strategic growth areas, such as emerging markets.

"The new phase of restructuring will create an additional $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion in annual cost savings," company spokesman David Caouette said.

Job cuts will come largely from administrative positions, consolidation of offices and sale or closure of manufacturing sites.

Merck is streamlining operations following its $41 billion purchase of Schering-Plough.

"I think we're going to see other firms continue to expand their cost-reduction programs," Morningstar analyst Damien Conover said, pointing to increasingly difficult reimbursement environments in Europe and the United States.

"We have to remember that 10 years ago these firms were extremely bloated and in an entirely different operating mold and it's really shifted to one where you don't need the gigantic sales forces that you once needed," Conover said.

Many other big drugmakers have slashed their workforces in recent years to ensure profit growth as they face patent expirations that will subject them to generic competition, the costs of healthcare reform and efforts by insurers to keep a lid on drug prices.

Eli Lilly , facing one of the industry's biggest "patent cliffs," said in late 2009 it would cut 5,500 employees, or 13 percent of its workforce, by the end of 2011 to create $1 billion in savings. But like Merck, its cuts have been largely offset by increased hiring in emerging markets.

Before Pfizer bought Wyeth in 2009, the world's largest drugmaker said it would cut 15 percent of the combined workforce, or almost 20,000 jobs. The company, whose Lipitor cholesterol fighter goes generic late this year, swung its ax again in February, saying it would lay off more than 2,000 researchers to deliver on a 2012 profit forecast.

Merck, unlike many of its rivals, has vowed to maintain research and development spending at stable levels, rather than slash research costs to meet earnings targets. But the company on Friday shaved the high end of its 2011 research budget by $100 million, to between $8 billion and $8.3 billion.

The drugmaker said it halted development of a treatment for migraine headaches, called telcagepant, after unfavorable data from a late-stage trial. The medicine had been linked to liver toxicity in earlier studies.

With the new job cuts, Merck's restructuring program will yield annual savings of $4 billion to $4.6 billion by the end of 2015, compared with an earlier estimate of $2.7 billion to $3.1 billion by late 2012, Merck said.

The company reported a second-quarter profit in line with Wall Street expectations, helped by big tax gains. But sales handily outpaced forecasts.

It earned $2.02 billion, or 65 cents per share, compared with $752 million, or 24 cents per share, in the year-earlier second quarter, when it took a big restructuring charge for the Schering Plough acquisition.

Excluding special items, Merck earned 95 cents per share, matching the average forecast among analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Global sales rose 7 percent to $12.15 billion, but would have risen only 3 percent if not for the weaker dollar. Sales exceeded Wall Street's expectations by $370 million, helped by strong sales of newer obesity drugs Januvia and Janumet, arthritis treatment Remicade and vaccines.

The company, which slightly raised the low end of its 2011 profit forecast, now expects earnings of $3.68 billion to $3.76 billion, excluding special items.

Merck shares fell 2.3 percent to $34.13 on the New York Stock Exchange, amid a 0.6 percent decline for the drug sector.

lawmakers scramble to close in on a deal

Here is what is happening on Friday as lawmakers scramble to close in on a deal for Congress to raise the U.S. government's $14.3 trillion borrowing limit by an August 2 deadline and avoid a debt default:

* The House of Representatives passed a Republican deficit-reduction plan that had no chance of becoming law but could pave the way for a last-ditch bid for bipartisan compromise to avert a debt default.

The Republican-controlled House pushed through the measure by a partisan vote of 218-to-210 after the party's leaders reworked it to appease anti-tax conservatives. No Democrats voted for it.

As expected, the Democratic-controlled Senate blocked the bill.

* Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he will start Senate action on a compromise debt and deficit plan and called on Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to work with him. Reid says a short-term debt limit extension is unacceptable. The Senate could vote early Sunday morning.

* The White House urged lawmakers to begin immediate work on a compromise to lift the debt limit after the defeat of the Republican House bill.

* President Barack Obama said earlier that if the United States loses its AAA credit rating it won't be because the country can't pay its bills. It would be "because we didn't have an AAA political system to match our AAA credit rating."

* The U.S. Treasury is preparing an emergency plan for how the government would function and pay its obligations if Congress fails to raise the government's borrowing authority. Treasury officials say they will provide more information on their plans as the August 2 deadline draws near.

* The Treasury is due to announce next week its borrowing needs for the current quarter and its plans for selling debt to meet those needs. The uncertainty over the debt ceiling could jeopardize the plan. Treasury officials met with primary-market dealers and a Treasury official says dealers agree Congress should act quickly and raise the debt limit for as long as possible.

* Investors are growing increasingly alarmed by U.S. lawmakers' inability to reach accord on the debt ceiling and are watching developments in Washington closely. U.S. stock prices remain weak.

Iran is lagging on equipping a bunker

Iran is lagging on equipping a bunker with centrifuges that will enrich uranium closer to weapons-grade but plans to boost output by using more machines than originally planned, diplomats tell The Associated Press.

The diplomats say Iranian officials recently told the International Atomic Energy Agency half of the approximately 3,000 centrifuges to be installed at the underground Fordow site will churn out uranium enriched to near 20 percent.

The rest, they said, will produce less sensitive low-enriched material at around 3.5 percent. Iran's higher-grade enrichment efforts are of particular concern because material at 20 percent enrichment can be turned into fissile warhead material much more quickly than that at 3.5 percent.

The diplomats said no centrifuges had been installed by July 23, the last time that IAEA experts inspected the site, indicating that Tehran was behind on plans to set up the machines by the end of July. Still, the diplomats said, preparations were well under way, with most electrical wiring, pipe work and other preliminary installations completed.

The reason for the delay was unclear. One of two diplomats who discussed confidential information on condition of anonymity suggested it could reflect temporary technical problems with expanding production of higher-enriched material.

He said that to his knowledge, the Iranians also planned to install only present-generation centrifuges currently in use elsewhere instead of more efficient centrifuges they have been developing — another sign that the program may be experiencing short-term technical difficulties.

While Iran insists that it does not seek nuclear arms and is enriching only to make reactor fuel, the United States and other nations worry that Tehran could turn its enrichment program toward making weapons-grade material.

"Enrichment from natural uranium to 20 percent is the most time-consuming and resource-intensive step in making the highly enriched uranium required for a nuclear weapon," British Foreign Secretary William Hague wrote recently in Britain's Guardian newspaper. "And when enough 20 percent enriched uranium is accumulated at the underground facility at Qom, it would take only two or three months of additional work to convert this into weapons grade material."

Beside expanding its low-enrichment program in recent years, Iran has been producing higher-enriched uranium for over a year and is now using 328 centrifuges at its facility in the central city of Natanz for that purpose.

It originally announced that it planned to move all 20-percent production to Fordow and triple output — which would have meant that about 1,000 centrifuges would have been harnessed to make uranium purified to near 20 percent.

Based on the information provided by the diplomats, however, Iran now wants to use 1,500 centrifuges for that purpose, adding to international concerns about the process.

The Islamic Republic disclosed Fordow's existence two years ago, shortly before Western intelligence services were to go public with the secret site.

Tehran refuses to cease enrichment despite U.N. Security Council sanctions. Also of international concern are indications it might have experimented with components of a nuclear weapons program — something Tehran denies.

After initially cooperating with an IAEA probe of intelligence-based allegations of secret nuclear weapons work, Iran stopped answering questions on the issue about three years ago, saying it considers the investigation closed.

The move would "help to reduce its ability

The United Nations on Friday slapped sanctions on the Pakistani Taliban -- thought to be behind last year's failed bombing attempt on New York's Times Square -- for having links with al Qaeda.

The U.N. Security Council said its sanctions committee dealing with al Qaeda had imposed an assets freeze as well as a travel ban and arms embargo on the Pakistani group, also known by its Urdu name of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.

A council statement said the committee, which maintains a list of sanctioned groups and individuals, had also imposed the same measures on the Caucasus Emirate organization, an Islamist insurgent group based in Russia's North Caucasus.

Founded in 2007 as a merger of some dozen groups, the TTP is based in tribal areas along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and is led by Hakimullah Mehsud, who is already on the sanctions list. A Pakistani newspaper reported this month that Mehsud's control of the group may now be weakening.

The TTP claimed responsibility for a botched attempt by Pakistani-born American Faisal Shahzad to explode a crude bomb packed into a sport utility vehicle in Times Square in May of last year. The bomb failed to go off and Shahzad was jailed for life in the United States.

In Pakistan, the TTP has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks including a 2009 strike on a police academy in Lahore that killed eight cadets and an assault on a Karachi naval base two months ago. It also claimed it carried out a suicide attack that killed seven CIA employees at a U.S. base in Afghanistan in December, 2009.

Both the TTP and the Caucasus Emirate are on the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Security Council diplomats said the designation of the TTP on the U.N. sanctions list had been supported by Pakistan's government.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said "sends a powerful signal of the international community's solidarity and resolve in the fight against the TTP and international terrorism."

The move would "help to reduce its ability to operate effectively and perpetrate terrorist attacks," he said in a statement.

The Security Council formerly kept a joint sanctions list for al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban but recently split them into two and took 14 names off the Afghan Taliban list in what envoys said was a bid to entice the group into peace talks.

The Caucasus Emirate, founded in 2007, is led by Doku Umarov, Russia's most wanted Islamist militant. Chechen-born Umarov, who has a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head, claimed responsibility for masterminding a January suicide bombing of Moscow's Domodedovo airport, which killed 37 people.

The top U.S. military officer made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan

The top U.S. military officer made an unannounced trip to Afghanistan on Friday, aiming to reassure a country rattled by a wave of high-profile attacks and assassinations.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said U.S. officials had long predicted the kind of attacks that have shaken southern Afghanistan and Kandahar province in recent weeks.

"We're not surprised at the spectacular attacks. We thought that's where they'd try to go. That's where they're going and we've got to work hard to prevent that," Mullen told reporters before departing for Kandahar province.

A suicide bomber killed the mayor of Kandahar on Wednesday, compounding fears of a dangerous power vacuum in Afghanistan's south in the wake of the assassination of President Hamid Karzai's half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai.

Kandahar is the Taliban's birthplace and a focus of efforts by U.S. troops to turn the tide against the insurgency and bolster local government.

The assassinations threaten to undermine that goal. More than half of all targeted killings in Afghanistan between April and June were carried out in Kandahar, according to a U.N. report.

The police chief of Kandahar province, Khan Mohammad Khan, was killed by an attacker wearing a police uniform in mid-April, and the province's most senior cleric was killed by a suicide bomber at a memorial service for Karzai's brother.

Such killings, many claimed by the Taliban, have sent chilling warnings to political leaders about the reach of the militants, who have shown an ability to adapt their tactics even as NATO-led troops have squeezed them in their traditional rural strongholds around Kandahar.

"There are some who believe that this is all they can do ... given the challenges the Taliban have faced over the course of the last couple of seasons," Mullen said on what could be his last trip to Afghanistan before stepping down as Pentagon chief at the end of September.

U.S. DRAWDOWN UNDERWAY

The increase in violence comes as the United States starts drawing down its forces in Afghanistan, with some 10,000 U.S. troops due to pull out by the end of the year. Another 23,000 will come home by the end of next summer, according to plans announced by U.S. President Barack Obama next month.

Mullen noted that even after those withdrawals, there will still be 68,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan and a growing number of Afghan security forces to help offset the U.S. drawdown.

Afghans are set to take lead security responsibility by the end of 2014, with foreign troops expected to stay on to provide training and support, but no longer in combat roles.

"I'm confident we will have the forces there necessary to reassure the Afghan people," Mullen said.

Suicide attackers killed at least 19 people, 12 of them children, when they targeted government buildings in Uruzgan province on Thursday, the deadliest assault in the south in nearly six months.

Last month, Taliban gunmen and suicide bombers attacked a leading hotel in the capital in a raid which killed 12 people.

Asked how he would reassure Afghans that the Taliban were not gaining the momentum in the nearly decade-old war, Mullen pointed to the "many, many successes we've enjoyed versus the Taliban over the course of the past year, reassure them that continues to be the case."

"And at the same time recognize that this is not completely surprising," he said.

Government attorneys working on the James "Whitey" Bulger case

Government attorneys working on the James "Whitey" Bulger case asked on Friday for more time to go through mountains of evidence against the former Boston mob boss before turning the materials over to the defense.

In a court filing, federal prosecutors said the usual 28-day period to produce discovery was insufficient since many of the documents, photographs, videotapes and other evidence had been boxed and stored for years, and in some cases organized for use in other related cases.

Producing the materials for Bulger and his defense team requires the reproduction of "thousands of hours of audiotapes and videotapes as well as hundreds of photographs," according to the filing.

"Obviously, the defendant, who has been a fugitive for over 16 years, bears some responsibility for this predicament," the government said.

Prosecutors asked for an extension until August 31.

Bulger, the former leader of the Winter Hill Gang, pleaded not guilty earlier this month to all charges against him, including 19 alleged murders from the 1970s and 1980s.

The case against the 81-year-old gangster could be a years-long judicial process. The first status hearing in the case is scheduled for September 14.

Bulger and longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig, 60, were arrested in Santa Monica, California on June 22.

Bulger fled Boston in late 1994 after receiving a tip from a corrupt FBI agent that federal charges were pending. Greig joined him a short time later and has been charged with harboring Bulger as a fugitive.

Miller took another soldier's weapon

The National Guardsman who shot an Afghan electrician in the head at close range was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, officials said on Friday.

Sergeant Derrick Miller was convicted of premeditated murder Wednesday by a 10-member panel of officers and enlisted personnel.

Miller was convicted of the September 26, 2010 shooting death of Atta Mohammed at or near Masamute Bala, Afghanistan.

During the three-day court-martial at Fort Campbell, a military post straddling the Kentucky-Tennessee state line, the soldier's attorney, Charles Gittins, argued the shooting was in self-defense and the sergeant considered the victim a threat.

The slain man's son told Reuters a few months ago that, while he wasn't there at the time, his understanding is that his father was taken from his home by U.S. and Afghan soldiers, beaten in a school bathroom and then shot in the head.

Prosecutors said Miller took another soldier's weapon, straddled the man on the ground and then shot him.

Miller, a member of a Connecticut National Guard, has been attached to Fort Campbell for the last few months.

Joshua Berry and his wife Robin were killed

When two Houston brothers were orphaned and paralyzed in a car crash that left their sister with a collection of broken bones, attention from celebrities including pop star Justin Bieber triggered an outpouring of support.

Fund-raising efforts for the long-term care of the children took off -- raising $100,000 since Wednesday -- and other notable celebrities followed Bieber onto the case, including Lady Gaga, Britney Spears and Ellen DeGeneres.

Joshua Berry and his wife Robin were killed when their van was struck by an oncoming vehicle in Texas as they drove home to Houston from Colorado over the Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Their three children survived but the two boys, 9-year-old Peter and 8-year-old Aaron, were paralyzed from the waist down from spinal cord injuries and are currently receiving rehabilitation in a Chicago hospital.

Their 6-year-old sister Willa suffered broken bones but her injuries were not as severe. She is staying with friends in Houston.

For weeks, humble but effective bake sales, lemonade stands and benefits from friends raised about $200,000 for the children's medical care, while a Facebook page generated attention and kept well-wishers informed.

Bieber's involvement -- a family member knows the popular singer -- helped the effort explode, triggered by the "Show Your Hearts" website launched this week. Fund-raising efforts will benefit the Joshua and Robin Berry Children's Trust.

The speed by which the aid efforts permeated pop culture has stunned Matt Berry, the children's uncle and guardian, whose brother Joshua died in the accident.

"This is uncharted territory for our family," Berry said. "While the attention makes you feel a little uncomfortable, you know why it touches people. If the kids did not have these injuries, you wouldn't be hearing about it."

The celebrities' direct online appeal to fans featured messages like this from Lady Gaga's official site: "Monsters: There are orphans that need our help. A tragic story that left them paralyzed."

The campaign encourages supporters to donate. Those who give a minimum of $10 receive a special avatar that can be displayed on Twitter or Facebook and features two hands making a heart shape.

"Change your profile picture today & make sure to #showyourhearts," Spears told Twitter followers, showing a photo of herself making the heart shape with her hands.

In an e-mail to the family, Bieber wrote: "It is a really sad story, but this is an opportunity for me and my friends to do something good for others."

MetLife Inc posted a smaller profit as natural disasters

MetLife Inc , the largest U.S. life insurer, posted a smaller profit on Thursday as natural disasters at home and abroad and a sharp increase in expenses ate into earnings.

But the company beat expectations easily on an operating basis, and shares rose 2.5 percent in after-hours trading.

MetLife, which had already warned of an unexpectedly large catastrophe loss in the quarter because of severe tornadoes in April and May, said disaster losses totaled $174 million in the second quarter. It also took a hit of $44 million from claims and expenses for the March earthquake in Japan.

The company reported a net profit of $1.21 billion, or $1.13 per share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $1.53 billion, or $1.84 per share.

While revenue was up, total expenses rose more than 30 percent, with virtually all categories showing a sharp increase over a year earlier. Late last year, the company acquired the international insurance business Alico from AIG , bulking it up globally while adding costs.

On an operating basis, excluding investment gains and losses, the company earned $1.24 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, on average, estimated the company would earn $1.10 per share.

In MetLife's U.S. business, the company said variable annuity sales rose 55 percent to nearly $7 billion, while strength in group life plans drove double-digit gains in the insurance business.

Internationally, Japan and Latin America led improved results, demonstrating the benefits of the company's late-2010 acquisition of Alico.

MetLife also said operating earnings at MetLife Bank fell sharply in the quarter on higher expenses and lower mortgage business.

Earlier this month the company said it would sell the bank, a move analysts said may help it avoid the strongest of the "too big to fail" restrictions being formulated by the government.

American and French peacekeepers were told to fire their weapons

American and French peacekeepers were told Thursday to fire their weapons in defense if attacked at border posts on Kosovo's northern boundary with Serbia, a day after the crossings were set ablaze by Serbs armed with firebombs, a NATO spokesman said.

There have been days of mounting tension between ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs after Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci ordered special police units to take over two disputed border posts that were previously manned by Serb members of the police under EU supervision. One Kosovo policeman died in the operation.

"We are in command of those places," NATO spokesman Capt. Hans Wichter said. "If we are threatened, we have the right to use weapons." He said the area was "declared a military zone," meaning the alliance makes all decisions related to security.

NATO troops were attacked late Wednesday by machine guns and anti-tank rockets as they moved to secure the border posts, the top NATO commander in Kosovo, Maj. Gen. Erhard Buehler, said. No injures were reported. They took control of the border posts Thursday.

Thaci's goal in trying to take over the crossings was to enforce Kosovo's ban on goods from Serbia in the Serb-run area, which has rejected Kosovo's 2008 independence. Serbs object to Kosovo customs posts being set up on the crossings with Serbia because it weakens Serbia's claim over the territory and its influence in the Serb-dominated region.

Buehler is leading efforts to reach an agreement that would ease tensions between the two sides. But late Thursday the military alliance said no breakthrough was in sight and that talks with officials from Serbia and Kosovo would continue Friday.

Serbia's Kosovo negotiator, Borislav Stefanovic, accused the NATO force in Kosovo — known as KFOR — of siding with Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and helping them establish Pristina's rule as an independent country in the territory that Serbia considers its own.

"We couldn't reach an agreement because the KFOR command does not understand that they are being used by Pristina," Stefanovic said.

The U.N. Security Council is holding closed consultations on Kosovo. Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic is in New York and diplomats said he was pressing for an open meeting, backed by close ally Russia.

At a special session of Kosovo's parliament, Thaci defended his decision, which has drawn strong criticism from the EU.

"Currently we have difficulties and confrontation, but we will not back away at any price," Thaci told Kosovo's lawmakers moments before they voted in favor of a resolution backing the police action. "This is our land, our country."

Kosovo police declared the operation in the north over Wednesday, but a mob of Serbs attacked the area.

Security camera footage from the Jarinje border crossing — obtained by The Associated Press — showed a mob of about 200 men, some of them wearing masks and waving Serbian flags attacking the crossing late Wednesday and setting it on fire before smashing the security cameras.

As the masked Serbs attacked, European Union police on the scene fled in their cars, according to video shown on Serbia's state-run RTS television.

In an apparent spillover of ethnic tensions on Thursday, a Serb was beaten and seriously injured in the town of Strpce in southern Kosovo, Serbian government spokesman Milivoje Mihajlovic said.

Police in Kosovo confirmed the attack, but could not immediately say whether it was ethnically motivated.

Hosni Mubarak's trial will be set in a huge Cairo convention center

Hosni Mubarak's trial will be set in a huge Cairo convention center with hundreds of seats for an audience, heavy security and a metal defendants' cage large enough to hold the man who ruled Egypt unchallenged for three decades, his two sons and seven associates, judicial officials said Thursday.

Health Minister Amr Helmy said the 83-year-old Mubarak is well enough to be moved from a hospital in the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, where he is under arrest, to Cairo. He will face charges of corruption and ordering the killings of protesters during the uprising that toppled him in February.

"Mubarak's health is in appropriate condition for him to be tried in Cairo," Helmy told reporters.

Protests have escalated recently clamoring for Mubarak and other former regime stalwarts to be brought to justice over the killings of protesters and other crimes over the years. Many activists say the ruling military council which took power from the ousted president — and is headed by Mubarak's former defense minister — is dragging its feet on the prosecutions.

A few hundred hard-core protesters have erected a tent camp in Cairo's Tahrir Square — the epicenter of the uprising — to press for speedier trials, and a march last week to the headquarters of the Supreme Council of the Armed forces ended with more than 100 people injured after men armed with rocks and sticks attacked them.

Many protesters received the announcement with deep skepticism.

"I think they will find some excuse for him not to come to Cairo," said activist Marwa Nasser. "We've been guessing that they'll announce that he's dead, or that security reasons keep him from going on TV. Even if he comes, people doubt that we'll ever see him in the cage or on TV."

The plans for the trial venue show the judiciary wants to make it a public spectacle.

Deputy Justice Minister Mohammed Munie told state news agency MENA that a final decision has been made to hold the trial at Cairo's Convention Center, not far from Mubarak's Cairo home and normally a venue for book fairs and trade shows.

Munie said a large building within the center will be outfitted with enough chairs for lawyers, a special section for journalists and seating for "an audience that is connected to the case" — likely to include relatives of about 850 people killed during the uprising.

Electronic doors will be installed at entrances, and the army and the interior ministry will handle security.

A member of a judicial team that visited the building Thursday said the trial room would probably have stadium-style seating for hundreds of people. Speaking on condition of anonymity because final decisions had not been made, he said the team was considering erecting large screens around the convention center to allow others to watch from outside.

Inside the courtroom will be an iconic scene from Egyptian trials — a single metal cage where the accused are held. Under the old regime, the media often featured images of Mubarak foes seated in such cages.

Munie said the convention center cage will be large enough to hold Mubarak, his two sons and seven of their associates who have been lumped together in one case. There is an 11th defendant who is being tried in absentia.

Mubarak's sons Alaa and Gamal, who have been in a Cairo prison since April, are facing charges of corruption. Mubarak had been grooming Gamal to succeed him before his ouster. Prominent businessman and Mubarak confidant Hussein Salem is being tried in absentia. He has fled to Spain, and Egypt is demanding his extradition.

Former Interior Minster Habib el-Adly and six high-ranking security officers are charged with ordering the killing of protesters during the 18-day uprising.

The former president is being tried for both corruption and ordering the killings of protesters. His family is suspected of amassing billions of dollars from corrupt business dealings while nearly half the 85 million people in his country subsisted at poverty levels around $2 a day or less.

Frequent reports that Mubarak's health has been faltering raised speculation that the trial would be held in Sharm el-Sheikh, the Red Sea resort where he has been under arrest in a hospital. Most recently, doctors treating Mubarak said he was weak and had lost weight from refusing to eat. They also said he suffers from severe depression.

That led to speculation that the trial could be delayed because of health reasons — something that would likely infuriate protesters and activists.

Khaled Sayed of the Muslim Brotherhood's youth movement said the announcement shows the need for protesters to keep pressure on the army, but he still doesn't expect to see Mubarak's trial any time soon.

"I doubt it, but as long as there is a schedule for the trial, we have to be patient to see if it happens," he said. "If it doesn't, then we have to reveal the scandal of the military council to the public."

An appeals judge must still formally announce Mubarak's transfer to Cairo. But according to Egyptian law, the defendant must physically appear in court.

"Egyptian law stipulates that a judge must hear the defendant's testimony with his own ear, and physically be in the same room as the defendant," Nasser Amin, a lawyer with the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary, told The Associated Press.

The uphill struggle to field a candidate puts the military establishment on the verge of regaining the presidency

The uphill struggle of Guatemala's ruling leftists to field a candidate puts the military establishment on the verge of regaining the presidency just as probes into the country's brutal civil war begin.

The center-left Union of Hope Party (UNE) may have no candidate at all for September's election if an appeal by former first lady Sandra Torres fails to overturn a court decision barring her from the presidency.

Already well behind in polls, her absence would nearly guarantee victory for former general Otto Perez, 61, of the right-wing Patriot Party (PP), raising fears that nascent efforts to prosecute military officials for crimes committed during the war will founder.

Nearly a quarter million mostly Mayan villagers died in the 1960-1996 conflict.

Jennifer Harbury, a human rights lawyer, said she expected Perez to obstruct ongoing civil war cases if elected.

"He'll suggest that the war is over and everyone should get together. But without any justice that's exactly the same as saying everyone should get together after World War Two without Nuremberg" where Nazis leaders were tried, she said.

UNE hopeful Torres has been the closest rival to Perez in the presidential race, albeit an unpopular one. A June survey by Guatemalan pollster Prodatos showed her lagging the frontrunner with 15.1 percent support to Perez's 42.5 percent.

Torres's bid has been in serious doubt since there is a constitutional rule that prevents family members of the president from taking power.

To skirt this, Torres in March tearily announced she had divorced President Alvaro Colom, who by law cannot run for a consecutive term. But a court ruled against her last month and unless her appeal succeeds and her popularity recovers, Perez could win in a first round vote on September 11.

In a country deeply scarred by the army's role in the civil war, many voters back Perez in the hope he can restore law and order in areas ravaged by violent incursions by Mexican drug gangs.

"Guatemala needs a strong man to govern this country," said Juan Mancilla, 54, a thrift store owner among thousands of cheering Perez supporters at a recent rally in the capital.

"We're under attack and he's the only one offering security. If Perez doesn't win ... you'll see how the criminals and drug dealers take control of this country," he added.

IRON FIST

Perez has pledged to act against organized crime in one of Latin America's most troubled countries with an "iron fist".

Colom's government denies crime is growing in Guatemala, citing a drop in murders to 6,502 in 2010 from 6,948 in 2009. But that is still more than 44 murders per every 100,000 people, nearly nine times the rate in the United States.

Voters are worried about the violence.

In a recent poll, two-thirds of Guatemalans said security was their biggest concern heading into the election.

Mindful of the need to strengthen the army against cartels, Colom has said he would repeal a law passed in 2004 limiting the military budget to 0.33 percent of Guatemala's GDP. Watchdogs fear the army may exploit this under Perez.

During Guatemala's civil war, a U.N.-backed truth commission found 85 percent of the rights violations were committed by the military, and after years of prevarication, the government has begun to prosecute implicated officials.

On July 25, four former special forces officers became the first suspects to stand trial for the massacre of over 200 people in the village of Las Dos Erres in late 1982.

Human rights groups say Perez, who served in the army until 1998, was involved in wartime abuses, an accusation he denies.

In July, the Guatemalan indigenous group, Waqib Kej presented a letter to the United Nations accusing Perez of human rights violations in the Quiche region during the war.

Perez has dismissed his detractors.

"If there are accusations, I don't know about them," he told the Guatemalan daily Prensa Libre. "I was director of intelligence and my job was to uphold the constitution."

ELECTION VIOLENCE

The war remains a touchy subject in Guatemala.

Although the government in June declassified over 12,000 military documents from 1956-1996, it has kept information secret from 1982-83, the war's bloodiest phase. Critics say Colom has been reluctant to investigate war crimes.

But some political analysts say Guatemala has enough laws in place to prevent abuses if Perez wins a four-year term.

Violence often plagues elections in Guatemala and death threats against candidates and poll monitors are common, making the outcome uncertain. Several experts also point out that many voters are only backing Perez to keep Torres out.

If Perez does not win 50 percent plus one vote in the first round, a run-off between the top two candidates will be held on November 6. If Torres does not compete, support could potentially coalesce around another centrist or leftist candidate.

However, political analyst Marco Barahona said both Eduardo Suger and Manuel Baldizon, the two other most prominent politicians still in the race, were unlikely to stop Perez.

"We don't see that Suger or Baldizon have the organization or the resources to capitalize on Torres' absence," he said.

Membership of Norway's political parties has surged in response to calls to counter

Membership of Norway's political parties has surged in response to calls to counter last week's massacre with more democracy and political participation, and some warn that the debate must shed traces of xenophobia.

All of Norway's main parties say they have seen a jump in membership since Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik killed 76 people last Friday in a bombing and shooting attack he saw as a "crusade" against Islam and multiculturalism.

An emotional Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has since then urged Norwegians to respond to the violence, in which Breivik gunned down youth members of his ruling Labor Party at a summer camp and planted a bomb outside Stoltenberg's offices, with more of what he says Norway does best -- openness and democracy.

"We have seen a jump in membership of all parties ... I think it shows that people are following what the prime minister asked for," Labor Party lawmaker Svein Hansen said, adding that the exact number of new members had not yet been counted.

The opposition Progress Party, whose strength has grown in recent years partly due to its tough line on immigrants, also said it had received a boost, gaining at least 487 new members.

"Usually it's very, very quiet at this time of the year, so this is something extraordinary. Normally in July most people are on vacation," said party spokesman Mazyar Keshvare.

"We know quite a bit about their motivation as well. In the internet application page, there's a comment box, and many, many people are saying 'I'm going to be more politically active so we can stay united against terror'," Keshvare said.

The Socialist Left party, in coalition government with the Labor Party, has seen members rise by at least 290 people, a large jump for small party and a country of only 4.8 million.

Norwegians are due to vote in local polls in September.

DEBATE MUST CHANGE

For some, more democracy and debate is not enough to combat what they see as rising prejudice against Muslims and immigrants in Norway and across Europe.

Some Norwegians see immigrants as exploiting the country's generous welfare and vast oil wealth; it has a sovereign wealth fund worth 3.1 trillion Norwegian crowns ($573.6 billion).

"It's a good call, but it's not enough. I don't know how we're going to take this debate forward. If you continue debating using generalizations and negative stereotypes, I feel that Muslims will be even more victimized than they are now," said the Norwegian Center against Racism's Mari Linloekken.

The Progress Party has fairly mainstream anti-immigrant views. It proposed this year that immigrants should receive lower welfare payments than Norwegian citizens.

However, a leaflet used in the 2005 election featured a gun and the caption "...the perpetrator was of foreign origin."

"We have never expressed such a thing that Muslims are taking over the country, or anything else like that, so I don't think that we have anything to be ashamed of or change when it comes to politics," Keshvare said.

"Problems surrounding this issue haven't changed because of this tragic event," he added.

Labour's Hansen said he hoped rhetoric would be toned down.

"One of the things I hope that we will draw as a lesson from this is that we have to talk about immigration, integration, Muslims and so on in another language .... We have to change language to one more in line with reality," he said.

Norway has lower levels of immigration than most other Western countries.

For Tunisian-born Norwegian Izzeddine al-Saweih, 57, change will not come soon enough.

"There has to be a debate on the right principles, an open debate, and Muslims must take part," he shouted at an outdoor gathering of Labor Party politicians in Oslo Thursday.

"The media writes a lot negative things about us, big and small. They put us under suspicion, and now we don't know our identity, despite us belonging to this land and its laws. Why?"

Warren Jeffs threw his child sexual assault trial into disarray

Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs threw his child sexual assault trial into disarray on Thursday when he fired his defense lawyers and demanded the right to represent himself, which the judge then granted.

"It's not as easy as it looks on TV, Mr. Jeffs," State District Judge Barbara Walther told him. "You're on your own."

Jeffs, the leader of a breakaway Mormon sect, is charged with child sexual assault and aggravated child sexual assault in connection with his "spiritual marriages" to a 12-year-old girl and a 14-year-old girl at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in remote west Texas.

Jeffs, 55, is considered the spiritual leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which has been condemned by the mainstream Mormon Church and is accused of promoting marriages between older men and girls.

The sect, which experts estimate has 10,000 followers in North America, also teaches that for a man to be among the select in heaven, he must have at least three wives.

Jeffs, who founded the ranch in 2003 as an outpost for his church after decades on the Utah-Arizona border, refused to enter a plea on his own behalf on Thursday, so the court recorded a "not guilty" plea and recessed until opening arguments were scheduled later in the day.

"My counsel doesn't have the full understanding of the facts and are unable to assist in my defense," Jeffs told the court in a slow, halting voice as he explained his move to fire his counsel.

"I have trained my defense, but they were unable to do what I said. I am presenting the need for true justice to be presented, and for the truth to come out."

LAWYERS TO STAY ON STANDBY

Jeffs has fired myriad attorneys in what prosecutors say is an attempt to delay the trial on charges that could send him to prison for life.

Judge Walther instructed the attorneys to remain on standby although they do not have to appear in court as his advisers. The judge had earlier instructed previously fired attorneys to appear in court in order to proceed with the trial.

Assistant Texas Attorney General Eric Nichols, who is prosecuting Jeffs, did not object to Jeffs' request for self-representation. But he wanted the self-proclaimed FLDS "prophet" to be apprised of the potential hazards of the move.

There were no signs of any sect members or supporters of Jeffs in the half-full courtroom.

Before being fired, defense attorneys had worked to exclude evidence seized when Jeffs was arrested in Nevada in 2007, as well as items seized from the ranch in a highly publicized raid by Texas Rangers in 2008.

Defense lawyers said those items shouldn't be used. They include a list of adult male members of the sect detailing their numerous wives and a photograph of a grinning Jeffs kissing one of his brides.

They argued against that evidence because the raid was prompted by a false report to a San Angelo domestic violence hotline by a woman claiming to be a 16-year-old child bride. The raid resulted in hundreds of children being temporarily removed from the compound.

The call actually came from a Colorado woman prosecutors say had a history of false domestic violence outcries.

A high school English teacher suspended from her job

A high school English teacher suspended from her job after she blogged that her suburban Philadelphia students were "rude, disengaged, lazy whiners" will head back to her classroom next month.

The blog by teacher Natalie Munroe set off a firestorm of complaints and she was suspended with pay earlier this year. "My students are out of control," she had written.

Munroe, however, has some concerns about returning to Central Bucks East High School when school resumes on August 30 after having been escorted from the building in February, her lawyer Steven Rovner said on Thursday.

"She wants to be an effective teacher and does not know what environment she will be going back to," said Rovner, who added that Munroe was not available for comment.

Munroe had a baby girl in March, and the Central Bucks School District said that after an investigation about her blog, she had been placed on a maternity leave.

The district scheduled a news conference next week about her return, but declined further comment for now, a spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, Munroe is back to blogging, this time outlining the sequence of events that led to her return. She said she had to contact the district five times about returning, and did not portray the series of phone calls as a happy event.

Still, Rovner said, "She's a teacher and will be glad to be going back to the classroom."

He would prefer that she work in one of the district's other high schools, Rovner said.

"As a teacher, she is like a celebrity now," he said. "Emotions would not be as high if she went to another school."

Chris Christie was released from hospital

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, often mentioned as a possible Republican U.S. presidential candidate, was released from hospital on Thursday evening after undergoing tests for breathing difficulties.

Christie, 48, who is heavily overweight and has asthma, was given "routine tests as a precautionary measure," spokesman Michael Drewniak said in a statement earlier on Thursday.

"I feel great now," Christie told reporters outside Somerset Hospital in New Jersey. "Now I'm hoping to go home, get a little sleep and I'll be back to work tomorrow."

Christie was admitted to hospital on Thursday morning after experiencing shortness of breath and lightheadedness on the way to an event.

He underwent a "battery of tests" which came back normal, Christie said, adding he would follow up with his doctor next week.

He has no public events scheduled for Friday.

The Republican governor has repeatedly said that he is not running for the White House. Earlier this month, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said Christie was on his short-list for vice president if Romney wins the Republican Party's presidential nomination next year.

Christie has been a rising Republican star since taking office last year with a low-tax, lean-government agenda, and erasing a record $11 billion budget deficit while limiting annual increases in the state's high property taxes.

He has publicly acknowledged struggling with his weight problem. He frequently jokes about it, and once told radio host Don Imus in mock exaggeration that he weighed 550 pounds (250 kg).

Christie said he did not see a direct connection between his weight and Thursday's asthma attack.

But, he said, "if I weighed less I'd be healthier. I've been taking it seriously. It's one of the major struggles of my life. I'm working on it."

Joe Walsh was narrowly elected in a Chicago suburban district

A Tea Party-backed U.S. Congressman who has lectured the U.S. government about getting its financial house in order owes more than $100,000 in child support payments, a lawyer for his ex-wife said on Thursday.

Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who was narrowly elected in a Chicago suburban district during the Republican sweep of 2010, denied the allegations and said he would fight them in court.

His ex-wife Laura Walsh failed to receive full child support for about five years from 2005 to late 2010, her lawyer Jack Coladarci told Reuters.

Walsh resumed full payments to support their three children after he was elected to the Congressional seat, which pays a salary of $174,000 per year, the lawyer said.

"These latest attacks against me are false and I will fight them in the appropriate venue," Walsh said in a statement on his web site, referring to the Cook County courtroom where Laura Walsh brought the case. The divorce documents detailing the apparent delinquent payments were first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times.

The attorney for Laura Walsh said the congressman needs to make good on the $117,437 he owes, plus interest.

"Laura is getting help now because he has a job where we can find him," Coladarci said. "But it is difficult to raise three kids, and she is not remarried, and she is supporting them basically on her salary."

The case focuses on unpaid child support between November 2005 to roughly December 2010. During that period, Walsh made partial payments between November 2005 and March 2008, but stopped in April 2008 and did not resume payment until he started to receive a paycheck from the House, Coladarci said.

The suit also alleged that Walsh and a girlfriend took international vacations while Walsh said he was too broke to pay child support, Coladarci said.

Laura Walsh filed for divorce in December 2002 after 15 years of marriage. The case alleges Walsh paid $1,000 a month short of his commitment for 28 months during November 2005 to March 2008. Walsh allegedly paid nothing from 2008 until resuming in late 2010.

His ex-wife has asked the court to garnish Walsh's wages.

The 49-year-old Walsh called himself "the tip of the spear" in the fiercely partisan debate over how to avoid a U.S. default on its debt. Tea Party supporters want deep government spending cuts and some oppose raising the nation's ceiling on debt under any circumstances.

Walsh has repeatedly excoriated U.S. President Barack Obama and Democratic lawmakers for what he deems profligate spending.

"I won't place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money," Walsh said in a policy video directed at the President entitled 'Walsh to Obama: Quit Lying.'"

Hideki Irabu was found dead at his Los Angeles-area home

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Hideki Irabu, who started for the New York Yankees for three seasons in the late 1990s, was found dead at his Los Angeles-area home of an apparent suicide, the coroner's office said on Thursday.

Irabu, 42, one of the first players to join the major leagues from the Japanese leagues, was discovered at his home in Rancho Palos Verdes late Wednesday afternoon by a friend, said Ed Winter, the assistant chief coroner for Los Angeles County.

"The case is being investigated as a suicide," Winter said, adding that an autopsy had yet to be performed. He declined to disclose any further details about the circumstances of Irabu's death.

The celebrity news website TMZ.com cited an unnamed law enforcement source as saying it appeared Irabu, who was famously disparaged for his weight by the late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, had hanged himself.

Irabu pitched six seasons in the major leagues with mixed success, the first three as a starting pitcher with the New York Yankees from 1997 to 1999.

He was traded to the Montreal Expos in 2000 and spent his final season in 2002 with the Texas Rangers, who switched him to the closer's role. He compiled a career record of 34-35 with a career earned run average of 5.15, and also saved 16 games.

The hard-throwing right-hander was purchased by the San Diego Padres from the Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan's Pacific League in January 1997. But he said he only wanted to pitch Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees, and the Padres eventually shipped him as part of a trade in May 1997.

The Yankees signed him to a $12.8 million, four-year contract, and after a brief stint in the minors put him into their starting rotation.

Irabu was best remembered for incurring the wrath of Steinbrenner after a spring training game in 1999 following his best big league season, in which he posted a 13-9 record.

The volatile Yankees owner, who had criticized the beefy Irabu for being overweight, became enraged after the pitcher failed to cover first base on a ground ball during the exhibition game and called him a "fat ... toad."

In 2009, Irabu came out of retirement and joined the Long Beach Armada of the independent Golden Baseball League. He posted a 5-3 record in 10 starts, with an ERA of 3.58 and said he intended to return to the Japanese professional leagues.

He was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving on May 17, 2010, in Redondo Beach, California.

The United Nations airlifted emergency food for starving children into the Somali capital Mogadishu

The United Nations airlifted emergency food for starving children into the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday as aid groups warned of a growing influx of hungry families from the famine-hit south of the country.

Some 3.7 million Somalis -- almost half of the population -- are going hungry with drought hitting some 11.6 million people across what local media have dubbed a "triangle of death" straddling Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Though the U.N. food agency had already distributed food in the capital, this is its first airlift of food into Somalia since the food crisis began.

"We need to scale up our programs, and especially the nutrition programs, in order to avoid children falling into severe malnutrition," Stephanie Savariaud, a U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman, told Reuters.

"Then they need to get hospitalized and it's much more difficult to save them."

The U.N. plane carried 10 tonnes of so-called therapeutic food -- the type used to feed malnourished children under five. The shipment will feed 3,500 children for a month, WFP said.

The agency said it has an additional 70 tonnes ready in Kenya, which it will fly to Somalia over the coming days.

Aid agencies say they cannot reach more than two million Somalis facing starvation in the parts of the country where Islamist militants control much of the worst-hit areas.

WFP officials have said they will try to deliver food to the areas controlled by the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab rebels over the next week and that they will consider food drops from aircrafts as a last resort.

There are about 400,000 displaced people in the capital Mogadishu, with about 1,000 new arrivals each day, the U.N.'s refugee agency (UNHCR) said in a statement on Tuesday. It estimated that 100,000 internally displaced people have arrived in the city over the last two months.

People in makeshift settlements are fighting over food being distributed by local charities, with the weaker ones unable to push through the crowds to get it, UNHCR said.

"Even if people are able to obtain the food and water being distributed, they often lack even the most basic containers to carry it. Often, they must haul food and water in plastic bags," UNHCR said.

The WFP has set up 16 feeding centers across the capital, providing hot meals to new arrivals using supplies delivered by sea from Kenya and Tanzania.

Boats are continuing to shift food in but they can take months to arrive. They are escorted by the European Naval Force to Somalia to deter pirate attacks.

Eichler told police he flashed his TSA badge

An off-duty Transportation Security Administration agent faces a misdemeanor harassment charge after allegedly tailing, flashing his badge and blowing his car horn at a woman who was driving too slowly for him, police said on Wednesday.

Police in South Windsor, Connecticut, said Donald Eichler, 63, was upset that the motorist ahead of him was traveling 5 to 10 miles per hour below the posted speed limit of 40 mph on a busy Connecticut road early on Tuesday.

Eichler told police he flashed his TSA badge and honked his car horn in an attempt to get the woman to speed up, they said.

The woman told police she was frightened and intimidated by Eichler's behavior. She dialed 911 and remained on the line with the emergency operator until police arrived, they said.

TSA agents have no local law-enforcement powers, said South Windsor police spokesman Sergeant Scott Custer.

Eichler was charged with a misdemeanor offense of driving a vehicle to harass or intimidate. He was released and ordered to appear in court on August 8.

Custer said if convicted, the TSA agent could face jail time, a fine or probation.

Rural newspapers in Alaska published by a Yupik Eskimo company are slated to go out of business

Six small, rural newspapers in Alaska published by a Yupik Eskimo company are slated to go out of business next month, falling victim to rising costs of materials and operations.

Calista Corp, one of 12 regional Native corporations in the state, announced last Friday it plans to close and liquidate its Alaska Newspapers Inc subsidiary, along with the Native-themed magazine, First Alaskans.

The last publication date for the six newspapers, all weeklies, has yet to be determined, Calista spokesman Thom Leonard said this week, adding, "Right now, we're just focusing on our employees."

The chain employs 38 people, Leonard said. Workers will be provided opportunities for other jobs within Calista and offered assistance in making the transition, he said.

The chain's newspapers, averaging about 2,000 subscribers each, serve readers in Barrow and northwestern Alaska, the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of southwestern Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, Bristol Bay and the fishing ports of Cordova and Seward.

Calista owns a diversified portfolio of businesses, with subsidiaries involved in government contracting, engineering, oil-field services, construction and telecommunications. The company bought the struggling Alaska Newspapers chain in 1992.

Loss of the publications will leave a large void in the state, some prominent Alaskans said.

The newspaper chain was "a home for reporters who embraced the adventure of life in remote Alaska, covering stories by airplane, skiff, four-wheeler, snowmachine and even dog team," Senator Lisa Murkowski said in a statement.

"Their reporting also celebrated a side of Alaska life often overlooked by the state's urban residents," she said.

Some 10 million people have hepatitis B

Some 10 million people who inject illegal drugs have hepatitis C while 1.2 million have hepatitis B, according to the first global estimate of infection rates among this population, published Thursday.

Both viral diseases are debilitating and potentially deadly, and public health officials must step up efforts to combat blood-borne transmission and to lower treatment costs, the researchers urged.

The health and economic costs of hepatitis C (HCV) spread via injected drugs, on its own, may be as high or higher than for similarly transmitted cases of HIV, they said.

The study, published in the British journal The Lancet, found that fully two-thirds of the global population of "injecting drug users" have been exposed, and thus infected, to HVC.

About 80 percent are destined to develop chronic infections, and up to 11 percent of these individuals will, within two decades, suffer cirrhosis, which can cause liver failure and cancer.

There is currently no vaccine for the hepatitis C virus.

The portion of drug users with HCV -- inferred from the presence of hepatitis C antibody -- varied among the 77 countries from which data was collected.

The rate was 60 to 80 percent in 25 nations, including Spain (80 percent), Norway (76), Germany (75), France (74), the United States (73), China (67) and Canada (64).

In 12 countries, the percentage was higher than 80, including Italy, Portugal, Pakistan, The Netherlands, Thailand and Mexico, which had a 97 percent infection rate among mainlining drug users.

The United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia had among the lowest percentage, just over half.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) can be transmitted intravenously, as well as via sexual contact, and from mother to child.

There are 350 million people chronically infected worldwide, almost all of them exposed to the virus as children. "This is why universal infant vaccination against hepatitis B is so crucial to long term control of the virus," the authors note.

HBV is the second most important known human cancer-causing agent, after tobacco. The virus also causes cirrhosis and liver cancer, and is blamed for some 600,000 deaths each year, according to the World Health Organisation.

The study, led by Louisa Degenhardt of the Bernet Institute in Melbourne and Paul Nelson of the University of New South Wales, also in Australia, canvassed data from 59 countries on HBV rates among drug users who use needles.

Infection rates were five to 10 percent in 21 countries, and more than 10 percent in 10 countries, including the United States (12 percent).

Worldwide, the highest rates were in Vietnam (20 percent), Estonia (19), Saudi Arabia (18) and Taiwan (17).

The authors said high prices for medicine remains a major barrier to treatment of viral hepatitis, much as they have been in the past for HIV and AIDS.

"There are growing efforts to bring viral hepatitis treatments into the same lower cost access framework as antiretrovirals," they said, referring to the standard drugs used to hold HIV in check.

"But the significance of viral hepatitis needs to receive great attention than it does at present."

July 28 is World Hepatitis Day.

Police responding to a report of a naked man

Police responding to a report of a naked man outdoors in South Philadelphia made a gruesome discovery - a house full of dozens of hoarded animals from an alligator to a tarantula, some alive but most dead.

Authorities who entered the "filthy, horrible" row house found 25 animals including an iguana, chickens, domesticated rats, turtles, dogs and a cat, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania SPCA said on Wednesday.

"There was animal waste all over the property," SPCA spokeswoman Wendy Marano said, noting neighbors had been complaining about the stench.

The occupant of the house, whose name was not released, was hospitalized to determine his mental condition, police said.

Authorities were initially called to the home on Tuesday on a report that the man was naked and seated on the front steps.

Animal agents soon arrived and, upon entering the home, heard a hissing noise that sounded like a cat. It turned out to be a 4-foot alligator in a tank, which later died.

Fourteen dead animals and 11 live ones, including the alligator, were removed from the home, authorities said.

Police said the man's son, John Pilotti Jr., 35, also of South Philadelphia, was charged with simple assault and harassment of a reporter for Fox 29 in Philadelphia who was at the scene reporting on the incident.

People who hoard animals are actually animal lovers, Marano said. "In general, they all tend to love animals, they just love them and it gets out of hand."

Are people really cancelling cable to watch TV and movies from the Internet instead?

Are people really cancelling cable to watch TV and movies from the Internet instead?

It's a question that has dogged the pay-TV industry for a year, and a spate of quarterly reports over the next few weeks, starting with Time Warner Cable Inc. on Thursday, could provide important clues.

Much lies in the balance. If online video really is taking TV service subscribers from cable, satellite and phone providers, it's not just bad news for those companies. Analysts also see it leading to more restrictions and higher prices for online video and broadband access, a trend that has already started.

This month, Netflix Inc.'s streaming video service went from being a freebie thrown in with its DVD-by-mail service to something the company charges for separately.

On Tuesday, News Corp.'s Fox broadcasting company said that only paying subscribers of Hulu.com or satellite-TV company Dish Network Corp. will be able to watch new episodes of its shows, which include "Glee" and "Family Guy," online the day after they air. Non-paying viewers can catch them online eight days later.

Hollywood studios and other content producers have so far seen online video as an addition to the revenue they get from cable and satellite companies, and they've charged less for it. Consumer surveys showed that people didn't watch less TV just because they went to Hulu.com or Youtube.com sometimes.

But in June, The Nielsen Co. said it found that Americans who watch the most video online tend to watch less TV. The ratings agency said it started noticing last fall that a segment of consumers were starting to make a trade-off between online video and regular TV. The activity was more pronounced among people ages 18-34, a slice of the population advertisers are particularly eager to target.

That doesn't necessarily mean that people are starting to think they can get by without conventional pay-TV. While sitcoms and movies are easy to get through online services, sports aren't. But if studios and TV networks start seeing online video as something that's siphoning off their flow of cash, then it's in their interest to further restrict online viewing, like Fox did, or start charging for it.

"It appears that Fox isn't waiting for second quarter Pay TV subscriber numbers to disappoint," wrote Sanford Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett.

Cable companies have their own way of replacing lost revenue: charging more for broadband Internet access, which is essential to online video. Internet service providers are starting to charge extra when subscribers go above a certain monthly traffic allotment. These charges that will hit households that guzzle online video before they hit people who use mainly the Web and email.

The pay-TV industry first lost paying subscribers in last year's second quarter. The industry and most analysts concluded that the "cord cutting" was due to the poor economy, which forced people to cut back on spending and combine households. The second quarter is also the year's weakest quarter, because college students often cancel their service at the end of the semester.

The third quarter also showed a loss of subscribers. But then the seasonally strong fourth and first quarters showed growth, and fears subsided. Now, analysts believe the second quarter will show another decline. Cable companies lose subscribers every quarter, so the real question is whether satellite companies Dish and DirecTV Group Inc. and phone companies AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. will make up for those losses. Thomas Eagan at Collins Stewart expects the industry as whole to show a loss of 31,000 subscribers, compared to an estimated of loss of 173,000 last year.

Time Warner Cable might give an early read on the trend Thursday. Analysts expect a loss of only slightly more than the 111,000 it lost in the same period last year.

Most analysts still think the economy and ever-increasing monthly programming fees are to blame for last year's subscriber losses. A survey this spring by Leichtman Research Group Inc. found that of the 13 percent of U.S. households that don't subscribe to some form of pay-TV service, about 60 percent have broadband. But very few of them cite online video as the reason for not subscribing to pay-TV. The households were much more likely to say the cable was just too expensive or that they just don't watch much TV. These households tend to watch online video about as much as households that do pay for TV, and they tend to earn less, Leichtman reported.

"It is erroneous to think of this group as making decisions driven by online video," said Bruce Leichtman, president of the research firm. "These decisions tend to be more based on economics."

The firm called 1,500 households for the survey, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent.

Research firm SNL Kagan is on the other side of the debate, estimating that 2.5 million households had already given up their pay-TV subscriptions in favor of online video at the start of this year. It thinks 2 million more will do so this year. By 2015, it sees 10 percent of households as online-only. That would be a big enough number to force big changes in the pay-TV industry.

Japanese women remained the world's longest-living last year

Japanese women remained the world's longest-living last year, although their average life expectancy edged down slightly to 86.39 years, the government said Wednesday.

The fall of 0.05 years was the first decline in five years, falling from a record 86.44 registered in 2009, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said.

"Last year's heat wave probably led to an increase in deaths resulting from heat stroke and heart trouble," a ministry official said.

Deaths from heat stroke reached a record high of 1,718, with 80 percent of those people aged 65 and older, he said.

Among countries and areas across the world, Japan ranked first for women's longevity, followed by Hong Kong at 85.9 years and France at 84.8 years, the ministry said.

The average life expectancy of Japanese men hit a new high for the fifth straight year in 2010, rising 0.05 to 79.64 years, the ministry said.

Japan ranked fourth in men's longevity below Hong Kong at 80.0 years, Switzerland at 79.8 years and Israel at 79.7 years.

The source of the auto industry's growth has seen a permanent shift

The source of the auto industry's growth has seen a permanent shift to emerging markets that appear promising but also hold great risks, according to an AlixPartners study released on Wednesday.

Auto sales in China have leveled off recently, an indication that growth will be "bumpy" in most newer markets that were once simply sources of cheap parts and workers.

Companies and investors in those areas may find themselves contending with downturns and other issues more quickly than they expected, the study said.

"What's not so certain is which markets in particular will really take root and blossom, and which will have a false spring and then fade away," AlixPartners managing director John Hoffecker said.

Russia has captured a lot of attention now, Hoffecker pointed out. But India was once in that position.

AlixPartners projects that 76.4 million cars and trucks will be sold worldwide in 2011. About 18.8 million light vehicles will be sold in China.

Auto sales in the United States will be about 12.7 million this year, about 1 million more than last year's level, according to the study. AlixPartners predicted that although profits are up, U.S. auto sales will climb more gradually than some of the most bullish estimates out there.

This week, Ford Motor Co said U.S. sales this year may land at the bottom end of its previous forecast of 13 million to 13.5 million vehicles.

Next week, major U.S. automakers will report their monthly sales figures for July.

James Murdoch faces the board of BSkyB

James Murdoch faces the board of BSkyB on Thursday and questions over whether his role in a phone-hacking scandal leave him a fit chairman of the satellite broadcaster his father's company tried to buy.

It will be the first meeting of the BSkyB board since the escalating crisis forced News Corp to close the News of the World newspaper, drop its BSkyB bid and offer up James and his father Rupert to answer questions in Britain's parliament.

As well as being non-executive chairman and former chief executive of BSkyB, James Murdoch is deputy chief operating officer of News Corp, which owns 39 percent of BSkyB as well as the News of the World tabloid at the center of the furor.

Some shareholders have demanded that he step down to avoid conflicts of interest, fearing contamination from the scandal that acquired new dimensions earlier this month when it was revealed that a murdered schoolgirl had had her phone hacked.

The crisis is far from over, says Richard Levick, president and chief executive of Levick Strategic Communications, who has advised countries and companies on crises including Guantanamo Bay and the recent Wall Street crash.

"If you look at the arc of a crisis, their worst days are not yet behind them. It's parallel in many ways to Watergate. Watergate took 18 months to unfold. It appears that this is one of those elongated crises," he told Reuters by telephone.

British corporate governance watchdog PIRC, which advises institutional investors running more than 1.5 trillion pounds ($2.46 trillion) in assets, reiterated its call last week for an independent BSkyB chairman, and said other investors agreed.

"The risk of contagion is great. The governance arguments are also clear. And how, in reality, can someone facing challenges on all sides expect to devote sufficient attention to chairing a FTSE 100 (company)?" the organization said.

So far, there is no sign that the 14-member board, eight of whom are independent, plan a revolt on Thursday. The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Murdoch had won the support of senior independent director Nicholas Ferguson.

But James Murdoch still has questions to answer over a scandal in which at least 10 people including Prime Minister David Cameron's former spokesman Andy Coulson have been arrested this year.

Last week, two former News of the World executives said James Murdoch had been mistaken when he told parliament he had not been aware of an email containing evidence of hacking when he approved a large payoff to the hacking victim.

Murdoch said he stood by his statement, while the chairman of the parliamentary committee in charge of questioning the Murdochs has said he will seek further clarification.

The BSkyB board meeting taking place in London on Thursday afternoon, a regular meeting on the eve of the company's quarterly results announcement, is also likely to consider a special dividend payout to shareholders.

The board had said for the last year that it would not be appropriate to consider such a measure while it was a takeover target, and many brokers are stoking hopes of a payout now.

Analyst Ian Whittaker of Liberum Capital cautioned, however, that the moment may be too sensitive politically.

"Given the fast-moving events of the past two weeks, management may feel now is not the right time to announce a special dividend, especially given the potential complications of returning a significant level of cash back to its 39 percent shareholder News Corp," he said.

"Historically, BSkyB management have emphasized investment over a return of cash back."

These investors were also allowed to press ahead

Top former executives of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc lost their bid to throw out a securities fraud lawsuit seeking to hold them responsible for billions of dollars of investor losses tied to the Wall Street investment bank's 2008 collapse.

Wednesday's decision, in a case first brought three months before Lehman went bankrupt, will allow the lawsuit by investors against former Chief Executive Richard Fuld and four top lieutenants to move forward.

These investors were also allowed to press ahead with claims against former independent directors and underwriters, as well as former Lehman auditor Ernst & Young.

The lawsuit, led by five retirement funds, seeks class-action status on behalf of other funds, companies and individuals who bought some of the more than $31 billion of equity and debt Lehman sold under a variety of offerings beginning in 2006.

"This is a complicated situation, but the real significance is that some of the most crucial claims of the plaintiffs survived a motion to dismiss," said James Cox, a professor at Duke University School of Law.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan dismissed some claims, but said the investors sufficiently alleged that Lehman materially misled them about its accounting and ability to manage risk ahead of the September 15, 2008, bankruptcy.

"It is entirely plausible" that the "misleading picture" Lehman portrayed about its financial condition inflated its stock price and resulted in investor losses, Kaplan wrote.

OTHER PROBES

The decision comes amid other investigations into Lehman's collapse, although there have been no U.S. prosecutions against top officials over the bankruptcy. In December 2010, the New York attorney general sued Ernst & Young, saying the auditor stood by as Lehman painted a false picture of its health.

Ernst & Young said in an email it is pleased Kaplan dismissed most claims against it. It said the remaining claim is the narrowest, limited to investors who bought securities after July 10, 2008.

"We strongly believe that we will ultimately prevail on the remaining claim," the auditor said. "We stand behind our work on the Lehman audit and our opinion that Lehman's financial statements were fairly stated."

Adam Wasserman, a partner at Dechert law firm representing the independent directors, said in a statement his clients are confident the evidence will show they acted "diligently and appropriately" while on Lehman's board.

Lawyers for Fuld and most of the underwriters, as well as the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, did not return requests for comments. Lehman's bankruptcy estate is not named in the investors' lawsuit.

EXAMINER'S FINDINGS VALIDATED

Lehman filed for bankruptcy with $639 billion of assets, and its collapse was a principal trigger of the 2008 global financial crisis. Barclays Plc took over a large part of its investment banking business.

Exhaustive details of Lehman's pre-bankruptcy accounting practices were revealed in March 2010, in a report by court-appointed examiner Anton Valukas.

He found that Lehman's use of so-called Repo 105 transactions, in which assets were moved on and off the balance sheet, let Lehman to obscure its leverage and health. Part of the investor lawsuit involves those transactions.

"As far as I can tell, this is the first judgment that's come down that really validates in the legal framework and courtroom the findings of the examiner's report and seems to go a little further," said Lawrence McDonald, author of a book about Lehman, "A Colossal Failure of Common Sense."

Kaplan also said the investors sufficiently alleged that Ernst & Young made a false statement in claiming ignorance of the impact of the transactions.

He wrote that the complaint "adequately alleged" that Lehman overstated its financial strength, understated its leverage, and understated its exposure to risky "Alt-A" mortgages and commercial real estate assets.

Steven Singer, a partner at Bernstein, Litowitz, Berger & Grossmann representing the plaintiffs, said the judge allowed the case to go forward against all parties in two key areas: Repo 105 transactions, and Lehman's risk management.

Among the claims Kaplan dismissed were allegations that the Repo 105 transactions materially affected Lehman's liquidity, or that Lehman made a material misstatement around their use.

The lead plaintiffs include two California pension funds: the Alameda County Employees' Retirement Association, and the Operating Engineers Local 3 Trust Fund; and public retirement funds in Guam, Northern Ireland and Edinburgh, Scotland.

The case is In re: Lehman Brothers Securities and ERISA Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 09-md-02017.

A dreadlocked teenage musician who made it onto a television talent show

A dreadlocked teenage musician who made it onto a television talent show. A secretary who might have survived if her bicycle hadn't been in the shop. A gentle young man whose last phone conversation with his father broke off with the words, "Dad, someone is shooting."

All were among the 76 victims of Friday's bombing in downtown Oslo and the island summer-camp shooting spree that followed. Police officially released the first four names Tuesday, and Norwegian media published the names and photos of some of the other victims. At least some were immigrants or their descendants — the people whose presence in Norway fueled the hatred of the ethnic Norwegian accused in the attacks.

Tens of thousands of Norwegians have rejected the suspect's rhetoric, laying thousands of flowers around the capital in mourning. Entire streets were awash in flowers, and Oslo's florists ran out of roses.

Norway's Crown Prince Haakon and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere attended a packed memorial Tuesday in the World Islamic Mission mosque in Oslo. After the ceremony, Pakistani-born Imam Najeeb ur Rehman Naz said the massacre had brought Norwegian residents of all backgrounds closer together.

"Everyone realizes that terrorism and this kind of activity doesn't have anything to do with any religion," he told the AP. "They are individuals who can be found in any community who don't represent the majority at all."

Many of those killed were involved in the ruling Labor Party, which suspect Anders Behring Breivik rails against in his manifesto for allowing Muslims to immigrate to Norway.

One of the 68 victims on the island of Utoya was Gunnar Linaker, a regional secretary of the party's youth wing, which organized the camp there.

His father, Roald, called the 23-year-old from the northern village of Bardu "a calm, big teddy bear with lots of humor and lots of love."

A lover of the outdoors and a devoted Labor Party member, Gunnar Linaker had been to the annual Utoya camp several times and had taken leave from his political-science studies at the university in the northern city of Tromsoe to work full time in politics, his father said.

His voice weak and trembling, Roald Linaker said he was on the phone with his son when the shooting started: "He said to me: 'Dad, dad, someone is shooting,' and then he hung up."

That was the last he heard from his son. Gunnar Linaker was wounded and was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died on Saturday. His 17-year-old sister also was at the camp but survived, Roald Linaker said. He declined to speak any further.

Police identified Gunnar Linaker and three victims of the bombing: Tove Aashill Knutsen, 56, Hanna M. Orvik Endresen, 61, and Kai Hauge, 33. Police, whose response to the attacks has been criticized, say they're being cautious in releasing the names and are making sure families are notified and approve.

Knutsen, a secretary with the electricians and information technology workers' union, had left the office and was on her way to a subway station when the bomb exploded in Oslo's government office quarter, union head Hans Felix said.

Normally Knutsen would go to and from work on her bicycle, but earlier that day she had left it at a repair shop.

"It wasn't finished, so this day she had to take the subway home. Tove never got home," Felix said. "Tove was a happy girl who was well liked by us all, and it feels unreal that she is no longer with us."

Hauge owned a downtown Oslo bar and restaurant that was dark Tuesday. A flower arrangement outside the bar included notes from friends and a photo of him. A note beside the locked front door, handwritten in black marker, read: "Closed due to death."

The national newspaper Dagbladet posted the names and photos of 30 people it said were killed in the attacks or missing. The information, apparently received from friends or relatives, showed three victims who did not appear to be ethnic Norwegians, including Ismail Haji Ahmed, who the newspaper said had recently appeared on the "Norway's Talents" television show. Another, reported as missing, was a 20-year-old native of Iraq, Jamil Rafal Yasin.

Breivik has confessed to the attacks, according to police and his lawyer, but he has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer said Breivik sees himself as a warrior and savior of the Western world, and is likely insane.

Norwegian news agency NTB said police detonated explosives at Breivik's farm about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Oslo on Tuesday. Breivik said in his manifesto that he rented the farm and created a fake business there as cover for ordering six metric tons of fertilizer — an integral component of the Oslo bomb.

Seven-month-old Mihag Gedi Farah is the frail face of famine in the Horn of Africa

Seven-month-old Mihag Gedi Farah is the frail face of famine in the Horn of Africa. He stares out wide-eyed almost in alarm, his skin pulled taut over his ribs and twig-like arms.

At only 7 pounds, (3.2 kilograms), he weighs as much as a newborn but has the weathered look of an elderly man.

Mihag is just one of 800,000 children who officials warn could die across the region. Aid workers are rushing to bring help to dangerous and previously unreached regions of drought-ravaged Somalia.

Famine victims like Mihag bring new urgency to their efforts, raising concerns about how many hungry children still remain in Somalia, far away from the feeding tubes and doctors in the field hospital at this Kenyan refugee camp.

Mihag's fragile skin crumples like thin leather under the pressure of his mother's hands, as she touches the hollows where a baby's chubby cheeks should be.

Sirat Amine, a nurse-nutritionist with the International Rescue Committee, puts Mihag's odds for survival at only 50-50. A baby Mihag's age should weigh about three times what he does.

His mother, Asiah Dagane, fans Mihag with the edge of her headscarf to keep flies away. He cries weakly, and when he does, she bounces him gently to try to soothe him and murmurs softly.

"In my mind, I'm not well," she says softly. "My baby is sick. In my head, I am also sick."

Mihag is the youngest of seven children in his family. Dagane told The Associated Press through a hospital translator that she brought him and four siblings from Kismayo to Kenya after all their sheep and cattle died.

Like the tens of thousands of other Somalis fleeing starvation, the family traveled sometimes by foot, other times catching rides with passing trucks, cars or buses.

Dagane keeps vigil for her son in the ward, which is painted with cheerful pictures of balloons and fruit, lit with fluorescent bulbs. Other mothers huddle on beds next to babies with IV tubes snaking from their heads or hands.

Some infants cry, others are listless. In the middle of the room hangs a woven basket from a scale — but it's not needed to tell that many of the babies are dangerously malnourished.

Abdi Ibrahim Yara arrived 20 days ago with his four children, including 1-year-old twins. They are unable to drink the fortified milk and must be nourished by an IV.

He and his wife were on the road for 25 days, but she became sick from malnutrition and died. She was four months pregnant.

"We had a comfortable life there, but now there is no one left," Yara says.

Nurse Abukar Abdule says all of those arriving at the field hospital complain of "severe malnutrition." Most have walked from the middle of Somalia, between Kismayo and the capital of Mogadishu.

"We have to treat them for at least a week," Abdule says. "They have no food, shelter or water. Some have diseases. Some died on the road and some were lost. Many mothers who come here have lost children."

The United Nations estimates that more 11 million people in East Africa are affected by the drought, with 3.7 million in Somalia among the worst-hit because of the ongoing civil war in the country.

Somalia's prolonged drought became a famine in part because neither the Somali government nor many aid agencies can fully operate in areas controlled by al-Qaida-linked militants, and the U.N. is set to declare all of southern Somalia a famine zone as of Aug. 1.

Aid organizations including the U.N. World Food Program have not been able to access areas under the control of the al-Shabab militants, who have killed humanitarian workers and banned the WFP.

The U.N. has said it will airlift emergency rations later this week to try to reach at least 175,000 of the 2.2 million Somalis who have not been helped yet.

The new feeding efforts in the four districts of southern Somalia near the border with Kenya and Ethiopia could begin by Thursday, slowing the flow of tens of thousands of people who have fled their homes in hope of reaching aid.

But the WFP hasn't operated there for more than two years and must find and rehire former employees to help with distribution. Transportation is also a substantial obstacle because land mines have severed key roads and a landing strip has fallen into disrepair.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said a coordination conference would be held Wednesday in the Kenyan capital.

Donations are also desperately needed to sustain the aid effort in the Horn of Africa: The U.N. wants to gather $1.6 billion in the next 12 months, with $300 million of that coming in the next three months.

At the Kenyan refugee camp, Mihag's nurse takes his measurements and describes him as "severely, severely malnourished."

"We never tell the mother, of course, that their baby might not make it," the nurse says. "We try to give them hope."

A roadside bomb blew up next to a United Nations convoy

A roadside bomb blew up next to a United Nations convoy carrying French peacekeepers in south Lebanon on Tuesday, wounding at least five of them in the second attack on the U.N. force in two months, the United Nations said.

The bomb went off at the southern entrance of the port city of Sidon as a U.N. convoy with several vehicles was passing by.

The U.N. Security Council called the bombing a "terrorist attack" and condemned it "in the strongest terms." It also condemned all attempts to threaten the security and stability of Lebanon.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also strongly condemned the attack and "is deeply disturbed" at the second major incident targeting the peacekeeping force in two months, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack. But political tensions are rising in Lebanon over a U.N.-backed tribunal's indictment last month of four Hezbollah members in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah is the most powerful political and military force in Lebanon today and it has refused to hand over the suspects. The tribunal is expected to publish details of the indictments after a 30-day deadline that expires at the end of the month.

There are also concerns that unrest in neighboring Syria, which has seen more than four months of protests against the autocratic government there, could spill over into Lebanon.

U.N. peacekeepers have been deployed in southern Lebanon since 1978 to monitor the border with Israel. The force was boosted to almost 12,000 troops after Israel and Hezbollah fought a war in 2006. Under the U.N. resolution that ended the fighting, the force is monitoring a zone south of the Litani River where Hezbollah is banned from keeping weapons.

The Security Council reaffirmed its determination to ensure that no acts of intimidation prevent the U.N. force from carrying out its mandate to monitor the Israeli-Lebanon border.

In a similar attack about two months ago, a roadside bomb ripped through a U.N. convoy carrying Italian peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, wounding six. The May 28 attack was the first since 2008.

UNIFIL spokesman Neeraj Singh said five peacekeepers were injured in the latest bombing and three went to a hospital. He did not say what nationality they were, but Lebanese security officials said they were French.

French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and the Security Council said six French peacekeepers had been wounded.

The discrepancy in casualty numbers could not be immediately reconciled.

In a statement, Juppe said he condemned the attack and demanded that Lebanese authorities conduct an investigation and do everything possible to bring those responsible to justice.

The Lebanese officials said at least one of the wounded suffered injuries to the face and chest. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with military regulations.

A police official said this bombing appeared to be smaller than the May blast. Both happened in the same area. He said preliminary investigations showed the bomb contained around two kilograms (4.5 pounds) of explosive material.

Prime Minister Najib Mikati denounced the bombing and ordered an immediate investigation, his office said.

The Security Council welcomed the Lebanese government's commitment to launch an investigation to bring to justice the perpetrators of the attack.

Singh said U.N. forensic experts were at the scene, adding UNIFIL was working in coordination with the Lebanese armed forces to investigate.

The deadliest attack on UNIFIL was in June 2007, when a bomb hit an armored personnel carrier near the Israeli border and killed six Spanish peacekeepers.

No group has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks.