Saturday 17 August 2013

Dunya TV

Dunya TV

Egypt considers outlawing Muslim Brotherhood

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CAIRO (AP) - Egyptian authorities are considering disbanding the Muslim Brotherhood group, a government spokesman said Saturday, once again outlawing a group that held the pinnacle of government power just more than a month earlier.The announcement comes after security forces broke up two sit-in protests this week by those calling for the reinstatement of President Mohammed Morsi, a Brotherhood leader deposed in a July 3 coup. The clashes killed more than 600 people that day and sparked protests and violence that killed 173 people Friday alone.Cabinet spokesman Sherif Shawki said that Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, who leads the military-backed government, assigned the Ministry of Social Solidarity to study the legal possibilities of dissolving the group. He didn't elaborate.The Muslim Brotherhood group, founded in 1928, came to power a year ago when its Morsi was elected in the country's first free presidential elections. The election came after the overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising in 2011.The fundamentalist group has been banned for most of its 80-year history and repeatedly subjected to crackdowns under Mubarak's rule. While sometimes tolerated and its leaders part of the political process, members regularly faced long bouts of imprisonment and arbitrary detentions.Since Morsi was deposed in the popularly backed military coup, the Brotherhood stepped up its confrontation with the new leadership, holding sit-ins in two encampments for weeks, rallying thousands and vowing not to leave until Morsi is reinstated.On Wednesday, security authorities swept through the two protest camps, leaving hundreds killed and thousands others injured. The violent crackdown sparked days of street violence across the country where Islamist supporters stormed and torched churches and police stations.In the most recent standoff, Egyptian security forces exchanged heavy gunfire Saturday with armed men at top of a minaret of a Cairo mosque. The security forces fired tear gas, stormed the mosque and rounded up hundreds of Islamists supporters of Morsi who had been barricaded inside overnight.The confrontations Friday around a Brotherhood call for a Day of Rage killed at least 173 people, said Shawki, the Cabinet spokesman. He said 1,330 people were wounded in the protests.Egypt's Interior Ministry said in a statement that a total of 1,004 Brotherhood members were detained in raids across the country and that weapons, bombs and ammunition were confiscated with the detainees.Among the dead Friday was Ammar Badie, a son of Brotherhood spiritual leader Mohammed Badie, the group's political arm said in a statement.Also Saturday, authorities arrested the brother of al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahri, a security official said Saturday. Mohammed al-Zawahri, leader of the ultraconservative Jihadi Salafist group, was detained at a checkpoint in Giza, the city across the Nile from Cairo, the official said.The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to brief journalists about the arrest.

Ex-nuke chief says Iran has 18,000 centrifuges

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TEHRAN (AP) - Iran's outgoing nuclear chief says Tehran has a total of 18,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment a process that can be a pathway to making nuclear weapons. The number is higher by a third than publicly known.Fereidoun Abbasi's announcement came as he handed over his post Saturday to Ali Akbar Salehi, appointed by new President Hasan Rouhani.Abbasi sys 10,000 centrifuges currently operating are of an older model, IR-1, while about 7,000 more of the same model are ready to be installed along with just over 1,000 centrifuges of an advanced new model.The U.S. and its allies fear Iran is seeking to produce nuclear weapons. Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful.Rouhani has pledged to follow a policy of moderation and ease tensions with the outside world.

Bomb wounds 5 policemen in Bahrain

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MANAMA (AP) - Authorities say a bomb blast has wounded at least five policemen in the restive Gulf kingdom of Bahrain.The Interior Ministry on its official Twitter feed said the homemade bomb went off Saturday evening in the al-Diar area on the island of Muharraq, northeast of the capital, Manama.Authorities are describing the bomb attack as an act of terror, and say two of the wounded policemen suffered serious injuries but are in stable condition.There has been an increase in attacks in recent weeks targeting security personnel and government institutions in Bahrain, including some using bombs made with natural gas canisters.The island nation, which is home to the U.S. Navys 5th Fleet, has been gripped by unrest since February 2011 when the countrys Shiites began an uprising.

9 bodies found in conflict area of western Mexico

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MORELIA (AP) - Nine bodies, hands bound and shot, were found Saturday in a remote area of western Michoacan state where drug cartels, vigilantes and federal forces have been fighting much of this year, the state prosecutors office said.The bodies were left together on abandoned property near the town of Buenavista Tomatlan along with a sign indicating they may have been members of the Knights Templar cartel, prosecutors spokesman Alejandro Arellano said.The area near the Jalisco state border has suffered a wave of violence for most of this year, as self-defense groups have risen up to battle the Knights Templar, which controls the territory with killings and extortion. Authorities say some groups are supported by a rival cartel, Jalisco New Generation, also fighting the Knights Templar. The groups deny that.The sign read: For those who continue to support the Knights Templar, we are here, united, Arellano said. The note was signed with the initials of the New Generation, as well as the initials G.C., indicating a community-based, self-defense group.The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto sent thousands of troops and federal police to the area in May to regain control of the state. While residents initially cheered the arrival and some self-defense groups agreed to put down their arms, the calm was short-lived. Even as the Pena Nieto government claims that killings across Mexico are down, it has struggled to come up with an effective strategy for Michoacan and neighboring Guerrero states, an area known as the Tierra Caliente, or Hot Land, for its climate.The government response so far has mirrored that of Pena Nietos predecessor, Felipe Calderon, who started his drug offensive as president by sending troops to Michoacan in 2006, and periodically thereafter, with little result.The Knights Templar launched a coordinated attack on federal police last month, killing at least four officers and wounding at least five more. They also killed one of Mexicos highest-ranking navy officers and a bodyguard last month when they ventured onto a local road in Michoacan to get around highway roadblock. About the same time, residents in Guerrero were forced to flee their villages because of drug violence.State authorities in Guerrero said Saturday that they found eight bodies in San Miguel Totolapan in the Tierra Caliente. The state prosecutors office said in a statement that five were found in the back of a Ford pick-up in military-style dress and with heavy arms and munitions, including a grenade.The statement said three more young men were found shot to death in the same town, but did not specify where.

Bolt wins men's 200 meters at worlds

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MOSCOW (AP) - When Usain Bolt means business, he is still all alone out there.Bolt coasted to his third straight 200-meter world title on Saturday with the race basically wrapped up as soon as he entered the finishing straight.Jamaican teammate Warren Weir never got close to Bolt's world leading time of 19.66 seconds, but crossing .13 seconds later for silver still left him enough time to join Bolt in a reggae dance to Bob Marley's Three Little Birds.The energy was great tonight, Bolt said. The crowd was in to it,Curtis Mitchell of the United States took bronze in 20.24 seconds, but was never in the hunt for gold.Now Bolt will go for his fourth triple gold at a major championship when he joins the Jamaican team for the 4x100 relay on Sunday.It should be even better, Bolt said.The wealth of Jamaican sprinting is such that they might well sweep their American rivals in unprecedented fashion, after Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce clinched a similar 100-200 double and has her final relay also late on the closing day of the championships.Opposition could hardly touch Bolt on Saturday, and once it was clear his right foot was OK after he dropped a starting block on it early in the week, everything was as good as gold.Even his start was strong as he quickly gained a decisive edge. And then in the finishing straight, Bolt fully let loose his giant stride, the one that has dumbfounded rivals since he won three gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.His seventh world title leaves him one shy of American greats Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson, who lead the overall gold medal standings in the 30-year history of the event. On Sunday, Bolt can pull alongside them.And with 10 medals overall, Bolt can overtake Lewis at the top with two silvers compared to a silver and bronze for the American sprinter-long jumper.Even though he is only 26, Bolt's maturity showed Saturday as the wild hot-dogging of the Beijing Games gave way to a sense of near-seriousness.His Lightning Bolt stance came late and besides the dance steps, everything was contained.I got to face the fact that I am getting older so I have to try not getting injured during the season, Bolt said.The only thing that never changes is the gold.And it is that which the United States is missing, seeing Russia jump past in the gold medal standings with two great performances on Saturday.While the Russians were overtaking the heavily favored American 4x400 relay time, Svetlana Shkolina overtook Brigetta Barrett in the high jump.The Russian won by three centimeters with a leap of 2.03 meters. Defending world champion Anna Chicherova, who is also the Olympic champion, had to settle for bronze after clearing 1.97.The crowd's roar for the 4x400 relay really put me up for my last attempt, Shkolina said.Emma Green Tregaro of Sweden, who wore rainbow-colored fingernails during qualifying to show support for Russian gays and lesbians in the face of an anti-gay law, finished fifth in the final, with red-painted nails.It was harder to not paint them in the rainbow than it was to choose to paint them, Green Tregaro said. I'm surprised by the big reactions but I'm happy about the big reaction because it's mostly been very positive.With the closing day to come, Russia leads the gold medal standings with seven, ahead of the United States with six. Overall, the American team leads the host nation 20-15.Bolt's medal pushed Jamaica into third place with four golds.The United States got its only gold on the night from 21-year-old Brianna Rollins, who surged at the end of the 100 hurdles to beat Olympic champion Sally Pearson in 12.44 seconds, edging the Australian by .06 seconds.Early in the day, Olympic champion Stephen Kiprotich became the first non-Kenyan since 2005 to win the men's marathon gold medal at the world championships.The Ugandan broke away from Boston Marathon winner Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia in the shaded park around Luhzniki Stadium to win his country's first men's world title in the 30-year history of the championships.I am so happy I won another gold medal for my country, Kiprotich said. Now I am the Olympic and world champion.Another Ethiopian, Tadese Tola, took bronze on a warm afternoon in the Russian capital.Later in the evening, Ethiopian veteran Meseret Defar added the 5,000 world title to her Olympic gold medal, coming out of the slipstream of teammate Almaz Ayana to win with a strong finish.Defar, the 2007 world champion, finished in 14:50.19, beating silver medalist Mercy Cherono of Kenya by 1.03 seconds.Ayana did most of the heavy work for Defar but weakened near the end. She still won her first major championship medal in 14:51.33.

Isner rallies for Cincinnati upset of del Potro

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MASON (AP) - John Isner's absence from the ATP top 20 will be brief. The 6-foot-10 American made sure of that Saturday, rallying to beat seventh-seeded Juan Martin del Potro 6-7 (4), 7-6 (9), 6-3 in a grueling Western & Southern Open semifinal.Isner, who fell from No. 20 to 22 this week, will return to the top 20 after a stimulating Cincinnati run that includes beating three straight top-10 players for the first time in his career while earning his second Masters 1000 series finals appearance and first in Cincinnati. His previous Masters 1000 final appearance was at Indian Wells in 2012.It's awesome to be at this stage again, said Isner, who beat top-ranked Novak Djokovic in the quarterfinals and No. 8 Richard Gasquet in the second round. I've been playing pretty well this season, but this tournament is where I've really started to put it all together. I'm playing pretty well in all facets of the game.Isner, in his first appearance in the tournament's semifinals, had been 0-4 against the Argentine. He'll play third-seeded Rafael Nadal, who overcame sixth-seeded Tomas Berdych, 7-5, 7-6 (4) in the other semifinal to reach the tournament final for the first time in his fifth appearance.Nadal extended his personal winning streak against the Czech to 14 matches while improving his overall season record 52-3, including 14-0 on hardcourts. After winning at Montreal last week, the Spaniard will be making back-to-back appearances in hardcourt finals for the first time in his career.He is 15-1 against top-10 players this season.Isner needed 2 hours, 47 minutes to improve to 16-3 since retiring from Wimbledon in the second round because of a left knee injury. He finished off the win when del Potro sent a backhand from the baseline into the net.Despite tossing into a persistent swirling breeze and bright sunshine, both players served so effectively early that the first set included just one break point, fought off by the 22nd-ranked Isner. The 6-foot-6 Del Potro came up with a crucial mini-break on the 11th point of the tiebreaker when Isner sailed his backhand volley wide to lose the set.Del Potro broke Isner in the eighth game of the second set to put himself into position to serve for the match, but he double-faulted on match point and Isner came up with his own break to stay alive and eventually force a tiebreak that he won when del Potro sent a forehand wide to the deuce court.I think I lost the match in the second set, del Potro said. That was my chance to beat him. He was fighting all the time and deserved to win the third set, but I missed my chance.I know, at that moment, that the sun on that side was pretty bad, said Isner, who can become the first American to win the tournament since Andy Roddick in 2006. We both struggled with that for about 30 minutes.

Manchester United beats Swansea 4-1

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SWANSEA (AP) - Two goals each from Robin van Persie and Danny Welbeck saw Manchester United beat Swansea 4-1 Saturday in David Moyes' first Premier League game as manager of the defending champion.Wayne Rooney, who has reportedly told the club he wants to leave Old Trafford, came off the bench for the last 30 minutes of the match as United's Premier League title defense got off to an impressive start.Our job is to win the game and the players did it well, Moyes said. We could have played better at times but I am more than happy with the result.Swansea began the game as the brighter side, with Michu forcing a good reaction save from United goalkeeper David De Gea midway through the first half, before heading the resulting corner wide.But van Persie opened the scoring with an acrobatic strike in the 34th minute. He controlled a deflected, looping pass from Ryan Giggs before volleying past Michel Vorm in the Swansea goal. Welbeck scored his first of the game two minutes later, tapping in Antonio Valencia's drilled cross from close range.Swansea manager Michael Laudrup made two changes at halftime as he looked for a response from his team, bringing on striker Wilfried Bony for his Premier League debut and Pablo Hernandez for Leon Brittain and Wayne Routledge.But it was the first substitution that Moyes made, after 61 minutes, which grabbed more attention as Rooney replaced Ryan Giggs in the midst of English media reports that he wants to leave United for rival Chelsea.United began to push on for a third and Patrice Evra saw his header from a corner cleared off the line by Swansea debutant Jose Canas.Van Persie eventually got the third, his second of the game on 74 minutes, cutting inside on his favored left foot and curling a powerful shot beyond Vorm and into the top corner from outside the penalty box.Bony managed to get a goal 10 minutes from the end with a neat first-time strike on the edge of the area before Welbeck completed the scoring, receiving a through ball from Rooney and lifting the ball over Vorm and into the far corner of the net with a sublime chip.And Welbeck drew praise from teammate van Persie for his skillful finish after the game.The fourth goal from Welbeck was unbelievable, van Persie said. We're very happy, you don't want to lose the first game of the season and they are very hard to play against.Speaking of his well-taken first goal, van Persie said his first touch led him to finish it in the style he did.The first 15, 20 minutes, they were better than us but the goal changed the game. It was a great pass from Giggs and I had a touch but I felt it was a little heavy so I had to take it as high as possible.As for Rooney, manager Moyes was pleased with his contribution after coming on.I felt he could do a job coming on, he's not ready to start yet, said Moyes. He made a great run for the third (goal) and then set up Welbeck.

Golf: Bart Bryant shoots 10 under, leads at Dick's

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ENDICOTT (AP) - Kenny Perry finally met his match for one day, at least. Champions Tour rookie Bart Bryant shot a 10-under 62 on Saturday to take the second-round lead at the Dick's Sporting Goods Open. Bryant took advantage of another serene day at En-Joie Golf Club, making six birdies in his first seven holes to surge past first-round leader Kenny Perry.Bryant was at 16-under 128, a 36-hole record for the tournament, four shots ahead of Corey Pavin (64).Duffy Waldorf was 11 under after a 65, and Rick Fehr (67) and Russ Cochran (67) were 10 under. Perry was eight strokes back at 8 under after a 71.Bryant's round matched the Champions Tour course record set by R.W. Eaks in 2007, the tournament's first year. Hal Sutton, Robert Gamez and Fred Funk each shot 61 when En-Joie hosted the old B.C. Open on the PGA Tour.More than half the field broke par under nearly ideal scoring conditions on the first day, and the assault at the narrow, tree-lined layout continued Saturday as 47 players finished the day under par.Perry, the hottest player on the Champions Tour after victories this summer in the Senior Players and U.S. Senior Open, began the day with a one-shot lead after opening with a 7-under 65. Playing in the final threesome with Bryant and Joel Edwards, Perry watched his slim margin slip away quickly.The formula for going low at the narrow, tree-lined course is to keep the ball in the fairway, and nobody was more consistent than Bryant over the first two rounds. He hit 10 of 14 fairways and reached 16 of 18 greens in regulation each day.Bryant birdied six of the first seven holes on Saturday to get to 12 under and should have had all seven. He rolled in a perfectly paced 20-foot putt that broke right to left at the par-4 second hole, hit his tee shot to 8 feet at No. 4, then made a superlative save at the par-5 fifth hole, blasting out of a greenside bunker to 3 feet from the flag.He followed that with consecutive 30-foot birdie putts on the next two holes, his only early miscue coming at No. 3, one of three par-5s on the front nine. He stuck his third shot within 5 feet, then watched in dismay as his birdie try barely skimmed the lip and stayed out.Fehr had five straight birdies on the front side, the best surge of the day, before faltering with a bogey at No. 9 and was two shots behind at the turn.Perry, who had an eagle and six birdies the first day, managed just two birdies on the front nine and was three shots behind with nine holes to play.Bryant continued his assault with an 18-foot birdie putt at No. 11 and another birdie at No. 12 to reach 14 under, just missing an eagle try on the latter. Perry also had a chance for eagle at the par-5 and scowled in dismay when his putt barely missed and he had to settle for a birdie.Pavin gained sole possession of second at 11 under after making a 6-foot birdie putt at the difficult 15th hole, a 432-yard par-4 that's guarded by a massive water hazard. It was one of only nine birdies there on the day.Pavin hit 11 of 14 fairways and reached 16 of 18 greens in regulation on the day and needed only 26 putts as he repeatedly hit it close. He had three putts inside 6 feet, made a 25-footer from the fringe at No. 12, and sank a 15-footer at No. 16 for his final birdie.Bryant matched that moments later with a birdie at No. 14 after hitting a 4-iron to 5 feet at the 212-yard par-3 and closed his round with a 10-foot birdie putt on the final hole.

Marc Marquez wins Indy pole with track record

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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Spain's Marc Marquez became the first MotoGP rider to break the 1-minute, 38-second barrier at the Indianapolis Grand Prix, winning the pole for Sunday's race.His record time of 1:37.958 came with about three minutes left in the 15-minute qualifying session, and it was no surprise. Marquez had the fastest times in all four practices leading to qualifications.The 20-year-old rookie won his fourth pole of the season and can become the third rider in series history to win three races in the same country in one year. Three of the previous five Indy race winners started from the pole.Jorge Lorenzo, the 2009 Indy winner, qualified second in 1:38.471. Defending Indy champ Dani Pedrosa was third at 1:38.485, down from last year's record lap of 1:38.813.

Umar Akmal out of Pakistan tour after epileptic fit

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KARACHI (Reuters) - Pakistan wicketkeeper-batsman Umar Akmal is out of this month's tour to Zimbabwe after he suffered an epileptic fit while on duty for Barbados in the Caribbean Premier League.Sarfaraz Ahmed has been called into the tour squad as his replacement.Sarfaraz has been included in place of Umar who has been called back from the West Indies for medical checks, said a Pakistan Cricket Board official.The official did not elaborate on Umar's medical problem but a family member who declined to be identified told Reuters that the player was on a flight to Jamaica when he had his epileptic fit.Umar, 23, has played in 16 tests for Pakistan, scoring 1,003 runs at an average of 35.82. He has also featured in 76 one-dayers and 45 Twenty20s.Pakistan will play two tests, three one-dayers and two Twenty20s in Zimbabwe. The opening game is a T20 international in Harare on Friday.Test opener Imran Farhat has also withdrawn from the squad, citing domestic problems. He will be replaced by the uncapped Shan Masood.

Nouri al-Maliki warns of weapons smuggled from Syria

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BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's prime minister warned Saturday that weapons and fighters flowing into Syria are now making their way to Iraq, as a rising tide of violence sweeps across the country.Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that weapons provided by some countries to the Syrian rebels and foreign fighters attempting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, are now ending up in Iraq.The weapons provided to those killers in Syria have been smuggled to Iraq and those wolves that came from different countries to Syria are now sneaking into Iraq, he said during a youth gathering.Al-Maliki said that this movement of weapons and fighters is adding to the violence hitting his country.Iraq officially remains neutral in the Syrian conflict. The Shiite-led government in Baghdad has repeatedly called for a peaceful, political solution to the crisis, though it has also warned that a victory for the rebels would unleash sectarian war in Iraq and Lebanon.The long and porous Iraqi-Syrian border runs along Iraq's Sunni-dominated provinces of Anbar and Ninevah, and was a key conduit for arms and al-Qaida fighters in the years following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Centuries-old cultural and tribal affiliations span the loosely defended desert frontier.Iraqi border guards frequently clash with militants and smugglers who are attempting to move across the borders.In Saturday's violence, gunmen opened fire on an army checkpoint just south of Baghdad, killing four soldiers and wounding four others.In an attack on a checkpoint near Muqdadiyah, a town 60 miles (95 kilometers) north of Baghdad, three soldiers were killed and one was wounded, police said.In the city of Tikrit, 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of the Iraqi capital, gunmen opened fire on an army checkpoint, killing two soldiers, police said.Also, a car bomb exploded in the southern port city of Um Qasr, said Anmar al-Safi, the media official at the port. He added that the explosion caused no casualties.Medical hospital officials confirmed the casualty figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.The killings were the latest in a surge of violence across the country since a deadly crackdown by government forces on a Sunni protest camp in April. More than 3,000 people have been killed in violence during the past few months, raising fears that Iraq could see a new round of widespread sectarian bloodshed similar to that which brought the country to the edge of civil war in 2006 and 2007.In other violence reported by police officials on Saturday, attackers detonated explosives late Friday on a key oil pipeline linking Kirkuk to the Turkish port of Ceyhan near the northern town of al-Shura, disrupting crude oil exports.

PKK fails to withdraw its fighters from Turkey: Erdogan

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ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has said the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has failed to withdraw its fighters from Turkey as agreed, a condition for Kurdish rights to be expanded as part of a peace process.Erdogan did not say what this meant for the process, seen by many as the best chance yet to end a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people, mainly Kurds, since 1984, but indicated that a Kurdish rights package would be unveiled soon. The promises made by the PKK to withdraw from Turkish soil have not been fulfilled, the newspaper Vatan quoted him as saying on his way back from Turkmenistan late on Friday.Only 20 percent have left Turkey, and they are mostly women and children. The PKK feared its fighters, estimated at around 2,000, would be attacked as they withdrew to bases in the northern Iraqi mountains, but so far a ceasefire declared in March has largely held. The PKK has not said how many of its fighters have left, but says clashes could resume if Ankara does not take concrete steps by the start of September.Erdogan said on Aug. 8 that parliament may cut short its summer recess, due to end on Oct. 1, to pass the democratisation packageA senior Justice Ministry official told Reuters last week that the package would include provisions for wider Kurdish-language education. But Erdogan, under pressure from nationalists for offering concessions to militants officially deemed terrorists, denied this, and said the measures would not disturb the Turkish public, Vatan reported. He also ruled out any general amnesty for PKK fighters, who have been promised safe passage out of Turkey, but not rehabilitation.In addition to more Kurdish-language education, the Kurds, who dominate Turkeys southeast and account for about a fifth of the population, want anti-terrorism laws softened, the electoral threshold to enter parliament lowered from 10 percent, and more powers for local governments.Erdogan said he had completed his work on the reform package and that details would be announced in the coming days, Vatan reported.Erdogan has invested much political capital in the process, which has enjoyed strong public support but is increasingly attracting fierce nationalist criticism.Turkey, the United States and European Union all designate the PKK as a terrorist organisation. It took up arms to carve out an independent homeland in the southeast but later scaled back its demands to greater cultural rights and autonomy.

Slave dwelling project works toward preservation

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CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) - Over the past three years, Joe McGill has slept in almost 40 former slave dwellings in a dozen US states, hoping to draw attention to the need to preserve the structures and tell their stories.Now he's expanding the effort and working to make the Slave Dwelling Project a nonprofit organization, with plans for a national conference next year. He said paperwork will be filed within the next two weeks to make it official.We tell a lot of our history through the buildings we choose to preserve and restore, McGill told The Associated Press in an interview at the main house at McLeod Plantation, which has a row of slave cabins. If we want to tell the story of America, preserving these slave dwellings is a start to telling that whole story. Sleeping in them helps, but it's time to wake up now. It's time to give this project a purpose.McGill, a program officer with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, said he hopes the nonprofit could create a pool of money to provide funds for property owners who might not have all the resources to repair an old dwelling.McGill has filed paperwork to get his nonprofit going, and the conference is scheduled for September 2014 in Savannah, Georgia. He said he hopes it will bring together people from around the country to share their stories of saving slave dwellings and trade notes on overcoming obstacles to their preservation.When McGill's effort started, he wanted to preserve just cabins. Now, it's broadened to include all slave dwellings. In urban areas such as Charleston, many of those dwellings may still stand but are used as apartments or guest houses whose stories may not be told, McGill said.McGill first slept in a slave cabin at Boone Hall Plantation near Charleston more than a decade ago as part of a program for The History Channel on the dispute over the Confederate flag that flew over the South Carolina Statehouse from the 1960s until 2000. The Confederate flag was used by the secessionist, pro-slavery southern states in the American Civil War from 1861-1865.He returned to the slave dwelling project three years ago. Since then he has spread his sleeping bag in dwellings from Texas to Connecticut. He said he remembers the eerie first night he slept in a cabin, hearing the sounds of dogs in the distance, conjuring in his mind the search for runaways during the years of slavery. Another time, he recalls waking up on Mother's Day thinking of the children who once lived in such cabins being sold from their mothers' arms.There is no good estimate on how many slave quarters may still stand around the country, and helping to identify them is one of the objectives of the project. The census of 1860, the year before the Civil War broke out, listed almost 4 million people in slavery.McGill said that since the effort started, one researcher was able to document at least 1,000. McGill said he frequently receives calls from people asking whether properties may have once housed slaves.While McGill wants to preserve the dwellings, he said he does not think they should become museum pieces. He noted that structures once used as slave dwellings at both the University of South Carolina and the University of Alabama are now used for such things as a computer services lab and storage.That's fine. One thing I try to get over to people in this program is we need to let buildings evolve, he said. Let private owners let the buildings be what they want them to be. All I ask is that we preserve them and interpret them.McGill said creating the nonprofit will help advance the effort to preserve the dwellings.Right now sleeping in them is all I can do, which is not a bad thing because it brings attention, he said.

Diana's death: UK police checking new information

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LONDON (AP) - British police say they are examining newly received information relating to the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed, and that officers are assessing the informations relevance and credibility.Scotland Yard declined to provide details about the information, only saying Saturday in a statement that the assessment will be carried out by officers from its specialist crime and operations unit.The force stressed that it was not reopening the investigation into the 1997 deaths of Diana and Fayed, who were killed in a car crash in Paris.In 2008, a British jury ruled that Diana, the Princess of Wales, and her companion, Fayed, were unlawfully killed due to reckless speed and drinking by their driver, and by the reckless pursuit of paparazzi chasing them.

Poor sleep tied to kids' lower academic performance

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BRAZIL (Reuters) - Children who have trouble sleeping tend to do worse in school than their peers who get a good nights sleep, a new study suggests.Researchers in Brazil looked at children age seven to 10 who attended Sao Paulo public schools. They found kids with symptoms of sleep disorders or sleep breathing disorders earned lower grades than those without problems sleeping, on average.Thirteen percent of children with difficulty sleeping had failing grades in Portuguese, compared to nine percent of those without sleep problems. Likewise, 25 percent of kids with disrupted sleep had failing math grades, versus eight percent of children without trouble sleeping.Because (symptoms of sleep disorders) and particularly (sleep breathing disorders) are highly prevalent, we suggest that all health professionals and educators become aware of this striking effect and take appropriate actions to solve or mitigate what could very well constitute a public health issue, researchers led by Luciane Bizari Coin de Carvalho from the Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo wrote.Experts estimate that roughly one-quarter of U.S. children have disrupted sleep at some point during childhood. Erratic bedtime hours and anxiety, either at school or at home, may contribute.Other children may have unrecognized sleep disorders, such as sleep walking, nightmares or insomnia, or sleep breathing disorders, like sleep apnea. Some medications, including those for asthma or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, can affect sleep. The underlying medical problems may also cause sleep disturbances.Poor sleep among children has been tied to obesity, which over the long term increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes. And poor school performance has been linked to early dropout rates - so the new findings may have implications beyond getting a good nights sleep, researchers said.From 1999 to 2001, the researchers distributed 5,400 questionnaires asking about symptoms of sleep disorders and sleep breathing disorders to children in Sao Paulo public schools.Then they looked at the Portuguese and Math grades of 2,384 children whose parents filled out and returned the questionnaire. The study team found about 31 percent of the children had symptoms of sleep disorders - such as difficulty falling or staying asleep, or feeling sleepy all the time - and close to 27 percent had sleep breathing disorders. Those students grades were significantly lower than the grades of kids without sleep disorder symptoms.In Brazil, grades are based on a scale of 0 to 10, with 5 considered passing. Average Portuguese grades were 6.6 for kids with sleep problems, compared to 7.1 among those with no sleeping trouble.Likewise, children with symptoms of sleep disorders or sleep breathing disorders earned an average grade of 6.3 in Math, compared to 7.1 for other children, according to findings published in the journal Sleep Medicine.Dr. Carl Bazil, a neurologist and director of the division of epilepsy and sleep at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in New York City noted that this study fills a research void.Theres growing information, mainly in adults, that you need good quality sleep to process and learn new information, Bazil told Reuters Health. It stands to reason that, if anything, sleep would be more important in children, but theres very little information in children about sleep disturbance and learning.Research has shown that sleep deprivation might affect certain parts of the brain, especially the frontal lobes. The frontal lobes control executive function, which is the ability to make decisions, form memories, plan for the future and inhibit socially undesirable behavior - like fighting with a classmate.However, the new study cant say definitively that sleep problems were to blame for poor grades, researchers said. This study doesnt prove that a sleep disturbance causes decreased academic performance, Bazil said, but it shows an association. Basically every category of sleep disturbance the authors looked at correlated with decreased academic performance.The researchers relied on parents reports of their childrens sleep, rather than bringing kids into a sleep lab overnight, for example.The study is far from perfect, Bazil said. But, Its a first step in emphasizing that sleep in children is something thats important, not only to prevent them from being sleepy but to make sure that they learn. I think this study will help raise awareness that sleep is particularly important in children.
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