Software industry revenue growth dips to 24 percent: Report

Software industry revenue growth dips to 24 percent: Report

New Delhi, July 27 (IANS) India's information technology (IT) industry was hit by a slowdown in 2007-08, causing the revenue growth of the top 20 players to drop to 24 percent from 41 percent the year before, an industry survey released Sunday said.

The top 20 IT services exporters also saw a dip in their growth, growing 29 percent as against the 45 percent recorded the year before, according to the Dataquest Indian IT Industry Survey 2008 conducted by Dataquest magazine, a publication of specialty media chain CyberMedia.

The finding is in line with what the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), the organisation representing the Indian software industry, said earlier.

In its annual report released July 9, Nasscom said IT services exports grew 28.2 percent to gross $23.1 billion in 2007-08, while the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector showed an increase of 30 percent, fetching $10.9 as compared to $8.4 billion the previous fiscal.

However, the Nasscom report said the industry clocked a combined growth rate of 28.2 percent in 2007-08, as against Dataquest's figure of 24 percent. It said the growth was expected to slow down to between 21-24 percent in the current financial year, the figure Dataquest quoted for last fiscal.

'A stronger rupee adversely impacted the exports-heavy Indian IT industry in [the] financial year 2007-08 when the average value of rupee in comparison to dollar rose nine percent, with a vast majority of the IT companies still unfazed by a slowdown in the global outsourcing industry,' the Dataquest report said.

In Dataquest's listing of the top 20 IT companies in India, the top seven positions remained unchanged, with TCS, Wipro, Infosys, HP India, IBM India, Ingram Micro and Satyam Computer Services retaining their positions in that order.

Last year, foreign companies Accenture, SAP and Dell replaced three Indian firms, Teledata, Patni and Moser Baer.

'After three years of strong growth, financial year 2007-08 was a challenging year for IT companies in several ways, not least of all due to the exchange rate which meant an over 10 percent hit right away in rupee earnings for exporters,' said CyberMedia publisher Pradeep Gupta.

Added Dataquest chief editor Prasanto Kumar Roy: 'This uneven growth means companies that have differentiated themselves in some way, in a tough year, began to reap the benefits of that strategy

Dancing electrons could open way to new devices

Dancing electrons could open way to new devices

Washington, July 26 (IANS) Researchers have discovered a new way that electrons behave in materials, which could spur the development of futuristic electronic devices.

A team led by N. Phuan Ong, professor of physics at Princeton University, has shown that electrons in an element like bismuth display a highly unusual pattern - a dance of sorts - when subjected to a powerful magnetic field at ultra-low temperatures.

Normally, electrons in bismuth come in three different varieties. But in this experiment, electrons in the magnetised, super-cold sample simultaneously assumed the identity of all three classes of electrons, following a strict choreography that could only stem, they say, from the strange rules of quantum physics.

Quantum mechanics governs the behaviour of objects in the microscopic world. The experiment documented the first 'phase transition' - a term used to describe an abrupt change in the behaviour of a material - ever observed in a Group V element, one of the categories in chemistry's periodic table.

'If you can imagine, it's as if we were looking at passengers scrambling through Grand Central Station in New York, watching them run in different directions. All of a sudden, the whistle blows and we see them run to the same train. This is a simple example of a sudden transition to collective behaviour,' Ong said.

Although the maximum speed of electrons in bismuth is small compared with photons moving at the speed of light, the electrons mimic accurately the behaviour of elementary particles accelerated to very high speeds.

In bismuth, this 'relativistic' property makes them likely candidates for the quantum behaviour, the scientists observed.

'This is exciting because this was predicted, but never shown before, and it may eventually lead to new paradigms in computing and electronics,' said Thomas Rieker, programme director at the National Science Foundation.

'In the quest to develop ever smaller and faster transistors, physicists and engineers are attempting to harness the quantum behaviour of electrons,' Ong said.

These findings were published on Friday in Science.

Glasses embedded with a telescope may enable visually impaired to drive

Glasses embedded with a telescope may enable visually impaired to drive

Washington, July 25 (ANI): Visually impaired people may soon be able to drive or perform other activities requiring sharper distance vision with the help of glasses embedded with a telescope, say experts.

Scientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, say that they have already made a pair of spectacles that may serve as a model for future designs.

"This new design has several advantages. One major advantage is the appearance of the glasses. Because they look almost like normal everyday spectacles, it is more likely that visually impaired people will use them," says Dr. Eli Peli, the inventor of the glasses.

He says that the glasses are easier to use than existing telescope models because of a wider magnified view and easier access to that view.

He adds that shifting the magnified view up leaves the unmagnified view of the road unobstructed, which is important for safety and facilitates navigation.

The existing designs have the telescopic eyepiece above the wearer's pupil, and thus require the driver to tilt his/her head up and down rapidly to view alternatively the magnified and unmagnified scenes.

Furthermore, many potential users have resisted such bioptic telescopes due to their strange appearance, and because the magnified view through the telescope is narrow.

Dr. Peli and his colleagues have addressed these problems by designing a wide-field telescope made of straight and curved mirrors built completely within the spectacle lens.

To embed the whole telescope inside the spectacle lens, the researchers had to obtain the magnifying power from curved mirrors instead of lenses because mirrors maintain their power when embedded inside the spectacle lens, while the lenses lose their power when not in the air.

Their design is based on spherical and flat mirrors with the flat mirrors implemented as tilted beam splitters that use polarization to reduce light loss.

"The short height of the actual magnifier, its position, and inclusion of a small tilt of the last flat mirror (the one closest to the user's eye), enables the wearer to simultaneously view the magnified field above the unmagnified view of the uninterrupted horizontal field," says Dr. Peli.

A research article in the Journal of Biomedical Optics says that not only will the new glasses improve the cosmetics and usefulness of this type of device, the in-the-lens design will make it possible to mass-produce the telescopic magnifier as a standard spectacle lens blank and allow an individual's prescription to be added using the standard procedure for grinding regular spectacle lenses.

This process should also reduce the price of bioptic telescopes, the article adds.

The next step for the research team is to find a corporate partner to manufacture the lens blanks, and distribute them to the public. (ANI)

Unknown disease killing off Florida's state tree

Unknown disease killing off Florida's state tree

MIAMI - The sabal palm, Florida's state tree, is under attack by a microscopic killer that has scientists stumped. An unknown but growing number of sabal palms in the Tampa Bay area have died from a mysterious disease that researchers are struggling to identify. Even after scientists pinpoint the disease — and that could take years — they will have to learn what insect spreads it. The disease will be tough to stop.
It's not simply a matter that we will be able to eradicate," said Monica Elliott, a University of Florida plant pathologist. "That's not very likely."

Sabal palms, also known cabbage palms, can grow to 50 feet. In the United States, they can be found from the Florida Keys to parts of North Carolina and can grow in marshes, woodlands or along the coastline. The palm, which is also South Carolina's state tree, is featured in Florida's state seal and was designated the state tree in the 1950s.

Tim Schubert, an administrator and pathologist in Florida's Division of Plant Industry, said it's impossible to say what the disease's eventual effect on the state's sabal palms will be, but "it's not going to be good."

"There's going to be fewer palms," he said. "They may present a less attractive tree in nature because of this new disease showing up."

Schubert said he knew of no cases of the disease in sabal palms outside Florida.

This is not the first time iconic Florida trees have been ravaged by disease. The state's orange and other citrus trees are being attacked by canker and greening. Scientists have been unable to stop either.

The new disease destroys the sabal palm and its other victims, which include Canary Island date palms and queen palms, from within. It's a tough diagnosis, Elliott said, often confused with nutrient deficiencies or excessive trimming. First to go are the lower leaves in the tree's canopy, followed by a dead spear leaf. Finally, the palm's canopy collapses.

Understanding how the disease spreads requires a trip back to high school science class.

This is a phytoplasma disease, which means it is a very small bacterium that doesn't have a cell wall. And it can only be transmitted through a plant's phloem, a type of transport tissue similar to veins in a human. The disease has likely found its way to sabal palms' phloem by either a tree- or leaf-hopping insect.

The disease is hitting the state during a tight budget year and University of Florida research funding has taken a hit. Officials can still turn to federal and private grants, and a proposal to dip into a small emergency fund is being considered, said Jack Battenfield, a spokesman for UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.

"We don't have some of the freedoms we might have had before," Battenfield said. "The budget's tighter. We've got to look at things we can do most effectively, most efficiently, and have the biggest impact."

Barack Obama in Baghdad to meet with US commanders

Barack Obama in Baghdad to meet with US commanders
BAGHDAD - A U.S. Embassy official said Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama arrived in Iraq on Monday where he will meet with commanders and troops in a war he has long opposed. Obama was expected to meet Gen. David Petraeus as well as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki while in the country, although aides provided few details, citing security concerns.

Obama arrived as part of a congressional delegation that also included Sens. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., following stops in Kuwait and Afghanistan. The delegation met Sunday in Kuwait City with Kuwait's emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, and other senior officials, the Kuwait News Agency reported.

All three are longtime critics of the U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq. Obama has called for withdrawing American troops at the rate of one or two brigades per month, and an end to combat operations within 16 months. He has said he favors leaving a residual force in the country to provide security for U.S. personnel, train Iraqis and counter attacks by al-Qaida.

The delegation arrived amid controversy over al-Maliki's published comments in a German magazine that appeared to endorse Obama's 16-month timetable. The Iraqi leader's aides have since said his remarks were misunderstood, and he is not taking sides in the U.S. election.

Obama's trip occurred less than four months before the presidential election. It is Obama's second trip to Iraq, but conditions are quite different from when he visited in January 2006. Obama's first tour was treated as a footnote, while the country was caught in a growing Sunni insurgency and was moving toward a flood of sectarian violence. But the bloodshed has declined significantly since Bush sent thousands more troops last year to help quell the rising violence.

McCain has been critical of Obama's position on Iraq, saying the decision to pull out should be determined by progress, not a timetable.

He supports the war, and has been critical of some aspects of its handling. But he was a vocal supporter of the decision to send in more troops.

McCain's foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, said Obama "is stubbornly adhering to an unconditional withdrawal that places politics above the advice of our military commanders, the success of our troops, and the security of the American people."

"Barack Obama is wrong to advocate withdrawal at any cost just as he was wrong to oppose the surge that has put victory within reach," Scheunemann said in a statement.

U.S. commanders have begun withdrawing some of those additional troops and Obama argues they should be sent to Afghanistan, which he says is the "central front" in the fight against terrorism, to reinforce efforts there against a resurgent Taliban and to control spiraling violence.

McCain also supports sending troop reinforcements to Afghanistan.

"There's starting to be a growing consensus that it's time for us to withdraw some of our combat troops out of Iraq, deploy them here in Afghanistan, and I think we have to seize that opportunity. Now is the time for us to do it," Obama said in a CBS News interview broadcast Sunday after a two-hour meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"I think it's important for us to begin planning for those brigades now. If we wait until the next administration, it could be a year before we get those additional troops on the ground here in Afghanistan, and I think that would be a mistake," Obama said in the interview. "I think the situation is getting urgent enough that we have got to start doing something now."

Obama has made Afghanistan a centerpiece of his proposed strategy for dealing with terrorism threats to the United States.

He has said the war in Afghanistan, where Taliban- and al-Qaida-linked militants are resurgent, deserves more troops and attention than the conflict in Iraq.

U.S. military officials say the number of attacks in eastern Afghanistan, where most of the foreign troops are American, has increased by 40 percent so far in 2008 compared with the same period in 2007.

Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told the AP on Saturday that after intense U.S. assaults there, al-Qaida may be considering shifting focus to its original home base in Afghanistan, where American casualties are running higher than in Iraq.

Hundreds of baby penguins found dead in Brazil

Hundreds of baby penguins found dead in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Hundreds of baby penguins swept from the icy shores of Antarctica and Patagonia are washing up dead on Rio de Janeiro's tropical beaches, rescuers and penguin experts said Friday. More than 400 penguins, most of them young, have been found dead on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro state over the past two months, according to Eduardo Pimenta, superintendent for the state coastal protection and environment agency in the resort city of Cabo Frio.

While it is common here to find some penguins — both dead and alive — swept by strong ocean currents from the Strait of Magellan, Pimenta said there have been more this year than at any time in recent memory.

Rescuers and those who treat penguins are divided over the possible causes.

Thiago Muniz, a veterinarian at the Niteroi Zoo, said he believed overfishing has forced the penguins to swim further from shore to find fish to eat "and that leaves them more vulnerable to getting caught up in the strong ocean currents."

Niteroi, the state's biggest zoo, already has already received about 100 penguins for treatment this year and many are drenched in petroleum, Muniz said. The Campos oil field that supplies most of Brazil's oil lies offshore.

Muniz said he hadn't seen penguins suffering from the effects of other pollutants, but he pointed out that already dead penguins aren't brought in for treatment.

Pimenta suggested pollution is to blame.

"Aside from the oil in the Campos basin, the pollution is lowering the animals' immunity, leaving them vulnerable to funguses and bacteria that attack their lungs," Pimenta said, quoting biologists who work with him.

But biologist Erli Costa of Rio de Janeiro's Federal University suggested weather patterns could be involved.

"I don't think the levels of pollution are high enough to affect the birds so quickly. I think instead we're seeing more young and sick penguins because of global warming, which affects ocean currents and creates more cyclones, making the seas rougher," Costa said.

Costa said the vast majority of penguins turning up are baby birds that have just left the nest and are unable to out-swim the strong ocean currents they encounter while searching for food.

Every year, Brazil airlifts dozens of penguins back to Antarctica or Patagonia

Researchers report toadfish sing to attract mates

Researchers report toadfish sing to attract mates
WASHINGTON - It's not exactly Tony serenading Maria in "West Side Story," but for all their homeliness toadfish also sing to attract mates. OK, singing may be a stretch; it's more of a hum. But it turns out to be useful, for science as well as the fish. Exploring how their nervous system produces sounds is allowing scientists to trace the earliest developments of vocalization in other animals, including people.

Many animals communicate vocally — birds chirp, frogs thrum, whales whistle — and comparing the nerve networks in a variety of vertebrates suggests that making sounds originated in ancient fishes, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The sounds of whales and dolphins are well known, but most people don't realize fish also make sounds, lead researcher Andrew H. Bass of Cornell University said in a telephone interview. He's a professor of neurobiology and behavior.

"I'm not saying fish have a language or are using higher powers of the brain," he added quickly. "But some of the networks of neurons, nerve cells in the brain, are very ancient."

The whole nervous system basis that led to speech originated in fish hundreds of millions of years ago, he said.

He studied the hindbrain in the larvae of midshipmanfish and toadfish, which grow up to produce more than one type of sound.

"It's not as complex as what you hear mammals and birds doing; it's the simplest type of communication ... but the parts of the nervous system that generate sounds are easiest to study in these fish," Bass said.

His team found two major uses of sound.

One is the hum in which the male sings to attract the female to his nest. Bass characterized it as like the drone of bees or a motor running.

The second type is a threat sound, more of a grunt or growl, to protect nesting territory.

The locations of the vocal nerves described in the study are consistent with the organization of the vocal systems in frogs, birds and mammals, supporting the idea of a common early development, Daniel Margoliash and Melina E. Hale of the University of Chicago comment in a perspective on Bass's study.

However, they add: "The story of the evolution of vocalizations is still being written, both for its deep ancestral roots and for its most modern development."

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Fox: Jackson used N-word in crude off-air remarks

Fox: Jackson used N-word in crude off-air remarks
CHICAGO - The Rev. Jesse Jackson used the N-word during a break in a TV interview where he criticized presidential candidate Barack Obama, Fox News confirmed WednesdayThe longtime civil rights leader already came under fire this month for crude off-air comments he made against Obama in what he thought was a private conversation during a taping of a "Fox & Friends" news show.

In additional comments from that same conversation, first reported by TVNewser, Jackson is reported to have said Obama was "talking down to black people," and referred to blacks with the N-word when he said Obama was telling them "how to behave."

Though a Fox spokesman confirmed the TVNewer's account to The Associated Press, the network declined to release the full transcript of the July 6 show and did not air the comments.

Jackson — who is traveling in Spain — apologized in a statement Wednesday for "hurtful words" but didn't offer specifics.

"I am deeply saddened and distressed by the pain and sorrow that I have caused as a result of my hurtful words. I apologize again to Senator Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, their children as well as to the American public," Jackson said in a written statement. "There really is no justification for my comments and I hope that the Obama family and the American public will forgive me. I also pray that we, as a nation, can move on to address the real issues that affect the American people."

A spokeswoman for Jackson's civil rights organization, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, said she could not confirm that Jackson used the slur.

Jackson has called on the entertainment industry, including rappers, actors and studios, to stop using the N-Word. He also urged the public to boycott purchasing DVD copies of the TV sitcom "Seinfeld" after co-star Michael Richards was taped using the word during a rant at a Los Angeles comedy club in 2006.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has joined Jackson in opposition of the word, said Wednesday he wanted to hear the comments for himself and declined to discuss Jackson specifically.

"I am against the use of the N-word by anyone and I think we must be consistent," he told The Associated Press. "We must not use the word."

Tropical Storm Bertha speeds away from Bermuda

Tropical Storm Bertha speeds away from Bermuda

HAMILTON (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Bertha sprinted away from Bermuda on Tuesday, after lashing the mid-Atlantic British colony with storm-force winds and heavy rains, cutting power to thousands and forcing airlines to cancel flights. Police in Bermuda, a wealthy offshore finance center, reported no injuries. Clean-up crews had to remove some fallen trees from roads and a car fell into a sinkhole.

The storm knocked out power to around 7,500 homes as it passed by but all but a relative handful -- 150 customers -- had their electricity restored before Tuesday morning, a spokeswoman for the Bermuda Electric Light Co. said.

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), what had been for a while the first hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season was located around 260 miles to the north-northeast of Bermuda and it was moving away at 12 miles per hour (19 km per hour), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Bertha had not strengthened back into a hurricane while clearing Bermuda, as the hurricane center had said might be possible, but it still had the potential to do so as it moved out over the open ocean. Tropical storms become hurricanes when their top sustained winds reach 74 mph (119 kph).

The Miami-based hurricane center said Bertha was likely to hold together as a hurricane or a tropical storm for several days as it moved northeastward on a track that ought eventually to take it to the hurricane graveyard of the North Atlantic.

Bertha at its peak became a "major" Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.

Its surprisingly vigorous growth from a tropical storm and formation far in the eastern Atlantic, near Africa, so early in the six-month storm season could herald a busy summer. The Atlantic hurricane season, which begins on June 1, rarely gets into gear before August.

Oil markets have paid close attention to Atlantic storms since a series of powerful hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 toppled oil rigs and severed gas pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico, where the United States gets a third of its domestic crude supply.

On Tuesday, energy traders were keeping an eye on an area of disturbed weather between the Caribbean islands and Africa.

That area of low pressure had not developed overnight and conditions were becoming less favorable for it to grow into a tropical depression, the precursor to a tropical storm, the hurricane center said.

(Reporting by Matthew Taylor in Hamilton, Editing by Michael Christie and David Wiessler

Astronauts take another spacewalk for tamer job

Astronauts take another spacewalk for tamer job

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The space station's two Russian astronauts stepped outside for the second time in less than a week Tuesday, taking a spacewalk that proved to be tame compared to last week's work with explosives. Although Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko had a lengthy to-do list, none of the chores were notably complicated or dangerous this time around.

They quickly installed a docking target to be used when a new Russian mini research module arrives next year and the crew size doubles. But Kononenko had trouble taking pictures of the target; he couldn't aim his camera the right way as he dangled at the end of a 50-foot boom, his body rotating at times.

With Volkov steering the boom from its base and Kononenko on the opposite end, the two looked as though they were riding a giant seesaw.

"I don't know what the camera is going to cover, but I'm taking pictures," Kononenko said.

Russia's Mission Control outside Moscow urged the spacewalkers to photograph themselves as well. "Beloved," Mission Control teased.

Later, the pair installed a new science experiment to the outside of the international space station and brought back in an experiment that looked at cosmic effects on bacteria and fungi over the past year. They also straightened a stuck radio antenna and rearranged some foot restraints. Cameras, meanwhile, zoomed in on debris — possibly flakes of paint from a handrail — tumbling away.

As the six-hour spacewalk neared its end, one of the spacewalkers said: "Please let me go home. I guess we've done it all for today."

The Russian Space Agency originally planned just one spacewalk for Volkov and Kononenko. But another spacewalk was added and took priority to remove an explosive bolt from the Soyuz capsule parked at the space station; the unprecedented work was carried out successfully Thursday by the pair.

The explosives in the bolt had as much force as a big M-80 firecracker and could have blown off their hands. The bolt was placed in a blast-proof cylinder and taken back into the space station; the two Russians will carry it with them when they fly back to Earth in the Soyuz in October.

Russian space officials want to avoid the steep, off-course descents that shook up the last two returning Soyuz crews. Engineers still do not know what went wrong, but suspect some of the explosive bolts may not have fired properly.

As he did last week, American astronaut Gregory Chamitoff retreated into the Soyuz for the entire spacewalk. Space station officials wanted him in the capsule in case an emergency arose and the spacewalkers had to join him there.

Volkov and Kononenko have been living at the space station since April. Chamitoff arrived last month on space shuttle Discovery.

Asia stocks down on US financial worries

Asia stocks down on US financial worries

HONG KONG - Asian stock markets fell sharply Tuesday as investor confidence in the U.S. financial system eroded even further despite a government-backed plan to help beleaguered mortgage financiers Fannie May and Freddie MacEvery major index was in the red by midday, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index dropping 3.2 percent and Taiwan's benchmark losing nearly 4 percent at one point.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index shed 2 percent to 12,750.10.

While losses spread across most sectors, banks were hit particularly hard as investors worried that trouble in the U.S. financial markets would spillover to Asia. Japanese traders, for instance, were rattled by a local business newspaper report that the country's top three banks hold a combined 4.7 trillion yen ($44 billion) in Fannie May and Freddie Mac debt.

Those two government-chartered companies received a boost Sunday when the U.S. central bank and Treasury Department promised to step in with short-term funding and other aid should mortgage losses mount. Together, the companies hold or back about half the outstanding mortgages in the United States.

A sell-off of regional banks overnight on Wall Street, as well as fears that other American banks might face difficulties ahead, only added to the unease. On Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 45.35, or 0.41 percent, to 11,055.19 after spiking nearly 140 points in early trading.

"Investors are quite concerned we could be heading toward a meltdown in the equities market if there's no rebuilding in confidence, especially in the U.S.," said Alex Tang, head of research at Core Pacific-Yamaichi in Hong Kong.

In Japan, banking giant Mizuho Financial Group Inc.'s shares dipped 3.5 percent and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. was down nearly 4 percent.

Meanwhile, China's biggest lender, ICBC, dropped almost 5.1 percent in Hong Kong trading. China Construction Bank was off 4.9 percent.

China's most-watched index in Shanghai was off 2.5 percent. Elsewhere, South Korea's benchmark slid 2.6 percent, India's Sensex lost 2.3 percent and Australia's main index slipped 2.3 percent.

In currency trading, the dollar declined against the yen to 105.83. The greenback was flat against the euro.

Mystery insect bugging experts at London museum

Mystery insect bugging experts at London museum
LONDON - The experts at London's Natural History Museum pride themselves on being able to identify species from around the globe, from birds and mammals to insects and snakes. Yet they can't figure out a tiny red-and-black bug that has appeared in the museum's own gardensThe almond-shaped insect, about the size of a grain of rice, and was first seen in March 2007 on some of the plane trees that grow on the grounds of the 19th century museum, collections manager Max Barclay said Tuesday.

Within three months, it had become the most common insect in the garden, and it was also spotted in other central London parks, he said.

The museum has more than 28 million insect species in its collection, but none is an exact match for this one. Still, Barclay is cautious about calling it a new discovery.

"I don't expect to find a new species in the gardens of a museum," he said. "Deep inside a tropical rainforest, yes, but not in central London."

The bug resembles the Arocatus roeselii, which is usually found in central Europe but is a brighter red and lives on alder trees. Entomologists suspect the new bug could be a version of the roeselii that has adapted to live on plane trees, but acknowledge it could be a new species.

Either way, it appears the museum's tiny visitor, which appears harmless, is here to stay.

"We waited to see if the insect would survive the British winter," Barclay said. "It did and it's thriving, so now we had better figure out what it is."

Russia faces disease, drought from global warming: WWF

Russia faces disease, drought from global warming: WWF

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia faces an increase in disease, drought and damage to infrastructure because of climate change, the environmental group WWF said on Tuesday, urging the authorities to "take a lead" on the issue. "We're very worried.... We have to act in time. Some regions of Russia need urgent attention," Alexei Kokorin, a WWF researcher and one of the authors of the report, said at a press conference in Moscow presenting a new study.

Drawing attention to an issue that is only beginning to be discussed in Russia, WWF said the authorities should press to reduce global emissions and adopt a strategy for dealing with the effects of climate change.

"We must understand that damage caused by climate change is here and now rather than a problem in the distant future.... There's a lot at stake, including our health," said Igor Chestin, head of WWF Russia.

Since coming to power last month, President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered measures to reduce by 40 percent the amount of energy Russia uses per unit of gross domestic product by 2020.

But the subject is still not part of general public debate in a country that benefits from high energy prices and whose economy has boomed in the past few years, improving the livelihoods of many.

The report warned warmer weather in spring was causing higher incidences of encephalitis, malaria and the West Nile virus in parts of this vast country.

Global warming and unpredictable weather also risked causing floods and droughts in southern regions, it added.

The report went on to say that melting Arctic permafrost was already damaging buildings and roads and could impact on energy infrastructure, as well as affect the livelihoods of native populations.

Hurricane Bertha churns through central Atlantic

Hurricane Bertha churns through central Atlantic

MIAMI (AFP) - Hurricane Bertha, the first hurricane of the 2008 season, plowed through the central Atlantic early Tuesday with winds blowing at 195 kilometers (120 miles) per hour but staying far away from land, the US National Hurricane Center saidAt 5:00 am (0900 GMT) the category three storm was located 1,085 kilometers east-northeast of the Northern Leeward Islands and was moving to the northwest at 17 kilometers per hour, the NHC said.

That put it on a course for Bermuda, but the NHC expects the storm to take a sharp turn onto a northward course and bypass the islands well to the east.

"Some fluctuations in intensity may occur today, but a gradual weakening trend is expected to begin within the next couple of days," the NHC said.

Liver donor's family, recipient unite online

Liver donor's family, recipient unite online

PITTSBURGH - They were precocious toddlers, both blond-haired and blue-eyed, separated by a thousand miles between Miami and a small Kentucky town. The two girls would never meet, but would be brought together through unthinkable tragedy: Trine Engebretsen was born with a genetic disorder that would require what at the time was an extremely rare liver transplant, and Amanda DeLapp would die at just 18 months after being stricken with a brain tumor.

In an operation in Pittsburgh in 1984, Amanda's family donated their daughter's liver to Trine, making her one of the nation's youngest patients ever to receive a liver transplant.

For years, each family would try to contact the other. Trine's family sent a picture of their daughter dressed for Christmas to the DeLapp family, a picture that still sits on the bedroom dresser of Alisha DeLapp, Amanda's mother. That correspondence was followed by years of miscommunication, with each family mistakenly thinking the other didn't want any contact.

But Amanda's younger sister, born after her death, never gave up hope of one day meeting the girl who received her sister's liver. Keisha DeLapp had found Trine on the Internet years ago, and read about her participation as a swimmer in the U.S. Transplant Games. She read about Trine's wonderful health, including her complete independence from drugs that prevent organ rejection.

Like other twentysomethings, Keisha also kept a MySpace page, with a simple quote at the top: "Faith is not simply believing that God can ... It is knowing that He will."

Earlier this year, Keisha looked for Trine online again, found her on MySpace and sent her a greeting:

"Hi. I'm Keisha DeLapp, Amanda DeLapp's sister. Me and my family would love to have contact with you if you would like to. Let me know."

This month, the U.S. Transplant Games will be held for the first time in Pittsburgh, one of the pioneering centers for transplants in the country, and 25 years after the operation that forever connected the Engebretsen and DeLapp families.

At the games, these two families will look each other in the eyes for the first time, exchanging hellos, hugs and memories of the event that changed both their lives.

___

Amanda was Alisha DeLapp's first child, born in 1981. The little girl known as Mandy to her family was healthy and happy, even walking by the time she was 8 months old, her mother recalls.

A year later, everything changed. Amanda was hospitalized because she was vomiting and had pneumonia-like symptoms. Her parents rushed her to the hospital closest to their Mayfield, Ky., home, but doctors were unable to figure out what was wrong. As her condition deteriorated, doctors sent Amanda to a hospital in Nashville, about two hours away.

Doctors there found the problem, telling Amanda's anxious parents their daughter had a brain tumor and was going to die. Amanda DeLapp was 18 months old.

A nurse at the hospital asked the couple if they would consider donating Amanda's organs.

"To me, at that time, it had to be God helping us to decide," Alisha DeLapp remembers. "I can look back at that now and know it was the hardest decision I ever had to make."

Alisha and her husband returned home. On TV, they saw on the news that a little girl named Trine had received a liver transplant. Alisha remembered the little girl; she had seen Trine and her mom, Mary Ann Lunde, on the Phil Donahue show appealing for help. They had also made other national TV appearances.

The DeLapps knew immediately that their daughter's liver had saved Trine's life. (They later learned that Amanda's kidneys were donated to a man in his 20s.)

Transplants were rare at the time, and in a matter of hours the local news channels were calling the DeLapps for comment. They agreed to an interview with a local TV station, which was broadcast on the "Today" show.

The DeLapps' were interviewed along with Trine's family. They didn't speak directly to each other, but it was the closest the families would come to it for years.

Trine Engebretsen, now 26, doesn't remember much about her lifesaving liver transplant when she was 2 1/2 years old.

She had been born with a genetic disorder called alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, which resulted in her body not producing enough of a key enzyme in the liver.

In addition to the family's appeals for help on TV, her father, a Norwegian citizen, appealed to the Norwegian government, which agreed to pay for Trine's surgery. He was Norway's youngest passenger ship captain, and was lost at sea in a hurricane when Trine was 13.

When Trine arrived at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh for the transplant, doctors estimated she had less than 24 hours to live.

She was one of several children who had transplants at the Pittsburgh hospital in 1983 and 1984, remembers pioneering transplant surgeon Dr. Thomas Starzl, who performed her operation. The patients were known as "Reagan children," because then-President Reagan had been using his Saturday radio addresses to drum up public interest in transplantation.

"At the beginning of the 1980s, the only place in the U.S. that was doing these was here in Pittsburgh," Starzl said.

Starzl remembers Trine and over the years says he has met several donor families.

"I was profoundly and still am profoundly grateful to them, particularly in those days because it wasn't common (to donate organs). It required a lot of social conscience," Starzl said.

___

Over the years, Trine's family tried to contact the DeLapp family. She knew the family lived in Kentucky, but says letters her mother sent to an address for Amanda's grandparents were returned, unopened.

Several years ago, Trine wrote a thank you note to the DeLapps for her transplant and gave it to the organ-procurement organization for Kentucky hoping they could pass it along to the family. The note never made it to them.

Meanwhile, she immersed herself in transplant-related endeavors.

"I very much feel that it's important and also I like to give back. I don't feel like I'm under an obligation. I want to give back," Trine said.

She first attended the U.S. Transplant Games in 1992, and has attended most of the games since then. She has participated in swimming, running and even signed up for the shot put this year.

She met her fiance, Ryan Labbe, in an online forum about organ transplants. He moved from New England to Miami to be with her, and received his own liver transplant earlier this year.

Trine has been off immunosuppressant medications for 11 years, something that's becoming more common among transplant recipients. She is applying for medical school, in hopes of studying something transplant-related, and works for the Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency in Florida.

On a Friday night at her office, around 6 p.m., her Blackberry went off. It was a friend request from her MySpace page.

It was from 23-year-old Keisha DeLapp.

"I almost fell off my chair," Trine says.

Alisha DeLapp, now 48, had gone on to have Keisha and a son before she and her husband divorced. She followed Trine's progress through online stories from the various U.S. Transplant Games she competed in over the years. She kept the picture of Trine as a child in her Christmas dress — eerily, it was the same dress Amanda had worn in a Christmas snapshot — and hoped one day to be able to update it with a more recent photo.

"I know it's not my daughter, but it's just as special knowing that my daughter saved her life," Alisha DeLapp said. "I'm proud of her, with the things that she's chosen to do with her life. It's so impressive to me."

The two families have been communicating via e-mail since Keisha and Trine made contact earlier this year. They've talked about the many years they tried to connect, and how thankful they are for each other — each in their own ways.

"I've waited 24 years to be able to say thank you," Trine says from her home in Florida.

When the transplant games commence on July 11, the three will meet for the first time in downtown Pittsburgh, just miles from where Trine's surgery took place. Starzl will also be there to greet them. The women will give thanks for each other through hellos and hugs, and probably some tears.

"I never got to know my sister. I never got to meet her or anything. By no means is Trine my sister, but that's kind of like a part of her," Keisha says. "This whole experience, I'm just glad that it happened."

___

On the Net:

Transplant Games: http://www.kidney.org/news/transgames.cfm

Dr. Starzl: http://starzltribute.upmc.com/

Tens of thousands uprooted by floods in northeast India

Tens of thousands uprooted by floods in northeast India

GUWAHATI, India (AFP) - Flash floods triggered by heavy monsoon rains have washed away thousands of homes and displaced more than 50,000 people in India's northeastern state of Assam, officials said Sunday. A government spokesman said the state's eastern district of Lakhimpur was the worst hit, with an estimated 50 villages inundated by flooding that began Saturday.

"The situation is critical with many parts of the district under waist-deep water," Lakhimpur police chief S.A. Karim told AFP by telephone.

A government bulletin said the Brahmaputra river, which flows through Tibet, India and Bangladesh before emptying in the Bay of Bengal, and its tributaries were flowing above the danger mark in at least six places.

A first wave of monsoon flooding in Assam last month killed eight people and displaced 400,000 others, most of them also in Lakhimpur district.

"Thousands of people are taking shelter in makeshift camps and on embankments and other raised platforms," Karim said, adding that authorities were providing them with food.

The swirling waters of the 2,906-kilometre (1,816-mile) Brahmaputra river have been treacherous across the district, breaching more than a dozen embankments and sweeping away road bridges and stretches of highways.

Authorities said a railway bridge was also washed away, forcing the suspension of train services in the area.

Every year the monsoon causes the river -- one of Asia's longest -- to flood in Assam, a state of 26 million people.

In 2004, Assam saw some of its worst floods, which killed at least 200 people and displaced almost half the state's population.

Grief leads father to create bomb-defusing robot

Grief leads father to create bomb-defusing robot

TYNGSBOROUGH, Mass. - The knock on Brian Hart's door came at 6 a.m. An Army colonel, a priest and a police officer had come to tell Hart and his wife that their 20-year-old son had been killed when his military vehicle was ambushed in Iraq. Brian Hart didn't channel his grief quietly. Committed to "preventing the senseless from recurring," he railed against the military on his blog for shortcomings in supplying armor to soldiers. The one-time Republican teamed with liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy to tell Congress that the Pentagon was leaving soldiers ill-equipped.

And then Hart went beyond words to fight his cause. He became a defense contractor.

He founded a company that has developed rugged, relatively inexpensive robotic vehicles, resembling small dune buggies, to disable car bombs and roadside explosives before they detonate in hot spots like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, Hart has won over the military brass he so harshly criticizes. Three years after starting Black-I Robotics Inc., Hart and his four employees won a $728,000 contract from the Pentagon in June to further develop the "LandShark" robot.

Technology to protect troops is a subject uncomfortably close to home for Hart, who says the death of his son, Army Pvt. First Class John Hart, left him in "total devastation." Brian Hart can't forget the call he got from his son in Iraq a week before he was killed by a gunshot Oct. 18, 2003.

"He asked me to help him: `Get us body armor and vehicular armor,'" Brian Hart said. "He thought he'd be killed on the road in an unarmored Humvee. And a week to the day later, he was."

The Pentagon contract requires Black-I to supply three of its six-wheeled, electric-powered vehicles this year and provide support.

The military will test two units, while Boston's Logan airport will get one for bomb-disposal duties. If tests go well, soldiers in Iraq could be using the robots as soon as next year, Hart says.

His company also is trying to secure an additional $1.5 million in Pentagon funding next fiscal year.

At 275 pounds and about 4 feet long, Black-I's LandShark looks like a dune buggy without a seat for a human driver. Hart hopes to make them available for commercial sale to law enforcement next year, with expectations that the cost would be $65,000 to $85,000 per robot, including the chassis and add-on bomb-disposing equipment. The vehicle can pull tilling equipment to plow up soil where an explosive or trip wire may be hidden. Or it can drop off "disrupters" that can be maneuvered near a bomb and set off, with jets of water disabling the bomb.

Hart contends LandSharks will be far less expensive than many of the Pentagon's current bomb-disposing robots, including models made by two larger Boston-area companies, iRobot Inc. and Foster-Miller Inc. Those models have more sophisticated electronics, but also are more fragile than LandSharks, which use car batteries rather than lighter and pricier lithium-ion batteries.

"We want to make robots affordable, so that a private first class or a lance corporal could get this equipment," Hart said.

A Foster-Miller vice president, Bob Quinn, called Hart a "superb individual," but countered that the LandShark is too big and heavy to be practical for most soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Quinn said soldiers using his company's $100,000-plus Talon robots typically carry four of the hand-portable, 80-pound bots in military vehicles, along with other cargo. The advantage of this approach, he said, is that multiple robots are needed as backups. Insurgents frequently watch from a hiding spot as a robot approaches to dismantle an explosive, then remotely detonate the bomb to knock out the robot in a war of attrition, Quinn said.

Hart is a clean-cut former College Republicans chapter president who describes himself today as a radical. But he speaks like a Pentagon insider, peppering his conversation with acronyms for battlefield weapons and defense technology initiatives. His sport-utility vehicle has a "Support our troops" bumper sticker, and he posts nearly every day to his blog, which focuses on security and political issues.

While his entrepreneurial intentions are in part idealistic, Hart also hopes to make a buck with Black-I — which he co-founded with longtime business partner Arthur Berube, who helped put up money to supplement startup cash from Hart's personal savings. Hart wouldn't specify how much money they used, but said he and his four employees went without pay until the company won an unspecified amount of private equity funding in May.

While many Pentagon critics, including families of soldiers, have spoken out about better gear for soldiers, Brian Hart stands apart for his decision to launch a company focused on troop protection, said Bill Thomasmeyer, president of the National Center for Defense Robotics. The Pittsburgh-based nonprofit organization helps robotics firms like Black-I compete for government contracts.

"I don't know of any other similar company that is headed by someone who has had such a personal loss as he has," Thomasmeyer said. "His company has had to overcome a lot of obstacles to get to this point, without having a lot of resources."

Another company founder is Hart's younger brother, Richard, a former Marine who serves as a Black-I product designer. But the staff is otherwise made up of acquaintances from Hart's previous ventures, which had nothing to do with robotics or military contracting. His prior executive experience has been in such fields as wireless communications and pharmaceuticals.

At Black-I, Hart and his staff relied on basic knowledge of mechanical and electrical engineering to design their robotic buggies. They cut costs by pairing custom design features with components already available commercially from other makers of small vehicles and remote-control gadgets. The off-the-shelf parts, such as the car batteries, are also expected to simplify repairs and maintenance.

Black-I operates from a modest office and garage in a small industrial park in Tyngsborough, 40 miles north of Boston, with a paved back lot serving as a testing ground.

In a demonstration for a reporter, a LandShark pushed a trash Dumpster. It was meant to simulate how the buggy could be useful for letting soldiers remain at a safe distance while a robot rams aside a car booby-trapped with explosives. The company is developing versions operated remotely by a human using radio signals, as well as models designed to complete bomb-disposing missions either wholly or partly without human intervention.

Whether or not the company keeps getting defense contracts, Brian Hart doesn't plan to stay quiet on the issues he's been raising since his son's death. He still argues that the military must remake itself to meet ground troops' basic needs and wean itself off expensive high-tech systems.

"We are spending billions upon billions on technologies and equipment we will never use, while we shortchange our infantrymen on basic equipment that will save their lives in combat," Hart said. "The way our military is run and the way our government is run doesn't have to be this bad."

Companies begin quest for oil, gas off Fla. coast

Companies begin quest for oil, gas off Fla. coast

PENSACOLA, Fla. - Oil companies once viewed drilling in the deep waters off Florida as cost prohibitive. Politicians feared even the slightest sign of support would be career suicideNo more. Record crude oil prices are fueling support for oil and natural gas exploration off the nation's shores. In Florida, movement was underway even before President Bush called on Congress last month to lift a federal moratorium that's barred new offshore drilling since 1981.

The early activity here stems from a 2006 Congressional compromise that allows drilling on 8.3 million acres more than 125 miles off the Panhandle — an area that had been covered by the moratorium, which was enacted out of environmental concerns. In exchange, the state got a no-drilling buffer along the rest of its beaches.

Florida may turn out to be a prelude for other coastal states. If oil or natural gas deposits are found in the newly opened region, experts say it could further the push to explore other once-protected areas everywhere. It also could be a rallying point for critics, who say the new exploration isn't a license to expand exploration.

With gas topping $4 a gallon, recent polls show Americans, Floridians included, more supportive of drilling in protected areas. Some politicians — including Gov. Charlie Crist — have switched sides.

"We think the public is way out ahead of the politicians on these issues. People are more open to (offshore drilling) now," said Tom Moskitis, spokesman for the American Gas Association, a trade group.

At the same time, oil companies, driven by the record energy price, are more willing to risk $100 million or more to begin exploring new regions. The Interior Department estimates there could be 18 billion barrels of oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas beneath the 574 million acres of federal coastal waters that are now off-limits.

Drilling activity off the Florida Panhandle has started and sputtered for decades. Some companies had leases to drill off the Panhandle before the 1981 moratorium. They were grandfathered in when the moratorium passed because they were already actively exploring in their lease areas. They continued their activity off and on into the early 1990s.

In March, four companies — Australia-based BHP Billiton Petroleum Deepwater Inc., Houston-based Anadarko E&P Co., Shell Offshore Inc. and Italian oil and natural gas company Eni SpA — purchased leases on 36 Gulf of Mexico tracts under the 2006 compromise.

Jeb Bachmann, an analyst with New Orleans energy consultant Howard Wiel, said the four understand the shifting political and financial realities.

"It gives you an indication that some of these companies believe there is some light at the end of the tunnel," Bachmann said. "There is higher pricing and a belief that higher prices are going to ultimately drive some changes."

Anadarko bought seven of the recently opened tracts south of Pensacola because of their proximity to its Independence Hub, a major natural gas field off Alabama that supplies 1.5 to 2 percent of the natural gas consumed in the U.S. every day, said Stuart Strive, the company's vice president of exploration for the eastern Gulf. The newly leased tracts are between 50 and 75 miles east of the Independence Hub.

But finding and producing natural gas in the new site will be expensive. Three-dimensional mapping of the ocean floor, which must happen before any drilling, could take up to two years, Strive said. If a promising site is found, engineers must drill up to three miles below the ocean surface to extract the oil or natural gas.

And it will take years before the company begins producing anything at the site — and there is no guarantee of success. A company can have as much as $4 billion invested and a wait of up to five years before seeing any return on the investment, Strive said.

"We typically will have $100 to $200 million invested in a project before we know if it is an economic venture or not," he said. "Then, if you know you have made an economic discovery, you spend a billion dollars or more on a facility."

The 1981 moratorium — enacted out of environmental concerns in response to a massive oil spill off the Santa Barbara coast a decade earlier — has prevented the Interior Department from spending money on offshore oil or gas leases in virtually all coastal waters outside the western Gulf of Mexico and in some areas off Alaska.

But politicians who once supported the ban are changing their minds.

U.S. Sen. John McCain supports lifting the ban and allowing states to decide whether to approve drilling of their shores. Crist, Florida's Republican governor and a possible vice presidential candidate, reversed his long-standing opposition to lifting the ban last month.

The ban won't be lifted without a fight.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who has led opposition to offshore drilling among the state's Congressional delegation, criticized the governor for reversing his position, accusing Crist and McCain of putting oil company profits before protecting the state's $65 billion annual tourism industry.

"Oil companies and their allies are using the shockingly high price of oil and gasoline, which largely is the result not of a supply problem but speculative fever, to scare the public into thinking coastal drilling offers a real solution to our dependency on oil," he said in an e-mailed statement.

The 2006 Senate compromise opening up the Panhandle tracts made sense and should be honored by the oil companies, said Dan McLaughlin, Nelson's spokesman. Instead, the companies and Congressional Republicans are pushing to open more acreage, he said. Nelson helped broker the compromise.

"It was a compromise allowing them to go where they wanted to go, where there were some proven reserves, while also keeping them at a distance to save the economy, the environment and protect our military training areas," McLaughlin said.

"That compromise closed the door and kept the moratorium in place. Now you see the governor doing an about face, but we are confident we are going to fight it back again

Analysis: Obama's centrist emphasis gives GOP ammo

Analysis: Obama's centrist emphasis gives GOP ammo

BUTTE, Mont. - Is Barack Obama close to being shadowed by giant flip-flops and, worse, having the image stick with people all the way to the voting booth?Four years ago, Republicans branded as a "flip-flop" even the slightest rhetorical or policy change by John Kerry and sent huge replicas of the casual sandals to bob around the Massachusetts Democrat's events, feeding an image of him as a wishy-washy panderer.

Fair or not, Kerry never recovered and lost to President Bush.

It's now the Republican weapon of choice against Obama.

The Illinois senator has excited many with the notion that he is a new, transcendent type of politician. But he is giving the GOP effort ammunition and endangering his "Change We Can Believe In" motto with several shifts to the center, most recently on the Iraq war, his campaign's defining issue.

General election campaigns invariably find candidates fine-tuning what they said during primaries.

When politicians compete against others in their party, they must appeal to the most partisan, who tend to make up the majority of enthusiastic voters at that stage. But general elections require a broader appeal, particularly to the vast center of the nation's electorate.

So it's not uncommon as spring fades and November approaches to see candidates de-emphasize or even cast off some of their most extreme positions in favor of policy more palatable to the middle. They mostly do it quietly, or try to anyway.

And though there can sometimes be criticism about shifting positions, voters usually forgive and forget.

For one thing, a willingness to hone policy, add nuance or even change one's mind — especially when new information comes to light — is not in itself a bad quality in a leader. For another, those partisans who supported a candidate in the primaries are not likely to switch parties and back the other candidate. Often the worst that can happen is they stay home on Election Day. Politicians are usually willing to risk that for the chance to court the center.

Hence Obama has been highlighting positions anathema to the left on several issues, though some have long been part of his policy.

On Iraq, Obama said Thursday that his upcoming trip there might lead him to refine his promise to quickly remove U.S. troops from the war.

He now supports broader authority for the government's eavesdropping program and legal immunity for telecommunications companies that participated in it, supporting the bill after some protections were added.

The handgun control proponent reacted to the Supreme Court overturning the District of Columbia's gun ban by saying he favors both an individual's right to own a gun as well as government's right to regulate ownership.

Obama became the first major-party candidate to reject public financing for the general election after earlier promises to accept it.

He not only embraced but promised to expand Bush's program to give more anti-poverty grants to religious groups, a split with Democratic orthodoxy.

He objected to the Supreme Court's decision outlawing the death penalty for child rapists, drawing attention to his support for the death penalty if used only for the "most egregious" crimes.

Obama also said "mental distress" should not count as a health exception that would permit a late-term abortion, saying "it has to be a serious physical issue," addressing a matter considered crucial to abortion rights activists.

The GOP increasingly has sought to take advantage of any opportunity to permanently pin the flip-flopper label on Obama, with all its unappealing associations, and strip him of the shiny-new-penny one he's cultivated up to now.

"There appears to be no issue that Barack Obama is not willing to reverse himself on for the sake of political expedience," said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the national Republican Party.

It might be working. Despite disarray in Republican John McCain's camp, Bush's dismal approval ratings and just 17 percent of the public saying the nation is moving in the right direction, recent polls show Obama unable to build a solid lead over his GOP rival.

For Obama, there is no more important issue than Iraq.

Unequivocal opposition to the war drove his entrance into the race. It helped him defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton for the nomination. It made him a darling of the anti-war activists who are now prominent and influential in the Democratic Party.

Those forces won't like Thursday's statement-bordering-on-a-promise that "I'll ... continue to refine my policy" on Iraq, particularly after he visits and makes what he said would be a "thorough assessment."

Obama's problem on Iraq isn't that he is changing his position drastically, because he isn't.

Obama has always said his promise to end the war would require consultations with military commanders and, possibly, flexibility. This, in fact, is the only reasonable stance for a U.S. commander in chief to take.

His problem is that his change in emphasis to flexibility from a hard-nosed end-the-war stance — including his recent position that withdrawing combat troops could take as long as 16 months — will now be heard loud and clear by an anti-war camp that may have ignored it before. So he could face a double-whammy in their feelings of betrayal and other voters' belief in the Republican charge that he is craven.

It was Obama's messy series of comments Thursday, coming after weeks in which Republicans had been goading him to change his withdrawal policy in light of reduced violence, that put an unfortunate spotlight on his quandary.

After his remark at a news conference about refining policy exploded onto the political scene, he called a do-over four hours later to "try this again." He said the refining wouldn't be related to his promise to remove combat forces within 16 months of taking office, but to the number of troops needed to train Iraqis and fight al-Qaida. But then he acknowledged that the 16-month timeline could indeed slip if removing troops risked their safety or Iraqi stability.

Still, he said, "I will bring this war to a close. ... I am not searching for maneuvering room with respect to that position."

Obama said his overall problem is that he was incorrectly tagged to begin with as being a product solely of his party's left wing, so that statements displaying a broad ideological range are portrayed as shifts when they are not. "When I simply describe what has been my position consistently, then suddenly people act surprised," he lamented earlier this week.

But his problem may in fact be that he's not handling the shifts quietly enough — and maybe not forgivably either.

The 'mushy middle' hard to reach for Obama, McCain

WASHINGTON (AP) — They're the most fickle voters, and potentially the most powerful. Thus, with party nominations secure, John McCain and Barack Obama now are pushing toward the center to win them over.
Meet "the mushy middle," a complex chunk of people likely to decide the presidential election but difficult to reach and very hard to please.
"Yes, we can!" isn't floating their boat. Nothing much is, from either candidate.
They aren't uniformly conservative or liberal, and they don't fit strict Republican or Democratic orthodoxy. They aren't typically engaged in politics, and they don't much care about the campaign. And like so many others, they are extraordinarily pessimistic.
"To me, it's not about the party, it's about who is the best person for the job," says Pam Robinett, 47, from Wellington, Kan., who always votes. Then again, "they'll all lie, cheat and steal to get what they want."
Talk about a tough sell.
"The country's going to go to hell in a hand basket with this election," seethes James Nauman, 55, from Lutz, Fla. "I don't think Obama's qualified and McCain's another Bush. Neither of them really have impressed me."
Both will try.
A recent AP-Yahoo! News poll finds that 15 percent call themselves moderates and aren't solidly supporting a candidate. More than half of this still-persuadable middle is made up of independents.
"The center always matters," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "It matters more this year. Both candidates were nominated because they appealed to independents and moderates, so how these voters make a choice between Obama and McCain will be even more decisive."
—
For now, at least, the race is competitive and the rivals' bases are mostly intact.
The survey, conducted by Knowledge Networks, found that three in four Republicans and three in four conservatives are backing McCain, while Obama has nearly identical support among Democrats and liberals.
So, both are tacking away from their party's ideological ends to appeal to this unpredictable swath in between.
McCain is moving away from the unpopular President Bush if not from the Republican Party itself. He emphasizes bipartisanship while pressing two issues that resonate strongly with voters of all stripes.
He "stood up to the president and sounded the alarm on global warming" one McCain commercial says. Another promotes a "bipartisan plan to lower prices at the pump, reduce dependence on foreign oil through domestic drilling, and champion energy alternatives."
Obama, for his part, broke from the left by backing new rules for the government's terrorist eavesdropping program, straddling a Supreme Court ruling striking down a gun ban, and objecting to the justices' decision outlawing executions of child rapists. He even quoted conservative hero Ronald Reagan's "trust but verify" line in reacting to North Korea's latest agreement on nuclear weapons.
His leadoff campaign commercial cast him as the embodiment of the center, and pitched family values, patriotism, "welfare to work" and lower taxes. It stressed "love of country" and "working hard without making excuses" — echoes of Bill Clinton.
McCain naturally may be better positioned to capture more of the middle; he came out of the GOP's center to dispatch liberal Rudy Giuliani on his left and conservative Mitt Romney and Christian evangelical Mike Huckabee on his right. Obama emerged from the party's left to topple the more centrist Hillary Rodham Clinton.
However, Obama and McCain both won their nominations with the support of independents, moderates and crossovers from the opposite party.
Some 39 percent of voters called themselves Democratic, 29 percent Republican, and 32 percent independent in the June 13-23 survey, part of an ongoing study tracking opinions of the same group of people over the election cycle. The overall margin of sampling error was plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
That Democratic edge suggests Obama may be less dependent on votes in the middle than McCain.
Still, the likeliest path to the White House cuts through the center of the electorate.
"They're the kingmakers in American politics. They're the people who decide elections," said Matt Bennett, a Democratic operative at the centrist Third Way policy group.
—
Who exactly are these power-wielding voters?
They look much like the general population. They reflect the same frustration with the status quo. A significant majority has a low opinion of Bush and Congress. They have more favorable impressions of Democrats than Republicans. Many are feeling the economic pinch. They want troops to return from Iraq as soon as possible.
Like the broad electorate, they rank gas prices and the economy as their top concerns, followed by health care, Social Security, taxes and education. Terrorism and Iraq are lower.
But there are important differences.
Compared with far-right and far-left voters, this group tends to be more Hispanic, more Catholic than the left and more secular than the right. They are more likely to be married with children and live in far-flung suburbs or rural areas. They also tend to be less educated.
They are not nearly as motivated as those who identify with political parties or ideologies. Fewer are registered to vote.
"These are the most disengaged voters," said Ron Shaiko, a public policy specialist at Dartmouth College. "There's a point at which they're going to engage, and it's not clear who will win when they do."
Nearly half view McCain favorably, while a slightly more than third see Obama positively. Still, the candidates are little-known to a quarter, and many have little enthusiasm for either.
"I like McCain more because I'm concerned about Obama. I question his judgments," says Tony Miller, 39 and a left-leaning moderate from Springfield, Ill. Conversely, Susan Carroll, 43, a moderate Democrat from Garrettsville, Ohio, says Obama's "the better choice" because "I honestly think that McCain is anti-woman."
This voting group's views cross some of the usual lines.
For instance, they overwhelmingly favor abortion rights and legal rights for same-sex couples, typically Democratic and liberal positions. But they also overwhelmingly say cutting taxes should be a high priority, typically a Republican and conservative refrain.
These voters say they are far less interested in cultural issues and far more interested in bread-and-butter subjects like health care and Social Security.
"All are a few points from the ideological center of the country, and they tend to be fiscally conservative and socially tolerant," said Greg Strimple, a Republican pollster in New York.
—
Take Jan Thomas.
"I'm liberal in some areas and I'm conservative in others," says the undecided moderate from Stevensville, Mont., who is 69 and shuns party labels.
Unlike the GOP, she supports abortion rights and declares "to each his own" on gay marriage. Splitting from the Democrats, she objects to "big government," costly entitlement programs that "lead to dependency" and universal health care "that mean higher taxes."
She's unsettled about both candidates.
Obama's "inexperience and his voting record on gun control" bug her; she owns two handguns, a shotgun, and a rifle, and is still "a pretty good shot." She doesn't like McCain's "vacillating" or stances on the environment and comprehensive immigration reform: "I do not believe in global warming," she says. And "we've got to secure our borders."
David Donovan, 31, a GOP-leaning independent from Crystal River, Fla., also is "not exactly thrilled with either of them."
McCain on foreign policy "just doesn't make a lot of sense," but Obama's "abundance of gun control" irks this gun owner, as does the Democrats' education platform. And, he says: "I think taxes suck."
Not that he has time to follow the campaign closely; Donovan travels 150 miles roundtrip to build bridges for 14 hours a day. The commute costs his one-income household $50 in tolls and $220 in fuel each week. He and his wife haven't had health care coverage for two years. She's on disability after seven mild strokes. Her student loan debt is growing.
"There are some days where I'd vote for Mickey Mouse for president," Donovan said. "It's got to be better than this."
—
Associated Press Director of Surveys Trevor Tompson and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report

McCain to tour Colombian drug control efforts

McCain to tour Colombian drug control efforts

CARTAGENA, Colombia - Republican John McCain planned to tour a Colombian port by boat Wednesday to get a firsthand look at the country's drug interdiction programs, a day after he praised President Alvaro Uribe for Colombia's anti-drug efforts but pressed him to improve the government's record on human rights. The Republican presidential hopeful was on a three-day visit to Colombia and Mexico, where the eradication of illegal drugs topped the agenda.

"Drugs is a big, big problem in America. The continued flow of drugs from Colombia through Mexico into the United States is still one of our major challenges for all Americans," McCain told ABC's "Good Morning America" Wednesday in an interview from Cartagena.

McCain was also promoting free trade deals like NAFTA he said would benefit the U.S. economy over time, even though such agreements have been deeply unpopular in several general election swing states like Ohio and Michigan.

McCain acknowledged that the economy is a top concern for many voters, and said he is better prepared to deal with the economy than his Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

"I'm very strong on the economy," McCain said. "I understand it, I have a lot more experience than my opponent."

In December, McCain told reporters: "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should."

The Arizona senator was also meeting with cabinet ministers and business leaders. He was scheduled to depart Wednesday afternoon for Mexico City.

McCain met with Uribe Tuesday night at the Colombian leader's seaside retreat here. The two talked for nearly two hours and addressed the country's problematic human rights record, McCain said.

"I've been a supporter of human rights for my entire life and career," McCain told reporters after the meeting. "We have discussed this issue with President Uribe and will continue to urge progress in that direction. I believe progress is being made and that more progress needs to be made."

McCain is a strong supporter of a proposed free trade agreement between the U.S. and Colombia and was promoting it during his visit. His Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, opposes the Colombian agreement, which has stalled in the House amid concerns about continuing intimidation and violence against labor leaders in the country. Thirty-one trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia so far this year, eight fewer than all of last year, according to the Medellin-based Escuela Nacional Sindical, a labor research institute.

Speaking to reporters, Uribe said he and McCain had discussed Obama and what Uribe described as "positive" comments by the Illinois senator about Colombia. It was unclear what Uribe was referring to.

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said he and Uribe hadn't discussed the presidential campaign but agreed on the importance of bipartisanship in dealing with international matters.

"The only discussion I had concerning the presidential campaign is that I believe any partisanship ends at the water's edge. I won't speak of the presidential campaign," McCain said.

McCain praised Plan Colombia, a program the U.S. government launched 10 years ago to reduce cocaine production in the country. Because of Plan Colombia and other efforts, the price of an ounce of cocaine on U.S. streets had risen substantially, McCain said.

The Arizona senator flew south after a campaign swing through Indiana and Pennsylvania, accompanied by his wife, Cindy, and two colleagues and top supporters of his presidential effort, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut.

McCain is a strong supporter of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which has been blamed for draining manufacturing jobs away from industrial states like Ohio and Michigan. Obama has vowed to renegotiate NAFTA if elected to include enforceable labor and environmental provisions.

McCain has acknowledged his support for NAFTA is a hard sell in industrial states reeling from the loss of jobs. But he insisted the voters there know the U.S. economy is changing and that retraining for the new economy will be beneficial to the country and to their families over time.

"I'm confident that the American people — a majority of them understand we are in a period of transition," McCain said. "And meaningful re-education and training programs will give our workers another opportunity to be part of the information revolution we're in today."

In Mexico, McCain also planned to address illegal immigration — an emotional issue both for Hispanic voters and many conservatives.

He batted away questions about whether the trip was designed to curry favor with Hispanic voters, an increasingly influential voting bloc in some states.

"I try to reach out to all voters," he said. "I try to reach out to mothers whose children have succumbed to addiction to this terrible drug. I am reaching out to all Americans who believe our relationships in this hemisphere are important."

Grasso case "over" as court dismisses claims

Grasso case "over" as court dismisses claims

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former New York Stock Exchange chief Richard Grasso won a knockout victory on Tuesday in his four-year fight to keep every last penny of his $187.5 million pay package, as an appeals court threw out the state's remaining claims against him. The ruling, Grasso's second court victory in the past week, prompted New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to throw in the towel.

The New York Supreme Court's appellate division, in a 3-1 vote, dismissed two legal claims against Grasso brought by former Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2004.

The ruling follows a decision last week by the New York Court of Appeals, New York State's highest court, that dismissed other parts of the suit.

The appellate division said claims seeking the return of more than $100 million of Grasso's pay -- a case brought under state law governing not-for-profit companies -- could not be pursued because the exchange is now a publicly traded, for- profit company called NYSE Euronext.

"We conclude that the attorney general's authority to prosecute the causes of action seeking that relief lapsed with the merger," the court said in its 99-page written ruling that also threw out a lone claim against Kenneth Langone, a former NYSE director and head of its compensation committee.

Cuomo declined to comment on the ruling, but spokesman Alex Detrick said: "We have reviewed the court's opinion and determined that an appeal would not be warranted. Thus, for all intents and purposes, the Grasso case is over."

NYSE Euronext spokesman Rich Adamonis said the ruling "recognizes the substantial and significant changes the NYSE has undergone since the case was brought."

LONG BATTLE

Spitzer had become a political star in large part for his crusading prosecution of powerful Wall Street figures. He won election as governor by a landslide in 2007, but resigned in March after being caught up in a prostitution scandal.

The then attorney general sued Grasso in 2004 amid an uproar over the size of his pay package. Grasso, who ran the exchange for eight years and resigned in 2003, contended he did nothing wrong and never misled an NYSE board packed with some of Wall Street's most powerful executives.

A spokeswoman said Spitzer was traveling in Southeast Asia and was not available to comment.

For Grasso, the rulings mark the end of a legal nightmare.

Grasso "is gratified by the ruling of the Appellate Division. His devotion to the stock exchange never wavered, and neither did his faith that he would be vindicated by the courts," his lawyer said in a statement.

The New York Supreme Court decision also threw out a claim against Langone, a co-founder of Home Depot Inc. A New York State appeals court in April had denied his bid to dismiss the lawsuit, which charged him with breaching his fiduciary duty at the NYSE in connection with Grasso's pay package.

Langone was not available for comment.

Cuomo, who continued to press Spitzer's suit when he took over the office, argued Grasso's pay was unreasonable and that recouping the money was in the public's interest.

But the appeals court ruled that, because the attorney general was only seeking the return of money and because the money would now benefit a for-profit corporation, a ruling against Grasso no longer served the public interest.

"The motions to dismiss these causes on the ground that the Attorney General no longer has authority to maintain them should have been granted," the ruling said.

The sole dissenting judge, Angela Mazzarelli, argued that because the NYSE still has a not-for-profit subsidiary, the attorney general does have the power to enforce the not-for- profit corporation law.

(Additional reporting by Joseph A. Giannone and Phil Wahba)

(Editing by Andre Grenon, Phil Berlowitz, Gary Hill)