US 'takes seriously' reports of China human rights clampdown

United States is taking seriously reports that Chinese activists were subjected to a clampdown ahead of US-China talks this week on a range of human rights issues, a spokesman said Tuesday. "We take these reports seriously. And we're going to look into them," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. McCormack was responding to reporters' questions about information from the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), relayed to Washington through the US-based AIDS victim group Critical Path. CHRD reportedly said that Chinese authorities placed numerous activists under increased surveillance ahead of talks in Beijing this week between US and Chinese officials, the first such dialogue on human rights since 2002. Among the cases cited by Chinese activists was Zeng Jinyan, who is a blogger, activist and wife of jailed dissident Hu Jia. She reportedly was visited on Friday and Saturday by authorities who barred her from leaving the house. "They told her that she would not be allowed to leave her home and that they would watch her even more closely because 'a US delegation wants to meet you,'" CHRD said. Hu Jia, 34, is an AIDS activist and advocate of the environment and free speech. He was sentenced in April to three and a half years in prison for publishing online articles that were critical of the government and giving interviews to members of the foreign media...CNA

Huge Flying Reptiles Ate Dinosaurs

With a name like T. rex, you'd expect to be safe from even the fiercest paleo-bullies. Turns out, ancient, flying reptiles could have snacked on Tyrannosaurus Rex babies and other landlubbing runts of the dinosaur world. ADVERTISEMENT A new study reveals a group of flying reptiles that lived during the Age of Dinosaurs some 230 million to 65 million years ago did not catch prey in flight, but rather stalked them on land. Until now, paleontologists pictured the so-called "winged lizards" or pterosaurs as skim-feeders. In this vision, the creatures would have flown over lakes and oceans grabbing fish from the water's surface, much as gulls do today. The new findings, detailed this week online in the journal PLoS ONE, don't ground the animals totally. "In our hypothesis, flight is primarily a locomotive method," said co-researcher Mark Witton of the University of Portsmouth in England. "They're just using it to get from point A to point B. We think the majority of their lives, when they're feeding and reproducing, that's all being done on the ground rather than in the air." To uncover these feeding habits, Witton and Portsmouth colleague Darren Naish analyzed fossils of a group of toothless pterosaurs called azhdarchids, which are much larger on average than other pterosaurs. For example, one of the largest azhdarchids, Quetzalcoatlus, weighed about 550 pounds (250 kilograms) with a wingspan of more than 30 feet (10 meters) and a height comparable to a giraffe. Witton and Naish learned that more than 50 percent of the azhdarchid fossils had been found inland. Other skeletal features, including long hind limbs and a stiff neck, also didn't fit with a mud-prober or skim-feeder...LiveScience

Understanding liquidity is key

The current financial crisis has revolved around the drying up of markets that had been built on the presumption of ample liquidity. ADVERTISEMENT Massive leveraged positions were built up in instruments which, in spite of their triple A credit ratings, suffered from significant systemic liquidity risk and were difficult to value in the best of times. Current regulatory solutions focus on the liquidity position of institutions. But if liquidity positions are to be properly evaluated there needs to be better evaluation of the liquidity of instruments and how they change over time. Does this mean that we need a formalised liquidity rating system along the lines of the existing less than satisfactory credit rating system? Perhaps not, but we do need to better understand the drivers of liquidity and it's pricing. Investor mandates need to include liquidity factors and independent and bank research departments need to rate instruments. Liquidity risk is a difficult concept to grasp and is often confused with credit risk. One simple way of distinguishing the two is as follows. Credit risk is the probability that a counterparty will be unable to repay money due. Liquidity risk relates to a lender's future requirements to generate cash to meet its own obligations. A liquidity crisis, where lenders sell securities to meet their own cash requirements, will almost inevitably lead to a credit crisis as investors sell bonds because they are worried about the issuers' ability to repay. Similarly a credit crisis will lead to a liquidity crisis, but the causality differs. During the crisis, some central banks have moved quickly to expand the range of instruments against which they lend money. It seems probable that central banks will continue to lend against non-government collateral in the future, as the ECB has done in the past. Varying eligibility criteria and haircuts (the percentage of a security they will advance) would give central banks an enhanced range of instruments to manage market liquidity. The Institute of International Finance has proposed to explore alternative valuation techniques for assets in illiquid markets when market prices are clearly not reflective of fair, willing seller/ willing buyer, valuations - in other words where liquidity dries up. A liquidity rating could provide an objective measure of this as well as helping to determine, in the first place, whether instruments should be held in the banking book or the trading book. The following are some of the factors that contribute to the liquidity of an instrument: central bank repo eligibility and haircuts; issue size; time since issuance; market maker support; price volatility; complexity of structure; availability of comparable benchmarks; and breadth of the investor community. There are many more factors, and these vary in their influence over time. Some research has been carried out into this but not comprehensively and not consistently. Despite its complexity, it is important to evaluate how liquidity is likely to respond to conditions of systemic stress. An understanding of liquidity drivers will also encourage virtuous behaviour by issuers, dealers and investors. Issuers will resist dealer pressure to create small, complex, idiosyncratic structures unless there is a clear investor benefit. Issuers will be more likely to reward dealers who maintain liquidity and transparency in their issues as this will have an impact on their issuance costs. Geared institutions and those who lend to them will be able to make better informed decisions about the liquidity of instruments held. This will also assist regulators in their prudential supervision of insurance companies, banks and bank lending to hedge funds. Above all a greater focus on liquidity of instruments will help to avoid a build-up of aggregate market positions in highly illiquid instruments by geared institutions at times of easy market liquidity. The writer is former head of funding at the European Investment Bank and a consultant to the International Capital Markets Association. He is writing in a personal capacity...FT

US economy in need of urgent action

In March last year I warned in this newspaper that the global "Goldilocks" economy and markets would face a material correction within the next 12 months and there was a need to exercise greater prudence in lending and investing. ADVERTISEMENT This warning was ignored by most in the private and public sectors. Unfortunately, much of what I feared would happen has materialised. From the twin origins of the subprime fallout and the dislocation of the mortgage-backed securities markets, there has been a crisis of confidence that has already led the US economy into a period of low growth, or even a recession. Add to this mix a weak dollar and the trend of rising inflation across the world driven by high food, energy and commodity prices and it is clear the future is still fraught with risk and uncertainty. With decoupling probably a myth, there will most likely be a worldwide economic slowdown should the US downturn be a protracted one. While there are signs that the credit markets may be bottoming out, it seems likely that the housing market will remain in its downward spiral for the remainder of the year. The impact on the real economy could be even more serious should the US consumer decide to cut back significantly on spending. The question then becomes: what should be done to ameliorate the current slowdown before it becomes a full-blown economic crisis with potential worldwide consequences? Specifically, I would like to mention three areas where immediate action should be taken in order to restore confidence in the markets. First, I would encourage the Federal Reserve to continue showing flexibility in providing liquidity to the financial markets. The Fed has modified the requirements of its Term Auction and Securities Lending Facilities several times in the past few months to help ease the liquidity needs in the market. Its efforts surrounding the Bear Stearns situation, where the discount window was opened to investment banks and brokerage houses, were critical to maintaining stability in the system. The Fed needs to continue to respond proactively to developments and consider further modifications to its facilities as necessary. All of this should be done in co-ordination with the world's leading central banks. Second, the government and regulatory authorities need to make greater efforts to support the mortgage markets. Recently, there have been many new ideas and initiatives coming out from the US Congress, economists and the financial community. These include the Senate's recent passing of a bipartisan package of tax breaks, credits and grants as well as Congressman Barney Frank's and Senator Christopher Dodd's plans to let the Federal Housing Administration insure refinanced mortgages after lenders reduce principal to struggling homeowners. Any solution will require some government or federal funding and must be dealt with as an immediate priority to halt the downward spiral in US property prices. Last, professionals in the financial industry and regulators need to re-examine the weaknesses that have surfaced in the current turmoil. Recently, the Institute of International Finance (IIF) released a report that made some recommendations to improve market practices. One of the important issues that the institute is looking at carefully is that of fair value/mark-to-market accounting, which has proven valuable in promoting transparency and market discipline over the past 10 years. However, we have seen that in certain extreme conditions with very limited liquidity for various securities, this accounting approach may have an unintended consequence of prolonging liquidity difficulties and exacerbating the current crisis. Paul Volcker, in his recent speech at the New York Economic Club, raised questions about the usefulness of mark-to-market accounting, particularly its extension in uncertain and illiquid markets. The IIF has made specific recommendations on how this approach might be refined to take into account extreme market conditions. These recommendations need to be worked on in a timely fashion in conjunction with the regulators and international accounting bodies. The action steps I have recommended above need to be considered proactively and with a sense of urgency. If implemented, they should help in restoring the US economy to an even keel and limit the global impact of the current correction. While the picture ahead is still unclear, what is needed is the courage to make tough decisions and to implement corrective measures expeditiously. The writer is senior vice-chairman of Citi, and chairman of Citibank... FT

Space station crew to NASA: Send plumber soon

The international space station's lone toilet is broken, leaving the crew with almost nowhere to go. So NASA may order an in-orbit plumbing service call when space shuttle Discovery visits next week. Until then, the three-man crew will have to make do with a jury-rigged system when they need to urinate. While one of the crew was using the Russian-made toilet last week, the toilet motor fan stopped working, according to NASA. Since then, the liquid waste gathering part of the toilet has been working on-and-off. Fortunately, the solid waste collecting part is functioning normally. Russian officials don't know the cause of the problem and the crew has been unable to fix it. The crew has used the toilet on the Soyuz return capsule, but it has a limited capacity. They are now are using a back-up bag-like collection system that can be connected to the broken toilet, according to NASA public affairs officials. "Like any home anywhere the importance of having a working bathroom is obvious," NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said. The 7-year-old toilet has broken once before but not for as long a time, said Johnson Space Center spokeswoman Nicole Cloutier in Houston. Discovery is already set for launch Saturday with a planned docking with the space station on Monday. Cloutier said NASA officials are considering having some parts flown to Cape Canaveral and placed in the shuttle during its countdown, an unusual and delicate situation. Because the shuttle's payload weight is limited and balance carefully calculated, it will be tricky to try to figure out where the parts can go, said Kennedy Space Center spokesman Bill Johnson Discovery's main payload, a 32,000-pound Japanese laboratory addition, is so big that the shuttle's boom sensor system had to be removed to make room for the lab...AP

404 for Microsoft's latest decision

In the middle of a gritty search war, did Microsoft's Steve Ballmer just commit the mother of all mistakes? I've been wondering about that ever since Microsoft said it would close its Search Books and Live Search Academic projects, thus ceding the field of book digitization to Google. (While both Live Search Books and Live Search Academic are going dark, both Google's Book Search and Google Scholar continue to operate.) Satya Nadella, who runs Microsoft's Search, Portal and Advertising Platform Group wrote in a blog post that "given the evolution of the Web and our strategy, we believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer, and content partner." I tried getting through to Nadella on Tuesday for a better explanation, but Microsoft pulled up the drawbridge. Left on my own to speculate, it appears that Microsoft was being penny-wise but pound foolish. (After all, the company was ready to buy nearly $45 billion worth of trouble integrating Yahoo.) Memo to Nadella: When you get sick of hunkering in the bunker, let's talk. Reading through Nadella's blog post, this much is clear: Microsoft wants to put its search marbles into programs like Cashback (the new Microsoft service that rebates people to buy products online) where there's better potential for a material payback...CNET

New Climate Report Foresees Big Changes

The rise in concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from human activities is influencing climate patterns and vegetation across the United States and will significantly disrupt water supplies, agriculture, forestry and ecosystems for decades, a new federal report says.The changes are unfolding in ways that are likely to produce an uneven national map of harms and benefits, according to the report, released Tuesday and posted online at climatescience.gov. The authors of the report and some independent experts said the main value of its projections was the level of detail and the high confidence in some conclusions. That confidence comes in part from the report’s emphasis on the next 25 to 50 years, when shifts in emissions are unlikely to make much of a difference in climate trends...NYT

Microsoft demos future Windows with touch-screen

Steve Ballmer unveiled the iPhone-like touch-screen feature at The Wall Street Journal's "D: All Things Digital" conference, calling it "just the smallest snippet" of the Windows 7 operating system slated for release in late 2009. A Microsoft employee showed possible applications like enlarging and shrinking photos and navigating a map of San Diego by stroking the screen. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates framed the new feature as an evolution away from the mouse. "Today almost all the interaction is keyboard-mouse," Gates said. "Over years to come, the role of speech, vision, ink — all of those — will be huge." Microsoft's top two executives defended the company's last operating system, Vista, while acknowledging missteps. Gates said he has never been 100 percent satisfied with any Microsoft product, and that the company prides itself on fixing shortcomings in later versions...AP

Newly relaunched Borders.com may be too little, too late

Borders—the book and music store—has two types of customers: brick-and-mortar shoppers, and Amazon customers. The latter is because, seven years ago, the company decided to practically merge its online store with Amazon.com because it was doing nothing but bleeding money. Borders seems to have changed its mind, however, and has relaunched its own, independent online store this week. No longer is Borders.com just another portal to Amazon—it now operates once again as one of Amazon's competitors. Related StoriesCan Borders' new "concept store" compete with online retailers? The point, apparently, is to offer a friendly online shopping experience for those customers who are used to buying from Borders' brick-and-mortar stores. Borders believes that experience differs from the one offered by Amazon, and that it can somehow take advantage of this unique niche without necessarily competing directly with its former partner. "It's not the intent that we're going to out-Amazon Amazon at what they do," Borders CEO George Jones said earlier this year, according to the Associated Press. "What we think is that we can still have a great, compelling offering." A quick run through of the site shows that it is, indeed, a web site that sells books...Ars Technica

U.S. says no new evidence of al Qaeda threat

There is no evidence of a direct threat from al Qaeda or that the group has obtained weapons of mass destruction, U.S. intelligence officials said on Tuesday, despite reports that al Qaeda will release a new video urging jihadists to use such weapons to attack the West. FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the bureau sent out an alert to U.S. law enforcement agencies about the expected video. "We got information the tape is coming," he said. "We sent out an alert to law enforcement to let them know the tape was coming." Kolko said the alert was a routine precaution sent to 1,800 U.S. law enforcement agencies. ABC News reported on Tuesday evening that the video was expected in the next 24 hours. However, IntelCenter, a U.S.-based terrorism monitoring firm, said the video being referred to was actually released at least as early as Monday and is entitled "Nuclear Jihad, The Ultimate Terror."IntelCenter described it as "a jihadi supporter video compilation" and said that it was not from an official group. "These videos almost always are comprised of old video footage that is edited together to make a new video," IntelCenter said. "The material in these types of videos do not qualify as an official message from al-Qaeda or any other group." A U.S. intelligence official said on Tuesday evening that there is no sign that al Qaeda has acquired the capability to use weapons of mass destruction...IHT

Energy drinks linked to risky behavior among teenagers

Super-caffeinated energy drinks, with names like Red Bull, Monster, Full Throttle and Amp, have surged in popularity in the past decade. About a third of 12- to 24-year-olds say they regularly down energy drinks, which account for more than $3 billion in annual sales in the United States. The trend has been the source of growing concern among health researchers and school officials. Around the country, the drinks have been linked with reports of nausea, abnormal heart rhythms and emergency room visits. In Colorado Springs, several high school students last year became ill after drinking Spike Shooter, a high caffeine drink, prompting the principal to ban the beverages. In March, four middle school students in Broward County, Florida, went to the emergency room with heart palpitations and sweating after drinking the energy beverage Redline. In Tigard, Oregon, teachers this month sent parents e-mail alerting them that students who brought energy drinks to school were "literally drunk on a caffeine buzz or falling off a caffeine crash." New research suggests the drinks are associated with a health issue far more worrisome than the jittery effects of caffeine — risk taking...IHT

Sharon Stone blames China's earthquake on karma

Sharon Stone has suggested that the Chinese earthquake which claimed tens of thousands of lives may be "karma". The Basic Instinct star believes the disaster may be payback for China's policy towards the Tibetans. She made her comments during a red carpet interview in Cannes last week, a video of which has just surfaced on YouTube. Asked if she had heard about the situation in China, Stone replied: "Of course. You know, it was very interesting because at first I am not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans, because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else, and so I have been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don't like that. "Then I have been concerned about, oh, how shall we deal with the Olympics? Because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine. "And then this earthquake and all this stuff happened and I thought, 'Is that karma, when you're not nice that the bad things happen to you?'" Stone, 50, said her attitude softened after she received a letter from a Tibetan charity which planned to launch a relief programme for victims of the earthquake. "They wanted to go and be helpful, and that made me cry," she said. "It was a big lesson to me that sometimes you have to learn to put your head down and be of service even to people who aren't nice to you." Outraged Chinese citizens have already begun posting their responses on YouTube and calling for Stone to apologise...Telegraph

Murky measures in Myanmar's disaster

Over three weeks since Cyclone Nargis crashed through Myanmar's populous Irrawaddy Delta, the country's military regime has been more forthcoming about the number of buffaloes and chickens that perished than on human casualty and missing counts. The official human toll in Myanmar, or Burma, now stands at 77,738 deaths and 55,917 missing. This figure was revealed in a small story that appeared at the bottom of page six in a May 17 of the New Light of Myanmar, a mouthpiece of the regime. That figure was almost double of what the notoriously secretive junta had revealed nearly 10 days after the powerful cyclone struck in the early hours of May 3. Since the country's worst natural disaster in living memory, the official figures of dead and missing people have been revised at least four times. Some international humanitarian agencies have estimated the death toll to be over 130,000. Yet even that number may be much lower than what a few civilian organizations working closely with the junta estimate, according to information revealed to Inter Press Service (IPS). By the end of the first week, information gathered by the junta and discussed among a small group of senior military officers in the former capital Yangon had put the death toll as high as 300,000, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. "They were shocked by the scale of the disaster and that is why they clamped down on information getting out and outsiders, like foreign aid workers, going into the delta," he added. This revelation was made a few days before another assessment... Asia Times Online

Singapore's Unloved Chinese Labor Boom

05.08.08, 10:29 AM ET Low-skilled workers from China are ubiquitous in Singapore these days: in the shiny new terminal of Changi Airport, in coffee shops, in shopping malls, in supermarkets, at gas stations, at construction sites and populating the much-loved open-air food courts called hawker centers. They also make their presence felt in five-star hotels, where one recent encounter found a Mandarin-speaking maid who could not comprehend a word of English. Most recently, Singapore's two bus companies began hiring drivers from China. Chinese workers are just one constituency in Singapore's fast-growing foreign population, but they are the largest component of an expatriate contingent that crossed the 1 million mark in October, helping boost the overall population to 4.68 million in an otherwise chronically aging society. Foreigners make up about one-third of the national workforce. The country set a goal to raise its population total to 6.5 million within two decades, rejuvenating itself mainly through immigration from India and China. But the sudden influx of workers from China appears to have taken ordinary Singaporeans by surprise, as the low-skilled and the elderly start to find themselves losing jobs to the newcomers. The tidal wave of mainland Chinese workers began last year, when Singapore relaxed its rules to allow more immigration to staff its service industries, part of its measures to address an acute labor shortage resulting from a boom in the construction, marine, manufacturing and services sectors. Beginning this year, Singaporean companies were allowed to draw on foreigners for up to 50% of their labor force; 10% can be Chinese nationals. Previously, the respective figures were 45% and 5%. The government last year reckoned 450,000 jobs will be created in the next five years; the country's annual birth rate is only 30,000. As Chinese workers with distinct and varied provincial accents proliferate, so do natives' complaints about their loudness and lack of mastery of English. Their popularity with the city-state's employers, who like their work ethic and low wage expectations, further fuels resentment. They threaten the job security of Singapore's most unskilled, the low-wage workers who earn less than 1,200 Singapore dollars ($872.73) a month, numbering about 350,000. "There are so many of them everywhere, the mainland Chinese," a taxi driver lamented. "They take away our jobs and force poor people to go unemployed." This month, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong tried to place the issue in context, arguing that the majority of Singaporeans have benefited from rising household incomes, a boon stemming from the country's historically low unemployment rate. This follows four consecutive years of strong economic growth. But labor activists view things differently. The Workers' Party pointed out that Singaporeans are being left behind by the recent boom: more than 60% of the record 236,600 new jobs created last year went to foreigners. Forbes

Singapore's Top Terrorist Gone In 11 Minutes Flat

Updated: 12:27 PM ET May 17, 2008 Singapore's top terrorist slips out of jail—revealing worrying cracks in this ultracompetent nanny state. A visitor to Singapore's Ministry of Home Affairs these days isn't greeted by portraits of the senior leaders or the country's founder, Lee Kuan Yew. Instead, one finds, taped to the wall, a black-and-white image of a nondescript middle-aged Malay man. His name is Mas Selamat Kastari. And though his face is unremarkable, his reputation is not: the 47-year-old is the reputed head of the Singapore cell of Jemaah Islamiah, a notorious Southeast Asian terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda. And his image has lately become ubiquitous in this city-state. That's because, in late February, Mas Selamat broke out of a detention facility and became Singapore's most-wanted man. Citizens here are raised to put their faith in a state thought ultracompetent. Singapore's government has earned this reputation by achieving decades of economic growth and prosperity that would be the envy of almost any country, let alone one this small (Singapore's population is just 4.6 million). But for the past three months, since Mas Selamat's escape, authorities have been scrambling to regain that trust. Police and military units are scouring the city-state, and locals have been told to stay on high alert for a fugitive authorities think unarmed but very dangerous. The government is warning people of the dangers of complacency and arguing that all the jailbreak revealed is that even an effective government occasionally slips. "It's a blessing," says Zainal Abidin Rasheed, senior minister at the Foreign Ministry. "We need to remind ourselves we are not infallible." Yet as Singapore's alleged No. 1 terrorist remains on the lam, the people's confidence in their government's omnipotence is starting to falter. Indeed, the details surrounding Mas Selamat's jailbreak hardly inspire confidence. During a trip to the bathroom on Feb. 27, the JI leader managed to climb through a prison window—which, incredibly, had no bars—and is believed to have then shimmied down a water pipe and broken his fall on seven rolls of toilet paper. It was then just 20 meters to a fence that could be easily scaled. At the time, the facility's security cameras were not operational. When guards started to wonder why Mas Selamat was taking so long in the toilet, rather than act immediately, they went to their superiors for permission to open the bathroom stall door. By the time they got it open, Mas Selamat was gone, having escaped in less than 11 minutes. Singapore's Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng admits the string of lapses and errors were "silly and incredible." As much as the government is trying to spin the prison break as a cautionary tale, the episode is revealing shortcomings in Singapore's nanny state. "[The escape] shows some of the strengths of Singapore and some of the weaknesses," says a Western diplomat, who did not want to give his name because of the nature of his work. Singapore does an excellent job mobilizing its resources and directing them at recognized problems. But there are few external or independent checks on the system—and this lack of scrutiny, combined with the government's generally successful record, has produced serious blind spots. Past circumstances have made it "easy to become smug," says the Western diplomat. But this smugness has now proved dangerous. In this case, security at the detention facility had been designed to prevent raids intended to break out inmates. Several weeks ago, the Home Affairs minister admitted of the authorities that had "never in their imagination thought that anybody would attempt to escape." Since Mas Selamat got out, moreover, the government's actions have done little to bolster public confidence. Despite the fact that the first hours of any manhunt are the most critical, the authorities took five days to tell the public what the terrorist was wearing at the time of his escape. And only a few days after that did they bother to inform citizens that the fugitive also limps on his left leg. The government's hesitation may reveal the fact that Singapore's leaders, like any semiauthoritarian regime, are uneasy with the thought of the people taking too active an interest in security matters. The government has worked hard to make sure citizens "see Singapore's place [in the world] as being very precarious," says the diplomat. "It is a very useful political tool" that the government has used to persuade the public to leave things to the experts. But for such a deal to work, the state has to get things right every time. All is well so long as the system keeps working. But when it doesn't, as Singapore just discovered, the country's most dangerous criminal ends up walking out the door. Newsweek

Sceptics question Microsoft move

Open source advocates have questioned Microsoft's commitment to using open document standards in the future. The computer giant has said it will implement use of the Open Document Format (ODF), "sometime next year". The Free Software Foundation Europe said: "It's a step in the right direction but we are sceptical about how open Microsoft will be." The European Commission, which has fined Microsoft for monopolistic practice, welcomed the move. "The Commission would welcome any step that Microsoft took towards genuine interoperability, more consumer choice and less vendor lock-in," it said. The Commission added that it would look into whether Microsoft's announcement "leads to better interoperability and allows consumers to process and exchange their documents with the software product of their choice". Governments will be looking for actual results, not promises in press releases Marino Marcich, ODF Alliance Open source software advocates have long criticised the file formats used by Microsoft's Office suite of programs because they are not genuinely interoperable with software from third parties. Microsoft has said it will add support for ODF when it updates Office 2007 next year. Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, said he remained dubious about "how deep" Microsoft's adoption of the standard would go... BBC

China earthquake toll jumps again

The death toll from the massive earthquake in south-west China rose again, as an official said more than five million buildings had collapsed. The vice-governor of Sichuan province said 55,239 people were now known to have died in the 12 May quake. Li Chengyun appealed for more tents and set a three-year goal to rebuild towns and infrastructure in the region. Meanwhile, concern is growing over a number of new lakes formed by the force of the earthquake. Thirty-four lakes were created in the province when landslides blocked rivers, Xinhua news agency said. Eight held more than 3 million cubic metres of water and one lake, less than 3km ( two miles) from Beichuan town, had doubled in size in four days. Officials are monitoring the lakes and have sent experts to assess them, the agency said. Forecasters predict heavy rain in the region next week, which could further raise the water levels in the lakes... BBC

Too Fat? First, Get off the Couch

There's been a lot of debate over the past several years about whether you can be both fit and fat. That is, can you be overweight but as healthy as a lean person if you exercise regularly? A study released today in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that at least as far as heart disease in women goes, body weight and exercise are both important variables. The discussion is complicated by the fact that the body mass index, the number researchers typically use to gauge overweight and obesity, is not always a perfect measure of body fatness. On one hand, because it simply relates weight to height, it may put musclebound but lean athletes into the "overweight" category. (Here's a study looking at its use in college athletes and nonathletes.) And as I wrote earlier this month, a low BMI may give some thin people a false sense of security, even though their percentage of body fat is high. Studies looking at the relationship between health and exercise and body weight are often confusing. One, published in December in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that among people 60 and older, fitness was the better predictor of longevity than BMI. And the study released today says that yes, exercise absolutely makes a difference in the risk of heart disease among the overweight and obese. But so does weight. Compared with women of normal weight (a BMI less than 25) who were active (or burned off at least 1,000 calories a week), inactive overweight women had an 88 percent higher chance of developing heart disease; active overweight women had a 54 percent higher risk. In women who were obese, the active group had an 87 percent higher chance of getting the disease, while the inactive obese women were at highest risk: Their odds of getting heart disease were more than 2½ times as high as those for the lean active women. The lean women, even the inactive ones, still had far lower odds of later developing heart disease than the overweight women, including those who were exercising. "The physical activity did make a significant difference and reduced the risk of heart disease. But according to our study, to fully reverse the risk of heart disease from being overweight or obese, you'd also have to lose weight," says Amy Weinstein, an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an author of the study... US News

Exercise-heart study casts doubt on 'fit but fat' theory

New research challenges the notion that you can be fat and fit, finding that being active can lower but not eliminate heart risks faced by heavy women. "It doesn't take away the risk entirely. Weight still matters," said Dr. Martha Gulati, a heart specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Previous research has gone back and forth on whether exercise or weight has a greater influence on heart disease risks. The new study involving nearly 39,000 women helps sort out the combined effects of physical activity and body mass on women's chances of developing heart disease, said Gulati, who wasn't involved in the research. The study by Harvard-affiliated researchers appears in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine. Participants were women aged 54 on average who filled out a questionnaire at the study's start detailing their height, weight and amount of weekly physical activity in the past year, including walking, jogging, bicycling and swimming. They were then tracked for about 11 years. Overall 948 women developed heart disease. Women were considered active if they followed government-recommended guidelines and got at least 30 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week, including brisk walking or jogging. Women who got less exercise than that were considered inactive. Weight was evaluated by body mass index: A BMI between 25 and 29 is considered overweight, while obese is 30 and higher... AP

Surprising things that give you headaches

You've been staring at the computer for hours. You've worked late all week and have in-laws coming this weekend. You have a raging case of PMS. Eyestrain, stress, and hormonal shifts are fairly common causes of headaches, which afflict 45 million Americans (most of them women). But sometimes the usual suspects don't explain that pain in your head. That's because some triggers are just plain weird -- like perfume, storms, earrings -- or even orgasms. Here's how to identify the source of your headache so you can send it packing.

Perfume "Strong scents bother me instantly," says Bethany Hegedus, 35, a writer and receptionist from Brooklyn, New York. She can get a headache from a whiff of Lovely by Sarah Jessica Parker or a stroll past a Yankee Candle. Her sense of smell is so acute that she can sniff out whether a co-worker has changed laundry detergents or hand lotions, a degree of sensitivity common among scent-driven headache sufferers. The headaches can be fleeting if exposure is brief -- or they can last all day... CNN