Britney’s new man: Bodyguard to boyfriend

Snapshots from Britney Spears’ vacation in Los Cabos, Mexico, show the pop star frolicking in the pool and having a good time on the dance floor with someone other than her ever-present conservator-dad, Jamie. According to The Sun, the new main man in Britney’s life is a bodyguard-turned-boyfriend named Lee.
An insider revealed that the former Israeli soldier started working for Britney six months ago, and it wasn’t long before the couple made a love connection. “Britney and Lee hit it off immediately,” the source told the paper. “They’ve spent so much time together that one thing led to another and their relationship became physical.” Boyfriend or not, Lee’s still on the payroll. According to the insider, he only assumes his new role on his days off.

Anthrax 'suspect' is found dead

A top US scientist suspected of anthrax attacks in 2001 has died from an apparent suicide just as he was about to be charged, a newspaper reported.

The Los Angeles Times says government scientist Bruce Ivins was found dead after an overdose of painkillers.The paper said that he had recently been told of the impending prosecution. Five people died when anthrax was posted to media organisations and politicians in the US shortly after the 11 September attacks in 2001. Mr Ivins, 62, had helped the FBI investigate anthrax-tainted envelopes as a icrobiologist for a government laboratory.The newspaper said Mr Ivins had worked at the government biodefense research laboratories in Fort Detrick, Maryland, for the past 18 years. Security measures in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks crippled the US mail service and temporarily closed a Senate building.As well as the five deaths, more than 20 other people were made ill.
In June 2008, the US justice department agreed a multimillion-dollar settlement with another scientist at the Fort Detrick laboratory it had said was a "person of interest" in the anthrax attacks.Dr Steven Hatfill sued the department saying it had violated his privacy rights by speaking to reporters about the case. He has denied any involvement in the attacks.

Fear after Bissau death threats

Guinea-Bissau's justice minister has said she has received death threats over the arrest of five people suspected of drugs trafficking.Carmelita Pires said she was scared but the government would not be intimidated and would continue investigations.
Her comments came two days after Guinea-Bissau's attorney general also said he had received death threats.The arrests were made after at least one plane thought to have arrived from South America was seized last month.uthorities arrested three Venezuelans as well as the head of air traffic control at the airport and his deputy.Antonio Mazzitelli, West Africa director of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, said no drugs had been found on the plane - despite reports that hundreds of kilos of cocaine had been seized.Drug-sniffing dogs had indicated the plane was carrying cocaine, but authorities had to wait five days before seizing it.

Eclipse delights crowds in Siberia, China

Blacked-out sun witnessed in far-flung regions ... and on the InternetThe moon's shadow swept across the planet from Canada to China on Friday, delighting skywatchers who flocked to remote regions to see a total eclipse of the sun. The stellar spectacle — which arises when the moon passes directly between the sun and Earth — began in northern Canada, tracked across Greenland and the Arctic, then moved through Russia and Mongolia.The celestial display ended in China, where some saw it as a dark omen ahead of next week's start of the Olympic Games in Beijing.In Novosibirsk, one of the largest cities in the path of totality, thousands of people mixed awe with excitement as day turned into night. All gazed in wonder as an eerie silence descended on the Siberian city, and gushes of unusually strong wind tore through the crowd of skywatchers. Birds stopped chirping and the temperature suddenly dropped.It's very dramatic when the darkness suddenly comes. That's why thousands of tourists go to see.

No hope of saving beached whale

A 26ft (8m) whale that beached on a mudflat off the south coast of England has suffered kidney failure and faces being put down, rescuers said.
The Northern Bottlenose whale became trapped in Langstone Harbour, off Hampshire, on Thursday and beached overnight during low tide. Rescuers freed it from mudflats using a special lifting pontoon but it has remained in shallow water.When the whale beaches again at low tide, it will be put down, experts say.Experts from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) said however that even if it made it back out to sea there was no chance of it surviving, because of the renal failure, which was confirmed through blood tests.The tide has begun to go back out and at some point later, the animal would be brought in and given a lethal injection.An operation to try to save the whale began on Thursday but was called off when it became dark. The whale later became beached on a mudflat at 2330 BST.

Bush warns Iraq gains reversible

President Bush has said the drop in violence in Iraq is a sign of the "durability" of progress but warned that gains made could be reversed.

Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has again appealed to the Iraqi government not to sign a new security deal with the US.The deal Mr Bush told reporters outside the Oval Office that violence in Iraq had fallen to its to lowest level since spring 2004 and that "extremists who once terrified citizens have been driven from their strongholds".He said there was a "degree of durability" to the gains made by US and Iraqi forces which was due to the recent surge in US troop numbers and the "increasing capability of Iraqi forces". But he added that the chief US officials in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker "caution that the progress is still reversible". would replace the UN mandate which runs out at the end of the year. He said Iraqi troops would continue to take the lead in more military operations across the country. Mr Bush also said that the US and Iraqi governments were "making progress" on a deal to provide a legal basis for US troops to remain in Iraq once the UN mandate expires at the end of the year.

Child prostitution up after Kenya's election bloodshed

This time last year, Janet Kimani spent her days at school and her nights fighting with her little brother.

Now, she sleeps all day and sells her skinny, 14-year-old body at night for $3 an hour."There are so many of us girls on the streets these days," Janet, dressed in a black miniskirt and white blouse, told The Associated Press in Eldoret, a western Kenya town that was a flashpoint of this year's deadly postelection crisis.Prostitution and sexual exploitation are on the rise in the wake of the violence, which killed more than 1,000 people, eviscerated the economy and forced tens of thousands of children to leave school, doctors and human rights groups say.A girl lies in a brothel next to a baby born to a prostitute in Mombasa, Kenya, a center of trade in underage girls.

Sex without condoms raises alarm about AIDS
Although no firm figures are yet available, medical experts say they fear the increase in young prostitutes -- known here as "twilight girls"

Guards quizzed over Antigua honeymoon murder

Antigua (AP) -- Three security guards have been questioned about the fatal attack on a honeymooning British doctor in Antigua, but officials said Wednesday they have not yet arrested any suspects.
Police Commissioner Gary Nelson told Observer Radio that the guards, who are not suspects, agreed with one another about what happened early Sunday at the Cocos Hotel, when Catherine and Benjamin Mullany were shot in the head.He gave no further details about their testimony, but said witnesses have reported that the couple screamed for help.The wife died and the husband is brain dead and on life support with a fractured skull and broken leg, Doctor Fidel Fernandez told reporters.
The Antigua and Barbuda Hotel Association is offering a US$95,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.The couple, both 31, came to Antigua for a two-week honeymoon following their July 12 marriage, police said. The wife was a doctor from the Pontardawe area of south Wales. The couple's parents arrived from England and have visited the hospital and a funeral home.Police Inspector Cornelius Charles said the motive appeared to be robbery, but authorities have not ruled out other possibilities. Investigators have not determined whether there was more than one intruder.

'Terror' school turns out to be moderate madrassa

KARACHI, Pakistan -- It's an alarming message: Two American boys are held captive in a madrassa, a Pakistani religious school, once visited by Osama bin Laden and with ties to the Taliban.
The film, "Karachi Kids," describes threats to artistic freedom of expression from the teaching of conservative Islam. Early copies of the film prompted outrage after the story of the American boys appeared on Fox News, CBS and other news outlets. It also led to demands from Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, for the boys to be returned home.But the independent filmmaker may have confused the madrassa with one with a similar name tied to Islamic extremists.The madrassa the boys attended isn't linked to bin Laden or Muslim radicals; instead, it's one the U.S. State Department says is preferred by Pakistani-Americans for its moderate Islamic teachings and one recently visited by a top U.S. diplomat in Pakistan.

Iran: No deadline agreed on nuke deal

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has already responded to an international offer of incentives for suspending its nuclear enrichment activity, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told in an interviewMottaki said Iran responded with its own proposal, which involves another set of talks.
And contrary to what others -- including the United States and the European Union -- have said, no deadline was agreed upon during talks between Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana during talks in Geneva earlier this month, Mottaki said.U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday warned Iran not to delay its response. A two-week deadline for the response to the offer made to Iran by envoys from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China ends this week, officials have said.But Mottaki told in interview no deadline was discussed at the meeting -- one was mentioned only afterward on Wednesday.