White House: 650,000 jobs in new stimulus report

WASHINGTON : More than 650,000 jobs have been saved or created under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, the White House said Friday, saying it is on track to reach the president's goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.

New job numbers from businesses, contractors, state and local governments, nonprofit groups and universities were not scheduled to be released publicly until Friday afternoon. But White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein says officials have been told the figures. When adding in jobs linked to $288 billion in tax cuts, Bernstein says the stimulus plan has created or saved more than 1 million jobs.

The data will be posted on recovery.gov the web site of the independent panel overseeing stimulus spending.

"It's a great example of the unprecedented transparency, where the American taxpayer can point and click and see their taxes creating jobs," Bernstein said.

Government recovery plans — everything from the $787 billion stimulus to tax credits for buying new homes to government deals on new cars — are credited with helping the economy grow again after a record four straight losing quarters.

But the job market has yet to show signs of recovery, putting pressure on the White House to show that the stimulus was worth its hefty price tag.

When it is released Friday, the new data will be the largest and most complete look at how the stimulus has been spent so far. The White House promised the data would be far more reliable than the first batch of numbers on federal contracts, which the administration initially embraced, then branded a "test run" after thousands of errors were discovered.

Iran hands over response on nuclear fuel deal: TV

VIENNA/ WASHINGTON: Iran has presented its response on a U.N.-drafted nuclear fuel deal to the head of the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, Iran's state al Alam television reported on Thursday.

Iran's Arabic-language satellite station quoted Tehran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, as saying it was necessary to take into consideration Iran's technical and economic observations in the course of the discussions.

It did not give further details.

Iran was widely expected to deliver Thursday its response to a U.N.-brokered proposal regarding the supply of much-needed fuel for a nuclear research reactor in Tehran.

With a deal seen as crucial to resolving the long-running stand-off over the Islamic Republic's atomic program, Tehran's response was due on the same day that U.N. experts were scheduled to return from inspecting a hitherto undeclared nuclear site in Iran.

According to a report by the Mehr news agency, Iran will accept the overall framework of a proposal drawn up by the International Atomic Energy Agency last week under which it will hand over much of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further processing.

Such a move is aimed at appeasing western fears the material could be used to make a bomb.

But Tehran will nevertheless propose some "modifications" to the arrangement, Mehr reported.

US sanctions

Meanwhile, Iran's main gasoline suppliers, including British, French, Swiss and Indian firms, may face tough U.S. sanctions under a bill that sailed through a key House of Representatives panel late on Wednesday.

The bill seeks to cut Iran's gasoline supplies if negotiations fail to resolve the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, which Washington fears is aimed at making a bomb.

The goal is to put pressure Iran by raising pump prices and possibly cripple its economy. Critics say such a step could backfire by trampling on diplomatic efforts and angering U.S. trading partners and allies.

The bill, sponsored by Representative Howard Berman and passed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has 330 co-sponsors. But three other panels must approve it or waive their right to do so before the full House votes on it.

A similar measure is expected to be voted on in the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday. Both chambers must agree on the same legislation before it becomes law.

Even if does, it is not clear it would be enforced. The Obama administration says it is committed to working with global partners to put pressure on Iran, so it could be reluctant to take unilateral steps.

Iran has some of the world's biggest oil reserves but it imports 40 percent of its gasoline because of a lack of refining capacity. Government subsidies help keep gasoline in Iran much cheaper than in other countries.

Berman's bill would expand a 1996 Iran sanctions law to effectively bar companies that sell refined petroleum products, including gasoline, to Iran from doing business in the United States.

Malaysia's Islamic party tells men to wed mums

KUALA LUMPUR:  Malaysia's conservative Islamic party has urged Muslim men to marry single mothers as additional wives instead of "young virgin girls", a state official said.

Wan Ubaidah Omar, a cabinet minister from northern Kelantan, which the party controls, said the proposal aired in state parliament this week was needed to help single mothers and widows in the underdeveloped region.

"Muslim men usually like young girls or virgins as their additional wives, so I suggest instead of taking these young virgin girls, why don't they marry the single mothers as their second or third wife?" she told AFP.

"This will ease the burden of the single mothers as the men can help them to take care of their children. The single ladies have no burden," said Wan Ubaidah, who is in charge of women, family and health affairs in the state.

Muslim men in Malaysia are allowed to marry up to four women but Islamic courts must approve multiple marriages before they take place. About 60 percent of the country's 27 million population are Muslims.

Women's groups here have campaigned against polygamy, saying it is cruel and has deviated from its original purpose in Islam, which was to protect widows and orphans.

Wan Ubaidah said her call was not meant to encourage polygamous marriage, but as a way to help at least 16,500 single mothers aged under 60 in Kelantan, a state that has one of the highest divorce rates in the country.

"Even if I don't make the suggestion, these men are going to marry the second, third wife anyway but I have to emphasize that under Islam, only those who have the social and economic capacity can have additional wives," she said.

The minister also called for husbands who leave their wives without good reason to be whipped under religious laws.

"Some of these husbands just go missing in action suddenly, and leave the wives without any food or money. These kind of men should be whipped, they deserve it," Wan Ubaidah said.

"This punishment is not in the state sharia law at the moment, but we can make it a law to make men more responsible; there is a lot of room for improvement in the legal system to protect the welfare of women," she added.

Algeria to build world's third largest mosque

Grand Mosque of Algiers could cost several billion dollars

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ALGIERS:  Algeria on Tuesday called for offers to build a Grand Mosque of Algiers, which would be the third largest mosque in the world after those of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Candidate companies should have an annual turnover of at least one billion euros ($1.48 billion) and have a permanent staff of more than 2,000 engineers, technicians and office staff, the national agency for the building of the Djamaa El Dzajair (Algiers mosque) specified in a communique.

The Grand Mosque of Algiers, which could cost several billion dollars, will stand on a terrain of about 20 hectares (49 acres) at Mohammadia opposite the bay of Algiers to the east of the capital, where its minaret will be 270 meters (885 feet) high.

The main prayer hall will be large enough for 36,000 people, and the complex will also include an inner court, an esplanade, a large auditorium, a library for 2,000 people, a school for Quranic studies and an underground car park with space for 6,000 vehicles.

Algiers currently has three historic mosques: Djamaa el-Djedid, on which the building work began in 1660, Djamaa el-Kebir, built in the 11th century, and the Ketchaoua below the Casbah (the old town), which was constructed under the Turks from 1794. The Ketchaoua was converted into a cathedral under French colonial rule (1830-1962), and restored to Islam after independence.

Car bomb kills 90 in Pakistan as Hillary Clinton visits

ISLAMABAD:  A car bomb ripped through a crowded market killing 90 people in Pakistan's city of Peshawar on Wednesday, just hours after Washington's top diplomat arrived pledging a fresh start in sometimes strained relations.

Wednesday's bomb, the latest urban attack since the army launched a major assault on rural Taliban strongholds two weeks ago, was the deadliest since 2007 when around 140 died at a procession to welcome home former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated just weeks later.

The bomb went off in the busy Peepal Mandi market street in a city that for years served as the headquarters of the Pakistan- and U.S.- backed mujahideen war against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan.

Although nobody claimed responsibility, suspicion immediately fell on Pakistani Taliban militants who are the target of the army offensive.

The rugged landscape between Afghanistan and Pakistan has become a haven for Taliban militants fighting on both sides of the border as well as many hundreds of al Qaeda operatives and other foreign Islamist insurgents.

Hours after the blast, visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a news conference that Washington fully supported Pakistan's battle.

"I want you to know that this fight is not Pakistan's alone," she said.

"So this is our struggle as well and we commend the Pakistani military for their courageous fight and we commit to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Pakistani people in your fight for peace and security.

Sahib Gul, a doctor at Peshawar's main hospital, said the dead from Wednesday's bomb were mostly women and children.

"Several buildings and a mosque have been badly damaged while a fire has engulfed buildings," witness Aqueel-ur-Rehman told Reuters from the market, which mostly deals in groceries and household goods.

Defiant Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told a news conference with Clinton that the militants would be crushed.

"We are facing this on a daily basis but the resolve and determination will not be shaken," he said.

Addressing those responsible, he added: "We will not buckle. We will fight you. We will fight you because we want stability and peace in Pakistan.

Pregnant Women Wary of Swine Flu Shot

Survey Shows Most Pregnant Women and Moms of Young Kids Won't Get Vaccinated

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Health News:  A new survey shows only about one in four pregnant women and mothers of young children plan to get the H1N1 flu vaccine this year, despite recommendations from public health groups urging them to do so.

The CDC, American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and many other public health organizations strongly recommend that pregnant women and new mothers get both the seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccine shots to protect themselves as well as their newborns.

The survey shows 43% of pregnant women and mothers of children younger than 2 years old plan to get a seasonal flu shot this year, up from 33% surveyed last year. But only 27% plan on getting the H1N1 flu vaccine.

Researchers say confusion and concerns about the safety and effectiveness of the H1N1 vaccine may be preventing many pregnant women from getting the additional protection they need.

A CDC analysis shows pregnant women are up to four times more likely to be hospitalized for complications from the H1N1 and other flu viruses compared to the general population. This may be due to changes in the body related to pregnancy, such as reduced lung capacity, which can make respiratory diseases more dangerous, and changes to the immune system that can make a pregnant woman more susceptible to infection.

"With H1N1 being the dominant influenza virus circulating so far this year, it is vital that all pregnant women get their seasonal and H1N1 flu shots as soon as possible," says Ashley Roman, MD, clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York University School of Medicine and assistant clinical professor at Yale University, in a news release.

Confusion Over H1N1 Vaccine Risk

The Harris Interactive survey of 668 pregnant women and mothers of children less than 2 years old across the U.S. shows that 86% of women believe the seasonal flu shot is safe; only 68% think the H1N1 flu vaccine is safe. The online U.S. survey was conducted between Sept. 17 and Sept. 29 among women aged 18-50 who were currently pregnant and/or had children under 2 years old.

The most common concern among the pregnant women surveyed was the belief that the H1N1 flu vaccine has not been adequately tested. But researchers say the H1N1 vaccine is made the same way as the seasonal flu shot and has been found in clinical studies to be safe and effective at producing an immune response in healthy adults.

"Both the seasonal and H1N1 flu shots are safe for women to get during any stage of pregnancy and the shots are available in thimerosal-free forms, for those who are concerned about mercury preservatives," says Roman.

Researchers also found that only half of the women knew that getting a flu shot while pregnant will protect both themselves and their newborn babies after birth.

The survey also showed that 41% of Hispanic women vs. 26% of all women believed the false claim that getting a flu shot while pregnant can put an unborn baby's health at risk. Less than half of Hispanic women were aware that the seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccines are recommended for pregnant women compared with 71% of women overall.

However, the survey showed Hispanic women were more likely than women overall to discuss getting H1N1 and seasonal flu shots with their health care provider.

The survey and an accompanying "Flu-Free and A Mom-to-Be: Protect Yourself, Protect Your Baby - Get Your Flu Shots!" campaign organized by HealthyWomen and the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses is supported by CSL Biotherapies, which produces flu vaccines.

8 U.S. Troops Are Killed in Bombings in Afghanistan

KABUL: Eight Americans died in combat in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, bringing October’s total to 53 and making it the deadliest month for Americans in the eight-year war. September and October were both deadlier months overall for NATO troops.

The troops, along with an Afghan civilian accompanying them, were killed in several attacks involving “multiple, complex” improvised bombs, according to a statement from the NATO-led coalition.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said that Taliban in Zabul Province were responsible. He said they had blown up two armored vehicles carrying the troops. He also said that the Taliban had engaged in a fierce firefight lasting more than a half-hour with Afghan police in Zabul and killed eight officers. His report could not be verified because the American military is with-holding additional information until the families of the dead had been notified.

On Oct. 26, two incidents involving helicopter crashes resulted in the death of eleven American troops and three drug enforcement agents, but hostile fire was almost certainly not a factor in those cases, according to a military spokesman.

The October toll of 53 American soldiers killed exceeds that of August, when 51 died, according to icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks military losses in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The United States has been increasing the number of soldiers and marines in Afghanistan and many have gone into some of the toughest areas of the country. Southern Afghanistan has been the most contested ground with both locally-based insurgents and fighters that cross the border from Pakistan.

“A loss like this is extremely difficult for the families as well as for those who served alongside these brave service members,” said Capt. Jane Campbell of the Navy, a spokeswoman for the international troops.

The mounting casualties come as President Barack Obama is deliberating over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and whether to undertake a full counter-insurgency strategy, which requires a larger commitment of resources. The American public is split on whether to put more troops in harm’s way.

Also on Tuesday, the American and NATO-led forces said an Army plane that had been missing since Oct. 13 was found with the remains of three civilian crew members on Oct. 21 in the high mountains of northeastern Afghanistan over Nuristan Province, where the military has been conducting extensive operations. The army said the plane’s disappearance had not been announced until recovery efforts were complete.

The aircraft was stripped of all sensitive materials and destroyed in place, according to a statement from the NATO-led forces. The case is under investigation, but the military said it did not think that hostile action was the cause of the crash.

Yahoo Officially Shuts Down Geocities

After 15 years and a Yahoo acquisition, GeoCities is closing for good.

After Monday, countless homemade Web sites will no longer be live, and site owners will no longer be able to view their accounts and files. As of 10 am EDT, sites are still viewable; I just checked out the site I created back in high school for some Javascript nostalgia.

For those who are still attached to their sites, Yahoo is offering an upgrade to premium hosting. Users can keep their sites online for $4.99 a month. I invite everyone else to join me in a moment of silence for this dearly departed Web host.

Yahoo first announced plans to shut down Geocities in April. "We have decided to discontinue the process of allowing new customers to sign up for GeoCities accounts as we focus on helping our customers explore and build new relationships online in other ways," the company said at the time.

The Oct. 26 shutdown date was announced in July.

Two Afghan choppers crash, 14 Americans killed.Report

Kabul: A series of helicopter crashes killed 14 Americans in insurgent-wracked Afghanistan on Monday, the US military said. It was one of the deadliest days of the war for US troops.

In the first crash, a chopper went down in the west of the country after leaving the scene of a firefight with insurgents, killing 10 Americans _ seven troops and three civilians working for the government. Eleven American troops, one US civilian and 14 Afghans were also injured. In a separate incident in the south, two other US choppers collided while in flight, killing four American troops and wounding two more, the military said.

US authorities have ruled out hostile fire in the collision but have not given a cause for the other fatal crash in the west. Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmedi claimed Taliban fighters shot down a helicopter in northwest Badghis province's Darabam district. It was impossible to verify the claim and unclear if he was referring to the same incident.

US forces also reported the death of two other American troops a day earlier: one in a bomb attack in the east, and another who died of wounds sustained in an insurgent attack in the same region. The deaths bring to at least 46 the number of US troops who have been killed in October.

Earlier this month, insurgents killed eight American troops in an attack on a pair of isolated US outposts in the eastern village of Kamdesh near the Pakistan border. That was the heaviest US loss of life in a single battle since July 2008, when nine American soldiers were killed in a raid on an outpost in Wanat in the same province.

''These separate tragedies today underscore the risks our forces and our partners face every day,'' Col. Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the NATO-led coalition, said Monday. ''Each and every death is a tremendous loss for the family and friends of each service member and civilian. Our grief is compounded when we have such a significant loss on one day.''

This has been the deadliest year for international and US forces since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban. Fighting spiked around the presidential vote in August, and 51 US soldiers died that month _ the deadliest for American forces in the eight-year war.

The deaths come as US officials debate whether to send tens of thousands more troops to the country and the Afghan government scrambles to organize a Nov. 7 runoff election between President Hamid Karzai and his top challenger from an August vote that was sullied by massive ballot-rigging. President Barack Obama's administration is hoping the runoff will produce a legitimate government. Another flawed election would cast doubt on the wisdom of sending more troops to support a weak government tainted by fraud.

US military spokeswoman Elizabeth Mathias said coalition forces had launched an operation to recover the wreckage of the helicopter that was downed in the west.

She said the aircraft was leaving the site of a joint operation with Afghan forces when it went down.

The joint force had ''searched a suspected compound believed to harbor insurgents conducting activities related to narcotics trafficking in western Afghanistan,'' NATO said in a statement. ''During the operation, insurgent forces engaged the joint force and more than a dozen enemy fighters were killed in the ensuing firefight.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium _ the raw ingredient in heroin _ and the illicit drug trade is a major source of funding for Taliban and other insurgent groups.

On Sunday, Karzai and his rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, both ruled out a power-sharing deal before the runoff, saying the second round of balloting must be held as planned to bolster democracy in this war-ravaged country.

Meanwhile, security forces in Kabul fired automatic rifles into the air for a second day Monday to contain hundreds of stone-throwing university students angered over the alleged desecration of a Muslim holy book, the Quran, by US troops during an operation two weeks ago in Wardak province. Firetrucks were also brought in to push back protesters with water cannons. Police said several officers were injured in the mayhem.

US and Afghan authorities have denied any such desecration and insist that the Taliban are spreading the rumor to stir up public anger. The rumor has sparked similar protests in Wardak and Khost provinces.

On Sunday, the students in the capital burned Obama in effigy and chanted slogans such as ''down with Americans, down with Israel'' as they marched from Kabul University to the parliament building, where riot police turned them back.

Saudi king pardons female reporter from flogging

DUBAI :  The king of Saudi Arabia waived a 60 lashes punishment for a female journalist charged with involvement in a TV show in which a Saudi man publicly talked about his raunchy sex life, a government official said Monday.

The Information Ministry's spokesman, Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza, said that the king waived the sentence he was given details about the case by the information minister.

Last week a court in Jeddah sentenced journalist Rosanna Yami to 60 lashes for her role in the July broadcasting on Lebanese satellite channel LBC of the sex talk episode called "Bold Red Line."

In the episode a divorced Saudi father of four who works for the national airline, Mazen Abdul-Jawad, described an active and raunchy sex life and showed sex toys that were blurred by the station in the footage shown on TV.

The government moved swiftly in the wake of the case, shutting down LBC's two offices in the kingdom and arresting Abdul-Jawad.

Saudi court orders female journalist flogged

RIYADH :  A court on Saturday sentenced a female Saudi journalist to receive 60 lashes for her links with a Saudi-owned Lebanese TV network which broadcast a provocative racy show in July.

Rosanna al-Yami said a Jeddah judge dropped all charges that she had been directly involved with a program on Beirut-based network LBC in which a Saudi man boasted of his sex life, outraging Saudi conservatives and leading to the man's imprisonment.

However, Yami said the judge sentenced her to 60 lashes for having been a part-time employee for LBC's Saudi operations. The judge said that LBC had lacked the appropriate operating license.

"It's a punishment for all journalists through me," Yami told AFP by telephone.

"They just said the channel was illegal. But the Saudi minister of information himself appeared on LBC a couple week ago," she said.

Yami's sentencing comes after airline sales clerk Mazen Abdul Jawad was convicted of offensive behavior and sentenced to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes on Oct.7 for his July appearance on the LBC show "Bold Red Line" in which he talked about picking up girls and having sex with them.

Three friends who appeared on the show with him were given two-year terms and 300 lashes each, while a cameraman who helped film the episode was sentenced to two months in jail.

At least 14 people dead in Egypt train collision

CAIRO:  At least 14 people were killed and 24 others injured in a collision between two trains on Saturday in Giza district southwest of the Egyptian capital, with more bodies believed caught in the rubble, medical sources said.

A security services official said: "The two trains collided at al-Ayyat, in Giza. There are deaths and injuries."

"The trains were travelling on the same track. One ran into the other as they headed towards Upper Egypt," the security official said.

El-Ayatt and al-Wasta hospitals in Cairo received 40 wounded passengers, Said Abd el-Rahman Shaheen, spokesman for the ministry of health, adding that the death toll was yet to be determined and denying reports that more than 30 people have perished in the crash, Al Arabiya TV reported.

One medical source said people appeared to be trapped under an overturned train.

Fatal train crashes are not unusual in Egypt.

A train crash in northern Egypt killed 44 people in 2008, two years after a crash that killed 58 people. In 2002, at least 360 people were killed when fire ripped through seven carriages of a crowded passenger train.

Bank Failures Now at 106

WASHINGTON -- Small banks continued to succumb across the U.S., with state and federal regulators on Friday closing seven financial institutions in Florida, Georgia, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois.

The failures bring the number of U.S. banks shut down so far this year to 106 -- the highest number of failures in any single year since 1992.

State regulators in Wisconsin closed Racine's Bank of Elmwood, making it Friday's largest and costliest bank failure. Bank of Elmwood had total assets of $327.4 million and total deposits of $273.2 million. Tri City National Bank in Oak Creek, Wis., has agreed to assume all of Bank of Elmwood's deposits and essentially all of its assets.

In the other closings:

In Friday's second-largest failure, Illinois regulators closed First Dupage Bank, selling essentially all of its $279 million in assets and all of its $254 million in deposits to First Midwest Bank in Itasca, Ill.

Federal regulators closed Flagship National Bank in Bradenton, Fla., selling its deposits to First Federal Bank of Florida. They also closed Partners Bank in Naples, Fla., selling its deposits to Stonegate Bank in Fort Lauderdale.

Florida regulators closed Hillcrest Bank Florida in Naples, also selling its deposits to Fort Lauderdale's Stonegate. Georgia regulators closed American United Bank, of Lawrenceville, selling its deposits to Ameris Bank (ABCB) in Moultrie, Ga.

In Minnesota, state regulators closed Riverview Community Bank, selling essentially all of its $108 million in assets and all of its $80 million in deposits to Stillwater, Minn.'s Central Bank. The FDIC has agreed to share in losses on $75 million of Riverview's assets.

The closures show smaller banks, particularly those in the Southeastern U.S., are continuing to struggle even as a sluggish economic recovery appears to be taking hold across the U.S.

Separately on Friday, the National Credit Union Administration placed Mississippi's First Delta Federal Credit Union into conservatorship.

The 5,500-member credit union has assets of $5 million.

Leaping wolf snatches photo prize

A picture of a hunting wolf has won the prestigious Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award.

Jose Luis Rodriguez captured the imaginations of the judges with a picture that he had planned for years, and even sketched out on a piece of paper.

"I wanted to capture a photo in which you would see a wolf in an act of hunting - or predation - but without blood," he told BBC News. "I didn't want a cruel image."

With a great deal of patience and careful observation of the wolves' movements, he succeeded in taking the award-winning photograph.

Mr Rodriguez used a custom-built infrared trap to snap the wolf as it leapt into the air.

The WPY competition, now in its 45th year, is owned by BBC Wildlife Magazine and London's Natural History Museum.

The panel of judges looked through more than 43,000 entries to this year's competition.

This is the fifth year that wildlife photographer Mark Carwardine has been on the judging panel. He said of the winning photo: "It's captured thousands of years of human-wolf interaction in just one moment."

STORYBOOK WOLF

Mr Rodriguez won the Animal Portraits category and went on to win the top prize with this haunting image that the judges said captured the character of the wolf.

When he started planning the photograph, he feared that he might not be able to get close enough to the Iberian wolves.

This subspecies of the grey wolf lives close to human habitation in northern Spain. They are often persecuted by people who see them as a threat to livestock, and they are consequently very wary.

Watching the animals as they returned to the same spot to collect food each night, Mr Rodriguez decided on his dream shot.

He eventually captured it using a photographic trap that included a motion sensor and an infrared barrier to operate the camera.

He hopes that his picture, "showing the wolf's great agility and strength", will become an image that can be used to show just how beautiful the Iberian wolf is and how the Spanish can be proud to have such an emblematic animal.

Hasselblad 503CW with a 6x6 Fujichrome backing + Planar 80mm lens; 1/30 sec at f11; ISO 50; purpose-made Ficap infrared camera trap.

CLASH OF THE YELLOWHAMMERS

Fergus Gill, who was 17 years old when he entered the competition, won this year's Young Photographer of the Year award for his picture of a brief but dramatic clash between two of the colourful UK songbirds.

He started planning the image in summer, collecting oat sheaves from a local farmer specifically as winter food for the yellowhammers.

One evening in February, hearing that snow was forecast for the next morning, Fergus set up his hide in the garden of his home in Scotland and hung out feeders for the birds.

"At one point, I counted 32 yellowhammers feeding on the ground," he said.

When the snow fell, the birds jumped up on to the feeders and the males would occasionally fight over the oats.

"The spats were incredibly fast," he said. It took Fergus two days to capture the dramatic clash that earned him his award.

Nikon D300 + Nikon 200-400mm f4 lens at 220mm; 1/1000 sec at f5.6; ISO 500

RESPECT

With the help of his feisty cat, Igor Shpilenok won the Urban and Garden Wildlife category with this shot.

He spent five months as a ranger in the Kronotsky Nature Reserve in Kamchatka in the east of Russia, and took his cat Ryska with him for company.

"It's a very remote place and there were lots of animals - bears, foxes, wolverines - living near my cabin," he told BBC News.

"The cat was really jealous about me. If I started to look at the animals, she would attack them. Just like a woman," he smiled.

"Maybe she thought I was her pet."

But the animals were curious about the area's new residents, and were drawn by cooking smells from the cabin. The foxes in particular would visit every day. "When they came within 20m, that was her boundary and chased them. It was really funny - foxes were climbing trees to get away from the cat."

Mr Shpilenok's wife, Laura Williams, selected the category-winning image. "It's ironic," she said. "He photographs the wilderness, but the two times he's won a category [in this competition] it's been the urban wildlife one. Because the wilderness is his back yard."

Nikon D3 + 300mm lens; 1/500 sec at f4.5; ISO 640.

SPRINGTAIL ON A SNOWFLAKE

Urmas Tartes won the Animals in their Environment category for this image of a springtail, otherwise known as a "snow flea" navigating its way through delicate snowflakes.

When the temperature drops below freezing, the insect climbs down through the frosty crevasses to the warmer soil below.

"But they're only active a few degrees below zero," Mr Tartes told BBC News. "I had to 'ambush' the weather for just the right temperature and conditions.

"I was travelling with my wife and it started snowing slightly," he recalled.

"We came to a place where we thought it might be possible [to see the insects] and the thermometer in the car said it was just the right temperature."

Mr Tartes had waited for the perfect weather in which the snow fleas would be active, but the snowflakes would remain frozen.

His patience paid off, and he managed to take over 100 shots while the insects negotiated their way through the tricky terrain.

He believes he captured something truly unique and that this was largely thanks to his knowledge of his country and its climate.

"I think the best of the photos I take are in my homeland," he told BBC News.

"There's a saying in Estonia that in order to see new things, you have to follow common paths - paths you know."

Canon EOS-5D Mark II + Canon MP-E65 f2.5 1-5x Macro lens; 1/200 sec at f14; ISO 400.

THE LOOK OF THE JAGUAR

Tom Schandy won the Gerald Durrell Award for Endangered Wildlife for this image, which he took while working on a book project in Brazil.

"We spent a few days on a boat along Rio Paraguay and saw four jaguars in the space of three days.

"It was really amazing, because it is such a difficult animal to find.

"This one was very relaxed - it just lay on the river bank staring at us for more than an hour.

"It was a glimpse into the eye of the wilderness."

At sunset, the jaguar rose, yawned and scent-marked. Then he faded back into the dense forest.

Canon EOS-ID Mark III + 500mm f4 lens; 1/250 sec at f4; ISO 400; beanbag.

6.4-magnitude quake jolts Punjab, NWFP

ISLAMABAD: Strong quake measuring 6.4 on Richter scale jolted Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore, Azad Kashmir besides northern regions of the country at 01:51 AM Friday.

According to Geo News, strong tremors were felt in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Lahore and Northern Areas forcing people to leave their houses in a cold night.

According to Met office, strong earthquake was felt at 01:51 AM with a magnitude of 6.4 on Richter scale.

The epicentre of the quake lies 180 kilometres deep in the ground in Hindu Kush range, the Met office added.

Strong jolts of quake were also felt in Peshawar, Hungo, Kohat, Abbotabad, Mardan, Chitral, Mansehra and Haripur in NWFP.

People living in the areas affected by the deadly earthquake of October 8th 2005 were highly panic stricken, however no casualties and damage has yet been reported as the epicentre of the quake lies deep in the Hindu Kush range.

Quake also jolted Attock, Jhang, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Dera Ghazi Khan and Lahore in Northern Punjab.

Israel says held secret nuclear talks with Iran

Iran denies holding secret nuke talks with the Jewish state

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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM : Israeli and Iranian nuclear envoys held an unprecedented, if brief, conversation last month at a closed-door Middle East disarmament conference in Egypt, an Israeli official said on Thursday.

Israel and Iran attended a Sept. 29-30 Cairo meeting of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, an unofficial forum established by the Australian and Japanese governments, the group's Web site said.

"There were several meetings between a representative of our commission and an Iranian official in a regional context," Yael Doron told AFP.

"These meetings were held behind closed doors," she said, adding that they were organized by Australia.

But Iran's atomic energy organization denied that Iranian and Israeli experts held secret talks on regional nuclear issues, as announced by the Jewish state.

"This lie is a kind of psychological operation designed to affect the constant success of Iran's dynamic diplomacy in the Geneva and Vienna meetings," the organization’s spokesman, Ali Shirzadian, was quoted as saying.

The Israeli official declined to give details of the meetings, but the Haaretz daily said the officials discussed the chances of declaring the Middle East a nuclear-free zone.

"There were several meetings between a representative of our commission and an Iranian official in a regional context," spokeswoman Yael Doron told AFP.

"These meetings were held behind closed doors," she said, adding that they were organised by Australia.

She declined to give further details of the talks, the first between the two arch foes to be officially disclosed since the shah of Iran was deposed in 1979.

The Israeli newspaper said Meirav Zafary-Odiz, director of policy and arms control for the Israeli nuclear agency, and Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency, met several times in Cairo at the end of September.

Raphael Drawing May Sell for Record $19.7 Million

Bloomberg: A drawing by the Italian renaissance artist Raphael is expected to fetch a world record price of at least 12 million pounds ($19.7 million) when it is offered for sale in London in December.

The 12-inch-high black chalk drawing, to be auctioned by Christie’s International in its Dec. 8 sale of Old Masters and 19th-century art, is a study for the head of a muse in Raphael’s fresco of Parnassus in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican, Rome, the London-based auction house said today in an e-mailed statement.

The composition retains the original perforations that would have allowed the artist to sprinkle black chalk dust through the paper to leave an outline.

“Raphael is one of the three most important artists of the Renaissance and he is also the rarest,” Stephen Ongpin, a London-based dealer in Old-Master drawings, said in an interview. “He has been at the top of the tree for 500 years. This is a truly significant work. A Raphael drawing of this quality hasn’t emerged since the 1980s.”

The subject of Apollo and the muses was one of four frescos by Raffaello Sanzio, called Raphael, commissioned by Pope Julius II and executed between 1508 and 1511. The cycle of wall paintings is regarded by art historians as the summit of the painter’s career. Raphael died in 1520, aged 37.

Raphael’s Mind

“This truly exceptional drawing offers us a glimpse into the working mind of a genius,” Benjamin Peronnet, Christie’s international head of Old Master and 19th-century drawings, said. “It presents us with the immediacy of his thoughts and ideas, capturing the precise moment at which the artist’s hand and mind were applied to paper.”

The drawing has been entered by an anonymous private collector, Christie’s said. It was formerly owned by the painter Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) and by King William II of Holland (1792-1849). This is the first time it has appeared at auction for more than 150 years, said the auction house.

The record price for an old master drawing at auction is jointly held by Michelangelo’s “The Risen Christ” and Leonardo da Vinci’s “Horse and Rider,” both of which fetched 8.1 million pounds with fees at Christie’s in July 2000 and July 2001 respectively.

ambush in Islamabad

Islamabad:  Unidentified gunmen riding on motorcycles ambushed an army vehicle in the Pakistani capital on Thursday, unleashing a hail of bullets that killed a Brigadier and his guard and injured another soldier in the latest in a wave of deadly attacks targeting the security forces. Gunmen on a motorcycle killed Brigadier Moin Haider and his driver, city police official Tahir Alam said. A guard was wounded. "Witnesses have told us two men came on a motorcycle and opened fire," said another city police official Abdul Qadir. Military spokesmen were not available for comment. Witnesses said three armed gunmen on two motorcycles opened fire at the army jeep in a commercial area with several automobile workshops. The Brigadier and his guard were killed instantly in the firing that took place around 9 a.m local time, state-run PTV reported. Television footage showed the vehicle was riddled with bullets and its windscreen shattered. The windshield was hit by more than 10 bullets. Another soldier who was driving the vehicle was injured. The gunmen fled from the scene unchallenged. Security forces cordoned off the area and sealed several roads after the attack which was the second assault in Islamabad in three days. A search was launched to nab the attackers. "Two (soldiers) are dead, including one officer. There is one wounded, he is an army soldier," Doctor Altaf Hussein, a spokesman for Islamabad's main PIMS Hospital, told media. The Brigadier was serving with a UN peacekeeping mission abroad and had returned to Pakistan recently following the death of a relative, PTV reported. Police arrested four suspects, including a teenager, immediately after the attack. Several bullets also hit a vehicle parked at an automobile workshop. Thursday’s attack came two days after two suicide bombers struck the International Islamic University in Islamabad, killing six persons and injuring nearly 40 others. Over the past two weeks, Taliban militants have also targeted the UN food agency’s office in Islamabad and security facilities across the country, including the army’s general headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Queen's Brian May launches 3D book

LONDON: As a founding member of the rock band Queen, Brian May has played guitar on some of the most memorable music tracks of modern times, he's played legendary shows at some of the world's greatest venues. This event, however, is taking place inside a barn in the Oxfordshire village of Hinton Waldrist.

Brian May, Co-Author, A Village Lost and Found said, "This isn't one of the biggest gigs I've ever played, but I have to say it's one of the more exciting ones."

The reason is that this launch for his new book, 'A Village Lost and Found', marks the realization of a lifelong passion for 3D photography. It began with the discovery of what's called a stereoscopic card inside a box of Weetabix cereal when he was a child.

He said, "So you get your little steroscope, you put your card in and suddenly the magic happens. Instead of two flat images you get a single stereoscopic 3D image, which you seem to be able to walk into."

May eventually began collecting the cards, which led him to the work of the Victorian 3D pioneer Thomas Richard Williams. The series 'Scenes In Our Village', which May's new book focusses on, was always a particular favourite.

"Of course we've advanced technologically so much now. We've learned to cover the planet in concrete. We have communications, et cetera, et cetera, but as a species I think we may have lost some of the values that were current in the 1850s and TR Williams - very ahead of his time - had exactly this in mind. He thought something was being lost in the Industrial Revolution, in mechanisation and the depersonalisation of life. So this series to me has been very relevant to the 21st century."

The effect of these double images unfortunately cannot be fully appreciated through a computer or TV screen, but the president of London's Stereoscopic Society Bob Alderidge says Williams' series and May's book provide a unique window on a bypassed era.

May said, "Why is it significant today? Because we have a pace of life that is very frantic. If you look at the book you can go back to a calmer way of life and it's therapeutic. But it's also part of a very big 3D wave that's coming - people like James Cameron with his Avatar film, the IMAX 3D movies, the new Fuji camera which has just come out."

May insists the Victorian method is still the best way to experience 3D. However, but in order to introduce his favourite images to a new audience, the musician actually turned inventor.

"I looked for a stereoscope that could be used in the book, and really there wasn't one and nobody was really willing to play ball with me to make it for me, so I thought we'd make it ourselves," he added.

The invention is called The Owl, and he jokingly says he'd like to see one in every home - a play on the Victorian marketing motto: 'A Stereoscope In Every Home'. As Hollywood directors and electronics manufacturers take 3D into new dimensions, this lifelong enthusiast hopes some will be inspired to seek out a more detailed view on the history of the craft.

India responsible if Mumbai attacks are repeated: Malik

ISLAMABAD : Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik Wednesday said India would be responsible for any further Mumbai attacks-like incident if they occur in the country.

Talking to media here, he said India is involved in worsening the situation in Balochistan, which could be borne out with clear-cut evidences.

Jundullah’s Chief Abdul Malik Regi is in Afghanistan and Iran has been apprised of his hideout, he informed.

Commenting upon the Indian allegations, Malik warned against them, saying Indian Home Minister should see about their home first, as it is beset with flaws and failings, adding criticizing Pakistan would not set their issues right.

Rehman Malik stressed that Pakistan may give well-substantiated threats better than those India gave, adding Pakistani offer regarding negotiations should not be deemed as its frailty.

If Indian Home Minister fears fresh Mumbai-like attacks in his country, then it should provide information to Pakistan 48 hours in advance, he maintained.

Malik said security scanners would be installed in the federal capital by 25 of the current month.

He also revealed that some serving and retired personnel of the FC have been taken in custody in connection with the investigations of suicide attack at WFP.

Eyeing Iran, Israel & US in major military drill

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM : Israel and the United States launched a major air defense drill on Wednesday as part of what Israeli public radio called preparation for a faceoff with Iran, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his desire to change international war laws in the aftermath of a U.N. report on the Gaza War.

During the two-week maneuvers, dubbed Juniper Cobra, some 1,000 American personnel will mesh ground- and ship-based missile interceptors like the Aegis, THAAD and Patriot with Israel's Arrow II ballistic shield, defense officials said.

Spokesmen on both sides insisted the biennial drill was unrelated to world events, but Israel Radio quoted an unnamed commander as saying it served "to prepare for a nuclear Iran."

Possible Iran confrontation
The United States and other world powers are trying to talk Tehran into giving up nuclear technologies with bomb-making potential, while the Israelis watch warily from the sidelines.

Israel, which is assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, has hinted it could resort to force to prevent its arch-foe attaining the means to threaten its existence.

But some analysts believe that tactical limitations, and U.S. misgivings about pre-emptive strikes, may compel Israel to accept a more defensive posture with the help of its top ally.

Iran denies seeking the bomb and has threatened to retaliate for any attack by firing its medium-range missiles at Israel.

Israel's Netanyahu meanwhile instructed his government on Tuesday to draw up proposals to amend the international laws of war after a damning U.N. report on its war in Gaza.

The security cabinet did not, however, discuss calls made by ministers for an internal investigation into the 22-day offensive at the turn of the year that killed some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, an official told AFP.

"The prime minister instructed the relevant government bodies to examine a worldwide campaign to amend the international laws of war to adapt them to the spread of global terrorism," his office said in a statement.

Israel was dealt a heavy diplomatic blow with the adoption by the U.N. Human Rights Council of the report that accused both Israel and the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip of war crimes.

War crimes

Israel's closest allies, the United States, Britain and France urged it to investigate war crime allegations raised by the fact-finding missions headed by Richard Goldstone, a former international war crimes prosecutor.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak backed Netanyahu's call for a diplomatic campaign, saying that Israel should propose changes in the international laws of war "in order to facilitate the war on terrorism," an official quoted him as saying.

It is in the interest of anyone fighting terrorism. We must give the IDF (Israeli army) the full backing to have the freedom of action," Barak said.

Netanyahu dismissed the Goldstone report on the Gaza war and vowed that Israel would not give up its right of self-defense.

"We are struggling to delegitimize the ongoing attempts to delegitimize Israel... We must persistently fight this lie, which is being spread by the Goldstone report," Netanyahu was quoted as saying.

"I want to make it clear: no one will weaken our ability and right to defend our children, citizens and communities."

Goldstone, the respected South African jurist who led the U.N. fact-finding team, recommended that the conclusions of the report be forwarded to the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at The Hague if the two sides fail to conduct credible investigations into the conflict within six months.

Israel has slammed it as a "diplomatic farce" and warned that it risked sinking the stalled Middle East peace process.

Arab women take to the skies in landmark move

Jordanian airline launches flight with all-female crew

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AMMAN : A Royal Jordanian flight from Athens to Amman could have passed off as any other routine trip except this RJ 132 flight was a little different as it boasted a female pilot leading an all female crew.

Carol Rabadi captained her first flight of 100 passengers after working as a co-pilot for six years, a move that has been hailed as a new era set to end the male domination of the Jordanian aviation industry.

“It was a wonderful feeling,” Rabadi told Al Arabiya. “It was a very safe and we proved ourselves as women without any problems.”

Most of the passengers on the flight were unaware that their plane was being flown by a woman and were taken by surprise after the trip.

“It is good to know that a woman was flying the plane,” said one of the passengers.

Carol Rabadi is the third Jordanian woman to be given the rank of Captain.

Meanwhile in related news the UAE saw two of its nationals become the first women to complete the first level of pilot training with the Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways.

The two women were expected to become fully fledged first officers, or co-pilots, in just eighteen months, a landmark achievement in the country, which for generations has kept women out of fields such as aviation.

Afghanistan: anatomy of an election disaster

It was, everybody agrees, a tawdry and inept attempt to rig an election. But are we in the west as much to blame as anyone?

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KABUL: For a couple of days last month at a cavernous warehouse in the bleak industrial zone of western Kabul, diplomats, UN officials and election monitors gathered to watch hundreds of ballot boxes being opened and turned out on to the floor.

The colleagues from Kabul's western missions rolled their eyes at each other as they witnessed not a chaotic assortment of marked and folded voting forms tumble out, but entire blocks of ballot papers that had not even been torn off from their book stubs. Others contained surprisingly uniform numbers of ballots all signed in the same hand and with the same pen, and overwhelmingly in favour of a single candidate.

One box did not contain any ballot papers at all; just a results slip with the final vote score showing a massive win for Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president many believe was all too aware of attempts to steal the country's second ever democratic attempt to choose a leader.
Everyone present could see a huge amount of cheating had taken place on 20 August, albeit rather ineptly. "Some of us joked with each other whether the Afghans, after all the billions that have gone in to trying to create a functioning government, also need to be taught how to rig an election properly," said one of the officials present, deeply cynical after weeks of revelations about Afghanistan's disastrous election.

It was a tawdry end to what had at times been an exciting, even uplifting, election campaign. In the big cities, including Afghanistan's mountaintop capital Kabul, the western boom town of Herat and even the insurgency-wracked southern city of Kandahar, candidates' banners had been stretched across the roads. Posters across the country showed the people their would-be presidents, many of whom hosted huge public rallies. But not all the candidates were that active. Karzai, the man who benefited most from staggering levels of fraud, only made five campaign stops, preferring instead to hold private conflabs with warlords and factional leaders.

"I've totally given up on this idea that Karzai is some sort of naive innocent surrounded by bad people," says one disillusioned western diplomat. "Why was he so confident? Why didn't he leave the palace? I think it was because people came to him and said, 'Don't worry, we've got it all under control.'"

But it would be wrong just to blame the shamelessness of Karzai's cronies for this fiasco, a fiasco which has torpedoed western hopes of the election of a legitimate partner to help turn round a failing war. The US and its allies that so dominate Afghanistan also have much to answer for, despite the staggering amount of resources they put into the exercise: $300m just to pay for the election, plus untold millions to pay for the thousands of extra foreign soldiers drafted in to try to secure the election.

"This was all predicted and predictable," says Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister who polled fourth place. "The west has no excuse for not seeing what was going to happen."

At a recent interview at his house in southern Kabul, a clearly depressed Ghani explained how the election fiasco had been years in the making. But at every stage when decisive intervention by Afghanistan's international paymasters could have made a difference, the UN, the US, the UK and other major players all stood back. They wanted it to be an Afghan show, unlike the 2004 election where foreign officials had co-managed the election.

Broadband test offers street view

There are big variations between broadband speeds in the same street, a new broadband speed test has revealed.

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The test, launched by comparison site Top 10 Broadband, allows users to zoom in on their postcode area to see what speed their neighbours net runs at.

It will be a wake-up call for internet service providers, thinks Alex Buttle, marketing director at Top 10 Broadband.

"One person at 1Mbps [megabit per second] could be next door to someone receiving 8.5Mbps," he said.

"We know that broadband speed will vary depending on things like distance from the exchange and the way the wiring and equipment in your house is set up but we do not believe this explains all of the variations we have seen between people in the same street," said Mr Buttle.

"We think some of this may be due to outdated technology some providers use in their local exchanges, as well as the fact that some providers use traffic shaping or throttling at peak times while others do not," he added.

The service, dubbed StreetStats, collects speed test data from users to build an interactive map.

More than 170,000 speed test results have so far been added to the map and the firm hopes to have two million by the end of the year.

Future plans

While many consumers remain focused on their current speeds, the debate about broadband has moved on to how quickly, how far, and at what cost next-generation speeds can be rolled out.

Entering this debate, Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that a Conservative government would scrap the proposed broadband tax, which was intended to provide a fund for next-generation access in difficult-to-reach areas.

The £6 a year tax was aimed at every home with a fixed line phone.

Mr Hunt told the BBC that the Conservatives had a different vision of how to make sure superfast broadband was available across the UK.

"We're saying that this is the wrong time to decide about how to fund comprehensive coverage when we haven't even got the infrastructure in place in the main areas," he told the BBC.

"We accept that to make coverage comprehensive might need public funds at some stage but we need to look at other things too, such as the regulatory framework," he added.

It could be that the UK follows France's example and forces BT to open up its ducting to other parties, he said.

'Wild' film top at US box office

A fantasy film about a make-believe world of monsters has entered the US and Canada box office at number one.

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Where The Wild Things Are made $32.5m (£19.9m) in its first weekend, beating Jamie Foxx thriller Law Abiding Citizen into a second place debut.

The film, which mixes live action and animation, is based on the children's book by Maurice Sendak, but audiences were predominantly made up of adults.

Ghost flick Paranormal Activity was also a new entry at number three.

The film - shot in the style of a documentary - is said to have made a box office impact due to word-of-mouth interest and has been compared to 1999 hit The Blair Witch Project.

It beat the debut Sony's bigger budget horror movie The Stepfather into fifth spot.

It is due to be expanded into more cinemas at the weekend where it will go head-to-head with established horror franchise outing Saw VI.

The adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are, directed by Spike Jonze, features the voices of Forest Whitaker and James Gandolfini.

The story's main protagonist is a boy who journeys to a land populated by monsters who are torn between hugging him and having him for dinner.

millions internet users fall victim to 'scareware' scams

Online criminals are making millions of pounds by convincing computer users to download fake anti-virus software, internet security experts claim.

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Symantec says more than 40 million people have fallen victim to the "scareware" scam in the past 12 months. He added: "They used to be 16-year-olds in their bedrooms causing damage with viruses. Now those 16-year-olds have grown up [and] they're looking for money, they're looking for information."

The download is usually harmful and criminals can sometimes use it to get the victim's credit card details.

The firm has identified 250 versions of scareware, and criminals are thought to earn more than £750,000 each a year.

Franchised out

Scareware sellers use pop-up adverts deliberately designed to look legitimate, for example, using the same typefaces as Microsoft and other well-known software providers.

They appear, often when the user is switching between websites, and falsely warn that a computer's security has been compromised.

If the user then clicks on the message they are directed towards another site where they can download the fake anti-virus software they supposedly need to clean up their computer - for a fee of up to £60.

Con Mallon, from Symantec, told the BBC the apparent fix could have a double impact on victims.

Mr Mallon said some scareware took the scam a step further.

"[They] could hold your computer to ransom where they will stop your computer working or lock up some of your personal information, your photographs or some of your Word documents.

"They will extort money from you at that point. They will ask you to pay some additional money and they will then release your machine back to you."

The scam is hard for police or other agencies to investigate because the individual sums of money involved are very small.

Therefore, experts say users must protect themselves with common sense and legitimate security software.

'Steal your identity'

Tony Neate, from Get Safe Online, told the BBC the threats presented by the internet had changed in recent years.

"Where we used to say protect your PC... we've now got to look at ourselves, making sure we're protected against the con men who are out there," he said.

"They want you to help them infect your machine. When they've infected your machine it's possibly no longer your machine - you've got no control over it.

"Then what they're looking to do is take away your identity, steal bits of your identity, or even get some financial information from you."

A Variety of Sources Feed Into Taliban’s War Chest. Reports

WASHINGTON : The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings, extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are struggling to cut off.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed an elaborate system to tax the cultivation, processing and shipment of opium, as well as other crops like wheat grown in the territory they control, American and Afghan officials say. In the Middle East, Taliban leaders have sent fund-raisers to Arab countries to keep the insurgency’s coffers brimming with cash.

Estimates of the Taliban’s annual revenue vary widely. Proceeds from the illicit drug trade alone range from $70 million to $400 million a year, according to Pentagon and United Nations officials. By diversifying their revenue stream beyond opium, the Taliban are frustrating American and NATO efforts to weaken the insurgency by cutting off its economic lifelines, the officials say.

Despite efforts by the United States and its allies in the last year to cripple the Taliban’s financing, using the military and intelligence, American officials acknowledge they barely made a dent.

“I don’t believe we can significantly alter their effectiveness by cutting off their money right now,” said Representative Adam Smith, a Washington State Democrat on the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committees who traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan last month. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t try. It’s just bigger and more complex than we can effectively stop.”

The Taliban’s ability to raise money complicates the Obama administration’s decision to deploy more United States troops to Afghanistan. It is unclear, for example, whether the deployment of 10,000 Marines over the summer to Helmand Province, the heart of the opium production, will have a sustaining impact on the insurgency’s cash flow. And American officials are debating whether cracking down on the drug trade will anger farmers dependent on it for their livelihood.

But even if the United States and its allies were able to stanch the money flow, it is not clear how much impact it would have. It does not cost much to train, equip and pay for the insurgency in impoverished Afghanistan — fighters typically earn $200 to $500 a month — and to bribe local Afghan security and government officials.

“Their operations are so inexpensive that they can be continued indefinitely even with locally generated resources such as small businesses and donations,” said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service and a former analyst of the region at the C.I.A.

American officials say that they have been surprised to learn in recent months that foreign donations, rather than opium, are the single largest source of cash for the Taliban.

“In the past there was a kind of a feeling that the money all came from drugs in Afghanistan,” Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in June. “That is simply not true.”

Supporting this view, in his Aug. 30 strategic assessment, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, voiced skepticism that clamping down on the opium trade would crimp the Taliban’s overall finances.

“Eliminating insurgent access to narco-profits — even if possible, and while disruptive — would not destroy their ability to operate so long as other funding sources remained intact,” General McChrystal said.

The C.I.A. recently estimated in a classified report that Taliban leaders and their associates had received $106 million in the past year from donors outside Afghanistan, a figure first reported last month by The Washington Post. Private citizens from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and some Persian Gulf nations are the largest individual contributors, an American counterterrorism official said.

Top American intelligence officials and diplomats say there is no evidence so far that the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or other Persian Gulf states are providing direct aid to the Afghan insurgency. But American intelligence officials say they suspect that Pakistani intelligence operatives continue to give some financial aid to the Afghan Taliban, a practice the Pakistani government denies.

The United States Treasury Department and the United Nations have for years maintained financial blacklists of those suspected of being donors to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But counterterrorism officials say donors have become savvier about disguising their contributions to avoid detection.

“The sanctions have worked to a certain extent but obviously not to the extent of being able to cut off all funds,” said Richard Barrett, a former British intelligence officer now monitoring Al Qaeda and the Taliban for the United Nations.

Still, drugs play an important role. Afghanistan produces more opium than any other country in the world, and the Taliban are widely believed to make money at virtually every stage of the trade.

“It extorts funds from those involved in the heroin trade by demanding ‘protection’ payments from poppy farmers, drug lab operators and the smugglers who transport the chemicals into, and the heroin out of, the country,” David S. Cohen, an assistant secretary at the Treasury Department responsible for combating terrorist financing, said in a speech in Washington last week.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a report issued in August, said that Taliban commanders charged poppy farmers a 10 percent tax, and that Taliban fighters supplemented their pay by working in the poppy fields during harvest. The biggest source of drug money for the Taliban is regular payments made by drug traffickers to the Taliban leadership, based in the Pakistani border city of Quetta, according to the report.

Counterterrorism experts say the relationship of the insurgents to drug trafficking is shifting in an ominous direction. A United Nations report issued in August said that some opium-trafficking guerrillas had secretly stockpiled more than 10,000 tons of illegal opium — worth billions of dollars and enough to satisfy at least two years of world demand. The large stockpiles could bolster the insurgency’s war chest and further undercut the ability of NATO military operations to curb the flow of drug money to the Taliban.

A third major source of financing for the Taliban is criminal activity, including kidnappings and protection payments from legitimate businesses seeking to operate in Taliban-controlled territory, American authorities say.

The United States has created two new entities aimed at disrupting the trafficking networks and illicit financing. One group, the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, is located at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul. The second group, the Illicit Finance Task Force based in Washington, also aims to identify and disrupt the financial networks supporting terrorists and narcotics traffickers in the region.

American officials say they are working closely with the Afghan government to dry up the Taliban financing, but as one senior American military officer in Afghanistan put it last week, “I won’t overstate the progress.”

Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.