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Loeb dominates early Monaco stages

MONACO — Four-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb began his campaign to win a fifth title in commanding fashion on Thursday when he dominated the first two stages of the season-opening Rally of Monte Carlo.

The French driver finished 12.7 seconds ahead of Citroen teammate Dani Sordo and 44 seconds ahead of Finn Mikko Hirvonen in a Ford Focus.

Spanish driver Sordo had claimed the opening stage but Loeb hit back on the second to get his campaign for a record-breaking fifth Monte Carlo victory off the best possible start.

I found quite a lot of ice on the first stage, so I took it a little easier, said Loeb who is aware of the danger posed by his teammate. Dani really wants to win here. I knew that from the start and he’s pushing me very hard.

Sordo was second fastest through the 17km second stage, but said his efforts were hampered by a problem with his headlights.

It was very difficult for me to get a good feeling, said Sordo. The visibility was bad and the cars ahead had pulled some dirt onto the road, making it very slippery in places. E-mail to a friend

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Grand jury indicts fugitive Marine in woman’s death

(CNN) — A North Carolina grand jury has indicted a Marine on a first-degree murder charge in the killing of a pregnant Marine colleague, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Onslow County, North Carolina, District Attorney Dewey Hudson announced the formal charges against Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean in the death of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach.

Other indictments against Laurean include financial card theft, attempted financial card fraud, fraud and robbery with a dangerous weapon, CNN affiliates reported.

Investigators say Laurean killed Lauterbach, 20, last month, burned her body and buried it beneath a fire pit in his backyard.

She was eight months’ pregnant and had accused Laurean of raping her.

Hudson said Wednesday that preliminary findings from a military autopsy indicate that the slain Marine’s fetus had not been born alive.

Laurean could face a murder charge involving the fetus, if it had been born alive before Lauterbach died.

The military is conducting further tests on a lung tissue sample to determine whether the fetus’ lungs contained oxygen, he said. If oxygen is found, it would mean that the baby took a breath and that would establish life.

The military asked to conduct a second autopsy on Lauterbach following a state-performed autopsy.

Lauterbach’s family gave its approval for the Marine autopsy, which was completed Tuesday, Hudson said.

Hudson also said the military autopsy involved some procedures not done by the state, including reconstruction of Lauterbach’s skull. The state autopsy indicated that Lauterbach died from a blow to the head, contradicting a note Laurean left his wife saying that Lauterbach slit her throat during an argument.

Additional tests are being conducted to determine if Laurean was the fetus’ father, Hudson said.

Authorities suspect Laurean, 21, fled to his native Mexico, where a cousin said he saw the wanted man near Guadalajara a week ago.

Lauterbach was reported missing December 19, and her charred remains were found January 11 after Laurean’s wife gave police the note from her husband. Laurean wrote that he was frightened and buried the body in the backyard.

The Marine’s note said Lauterbach died December 15; authorities said they believe she was killed December 14.

Hudson also confirmed information from a law enforcement source that Laurean traveled by bus to Mexico. The source said he boarded a bus for Houston, Texas, on January 11, arriving the following afternoon.

In Houston, the source said, the Marine bought a bus ticket to San Luis Potosi, Mexico, probably arriving January 13 in Guadalajara.

In the nearby town of Zapopan, Mexico, Laurean stopped at a liquor store owned by his cousin Juan Antonio Ramos Ramirez. Ramos said that Laurean told him that he was traveling with some buddies for a few days.

I did learn from federal authorities last week that Cesar Laurean left the U.S. and entered Mexico last Sunday morning on a bus, Hudson said. It doesn’t surprise me a relative would have seen him — assuming he is telling the truth — because Laurean has family in Mexico.

Earlier this week, Hudson said he had seen strongly compelling evidence from federal authorities that Laurean was in Mexico. He said he had issued a provisional request to Mexican authorities through the U.S. State Department for the Marine’s arrest.

If Mexican authorities arrest Laurean, Hudson would not be able to seek the death penalty. Mexico, like many countries, will not extradite suspected killers if they face a possible death sentence.
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Smelly Davos unveils new world odor

DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) — If there’s a sweet smell at this year’s Global Economic Forum, it’s unlikely to be success.

With troubled markets threatening to leave an unpleasant stink over proceedings, this year’s Davos summit has enlisted the help of a perfumer to ensure gathered world leaders and business chiefs don’t turn up their noses.

Christophe Laudamiel, a scientist who stirs up scent cocktails for New York-based International Flavors and Fragrances has spent the past six months developing a range of odors he hopes will help delegates tackle the financial meltdown.

Even though Davos has a very corporate image, it is looking to the future and the world of olfaction, of smell and perfumery is part of the future, Laudamiel told CNN in the lightly-scented entrance lobby of the Forum’s main venue.

Laudamiel, and his collaborator, Berlin-based Christophe Hornetz, have installed eight fragrance dispensers throughout the conference center, squirting tiny whiffs of his specially blended aromas into the thin mountain air being inhaled by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and many others.

The Swiss chemist, who has also created fragrances for big names including Estee Lauder, Ralph Lauren and Thierry Mugler, says the smells have been fine-tuned to match individual events in the hope of achieving a rather pungent progress.

So as Condoleezza Rice addresses the main session, promoting her Middle East peace drive, heady wafts of a vapor titled Six Continents were set to drift across the room.

‘Six Continents’ fits perfectly with this year’s World Economic Forum theme of collaboration, says Laudamiel, whose red mohawk coif sets him out from the rather conservative crowd at Davos.

The fragrance contains facets that represent each continent. It’s very appropriate for a scent to do this since in perfumery we have always had a collaborative culture, taking ingredients from China, Yemen and all corners of the world.

In the conference center’s smaller Aspen Room, another of Laudamiel’s shoebox-sized dispensers will deploy carefully calculated squirts of a cooler scent, appropriately selected to compliment discussion on our endangered polar regions.

Here the topic is the shrinking Arctic ice cap. The atmosphere we’re trying to create is a glacier, so all the scents are blue — you can create colors from fragrances.

For another room where delegates will kick back in comfy chairs, Laudamiel has blended a soothing scent based on organic lavender oil from the French region of Provence.

Some delegates were left nonplussed by the fragrances.

To be honest, it’s so cold outside, most people’s sinuses will be completely blocked up and they won’t smell anything, said one.

Laudamiel, 38, was approached to by the World Economic Forum to develop a new world odor after presenting a seminar on scents at last year’s event. As head of a team of experimental perfumers he has a nose for the unusual.

Both he and Hornetz previously worked on creating a smell-track for the 2006 film of Patrick Suskind’s bestselling novel Perfume that was released in selected cinemas.

Though he believes only 50 percent of Davos attendees will notice the smells, all will benefit.

The 50 percent who do not notice they are still going to feel better than in previous years, and they will not know why … but they will put it down to something else.

However — in the event the conference fulfills its ambitious goal of making the world a better place — Laudamiel says it probably won’t be down to his odours.

I wouldn’t go that far… unless someone else says that. But smell is the best thing to put people in a positive mood. E-mail to a friend

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5M dead as Congo peace deal signed

(CNN) — The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and armed groups in the country signed a deal Wednesday to end years of fighting in the country’s east, according to Peter Kessler, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

He had no details about the scope of the agreement. The signing ended a more than two-week-long conference between the two sides in the eastern city of Goma.

The news comes on the heels of a new report by the International Rescue Committee which said that the conflict and humanitarian crisis in Congo had taken the lives of some 5.4 million people since 1998, and that 45,000 people continue to die there every month.

IRC President George Rupp said the loss of life is equivalent to the entire population of Denmark, or the state of Colorado, dying within a decade.

Even with the country’s violence, the IRC found that most of the deaths were from non-violent causes such as malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia, and malnutrition.

Nearly half the deaths were among children younger than five, even though they are only 19 percent of the population, the IRC said.

The group said the national rate of mortality is nearly 60 percent higher than the average in the sub-Saharan region.

The IRC’s regional director said a peace deal — even if it covers only the east of the country — would have a wider impact.

The significance is huge in the sense that the troubles in North Kivu have really been a major source of instability not only for the people in North Kivu itself, but for people in the surrounding region as well, said Alyoscia D’Onofrio, who spoke to CNN from Bukavu, in South Kivu province, which borders Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi.

D’Onofrio said a peace deal would signal that the Congolese government can take control of security even in restive areas like the east. That in turn would improve regional security, since conflict in the east has tended to draw in neighboring states, he said. E-mail to a friend

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