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Ronaldo inspires superb United win

LONDON, England — Premier League champions Manchester United extended their lead in this year’s English title race with a 4-0 thrashing of Aston Villa at Old Trafford in Saturday’s evening kick-off.

United took the field minutes after seeing Arsenal close to within three points with a dramatic late win at Bolton, but it did not take long for them to take command.

Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo was once again the inspiration for United and gave them the lead in the 17th minute with an impudent back-heel to surprise Villa goalkeeper Scott Carson.

United extended the advantage with a sweeping move 12 minutes from half-time with Ronaldo providing a pin-point cross for Carlos Tevez to head home emphatically for his 16th of the season.

Shaun Maloney wasted Villa’s best chance early in the second half before Ronaldo played in Rooney to round Carson for United’s third.

Rooney had missed a sitter early in the half but grabbed his second goal of the match, again provided by a Ronaldo pass, to complete the rout.

Victory saw United finish the day six points ahead of Arsenal while third-placed Chelsea can cut the gap to five points if they beat Middlesbrough on Sunday. E-mail to a friend

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First cities go dark for Earth Hour

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — The iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge went dark Saturday night as Sydney became the world’s first major city to turn off its lights for this year’s Earth Hour, a global campaign to raise awareness about climate change.

Thousands of homes were dark for an hour in Christchurch, New Zealand. The famed Wat Arun Buddhist temple in Bangkok, Thailand switched off its lights.

The three major cities were among 23 worldwide, along with 300 smaller towns, taking part in Earth Hour — a campaign by environmental group WWF to highlight the need to conserve energy and fight global warming.

This provides an extraordinary symbol and an indication that we can be part of the solution to global warming, Australian Environment Minister Peter Garrett told Sky News television, standing across the harbor from the dark silhouette of the Opera House.

Garrett said government offices and national monuments around the country took part in Earth Hour.

We’re not only talking the talk, we’re walking the walk, he said. Whatever your view is about the magnitude of the problem … we can save money by using energy wisely and efficiently, and that gives us the added bonus of reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

In Sydney, a lightning storm was the brightest part of Sydney’s skyline when the lights were turned off at the city’s landmarks. Most businesses and homes were already dark as residents embraced their second annual Earth Hour with candlelight dinners, beach bonfires and even a green-powered outdoor movie. Watch the lights go out in Sydney for Earth Hour.

The number of participants was not immediately available but organizers were hoping to beat last year’s debut, when 2.2 million people and more than 2,000 businesses shut off lights and appliances, resulting in a 10.2 percent reduction in carbon emissions during that hour.

I’m putting my neck on the line but my hope is that we top 100 million people, Earth Hour Australia chief executive Greg Bourne said.

New Zealand and Fiji kicked off the event this year. In Christchurch, more than 100 businesses and thousands of homes were plunged into darkness.

Also in New Zealand, Auckland’s Langham Hotel switched from electric lights to candles as it joined the effort to reduce the use of electricity, which when generated creates greenhouse gases that are believed to contribute to global warming.

WWF Thailand said the lights out campaign in Bangkok saved 73.34 megawatts of electricity, which would have produced 45.8 tons of carbon dioxide.

In Manila, the grounds of the seaside Cultural Center of the Philippines went dark after four city mayors ceremonially switched off the lights. Shopping malls turned off street lamps around the metropolis.

After Asia, lights were expected to go out in major European and North American cites as the clock ticks on. One of the last to participate will be San Francisco, California — home to the soon-to-be dimmed Golden Gate Bridge.

Organizers see the event as a way to encourage the world to conserve energy.

What’s amazing is that it’s transcending political boundaries and happening in places like China, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea, said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley. It really seems to have resonated with anybody and everybody.

Popular search engine Google lent its support to Earth Hour with a completely black page and the words: We’ve turned the lights out. Now it’s your turn.

Earth Hour is a call to action, said Sydney’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore. People have now responded and it’s time to introduce some significant long-term changes.
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Beijing to help victims of Tibet clashes

BEIJING, China (AP) — Beijing will compensate victims of anti-government protests in Tibet, a state news agency said Saturday, while diplomats were taken to visit the region in an effort by China to show it has restored order.

The communist government wants to enforce calm quickly following the riots, which drew attention to its human rights record as it prepares for this summer’s Beijing Olympics.

Families of 18 civilians killed will each receive $28,500, the Xinhua News Agency said, citing an announcement by the Beijing-installed Tibet regional government. It said people injured will receive free medical care and owners of damaged homes and shops will get help rebuilding.

About two dozen diplomats from countries including the United States, Britain and Japan were in Tibet on Saturday on a government-organized trip. The Chinese foreign ministry did not respond to a request for details of their agenda.

The visit comes after a similar one by foreign journalists to Tibet’s regional capital, Lhasa, backfired when about 30 crying monks burst into a briefing room shouting there was no religious freedom in Tibet.

Beijing says 22 people died in protests that spread earlier this month to dozens of Tibetan communities across western China, in the broadest challenges to Chinese rule in decades. Tibetan exiles say almost 140 are dead.

Xinhua gave no indication Saturday whether there would be compensation for four other deaths — one police officer and three people who the government says were fleeing arrest.

The government says 382 civilians and 241 police officers also were hurt. The protests, led by monks, began peacefully March 10, on the anniversary of a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Tibet had been effectively independent for decades before Chinese communist troops entered in 1950.

Beijing blames the unrest on supporters of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who lives in exile in India.

On Saturday the Dalai Lama accused Beijing of demographic aggression — encouraging settlers from China’s ethnic Han majority to move to the sparsely Tibetan populated region.

He said the number of settlers in Tibet was expected to increase by more than 1 million following the Olympics, but did not say where he obtained such information.

There is evidence the Chinese people in Tibet are increasing month by month, the Tibetan spiritual leader told reporters in New Delhi.

Lhasa has 100,000 Tibetans and twice as many outsiders, the majority of them from the Han majority, the Dalai Lama said.

In Hong Kong, John Kamm, a veteran activist who met recently with Chinese officials, said the officials indicated that Beijing would not back down on Tibet despite any possible complications over the Olympics.

I doubt frankly that they’re going to be willing to do much with respect to Tibet. I’m very doubtful, for instance, that the Chinese leadership will agree to meet with the Dalai Lama, said Kamm, the executive director of the Dui Hua Foundation in San Francisco. He did not identify the officials he spoke to.

Kamm said one official told him any sign of concession would be seen as a sign of weakness.

Kamm’s group researches Chinese prisons and has helped to arrange the release of political prisoners.

The United States is represented on the Tibet trip by a second secretary from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.

He is somebody in the political section who speaks fluent Mandarin and his portfolio is Tibet, he said.

The protests in Tibet and in other provinces with sizable Tibetan populations have threatened to mar Beijing’s effort to use the Olympics in August to showcase China as a confident, respected power.

President Bush and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Friday they want Chinese leaders to meet with the Dalai Lama to defuse tensions.

It is absolutely clear that there are human rights abuses in Tibet, Rudd told reporters after meeting Bush in Washington.

European Union foreign ministers gathering in Slovenia on Friday appealed to China to resolve the crisis peacefully.
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Muslims condemn Dutch lawmaker’s film

LONDON, England (CNN) — The Organization of the Islamic Conference on Friday added its voice to the growing criticism of a film released by a Dutch lawmaker, which features disturbing images of terrorist acts superimposed over verses from the Quran.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secretary general of the Jeddah, Saudi Arabia-based OIC, released a statement condemning in the strongest terms the release of the film ‘Fitna’ by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders.

The organization added that the film defamed and denigrated the Holy Quran, causing insult to the sentiments of more than 1.3 billion Muslims in the world.

The film was a deliberate act of discrimination against Muslims that aimed to provoke unrest and intolerance, the organization said.

The OIC has 57 member states over four continents and claims on its Web site to be the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations.

In its statement, it urged the international community to condemn the showing of the film and asked the Dutch government to prosecute the author of the documentary under Dutch law.

The 15-minute film, posted Thursday on a London-based Web site, has also drawn condemnation from the European Union and others.

The European Union said the film inflames hatred, and Iran’s Foreign Ministry called the movie anti-Islamic and insulting.

The foreign ministry called on the EU, the Netherlands, and Britain to take action to put an end to its showing, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The Danish Union of Journalists said it was suing Wilders for using a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed drawn by one of its members, newspaper political cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. It said Wilders used the picture — which shows Mohammed with a turban shaped like a bomb — without permission.

The film, titled Fitna, opens with Westergaard’s controversial caricature, followed by translated portions of Islam’s holy book, the Quran.

The passages are interspersed with graphic images of the September 11 terrorist attacks juxtaposed with audio from 911 calls made by the victims trapped inside the World Trade Center in New York and other video clips.

The video includes disturbing images of other terror attacks; bloodied victims; beheadings of hostages; executions of women in hijab, the traditional full-body attire; and footage, with subtitles, of Islamic leaders preaching inflammatory sermons against Jews and Christians.

The film concludes with scrolling messages reading in part: The government insists that you respect Islam, but Islam has no respect for you and In 1945, Nazism was defeated in Europe. In 1989, communism was defeated in Europe. Now the Islamic ideology has to be defeated.

Wilders, the filmmaker, is a member of the Dutch parliament from the conservative Party for Freedom. He has been outspoken in his criticism of Islam and called the religion a threat to the world.

It’s not a provocation, but the harsh reality and a political conclusion, Wilders said of the film Thursday.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini on Friday condemned Wilders and the UK-based Web site hosting the film, LiveLeak.com, for showing the provocative and anti-Islamic movie.

He said such a ‘dirty act’ of the Dutch lawmaker and of a British institute at the end of the Islamic Unity Week reveals continued enmity and deep hostility of such western nationals against Islam and Muslims, IRNA reported.

Warning against consequences of such ‘provocative’ acts, Hosseini asked the Dutch and British governments as well as (the) European Union to step in the case as soon as possible and prevent and put an end to showing of such (an) ‘insulting, anti-Islamic and anti-cultural’ film, IRNA wrote.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the film, calling it offensively anti-Islamic while urging calm.

There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence, he said in a statement. The right of free expression is not at stake here.

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said Thursday that the film equates Islam with violence.

We reject this interpretation, Balkenende said in a statement. The vast majority of Muslims reject extremism and violence. In fact, the victims are often also Muslims.

Slovenia, which holds the rotating EU presidency, said Friday that it supports the Dutch government’s position and believes the film does nothing to promote dialogue among religions.

Mutual tolerance and respect are universal values we should uphold. We believe that acts, such as the above-mentioned film, serve no other purpose than inflaming hatred.

The U.S. government warned the film could spark protests and riots.

The title of the film, Fitna, translates in Arabic to strife or conflict of the type that occurs within families or any other homogenous group.

LiveLeak issued a statement Thursday saying there was no legal reason not to allow Wilders to post the film. It said the site’s policy is to remain unbiased and allow freedom of speech.

Some in the Muslim community rejected the film as nothing more than dangerous anti-Islamic propaganda.

This film is a direct attempt to incite violence from Muslims and help fan the flames of Islamophobia, Arsalan Iftikhar, a contributor to Washington-based Islamica Magazine, told CNN on Thursday. Any reasonable person can see this is meant to spit in the face of Muslims and insult our religion.

Iftikhar said he doubted the film would spark the same type of violence that followed the publication of the caricature of Mohammed, but he called on Muslim leaders to react peacefully.

Westergaard’s caricature was one of a dozen printed in a Danish newspaper in late 2005. Violent protests erupted early the next year after other European newspapers reprinted the images as a matter of free speech.

Some Muslims believe the Quran forbids showing an image of the prophet.
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Gray wolf: Still endangered?

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Montana (CNN) — The gray wolf was officially removed from the Endangered Species Act’s threatened list Friday after three decades — a decision that has stoked controversy among environmentalists and ranchers.

It means the wolves can be shot and killed once they step out of Yellowstone National Park as soon as the affected states establish a hunting season. However, state Fish and Wildlife officials can shoot the animals whenever they deem the wolves to be a problem.

The government delisted the wolves — which were eliminated from Yellowstone decades ago before being reintroduced in the 1990s — because they are now thriving in the park that is dominated by bison, elk and bighorn sheep.

They’re back here in the Northern Rockies; they’re back here in Yellowstone, said Doug Smith, a biologist for the National Park Service in Yellowstone.

That’s something to celebrate given their history of human hatred.

But not everyone is happy about the animal being removed from the endangered list. Conservationists believe hundreds of gray wolves straying from Yellowstone in search of prey could soon be killed by hunters and ranchers. Watch rancher say no wolf is sacred

We’re not ready to pop the champagne corks and have a party, said Doug Honnold, the managing attorney for Earthjustice, a non-profit environmental law firm based in Oakland, California, that has threatened to sue the government.

My biggest fear is we’re going to go backwards instead of forwards.

It wouldn’t be the first time. In the early 20th century, wolves were the targets of a massive government extermination campaign.

It’s harder to find an animal more persecuted than wolves. … We did wolf extermination with a vengeance, said Smith.

But attitudes began to change in the 1980s. Elk and bison populations increased dramatically because there was no natural predator to keep their numbers in check. In 1995, Smith led a team to bring wolves back to the Rocky Mountain landscape. They transplanted dozens of wolves to Yellowstone from Canada. See photos of Yellowstone’s animals

The project has been regarded as an overwhelming success.

There are now more than 1,500 wolves across Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, according to the government. That number convinced federal wildlife officials to remove them from the endangered species list.

Federal officials require each of the three states to maintain a population of 100 wolves, meaning a total of 300 wolves across all three states. The states have actually pledged to keep the population higher than that, at a rate of 150 wolves per state.

We did a thorough analysis, said Ed Bangs, the wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The consensus [for recovery] is a population of 300 wolves and 30 breeding pairs.

He added, The wolf population is fully recovered. We have more wolves than we ever predicted and we have fewer problems than we ever predicted.

Earthjustice says that’s not nearly enough to ensure a viable population and they want to stop the delisting. We’re going to have hundreds of wolves die needlessly, said Honnold.

But many ranchers in the region just don’t understand the fuss about the animals. They have complained for years that the wolves eat their livestock.

There’s nothing about a wolf that’s sacred, said Bruce Malcolm, a cattle rancher and Republican member of Montana’s House of Representatives.

He said he’s lost nearly two dozen cows to the wolves in recent years. I would have preferred that they never came here, he said.

If there’s a winner with the controversy, it’s Yellowstone. The wolves have pushed up attendance by more than a 100,000 visitors per year, according to a park study.

Smith, who has dedicated his life to the wolves, is philosophical about the debate.

No one says living with wolves is easy, said Smith. Living with wolves is a compromise.
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