We will have to be at our best against India: Ireland coach

Bangalore: A sensational upset against England has filled Ireland with hope, but coach Pete Johnston knows that India would be a tougher nut to crack when they clash in the World Cup on Sunday.

"We know what it means to play a strong team like India," Johnston told IANS.

"They have a strong batting line-up and they are playing on home turf. (Virender) Sehwag and Sachin (Tendulkar) are there in the top order. Yuvraj (Singh) and Yusuf (Pathan) in the middle. We also have to face smart operators Zaheer (Khan) and Munaf (Patel), besides negotiating the spin duo of Harbhajan Singh and Piyush Chawla. We have to give them a tough fight to harbour any hopes of pulling off yet another upset," he said.

Ireland is not taking anything for chance and the team sweated out in a practise session here Friday. The agile Irish players took to the ground early for a gruelling session at the nets, with England-slayer Kevin O'Brien being the cynosure of all eyes.

The Indians also had a rigorous practice session. After an hour long workout in the gym and three hours at the nets at the National Cricket Academy ground, coach Gary Kristen led the team into the stadium for unwinding with a soccer match in the post-lunch session.

India have three points from two matches, having beaten Bangladesh in the first match and managing to tie against England.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni's boys have plenty to cover in the fielding and bowling departments, the two weaker areas of the home side, due to which England came close to chasing down 338 last Sunday.

Ireland, on the other hand have tasted a rare win over England and are raring to go against India, looking for another upset. They know that they can stay in the race for a berth in the knock-out stage.

"India cannot afford to take Ireland lightly as England did and paid dearly. The home team's emphatic victory over a fledgling Bangladesh in Dhaka will not count much against top teams like South Africa. Even Ireland proved that they are not a pushovers," said Sujith Somasunder, a former international.

India will surely watch out for Kevin, who hit the fastest World Cup century to upset England. Kevin turned the game around with Alex Cusack (47) with a 162-run sixth wicket partnership.

The wicket at the Chinnaswamy stadium is flat and produced two high scoring matches. There was little for the spinners as one would have hoped after India's warm up match against Australia. Dhoni may go for an extra bowler as even pacers Zaheer and Munaf struggled to contain the English top order, especially skipper Andrew Strauss, who hit a fine 158.

"India should be looking to post over 350 if they bat first. If they bowl first, they should contain Ireland, who are upbeat after their victory against England and would be eyeing another kill," said Somasunder.

Ireland wary of India backlash

Bangalore: Ireland batting sensation Kevin O'Brien warned his team to beware an India World Cup backlash when the two sides meet on Sunday as the quarter-final race hots up.

India came under fire for a sloppy bowling and fielding display which allowed England to tie their 338 in Bangalore last week after letting Bangladesh make 283-9 in pursuit of 370 in the tournament opener.

But O'Brien said that the hosts' bowlers will have a point to prove in Sunday's Group B clash at Chinnaswamy Stadium.

"We have seen India's attack so many times. They have a world class performer in Zaheer Khan who is very good with the new ball, and we all know about Harbhajan Singh," said O'Brien, who hammered the fastest ever World Cup century off just 50 balls in Ireland's stunning win over England.

"Munaf Patel, Piyush Chawla and Ashish Nehra are also there."

O'Brien turned 27 on Friday and is determined that India do not ruin his celebrations in a game where victory could unlock the door to the last eight.

"Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag are one of the best opening pairs. They are extremely difficult to bowl to when in full flow.

"And with Sehwag, it doesn't matter even if it's the first delivery of Test match. If the ball is there to be hit, he will go for it. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Yusuf Pathan are known power-hitters."

It has been a rollercoaster few days for the Dubliner after his pyrotechnics against England saw his team chase down a 328-run victory target, the highest run chase in the history of the event.

With his hair still dyed pink and blond as part of a cancer charity awareness drive, O'Brien has become something of a celebrity, even fielding a phone call from Irish president Mary McAleese.

"I spoke to her (Mary McAleese) for a few minutes. It's always great to get a call from the president (of Ireland)," he said.

England have recovered from Ireland shock: Collingwood

Chennai: England have recovered from the shock loss to minnows Ireland in a World Cup match and the team is confident of beating title favourites South Africa in Sunday's must-win match, insisted all-rounder Paul Collingwood.

"Of course we got a disappointing result against Ireland. But this team usually bounces back from disappointments very fast and immediately. We want a good result on Sunday," Collingwood said last night on the sidelines of a function to launch Slazenger sports products, for which he is one of the brand ambassadors. Collingwood also conceded that South Africa are a top team and very strong in all departments.

"But we are a very strong side ourselves. In the past two years, we have played against South Africa a fair bit and actually have a good record. We won the one-day series against them. But the conditions are different here and we have got to adjust and play better than them on that day."

He asserted that the upset loss to Ireland had not dented the confidence of the English players. Collingwood blamed the batsmen-friendly flat wickets for the poor show by the bowlers in their last three matches.

"All the guys are disappointed obviously to lose against Ireland. We have built a very strong side not just a strong side with skills but also mentally in the last couple of years. A defeat like this can affect the boys but I don't think it will affect the confidence too much.

"I think we are very focused on what we need to do better than we did in the Ireland game and what we need to do against South Africa. So we are still very confident," Collingwood said.

Collingwood said the team's batting had so far been magnificent but admitted that the Englishmen needed to improve bowling and fielding.

"Every single game we have played so far has been very very exciting. I wouldn't say we are too disappointed with our form. In the world cup you need to beat the best sides in the world to win the World Cup," he said.

Defending the bowlers, who have come in for some harsh treatment in the matches against the Netherlands and India besides the Ireland game, Collingwood said it was difficult to bowl on batsmen-friendly wickets.

"I think it is probably got more to do with the wickets. The wickets tend to be very much like the road you have outside this hotel. Flat not much grass on them and batsmen-friendly.

"Every single team that has pretty much scored towards around 300 runs in the competition so far which proves these wickets small boundaries fast outfields very difficult to bowl on. But every team seemed to be having that difficulty," Collingwood, who himself has taken only one wicket in the three games so far, said.

Collingwood, who played a key role in England's famous Ashes win, disagreed that the side has peaked a little too early for the World Cup.

"We managed to retain the Ashes and win the series in Australia which has been a huge goal for us for a long time. But we used to have these schedules now as cricketers. We are obviously disappointed to have lost the ODI series in Australia. We have got this very important world cup now.

India-England tie fetches peak ratings

New Delhi: "The epic tied match between India-England has created new records not just on the field but off the field as well.

The match delivered a peak rating of 29.7 TVRs in top 6 metros according to the research agency TAM," the channel said in a statement. The match, in which England snatched a tie by levelling the mammoth target of 338 set by India, averaged 17.3 TVRs in six metros for which the data is available.

"This is the highest rating any ODI has got in the last two ICC Cricket World Cups. Earlier, India vs. Bangladesh tie had rated an impressive 10.3 TVR," the channel claimed.

Murali row clouds Aussie-Sri Lanka clash

Colombo: Defending champions Australia face Sri Lanka in a mouthwatering World Cup clash on Saturday dramatically spiced up by new 'chucking' allegations over record-breaking spinner Muttiah Muralitharan.

Retired Aussie umpire Darrell Hair, who caused a storm in the international game when he first called Sri Lankan star Muralitharan for an illegal action in 1995, claimed that many current match officials share the same doubts. However, he insists that some umpires are scared to intervene, content to see the 38-year-old enjoy his World Cup swansong before slipping into international retirement.

"A couple of current umpires have said to me, 'something is wrong', but they prefer to let it go," Hair, who quit in 2008, told Australian media on Saturday.

"There is still a lot of doubt about his deliveries.

"A few have told me, 'There is definitely something wrong with his action, but I'm not going to call him'."

Muralitharan has been cleared by the International Cricket Council (ICC) after undergoing biomechanical tests on his controversial action.

But the debate continues to polarise opinion.

"I watched a few of his deliveries against Pakistan and I noticed the last few overs when he was really getting some turn on the ball, those wouldn't have complied under scrutiny," claimed Hair.

"But this is his last World Cup, he's going to bow out with a lot of fanfare and no umpire will be bothered by it."

Muralitharan, who has a record 523 ODI wickets and 800 Test victims, will line up against Australia at the R. Premadasa stadium in Colombo in Saturday's crucial Group A match.

Sri Lanka, the 1996 champions and 2007 runners-up to Australia, could field three spinners with Ajantha Mendis and Rangana Herath expected to play on the dead-slow pitch.

"That's the possibility we're exploring," said skipper Kumar Sangakkara.

Sri Lanka, with two wins and a defeat so far, will also be looking for another sensational display from seamer Lasith Malinga, who delivered a career-best 6-38, including a second World Cup hat-trick, against Kenya.

That nine-wicket win gave Sri Lanka four points from three matches, with Pakistan on top of Group A with six points from three.

Australia captain Ricky Ponting, whose side have two wins in two matches, said his team has a plan to counter Malinga's distinctive, slingshot style.

"We have played a fair bit against Malinga over the years. Obviously he had a great game against Kenya, so he was one of the main focuses in our team meetings and we talked about the right ways to tackle him," said Ponting.

Meanwhile, angry fans attacked the house of Bangladesh captain Shakib Al Hasan after his team crashed to a humiliating nine-wicket defeat against the West Indies in Dhaka.

Shakib's mother and sister were inside the three-storey house in the western district town of Magura when several motorcycle riders stopped and threw stones at the house on Friday evening, local police chief Proloy Chisim said.

Bangladesh, one of the three co-hosts of the World Cup, were bowled out for their lowest one-day international total of 58 to leave them facing a huge struggle to secure a place in the quarter-finals.

Fans also stoned the bus carrying the West Indies team as the players were leaving Sher-e-Bangla stadium after the match.

Police, who have made 38 arrests in connection with the attack, said fans thought it was the Bangladeshi team bus and hurled stones at it, shattering two windows.

Up to 3,000 fans also torched Bangladesh jerseys and held protest marches on the Dhaka University campus to vent their anger at the loss.

Android Pulls Ahead in Smartphone Race: Report

The smartphone race is still raging, but who is winning might look different depending which question you ask.Is Google's Android platform beating Apple's iOS? Yes and no.

A new report released Thursday by Nielsen, a market research firm, found that Android had become the most popular operating system among United States smartphone users. The report said Android now accounted for 29 per cent of all active smartphones. In comparison, the R.I.M. BlackBerry platform and Apple's iOS each account for 27 per cent of active smartphones.

The numbers used in the study were collected from November 2010 through January 2011; this does not account for the Apple iPhone being available on the Verizon cellular network.

Nielsen also found that R.I.M. and Apple were leading the pack when it came to manufacturing the hardware that operated these smartphones. Apple and R.I.M. do have an advantage, though; "they are the only ones creating and selling smartphones with their respective operating systems." Windows Phone 7 and the Google Android platform rely on third-party companies, including Samsung, HTC and Hewlett-Packard, to build phones for their respective operating systems.
The Nielsen study also dissected the age group of people who use smartphones in the United States, noting that people aged 18 to 24 years old were more prone to adopt the Google Android platform. Those aged 25 to 34 years seem to be evenly split when deciding which smartphones to buy, opting for Android, iOS and BlackBerry on an equal basis.

Sheen seduces 1.3 million Twitter fans in two days

Los Angeles:  Troubled American actor Charlie Sheen was Thursday reveling in the fact that his new Twitter account had attracted some 1.3 million followers in just two days.

"In all sincerity... Thank you Twitter community for the warm reception & the followers that helped get me to 1M in 24 hours!!!" he said in a tweet posted late Wednesday.

By Thursday though the number of his followers had swelled to 1.3 million, who had to be satisfied with a mere 21 tweets, accompanied by a couple of pictures, posted by Sheen on the micro-blogging social network.

Most of his messages were not too coherent, although he did ask: "Pardon my absence.... My first concern is my kids... Back soon..!"
Sheen, 45, said on Wednesday that police had taken his twin two-year-old sons, Max and Bob, away overnight after his estranged wife expressed concern for their welfare.

But Sheen has disputed allegations that his wild lifestyle, including drug-addled binges and sharing his home with two girlfriends he called "goddesses," is anything other than a nurturing environment for his children.

Producers last week cancelled the actor's hit television show, "Two and a Half Men" in mid-season, after he gave several rambling interviews, some of which included abusive statements toward his employers at CBS television.

He is also battling allegations of anti-Semitism and claims of death threats against his estranged wife, Brooke Mueller, the mother of the twins, who, like Sheen, is said to be battling drug abuse.

The @charliesheen feed was started Tuesday, and his first tweet was a cheeky photo showing Sheen with one of his new girlfriends holding a bottle of "Naked" brand juice.

"Winning...! Choose your Vice..." the tweet said, adding a link to the picture of him sporting a backwards baseball cap and holding a healthy milk drink.

But despite his new-found Twitter stardom, Sheen is still trailing far behind singer Lady Gaga who has some 8.5 million followers.

'Cyberwar' talk invades world's top high-tech fair

In the wake of the Stuxnet virus, the topic of international "cyberwar" split IT experts at the world's top tech fair, some seeing the idea as fanciful, others warning it was already here.

"'Cyberwar' has already left the pages of the science-fiction books and has become a reality," August-Wilhelm Scheer, president of BITKOM, Germany's high-tech lobby group, told AFP on the side-lines of the CeBIT exposition.

Natalya Kaspersky, president of the Russian IT security firm of the same name, said: "Of course the time of the cyberwar has come. Physical war is very expensive, it costs much less to launch attacks over the Internet."

The idea of "cyberwar" -- or countries attacking each other over the web -- has been around for decades but shot to prominence in 2007 when Internet sites were hit in Estonia, at the time embroiled in a diplomatic spat with Russia.
And the concept really hit the headlines last year with the Stuxnet worm, which damaged Iranian nuclear facilities. Media reports in the United States later said the virus was created with the collaboration of the US and Israel.

Many experts at the time concluded the code of the worm was so complex, it could only have been the work of a nation state.

"Stuxnet is going to go down in history as the first cyberweapon of mass destruction," said Ralph Langner, a German cybersecurity specialist and one of the first scientists to analyse the crippling virus.

"It did not attack virtual targets but rather caused material damage to military objectives, in the same way a bomb attack might," he told AFP.

Sandro Gaycken, a researcher at Berlin's Free University, summed up the idea of "cyberwar" in a recent article: "Attacks are no longer coming from teen tech addicts or delinquents, but from states, armies and secret services."

Others however dismissed the idea of virtual "war" as overblown.

Michael Hange, president of the German government's IT security agency (BSI) said: "'Cyberwar' is a strong word that is nice for the media but I like to be more cautious."

"In cyberattacks, a country doesn't exactly leave its calling card. The classical model of war simply does not apply," added Hange.

This view was shared by international cyberdefence expert Katharina Ziolkowski, who wrote in a recent editorial in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily that cyberwar had "nothing to do with military conflict."

"One day maybe we could have things happening on the Internet that have such serious consequences in the real world that one could talk of armed conflict. But I think we will be safe from this for the next 100 years," she added.

Nevertheless, governments and some organisations are beginning to take the idea of international cyberwarfare very seriously.

In the United States, legislation has been drafted giving the president the power to disconnect the country from the Internet in the case of a major cyberattack.

And in Germany, the home of the CeBIT, the government last week announced the creation of a new national centre for cyberdefence to protect the country in the event of a virtual attack on, for example, its nuclear power stations.

Showing the potential damage a successful cyberattack could wreak, the American think-tank EastWest has envisaged the creation of "cyberwar rights", based on the Geneva Convention, to protect civilians in the case of Web war.

New App Provides a 360-Degree View

Bubbli, a stealth Silicon Valley start-up that is inventing a new type of photographic experience it calls "bubbles," gave an early demonstration of the technology at the TED conference in Long Beach, Calif.

The "bubbles" are 360-degree images that take advantage of the location, accelerometer and camera capabilities of mobile phones. They can also be embedded in Web pages.

The effect is somewhat akin to being able to manipulate Google Streetview through tilting and moving the mobile device around, instead of using a mouse.

Standing on stage in front of a live audience of more than 1,000 people on Wednesday, Ben Newhouse and Terrence
McArdle, the company's two founders, held up their iPads to show an image in front of the convention centre. Then, the image rotated and panned to show adjacent regions of the scene, depending on how the iPad was held. (There were some early technological hiccups, and Newhouse asked the audience to turn off their iPhones).

Bubbli, which is based in Mountain View, Calif., currently employs only the two founders. But it announced $2 million of financing from August Capital last month. The two started working on the technology in June and hoped to submit the application to the Apple Store for approval within a month or so.

As an intern, Newhouse helped create the Monocle feature on Yelp's iPhone app released in 2009, which layers Yelp's ratings over businesses that were viewed through the camera. McArdle has been working in the area of surround imaging for 20 years.

Such bubble images could be used in a variety of circumstances, though Newhouse said that they would first focus on the consumer market. Individuals could use it to take family photos or to send "postcards" to friends.

In addition, there were industry applications. The demonstration showed a mock-up of a newspaper website travel section in which the photo on the page was a "magic window" that would pan as the reader moved, as McArdle explained.

"So much of journalism is about trying to connect you to remote worlds through images, and bubbles uniquely do that," he said. The technology could also be used for imaginary worlds, like having children jump into a scene in "Alice in Wonderland."

The Bubbli app is needed to create the bubble images, but it is not needed to view them. The images will be hosted at Bubbli's own servers, and will be able to be embedded in HTML using iframe technology, Mr. Newhouse said. The first version of the application would be for Apple, but the company was planning to create an Android version quickly, Mr. Newhouse said.

The founders would not discuss the specifics of how they planned to make money from the business.  "There are consumers and there is higher quality content," Newhouse said. "There is a lot of different ways you can attack that higher quality content."

Osama bin Laden of Internet' still speaks on YouTube

Washington —:  From the shootings at Fort Hood, Tex., to the stabbing of a British member of Parliament, investigators have identified Anwar al-Awlaki's stirring online calls to jihad as an important instigator of terrorism.

So members of Congress last year appealed to YouTube to remove calls for violence by Mr. Awlaki, the militant American-born cleric now hiding in Yemen, and in an announcement reported around the world last November, YouTube agreed.

End of story?

Not at all. A quick search of YouTube today for "Anwar al-Awlaki" finds hundreds of his videos, most of them scriptural commentary or clerical advice, but dozens that include calls for jihad or attacks on the United States.

The story of You Tube and Mr. Awlaki is a revealing case study in the complexity of limiting controversial speech in the age of do-it-yourself media, as the House prepares for hearings next week on the radicalization of American Muslims.

In eloquent American English or Arabic with English subtitles, Mr. Awlaki can be seen in videos decrying America's "war on Islam"; warning Muslims why they should "never, ever trust a kuffar," or non-Muslim; praising the attempt by his "student" to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner; and patiently explaining why American civilians are legitimate targets for killings. Such videos have been posted in multiple copies and viewed hundreds or thousands of times.

Since YouTube relies on viewers to flag objectionable material, and only a fraction of Mr. Awlaki's videos violates its rules, it was never likely that his pronouncements would disappear from the site. Even if they did, scores of other sites without YouTube's rules also host the declarations -- written, audio or video -- of Mr. Awlaki, the man some have called the Osama bin Laden of the Internet.

"There's no way as a practical matter to wipe this material off the face of the Internet," said John B. Morris Jr., general counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a nonprofit group in Washington. "It's very unrealistic to believe that any action of any American company or American politician can keep this material off the Web."

But Evan F. Kohlmann, a terrorism analyst with the consulting company Flashpoint Global Partners, who has followed Mr. Awlaki for years, acknowledged the difficulties but said that YouTube should make a greater effort to curtail his pro-terrorism message.

"YouTube has become a major alternative distribution point for jihadi propaganda, especially for homegrown militants who may not have the pedigree to gain access to the classic password-protected jihadi chat forums," Mr. Kohlmann said, referring to militant sites that restrict access. "If you don't have online friends who can sneak you in, and if you don't speak Arabic, then YouTube may be the best available option."

Mr. Kohlmann said that while it might not be easy or cheap, "there are ways of removing this material in a relatively expeditious manner."

YouTube, the six-year-old California-based powerhouse of Web video which is owned by Google, says that every minute, day and night, it receives an average of 35 hours of video from millions of contributors. That ratio makes prescreening impractical, said Victoria Grand, YouTube's head of communications and policy.

Instead, just as YouTube relies on its users to provide content, it relies on them to police the content. The site posts its "community guidelines," which prohibit incitements to violence, hate speech, bomb-making instructions and postings by a member of a designated terrorist organization. A signed-in YouTube user who objects to a video clicks on the "flag" beneath it and indicates the reasons for a complaint by clicking on a label: for instance, "nudity," "child abuse," "animal abuse" or "mass advertising."

In the case of terrorism-related material, objections could fall in the categories "violent or repulsive conduct," including subcategories for "physical attack" or -- in a label added last November after complaints about Mr. Awlaki -- "promotes terrorism." Militant messages could be "hateful or abusive content," with a subcategory for "promotes hatred or violence."

Then YouTube reviewers look at the flagged videos with the assistance of sophisticated software. Any video that violates the company's guidelines is removed, Ms. Grand said.

"We encourage our users to continue to bring this material to our attention," she said. "We review flagged videos around the clock."

The system has prevented YouTube from succumbing to the otherwise inevitable flood of pornography, which is directed to reviewers by software that scans uploaded videos for flesh tones. Computers also give priority to the review of videos with a high "flag-to-view ratio," suggesting that many viewers are upset about it. Software bumps to a low priority videos that have previously been reviewed, as well as those flagged by users who have a record of, say, objecting to every Justin Bieber video.

YouTube explained this system, but declined to say how many employees review videos, what percentage are reviewed, and how many are removed, either over all or specifically relating to Mr. Awlaki.

But Ms. Grand, the company official, explained the importance of context. A video that shows bullying (one banned category) might be permitted if it is intended to educate the public about the hazards of such behavior.

The variety and volume of Mr. Awlaki's YouTube material makes it more difficult than might be supposed to decide its fate. Should his sermon on what makes a good marriage come down? His account of the final moments of the Prophet Muhammad? His counsel on the proper diet for a good Muslim?

Such material does not violate any YouTube standard. But there is evidence that those inspired by Mr. Awlaki to plot violence usually were first drawn by his engaging lectures, including Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged in the Fort Hood shootings; the young men who planned to attack Fort Dix, N.J.; and the 21-year-old British student who told the police she stabbed a member of Parliament last May after watching 100 hours of Awlaki videos.

Even Mr. Awlaki's most incendiary material appears in widely varying contexts on YouTube. A long interview he gave last year justifying violence against Americans, for instance, appears in some videos with the logo of Al Qaida's media wing, but in others as excerpted in newscasts by CNN and Al Jazeera.

Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, a prominent Congressional voice in calling for YouTube to remove Mr. Awlaki's material (he can be seen doing so on YouTube), said he recognized that the company is "wrestling with a difficult issue" and opposed any government ban, which would be likely to violate constitutional protections for free speech.

Still, Mr. Weiner said, he thinks YouTube "could do a better job," adding, "I'd give them a C with an opportunity to improve."

It may be that the crowdsourcing that drives YouTube, its reliance on the masses, becomes the ultimate answer to violent messages on the site, more than company censors. Anti-jihad activists with names like the YouTube Smackdown Corps patrol the site constantly, flagging what they consider to be offensive material.

At a site called Jihadi Smackdown of the Day ("Countering the cyber-jihad one video at a time"), the links for past YouTube videos of Mr. Awlaki now usually lead to a standard message: "This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube's policy."

Now, a human-shaped mobile phone with skin-like outer layer

Melbourne: Japanese researchers have developed a mobile phone that resembles a human being, and which has a skin-like outer layer to enable users to feel closer to those on the other end.

The Elfoid is a smaller version of the Telenoid R1, the robotic answering machine developed by the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR).

Telenoid R1 looked more than a little like a disembodied Casper, and could mimic speech and gestures sent to it by videophone, replicating a distant caller’s presence.

The Elfoid is the same, but fits in your pocket and tickles you when you’ve got a call.

“The mobile phone may feel like the person you are talking to,” News.com.au quoted the ATR as saying, while describing the gadget as a “revolutionary telecom medium”.

The project is a collaboration between Osaka University, the mobile telephone operator NTT DoCoMo and other institutes.

They hope to put it into commercial production within five years by adding image and voice recognition functions.

ATR officials said the prototype, slightly bigger than the size of a palm, features an outer coating that feels like human skin.

A speaker is installed in the head of the doll-like gadget and a light-emitting diode in its chest turns blue when the phone is in use and red when it is in standby mode.

ATR added that the body resembles a human being but its design is so blurred that it could be taken as either male or female and young or old.

Battle in Libya for strategic town kills at least 13

Tripoli, Libya:  Col. Moammar el-Gaddafi's government struck hard at its opponents on Friday, waging fierce battles to wrest control of the town of Zawiya from rebel troops and firing on peaceful protesters after Friday prayers in Tripoli, witnesses said.

At least 13 people were reported dead, more than 100 wounded and 65 missing in Zawiya, 25 miles west of Tripoli. A government spokesman said the Gaddafi forces had retaken the city. "It is liberated this afternoon, and we are going to take you there tomorrow to see for yourself," he said. But several rebels reached by telephone in the evening said that, after considerable bloodshed near the east and west gates to the city, they still held the town.

One witness said the worst carnage occurred after Friday prayers, when a crowd of people decided to march on Tripoli. As they got to the gates, the witness said, the militias opened fire, killing at least a dozen and wounding at least 50.

"We need some help from another hospital because our hospital is too small for 50 people injured here, but the problem is transportation," this person said. "They shoot even the ambulances that carry the injured. I have seen by my own eyes an ambulance driver shot in the hand."
One witness called the shooting in Zawiya a massacre. "I cannot describe the enormity of the violence they are committing against us," he said by telephone, with bursts of gunfire audible in the background. "We want our country to be free."

Opposition sources confirmed the death of Col. Hussein Darbouk, a senior Libyan officer who defected and was commanding the rebel forces, in the fighting.

Government troops and rebels engaged in a fierce, day-long battle for control of the eastern town of Ras Lanuf, witnesses said, with thudding explosions heard on the road north of town. All day long, trucks mounted with guns and swarming with rebel fighters raced from the city of Brega, about 25 miles to the east, to the front, where they confronted fire from mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The wounded kept arriving into the night at the hospital in Brega, witnesses said.

There were unconfirmed reports of a fire at an oil refinery in Zewietina, a town north of Ajdabiya in the same eastern coastal region, and Libyan warplanes bombed an arms depot outside Benghazi, the country's second largest city, a rebel spokesman told Reuters.

In Tripoli, Colonel Gaddafi's forces opened fire on Friday with tear gas and what a witness described as live ammunition to scatter protesters who gathered after noon prayers outside a mosque in a restive neighborhood of the city, chanting slogans and defying the authorities' attempt to lock down the capital.

Young demonstrators hurled rocks at the militia forces cruising the Tajura neighborhood in blue trucks, but the crackle of fire from what sounded like automatic weapons panicked the protesters and they fled in several directions.

"Everyone was supposed to retreat to the mosque, but they are scared of the killing because they are using bullets," a doctor in the main Tajura mosque said as some protesters scrambled for cover there. Two people were injured, he said. Witnesses said the militia fired AK-47 assault rifles.

Amnesty International reported that pro-Gaddafi forces had fired on a medical team near the town of Misuratah, wounding two medics who were trying to retrieve a body. "This disturbing assault indicates that pro-Gaddafi forces are prepared to use lethal force indiscriminately even against those whose role it is to care for the wounded and pick up the dead," the organization said in a statement.

Initially, worshipers in Tajura said they planned to display their opposition to Colonel Gaddafi from inside the mosque, staging a sit-in after the noon prayers that have become a flash point for demonstrations in the uprisings spreading across the Arab world.

But, as prayers ended, thousands of protesters -- mainly men -- lofted the pre-Gaddafi flag that has become the emblem of the rebellion and began milling in a courtyard outside, shouting slogans such as "Free, free Libya," "Tajura will bury you" and "The people want to bring down the regime" -- a rallying cry in many parts of the Arab world. The mosque had been packed and many more people prayed in a courtyard outside.

The protest soon thinned out, reflecting a pervasive fear of reprisals, and only several hundred demonstrators remained, keeping close to the mosque itself. But as they chanted slogans, the pro-Gaddafi militia arrived to disperse them and they broke up into several groups.

Before the Friday noon prayers, witnesses in some neighborhoods of Tripoli said roadblocks backed by armored vehicles and tanks had been set up while official minders ordered foreign journalists not to leave the hotel where they have been told to stay by the authorities.

The government's measures came against the backdrop of a state of terror that has seized two working-class neighborhoods here that just a week ago exploded in revolt. Residents on Thursday reported constant surveillance, searches of cars and even cellphones by militiamen with Kalashnikovs at block-by-block checkpoints and a rash of disappearances of those involved in last week's protest. Some said secret policemen had been offering money for information about the identities and whereabouts of anti-Gaddafi protesters.

As rebel fighters in the country's east celebrated their defeat of a raid on Wednesday by hundreds of Colonel Gaddafi's loyalists in the strategic oil town of Brega, many people in Tripoli said they had lost hope that peaceful protests might push the Libyan leader from power the way street demonstrations had toppled the strongmen in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia.

The measures against foreign reporters reflected a deep animosity despite the government's decision to invite 130 journalists to Tripoli. In a rambling, three-hour speech to loyalists on Wednesday, Colonel Gaddafi said: "Libya doesn't like foreign correspondents. They shouldn't even know about the weather forecasts in Libya, because we are suspicious."

Even in what pass for normal times, Libya severely restricts visas for foreign reporters, issuing them only when the authorities wish to hold some important event offering tribute to Colonel Gaddafi.

But some protesters on Friday said they had been emboldened by the presence of foreign camera crews and journalists who eluded the authorities' attempt to pen them in. But the pro-Gaddafi militia opened fire even though British television crews were filming the episode.

"We are brave, huh?" a protester had said without offering his name. "If Gaddafi brings weapons we will die. But we are confident in ourselves and our cause."

Worshipers said rebel leaders in Benghazi, the eastern stronghold of the uprising, had sent word urging protesters to remain inside mosques for sit-ins after noon prayers, but that instruction seemed to have been ignored in Tajura, at least.

Referring to an interview in which Colonel Gaddafi said all Libyans loved him, a worshiper said the aim of the sit-ins was "to show the number of people who hate Gaddafi." A resident of Tajura reached by telephone said one slogan on Friday declared: "You say we love you, but we don't."

The demonstrations on Friday demonstrated just how effectively the government's ruthless application of force in Tripoli has locked down the city and suppressed simmering rage, even as the rebels have held control of the eastern half of the country and a string of smaller western cities surrounding the capital.

"I think the people know that if they make any protest now they will be killed, so all the people in Tripoli are waiting for someone to help them," one resident said. "It is easy to kill anybody here. I have seen it with my own eyes."

Several people in the two neighborhoods, Feshloom and Tajura, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of Colonel Gaddafi's secret police, said militias loyal to the colonel were using photos taken at last week's protest to track down the men involved. "They know that there are people who have energy and who are willing to die, so they pick them up," another resident said.

Residents of Feshloom showed reporters cellphone photographs taken at Tripoli Central Hospital of a large wound in the chest of a neighbor, Nagi Ali el-Nafishi, 56, and they pointed out a bloodstain on the concrete where he had been shot after leaving a mosque last Friday. A doctor who examined him told reporters that the bullet had exploded his heart and lungs, causing him to die of blood loss within minutes.

Several residents said at least four people from their neighborhood had been killed that day, including Hisham el-Trabelsi, 19, who they said was shot in the head, and Abdel Basit Ismail, 25, who they said was hit by random gunfire while she was calling to a relative involved in the protest.

They also reported the discovery of the body of at least one man, Salem Bashir al-Osta, a 37-year-old teacher who disappeared at a protest last Sunday. It was found near the Abu Slim prison, showing signs of a severe beating but no bullet holes.

And in both neighborhoods, both hotbeds of resistance, residents say disappearances have continued all week as the security forces appear to be rounding up suspected protesters in anticipation of Friday Prayer services, the customary gathering time for street protests across the Arab world.

President Obama on Thursday issued his strongest call yet for Colonel Gaddafi to step down, saying he had lost all his legitimacy as a leader and that "the entire world continues to be outraged by the appalling violence against the Libyan people."

Egypt's new PM speaks at Tahrir Square

Cairo:  Carried on the shoulders of protesters who claimed him as their own, Egypt's new prime minister waded into a crowd of tens of thousands in Tahrir Square on Friday, delivering a speech bereft of regal bombast that illustrated the reach of Egypt's nascent revolution and the breadth of demonstrators' demands that remain unanswered.

"I am here to draw my legitimacy from you," Prime Minister Essam Sharaf told the raucous, flag-waving assembly. "You are the ones to whom legitimacy belongs."

Even some protesters dismissed the speech as the savvy move of an ambitious politician in a time fraught with anxiety. Yet it was perhaps the symbolism itself that said the most about Friday's moment when, just a day after his appointment, an Egyptian leader chose to make his first stop the square that helped topple his predecessor.

The burst of euphoria that greeted uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt has faded somewhat, with the bloodshed in Libya and the retrenchment of governments in Yemen and Bahrain.

But protesters said Mr. Sharaf's appearance illustrated the new, if hesitant, calculus in the Arab world: the power of protests -- or, simply, the expression of popular demands -- to bring about change long left to a clique of officials around Arab strongmen.

The sentiment coursed through the protest, which rivaled some of the more modest days of the 18-day Egyptian uprising. In a celebratory atmosphere that was tinged with anger and resolve, the demonstrators seized the opportunity to demand that Mr. Sharaf undertake far deeper change than the largely cosmetic reforms Egypt's military rulers have parceled out since taking power from President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11.

"This shows you that the power of our ideas -- the idea of democracy, of people claiming their own legitimacy, of our right to choose -- have come to reality," said Mohammed Ali, a 42-year-old film director. "Freedom can do the impossible."

Protesters had described Friday's gathering as a "day of determination," pressing their call for the resignation of Mr. Sharaf's predecessor, Ahmed Shafiq, whom Mr. Mubarak had appointed to lead the cabinet before resigning. But the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, with timing that appeared aimed at heading off bigger crowds, announced Mr. Shafiq's resignation on Thursday with three terse lines on its Facebook page.

A former transportation minister, Mr. Sharaf served in government only briefly, until December 2005, then became one of the higher-profile politicians to occasionally join the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, endearing him to many there.

On Friday, protesters suggested that he had been their candidate to replace Mr. Shafiq, a former air force general like Mr. Mubarak, who came across as haughty at best, inept at worst.

His challenges, though, remain vast, not least in choosing new figures as foreign, interior and justice ministers. Other demands -- from dismantling the more odious police forces to freeing thousands of political prisoners -- may be beyond his purview in a landscape where the military, in almost uncontested fashion, makes the decisions.

"In a transition period, you could have a change of cabinet every few weeks," said Samer Soliman, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo. "It's a time of political instability."

"They," he added, referring to the military's Supreme Council, "are probably just trying the guy out to see if he works with the population."

Even Mr. Sharaf seemed to plead with the protesters to have patience. "I beg you, you did something great and together we will do more," he said, as the crowd chanted "We are with you." He added, "I have a heavy task and it will need patience."

Mr. Sharaf entered the square a little before Friday Prayer services, drawing cries from the crowd and a few surprises, as he headed toward the Mugamma, a sprawling bureaucratic fortress redolent of Soviet-era design. "The prime minister has come!" one man shouted excitedly. To which another responded, "What's his name again?"

If Mr. Sharaf meant to strike a different note on Friday, he did. He traveled with a few members of the military police in red berets and a few more men in dark sunglasses, their numbers paling before the phalanxes of security guards that usually accompany Egyptian officials.

In his remarks, there was none of the stentorian paternalism of Mr. Mubarak, who addressed Egyptians as his sons and daughters in his last speech. "If you would permit me," Mr. Sharaf repeatedly asked the crowd. Dispensing with customary formal Arabic, he spoke in Egyptian slang, standing before them in a gray jacket and white shirt, with no tie.

In a way, the speech was a striking legacy of the uprising: the reimagining of power that once sought prestige though its very distance from those without it.

"Sharaf is the first official that everyone wants," said Mohamed Mostafa, a young member of the Muslim Brotherhood from the Nile Delta. "He promises to implement all our demands, and we trust him because he was protesting in Tahrir with us."

The utopian sense of Tahrir Square has long faded. Only a few people picked up trash on Friday and gone were the pharmacies, health clinics and the uprising's equivalent of soup kitchens that cared for the tens of thousands who camped out here for days. Yet while some thought Mr. Mubarak's resignation might dissipate the protests, Friday's turnout represented a clear signal that the demonstrations had the vitality to continue.

In fact, Mr. Shafiq's resignation was unlikely without the continuing protests.

"From here until the elections for a new parliament, the only way to voice our demands is protests," said Ashraf Ismail, a 29-year-old engineer. "They have to go on."

A banner put it differently: "We want the overthrow of the rest of the regime."

The demands articulated Friday remain formidable -- from forcing out the most loathed ministers to dismantling the nefarious State Security service. Others called for a trial of government figures, from Mr. Mubarak down, and the lifting of the Emergency Law, which has granted the government extensive powers to arrest and detain people for decades.

Mr. Ali, the film director, acknowledged the difficulty in realizing those demands. But, he added, "this is the accomplishment of the revolution. There's a tomorrow."

New robotic hand types like human

London: Engineers in US have developed a robotic hand that is capable of performing human tasks such as opening doors and typing.

The researchers have been trying to create robots with the manual dexterity to operate the machines people regularly encounter in everyday life, whether they are plain old computers, drinks vending machines, bus/tram/train ticketing machines or shopping mall info kiosks.

Shashank Priya and Nicholas Thayer of Virginia Tech have now designed a robotic hand, called "dexterous anthropomorphic robotic typing hand" (DART), that they hope to optimise for keyboard work, reports New Scientist.

"DART is being optimised for use by the humanoid robots being developed to assist elderly people who want to operate computers and other machines. And they will be able to do this by giving the robot voice commands,” they said.

As a first step, Thayer and Priya ruled out pneumatic artificial muscles, shape memory alloys and electroactive polymers as either too bulky or too inefficient to drive their keyboard-clacking digits.

They settled on using 19 tiny servomotors to actuate their hand—all placed in a forearm and connected to the joints via wire tendons that ensured "proper joint angles while typing."

In tests, one hand managed a top speed of 20 words per minute but by adding a left hand, a typing speed of over 30 wpm is anticipated. The average human typing speed is 33 wpm with two hands.

The findings were published in the Smart Materials and Structures, a journal published by the Institute of Physics in the UK.

Mexican scientists develop eco-friendly cement

Mexico City: Scientists in Mexico are developing a new type of cement that will reduce carbon-dioxide emission by up to 80 percent while the amount of energy consumed in the production process will be lowered by as much as 50 percent.

Scientists at the Research and Advanced Studies Centre - or Cinvestav - have been developing several types of cement alternatives for the past 13 years, including one with greater resistance and durability and with less environmental and economic impact, a statement said.

"Cement is the second most consumed product in the world after water due to population growth that in many cities requires the development of infrastructure, buildings and homes," it said.

The intensive use of cement was detrimental to the environment, which is being bombarded with large quantities of carbon dioxide produced in making the construction material, the statement said.

Project head Jose Ivan Escalante Garcia said the idea was to develop a replacement for Portland cement, which is most widely used by the global construction industry.

"For every kilogram of this type of cement that is produced, exactly the same amount of carbon dioxide is released," he said.

Around 2.5 billion tonnes of cement is manufactured worldwide each year and that production accounts for more than eight percent of the planet's human-caused, greenhouse-gas emission.

He said that in the traditional cement-making process, large amounts of carbon dioxide is emitted due to the use of coal or coke to heat limestone, clay and shale at temperatures as high as 1,450 degrees Celsius to obtain a compound called clinker, which is mixed with gypsum and milled into powder to produce cement.

By contrast, geopolymer-based cement is processed at temperatures of just 750 degrees Celsius.

Escalante's team plans to start field tests soon and obtain even better results than they have from laboratory research.

'India rising, but US prefers European nations'

Washington: India, China and Brazil are rising world powers but US relies on European nations for resolving key global issues like Iran and Libya, a top Obama Administration official said.

"Obviously, the United States is a major power, China is an increasing power, (so is) India..., but when we in Washington look around the world and ask ourselves, who is our potential partner on issue X or Y, first on the list tends to be Europe," Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Philip H Gordon said during a media roundtable in Sofia, Bulgaria.

India, China and Brazil are rising powers, but "they are not the ones that we are turning to help us deal with this (Libya) major global challenge, so that needs to be put in perspective," he was quoted as saying in a transcript released by the State Department yesterday.

"Take the cases I mentioned -- Iran -- the Europeans are our partners in trying to deal with the diplomacy of the Iranian nuclear issue; certainly in North Africa, Middle East in the last few weeks.

"Now, of course we are in touch with India and China on the Libya issue, but we are really working this together with the Europeans," he said.

Gordon accepted that India and China are emerging powers and Europe is now divided, but still when US needs to deal with global challenges "it's the democratic, prosperous, militarily capable members of the European Union we are working with first and foremost,and those are the countries with whom we share values and interests."

Hillary calls for 'immediate end' to I Coast violence

Washington: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has condemned Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo and his forces for violence in the African nation and for a "callous disregard" for life.

"The United States calls for an immediate end to the violence," Clinton said in a statement that took aim at Gbagbo, who is resisting calls from the world community to hand the presidency to recognized November election winner Alassane Ouattara.

She said the "United States strongly condemns" attacks by Gbagbo's forces on his own people, including one Thursday on unarmed women demonstrators that left seven dead. His forces denied responsibility.

"Gbagbo and his forces have shown a callous disregard for human life and the rule of law, preying on the unarmed and the innocent. He should step aside immediately in the name of peace," she said.

"Gbabgo's selfish effort to cling to power despite losing the election has elevated tensions and eroded the fundamental rights of Ivoirian civilians," the chief US diplomat said.
"Since December, Gbagbo has used security forces to attack the very people he claims to represent, and deprived Ivorian citizens of access to water and electricity," said the secretary.

In calling for an end to the violence, she said: "Military leaders, regime officials, and others responsible for directing or committing violent acts against civilians will have to answer for their actions."

Bali observes Day of Silence for Hindu New Year

Denpasar: The Indonesian holiday island of Bali shut down for a day of silence to mark the Hindu New Year.

Retailers on Saturday closed their shops and many tourists stayed inside their hotels for Nyepi, a day of reflection that is supposed to be free from daily routine, including work and play.

"Kuta area, which is usually crowded and noisy, now is silent," Kuta village cultural head Gusti Ketut Sudira said of the popular tourist spot.

"Hotels are not allowed to let their guests go outside their areas," he said.

Guards in sarongs with sticks and traditional daggers enforced the public observance among the Hindu-majority Balinese.

The island's international airport and ports were also shut down, with hospitals the only public services functioning close to normally.

Cars and motorcycles were not allowed on the road except in the case of an emergency.

During the evening, lights and lamps will remain off in public areas and houses.

On Friday, locals on the holiday island paraded effigies known as Ogoh-Ogoh, which represent demons, before burning them as a symbol of renewal and purification.

Although Balinese Hindus make up only a small minority of the national population, Nyepi is a public holiday across Muslim-majority Indonesia.

Member of Canadian terror plot gets life sentence

Brampton: A member of a homegrown terrorist group involved in a plot to set off truck bombs in front of Canada's main stock exchange and two government buildings has received a life sentence.

Shareef Abdelhaleem, 35, was a member of the so-called "Toronto 18" plot to set off bombs outside Toronto's Stock Exchange, a building housing Canada's spy agency and a military base.

He was convicted last year of participating in a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion. A judge today gave Abdelhaleem the same sentence as the group's ringleader, Zakaria Amara.

Abdelhaleem and 17 others were arrested in the summer of 2006. Charges were dropped or stayed against seven people while 11 others were sent to prison.

Abdelhaleem can apply for parole in 10 years.

China's Wen pledges to address 'great resentment'

Beijing: Premier Wen Jiabao acknowledged "great resentment" in China over growing income disparity, corruption and other problems, and vowed his government would work harder to meet public demands.

In a "state of the nation" speech opening the annual 10-day session of the nation's rubber-stamp parliament on Saturday, Wen admitted his government had "not yet fundamentally solved a number of issues that the masses feel strongly about."

These included high consumer and housing prices, "significant problems concerning food safety and rampant corruption", and people being illegally kicked off their land to make way for unrestrained property development.

China will "effectively solve problems that cause great resentment among the masses," Wen told the NPC's nearly 3,000 delegates in his two-hour address at the Great Hall of the People in the heart of Beijing.

"We must therefore have a strong sense of responsibility toward the country and the people and work tirelessly and painstakingly to solve these problems more quickly to the satisfaction of the people," Wen said.

The National People's Congress convened amid an increase in tension after a similar mix of issues helped spark unrest across the Arab world.

Topping the agenda is inflation and Wen pledged the communist leadership would step up its fight to contain rising prices of food, housing and other essentials, warning the problem "affects social stability".

"We must therefore make it our top priority in macroeconomic control to keep overall price levels stable," he said, reiterating the government's 2011 inflation target of around four percent.

Inflation has remained stubbornly high -- 4.9 percent in January -- despite a series of policy steps including three interest rate hikes in recent months.

The consumer price index rose by a more than two-year high of 5.1 percent in November. Inflation has a history of sparking unrest in China, with its hundreds of millions of poor farmers and low-paid workers scraping to get by.

Wen indicated the government's macroeconomic offensive would continue, saying: "We will implement a prudent monetary policy."

Decades of blistering export-dependent growth have made China's economy the second-largest in the world.

But China has struggled to spread the wealth evenly among its 1.3 billion population and Wen referred repeatedly to that issue in his speech, lamenting China's "large income gap".

Beijing now wants to follow a more sustainable, environmentally-friendly path under a revamped economic growth blueprint for 2011-2015 that calls for more balanced development that leaves fewer people behind.

The premier noted China's annual eight percent economic growth target for 2011 -- considered the minimum required to keep the economy growing fast enough to stave off social unrest.

That goal is routinely surpassed each year. Last year, the economy grew 10.3 percent.

But Wen also reiterated a pledge made last Sunday that China would aim for a less frenetic seven percent annual growth under the new five-year plan.

He pledged to create 45 million urban jobs over the next five years, "reduce the number of people living in poverty," increase incomes, raise minimum wages and basic pensions, and hike the individual income tax threshold.

"We will continue to increase government spending used to help expand consumption, and increase subsidies to low-income urban residents and farmers," he said.

And Wen repeated government promises to curb property speculation blamed for surging prices and ensure a supply of low-income housing.

The government will work to "genuinely stabilise house prices and meet the reasonable demands of residents for housing," he said.

The urgency of appeasing disgruntled constituencies came into focus in the past two weeks with mysterious Internet calls for weekly Sunday "strolling" rallies in major Chinese cities.

They have largely fizzled under smothering security but the heavy police response revealed official concern over public dissatisfaction.

A mix of similar hot-button issues -- combined with a lack of democracy -- sparked popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in the Arab world.

China's powerless parliament approves whatever is submitted by the ruling Communist Party, which uses the annual session to outline its concerns and the overall policy direction for each year.

Bureau Report

Beijing: Premier Wen Jiabao acknowledged "great resentment" in China over growing income disparity, corruption and other problems, and vowed his government would work harder to meet public demands.

In a "state of the nation" speech opening the annual 10-day session of the nation's rubber-stamp parliament on Saturday, Wen admitted his government had "not yet fundamentally solved a number of issues that the masses feel strongly about."

These included high consumer and housing prices, "significant problems concerning food safety and rampant corruption", and people being illegally kicked off their land to make way for unrestrained property development.

China will "effectively solve problems that cause great resentment among the masses," Wen told the NPC's nearly 3,000 delegates in his two-hour address at the Great Hall of the People in the heart of Beijing.

"We must therefore have a strong sense of responsibility toward the country and the people and work tirelessly and painstakingly to solve these problems more quickly to the satisfaction of the people," Wen said.

The National People's Congress convened amid an increase in tension after a similar mix of issues helped spark unrest across the Arab world.

Topping the agenda is inflation and Wen pledged the communist leadership would step up its fight to contain rising prices of food, housing and other essentials, warning the problem "affects social stability".

"We must therefore make it our top priority in macroeconomic control to keep overall price levels stable," he said, reiterating the government's 2011 inflation target of around four percent.

Inflation has remained stubbornly high -- 4.9 percent in January -- despite a series of policy steps including three interest rate hikes in recent months.

The consumer price index rose by a more than two-year high of 5.1 percent in November. Inflation has a history of sparking unrest in China, with its hundreds of millions of poor farmers and low-paid workers scraping to get by.

Wen indicated the government's macroeconomic offensive would continue, saying: "We will implement a prudent monetary policy."

Decades of blistering export-dependent growth have made China's economy the second-largest in the world.

But China has struggled to spread the wealth evenly among its 1.3 billion population and Wen referred repeatedly to that issue in his speech, lamenting China's "large income gap".

Beijing now wants to follow a more sustainable, environmentally-friendly path under a revamped economic growth blueprint for 2011-2015 that calls for more balanced development that leaves fewer people behind.

The premier noted China's annual eight percent economic growth target for 2011 -- considered the minimum required to keep the economy growing fast enough to stave off social unrest.

That goal is routinely surpassed each year. Last year, the economy grew 10.3 percent.

But Wen also reiterated a pledge made last Sunday that China would aim for a less frenetic seven percent annual growth under the new five-year plan.

He pledged to create 45 million urban jobs over the next five years, "reduce the number of people living in poverty," increase incomes, raise minimum wages and basic pensions, and hike the individual income tax threshold.

"We will continue to increase government spending used to help expand consumption, and increase subsidies to low-income urban residents and farmers," he said.

And Wen repeated government promises to curb property speculation blamed for surging prices and ensure a supply of low-income housing.

The government will work to "genuinely stabilise house prices and meet the reasonable demands of residents for housing," he said.

The urgency of appeasing disgruntled constituencies came into focus in the past two weeks with mysterious Internet calls for weekly Sunday "strolling" rallies in major Chinese cities.

They have largely fizzled under smothering security but the heavy police response revealed official concern over public dissatisfaction.

A mix of similar hot-button issues -- combined with a lack of democracy -- sparked popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere in the Arab world.

China's powerless parliament approves whatever is submitted by the ruling Communist Party, which uses the annual session to outline its concerns and the overall policy direction for each year.

Queen to make first-ever state visit to Ireland

London: Queen Elizabeth II will visit to the Republic of Ireland later this year, the first ruling British monarch to visit the country in a century.

It's a highly symbolic visit by the 84-year-old queen, who Buckingham Palace said would be accompanied by her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. No specific date was given for the visit.

King George V spent six days in Dublin in 1911, when Britain and Ireland were united under a single crown. Ireland won its independence in 1922, but relations between Ireland and Britain were poisoned by continuous arguments and fighting over the fate of Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom.

Hundreds were killed as the Irish Republican Army fought unsuccessfully to wrest the province from British control over three decades known as "The Troubles." Lord Louis Mountbatten, an uncle of Prince Philip, the queen's husband, was killed in 1979 when the IRA blew up his yacht near his castle in County Sligo, western Ireland.

The 1998 Good Friday peace accord, which gave Northern Ireland a measure of self-government, went a long way toward healing the rift.

British Ambassador Julian King said the invitation "symbolizes how far the relationship has come in recent years; the strength of our economic and political ties; and the progress that has been made in Northern Ireland. "

"The visit will provide an excellent opportunity to celebrate this, and build on the rich and varied links that exist across these islands," he said today.

Royals have visited the Irish Republic before. Prince Charles, the eldest son of the queen, led the way with a 1995 visit to Dublin and another in 2002. Prince Philip made an official visit to Dublin in 1998 and 2006.

Today's announcement came a week after Irish voters dealt the ruling Fianna Fail party a historic loss, the worst in nearly 80 years, and put the opposition Fine Gael party in power.

African leaders in new talks on Ivory Coast crisis

Abidjan: Aid agencies warned of the deteriorating situation in Ivory Coast as five African leaders charged with resolving the presidential dispute prepared a fresh bid at mediation.

As the UN refugee organisation said violence had forced it to halt plans for a camp for displaced people, Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders, MSF) said doctors had also been forced to flee the growing conflict.

MSF, in its statement, said one of its team in the western Duekoue district had been forced to halt its work Thursday for safety reasons, as fighting intensified there.

The situation in Abidjan had also deteriorated, it said. MSFappealed to all sides to let the medical workers do their work.

Earlier, Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said Friday the violence had forced it to suspend its activities in Ivory Coast.

Some 70,000 people had been displaced in the west, where there have been heavy clashes around the towns of Duekoue and Blolequin, she added.