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[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pakistan is optimistic about the Obama administration's commitment to its region and will work with the United States on trying to root out extremism within its borders, Pakistan's foreign minister said. Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi meets U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Following a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi cited a \"convergence of interests\" between Washington and Islamabad and a \"willingness to work together.\" \"I see a lot of hope in the new administration, the new leadership, and Pakistan is willing to work with the American administration to fight extremism and terrorism,\" he said Tuesday. \"We are determined to defeat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.\" Qureshi is in Washington to take part in strategic review of U.S. policy to stabilize Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan. The effort is being led by South Asian security expert Bruce Reidel and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy. Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin D. Spanta also was leading a delegation from his country to take part in the review. He and Qureshi will meet with both Clinton and Holbrooke this week. U.S. President Barack Obama and Clinton tapped Holbrooke as special representative for the two countries, a signal of how the new administration considers Afghanistan and Pakistan intertwined in any solution to the war in Afghanistan and the terrorist threat along their shared border. \"We are consulting very closely with the government of Pakistan on our strategic review of our way forward and I'm very grateful for the minister's advice and counsel,\" Clinton said after meeting with Qureshi. Last week Obama announced he is sending another 17,000 troops to Afghanistan to fight a strengthening insurgency, which Obama has called the \"central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism.\" The troops will be sent to southern Afghanistan, which borders Pakistan and is a haven for Taliban insurgents. Pakistani officials have expressed concern the deployment will push the Taliban across the border into Pakistan and further destabilize their country. The Obama administration is conducting several reviews of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, including a review by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander in the region. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the original mission in Afghanistan was \"too broad\" and needs to be more \"realistic and focused\" for the United States to succeed. Pakistan is engaged in its own effort against Taliban militants in its Northwest Frontier Provence. The militants, who effectively control the country's Swat Valley, extended a cease-fire Tuesday as part of an agreement with the government, a deal the U.S. and NATO warn risks granting a safe haven to extremists near the Afghan border. Watch why the deal is being viewed as a capitulation » . Swat Valley was once one of Pakistan's biggest tourist destinations. It is situated near the Afghanistan border and about 186 miles (300 kilometers) from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. In recent months, militants have unleashed a wave of violence that has claimed hundreds of lives across the province. The militants want to require veils for women and beards for men and to ban music and television. The fighting has displaced nearly half of Swat's population, officials said. The central government has long exerted little control in the area, but it launched an intense military offensive in late July to flush out militants. As retaliation for the military presence, the Taliban carried out a series of deadly bombings, beheadings and kidnappings -- and said the attacks will continue until the troops pull out. The Taliban said Tuesday it was indefinitely extending a cease-fire Taliban leaders declared eight days ago after signing a controversial deal with the government to impose Islamic law, or Sharia, in the region. The Pakistani government's decision now to negotiate with Pakistan has been met with international criticism. Holbrooke has said the Obama administration was \"troubled and confused\" by the truce in Swat. Holbrooke and NATO officials have expressed concerns that such an accord could cede effective control of the Swat Valley to extremists." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Qureshi: \"I see a lot of hope in the new administration, the new leadership\"\nHe and Afghan foreign minister will meet with Clinton, Holbrooke this week .\nU.S. troops will be sent to southern Afghanistan .\nTaliban militants extend cease-fire as part of deal with Pakistan ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "PARIS, France (CNN) -- In a city famous for being the birthplace of the avant-garde, it can be hard to keep up with the latest trends. Here's a rough guide to what's hot right now in the French capital. This beat is Tecktonik: The latest dance craze to hit the Parisian streets. Tecktonik Parisian youths love their trends. The latest dance craze sweeping the city is Tecktonik, a fusion dance style usually accessorized with spiked hair and neon accessories. Look out for kids dancing in packs outside the Trocadero. You might even be lucky enough to spot a Tecktonik/breakdance dance-off. Le Scrapbooking Scrapbooking is the current craze amongst Paris' more sedate residents. Head to Le Temple Du Scrap (13 Rue Ernest Cresson) for pretty paper supplies, trimmings, ribbons and associated frippery. Bike around town Much of Paris is walkable, but the city's cheap bike-hire scheme, Velib, which launched in 2007, makes dashing around the city even easier. There are thousands of bikes stashed across the city at bike stations around 300m apart. The first 30 minutes of any trip is free; you'll need a credit card to register with the scheme. Once you've got your bike, you're ready to career around the cobbled streets of Montmartre and rattle along the Seine. Café hotspots The classic Parisian image of smoky cafes is now banished to the pavements, thanks to a smoking ban in bars and restaurants that came in at the end of 2007. Quel dommage! In the winter, café culture's hotspots are those with heated terraces. You'll still be able to light up while you sip a petit café crème, but only if you sit outside -- bring a turtleneck and a beret to keep you warm as well as stylish. Massages at the Mosque Paris is home to a large Muslim population, and La Grande Mosquée de Paris (rue Geoffroy St. Hilaire.) reflects that. From the outside, the building is absolutely stunning; it's even more spectacular inside. Treat yourself to a massage at the hammam (Turkish bath) and you could easily think you are in Morocco. Relax post-massage by sipping a mint tea in the courtyard. Check in advance which days are for men and which are for women. Subway style Taking the subway in Paris can be a drag. Striking drivers and filthy platforms can make the Metro a misery. But the light at the end of this often dark and dingy tunnel is the Palais Royal - Musée du Louvre stop, or namely the Palais Royal entrance. Like a lot of things in Paris, it's an artwork in its own right, by French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel. His design of brightly colored class beads is a delight, and nearby Place Colette is a great spot for people watching: pull up a pew and enjoy." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Watch out for spikey-haired Parisians getting all Tecktonik -- the latest dance style .\nGet ahead, get a bike: the city's cheap bike-hire scheme has proved a success .\nMarvel at the Musée du Louvre's sumptuous metro stop .\nGet a taste of the exotic with a massage at the La Grande Mosquée's own hammam ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- An audio message reportedly from al Qaeda's deputy chief vows revenge for Israel's air and ground assault on Gaza and calls the Jewish state's actions against Hamas militants \"a gift\" from U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. Al Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri is said to address Muslims in Gaza in an audio message released Tuesday. The speaker, identified as Ayman al-Zawahiri, addresses Muslims in Gaza. He said the violence \"is one part of a series of a crusade war against Islam and these air strikes are a gift from Obama before he takes office, and (Egyptian President) Hosni Mubarak, that traitor, is the main partner in your siege and killing.\" The message, posted Tuesday on various Islamist Web sites with a picture of al-Zawahiri next to an image of a wounded child, urges militants to rally against Israel. \"My Muslim brothers and mujahedeens in Gaza and all over Palestine, with the help of God we are with you in the battle, we will direct our strikes against the crusader Jewish coalition wherever we can.\" The 10-minute message also address Muslims worldwide, claiming that Obama was portrayed as \"the savior who will come and change American policy\" during the U.S. election but is now \"killing your brothers and sisters in Gaza without mercy or even pity.\" Obama's transition team did not immediately respond to the message. Earlier Tuesday, the president-elect said he was \"deeply concerned\" about the loss of life in Gaza and Israel, and he promised to make the issue a top priority in his administration. It was Obama's first public reaction to the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza, which began with Israeli air strikes 11 days ago. He reiterated that only one president can speak for the United States at a time. \"Starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to engage effectively and consistently to try to resolve the conflicts that exist in the Middle East,\" Obama said. CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson said the al Qaeda message speaks to al-Zawahiri's cause in two ways: It bashes the new U.S. president before he takes office and it criticizes Mubarak, who has drawn al-Zawahiri's ire for not allowing goods and aid through Egypt's border with Gaza. Al-Zawahiri is a native of Egypt who has served jail time there. Robertson, who is reporting from the Israeli-Gaza border, noted on CNN's \"Situation Room\" that al-Zawahiri got the message out quickly -- \"within 12 days, that's very fast.\" He said that indicated \"there's many issues there that are dear to him.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ten-minute message delivered by Ayman al-Zawahiri, a native of Egypt .\nIn address, al-Zawahiri says violence a \"gift\" from Obama before he takes office .\nThe message, on various Islamist Web sites, urges militants to rally against Israel .\nIn Obama's first public reaction to the violence, he says he is \"deeply concerned\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who faces charges of crimes against humanity, visited Zimbabwe on Sunday for a regional trade meeting. Sudan president Omar al-Bashir is the first head of state ever indicted by the ICC. Al-Bashir landed Saturday in the capital, Harare, for the two-day African leaders' summit of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on March 4, accusing him of complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity in his government's campaign against rebels in Darfur in western Sudan. It was the first arrest warrant for a sitting head of state by the world's only permanent war crimes tribunal, based at The Hague in the Netherlands. Sudan expelled 13 international aid agencies from the Darfur region after the warrant was issued. Al-Bashir has denied the charges, calling them an attempt by Western powers to recolonize Sudan. The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 after rebels in the western region of Sudan began attacking government positions. The government responded with a fierce military campaign that has left about 300,000 dead and more than 2.5 million displaced, the United Nations estimates. The International Criminal Court has no arrest powers and depends on its 106-member states to take suspects into custody. Al-Bashir has visited other counties, including Qatar and Ethiopia, since the warrant was issued. In Zimbabwe, the summit will be at the Victoria Falls, a popular tourism spot on the Zambezi River. Sudan is a member of the trade group, which consists of 19 African nations." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Sudan president Omar al-Bashir visits Zimbabwe despite arrest warrant .\nICC accused al-Bashir of alleged war crime against rebels in Darfur .\nAl-Bashir has denied charges against him ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Sri Lanka ordered an end to combat operations against Tamil Tiger rebels in the country's north, the president's office said Monday. But the rebels accused the military of continuing to bomb civilians. Sri Lankan soldiers stand guard next to a tank captured from the Tamil Tigers. \"Our security forces have been instructed to end the use of heavy-caliber guns, combat aircraft and aerial weapons which could cause civilian casualties,\" according a statement from the Presidential Secretariat. A rebel Web site, Tamilnet.com, immediately accused the government of violating its own order and \"deceiving the international community.\" \"Two Sri Lanka air force fighter bombers continued to bomb civilian targets in Mu'l'li-vaaykkaal after the announcement by the Sri Lankan forces that it would not deploy heavy weapons or carry out air attacks,\" Tamilnet said, citing S. Puleedevan, director of the Tamil Peace Secretariat. \"Obviously we need to see what that means in practice,\" John Holmes, the head of U.N. humanitarian operations, said about the government announcement to end combat operations. \"But, on the face of it, I think it's good news.\" The military will now concentrate on \"saving\" and \"rescuing civilians,\" who have been caught in the fighting between government forces and rebel fighters, the presidential statement said. The government's decision followed an unscheduled meeting of the National Security Council called by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The session included the commanders of the army, navy and air force. The developments came a day after Sri Lankan officials rejected a proposed cease-fire from the Tamil rebels, warning instead that government troops would continue a new offensive until the group surrendered, a senior government official told CNN. \"The government is firm that (the rebels) lay down their arms and surrender. We do not recognize this so-called offer,\" said Lakshman Hulugalle, director of Sri Lanka's Media Center for National Security. The Tiger leadership had asked the international community to \"pressure the Sri Lankan government to reciprocate\" on the cease-fire offer. The United States, the United Nations, the European Union and India have called for a cease-fire. The foreign ministers of three nations are due in Sri Lanka on Wednesday -- David Miliband of the United Kingdom, Bernard Kouchner of France and Carl Bildt of Sweden. The rebels' proposed cease-fire came six days after the Sri Lankan army launched a new offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). Government troops made significant advances into rebel-held territory on Friday and Saturday, according to Sri Lankan army sources. A government-imposed deadline for the Tigers to surrender passed last Tuesday. Tens of thousands of displaced civilians currently remain wedged in a dwindling swath of territory controlled by the Tigers along the country's northeastern coast. Government troops say they have rescued 39,000 civilians trapped in the area, but a U.N. refugee agency said Friday that a wave of \"fresh displacement\" now exceeds 100,000 people. Watch civilians describe what they are experiencing » . Fifty metric tons of relief supplies -- which landed in Colombo on Monday -- will be sent by UNICEF to the north to help displaced residents. UNICEF, which called the situation in the north a \"catastrophe for children,\" said the displaced lack food, water and basic medical supplies. The rebels estimate the number of civilians still located in the territory at more than 160,000. The Sri Lankan military said it \"freed 3,254 civilians from LTTE clutches\" in operations Sunday. The Tigers have been fighting for an independent state in Sri Lanka's northeast since 1983. As many as 70,000 people have been killed since the civil war began, and the group has been declared a terrorist organization by 32 countries, including the United States and the European Union." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tamil rebels say Sri Lankan forces ignoring orders to end military operations Sri Lanka: Forces ordered to cease use of heavy-caliber guns, combat aircraft Rebels say fighter bombers continued to bomb civilian targets after announcement .\nDevelopments come after Sri Lankan officials reject rebels' cease-fire offer ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- It takes a savvy film star to invest in the only business that's keeping audiences away from cinemas. In the case of India's biggest Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan that's cricket. Photographers mob Shah Rukh Khan and his wife Gauri as they arrive for the inaugural Indian Premier League players' auction, February 20, 2008. Over 45 days from April to June, India's newest big money cricket competition -- the DLF Indian Premier League -- infected the country with the kind of excitement usually reserved for the item number in the latest Bollywood blockbuster. Off the pitch, among the cheerleaders and dancing girls, was actor Shah Rukh Khan, the proud new co-owner of the Kolkata Knight Riders, a cricket team whose name was said to be inspired by David Hasselhoff's 1980s television hit. The team, captained by Indian cricketing hero Sourav Ganguly, took to the field in black and gold uniforms created by Bollywood designer Manish Malhotra; black for the color of goddess Kali and gold, because as Khan said, \"We aim for gold.\" In fact, the Knight Riders were knocked out of the competition before the semi-finals, with Khan announcing to fans via SMS:\"Al of us have become part of a failed script, a bad IPL script. Let's try and keep our chin up.\" Shah Rukh Khan, one of the few people in the world also known by his initials, has every reason to keep his own chin up. Twenty years after his first onscreen role in the Indian television series \"Fauji,\" SRK -- the man and the brand -- is more popular than ever. On Sunday night, he won the Best Actor award in Bollywood's version of the Oscars -- the International Indian Film Academy Awards -- for his role as coach of the Indian national women's field hockey team in \"Chak De! India.\" The film took nine awards in all, including Best Film and Best Director. Shah Rukh Khan's previous box-office outing, \"Om Shanti Om,\" scooped five awards, adding icing to its title of Bollywood's highest-ever grossing film. In India, you don't have to go to the cinema to see Shah Rukh Khan. He has returned to the small screen, this time as a television quizmaster. After fronting the Indian version of \"Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,\" he's back with a new series, the local take on the U.S. hit \"Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader.\" If there's any proof of Shah Rukh Khan's global appeal, it comes in the form of 15 year old Shabana Shaheen who lives in Virginia in the U.S. The high school student created her own Shah Rukh Khan Fansite last year -- www.freewebs.com/srkplace. All that and she's never been to India. \"The thing he's like a normal person. He's down to earth and humble,\" she says. \"He values his family -- his parents who have passed away, his wife and children. He's so normal; he just behaves like a normal human being.\" Shabana inherited her love of Shah Rukh Khan from her mother who moved to the U.S. from Pakistan. In Virginia, it's not hard to keep up with the latest Bollywood action. A cinema close to Shabana's home shows the most popular productions. And then there's the internet. Shabana's website gets as many as 1000 hits a day, mainly from fans in the United Kingdom and India. \"It's amazing -- so many people are crazy about him, even in Germany,\" she says. \"A lot of people in Mexico are also apparently very big fans of his films.\" In part, Shah Rukh Khan's fame can be put down to expert merchandising. He's the consummate salesman, charming and keenly aware there's a huge market for his product. The Kolkata Knight Riders may be one of the newest sporting teams in the world, but within months, Khan and Co. has turned them into a lucrative brand. While they didn't win the IPL on-pitch title, they took away the prize as the team who made the most money. Jerseys, t-shirts, sneakers, caps, key chains, coasters, mugs, bandanas, sippers and posters all came with KKR branding through a merchandising deal with Reebok and Indian music group Planet M. Fans could even buy the CD, featuring the KKR theme song, 'Korbo, Lorbo, Jeetbo,' which means \"We will do it, fight it and win it.\" Shah Rukh Khan made the most of his iconic status by writing a blog on the team website under the title of \"12th man\". Fans were encouraged to become a 12th man as well. So far there are more than 46,000. Another wave of SRK mania is set to sweep through cinemas in December 2008 with the release of \"Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi,\" translated as \"A Couple Made by God.\" It's a love story directed by Aditya Chopra, the man behind Shah Rukh Khan's enduring hit, \"Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.\" DDLJ, as it's known, has been playing to packed cinemas for the past 13 years. With Shah Rukh Khan topping the bill, it's likely to be there a lot longer." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bollywood superstar makes sporting debut as owner of Kolkata Knight Riders .\nShah Rukh Khan still wildly popular 20 years after his television debut .\nNow presents India's version of \"Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader\"\nFilming \"Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi,\" a Bollywood love story to be released late 2008 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LA PAZ, Bolivia (CNN) -- Bolivian President Evo Morales nationalized the Chaco petroleum company Friday, taking over the BP subsidiary with the military on standby. Bolivian leader Evo Morales speaks before parliament Thursday in the capital, La Paz. \"With this decree,\" Morales said in a nationally televised address from an oil field in Cochabamba, \"we nationalize all the petroleum business in Chaco for all Bolivians.\" Chaco is jointly owned by Pan American Energy and the Bolivian Pension Fund, each with a 50 percent stake, BP spokesman David Nicholas said from Great Britain. BP owns 60 percent of Pan American Energy, and Bridas Corp. owns the other 40 percent, Nicholas said . Nicholas declined comment on the nationalization. \"We are aware of the presidential decree but cannot comment,\" he said. \"We support Pan America's energies with any discussions they have with the Bolivian government.\" Morales wore a white safety helmet with the words \"Chaco nationalized\" printed on the front when he made his announcement. The Bolivian president guaranteed the petroleum workers that their jobs will be safe. Formed in 1997, Chaco employs about 90 Bolivians, the company says on its Web site. Chaco is dedicated to the exploration and production of hydrocarbons, BP says. Morales decreed in 2007 and 2008 that the government should nationalize various petroleum companies. His actions Friday came less than 48 hours before Bolivians vote Sunday on a new constitution that would give the central government more power and control." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bolivian President Evo Morales nationalizes Chaco petroleum company .\nMorales guarantees petroleum workers that their jobs will be safe .\nMilitary on standby in nationalization of BP subsidiary .\nMove comes 48 hours before Bolivian vote on new constitution ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Colombian officials are blaming the FARC guerrilla group for an explosion in an upscale Bogota neighborhood Tuesday night that killed two people and wounded 20. Police inspect one of two dead bodies after an explosion Tuesday night in Bogota, Colombia. President Alvaro Uribe, who is in France, issued a statement expressing sorrow for \"the new terrorist attempt against Bogota\" and accusing FARC of hypocrisy for talking about human rights while setting off lethal bombs. FARC, the Spanish acronym for Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, is the largest and oldest revolutionary group in Colombia. \"Let us always remember that Bogota cries but will never give up,\" Uribe's statement said. The blast occurred around 9 p.m. at a Blockbuster video rental store in an exclusive neighborhood in northern Bogota, causing major damage to the building, most notably the parking lot. Debris was scattered for more than a block, and nearby buildings and cars also were damaged. Senior presidential aide Fabio Valencia Cossio said 11 pounds of explosives were used, El Espactador newspaper reported. A female passer-by and the store's parking lot attendant were killed in the blast, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told the newspaper. Another newspaper, El Tiempo, said the woman was about 25 years old and was carrying notebooks and books, so authorities believe she was a university student. Police said they were looking into a tip that the bombing might have been part of a FARC extortion attempt, said Radio Caracol, citing presidential aide Valencia. Blockbuster has been complaining to authorities for months that criminals who said they were associated with FARC had been demanding money, news reports said. In his statement from France, Uribe referred to FARC \"combining extortion with terror.\" There was an explosion at another Blockbuster store in the Colombian capital a year ago. Authorities are offering the equivalent of $50,000 for information that would lead to an arrest. The explosion occurred in an neighborhood known for posh restaurants and nightclubs. Ricardo Serrano described to El Tiempo how he felt a loud explosion and the immediate confusion that ensued. \"People were running from one place to another,\" he told the newspaper. \"There were a lot of sirens and police.\" Angel Alberto Arias, a doorman at a nearby building, told El Tiempo, \"I felt like the whole building was going to come down on top of me.\" FARC has about 9,000 to 12,000 armed guerillas and several thousand supporters, mostly in rural areas, according to security analysts. The guerrilla group was established in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party. The guerrillas operate mostly in Colombia but have carried out extortion, kidnappings and other activities in Venezuela, Panama and Ecuador, according to the Federation of American Scientists Intelligence Resource Program. Fernando Ramos and Toby Muse contributed to this report for CNN." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Explosion in upscale Bogota neighborhood kills two people and wounds 20 .\nColombian President Alvaro Uribe condemns FARC rebel group for blast .\nEleven pounds of explosives reportedly used in front of Blockbuster video store ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- \"No matter what I do in life I think I will always be remembered as the wrap dress\" -- (Diane von Furstenberg, CNN 2008) Calling the shots: Diane von Furstenberg oversees a meeting to discuss handbags in New York. Belgian-born, New York-living, ex-member of the German royal family, daughter of a holocaust survivor, socialite and business-woman, Diane von Furstenberg is famous for one thing: a single item of clothing. Her wrap dress -- a patterned piece of jersey tied around the body like a kimono -- sold in the millions. In the 70s, when Von Furstenberg launched her dress business, the wrap's simplicity became synonymous with feminism and the sexual revolution. \"I was selling clothes that would make other women feel confident,\" (Von Furstenberg, CNN, 2008). And the designer herself came to become the face of the brand. Photographed modeling her own clothes, launched a face that became so iconic that Andy Warhol painted her. But with success came boom then bust -- the 80s saw a dramatic nose-dive in the quality and distribution of the DVF brand. \"I became successful very quickly, a lot of people wanted my name and I licensed a lot of things .. the spirit of the brand disappeared\", (Von Furstenberg, CNN, 2008). In the late 90s, wrap dresses came back in to fashion, and DVF returned to the fashion pages, and subsequently fashion shows, of the age. The comeback is recorded as one of the most successful business stories of the decade. Her 30 stores and countless concessions in department stores make the DVF brand a multi-million dollar fashion empire. She dresses celebrities from Madonna to Sharon Stone, but keeps her products affordable and maintains an ethos of \"easy to wear\" \"When a woman goes in to a DVF shop and tries something on, it's like a light turns on\", (Von Furstenberg, CNN, 2008). Celebrities are often snapped wearing Von Furstenberg's designs. DVF often clings to Eva Longoria Parker's silhouette who declares to Revealed \"She is one of my favorite people -- not just a designer!\" Honored by the Council of Fashion of Designers of America (CFDA) by inviting Von Furstenberg to act as President -- she is now seen as the Grand Dame of New York fashion. CNN gains access to her as she prepares for the 2008 CFDA Awards -- deciding at the last moment to ditch one of her own designs and wear an Yves St Laurent tuxedo in a tribute to her friend, the designer who died a few days before the ceremony. Clearly moved, Revealed includes footage of her rehearsing the changes to her speech to include a touching farewell to YSL: \"He brought art into fashion, and fashion into art. He used to joke that he always wanted to be Matisse. But I think if we could have asked Matisse, he would have wanted to be Yves St Laurent\" she tells CNN. Revealed follows Diane von Furstenberg at an exciting moment in her catwalk history. For the first time she is showing outside of the United States, and the setting for her European debut is a romantic private Florentine garden, under the full moon. The Tuscan capital is a special place for her, as it was half an hour down the road that her first wrap dress was produced in a local textile factory. We document the magnificent event from a behind-the-scenes perspective. Interviewing Von Furstenberg herself, along with supermodel Natalia Vodianova, and DVF Creative Director Nathan Jenden; we get a sense of the unfolding of a magical star-lit event. From fittings and dress rehearsals, to visits from the 9-year-old granddaughter Von Furstenberg lovingly calls 'her assistant,' we experience the excitement of the designer returning home to Europe and putting on a magnificent show to herald her arrival. The theme of the collection is \"Le Petit Valise\" -- a group of outfits that can be easily packed and will not crumple; a notion in keeping with the spirit of the DVF brand. Inspired by the Talented Mr Ripley, 600 guests including Lapo Elkan (heir to the Fiat empire) witness the 50 wardrobe changes of a young American traveling abroad. To experience the elegant, informal, party-loving spirit of DVF and her team of designers and models, tune in to \"Revealed\" on CNN International in November. ALL TIMES GMT Wednesday, November 19 0930 1830 Saturday, November 22 0830 1900 Sunday, November 23 0530 1830 Monday, November 24 0400 ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "In November, CNN's Revealed explores the life of Diane von Furstenberg .\nThe Belgian designer wowed the fashion world with her simple wrap dress .\nDVF became familiar initials used to sell anything from homeware to lipstick .\nCNN's Revealed follows the designer backstage at a fashion show in Florence ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Two people were found dead and a third person is still believed missing in a North Carolina food plant heavily damaged in a morning explosion, police said Tuesday night. Part of a collapsed ConAgra Foods plant lies atop parked cars Tuesday in Garner, North Carolina. Four people were in critical condition after the explosion at the ConAgra Foods plant in the town of Garner, CNN affiliate WRAL-TV reported. The explosion, reported about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, caused sections of the roof to collapse. Search efforts for those missing were slowed by ammonia leaks and a fire that was not extinguished until afternoon. \"There was no warnings, no signs,\" Garner Mayor Ronnie Williams said. \"It all happened very abruptly.\" At least 38 people were transported to area hospitals, said Jeff Hammerstein, district chief for Wake County Emergency Medical Services. Four burn victims -- two males and two females -- were undergoing critical care at the North Carolina Jaycees Burn Center, said Dr. Charles Cairns, director of emergency medicine for UNC Hospitals. The patients suffered burns that covered from 40 to 60 percent of their bodies, Cairns said. Police said recovery workers still were trying to get the two bodies out of the plant, which makes Slim Jim food products. The victims' names weren't immediately available. More than 300 people were in the plant when the explosion happened, authorities said. The cause of the blast was unknown, according to Garner police spokesman Joe Binns. Rescuers were crawling into the rubble -- sometimes in pockets of space less than 30 inches tall -- in attempts to access the two bodies and find the missing person, officials said at a news conference Tuesday night. The search crews were moving slowly in part because the building is very unstable, officials said. Video from the scene showed holes in sections of the roof of the 425,000 square-foot plant. First responders set up a makeshift triage area near the building. A section of the roof was collapsed, and pipes could be seen spewing liquid believed to be ammonia. Watch liquid spew from building » . ConAgra Foods' brands include Healthy Choice, Chef Boyardee and Orville Redenbacher, among others. The Garner plant is known for producing Slim Jim beef jerky products. The company was \"working with authorities on the ground to ensure that their employees are getting all of the support that they need,\" said Stephanie Childs, ConAgra director of corporate communication. \"The employees' health is their only real concern at this time.\" Gail Ruffin, a ConAgra worker who was in the plant when the explosion happened, told WRAL she heard a boom. \"The ceiling start coming down, and we all start running,\" Ruffin, who wasn't injured, told WRAL. \"Everyone was trying to get to the exit door. ... I was just trying to get out, and then we just [saw] people that [were] burned -- blood all over them.\" Garner is seven miles south of Raleigh." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Police: Teams looking for missing person, trying to recover two bodies .\nPart of roof collapses in explosion at ConAgra Foods plant in North Carolina .\nAt least 38 taken to hospitals; four said to be in critical condition .\nOfficials don't know cause of blast ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A Democratic congressman from Mississippi plans to hold a hearing into how millions of dollars worth of supplies meant for Gulf Coast hurricane survivors ended up being given away as surplus property. Rep. Bennie Thompson says he'll hold a hearing into how supplies for Katrina victims were diverted. Rep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called the situation \"a debacle.\" In June, CNN revealed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had warehoused $85 million worth of household goods for two years before giving them away to federal agencies and 16 states. But Thompson said there is still a great need for basic supplies in Mississippi. \"We just think that FEMA needs to come and tell the committee how such a debacle could occur, and in the process, what are they going to do to assure Congress and the taxpaying public that it will never happen again,\" Thompson said. The household goods were meant to help Gulf Coast households rebuild. But they sat in FEMA warehouses for two years before the agency declared them surplus property and gave them away in February. The state of Louisiana had not asked for any of the supplies, prompting outrage there after the original CNN report. Since then, the state has taken steps to claim some of the stockpiles and distribute them to groups working to resettle victims of Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm that flooded New Orleans and ravaged the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Mississippi took the supplies it was offered but did not give them to Katrina victims. Instead, as CNN reported this week, the state distributed them to prisons, volunteer fire departments, colleges and other state agencies. Thompson said he was stunned at how Mississippi officials made \"a mockery of the whole process.\" \"I'm disappointed that my state decided that prisoners had a higher priority than Katrina victims and has made no effort to correct it even when this mistake was made,\" he said. \"Any time items intended for victims of Katrina end up in the hands of the Department of Corrections or state employees, then clearly, Mississippi dropped the ball.\" Watch victims tell why they need the items » . Thompson said his committee would \"ask all the tough questions\" and demand any documents associated with the matter. \"So we are prepared, if necessary, to put those officials under oath,\" he said. \"We are prepared if necessary to subpoena any and all documents relative to this situation.\" FEMA spokesman Marty Bahamonde said the agency welcomed any congressional hearing. \"We always make ourselves available to answer the questions. That's something we are always ready to do,\" he said. FEMA said it was costing more than $1 million a year to store the supplies, but officials have not been able to answer why the agency didn't get the supplies to Katrina victims. FEMA said the agency has launched an internal probe into the issue. Jim Marler, director of Mississippi's surplus agency, failed to return repeated phone calls over several months to explain what happened there. But spokeswoman Kym Wiggins said the agency was not told the items were still needed -- a statement that didn't sit well with groups working to rebuild the stricken coast. Bill Stallworth, executive director of the Hope Coordination Center in Biloxi, said he and other community leaders would have begged for the FEMA stockpiles had they known they were available. \"When I hear people stand up and just beat their chest and say we've got everything under control, that's when I just want to slap them upside the head and say, 'Get a grip, get a life,' \" said Stallworth, also a Biloxi city councilman. If you have a story tip, e-mail [email protected] ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rep. Bennie Thompson wants FEMA to explain giveaway of hurricane supplies .\nFEMA held $85 million worth of supplies meant for Katrina victims for two years .\nGoods later given to federal agencies and states, CNN revealed .\nThompson's state, Mississippi, didn't give the goods it received to hurricane victims ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The alleged leader of a firearms trafficking network believed to be smuggling guns into Mexico -- where police say they are used against law enforcement officers by members of Mexican drug cartels -- was arrested Thursday in Arizona, authorities said. Victor Varela was arrested by the ATF as part of the agency's ongoing Project Gunrunner. Victor Varela was arrested by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives as part of the agency's ongoing Project Gunrunner, according to an ATF release. He was in the custody of the Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff. \"Law enforcement officers disrupted a group of gun traffickers and recovered several weapons, including .50-caliber semiautomatic rifles and several handguns, allegedly intended to supply drug traffic organization members of the Juarez Cartel in Palomas, Mexico,\" the statement said. In state charges, prosecutors allege Varela and his co-defendants bought a number of guns in Arizona intending to supply the Mexican cartel members. The group allegedly transported the illegally purchased guns to New Mexico, and then into Mexico. A .50-caliber weapon is the largest that can legally be bought in the United States, and is illegal in Mexico. Authorities believe a .50-caliber weapon was used in recent months to kill Francisco Ledesma Salazar, a police commander in Juarez, Mexico. He is among five high-ranking Mexican police officials killed this year in what Mexico authorities describe as an escalating war between police and drug cartels. Last week, 2,000 troops were sent to Juarez by the Mexican government in an effort to quell the violence there, which has claimed some 200 lives since January. Guns are difficult to buy legally in Mexico, but can be obtained just north of the border at gun shows and gun shops. Project Gunrunner was launched as an effort to help Mexican police by cracking down on illegal smuggling of guns and ammunition, and has led to several arrests and seizures. Watch how the weapons fuel a little-known war » . \"This case was made one of our highest priorities because of the nature of the crime alleged to be committed by Varela,\" U.S. Marshal David Gonzales said in the ATF release. Guns featured in a CNN Special Investigations Unit report last week, confiscated by Juarez police, are believed to have been smuggled into Mexico by Varela, according to an ATF spokesman. Authorities said one recent discovery, in a storage locker in Yuma, Arizona, yielded 42 weapons and hundreds of rounds of .50-caliber bullets already belted to be fed into a machine gun-style weapon, as well as Fabrique Nationale pistols, semiautomatic handguns that fire a 5.7-by-28-millimeter round. \"What's interesting about this gun, why it's in high demand, is the nickname that it has in Mexico,\" said William Newell, ATF special agent in charge, about the Fabrique National pistol. \"It's called 'mata policias,' or 'cop killer.' \" Charging documents allege that Varela was attempting to buy a fully automatic M-60 machine gun for a drug cartel associate in Palomas, authorities said. \"Additionally, a number of firearms recovered by Mexico law enforcement ... allegedly were trafficked by Varela's gun smuggling network,\" the ATF statement said. U.S. authorities are sharing intelligence with their Mexican counterparts to assist in ongoing investigations, the ATF said. E-mail to a friend . CNN's John Murgatroyd and Drew Griffin contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Suspect is alleged leader network believed to be smuggling guns into Mexico .\nLast week, 2,000 Mexican troops were sent to Juarez, Mexico, to quell violence .\nMexican drug cartels blamed for killings of police officers .\nATF: U.S. authorities sharing intelligence with their Mexican counterparts ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Singapore's Gross Domestic Product is expected to shrink as much as 5 percent in 2009, far more than the 1 to 2 percent contraction predicted earlier this month, the government said. People walk out for their lunch break in the financial district of Singapore on Wednesday. The Ministry of Trade and Industry said it expected a GDP reduction of between 2 and 5 percent this year. Singapore's economy grew by 1.2 percent in 2008, the government said, far lower than its 7.7 percent growth in 2007. Slowdowns in manufacturing, trade, transport and storage, information and communications and the financial services sectors contributed to the decline, the government said. The global financial crisis led to a \"significant decline in fund management and stock broking activities in the second half of 2008,\" and a sharper downturn was expected in 2009, the ministry said. The ministry cited data on retail sales and unemployment in the United States, industrial production in Europe and on Asian exports for the weaker outlook. Inflation was expected to ease slightly, however. The finance minister is expected to deliver the 2009 budget statement on Thursday." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Gross Domestic Product reduction between 2 and 5 percent expected .\nMinistry cites data on U.S. retail sales and unemployment, Asian exports .\nFinance minister expected to deliver the 2009 budget statement Thursday ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that despite President Bush's low approval ratings, people will soon \"start to thank this president for what he's done.\" Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says \"there is no greater honor than to serve this country,\" \"So we can sit here and talk about the long record, but what I would say to you is that this president has faced tougher circumstances than perhaps at any time since the end of World War II, and he has delivered policies that are going to stand the test of time,\" Rice said in an interview that aired on CBS' \"Sunday Morning.\" The secretary of state brushed off reports that suggest the United States' image is suffering abroad. She praised the administration's ability to change the conversation in the Middle East. \"This isn't a popularity contest. I'm sorry, it isn't. What the administration is responsible to do is to make good choices about Americans' interests and values in the long run -- not for today's headlines, but for history's judgment,\" she said. \"And I am quite certain that when the final chapters are written and it's clear that Saddam Hussein's Iraq is gone in favor of an Iraq that is favorable to the future of the Middle East; when the history is written of a U.S.-China relationship that is better than it's ever been; an India relationship that is deeper and better than it's ever been; a relationship with Brazil and other countries of the left of Latin America, better than it's ever been ... \"When one looks at what we've been able to do in terms of changing the conversation in the Middle East about democracy and values, this administration will be judged well, and I'll wait for history's judgment and not today's headlines.\" Asked by CBS' Rita Braver why some former diplomats say Americans are disliked around the world, Rice said that's \"just not true.\" \"I know what U.S. policy has achieved. And so I don't know what diplomats you're talking to, but look at the record,\" she said. Rice said she wasn't bothered by criticism about her or the administration's polices, saying if a person in her business is not being criticized, \"you're not doing something right.\" \"I'm here to make tough choices, and this president is here to make tough choices, and we have. And yes, I -- there are some things that I would do very differently if I had it to do over again. You don't have that luxury. You have to make the choices and take the positions that you do at the time,\" she said. Asked about historians who say Bush is one of the worst presidents, Rice said those \"aren't very good historians.\" \"If you're making historical judgments before an administration is already out -- even out of office, and if you're trying to make historical judgments when the nature of the Middle East is still to be determined, and when one cannot yet judge the effects of decisions that this President has taken on what the Middle East will become -- I mean, for goodness' sakes, good historians are still writing books about George Washington. Good historians are certainly still writing books about Harry Truman,\" she said. Rice, 54, said she has enjoyed working in the Bush administration during the last eight years, first as national security adviser, then as secretary of state. \"There is no greater honor than to serve this country,\" she said, adding that there is also no greater challenge. Rice said when the new administration takes over, she plans to return to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and write two books -- one on foreign policy and one about her parents." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Condoleezza Rice says Bush's policies will \"stand the test of time\"\nRice says she's not bothered by criticism; says she's \"here to make tough choices\"\nSecretary of state says historians criticizing Bush \"aren't very good historians\"\nRice says she plans to write a book about foreign policy ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Rapper T.I., who was sentenced to a 366-day prison sentence in March, reported Tuesday to a federal prison complex in Forrest City, Arkansas, according to CNN affiliate WSB-TV. T.I., left, performed to a packed crowd Sunday, days before he was to start a prison term. The rapper -- whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr. -- was required to be at the prison before noon local time to begin serving his sentence on federal weapons charges. According to news reports, officers from Forrest City and the prison set up a roadblock along Arkansas Highway 1 about one-tenth of a mile from the complex. Reporters were not allowed any closer to the prison. T.I. threw himself a going-away party Sunday night at Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, before a packed house. During Sunday's concert -- called \"T.I.'s Final Goodbye Bash\" -- the 28-year-old Grammy winner reiterated a message that's become familiar in recent weeks: He wants others to learn from his mistakes. \"I'm doing the best I can to get out there, man, and put something positive on these young kids, man,\" T.I. said during the show. \"I try my best. I need y'all help, though.\" The rapper played to a sell-out crowd of 16,000 people, said Kenan Woods, a spokesman for the arena. T.I. played through much of his catalog, including the hits \"Whatever You Like,\" \"Live Your Life\" and the Grammy-winning \"Swagga Like Us,\" Woods said. At times in the show, Harris was joined on stage by fellow rapper Soulja Boy and by his five children and mother, Woods said. T.I. was sentenced in March on weapons charges related to purchasing machine guns and silencers. In addition to serving prison time, T.I. was placed on house arrest, was given community service and was ordered to pay a $100,300 fine. Though he had been in legal trouble before, Harris' current situation began when he was arrested just hours before he was to perform at the BET Hip-Hop Awards in Atlanta. The rapper had provided a bodyguard with $12,000 to buy weapons. Harris was not permitted to own any guns, however, because he was convicted in 1998 on felony drug charges -- possession of crack cocaine with intent to distribute -- in Cobb County, in suburban Atlanta. After his arrest, he entered a plea agreement, which federal authorities called unique because it allowed the rapper to remain out of prison for a year while he performed community service. Harris has already left a strong mark on the hip-hop genre, music experts told CNN, which should position his career well when he is released. Harris had been named to the Forbes list of top-earning rappers, making an estimated $16 million in 2006. Some music industry observers have said T.I.'s prison term will only make him more popular. \"I think that if anything, it will gain him more fans and actually support his fan base, because he's talked about making a mistake,\" Emil Wilbekin, editor in chief of Giant Magazine, told CNN. \"He's talked about taking care of the error of his ways.\" The Atlanta rapper has expressed remorse for the situation. \"I would like to say thank you to some and apologize to others,\" he said at his sentencing in March. \"In my life, I have been placed in the worst-case scenario and had to make the best of it.\" In a March interview with CNN's T.J. Holmes, Harris said he no longer felt like he needed to carry weapons to protect himself. He said people should not idolize him for what he's gone through, but should take note of the fact that he has taken responsibility for his actions. \"You shouldn't take the things that I've gone through, and the negative parts of my life, and admire me for that. If anything, admire me for how I've accepted responsibility for the part I played in placing myself in these situations, and what I've done to recover from it,\" Harris said. Harris has been the subject of an MTV reality show, \"T.I.'s Road to Redemption,\" in the lead-up to the prison term." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "T.I. performed Sunday, less than two days before his prison term was to start .\nThe rapper has been sentenced in connection with federal weapons charges .\nHis prison term of one year and one day starts Tuesday ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The 5-year-old girl found the note tucked inside a plastic bag and left in a basket used as a flower pot. April Tinsley, 8, abducted in Fort Wayne, Indiana, was raped and killed 21 years ago. The case was not solved. \"Hi Honey I Been watching you,\" it said. \"I am the same person that kidnapped an Rape an kill Aproil tinsely here is a present foR yo you are my next vitem.\" A used condom was stuffed in the bag alongside the note. It was March 2004 -- nearly 16 years after 8-year-old April Tinsley was abducted from a Fort Wayne, Indiana, neighborhood, raped and killed. Her killer remains at large, and police believe he has surfaced several times, scrawling a message in crayon on a barn in 1990, then leaving four chilling notes for children in the Fort Wayne area years later. Indiana authorities are now asking an FBI task force -- the Child Abduction Response Deployment (CARD) team -- to help take a fresh look at the case. \"Investigators believe the case is 'highly solvable,' and after 21 years, their desire to bring April Tinsley's killer to justice is stronger than ever,\" the FBI said. CARD teams were created three years ago, aimed at bringing together \"a variety of experts in child abduction cases who could quickly respond on the ground to help local authorities with time-sensitive investigations,\" the FBI said. While CARD responds to abductions and disappearances, the team also works cold cases, like April's, the agency said. \"As team members discovered, there is enough evidence -- including notes, pictures, and DNA left by the killer years after the murder -- to make investigators hopeful they can break the case.\" The team includes behavioral profilers, agents and analysts from the FBI's Crimes Against Children Unit and coordinators and representatives from the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime and the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. April Marie Tinsley was playing outside with friends on Good Friday, April 1, 1988. As the three girls were moving from one friend's home to another's, the first-grader realized she had left her umbrella behind and went back to get it. She never returned. Her body was found three days later, in a ditch some 20 miles northeast of the Tinsley home. April's body was clothed, but an autopsy showed she had been raped and suffocated. Two years later, a teenage boy called police to report a message scrawled in crayon and black marker on the front doors of a barn about 10 miles from April's home. He never saw the writer, according to the TV program \"America's Most Wanted,\" which profiled the case in May, but each day noticed the print was getting darker and more pronounced. Although the message was hard to read, the person wrote he had killed April, and that he would kill again. Crayons were left behind at the scene, \"America's Most Wanted\" said on its Web site. Police attempted to conduct forensic analysis on them, but came up empty. Then, in spring 2004, the four notes appeared at various Fort Wayne homes, several of them placed on bicycles that young girls had left in their yards. All the notes were written on lined yellow paper and placed inside plastic bags along with used condoms or Polaroids of the killer's body, the FBI said. Several notes referred to April. Authorities have reason to believe the writer of the 1990 note also left the notes 14 years later, Fort Wayne police said. \"That tells us that the person's still around, still out there,\" said Fort Wayne police Capt. Paul Shrawder. \"It's definitely very odd,\" he added. \"Even the FBI is puzzled by the behavior, that the letters would come out so many years later and then nothing again.\" DNA evidence was recovered from April's body and from the condoms, Shrawder said. While police have no one to match it with at this point, \"things have been resubmitted and retested\" as technological advances have been made, he said. The advantage of the CARD team, from a local police standpoint, is that members only work such cases, while \"we're local -- we work on whatever happens here,\" Shrawder said. The team has experience in such matters, and might look at new aspects, angles and possibilities that local authorities haven't thought of, he said. Federal investigators were deployed to Fort Wayne to work the Tinsley case earlier this month. After the \"America's Most Wanted\" profile and the renewed push, authorities received between 400 and 500 tips, Shrawder said. Some could be ruled out right away -- someone who had died between the murder and the 2004 notes, for instance, he said. DNA samples were taken on about 150 people. Police are still trying to run down about 50 or 75 tips, he said. \"That was the purpose, was to go out and run down every single one of these, no matter how vague it was.\" Some of the authorities' leads, according to the FBI, include identifying Fort Wayne residents who used Polaroids as late as 2004; tracking down a green paisley bedspread similar to that seen in one Polaroid; and looking at misdemeanor offenses in the area near the time of April's death and the 2004 note spree, as offenses like indecent exposure could indicate more serious sex crimes. In addition, the FBI has released a behavioral profile of Tinsley's killer. Police believe he is a white male currently in his 40s or 50s who prefers and desires sexual contact with children, particularly little girls. \"This offender has demonstrated that he has strong ties to northeast Fort Wayne and Allen County,\" the profile said. \"This is where he likely lives, works and/or shops. You may be standing next to him in line at the grocery store, sitting beside him in the pew at church, or working beside him on the production line.\" Such profiles can be helpful in that they might spur local residents to tell police, \"You know, I always wondered about this one guy,\" Shrawder said. To offer information on the Tinsley case, contact your local FBI office or Fort Wayne police at (866) 602-7745." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "FBI task force considers girl's slaying \"highly solvable\"\nApril Tinsley, 8, was abducted in 1988 while walking home from a friend's house .\nWriter claimed responsibility for slaying in barn-door message in 1990 .\nFour more notes, believed to have been written by the killer, surfaced in 2004 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Those extra service fees tacked on to concert ticket prices -- long a source of grumbling by ticket buyers -- will disappear for millions of seats sold by the largest U.S. concert promoter this summer. Live Nation is awaiting government approval of a merger with giant Ticketmaster. Live Nation launches \"No Service Fee Wednesdays\" this week for lawn seats at amphitheaters, removing extra fees from 5 million lawn seats for shows at amphitheaters across the United States. Live Nation insisted that the promotion was about selling more tickets and helping music fans hit by hard times, not improving public relations while it waits for government approval of its merger with Ticketmaster. But the promotion could soothe some bad feelings. \"People get a little ticked off when they think they're paying $20 for a ticket and as they progress along the various pages of the electronic transaction, they see more fees added a long the way,\" said Ray Waddell, who writes about live music tours for Billboard magazine. Live Nation will waive fees on lawn seats for 24 hours, beginning at midnight Tuesday local time and lasting through Wednesday. Lawn seat tickets available this week include concerts by Aerosmith, Blink-182, Coldplay, No Doubt, Nickelback, Depeche Mode, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley and many others, Live Nation said. Other shows coming later in the summer include Crosby Stills & Nash, Crue Fest 2, Def Leppard with Poison and Cheap Trick, Jason Mraz, Kid Rock & Lynyrd Skynyrd, Incubus, New Kids on the Block, Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction, Phish, the Dead, Rascall Flats with Darius Rucker, the Allman Brothers Band, the Fray and the Killers. \"They're sacrificing quite a lot of revenue here,\" Waddell said . He estimated that fees add up to about a third of the average price for lawn seats. The economic recession has not seemed to slow the live concert business, which \"considering everything else, is going like gangbusters,\" he said. \"It looks like it could be a really strong year,\" he said. \"People want to go to shows. They want to hear music.\" Every tour offers some type of promotion, he said, including a lot of $10 lawn seats. \"This is a business that's pretty flexible when it needs to be,\" he said. Live Nation began selling tickets to its own concerts only last year, just months before announcing plans to merge with Ticketmaster, the world's largest ticket-seller. Before that, Live Nation promoted shows but had no infrastructure to sell tickets, and it contracted out to Ticketmaster or others to sell them. The Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger plan has drawn criticism. The Justice Department launched an investigation of the proposed merger in February. Neither Live Nation nor Ticketmaster executives would respond to questions about the merger. However, Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff did talk about it before a U.S. Senate subcommittee earlier this year. The merger \"will give us greater flexibility in how we promote, market and sell tickets to events,\" he said. \"It will give us a pathway to alternative pricing and fee structures. And we will be better able to develop new and innovative products and services that enhance the fan experience and make all forms of entertainment more accessible to everyone.\" CNN's Denise Quan contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Live Nation's \"No Service Fee Wednesdays\" applies to 5 million seats .\nPromotion could soothe feathers ruffled by Ticketmaster merger .\nIt applies to shows such as No Doubt, the Dead, Jason Mraz, Nine Inch Nails ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Turkey's military said it killed at least 15 rebels in operations in northern Iraq earlier this week, but a spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Security Forces denied the report, saying Turkey has not conducted any military operation or air assault there in the past two weeks. Turkish troops patrol near the border with Iraq during an offensive in February. A statement posted on the Turkish armed forces' official Web site said a group of PKK, or members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, was identified in northern Iraq, and said the group was believed to be planning an attack and trying to leak through the border into Turkey. The PKK, labeled a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, is comprised of militants who have been launching attacks against Turkey from bases in northern Iraq. The Turkish military said the PKK group \"came under fire by long-range weapons\" on Thursday, and 15 terrorists were killed. The same region was targeted by a Turkish air assault on Friday, the military said, adding that the number of casualties was not yet available. \"In the missions, only the places that were confirmed to belong to the terrorist group were targeted,\" the military statement said. \"Turkish armed forces acted with utmost sensitivity in order to avoid any negative impact of the strikes on the civilians in the region.\" However, Jabbar Yawer, a spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Forces, said no air assault was conducted Thursday or Friday, and added that no operations have been conducted in northern Iraq for the past two weeks. The PKK has spent two decades fighting for autonomy for Kurds in southeastern Turkey, with some of its attacks launched from inside Iraq ». The Iraqi government opposes the PKK's presence, but views a Turkish military incursion as a violation of its sovereignty. E-mail to a friend . CNN Turk's Begum Donmez and CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Turkey: At least 15 rebels in operations in northern Iraq earlier this week .\nSays Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) members trying to get into Turkey .\nIraqi Kurdish Regional Security Forces denies the report, says no operation .\nPKK, labeled a terrorist group by U.S., EU, has attacked Turkey from N Iraq ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Editor's note: A nationally syndicated columnist, Roland S. Martin is the author of \"Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith\" and \"Speak, Brother! A Black Man's View of America.\" Visit his Web site for more information. Roland Martin says men are harming their health by their reluctance to go to the doctor. (CNN) -- A couple of years ago, my dad told me that he had a cataract in his eye and could barely see out of it and that he needed to get it fixed. \"Cool. Go to the doctor and get it taken care of,\" I said. \"I will,\" he replied. One month became three; three months turned into six months; and a year later and numerous calls later by a ticked-off son, he still had not gone to the doctor. So one morning, when I was hosting the 6 to 9 a.m. talk show shift on WVON-AM in Chicago, Illinois, I told my producer, Geneen Harston, to call my dad, but don't tell him he'll be on the air. When the commercials ended, I pulled him up on the air and asked, \"So, dad, have you made that doctor's appointment?\" He started to laugh and said that he had done so the day before and that he was seeing the doctor later in the week. Luckily, he followed through, and they discovered that he had another one growing in the other eye. Both eyes were taken care of, and all has been well since. Yet what ticked me off was that here was a guy with insurance, a son who could pay for the bill even if he didn't, but he still refused to go to the doctor! Watch Roland's commentary segment » . My dad's story is all too common to a lot of you who must deal with fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands and male cousins, church members and co-workers, who are obstinate and absolutely refuse to go to the doctor. \"Oh, I'll be fine.\" \"I can handle the pain.\" \"I don't want a doctor poking on me.\" \"If it's bad, I'm sure it would hurt worse.\" All typical responses, and all pretty dumb. Yes, it's true that women all around the globe have outlived men for years. In the United States, the life expectancy for men is 74 and for women is 80. Yet when that is broken down racially, there is a huge gap between whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians. Men are dying earlier due to prostate cancer, heart disease, stroke and other maladies, and their actions play a large role in it. Black men in particular drive me nuts. I've heard several mention that their aversion to doctors stems from the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the study conducted between 1932 and 1972 that monitored black sharecroppers who were infected with the disease but didn't treat them, much less inform them that they had it. That program by the U.S. Public Health Service was hideous but shouldn't be used as an excuse today. Men can no longer be so hard-headed about their health. I've given speeches on this issue and told married women that they should say, \"no doctor's visit, no sex.\" That'll get his attention! We all love the men in our lives. But being silent means we are aiding them in their health dilemma, and that's wrong. If it means lovingly reminding, fine. If you have to badger them, whatever. Just like Dad told us to eat our vegetables when were kids, saying we'll be better off as adults because of it, we should tell Dad or any other man to stop acting like a child and go see the doc. It really could save their life. The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of Roland Martin." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Roland Martin: Men are foolishly reluctant to go to the doctor .\nHe says some black men cite the infamous Tuskegee Experiment .\nMartin: Men already have a shorter life expectancy than women .\nHe says that failing to detect and treat illness makes no sense ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Police said they are pursuing leads in the death of 8-year-old Sandra Cantu, whose body was found Monday stuffed into a suitcase in a dairy-farm pond near her Tracy, California, home. Sandra Cantu, 8, disappeared March 27. Her body was found at a dairy-farm pond near her Calilfornia home. \"We are heading in a direction,\" Tracy police Sgt. Tony Sheneman told reporters. \"To comment on that would compromise the investigation, and I can't do that.\" A search warrant was executed at the Tracy mobile home park where the girl lived, and a related search was to be conducted Tuesday at a nearby church, he said. He implied more than one person may have been involved in the death of Sandra, who had been missing since March 27. \"Investigators are looking at additional information they received since yesterday and, hopefully, that will lead us to Sandra's killers,\" he said. Asked if his use of the plural meant police were looking for more than one person, he responded, \"We have no specific suspects, ma'am.\" Sheneman also implied the killer likely was familiar with the location where the body was found. He said he himself was unfamiliar with the location where the girl's body was found, despite having lived in the community for nearly 12 years. \"Someone would have to be familiar with that area to know to go there,\" he said. Watch how the suitcase was found » . Sheneman said police had no one in custody, despite having interviewed hundreds of people regarding the case. \"Everyone that we speak to right now is being considered a person of interest,\" he said. \"We're not eliminating anyone.\" The autopsy was being conducted Tuesday, but it was not clear when the report would be available. \"It's going to be some time before we hear from the coroner,\" Sheneman said. \"I can't tell you when that's going to be.\" More than 10 search warrants have been executed as part of the investigation and \"a lot\" of evidence has been recovered, Sheneman said. The day Sandra was last reported seen, she returned home from school, kissed her mother and left to play with a friend who lives nearby. A short time later, wearing a pink Hello Kitty T-shirt and black leggings, she left to go to another friend's home, according to a family spokeswoman. Police said Monday the girl's clothing helped them identify the body." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Police imply person or persons involved in Sandra Cantu's death from area .\nPolice plan to church near mobile park home where Sandra's family lived .\nSandra was found in suitcase in a dairy-farm pond near her California home .\nSandra had been missing since March 27 from her home in Tracy, California ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Elizabeth Taylor went to the Hollywood Bowl to hear Andrea Bocelli in concert, the first night out in months for the big-screen legend. Elizabeth Taylor went to see Andrea Bocelli at the Hollywood Bowl, a rare outing for the film legend. Taylor, bound to a wheelchair by scoliosis, said her mind and soul \"were transported by his beauty, his voice, his inner being.\" The 77-year-old actress posted online messages through the Twitter social network after the Italian tenor's concert Monday night. \"I went to see Andrea Bocelli last night. The first time I've been out in months. The Hollywood Bowl allowed me to use my wheelchair,\" Taylor's first tweet said. \"My mind, my soul were transported by his beauty, his voice, his inner being. God has kissed this man and I thank God for it,\" she wrote in a second message. Taylor opened her Twitter account this year as \"DameElizabeth\" at the suggestion of her close friend, model-actress-author-businesswoman Kathy Ireland, her publicist Dick Guttman said. Taylor is \"very adventurous\" and \"exceedingly active\" despite health problems that sent her to a hospital for a week last month, Guttman said. She is working on a new perfume to follow up on her popular White Diamonds, he said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Elizabeth Taylor attended Andrea Bocelli concert at Hollywood Bowl .\n\"The first time I've been out in months,\" Taylor wrote on Twitter .\nTaylor was in hospital last month but still \"exceedingly active,\" says spokesman ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The government is delaying legal action against Pennsylvania landowners who haven't yet agreed to sell their land for a memorial to victims of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, federal officials said Friday. This plot of land is scheduled to house the permanent United Airlines Flight 93 memorial. The government has been negotiating with several landowners since 2003 in an effort to purchase their properties near Shanksville where the hijacked jet crashed into a field, killing everyone aboard. If final efforts at negotiations are unsuccessful, officials intend to use eminent domain to acquire the property. That right allows governments to take private property for public use without an owner's consent, after paying a fair price for the land. The government is seeking to buy 166 acres in western Pennsylvania to complete the area needed to build a memorial on 2,200 acres. \"The (National Park Service) will negotiate with the landowners to reach agreement. If agreement is not reached, eminent domain remains as a backstop to acquire these lands,\" said Kendra Barkoff, spokeswoman for the Department of Interior. See plans for the proposed Flight 93 Memorial . Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pennsylvania, met with landowners and some 9/11 victims' relatives Friday in Somerset County, where the plane crashed into a field. \"The goal remains to finish phase one of the memorial by September 10, 2011,\" Barkoff said. \"We'll try to negotiate with the families, but eminent domain has always been and will continue to be the last resort.\" Landowner Randy Musser told CNN he is encouraged that the government is recognizing that the negotiations aren't working. While the threat of eminent domain stills seem to be on the table, \"it finally seems like the lines of communication are open,\" Musser said. Producers Eric Fiegel and Terry Frieden contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Government may use eminent domain to seize land needed for 9/11 memorial .\nHijacked United Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania .\nFederal officials say they hope to have first phase of memorial complete by 2011 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- A series of major international sporting events, a weak currency and its perennially sunny perch on the tip of South Africa are making Cape Town one of the hottest sailing destinations of 2009. Lucky strike: The port city of Cape Town is set to benefit from several major sporting events . The Indian Premier League cricket tournament was recently relocated to South Africa because of security concerns, and now Cape Town is slated to host the opening match on April 18. Both the Lions Tour rugby and the FIFA Confederations Cup football will follow the cricket tournament, heading down to South Africa later this year. Combined with the arrival of the World Cup in 2010, South Africa has suddenly become the ultimate holiday spot for sports fans. Calvyn Gilfellan, chief executive of Cape Town Routes Unlimited -- the region's tourism board -- told CNN the boost to the region had arrived at a crucial time. \"When the financial crisis started people went into gloom and doom but these events are helping a lot to restore confidence in the industry. \"The fact that we have a positive exchange rate also helps us a lot as a destination,\" he said. But South Africa's government is so focused on ensuring the success of the upcoming games that it recently denied a visa to The Dalai Lama. Critics contend that South Africa bowed to pressure from the Chinese government in refusing Tibet's spiritual leader entry to attend a peace conference that was partially intended to help promote the World Cup. As the focus strengthens on these international events, the Cape Town region looks set to benefit more than many from the expected surge in tourism. Gilfellan says this is largely due to the city's location. \"We are lucky to be in such a wonderful spot. A lot of these events revolve around the marine industry and revolve around the harbor.\" This weekend harbor will play host to the Cape Town International Jazz Festival -- one of many upcoming festivals in the area. Cape Town's picturesque Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, set against the backdrop of Table Mountain, has become South Africa's most visited tourist attraction. Commodore of the Royal Cape Yacht Club (RCYC) John Martin, told CNN the Cape Town port was used widely for business, leisure and sports. As well as being the country's second biggest functioning port for trade, the port played host to racing yachts in events such as the Volvo Ocean Race and the Clipper Round-the-world Challenge. \"We have several major yachting events that stop here and we are very proud of that.\" Martin said the popularity of the port means water space is \"at a premium,\" but there are hopes a new harbor and breakwater will be constructed in the next few years. Still, Cape Town has the capacity to cater for foreign visitors on super-yachts and international cruise-liners. \"Cape Town is a real focal point for refueling and repairs and it's also quite cheap here so people tend to stay for a while,\" he said. Gilfellan said she felt the surge of massive sporting events would undoubtedly have spin-off benefits for the marine industry. The Indian Premier League Twenty20 cricket, which starts this month, had been tipped to go to England, but ultimately South Africa was chosen for its sunny weather. The tournament, which will feature 59 matches across six venues, will run from 18 April to 24 May . The 2009 British and Irish Lions tour officially kicks off on May 30 in Rustenberg. Matches will be held in Cape Town on June 13 and June 23. The eight-team Confederations Cup runs from June 14-28, and will take place across four cities. The event marks the first time an African nation will host an international FIFA tournament. The landmark event foreshadows the much-anticipated World Cup football tournament in June 2010, for which qualifying matches are currently being held. Although that's still a year away -- there are signs that the excitement in South Africa is already palpable. A new television commercial that began airing last month features Spain and Liverpool star, Fernando Torres, and Brazilian icon Kaka showing off their football skills. The advertisement ends with Torres saying \"Ke Nako\", which in South Africa's Sotho language means \"it's time.\" It seems for Cape Town and the whole country -- this could not be more true. Mike Steere contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "MainSail's 'Port of the Month' is Cape Town, South Africa .\nThe area is one of South Africa's most popular tourist destinations .\nCape Town is set to benefit from major international sporting events .\nThe port is the country's second biggest and hosts major yacht races ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- A U.S. company is offering a rare chance to holiday on a mega-yacht once used by a Hollywood star and her husband -- and thanks to the recession it's actually affordable. The 100 foot Katania was chartered by Hollywood star Hilary Swank and her husband Chad Lowe. Seattle-based mega-yacht rental business CEO Expeditions usually charges around $100,000 a week to charter their 100+ foot yachts, however, they have introduced a deal waiving the charter fees -- so guests will only need to pay for the running of the vessel. The move to make such vessels more affordable comes as the recession continues to put pressure on the luxury holiday and mega-yacht industries. Although the costs of crew and luxury food aren't extremely cheap, it is expected this move will open up the recession-hit market to many more potential holiday-makers. One of the company's mega-yachts, Katania -- a 100 foot vessel which Hollywood actress Hilary Swank once chartered, now costs less than $3000 per day. Normally it would attract an additional $49,500 charter fee for a week's use. At the $2950 per day special rate four people can stay on the Katania -- but with the maximum six on board ($450 extra per person), the cost per person is a slightly more achievable $642. The price includes full crew, premium wines, gourmet food prepared by a private chef, amenities such as kayaks, hot tub, fishing/crabbing/shrimping equipment, and even a 30' Whaler for guest use. According to the company, Swank said of her charter holiday: \"We had an absolutely enchanted time aboard the Katania. A more beautiful yacht does not exist.\" There is one small catch with the deal -- the boat is based in the San Juan islands, and any cruises to other destinations will attract an additional charge to cover fuel costs. The company's owner, Bruce Milne, said in a statement that the deal was largely due to the impact of the recession. \"Travel is down, agents and brokers need deals, so rather than just a few full price charters, we decided to stay busy, put more people to work, and help island tourism by doing charters at cost. \"Since we started chartering 10 years ago, we have been looking for a chance to provide our 'Expeditions to the Extraordinary' in the San Juan Islands at a price any luxury traveler can afford - this recession provides that opportunity,\" he said. Tim Wiltshire, director and sales broker at international yacht company Burgess Yachts, said the charter market wasn't a complete disaster, so he was surprised to see such a discount. \"I wouldn't have expected to see that. We are seeing discounts on average of about 25 percent. Although, some people are trying interesting gimmicks to inspire new business,\" he said . Wiltshire said that CEO Expedition's fleet isn't among the biggest or most luxurious on the market, and that this deal appeared to be clever marketing stunt. He felt that other larger vessels still warranted their greater price tags." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "U.S. mega-yacht charter company waives massive $50,000 charter fees .\nThe impact of the recession is reason given for the discounted deal .\nA yacht chartered by Hilary Swank can now be rented for under $3000 a day ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "HERMOSILLO, Mexico (CNN) -- Thirty-one children were killed and more than 100 others were injured Friday when their day-care center caught fire in the northwestern state of Sonora, a spokesman for the state's governor said. A crib and baby seats lie outside a day-care center where the deadly fire broke out Friday. The victims were from 1 to 5 years old, said Jose Larrinaga, the spokesman. The fire appeared to have started at 3 p.m. in a warehouse next door to the one-story concrete building that housed the state-run ABC Daycare and spread to the state-run institution, news reports said. By then, many children had already been picked up by their parents from the one-story building. But others came after the blaze had been put out, with parents screaming their children's names as others fainted. In a message of condolence, President Felipe Calderon wished a quick recovery for the injured, who were taken to several area hospitals. He also called on the nation's attorney general to investigate the fire. Authorities dispatched 15 specialists in reconstruction and three air ambulances to the area along with respirators and specialized medicines, and a U.S. hospital will help treat some of the victims. Watch chaos in aftermath of tragedy » . Admissions will begin Saturday, said Catherine Curran, a spokeswoman for Shriners Hospitals for Children in Sacramento, California. Shriners Hospitals is a health care system that gives children free treatment for burns, spinal cord injuries, orthopedic conditions, and cleft lip and palate, according to its Web site. It admits children under 18. The first hospital opened in 1922. The system has burn units in Boston, Massachusetts; Cincinnati Ohio; and Sacramento, California. Journalist Guadelupe Gutierrez contributed to this story." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Hospital in California to treat some of the victims .\nThe victims were from 1 to 5 years old, official says .\nThe fire appears to have started in a warehouse next door to the state-run day care .\nPresident Felipe Calderon orders investigation, sends condolences ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(OPRAH.com) -- One portion of macaroni and cheese. One slice of chocolate cake. One pair of svelte black pants. Do some very simple, if highly emotional, addition and subtraction, and you arrive at a whole new way to see yourself. The first documented instance of my distorted body image is an entry in my fourth-grade journal. \"I just ate three cookies,\" it says. \"I feel fat.\" There is no way that I actually was; my jeans, although dorky, fit just fine. Nevertheless, the disconnect grew worse as puberty approached -- especially in eighth grade, when the body mass index (BMI) entered my life. This is a formula that tells you whether you need to drop pounds -- and while it's generally reliable, it doesn't take body composition into account. At 5'4\" and 140 pounds, I'm close to the overweight category, but that's only because I've got heavy bones and a sprinter's thighs. Every time I calculate my BMI, I get angry at myself, even though I'm aware that I am in good shape. But what do feelings have to do with numbers? Most women know that it is possible to immediately gain 15 pounds by eating one pint of Ben & Jerry's. And when it comes to your butt (which can enlarge six sizes in the wrong pair of jeans), the rules of physics no longer apply. Oprah.com: Start loving the way you look . We need a better way to quantify these fluctuations -- a formula that goes beyond your BMI and calculates the feel of overweight. So I propose the personal body image index (PBII). The general idea is as follows: . • Start with your weight. • Subtract seven pounds if you have just worked out. • Add five if you've single-handedly finished a plate of guacamole and chips; four for macaroni and cheese; six for death-by-chocolate cake. • Subtract 10 pounds if people nearby are fatter than you. • If you're wearing black pants, subtract two; if in a bathing suit, add eight. • If you are more than seven years older than the group average or are surrounded by bikini-clad undergraduates with toned stomachs and cellulite-free thighs, add 20. iReport.com: What kinds of things do you do you stay fit? I don't advocate letting the PBII dictate how you live your life; it could turn you into one of those people who spend their beach time camouflaging their lower halves with sarongs. But once you acknowledge that the PBII exists, you can take steps to improve your score. Some suggestions: . Hang out with people older than you, preferably much older. This has three benefits: . (a) You probably have fewer varicose veins than they do. (b) Truly old people are inspiring; they tend not to give a damn about what they look like in bathing suits. (c) Except for my elderly neighbor, who once greeted me by announcing that I'd gained weight in my face, older people are usually effusive with compliments. My friend Luba, who lived to 99, used to tell me how beautiful I was every time I saw her, even though she was blind. Watch those college girls on the beach. Notice how often they adjust their bikinis and glance at themselves in other people's sunglasses. They are totally insecure. Granted, they are probably also judging you, but still -- I find their self-doubt liberating. Isn't there some cosmic limit on how much body insecurity the universe can handle? Embrace the bikini now: \"Look how skinny I was!\" my mother says every time she sees a picture of herself from the 1970s. \"I thought I was so fat. I was 130 pounds.\" My mother, now 66, is living proof that you should do everything in your power to enjoy your body as it is right now so you never have to look at an old photograph of yourself and wish you'd spent more time in a two-piece bathing suit. When it comes to my own PBII, I still have a way to go. It doesn't take too much extra chocolate to convince me that I should never be allowed to wear shorts. But recognizing the illogical logic behind my self-image helps me to control it better. And by my calculations, that's worth subtracting at least five pounds. By Catherine Price from \"O, The Oprah Magazine,\" July 2008 . Subscribe to O, The Oprah Magazine for up to 75% off the newsstand price. That's like getting 18 issues FREE. Subscribe now! TM & © 2009 Harpo Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Calculating your body mass index (BMI) does not take feelings into account .\nThe personal body image index uses other things besides height and weight .\nStanding next to fat people, wearing black pants lowers your score .\nStanding next to young, toned, bikini-clad women -- adds 20 points ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BEIRUT, Lebanon (CNN) -- Lebanese voters were heading to the polls on Sunday with their main choices to lead the next government a Hezbollah-backed alliance or a U.S.-backed coalition. Hezbollah party workers in the southern town of Nabatiyah hope for an election victory. Analysts say the race will be tight, with the Hezbollah-dominated \"March 8 alliance\" possibly winning a majority of seats in parliament. The polls opened at 1200 GMT and will close 12 hours later. Turnout is expected to be high among the country's 3 million registered voters. About 50,000 troops were on the streets, but the run-up to the balloting had been free of violence. The vote comes at a critical time for Lebanon as it sits amid a power struggle between a weakened pro-Western government and a stronger pro-Syrian Hezbollah political bloc that has gained political momentum in recent years. The United States considers Hezbollah -- which is supported by both Syria and Iran -- to be a terrorist organization. The group grew in popularity after its militant wing claimed victory over Israel after a 34-day military conflict in 2006. Since then, it has been more widely perceived by its supporters to be the \"defenders\" of Lebanon. Though U.S. President Barack Obama didn't mention the Lebanese general election in his address on Thursday, he did call for religious tolerance in the Muslim world, noting sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Shiites and the struggles faced by religious minorities. \"The richness of religious diversity must be upheld -- whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt,\" he said, referring to Christian groups in those countries. \"And if we are being honest, fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.\" In Lebanon's unique power-sharing government, the presidency is reserved for Maronite Christians, the speaker of parliament is always a Shia Muslim, and the prime minister is a Sunni Muslim. The law was created to balance power among Lebanon's three main religious groups. Analysts say the Hezbollah-dominated \"March 8 alliance\" may win a parliamentary majority with the support of Christian opposition leader Gen. Michel Aoun -- the only prominent Christian politician to back the bloc. \"They keep trying to scare the Christian voters with their stories about Hezbollah's weapons, so to all of those who complain about Hezbollah, can they tell us how they will disarm the party,\" Aoun told supporters Friday. \"Hezbollah's weapons will no longer be a problem when the causes behind its existence disappear, including the borders' issues.\" A close look at Lebanon's political landscape reveals that the country's Christian voters are split on how they will cast their ballots. Some Christian voters want their representatives to step out of the shadows of Hezbollah and Saad Hariri, who leads the Sunni-dominated \"March 14 coalition.\" Christian voters are divided between supporting Aoun and other Christian leaders who want Hezbollah to disarm. \"In these elections, Christians look more divided than ever while others seem more unified than ever,\" said Shibley Telhami, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. For the Obama administration, the elections could be indicative of the president's odds of pushing stability in the region. Former U.S. President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jimmy Carter said the United States should work with whichever coalition wins. Carter was in Beirut as part of more than 200 international observers monitoring the election. He also oversaw balloting in Gaza during the elections in the Palestinian territory in January 2006. The Palestinian militant group Hamas won that race \"fairly and squarely\" by a huge margin, Carter said. The United States and Israel later refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Hamas win. \"And it's resulted in a split in the Palestinians and a very difficult situation there,\" Carter added. \"I think they (the United States) learned a hard lesson that they should accept the results of an election.\" Two senior Obama administration officials -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden -- have visited Lebanon in recent months, signaling concerns with a possible Hezbollah victory. During his trip to Beirut two weeks ago, Biden warned the country that while the United States supports Lebanon's democratic process, it will reconsider its assistance to the country if its next government strays from certain \"fundamental principles.\" Biden's visit followed Clinton's April trip to Beirut in which she called for an \"open and free\" election without outside interference -- a veiled reference to Iran and Syria. Such rhetoric has been dismissed by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as \"meddling.\" The Hezbollah leader has been increasingly vocal in the lead-up to the election, blasting the current government as powerless. However, part of the reason Lebanon's government is crippled is that it made concessions to Hezbollah -- including giving them veto power -- in order to end a political stalemate that boiled over into violence of historic proportions last year. While some analysts are concerned Hezbollah could gain more control over Lebanon's government after Sunday's vote, a key Lebanese politician, Dori Chamoun, warned that assessment may be misleading. Chamoun, who opposes the March 8 alliance, said talk of Hezbollah's possible victory may be based on \"rumors\" and propaganda being spread by the Shiite militia and their political allies. \"They (Hezbollah) think they can scare many but no one is scared,\" Chamoun told CNN. \"They can spread all kinds of rumors on their four TV stations saying that they will win this upcoming elections.\" Chamoun, whose father, Camille Chamoun, was Lebanon's president in the 1950s, is running for a seat in parliament. Even if a Hezbollah-dominated government does move in, it could have trouble working with Christian and Sunni Muslim politicians who -- under Lebanese law -- must participate in the government. It would also be difficult to find a Sunni political figure willing to serve as prime minister in a Hezbollah-led government since the majority of Lebanon's prominent Sunni politicians are aligned with Hariri's March 14 coalition, which has declared it will not participate in any government if Hezbollah wins. Lebanon's political landscape could be shifting after a similar shift in neighboring Israel. Voters in the Jewish state overwhelmingly supported conservative parties over more moderate groups, bringing into power Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this year. Netanyahu is viewed in the Arab world as more hawkish than his predecessor, Ehud Olmert, who ordered the war against Hezbollah in 2006. A Hezbollah victory in Lebanon could further inflame tensions with Israel, particularly with an estimated 30,000 rockets pointed at Israel from southern Lebanon -- all under the control of Hezbollah. CNN's Cal Perry, Octavia Nasr and Saad Abedine contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Analysts say the race will be tight .\nSome say the Hezbollah-dominated alliance may win a parliamentary majority .\nTurnout is expected to be high among the country's 3 million registered voters .\nAbout 50,000 troops deploy to the streets ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(Mental Floss) -- While the horse racing world is all abuzz over Rachel Alexandra, the amazing three-year-old filly who recently beat Kentucky Derby winner Mine that Bird (along with a field full of other colts) in the Preakness Stakes, we're reminded of some other female athletes of the two-legged variety who also beat the boys at their own game. Danica Patrick finished third at the 2009 Indianapolis 500 on Saturday. 1. Billie Jean King -- tennis . In 1973, Billie Jean King was 29 years old and the reigning queen of women's tennis. In an era when female athletes were paid significantly less than their male counterparts, King still managed to earn $100,000 in 1971. Bobby Riggs had won Wimbledon back in 1939, but by the 1970s his star was fading. He kept his name in the press by proclaiming himself a male chauvinist pig and declaring that women athletes could never be as good as men. After defeating Margaret Court in May, he proclaimed \"I want King!\" The much-hyped \"Battle of the Sexes\" was held at the Houston Astrodome on September 20, 1973. The idea of a woman beating a man in any sport was so unbelievable at the time that Las Vegas oddsmakers heavily favored the 55-year-old Riggs. A worldwide television audience watched via satellite as King neatly thrashed Riggs 6-4, 6-3 and 6-3. Billie Jean King not only took home the prize money and several endorsement deals, she also opened up a new playing field for professional sportswomen. Mental Floss: Song Elton John wrote for Billie Jean King . 2. Margaret Murdock --shooting . Margaret Murdock's father was a Kansas state rifle champion, so it was logical that both she and her sister took up the sport as children. When Murdock attended Kansas State in the early 1960s, she won her varsity letter by competing on the men's rifle team. In 1976 she became the first woman to represent the U.S. on its Olympic shooting team. The small-bore three position competition calls for the shooter to fire off 40 shots each in the standing, kneeling and prone position. The competitors fire from 50 meters away at a target that is a little smaller than a dime. At the end of the competition, Murdock was tied with Lanny Bassham, the team captain. Bassham requested a tie-breaking shoot-off, but Olympic rules forbade it; instead, Bassham was awarded the gold medal because he had scored three \"100s\" to Murdock's two. During the medal ceremony, Lanny pulled Margaret up from the silver pedestal to stand with him during the national anthem to indicate that she deserved the gold as much as he. 3. Jackie Mitchell -- baseball . Virne Beatrice Mitchell, known to her family as \"Jackie,\" entered the world ahead of schedule and weighed only a little over three pounds at birth. As soon as she learned to walk, her father took her to the ballpark. The Mitchell's next door neighbor in Memphis was future Hall of Famer Dazzy Vance, who was still playing in the minors at the time. He coached Jackie in the art of pitching when she was eight years old and even showed her his trademark \"drop pitch,\" a dazzling throw in which the ball swooped down just before crossing the plate. When Mitchell was 17 she was offered a contract with the Chattanooga Lookouts, today the AA affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers. On April 1, 1931, the New York Yankees were in town to play an exhibition game against the Lookouts. The game was postponed a day due to rain, and there was a crowd of 4,000 on hand when Mitchell finally took the mound. Babe Ruth stepped up to the plate and southpaw Jackie threw her special pitch. Ruth took the first pitch for a ball, but the next three were strikes. Lou Gehrig, baseball's Iron Man, was up next and similarly struck out. The crowd was on its feet, but some skeptical reporters wrote that the whole thing had been staged, since the game was originally scheduled for April Fool's Day. Nevertheless, Commissioner Kennesaw Landis was sufficiently threatened by the tiny female dynamo that he had her contract voided, stating that baseball was \"too strenuous\" for women. Mental Floss: 7 silly products licensed by Major League Baseball . 4. Seana Hogan --cycling . To Ultra Cyclists, 100-mile events are kid stuff. Ultra Cyclists consider events like the Race Across America (RAAM) -- a 2,950 mile cross-country jaunt -- to be a real competition. Seana Hogan of San Jose, California, has won the female division of RAAM an amazing six times, and her finish times in each case usually placed her in the top 15 finishers overall. Ultra Cycling requires about 20 hours of continuous pedaling per day, up hills (a combined total of about 82,000 feet of climbing), down dales and in all weather. Hogan holds the record for the San Francisco to Los Angeles race (beating even the best men's time) and was the overall winner of the 1995 Furnace Creek 508, which runs from Valencia through Death Valley to Twentynine Palms. 5. Danica Patrick -- auto racing . Danica Patrick's parents met on a blind date at an auto race, so she felt that racing was her destiny. Patrick started competing on the go-kart circuit at age 10, and moved to England at 16 to participate in various racing events and advance her career. In 2000, she finished second in the Formula Ford Festival, the highest finish by an American in that event. She moved back to the States where she competed in the Toyota Atlantic series for Rahal Letterman Racing and won her first pole position. Patrick started her Indy career in 2005, making her only the fourth woman to compete in the 500. Three years later she won the Twin Ring Motegi in the Indy Japan 300, the first female driver to win an IndyCar race. 6. Sonya Thomas -- competitive eating . At five feet, five inches tall and just under 100 lbs., Sonya Thomas gives the impression that the slightest breeze could blow her away. But despite her wispy stature, Thomas is known in competitive eating circles for blowing away the competition, including male contestants three times her size. Thomas remembers being inspired to enter the world of competitive eating after watching Takeru Kobayashi munching his way to the championship at the Nathan's Coney Island hot dog contest in 2002. In 2005 she set a record for female frankfurter consumption in Nathan's annual contest. That wasn't quite good enough for Sonya, however, and she began a training regimen that included walking two hours per day on an inclined treadmill and eating only one large meal per day. Scientific-types hypothesize that Sonya's slim physique gives her an advantage over her more zaftig competitors -- she lacks a layer of fat around her abdomen, which gives it more room to expand. Whatever the explanation, Thomas has defeated all-comers in various International Federation of Competitive Eating contests, including \"the most\" oysters, chicken wings and Krystal hamburgers downed in a prescribed amount of time. Mental Floss: Food challenges for the super competitive . For more mental_floss articles, visit mentalfloss.com . Entire contents of this article copyright, Mental Floss LLC. All rights reserved." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Female pitcher Virne Beatrice Mitchell struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig .\nSeana Hogan holds the record for the San Francisco to Los Angeles cycling race .\nSonya Thomas wins eating contests of oysters, chicken wings, Krystal hamburgers ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- Thailand's military has denied abusing refugee boat-people from Myanmar after claims some were whipped on a tourist beach and hundreds more left dead or missing after being towed at to sea without food and water. Photograph released by Thai navy showing a group of illegal immigrants captured on December 12. Photos showing refugees being made to lie face down on a popular beach and media reports claiming refugees been deliberately lost at sea have sparked concerns for their safety. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says it is \"concerned\" about the fate of the Muslim ethnic minority Rohingya people, who have fled from Myanmar's border with Bangladesh. The agency says it has written a formal note to the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking for clarification of what is happening. CNN spoke to one Australian tourist, who declined to be named for fear of being barred from Thailand, who says boat-people were \"whipped\" by Thai guards on popular diving resort island in the Similan Archipelago last month. Local media also report claims by Rohingya survivors that the Thai military have been detaining hundreds of them an island called Koh Sai Daeng before towing them back out into open water without supplies. The survivors say hundreds of them drowned and only the lucky ones made it to the Indian Andaman Islands or Indonesia's Aceh province. The Thai Navy denies knowledge of the incident. Rear Admiral Naris Pratumsuwan told CNN \"as a normal practice, if Navy finds illegal immigrants, we will hand them over to related authorities, e.g. police or immigration police.\" He said he had not received any information on an island where migrants are being detained. There were reports of another boatload of 46 Rohingya detained by the Thai military Friday, but there was no official confirmation. The Rohingya have been fleeing persecution of the hard-line military regime in Myanmar, formerly Burma, for years and often seek refuge in Malaysia. Boat loads of Rohingya arriving in Thailand is nothing new, but non-governmental organizations are increasingly worried about what they say is an apparent change of government policy. They say the army's Internal Security Operations Command is forcing the Rohingya out to sea rather than deporting them overland back to Myanmar. \"The Thai government is taking highly vulnerable people and risking their lives for political gain,\" says Refugee International's Sean Garcia says. \"It should be engaging the Burmese government on improving conditions at home for the Rohingya if it wants to stem these flows. \"The Rohingya will continue to make the journey because they have no hope for a better life in Burma. Pushing them back out to sea is not an effective deterrent it just jeopardizes lives.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Thai military denies abusing refugees from Myanmar .\nWitnesses say ethnic Rohingya whipped face down on tourist beach .\nReports say hundreds missing after being towed back out to sea ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- With 17 Grammys, five gold records and -- by his count -- almost 130 albums, polka superstar Jimmy Sturr might just be the most successful musician you've never heard of. Polka artist Jimmy Sturr is up for a possible 18th Grammy Award at the upcoming ceremony. Sturr and his orchestra, superstars in the polka world, are one of a multitude of musical acts nominated this year in some of the lesser-known Grammy categories. When there are 110 categories, \"lesser-known\" might be putting it lightly. \"I try not to get too worked up over it,\" said Sturr, who is once again nominated this year in the best polka album category. \"But when the [awards] season comes along I am right there saying 'I hope I win. I hope I win.' It just never gets old.\" Sturr is among the unsung artists whose statuette presentation doesn't make it to the prime-time televised broadcast, which will air 8 p.m. Sunday on CBS. While categories like best Hawaiian music album, best traditional world music album and best historical album may linger in the shadows of the big Grammy show, they are no less important to the performers and fans who love them. See some of the lesser-known categories » . The Grammy Awards are trumpeted as \"music's biggest night,\" and Grammy officials there are cognizant of the heavy competition to appear on the broadcast. There just isn't enough time to honor everyone on the televised presentation, said Neil Portnow, president and CEO of The Recording Academy, which presents the Grammy Awards. He said about a dozen awards, including album of the year and best new artist, are given out during the live show. \"Every Grammy is of equal value and importance in our minds,\" Portnow said. \"That said, with 110 categories and 3½ hours of television, physics dictate the reality that we can't do everything on the national broadcast.\" Instead, the other nominees are feted at an event held earlier in the day, Portnow said. \"We created a very significant and somewhat extravagant pre-telecast, which is conducted in a separate facility right across from the Staples Center the afternoon of the show,\" Portnow explained. \"We build a substantial stage, we have co-hosts, we have music performances and we have presenters,\" he said. \"Many, many of our nominees come to that event to pick up their Grammys.\" This year, fans of the best contemporary folk/Americana album or best engineered album (nonclassical) categories -- among others -- will be able to see their favorites on the Web, because this year's pre-telecast will be streamed live on Grammy.com and available for viewing for 30 days after the ceremony. Singer Wayna, who is nominated for best urban/alternative performance for her song \"Lovin You (Music)\" featuring Kokayi, said she feels honored simply to have been chosen. \"I'm not sure if I've taken it all in yet,\" the Bowie, Maryland, singer said. \"I'm really proud of this category.\" The increase in independent artists shows a trend Portnow said \"speaks to the importance of what we do to a very broad segment of the music community.\" No doubt that community includes at least a few admirers of the vivacious dance music that is polka. Sturr may not be burning up the charts or even generating the heat of fellow Grammy nominees Lil Wayne and Radiohead, but he gets his fair share of love from those who follow his genre. Some admirers have gone on to become collaborators. Sturr's recording partners have included Willie Nelson, the Oak Ridge Boys and Charlie Daniels. He's often surprised by who is a fan, he said. \"I was in Jupiter, Florida, a few years ago and the manager of a restaurant I knew came up to me and said there's a fan of yours that would like to meet you,\" recalled Sturr. \"I went over and it was Burt Reynolds.\" Sturr and his orchestra's popularity have been bolstered by appearances on \"Saturday Night Live\" and at the Grand Ole Opry, as well as his own variety show, which airs twice a week on Direct TV. Polka's partisans are well aware that the music is often mocked, and believe an appearance on the Grammys would go a long way toward widening the genre's audience. \"To get a legitimate, great sounding orchestra on national television would certainly help,\" said Ray Zalokar, director of 247Polkaheaven.com. Zalokar added that younger fans are discovering the music thanks in part to newer bands, such as one that covers Pink Floyd tunes as polkas. The genre might also take heart from what happened to rock 'n' roll. The Academy, Portnow said, is careful to implement a category only after it has been established as viable, but it also doesn't want to miss the boat when it comes to new music. Such was the case with rock 'n' roll in the 1960s. \"Years ago the Academy was, not a secret, late in recognizing particularly the rock area coming out of the middle of the road times,\" he said. \"[In the] Rolling Stones versus Andy Williams scenario, the Rolling Stones were not in the mix,\" he said. \"I think that as an organization we may have fallen behind, but that really hasn't happened in the recent past because we have a fantastic process here.\" While honored to have his first clarinet featured in the new Grammy Museum, Sturr said he'd relish a chance to perform on the show and give a wider audience a taste of what his fans know from albums like \"Polkapalooza\" and \"Sturr-It-Up.\" \"I'd love to have just 30 seconds on that show,\" he said. \"Just to play so people can see that this is not your grandmother's kind of music.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Polka is among several of the lesser known Grammy categories .\nArtist Jimmy Sturr up to possibly win Grammy number 18 .\nAcademy exec: \"Every Grammy is of equal value and importance in our minds\"\nPre-telecast for those not included in live show growing in popularity ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Jero is making old, new again in Japan. African-American Jero is famous for singing Japanese enka. The 27-year-old American has made a name for himself singing enka, a traditional form of lounge music that flourished in 1940's Japan. It seems an unlikely musical style for the Pittsburgh native to pursue. Enka's fan based comes generally from an older generation and is practically unknown outside of Japan, with simple song themes about love and loss. But Jero, real name Jerome White, with his youth, hip-hop look and fine singing voice has propelled enka into the 21st century and captured a new audience. It was the influence of his Japanese grandmother that first led him on the path to enka. She ensured that Jero was aware of his connection to the culture of Japan and sang enka songs in Japanese with him when he was young. He went on to study Japanese at high school and spent time in Japan while on an exchange with the University of Pittsburgh. After he graduated he moved to Japan, working as a computer scientist and teaching English. His big break came when he appeared on an amateur singer TV show. On the back of that success he released his first single in early 2008, promoting it with live appearances in record stores and the odd impromptu street performances. It shot up the Japanese singles chart, reaching No 4, the highest ever position for a first time enka release. Watch the show on CNN as we spend time with him in a karaoke spot in Tokyo and find out how he's dealing with sudden fame in a foreign country." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Jero has made traditional Japanese enka songs hip and found new audience .\nHe sang enka with his Japanese grandmother when he was a young boy .\nFound success on talent show and first single made No.4 in charts ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton met her match while appearing on NBC's \"Saturday Night Live\" to deliver the show's trademark opening line and provide an \"editorial response\" to a mock presidential debate. During the opening sketch -- which featured SNL actors playing Clinton, rival candidate Barack Obama and the debate moderators -- Clinton complimented the performance of Amy Poehler, who regularly lampoons Clinton with her impersonation of the senator from New York. \"I simply adore Amy's impression of me,\" Clinton said, providing the cue for Poehler to enter the stage, wearing the same two-button brown jacket and sporting Clinton's medium-length, layered hairstyle. Poehler giddily thanked Clinton for appearing. \"I love your outfit,\" the identically dressed Poehler told Clinton. \"Well, I love your outfit,\" Clinton responded, putting her hand on Poehler's shoulder, \"but I do want the earrings back.\" The quip sparked a hyperbolic cackle from Poehler. Clinton asked, \"Do I really laugh like that?\" The two jokingly agreed she did. Clinton appeared on the show ahead of several do-or-die primaries that will determine the fate of her campaign. During the segment, Poehler -- who also does impersonations of talk show host Kelly Ripa, \"American Idol\" judge Paula Abdul and pop star Michael Jackson -- asked Clinton, who trails Obama in the Democratic race, how her campaign was going. \"The campaign is going very well. Very, very well,\" the former first lady responded before earning some laughs with a deadpan: \"Why? What have you heard?\" Clinton said she appeared on the show to \"just relax, have fun\" without politics, but she didn't miss her chance to address voters in delivering the opening line. Saying she was appealing to all Americans -- whether they're from Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, Vermont, Pennsylvania \"or any of the other states\" -- Clinton opened the show with \"Live from New York, it is Saturday night!\" Watch Clinton open the show » . Pennsylvania's primary is slated for next month, while the other four states Clinton mentioned are holding primaries Tuesday. Clinton's appearance was a poorly kept secret. The media were tipped off when she failed to arrive for a campaign charter flight from Dallas, Texas, to Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday. Her campaign would not say where she was, but an entertainment industry source confirmed she was set to appear on SNL. The late-night skit show has been a popular spot on the campaign trail. Obama appeared unannounced in October, and GOP candidate Mike Huckabee did a bit on the show's \"Weekend Update\" last week. Also, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who dropped out of the GOP presidential race this year, appeared later in the show that Clinton opened. During an MSNBC debate in Ohio on Tuesday, Clinton referenced an SNL skit in which the comedy troupe satirized the media for being too friendly with Obama. \"Maybe we should ask [Obama] if he's comfortable and needs another pillow,\" she said during the debate. Clinton is scheduled to appear on Jon Stewart's \"Daily Show\" Monday. E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Clinton appears during the opening segment with impersonator Amy Poehler .\nClinton mentions upcoming primary states in opening line, \"It is Saturday night!\"\nHer rival Sen. Barack Obama appeared on the show last year .\nClinton referenced a recent SNL skit during a debate in Ohio on Tuesday ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- As the saying goes, \"Pain is temporary, film is forever\" and noone in the movie business knows this better than stuntmen. Stunt double Terry Leonard performs a hazardous jump from horseback to a truck as Indiana Jones in \"Raiders of the Lost Ark.\" Hollywood's athletes regularly defy death in pursuit of ever more extreme spectacles to keep us on the edge our cinema seats. \"The Screening Room\" takes a look at some of the best stunts ever pulled off -- and a few that didn't end so well. Don't agree with the list? Think we've missed one? Tell us in the SoundOff box below. 1. \"Steamboat Bill, Jr.\" (Charles Reisner, 1928) Stunt: Building falls down Stuntman: Buster Keaton . Charlie Chaplin may be better remembered, but no early stuntman was more willing to risk eternal oblivion for a great stunt than Keaton. In perhaps his most perfect stunt, the side of a building crashes down on top of him and Keaton is saved only by an open window that fits neatly around him. The window was built to have clearance of two inches around each shoulder and on the top of his head. As Keaton himself said, \"You don't do these things twice.\" 2. \"Stagecoach\" (John Ford, 1939) Stunt: High speed stagecoach jump Stuntman: Yakima Canutt . Ex-rodeo cowboy Yakima Canutt was probably the first celebrity stuntman, best known as a stunt double for John Wayne. In this stunt -- which has since become a Western classic -- he portrays a galloping warrior during an Indian attack on a stagecoach. He jumps from his own horse to the six-horse team pulling the stagecoach, is shot, falls, and is dragged underneath the fast-moving team and stagecoach. 3. \"Ben Hur\" (William Wyler, 1959) Stunt: Chariot race Stuntman: Joe Canutt . Canutt (son of Yakima) doubles for Charlton Heston in the famous chariot race. Half way through, things veer off plan and he is forced down the inside part of the track straight towards a wrecked chariot. When his charito hits, Canutt is flung over the front of the chariot, where he clings before clambering back on. The sequence was completely unplanned but made it into the film because Canutt kept a cool head even though he was injured. 4. \"Raiders of the Lost Ark\" (Stephen Spielberg, 1981) Stunt: Truck drag Stuntman: Terry Leonard . This intense stunt sequence was so hazardous to perform that veteran stuntman Terry Leonard only agreed to do it if his friend and fellow stuntman Glenn H. Randall Jr. was driving the truck. A ditch was dug underneath the path of the truck to give Leonard enough room to manoeuver. Harrison Ford, an accomplished stuntman in his own right, performed an earlier portion of the sequence, where Indy hung onto the bonnet of the truck only by a bending hood ornament. 5. \"GoldenEye\" (Martin Campbell, 1995) Stunt: 750 foot bungee jump Stuntman: Wayne Michaels . This breathtaking Bond stunt was performed at the Verzasca hydro-electric dam in Switzerland and done in one take. Michaels jumped from a specially-constructed platform built to jut out from the dam to prevent him making contact with the front of the dam, which was studded with steel pegs. This, combined with his high falling velocity, could have proved fatal. 6. \"Who am I?\" (Wo shi shei) (Jackie Chan, 1998) Stunt: 21-storey slide Stuntman: Jackie Chan . It's almost impossible to choose just one of Chan's stunts, but his faintly slapstick 21-storey slide down the side of a skyscraper is pretty impressive -- even more so when you find out he did it without a harness. He never uses stunt doubles or special effects and as a result has broken just about every bone in his body over the years. Now that's commitment. 7. \"Sharky's Machine\" (Burt Reynolds, 1981) Stunt: Free-fall jump Stuntman: Dar Robinson . At 220 feet, legendary stuntman Dar Robinson's jump from Atlanta's Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel remains the highest free-fall stunt ever performed from a building for a commercially-released film. Ironically, despite it being a record-breaking fall, moviegoers only see the briefest moment of the actual stunt in the film. The rest of the fall from the skyscraper is disappointingly a dummy. 8. \"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid\" (George Roy Hill, 1969) Stunt: Cliff Leap Stuntmen: Mickey Gilbert/Howard Curtis . Trapped by the Superposse, Butch and Sundance leap from the top of a cliff into the boiling waters of a river below. It's set up nicely with some humorous dialogue: \"I can't swim.\" \"Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you!\" Robert Redford and Paul Newman did jump off the cliff, but landed on a ledge with a mattress about six feet below. The stuntmen jumped off a construction crane at a studio lot obscured by a painting of the cliffs. 9. \"Terminator 2: Judgment Day\" (James Cameron, 1991) Stunt: Motorcycle jump Stuntman: Peter Kent . Stuntman Peter Kent's resemblance to Arnold Schwarzenegger was the basis of a 14-year association with the ex-action hero. As Schwarzenegger's stunt double he performed the T-101's famous motorbike jump into a massive storm drain. To get the effect, his motorbike was rigged up to a web of one-inch cables, to cut the impact when the bike and rider hit the ground. The cables were later digitally erased. 10. \"Deathproof\" (Quentin Tarantino, 2007) Stunt: Car chase on bonnet Stuntwoman: Zoë Bell . Bell won an award at the Oscars of the stunt world, the Taurus stunt awards, for this daredevil action piece. She clings precariously to the bonnet of a car going at 85 miles per hour while receiving hits from a second car in a long, climactic chase scene. Bell is a stuntwoman by trade but it's easy to see why Tarantino flouted the unspoken Hollywood convention that stuntmen stay out of the limelight and cast her as the film's lead. And five tragic stunts that didn't come off ... Stunts are a dangerous business, and it doesn't always work out. We pay tribute to five brave stunt men and women who fell in the line of duty. 1. \"Top Gun\" (Tony Scott,1986) Renowned aerobatic pilot Art Scholl died during the making of \"Top Gun\" in 1985 after his plane never recovered from a flat spin and plunged into the Pacific Ocean. 2. \"The Crow\" (Alex Proyas,1994) Martial arts legend Bruce Lee's son Brandon was shot and killed during a stunt shooting sequence, when the cap of a blank accidentally penetrated his abdomen and lodged in his spine. 3. \"Twilight Zone: The Movie\" (Joe Dante/John Landis, 1983) Actor Vic Morrow and child actors Renee Chen and My-ca Dinh Le were instantly killed when a special-effects explosion caused a helicopter to spin out of control and crash down on top of them. 4. \"Cannonball Run\" (Hal Needham, 1981) Stuntwoman Heidi Von Beltz was paralysed from the neck down when her sports car crashed head on into a van during a stunt on the set of the film. 5. \"Armour of God\" (Jackie Chan, 1987) Chan fell 15 feet while jumping from a wall to a tree branch. He landed hard on his head, causing part of his skull to crack and lodge in his brain. He required major surgery and now has a permanent hole in his head which is filled by a plastic plug." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Screening Room chooses the some of the best stunts ever filmed .\nBuster Keaton is saved by an open window in \"Steamboat Bill Jr.\"\nJames Bond turns bungee jumping into an art form in \"GoldenEye\"\nWe want to hear from you: what is your favorite movie stunt?" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- Think of a bullwhip and fedora and one man immediately springs to mind: Indiana Jones, the sardonic archeologist played by Harrison Ford in Steven Spielberg's '80s trilogy which started with \"Raiders of the Lost Ark.\" \"If you learn how to talk I'm in deep trouble,\" quips Harrison Ford (right) to Vic Armstrong (left) on this photo which shows how similar the pair look. But if you were to venture on set during the filming of \"Raiders\" hoping to catch a few moments with the star you might have had a surprise. The tall, rangy man in the dented hat signing autographs could just as easily have been Ford's stunt double, Vic Armstrong. Back then, in the right light Armstrong could easily be mistaken for Ford -- both of them over six feet tall and bronzed with crinkly eyes. And it's this that is at the root of his success as Indy's \"fall guy.\" In fact, Ford is a talented stuntman in his own right and Armstrong says that his biggest headache on set was trying to stop Ford from getting involved in action that was too risky. \"The biggest stunt I always say on the Indiana Jones films was stopping Harrison doing the stunts because I had to fight nearly every time to stop him,\" Armstrong chuckles. An accomplished horseman (his first career choice was steeplechase jockey), it's Armstrong's Indy you see galloping along in the stained khaki shirt and jumping from his horse onto a tank in \"The Last Crusade.\" \"Technically very difficult,\" Armstrong says, \"I had to rely on a horse, and horses have a sense of survival and they don't actually do what you tell them to do as they haven't read the script.\" It may have been his close resemblance to Ford that clinched the \"Raiders\" job but the pair developed a rapport that led Armstrong to work on the other two installments of the trilogy, \"Temple of Doom\" and \"The Last Crusade.\" \"It always works better if you do have a relationship with [the actor]. You can mimic how they move, how they work when you coordinate fights for them like I did with Harrison,\" Armstrong tells CNN. Armstrong was just 16 years old when he started in the stunt industry in 1965. He utilised his horseriding skills to double as Gregory Peck in spy movie \"Arabesque.\" He had to jump a huge moat and then fall off his mount but it was the simple lifestyle and travel that hooked young Armstrong -- \"Forty dollars a day and all you can eat. Fantastic living.\" After over 40 years and countless movies, his filmography reads like a who's who of Hollywood: he has doubled for Sean Connery, Donald Sutherland, John Voight and collaborated with directors like Ridley Scott, Paul Verhoeven, Michael Cimino and Sir Richard Attenborough. His work for three decades on classic Bond films like \"You Only Live Twice\" and \"Live and Let Die\" cemented his reputation as a stuntman who could pull off complicated of stunts with precision. \"The films I've done I've been very lucky to have been very prolific in an area and a time when iconic films were being made. \"My first stunt on a Bond film was in 1966 in the winter of \"You Only Live Twice\". I was one of the ninjas coming down firing guns into the volcano, which for me was sensational.\" He doubled for Roger Moore in \"Live and Let Die\" for a short while and was then propelled into working as a stunt coordinator and director of action units. Armstrong then added a superhero to his already impressive roster of action idols, standing in for Christopher Reeve in \"Superman.\" Despite this, his allegiances lie solidly with cinema's 'real' heroes. \"If you look at \"Spiderman\" and movies like that, or the \"Incredible Hulk,\" they are far more computer-generated and so therefore slightly more cartoonish or video game-ish. \"My personal preference is for real action just enhanced or maybe helped by computers. We use computers to take away fall pads or wires if you're getting snatched or thrown in the air.\" And in the spirit of keeping it real, Armstrong has gone to great lengths to help stuntmen achieve their crazy feats as safely as possible. In the 1980s he modified a tool known as the \"fan descender\" for the film \"Green Ice.\" It would allow stuntmen to safely slow down when performing high freefalls. It revolutionized the stunt industry and in 2002 he was awarded a Science and Technology Academy Award for his invention -- the only one ever handed out to a stunt man. Earlier this year, he was honored by the Screen Actors Guild for his work on 2007 action horror \"I am Legend.\" He has just finished work on \"The Mummy 3\" -- it was his prior commitment to this movie that stopped him working on the fourth Indy film \"Kingdom of the Crystal Skull\" -- and is now stunt coordinating on the Weinstein production \"Shanghai.\" Even after all this time, Armstrong, the authority on how to create a death defying stunt, still reckons Ford is the best stuntman actor he has ever worked with -- \"Harrison has to be the ultimate.\" So why bother with a stunt double? \"I was cheaper and it didn't matter if I got hurt.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Vic Armstrong was Harrison Ford's stunt double in the Indiana Jones movies .\nHis physical similarity to Ford is at the root of his success as Indy's \"fall guy\"\nAfter 40 years in the business, Armstrong is the authority on death defying stunts .\nArmstrong on Ford as a stuntman actor: \"Harrison has to be the ultimate\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Flamboyant and fearless, Roberto Cavalli is the peacock of the fashion world; with his body-hugging clothes, he woos women the world over. Fashion designer Roberto Cavalli . But his clients are no dainty damsels: Cavalli's women are Amazonian warriors and Grecian goddesses, whose armor is fashion and whose weapon is sex. His colorful creations are unabashed celebrations of the female form: dresses slashed to the hip or barely skimming the buttocks, necklines that plunge where no other designer dares. Cavalli's woman knows she looks fabulous, and isn't afraid to show it: to her, it's not just clothing, it's an announcement that she's arrived. Born in Florence in 1940, Cavalli was immersed in an intensely creative environment from childhood. That influence came from his father, a tailor, and his artist grandfather, Giuseppe Rossi, whose work is shown in the famous Uffizi Galleries. Following in his father's footsteps, Cavalli studied textile design at the local art institute. By the early 70s, he had developed an innovative technique for printing on lightweight leather, and his Florentine flair had led to commissions with Hermes and Pierre Cardin. In 1970, he presented his first namesake collection at the Salon for Prêt-à-Porter in Paris. His trademark work with unconventional fabrics like embellished denim and leather, mixed with wild animal prints and exotic patterns, was embraced by the jet set and Cavalli opened his first boutique in Saint Tropez in 1972. Cavalli married his wife, Eva Duringer, a former Miss Universe, in 1980; she is now his business partner and right-hand woman. His fondness for bright color, exotics, fur and bold prints -- which he designs in his factory on the outskirts of Florence -- have won him a name as the king of fashion excess. Beloved by A-listers and pop princesses, these are not clothes for the shy: this is old-school glamour, infused with power, wielded by women who have flounced and shimmied their way to the top. See Cavalli's designs on the catwalk » . His main line is sold in over 50 countries worldwide, along with his diffusion lines RC Menswear and Just Cavalli, plus a children's line, knitwear, accessories, eyewear, watches, perfumes, underwear and beachwear. He's even ventured into Cavalli-branded vodka and wine. His collaboration with high-street fashion store H&M in November 2007 caused stampedes as his fans flocked to get their hands on his creations, desperate to capture some of that Cavalli magic at tiny prices. Some have asked whether his latest collections have taken a more gentle direction -- but the tiger's inner fire still burns bright. Spring/Summer 2008's bold flower prints and flirty feathered dresses were followed by Autumn/Winter 2008's flowered dresses that at first glance appear dewy and fresh -- but look closer, and the hip-hugging cut belies their innocence. Cavalli is adored by his celebrity clientele, who flaunt his show-stopping creations on red carpets from Los Angeles to Sydney. Fans of his work include Halle Berry, Sharon Stone, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Gwyneth Paltrow, Beyoncè Knowles, Charlize Theron and Victoria Beckham. If anyone sums up the glamour and glitz of show business, it's Cavalli: fashion as theatre, shameless decadence where the whole world is a stage. That's underlined by his eponymous 133'9\" long yacht, built 2004, and color-coordinated, naturally, with his helicopter and fleet of cars." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Florence-born fashion designer Roberto Cavalli is known for his bright, sexy clothes .\nHe is the grandson of Impressionist painter Giuseppe Rossi and the son of a tailor .\nHis clothes are adored by celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Victoria Beckham .\nCavalli's extravagant lifestyle includes color-coordinated yacht, cars and helicopter ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "For a city of its size, Copenhagen has a remarkable range of shops that ooze class and individuality. The Georg Jensen store has some exquisite silver jewelry. The city's main shopping hub is Strøget, a collection of pedestrianized streets that lead from Rådhuspladsen to Kongens Nytorv; you can easily spend hours, and a small fortune, browsing its boutiques and chain stores. Don't miss Illums Bolighus (Amagertorv 10), with its four floors of contemporary Scandinavian design. Once you've got a taste for stylish home accessories, make your way to Normann Copenhagen (Strandboulevarden 98) or Hay Cph (Pilestraede 29-31) for a masterclass in simplicity and elegance. When you've finished kitting out the house you might want to work on your wardrobe. Kronprinsensgade is full of hip boutiques, among them Bruuns Bazaar (Kronprinsensgade 8-9), with its collection from the ever-so-trendy, and suitably pricey, Bruuns label. Nearby, Designers Remix (Pilestraede 8) offers sophisticated styles for women, while Könrøg (Hyskenstræde 11) has cutting-edge fashions from a collective of Danish designers. For something more traditional, but no less beautiful, head to the Georg Jensen store in Amagertorv, for silverware that ranges from intricate jewelry to timeless tableware. If that's not exclusive enough for you, Peter Hertz in Købmagergade is jeweler to Danish royalty. Pick up something for the kids at Aniel (Frederiksberg Allé 70), which has too-cute baby grows, children's clothes and wooden toys made from organic and natural materials. Frydendahl (Store Regnegade 1) has some unusual hand-knitted toys among the selection of homeware strewn along the pavement outside. If your eyes are bigger than your wallet, then you might be interested in the flea market held on Saturdays in Israels Plads, where high-street stores are said to unload the goodies they can't sell in their shops. If it's raining you might prefer Det Blå Pakhus (113 Holmbladsgade), the city's biggest indoor flea market and a treasure trove of bargains begging to be hunted. ...................... Copenhagen city guide: . Where to stay | What to see | Where to be seen | Where to eat | Where to shop . ...................... Do you agree with our Copenhagen picks? Send us your comments and suggestions in the \"Sound Off\" box below and we'll print the best." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Strøget, a collection of pedestrianized streets, is the city's shopping hub .\nIllums Bolighus has four floors of modern Scandinavian design .\nBruuns Bazaar sells clothing from the popular and stylish Bruuns label .\nDet Blå Pakhus is an indoor flea market and has some great bargains ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "CHENNAI, India (CNN) -- At 68, Christian Fabre, CEO of Fashions International, might be expected to be thinking about retiring. Christian Fabre, or Swami Pranavananda Brahmendra Avadutha, or just Swamiji for short . But Fabre, or Swami Pranavananda Brahmendra Avadutha as he is also called, is a practicing Hindu monk as well as a businessman, and retirement doesn't really enter his thoughts. \"I'm having too much fun,\" he says with a chuckle. Hardly a gnomic mysticist, Fabre comes across as a jolly old soul, and greets me wearing saffron robes, sandals and sporting the most stylish pair of rimless glasses ever worn by a monk of any denomination. As we chat in his light, open office on a sunny morning in Chennai, his BlackBerry beeps with new e-mails. Tools of the trade, or at least business, are allowed then? \"How can a man who is supposed to be meditating in a cave do this, you may say. But there is no dichotomy between this and my spiritual beliefs,\" he says. A MacBook on his desk and a picture of his guru on the wall, plus the company's 25 percent growth last year, Fabre life seems to be in balance. However, he admits that reaching the place he's in today, both spiritually and physically, \"was no pleasure cruise.\" Instead of a backpack and a pocket full of marijuana, he arrived in Chennai in 1971 with a job in the textile-buying business, a wife and a young son. Three years later the job had gone, so too his wife, taking their son with her. Rather than return to France, he stayed, having been seduced by the richness of Indian culture, but struggled to find more work. He met his current business partner in Fashions International, A. Jayapalana, when embarking on an ill-fated and short-lived venture with a fashion designer. However his rag-trade to rags to saffron robes existence only developed when he was introduced to the guru of his yoga teacher. \"He'd suffered from leprosy, but radiated happiness and energy. It dried my tears; I had no right to cry over myself. I also wanted to know his secret, and after meeting regularly for six months, he told me I was right to become a swami.\" As a child, Fabre had wanted to become a priest, something his communist railway-worker father completely rejected. \"Who knows how he would take it, but I'm sure if I was telling him about my spirituality, he would agree. Communism and Hinduism go well together in some Indian states, although I'm sure Karl Marx would wonder what it's doing here,\" he says. Depending on how much work he has to do, every month Fabre spends around a week at his ashram, where he has some disciples. It's an eight-hour drive from Chennai and two miles from the nearest village, where he has more time and space -- and less clothing -- in which to further his spiritual practices. His personal life is more ascetic than his BlackBerry-bleeping office existence. He does however have satellite TV at home and the Internet at his hermitage, plus a personal driver, but one thing he always carries with him is a spiritual self-awareness. \"Everything is the ultimate. It is a very leveling spirituality, is it not?\" he says, the French accent slipping into an Indian lilt. \"I can be a businessman and a swami without losing that awareness. It's within and it's without. It's the ultimate and the universal and beyond the universal. It makes you understand a lot in a split second, and you can see things from many angles.\" Watch financial advice from Fabre » . Business karma . One thing he clearly understands is the fashion business. As an outsourcing supply company, Fabre's company is indirectly responsible for employing around 80,000 people in 200 factories around Tamil Nadu, and his clients include labels such as Kenzo, Lee Cooper and Oxbow. Fabre himself is given a modest monthly salary of around $400 (kept in a safe, bank accounts aren't allowed), most of which goes on food, bill and petrol. His spirituality and belief in karma informs the way he lives as well as his business ethics, but don't affect his business decisions. There would be no problem with dismissing a staff member if the need arose, he tells me. However being a swami, he can't sign contracts either with his staff or Fashions International's clients, which he says has only caused a problem once. Much of that he owes to the open-minded people who work in fashion. \"They tell me I am well integrated,\" he says with a laugh. \"They also feel that you are an honest person, although I don't agree with that reasoning. You could be a monk and a bad one.\" If there's no contradiction between being a Hindu monk and running a successful company, there's a certain irony about Fashions International's new venture: their own line of clothing named after their CEO, whose wardrobe consists of four yellow pieces of cloth and is more taken to being naked. Not quite the emperor's new clothes, Fabre business acumen tells him they're getting in on selling their own range of clothing at the right time. \"Going into the domestic market is a wise choice. If the American market, or circus, I might call it, goes wrong, we'll have something to fall back on. Also we are taking the brand to South Africa, which is also booming.\" Openness and change . Walking around his office, he appears more like a favorite teacher than a boss with his staff of young designers and sales and marketing employees, but he admits that he's not always easy to work with. \"My guru said: 'Never prevent anyone from coming and seeing you.' But sometimes its strenuous when someone is boring, but then you keep it short and they leave feeling positive,\" he says with a smile. As his personal assistant of 13 years, Pinky Lahiri knows as much about the swami formerly known as Christian Fabre as well as any. \"He is strict and he has his principles,\" she says, while Fabre takes a break for lunch. \"He used to get angry quite easily, he's much calmer now than when I first met him. It could be his age,\" she jokes, \"but it's probably his spirituality.\" Switching from caffeine and a 60-cigarette-a-day habit to a strict vegetarian diet no doubt helped reduce stress levels. He's been to parties with designers and fashionistas including Jean-Paul Gaultier -- \"a lot of fun\" -- and is regularly feted by the French chamber of commerce, but that's not the reason he's spent so much of his life in the fashion industry. As well as the jobs he's helped to create, he sees fashion as something that gives people the chance to express themselves, present an image and change it if they want. More significant transformations though are harder to come by. Gandhi's famous quote: \"For things to change, first I must change\" appears on signs on desks throughout his office. \"People don't like to change. They're ensconced in their traditions, their habits, my god! You have to have tradition in society, but some are no longer valid. You have to be able to balance that correctly. \"It's not a question of faith; it's not an intellectual thing, either. It comes from the intellect and the heart, and usually this distance is not far away, but for some it takes a long time,\" he says. A businessman, a swami, and now a brand, Fabre is clearly enjoying himself and prepared for any more changes. \"I'm having a hell of a good time, but it would very boring if everyone was like me.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Frenchman Christian Fabre is CEO of fashion company and also a Hindu monk .\nSplits time between his office in Chennai and ashram in the hills of Tamil Nadu .\nHas been in India for 37 years; clients include Kenzo and Lee Cooper .\nRecently launched own clothing label, despite not wearing clothes himself ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- What does it take to become the CEO of India's biggest biotech company and the richest woman in India? Mazumdar Shaw with Shah Rukh Khan. India's richest woman is ready to answer your questions. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of biotech pharaceutical company Biotech answers your questions, below. Yours is a very inspiring story. Could you tell us more about what challenges you had to overcome to bring Biocon to a global level? Vishala Vasandani . Mazumdar Shaw: My journey started 30 years ago at a time when I had to face credibility challenges that pertained to my gender, my inexperience as a business entrepreneur and my unfamiliar biotechnology-based business model. My business evolved in tandem with challenges. Once I overcame these credibility challenges, I faced technological challenges of trying to build a Biotech business in a country that had infrastructure that was too primitive to support a high tech industry that demanded uninterrupted power supply, high quality water, sterile labs, imported research equipment, advanced scientific skills etc. Over the next 10 years, we systematically addressed these challenges and built a self contained enterprise that had captive power and water supply, state of the art labs and facilities and a team of highly experienced scientists and engineers capable of delivering world class research and technologies. Today, our challenges address those posed by new medical wisdom: addressing unmet medical needs, researching new drugs, new drug delivery systems and new therapies. Overcoming each of these phases has been a rich learning experience that has helped us to develop world class expertise in biotechnology. Innovation and quality have been integral to our business ethos. Can Biocon's oral insulin IN-105 replace traditional and painful needle based insulin delivery system for type1 diabetics? Can a diabetic who is taking insulin by needle based delivery system hope for change in near future? Ajay Kumar Singh . Mazumdar-Shaw: Oral Insulin is not just about delivering Insulin in a tablet. It is about delivering Insulin very rapidly to the liver (hepato-delivery) which is the main organ responsible for glycemic control in our body. Injectable Insulin takes approximately 30 minutes to act. Oral Insulin takes approximately 5 minutes to act which mimics how non-diabetics respond to glucose uptake when food is consumed. This will help both Type I and Type II diabetics to manage their diabetes better. We hope that early intervention with Oral Insulin will help to manage Diabetes especially in Type II diabetics much more effectively than is being done by oral diabetic agents like Metformin, Sulphonyl Ureas and Glitazones which stimulate the pancreas to produce Insulin. This is unlike oral Insulin which will allow a poorly functioning pancreas to rest and hopefully help to revive Insulin secreting beta cells. Should our Oral Insulin program succeed, this will revolutionize Diabetes therapy in the future. If you had to do the IPO again what would you do differently and when can we see Biocon listed in NASDAQ? Harish Swaminathan . Mazumdar-Shaw: I don't believe so. I think we got the valuation we were expecting through an Indian listing. A NASDAQ listing is only something we will address when one of our branded drugs are close to commercialization in either the U.S. or European markets. Today NASDAQ is risk averse and not valuing biotech companies any better than the BSE or NSE. I am so humbled by your story. What does it take as a woman to get to where you are today? What obstacles did you have to overcome, especially in an industry that is deemed to be a \"man's world\"? Would women setting up business in India today find it easier than you did? Irene Gonza, Uganda . Mazumdar-Shaw: I believe that women need to believe in themselves. I set up Biocon with a spirit of challenge and a deep sense of purpose. The challenge was to break the gender bias in the business world. My sense of purpose was to create a Biotech business in a country like India which had a very poor research culture with limited opportunities for scientists and engineers to pursue a career. It was about stopping the \"brain drain\" from India. It was about providing exciting career opportunities to young scientists and engineers. It was about encouraging young women to pursue careers. When one is passionate about a mission that is about change, it enables you to persevere and endure. I do believe that if I could achieve success, any woman can overcome obstacles with a sense of determination! When you set up Biocon did you aim to make it one of the biggest and most successful in the world? Do you need ambition like that be a success in any kind of business or does it take luck, too? David James, London . Mazumdar-Shaw: When I set up Biocon, I certainly did not have such a big ambition! I basically wanted to run a successful and profitable business to start with. Ambition is evolutionary and one does not see the big picture until you reach a certain critical mass. It was only a few years ago that we developed a global ambition and built global scale in our operations. Whilst luck can be described as \"being at the right place at the right time\" or \"being prepared to address an opportunity,\" I personally believe that it is about being able to seize opportunities by leveraging existing capabilities to reach new levels. In our case, we leveraged our enzyme capabilities to pursue bio-pharmaceuticals; it was also about picking the right products (statins & Insulin) that had large markets. We chose to partner with innovative companies and in-license innovative technologies which spearheaded our new drug development programs. We have always chosen to differentiate ourselves from the market and this has allowed us to \"think out of the box\" and stand apart. How do you think the global economic downturn will affect Biocon and Indian companies in general? Alicia van Waveren, The Hague . Mazumdar-Shaw: The economic meltdown will certainly bring tremendous pricing pressure and we expect to see our margins shrink. We also expect payment terms that involve extended credits. However, we also see a silver lining amidst this gloomy scenario as R&D and manufacturing are likely to shift to countries like India in order to bring down costs. We have two subsidiaries that offer research and clinical services, Syngene and Clinigene that are likely to see their businesses increase. We also expect generic drugs to become a larger part of healthcare budgets in western economies. Finally, new drug development costs are under tremendous pressure both in terms of funding and development. India and companies like Biocon provide very effective co-development partnership opportunities to bring these costs down. The differences between wealth and poverty in India are starker than anywhere else in the world. Do you think the poverty gap will ever be closed? Richard Ng, Hong Kong . Mazumdar-Shaw: Poverty poses a huge challenge. Education and employment are the only answers. India is striving to address these two areas through various education and vocational training initiatives. What we also need is employment generation through a myriad of projects that span infrastructure development, co-operative agriculture to entrepreneurship. India needs to provide rural connectivity both in terms of roads and tale/IT connectivity. This will unleash inclusive growth in a huge way. Today we are caught between a political ethos that finds it convenient to keep its vote bank ignorant and unemployed and a civic India that wants to educate and harness the potential of its human capital. It seems that Indian biotech and pharmaceutical industry is relying more on being the outsourced resource of the U.S. and EU companies rather than creating their own intellectual property.Do you think this a culture in India to not be active in creating IP or is it related to the inadequacies in the patent law? Dipanjan Nag . Mazumdar-Shaw: A very correct observation. The risks associated with proprietary products are high and Indian businesses and more importantly Indian investors and banks are extremely risk averse. Hopefully, the rapid commoditization of generics and services will force companies to differentiate on the basis of IP. At Biocon we strongly believe that our proprietary programs will help us sustain growth in the future. It is a challenge to convince our investors of this but we think they will understand this in the near future. In hindsight, what is the one piece of advice you wish you'd been given when you were starting out in business? Karl Malone, Winchester . Risk is not about taking but about managing. I took a huge risk when I started a Biotech company in 1978 and I soon realized that I had to manage the risk by addressing very serious challenges of a very primitive infrastructure at the time. It took me a lot longer than I thought to build the company but in hindsight it was still worth the effort! What drives you to achieve what you have and to keep going when times are tough? Melinda Cook, Melbourne . The belief that we can deliver the world's first Oral Insulin and other life saving drugs for cancer and auto-immune diseases. I am driven by my desire to see novel drugs being developed by Biocon for global markets with a \"Made in India\" label. I am determined to see India earn a strong reputation in innovation. At a time when most Biotech companies in the western world are challenged with funding, I believe we can forge ahead and succeed. About Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw . Mazumdar-Shaw is founder of Biocon, the biotech and pharmaceutical company that made her India's richest self-made businesswoman. She was named as one of Fortune magazine's 50 Most Powerful Women in 2007 and was instrumental in forging India's biotechnology industry. Living and working in Bangalore, she set up Biocon in 1978 and has developed it into a global biopharmaceutical player with highly developed research and development facilities focusing on cancer and diabetes treatments. Biocon was bought first by Unilever in 1989 and then sold to ICI in 1997, but Mazumdar-Shaw remains the company's Chair and Managing Director and has been part of the Indian government's Council on Trade & Industry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "India's richest woman Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is founder and CEO of Biocon .\nEmail her your questions on business and secrets of her success .\nHer answers will appear here on Friday, November 28 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "PARIS, France (CNN) -- No matter when you go, Paris has that certain 'je ne sais quoi' that makes it special. But time your visit right and you could find yourself taking part in one of the city's signature events. Ice skating in front of the grand facade of the Hotel de Ville on a crisp winter day. Fashion Weeks Paris is eponymous with style, and fashionistas will be in seventh heaven during the city's haute couture fashion weeks, in January and June/July each year. Celeb-spotting, cooing over clothes and scrambling for a seat at Galliano are par for the course: just make sure your image is up to it. Bastille Day If freedom and fireworks are your thing, what better time to be in Paris than 14 July, or Bastille Day, when you can celebrate the storming of the hated prison, symbol of repression and aristocratic excess. Watch the military parade down the Champs Elysees, enjoy the Eiffel Tower fireworks from the Champ de Mars, and raise a glass to liberte, egalite and fraternite. No guillotines allowed -- and most of the metros are closed, so be prepared to walk home. Paris Plages It's still true that many of Paris' residents leave the city in August, shutting up shop and heading to the beach, but for the past few years the Paris Plages have brought that holiday feel to the city. Sand dunes, swimming pools and petanque are all things you might associate with France's south coast resorts, but all can be found on the riverbank from late July until late August each year. The FIAC (International Fair of Contemporary Art) October's Foire Internationale d'Art Contemporain (FIAC) sees gallery-owners and collectors of contemporary art descend on the Louvre and the Grand Palais for one of the art world's major dates. There's an emphasis on up-and-coming artists and newer galleries from across Europe. Works of art in all media -- painting, drawing, prints, photography, sculpture and more -- are on display and available to purchase. Ice skating in front of Hotel de Ville If you like your outdoor pursuits to be frosty and free, you'll love the ice rink that's outside the Hotel de Ville every December until March. Rent your skates or bring your own and glide around the rink, hand in hand with a loved one, gazing at the beautiful buildings that surround the square, then warm up with a chocolat chaud at a nearby cafe. Could Paris be any more romantic?" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The biggest date in the calendar is 14 July, which celebrates the French revolution .\nFrom July to August, sun worshippers can bathe on beaches on the riverbank .\nStyle gurus migrate to the city twice a year to take part in fashion week .\nIn Winter, ice skate in front of the Hotel de Ville for the ultimate romantic moment ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- To the litany of challenges that confront India's path to a better life, we can now add subdued economic growth as a result of the global financial crisis. A banana vendor stands on a flooded street as he waits for customers in Amritsar, India, on August 13. After three spectacular years of 9 percent-plus annual growth, India will reach just 6.3 percent next year, according to the latest forecast by the International Monetary Fund in early November. The Reserve Bank of India is forecasting a more optimistic 7.5 to 8 percent. While 7.5 percent may still sound a good result, it is barely enough for the economy to keep pace with the 10 million-plus young people who will join the Indian job market in 2009. India's major shortcomings in infrastructure, education, health care and environmental protection are well known, as are the constant problems of corruption, poor governance, rural poverty, communalism, domestic terrorism, child labor, discrimination against women and natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes. But at least in recent years India could point to a strong economy as the platform on which it was making its push for higher living standards, social modernization and economic reform. Since May 2004, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram took on the reins of government, India's economy has had a charmed run. Strong growth in business sectors such asinformation technology, pharmaceuticals, automotive, financial services and retail have coincided with a better performing agricultural sector, and a housing and consumption boom driven by easier credit. India's young working men and women -- more than half the country's 1.15 billion people are aged 25 or less -- have shown a much greater propensity to spend, compared to their thrifty, risk-averse parents and grandparents. This willingness to go into debt rather than save has seen a massive rise in sales of consumer goods such as mobile phones, flat screen TVs, refrigerators, household utensils, motorcycles and cars. The same goes for spending on services, from tourism to healthcare to self-improvement. Now the halcyon days appear to be over, as the international credit crunch flattens demand everywhere. Already the downturn is seeing job losses in sectors such as aviation, financial services, retailing and export industries, as companies tighten their belts and put expansion plans on hold. The government admits things will get tougher, with Singh telling the nation on October 20 that \"we must be prepared for a temporary slowdown in the Indian economy.\" Earlier that day, the Reserve Bank of India cut its key repurchase (short-term lending) rate by 100 basis points to 8 percent, saying it needed to ease the pressure on India's credit markets and maintain financial stability. It followed that with another cut to 7.5 percent on November 1. RBI Governor Dr. D. Subbarao noted the global downturn could be deeper and the recovery might take longer than earlier expected. \"Consequently, the adverse implications through trade and financial channels for emerging economies, including India, have amplified,\" he said. Economists and analysts have welcomed the central bank's moves, which have included a 350-basis point reduction in the cash reserve ratio -- the amount of money Indian banks must keep on hand -- between July and November. Tushar Poddar, head of Asian economic research at investment bank Goldman Sachs, said the RBI's October 20 action was \"well ahead of market expectations\" and showed a bias towards growth and financial stability, against inflation. Goldman Sachs had earlier cut its growth outlook for the 2009-10FY to 7 percent and has warned the figure could go lower if the international financial turmoil continues over the next few months. But Poddar believes that India's export drive -- which has seen exports triple since 2003 to about $163 billion in 2007-08FY -- may not suffer too greatly. In a recent study, he found that about two-thirds of India's exports go outside the United States and the European Union (the two trade areas most affected by the downturn) to China, Southeast Asia, West Asia and Africa. While Indian exports would slow, \"the downside is limited,\" he said. A lower Indian rupee would also help. Foreign investment is slowing in line with the downturn. Morgan Stanley's India economist Chetan Ahya noted recently that \"adverse global circumstances\" are weighing on India's ability to attract overseas money. Unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the global credit markets, Ahya believes capital inflows could slow to $40-50 billion in the year ahead, compared with $110 billion in 2008. On the broader political front, India has to deal with a range of internal and external risks that include domestic communalism-cum-terrorism and the constant threat of conflict with Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir territory. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka all add to a difficult neighborhood, while India's relations with China are cool at best, even as trade ties grow. Territorial disputes linger from the 1962 border war between the two. That helps explain why India was named recently by Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) as the Asia-Pacific country with the highest political and social risk for 2009. A report by PERC in late October assessed 16 countries in the Asia Pacific region, and assigned India the highest risk rating of 6.87, ahead of Thailand with 6.28. China was seventh with 5.33, behind Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia. PERC cited uncertainties surrounding India's coming general election -- due to be held by May 2009 -- along with rising communal violence and incidents of terrorism. \"The biggest risk is that a deterioration in political and economic conditions in neighboring Pakistan could aggravate social unrest in India further, and hurt national security,\" it noted. But it said India's underlying attractions to foreign investors should remain, \"no matter who wins the next election. Prime Minister Singh, with six months of his government to run, is putting on a brave face. \"It is when India is challenged that the Indian people rise to the occasion and convert the challenge into an opportunity. There is no place for fear,\" he told the nation late last month. Geoff Hiscock writes on Indian business and is the author of \"India's Global Wealth Club\" (2007) and \"India's Store Wars\" (2008), both published by John Wiley & Sons." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "India's economic growth will slow in 2009, most economists project .\nNation's young population has shown willingness to go into accrue debt to spend .\nInfrastructure, corruption, health and education worries remain economic hurdles .\nIndia faces political, social risk in 2009, according to Hong Kong-based group ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- In November we step inside the world of design as show host Becky Anderson searches for the Spirit of Architecture. The \"Gherkin\" designed by Norman Foster is one of the most familiar features on London's skyline. In late October, Barcelona hosts the World Architecture Festival during which the great and good will attempt to choose the best building in the world. CNN will get exclusive access to the event, the nominations, and the jury which includes some of the world's greatest architects. The program will start with an explanation of Barcelona's unique architectural heritage. It will then feature short pieces on six of the architects and the buildings that have been nominated for awards. These profiles have been filmed in Mumbai, Tokyo, Pretoria, Munich, London and Maryland. The program will also feature interviews with some of the world's leading architects including Lord Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid and Wolf D Prix. Foster is the founder of the London-based Foster and Partners architecture company which has recently won a competition to build Virgin Galactic's New Mexico Spaceport Authority Building for space tourism. In September 2007, Foster was awarded the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, for his efforts on the Petronas University of Technology, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Malaysia. Hadid meanwhile has won numerous international architecture awards and is currently involved in the construction of a 17,500-seat aquatics centre for London -- one of the venues being built for the 2012 Olympics. Finally, the Austrian-born Prix, who founded top company Coop Himmelb(l)au is a legend of the architecture world. Prix has scooped many of the top international architectural awards over the last quarter century, and today continues his active involvement in the world of design. Once we have taken you through the festival highlights, at the end of the program the best building in the world will be chosen and we will interview the winning architect." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "November's show comes from the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona .\nInterviewees include Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid and Wolf D Prix .\nThe best building in the world will be chosen at the end of the show ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Editor's note: Peter Bergen is a fellow at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought from across the ideological spectrum and at New York University's Center on Law and Security. He's the author of \"The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader.\" Peter Bergen says deals with the Taliban could further destabilize the situation in Afghanistan. (CNN) -- It is a longstanding cliché that there is no military solution in Afghanistan, only a political one. Linked to this is the newer, related notion, rapidly becoming a cliché, that the United States should start making deals with elements of the \"reconcilable\" Taliban. As with many clichés, there is some truth to both these notions, but neither of these comforting ideas are a substitute for a strategy that is connected to what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sunday's New York Times ran an interview with President Obama in which he said that, just as the U.S. had made peace agreements with Sunni militias in Iraq, \"There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region.\" He also cautioned that this could be \"more complex\" than was the case in Iraq. It's not only going to be more complex, but doing deals with the Taliban today could further destabilize Afghanistan. Before getting to why that is the case, let's stipulate first that there are always going to be some local commanders of the Taliban who can be bribed, coerced or otherwise persuaded to lay down their arms. In fact, the Afghan government already has had an amnesty program in place for Taliban fighters for four years. Thousands of the Taliban already have taken advantage of the amnesty, a fact that tends to be glossed over in most of the recent discussions of the issue. That being said, there are nine reasons why doing deals with most of the various factions of the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are labeled \"the Taliban\" are more in the realm of fantasy than a sustainable policy. First, the Afghan government is a sovereign entity and any agreements with the Taliban must be made by it. Right now the weak and ineffectual Afghan government is in no position to negotiate with the Taliban, other than to make significant concessions of either territory or principle, or both. Second, while Obama didn't talk about dealing with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, it is worth pointing out the Taliban leadership, including Mullah Omar, has in the past several months taken every opportunity to say that it has no interest in a deal with the Afghan government. And just last week, Mullah Omar urged the Pakistani Taliban to refocus their efforts on attacking U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Those statements should be taken at face value. Third, Mullah Omar's intransigence is utterly predictable. He was prepared to sacrifice his regime on the point of principle that he would not hand over Osama bin Laden after 9/11. And he did. This does not suggest a Kissingerian realism about negotiations, but rather a fanatical devotion to his cause. Fourth, the Taliban believe they may be winning in Afghanistan, and they also are confident that they are not losing, which for an insurgent movement amounts to the same thing. They see no need to negotiate today when they can get a better deal down the road. Fifth, the Taliban leadership is largely in Pakistan. Side deals done with the Afghan Taliban will have little or no effect on the fact that the command and control of the insurgency is in another country. Sixth, when Pakistan's government has done \"peace\" deals with the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal regions in 2005 and 2006 and in the northern region of Swat earlier this year, they were made following military setbacks by Pakistan's army. Those deals then allowed the militants to regroup and extend their control over greater swaths of Pakistani territory. Why would new agreements with the Taliban on either side of the Afghan-Pakistan border yield different results? Seventh, \"reconcilable\" Afghan Taliban leaders have already reconciled to the government. Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the former foreign minister who met with Afghan government officials in Saudi Arabia in September, to discuss some kind of agreement with the Harmid Karzai administration, was a foe of bin Laden's long before 9/11 and was never a hard-liner. Muttawakil has no standing today with Taliban leaders, who have been waging war now for 7½ years against Karzai, and who quickly denied they were in any negotiations with his government. Eighth, while the Taliban was never a monolithic movement, it is much closer to al Qaeda today than it was before 9/11. Yes, there are local groups of the Taliban operating for purely local reasons, but the upper levels of the Taliban have morphed together ideologically and tactically with al Qaeda. Baitullah Mehsud, for instance, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, sent suicide attackers to Spain in January 2008, according to Spanish counterterrorism officials, and sees himself as part of the global jihad. The Haqqani family, arguably the most important component of the insurgency on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, has ties with bin Laden that date back to at least 1985, according to the Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail, who has known the al Qaeda leader for more than two decades. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a commander allied to the Taliban, has been close to bin Laden since at least 1989, according to militants who know both men. Al Qaeda was founded in Pakistan two decades ago, and bin Laden has been fighting alongside Afghan mujahedeen groups since the mid-1980s. Al Qaeda Central on the Afghan/Pakistan border is much less of a \"foreign\" group with far deeper and older roots in the region than Al Qaeda ever was in Iraq. The Taliban's rhetoric is now filled with references to Iraq and Palestine in a manner that mirrors bin Laden's public statements. The use of suicide attacks, improvised explosive devices and the beheadings of hostages -- all techniques that al Qaeda perfected in Iraq -- are methods that the Taliban have increasingly adopted in Afghanistan and have grown exponentially there since 2005. iReport.com: Should there be a deal with the Taliban? One could go on listing examples of the Taliban's ideological and tactical collaboration with al Qaeda, but the larger point is that separating al Qaeda and the Taliban is not going to be as relatively simple as splintering Iraqi insurgent groups from al Qaeda in Iraq. And ninth, unlike Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was a foreign-led group that sought to impose, unpopular Taliban-style rule on Sunni areas of Iraq, the Taliban in Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan are not outsiders, but are often neighborhood people whose views about religion and society are rooted in the values of the Pashtun countryside. While, of course, the U.S. should be splintering, buying off and co-opting as many elements of the Taliban as possible, American officials also need to be realistic about how much closer Al Qaeda and the Taliban have grown together in recent years, and the fact that the insurgency has mushroomed in size on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. Winston Churchill once observed that \"it's better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.\" True enough. But \"jaw-jaw\" with the Taliban won't work if they think they are winning as they do right now. The Obama administration has ordered 17,000 additional American soldiers to go to Afghanistan this year. As a result, two Marine brigades and a mobile, well-armored Stryker brigade will deploy into the heart of the Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan. Marine and Stryker brigades are not the kind of units you send in to play nice. Those deployments strongly suggest that for all the public discussion of negotiations with the Taliban the decision already has been made that any such negotiations should precede from a position of strength rather than weakness. These comments are, in part, based on Peter Bergen's testimonybefore the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs on March 4. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Peter Bergen." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Peter Bergen: Idea of dealing with moderate Taliban is gaining more support .\nBergen says it's not likely to be a strategy for success in the Aghanistan war .\nTaliban leadership thinks it's winning the war and won't cut a deal, he says .\nBergen: Afghan government too weak to engage in meaningful talks ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "HARARE, Zimbabwe (CNN) -- Some of Zimbabwe's children are \"wasting away\" as political turmoil and economic crisis have caused a severe food shortage, according to a report from Save the Children. Children sleep in rough conditions on the border between Zimbabwe and South Africa. The number of acute child malnutrition cases has risen by almost two-thirds in the past year, the report from the UK-based agency said in its appeal to world donors for help. \"There is no excuse for failing to provide this food,\" program director Lynn Walker said. \"The innocent people of Zimbabwe should not be made to suffer for a political situation that is out of their control.\" Five million Zimbabweans -- out of a population of about 12 million -- are in need of food aid now, the report said. The group is appealing for 18,000 tons of food for next month. \"We have already been forced to reduce the rations of emergency food we are delivering because there isn't enough to go around,\" the report said. \"If, as we fear, the food aid pipeline into Zimbabwe begins to fail in the new year the millions of people who rely on emergency food aid will suffer.\" Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic and humanitarian crisis since its independence from Great Britain 28 years ago. There is an acute shortage of all essentials such as cash, fuel, medical drugs, electricity and food. President Robert Mugabe blames the crisis on the sanctions imposed on him and his cronies by the West for allegedly disregarding human rights. But Mugabe's critics attribute the crisis to his economic policies. As the economy has faltered for almost a decade now, a cholera epidemic is raging, fueled by the collapse of health, sanitation and water services in Zimbabwe. The epidemic has claimed more than 1,100 lives and infected more than 20,000 people since its outbreak in August. Health experts have warned that the water-borne disease could infect more than 60,000 unless its spread is halted. The political crisis rose to a boil in this year when the opposition party claimed that it won the presidential election, but Mugabe's government refused to recognize the result. Instead, the race was thrown to a runoff, which was boycotted by the opposition. Mugabe signed an agreement with the opposition in September to form a unity government, but a bitter dispute over the division of cabinet seats has prevented its formation. Inflation is so severe that the government was forced to print $10 billion currency notes last week, with each expected to buy just 20 loaves of bread." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Some Zimbabwean children \"wasting away\" amid food shortage, aid group says .\nSevere malnutrition cases rise two-thirds in year, Save the Children warns .\nAlmost half of 12 million Zimbabweans need food aid now, report says .\nCountry facing worst economic, humanitarian crisis since independence in 1980 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- If your neighbor mentions their green roof you might think they have a moss problem. Maybe they are simply referring to the color. But you're unlikely to think that they have just had a mini ecosystem installed. Majora Carter says green roofs can help alleviate the problems caused by storm water . Simply put, green roofs are gardens on your roof. They come in all shapes and sizes and range from a simple layer of turf to bite-sized hanging gardens of Babylon. But green roofs are not just aesthetic. They have important environmental benefits: they absorb storm water, reduce noise pollution, absorb heat (thus lessening the urban heat-island effect) and add an extra layer of insulation to buildings. That's why they are increasingly being used on new builds as the construction industry looks to make use of greener technologies.. The concept of a green roof goes back centuries: The turf roofed dwellings of the Vikings are early examples, but the modern green roof we know today was developed in Germany 50 years ago. Since then, they have become increasingly popular, yet the industry still struggles against skeptics, who believe green roofs to be expensive and liable to leaking. The exception to the rule has been Germany, where the industry is now annually worth $77 million. Even by the end of the 1990s, 50 million square meters of German roofs, the equivalent of 10 percent of flat roofs, were recorded to be green. The industry is not faring so well in other parts of the world. While the UK has seen a steady increase in interest since the 1960s, a lack of input from the industry and policy-makers has left Britain far behind Germany's booming market. In North America, green roofs have taken even longer to catch on. Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a Canadian non-profit industry association, conducted a survey in 2005 which indicated that only 233,000 square meters of green roofs existed in North America. But this was up 80 percent from the previous year, and the market continues to grow. Majora Carter, who set up Sustainable South Bronx to help lift the area out of poverty by creating green-collar jobs, is frustrated by this difference between the European and American industries. \"In Germany they are down to $20 per square meter, which is way cheaper than a regular roof here,\" she told CNN. \"There are mandates over there because of the storm water they retain,\" she continued, \"Which is a huge drain on their resources, as it is on ours. What we are trying to do is champion the policies behind storm water.\" Storm water is a growing problem in cities. The lack of permeable surfaces are loading drainage systems and increasing the risk of flooding. It's green roofs' ability to retain high levels of precipitation that are seen as way to control and slow the water run-off. The mandates Carter refers to are part of Germany's Green Area and Biotope Area Federal Law. They are not a legal requirement, but through incentives set up at a city level, the mandates have helped to encourage cheaper prices. Dusty Gedge, co-founder of Livingroof.org, a UK Web site promoting the green roof industry, believes it is the government's responsibility to help the industry grow. \"We need government bodies to accept certain civil engineering benefits, such as storm water amelioration, like the Germans, Austrians and Swiss do,\" he told CNN. \"This will encourage uptake.\" In many countries, the green roof industry is vulnerable to non-acceptance and a lack of understanding. Gedge says, \"There are problems with the construction industry viewing vegetation as a problem and not a benefit.\" Green roofs also struggle against better-known technologies such as solar panels, but Gedge points out, \"Solar panels can work better on green roofs than on gray roofs.\" Despite this lack of support, the green roof industry is growing. In London alone, there are approximately 1 million square meters of green roofs planned, with about 200,000 square meters already installed. And as climate change stays in the headlines, the popularity of green roofs is growing. According to Gedge, \"Over the last eight years, green roofs [in the UK] have gone from being a very marginal approach to a mainstream approach. Cities such as London and Sheffield are now asking for them as part of planning applications.\" But Gedge also believes that support from local government, as opposed to a centrally driven policy, is key to the industry's growth. \"In Switzerland, green roofs are federal law, but again this is interpreted at a cantonal and city level,\" he told CNN. \"This is a much better approach than driven by the center.\" Managing the industry through federal laws offers a general framework which can then be interpreted as needed. In an industry that varies from project to project, this flexibility is a valuable asset. So the green roof industry continues to grow -- but there's a feeling that government support could be better. With a little more encouragement, what once was an eccentric way to roof your home could soon become the universal standard, turning our cities into lush, green metropolises. But then, it's not easy being green. ................................... Would you put a green roof on your home? Do green roofs really help the environment -- or are they an expensive indulgence? Share your views in the Sound Off box below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Green roofs date back to before the time of the Vikings .\nNot just aesthetic, they help fight against climate change, especially in cities .\nGermany's green roof market is the biggest, making up 10 percent of all flat roofs .\nSupporters say government support is need to spur growth elsewhere ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- The apocalyptic tales of nature's impending demise are as well worn as they are numerous. Dr. Joseph Adelegan has pioneered new energy sources, including using cow waste to create cooking gas. But while our leaders wrangle over quotas for greenhouse emissions over banquets at lavish summits, there are remarkable individuals who are doing their small bit to prevent our planet from peril. Take Nigerian civil engineer, Dr Joseph Adelegan for instance. He firmly believes that the world's future fuel demands can be met through renewable energy. And he is using increasingly innovative methods to achieve these results. Three years ago Adelegan won plaudits for his \"Cows to Kilowatts\" project, which used effluents and waste products from abattoirs to produce cooking gas. The project was a winner of the prestigious 2005 Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development (SEED) International Awards. It is still going strong and being used to provide cooking fuel for nearly 6000 homes in Ibadan, southern Nigeria. Adelegan tells CNN there are now plans to roll it out across most of Africa, including Zimbabwe, Kenya and Egypt. This time he's back with another groundbreaking idea to use waste from the cassava plant, a staple food of Nigeria, to generate electricity. His project \"Power to the Poor: Off-Grid Lighting from Cassava Waste in Nigeria,\" was awarded a $250,000 grant in May from the World Bank after being named one of the best projects in Africa. According to Adelegan, Nigeria produces over 20 percent of the world's output of cassava, it is a $5 billion industry and provides the third largest source of carbohydrates for human food. However, waste from cassava refining is a major public health problem in Nigeria, causing water pollution and emitting noxious greenhouse gases. Through innovative biogas technology, zero emission bioreactors at specially constructed plants treat the cassava waste and produce biogas which drives microturbines for low cost, safe and reliable off-grid efficient lighting to thousands of rural homes. Using this method, Adelegan says he hopes to generate 200kw daily, which will provide basic electricity for more than 2000 households initially. He told CNN: \"There will be four lighting points in their homes. We're thinking in terms of basic lighting, they will be able to use their TV, cassette player, that sort of thing, but it will not be able to power a refrigerator. \"These people currently rely on kerosene lamps that are very bad for emissions and pollution. We also plan to provide them with low wattage lamps that use just 5kw to bring down usage.\" Through his not-for-profit organization-- Global Network for Environment and Economic Development Research)-- Adelegan has achieved the impressive feat of galvanizing the notoriously bureaucratic Nigerian government into action. He told CNN that the governor of Kwara State, in northern Nigeria has donated a plot of land for the launch of the project, scheduled to start next month. The scheme will cost $310,000 and will become profitable in little over three years, Adelegan says. \"This can never replace fossil fuels because of the huge demand we have for them, but we can help to reduce greenhouse emissions by creating alternative sources of energy,\" he said. The Ice Man Cometh . In the furthest reaches of northern India, glaciers once stretched far down the mountains, now they are all but gone as global warming takes its devastating toll. Hardworking but impoverished farmers in the Ladakh region have watched as their sole source of fresh water slowly melts away. But one man is taking matters into his own hands. Enter Chewang Norphel, a softly-spoken but sprightly 72-year-old has created artificial glaciers and managed to generate water and greenery in this barren landscape. Perched high up in the remote cold deserts of the Himalayas, Norphel has mastered the art of harvesting water by using just a few hundred meters of iron pipes and stone embankments. \"Fifty to sixty years ago, we used to have huge glaciers here, the retired civil engineer, told CNN. \"They have been reduced now because of global warming and now they are on high peaks.\" The idea of the 'artificial glacier' was born after he noticed that taps were left running in winter to stop the water from freezing in the pipes. The water then flowed into the drains surrounding the taps and froze. \"And it then occurred to me: 'why not try and make artificial glaciers in the winter?' So that local farmers get a real headstart when they need it most,\" Norphel says. The result was a device which traps the waters which melt down the high mountains by turning them into chunks of ice. The largest artificial glacier Norphel has built so far is near the village of Phuktsey. About 1,000 feet (300 meters) long, 150 feet (45 meters) wide, and four feet (1 meter) deep, it supplies irrigation water to the entire village of around 700 people. For Norphel, there are several advantages of an artificial glacier over a natural one. Firstly, it is closer to the village and at a comparatively lower altitude. Natural glaciers, on the other hand, are located way up in the mountains and they melt slowly in summer, releasing water to the villages quite late. Now engineers from other mountainous regions in India and Afghanistan have visited to learn his methods. One artificial glacier costs just $7,000, compared to $34,000 for a dam. Only local materials are needed, and the villagers themselves can build and maintain them. For his efforts, Norphel has been awarded the Far Eastern Economic Review's 1999 Gold Asian Innovation Award, twelve years after he created the first one. However, he is frustrated at the lack of investment and funding to help modernize the design. \"The funding is not sufficient,\" he said. \"We are getting very little amounts and we need a lot more. I hope to get more as this year I want to make two or three more glaciers, with a new design to improve the efficiency.\" In 1996, one year after he had retired, Norphel joined the Leh Nutrition Project, a non-governmental organization, as project manager for watershed development. \"Watershed development is the only solution for Ladakh's rural economy. Otherwise, you will have rural folk flocking the city in search of jobs. And there are not many to go around,\" he says. Do you have other examples of how people are using innovative ways to create renewable energy sources? Share your views and experiences in our sound-off box below." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Individuals around the world are devising innovative ways to save the planet .\nJoseph Adelegan has created fuels using cow waste and cassava plant .\nChewang Norphel is known as the \"Ice Man\" after creating artificial glaciers ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Of course the TV series Miami Vice seems dated now, but it's not just because Don Johnson's white Armani suits and slip-on shoes belong to a mercifully bygone era. The fact is, Miami is no longer the same city as the one portrayed in the 1980s cop show. Party time in Little Havana. The expansive sandy beaches are still there, as is the surfeit of sunshine, the hint of the exotic and the hordes of sun-hungry tourists who have flocked to this holiday hotspot for the last 80 years. But Miami has shed much of its unwanted baggage from the 80s and has grown beyond a resort town into something more substantial. Still barely 100 years old, Miami was a tourist destination almost from its inception. The offshore sandbar called Miami Beach was quickly recognized as having all the ingredients of a world-class holiday resort and the hotel-building spree that took place in the 1920s and 30s has left Miami Beach with hundreds of stunning Art Deco structures that give the area its distinctive look . By the 1980s, as well as being the destination of choice for holiday makers, retirees and 'snowbirds' (Canadians and northern Americans wintering in Florida), Miami had attracted an uninvited guest -- the 'cocaine cowboy.' Miami's proximity to South America made it a key point of entry for Colombian cocaine smugglers and the city became a battleground for ruthless drug barons intent on grabbing their piece of the American Dream. The mid 80s was the Miami Vice era, when the city's reputation for glamour and hedonism came with a side order of carjackings and gangland shootouts. But by the mid 90s, Miami had largely driven the cocaine cowboys out of town and hoteliers like Ian Schrager began converting some of those Art Deco classics into sophisticated boutique hotels fit for the international jet set. The guns may have gone but the glitz was never far away. Now that Miami's been to rehab and come out cleaned up and healthy, it turns out there's more to the city than glitzy nightclubs and the surgically enhanced bodies of the beautiful people. Miami has acquired a reputation as the new kid on the block in the modern art scene, a reputation that was cemented when the world's most prestigious modern art fair, Art Basel, arrived in the city in 2002. Just like the snowbirds, Art Basel returns to Miami each winter and the Wynwood neighborhood has now become a bona fide art district, with exclusive galleries showcasing cutting-edge art all year round. Nearby, the Design District is full of studios and workshops producing contemporary furniture and art. Then there's the fact that Miami is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, with some 60% of the population born outside the U.S. The food, music, culture and language of Latin America have all become part of modern Miami, giving the city a cultural heritage that belies its youth. But don't think Miami's reinvention as a cultural destination has done anything to dent it's appetite for the good times. When it comes to partying, there's not many places that can keep up with Miami, and even fewer that can do it with as much style. In truth, there's still a touch of the old Vice about Miami, and who knows, with the 80s revival, we may not have seen the last of those white suits." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Miami has shed its 80s reputation for carjackings and 'cocaine cowboys'\nWynwood and the Design District are up-and-coming arts neighborhoods .\nThe language and culture of Latin America are part of modern Miami .\nMiami still attracts the international jet set and is a party city like no other ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- The discovery of HIV, a breakthrough in the treatment of bipolar disorder, the advent of the contraceptive pill ... CNN looks at some of the scientific discoveries that changed the world. HIV was isolated by scientists in 1983 and named in 1986 by an international committee . THE DISCOVERY OF HIV/ AIDS . Originally called slimmer's disease, as sufferers lost a lot of weight, the first recorded case of HIV occurred in the Congo in 1977. After several infections, a Danish doctor died of pneumonia, which normally doesn't break through the body's immune system. The components of her disease had not yet been placed together, indicating that this was a new form of illness. Other cases spread in following years around Africa and in homosexual men in New York and San Francisco. By 1980, 55 American men had been diagnosed with the disease. Research began in Europe, the U.S. and Africa to ascertain what this new disease could be. The Centers for Disease Control found that the disease was caused by a virus being passed around by bodily fluids such as semen or blood. In 1981 it published its findings, saying the disease attacked T-cells, which help the body fight infection. By 1983 the disease was isolated by teams of American and French researchers. In 1986 an international committee decided the virus should be called human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Education campaigns were unrolled around the world, advising people to avoid risky sexual behavior or sharing needles. By June 1990, 139,765 people had the disease, with a 60 per cent mortality rate. The progress of the disease slowed down in the West with education campaigns and the development of protease inhibitors, which provided sufferers with almost complete remission. But in Africa, the spread and treatment of HIV remains a global concern. THE DISCOVERY OF LITHIUM TO TREAT MOOD DISORDERS . Australian psychiatrist John Frederick Joseph Cade once said, \"I believe the brain, like any other organ, can get sick and it can also heal.\" He made huge gains in healing the brain through his work with sufferers of bipolar disorder by discovering that lithium salts -- a naturally occurring chemical - could be used to treat the illness. Previously, electro-convulsive therapy and lobotomies had been the major treatments for bipolar disorder. After having been a prisoner of war in World War II, Dr. Cade served as the head of the Bundoora Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne Australia. It was at an unused kitchen in Bundoora where he conducted crude experiments that led to the discovery of lithium as a treatment of bipolar disorder. After trials on humans, Dr. Cade speculated that bipolar disorder was a \"lithium deficiency disease\" and that a dose of lithium had a calming effect. Dr. Cade published findings in the Medical Journal of Australia in 1949 entitled \"Lithium salts in the treatment of psychotic excitement.\" He died in 1980. Lithium is still used successfully in the treatment of mental illness to this day. THE DISCOVERY OF BACTERIA . Dutchman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek was known as the \"father of micro-biology.\" He drew scientific attention to the many bacteria that he discovered. His research was helped by the different types of microscopes that he developed over his lifetime. From his powerful lenses he was able to ascertain many different types of lifeforms too small for the human eye to see. It was by observing the build-up of plaque on teeth that the Dutch scientist discovered what we now know to be bacteria. His initial observations on bacteria make for amusing reading. On September 17, 1683, Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Royal Society about the plaque between his own teeth, \"a little white matter, which is as thick as if 'twere batter.\" He then observed two women and two old men who had never cleaned their teeth in their lives. Looking at these samples with his microscope, Leeuwenhoek wrote of \"an unbelievably great company of living animalcules, a-swimming more nimbly than any I had ever seen up to this time. The biggest sort ... bent their body into curves in going forwards ... Moreover, the other animalcules were in such enormous numbers, that all the water ... seemed to be alive.\" He also observed algae on water surfaces and the furry coating on human and animal tongues during illness, bringing his theories to the attention of the Royal Society. Most bacteria are harmless, although some bacterial diseases are fatal: tuberculosis kills about 2 million people a year. Bacteria are important in the production of cheese and yogurt, in processing wastewater and in manufacturing antibiotics. THE CONTRACEPTIVE PILL . The oral contraceptive commonly known as \"the pill\" was invented during the 1950s in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. It contains hormone-like substances, usually estrogen and progestin, that enter the blood stream and disrupt the production of ova and ovulation, with the aim of preventing pregnancy. It originated after an unexpected discovery made in a jungle in Mexico in the 1930s. While Professor Russell Marker was experimenting with plant steroids, he discovered a chemical process that transformed these steroids into the female sex hormone, progesterone. Researchers in the late 1940s began to explore the possibility of an inexpensive oral contraceptive. Chemist Gregory Pincus tested a derivative from Marker's findings on 1,308 volunteers in Puerto Rico in 1958 and Searle Pharmaceuticals applied for US Food and Drug Administration approval to market the drug. The pill came on to the market in the U.S. in 1960 and is still widely used today. E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "HIV was isolated in 1983 and can be controlled with protease inhibitors .\nPsychiatrist John Cade pioneered lithium as a treatment for bipolar disorder .\nDutchman Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovered bacteria as a build-up on teeth .\nProfessor Russell Marker's experiments with plant steroids led to the Pill ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NAIROBI, Kenya (CNN) -- Officials found 13 bodies in the rubble of a scorched supermarket in downtown Nairobi Friday and are investigating a tip that security guards locked people in the burning building, a police spokesman said. Members of the public helped to fight the fire which left at least 47 people missing. The blaze started on Wednesday afternoon in the Nakumatt supermarket. The Standard Newspaper reported harrowing tales of families trying to find their missing loved ones, at times making the job of firefighters more difficult. So many people crowded the scene that police on foot and on horseback periodically chased them away. Riot police with tear gas and batons stood nervously around the edge of the scene -- where a barricade has been erected. Joseph Mwangi waited among the crowd, hoping for news of his cousin Daniel. On Wednesday, Mwangi sent 16-year-old Daniel Njoge with 6,000 shillings (about $75) to the market. \"He was coming to shop for school,\" said Mwangi, a waiter at a nearby restaurant. \"I sent him to the store to get stationery supplies.\" \"On Wednesday night, I got so worried. Now I think he is just in there,\" Mwangi said, pointing at the burned-out store. \"The response was not good,\" he said. \"A person who fights a fire must go into the building, but they just stayed outside.\" Mwangi registered with the Kenya Red Cross on the scene, as scores of others did, and now he waits. Justin Mule, who works at the Stanley Bookstore across the road from the supermarket, described the start of the fire to CNN: \"I saw smoke coming up from the building on Wednesday afternoon. In a few minutes, there were explosions. I saw some guys jumping from the burning roof. Soon after the fire, I saw the store security guards closing the doors because they feared looting. The doors were locked. That was a mistake. They shouldn't have locked the doors.\" Other witness corroborated his account. Police launched a criminal investigation to look into that allegation, said Eric Kiraithe, a police spokesman . Employees of the supermarket refused to comment on the allegations. The fire has angered Kenyans for what they perceive is a lack of disaster preparedness. Local newspaper editorials slammed the government's response to the tragedy. \"Disaster preparedness is still a challenge, and the operation was hampered by the Nairobi city layout,\" said Kenya Red Cross spokesman Titus Mung'ou said. Emergency numbers failed to work and water ran out during attempts to put out the fire, he said. According to local news reports, the fire ignited Wednesday afternoon during a busy hour in the 24-hour supermarket. Hundreds of people crowded around the scene and tourists peered through their hotel windows as firefighters, security guards and civilians struggled to get the fire under control. Periodic explosions rocked the city and debris fell around the building. The crowd cheered each incoming fire truck, and water had to be brought to the scene from a nearby soccer stadium." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Rescuers find 13 bodies in scorched rubble of Kenyan supermarket .\nMassive fire engulfed the building in downtown Nairobi on Wednesday .\nIncident angers Kenyans for what they perceive is a lack of disaster preparedness ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- Erin Sheehan is one of the almost 28,000 students making the bittersweet return to the Virginia Tech campus for fall classes, a journey she was afforded only because of some quick thinking in April. Students return to the Virginia Tech campus Monday for the first day of fall classes. When Seung-Hui Cho stormed into Sheehan's German class that horrifying Monday morning -- firing off indiscriminate rounds of gunfire that killed the German teacher and four of Sheehan's classmates -- Sheehan hit the deck and played dead. \"He went around the room shooting everyone,\" she said. Cho's April 16 rampage through Norris Hall left 29 students and faculty dead. The mentally disturbed Cho also killed two others and himself in the mass shooting, the worst in modern U.S. history. Though she is heading back to class, Sheehan is admittedly still shaken. Four months after the tragedy, Sheehan is haunted by memories of the massacre, and she still jumps when she hears a loud noise in her Virginia Tech dorm room. Regardless, she is prepared to move on. \"When classes started again in the spring I didn't come back,\" Sheehan said. \"It was just too hard to do then, but now I'm ready.\" The campus was buzzing over the weekend. Parents and students crowded the sidewalks, toting boxes and furniture into the dorms, including West Ambler Johnston, where the first two victims were killed. Norris Hall, meanwhile, has been refurbished and will no longer host classes. Virginia Tech has discreetly beefed up security since the tragedy. Locks that operate from the inside have been placed on classroom doors. Dormitory entrances are secured 24 hours a day. Students can sign up for emergency text messages from the university. Despite the precautions, not everything has gone as smoothly as planned. On the eve of the students' return to classes, 23 people fell ill from a carbon monoxide leak in an apartment building near campus. Five Virginia Tech students were hospitalized, police and hospital officials said. Blacksburg Police said a valve on a water heater that was malfunctioning is believed to be the cause of the incident. Police said the valve was stuck in the open position, causing a constant burn-off of fuel and creating carbon monoxide that was not ventilating. Kirsten Halik and Kristin Julia, both 19, were upgraded from critical to serious condition Monday and Elizabeth Burgin, Carolyn Dorman, and Nichole Howarth, all 19 -- are conscious and alert, according to hospital officials. Burgin, Dorman, and Howarth were upgraded from serious to good condition, hospital officials said, after they received treatment in a hyperbaric chamber on Sunday and Monday. The chamber pushes pressurized oxygen into the tissues and blood. Meanwhile, the university dedicated a permanent memorial to the victims and their families -- a semicircle of 32 engraved stones bearing each victim's name. One student said she wanted to attend the ceremony until she woke up at the Collegiate Suites apartment building feeling nauseous, The Washington Post reported. Spirits are high, however, said professor Nikki Giovanni, and students and faculty are ready to move past the tragedy. Watch Giovanni applaud the university's new security measures » . \"The Hokies' spirit is alive and well. I think that we're very excited that classes are starting -- that we're moving into a new year,\" she said. Perhaps indicative of that resilience is the size of the incoming freshman class. According to a university news release, the university accepted deposits from 5,215 freshmen this year. That is more than its enrollment target of 5,000 and about 30 more deposits than the university received from incoming freshmen last year, the news release said. \"Virginia Tech took a big hit, but I think that we have embraced each other. We have been embraced on this planet,\" Giovanni said, explaining that the Virginia Tech community has received greetings \"from every country on Earth and it's been a wonderful thing.\" Students concur they are ready for the new school year. Playing Frisbee with friends at a drill field near the newly christened memorial, Aaron Friedman said the summer break was a welcome reprieve, but he was ready to return to Blacksburg. \"It was good to get away. Being back with everybody at home really helped,\" Friedman said. Fellow sophomore Mike Giancola said he, too, is ready to move on, even if he is still disturbed by memories of the shootings. \"I still think about it every day, but I'm ready to get my life going.\" Sheehan echoes the sentiment of Giovanni and her fellow students but noted that she made some changes in her life, and she still battles post-traumatic stress symptoms every day. \"Even being in my new dorm, when I hear a loud noise or something unexpected, I'll peer out through the little hole in my door to make sure everything is OK,\" she said. E-mail to a friend . CNN's Reggie Aqui, Brianna Keilar, and Gary Nurenberg contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Student says she avoided being shot during massacre by playing dead .\nNo classes will be held in Norris Hall, where 29 of the victims were killed .\nProfessor: \"I think that we're very excited that classes are starting\"\nCarbon monoxide leak leaves 23 sick but some students getting better ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- As the lights went down in the theater the low murmur built to a thunderous ovation as the odd-looking man in the crumpled suit and bowler hat took to the stage. Tom Waits in Paris on the European leg of his tour. The excitement that greeted the eccentric American singer songwriter Tom Waits' appearance in Edinburgh last month may come as a surprise to the many, who have never heard of him. The 58-year-old has stayed for most of his four-decade career on the edge of the music mainstream. This is despite a showering of critical acclaim and a host of high-profile fans including the movie star Scarlett Johansson, who recently recorded an album of Waits covers. Waits' position on the periphery of pop music (he admits that the 60s scene largely passed him by), may be because he belongs to a bigger historical tradition -- that of the singer-storyteller that has its origin in folk music. His music comes from a different place from most artists. A laconic, bar room philosopher with a wry sense of humor, Waits is an avowed fan of the Beat generation writer Jack Kerouac and the author and poet Charles Bukowski. Many of his songs are stories containing a cast of characters from America's underbelly: the drunks and disenfranchised, the lost souls hiding out from life in seedy night spots. It is the same world that Kerouac chronicled in his writings, including his most famous work \"On the Road,\" which describes a journey across America in the late fifties. Waits, who is notoriously interview-shy, acknowledged his debt to the author in a promotional interview to accompany the release of his 1974 album \"The Heart of Saturday Night.\" He said the record was a search for the \"center of Saturday night,\" a quest he said that Kerouac himself had \"relentlessly chased from one end of this country to the other, and I've attempted to scoop up a few diamonds of this magic that I see.\" Waits' place in the folk tradition is something he has acknowledged, consciously or otherwise, in his music. In 1990, he wrote the music and lyrics for \"The Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets,\" a theatrical collaboration with the American writer William Burroughs based on a German folktale. Like all great writers, Waits is a conscientious observer of people and their strange foibles. Born in Pomona, CA. he moved to Los Angeles in the late sixties to pursue his music career, finding work as a doorman at an LA nightspot. It was at this time that he honed his skills as a storyteller, eavesdropping on the lives of others. \"I was picking up people's conversations in all-night coffee shops - ambulance drivers, cabdrivers, street sweepers,\" he said in an interview with The New Yorker. \"I did research there as an evening curator, and I started writing gingerly. I thought at some point I'd like to forge it all into something meaningful, and give it dignity.\" The results of this labor are songs like \"Frank's Wild Years,\" a hilarious and sinister tale of a man -- Frank -- trapped in suburbia with a wife and pet dog that has a skin disease. The song is spoken in a lounge room style over a soft jazz accompaniment, and like much of Waits' work it drips irony: \"They had a thoroughly modern kitchen/ Self-cleaning oven (the whole bit)/ Frank drove a little sedan/ They were so happy.\" In a 1983 promotional interview published by his then record company Island, Waits credits a short story by Bukowski with giving him some of the inspiration for the song. \"Bukowski had a story that essentially was saying that it's the little things that drive men mad,\" Waits said. \"It's not World War II. It's the broken shoe lace when there is no time left that sends men completely out of their minds. \"I think there is a little bit of Frank in everybody.\" In the song, Frank eventually runs amok, setting fire to the family home and blazing a trail up the Hollywood freeway because, as Waits quips in the pay-off \"he never could stand that dog.\" This taste for the absurd carried into his recent live show with the set for the \"Glitter and Doom\" tour decked in a bizarre array of old speaker cones. Waits took to the stage dressed in a Chaplinesque suit, delivering his set from a slightly raised platform that gave up a cloud of dust each time he bashed his feet into it. In spite of the entreaties from the crowd he kept quiet between songs at first. Eventually after a few numbers he broke his silence. \"This is a lopsided love song,\" he rasped, introducing the next track. \"By that I mean the person doing it is lopsided, not the song itself.\" Lopsided or not, it's an authentic voice we could surely do with hearing more from." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Singer songwriter Tom Waits has won critical acclaim for his music .\nHis strange tales of the seedy side of America have attracted a cult following .\nThe actress Scarlett Johansson is a fan and recorded a recent tribute album .\nWaits counts U.S. writers Jack Kerouac and Charles Bukowski as influences ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Pirates have hijacked two European-owned chemical tankers off the coast of Somalia in the past 24 hours, the European Union Maritime Security Center said Thursday. The 23,000-ton Norwegian-owned and Bahamian-registered M/V Bow-Asir was captured 250 miles east of the southern Somali city Kismayo on Thursday morning, the security center said in a release. The M/V Nipayia, a 9,000-ton Greek-owned and Panamanian-registered vessel with 19 crew members, was attacked approximately 450 miles east of Kismayo on Wednesday afternoon, the security center said. Officials have issued an alert site notifying all vessels in the area to be aware of the increase in pirate activity." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pirates hijack two European-owned chemical tankers off the coast of Somalia .\n23,000-ton Norwegian-owned M/V Bow-Asir captured .\nM/V Nipayia, a 9,000-ton Greek-owned vessel also seized ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Remember the days when a washing machine lasted for decades? If it broke down it could be fixed. But now it seems it is cheaper to discard our broken products and buy new ones. The side effects of our throwaway society are ever-larger waste mountains festering with toxic chemicals and the depletion of natural resources such as rare metals. Europe produced 8.3 to 9.1 millions tons of waste from electrical projects in 2005. Product makers are responding by designing goods that have a reduced carbon footprint at their point of manufacture, but leading thinkers in the field of sustainable design believe that a radical re-think in the way we consume products is required if we want to halt the growing mountain of toxic waste piling up on the world's rubbish dumps. Figures recently announced by the U.N. University suggest the production of electronic and electrical products is running neck-and-neck with their disposal: An estimated 10.3 million tons of electronic products were put on the market in the European Union in 2005, while 8.3 to 9.1 million tons of waste from electrical products found their way into Europe's rubbish bins. Electronic and electrical products account for four percent of Europe's waste and the rate is growing at three times the speed of any other form of waste. What is sustainable design? Sustainable design is a reaction to the global environmental crisis. It aims to produce products, buildings and services, which have a low impact on climate change and the depletion of the world's resources. In industrial design this includes the use of recycled and recyclable materials; reducing pollution through cutting down the need for transportation, such as by using locally-sourced materials; making products which can be taken apart once they are discarded so that their parts that can be used again; and designing goods which use as little energy as possible while they are being made. While many companies are beginning to think of ways in which they can reduce their environmental impact during the manufacture of their products, many sustainable design experts believe that these measures are not enough to reduce the damage the constant manufacture of products is doing to the world's eco-system. A change in culture . \"Daily life is becoming increasingly mediated by electronic artifacts,\" says Jonathan Chapman, editor of Designers, Visionaries and Other Stories, a book which seeks to bring together new thinking on sustainable design. \"These products are great but it seems that as their popularity grows, their impermanence grows with it.\" Chapman believes that true sustainability can only be achieved if we moderate our inclination to strive for the newest product, and he argues that the onus is on designers to initiate a shift away from a disposable culture. He proposes a model for consumer behavior based on a service economy -- that products are designed to last longer and to be fixed when they break; brands can make their profits by providing the services to ensure that this can be done. \"It's quite conceivable to make objects that don't necessarily make a profit at the point-of-sale but that, because their life-spans are extended and are punctuated with service and upgrade options, can generate turnover over long periods of time that is greater than making a small profit and having to remanufacture,\" he explains. He believes that consumers would be prepared to pay more for their electronic goods if they knew they would last longer. It is an economic model that would make most manufacturers choke, but it is an unfounded fear, says economist Andrew Charlton, author of Ozonomics: Inside the Myth of Australia's Economic Superheroes. \"The key thing to remember is that human desires know no bounds -- we are never satiated,\" he says. \"If we replace an expensive disposable product with a permanent one, that just frees up income to spend on other things. \"Ballpoint pens last longer than quills, tarred roads last longer than cobblestones -- and the economy moves on. Every time we satisfy one demand, another one comes along to take its place.\" \"A quarter-inch hole\" But it's not enough to expect consumers to sign up to a longer-life model just because it is 'green', says Steve Bishop, head of sustainability at design firm IDEO. Consumers concerned with the sustainability of the products they buy still only make up a small fraction of the market and designers must incorporate energy-saving measures into mainstream thinking, with sustainability as a by-product. Marketing a product as environmentally friendly is \"really addressing a niche market,\" he argues. \"It's putting the responsibility on people and it's effectively guilting people into buying these things. It shouldn't be about guilt or sacrifice. It should be about connecting to people's values and what really matters to them.\" Often what really matters to people is saving money. He cites as an example of sustainability-achieved-by-stealth some research IDEO made into the effectiveness of hybrid electric cars. They found that the single feature of the cars that maximized their energy-efficiency was not the variable transmission, the regenerative brakes or the electric motor but a small widget on the dashboard that measures fuel consumption and tells you when you are driving the car most efficiently. \"It's not so much that they are trying to be green as much as they are trying to get high score,\" Bishop concludes. Sustainability must understand and adapt to human behavior, not vice versa, is his verdict. \"People don't want a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole,\" Theodore Levitt, former marketing professor at Harvard Business School and author of Marketing Myopia, used to tell his students. Apple's iTunes software, a service which allows music fans to download audio files directly onto their computers, is an example of Levitt's analogy in action. While its main aim was to make listening to music easier, it has inadvertently become a sustainable design model by canceling the need for the compact disc. People still get their end-product -- listening to music -- but without the waste and unnecessary energy consumption that goes into manufacturing a physical item on which to store it. His point is that businesses will have to shift their goal posts and might even have to change the mentality that says that producing more products is the only way to make money. Making a real impact . Environmental issues are becoming increasingly important to the public and manufacturers may have to combine 'green' production techniques with a dramatic change in how consumers relate to the products they buy. \"The real impact happens when you integrate both those things - when you look at the scientific basis and reduce the energy footprint during production but you also look at the psychological and emotional factors during use,\" says Chapman. \"When you start to integrate like that, that's when you start to achieve sustainable design.\" E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Europeans find it cheaper to throw away rather than fix electrical products .\nElectrical products are Europe's fastest growing form of waste .\nDurable products reduce energy needed to manufacture new ones .\nSustainable design products have low carbon footprints and use little energy ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- In an age of unromance, of Internet dating, of gut reaction cynicism -- I love hearing a story about how Lenny Ann Low of Sydney met her fiancé Alan of Glasgow. Lenny Ann Low made sure every week to do something scary that would in some way alter her future . \"Tell the story again!\" I would beg her in the manner of a child wanting to be read her favorite fairytale, never tiring of the narrative, always smiling with delight at the ending. Lenny met Alan when she was in Edinburgh at the annual comedy festival. She was lining up for a hot tuna melt and a latte at a station café with 9 minutes to catch a train back to London. She stood at the back of the long queue thinking, probably, of anything but love -- when she locked eyes with the young man behind the steaming coffee machine -- the man who in a few short minutes would be making her latte, than in an even shorter minute later would be consigned to the distant memories of coffee makers past. But when their eyes locked from over the Gaggia machine down the snaking queue, Lenny felt an unmistakable current. Could this be love? And if so -- what could be done in the nine minutes she had left in the country? Lenny knew exactly what to do as she had formulated a plan that she had been following for some years. Called Future Friday it was a game she played with herself each week. In order to gain more confidence and \"get out of a rut\" she decided that by Friday each week she would do something scary that would in some way alter her future. Minutes ticked up. She moved up the queue. She ordered her tuna melt. She took her coffee and sat in the train. Six minutes until it pulled out bound for London. She thought of Future Friday. She wrote her email address on a piece of paper, leapt off the train, raced back to the café, barged through the queue and gave Alan her address. \"Email me!\" she told the stranger as she thrust the paper in his hand and bounded back to catch her train. He did email when she was on a plane halfway to Australia. They emailed for a while, then eventually he came out to Sydney. They got on with the business of falling in love and next month they will marry. Unlike other pundits with a self-help plan, Lenny's not promising hers will deliver riches, fame or love. What she does say however is that if you follow it, you will have a lot of adventures and take all sorts of risks that will enrich your life in many ways. Lenny explains how it works: \"Future Friday is so simple it's embarrassing. By Friday at the end of every week you must do something that is good for your future that is a risk or something scary.\" For Lenny, \"it could be something like getting pap smear, making a dental appointment or telling someone that you fancy them or ring someone out of the blue and asking them if they've got a job. I've done all those things.\" Feeling like she was stagnating inspired Lenny to develop the scheme. \"Being in a bit of a dead-end job made me want to do this - I thought I needed a trigger. It also lets you off the hook -- you can say I've done my Future Friday now -- I don't have to do anything else for the rest of the week.\" Lenny isolated particular areas of her life that she had neglected. \"I put off making a dental appointment for five or six years. I put off telling men they were nice. I put off my pap smear all my life.\" The list of things to do each week for Future Friday then became \"a combination of exciting thrills and horrible must dos.\" Lenny made sure she told all her friends about Future Friday so she could get extra support during the difficult weeks. \"You'd get praise. I'd tell various people about it. You'd move enormous blocks. I really was quite down and just the little sense of doing stuff helped enormously.\" Memorable Future Fridays included doing a stand-up comedy gig, flying in a jetfighter, and of course -- meeting Alan. Lenny started doing Future Friday in 1996 to boost her confidence and expand her world, but she had no idea how it would change her world. She was also contacted by a number of people \"friends of friends, strangers\" who had heard about Future Friday and started practicing it themselves. She recommends starting your own Future Friday if you are also \"swimming around and drowning in a lot of stuff. \"It's a good way to anchor yourself. Now I have formed a habit of getting on with things now -- today I had to get the celebrant form done and I just did it.\" Every time you tick off a Future Friday item Lenny says to give yourself a pat on the back. \"It's about the power of affirmation and realizing you're not a failure -- and its small and it doesn't cost anything. You can take delightful risks.\" Lenny's Future Friday Tips: . • Pick a couple of basic but difficult issues in your life -- a niggle. Make the appointment or ring about a job and you are on your way. • Go and see that man at the pub who you thought was cute. Don't be shy. \"I told a number of men I liked them and they didn't always feel the same way, but at least I didn't die wondering.\" • I didn't keep a diary but it's a great idea to keep track of your progress . • Tell other people and they can get inspired and also support you in your Future Friday. E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Lenny Ann Low created Future Friday to gain more confidence .\nShe must take one risk that is good for her future by each Friday .\nLenny has done stand-up comedy, flew a jetfighter, and met her fiancé Alan ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The commander in chief's priority is preventing another terrorist attack in the United States, President Bush told CNN's \"Larry King Live\" Tuesday. President Bush and first lady Laura Bush sit down with CNN's Larry King Live on Tuesday. \"The most important job I have had -- and the most important job the next president is going to have -- is to protect the American people from another attack,\" Bush said. Accompanied by first lady Laura Bush and engaging in a wide-ranging conversation with King, Bush also said that his administration has been involved in stopping specific threats against the United States since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. \"We've learned a lot of information about al Qaeda that we didn't know before,\" Bush said of intelligence activities during his tenure as president. \"We've stopped some specific threats -- we're decimating [al Qaeda's] leadership.\" He did not offer specifics, but he did offer a self-assessment of his leadership in national security post-9/11. Watch Bush talk about the aftermath of 9/11 » . \"I told the American people I wouldn't tire and I wouldn't falter, and I haven't,\" the outgoing president said. Bush brushed off the low opinion-ratings and declining polls that have marked his waning presidency by saying, \"Look, opinion polls are nothing but a shot of yesterday's news.\" \"Opinion polls aren't going to be high when the economy is in the tank,\" he added. \"People aren't happy with the economy. Neither am I. But you can't make decisions based on popularity polls.\" Bush took that train of thought on to another topic, Iraq. \"If the military thinks you're making decisions based on the Gallup poll, they're not going to follow a commander in chief,\" he said. Asked about inaccurate intelligence reports on alleged weapons of mass destruction that led up to the war in Iraq, Bush refused to criticize the CIA, saying only that he was \"disappointed.\" On Iraq, he maintained that actions taken by his administration were correct. \"I don't think Iraq was wrong,\" Bush said in response to a question from King. \"What I was worried about, (was) Iraq going to fail -- not Iraq was wrong,\" he said. \"And the surge has worked and a young democracy in the heart of the Middle East has taken hold. There's more work to be done. But al Qaeda has been denied the base in which they wanted to operate.: . When discussing the nation's economic slump, Bush cautioned his successor \"not to become an economic forecaster once he gets to be president.\" King and Bush discussed President-elect Barack Obama's predictions for a bad year ahead for the U.S. economy and King asked Bush, \"That's not a good idea to say?\" \"I don't think so. I think he can say it's going to be a tough period, but to predict what the economy is going to do ... it is going to be bad. How bad? How long?\" Bush responded. \"What he ought to be saying -- and I know he feels this way -- is he's going to take the steps he thinks are necessary to get us back on the road to recovery and we will recover.\" Bush said he is looking forward to the inaugurationTuesday, describing it as \"a historic moment for the country.\" Asked by King if he liked Obama, Bush replied, \"I do. I do like him. You'd like him, too.\" But Laura Bush said she took some of Obama's critiques of her husband personally. \"Were you angry at it?\" King asked. \"Yes, sort of. George didn't really even know about it because he didn't really watch it that much,\" Laura Bush said, laughing. Watch Laura Bush express her disapproval » . \"So what's new?\" Bush piped in. \"When you make big decisions and tough calls, you're going to get criticized.\" \"During the course of this presidency, I've been disappointed at times by the silly name-calling that goes on in Washington -- it's really not necessary,\" Bush said. \"I've done my best, though, to make sure I didn't bring the presidency down to that level.\" On other topics: . • Bush said he favors closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but only \"under the right circumstances. \"The problem is, you've got a bunch of cold-blooded killers down there that if they ever get out they're going to come and kill Americans, and I'd hate to be the person that made that decision.\" • Asked by King, \"Are we ever going to find (Osama) bin Laden, Bush replied, \"Yes, of course, absolutely. We've got a lot of people out there looking for him, a lot of assets. You can't run forever. • As to whether the United States had ever come close to capturing bin Laden, Bush said, \"I don't know -- I can't answer that. I really don't know. I'm not trying to hide anything.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "\"Most important job ... is to protect the American people,\" Bush tells CNN's Larry King .\nBush agrees rocky times are ahead, but cautions Obama against making predictions .\nOutgoing president says Obama should talk more about getting on \"road to recovery\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- Britain is prepared to send more troops to Afghanistan, the head of the British Army said in an interview published Friday. Britain currently has 8,300 troops in Afghanistan. Richard Dannatt, the chief of the general staff, did not say how many troops he would be prepared to deploy. Britain currently has 8,300 troops in Afghanistan. Dannatt told The Times newspaper that elements of the 12th Mechanized Brigade had been \"earmarked for Afghanistan.\" He said there are no plans to send the whole brigade of 4,000 troops. \"If we're asked for more and we say we can, it's not going to be 4,000 -- it's going to be something in between\" that and the current troop level, Dannatt told the Times. The Ministry of Defense confirmed his remark. British defense sources told The Times that a rise of 1,700 to 2,000 was \"the uppermost ceiling.\" U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to announce a new strategy for Afghanistan on Friday that includes sending another 4,000 troops to the country with hundreds of civilian specialists, senior administration officials told CNN. The troops -- which are in addition to the 17,000 that the president announced earlier would be sent to Afghanistan -- will be charged with training and building the Afghan Army and police force. The plans include doubling the Army's ranks to 135,000 and the police force to 80,000 by 2011, the officials said. Military officials told CNN earlier that the Afghan government had requested the additional troops." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Britain is ready to increase troop numbers in Afghanistan, army chief says .\nRichard Dannatt told the Times up to 2,000 more could be sent .\nArmy waiting for formal request by U.S. government, he says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr and photojournalist Peter Morris traveled to southern Afghanistan with Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps. CNN's Barbara Starr is on assignment in Afghanistan, where she says Marines are living in very tough terrain. HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Our travels in Afghanistan continue. I feel like the title of this posting should be \"why I had to get power-washed in Afghanistan\" or \"the body armor is only heavy until they start shooting at you.\" OK, now I will explain. CNN photojournalist Peter Morris and I just wrapped up spending several days in southern Afghanistan with Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, touring the combat zone. The Marines are living in some of the toughest terrain there is. It is remote and often raining. That means dust turns to mud, and you find yourself covered in it from head to toe. Stinky, cold, wet, oozy mucky mud. The good news is, everybody stinks, so you lose any sense of self-consciousness about it. But you do dream of getting power-washed. So, yes, after a few days a shower was, shall we say, more than essential. For the Marines, however, it is a seven-month tour of duty in mud in the winter and dust in the summer. It seems very grim, especially when compounded by the fact that the Marines are wearing heavy body armor all the time. Ask them if it's heavy to wear, the typical answer goes something like, \"It's only heavy to wear until the bad guys start shooting at you. Then it's OK.\" The young Marines know exactly how tough the fight they are facing in the coming weeks and months will likely be. Several of them told me security had gotten considerably worse in recent days. Their bases were being repeatedly shelled by insurgents, several roadside bombs had gone off, and local Afghan police had died at the hands of suicide attacks. Senior commanders usually have a more cheery outlook, but here in southern Afghanistan, everyone is cautious. Almost everyone is a veteran of Iraq and learned the tough lesson there about not declaring victory too soon. Even Conway, who commanded U.S. forces in Fallujah, picks his words very carefully. He tells me he believes that everyone must be ready for a spike in U.S. casualties as the Marines begin to move into the region in greater numbers this spring. All of this was rattling around in my head when I saw the Marines riding around in what they call \"a 7-ton truck.\" As the name suggests, it's huge and has some armor plating on the sides. But what it doesn't make clear is that the truck is open in the back and sides. The Marines insist it is a safe way to transport troops. For years now, the Army has used fully armored vehicles only in the combat zone. The Marines have a somewhat different view. They believe heavy armor isn't everything; sometimes being able to get around on the battlefield faster is better. But then again, when someone starts shooting at you, I think you want all the armor you can get. Next stop, Iraq. Yeah, there is still a war there, too." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "With all the mud in southern Afghanistan, everyone stinks, Barbara Starr says .\nMarines also wear heavy body armor all the time, adding to the discomfort .\nArmor is only heavy \"until the bad guys start shooting at you,\" Marines say .\nMarines often travel in \"7-ton truck\" that's open in the back and sides ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Just weeks before a Continental Connection commuter plane crashed near Buffalo, another airline had reminded its pilots about safety issues with instrument approaches at the airport. Only a few pieces of the Continental Connection Dash 8 turboprop were recognizable after the crash. However, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday said it was extremely unlikely the February 12 crash and the warning were related. Instrument approaches are those in which pilots use cockpit displays to line up their aircraft with the runway when visibility is low. The alert, initially issued by Southwest Airlines and reissued Wednesday by the airline's pilot association, warned there was a \"potentially significant hazard\" concerning the instrument landing system's glide slope guidance signal for runway 23. The airline advised, \"Pilots who are preparing to configure and land have the potential to experience abrupt pitch up, slow airspeed, and approach to stall if conditions present themselves in a certain manner.\" Southwest Airlines spokesperson Linda Rutherford said an earthen dam at the end of the runway was interfering with the signal being sent to inbound flights. Rutherford would not confirm if any of Southwest's recent flights into Buffalo experienced problems on approach. \"We often put out alerts on obstructions to a navigation aid,\" Rutherford told CNN. She also pointed out, though landing on the same runway, Southwest Airlines flights approach runway 23 from the north, turning right, while the Colgan Air flight that crashed was approaching from the south turning left. Rutherford called that distinction important. View a Google Earth image of runway 23 » . The National Transportation Safety Board told CNN the agency was \"aware\" of the Southwest Airlines alert, but would not comment further. The issue is caused by a geographic feature at the airport, a valley, \"something we can't do anything about,\" said FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown. She said the \"altitude reading makes it look like you're a lot higher than you are, because there is a valley there.\" The feature has been noted on FAA charts for years, she said. \"As far as we can tell, there is no way this had any role in the accident,\" Brown told CNN. \"It's not a navigation aid that would have applied to the approach.\" The alert from Southwest Airlines advises pilots that the problem could cause the planes navigational system to interpret data \"in such a way as to result in a nose-up pitch and loss of airspeed.\" Flight data recorders obtained by the NTSB of the crashed Colgan air Flight 3407 show during its approach to runway 23, the twin turbo prop Dash-8 pitched up 31 degrees before going into a stall due to lack of airspeed. Southwest Airlines Pilot Association told its pilots the \"issue is being addressed on several levels in an attempt to address procedures, facilities, and communication regarding this matter.\" The alert advises any pilots experience trouble to contact the association's safety office." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: FAA spokeswoman says it doesn't appear issue was related to crash .\nWarning concerned runway 23, the same one the crashed plane was lined up to use .\nAirline advised possibility of \"abrupt pitch up, slow airspeed, and approach to stall\"\nSouthwest Airlines spokeswoman said earthen dam was interfering with signals ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Obama is expected to approve a proposal to withdraw most combat troops from Iraq within 19 months, Pentagon officials told CNN Wednesday. U.S. soldiers stand guard outside a mosque during a prisoner release Sunday in Baghdad, Iraq. The decision will be announced at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina on Friday, according to one senior administration official. Although the White House has made no announcement yet, \"That's the way the wind is blowing,\" a Pentagon official said. A White House spokesman said the president has made no final decisions about Iraq policy. Obama's campaign pledge was to withdraw combat troops within 16 months. But shortly after taking office, he asked Pentagon and military commanders for an analysis of other time frames. The Pentagon sent Obama options for withdrawals at 16, 19, and 23 months. It is expected that the final plan will call for the majority of combat forces to be withdrawn, and keep as many as 50,000 in Iraq to serve mainly as military trainers or advisers. U.S. military officials said even those residual forces could find themselves in combat. For the last two months, the U.S. Central Command has been assessing how equipment and personnel will be withdrawn from Iraq, according to a U.S. military official. Watch what Obama said Tuesday night about Iraq » . The official did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of discussing withdrawal details before the president's announcement. However, he said the U.S. military is looking at exit routes through Jordan and Kuwait. The military is trying to determine what equipment might be returned to the United States; transferred to the Iraqi or Jordanian government; sent to Afghanistan; or simply discarded." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Decision to be announced Friday at Camp Lejeune, official says .\nObama to approve 19-month time frame, military sources say .\nDuring campaign, Obama pledged to get troops out within 16 months .\nPentagon said to be looking at exit routes through Jordan, Kuwait ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Iraq war has strained U.S. forces to the point where they could not fight another large-scale war, according to a survey of military officers. U.S. troops patrol Haifa Street in Baghdad last week. Of those surveyed, 88 percent believe the demands of the Iraq war have \"stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin.\" On the other hand, 56 percent of the officers disagree that the war has \"broken\" the military. Eighty percent of officers believe it is unreasonable to expect the U.S. military to wage another major war successfully at present. Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for a New American Security on Tuesday issued the U.S. Military Index, a survey of 3,400 present and former U.S. military officers. \"We asked the officers whether they thought the U.S. military was stronger or weaker than it was five years ago,\" said Michael Boyer, who helped write the report. \"Sixty percent said the U.S. military is weaker than it was five years ago,\" Boyer told reporters. The report found that officers \"see a military apparatus severely strained by the grinding demands of war.\" More than half of the officers responding cited the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the \"pace of troop deployments\" needed for those conflicts, the survey said. The report comes a few weeks before the five-year anniversary of the Iraq war, where a troop \"surge\" is winding down by summer. The U.S. military is proposing a pause in troop reductions for a period of review before any more decisions on withdrawals. The officers have \"an overwhelmingly negative view\" of many of the early decisions shaping the Iraq war, but most believe the present U.S. counterinsurgency strategy and troop increases are good omens for success in Iraq. A majority of officers in the Iraq war say some policy decisions have \"hindered the prospects for success there.\" \"These include shortening the time units spend at home between deployments and accepting more recruits who do not meet the military's standards. Even the military's ability to care for some of its own -- mentally wounded soldiers and veterans -- was judged by most officers to be substandard,\" the survey found. At the same time, 64 percent of the officers believe morale in the military remains high. Nearly three-quarters of the officers believe civilian leaders set \"unreasonable goals for the military in post-Saddam Iraq.\" \"They believe more troops were needed on the ground at the start of the fighting. They believe disbanding the Iraqi military was a mistake,\" the survey said. However, nearly nine of 10 think the surge and Gen. David Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy are \"raising the U.S. military's chance for success there.\" The officers believe \"that either China or Iran, not the United States, is emerging as the strategic victor\" in the Iraq war. \"The United States has been preoccupied away from Asia,\" said Kurt Campbell, the head of the group that conducted the survey. China's rising influence worldwide predates the war but is part of a \"great game under way in Asia for influence, for relationships,\" Campbell said. The U.S. focus on Iraq \"sends a message to our friends and others that maybe we're not as focused on the drama that's playing out there,\" he said. Iran has gained from the war because of the removal of Iraq \"as a strategic counterweight,\" the report said. The survey portrayed Iran, the Taiwan Strait (where tensions have flared between China and Taiwan), Syria and North Korea as four potential hot spots and sought opinions of how prepared the U.S. is \"to successfully fight a major combat operation there.\" Officers were asked to judge the preparedness of the U.S. on a scale of one to 10, with 10 meaning \"fully prepared\" and one indicating \"unable to execute.\" Iran was rated 4.5, the Taiwan Strait ( where there have been tensions between China and Taiwan) 4.9, Syria 5.1, and North Korea 4.7. The officers ranked the Navy and Air Force readiness the highest at 6.8 and 6.6, respectively. The Army and Marines, which have assumed the \"bulk of the burden in Iraq and Afghanistan,\" ranked 4.7 and 5.7, respectively. Other results of the survey: ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Eighty percent of officers: It's unreasonable to expect U.S. to wage another major war .\nOfficers have \"overwhelmingly negative view\" of early decisions shaping Iraq war .\nFifty-six percent of officers disagree that the Iraq war has \"broken\" the military .\nResults based on survey of 3,400 present and former U.S. military officers ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir (CNN) -- Anti-election demonstrators threw stones at two polling stations and clashed with Indian security forces Sunday as voters stood in long lines in Indian-controlled Kashmir to cast ballots in the second stage of state elections. An Indian Border Security Forces soldier watches as voters in Indian-controlled Kashmir wait to vote Sunday. The protesters yelled pro-independence and anti-poll slogans and threw stones at polling stations in two villages in the Ganderbal constituency, police said. Police used batons to restore order, but no one was injured, police said. People demonstrated in two other villages, Duderhama and Beehama in Ganderbal constituency -- one of six constituencies voting Sunday in the second of seven stages in the state assembly elections. The elections began after months of violent protests by anti-Indian groups, fearful state elections will firm up Indian control of the Muslim majority Himalayan state, and by Indian nationalists, fearful that separatist groups will gain control. Kashmir, divided between India and Pakistan and claimed by both, has been wracked by an 18-year bloody separatist campaign that authorities say has left at least 43,000 dead. Sunday's protests came a day after Indian paramilitary forces, according to authorities, gunned down two youths, one of them a high school student apparently taking part in an anti-India demonstration. Police Saturday fired on protesters in the town of Baramulla, killing 10th-grader Manzoor Ahmad Kumar, a senior police officer told CNN. Hundreds of protesters followed Kumar's body into the \"Old Town\" area of Baramulla, where demonstrators clashed with police. Protesters threw stones at a candidate's escort vehicles, the office said. Indian authorities deployed heavy paramilitary and police reinforcements to maintain order. Six protesters were injured in the fighting, police said. A police official said paramilitary forces in the Baramulla's Old Town area Saturday, shot and killed a second youth, Tanvir Ahmad Sheikh. Elsewhere Sunday, voting continued without incident. In Kangan constituency, voting picked up in the late morning and afternoon, and there and in Ganderbal, voters -- including many women -- lined up to cast their votes. Indian poll officials said the turnout was about 65 percent of eligible voters. Heavy security was also deployed in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir. Indian paramilitary troopers carried automatic weapons and blocked roads with barricades and coils of razor wire there and in other towns. The first phase of elections was held November 17 and the third will be held November 30." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anti-election demonstrators, Indian security forces clash during state elections .\nPolice say they used batons to restore order, and no one was injured .\nAuthorities: Protests come a day after Indian paramilitary forces killed two youths .\nVoting was second stage of seven-stage election in Indian-controlled Kashmir ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Violence and drug-trafficking have become such a major threat to Latin America that the presidents of Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Panama will sit around a table Friday in Panama to discuss what they can do about it. Cartridges and weapons seized from gangsters and drug-traffickers at the Military Headquarter in Mexico City. Their summit comes at a particularly troubled time for these governments, especially Mexico, which tallied a record number of drug-related killings last year. Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich characterized the battle in Mexico among drug cartels and with government authorities as a \"civil war\" on a news program this week. But Mexico is not alone. Colombia has been fighting drug cartels for decades. Panama has been a center of money-laundering for dug cartels and other organized crime groups for many years. And Guatemala has seen its share of slayings and bloodshed. \"It's a recognition that there is a shared problem and that they can't solve that problem independent of each other,\" said Robert Pastor, a professor of international relations at American University in Washington who served as a national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s. Jennifer McCoy, the director of The Americas Program at the Carter Center in Atlanta, says it is \"encouraging\" that presidents Felipe Calderon of Mexico, Alvaro Uribe of Colombia, Alvaro Colom of Guatemala and Martin Torrijos of Panama not only recognize the problem but want to meet to see what they can do about it. \"The issue of security is vital in these countries and in Latin America,\" McCoy said. It's not just a threat for Latin America, a recent report from the U.S. military says. The violence in Mexico and elsewhere south of the border could spill over to the United States, says the report, issued in November by the U.S. Joint Forces Command. \"The growing assault by the drug cartels and their thugs on the Mexican government over the past several years reminds one that an unstable Mexico could represent a homeland security problem of immense proportions to the United States,\" says the report, \"Joint Operating Environment 2008.\" That instability could threaten the United States' underbelly along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. \"Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone,\" the report says. Mexican Secretary of Governance Fernando Gomez Mont rejected that notion in an interview with CNN this week, saying it is \"inadmissible\" that the United States would have to intervene. Pastor, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1994 to become U.S. ambassador to Panama, believes the United States should be more involved now. \"The United States is a major part of the problem,\" he said. \"The dollars are coming from the United States. The demand is coming from the United States. The arms are coming from the United States.\" Pastor pointed out that there are 7,600 gun shops in the United States within 100 miles of the Mexican border. \"We ought to have a clear recognition that that we are part of their problem, and they can't solve it without us,\" he said. Panamanian Foreign Minister Samuel Lewis Navarro indicated at a news conference this week that other nations also need to be more involved. He didn't mention the United States but it was clear whom he was talking about. The summit leaders will ask nations that have high drug consumption to do their part to reduce that demand, the Spanish news agency EFE quoted Lewis as saying. Mexican President Calderon met with President-elect Barack Obama in Washington this week and security was a prime subject of their discussions. \"Both countries share a long border,\" said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue. \"They are terribly worried about the violence from organized crime in Mexico and slipover into the U.S.\" Hakim met with Calderon at a private dinner hosted by the Mexican president Sunday night. After his meeting with Obama on Monday, Calderon stressed the level to which the two nations are intertwined when it comes to security. \"The more secure Mexico is, the more secure the United States will be,\" the Mexican president said, first in Spanish and then in English, to make sure no one missed the point. Obama is likely receptive to that message, said Michael Shifter, a vice president at the Inter-American Dialogue. \"I think Obama is going to understand that Mexico is very important to the United States,\" Shifter told CNN last week. \"This isn't an issue that he has focused a lot of attention on up until now. But he's going to understand that if Mexico really deteriorates or if the violence spills over into the border states, this is a war that he really has to deal with.\" Drug-fueled violence reached record levels in Mexico last year, with around 5,400 slayings, more than double the 2,477 reported in 2007, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said last month. The situation is so dire in Mexico that the Joint Forces Command report says, \"In terms of worst-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.\" The report goes on to say that the \"Mexican possibility may seem less likely, but the government, its politicians, police, and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and pressure by criminal gangs and drug cartels. How that internal conflict turns out over the next several years will have a major impact on the stability of the Mexican state.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Presidents of Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Panama to meet Friday in Panama .\nThey will discuss ways of countering growing violence and drug-trafficking .\nDrug-fueled violence reached record levels in Mexico last year, with 5,400 slayings .\nInstability caused by crime in Mexico could threaten U.S. which shares a border ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Like that other famous environmentalist, Thomas Friedman began his talk at the Asia Society in Hong Kong on December 16 with a simple PowerPoint slide. But that's where the similarities between Al Gore and The New York Times columnist end. Thomas L. Friedman has taken on a green hue with his latest book, \"Hot, Flat and Crowded\". Unlike Gore, Friedman is a distinctly different shade of green, a deeply pragmatic green that believes economic forces can usher in a revolution in environmental policy. He argues that systemic change simply requires showing the world that it needs green technology and letting pure economics do the rest. As a journalist, Friedman makes no claims to having scientific expertise in climate change. He is approaching it from a philosophical standpoint. Green capital . Friedman's new book \"Hot, Flat and Crowded\" is not a major departure from his previous books. Whether he's discussing globalization or green industry, he is writing from his deep-seated belief in the markets. He is an unabashed capitalist. For Friedman, the system works but it's not immune to bad decision-making. Green industry like globalization will come of age if given the right market environment. His faith in capitalism is equal to that in green technology -- for him, these are two things that are clearly reconcilable. So how do we do this? America as the bastion for innovation, Friedman argues, should play a big role. In fact, he confesses it really isn't a book about the environment and energy, its a book about America. For Friedman, America is slipping down the ranks of hegemonic power and climate change is its big chance to reposition itself as a global leader. The environment is merely an allegory for how the U.S. will achieve this revival. As an extension of that argument, all countries need to do the same. Right now, no country has really taken the lead in environmental technology, so what we have at the moment is an all out race to the top. Indeed Friedman's book was written before the financial meltdown but recent events have furthered his argument that environmental technology is the solution of all solutions. It's a sentiment I also came across at the recent Clinton Global Initiative meeting. Green Dream Team . Friedman seemed cautiously optimistic about Obama's ability to lead the green revolution. Given the disarray of many of America's financial institutions, it's unclear whether this new green message will get through. A glimmer of hope however is Obama's newly appointed energy secretary Steven Chu. There's been extensive chatter about him on environmental blogs in recent days with the media calling Chu the head of Obama's \"Green Dream Team.\" Friedman made a ringing endorsement of Chu as did many in the audience that day. Steven Chu, Nobel Laureate and the head of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, is seen as a promising choice for many environmentalists, one perhaps that proves Obama's intention to fulfill a key campaign promise on energy policy. Chu himself underwent an interesting move from physics to environmental technology. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 but left the world of Quantum Physics to study the science of global warming. As head of Berkeley National Lab, he led projects to the tune of $650 million channeling much of it towards green technology to develop advanced biofuels and solar power. Watch a video of Steven Chu from Berkeley University . Changing light bulbs and leaders . The audience listening to Friedman that day was clearly appreciative of his no-nonsense approach to the green issue. As Friedman puts it, \"it's not about changing light bulbs, it's about changing leaders.\" He confessed to having attended too many Earth Day concerts in the past and that no matter how many celebrities you get to show up or how you offset the event, it won't be enough to set off this green revolution. So as I sat there wondering whether the fish the guests had been eating for lunch was sustainable, for Friedman, it didn't really matter. For his revolution, he had bigger fish to fry." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Journalist and author of \"Hot, Flat and Crowded\" spoke at Hong Kong event .\nPragmatic approach to environmentalism also a means to transform U.S. economy .\nFor Friedman, innovation in energy technology is solution of all solutions ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Oscar Reynoso owed his bosses $300,000, and he was running out of time. One anti-drug operation in Atlanta netted $10.6 million, 108 kilos of cocaine, 17 pounds of meth and 32 weapons. Gunmen snatched Reynoso and locked him in the basement of a home to try to settle the drug debt. He was chained to a wall of the basement by his hands and ankles, gagged and beaten. His captors, members of a powerful Mexican drug cartel, held Reynoso for ransom, chained in the sweltering, dirty basement for six days without food. Reynoso's ordeal could've been a scene from the drug war in Mexico. But it played out recently in suburban Atlanta, Georgia. U.S. federal agents are fighting to keep that kind of violence from gripping Atlanta, as the city known for Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines has become a major distribution hub for Mexican drug cartels. In fiscal year 2008, authorities confiscated about $70 million in drug-related cash in Atlanta, more than anywhere else in the United States, the Drug Enforcement Administration says. This fiscal year, Atlanta continues to outpace all other U.S. regions in such seizures, with $30 million confiscated so far. Next are Los Angeles, California, with about $19 million, and Chicago, Illinois, with $18 million. \"There is definitely a center of this type of drug activity here, and we are working to make sure the violence does not spill out to the general public,\" Atlanta U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said. Atlanta has become a stopping point for truckloads of Mexican cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine, agents say. The drugs are held in stash houses before being distributed up the East Coast. \"The money comes down here also to money managers in Atlanta, who get the books in order before it is sent out,\" said Rodney Benson, Atlanta's chief of the DEA. Agents attribute the growth in drug trafficking to Atlanta's location, proximity to other major cities and access to major highways. Authorities also point to the growth of the Hispanic population in Atlanta, which allows practitioners of the Mexican drug trade to blend in among hard-working, law-abiding Hispanics. No place is that more evident than in Gwinnett County, a community about 20 miles north of Atlanta. Gwinnett's Hispanic population rocketed from 8,470 in 1990 to 63,727 in 2000, according to the U.S. Census. By 2010, 20 percent of the county's projected population of 700,000 is expected to be Hispanic. \"In Gwinnett County, the drug dealers are able to hide in plain sight,\" county District Attorney Danny Porter said. \"To combat this, we have to be much more coordinated between my office, the police department and the federal authorities. The presence of the organizations is a dilemma enough that we have to develop new tactics.\" Federal agents say arrests and drug-related violence in Atlanta have been linked to the two most powerful Mexican organizations: the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels. A battle over drug routes has been blamed for the recent surge in violence in Mexican border towns, bloodshed that has included hundreds of deaths. The fear is that the battle will extend deeper into the United States, causing more to suffer a fate similar to Reynoso's ordeal in the Gwinnett County basement. Lucky for Reynoso, federal agents had a wiretap on his captors' phones. Agents stormed the home just as it appeared that the debt would not be paid and Reynoso would be killed. \"There is no doubt in my mind that we saved his life that day,\" said the DEA's Benson. One case resolved, as cartels thrive in Atlanta." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "City outpaces all others in the United States in drug-related cash seizures .\n$30 million has been confiscated in Atlanta this fiscal year .\nLocation, proximity to other cities and highways cited in trafficking growth .\nDrug dealers \"hide in plain sight\" in suburban Gwinnett County ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's main political parties Sunday reached a deal designed to allow non-U.S. foreign troops to stay in the country past the end of the year, when a United Nations resolution authorizing their presence expires. Iraqi and British soldiers during an Iraqi army training session in Basra last week. The deal would set a deadline of July 31, 2009, for all non-U.S. foreign troops to withdraw, according to Abdul Hadi al-Hassani, a lawmaker with the main Shiite parliamentary bloc, who spoke to Iraqi state television on Sunday. The agreement awaits approval by Iraq's Parliament, which is expected to vote on the measure on Monday, several Iraqi lawmakers said. The emergency negotiations came after lawmakers Saturday rejected a similar proposal that would have been law. Sunday's proposal, by contrast, was drafted as a resolution that would empower the Cabinet to authorize international troop presence without requiring Parliament to pass a law. Washington and Baghdad have already worked out a separate agreement that will keep U.S. troops in Iraq but tighten restrictions on them. Countries other than the United States that have troops in Iraq could be left with no legal cover for their presence there if Baghdad does not act swiftly. Iraq's Cabinet had approved a draft law authorizing non-U.S. foreign troops Tuesday, the first step in passing legislation, but it fell at the next hurdle -- Parliament. That left lawmakers scrambling Sunday for a way to give foreign troops legal cover quickly. Lawmakers expect Sunday's agreement to cut through the problem, because a resolution can be passed in a single day, while it takes at least a week to pass a law. British government lawyers, meanwhile, are studying \"all possible options\" to legally extend the presence of British troops in Iraq beyond New Year's Day in case Iraq's Parliament rejects the new compromise. Britain has the second-largest contingent of foreign troops in Iraq -- about 4,100 -- after the United States, which has about 142,500. All other countries combined have only several hundred troops in the country. Britain and Iraq announced last week that British troops would begin leaving Iraq in May 2009, while a \"handful\" of British military personnel would remain after that date to continue naval training for Iraqi sailors, primarily to protect oil platforms. The United States reached a security agreement with Iraq in November. That deal, which was ratified by the Iraqi Parliament, calls for American troops to leave Iraqi cities by June 2009, and to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. Beginning New Year's Day, U.S. commanders will have to get prior Iraqi government approval for any operations. American military personnel who commit crimes while not on duty or who commit grave crimes while on duty would be subject to Iraqi legal jurisdiction under the new agreement. The U.S. security agreement does not govern the presence of troops from other coalition countries. The Parliament's rejection of the Cabinet's proposed law allowing foreign forces to remain in Iraq after January 1 came after heated arguments that lasted for days. The session became so contentious that Parliament's speaker threatened to resign, lawmakers said. Some political blocs, notably the Sadrists, oppose any extension of the presence of foreign troops in Iraq. That group, headed by Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr -- an anti-Western cleric -- is demanding an immediate withdrawal of foreign forces. CNN's Jill Dougherty and Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Deal would permit non-U.S. troops to stay into 2009 .\nNEW: Agreement would set July 31 withdrawal deadline for those troops .\nU.K. examining options in case Iraqi Parliament doesn't OK deal .\nSadrists oppose any extension of the presence of foreign troops in Iraq ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon paid a visit to Baghdad on Friday to congratulate its citizens for last weekend's \"remarkable\" Iraq-led provincial elections, a process he said \"augurs well for the transition process and the solidifying of Iraq's national reconciliation.\" U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, left, meets Friday in Baghdad with Iraq President Jalal Talabani. On a tour that also has taken him to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Ban met with Iraqi leaders and appeared at a news conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, whose allies won big in nine of the 14 provinces where the local elections were held. \"I have been following the electoral process closely from the early days of the parliamentary debate over the elections law last summer to the final stages of adjudication of the complaints and yesterday evening's release of the provisional results,\" Ban said at the news conference, according to prepared remarks issued by the United Nations. \"It will be some days before final results are known, but current indications are that the elections have been successfully carried out.\" Ban last visited Iraq in 2007. In March of that year, he got a taste of the violence that often rocks the Iraqi capital. An explosion rattled Baghdad's International Zone, where he was holding a televised news conference with al-Maliki. Apparently used to such blasts, al-Maliki remained stoic, while Ban briefly ducked before regaining his composure and continuing. Now, he said, he's \"very much impressed to have witnessed myself the great success and progress the Iraqi government and people have made under the leadership of Prime Minister Maliki, and I congratulate you,\" he said, emphasizing the improvements in security. The secretary-general praised the turnout of millions of voters in \"an environment free of violence,\" a development he called a \"remarkable achievement\" in a strife-torn nation. \"Iraq has come a long way in taking their own affairs in hand, this being the first Iraqi-led and Iraqi-owned electoral process. It is a tribute to the growing effectiveness of the Iraqi security forces, and testifies to the increasing stability in the country,\" he said. Ban praised Iraqi election officials, the local U.N. office and its special representative, Staffan de Mistura, and election workers. Voters in 14 of 18 provinces turned out last weekend to elect provincial councils. The nation's three Kurdish provinces will hold elections in May, and voting in Tameem province has been suspended because of political disputes in Kirkuk. \"This marks an important event, these being the first polls to affect the day-to-day lives of Iraqi voters,\" Ban said. \"In fact, these elections are about real power, in the sense that local leaders are nominated to be accountable for the delivery of basic services.\" The United Nations helped Iraq with logistics in its election process and plans to help in this year's parliamentary elections and to deal with sticky disputes, such as the status of Kirkuk and disputes over some internal boundaries. Al-Maliki thanked the United Nations for the supportive role it played. He noted that the provincial elections \"changed the political map\" of Iraq, but he said the elections were successful for all Iraqis. He said he was proud people voted for blocs based on political goals and not along sectarian and ethnic lines. Ban also met with the three members of the presidency council -- Kurdish President Jalal Talabani, Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul Mehdi and Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi. CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq and Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "U.N. secretary-general visits Iraq, lauds \"remarkable\" elections there .\nBan Ki-Moon last visited Iraq in 2007, when violence was still raging .\nVoters in 14 of 18 provinces turned out last weekend to cast ballots .\nIraq prime minister thanks United Nations for assistance, support ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- U.S. Vice President-elect Joe Biden assured Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday that the incoming Obama administration will continue to support Pakistan's efforts to strengthen democracy and combat terrorism, according to Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Vice President-elect Joe Biden meets Pakistani officials in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Friday. Biden told Zardari that the new U.S. administration would also help Pakistan \"meet its socio-economic requirements and capacity building,\" the ministry said in a written statement. The vice president-elect \"assured the Pakistani leadership\" of the United States' \"continued assistance to Pakistan,\" the statement said. No additional details were provided. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, accompanied Biden on the trip. Biden \"described Pakistan as an incredibly valued U.S. ally and said that the U.S. recognized Pakistan's important contribution and sacrifices in the fight against terrorism,\" the ministry said. Zardari, who took office in September, said \"Pakistan needed the support and understanding of the international community in this effort,\" according to the statement. Pakistan's government is waging a bloody battle against Taliban and al Qaeda militants in its tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan. The United States has provided Pakistan with billions of dollars in aid for those counterterrorism activities. Last year, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a bill authorizing $7.5 billion in non-military aid over the next five years. The measure is sponsored by committee chairman Biden and the ranking Republican on the panel, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana. It would provide money for developments such as schools, roads and medical clinics, and it conditions security aid on State Department certification that Pakistan is making efforts against the Taliban and al Qaeda. The bill has not come before the full Senate. Biden also said he was hopeful that India and Pakistan could resolve their conflicts, according the ministry. \"The U.S. vice president-elect expressed the hope that both Pakistan and India will be able to overcome the current tensions and would resolve their differences peacefully,\" the ministry's statement said. November's attacks in Mumbai, India, fueled tensions between Pakistan and India, longtime rivals that have fought three wars since independence and conducted tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests in 1998. India has said Islamic militants trained in Pakistan were behind the three-day siege of India's financial capital. Pakistani officials have promised to cooperate with the investigation but have insisted that India show it the evidence supporting its case. On Wednesday, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the sole surviving suspect in the Mumbai attacks, which killed more than 160 people, is a Pakistani national, state-run media reported." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Vice President-elect Joe Biden hopes Pakistan, India overcome tensions .\nBiden and Sen. Lindsay Graham meet in Islamabad .\nBiden assures Pakistani president of support against terrorism .\nPakistan is one of main focus points in war to defeat the Taliban ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Utah is the nation's fastest growing state, increasing 2.5 percent from July 2007 to July 2008, according to new population estimates from the Census Bureau. Barack Obama greets one of the newest members of the U.S. population this year on the campaign trail. The main reason for Utah's growth is a \"natural increase\" -- births minus deaths -- said Census Bureau demographer Greg Harper. \"Utah has a strong rate of natural increase and domestic migration, where more people move into the state and [are] not moving out,\" he said. \"Second is Arizona,\" Harper said. \"It grew by 2.3 percent, and the increase is due to domestic migration, meaning more people are moving into the state than moving out. Also, it's a natural increase, more people were born there than died.\" Arizona is followed by Texas, North Carolina and Colorado, each with a 2.0 percent growth rate. Texas added more people than any other state -- about 500,000 -- making it the third-fastest growing state. Because it has a larger population size, its percentage growth was less than Utah. \"Nevada was last year's fastest-growing state, but it fell to eighth,\" said Harper. \"Overall, that state had been among the four fastest-growing states each of the past 23 years.\" Only two states lost population: Michigan and Rhode Island, losing 0.5 and 0.2 percent respectively. Overall, Northeastern states are not growing as fast as other parts of the country, but they have been on the increase since 2005. The South added the most people during the period, 1.4 million. But Western states, with a 1.4 percent increase, saw the fastest growth rate. One state that has reversed its course of growth is Florida. A few years ago more than 250,000 people per year were moving there. But for 2007-2008, the state's 0.7 percent increase was below the nation's 0.9 percent overall increase. According to the estimates, the United States had a net gain of just over 2.7 million people from July 2007 to July 2008." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Utah population grows 2.5 percent by \"natural increase,\" Census Bureau says .\nTexas adds more people than any other state -- about 500,000 .\nTwo states lose population: Michigan and Rhode Island .\nFigures are Census estimates for growth from July 2007 to July 2008 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Now that Caylee Anthony's remains have been identified, the search for the Florida toddler turns into a prosecution of her mother. Casey Anthony, 22, is accused of killing her daughter. Investigators say her alibi didn't check out. Although Orange County, Florida, Medical Examiner Jan Garavaglia said Friday she could not determine how Caylee died, she concluded the death was a homicide. The child's mother, Casey Anthony, 22, faces charges including murder in the disappearance and death of Caylee, who was 2 when she vanished last summer. The remains were found last week in woods about a half-mile from Anthony's parents' house and identified through DNA testing. See where Caylee's skeleton was found » . On Saturday, investigators finished 10 days of sifting through the crime scene and served a warrant at the Anthony house for a third search for evidence, said Capt. Angelo Nieves of the Orange County sheriff's department. Cindy and George Anthony, the child's grandparents, were present for the search. The mother's defense team had claimed since her October indictment that the child might still be alive, even claiming witnesses spotted Caylee since her disappearance. The finding of the body \"has really cut the legs out of the defense,\" Stacey Honowitz, an assistant Florida state's attorney, said Friday night on CNN's \"Larry King Live.\" Watch experts size up the legal case » . The lack of a cause of death and the absence of any soft tissue on the toddler's skeletal remains poses a challenge for prosecutors, forensic expert Lawrence Kobilinsky, a defense consultant for Casey Anthony, told Larry King. \"If you don't have a cause of death, isn't it possible that it might have been an accident?\" Kobilinsky said. A murder conviction would require proof the victim was killed intentionally. Legal experts say duct tape reportedly found on the body could convince a judge or jury that Caylee's death was not an accident. Perhaps of greater significance, though, is Casey Anthony's behavior since -- and even before -- her child went missing. According to earlier reports, Caylee was the result of an unintended pregnancy, and Anthony made an attempt to give her up after birth. She referred to Caylee as \"the little snot head\" and continued to maintain an active social life. Follow a timeline of the case » . When Caylee went missing, Anthony did not tell her family for a month. It was the child's grandmother who called police. Anthony told conflicting stories at the beginning of the investigation, including a tale that Caylee was with a nanny. The name and address turned out to be bogus. As police searched for Caylee, they say Anthony's active social life continued -- including one memorable evening dancing at an Orlando bar that was hosting \"Hot Body Contest.\" Investigators said they found the scent of decomposing flesh and a trace of chloroform, a powerful knockout agent, in the trunk of a car Anthony drove at the time. Anthony's family offered various explanations, including a rotting pizza and a dead squirrel. Watch a tribute to the little girl » . On the Anthonys' home computer, police found there had been searches for chloroform, missing children and \"neck-breaking,\" although Garavaglia said Friday that she did not find evidence of trauma to the bones. \"The prosecution is going to have a great deal of circumstantial evidence, and this is a physical evidence case,\" Kobilinsky said. \"This is not a question about credibility, although obviously a jury looks at credibility and contradictions, but the physical evidence will either include her or exclude Casey. It's an uphill battle for the defense.\" Nevertheless, forensic expert Kathy Reichs, who also is working with Anthony's defense team, sees an opening. \"Given that there's no evidence as to the cause of death, ... you could have an accidental death and a mother that panics,\" she told King. \"There are alternative explanations.\" Perhaps not enough to save Anthony, said famed defense attorney Mark Geragos, who is not associated with the case. \"The defense will try to focus, I'm sure, on all of the forensic evidence and whatever else they can do,\" he told King. \"But they're always going to be up against it with the 'She didn't act right' evidence, and that's the hardest thing to combat in this case.\" Prosecutors don't need to show what killed Caylee, Geragos said. The defense needs to overcome Casey Anthony's statements and behavior. \"Somebody is going to have to give an explanation at some point as to when she last saw the child, who she gave the child to,\" he said. \"And until that is done, I don't care what they put together, it's not going to carry any weight.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Casey Anthony's defense team has big challenge, experts say .\nLack of cause of death, physical evidence could hinder prosecution .\nMother's partying, other behavior don't help her defense .\nOfficials have identified remains of Florida toddler who vanished last summer ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NEW YORK (CNN) -- Most people like gossip. Come on! You do too. Don't you glance every once in a while at US Weekly, In Touch, Page Six? And how about that Spitzer scandal -- even I can't get enough of that one. A freshman talks about how cruel postings on the Juicy Campus web site have tainted her college experience. But what happens when the gossip is about you or your boyfriend or your kid? And what if it's there on the Internet, for the entire world to see on a Web site called Juicy Campus? That's what happened to Jane Smith (her name has been changed to protect her privacy), a college freshman I spoke with recently. She said she learned from a friend that her name had been posted on the Web site and people were anonymously posting not so nice things about her. Things like she was promiscuous, \"ugly,\" \"overrated,\" \"racist.\" Things she says are not true. Her post has received over a thousand page views -- in non-techie speak, everyone is reading and writing about her. She even got a request for a \"hook up\" from a guy hundreds of miles away at another college. She told me that when she read the posts, she felt like she had been kicked in the stomach. She called her parents in the middle of the night crying. She has lost weight, has trouble sleeping, and has become suspicious of those around her. She told me that it has ruined her freshman year -- and will likely taint her entire college experience. Watch how campus poison pens inflict pain » . So what is Juicy Campus and who is behind it? Juicy Campus is a Web site, founded on August 1, 2007, which claims to have \"the simple mission of enabling online anonymous free speech on college campuses.\" The site allows and encourages posters to anonymously post uncensored gossip and rumors -- the juicier the better -- about others. There is a separate section on the site for each college or university, over 60 campuses at last count. Some recent posts discuss the breasts of a professor, sluttiest girls and sexiest guys on campus. Some posts even contain racist, sexist and anti-Semitic remarks. Juicy, huh? It was founded by a Duke alum, a former frat house president who has gone to lengths to keep his identity secret. We tried to reach him for comment. He didn't return our calls or e-mails. Instead, we received this not-so-juicy statement from a publicist: . \"While there has been much attention given to the critics ... Thousands of students from across the country have written in to request that their campus be added.\" Come on! Why is he hiding? Jane can't even sue him. In fact, there is little she can do. Juicy Campus and similar Web sites are protected under Communications Decency Act of 1996. The Act aims to shield Web publishers from liability for libelous comments posted by third parties. The section states \"no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.\" Juicy Campus is one of those sites that openly hides behind its immunity. The site's Frequently Asked Questions page states: \"There is no way for someone using the site to find out who you are. And we at Juicy Campus are not keeping track of who you are or what you post. In fact, we prefer not to know who you are. We like to think that famous people like Justin Timberlake and Beyonce are using our site. We love them ...\" But what about those cowards, I mean posters, who like to call people names behind the wizard's curtain of protection provided by the Communications Decency Act? The First Amendment certainly protects free speech, even unpopular speech. Opinions are protected. The truth is protected. But lies are not. To successfully sue the posters, Jane would have to show that they made false and defamatory statements about her (racist and slutty would qualify, I think) published them to a third party (I read them) and that her reputation was damaged (check). In fact, most jurisdictions also recognize \"per se\" defamation, where the allegations are presumed to cause damage to the plaintiff, such as attacks on a person's professional character or standing; allegations that an unmarried person is unchaste; a person is infected with a sexually transmitted disease or has committed a crime of \"moral turpitude.\" Should Jane sue the pants off the posters? How would she find them? When you file a civil lawsuit against even an anonymous individual, a judge can issue a subpoena. Juicy Campus says it will respond to any \"lawful subpoena.\" A subpoena could reveal a poster's IP address. But in the end, it really is sooooo high school. Actually, it's more grade school. So Juicy Campus posters, come out, come out wherever you are. Or Jane, file a lawsuit and find them. E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "College gossip site Juicy Campus allows anonymous posting .\nSome of the postings are gossipy, others are cruel .\nOpinions are protected under the law, lies are not .\nLegal action may be difficult unless site cooperates in identifying posters ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's government has authorized Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to submit to Washington amendments to a draft security agreement with the United States, an Iraqi government spokesman said Tuesday. Students protest the status-of-forces agreement Tuesday at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University. Ali al-Dabbagh said the Iraqi government approved several amendments that were \"necessary, essential and appropriate\" to the draft status-of-forces agreement, which would set the terms for U.S. troops in Iraq after the United Nations mandate on their presence expires at the end of this year. \"The Iraqi government authorizes the prime minister to bring up these amendments to the U.S. side in order to reach a draft agreement that will preserve the fundamental principles and the sovereignty of Iraq and its high interests,\" al-Dabbagh said. It is unclear when al-Maliki will submit the changes to the draft document. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently said that there was \"great reluctance\" to make any more changes to the agreement. However, senior U.S. officials -- speaking under the condition of anonymity -- are not ruling out possibly renegotiating parts of the deal with Iraq if the country's parliament does not approve it. The most vocal opponent of the draft security deal in Iraq has been the political party of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which opposes any U.S. military presence in Iraq. U.S. military helicopters Tuesday flew over Baghdad's Mustansiriya University, where hundreds of students took part in a demonstration organized by the Sadr movement against the status-of-forces deal. \"We are against this agreement between the Iraqi government and between the American government because it is against Iraqi sovereignty,\" said law student Ahmed Fadhil Abbas, one of the demonstrators. Fellow demonstrator and law student Hisham Mohammed said the students plan to organize a sit-in and a strike across universities in Iraq to protest the agreement. The draft status-of-forces agreement, according to a copy obtained by CNN, calls for U.S. combat troops to be out of Iraqi cities and villages by July 30, 2009, and out of the country entirely by December 31, 2011. The agreement allows for an earlier withdrawal or an extension of the U.S. forces' stay in Iraq, by agreement of both parties. It also allows the Iraqi government to ask \"the United States government to leave certain forces for training and for support purposes for the Iraqi forces.\" Legal jurisdiction over U.S. forces in Iraq has been a sticking point in the negotiation, with the U.S. side preferring that its troops and contractors remain immune from Iraqi law. Baghdad had sought the power to arrest and try Americans accused of crimes not related to official military operations, plus jurisdiction over troops and contractors who commit major crimes in the course of their duties. Under the draft agreement, U.S. forces or contractors who commit \"major and premeditated murders\" while off duty and outside U.S. facilities would fall under Iraqi jurisdiction, according to the copy obtained by CNN. All other crimes -- and murders committed inside U.S. facilities or by on-duty forces -- would fall under American jurisdiction, the agreement says." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Official calls changes \"necessary, essential and appropriate\" to the draft agreement .\nStatus-of-forces pact would set terms for U.S. troops in Iraq after U.N. mandate ends .\nU.S. has shown \"great reluctance\" to change pact but hasn't ruled out renegotiations .\nHundreds of students protest status-of-forces deal Tuesday at university in Baghdad ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- A huge man-made island shaped like a date palm tree opened Thursday off the coast of Dubai with a celebrity-studded gala and a three-day party. The island officially opens with a spectacular fireworks display. The Palm Jumeirah increased Dubai's shoreline by 100 percent after work started on it in 2001. It features resort hotels, homes, luxury shopping and entertainment. Though the entire island officially opened Thursday, parts of it already opened weeks ago -- including the Atlantis, The Palm, a sister to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas. The Atlantis played host to the opening celebration Thursday night. Stars including Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Robert De Niro, Janet Jackson and the Duchess of York were in attendance. Pop star Kylie Minogue performed at the party. Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra started what was billed as the world's largest-ever fireworks display, with more than 100,000 pyrotechnic devices. When work on the island began, a team of Dutch engineers were employed to create the Palm by using a technique called rainbowing -- a vessel dredging sand from the seabed and spraying and piling it onto the desired area and into the requested shape." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "The Palm Jumeirah man-made island officially opens off Dubai .\nThe island of luxury shops, hotels, entertainment doubled Dubai coastline .\nRobert De Niro, Janet Jackson and the Duchess of York at opening party ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- A yellow smiley-face badge, smeared with blood, has become the trademark for \"Watchmen,\" the most critically revered of all comic books -- but it could also represent its troubled journey from page to big screen. \"Watchmen\" opens with the unexplained murder of The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Note smiley badge. The subject of fervent debate in the geekosphere for more than two decades, \"Watchmen\" finally rolls out in the U.S. and other territories from the first week of March onward. But it's not as well known to wider audiences, who may puzzle at all this heat about a superhero movie with no A-list star attached. Instead, they may simply ask: \"Watch-what?\" \"Watchmen,\" created by the UK comic-book team of writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons, surfaced in 1986 as a monthly 12-issue series published by DC Comics (part of Time Warner, which owns CNN parent company Turner Broadcasting). Are you looking forward to \"Watchmen?\" Or think it's just hype? It was a defining year for the medium: aside from \"Watchmen,\" '86 also saw Pulitzer-prize winning holocaust drama \"Maus,\" from The New Yorker contributor Art Spielgeman; and Frank Miller's hyperviolent Batman reworking \"The Dark Knight Returns.\" \"Watchmen,\" which takes place in 1985, is set in a parallel world where America never lost Vietnam, Russia is about to invade Afghanistan and Richard Nixon still holds power (Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward were murdered). Meanwhile a superhero team -- only one of whom has special powers -- reforms after a fellow operative is mysteriously slain. But what lifts \"Watchmen\" above its superhero peers is a complex, multi-layered narrative and depth of characterization that ensured it was the only comic book to make Time's 100 best novels since 1923. A dark, downbeat work with a heady 11th-hour twist, it puts as much store on subsidiary characters like a newspaper seller as its does blue-skinned man-god Dr. Manhattan. Its influence can be traced to current small-screen favorites like \"Heroes\" and \"Lost.\" Watch \"Watchmen\" trailer. » . Perfect fodder, one might think, for the multiplex -- but \"Watchmen\" has been lodged in Development Hell for the best part of two decades. At various times Arnold Schwarzenegger and Vin Diesel were mooted to play Manhattan; Mickey Rourke and Ed Norton were suggested for right-wing vigilante Rorschach. Directors set to shoot have included Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Greengrass and David Hayter (whose script has been retained for much of the final film). Several planned shoots failed to materialize due to studio fears about the budget (locations include Antarctica and Mars as well as New York) and how the ending might be perceived in a post-9/11 world. But film-makers such as Gilliam and Guillermo del Toro also believed that the complex material would be better treated as a TV mini-series. As the latter, the \"Pan's Labyrinth\" filmmaker, told IGN: \"I just couldn't get my head around 'Watchmen' being two or three hours long.\" Whoever made \"Watchmen\" would also do so without Moore's blessing. Still resident in his hometown of Northampton, central England, Moore cuts an imposing figure. At least six-and-a-half feet tall, with chest-length beard and hair, talon-like rings on his fingers and the skull of a centuries-old Buddhist monk in his study, he resembles Doctor Who as reimagined by Edgar Allan Poe. (In person he's gracious and affable, as this writer will attest from a few years back.) Moore has had a mixed relationship with both the mainstream comic-book industry (which he accuses of over-commercialization and exploiting creators' rights) and Hollywood. The comic-book series \"From Hell,\" in which Moore uses the Jack the Ripper killings as a precursor to 20th-century violence, runs to about 500 pages, including 40-plus pages of footnotes. On film it became a melodramatic pad around Victorian London, gamely carried by a pre-\"Pirates\" Johnny Depp. Two other Moore adaptations also failed to translate. Stephen Norrington's \"The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen\" (2003) was widely derided and the subject of a court case into which Moore was dragged; by the time of James McTeigue's better judged \"V For Vendetta\" (2005), Moore had asked his name be taken off any movie adaptations and refused to take royalties. Enter Zack Snyder. In 2004, Snyder came to the attention of mainstream cinemagoers with his well-regarded remake of George A. Romero's zombie flick \"Dawn of The Dead.\" Following the $450m-plus taken worldwide by Snyder's \"300\" (2006) -- a hyper-stylized take on Frank Miller's ancient Greek suicide-mission -- it was announced that \"Watchmen\" would be his next project with Warner Bros. Paramount, which abandoned plans for the movie in 2005, took international rights. The $150-million feature went into production in Vancouver in mid-2007, wrapping in early 2008, and with a cast including Billy Crudup and Jackie Earle Haley. Snyder has retained \"Watchmen's\" 1980s setting and also recruited original artist Gibbons -- who still retains friendship with Moore -- to advise on production design. Mindful that a narrative so complex could never work as a movie, Snyder has jettisoned several parallel subplots, which will surface as DVD extras and in director's cuts. Word is that the ending has also been changed. But wary of over-tweaking, Snyder told Entertainment Weekly last year: \"You can't make it into something else, you really can't. It's not 'Fantastic Four,' it's got to be hard R [cinema rating], it's got to challenge everyone's ideas.\" Meanwhile Moore, who sometimes mentions that he worships a Roman snake-god, hinted in the LA Times that he had cursed the feature. \"I can tell you that I will also be spitting venom all over it for months to come,\" he added. So was it Moore who saw \"Watchmen\" end up in the courts for a case that risked scuppering its release? Last year Twentieth Century Fox claimed it still retained rights through an earlier deal with producer Lawrence Gordon in the 1980s; Warners Bros. disagreed but a judge decided there was a case to answer. A settlement was eventually thrashed out last month, only weeks ahead of release. And so \"Watchmen\" ticks toward early March and a rollout in spring, the now-traditional season for edgier comic-book adaptations like \"300\" and \"Sin City.\" Trailers and early footage have drawn praise, with several scenes playing like detailed frames from the original artwork. But key will be whether Snyder can match \"Watchmen's\" dramatic beats against its green-screen chicanery for more than two hours (the Internet Movie Database lists the running time at 163 minutes). After all, successfully mixing pyrotechnics and narrative is how the most satisfying genre features of recent years -- such as Peter Jackson's \"Lord Of The Rings\" trilogy and Christopher Nolan's \"The Dark Knight\" -- have found artistic, as well as commercial, favor. Should Snyder pull it off then will he earn the gratitude of fan boys everywhere, as well as no small thanks from a fair few movie executives. What Alan Moore might think is another issue. 'Watchmen' is released in the UK on 6 March." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Comic-book movie, directed by Zack Snyder, took two decades to reach cinemas .\nDirectors Terry Gilliam, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Greengrass, previously attached .\nSource material regarded by many as the best comic-book ever written .\nCo-creator Alan Moore has objected to the idea of story being made into movie ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- First it was the airlines, now it's the turn of hotels to take the budget concept into the mainstream. Demand is surging for cheaper hotel rooms, not just from thrifty tourists but also from business travelers in search of value. And budget brands are responding to the demand with ambitious expansion plans. Not just for backpackers: easyGroup opened its first budget hotel in 2005 targeting short-stay tourists. Other brands are improving the . service to woo business travelers. According to recent research from market analyst Mintel, the UK budget hotel market increased by 38 percent between 2002 and 2006, to reach £1 billion. This growth was three times that of the overall UK hotel market. And while top-end establishments prepare for a decline as consumer spending falls, budget hotels are determined they are recession resilient. Research from Melvin Gold Consulting for Travelodge last year predicted the budget sector will grow by a further 10 percent in the next five years. By 2027 it will account for over a quarter of the total supply of hotels in the UK with almost 850,000 rooms. In the U.S., budget hotels already account for 33 percent of the supply and 24 percent in France, says the report. Premier Inn, the 500-strong UK budget chain (that added 2,500 rooms to its portfolio last year and plans to add another 3,500 this year) is now taking the budget model further afield. In March the chain, owned by Whitbread, will unveil a hotel in Dubai and it is currently scouring India for sites. The boom in budget hotels has been greatest in China. Here both businessmen and tourists, foreign and domestic, are relishing the arrival of rooms that cost less than $50 a night. There are nearly 100 economic hotel chain brands in China, over 1,000 budget hotels with over 100,000 rooms. Brands are both local and from overseas including Accor's Ibis and Wyndham Hotel Group's Super 8. More budget rooms are likely to emerge this year in the build-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing in August. Home Inns, the largest budget hotel chain in mainland China, has built 400 hotels in just five years. They plan to grow this to more than 1,000 hotels in three to four years in cities across China as well as further afield in Asia. In Europe, Richard Cope, senior travel analyst at Mintel said the arrival of boutique and lifestyle brands such as The Big Sleep, the Hoxton Hotel and base2stay raised the game of the sector by providing an affordable but luxurious alternative. New capsule hotels such as Yotel and nitenite also helped boost the market, he added. The increased interest from business travelers in value from hotels has been a further boost. According to a recent study by TRI/BDRC business travelers spent 1.5 million nights in budget hotels in the UK in 2006, up from 0.93 million in 2000 and only 0.38 million in 1994. In the U.S., 74 percent of travel managers that responded to a Runzheimer International survey last year said their business travelers now frequently use economy-type hotels. And although first-class properties continue to be used most often, economy-type hotel use is up 31 percent from the previous four years. Electronics firm, Royal Philips Electronics spends about $134 million globally on hotels every year. Currently three per cent of this is with budget chains, including Accor's Ibis and Holiday Inn Express. This may sound small, says Roman Asboth, Philips' senior sourcing specialist for hotels, but it adds up to an impressive $3.7 million every year. And that figure is rising, he adds. Travelers choosing the budget option, says Asboth, are not just from lower down the organizational ranks. Managers and even executives conscious of cost are also making the switch. As Asboth says, it all comes down to a perception of value. \"Travelers come back from a trip to New York having paid more than $300 for a lousy room that hasn't been renovated in ages and they don't see the worth. But they come back from a Holiday Inn Express, which is brand new, and they are more than happy.\" Phillips is also making increased use of serviced guest apartments -- particularly in countries such as India -- that offer the same level of quality as a four or five star property for a budget price. Sally Rademaker, travel sourcing manager, sub-Saharan Africa at Ericsson says while budget may not be an option in Africa, where they pay a premium for security at top end hotels, the communications firm is considering budget options in Europe and the United States where quality is better. \"Of course business travelers would prefer to stay in a five or four star hotel given the choice,\" she acknowledges. \"But if the reasons given are good enough, and we choose somewhere where the standard is acceptable and it is in a good location, then they accept it.\" Gerard Tempest, marketing director at Premier Inn believes budget hotels offer a genuine alternative to mid-market hotels with the same convenience and quality but at better value. \"Every guest bedroom gets refurbished every 24 months which is extremely frequent compared to the wider hotel industry,\" says Tempest. Premier Inn is also refurbishing rooms to a higher quality than some mid-market chains, he says. Following the acquisition of a chain of mid-market hotels last year, they invested a further $10 million to meet their \"budget\" standards. All desks and chairs in rooms are ergonomically designed, desks are cleared of clutter and Wifi is available in every hotel. Some Premier Inns also feature meeting space for business travelers as well as branches of Costa Coffee also owned by parent company Whitbread. \"Business customers are responding well to these and using them as meeting places,\" says Tempest. So with recession looming could this be the end of Egyptian sheets and luxury saunas for business travelers? Perhaps not, but in cities where rates continue to increase even for poorest quality rooms, the budget option may not be as bad as all that. E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Growth of budget hotels has been three times that of overall hotel market .\nDemand is strong among tourists and business travelers in Europe U.S. and China .\nBoutique budget brands have helped raise the profile of the economical option ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two Supreme Court justices on opposite sides of the ideological aisle exchanged tough words Monday over the fate of a Florida murderer who has been on death row for 32 years. Siding with the court's majority, Justice Clarence Thomas described brutal details of a Florida slaying. The high court has refused to hear the appeal of William Thompson, who had plead guilty twice in the March 1976 kidnapping and torture-murder of a woman. His case and subsequent appeals have been litigated since, but a new execution date has not been set. A key part of his request to be spared lethal injection is that three decades as a capital inmate constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. \"Our experience during the past three decades has demonstrated that delays in state-sponsored killings are inescapable and that executing defendants after such is unacceptably cruel,\" said Justice John Paul Stevens, who disagreed with the court's decision to allow the execution to proceed. He was supported by Justice Stephen Breyer in his objection to the court's ruling on Monday in the case, Thompson v. McNeil (08-7369). But Justice Clarence Thomas took issue with his colleagues' conclusions. \"It is the crime and not the punishment imposed by the jury or the delay in execution that was 'unacceptably cruel,'\" he responded. Thomas took time in his concurrence to detail the graphic crime that led to the conviction of Thompson and his co-defendant. The men had held Sally Ivester and another woman in a motel room and were demanding money from the victim's families. Ivester had promised she could raise hundreds of dollars but was only able to secure $25. That enraged the men who savagely beat the woman with a belt, chair leg and nightstick, causing internal injuries. She was also burned with cigarettes. The other woman witnessed the murder and said she feared for her life if she tried to leave. Thompson and his co-defendant both pleaded guilty but the state's high court initially tossed out Thompson's sentence. The man's lawyer had told the defendant if he accepted responsibility for the crime, he would not get the death penalty, a crucial mistake. Thompson later pleaded guilty a second time and again received a capital sentence. Then he began a series of appeals, claiming ineffective counsel, trial errors, limited mental capacity and a dysfunctional childhood. All those factors were ultimately rejected by state and federal courts. Stevens noted that during a third penalty hearing, five members of a state advisory jury recommended against lethal injection, but the court again imposed death. The circumstances of his current imprisonment, said Stevens, no longer justify such a sentence. \"As he awaits execution, petitioner has endured especially severe conditions of confinement,\" said Stevens, \"spending up to 23 hours per day in isolation in a 6- by 9-foot cell. Two death warrants have been signed against him and stayed only shortly before he was scheduled to die. The dehumanizing effects of such treatment are undeniable.\" But Thomas said all such inmates are subjected to a \"restricted confinement\" because of the security risks they pose. And the prisoner had only himself to blame for his prolonged imprisonment on death row. Quoting his conclusions from a similar 1999 capital case, Thomas said, \"I remain unaware of any support in the American constitutional tradition of this Court's precedence for the proposition that a defendant can avail himself of the panoply of appellate and collateral procedures and then complain when his execution is delayed.\" Thomas has long backed the right of states to impose death sentences. Stevens, who as a newly seated justice cast a key 1976 vote upholding the death penalty, has since grown increasingly frustrated with how it its carried out. Last April, he declared his open opposition to it. \"I have relied on my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty represents the pointless and needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes,\" he wrote. \"A penalty with such negligible returns to the state (is) patently excessive and cruel and unusual punishment violative of the Eighth Amendment.\" The 88-year-old justice was supported by three of his more liberal colleagues. But Stevens also said he would respect court precedents in favor of capital punishment." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Florida killer says 32 years on death row is cruel and unusual punishment .\nWilliam Thompson faces execution for 1976 torture killing .\nJustice Clarence Thomas cites details of brutal crime .\nCourt rejects Thompson's appeal ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Editor's note: In our Behind the Scenes series, CNN correspondents share their experiences in covering news and analyze the stories behind the events. The U.S. Interior Department is considering changing regulations on guns in national parks. CHANTILLY, Virginia (CNN) -- I'm at the Blue Ridge Arsenal in Chantilly, Virginia, the biggest gun store in northern Virginia. I'm looking at a holster on the hip of Arsenal's John Summer in which a black .22-caliber pistol sits snugly. I didn't notice it before because Summer is wearing a large plaid shirt, not tucked in, covering his navy blue polo shirt. But he sweeps the big shirt back and tells me, \"I've been to 7-Eleven, Starbucks -- you can go to Applebee's and have dinner.\" \"With a gun?\" I ask. \"With a gun,\" he says with a nod. Summer has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, so he can go to dinner with a gun whenever he wants. He can also wear his gun openly almost any place in Virginia. That's the law. The next place he may be able to take his loaded, concealed weapon is to a national park. That's because the U.S. Interior Department is considering a proposal from 51 U.S. senators to change its regulations on guns in national parks. As the law stands, a person can take a gun -- unloaded -- into a national park, but it must be packed away or rendered temporarily inoperable. The country's 391 national parks, recreation areas, monuments and scenic trails are operated under a single set of regulations by the U.S. Interior Department. The proposed change would have the parks adopt the gun laws of the state in which they are located. This means a person would be able to take a loaded, concealed weapon into a national park if he or she holds a valid permit to carry a concealed weapon in a given state and as long as they would be allowed to carry a concealed weapon in that state's parks. Summer tells me that's a good idea. In some national parks out west \"you could flat out dead sprint for an hour and never see another human being -- except maybe a drug dealer,\" he says, \"in which case he's probably got a gun.\" Gregory Hylinski, a gun owner from Connecticut visiting a friend, tells me there's another reason for guns in national parks: \"It's important for people to be able to protect themselves at all times and in all places even from wild animal attacks.\" When Maureen Finnerty hears warning like that she gives an exasperated shrug. Finnerty and I are walking down a path in the woods not far from her house. She worked for 31 years with the National Park Service, including six years as Associate Director of Park Operations in Washington. \"Right now parks are very safe, they're very safe places to take your family,\" she tells me. \"Our crime statistics are very, very low and you put loaded weapons in people's hands and there's a tremendous possibility that there will be increased violence.\" Finnerty knows the National Park Service statistics by heart. The latest data, from 2006, shows 272,623,980 people visited the parks that year. There were 11 cases of homicide or manslaughter, 61 robberies and 35 rapes or attempted rapes. \"Now, could something happen? Of course it could happen, but the chances are extremely, extremely remote,\" she says. Finnerty is a member of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, which includes a number of former directors. The group is actively lobbying against the change, insisting the current regulations are working. The proposed change, their Web site says, \"could significantly increase the danger to visitors in national parks.\" It would put wildlife at risk, they claim, and make poaching easier. But Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, tells me many states allow residents with permits to carry guns in state parks -- why not the federal government? \"They (the states) have changed their firearms laws within the last 15 years to allow good people to protect themselves from bad people and this simply puts federal law in compliance with that change in terms of state law.\" Finnerty sees another reason behind the proposal: \"I think this is an attempt by the policy people in the [Bush] administration,\" she says, \"to take care of one of their very important constituencies, the National Rifle Association.\" A half-hour drive and I am at Great Falls National Park. The water far below at Mather Gorge is white with foam. Half of this park is in Virginia, where gun laws allow people with permits to carry concealed weapons; half is in Maryland, where they do not. If the regulations are changed, the National Park Service says they will put up signs and run educational outreach to explain the law. I strike up a conversation with photographer Maria Stenzel. She's watching the gray heron. \"We have too many weapons already,\" she tells me. \"We have too much violence all over the country and we don't need to allow them in new places.\" Graduate student Nathanael Snow, watching the Potomac River roar downstream, says, \"For me, I feel safer if I know that people who are qualified and proficient in handling a weapon have it on them because the bad guys are going to have guns on them anyway.\" The public has until the end of June to comment on the proposed change. The Interior Department then will decide." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "A new proposal would change regulations on guns in national parks .\nIt would allow the parks to adopt the same gun laws as the state they are in .\nNow the parks operate under U.S. Department of the Interior regulations .\nProponents say guns would increase safety, opponents say the opposite is true ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Seven states and two organizations have sued the Bush administration in an attempt to block a federal regulation that would further protect health care workers who refuse to perform abortions or other medical procedures because of religious or moral reasons. A rule protecting the rights of health care providers who refuse to participate in certain procedures is under fire. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of his state, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island. Blumenthal said the regulation would put women's health care at risk and would undercut state contraception laws. \"On its way out, the Bush administration has left a ticking legal time bomb set to explode literally the day of the inaugural and blow apart vital constitutional rights and women's health care,\" Blumenthal said in a statement. \"Women's health may be endangered -- needlessly and unlawfully -- if this rule is allowed to stand.\" He said the regulation \"intentionally shrouds\" abortion in \"new and unnecessary ambiguity,\" encouraging individuals to define it and to \"deny virtually all forms of contraceptions, even emergency contraception to rape victims.\" The Planned Parenthood Federation of America and American Civil Liberties Union, which was acting on behalf of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, also filed separate suits Thursday. The Department of Health and Human Services said the regulation would allow the federal government to withhold federal funds for state and local governments, health plans and health care facilities that do not follow existing federal laws that ban discrimination against doctors and other health workers who refuse to participate in procedures such as sterilizations or abortions or to make referrals for such procedures. \"We have not had an opportunity to review the lawsuits and we will respond to the court on any pending litigation,\" department spokeswoman Rebecca Ayers said in an e-mail. \"The department followed appropriate procedures to put the regulation in place and the regulation is fully supported by law.\" The department promulgated the rule last month. \"Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience,\" Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a statement then. \"This rule protects the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience.\" The department has said that it believes the public and health care providers are unaware of the federal anti-discrimination laws. \"Many health care providers routinely face pressure to change their medical practice -- often in direct opposition to their personal convictions,\" said the department's assistant secretary of health, Adm. Joxel Garcia, in a statement in December. \"During my practice as an OB-GYN, I witnessed this firsthand. Health care providers shouldn't have to check their consciences at the hospital door. Fortunately, Congress enacted several laws to that end, but too many are unaware these protections exist.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Connecticut attorney general: Regulation would put women's health care at risk .\nRule further protects health workers who refuse procedures on moral grounds .\nDepartment of Health and Human Services promulgated the rule last month .\nHHS: Rule protects workers' right to care for patients in accord with their conscience ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "PRETORIA, South Africa (CNN) -- The United States no longer supports a power-sharing deal between Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and the country's main opposition because a viable unity government is not possible with Mugabe in power, a top U.S. diplomat said Sunday. Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, in a speech to supporters Saturday, refused calls to step down. The statement from U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer follows recent calls from President Bush and other world leaders for Mugabe to abandon power amid a growing cholera epidemic that the United Nations says has killed more than 1,000 people in recent months. Frazer visited southern Africa to articulate the change in U.S. policy toward Mugabe at the request of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. She made the comments Sunday during a roundtable discussion with journalists in Pretoria, South Africa, before her expected return to the United States later in the day. She called for a new vote in Zimbabwe. \"Fresh elections are necessary but not possible under the current environment,\" Frazer told reporters. Zimbabwe has had no Cabinet since the March presidential election, during which no candidate won enough votes to avoid a runoff, according to the government. After opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from a June runoff, saying Mugabe's supporters had waged a campaign of violence against opposition supporters, Tsvangirai and Mugabe reached a power-sharing agreement that has yet to be implemented. The political impasse has aggravated the country's humanitarian and economic crisis, including a cholera outbreak that began in August. Frazer said that during her trip, she consulted with the leaders of Zimbabwe's neighbors who are stuck between their concerns about Mugabe's grip on power and their support of the power-sharing agreement, which they still think is the best way to deal with the crisis without creating a backlash. Frazer said she believes it could be weeks before African leaders put pressure on Mugabe to step down, which she said could be achieved by simply telling him with one voice that he should go. She said the U.N. Security Council will deal with the issue of Zimbabwe next month. This time, she said, South Africa will not be able to block resolutions calling for more sanctions because South Africa will no longer hold a seat on the council in 2009. Watch what options the international community has in Zimbabwe . \"The South African government will be held responsible for what is happening in Zimbabwe because they are the country with the most influence in Zimbabwe than any other in the world,\" Frazer said. The Security Council's recent failure to impose sanctions on Mugabe's regime drew scoffs from the 84-year-old Mugabe, who has accused Britain -- Zimbabwe's former colonizer -- of trying to take over the country to get its resources. Tsvangirai said Friday that his party will withdraw from efforts to form a unity government unless 42 party members who have been kidnapped are either released or brought to court to face formal charges by New Year's Day. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change, led by Tsvangirai, have failed to implement the September 15 power-sharing deal because they cannot agree on who should control key ministries. Under the deal, brokered by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, Mugabe would remain president while Tsvangirai would become Zimbabwe's prime minister. There had been hope that a unity government would reverse Mugabe's policies, which are widely blamed for the country's economic crisis. Mugabe blames economic sanctions imposed by Western nations for Zimbabwe's economic collapse. Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa, is now a net importer of food and facing acute shortages of most essentials such as fuel, electricity and medical drugs. Its inflation rate -- the highest in the world -- is officially at 231 million percent. Last week, Zimbabwe's central bank introduced a $10 billion note worth less than 20 U.S. dollars. Mugabe has repeatedly refused calls from Western leaders to step down, most recently telling his supporters late Saturday that he would not follow the U.S. president to his \"political death.\" \"They now want to topple the Mugabe government. Mugabe must go because Bush is going,\" he said in his address Saturday to his party's 10th annual conference outside Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. \"Zimbabweans will refuse that one of their sons must accompany Bush to his political death,\" Mugabe said. \"Is it a ritual now that Bush with his political death must be accompanied by some African from Zimbabwe, and that African must be the leader himself, and that leader is Mugabe?\" Mugabe did not mention the cholera epidemic, which his government has said is under control despite the United Nations' assessment that half the country's population may be at risk. There are more than 20,000 suspected cases of the water-borne disease in Zimbabwe, and the U.N. said it fears that number will triple by the time the rainy season ends in April. In addition to Bush, the leaders of Britain, France and several African countries have called on Mugabe to abandon power and let a national unity government take over to help prevent the cholera epidemic from spilling across Zimbabwe's borders." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "U.S. diplomat: Zimbabwe power-share deal can't work with President Robert Mugabe .\nPower-share deal is stalled because of dispute over control of ministries .\nZimbabwe faces cholera epidemic, economic crisis .\nMugabe has resisted international calls for him to step down ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Ted Turner appeared Tuesday on CNN, the network he founded, to talk about last week's election results, his business ventures, and his relationship with ex-wife Jane Fonda. CNN founder Ted Turner tells the network he's \"encouraged\" by the results of last week's election. Turner is promoting a new autobiography, \"Call Me Ted\" (Warner Books), which documents his life, loves, successes and failures. Probably best known for his 1980 launch of CNN, the first 24-hour all-news cable network, Turner has also made news as a philanthropist and supporter of the United Nations. He won the America's Cup of yachting in 1977, and owned the Atlanta Braves when they won the World Series in 1995. Turner discussed the book on CNN's \"American Morning.\" The following is an edited transcript. CNN: Let me ask you first of all, before we get involved in the actual book and the story of your life: What do you make of the results of this presidential election? Ted Turner: Well, I'm encouraged. I think we needed change that we can believe in. Watch Turner talk about his relationship with ex-wife Jane Fonda » . CNN: Is [President-elect Barack Obama] the guy to pull this economy? Turner: Well, I don't know. I mean, our country in my lifetime has never been in this shape before. So we'll have to see. I think we are really heading into uncharted territory. But I think the main problem is, I hope he doesn't get blamed if things get tough -- because I think they are going to. CNN: [Obama] seems to be talking about a lot more government involvement in the business community going forward, more government money for an auto industry bailout, another economic stimulus package. As a person who pulled [himself] up in the business community from his bootstraps, is that the way to do it, with more government involvement? Turner: Well, I don't think so. It was a struggle financing CNN, but I did it without ever asking the government for a nickel. In fact, I gave the government $32 million when they were a little short and couldn't pay the dues to the U.N. CNN: A lot of people in this economic community losing an awful lot of money, something you know something about. Turner: I've lost a lot, too. We all have. CNN: You lost $7 billion when the dot-com bubble burst after the Time Warner-AOL merger. How did you not see the dot-com bubble bursting? How did you not see that that was all built on air? Turner: Maybe I did, but I was on a board of directors and a founder, and I was concerned about the AOL merger, but we didn't know that the books were cooked. We didn't do enough due diligence. CNN: Was that the worst business decision of your life? Turner: Oh yeah. Absolutely. CNN: If you could go back and do it again, would you have just completely called the whole thing off? Turner: Well, I couldn't have. At the time, there was so much momentum to do the deal, everybody was for it -- all of Wall Street and the management of both companies. And I wouldn't -- we could have stopped it if we had known of the accounting irregularities. But we didn't know. So there was no way to stop it. CNN: At about the same time, you were hemorrhaging money at the rate of about $10 million a day over the course of more than two years, your marriage to Jane Fonda broke up. And many people close to you were concerned -- because your father, who passed off his billboard business to you, committed suicide -- that you may follow him down that road. Turner: I wouldn't do that to my children and grandchildren. CNN: But they were concerned about it. Turner: Well, they might have been concerned about it, but there was no reason to be. CNN: You went through counseling, though, to try to come back. What was that road like? Turner: What, counseling? I've been in all kinds of counseling. I believe in doctors. Where I really spent the time was in couples and marriage counseling. It helped some. I was married for 10 years one time and 18 another. CNN: ... Jane Fonda has said, and said in the \"60 Minutes\" interview that aired over the weekend, that she still loves you. Is there-- . Turner: She didn't say that. CNN: Well, she says that she would be at your side in a blue minute. Turner: If I needed her. CNN: I would assume that somebody wouldn't do that unless they love you. Turner: It was nice of her to do. CNN: Any chance for a reconciliation? Turner: I don't think so, but you never know. CNN: What would it take? Turner: I don't know. More than a television interview. CNN: Have you thought about picking up the phone? Turner: No. I talk to her all the time. ... CNN: She said that -- this is a quote from the interview -- she said, \"It's impossible to really be with Ted the way he needs someone to be with him and have any kind of life of your own.\" Are you tough to live with? Turner: I travel a lot. I'm on the move. CNN: You don't like to be alone? Turner: No. CNN: Why are you on the move so much? Turner: I don't know. I just got in the habit of it because that's how you get a lot done. Going from here to Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia to Atlanta, and Atlanta to Chicago, and Chicago to Los Angeles. When you are promoting a book, you really move. CNN: I know you've got to move around a lot. But some people have observed that when you are chased by demons, you have to move around a lot to stay out in front of them. Turner: Well, I'm not chased by demons. I feel pretty good. CNN: Why would people say that? Turner: I don't know. That I'm chased by demons? I don't know. They don't know. The only person who knows about demons is me. CNN: It's been a while since you have been involved with CNN. When you look -- . Turner: No, I'm involved every day, because I watch it just about every day. CNN: Involved in terms of the business aspect. Turner: That's OK, but viewers have got a lot of rights, too. ... [If] you don't have viewers, you don't have a business. CNN: ... When you come here and see how it's grown up, you see the international aspect of it, you see that on Election Night, CNN -- Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Campbell Brown, John King -- . Turner: They did a good job. CNN: They beat the networks. What do you think what you see that? Turner: I think it's great. CNN: This is the little entity that you started out of nothing. Turner: It's not so little. And it wasn't when we merged with Time Warner, either. Was the world's most important network. CNN: So what's next for you, if anything, at 70 years old? Turner: Well, I'm still promoting the book. It just came out two days ago. So that's a lot of work. CNN: ... [The book describes your] getting stuck on a sandbar, getting caught in a storm, almost dying off the coast of Cape Hatteras. ... How did you go from being a sailor that got stuck on the reef and almost died to somebody who managed to win the America's Cup on the Courageous?. Turner: Well, the same way in baseball, [the Atlanta Braves] set a record for consecutive last-place finishes in divisional play in baseball. First four years, we finished last, four years in a row. But I stuck with it and after 18 years, we won the World Series. And that's what I did with sailing. CNN: Just stick to it? Turner: Yeah. [I] stuck to it. And I wasn't losing -- I was just learning how to win." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Ted Turner says he's \"encouraged\" by election of Barack Obama as president .\nThe CNN founder expects tough economic times ahead .\nTurner: Reconciliation with ex-wife Jane Fonda unlikely, \"but you never know\"\nTime Warner didn't do enough \"due diligence\" before merging with AOL, Turner says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Churches can stop a shooter or anyone else intent on harming church members with the proper security measures in place, an expert on protecting places of worship said Monday. Police say the attacker walked into First Baptist Church of Maryville, Illinois, on Sunday and began firing. \"A church is not helpless when they have a plan, and properly trained security,\" said Jeff Hawkins, the executive director of the Christian Security Network. First Baptist Church in Maryville, Illinois, had a security plan in place when a gunman walked into services Sunday morning and killed Pastor Fred Winters, said Tim Lawson, another pastor at the church. Lawson told CNN he was not prepared to disclose details of his church's security plan on Monday. But Maryville police Chief Rich Schardam said Winters was keenly aware of the security issues, had sought out police advice and had identified police and medical personnel in the congregation who could help in an emergency. \"They did have plans on what to do,\" Schardam said Monday. Schardam said neither of the men who subdued the gunman had a law enforcement background. \"Those parishioners were just real-life heroes,\" Pastor Lawson said. See how gunman killed Illinois pastor » . Schardam said the suspect in Sunday's shooting, 27-year-old Terry J. Sedlacek, had no known relationship to the church or Winters, and random attacks are impossible to anticipate. Hawkins called the Illinois killing \"tragic,\" but he said in the year or so since the Christian Security Network has been actively training churches, numerous other tragedies have been averted. \"These incidents aren't going to make the news,\" said Hawkins. \"But they are happening everywhere, big city or small town.\" Hundreds of church leaders have told him about all kinds of attacks they have recently faced, from arsons and burglaries to assaults on members and church leaders. In the first two months of 2009, churches have described more than 140 acts of violence to the Network, he said. In one incident, congregants noticed a person dressed inappropriately for the weather and acting odd. The man was taken outside and questioned. Under his coat, he had two machetes strapped to his back. \"He said that he had been hearing the devil speaking to him, telling him to cut the pastor's head off,\" Hawkins said. \"There was no struggle, and everything was calm. The man was removed.\" Hawkins combined his professional security background with his experience working in a Christian ministry in founding Christian Security Network last year, not long after a gunman killed two people and wounded seven in a Knoxville, Tennessee, church. The shooter attacked children who were performing a musical in front of the congregation. Violent crime in churches is not tracked, Hawkins said. \"The church is really behind in secular world in terms of planning,\" he said. Browse a U.S. map of other recent church shootings » . It's essential that a church must balance having a security presence while still keeping a house of worship open to everyone, he said. \"Some churches choose armed guards, some have a much more subtle security presence where you wouldn't even know it's there.\" A church should have five security plans in place to deal with evacuation, long-term shelter, medical emergencies, lost or missing children and violent confrontations, he said. \"Every church is different so you need something that is going to work for that particular church's culture and size,\" he said. \"And I think now, especially after September 11, people want to feel secure. They want to know if they bring their family somewhere, it's going to be a safe environment. \"Everyone should approach this realistically and not say, 'This couldn't happen here in church,' because we see it happen all the time.\" Dale Annis, founder of Church Security Services, a consulting company that advises houses of worship on security strategies, told CNN in November that his business has been growing for five years. \"You have to take some of the incentive yourself. I don't think you walk down dark alleys in bad parts of town and say 'God will protect me,' \" said Annis, who is also in charge of security at his parish, the Olive Drive Church in Bakersfield, California. In states where laws allow people to carry concealed weapons, volunteers have become a cost-effective means of providing security, Annis said. A bill that would have allowed concealed weapons in Arkansas churches failed to get out of a state Senate committee last month. Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, has a volunteer security force consisting of at least one armed guard during any given worship service. \"We realized that, as the largest Baptist church in Kentucky, we'd be a little naive to think something would never happen to us,\" Highview Pastor Randy Record, who is also a police officer, told CNN last year. \"We're catching up in an era of terrorism and a church is no different.\" CNN's Ashley Fantz, Emanuella Grinberg and Brad Lendon contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: Slain pastor discussed security plans with police, chief says .\nNEW: Attack on Illinois pastor appeared to be random, police chief says .\nPastor gunned down at Illinois church on Sunday .\nNumerous tragedies averted by security planning, one expert says ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "NEW YORK (CNN) -- In a dramatic reversal, the Florida state attorney's office announced Monday it will seek the death penalty against Casey Anthony, the 23-year-old woman charged in the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee. Casey Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of her daughter Caylee, 2, Trial is set for October. The state had previously said it would not ask for the death sentence for Anthony. The development could have a major impact on how the case plays out at trial, including whether defense attorney Jose Baez can stay on the case. Baez has not been certified by the court to defend capital punishment cases. Prosecutors announced their change in strategy in a letter of intent. Read the letter of intent (pdf) Meanwhile, Anthony's defense filed a motion on Friday with Orange County Circuit Court, seeking more phone records from a dozen people involved in the case. The motion asks for any and all records for \"phone calls, text messages, P2P communications, Internet usage, WAP usage, and cell tower pings.\" The defense wants records from the defendant's parents, George and Cindy Anthony; her former fiancé, Jesse Grund; her brother, Lee Anthony; a friend, Amy Huizenga; and Roy Kronk, the meter reader who found Caylee's remains in December of last year. Kronk had called authorities as early as last August to report he had seen a suspicious bag in the area. Other names on the list include several former boyfriends, two private investigators, a volunteer searcher and Richard Cain, an Orange County Sheriff's deputy. Cain was fired after an internal investigation found he failed to respond to repeated calls from Kronk about the suspicious bag. Cain has refused to leave the job and is awaiting an appeal. \"Various cell phone service providers are in possession of certain items which are material to the preparation of the defense in this cause,'' the motion says, adding, ''the items sought by this application cannot be obtained through normal discovery.\" The motion says the release of these records could lead to admissible evidence in Anthony's trial, which is set to begin in October. Anthony is charged with first-degree murder of Caylee, whose remains were found in woods near her grandparents' home in Orlando." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Florida's turnaround could have a major impact on how the case plays out .\nCasey Anthony's defense filed motion for more phone records from a dozen people .\nMotion asks for all \"phone calls, text messages\" of those associated with case ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Sri Lankan officials rejected a proposed cease-fire from the Tamil Tiger rebels Sunday, warning instead that government troops intended to continue a new offensive until the group surrenders, a senior government official said. Tamil demonstrators call for a cease-fire in Sri Lanka during a rally Saturday in Paris, France. \"The government is firm that (the rebels) lay down their arms and surrender. We do not recognize this so-called offer,\" said Lakshman Hulugalle, director of Sri Lanka's Media Center for National Security. The proposed cease-fire came six days after the Sri Lankan army launched a new offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) in the country's northern area. Government troops made significant advances into rebel-held territory on Friday and Saturday, according to Sri Lankan Army sources. A government-imposed deadline for the Tigers to surrender passed last Tuesday. Tens of thousands of displaced civilians currently remain wedged in a dwindling swath of territory controlled by the Tigers along the country's northeastern coast. Government troops say they have rescued 39,000 civilians trapped in the area, but a U.N. refugee agency said Friday that a wave of \"fresh displacement\" has now exceeded 100,000 individuals. \"In the face of an unprecedented humanitarian crisis and in response to the calls made by the U.N., EU, the governments of the USA, India and others, the (LTTE) has announced an unilateral cease-fire. All of LTTE's offensive military operations will cease with immediate effect,\" the rebel leaders said in a written statement issued earlier Sunday. \"We welcome the attempts by the U.N. and its agencies to assist the civilian population and are ready to engage and cooperate with them to address the humanitarian needs of the population. ... We are in full agreement that the humanitarian crisis can only be overcome by declaration of an immediate cease-fire.\" The Tiger leadership asked the international community to \"pressure the Sri Lankan government to reciprocate\" on the cease-fire offer. The Tigers have been fighting for an independent state in Sri Lanka's northeast since 1983. As many as 70,000 people have been killed since the civil war began, and the group has been declared a terrorist organization by 32 countries, including the United States and the European Union." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Government says it will continue offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels .\nRebels control a dwindling swath of north Sri Lanka .\nU.N. agency says 100,000 refugees have fled fighting ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "CNN -- When Maria Rubeo closed her arm, she felt something \"very big -- like a lemon.\" Although Hispanic women have a lower incidence rate for breast cancer, they often get the diagnosis at later stages. Her doctor said the lump in her breast was nothing, so Rubeo, who didn't have health insurance, didn't seek a second opinion. With two jobs and two kids, she was busy and didn't go to the doctor's office for another year. During her next visit, with a different doctor, Rubeo learned she had breast cancer -- and the tumor had been there for a while. Her story may not be particularly rare. Research suggests that breast cancer may be harder to treat in Hispanic women because they wait longer to receive care. Women in the fastest-growing minority group in the United States face issues such as language and cultural barriers, lifestyle choices and lack of insurance that could affect their health and medical care, according to research released Wednesday at the Science of Cancer Health Disparities Conference. Like Rubeo, about half of women in a study of 230 Mexican-American breast cancer patients in Arizona and Texas noticed changes in their breasts, but waited more than a month to seek medical attention, according to research presented at the conference hosted by the American Association for Cancer Research. \"We asked what the reasons were,\" said Rachel Zenuk, a graduate student at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, who spoke about the study. \"A third cited they didn't have insurance or were unable to afford medical care. Or they thought it was not important to report the medical finding to a professional.\" Other factors included fear of the results and difficulty scheduling an appointment, she said. More than a decade after her mastectomy, Rubeo urges Hispanic women in the San Francisco, California, Bay area not to wait after seeing changes in their breasts. \"I explain: Take time for you to see the doctor,\" she said. \"[Some women] don't have insurance, don't speak English, it's very difficult.\" Hispanics are the largest U.S. minority group, constituting 14 percent of the nation's total population. While Hispanic women have a lower incidence rate for breast cancer than whites, blacks and Asians, they have a less favorable prognosis because of delayed treatment. \"They're not getting more breast cancer than other women, but they're less likely to survive as long,\" said Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, a member of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's National Health Advisory Council and chairwoman of the Komen Foundation National Hispanic/Latino Advisory Council. \"The reason is they're diagnosed at a later stage of the cancer.\" \"We're seeing them at later stages, so the cancer is more advanced. Their five-year survival rates are lower than non-Hispanic whites,\" Ramirez said. Data also showed that about two-thirds of breast cancer cases in the 230 Mexican-American women were found through self-detection, which suggests that the women were not receiving routine mammogram or exams. Rubeo said that when she first noticed the lump, she \"had no time for me to take care of myself. Only work, work, running, no time to eat. Sometimes you forget yourself, so there's time for everybody and not enough for yourself.\" At the Latina Breast Cancer Agency in San Francisco, she tells other women how she didn't take care of herself while working two jobs, 16 hours a day. \"I explain to the ladies my experience. Sometimes they cry and say it's true,\" Rubeo said. She now runs support groups for breast cancer patients, talking about health screenings, accompanying women to the hospital and helping them with paperwork. Aside from the pressures of being a busy, working mother, there are language and cultural barriers for Latina women. \"For women we work with, our focus is breast health,\" said Olivia Fé, founder and executive director of the Latina Breast Cancer Agency. \"Within Latino culture, within family, the husband doesn't want the wife to see a male doctor. ... That is a big deal.\" The group partnered with public hospitals in San Francisco and San Mateo counties and made sure the medical staff who work with Hispanic breast cancer patients are female and speak Spanish. Hispanic women don't take advantage of the free breast health screenings, because there's a lack of awareness, Fé said. Many women speak only Spanish, so prevention messages in English don't get through. Research showed that the women with more education and exposure to English-language media, such as television and radio, were more likely to have had a mammogram. Ramirez said there are now public service announcements in Spanish that target Hispanic women of all ages, so the younger ones will know the importance of family history and the older ones will become informed about the importance of mammograms. The Komen Foundation funds local efforts to increase enrollment of Hispanic women in clinical trials, provide medical interpretive and transportation services, and have Spanish peer support for 24-hour breast cancer hotlines. Lifestyle choices have an important role in breast cancer development, said Esther John, a research scientist and epidemiologist at the Northern California Cancer Center. One study that examined 2,533 Hispanic women found that the women born in foreign countries had 50 percent less risk of developing breast cancer than women born in the United States. This San Francisco Bay Area Breast Cancer Study compared the known breast cancer risks such as obesity, use of hormones, alcohol consumption, fat intake and lack of physical activity between the two groups and found women born in the United States had greater risk. \"The pattern suggests that when Hispanic women move to the U.S., there are important changes from the traditional lifestyle to the Americanized lifestyle,\" John said. \"There are lifestyle factors that increase risks of breast cancer.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hispanic women learn of breast cancer at later stages, research shows .\nLanguage, cultural barriers and lack of insurance may impede medical care .\nOther factors include fear of results and difficulty scheduling an appointment ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "CHONGQING, China (CNN) -- Anna He is like a lot of kids about to turn 10. She plays with her brother, fights with her sister, practices piano, hates vegetables and is adapting to her new life -- adapting, because even though she's Chinese, this little girl seems far from happy about living in China. Anna He, 9, finds it hard to adjust to life after she was returned to her biological parents, Jack and Casey He. \"I always hate staying in China,\" she says. \"It's one of the worst places I have ever been. When I first went to the big city, there was so [much] pollution and so [it] always makes me feel bad. I also don't like the smell.\" Her new life in China began after the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled last year that Anna should be returned to her biological parents, Jack and Casey He, known in China as He Shaoqiang and Qin Luo respectively. The decision ended a six-year custody battle. Anna was born prematurely while her parents were in Memphis, Tennessee, on temporary work visas. Unable to cope financially, they decided to give her up temporarily until they were able to get back on their feet. That's when Jerry and Louise Baker stepped in and agreed to take temporary custody of Anna, when she was 4 weeks old. The Bakers said they made a verbal agreement with the Hes to take care of Anna until she was 18. But the Hes dispute that. They wanted their daughter back soon after her first birthday and eventually went to court to have their parental rights restored. After a bitter legal battle, the Hes finally prevailed and Anna was returned to her parents. Anna was given a six-month transition period to adjust to her biological family before the Hes left the United States. Now back in China, Anna is still finding it hard to adjust. Her biological parents have separated since returning to their homeland. Casey He relocated her family from Changsha, China, to Chongqing -- a sprawling mega-city on the banks of the Yangtze River with a population of 32 million. Like most of China's big cities, it's heavily polluted. During the winter, the sun rarely breaks through the heavy brown smog. Jack He says the marriage is over. Casey He appears shaken when asked about her husband and why she packed up and left, with Anna and her younger brother and sister -- Andy, 8, and Avita, 6. \"A lot of things were not what I intended and not what I had hoped,\" said Casey He. She said she would talk about why she left \"one day when the kids are bigger.\" Jack He says the couple disagreed over how they should raise their children. He has limited contact with his family; Anna has seen him only once in the past two months but says she doesn't miss him. Asked why, she said, \"I don't know. It's just a feeling in me.\" Now a single mother, Casey has enrolled all three children in a boarding school during the week. A tough decision, she says, but necessary -- especially for Anna, who was a straight-A student in the U.S. but now struggles because she can't speak Chinese. \"I know American people say I am bad, I take the kids to school, this is not good. But in China, the Chinese people don't think so. They study very hard,\" Casey He said. She lives with her children in a small, two-bedroom apartment; it's clean and sparsely furnished. Casey bought a new piano for Anna and Avita, who are both taking lessons. The apartment and school are both paid for by Casey He's brother, a wealthy businessman. Life is difficult, she says, but she has no doubt that despite Anna's struggle to fit in, the little girl is still better off with her in China rather than living in Memphis with the Bakers. \"In China one single mother take three kids -- for me, it is very hard. But I love my kids, mother's love from my heart,\" said Casey He. \"I can take care of the kids. Give them better life.\" Since her parents split, Anna has re-established regular contact with the Bakers, who call every Saturday. But after more than a year with her biological family, Anna is still unsure of where she would rather be -- with her mom or the Bakers. \"I cannot pick anyone. I would die if I would pick one,\" she said." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Anna He was taken in by Tennessee couple during her parents' financial hardship .\nIn 2007, Tennessee Supreme Court ruled she should return to biological parents .\nParents Jack and Casey He separated; Anna still adjusting to life with mom, siblings .\n\"I cannot pick anyone,\" says 9-year-old Anna about her 2 sets of parents ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- There are few cities in the world blessed with a more beautiful setting than Seattle. It is surrounded by rugged green wilderness; to the west the Olympic Mountains, to the east the volcanoes and glaciers of the Cascade Range, and all around the brisk waters of the Northwest. The Space Needle dominates the Seattle skyline. Over the years, Seattle has inspired a number of nicknames. It's not hard to understand why some refer to it as \"Rain City,\" but visit when the sun is shining, when lakes Union and Washington are sparkling under a blue sky and majestic Mount Rainier is visible in the distance, and you'll realize that \"Emerald City\" is the most appropriate of its monikers. Seattle started out as a logging town, grew as a stop-off point for gold prospectors at the end of the 19th century, and earned another nickname, \"Jet City\", when plane manufacturer Boeing rose to prominence in the 1950s and 60s. At the height of its powers, Boeing employed some 100,000 locals and the Jet City remained a solidly working-class town until the 80s, when local startup Microsoft started making a name for itself. As Microsoft grew into the behemoth it is today, other tech firms such as Amazon.com and Nintendo were drawn to the city, bringing with them a wave of young, educated and affluent workers. Seattle began to shake off its blue-collar roots and in recent years its cultural credentials have been boosted by the addition of the Olympic Sculpture Park and a showpiece public library, while the acclaimed Seattle Symphony, Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet have all moved into impressive new buildings in the last decade. Some resent Seattle's gentrification, bemoaning the near-gridlocked traffic and arguing that the city's most interesting neighborhoods have lost their individuality to the property developers. But if you spend some time in neighborhoods like Capitol Hill or Fremont, the self-proclaimed \"Center of the Universe,\" you'll find there's still plenty of the native free spirit in evidence. It was that free spirit that gave birth to Grunge, the post-punk guitar noise that came out of the city in the early 90s, when local bands Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nirvana became international stars. Now Grunge is just a memory, but in popular culture it remains as much of a symbol of the city as the Space Needle, the persistent drizzle and the excellent, ubiquitous, coffee shops. Despite its rapid growth, Seattle has kept its trees and parks and many areas maintain an almost suburban feel. The city and its residents are laidback and liberal, and that famous free spirit is as at home in the great outdoors as in Seattle's boho neighborhoods. As a modern, civilized outpost among outstanding natural spectacle, the place once known as the \"Queen City of the Northwest\" still reigns supreme." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Seattle has been known as \"Jet City,\" \"Rain City,\" and \"The Emerald City\"\nIt has a great location, surrounded by mountains, lakes and fantastic scenery .\nThe city boasts a symphony orchestra, and ballet and opera companies ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "Editor's note: Hank Sheinkopf, a CNN contributor, is a longtime political consultant who was a member of the media team for President Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign. Sheinkopf was a media consultant for Eliot Spitzer's campaign for New York attorney general in 1998 and has represented candidates around the country and the world. He represented Rep. Steve Israel, a Democrat whose name has been mentioned for the New York senate seat, in 2000, but hasn't had a business relationship with him since. Sheinkopf, who also represents corporate clients, does not represent any of the other politicians whose names have been mentioned for the Senate seat. For a rival view, read here. Hank Sheinkopf says Caroline Kennedy hasn't earned the nod for a Senate seat from New York. NEW YORK (CNN) -- Judging by the screaming newspaper headlines and the steamy ecstasy of the gossip columns, people from other worlds might presume that it has already come to pass: that a woman who happens to be named Caroline Kennedy was pole-vaulted above the crowd and sent with magic wand and golden slippers to the U.S. Senate from New York, in the hope of saving the Empire State and bringing goodness to all its inhabitants. After all, why shouldn't she be sent to the Senate? Her unique experience of writing a book or two, smiling well, appearing from time to time -- but not too often -- at city mayoral news conferences announcing help for those who attend New York City public schools -- and, well, just being a Kennedy -- should suffice. Her social standing alone, some might argue, would give her the advantage of all advantages. A Kennedy. Camelot. Ah! The greatness of it all? Not. The man who has to make the decision whether or not New York is to be so vaunted in representation is Gov. David Paterson, the former lieutenant governor who had the fortune of replacing morally triangulated Gov. Eliot Spitzer after Spitzer's resignation in the face of a publicly humiliating sex scandal. Paterson will have to face the voters in 2010. So will his pick to fill the seat that will be left vacant after Hillary Clinton is confirmed as secretary of state in early 2009. The governor's poll numbers suggest that voters like him. Paterson has taken a tack much unexpected by challenging all to tighten belts, cut spending, pay more fees to the state and get rid of waste after Wall Street's collapse and the subsequent free fall in tax collections from the financial services business. Paterson could have a tough time. Voters don't like losing money, they hate losing services, and all the earnest explanations about fighting the good fight together won't put better food on the table or pay the bills. He needs someone who can help him win, and he needs someone who can win. He and the senator he chooses will both face the voters together. With that in mind, is Caroline Kennedy the correct choice? On the issues of the day, Kennedy has been mighty silent. Financial cretins stealing for fun, profit and because they can? Not a word. The wars? Syllable-less. Millions of humans evaporated in Africa's inner madness? Quiet and silent. The auto bailout? Nada. The printing of a trillion soon-to-be inflated dollars that will further sap our savings? On such matters, Kennedy remains absolutely silent. What about the destruction of the economy of western New York? Does she know that there is a deeply pained world beyond the Westchester County border just a bit north of New York City that benefited little from some fairy-tale place called Camelot and less from well-orchestrated and timed public relations campaigns afforded only by the rich? Why should Caroline Kennedy be named a U.S. senator? Is it because merit no longer matters? Surely, Kennedy offers the dazzle of an unmistakable surname and the kind of celebrity appeal that seems to follow members of the New York social elite. But for the white ethnics who gave their vote to Democrats on the promise of fairness and merit, Kennedy's star quality may not suffice. The simple fact is that if the governor passes on other options -- candidates, many of whom serve in Congress and have earned their right to represent New York -- then he does so at his own risk. In 1964, Robert Kennedy wanted then-Sen. Kenneth Keating's job so badly that he ran for office. President Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory in New York helped Kennedy win the election, but not before the challenger ran a campaign that made its appeal to voters and proved worthy. His niece has done neither. If Kennedy wants to be New York's junior senator, she should stand in line and run for office in 2010. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Hank Sheinkopf." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Hank Sheinkopf: Some treating Caroline Kennedy's Senate bid as a done deal .\nHe says Kennedy hasn't been vocal on many of the key issues we face .\nSheinkopf: What qualifies Kennedy to be given priority for the vacant seat?\nHe says Gov. Paterson has to worry about facing voters in 2010 ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- A Polish court has ordered the detention of a man accused of holding his daughter captive for six years and repeatedly raping her, ultimately fathering two children with her. The accusations recall the case of Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter captive for 24 years and fathered seven children. The man, whose name was not released, was arrested Monday, Polish national police said in a statement. The court on Tuesday ordered him jailed for three months pending a trial. The charges against him were not immediately known. Police said they arrested the man at the train station in Siedlce, a town between Warsaw and the border with Belarus. Police said they believed he was trying to escape abroad. The investigation began last week when the man's 21-year-old daughter approached police in Siemiatycze, in eastern Poland, accompanied by her mother, police said. The daughter spent several hours talking with a policewoman, detailing her alleged ordeal over the past six years, police said. She described living through a \"hell\" that involved rape, beatings, and being kept as a slave, police said. In 2005, the woman said, she gave birth to a boy at a hospital in Wroclaw, in southwestern Poland, police said. Two years later, in 2007, she gave birth to a boy at a hospital in Siemiatycze, in eastern Poland, also near the border with Belarus, police said. Both times, the woman told police, she left the baby in the hospital, a common practice in Poland when the mother wants to give her children up for adoption, police said. Police did not say how the daughter managed to escape her alleged ordeal or whether the mother was aware of what had gone on. Police themselves acknowledged many facts were still unclear. \"There are still a lot of questions to which answers have to be found,\" the statement from the national police said. The case has drawn comparisons to the shocking incest case in Austria in which Josef Fritzl is accused of holding his daughter captive in an underground network of tiny rooms for 24 years. Fritzl repeatedly raped his daughter, Elisabeth, and fathered seven children with her, six of whom survived. All of the children were born in captivity. That case became public when Elisabeth's oldest child, 19-year-old Kerstin, became ill and fell unconscious in April. Elisabeth persuaded her father to let her bring Kerstin to a hospital, where staff grew suspicious and called police, who opened an investigation and uncovered the abuse. Kerstin and her family are now recovering and slowly adapting to modern life, Austrian authorities have said. CNN's Diana Magnay in Berlin and Antonia Mortensen in London contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Daughter accuses Polish man of holding her captive 6 years, fathering 2 sons .\nPolice detained 45-year-old man in eastern city of Siedlce .\nOfficers to conduct tests on boys to determine if the man is their father .\nRecalls case of Austria's Josef Fritzl, accused of holding daughter for 24 years ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- More than just the quintessential Seattle shopping experience, Pike Place Market is a tourist attraction in its own right. This historic farmers market is the place to pick up all manner of fresh local produce, as well as handmade crafts, jewelry, antiques and paintings. Keep your camera handy to snap the colorful floral displays and the fishmongers tossing whole salmon to each other. Flying fish at Pike Place Market. If Pike Place whets your appetite for fresh produce, check out the Ballard Sunday Farmers Market (5330 Ballard Avenue, Sundays) for delicious farm-fresh goodies. Another great Sunday market is the weekly Fremont Flea Market (400 N 34th Street), a cornucopia of used, vintage and antique goods. For the avid antiques hunter the underground Pioneer Square Antiques Mall (602 First Avenue) has more than 60 stalls. If you prefer big brand names you'll want to head downtown, where you'll find the likes of Banana Republic (500 Pike Street) and a colossal Nike Town (1500 6th Avenue). Downtown is also home to Macy's (1601 Third Avenue), still known to locals as \"The Bon\" from its former incarnation as Bon Marché. Macy's can be good for a bargain, but the city's best department store is the flagship Nordstrom (500 Pine Street), famed for it exemplary customer service. For something more cutting edge, Capitol Hill and Belltown are full of funky boutiques and vintage clothing stores. Crossroads Trading Company (325 Broadway Avenue E and 4300 University Way) is a good option for second-hand threads, while sneaker freaks will find that Gems (615 Western Avenue) is a treasure trove of fancy footwear. Bibliophiles will love Seattle for its numerous independent books stores. Set aside a couple of hours to visit the Elliot Bay Book Company (101 South Main Street), a vast space crammed full of new and used books. It boasts an excellent selection of titles about the region, a pleasant café and readings or signings almost every night. University Bookstore (4326 University Way) has a huge selection, while Fremont Place Books (621 N 35th Street) is a cozy little place with an interesting range of titles. If you're planning an expedition into the beautiful wilderness around Seattle, you can get kitted out at the flagship REI (222 Yale Avenue N). There's everything you'll need for hiking, biking, rock climbing and skiing, and you can even hire stuff, so you won't have to drag it all back home with you. Bamboozle your friends by getting them an eccentric souvenir from Archie McPhee (2428 NW Market Street). Of course, eccentric is a relative term, but squirrel underpants (which, apparently, are also suitable for hamsters, frogs and gerbils) and inflatable fruitcakes should qualify as eccentric by most standards. If you plan to visit this bazaar of the bizarre you should note that Archie's is set to move to the corner of North 45th Street and Stone Way North, in Wallingford, some time next year. Where to stay | What to see | Where to be seen | Where to eat | Where to shop | . ...................... Do you agree with our Seattle picks? Send us your comments and suggestions in the \"Sound Off\" box below and we'll print the best." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "You have to visit Pike Place Market, a fantastic, historic farmers market .\nDowntown is the place for chain stores; Capitol Hill is great for boutiques .\nSeattle is full of independent bookshops -- Elliot Bay Bookstore is the best .\nArchie McPhee is a bizarre store where you can buy some quirky souvenirs ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Authorities arrested two high school students in suburban Atlanta on Thursday after they were warned that one of the students planned to \"do harm\" at the school with a weapon, police said. Several schools in Woodstock, Gerogia, were on lockdown after authorities found a gun in a bathroom ceiling. Sgt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office said Woodstock Middle School, Woodstock High School and Etowah High School were put on lockdown -- meaning no one could enter or leave the buildings -- after authorities learned of the threat. Police arrested Forrest Busby, 17, at Woodstock High School and found a revolver he is said to have brought to school and hid in the bathroom ceiling, authorities said. A subsequent search of Busby's home turned up an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a Mini-14 assault rifle, as well as 200 rounds of ammunition, Baker said in a statement. Six marijuana plants were discovered in the student's closet. A 15-year-old student was also arrested in connection with the incident, the statement said. Baker said another student is being interviewed by authorities but has not been charged in the case. Busby has been charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds, carrying a concealed weapon and manufacturing and distributing a controlled substance, among other counts. He's being held without bail at the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center, the sheriff's statement said. The 15-year-old has been charged as an accomplice on various weapons violations and is being held at the Paulding Youth Detention Center. The lockdown orders for the schools were lifted after the weapons were recovered, Baker said. Woodstock is about 30 miles north of downtown Atlanta." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Teen planned to \"do harm\" at school outside Atlanta, Georgia, tipster said .\nPolice find gun in bathroom ceiling, arrest 17- and 15-year-old .\nOther weapons, marijuana found at teen's home ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- After a long apprenticeship, it's been an astonishingly fast rise for R&B singer Jazmine Sullivan. Jazmine Sullivan is up for five Grammys next month, including best new artist. Before she was in her teens, Sullivan sang on \"It's Showtime at the Apollo.\" At 13, she met Stevie Wonder. Soon she was performing regularly at the jam sessions called Black Lily in her hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She went to that city's performing arts high school and was signed to a contract by Jive Records, where she was paired with producers such as Timbaland and Cool & Dre. It didn't work out -- then. But soon, Sullivan signed with Clive Davis' J Records, and suddenly she was everywhere. Her debut single, \"Need U Bad,\" hit No. 1 on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop chart, and her album \"Fearless\" hit the Top 10 on Billboard's album chart. Now she's up for five Grammys on February 8, including best R&B performance (for \"Bust Your Windows\") and best new artist. CNN's KJ Matthews talked with Sullivan about her inspirations, who she's bringing to the Grammys and the mysterious person behind \"Bust Your Windows.\" The following is an edited version of that interview. CNN: How would you describe your sound? Jazmine Sullivan: I can't really describe it; that's the whole thing. Once you hear the CD, you'll hear that one sound doesn't sound like the next. You know, I've been influenced by so many different styles and different genres of music that I felt like that should be represented on my first album, so when you get it, you get a taste of gospel, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, reggae, pop ... everything is on there, there's something for everybody to enjoy. I didn't want to exclude anybody from the album. CNN: Let me ask you this: When you saw or heard the other nominees in the best new artist category who happen to be a little bit more well-known, was it intimidating? I mean, you got the Jonas Brothers, Katy Perry, Adele ... Sullivan: Yeah, the Jonas Brothers, specifically. I didn't even know they were new artists because they are so huge, so, you know, so after, when my name was called after theirs, I thought, \"Wow, they're new artists, too?\" I got a little scared, I tell you that. But I'm just so honored to be mentioned to be in the same categories with such wonderful artists, so I'm looking forward to February and the Grammys and just being in that atmosphere. CNN: I was looking at your background, and I didn't know that you're a protegee of Missy Elliott. I was thinking to myself, you would think that you would do rap, but you're this big voice, this soulful voice. You might not equate that with Missy. Sullivan: Yeah, and a lot of people don't know that Missy Elliott ... grew up in the church, and she's really into vocalists. When I met her, was I was about 13 or 14, [and] she was ecstatic about me. When nobody else was there to support me, Missy was there, so she's a good friend of mine, and I'm happy to have her by my side. She's definitely taught me a lot of things. CNN: So everybody wants to know, the guy behind \"Bust Your Windows\" -- is there one? Sullivan: We won't talk about that on camera -- that's an off-camera conversation -- but it's definitely a song that relates to a lot of women especially. You know, even if they really haven't busted windows out of anybody's car, they have wanted to. A lot of women have been through that, so I'm glad that my music is touching those people . CNN: \"Need U Bad\" is rising as well. What's the thought process behind that one? Sullivan: \"Need U Bad\" ... a lot of men actually pointed out to me that women don't come out and admit that they made mistakes and say that they actually need the male, so I think that was kind of cool. I haven't thought of it like that when I was writing it. So, you know, it's a song for the fellas, saying that we appreciate them and we need you as much as you need us. But on the flip side, I do a song like \"Bust Your Windows,\" so on the album you have a lot of different perceptions and everything. CNN: How old are you? You look like you're 10. Sullivan: I'm 21 years old. CNN: Success that early, that's sometimes tough for people. Sullivan: Well, I've been in this industry for a very long time. I started out when I was 12; I got signed when I was 16, so it wasn't an overnight success story at all. I put a lot of hard work into it, and this is just a byproduct of all of that. CNN: It's great that you write your own music too, because a lot of people don't do that. You have a lot more creative control. Sullivan: Most definitely, and I've dealt with not having that control when I was younger and I was signed. I wasn't writing at all, and so I've been through all of that. So now to be in a position where I write my music, and I have that control -- it feels so much better. CNN: All right, the big question: Grammy night. What are you wearing? Who are you bringing? What are you going to be doing? Sullivan: I'm bringing my mother. She's been my rock and my support ever since I was a baby. She was my first huge fan, that what she is. I don't know what I'm wearing. I'm trying not to think about that. I want to perform. Hopefully I can get on stage and I can show everybody who I am and what I'm about. But I haven't thought about the dress or the shoes or the hair or anything about that. CNN: You're just trying to enjoy the moment. Sullivan: Enjoy, yes." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "R&B singer Jazmine Sullivan is up for five awards next month .\nSullivan's hits include \"Need U Bad\" and \"Bust Your Windows\"\nSinger is a protegee of Missy Elliott's ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With U.S. gasoline prices setting records, opponents of the war in Iraq have raised a new complaint this week: The budget windfall that skyrocketing oil prices has given Baghdad. Iraqi employees attend the opening ceremony of a new oil refinery plant in Najaf, Iraq, on March 15. Crude oil futures topped $112 a barrel in Wednesday's intraday trading in New York -- up from about $35 a barrel before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Though Iraq's oil exports have yet to top prewar levels, the price rise has meant a $6.4 billion surplus for the Iraqi government, according to the Pentagon's last quarterly report on the war. With the five-year-old war's cost to U.S. taxpayers estimated at more than $600 billion, the Iraqi windfall provoked sharp questions from Congress during two days of testimony by the top U.S. officials in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. \"This nation's facing record deficits, and the Iraqis have translated their oil revenues into budget surpluses rather than effective services,\" Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday. \"Under these circumstances and with a strategic risk to our nation and our military readiness, we and the American people must ask: Why should we stay in Iraq in large numbers?\" Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California, proposed the Iraqi government pay the cost of stationing U.S. troops in its country under any future agreement between Washington and Baghdad -- and said he would introduce legislation to require that. \"The United States government and the people of the United States have paid an awful price,\" Rohrabacher said. \"It's time for the Iraqis to pay that price for their own protection.\" Crocker said Iraq has allocated $13 billion for reconstruction projects in 2008 and plans to add another $5 billion this summer. The U.S. focus will shift to improving Iraq's economy at the local level and expanding its export capacity, he said. \"The era of U.S.-funded major infrastructure projects is over. We are seeking to ensure that our assistance, in partnership with the Iraqis, leverages Iraq's own resources,\" he said. Five years after Baghdad fell to a U.S.-led army, many Iraqis still lack basic services such as water, sewer connections and electricity. Nevertheless, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the government is \"doing its best\" to spend money to improve the country. \"I think the government has a responsibility, definitely, to care for its people, to provide services and to use the oil money for reconstruction and development,\" Zebari said. The United States has committed about $45 billion to Iraq's reconstruction since the March 2003 invasion, according to a report last month from the Government Accountability Office. The agency, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that Iraq's oil revenues could top $100 billion in 2007 and 2008. When President Bush announced he was dispatching almost 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq in January 2007, he told Americans that Iraqis would spend $10 billion on reconstruction projects and pass a law allocating the country's oil wealth as steps toward a political settlement of the war. The GAO, however, found Iraq had spent only 7 percent of that budget by November 2007, and the proposed oil law has stalled in the country's fractious parliament. Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh blamed the ongoing insurgency and the \"socialist command economy\" left behind by ousted dictator Saddam Hussein for the slow pace of reconstruction. \"At the time we were trying to reform it, open up the system, when we are faced with the terrible challenge of al Qaeda and this tornado of terrorism afflicting the society day in, day out,\" Saleh said. \"People should not be too judgmental.\" But Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, said Tuesday the issue is \"a burr in the saddle of the American people\" -- particularly since Bush administration officials told Congress before the invasion that Iraq could finance its own reconstruction with oil revenues. Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina -- a Republican opponent of the war -- pointed out the United States \"is borrowing money from foreign governments to pay our bills\" while oil and gas prices have more than doubled. \"The issue is that we in this Congress are going to be cutting programs to help our elderly with health care,\" he said Wednesday. \"The American people want to know that the Iraqi government understands that we do not have treasure and blood to go on and on and on.\" E-mail to a friend . CNN's Jill Dougherty in Baghdad contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Pentagon: Rising oil prices result in a $6.4 billion surplus for the Iraqi government .\nThe Iraq war's cost to U.S. taxpayers is estimated at more than $600 billion .\nLawmaker proposes Iraq should pay the cost of stationing U.S. troops .\nAmbassador: \"The era of U.S.-funded major infrastructure projects is over\"" } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- For years, retired Air Force Col. John Leech has had no desire to return to the Pentagon. Retired Col. John Leech narrowly escaped death at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Leech narrowly escaped death September 11, 2001, when a hijacked American Airlines jetliner hit the building. He will attend Thursday's dedication of the Pentagon memorial honoring the 184 people killed in the terror attack. In an earlier visit to the memorial, Leech left a note for his friend Navy Capt. Jack Punches: \"Thanks Jack for serving and dying for our nation.\" Leech could barely contain his sadness recently as he watched a Department of Defense videotape showing the burned interior of the area in the building where he was that fateful morning. \"Wow. My God. ... It makes you weak in the knees to see these pictures,\" Leech said. Leech, 54, recently took CNN into an office not far from the conference room where he was that morning. He has avoided touring the building since the attack but finally decided he was ready to \"re-engage\" with the past. In 2001, Leech was working as a Defense Department liaison officer to the White House Drug Policy office. He worked primarily out of the White House but attended meetings at the Pentagon every Tuesday and Thursday morning. Watch as he returns to the crash site » . As he walked the now-renovated halls where he spent the morning of September 11, he recalled the horror of the day. The shock, he said, was indescribable. \"It hit with such force. I had never experienced anything like it in my life. It rattled you right down to the bone,\" Leech said. Flight 77 slammed into the west wall of the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. ET. Among the 184 people killed in the building and on the plane were a 3-year-old girl and a 71-year-old retired Navy captain, the youngest and oldest victims, who were both passengers on Flight 77. A closer look at the new Pentagon memorial » . Several people were killed or severely burned not far from where Leech took cover. He remembers people screaming, \"bloodcurdling screams.\" \"I was so lucky. ... It was almost like we were in a protective cocoon,\" Leech recalled. \"I mean, I inhaled a lot of jet fuel vapors, and I got dusted up, but that was the extent of my injuries.\" The married father of a 26-year-old woman remembers snaking his way outside the burning building, where in a stupor he noticed a comb that appeared to belong to a small child. \"A little girl's comb that was untouched. It was not scorched; it didn't have smut on it,\" Leech remembered. \"It was a pristine red comb sitting off the side, and next to it was a tattered suitcase, and I can remember looking at that and thinking, who did that belong to? What little girl did that belong to?\" Leech served 28 years in the military and now works for the Department of Homeland Security but hopes to return one day to the Defense Department. Seven years after that horrible day, Leech visited the chapel at the new Pentagon Memorial, a two-acre park, which opens to the public Thursday. It was built at the spot where Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon and will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Thumbing through a condolence book in the chapel, he found the friend whom he was with that day, Navy Capt. Jack Punches. He wrote, \"Thanks Jack for serving and dying for our nation -- John Leech.\" \"I've avoided ... anything to do with 9/11, so it feels good to be here,\" he said. \"I mean, a lot happened that day. A lot of good people died. A lot of very good people.\" CNN senior Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre contributed to this story ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Retired Col. John Leech narrowly escaped death on September 11, 2001 .\nPentagon survivor recalls shock, terror of that terrible morning .\nFleeing for safety, he saw a little girl's red comb untouched near a tattered suitcase .\nWatch 9/11 memorials in New York and Washington on CNN.com Live ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Roughly etched onto Brian's arm is a swastika tattoo. Brian's sinister-looking tattoo is etched into his skin . The 11-year-old says his 10-year-old friend Temashi spent two days \"scratching\" the image onto his skin with a match stick. It only hurt a little bit, said Brian, one of thousands of Zimbabwean children who have fled their ravaged homeland for what they hope will be a better life in South Africa. For Brian and his friend, the symbol of the swastika does not represent the horrors of Hitler and the Holocaust. Instead, they say the ominous jagged lines on their arms mean \"Germans never surrender.\" It is a twisted interpretation that, however misguided, gives strength to Brian, marking him as a \"man\" and \"someone who does not surrender,\" he said quietly in a soft voice. Watch the boys explain what the tattoos mean to them » . Brian and his young compatriots from Zimbabwe are on their own in a new country. Charities such as Save the Children and UNICEF classify them as \"unaccompanied minors,\" but those words do not begin to describe their situation. They endure unimaginable hardships traveling to South Africa by themselves or with small groups of friends. They hitch rides on trucks, trains and taxis. Brian and his friends told CNN that when they got to the South African border at Beitbridge authorities let them walk through without passports or other documents. They then made their way to the border town of Musina, where boys beg on the streets or work on farms, and girls seem to disappear into South African society. UNICEF representative Shantha Bloemen said many Zimbabwean girls either turn to prostitution or work as domestic servants. Nearly all of the children -- some younger than 10 -- leave Zimbabwe because they hope their life will be better in South Africa. They said hunger, non-functioning schools and poverty were the reasons they left. Many are orphans, while some have parents, but they all dislike Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's regime -- a government that has left them with no choice but to abandon their homes and join the exodus south. A quarter of Zimbabwe's population has fled the country, mostly to neighboring South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique, humanitarian groups said. The United Nations and Save the Children, which has an office based in Musina, report there has been a troubling increase in the number of children under 18 years old who are making the risky journey south from their homes in Zimbabwe to South Africa in search of work and food. Social workers from Save the Children and UNICEF told CNN that in June, 175 Zimbabwean children came over the border illegally and alone. In November, 1,016 kids made the same perilous journey. The boys older than 16 hang around Musina, sleeping on the sidewalk by a sports stadium along with older homeless men. Their days are spent waiting in line, jostling alongside hundreds of Zimbabwean adults, trying to apply for political asylum at a makeshift center opened by South African authorities. A South African official who processes asylum applications says it is common for youngsters to lie about their age so they can get the papers to stay in the country legally. Many, though, cannot get the necessary papers because they do not carry documentation or have adults who can vouch for who they are and where they come from. So, they wander the streets, begging for money. The younger ones like Brian are picked up by police and housed in a safe place until authorities and aid agencies can figure out what to do with them. While they wait for a future that never seems to arrive, boys like Brian and Temashi -- a legacy of Mugabe's regime -- struggle to survive in the world they now find themselves in." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "25 percent of Zimbabwe's population has fled the nation, humanitarian groups say .\nIn November, 1,016 kids traveled to South Africa, social workers say .\nMost children say they leave due to hunger, poverty, non-functioning schools .\nBoys work in South African farms, beg on streets; girls become prostitutes, maids ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate Wednesday approved a bill to put new rules in place for intelligence agency eavesdropping on suspected terrorists. Communication technologies like mobile phones have made the 1978 FISA bill out of date, supporters say. The bill also effectively protects telephone companies from being sued for cooperating with a government surveillance program launched in the wake of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The White House pushed hard for the provision, with a threat to veto the bill if it did not contain protection for phone companies. The vote was 69-28, with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois voting in favor. Republican candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona was not present for the vote. President Bush said Wednesday afternoon he will sign the bill, calling it \"vital\" and \"long overdue.\" Watch Bush praise the new FISA bill » . The bill, formally known as the FISA Amendments Act, updates the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It will: . Opponents argued that the provision creating a judicial review of cases against the telecommunication companies is a sham. The bill essentially grants immunity to the telecommunication companies, the opponents said, because all of the telephone carriers received government certifications saying their participation in the program was legal. Obama was criticized for backing away from his early opposition to the bill by liberal bloggers and individuals commenting on his campaign Web site. Before voting for the bill, Obama voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut, that would have stripped the language granting immunity to telecommunications companies. Civil liberties groups have vowed to fight the legislation in court. \"This fight is not over. We intend to challenge this bill as soon as President Bush signs it into law,\" Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project, said in a statement issued minutes after the Senate approved the bill. \"The bill allows the warrantless and dragnet surveillance of Americans' international telephone and e-mail communications. It plainly violates the Fourth Amendment.\" President Bush acknowledged in 2005 that he ordered the secretive National Security Agency to intercept communications between U.S. residents and people overseas suspected of having ties to terrorism. The administration says the program was authorized when Congress approved military action against al Qaeda after the 2001 attacks. CNN's Pam Benson contributed to this report." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Bill updates Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 .\nSenate passes measure by a vote of 69-28; Bush says he will sign the bill .\nBill updates eavesdropping rules to take into account technology changes .\nCivil liberties groups vows to fight bill in court ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Attackers in a Taliban-controlled area of Pakistan shot and tried to behead a Pakistani journalist on Wednesday, according to his employer GEO TV. Mosa Khankhel was reporting for GEO TV when he was killed. The slain correspondent, Mosa Khankhel, had been covering the recent peace deal between the Pakistani government and Taliban militants in Swat Valley when he was killed, GEO TV managing director Azhar Abbas said. \"He is the first martyr of this peace deal,\" Abbas said, adding that he believes it is unlikely the deal will end the campaign of violence that has centered in Swat. Khankhel was traveling in a caravan with Sufi Mohammed, who was leading the peace deal negotiations for the Taliban, when he went missing, Abbas said. His body was found about an hour later. He had been shot three times and his killers had attempted to cut off his head. Abbas called on Pakistan's government to fully investigate the killing of Khankhel, who was the network's correspondent based in North West Frontier Province as part of GEO TV's Peshawar bureau. His death comes a day after Pakistan's government recognized the Taliban's interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, in the entire Malakand Division, which includes Swat and its surrounding district. Watch questions raised by Khankhel's death » . The agreement marked a major concession by Pakistan in its attempt to hold off Taliban militants who have terrorized the region with beheadings, kidnappings, death threats, and the destruction of girls' schools. The regional government in the Swat valley struck the deal to allow sharia law, in return the Taliban agreed to a 10-day cease fire. The Taliban control of Swat -- which is about 100 miles northwest of Islamabad -- is the deepest advance by militants into Pakistan's settled areas, which are located outside its federally administered tribal region along the border with Afghanistan. The peace deal is the latest attempt by Pakistan's civilian government -- which took power last year -- to achieve peace through diplomacy in areas where Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are believed to have free rein. But analysts as well as critics within the establishment have warned that Pakistan's previous dealings with the Taliban have only given the fundamentalist Islamic militia time to regroup and gain more ground. Khadim Hussain, a professor Bahria University in Islamabad who studies Pakistani politics, said the government has set the stage for two contradictory, parallel states in North West Frontier Province. \"If you leave them like that and you give ... a semblance of peace in a particular area, what does that mean?\" Hussain said. \"It means you're capitulating. It means you're surrendering the state to them. It means your submitting the state authority to them because they are running a parallel state.\" He said the government's decision amounts to a marriage of convenience made under duress. Swat has been overrun by forces loyal to Maulana Fazlullah's banned hardline Islamic group, Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM) which has allied itself with Taliban fighters. TNSM was once led by Sufi Mohammed, Fazlullah's father-in-law, who is leading the latest negotiations. Sufi Mohammed was released from jail last year by Pakistani authorities after he agreed to cooperate with the government. He was jailed in 2002 after recruiting thousands of fighters to battle U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Fazlullah took over TNSM during Sufi Mohammed's jail stint and vowed to continue his fight to impose fundamentalist Islamic law in the region. Last May, Pakistan's government announced it reached a peace deal with militants in Swat Valley. In the months that have followed, the Taliban have seized control of the region and carried out a violent campaign against government officials, including local politicians. The head of the secular Awami National Party -- which represents the region -- was forced to flee to Islamabad amid death threats from the Taliban. Pakistan is under enormous pressure to control the militants within its borders, blamed for launching attacks in neighboring Afghanistan where U.S. and NATO forces are fighting militants. The United States -- using unmanned drones -- has carried out several airstrikes inside Pakistan on suspected militant targets, including one on Monday that killed at least 15 people, Pakistani sources said. Such airstrikes, which sometimes result in civilian casualties, have aggravated tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan. Pakistan's military operation in the region is unpopular among Pakistanis, but efforts to deal diplomatically with militants have not worked in the past. Pakistan's previous leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, reached a cease-fire deal with militants in South Waziristan in 2006 which was widely blamed for giving al Qaeda and Taliban a stronger foothold in the region. CNN's Stan Grant contributed to this report ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Journalist for Pakistan's GEO TV killed in Taliban-area of the country .\nGEO says Mosa Khankhel was shot and his attackers tried to behead him .\nKhankhel was traveling with Taliban lead negotiator when he went missing .\nIncident happened in Swat where Pakistan-Taliban agreed to allow sharia law ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- Embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich vowed Friday to fight federal corruption charges and stay on the job, despite calls for his resignation amid allegations that he attempted to sell President-elect Barack Obama's former Senate seat. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich spoke to reporters at a news conference Friday but did not take questions. \"I will fight, I will fight, I will fight until I take my last breath. I have done nothing wrong,\" Blagojevich said in a brief news conference in Chicago. \"I'm not going to quit a job that people have hired me to do.\" The spirited comments were the first public statements from the second-term governor about the allegations since his arrest December 9 on federal corruption charges. Federal prosecutors have accused the governor of trying to sell Obama's former Senate seat. Prosecutors also allege the governor and his former chief of staff, John Harris, tried to have Chicago Tribune editorial board members fired by leveraging state assistance to the parent company of the newspaper, the Tribune Co., in its sale of Wrigley Field. Blagojevich said he was \"dying\" to show his innocence, but maintained he would reserve his comments for an appropriate forum. \"I'm not going to do what my accusers and political enemies have been doing, and that is talk about this case in 30-second sound bites on 'Meet the Press' or on the TV news,\" he said. \"I have on my side the most powerful ally there is, and it is the truth.\" Watch Blagojevich speak at the news conference » . Quoting Rudyard Kipling's poem, \"If,\" Blagojevich called on the public to be patient and reserve judgment until the facts unfold in criminal proceedings. \"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting, too; if you can wait and not be tired by waiting; or being lied about, don't deal in lies; or being hated, don't give way to hating,\" he said. Blagojevich did not take questions from reporters. Earlier Friday, his attorney, Ed Genson, said he did not feel it was prudent for the governor to answer questions now. Genson has said that the governor did nothing wrong and that evidence obtained through wiretaps in Blagojevich's office and home was \"illegally obtained.\" The 76-page criminal complaint against Blagojevich includes snippets of intercepted phone calls involving the governor's alleged efforts to benefit from the Senate vacancy. After Blagojevich's statement, Genson's co-counsel, Sam Adam Jr., told reporters that the U.S. attorney's office has not provided them with information related to the criminal complaint. \"We've been asking for the documents. We've been asking for the tapes. We've been asking for the witnesses, we're asking for a witness list. We have not gotten that,\" he said. Blagojevich's arrest has thrown Illinois politics into chaos. Many of the state's political leaders -- including Obama -- have called on the governor to resign. Harris, who was also arrested on federal corruption charges, resigned days after his arrest. Watch Illinois lawmakers discuss impeachment » . Members of an Illinois House of Representatives panel met Wednesday to continue discussions about whether there is a basis to impeach Blagojevich." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich says he is not guilty of criminal wrongdoing .\nBlagojevich says he has the truth on his side, vows to stay on the job .\nGovernor accused of trying to sell President-elect Obama's Senate seat .\nBlagojevich's lawyer says evidence was illegally obtained ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Since the early days of pop music, the music industry has been searching for the secret formula to writing a successful song -- for that special alchemy that separates a Grammy-winner from a dud. For a period in the 1970s and 80s, the self-styled King of Pop Michael Jackson seemed to have stumbled upon it, but somewhere along the line he, too, seems to have misplaced it. Hit Song Science claims to be able to predict whether a song will be a pop hit . But now a piece of software claims it can compute whether a song has chart-topping potential, and a number of record companies and musicians are using Hit Song Science (HSS) to gauge whether they have a hit on their hands. The software, developed by Barcelona-based Music Intelligence Solutions, works by breaking down more than 60 elements of a song, including melody, harmony, tempo, pitch, octave, beat, rhythm, fullness of sound, noise, brilliance and chord progression, and compares it against a database of over 3.5 million past commercial hits. The program organizes songs into clusters with similar-sounding equivalents and then rates the song on a scale of one to ten, with a score of 7.3 being deemed likely to do well in the music charts. Curiously, clusters of songs do not necessarily contain songs that sound the same to the human ear, but from a mathematical perspective they share similarities. HSS analyzed music from Norah Jones' first album before she broke through and the program's algorithms placed her in a cluster with Linkin Park, Aerosmith and JayZ. If you have ever wondered why you sometimes find yourself humming along to some smooth jazz on the radio when you consider yourself a strict thrash metal fan only, then perhaps HSS has discovered the scientific answer. Besides Norah Jones, the program also predicted success for Mika, while \"Turn Your Car Around,\" a song penned by Ben Novak, a singer-songwriter from New Zealand, was rated as a potential hit by HSS, who recommended it to Sony Music in the UK. It eventually ended up as a vehicle for ex-Blue band member Lee Ryan and scored a respectable UK chart position of 16 in 2005. Record producer Carlos Quintero, director of Orixe and Jamm Records in Spain, believes that the software has a high accuracy rate. \"I was very skeptical when I was told about it for the first time,\" he says. \"I thought it was science fiction. \"But when we choose a tune for an artist and we like it and feel it will be a hit, the surprise is that 85 percent of the time the tracks we have chosen get a positive analysis from the software.\" The emergence of hit prediction programs such as this -- New York-based Platinum Blue Music Intelligence provides a similar service -- raises concerns that the creative element of writing music would be eroded by breaking it down into mathematical algorithms. But Quintero claims the program in no way writes a song, it simply tells you whether it has the potential to be a hit. He says he mainly uses the software to tweak and refine songs so that he can maximize his chances of scoring a high chart position. \"There was a particular case where we had to revise the song as at first it wasn't completely right. Using the software, we managed to make it work,\" he explains. \"The problem with the software is that it can only indicate whether a song is suitable or not. It's up to the producer, the technical team and the artist to make it suitable in the first place.\" Quintero has since become a member of Music Intelligence Solutions' advisory board, so he is bound to have a positive take on the service. Jimena Llosa, General Manager EMEA of Music Intelligence Solutions, claims the company has thirty to forty clients in the record industry in Europe and the U.S., but she says she cannot reveal who they are, citing privacy issues. CNN attempted to contact several record companies in London, but A&R departments claimed they had not heard of the service, suggesting either a certain coyness to admit using it or that it is not as widely used as Music Intelligence claims. The software can also be used as a way of recommending new music to audiences. In Spain, cellular phone company Orange is using the technology in its New Talents enterprise. Listeners can enter in their favorite songs and the program will suggest songs they might enjoy according to its cluster system. Óscar Sainz is one musician who has profited from this new way of connecting musicians with an audience. A national tennis monitor by profession, he struggled to make an impact in the music industry despite the best efforts of Pablo Pinilla, one of Spain's most successful music producers. But since the Orange initiative his career has taken off and he is now selling well through Orange and touring the country. \"A machine or at least mathematical or scientific formulas that could analyze the parameters that a song needs to be a hit? The truth is I doubted it at first,\" he says. \"My first instinct was it must be a con. \"Don't ask me what parameters they use, or formulas, or machines they use, because I don't know. But it works.\" But the software has its skeptics. Jim Elliot, writer and producer of Kylie Minogue's new single \"2 Hearts\" is unconvinced about the accuracy of the program. He entered tracks from her new Album \"X\" and they were, unsurprisingly, rated as potential hits. But he also entered a little-known, unreleased, song by 70s band Gong that included cows mooing, and it was also rated as a potential chart-topper. He thinks that the program negates the unpredictability of human behavior. \"The fact is that it's the human errors introduced in the music-making process that are always the most interesting,\" he says. \"Who would have thought Lily Allen would do so well? I doubt anyone would have predicted that. \"It's so hard to categorize music. There's a real danger of doing that. If you are writing and producing music you can try to fit it to certain formulas but it's so abstract that it has to be free -- and then something good will happen.\" With just one fifth of their musicians making a profit for today's record companies, executives are always searching for new ways to narrow the risk margin. Hit Song Science may become a useful string in their bow in the elusive art of predicting a hit. Otherwise they will have to keep relying on tried and tested -- and more human -- methods, such as gut instinct. E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Barcelona company claims its software can tell if a song will be a pop hit .\nHit Song Science analyzes song's melody, harmony, tempo, beat .\nSoftware cannot write hits, just predict whether they will find success .\nCompany says A&R departments are using it to tweak tracks for the top ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "LONDON, England (CNN) -- A Russian naval ship rescued a Dutch container vessel under attack by suspected Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden, the head of the International Maritime Bureau said Wednesday. The Liberian-flagged oil tanker Sirius Star was recently released by pirates off Somalia. Two or three pirate speedboats were chasing the Dutch ship, with the goal of boarding it, when the Russians intervened, said Capt. Pottengal Mukundan, director of the International Maritime Bureau in London. He said the pirates fired two rocket-propelled grenades at the Dutch ship, but no injuries were reported. The incident occurred about midday Tuesday. The Russians chased one of the speedboats but the pirates got away, Mukundan said. He said he did not know where the Dutch ship was headed. \"It is important that the naval vessels continue to respond robustly to these pirates,\" he said. Watch how attacks peaked in 2008 » . Hijackings off the coast of East Africa have become a growing international concern, prompting a number of foreign navies to patrol the Gulf of Aden and neighboring coastal areas. The Gulf of Aden links the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea. About 20,000 oil tankers, freighters and merchant vessels pass along the crucial shipping route near Somalia each year. Most of the attacks are blamed on pirates based in largely lawless Somalia, a country racked by poverty and conflict. Watch CNN's exclusive interview with a pirate . According to the United Nations, there were 115 reported pirate attacks off the Somali coast in 2008, including 46 successful hijackings. Read blog on how CNN contacted a pirate . The troubling rise in Somali piracy has led the United Nations to step up efforts to tackle the crime. The first U.N. group to address piracy met Wednesday in New York. Mark Kimmitt, U.S. assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs chaired the \"contact group\" of two dozen nations and five multi-national organizations. He said the group was formed to \"establish a counter-piracy coordination mechanism,\" and the members believe more can be done to halt piracy. Still, Kimmitt noted that less than one percent of manifests off the Somali coast are attacked by pirates and only 50 percent of those have crew and passengers taken hostage. The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution in December expanding counter-piracy measures off the Horn of Africa, including a stipulation that allows national and regional military forces to chase pirates onshore in Somalia when in \"hot pursuit.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "NEW: First United Nations group to address piracy meets in New York .\nTwo or three speedboats were chasing the Dutch container ship, IMB says .\nIMB: The pirates fired two rocket-propelled grenades at the Dutch ship .\nHijackings off East Africa have led international navies to patrol the Gulf of Aden ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- From TVs to handsets, LG Electronics is on a mission -- to become a top three player in the global electronics industry. Yong Nam, CEO of LG Electronics . Leading the campaign is CEO Yong Nam who took on the top job in January. CNN's Andrew Stevens met him at the LG headquarters in Seoul, where he showed off the latest Viewty camera phone. While Nam hopes this gadget will boost market share, he's also on a bigger quest to shake up the South Korean company's corporate culture. Yong Nam: I try to empower, rather than make decisions. I think frontline people that know customers better can make better decisions. I just try to keep pushing authority downwards instead of upwards. Andrew Stevens: You have been 30 years, more or less, with LG Electronics, what are the most important business lessons you have learnt during that time? Yong Nam: Earlier in my career I was deeply engaged in selling of electronic products in the U.S. market, where I was able to put myself in customers' shoes rather than manufactures' shoes. And that was a great experience for me to understand the frontline and customers. And secondly I spent more than 10 years in the chairman's office, so that gave me a great opportunity to learn top management perspective, as well as problem solving capabilities. Andrew Stevens: You've pledged to make LG Electronics a more inspirational place to work. Now with 82,000 employees what do you mean by that and how do you do it? Yong Nam: In a very hierarchical, bureaucratic and big company culture and working environment, people try to hide issues and problems instead of raising and solving them. I try to get people engaged -- I call it waste elimination activities. If it is solved it can turn into a treasure, so there are so many treasures in the process of doing every day work among our people, and I try to encourage them to be engaged in finding out that waste. Andrew Stevens: Obviously you are a fluent English speaker, how important is it for a business leader to have a second language, to have those language skills? Yong Nam: Just Korean talent itself is not sufficient enough, so I have to attract a best in class global talent into our organization, so that they can feel comfortable working in this environment. This means that English has to be a common language in our company going forward. So me speaking English is very, very important to encourage people to speak out with bad English instead of good Korean. E-mail to a friend ." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "CNN's Andrew Stevens talks to CEO of LG Electronics, Yong Nam .\nHe became CEO in January, 2007, has been with the company since 1976 .\nNam believes speaking English is very important in the company ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "(CNN) -- Kyrgyzstan's president signed a bill Friday to close an air base that the U.S. military uses as a route for troops and supplies heading into Afghanistan, the president announced on his Web site. Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan serves as a U.S. supply route for troops and supplies into Afghanistan. The news came as two other central Asian nations -- Tajikistan and Uzbekistan -- reportedly agreed to let U.S. cargo pass through their countries on the way to Afghanistan. Such deals, if confirmed, could help fill the void left by the closing of the Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan. The Kyrgyz order became effective on Friday when President Kurmanbek Bakiyev reportedly signed legislation that the parliament in Bishkek backed on Thursday, the Pentagon said. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry on Friday officially notified the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek that a 180-day withdrawal process is under way. Embassy spokeswoman Michelle Yerkin told CNN the United States hopes to retain the base. Officials in Washington and Bishkek signed a deal three years ago allowing the United States to renew the arrangement annually through July 2011. \"We do remain in contact with the government of Kyrgyzstan,\" Yerkin said. \"The Manas Air Base continues to operate under existing agreements, as per the coalition's efforts in Afghanistan.\" U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday the United States will continue to work with Kyrgyzstan on keeping the base open. Watch why Kyrgyzstan wants to close the base » . \"I continue to believe that this is not a closed issue and that there remains the potential at least to reopen this issue with the Kyrgyz and perhaps reach a new agreement,\" Gates said at a NATO meeting in Krakow, Poland. \"If we are unable to do that on reasonable terms then, as I have suggested, we are developing alternative methods to get resupply and people into Afghanistan.\" The Manas Air Base outside Bishkek is the only U.S. base in Central Asia and is a major resupply hub for the war in Afghanistan. Its closing could deal a significant blow to the U.S. military effort there, especially following President Barack Obama's announcement of additional troops to halt a resurgence of the country's former Taliban rulers. The United States pays $17.4 million a year to use Manas, a major logistical and refueling center that supports troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said. About 15,000 troops and 500 tons of cargo reportedly move through Manas monthly, it said. The air base currently employs more than 1,000 servicemen, 95 percent of whom are Americans, Russia's Interfax news agency reported. \"This is an important facility, it has been an important facility, but it's not irreplaceable and, if necessary, we will find other options,\" Whitman said. How far is Manas from Afghanistan? View our map » . Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, two other Central Asian nations that border Afghanistan, have agreed to allow U.S. cargo to be transported to Afghanistan through their countries, the Russian news agency Interfax reported Friday. The agency said Rear Adm. Mark Harnitchek, U.S. transportation command director for strategy, policy, programs and logistics, held a meeting with Tajik Foreign Minister Kharokhon Zarifi, after which he said he had also secured Uzbekistan's consent. A Tajik government statement said only that the two sides discussed the issue, but a spokesman for the Tajik foreign ministry told CNN that \"practically all issues\" to allow U.S. cargo transit through the country have been resolved. If confirmed, success would still depend on how much access the United States would have to those countries for flights and cargo, and even then, it may not totally replace the capacity lost in Kyrgyzstan. U.S. General David Petraeus, who oversees the war in Afghanistan, was in Uzbekistan this week for talks on Afghanistan and other regional issues. A Pentagon spokesman told CNN that his discussions included the regional supply network into Afghanistan. The U.S. military leased a base in Uzbekistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. But after Uzbek troops were accused of killing at least 150 people during a demonstration in 2005, the autocratic government of President Islam Karimov came under criticism from Washington and severed most of its military ties with the United States." }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Tajikistan, Uzbekistan may allow U.S. military supplies heading to Afhanistan .\nKyrgyzstan president completes next step towards closure of U.S. base .\nThe U.S. says it's still working with the country to keep the operation open .\nThe Manas base is used to transport key supplies and troops into Afghanistan ." } ]

[ { "from": "system", "value": "You are a summarization AI. Provide a succinct and relevant summary of the provided text." }, { "from": "human", "value": "ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Barack Obama's election as president of the United States won't see a change in American relations with the Taliban, a senior Taliban leader in Pakistan says. A Taliban leader says Barack Obama's election will bring little change. \"For us, the change of America's president -- we don't have any good faith in him,\" said Muslim Khan, a grizzled Taliban spokesman who is one of the most wanted men in Pakistan, in a rare interview with CNN. \"If he does anything good, it will be for himself.\" With an assault rifle on his lap, Khan answered 10 written questions, sharing his view on a range of topics from slavery to Obama's middle name -- Hussein. He spoke in the remote Swat Valley of northwestern Pakistan, the site of frequent and fierce clashes between Pakistani troops and Taliban and al Qaeda militants. There was no opportunity for follow-up questions. Khan said Obama's election may change conditions for black Americans. \"The black one knows how much the black people are discriminated against in America and Europe and other countries,\" he said. \"For America's black people, it could be that there will be a change. That era is coming.\" He said he doubted Obama's victory would lead to changes in relations between the United States and the Taliban. Watch the Taliban spokesman on Barack Obama » . U.S. forces dislodged the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. America and its allies have battled the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan ever since, with fighting spreading across the border into Pakistan. \"American should take its army out of the country,\" Khan said. \"They are considered terrorists.\" Obama has minced no words in describing how he would administer U.S. policy toward the Islamic extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. When he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination in August, Obama pledged to \"finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban.\" And the president-elect included a blunt warning in remarks on the evening of his election victory: \"To those who would tear the world down,\" he said, \"we will defeat you.\" Khan noted that Obama's middle name was fairly common in the Muslim world, referring to him at times as \"Hussein Barack Obama.\" \"If he behaves in the way of a real Hussein, then he has become our brother,\" he said. \"If Barack Obama pursues the same policies as Bush and behaves like Bush ... then he cannot be Hussein. He can only be Obama.\"" }, { "from": "gpt", "value": "Taliban leader: We have no faith in Barack Obama .\nTaliban not expecting change in relationship with U.S.\nObama has committed himself to defeating the Taliban and al Qaeda ." } ]