Déjà vu all over again

When it comes to Iran’s nuclear capabilities, whose word would you rather take: that of a Nobel prize-winning head of an international agency specializing in nuclear issues who was proved triumphantly right about Iraq, or that of a bunch of belligerent neocons who make no secret of their desire to whack Iran at the earliest opportunity and who made such a pigs ear of Iraq?

That is the stark choice facing the sane people of the world, given the smearing of IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei for not joining the hysterical lynch mob building up against Iran. Criticised by Condoleezza Rice and others in the Bush administration, it is uncannily reminiscent of the slurs against him and UN weapons inspector Hans Blix in the run up to the invasion of Iraq - and we should remember that the US vindictively tried to unseat him afterwards for not joining in the lying game.

ElBaradei is hardly acting as cheerleader for the Iranians. He says that his inspectors have not seen “any concrete evidence that there is a parallel military program,” though he could not yet swear to its absence. But he does believe that our issues with Iran can be resolved through negotiations - in which it would help if the US were not implicitly threatening war. But it looks as though we have reached a similar stage to when Saddam let in the inspectors. When they found no WMDs Washington cried foul, ordered the UN inspectors out and sent the troops in. The US and its allies will not accept anything short of regime change in Teheran - no matter what ordinary Iranians might want and what the IAEA says.

The only difference from last time is that France has defected, and France’s opposition to the war in Iraq was as much because of Saddam’s oil contracts with Total and Elf-Aquitaine as any deep attachment to international law. Teheran should sign a contract immediately!

There are, of course, several separate issues here. One is whether Iran has the right to enrich uranium. The second is whether it is abusing the putative right to build nuclear weapons. A third is whether the nuclear issue is not just some sort of White House feint, since we all know that if the shooting starts, it will really be about fighting terrorism, liberating gays and women, restoring democracy and taking down a major rival in the region to both Saudi Arabia and Israel - or any permutation of the above.

On the first question, stupid though it is, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty does not ban countries from reprocessing and purifying uranium. It should have done, and it should have allowed more intrusive inspections, but it doesn’t, and one reason for that is that the US, under the influence of the people who now want to cite non-proliferation against Iran, fought against attempts to strengthen the treaty. These are the same people, in fact, who have successfully fought against the senate ratifying the comprehensive test ban treaty.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s maladroit diplomacy led to Iran being outmanoeuvred. His comments on Israel and the Holocaust, no matter whether interpreted correctly or not, have made it difficult for many countries to support him. The US got a resolution against Iran through the IAEA council calling on Iran to stop its uranium reprocessing, largely by promising council member India a free pass for developing nuclear weapons outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and with the enthusiastic support of Israel, the only definite nuclear state in the Middle East.

The US then took that IAEA council resolution to the UN security council, whose word, whether Iran likes it or not, is law under the UN charter, even though it is manifestly a political rather than a judicial body. (The law is not always just, and that goes for international law as well). It does not help Iran as much as it should that Washington, a major scofflaw in the international field, is once again talking piously about the need to enforce UN resolutions, with its own interpretation and its own timetable - just as was the case with Iraq.

Iran is playing a dangerous game. Most countries have deep reservations about what the US, France and, to a lesser extent, the UK are up to, but few of them are prepared to go to the wall, diplomatically, let alone militarily, for the ayatollahs.

Iran should accept the additional and more intrusive inspections that it did before, and throw open its program to the IAEA inspectors, but the war talk in Washington and Jerusalem gives it a plausible excuse not to, since it would be tantamount to offering them a list of targets.

Of course it is difficult to support someone like Ahmadinejad, even when he does for once have a point in the nuclear stand-off. But we can support ElBaradei and the IAEA, as the only sane voices around. With enemies such as ElBaradei has marshalling against him, he must be right.

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

 

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq – a victory that he says Mr Obama would throw away by a premature military withdrawal.

America currently has 151,000 troops in Iraq and, even after projected withdrawals next month, troop levels will stand at more than 142,000 – 10 000 more than when the military “surge” began in January 2007. Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.

The precise nature of the American demands has been kept secret until now. The leaks are certain to generate an angry backlash in Iraq. “It is a terrible breach of our sovereignty,” said one Iraqi politician, adding that if the security deal was signed it would delegitimise the government in Baghdad which will be seen as an American pawn.

The US has repeatedly denied it wants permanent bases in Iraq but one Iraqi source said: “This is just a tactical subterfuge.” Washington also wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft and the right to pursue its “war on terror” in Iraq, giving it the authority to arrest anybody it wants and to launch military campaigns without consultation.

Mr Bush is determined to force the Iraqi government to sign the so-called “strategic alliance” without modifications, by the end of next month. But it is already being condemned by the Iranians and many Arabs as a continuing American attempt to dominate the region. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful and usually moderate Iranian leader, said yesterday that such a deal would create “a permanent occupation”. He added: “The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans.”

Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is believed to be personally opposed to the terms of the new pact but feels his coalition government cannot stay in power without US backing.

The deal also risks exacerbating the proxy war being fought between Iran and the United States over who should be more influential in Iraq.

Although Iraqi ministers have said they will reject any agreement limiting Iraqi sovereignty, political observers in Baghdad suspect they will sign in the end and simply want to establish their credentials as defenders of Iraqi independence by a show of defiance now. The one Iraqi with the authority to stop deal is the majority Shia spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. In 2003, he forced the US to agree to a referendum on the new Iraqi constitution and the election of a parliament. But he is said to believe that loss of US support would drastically weaken the Iraqi Shia, who won a majority in parliament in elections in 2005.

The US is adamantly against the new security agreement being put to a referendum in Iraq, suspecting that it would be voted down. The influential Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has called on his followers to demonstrate every Friday against the impending agreement on the grounds that it compromises Iraqi independence.

The Iraqi government wants to delay the actual signing of the agreement but the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney has been trying to force it through. The US ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, has spent weeks trying to secure the accord.

The signature of a security agreement, and a parallel deal providing a legal basis for keeping US troops in Iraq, is unlikely to be accepted by most Iraqis. But the Kurds, who make up a fifth of the population, will probably favour a continuing American presence, as will Sunni Arab political leaders who want US forces to dilute the power of the Shia. The Sunni Arab community, which has broadly supported a guerrilla war against US occupation, is likely to be split.

Heart attack man ‘drank four Red Bulls a day’

Fears have been raised over the safety of high-caffeine energy drinks after an inquest heard they could have brought on a fatal heart attack. Alfredo Duran, 40, who drank four cans of Red Bull every night, collapsed and died after working a supermarket night shift. An inquest into his death heard that he had an enlarged heart and that caffeine may have triggered an attack. Dr Ian Roberts, a pathologist, said the amount of Red Bull Mr Duran drank could have contributed to his death. Levels found during the post mortem examination were not fatal, but were dangerous for a man with an underlying heart condition.

 

He said: “For an individual with this condition, the risk of problems with the heart is increased by stimulants such as caffeine and may be triggered by levels which would have no effect on people with a normal heart.

“My feeling is, given the evidence available, it was a cardiac arrest, possibly contributed by sub-toxic caffeine ingestion.”

The Oxford inquest heard that paramedics were called to help the Bolivian supermarket worker when he collapsed in an aisle in September 2006.

Mr Duran, who had two children, had worked at the Asda supermarket in Wheatley, Oxon, since 2003, for a minimum of two night shifts a week, from 11pm until 6am.

At the time of his death he would frequently work up to five night shifts a week.

Colleagues said it was not unusual to find at least four empty cans of Red Bull when Mr Duran, of Oxford, had been working.

The Oxfordshire coroner, Nicholas Gardiner, described him as a healthy man and compared his death with sudden adult death syndrome as he recorded a verdict of death by natural causes.

He added that the cause of death was unascertained.

Last year, Red Bull sold 3.5 billion cans and bottles in 140 countries.

The drink’s manufacturers claim it “vitalises the body and mind” and has been “specially developed for times of increased mental and physical exertion”.

It is popular among students, nightclubbers, workers and drivers attempting to say awake for long periods.

The drink contains about the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee, but has been banned in a number of countries amid fears it could cause an increase in blood pressure.

A US study last year found healthy volunteers given two energy drinks a day for a week experienced significant increases in both heart rate and blood pressure.

The makers of Red Bull denied it could cause harm, but recommended that no more than two cans were drunk a day.

A spokesman said clinical tests and “numerous” toxicological evaluations by independent experts had concluded it was as safe as any other drink for adults.

Anne Frank greetings card found

The card was sent from Aachen, where Anne had visited her grandmother

A greetings card signed by the Jewish diarist Anne Frank has been found in an antiques shop near Amsterdam.

The card was sent in 1937, when Frank was eight, and was addressed to one of her best friends, Sanne Ledermann.

The Anne Frank museum has authenticated the card, which shows a clover-covered bell above a snowy field, and wishes “good luck for the New Year”.

Frank, who wrote her diary while in hiding from the Nazis, died in Belsen concentration camp in 1945.

Paul van den Heuvel, a school teacher, was looking through items in his father’s antique shop in Naarden, near Amsterdam, when he came across the card.

“I just found it in a box, which probably came from an Amsterdam flea market,” he told Dutch television.

The card had been sent from Aachen, in Germany, where Frank was visiting her grandmother.

A spokeswoman for the Anne Frank museum, Maatje Mostard, said she had seen another similar card, posted on the same day from the same town, and she was sure it was authentic.

“I don’t know what he will do with it,” she said. “We hope we can get it for our collection.”

Frank, her family and four other Jewish friends hid from the Nazis in a small Amsterdam apartment, until their arrest in 1944.

They were sent to Auschwitz and Belsen concentration camps. Anne died in Belsen of typhus shortly before the end of the war.

Al-Qaida No. 2 says 9/11 theory propagated by Iran

CAIRO, Egypt - Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy in an audiotape Tuesday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida terror network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

The comments reflected al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri’s increasing criticism of Iran. Al-Zawahri has accused Iran in recent messages of seeking to extend its power in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and through its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

The authenticity of the two-hour audio recording posted on an Islamic Web site could not be independently confirmed. But the voice sounded like past audiotapes from the terror leader, and the posting where it was found bore the logo of Al-Sahab, al-Qaida’s official media arm.

It was the second of two messages answering questions that were posted to Islamic militant Web sites earlier this year.

One of the questioners asked about the theory that has circulated in the Middle East and elsewhere that Israel was behind the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Al-Zawahri accused Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television of starting the rumor.

“The purpose of this lie is clear — (to suggest) that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no else did in history. Iranian media snapped up this lie and repeated it,” he said.

“Iran’s aim here is also clear — to cover up its involvement with America in invading the homes of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

Iran cooperated with the United States in the 2001 U.S. assault on Afghanistan that toppled al-Qaida’s allies, the Taliban.

Answering questions about Iraq in Tuesday’s tape, al-Zawahri said the insurgent umbrella group led by al-Qaida, called the Islamic State of Iraq, is “the primary force opposing the Crusaders and challenging Iranian ambitions” in Iraq, he said, referring to the Americans.

As he often does in his messages, al-Zawahri denounced the “Crusader invasion” of Iraq, but in Tuesday’s tape he paired it with a mention of “Iranian complicity” or “Iranian agents.”

In the latest tape, al-Zawahri was also asked if the terror group had further plans to attack Western countries that participated in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and subsequent war.

“My answer is: Yes! We think that any country that has joined aggression on Muslims must be deterred,” he replied.

In response to a question signed by the Japanese news agency Kyodo asking if Japan remains a target because it once had troops in Iraq, al-Zawahri said “Japan provided help under the banner of the crusader coalition … therefore it participated in the Crusader campaign against the lands of Islam.”

Japan deployed non-combat troops to southern Iraq in 2003 to carry out reconstruction work. It withdrew its troops from Iraq in 2006 and now conducts airlifts to help supply U.S.-led forces in that country.

Al-Zawahri spoke on a wide range of issues, even global warming, which he said reflected “how criminal, brutal and greedy the Western Crusader world is, with America at the top.”

He predicted that global warming would “make the world more sympathetic to and understanding of the Muslims’ jihad against the aggressor America.”

Asked if there are any women in al-Qaida, the terror leader answered simply: “No.” In a follow-up answer, he said: “There are no women in al-Qaida jihadi group, but the women of the mujahedeen are playing a heroic role in taking care of their houses and sons.”

In several parts of Tuesday’s audio message, Al-Zawahri claimed that the Taliban took over 95 percent of Afghanistan and is sweeping Pakistan as well.

“The Crusaders and their agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan are starting to fall,” he said.

In another answer Tuesday, al-Zawahri said it was against Islamic religious law for any Muslim to live permanently in a Western country because in doing so they would “have permanent stay there under the laws of the infidels.”

Al-Qaida’s media arm, Al-Sahab, announced in December that al-Zawahri would take questions from the public posted on Islamic militant Web sites and would respond “as soon as possible.” Queries were submitted on the main Islamist Web site until the cutoff date of Jan. 16.

Liz Hurley is back in a bikini at 42

Not so long ago she declared that she was done with bikinis.

 

Never again, Elizabeth Hurley said, would she sit eating lunch on a boat in a skimpy two-piece.

The same went for tripping around the beach in a bikini top and skirt with her midriff showing.

But as these pictures indicate, Miss Hurley will relax the rules under certain conditions.

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In the yacht-set shoot, Liz Hurley smoulders in the two piece

 

The swimming-suits for Mango have a body-con style feel - one of this year’s key trends

 

Firstly, it must be in her best business interests, such as helping to launch a series of her own swimwear designs in a diffusion range for the High Street store Mango.

And there must - read must - be an airbrush involved.

In an interview to accompany these photographs in the Sunday Times Style magazine, the model and businesswoman conceded that “shooting bikinis is now my life”.

She said: “I can’t think of anything worse in the world than another bikini shoot - and I’ve got two next month.

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Hot pink: She may be 42 but Hurley has the figure of a woman half her age

 

In a range of styles the diffusion line is sure to be a summer high street hit

 

“It’s unbearable and I bring it all on myself. I’ve got nobody else to blame.”

But, she revealed, she now relies on “nice photographers” and a little digital enhancement.

“I like a certain amount of retouching like anybody,” she admitted.

Even if they have been airbrushed a little, the photos suggest that Miss Hurley, 42, has made good on her promise to “go to ground and annoy everyone by emerging thinner, sexier and mentally cleansed”.

She made that vow in an interview in 2005, at the same time as she spoke of instituting her bikini ban.

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Accessorising only with chunky jewellery Hurley does skimpy with style

 

In one shot the model covers up with a kaftan but still looks enviably stunning

 

Miss Hurley, a mother of one, revealed that when she looked in the mirror she saw “a person who eats too much junk food and doesn’t exercise. That has sadly become my reality over the past year”.

Commenting on one of her own designs for Elizabeth Hurley Beach, she said her days of wearing a towelling miniskirt, bikini top and flip-flops were over.

“I don’t feel comfortable doing that any more,” she said. “As the years go by you do feel less confident about your body.”

Miss Hurley is not afraid to follow strict diets when she needs to drop weight fast.

Her regime after the birth of son Damian, now six, was punishing, she said at the time.

“I did it by eating very little breakfast and not too much lunch.

“And only boring snacks such as a banana or six raisins. The only meal I have is dinner.”

She lost four stone, and was back in her trademark white jeans within three months of Damian’s birth.

 

Covering up: Liz Hurley and husband Arun Nayar

So, Mr Putin, what do you see in this nubile 24-year-old rhythmic gymnast?

This is the kind of question Mrs Merton might ask:

 

‘So, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, what do you see in a 24-year-old, sensationally beautiful gymnast with a penchant for posing semi-naked that you don’t see in your lovely, middle-aged, matronly wife Ludmilla.

 

 

It is also the kind of question that hardly needs answering for the millions who have tuned in to the YouTube film of Alina Kabaeva performing a decidedly provocative gymnastic routine.

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Just good friends? Russian president Vladimir Putin hands Alina Kabaeva the Order of Frienship at an awards ceremony in the Kremlin in 2001

 

This sudden, frenzied interest in a woman who, until yesterday, was frankly a rather obscure Russian athlete, comes after a Moscow newspaper reported that Mr Putin recently split with Ludmilla and is preparing to marry the young and very pretty Miss Kabaeva.

Flower power: A Russian website alleged that Alina - seen here in one of her more provocative poses - was seen kissing Putin in a Moscow restaurant

The speculation may go some way to explaining why Mr Putin suddenly posed topless for the cameras on a Siberian fishing holiday last summer.

 

While his muscled and hairless torso were a particular hit among female and gay voters, perhaps he was simply trying to impress his new mistress.

 

There is added piquancy in the fact that, despite her youth, Miss Kabaeva has recently been made an MP.

The gymnast is one of a number of young and beautiful Russian dancers and athletes who, under Mr Putin’s patronage, have lately become deputies in the Duma - Russia’s lower parliament.

Known as Putinskie Krasotki - ‘Putin’s Babes’ - they were brought in with the cynical but successful aim of ’sexing up’ his United Russia party.

The bloc took more than 60 per cent of the vote in the December elections.

One Russian spin-doctor boasted at the time of their arrival in the Duma: ‘We are now definitely ahead of all parties in terms of ladies with sex appeal among our MPs.

‘These young women are full of energy and eagerness to become serious law-makers.’

 

That remains to be seen. After all, it would be like Gordon Brown packing the backbenches at Westminster with a confection of the pop group Girls Aloud, the triumphant British women’s cycling team and topless dancers from London nightclub Stringfellows.

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Natural beauty: Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1983, Alina moved into modelling after gymnastics. She also appeared in an action movie

Racy edge: Alina’s raunchies shoot saw her pose naked with only fox furs to protect her modesty

Flexible friend: Alina competed in the new sport of rhythmic gymnastics for Russia at the Sydney and Athens Olympics

 

To be fair to Miss Kabaeva - already promoted to deputy head of the Duma’s committee on youth affairs - she is more demure than her fellow Babes, one of whom has posed naked for Playboy.

 

 

All over? Putin and his 50-year-old wife Ludmilla are rarely pictured together

 

Yes, Miss Kabaeva has taken off her clothes for a magazine, but poses tastefully wrapped in a fur rug. Her modesty is protected by lingerie in other shots. All the same, Ruth Kelly she ain’t.

 

But how did Mr Putin actually get to know Miss Kabaeva?

One of Russia’s most popular beauties, she is the reigning Olympic rhythmic gymnastic champion and global darling of the sport.

She is said to be blessed with ‘extreme flexibility’ and practically unbeatable when performing ‘on the carpet’ - to use a gymnastic term.

‘I could not believe my eyes, when I first saw her,’ recalls her coach Irina Vine.

‘The girl has the rare combination of two qualities crucial in rhythmic gymnastics - flexibility and agility.’

The sport is a combination of ballet, dance and gymnastics in which competitors manipulate ropes, balls, clubs, hoops and ribbons.

And Alina was very good. Aged only 15, she won the gold medal in the 1998 European Championships. The following year she secured the world title and was favourite to repeat the success at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Disaster struck, however, when she dropped her hoop and it rolled off the carpet. She went home with only a bronze and all of Russia wept with her. It is said that this was when she first came to Putin’s attention and made his acquaintance.

 

There was more embarrassment at the Goodwill Games in Brisbane the following year when, having won five medals, she tested positive for a banned diuretic.

 

Tough guy: President Putin happily poses for pictures during a fishing trip to Siberia last year. He is more reluctant to be pictured with wife Ludmilla

She was stripped of her titles, though her coach said that it had been an honest mistake, caused by using an Australian food supplement.

 

Joy was unconfined when Alina won the All-Around rhythmic gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics. The sport had a new superstar and pin-up girl.

But a knee injury was dogging her career and, after one retirement and a comeback, she announced in February that her time on the carpet was at an end…time to concentrate on politics and support for her President.

What then of the first First Lady? 50-year-old Ludmilla Putin’s talents lie in linguistics. She has a degree in Spanish, can speak French and has taught German at Leningrad State University in Putin’s home city of St Petersburg.

She married him there in July 1983. At the time of the wedding, Miss Kabaeva, was only two months old.

 

Ludmilla followed her husband on his KGB postings and lived in East Germany for four years, where one of their two daughters, Maria and Katja now aged 23 and 21, were born.

 

Many talents: Alina Kabaeva worked as a model and a waitress before becoming a MP

But rumours about the state of the Putin marriage have been rife for some time in Moscow media circles.

The story that she and the President have already, in fact, divorced appeared in the Moscow tabloid Moscovski Korrespondent.

The newspaper claimed that the secret divorce came through in February and that Mr Putin will marry the gymnast-turned-MP in St Petersburg on June 15.

The article cited a source close to an event planning company saying the firm was competing for the right to host the wedding at an imperial palace on this date.

By that time, Mr Putin will have stepped down from the Presidency and have been replaced by his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev.

Mr Putin will become Prime Minister and chairman of the ruling party, United Russia.

No one in Russia or elsewhere believes that by leaving the office of President he will have relinquished any of his real power.

As the story of his divorce circulated around Moscow, it was claimed that Putin had been seen having an intimate dinner with Kabaeva in a city centre restaurant earlier this year.

Last night, her father muddied the waters when he said he hadn’t heard if his daughter was marrying or not.

But he added: ‘If she marries such a man it will be great. He’s quite similar to me.’

Neither the Kremlin nor a spokesman for Miss Kabaeva were prepared to comment. Some even suggest the story has been deliberately leaked by the Kremlin to allow them to impose further restrictions on Russia’s mass media.

Ironically, Mr Putin was last night staying at the Sardinian villa of newly re-elected Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi - another diminutive leader with an eye for the ladies.

Spanish Mothers in Debt After Trying a Nude Fund-raising Calendar For School

Seven middle-aged Spanish mothers who posed for a tongue-in-cheek nude calendar - a fundraiser for their children’s tiny, rural school - are now saddled with debt and 5,000 unwanted copies.

One of the photos shows the mothers with Christmas tinsel as their only garb - no private parts on view. Other goofy poses include a shotgun-toting mother wearing only a fox pelt and kneeling on a table, and another shows a woman covering her body with a red umbrella on a picnic table.

A group of British women made more than a million pounds and worldwide headlines when they came up with the idea of a discreet nude calendar for 2000 to raise money for leukemia research. Their story was made into a hit movie, “Calendar Girls.”

In Spain, the photos came out as calendars in November and at first proved to be a big hit. But the plan fizzled.

The women acknowledge being rank amateurs in publishing and advertising, and because of a miscue with a distributor they missed out on the Christmas shopping rush. Now, sales of the $8 calendar have dried up and they owe a printer nearly $16,000.

“The sad part for us is figuring out what to do with them because it is not something you can recycle,” said Rosa Garin, 36, one of the models in Serradilla del Arroyo, a village of 400 people in northern Salamanca province.

The hamlet is a snapshot of rural Spain: quaint but graying, with retirees accounting for 75 percent of the population. The arrival of a new family with small children is greeted like manna from heaven. Funding for services is scant.

Its elementary school has one classroom and one teacher who handles its seven pupils, spanning four grades, and ranging in age from 7 to 11. But it is so cramped, the village matrons came up with the idea of building a recreation center for their kids.

“Nobody remembers the villages. Everybody comes and says, ‘Wow, this is so pretty, what lovely countryside, you live so well here,’ but then they don’t help you at all. They give you absolutely nothing,” Itziar Zamarreno, a 40-year-old town councilor who posed for the calendar, said in an interview Tuesday.

Among other pictures, she appears as Miss October, covered only with fox fur and holding a borrowed shotgun. This reflects a desire to depict typical scenes in an area where hunting is popular.

“I do not like to hunt. I do not like to kill things. But we had to do something representative,” she said.

The plight of the mothers of Serradilla del Arroyo resurfaced recently because the distributor filed a complaint alleging they were behind on payments and local media picked up the story.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Report: China led world executions in 2007

LONDON, England (AP) — China reduced the number of executions it carried out last year but still executed more people than any other country in the world, Amnesty International said Tuesday in its annual report on the death penalty worldwide.

Iran remains the country with the second-highest number of executions, with 377 killings that included a man stoned for adultery, the human rights group said.

The number of American executions fell to its lowest level in about 15 years, putting it fifth in the world with 42, Amnesty officials said.

Amnesty analysts said that early in 2007 China reformed the way capital cases are handled, leading to a substantial reduction in executions. They said at least 470 people were put to death, from 1,010 in 2006. But they cautioned that the actual number is undoubtedly higher, and warned that any drop may be temporary.

Piers Bannister, a death penalty researcher at Amnesty, said the group fears that the slowdown is only a “logjam” that will lead to a rise in executions once a review by China’s top court of all capital cases is concluded.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment on the findings in the Amnesty report. The ministry has said in the past that Amnesty is “biased and hostile toward China.”

More than 60 offenses in China are punishable by the death penalty, including drug trafficking and embezzlement, Bannister said.

Amnesty reported that three countries — Iran, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia — put people under the age of 18 to death, the youngest a 13-year-old executed in Iran in April.

Amnesty’s report cited research by other groups claiming the number of people put to death in China was much higher, with some research indicating that as many as 6,000 people may have been executed in 2007. Death penalty figures are treated as a state secret in China.

In all, at least 3,347 people were sentenced to death in 51 countries, and as many as 27,500 people are estimated to be on death row, Amnesty said.

Alicia Keys has theory on Tupac-Biggie feud

There’s another side to Alicia Keys: conspiracy theorist. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter tells Blender magazine: “‘Gangsta rap’ was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. ‘Gangsta rap’ didn’t exist.”

 

There’s another side to Alicia Keys: conspiracy theorist.

The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter tells Blender magazine: “‘Gangsta rap’ was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. ‘Gangsta rap’ didn’t exist.”

Keys, 27, said she’s read several Black Panther autobiographies and wears a gold AK-47 pendant around her neck “to symbolize strength, power and killing ’em dead,” according to an interview in the magazine’s May issue, on newsstands Tuesday.

Another of her theories: That the bicoastal feud between slain rappers Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. was fueled “by the government and the media, to stop another great black leader from existing.”

Keys’ AK-47 jewelry came as a surprise to her mother, who is quoted as telling Blender: “She wears what? That doesn’t sound like Alicia.” Keys’ publicist, Theola Borden, said Keys was on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Though she’s known for her romantic tunes, she told Blender that she wants to write more political songs. If black leaders such as the late Black Panther Huey Newton “had the outlets our musicians have today, it’d be global. I have to figure out a way to do it myself,” she said.

The multiplatinum songstress behind the hits “Fallin”’ and “No One” most recently had success with her latest CD, “As I Am,” which sold millions.