Athletes lose medals; Armstrong decision pending

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Eight years after winning Olympic medals in Athens, four track and field athletes from eastern Europe were ordered to hand them back Wednesday because of positive doping tests, while Lance Armstrong can hold onto his bronze medal from the 2000 Sydney Games a little while longer. The International Olympic Committee executive board disqualified four athletes whose 2004 Athens doping samples were retested this year and came back positive for steroids, including shot put gold medalist Yuriy Bilonog of Ukraine. Also stripped of medals were hammer throw silver medalist Ivan Tskikhan of Belarus and two bronze medalists — women's shot putter Svetlana Krivelyova of Russia and discus thrower Irina Yatchenko of Belarus. The IOC held off stripping Armstrong of the bronze he won 12 years ago in the cycling road time trial in Sydney, citing procedural reasons for the delay. IOC leaders want Armstrong's medal back after the damning U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report that painted Armstrong as a systematic drug cheat. The International Cycling Union recently stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles from 1999-2005. But the IOC said it must wait for UCI, the cycling's governing body, to formally notify Armstrong of the loss of all his results since August 1998. The IOC wants to avoid any legal problems in connection with the eight-year statute of limitations in the Olympic rules. "The IOC today will not move," IOC President Jacques Rogge said at a news conference following a two-day board meeting in Lausanne. "We need to have the situation whereby the UCI notifies officially Mr. Armstrong of the fact that he will be disqualified, declared ineligible and that he should hand over his medal. "This is a legal obligation not for the IOC but for the International Cycling Union. When he will be notified, Mr. Armstrong will have 21 days to launch an appeal if he wishes. It is only after this period of 21 days that the IOC can legally take action." The case of a fifth bronze medalist, weightlifter Oleg Perepechenov of Russia, is pending. The IOC said it will ask the International Association of Athletics Federations to get the four medals back and readjust the results and rankings from the Athens Games. Until then, no decision will be taken on reallocating the medals. Adam Nelson of the United States finished second in the shot put in Athens behind Bilonog and would stand to move up to gold. The intention of the IOC to wipe Armstrong from the Olympic record books remains clear. "Absolutely," IOC vice president Craig Reedie of Britain told The Associated Press. "If the UCI have the ability to remove all these titles, we should have the ability to remove a bronze medal. Once they go through their procedures, then we'll go through ours." Armstrong finished behind winner and U.S. Postal Service teammate Vyacheslav Ekimov of Russia and Jan Ullrich of Germany in Sydney. The IOC has no plans to reallocate Armstrong's bronze medal, just as the UCI decided not to declare any winners for the Tour titles once held by the American. In August, the IOC stripped Tyler Hamilton, a former Armstrong teammate, of his time-trial gold medal from the 2004 Athens Olympics after he admitted to doping. The Athens Games were already considered the dirtiest on record, producing 26 doping cases and catching six medalists — including two gold winners — at the time. The retroactive tests bring the number of Athens cases to 31, including 11 medal winners and three gold medalists. Since Athens, the IOC has been storing doping samples from each Olympics for eight years to allow for retesting when new detection methods become available. Last year, under prodding from the World Anti-Doping Agency, the IOC reanalyzed about 100 samples from Athens. The IOC said Bilonog and Krivelyova tested positive for oxandrolone, while the samples from Tsikhan and Yatchenko were positive for methandienone. Bilonog's disqualification means that both shot put winners in Athens have been disqualified for doping: Women's champion Irina Korzhanenko of Russia was stripped of gold at the games after testing positive for stanozolol. The IAAF held the 2004 shot put competition in Ancient Olympia, in what had been intended as a symbolic and uplifting return to the birthplace of the Olympics.

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Obama election tweet most repeated but Olympics tops on Twitter

(Reuters) - An election victory tweet from President Barack Obama -- "Four more years" with a picture of him hugging his wife -- was the most retweeted ever, but the U.S. election was topped by the Olympics as the most tweeted event this year. Obama's tweet was retweeted (repeated) more than 810,000 times, Twitter said as it published a list of the most tweeted events in 2012. (http://2012.twitter.com/) "Within hours, that Tweet simultaneously became the most retweeted of 2012, and the most retweeted ever. In fact, retweets of that simple message came from people in more than 200 countries around the world," Twitter spokeswoman Rachael Horwitz said. Twitter users were busiest during the final vote count for the presidential elections, sending 327,452 tweets per minute on election night on their way to a tally of 31 million election tweets for the day. The 2012 Olympic Games in London had the most overall tweets of any event, with 150 million sent over the 16 days. Usain Bolt's golden win in the 200 meters topped 80,000 tweets per minute but he did not achieve the highest Olympic peak on Twitter. That was seen during the closing ceremony when 115,000 tweets per minute were sent as 1990s British pop band the Spice Girls performed. Syria, where a bloody civil war still plays out, was the most talked about country in 2012 but sports and pop culture dominated the tally of tweets. Behind Obama was pop star Justin Bieber. His tweet, "RIP Avalanna. i love you" sent when a six-year-old fan died from a rare form of brain cancer, was retweeted more than 220,000 times. Third most repeated in 2012 was a profanity-laced tweet from Green Bay Packers NFL player TJ Lang, when he blasted a controversial call by a substitute referee officiating during a referee dispute. That was retweeted 98,000 times. This was the third year running that the microblogging site published its top Twitter trends, offering a barometer to assess the biggest events in social media. Superstorm Sandy, which slammed the densely populated U.S. East Coast in late October, killing more than 100 people, flooding wide areas and knocking out power for millions, attracted more than 20 million tweets between October 27 and November 1. European football made the list of top tweets when Spain's Juan Mata scored as his side downed Italy 4-0 in the Euro 2012 final -- sparking 267,200 tweets a minute. News of pop star Whitney Houston's death in February generated more than 10 million tweets, peaking at 73,662 per minute. Romantic comedy "Think Like a Man" was the most tweeted movie this year, topping "The Hunger Games", "The Avengers" and "The Dark Knight Rises." Rapper Rick Ross who notched his fourth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart this year, was the most talked about music artist.

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No. 2 Alabama places 4 on AP All-America team

NEW YORK (AP) — Alabama is No. 1 when it comes to All-Americans. The second-ranked Crimson Tide placed four players on The Associated Press All-America team released Tuesday. Among them was center Barrett Jones, who became a two-time first-team selection. No other team had more than two players selected to the first team. The Tide also led with six players chosen to all three teams. Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Stanford and Florida were second with four players on the three teams, though linebacker Manti Te'o was the only Fighting Irish player to make the first team. Alabama faces top-ranked Notre Dame in the BCS championship game Jan. 7. Texas A&M Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel was the first-team quarterback. Wisconsin running back Montee Ball and Georgia linebacker Jarvis Jones also became two-time All-Americans. Nine Southeastern Conference players made the first team, more than any other conference. The Pac-12 was second with six players on the first team. No other conference had more than two. The team was voted on by a panel of 16 AP college football poll voters. Barrett Jones, a senior who made the All-America team as a tackle last season, was joined on the first team by Alabama teammates guard Chance Warmack, linebacker C.J. Mosley and cornerback Dee Milliner. Offensive tackle D.J. Fluker was picked to the second team and quarterback AJ McCarron was selected to the third team. Te'o, the Heisman finalists and winner of seven other awards — including the Maxwell, Nagurski and Butkus — is the first Notre Dame defensive player to be an AP All-American since defensive back Shane Walton in 2002. Manziel is the first freshman to make the first team at quarterback. On Saturday, the redshirt freshman know as Johnny Football became the first freshman to win the Heisman Trophy. Manziel set an SEC record with 4,600 total yards to rank second in the nation. Heisman finalist Collin Klein of Kansas State was the second-team quarterback. Ball repeated as an All-American, despite a slow start to the season and some early injuries. The senior is seventh in the nation in rushing at 133 yards per game, scored 21 touchdowns, and set the major college football record for career touchdowns. He has 82 going into the Rose Bowl. Arizona's Ka'Deem Carey, the nation's leading rusher at 146 yards per game, was the other first-team running back. The receivers were Southern California's Marqise Lee, who leads the nation in catches (112) and was second in yards receiving (1,680), and Baylor's Terrance Williams, who leads in yards with 1,764. Stanford's Zach Ertz was the tight end. Joining Jones and Warmack on the offensive line were two junior tackles projected to be high first-round NFL draft picks: Texas A&M's Luke Joeckel and Michigan's Taylor Lewan. "Team goals are bigger than individual goals, but one of my personal goals was to be an All-American and it's an unbelievable feeling to reach that goal," Lewan said Tuesday. North Carolina's Jonathan Cooper was the other first-team guard. West Virginia's Tavon Austin was selected as the all-purpose player, a perfect description of the do-it-all speedster. Austin was primarily a receiver and racked up 1,259 yards through the air. Late in the season, coach Dana Holgorsen used Austin as a running back and against Oklahoma he the senior set a school-record with 344 yards rushing. He finished second in the nation in all-purpose yards with 230 per game, and returned a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns. Tulane's Cairo Santos was the All-American kicker after making all 21 of his field goal attempts. On the defensive side, Te'o and Mosley were joined at linebacker by the other two-time All-American. Jones followed-up his sensational sophomore season with 12.5 sacks and 22.5 tackles for loss. Another SEC pass rusher highlighted the defensive line. South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney had 13.5 sacks, tied for the most in the nation, playing in only 11 games. He'll matchup against Lewan in the Outback Bowl on Jan. 1. "He's very explosive player who plays every play to the whistle and never takes a snap off," Lewan said. "It's a great opportunity to see where I'm at and where he's at and I'm excited about it. But it's not about me or him, it's about the University of Michigan playing South Carolina at the Outback Bowl." Florida State Bjoern Werner was the other end. He also had 13 sacks. At defensive tackle was a pair of Pac-12 players: Utah's Star Lotulelei and Arizona State's Will Sutton, who was the conference defensive player of the year. In the secondary, Jordan Poyer of Oregon State, who had seven interceptions, was the cornerback opposite Milliner. Fresno State safety Phillip Thomas was voted to the first team after leading the nation with eight interceptions, including three returned for touchdown. Florida's Matt Elam was the other safety. The punter was Ryan Allen, who won his second straight Ray Guy Award last week. ___ Greg Auman, Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times; Robert Cessna, Bryan-College Station (Texas) Eagle; Bob Condotta, The Seattle Times; Doug Doughty, The Roanoke (Va.) Times; Seth Emerson, The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph and Columbus Ledger Enquirer; Erik Gee, KNML-AM, New Mexico; Garland Gillen, WWL-TV Channel 4, New Orleans; Anthony Gimino, TucsonCitizen.com; Eric Hansen, The South Bend (Ind.) Tribune; Rob Long, CBS Radio 105.7, Baltimore; Austin Meek, The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal; Keith Pompey, The Philadelphia Inquirer; Kyle Ringo, Daily Camera, Boulder Colo.; Keith Sargeant, Home News Tribune, New Jersey; Mitch Vingle, The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette; Adam Zucker, CBS Sports Network.

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Tagliabue overturns Saints suspensions

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue overturned the suspensions of four current and former New Orleans Saints players in the league's bounty investigation of the club. Tagliabue, however, found that three of the players engaged in conduct detrimental to the league. He said they participated in a performance pool that rewarded key plays — including hard tackles — that could merit fines. But he stressed that the team's coaches were very much involved. "Unlike Saints' broad organizational misconduct, player appeals involve sharply focused issues of alleged individual player misconduct in several different aspects," said a portion of ruling released by the NFL. "My affirmation of Commissioner Goodell's findings could certainly justify the issuance of fines. However, this entire case has been contaminated by the coaches and others in the Saints' organization." Tagliabue was appointed by his successor, Commissioner Roger Goodell, to handle a second round of player appeals to the league in connection with the Saints' cash-for-hits program run by former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams from 2009-2011. The players initially opposed his appointment. Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma had been given a full-season suspension, while defensive end Will Smith, Cleveland linebacker Scott Fujita and free agent defensive lineman Anthony Hargrove each received shorter suspensions. Fujita was the only player cleared of conduct detrimental to the league by Tagliabue. None of the players sat out any games because of suspensions. They have been allowed to play while appeals are pending, though Fujita is on injured reserve and Hargrove is not with a team. Shortly before the regular season, the initial suspensions were thrown out by an appeals panel created by the league's collective bargaining agreement. Goodell then reissued them, with some changes, and now those have been dismissed. Meanwhile, the players have challenged the NFL's handling of the entire process in federal court, but U.S District Judge Ginger Berrigan had been waiting to see how the latest round of appeals played out before deciding whether to get involved. With the player suspensions overturned, the end of a nearly 10-month dispute over how the NFL handled an investigation that covered three seasons and gathered about 50,000 pages of documents could be near. NFL investigators found that Vilma and Smith were ring-leaders of a cash-for-hits program that rewarded injurious tackles labeled as "cart-offs" and "knockouts." The NFL also concluded that Hargrove lied to NFL investigators to help cover up the program. Goodell also suspended Williams indefinitely, while banning Saints head coach Sean Payton for a full season. Tagliabue's ruling comes after a new round of hearings that for the first time allowed Vilma's attorneys and the NFL Players Association, which represents the other three players, to cross-examine key NFL witnesses in the probe. Those witnesses included Williams and former Saints assistant Mike Cerullo, who was fired after the 2009 season and whose email to the league, accusing the Saints of being "a dirty organization," jump-started the probe.

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Tom Cruise defends role as "Jack Reacher"

LONDON (Reuters) - Tom Cruise has defended his role as Jack Reacher in the first of what could be a new action movie franchise, despite being much slimmer and shorter than the character created by author Lee Child in the original books. Cruise told Reuters Television at the world premiere in London on Monday of "Jack Reacher" that he would not have taken the part if British thriller writer Child had been unhappy. Child's version of Reacher - a military sniper - is 6 foot 5 inches tall and weighs over 200 pounds (91 kilograms). Cruise, 50, is just 5 foot 7 inchestall according to the Internet Movie Database, and has a trim physique. "You know, he (Child) created the character, I had my own opinion that I didn't say to Lee and then he came back and pretty much reflected what I had felt about it. But had he said 'look I'd rather not', I would not have played the character," Cruise said. Cruise described Reacher's size as a "characteristic" rather than a "character." "Jack Reacher," to be released later this month, is based on "One Shot" - one of the series of best-selling novels by Child about the eponymous former soldier turned drifter who travels the United States dealing out his own brand of justice. British actress Rosamund Pike, who plays the female lead, said she hoped there will be many more Reacher movies. "We hope this is going to be a great big new franchise for Tom and for Paramount and so to be in the first one is always kind of cool ... It's witty, it's fast-moving, the plot is ... puzzling and incisive and quite dark in places. You know the humor and the violence in this film is pretty edgy and I like that about it," Pike said. Cruise was also a producer on the Paramount Pictures movie, which is due for release in the United States on December 21.

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Messi edges Falcao at top of AP soccer rankings

LONDON (AP) — Lionel Messi narrowly stayed on top of AP's Global Soccer Rankings this week despite breaking the record for goals in a calendar year. The Barcelona great finished one point ahead of Spanish league rival Radamel Falcao, who scored five goals for Atletico Madrid. Barcelona lost its top spot in the team rankings to Manchester United, which beat Manchester City 3-2 to stay in first place in the Premier League. Messi received 170 points from 18 voters, with Falcao at 169. Wayne Rooney was third with 120 after scoring twice for United. Messi broke Mueller's 40-year-old record for most goals in a year, scoring for the 86th time in 2012 on Sunday. The Argentine forward scored twice in a 2-1 win at Real Betis. Falcao became the first player to score five goals in a Spanish league game since Fernando Morientes of Real Madrid in the 2001-02 season. He led Atletico to a 6-0 win over Deportivo La Coruna. "Messi or Falcao? Falcao or Messi?" said Eurosport's Cedric Rouquette. "Two superheavyweights went head to head for first place this week. Dethroning Messi in the week he beat Gerd Mueller's goal-scoring record with two clinical goals would take something special. And Falcao's five goals were an astonishing performance." Aurelio Capaldi of Italy's Rai Sport put Rooney at the top of his list rather than Messi or Falcao. "Messi's record is impressive and Radamel Falcao scoring five goals in a game for the first time in his professional career is outstanding, but Wayne Rooney deserves the top spot this week as he was the man of the match at the Etihad Stadium," Capaldi said. AP's panel of global soccer journalists agreed that Chelsea's long-struggling striker Fernando Torres has returned to form, voting him into fifth place with 65 points, two behind Roma captain Francesco Totti. Totti scored twice and set up two more goals in a 4-2 win that ended Fiorentina's nine-match unbeaten run. Torres scored four times for Chelsea in a week. "Torres is coming back with coach Rafa Benitez who took him to the top in Liverpool years ago," said Orfeo Suarez of Spain's El Mundo. "Two important victories for Chelsea in the week before the Club World Cup." Tom Timmermann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said: "I may face a conundrum next week if Chelsea wins the Club World Cup. I've sworn them off for the time being, but can I leave the 'world champs' out of the top 10?" In the team vote, Manchester United jumped from fourth to first place with 145 points, ahead of Barcelona (131) and Bayern Munich (110), which leapt from 10th to third place. Bayern finished first in its Champions League group with a 4-1 victory over Bate Borisov and then stayed at the top of the Bundesliga with a 2-0 away victory to Augsburg. Juventus dropped one place to fourth, despite winning to stay in the Serie A lead. The top teams in Europe's top four leagues fill the top four places in the AP rankings. Falcao's Atletico Madrid is in fifth place while Real Madrid fell from second to sixth, giving Spain three clubs in the top six.

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BAE Systems wins 1.2 billion pound British submarine contract

LONDON (Reuters) - The UK's Ministry of Defence said on Monday it has awarded a 1.2 billion-pound ($1.92 billion) submarine contract to British defence contractor BAE Systems. BAE Systems will design and manufacture the submarine HMS Audacious, the fourth of seven nuclear-powered submarines being built for the Royal Navy. The deal comes after Chancellor George Osborne told all government departments on Wednesday that they would see budget cuts of 1 percent in 2013-14 and 2 percent the following year. The MoD also confirmed that a further 1.5 billion pounds has been committed to the remaining three submarines in the class, a move which it says will safeguard 3,000 jobs in Cumbria in the north of England. "Our ability to commit an additional GBP1.5 billion for boats five, six and seven underlines the benefits of a balanced budget and fully funded equipment programme that gives our Armed Forces greater certainty," Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said in a statement. The MoD has been hit particularly hard in the austerity drive under Britain's coalition government, with plans for the army to be cut to 82,000 personnel by 2020. Talks broke down in October this year for BAE Systems to join forces with Airbus parent EADS, in what would have been the world's largest defence and aviation merger.

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UK police unable to identify man who fell from sky

LONDON (AP) — Police believe he was from Africa, probably from Angola, but they don't know his identity, or how to notify his next of kin. The mystery began in September when residents of a suburban street in the Mortlake neighborhood of West London woke up on a quiet Sunday morning to find the crumpled body of a black man on the sidewalk of Portman Avenue, near a convenience store, an upscale lingerie shop and a storefront offering Chinese medical cures. Detectives believed at first the man was a murder victim and cordoned off the area. Within a day, however, police concluded the man — probably already dead — had fallen to the ground when a jet passing overhead lowered its landing gear as it neared the runway at nearby Heathrow Airport. The apparent stowaway had no identification papers — just some currency from Angola, leading police to surmise that he was from that African nation, especially as inquiries showed that a plane from Angola was beginning its descent into Heathrow at about that time. The macabre explanation made perfect sense to residents, who are familiar not only with the roar of the jets descending, but are also able to see the planes lower their landing gears as they pass overhead, said Catherine Lambert, who lives a few doors down from the spot where the man landed. "You could see him, his body was contorted," she said. "It was a beautiful blue day, really sunny, but we had to keep the children inside. I didn't want the children to see, and to have to explain to them and put fear into them every time a plane goes over." A post mortem conducted two days after the body landed listed the cause of death as "multiple injuries." In the days afterward, some neighbors put flowers on the spot where the stowaway was found, and a small group of Angolans who live in the London area came to place more flowers and to pray. Lambert, 41, said there is lingering sadness, since the man has not been identified and there has been no way to tell his family he is gone. "I felt, what was he running away from? What made him think he could he could? And how will his family ever know? He's a lost soul now; his father and mother are probably waiting for him to make contact," she said. A London police spokesman, who wasn't authorized to speak on the record because of force policy, said Sunday that police are appealing to the public for help identifying the man based on an "e-fit" image of his face and a photo of a tattoo on his left arm. The unusual tattoo showed the letters "Z'' and "G''. Police also said attempts to identify the man with the help of Angolan authorities had been unsuccessful. They stressed there is only "circumstantial" evidence linking the stowaway to that country. In a statement, police said the man is believed to be an African of slight build between the ages of 20 and 30. He was wearing jeans, white sneakers and a gray sweatshirt when he was found on Sept. 9, police said. Although firm figures are not available, in recent years there has been a rise in the number of stowaways trying to get to Western Europe by hiding in the undercarriages of passenger planes. Aviation safety specialist Chris Yates of Yates Consulting said Sunday that poor airport perimeter security at a number of airports in Africa — including the main Angola airport at Luanda — and in other parts of the world has made it easier for people to stow away on planes, but that most attempts fail. "They so often end in fatality because more often than not stowaways climb into the wheel base or cargo hold, and those areas are not necessarily pressurized," he said. "When you start moving beyond 10,000 feet, oxygen starvation becomes a reality. As you climb up to altitude, the issue becomes cold as well, the temperature drops to minus 40 or minus 50 degrees centigrade, so survival rates drop." He said the man who crashed to the pavement in Mortlake had probably lost consciousness and died within the first hour of his flight. Police said the body is being held for possible repatriation in case the man's identity is established. Mortlake residents and business people speak of a similar death in recent years, but disagree about the timing and the details. "People say the same thing happened a few years ago a few blocks away" said Jay Sivapalan, 29, who works at the Variety Box convenience store half a block from where the body landed. "We are near Heathrow and when they lower the landing gear, the body falls out." Others believe the incident may have happened 10 years ago. Police said they had no information about other stowaway deaths.

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Royal phone scandal highlights new media risks

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Back in 2007, as investigations were gathering strength into the UK phone hacking scandal involving journalists working under the umbrella of the Murdoch media empire, a comedy show based around prank telephone calls made a low-key debut in Britain. 'Fonejacker' proved such a hit with the British public that the next year the programme, in which a masked caller bamboozles hapless victims, won a coveted BAFTA award for best comedy, underscoring the attraction of the prank call amid a blurring of a ceaseless news cycle with social media and entertainment. But just such a prank telephone call, to a London hospital where Prince William's pregnant wife Kate was being treated, has sparked a firestorm in traditional and social media after the apparent suicide by the nurse who put the call through. Much of the fury has been directed at laying blame for the nurse's death on the Australian DJs who made the prank call, or the media in general, with the most vitriolic comments appearing on the public domains of Facebook and Twitter. The social media outrage has become a story of its own, outlasting the original news value of a prank call, and has seen advertising pulled from the programme which broadcast the hoax call and the suspension of the two radio announcers. Shares in radio station 2DayFM's owner, Southern Cross Austero fell 5 percent on Monday as the public backlash gathered strength. Media commentators and analysts warn the rapidly changing traditional and social media worlds may have given people greater freedom of expression, but can unleash a genie which can have destructive or negative repercussions, without responsible behaviour by both mainstream and social media operators. "It's all changing so fast that societal norms have retreated in confusion," said veteran newspaper columnist Jennifer Hewett in the Australian Financial Review. "What is clear is that we will soon look back to count the mounting costs and destructive force, as well as the great benefits, of the explosion of communication in an all-media, all-in, all-the-time world," Hewett said. Jacintha Saldanha, 46, was found dead in staff accommodation near London's King Edward VII hospital on Friday after putting the hoax call through to a colleague who unwittingly disclosed details of Kate's morning sickness to 2DayFM's presenters. Her death, still being investigated, followed still simmering outrage in Britain over phone hacking, as well as Australian anger over the power of radio announcers to plump ratings with a diet of shock, including a 2Day announcer who sparked fury by calling a woman journalist rival a "fat slag". And while in Britain the popular press were quick to seize the moral high ground and point the finger "Down Under", Australian commentators pointed blame the other way, or at confusion over the changing role of media and voracious public demand for not only information, but increasingly titillation. Australian newspaper columnist Mike Carlton said while 2Day FM and its parent company made good money by "entertaining simple minds", for tabloid British papers to point "Down Under" over a 'gotcha' news genre they created was "towering hypocrisy". CHANGING MEDIA ETHICS The social media condemnation of Saldanha's death should prompt a re-think of ethics in the era of celebrity news, said Jim Macnamara, a media analyst from Australia's University of Technology, Sydney. "There is a lesson in this for media organisations everywhere, and for journalists and media personalities, and that is that they need to look at community standards and better self regulate," said Macnamara. The tragic fallout from the radio stunt has rekindled memories of the death of William's mother Diana in a Paris car crash in 1997 and threatens to cast a pall over the birth of his and Kate's first child. Public amusement at the prank started turning when British media reported the call as a major security breach of the royal family's privacy, despite the call never reaching Kate's room and the information revealed by a nurse was already public. But news of Saldanha's death is what sparked the Internet firestorm, that once unleashed could not be controlled. Hypocritically, some of the harshest criticism was on Twitter and Facebook, where people unleashed fury on Australian and British media, after having themselves publish news of Saldanha's error under a Twitter topic #royalprank, which was repeated more than 15,000 times. "When the twitterverse goes into meltdown, we all react with a chain reaction any nuclear plant would be proud of. I hope, in time, the world will learn to splash cold water on itself when these stories break and cool down, before we all get dragged into the mud of our own making," Tristan Stewart-Robertson, a Glasgow-based journalist wrote in a blog on www.firstpost.com

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AP Exclusive: Georgia details nuke investigations

BATUMI, Georgia (AP) — On the gritty side of this casino resort town near the Turkish border, three men in a hotel suite gathered in secret to talk about a deal for radioactive material. The Georgian seller offered cesium, a byproduct of nuclear reactors that terrorists can use to arm a dirty bomb with the power to kill. But one of the Turkish men, wearing a suit and casually smoking a cigarette, made clear he was after something even more dangerous: uranium, the material for a nuclear bomb. The would-be buyers agreed to take a photo of the four cylinders and see if their boss in Turkey was interested. They did not know police were watching through a hidden camera. As they got up to leave, the police rushed in and arrested the men, according to Georgian officials, who were present. The encounter, which took place in April, reflected a fear shared by U.S. and Georgian officials: Despite years of effort and hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the fight against the illicit sale of nuclear contraband, the black market remains active in the countries around the former Soviet Union. The radioactive materials, mostly left over from the Cold War, include nuclear bomb-grade uranium and plutonium, and dirty-bomb isotopes like cesium and iridium. The extent of the black market is unknown, but a steady stream of attempted sales of radioactive materials in recent years suggests smugglers have sometimes crossed borders undetected. Since the formation of a special nuclear police unit in 2005 with U.S. help and funding, 15 investigations have been launched in Georgia and dozens of people arrested. Six of the investigations were disclosed publicly for the first time to The Associated Press by Georgian authorities. Officials with the U.S. government and the International Atomic Energy Agency declined to comment on the individual investigations, but President Barack Obama noted in a speech earlier this year that countries like Georgia and Moldova have seized highly enriched uranium from smugglers. An IAEA official, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to comment, said the agency is concerned smuggling is still occurring in Georgia. Four of the previously undisclosed cases, and a fifth — an arrest in neighboring Turkey announced by officials there — occurred this year. One from last year involved enough cesium-137 to make a deadly dirty bomb, officials said. Also, Georgian officials see links between two older cases involving highly enriched uranium, which in sufficient quantity can be used to make a nuclear bomb. The AP's interviews with the two imprisoned smugglers in one case suggested that the porous borders and the poverty of the region contributed to the problem. The arrests in the casino resort of Batumi stand out for two reasons: They suggest there are real buyers — many of the other investigations involved stings with undercover police acting as buyers. And they suggest that buyers are interested in material that can be used to make a nuclear weapon. "Real buyers are rare in nuclear smuggling cases, and raise real risks," said nuclear nonproliferation specialist Matthew Bunn, who runs Harvard's Project on Managing the Atom. "They suggest someone is actively seeking to buy material for a clandestine bomb." The request for uranium raises a particularly troubling question. "There's no plausible reason for looking for black-market uranium other than for nuclear weapons— or profit, by selling to people who are looking to make nuclear weapons," said Bunn. ______________ Georgia's proximity to the large stockpiles of Cold War-era nuclear material, its position along trade routes to Asia and Europe, the roughly 225 miles (360 kilometers) of unsecured borders of its two breakaway republics, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the poverty of the region may explain why the nation of 4.5 million has become a transit point for nuclear material. Georgian officials say the radioactive material in the five new cases this year all transited through Abkhazia, which borders on Russia and has Russian troops stationed on its territory. Abkhazia's foreign ministry said it has no information about the Georgian allegations and would not comment, but in the past it has denied Georgian allegations. Russia maintains that it has secured its radioactive material — including bomb-grade uranium and plutonium — and that Georgia has exaggerated the risk because of political tension with Moscow. But while the vast majority of the former Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal and radioactive material has been secured, U.S. officials say that some material in the region remains loose. "Without a doubt, we are aware and have been over the last several years that not all nuclear material is accounted for," says Simon Limage, deputy assistant secretary for non-proliferation programs at the U.S. State Department. "It is true that a portion that we are concerned about continues to be outside of regulatory control." U.S. efforts to prevent smuggling have prioritized bomb-grade material because of the potential that a nuclear bomb could flatten a U.S. city. But security officials say an attack with a dirty bomb — explosives packed with radioactive material — would be easier for a terrorist to pull off. And terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, have sought the material to do so. A study by the National Defense University found that the economic impact from a dirty bomb attack of a sufficient scale on a city center could exceed that of the September 11, 2011, attacks on New York and Washington. The U.S. government has been assisting about a dozen countries believed to be vulnerable to nuclear smuggling, including Georgia, to set up teams that combine intelligence with police undercover work. Limage says Georgia's team is a model for the other countries the U.S. is supporting. On Jan. 6, police arrested a man in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, and seized 36 vials with cesium-135, a radioactive isotope that is hard to use for a weapon. The man said he had obtained the material in Abkhazia. In April, Georgian authorities arrested a group of smugglers from Abkhazia bringing in three glass containers with about 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of yellowcake uranium, a lightly processed substance that can be enriched into bomb-grade material. "At first we thought that this was coincidence," said Archil Pavlenishvili, chief investigator of Georgia's anti-smuggling team. "But since all of these cases were connected with Abkhazia, it suggests that the stuff was stolen recently from one particular place. But we have no idea where. " Days later, more evidence turned up when Turkish media reported the arrest of three Turkish men with a radioactive substance in the capital, Ankara. Police seized 2.2 pounds (1 kilogram) of cesium-135, the same material seized in January in Tbilisi. Georgian officials said the suspects were residents of Germany and driving a car with German plates, but that the material had come from Abkhazia. Turkish authorities said the men had entered Turkey from Georgia. Information provided by German authorities led to the arrest in June of five suspects in Georgia with 9 vials of cesium-135 that looked very similar to the vials seized in January. The Batumi investigation started after the arrest of two men in the city of Kutaisi in February 2011 year with a small quantity of two radioactive materials stolen from an abandoned Soviet helicopter factory, according to Georgian officials. The men said that a businessman, Soslan Oniani, had encouraged them to sell the material. Police interviewed Oniani and searched his house, but found insufficient evidence to arrest him, according to officials. Still, they kept monitoring him through phone taps and an informant. Georgian officials say Oniani was a braggart, who played on his relationship with his cousin, Tariel Oniani, a well- known organized crime boss convicted in Russia of kidnapping. Early this year, Soslan Oniani started talking about a new deal. Through surveillance and phone taps, police learned of the meeting in Batumi and monitored it. While no money passed hands, the men discussed an illegal deal, which is sufficient for prosecution in Georgia. Tests by Georgian authorities later revealed that one lead cylinder held cesium-137, two strontium-90, and the fourth spent material that was hard to identify. All are useful for making a dirty bomb, although the material in the cylinders alone was not enough to cause mass casualties, according to data provided by Georgian nuclear regulatory authorities. The arrested Turks denied knowing they were negotiating for radioactive substances. They claimed to be musical instrument experts, who had come to Batumi seeking to buy violins. A skeptical interrogator asked them if they were familiar with the famed instrument maker Stradivarius. One man said he had never heard of him. The two Turks and the seller, Oniani, were convicted in September in a Georgian court, according to officials, and sentenced to six years in prison each. _______________ The Georgian smuggling cases suggest that the trade in radioactive materials is driven at least in part by poverty and the lingering legacy of Soviet corruption in a hardscrabble region. Georgian officials say that because of U.S. backed counter-smuggling efforts, organized crime groups seem to have concluded that the potential profit from trade in these materials doesn't justify the risk. But individuals sometimes conclude they can make a quick buck from radioactive material. For instance, in one newly disclosed case last year, authorities arrested two Georgian men with firearms, TNT and a lethal quantity of cesium-137. One was a former Soviet officer in an army logistics unit, who told police that at the end of his service in the early 90s, he had made a second career stealing from the military. "He openly said: 'I was a logistics officer and my second duty was to steal everything possible," according to Pavlenishvili. The man kept the cesium for years before he and a relative tried to sell it last year to a Georgian undercover officer. He did not try to sell the weapons or explosives. Poverty and corruption also appear to have played into three smuggling incidents in 2003, 2006 and 2010 that involved bomb-grade highly enriched uranium. In 2003, an Armenian man, Garik Dadaian, was arrested when he set off a radiation detector provided by an American program at a checkpoint on the Armenian-Georgian border. Days later, the man was released and returned to Armenia under murky circumstances. Dadaian's name resurfaced in 2010 on a bank transfer slip in the pocket of the two smugglers arrested with highly enriched uranium. The men had obtained the material from Dadaian and were offering it as a sample of a larger quantity. Police say forensic analysis suggests the uranium may have come from the same batch seized in 2003. Russian investigators suspected Dadaian got the nuclear fuel from a manufacturing plant in Novosibirsk, Russia, where several disappearances of material have been documented. Pavlenishvili said Dadaian bribed prosecutors to win his release and take some of the uranium. The two smugglers in the 2010 case were Sumbat Tonoyan, a dairy farmer who went bankrupt, and Hrant Ohanian, a former physicist at a nuclear research facility in the Armenian capital of Yerevan. The AP interviewed both at a prison about 25 miles (40 kilometers) outside Tbilisi, where they are serving sentences of 13 and 14 years. In separate interviews, each man blamed the other for the idea of smuggling uranium, and talked of financial hardship. Ohanian said his daughter needed urgent medical care that he couldn't afford, and Tonoyan said a bank had seized his house after his dairy factory collapsed. "I didn't have a job and I couldn't pay the bank," he said in Russian through an interpreter. The men also claimed they believed the material they were selling was to be used for scientific work, not nefarious purposes. Ohanian said a Georgian contact, who was also arrested, told him relations with Moscow were so bad that Georgian scientists could not get the uranium they needed from Russia on the open market. "I feel guilty because I behaved like an idiot," he said. "I should have known and I would never do something like this again."

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Romania gov't easily wins parliamentary elections

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Partial results show Romania's center-left government has overwhelmingly won parliamentary elections, an outcome that could bring more upheaval because of a bitter personal feud between the president and the prime minister. Election official Marian Muhulet said Monday that the center-left alliance led by Prime Minister Victor Ponta won about 59 percent of the seats in the 452-seat legislature, followed by a center-right group allied to President Traian Basescu that polled just below 17 percent. Some 81.45 percent of the votes have been counted. A populist party lead by a media tycoon scored about 14 percent in Sunday's election and an ethnic Hungarian party won just over 5 percent. Other parties did not get the minimum 5 percent. Despite the clear victory, Basescu has indicated he would not appoint Ponta.

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