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Friday, October 16, 2009

Runaway helium balloon lands in Colorado, boy found from the house


A helium balloon that flew out of control over Colorado transfixing international media landed but a 6-year-old boy who had been thought to be on board was not in the craft, local media said. Earlier it was not known where the boy was. The boy, who was not identified, was reported to have climbed into the small homemade craft at his family's home before it floated away and across the Colorado skies at up to 7,000 feet (2,100 metres). Live television images showed the silver balloon, resembling a flying saucer and about 20 feet (six metres) across, floating above Colorado before it landed, as authorities scrambled to find a way to bring it down safely. A Larimer County Sheriff's spokeswoman described the craft as "a homemade helium balloon made to look like a UFO." She said the boy's brother said that he had climbed into the balloon at his family's home in Fort Collins. The craft then apparently broke away from a pair of tethers holding it to the ground and floated away. Aviation experts said that the boy could survive the flight but would be cold and possibly disoriented at high altitudes. Later the six-year-old boy who set off a massive search and rescue operation and media frenzy after it was reported he was inside a homemade helium balloon that broke loose and drifted for hours thousands of feet above Colorado has been found safe in his attic, police said.

Obama signs Kerry-Lugar Bill



President Barack Obama signed a 7.5 billion dollar aid package for Pakistan into law Thursday, after the US Congress acted to placate critics in Islamabad who warned it violated Pakistani sovereignty. "This law is the tangible manifestation of broad support for Pakistan in the US, as evidenced by its bipartisan, bicameral, unanimous passage in Congress," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement. The package is intended to bolster Pakistan's battle against extremism. The measure offers 1.5 billion dollars a year for five years to improve Pakistani schools, to fund groups that defend the rights of women and children, and money to train and modernize the Pakistani peace force. It also supports voter education, civil society and improvements in the functioning of parliament. Fears for the package's future were quelled when Senator John Kerry and Representative Howard Berman, who head committees handling foreign relations in Congress, gave Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi a document stating that the plan did not impose conditions or infringe on Pakistani sovereignty. The lawmakers' statement said the aid was meant "to forge a closer collaborative relationship between Pakistan and the United States, not to dictate the national policy or impinge on the sovereignty of Pakistan in any way. Any interpretation of this act which suggests that the United States does not fully recognize and respect the sovereignty of Pakistan would be directly contrary to congressional intent," it said. Obama's move followed days of tension over the package, which sparked a showdown between the Pakistani government and the powerful military, prompting Pakistan's Foreign Minister to rush to Washington on a rescue mission.

Google to launch platform for selling books online



Google Inc. is launching a new online service that will let readers buy electronic versions of books and read them on such gadgets as cell phones, laptops and possibly e-book devices. The company said Google Editions marks its first effort to earn revenue from its ambitious Google Books scanning project, which attempts to make millions of printed books available online. Although the scanning program has faced complaints from authors and publishers over copyright, Google Editions will cover only books submitted and approved by the copyright holders when it launches next year. The books bought through Google Editions will be accessible on any device that has a Web browser, including smart phones, netbooks and personal computers and laptops, putting Google in competition with Amazon.com Inc. and its Kindle e-book reader. Consumers can buy directly from Google or from any number of online booksellers and other retail partners using the Google Editions platform. Google will actually host the e-books and make them searchable. Google expects the program will start with 400,000 to 600,000 books in the first half of 2010.

Israeli anger over Turkish TV show



Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister, has ordered officials to summon Turkey's ambassador in Israel and lodge a protest over a Turkish television series that Israel says portrays its soldiers murdering Palestinian children. The move is the latest twist in worsening relations between the two countries which have traditionally had close defence ties. An Israeli foreign ministry statement quoted Lieberman as saying that the programme, screened by Turkish state television, constituted incitement against Israel "at the most grave level". Israeli television screened a clip on Wednesday that it said was from the series, showing an actor dressed as an Israeli soldier taking aim at a smiling young girl and shooting her in the chest from point-blank range.