Taiwan leader calls for artistic freedom in China (AP)

TAIPEI, Taiwan ? Taiwan's president urged China on Friday to respect the artistic freedom of outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained for nearly three months earlier this year and is currently confined to Beijing.

"He's an artist and should have the freedom to express his artistic views," President Ma Ying-jeou said after viewing Ai's exhibition at a Taipei museum. "This is also the core value of Taiwan."

Ma said he deplored that Chinese police detained Ai at the Beijing airport on April 3 as the conceptual artist was about to depart for Taiwan to prepare for the exhibit.

The detention came during a sweeping Chinese crackdown on activists and sparked an international outcry over China's deteriorating human rights situation. Ai was released in June but is prohibited from leaving Beijing.

China's government says Ai was detained on tax evasion charges. However, activists say he is being punished for his often outspoken criticism of the authoritarian government.

The exhibit at Taipei's Fine Arts Museum, titled "Ai Weiwei, Absent," focuses on the political significance of the artist's inability to attend.

The exhibit of 21 works, which opened last month and runs through late January, includes a white marble-made helmet and a surveillance camera, which Ai created to mock China as a police state. Another piece consists of 1,000 bicycles piled in layers, reflecting his perception of the rapid pace of Chinese social change.

The exhibit in Taiwan has a political significance of its own. Unlike the communist mainland, the island of 23 million people is a freewheeling democracy with few restrictions on expression.

"The distance between Taiwan and China will be determined by their views on human rights protection," Ma said. "When our views get closer, the two sides will move closer."

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, but China still claims the self-ruled island a part of its own territory. Since Ma took office in 2008, tensions between the two sides have dropped to their lowest point in decades.

Ma has pushed for economic engagement with Beijing, but refuses to have political dialogue.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_re_as/as_taiwan_ai_weiwei

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US awaits release of 3 students held in Egypt (AP)

PHILADELPHIA ? Three American students arrested during a protest in Cairo and ordered released by an Egyptian court are in the midst of being processed by authorities there, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said Friday.

Katharina Gollner-Sweet, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, told The Associated Press that Derrik Sweeney, Luke Gates and Gregory Porter are being processed for their eventual release one day after a court ordered them released from police custody, according to information from Egyptian officials.

"According to the latest information that the Egyptians gave out they were ordered released in the court but they are in an administrative out-processing stage," Gollner-Sweet said. "We are continuing to provide normal consular services."

The three U.S. college students, who attend the American University in Cairo, were arrested on the roof of a university building near Cairo's iconic Tahrir Square on Sunday. Officials accused them of throwing firebombs at security forces fighting with protesters.

A court in Egypt ordered the release of the students, a lawyer in Philadelphia confirmed Thursday.

Attorney Theodore Simon, who represents Porter, a 19-year-old student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said he spoke by phone with Porter, describing the student's demeanor as "calm and measured, demonstrating a maturity well beyond his 19 years."

"He was extremely thankful and appreciative for our efforts and the unconditional support of his mother and father," Simon said.

Porter is from Glenside, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia.

Sweeney's mother, Joy Sweeney, said she is "absolutely elated" at the news of her 19-year-old son's release.

"I can't wait to give him a huge hug and tell him how much I love him," she said, adding that the news of the court order was the best Thanksgiving gift.

The 21-year-old Gates is a student at Indiana University.

His parents released a statement Thursday through the school, saying they were "extremely happy" to hear that their son would soon be released.

"This has been a difficult situation, and while we are disappointed that he will be held a few days longer to complete administrative procedures related to his release, we're confident he will be home soon," Bill and Sharon Gates wrote.

The State Department released a statement saying it was trying to independently confirm the reports of the students' release.

Earlier Thursday, Egypt officials said the Abdeen Court in Cairo had ordered their release. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media. They did not say when the students would be released.

Joy Sweeney said she wasn't sure when her son, a student at Georgetown University, would be returning to their home in Jefferson City, Mo.

"If he can find his passport (then he'll leave) tomorrow, if not, it won't be until Monday," she said.

She said the U.S. consul general in Egypt, Roberto Powers, recommended that her son leave Egypt as soon as possible.

"He also conveyed that that was what Derrik had conveyed to him that he wanted to do. He was enjoying his experience but (was) ready to be done with it," Sweeney said.

Derrik Sweeney interned for U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., earlier this year. Luetkemeyer's spokesman Paul Sloca, said the congressman is "extremely pleased that he's safe and coming home, especially on Thanksgiving."

Sweeney said she had not prepared for a Thanksgiving celebration, although a friend had taken her some food. She said the idea of a Thanksgiving feast had seemed "absolutely irrelevant" before the news of her son's pending freedom.

Asked what she thought her son would take away from his arrest, Sweeney said she thought he would make something useful of it.

"I'm sure that he'll put a life-lesson learning experience into a positive story," Sweeney said. "He's a writer, he will write about this experience."

___

Associated Press reporter Ed Donahue in Washington contributed to this report. Hadeel Al-Shalchi reported from Cairo.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111125/ap_on_re_us/egypt_american_students

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Walking Dead's Sarah Wayne Callies: Lori's Afraid Rick and Shane Might Kill Each Other (omg!)

The secret is out!

In last week's episode of The Walking Dead, Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies) finally came clean to Rick (Andrew Lincoln), not just about being pregnant, but also that she had had an affair with his best friend Shane (Jon Bernthal). (To be fair, they both thought Rick was dead.)

The Walking Dead Boss: Shane's living on borrowed time -- but hasn't worn out his welcome yet

Now, Lori and Rick will face a challenge more treacherous than ravenous zombies: saving their marriage, a task complicated by Lori's pregnancy. Is it Rick or Shane's kid? TVGuide.com chatted with Callies to get her take on the venomous threesome.

Now that Rick knows about the affair, how will that change things between them?
Sarah Wayne Callies: Andy and I have been playing with the idea for a while that Rick has known for a long time and it was a test of whether or not Lori would be honest with him and when and why. It actually opens the door for things to begin to heal for them. He deeply needed to hear her say that she thought he was gone. She wasn't secretly burning a candle for Shane for the last eight years of their marriage.

You say he needed to hear that, but do you think that's the truth? Lori doesn't have any feelings for Shane?
Callies: I don't think Shane ever crossed Lori's mind as anything other than a dear friend until she was in his arms the night that Atlanta fell. There's something about memory that's really tricky, that when you go back to an event in your mind, it can actually change. Lori's having a much harder time putting it out of her mind and putting Shane out of her mind than she ever would've anticipated, given that it was really just a purely physical thing at its inception.

Walking Dead's Robert Kirkman: Lori's surprising results are only the beginning

How will Shane react to the pregnancy? Will he assume it's his?
Callies: That's her biggest fear right now, because there's no way to be sure whose baby it is, unless it turns out that she's two months pregnant and it happened before Rick was shot. But at this point, there's no timeline, so she's really afraid. Quite frankly, one of the reasons that she considered terminating the pregnancy is because it has the ability to tear these men apart, and that has huge implications not just to her personal life, but to everyone's safety. There's a part of her that's afraid they might kill each other. This is the kind of thing men kill each other over.

What will Shane do to cement himself in Lori's life?
Callies: For a while now, Shane has been trying to protect her and Carl (Chandler Riggs), and has been doing that from a distance and trying to take Rick's place. He's posturing. I'm thinking of the Planet Earth films, where the men of a species are trying to demonstrate to the females that they're bigger, stronger and better. Shane has a new level of investment in Lori's safety, if he does believe it's his child that she's carrying, and that means Rick's protection of Lori has to be that much more complete. It all gets very futile. At a certain point, this culture has devolved into a place where, as a woman, maybe you have to decide who you're with based on who can keep your child alive, rather than who's the best communicator, or who makes the best spaghetti Bolognese.

The Walking Dead: Can the survivors coexist with the family at Hershel's farm?

The Walking Dead's community has regressed to caveman-like conditions. Who can build fire? Who can protect you? That's who you should be with.
Callies: That's exactly right. We talked a lot in the first season about a certain Camelot prospective. You have three people who really do love each other equally. The longer we go on, the more it feels medieval, where there are moments where Lori looks at these guys and goes, "Jesus Christ, if I'm not careful, one of you is actually going to throw me over your shoulder and ride off on a horse with me." [Laughs] It's kind of amazing, especially coming from a woman who six weeks ago was driving a station wagon and shopping at Walmart.

Will Rick use Lori's pregnancy as a card to play to be able to stay on the farm?
Callies: The effect it has on him is more about the need to stay, not just because there's safety, but the need to stay close to the only person who practices medicine, veterinarian or no, and the need to make things right with Hershel (Scott Wilson) and the need to be able to make a home there. The pregnancy heightens all of that because Lori is not going to be able to run forever. There's a time bomb growing in her.

The Walking Dead's Laurie Holden: Andrea greatly admires Shane

How will the survivors deal with the barn in the midseason finale?
Callies: It speaks a lot to what we were discussing before about Rick and Shane. When people find out what's going on, there are very different perspectives on how we should proceed because there are different perspectives on what the true danger is. Is the true danger a bunch of walkers in the barn? Is the true danger Hershel throwing us off his farm? Could Hershel even do that? We outnumber them, we're armed, and who do we become if we make that kind of decision? Those become the questions that are raised with the barn and it deeply, deeply, deeply divides people. The whole thing blows sky-high.

The first half of the season is interesting because you have the illusion of safety for a minute, for a few episodes. You have people experiencing the problems you'd have when you're not necessarily running for your life every second. What the barn does is bring us back into a world where everybody realizes that we're not safe and we're not going to be safe. While it's the end of the first segment of the second season, the second half of the season has a very different character because of what the barn represents and how the situation is handled.

The Walking Dead's midseason finale airs Sunday at 9/8c on AMC.

Related Articles on TVGuide.com

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Canned cranberries: traditional as homemade turkey (AP)

CHICAGO ? In an era where there are television networks devoted to home cooking and dietitians warn against the dangers of processed foods, the love of canned cranberry seems to be a bit of dietary discord.

Devotees of canned cranberry sauce say the reasons begin and end with the past, and that the sight of the glistening can-shaped tube of jelly conjures up memories of Thanksgiving meals of long ago.

"It looks like a log of happiness," said Shannon Ervin, a 24-year-old mother of three in Harahan, La., who can't remember a Thanksgiving when canned cranberry sauce wasn't served.

Ocean Spray, the nation's largest producer of cranberry sauce, reports that of the 86.4 million cans it sells a year, 72 million of them are sold between September and the end of December.

On Facebook, groups devoted to canned cranberry sauce have popped up. Nicholas Mackara and a friend, Alexandra Shephard, launched one a few years back called, "Cranberry Sauce in the shape of the can makes my Thanksgiving."

There's also one entitled, "When Cranberry Sauce comes out of the can with ridges," and another called "Cranberry Sauce is only good if it's in the shape of a can." That one includes the motto: "If it ain't from a can, it's garbage."

"I think the ridges are the most important part," said Mackara, 21, of Clementon, N.J. "Then you know it definitely came from a can and our mom didn't make her own (cranberry) sauce and put it in a cylinder shape before we got there."

Sandy Oliver, a food historian, said it would be hard to overstate the importance of canned cranberry sauce to some families, particularly for a holiday in which even the slightest change in the menu is viewed as a treasonous offense.

"You don't mess with Thanksgiving," said Oliver, co-author of "Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie." "If you grew up with canned cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving, that is what will taste right for you at the table and if you do something else it is going to be at variance with your childhood memory."

As a result, normally sophisticated eaters load up their plates with the same green bean casseroles, Jell-O salad ? heavy on the mini marshmallows ? and the white bread stuffing their parents piled on their plates when they were busy kicking their brothers and sisters under the table.

"My aunt one year brought over the homemade kind and nobody but her ate it," said Heather Hoffman, a 24-year-old Chicago teacher, who has had canned cranberry sauce since her grandmother served it when she was a little girl.

Robert Sietsema has heard those kinds of comments before. The New York writer recently included canned cranberry sauce among his five worst Thanksgiving dishes for a blog on the Village Voice and can't believe anybody would eat canned cranberry sauce if they didn't have to.

"I hate it, it's just awful," said Sietsema. "To begin with, nobody eats things from cans any more if they can afford not to." Especially, he says if it's "some kind of freak Jell-O."

Maybe so. But Alexandra Shephard arrived at her parents' house in Williamsburg, Va. from her home in Orlando, Fla., this week fully expecting the familiar sight of cranberry sauce sliding from the can to a dish.

"I remember how intrigued I was at the lump of red jelly stuff that retained the shape of a can," said Shephard, who started the Facebook page with Mackara a couple years back. "I don't remember actually eating it (but) I remember it was always at the table."

Her father, she said, would only eat the canned sauce so eventually she got her courage up and tried homemade cranberry sauce even though she knew she didn't like the taste of the bitter little red berries. And she liked them, precisely because it didn't taste like cranberries.

She looks at it as a feat of engineering that the can-shaped sauce can keep its figure for hours. And she eats it because, just as Oliver suggested, she likes the uncranberryness of sauce, from the texture to the sweet taste.

For Bruce Scheonberger, presentation is everything. That helps explain why the 54-year-old Toledo attorney was eager to share a technique that ensures the cranberry sauce he puts on the table this Thanksgiving will look exactly the same as it always has.

After completely opening one end of the can, he makes a small opening in the other end. "You blow in it gently and it slides out and retains all of its ridges," he said. "I have it sitting straight up like a can."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111124/ap_on_re_us/us_cranberry_in_a_can

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Obama welcomes transfer of power by Yemen's Saleh (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? President Barack Obama said on Wednesday the United States welcomed the signing by Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh of an accord under which he immediately transferred power to the country's vice president.

"This represents an important step forward for the Yemeni people, who deserve the opportunity to determine their own future," Obama said in a statement.

Under the agreement, signed with the Yemeni opposition at a ceremony hosted by Saudi King Abdullah in the capital Riyadh, Saleh transferred his powers to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, ahead of an early election. In return he will receive immunity from prosecution.

"For ten months, the Yemeni people have courageously and steadfastly voiced their demands for change in cities across Yemen in the face of violence and extreme hardship," the president said.

Hundreds were killed during protests to overthrow Saleh that erupted amid the Arab Spring that saw the collapse of regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, amid fear Yemen's al Qaeda wing may exploit the ensuing instability and take deeper root.

"The United States urges all parties to move immediately to implement the terms of the agreement, which will allow Yemen to begin addressing an array of formidable challenges and chart a more secure and prosperous path for the future,' Obama said.

(Reporting by Alister Bull; editing by Anthony Boadle)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111123/wl_nm/us_yemen_obama

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Rats help Colombia sniff out deadly landmines

BOGOTA?? In a laboratory on the grounds of a police-guarded complex, 11 white-furred rats wait their turn to impress trainers and perhaps receive a bit of sugar as reward.

The rodents could play an important role in making conflict-wracked Colombia safer. They are in the final stages of a training program to find landmines that kill or injure hundreds of people each year in Colombia.

The government project, which began in 2006, trains specially bred rats to detect the metals used in landmines, thousands of which have been laid during the country's decades-long conflict with left-wing guerrillas.

Colombian scientists decided to use rats because, like the dogs more traditionally used in land mine detection, they have a highly developed sense of smell. But the rats are lightweight and unlikely to detonate mines.

The rats are first taught to recognize voice commands and the specific smells of metals used in landmines, and then to work in large, outdoor areas, where the rodents will sniff and scratch when they find mines, as watchful handlers who will be well-trained in demining stand close by.

It has taken government scientists five generations of rats to be confident their training program is thorough enough to begin sending rats out into the countryside.

In the laboratory, an element of instinct has been built into the training, with baby rats scurrying after their mothers in plastic mazes during practice sessions. The mothers show their young how finding the dead end containing the same wires and metal pieces used in landmines can earn you a treat.

"These rats will be a great help, and will provide great input to those trying to carry out demining," said Erick Guzman, the police official and former canine handler who now is responsible for much of the rats' outdoor training.

"We are hoping that this generation will be ready at the beginning of next year to be tested in a real environment," he added as his favorite rat Sophie perched on his shoulder.

Landmines a constant menace
Experts say it is impossible to estimate the number of undetonated mines which remain in Colombia, but their impact is horrifying real.

In the first half of 2011, for example, mines killed 40 people and injured another 247, government statistics show. That compared with 535 dead and injured throughout 2010.

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Experts confirm that most mines are planted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), other guerrilla groups and criminal gangs to deter security forces. The government says 31 of the country's 32 provinces may contain mines.

"Contrary to what you see in other countries that have signed the Mine Ban Treaty, mines continue to be planted in our country ... while other countries continue to get the number of mines down, ours goes up," Luisa Fernanda Mendez, the scientific director of the rat program said.

Landmines are a pressing problem for security forces. More than half, or 63 percent, of land mine victims are military and police personnel, according to government figures.

Land mine clearance in Colombia is unusually slow-going because mines are sown in very close proximity to each other in rural areas only, making clearance operations treacherous.

The Colombian government cleared less than a tenth of a square mile in all of 2010, but uncovered a total of 194 explosive devices.

Non-government organizations (NGOs) in Colombia have until recently only been allowed to help land mine victims, not to mount demining operations themselves.

"Currently there is no humanitarian demining process except the one undertaken by the armed forces ... we have objections to that demining because, in our judgment, the process is not compatible with international standards for humanitarian demining," said Alvaro Jimenez, the national coordinator of the Colombian Campaign Against Mines.

"Demining should be a development carried out in service of the community, and the community should participate in all the steps."

The Organization of American States hopes to help NGOs expand their fledgling demining operations. They have mounted a program, to be completed by the end of the year, to train and accredit NGO demining teams to work in Colombia.

But despite any critiques of the government's current demining effort, rat project director Mendez has high hopes.

"If we do not begin to master the demining process, we will never complete the terms of the treaty, and moreover, we'll never have a free countryside," she said, while giving the rat crawling up the sleeve of her lab coat an affectionate pat.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45419101/ns/world_news-americas/

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Travelport claims court win over American Airlines

DALLAS?? Travelport Ltd. Said Tuesday that a federal judge tossed out most of American Airlines' antitrust lawsuit against the flight-information provider and online travel agent Orbitz.

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Travelport, which owns nearly half of Orbitz, said the judge dismissed American's claims that the company monopolizes distribution of airline fare and flight information to travel agents.

American said, however, that the judge allowed its main antitrust claims to proceed. The ruling was issued by a U.S. district court in Fort Worth, Texas, where American is based.

Along with its stake in Orbitz, Travelport runs other companies called global distribution systems that provide airline information to travel agents. American wants to provide information about flights directly to travel agents and cut out the middleman in many cases.

The outcome could change the way airline tickets are sold to business travelers, who are more likely than vacationers to use a travel agent.

American argues it can tailor information more to business travelers' needs ? for example by sending them offers about destinations or amenities that they've bought before. The distribution companies claim that American wants to push them out of the way and reduce competition.

American, a unit of AMR Corp., filed the antitrust lawsuit against Travelport, Orbitz and another distribution company, Sabre, in April.

Travelport said Tuesday that the judge dismissed four of American's claims, including that Travelport monopolized distribution of flight information to travel agencies and conspired with travel agencies to control ticket distribution.

Atlanta-based Travelport predicted it would win on the one remaining American charge ? that Travelport monopolizes access to travel agents who subscribe to Travelport's services.

American claimed that the judge's ruling would let it go ahead with claims against Sabre, and separate claims "that Sabre and Travelport each has unlawfully monopolized the market for the provision of airline booking services to their respective subscribers."

In afternoon trading AMR shares fell 5 cents to $1.69. Orbitz Worldwide Inc. rose 2 cents to $2.92.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45403616/ns/travel-news/

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