Obama photo causes stir

WASHINGTON - A photograph circulating in the Internet of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama dressed in traditional local garments during a visit to Kenya in 2006 is causing a dustup in the presidential campaign over what constitutes a smear.
The Associated Press photograph portrays Obama wearing a white turban and a wraparound white robe presented to him by elders in Wajir, in northeastern Kenya. Obama’s estranged late father was Kenyan and Obama visited the country in 2006, attracting thousands of well-wishers.

The gossip and news Web site The Drudge Report posted the photograph Monday and said it was being circulated by “Clinton staffers” and quoted an e-mail from an unidentified campaign aide.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe immediately accused Clinton’s campaign of “the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering we’ve seen from either party in this election.”

Obama’s foreign policy adviser, Susan Rice, said the circulation of the photograph was divisive and suggests “that the customs and cultures of other parts of the world are worthy of ridicule or condemnation.”

The Clinton campaign did not comment on the distribution of the photo, but campaign manager Maggie Williams said the Obama campaign’s reaction was inflaming passions and distracting voters.

“Enough,” Williams said in a statement. “If Barack Obama’s campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing traditional Somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed. Hillary Clinton has worn the traditional clothing of countries she has visited and had those photos published widely.

“This is nothing more than an obvious and transparent attempt to distract from the serious issues confronting our country today and to attempt to create the very divisions they claim to decry.”

In a teleconference with reporters, retired Air Force Gen. Scott Gration, an Obama adviser who accompanied the Illinois senator to Kenya two years ago, said the senator was there to learn how tribes were organizing themselves.

“And in the course of this, Senator Obama was given an outfit and as the guest that he was, the great guest, he took this outfit and they encouraged him to try some of it on,” Gration said. “It was a thing that we all do.”

In December, two Clinton Iowa volunteers resigned after forwarding a hoax e-mail that falsely said Obama is a Muslim possibly intent on destroying the United States. Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ and says he has never been a Muslim, but false rumors about Islamic ties are circulating on the Internet.

Teaching a computer to appreciate art

Is that a van Gogh?

A mathematical program that began as a lark for an Israeli scientist has become a serious effort to match some of the world’s greatest painters with their masterpieces. If the project pans out, it could help point out poor copies and eventually distinguish forgeries from the real deal.

Daniel Keren, a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Haifa, said he’s been contacted by an Italian collector hoping to validate some of his acquired paintings as well as by aficionados embroiled in a controversy over the legitimacy of artworks allegedly by Dutch master Vincent van Gogh.

“I did it for fun, but now people are interested in it, so I will definitely expand,” Keren said.

Research in the rapidly growing field of computer vision, he said, still has plenty of catching up to do if scientists want computers to approximate our own abilities. One stumbling block has been teaching machines how to spot objects that are simple for people to recognize — another human face, for example.

Art as a mathematical formula
For his project, Keren tackled the problem by essentially breaking visually stunning masterpieces into sets of mathematical formulas. The computer program sought to capture the distinctive styles of different artists by dividing their paintings into discrete blocks and then converting each block into formulas that could be added together and compared.

“Suppose that one painter, he has very many vertical structures,” Keren said. Perhaps the painter favors depicting telephone poles, say, or skyscrapers. Converting blocks from that painting into mathematical symbols similar to the sine and cosine waves familiar to any trigonometry student will yield a distinctive sum of the parts. If another artist paints primarily with horizontal lines — perhaps in the form of logs floating down a river — “in that case, it’s very easy to detect who is painter A and who is painter B.” If a painting includes examples of both styles, the program can color-code each element accordingly to help decide if the whole piece is more A-like or B-like.

So far, Keren and his team have applied the test to five artists, including van Gogh and Rembrandt, surrealists Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, and Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky.

Altogether, Keren’s group used about 30 artworks from each of the five painters, half for the training sessions and half for testing their mathematical model. In all, the model correctly matched 86 percent of paintings it hadn’t previously “seen,” a solid B in most grading schemes. (If the program had been assigning the paintings randomly, it would have received a score of only 20 percent.)

Finding forgeries
The current incarnation might be of use to an art novice, though hardly helpful to an expert, Keren acknowledges. “I am sure it can be improved,” he said. A key to its continued development will be determining exactly how two paintings differ. If the subject matter is dissimilar but the style is the same, the computer likely will be able to identify the right artist, based on its past learning of core elements such as van Gogh’s characteristic use of swirls or Magritte’s preference for straight lines.

A sudden switch in painting techniques by the same artist, on the other hand, could present a far greater challenge, as would trying to distinguish painters with very similar brushstrokes, like some of the 19th century Impressionists.

Keren said he plans to significantly expand his project to include far more artists, including ones who have adopted similar styles. As for trying to identify potential look-alikes, he said his program could begin by classifying paintings according to a general group — Impressionism versus Surrealism, for instance — and then sort within each group according to increasingly fine-tuned physical traits.

Keren is “cautiously optimistic” that his mathematical program might eventually be useful in detecting fakes. “It will be good to have a database of 20 van Gogh forgeries,” he said, allowing the program’s formulas to zero in on subtle, but perhaps telling, differences.

Homicide Bomber in Wheelchair Attacks Iraqi Police Center, Killing Assistant Chief

An Iraqi police official was killed and at least four other people were wounded Monday when a homicide bomber in a wheelchair attacked a police facility in Samarra.

The bomber detonated explosives he’d concealed in the wheelchair in a blast that took the life of Samarra assistant police chief Major-General Abdul-Jabbar Rabee Muttar, Capt. Luay Mohammed told Reuters.

The attacker had gone into the Samarra police operations center and asked to speak in private with Muttar, whom he’d met before, according to Reuters. Mohammed didn’t know what they had talked about in the past.

“Then we saw flames and an explosion. The assistant police chief was beheaded,” Mohammed, who was slightly injured in the blast, told Reuters. “There were pieces of flesh from the suicide bomber.”

No one has yet come forward to take responsibility for the attack, though it resembled others executed by Sunni Islamist Al Qaeda — which, according to the American military, is behind most of the homicide bombings in Iraq, Reuters reported.

Samarra is about 60 miles north of Baghdad in a region where U.S. and Iraqi forces have concentrated their efforts to eradicate Al Qaeda operatives.

Stealth bomber crashes pilots safe

A B-2 stealth bomber plunged to the ground shortly after taking off from an air base in Guam on Saturday, the first time one crashed, but both pilots ejected safely, Air Force officials said.

A B-2 stealth bomber taxis at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, in a 2005 photo.

The aircraft was taking off with three others on their last flight out of Guam after a four-month deployment, part of a continuous U.S. bomber presence in the western Pacific. After the crash, the other three bombers were being kept on Guam, said Maj. Eric Hilliard at Hickham Air Force Base in Hawaii.

At least one B-2 bomber had taken off safely from Andersen Air Force Base but was brought back when another aircraft plunged to the ground.

There were no injuries on the ground or damage to buildings, and no munitions were on board. Each B-2 bomber costs about $1.2 billion to build.

Thick, black smoke could be seen billowing from the wreckage at Andersen, said Jeanne Ward, a resident in the northern village of Yigo who was on the base visiting her husband. Video Watch smoke rise from crash site »

Ward said she didn’t witness the crash but noticed a rising plume of smoke behind the base’s air control tower.

She said crowds began to gather as emergency vehicles arrived. “Everybody was on their cell phones, and the first thing everyone wanted to know was did the pilots make it out in time,” she said.

The Air Force, without identifying the pilots, said one was medically evaluated and released, and the other was in stable condition at Guam Naval Hospital.

A board of officers will investigate what caused the aircraft to crash at 10:30 a.m., shortly after taking off from a runway. It was the first crash of a B-2 bomber, said Capt. Sheila Johnston, a spokeswoman for Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia.

All 21 stealth bombers are based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, but the Air Force has been rotating several of them through Guam since 2004, along with B-1 and B-52 bombers.

The rotations are designed to boost the U.S. security presence in the Asia-Pacific region while other U.S. forces diverted to fight in the Middle East.

The B-2 was first publicly displayed in 1988 and took its first flight a year later. The first bomber was delivered to Whiteman in 1993.

The bombers on Guam were scheduled to return to Missouri now that six B-52s from the 96th Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, have arrived to replace them.

The distinctive B-2 is described as a “multi-role bomber” that blends stealth technology with a highly efficient aerodynamic design. It is able to deliver large payloads at great range and has been used in combat over Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
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The accident occurred 11 days after a Navy plane crashed into the ocean about 20 miles northeast of Guam’s Ritidian Point. Four aircrew members ejected from the EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare aircraft and were rescued by helicopter.

Pakistan blocks ‘objectionable’ YouTube

Pakistan has become the latest country to block access to the video-sharing Web site YouTube on the grounds that one or more videos on the site offend Islam, authorities said Monday.

Protests burn a Danish flag in Karachi over the publication of drawings depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

The Pakistani government is also asking YouTube to remove “objectionable content,” said Nabiha Mehmood, a spokeswoman for the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority.

If YouTube removes the video or videos that concern Pakistan, she said, the government may once again let its people post and view video clips.

It is unclear what the video or videos in question depict, but a PTA official, who asked not to be identified, told the Associated Press that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority blocks Web sites that show controversial drawings of the Prophet Mohammed.

Such drawings were originally printed in Danish newspapers in 2006 and were reprinted by some papers earlier this month, sparking protests throughout Pakistan, with demonstrators burning Danish flags and effigies of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Wahal us Siraj, one of the founders of the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan, told CNN Monday that the telecommunications authority sent him a link to a YouTube video that concerned Pakistani authorities. A click on that link Monday yielded a message saying the “video has been removed due to terms of use violation.”

In a statement released Monday, YouTube did not address the Pakistani government blocking access to its site. However, it said that an issue related to its site in Pakistan affected the access of users around the globe to YouTube for about two hours on Sunday.

“Traffic to YouTube was routed according to erroneous Internet Protocols, and many users around the world could not access our site,” the statement said.

YouTube added, “We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan. We are investigating and working with others in the Internet community to prevent this from happening again.”

The 3-year-old video sharing Web site has exploded in popularity by letting ordinary people post their own videos online and watch videos that others have posted. Yet the Web site’s growth also has spawned efforts around the world to regulate the site.

Authorities in Brazil, China, Iran, Morocco, Myanmar (also known as Burma), Syria and Thailand have blocked access to YouTube in the last few years, according to Reporters Without Borders, a press advocacy organization.

The countries acted after concluding that YouTube videos were subversive (China), immoral (Iran), embarrassing to well-known figures (Brazil) or critical of a country’s king (Thailand), the group said.

Governments also have sought to regulate user-supplied Internet content to stymie allegations that they abuse human rights, the group said.

A few months ago, YouTube took down videos posted by an award-winning Egyptian human rights advocate that showed what he described as police abuse. YouTube subsequently restored his account and let him continue posting videos.

In Pakistan, a committee made up of representatives from various government ministries ordered the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority to block YouTube access, Mehmood said.

The authority sent a letter to Internet service providers on Friday evening ordering them to prevent people in Pakistan from visiting YouTube, she said.

The decision has received mixed reactions.

“Some people are quite upset and screaming. They say they have been using YouTube regularly,” said Siraj, who helped found an association representing about 50 Internet service providers in Pakistan, including Micronet Broadband, where he is the chief executive officer. “There are others who say that YouTube is full of videos … that are damaging to the character of children.”

Roughly 3 to 5 million of Pakistan’s 165 million people have Internet access, the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan says.

Reporters Without Borders condemned the government’s decision

The group said in a statement on its Web site that Pakistani authorities cited an increase in the proportion of “non-Islamic objectionable material” on YouTube.

“It should not be up to the (Pakistan Telecommunications Authority) to order this kind of blocking,” the group’s statement. “Such a decision should be taken by the courts, not by a body that is under the government’s control.”

Kosovo: Protesters in North Burn EU Flag

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Kosovo - Up to 2,000 Serb protesters rallied against Kosovo’s independence in the new nation’s tense north on Monday, a few setting fire to EU flags in what has become a daily challenge following the country’s secession from Serbia.

Protesters gathered beneath a banner reading “Kosovo is Serbia” in the ethnically divided town of Kosovska Mitrovica — as they have every day since Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership proclaimed statehood on Feb. 17.

Serbs — who consider Kosovo the heart of their ancient homeland and the cradle of their Serbian Orthodox faith — reject Kosovo’s independence as illegal.
Protesters also burned a poster showing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with Serbia’s pro-Western president, Boris Tadic.

Tadic opposes Kosovo’s independence but advocates maintaining economic and political ties with the U.S. and other Western countries, despite their recognition of Kosovo’s statehood.

Serbia’s hard-line Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, in contrast, advocates severing relations with all states that recognize Kosovo’s independence.

U.N. police guarded the main bridge separating the town’s Serb and ethnic Albanian sides. Monday’s protests were peaceful.

In Serbia, Kostunica reiterated that the Kosovo state “does not exist” as far as Belgrade is concerned. He said the Serbian government would seek to “maintain jurisdiction” in Serb-populated areas of Kosovo.

“There will be no stability in the region and the world until that decision is annulled,” he said in Belgrade, adding that Serbia will not normalize relations with countries that have recognized Kosovo until they reverse their decisions.

Earlier, a senior Serbian official entered Kosovo to visit Serb communities — a move Kosovo’s deputy prime minister denounced as a provocation.

Slobodan Samardzic, Serbia’s minister for Kosovo, was making a one-day visit to meet with Kosovo’s Serb minority and with Kosovo’s top U.N. official, Joachim Ruecker.

Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian deputy prime minister, Hajredin Kuqi, called Samardzic’s visit a “provocation” by Serbia.

“Unfortunately, the government of Serbia is continuing with provocation regarding Kosovo’s future,” Kuqi told The Associated Press.

“I hope they are understanding the position that Kosovo is now an independent state,” he said. “They need to build some bridges for cooperation with Kosovo, but … they are provoking us, provoking our people and raising tension in Kosovo.”

Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority fought a 1998-99 separatist war with Serbian forces in which 10,000 people were killed. More than 90 percent of Kosovo’s 2 million people are ethnic Albanians.

Samardzic visited a construction site southeast of Pristina where Serbia’s government has been building houses for some of Kosovo’s 100,000 minority Serbs.

A day earlier, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci — marking Kosovo’s first full week of independence — urged Serbs to integrate with Albanians and pledged that the new state’s ethnic Albanian leadership would respect minority rights.

But Samardzic has ignored such statements, and publicly supported Kosovo Serbs who set fire to a border post in the tense north last week.

Ruecker said the U.N. reconsidered its original decision to keep Samardzic out of Kosovo on condition that he issue a public statement “making it very, very clear that he distances himself from violence and the visit is about ensuring peace and calm with the Kosovo Serbs.”

Ruecker said he also insisted meeting Samardzic so to “tell him what we think of some of his recent statements.”

In Serbia, Dmitry Medvedev — widely expected to be Russia’s next president — visited Belgrade on Monday for a key gas pipeline deal — a trip that underscored Moscow’s close ties with its traditional ally.

Moscow, which insists that independence without U.N. approval risks encouraging separatist movements worldwide, has emerged as Belgrade’s primary ally in the Kosovo crisis.

Robbers make off with $20,000 in Hilton Chicago holdup

Thieves stole proceeds from modeling auditions

Two robbers, one of them with a gun, allegedly got away with as much as $20,000 Sunday night from a fashion show audition at the downtown Hilton Chicago Hotel, 720 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago police said. No one was injured in the 10:45 p.m. holdup. (Tribune photo by Tom Van Dyke / February 25, 2008)

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Two robbers, one of them with a gun, got away with as much as $20,000 Sunday night in proceeds from a fashion show audition at the downtown Hilton Chicago hotel, Chicago police said.

No one was hurt in the holdup, which occurred about 10:45 p.m. on the third floor of the hotel, 720 S. Michigan Ave.

The victims were employees and clients of the modeling agency, which held a search competition in the Marquette Room that ended at 6 p.m. About eight people were left in the meeting room when two robbers came in, bound the victims with duct tape and stole the proceeds.

Sources identified the owner of the agency as Harvey Washington.

The victims freed themselves within 10 minutes and called 911. Police said the robbers fled, apparently on foot, south on Michigan, past 8th Street. No one was in custody Monday morning.

The audition organizer, whom police declined to identify, told hotel personnel and police that the robbers got away with about $20,000, police said. But neither investigators nor hotel officials could verify the amount Monday.

The hotel has turned over surveillance footage to police, said Robert Allegrini, Hilton’s regional communications director.

“The safety and security of our guests and team members is our paramount concern, and as such we are cooperating fully with the Chicago Police Department with their investigation,” Allegrini said.

Police could not say if the robbers knew people at the event. Nor could they provide a full description of the suspects.

Investigators were interviewing people inside the hotel early Monday morning.

Woman Who Died On Flight Was Ignored

John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York

CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook examines various health issues and treatments.(AP) American Airlines on Monday insisted it tried to help a passenger who died after complaining she couldn’t breathe, and disputed the account of a relative who said that she was denied oxygen and that medical devices failed.

The airline said the oxygen tanks and a defibrillator were working and noted that several medical professionals on the flight, including a doctor, tried to save the passenger, Carine Desir, 44, who had heart disease.

“American Airlines, after investigation, has determined that oxygen was administered on the aircraft, and it was working, and the defibrillator was applied as well,” airline spokesman Charley Wilson said Monday.

Desir had complained of not feeling well and being very thirsty on the Friday flight home from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, after she ate a meal, according to Antonio Oliver, a cousin who was traveling with her and her brother, Joel Desir. A flight attendant gave her water, he said.

A few minutes later, Desir said she was having “trouble breathing” and asked for oxygen, but a flight attendant twice refused her request, Oliver said.

“Don’t let me die,” he recalled her saying.

He said other passengers aboard Flight 896 became agitated over the situation, and the flight attendant, apparently after phone consultation with the cockpit, tried to administer oxygen from a portable tank and mask, but the tank was empty.

Her last words were, ‘I cannot breathe.’
Antonio Oliver, cousin of passenger Carine Desir
Oliver said two doctors and two nurses were aboard and tried to administer oxygen from a second tank, which also was empty. Desir was placed on the floor, and a nurse tried CPR, Oliver said. A defibrillator, which he called a “box,” also was applied but didn’t function effectively, he said.

Oliver said he then asked for the plane to “land right away so I can get her to a hospital,” and the pilot agreed to divert to Miami, 45 minutes away. But during that time Desir collapsed and died, Oliver said.

“Her last words were, ‘I cannot breathe,”‘ he said.

There were 12 oxygen tanks on the plane and the crew checked them before the flight took off to make sure they w