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BEIJING (Reuters) - A college student withdrew from school after winning the 5 million yuan ($683,000) jackpot in a lottery in China' eastern city of Nanjing, local media reported on Thursday.

The second-year student at the Jiangsu Maritime Institute, identified by the nickname Yong to protect his identity, was the sole first-prize winner in the "Double Colour Ball" issued by the China Welfare Lottery on Tuesday, the Beijing News said.

"After winning the lottery, Yong told his roommates that he would share 2,000 yuan with each of them," it added.

Yong informed school authorities of his winnings, and had returned home.

"We are not sure if he will return to school, but we hope he will eventually finish his education," the paper quoted Yong's teacher as saying.

The Communist Party abolished lotteries in China after taking power in 1949, denouncing them as a practice of decadent capitalists. But the country launched state-run lotteries in 1987 amid market-oriented reforms.

Lotteries have become increasingly popular both among the poor and the newly rich in China, where many forms of gambling are banned. Per capita income in China's urban areas is roughly $1,900 a year and about $600 a year in rural areas.

Lottery-related crimes have been on the rise as well, and underground lottery schemes have become rampant across the country in recent years, bankrupting many families.

Last month, China set up its first help centre for lottery addicts, offering counseling and legal assistance.

(Reporting by Beijing newsroom, Editing by Ken Wills and Sanjeev Miglani)

Source: Yahoo! News

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - For nearly seven years Melina Salazar did her best to put on a smile and tend to the every need of her most loyal and cantankerous customer.

She made sure his food was as hot as he wanted, even if it meant he burned his mouth. And she smiled through his demands and curses. The 89-year-old Walter "Buck" Swords obviously appreciated it, leaving the waitress $50,000 and a 2000 Buick when he died.

"I still can't believe it," the Luby's cafeteria employee told Harlingen television station KGBT-TV in an interview during which she described Swords as "kind of mean."

Swords, a World War II veteran, died in July. But Salazar learned just a few days before Christmas that he had left her the money and car.

source: Yahoo News!

Osama bin Laden has released a new message aimed at Iraqis, warning them against joining tribal councils fighting al Qaeda.

The militant leader accused Washington of plotting to take control of Iraq's oil and urged the Iraqi people to reject efforts to rebuild a US-backed national unity government there.

He also vowed in the audio recording posted on the web to expand jihad to liberate all Palestinian land and said his group will never recognise Israel.

"America seeks, alongside its agents in the region, to create an allied government... that would accept in advance the presence of major US bases in Iraq and give the Americans all they wish of Iraq's oil," he said.

The Saudi-born al Qaeda leader said the envisaged Iraqi government was also meant to help Washington "fully dominate" the region with help from allies such as Saudi Arabia.

"The government of Riyadh is still playing its wicked roles," he said, describing Saudi Arabia's King Abduallah as the United States' "chief agent".

Referring to a Saudi push in February to help Palestinian rivals agree a unity government, which fell apart in June, he said Riyadh was part of a scheme to lure Islamist Palestinian militant group Hamas away from its jihadist roots.

"I assure our kin in Palestine especially that we shall expand our jihad... We will not recognise a state for the Jews over even an inch of Palestinian soil," he said.

Bin Laden did not mention accusations that al Qaeda was behind Thursday's assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

An al Qaeda-allied militant leader there has denied involvement.

But bin Laden took a swing at Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, for accepting the expansion of a United Nations force in Lebanon after the Shi'ite group's war with the Jewish state in 2006.

The peacekeepers dispatched to Lebanon after the war were there to "protect the Jews", said bin Laden, whose group belongs to a school of Islam that sees Shi'ite Muslims as heretics.

Source: Sky.com

Motherwell captain and former Celtic and Sheffield Wednesday player Phil O'Donnell fell to the ground during his team's match against Dundee United.

Mr O'Donnell, 35, was taken off the pitch at Fir Park on a stretcher 12 minutes from the end of the Clydesdale Bank Premier League match, Motherwell Football Club chairman Bill Dickie said.

He was set to be replaced by substitute Marc Fitzpatrick in a match that Motherwell won 5-3 but fell to the pitch as the change was taking place.

After being treated for around five minutes on the field, Mr O'Donnell was carried off on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance.

His nephew, David Clarkson, was also playing in the match, and was substituted after being shocked by the incident.

Motherwell manager Mark McGhee spoke briefly to the press after the game before going to hospital.

Mr O'Donnell, who won one Scotland cap, began his career with Motherwell and rejoined the club in 2004 following spells with Celtic, who he joined in a £1.75m deal in 1994, and Sheffield Wednesday.

Former First Minister Jack McConnell, MSP for Motherwell and Wishaw, said: "Phil O'Donnell was a great professional who was admired by fellow players and fans alike.

"As captain he helped transform Motherwell this season.

"Phil will be sadly missed by his family and by football fans but he will be mourned by the whole community."

The teenage aunt of a baby boy mauled to death by a Rottweiler bravely tried to rescue him from the clutches of the 10-stone dog, police have said.

Thirteen-month-old Archie-Lee Andrew Hirst was killed when the dog snatched him from the arms of his young cousin at his grandparents' home in Wakefield.

The baby, who was described as having been a "thriving child", was found with serious injuries by paramedics in the back yard of the house where he was spending the Christmas holidays.

Police said Archie-Lee was being carried by his seven-year-old cousin to the kitchen door, which leads to the back yard where his grandparents' pet was kept.

The seven-year-old intended to stroke the dog but after the door was opened, the dog snatched the one-year-old from the youngster and carried him into the yard.

Clearly distressed, the child then alerted his 16-year-old aunt, who was upstairs at the time.

The teenager attempted to recover Archie-Lee but the dog would not let go of the child and she went back inside the house to call the emergency services, who arrived and took him to Pinderfields General Hospital.

Detective Superintendent Steve Payne, who is leading the investigation, said: "Clearly our thoughts go out to the family at this tragic time.

"The circumstances of the incident are still unfolding and we are speaking to the children that were present at the scene.

"What we know at this time is that the dog was a family pet, a two and a half year old female Rottweiler, which the family had owned for about six months.

"Although the dog lived in the yard of the premises, it had interacted with members of the family including children, and another dog and cat at the house, and had showed no previous signs of any aggression.

"Armed officers who attended the scene found the Rottweiler in an agitated state and clearly representing a potential danger to others, and a decision was made to destroy the animal."

Rottweiler attacks are rare but when they do happen the injuries are significant, Chris Window from the Rottweiler Club said.

"All breeds of dogs are animals. They do revert to animal instincts. If a dog is confronted with a situation they are not used to, they can react unexpectedly," he said.

He added: "If a dog is brought up in a household where there are no children you have got to be extra careful where children are present."

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Benazir Bhutto was many things — zealous guardian of her dead father's legacy, aristocratic populist, accused rogue, even one of People magazine's 50 most beautiful people. And in the end, she was a victim of roiling passions in the nation she sought to lead for a third time.

To the West, she was the appealing and glamorous face of Pakistan — a trailblazing feminist, the first woman to lead a Muslim nation in modern times — though her aura was dimmed by accusations of corruption.

But to many Pakistanis, she was a leader who spoke for them, their needs and their hopes.

Even her worst critics would say that "she was a masterful politician," said Zaffar Abbas, an editor for the respected Dawn newspaper. She knew "what the people of this country wanted.

"If you asked an ordinary person what they achieved when Benazir Bhutto was in power, they would say at least she gave us a voice and she talked about us and our problems. That was her real achievement."

Her life was a sprawling epic. Her father, Pakistan's president and then prime minister, was hanged; one brother died mysteriously, the other in a shootout. She spent five years imprisoned by her father's tormentors, mostly in solitary confinement, before rising twice to the office of prime minister.

She fled before her conviction on corruption charges, living abroad for eight years. She could have lived there comfortably, far from the cauldron of Pakistani politics, but chose not to do so. And when she returned in October to marshal opposition to President Pervez Musharraf, a suicide attacker targeted her homecoming parade in Karachi. More than 140 people died.

The 54-year-old Bhutto escaped injury. "We will not be deterred," she said then. And on the hustings, she celebrated her survival.

"Bhutto is alive! Bhutto is alive! Bhutto is alive!" she shouted at a rally in December.

Like the Nehru-Gandhi family that has long been a force in the politics of neighboring India, the Bhuttos have held a central role in Pakistan for nearly a half century.

Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was the son of a wealthy landowning family in southern Pakistan and founder of the Pakistan People's Party. With a populist, pro-democracy message, he rose to power in 1971.

But six years later, he was deposed by the military. In 1979 he was executed by the government of Gen. Mohammad Zia-ul Haq after his much-disputed conviction on charges of arranging the murder of the father of a political opponent.

A day before he was hanged, his daughter visited him in prison.

"I told him on my oath in his death cell, I would carry on his work," Bhutto would recall.

But at the time and for years after, Benazir Bhutto could not fight for her father's cause — she was in jail or under house arrest.

The elder Bhutto had sent his daughter to study politics and government at Harvard and then at Oxford, where she was elected to lead the prestigious debating society, the Oxford Union. Beautiful, charismatic and articulate, she was a dangerous opponent for the military government.

Her youngest brother, Shahnawaz, organized opposition from France, but he died under mysterious circumstances in his apartment on the Riviera in 1980; the family insisted he was poisoned, but no charges were brought. Released in 1984 to seek medical treatment for a serious ear infection in London, Benazir established a People's Party office there, and waited for an opportunity to strike back.

Two years later, she returned to lead mass rallies calling for Zia to step down and allow a civilian government and elections. He refused. But in 1988, the strongman died in an explosion on his plane.

Benazir rallied her father's party, only to find that she was being opposed by her brother, Murtaza — and that her mother was backing him. "In our family it was always a joke that my mother had a soft spot for my brother," she told The New York Times in 1994.

Still, Benazir Bhutto won on a platform of "food, clothing and shelter for all." And just months after giving birth to her first child, she took the office that was taken from her father.

Twenty months later, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolved parliament and removed her from office, citing abuse of power. The new army-backed government filed charges of corruption against her, while Islamic clerics tried to get a court to bar her from running in elections. She was a bad Muslim, they said.

"Anyone who supports the Pakistan People's Party will not enter heaven," a Muslim cleric in Lahore, Abdul Qadir, told a Friday prayer congregation ahead of the October 1990 elections.

She lost the election to Nawaz Sharif (who, years later, also would be exiled and return to challenge the Musharraf government). His time in office was also short-lived because of more accusations of corruption. Under pressure, he resigned in 1993; Bhutto, by then a mother of three children, won another second term as prime minister in October 1993.

In 1996, her government fell in the face of accusations of nepotism and economic mismanagement.

Around the world, Bhutto was a feminist heroine. And in her campaigns, she advocated new services for women and opposed sexual discrimination, though few measures were adopted under her government.

In her personal life, Bhutto surprised many by agreeing to an arranged marriage in 1987 with Karachi businessman Asif Ali Zardari. She said that as the leader of a Muslim party, she was not free to marry for love, which would have "destroyed my political career," she told The New York Times in 1994.

But her marriage to Zardari would play a major role in her downfall.

Over the years, the couple would be accused of charging millions of dollars in "commissions" from foreign companies. Zardari was called "Mr. 10 Percent" during Bhutto's first term because of these alleged kickbacks; in her second term, the take and the monicker were upgraded to "Mr. 40 Percent."

Zardari spent eight years in Pakistani prisons before his release in 2004, though he was never convicted on any charge, and both he and Bhutto said the accusations were trumped up and political.

"I never influenced the awarding of a contract, and until my dying day I'll stand by it. They have tried to ruin me because they want to ruin the concept of a pluralistic, liberal Pakistan. To be accused of robbing, that really pains me," she said in 1999.

Switzerland froze more than $13 million in the couple's accounts, and convicted Bhutto of money laundering (the conviction was thrown out when she contested it).

Zardari also, briefly, was accused of engineering the 1996 death of Murtaza Bhutto, who died in a gunbattle with police in Karachi. His death contributed to the fall of Benazir's government a month later.

Bhutto tried for a third term and lost; she left Pakistan in 1999, just before a court convicted her of corruption and banned her from politics.

The verdict was later quashed, but she stayed away. She spent much of the time in London and in Dubai with her children and her ailing mother — the same mother who once opposed her political career.

Then Musharraf signed an amnesty, halting any corruption charges against her and others. And she decided to return to Pakistan and the political arena once more. She was briefly placed under house arrest when Musharraf declared a state of emergency this fall.

As she had done before, she campaigned on social welfare issues, occasionally mentioning the anti-terrorist message that had made her so appealing to American officials. Last week, after she addressed a rally in her husband's hometown of Nawab Shah, she was in a relaxed and upbeat mood.

"It feels great to be back home," she said. "A visit to every city is like a new experience for me. I'm just overwhelmed with emotion. I feel like I have been given a new life to be once more amongst my people."

She was a survivor, and proud of it. Thirteen years before, when a reporter from the Times suggested that her life was the stuff of Greek drama, she laughed.

"Well, I hope not so tragic," she said. "Don't all Greek dramas end in tragedy?"

___

Pennington reported from Islamabad, and Schwartz from New York.

Benazir Bhutto Killed In Attack

Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has died after a suicide attack at a political rally.
She was shot in the chest and neck shortly after her speech in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

Ms Bhutto was attacked as she got into her car and the gunman then blew himself up.

"At 6.16 p.m. she expired," said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Bhutto's party at Rawalpindi General Hospital.

"She has been martyred," said party offical Rehman Malik.

The explosion went off just after Ms Bhutto left the rally in Rawalpindi, minutes after her speech to thousands of people.

Her supports have smashed windows at the entrance to the hospital where she was being treated, some calling "Dog, Musharraf, dog,".

It is the first major attack since President General Pervez Musharraf lifted emergency rule two weeks ago.

At least 15 people died in the attack in the heart of Pakistan's military and parliamentary district.

Sky News correspondent Alex Crawford said from Pakistan the country's upcoming January elections would "most likely be postponed or cancelled" because of the attack.

"The entire political scene in Pakistan will be torn apart. She will become a martyr in many people's eyes.

"This is an end of a dream for them.

"I really don't think she ever thought it would come to this"

Source: Sky.com

Sky News - Man Killed As Escaped Tiger Attacks Again

An escaped tiger has killed one man and mauled two others - a year after eating a keeper's arm at the same California zoo.

Police arrived at San Francisco Zoo to find the female 350lb tiger, named Tatiana, on top of one of the men.

It ran towards them and they opened fire with handguns, killing the animal.

The three people attacked - all men in their 20s - were visitors to the zoo, San Francisco Police spokesman Steve Mannina confirmed.

The two injured were taken to hospital, where their condition is described as critical but stable.

The zoo was immediately evacuated after the incident at its Terrace Cafe, on the eastern section of the 1,000-acre site.

Police officers and firefighters are investigating how the tiger managed to escape.

Last December, it mauled a keeper during a public feeding session.

Tatiana reached through the cage's iron bars and attacked the woman.

Shocked visitor Vikram Chari, 40, witnessed the mauling from just a few feet away.

Mr Chari said: "The tiger ate her hand. It slowly proceeded to eat the rest of her arm."

California's Division of Occupation Safety and Health blamed the zoo for the attack, and fined it $18,000 (around £9,000).

A Siberian tiger in a Russian zoo has given birth to a third set of tiger cubs in three years.The happy event is being celebrated more than normal because the species is considered to be critically endangered. There is no commentary on this video.

Police are investigating claims that a woman was raped at a hotel where Manchester United players were having their Christmas party.

The alleged assault occurred at the Great John Street Hotel in Manchester in the early hours of this morning.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesman said: "Police are investigating a report of a rape at a hotel in Manchester city centre.

"At 4.15am on Tuesday, police were called to the hotel on Great John Street to a report that a 26-year-old woman had been raped.

"Inquiries are continuing."

A hotel spokeswoman said: "We did have an event on Monday night. We're helping the police with an investigation. We're currently closed but hoping to open this evening."

Sky's north of England correspondent Tom Parmenter said: "The entire first-team squad, apart from Cristiano Ronaldo, had been out around town celebrating their annual Christmas party.

"It started yesterday lunchtime at a nearby casino where they were entertained by burlesque dancers.

"They then moved on to the Old Grapes pub which is owned by Liz Dawn, the Coronation Street actor."

A number of players then ended up at the Great John Street Hotel.

The hotel is a boutique "town house" hotel converted from a Victorian schoolhouse in the upmarket Castlefield area of Manchester.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Monkeys performed about as well as college students at mental addition, U.S. researchers said on Monday in a finding that suggests nonverbal math skills are not unique to humans.

The research from Duke University follows the finding by Japanese researchers earlier this month that young chimpanzees performed better than human adults at a memory game.

Prior studies have found non-human primates can match numbers of objects, compare numbers and choose the larger number of two sets of objects.

"This is the first study that looked at whether or not they could make explicit decisions that were based on mathematical types of calculations," said Jessica Cantlon, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at Duke, whose work appeared in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Biology (www.plosbiology.org).

"It shows when you take language away from a human, they end up looking just like monkeys in terms of their performance," Cantlon said in a telephone interview.

Her study pitted the monkey math team of Boxer and Feinstein -- two female macaque monkeys named for U.S. senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California -- with 14 Duke University students.

"We had them do math on the fly," Cantlon said.

The task was to mentally add two sets of dots that were briefly flashed on a computer screen. The teams were asked to pick the correct answer from two choices on a different screen.

The humans were not allowed to count or verbalize as they worked, and they were told to answer as quickly as possible. Both monkeys and humans typically answered within 1 second.

And both groups fared about the same.

Cantlon said the study was not designed to show up Duke University students. "I think of this more as using non-human primates as a tool for discovering where the sophisticated human mind comes from," she said.

The researchers said the findings shed light on the shared mathematical abilities in humans and non-human primates and shows the importance of language -- which allows for counting and more advanced calculations -- in the evolution of math in humans.

"I don't think language is the only thing that differentiates humans from non-human primates, but in terms of math tasks, it is probably the big one," she said.

As for the teams, both were paid. Boxer and Feinstein got their favorite reward: a sip of Kool-Aid soft drink. As for the students, they got $10 each -- enough for a beer or two.

MONTREAL (AFP) - After catching his 15-year-old smoking pot, a father sold the hard-to-get "Guitar Hero III" video game he bought his son for 90 dollars for Christmas at an online auction, fetching 9,000 dollars.

The sale took place after the father spent two weeks searching for the video game for the Nintendo Wii gameboard.

"So I was so relieved in that I had finally got the Holy Grail of Christmas presents pretty much just in the nick of time. I couldn't wait to spread the jubilance to my son," the father wrote on the eBay website.

"Then, yesterday, I came home from work early and what do I find? My innocent little boy smoking pot in the back yard with two of his delinquent friends."

The man, a school teacher, who kept his identity private, said he sold the coveted video game to punish his son and discourage him from smoking dope.

The sale was a boon for the family's bank account, since the game the father purchased for 90 dollars (US) was finally sold to an Australian who plunked down 9,100 dollars for it.

The naughty son, however, will not go without a present on Christmas.

"I am still considering getting him a game for his Nintendo. Maybe something like Barbie as the Island Princess or Dancing with the Stars ... I know he will just love them," the father said, tongue-in-cheek.

Sky News - A deal has been struck at the UN climate change conference in Bali to cut greenhouse gas emissions - but campaigners say it will not be enough to save the planet.

The agreement, which saw 187 countries pledge to work together on a "road map" to combat global warming, was reached after the US dropped its opposition at the very last moment.

President Bush has said he has "serious concerns" about the agreement while praising a deal to launch a new round of international climate talks.

Negotiators "must give sufficient emphasis to the important and appropriate role that the larger emitting developing countries should play," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

A meeting will now take place in Copenhagen in 2009 to thrash out a treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.

However, the EU delegation was forced to give ground on their calls for stricter targets on cutting carbon emissions - sparking outrage from campaigners.

They had pushed strongly for developed countries to be asked to make cuts of 25% to 40% by 2020.

But they caved in to US opposition and ditched references to specific percentage targets.

Instead, the final document says countries recognise that "deep cuts in global emissions" will be required, and calls for a "long-term global goal for emissions reductions".

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn told Sky News the agreement as "an historic breakthrough", and Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "delighted".

But Sky News environment correspondent Catherine Jacob said that although politicians were hailing the deal, many campaigners and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were very unhappy.

"The big bugbear for most people here, particularly environmental groups, is the lack of science and hard targets in this Bali road map," she said.

"In fact, most of the science that was in the first draft has been relegated to a footnote, and that's why the NGOs here are calling the agreement a 'suicide pact'."

Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper said: "Many of the developing countries brought good proposals to Bali - they know we need a climate deal - but the industrialised nations have let them down.

"We urgently need to find a way forward for an international agreement. This is a journey we have to make together."

SKY NEWS - President Pervez Musharraf has lifted Pakistan's month-long state of emergency.

A Government spokesman confirmed the move and said the president would address the country later today.

Mr Musharraf suspended the constitution and Supreme Court on November 3 in what he said was a move to crack down on Islamic militants.

The court had been due to challenge his re-election.

Judges hand-picked by Mr Musharraf have since backed the president.

Mr Musharraf was under pressure from the US and international community to restore the constitution.

Despite lifting the restrictions, critics say curbs on the media and judiciary mean that the president can still manipulate a January 8 general election win.

The election is a three-way battle between parties loyal to Mr Musharraf and the parties of two main opposition leaders, former prime ministers Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.

The Pakistani media has criticised a ban on live broadcasts as an attempt to control election coverage.

But some lawyers and judges, including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who were deposed are still under house arrest.

An American man is selling his soul on the internet for £500,000 - to raise money for Christmas.

He says the winning eBay bidder will receive his spirit in a glass jar as well as a contract "relinquishing ownership".

He told buyers: "I've got no money for the Christmas holidays, and all I've got left to sell is my soul.

"I'm not really using it lately - and selling it on eBay is better than letting the Devil have it."

The seller from LA added: "Keep it for yourself, or give it to someone you know who needs one. Who knows what it may be capable of?


"My hope is that with the money I can get a life and then buy it back."

The starting bid is $1 million, but surprisingly he has yet to receive an offer.

But he is still hopeful of lucre because the auction has another day to run.

The sale is reminiscent of an episode of the Simpsons, when Bart sells his soul to Milhouse.

Bart laughs at the idea until he finds automatic doors fail to open for him.

The lot is just one of a number of wacky items currently on sale on eBay - including a dollar bill with the face of Jesus on it.

Contractor finds money worth $182K hidden in bathroom wall

CLEVELAND - A contractor who helped discover bundles of Depression-era U.S. currency totaling $182,000 hidden behind bathroom walls said the homeowner should turn the money over to him or at least share it.

Bob Kitts said his feud with the owner of the 83-year house, a former high school classmate, has deteriorated to the point where they speak to each other only through lawyers.

Kitts said his lawyer has drafted a lawsuit that he hopes will force Amanda Reece to turn over the money she has kept.

Most of the currency, issued in 1927 and 1929, is in good condition, and some of the bills are so rare that one currency appraiser valued the treasure at up to $500,000, Kitts said.

Reece accuses Kitts of extortion.

The fight began in May 2006 when Kitts was gutting Reece's bathroom and found a box below the medicine cabinet that contained $25,200.

"I almost passed out," Kitts recalled. "It was the ultimate contractor fantasy."

He called Reece, who rushed home. Together they found another steel box tied to the end of a wire nailed to a stud. Inside was more than $100,000, Kitts said. Two more boxes were filled with a mix of money and religious memorabilia.

"It was insane," Kitts said. "She was in shock — she was a wreck."

The bundles had "P. Dunne" written on them, a likely reference to Peter Dunne, a businessman who owned the home during the Depression.

Kitts said he took some of the currency for an appraisal and learned that many of the $10 bills were rare 1929-series Cleveland Federal Reserve bank notes, worth about $85 each. There also were $500 bills and one $1,000 bill.

John Chambers, an attorney for Reece, said Kitts rejected his client's offer of a 10 percent finder's fee and demanded 40 percent of the small fortune.

Reece has no intention of backing down in the face of what she considers a shakedown, Chambers said.

Kitts asserts he found lost money, and court rulings in Ohio establish that a "finders keepers" law applies if there's no reason to believe any owner will reappear to claim it.

It may be up to a judge to decide, said Heidi Robertson, a professor who teaches property law at Cleveland State University.

Kitts said it would be unfair for him to take everything.

"For such a happy, exciting adventure, I can't believe it just went to heck like this," he said.

___

Information from: The Plain Dealer, http://www.cleveland.com

SKY NEWS - Two intimate letters from Princess Diana to her lover Dodi Fayed have been released at the inquest into their deaths.
In one of them, she thanks him for bringing such joy to her life.

The extracts of the letters are intended to show how close the pair were.

One of the letters is dated August 6, 1997, which was the last day of a holiday she had with Dodi on a yacht owned by the Fayed family.

In it, she said: "Darling Dodi, heaven knows how I can thank you. I adored it all and every minute was full of laughter and happiness.

"I have never felt such rigid burden being removed as what happened with you.

"As always, I give you heartfelt thanks for bringing such joy into this particular chick's life."

The second letter was written on August 13, 1997, in which she referred to cuffllinks which she said were the very last gift she received from her father.

She said she was giving those cufflinks to Dodi.

Capello Agreed As New England Boss

The FA has agreed that Italian Fabio Capello is the man to take over as England manager.
The former AC Milan and Real Madrid coach spent yesterday talking to FA bosses at Wembley.
FA director of communications Adrian Bevington said: "The FA board has approved Capello's appointment as England manager subject to the successful conclusion of these contract negotiations.

"I want to stress that there are no problems and that we are going through the necessary process to reach a successful conclusion."

The 61-year-old's first official task will be to head the FA delegation at a World Cup fixtures meeting due to take place in Zagreb in mid-January.

He will then discuss England's summer plans before finalising the squad for his first match in charge against Switzerland at Wembley on February 6.

Capello takes over from Steve McClaren who was sacked last month after England failed to qualify for Euro 2008 after defeat to Croatia at Wembley.

The FA embarked on a mission to find the next boss that led them first to ex Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho.

But after the Portuguese turned the job down, Capello was the next obvious man.

He has also been given the backing of a number of high-profile men in football, including Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson.

The Prime Minister Gordon Brown has signed the EU Reform Treaty in Lisbon.

Mr Brown was unable to join other European heads of government at the official signing ceremony this morning due to a grilling from senior MPs.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband attended the signing on Mr Brown's behalf.

The Prime Minister has played down "fuss" surrounding the double booking but the Tories have accused him of turning the event into a "national embarrassment".

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague said Britain was now left with "the worth of both worlds."

"With a stroke of a pen he has signed away a swathe of powers to the EU," he said, "But his sulky rudeness to our European partners means that he has actually managed to lose influence in Brussels."

The Reform Treaty introduces changes which supporters claim are essential for the smooth running of the EU following its expansion to 27 members.

Critics insist the Treaty is essentially the same as the constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, and will mean the loss of dozens of British vetoes and the transfer of power from Westminster to Brussels.


Mr Brown's signing of the treaty in Lisbon will pave the way for its ratification by MPs in a Commons vote next year.

But it is also certain to reignite eurosceptic demands for a referendum, which opinion polls suggest have the support of a large majority of UK voters.

The FA has confirmed it has been in talks with Fabio Capello over becoming the next England manager.
He was pictured at Heathrow Airport this afternoon after the talks which were described as "extremely positive".

The 61-year-old Italian is believed to have met FA chief executive Brian Barwick at Wembley Stadium.

He is the hot favourite to succeed Steve McClaren after Jose Mourinho ruled himself out of the running.

Adrian Bevington, the FA's director of communications, said: "I am pleased to say that these discussions were extremely positive and without any problems.

"Fabio Capello has now returned to Italy to honour a commitment.

"Understandably further talks are now taking place between Fabio Capello's advisors and ourselves."

Although there is little doubt Jose Mourinho would have been a popular choice among England fans, many felt Capello should have been top of the FA's list from the start.

With nine league titles on an impressive CV encompassing spells at Juventus, AC Milan and Real Madrid, Capello has proved his credentials at the very highest level.

SKY NEWS

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- At least 27 people are dead after three car bombs ripped through the southern Iraqi city of Amara on Wednesday, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said.

Many of the dead and wounded are women and children, reported al-Forat, an Iraqi television station affiliated with the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq.

Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim Khalaf, head of the Interior Ministry's National Command Center, confirmed the death toll and said 151 people were wounded.

Khalaf and a committee were heading to Amara to investigate the bombings. The Interior Ministry has fired the city's police chief in the aftermath of the attacks, Khalaf said.

According to the ministry, a car bomb went off on Dijla Street, a commercial thoroughfare in the predominantly Shiite city.

As onlookers gathered at the scene of the first blast, a second car bomb erupted in a nearby garage a few minutes later. A third car bomb went off in the garage a few minutes afterward.

Video footage showed ambulances and police racing to the scene. Vehicles burned as black smoke filled the street and victims' clothing lay in pools of blood.

A state television station, al-Iraqiya, reported earlier that there was a roadside bomb in addition to the three car bombs.

Police have sealed off the area and set up extra checkpoints for security. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the bombs, but al-Forat reported that police detained two suspects with fake identification cards.

The blasts erupted in the central section of the city, which is capital of Maysan province on the Iranian border. Maysan, which has hosted factional fighting between Shiite rivals vying for power, has been under Iraqi security control for most of the year.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, citing widely reported security successes in Baghdad and other parts of the war-ravaged nation, said the "enemies of Iraq" were discouraged by the reported lull in violence and "any criminal act they would commit will be nothing but a desperate attempt to draw attention from the obvious successes."

He further called the bombings "another ring in the chain of conspiracy against the Iraqi people."

British troops handed control of Amara to Iraqi forces in August 2006, two months before fighting broke out between police and the Mehdi Army, radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia. Iraqi police and troops formally took over security responsibilities in April.

The Mehdi Army also has clashed with the Badr Brigade, the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq's militia. The bitter rivals, who signed a truce several weeks ago, have been mired in power struggles in Iraq's southern provinces and in other Shiite enclaves.

The rivalry between Shiite factions reached a pinnacle last year when fighting broke out during a pilgrimage in Karbala. The violence quickly spread to the capital and Babil province, prompting al-Sadr in August to suspend Mehdi Army activities for six months.

The U.S. military has said al-Sadr's order is one of the primary factors that has led to a decrease in violence across Iraq.

In October, al-Sadr and Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim signed an agreement ending months of hostility between their powerful movements.

Britain, meanwhile, has been working to withdraw its troops from southern Iraq. Despite the recent violence, the region has been more stable than Baghdad and other regions. Britain, which has roughly 5,000 troops there, hopes to cut its force to 4,500 by year's end and to 2,500 by spring.

Britain's Defense Ministry said Wednesday that the British military will transfer control of Basra province to Iraqi forces Sunday. Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh also confirmed the date, saying the Maysan attacks will not affect the handover.

Other developments

• A car bomb detonated Wednesday in eastern Baghdad, killing five Iraqi civilians and wounding 15 others, an Interior Ministry official said. The official said the bombing occurred in Ghadeer, a Christian neighborhood in the predominantly Shiite New Baghdad district.

• Fourteen insurgents were killed and 12 others detained in U.S.-led coalition raids Tuesday and Wednesday. The raids targeted al Qaeda in Iraq networks in the central part of the country, the U.S. military said. The killings occurred in Diyala province, and the detentions were in Baghdad, Tikrit and south of Yusufiya.

• The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said the process of resettling Iraqi refugees in other countries is not moving as speedily as it would like. The agency said it has "exceeded its target of 20,000 Iraqi refugee resettlement referrals for 2007," but at the same time it noted that only about 22 percent of the referrals have departed for resettlement countries.

A little girl dubbed the 'angel with wings' because of a third arm growing out of her back has undergone life or death surgery at a military hospital in Beijing.

A large team of doctors, neuro and plastic surgeons and orthapedic specialists carried out an operation to remove the extra limb from 11-year-old Ren Xin.

Sky's China Correspondent Peter Sharp said the expressions on the doctors' faces suggested it had gone well.

The extra arm came from an undeveloped parasitic twin.

Surgery was complicated because the parasite's spine was fused with Ren Xin's and a major blood vessel from it was connected to her organs.

Ren Xin's parents - poor farmers from Shanxi province - brought their daughter to Beijing because the provincial hospitals were unable to help her.

The operating team was led by one of China's most eminent surgeons, professor Yeqibin.

"This is a very rare case. There are only four cases like this in all of China," he said.

"It's an extremely complex and potentially dangerous operation for the patient."

Despite her physical condition, Ren Xin is an outstanding pupil and the years of suffering her infirmities have left her with one childhood dream.

Sitting up in bed before the operation she said: "I want to become a good doctor and a good daughter for my parents".

Ren xin is not an isolated case in China.

Birth defects in infants have soared more than 40 per cent since 2001, now accounting for between four and six per cent of total births every year.

Government officials have linked the rise to the deterioration of the country's environment.

The coal-rich province of Shanxi where Ren Xin was born has the highest rate of birth defects and is far above the national average.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- While presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee is surging in new polls of GOP candidates, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Tuesday shows he would lose to all three leading Democratic candidates by double digits in hypothetical contests.


In head-to-head matchups -- the first to include Huckabee -- the former Arkansas governor loses to Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York by 10 percentage points (54 percent to 44 percent), to Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois by 15 points (55 percent to 40 percent) and to former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina by 25 points (60 percent to 35 percent).

The poll comes on the heels of a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Monday that showed Huckabee doubled his support nationally among likely Republican voters in the last month and is in a statistical dead heat with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. View complete poll results

But Huckabee's double-digit deficits with the leading Democrats likely suggest that the Arkansas Republican still lacks widespread name recognition nationally, according to Keating Holland, CNN's polling director. Watch as CNN's Bill Schneider analyzes changes in the races »

"Americans tend not to support candidates they're not familiar with, and it's possible Huckabee's numbers are low in these hypothetical matchups because he is still not very well known nationally," Holland said.

The poll also shows that Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona would do best against leading Democrats. He beats Clinton by 2 percentage points (50 percent to 48 percent), ties Obama (48 percent to 48 percent) and loses to Edwards by a smaller margin (8 points) than the other Republican candidates do.

In addition to Huckabee, Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney lose to all three top Democrats in the survey.

On the Democratic side, Edwards performs best against each of the leading Republicans. In addition to beating Huckabee by 25 percent and McCain by 8 percent, the North Carolina Democrat beats Romney by 22 percentage points (59 percent to 37 percent) and Giuliani by 9 percentage points (53 percent to 44 percent).

While the survey shows McCain and Edwards performing best in their respective fields, both candidates continue to significantly trail their parties' front-runners significantly. In the national horse race numbers released Monday, McCain trails Giuliani by 11 percentage points, and Edwards is behind Clinton by 26 percentage points.

"Edwards is the only Democrat who beats all four Republicans, and McCain is the only Republican who beats any of the three Democrats," Holland said. "Some might argue this shows that they are the most electable candidates in their respective parties.

"But Edwards is in third place among Democrats, and McCain is in fourth place on the GOP side. Maybe electability is not as important as it was in 2004."

The poll, conducted between Thursday and Sunday, surveyed 912 registered voters. It carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

At least 17 people have died and more than 600,000 were left without power as freezing conditions and a vicious ice storm swept the US.

Power lines and tree branches snapped under the weight of ice, which was up to an inch thick in the worst-hit region of Oklahoma.

Schools were closed and some hospitals were forced to rely on backup power generators following blackouts.

Meanwhile, shelters were opened throughout the region for those driven from their cold, dark homes

"This particular storm is now the worst in company history in terms of customers affected," said Brian Alford, spokesman for Oklahoma Gas and Electric.

Crews were sent from Texas, Louisiana, Indiana and Mississippi to help repair power lines, which snapped as quickly as they could be repaired.

Ice-slicked roads contributed to the deaths of 15 people in Oklahoma during the weekend, state officials said.

One homeless man died of hypothermia and a motorist was killed when he stopped to help another driver and was hit by a car skidding on ice.

Many major roads were closed and hundreds of flights were cancelled at major airports in Chicago, Kansas City, St Louis and Oklahoma City.

As power companies warn it could take a week to restore all power, the US National Weather Service warned another icy blast was on its way.

Sky News - Two care workers have been arrested on suspicion of murdering five elderly people at a Somerset residential home.

It follows the deaths of four women and a man at the former Parkfields Care Residential Care Home in Butleigh.

Registered nurse Rachel Baker, 45, and her chef husband Leigh, 48, are being held in Yeovil.

The pair were initially questioned following the death of 97-year-old Lucy Cox on New Year's Day.

Detectives also decided to exhume the remains of several other former residents to establish whether they had been poisoned.

The remains of Nellie "Mary" Pickford, 89, were removed from Glastonbury Cemetery on June 5 while grandmother-of-four Marion Alder, 79, was exhumed from the graveyard of St Leonard's Church, Butleigh, a week later.

And the remains of Fred Green, 81, a grandfather of 10, were taken from a graveyard in the village of Kingweston, near Somerton, in rural Somerset, on July 11.

Three other residents, whose deaths were being treated as suspicious by officers, had already been cremated.

Answering bail, the Bakers were arrested on suspicion of the murder of four women and one man, theft and unlawful possession of controlled prescribed drugs and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Police spokesman Dan Mountain said: "Both arrests relate to ongoing inquiries into deaths at the former Parkfields Residential Care Home in Butleigh."

Sky.com - A 58-year-old Canadian pig farmer is facing life in prison after being convicted of murdering six women - a fraction of the total number he is thought to have killed.

Robert "Willie" Pickton was given an automatic life sentence when a jury in British Columbia found him guilty of murder.

He still faces murder charges for the deaths of 20 more women, most of them prostitutes and drug addicts from a seedy Vancouver neighborhood.

If convicted on all those charges, he would become Canada's most prolific serial killer.

Police are still investigating the cases of almost 40 other missing women.

The remains of the six women he was convicted of killing were found on Pickton's farm, but he denied he was responsible for their deaths.

Pickton listened to the verdict with his head bowed and later smirked at one point. He had been charged with first-degree murder in the six killings, but the jury convicted him on a lesser charge of second-degree murder, which means they did not believe the killings were planned.

Two sisters of victim Georgina Papin screamed "No!" when the jury foreman first got up and said "not guilty" on first-degree murder. But they later said they were pleased he was convicted on the second-degree charge.

Two jurors, both women, wiped tears from their eyes while the verdicts were read. The jury foreman glared at Pickton as the verdicts were read back by a court official.

During his trial, a prosecution witness, Andrew Bellwood, said Pickton told him how he strangled his victims and fed their remains to his pigs.

Health officials once issued a tainted meat warning to neighbours who might have bought pork from Pickton's farm, concerned the meat might have contained human remains.

The jury of seven men and five women took 10 days to reach a verdict.

Pickton was convicted of murdering Mona Wilson, Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey, Brenda Wolfe, Andrea Joesbury as well as Papin.

The victims all came from Vancouver's Eastside quarter, considered the worst ghetto in Canada. Drugs are sold openly, a short distance from the Vancouver police headquarters.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A gunman shot four staff members at a missionary training center near Denver early Sunday, killing two, after being told he couldn't spend the night. About 12 hours later and 65 miles away in Colorado Springs, a gunman fatally shot a parishioner at a megachurch and wounded four other people before a guard killed him, police said.

One of the hospitalized victims from the second attack died Sunday at about 10:10 p.m., said Amy Sufak, a spokeswoman for Penrose Community Hospital in Colorado Springs.

The police chief in Arvada, a suburb about 15 miles west of Denver where the mission workers were shot, said the shootings may be related to those in Colorado Springs but declined to elaborate. No one had been captured in the Arvada shootings, authorities said.

Early Monday, authorities were searching a home in suburban Englewood, about 15 miles south of Denver, that they said could be related to the Colorado Springs shooting case. Results of that search were not immediately known.

"Colorado Springs has identified its suspect, and we're there to see whether their suspect and ours are the same," said Arvada Deputy Police Chief Gary Creagor.

Witness descriptions differed in each incident. A handgun was used in the shootings at the Youth With a Mission center in Arvada, while a rifle was used at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, police said.

The gunman at the New Life Church was shot and killed by a church security guard after entering the church's main foyer with high-powered rifle shortly before 1 p.m. and opening fire, Colorado Springs Police Chief Richard Myers said. Four others were wounded, and one later died.

The church's 11 a.m. service had recently ended, and hundreds of people were milling about when the gunman opened fire. Nearby were parents picking up their children from the nursery.

Police arrived to find that the gunman had been killed by a member of the church's armed security staff, Myers said.

"There was a courageous staff member who probably saved many lives here today," Myers said.

Gov. Bill Ritter ordered state authorities to help investigate. The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were assisting. Officers found several smoke-generating devices on the church campus, Myers said. Their intended purpose wasn't clear.

New Life was founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, who was fired last year after a former male prostitute alleged he had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with him. Haggard, then the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, admitted committing undisclosed "sexual immorality."

The New Life church is one of Colorado's largest with about 10,000 members. The mission training program in Arvada does have a small office on the Colorado Springs church campus.

About 7,000 people were on the Colorado Springs campus at the time of the shooting, Senior Pastor Brady Boyd said. Security at the church had been beefed up after the early morning shootings in Arvada, he said.

That shooting happened at about 12:30 a.m. at the Youth With a Mission center in Arvada, a Denver suburb, police spokeswoman Susan Medina said.

A man and a woman were killed and two men were wounded, Medina said. All four were staff members of the center, said Paul Filidis, a Colorado Springs-based spokesman with Youth With a Mission.

Arvada Police Chief Don Wick, asked whether he believed there was reason to think the shootings are related, responded, "Yes, there is reason to believe that."

Wick said the suspect spent several minutes speaking with people inside the dorm. Peter Warren, director of Youth With a Mission Denver, said the man asked whether he could spend the night. Several youths called on Tiffany Johnson, the center's director of hospitality.

"The director of hospitality was called. That's when he opened fire," Warren said. Johnson, 26, was killed.

Warren said he didn't know whether any of the students or staff knew the gunman. "We don't know why" he came to the dormitory, Warren said.

Witnesses told police that the gunman was a 20-year-old white male, wearing a dark jacket and skull cap, who had a handgun and left on foot. He may have glasses or a beard.

Police with dogs searched the area through the night, and residents of nearby homes were notified by reverse 911 to be on the lookout. Medina said residents were asked to look out their windows for any tracks left in the snow during the night. About 4 inches of snow had fallen in the area in the past day.

In addition to Johnson, killed in Arvada was Philip Crouse, 24. Youth With a Mission said Johnson was from Minnesota and Crouse was from Alaska.

The missionary center identified the wounded as Dan Griebenow, 24, of South Dakota, and Charlie Blanch, 22, whose hometown wasn't immediately known. One of the men was in critical condition, and the other was stable, police said.

The missionary center is on the grounds of the Faith Bible Chapel. Cheril Morrison, wife of chapel pastor George Morrison, said Crouse had just hung up Christmas lights at her home and that Johnson was "an amazingly beautiful person."

Mimi Martin, who lives near the center, said she received the warning call at about 9 a.m. warning neighbors to keep their doors and windows locked.

"Why would anybody want to hurt those kids?" Martin said.

Darv Smith, director of a Youth With a Mission center in Boulder, said people ranging from their late teens to their 70s undergo a 12-week course that prepares them to be missionaries. He said the center trains about 300 people a year.

Filidis said staffers are usually former missionaries themselves and that the "mercy ministries" performed by trainees include orphanage work. He said he didn't know where the group being trained in Arvada was going to be sent.

Youth With a Mission was started in 1960 and now has 1,100 locations with 16,000 full-time staff, Smith said. The Arvada center was founded in 1984.

___

Associated Press Religion Writer Eric Gorski and Colleen Slevin in Denver, and George Merritt in Arvada contributing to this report.

From - Yahoo! NEWS

TAEAN, South Korea (AFP) - South Korea's worst ever oil spill spread along a pristine coastal region Monday as the government came under fire amid charges it acted too slowly to limit the disaster.

Almost 9,000 troops, police and volunteers armed with shovels and buckets struggled to clean up the huge slick. But officials said it would deal a heavy blow to tourism and oyster and abalone farms in the area.

The crude oil had so far hit 160 marine farms out of a total of 445 in the area under threat, said Cho Kyu-Sung, an official of Taean county 90 kilometres (56 miles) southwest of Seoul.

"The damage will be enormous if you include long-term environmental expenses," he told AFP.

Some 140 ships and five planes were helping, but the Coast Guard said the slick has already hit 50 kilometres of coastline, and more oil was expected to come ashore.

Park Myung-Jae, home affairs minister, said four townships would be declared a disaster zone, making them eligible for extra help and compensation.

Park vowed immediate aid of 5.9 billion won (6.4 million dollars) and said more state funds would be forthcoming soon.

Northwest winds were quickly pushing the slick south along the coast, said Lee Jae-Hak, of the Korea Ocean Research and Development Institute.

"Damage was bigger than expected because of wrong weather forecasts by the authorities," Lee told AFP.

"High waves and strong winds were the main cause. However, authorities failed fully to take seasonal winds into consideration after booms were set up."

Lee said it may take months or a year to remove oil from the land surface, "but it will take four or five years to remove chemicals and other pollutants."

About 10,500 tons of crude oil leaked into the Yellow Sea when a drifting barge carrying a construction crane smashed into an oil tanker Friday.

The barge's cable to a tugboat had snapped during rough weather before it holed the 147,000-ton Hong Kong-registered Hebei Spirit in three places.

Officials reported difficulties contacting the tug captain to warn him of the imminent danger.

The captain, for as yet unknown reasons, did not receive a warning radio message about the tanker's presence in the area, said Song Hee-Sun, a regional traffic official of the maritime ministry.

Officials then tried to call his mobile phone but when they finally got through, it may have been too late to prevent the collision, Song told AFP.

"He is under questioning by police. So we cannot say whether he is responsible or not," he added.

The leak from the tanker, which was anchored eight kilometres off the coast, was only completely stopped early Sunday. The oil spill is about twice the size of South Korea's previous worst such case in 1995.

Newspapers alleged a slow response to the disaster, saying no lessons had been learned since then.

"Precious time was lost in preparing seaside communities for the impending ecological disaster," a Korea Herald editorial said.

"Equipment to contain the oil spill was not distributed promptly, leaving villagers helpless as they watched the oil move ashore."

The JoongAng Ilbo said it suspects "authorities tackled the accident in a loafing and idle manner."

Shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries, who operated the barge and tug, said the tanker's owner would be able receive a maximum 300 billion won (326 million dollars) through an insurer to cover damage from the spill.

Samsung was responsible for compensating the owner, a spokesman told AFP.

"We are awaiting the outcome of an investigation by police. But we are basically responsible for the incident," the spokesman said. "We will not swerve from our duty."

"It is regrettable that it came under unfavourable circumstances."

The Samsung group is already under official investigation over allegations that it had operated a huge slush fund to bribe officials in the past.

Courtesy: Yahoo NEWS

SKY - Russia's President Vladimir Putin has won his country's elections by a landslide - but international monitors have condemned the poll as unfair and not up to standard.

Goran Lennmarker, president of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's parliamentary assembly, said the weekend poll "failed to meet many of the commitments and standards that we have".

He added that it "was not a fair election".

The European Union has also criticised the poll, saying free speech and assembly rights had been violated in the run-up to the vote.

Speaking to reporters in Berlin, EU external affairs commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said problems were evident ahead of the election.

She said: "We saw some violations of basic rights, notably free speech and assembly rights."

The White House urged Russia to investigate opposition claims of widespread ballot-rigging.

Mr Putin's United Russia party's victory came in at more than 60% of the vote.

The Kremlin hailed the result as a signal from Russian voters that they want Mr Putin to retain influence after he leaves office in March.

Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said: "Russian voters spoke in favour of United Russia, thus supporting President Putin's course, and spoke in favour of it being continued after the current president's second term ends."

But the Communists, likely to be the only opposition force in parliament, said they would challenge the result in the Supreme Court.

They said they would discuss whether to boycott the new parliament.

Liberal Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov of the SPS party called Sunday's vote "the most dishonest election in the history of modern Russia".

The 55-year-old president, a former KGB spy who is hugely popular and credited by voters with restoring Russia's national pride, has been tipped for a role as prime minister or possibly speaker of parliament after his presidency.

Some observers say he could seek a third term as president, though he has said repeatedly he would not change the constitution to pave the way for this.