Yagami Website

MANILA - Online social networks and video-sharing websites were abuzz with activity on Saturday as enterprising Filipinos took photos and videos of the devastation wrought by tropical storm Ondoy (international codename Ketsana) and posted them on the Internet.

Popular video-sharing website YouTube.com hosted some of the videos, which showed massive flooding in parts of Metro Manila.

One video posted by INITIATE360 showed how Marikina River is destroying houses near the embankment with more than 20 people sitting on top of their houses while waiting for rescuers.

"I just got back from the river's edge five minutes ago. A 10-15 feet height differential between the Marikina River and the embankment has now been reduced to the point that water is splashing against the high-rises of Eastwood, Metro Manila," he said in describing the video.

He said a security guard even described seeing a woman with a two-year-old infant being swept in the middle of the river while waving for help. "There was nothing we could do - she had passed though within 5 seconds. We've been seeing other people washed away," he quoted the security guard as saying.

One video posted by user mimiedejesus showed several vehicles submerged in floodwater in Katipunan, with one van going completely under water as it sank in what appeared to be an excavation site.

Another video posted by mykepimentel showed scores of stranded commuters wading through waist-deep floods on Congressional Road.

This video showed a man trying pull his pedicab across the flood.







Finally, a video posted by goshigi, shows flooding on Pasong Tamo in front of Don Bosco Makati. It also shows people pushing a taxi through knee-deep floods.

MANILA – Donations and pledges for the victims of tropical storm Ondoy (international codename Ketsana) continue to pour in Monday.

As of Monday afternoon, Tina Monzon–Palma, program head of ABS-CBN Sagip Kapamilya, said on “Wowowee” that the network’s telethon has already raised P26 million in cash pledges and more than P20 million worth of goods.

Willie Revillame, the main man of the popular afternoon show, announced that he is also donating P1 million cash to Sagip Kapamilya.

“From my heart, galing po sa akin, P1 million para sa mga kapamilya natin,” Revillame said.

He said thousands of displaced Filipinos are still in need of relief goods as he urged others to continue to donate food and bed sheets.

“Hindi ito ang panahon para magalit at magsisihan,” Revillame added, referring to reports that many were criticizing the government for its alleged slow response to the crisis.

The ABS-CBN telethon started 8:30 a.m. Sunday. Some celebrities have been taking phone calls from the donors. Pokwang, Kim Chiu, Piolo Pascual, Gerald Anderson, Melissa Ricks, Jake Cuenca, Karylle, Jericho Rosales, and Jed Madela took part in the telethon.

For more donations, Sagip Kapamilya is using Bantay Bata 163 to streamline all calls.

MANILA - Unmindful of the danger, young actor Gerald Anderson jumped in the floodwaters during the onslaught of tropical storm Ondoy (international codename Ketsana) Saturday to help his neighbors that might be trapped in their homes in Quezon City.

Photos of the actor wading through chest-deep floods have been posted on the Multiply account of Boto Mo Ipatrol Mo: Ako ang Simula by pyongski.

Pyongski wrote: "Hi everyone. I just want to share these photos of Gerald while helping to rescue [his neighbors] in his village. These photos were taken by my friend's friend who got to be his neighbor. I'm really proud of him! And This made me his No. 1 fan!!! (sic)"

Due to his efforts, the "Tayong Dalawa" actor drew praised from both his fans and non-supporters.

"wow... aztig nmn ni ge... go ge!! (sic)" netly013 commented.

"alam mo sa ginawa mo na ayan patunay lang na isa kang tunay na pinoy. your parents must be very proud of you for having a son like you. keep up the good work, gerald. naku lalu kang mamahalin ni kim nyan hahhaha (sic)," maria60 wrote, referring to his onscreen partner Kim Chiu.

bongofw said: "good job gerald!!!! (sic)"

Authorities said the death toll from Ondoy's onslaught soared to 140 as they scampered to send relief aid to hundreds of thousands hit by weekend floods in and around Manila.

MANILA – As she dreadfully watched the floodwaters devouring her Marikina home, actress Cristine Reyes had feared the worst - she and her family, who were trapped on their rooftop at the height of tropical storm Ondoy (international codename Ketsana), would not make it alive.

Floods had already reached the second floor of her home in Princeton Street in Provident Village, forcing them to move to the roof amid heavy downpour.

She, her family and some neighbors swam in floodwaters and then climbed the water tank at the back of the house to reach the rooftop where they would stay for 12 hours before help came. A very drenched Reyes tearfully appealed for help on television.

She recounted: “Talagang nagpra-pray ako, kami ng pamangkin ko na 3 years old. Tinuturuan ko. Sabi ko sa kanya, ‘Sabihin mo Lord God, help us, save us.’ Sinasabi niya. Iyong bata nakikinig sa akin."

“Grabe iyong pinagdaanan namin. Akala ko ending na namin lahat. Pero hindi ako nawalan ng pag-asa. Buti na lang ligtas kami.”

An Army rubber boat finally came early Sunday and, to her surprise, actor Richard Gutierrez was part of the rescue team.

“Sobrang hindi ko ma-imagine iyong ginawa niya. Ni-risk niya iyong buhay niya. Hindi biro iyong nangyari sa akin,” she said.

The 700-square-meter house is still submerged in ankle-deep mud when Reyes returned to her home Monday. She inspected the damage and salvaged some of her belongings.

Reyes is currently staying at sister Ara Mina’s residence in Quezon City. The young actress said she has decided to leave her Marikina house and relocate.

She said although she could no longer save most of her furniture, the most important thing is she and her family are now safe.

“Maraming salamat sa lahat ng tumulong. Sa mga hindi pa nare-rescue hanggang ngayon, sana matulungan natin sila sa abot ng makakaya natin,

The UN climate chief said Monday that devastating floods in the Philippines highlighted the need for the world to agree on a global warming pact by a December deadline.

At least 140 people were killed and nearly half a million left homeless after floods at the weekend inundated the capital Manila and surrounding areas, leaving rescuers struggling to cope.

The disaster came as officials from around the world met in Thailand for the penultimate negotiating session before a December meeting in Copenhagen, where 192 countries hope to agree new targets for tackling climate change.

UN climate chief Yvo de Boer told reporters in Bangkok that he had seen the "horrifying pictures" of the floods in the Philippines.

"One of the reasons why countries have gathered here is to ensure the frequency and severity of those kinds of extreme weather events decreases as a result of ambitious climate change policy," de Boer said.

Delegates at the talks are still trying to thrash out a draft text for the Copenhagen meeting, with major disagreements on the two key issues of cutting emissions of greenhouse gases and meeting the associated costs.

The talks follow last week's UN climate summit in New York and a G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, which failed to break the deadlock.

MANILA - The death toll from the onslaught of tropical storm "Ondoy" (international code name Ketsana) has reached 27 in Brgy. Bagong Silangan, Quezon City alone, its barangay chairman said.

Of this number, Bagong Silangan Barangay Chairman Armando Indaya said 11 of the fatalities were brought to the barangay's covered court while the remaining 16 are still in the Tahuna Funeral Parlor.

"Nasa funenaria pa sila, bukas pa darating iyong iba. Nakuha na namin iyong mga pangalan ng patay dito. Twenty-five iyong dinala. May dineretso raw doon sa funenaria na dalawa pa. So 27," Indaya told ABS-CBN News.

On the other hand, Indaya said about 108 people in their barangay remain missing. "Pwera pa rito iyong mga nagpalista. Meron pa raw kasing buong pamilya na nalunod," he said.

At present, the Bagong Silangan covered court houses some 708 families, Indaya said. Other families were sent to relocation centers in other areas of Quezon City.

Among those in the evacuation center are Leonora Tukayon and Edwin Castro, whose families passed away at the onslaught of the tropical storm.

Tukayon is now left with her 6 grandchildren, following the deaths of 2 others, her 3 children, and 2 in-laws. Two of her families, meanwhile, are not yet found.

"Puro na ulila iniwan sa amin. Anim na apo. Ako na lang mag-isa...Kung sinuman ang gustong tumulong sa kalagayan ko ngayon, alang-ala sa mga apo ko, kasi wala na silang mga magulang," she lamented.

Castro, on the other hand, lost his wife and youngest child after being separated during the storm. "Sana matulungan ninyo ang pamilya ko. Para maipalibing iyong asawa at anak ko," he said.

According to Indaya, this tragedy would not have happened if residents moved to safer ground at an earlier time as advised by the government.

"Hindi kami nagkulang sa abiso. Lagi kaming nananawagan. May kasama pa kaming Red Cross na umiikot noong umaga. Kadalasan kapag umuulan nang malakas sinasabi nila huhupa rin yan. Bababa rin iyan. E ngayon tuloy-tuloy ang ulan. Hindi lang dito, kundi pati na rin buong Metro Manila," he explained, adding that 2 of their rescuers have already drowned.

Assistance

Indaya said Quezon City Mayor Sonny Belmonte has already committed to give financial assistance to the victims of tropical storm "Ondoy." Belmonte, along with his daughter Joy, Vice Mayor Herbert Bautista, and Councilor Ariel Inton, visited the Bagong Silangan Covered Court on Sunday night.

"Gamitin daw ang calamity (fund), all out support si Mayor," Indaya said.

Aside from Belmonte, Indaya said senators Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III and Manuel "Mar" Roxas also paid a visit to the nearby church to bring 900 packs of goods to Barangay Silangan residents.

"Dumating din sina Mar at Noynoy sa simbahan para magbigay ng pagkain," he said. Both Aquino and Roxas have launched "Operation Tulong Bayan" following the onslaught of tropical storm "Ondoy."

Since Sunday, residents of Batangas have been donating goods as well as their time to provide assistance to victims of Tropical Storm "Ondoy."

ABS CBN Southern Tagalog in Batangas City launched a relief and assistance program and opened its doors Sunday to receiving donations such as used clothing, slippers and shoes, food, water, and medicines.

While classes in all levels are suspended, students spent some of their spare time by dropping by the station and donating and helping even in the smallest way.

Even though fish was scarce due to the typhoon, the Fish Vendors Association of Batangas City New Public Market did not hesitate to share their money. According to them, it is their way of paying it forward since they were spared from the ill-effects of the storm which has caused devastation to some areas in the province.

Mang Bong meanwhile arrived with his family all the way from Bauan town out of pity for the flooded victims of Metro Manila and gave some goods. He is hoping that what he gave would go a long way.

Others volunteered to help for the sake of "bayanihan". Some joined in packing the goods to be given as relief items.

The proceeds of the program will be given to the victims of storm "Ondoy" in the province of Batangas through the help of the Philippine Air Force and the Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council.

The rest will be forwarded to the victims in Metro Manila.

MANILA - Residents and local government officials from Rizal province have called for "outside help" in the aftermath of Typhoon Ondoy (international code name Ketsana) that battered the province on September 26.

"We can't support relief efforts on our own, so we need outside help. All people in the province are affected. Others have lost their homes but still help out in relief efforts. But what we need is help from others. Please help us because the situation is hard," said San Mateo municipal mayor Jose Rafael Diaz in an interview with ABS-CBN News.

Diaz - along with local government officials, members of the Philippine Army, and civilian volunteers - have been helping out at 15 makeshift evacuation centers and a medical mission station in front of the municipal hall since Saturday.

Relief efforts concentrated on distributing rice, sardines, noodles, used clothes, and other necessities to typhoon victims, but Diaz said more are in need of help.

The mayor said 80% of the municipality was submerged in floodwaters, affecting 19,524 families and 97,620 people (out of a total population of about 180,000).

There were also reported landslides in Sta. Barbara Villa Subdivision, Silangan, and Buntong Palay.

As of posting, there have already been 10 reported deaths, and hundreds more missing after the typhoon's onslaught.

Diaz fears that the death tally will rise, since 14 out of 15 baranggays have "sketchy" reports of the situation of their constituents.

"The municipality is prepared if at least if 2 or 3 barangays [are affected]. But every barangay was affected. We're never used to total annihilation. How can you help someone if the volunteers and rescuers themselves are in need? It's difficult," said Diaz, whose own house is knee-deep in water.

Residents hungry, fear looters

Residents in hard-hit areas like San Mateo municipality and Motalban are still reeling from the damage brought by Typhoon Ondoy.

In some areas of San Mateo, people were seen begging for food or money along major roads.

Most said they were unaware that there are nearby evacuation centers.

Wilma de Guzman, a resident in San Mateo, was seen begging for food and walking barefoot in mud-stained shorts and t-shirt, holding her equally disheveled daughter.

De Guzman's home was swept away along a river bank on Saturday, without warning.

She said she and her neighbors initially sought shelter near a chapel, but had to swim back in chest-high floodwaters to save her 3 children.

"Humihingi lang po kami ng tulong, kahit pagkain o matitirhan. Nagugutom na po mga anak ko (We are asking for help, even just food or shelter. My children are hungry)," she told ABS-CBN News.

Some San Mateo residents, like Alona Baltazar, could not leave for evacuation centers because of fear that their damaged homes would be looted.

Her neighbor, a laundrywoman, was sifting through the debris and looking for scrap wood or metal in order to build a makeshift "kubo" or shanty near her damaged home.

The laundrywoman cried during an interview with ABS-CBN News, saying she worked hard for more than 10 years to build a home, only for it to disappear in a flash.

"Sana tumulong ka naman, Presidente! (I hope you help, President [Gloria Arroyo]," she said.

Relief efforts

Dela Costa Subdivision in Montalban, meanwhile, is still knee-deep in mud and debris.

Some subdivision residents who arrived home on late Sunday evening could not enter the village gates.

Many residents like Lea Cerso cried with worry over relatives and friends still trapped inside the subdivision. Cerso had left her 4-year-old child inside their home before she left for work.

Municipal officials later decided to use a dump truck to storm into the village gates and save those trapped on roofs or upper floors of their houses.

Before they were rescued, victims had been left for 12 hours without food or water.

Rescuers also found the dead body of an old man, as yet unidentified, who is suspected to have drowned in the flood.

Rescue teams in the area are reportedly continuing their efforts in saving Typhoon Ondoy victims.

Rizal Governor Casimiro Ynares III told dzMM radio earlier that over 37,570 families or 263,224 individuals in the province were affected in the storm.

He said 80 out of 188 villages in Rizal were badly affected. The province's death toll was 82, as of Sunday evening, with 45 people missing.

He said rescue operations are concentrated in Cainta, while relief operations are focused on areas like San Mateo, Montalban, and Cainta.

So far, Ynares said they have evacuated people in Antipolo, San Mateo, and Taytay.

One of the most dramatic footages taken by ABS-CBN showed a group of people including little children riding sheets of corrugated roofing and other debris while being swept away by a raging river in San Mateo, Rizal last Saturday.

As horrified onlookers watched, the group was swept under the San Mateo Batasan bridge and their makeshift "raft" shattered to pieces. Only one person was rescued after grabbing a rope thrown over the bridge by rescuers.

On Monday, one of the survivors of the incident showed up in ABS-CBN to ask for help in the search for his missing wife and two kids.

Eric Boquiron said he, his wife Maritess, and two kids had been monitoring the water level near their shanty in Bagong Silangan village, Quezon City as early as Friday night even before tropical storm Ondoy (international codename Ketsana) made landfall. Soon enough, chest-deep floodwater entered their house and forced them to go up on the roof.

Four of Boquiron's cousins tried to help the family but failed after the rope they were using broke. As a result, the entire family was swept away by the current.

"A lot of houses [in Barangay Silangan] were destroyed by the flood. I even saw families with babies as they tried to hang on to the roofs of their houses while the water swept them away," he told ABS-CBN.

Boquiron said he, his wife and children, ages 3 and 6, were separated even before they reached the San Mateo Batasan bridge. He said he placed his three-year-old daughter inside a plastic tub, which was swept away by the current.

He said he was only rescued after reaching the Marikina River. Until now, he said he has yet to find his wife and two children.

Boquiron appealed to authorities to help him find his wife and children. He said his youngest daughter is celebrating her birthday today.

At least 27 people were reported killed while 108 remain missing after a flash flood hit Bagong Silangan last Saturday. Eleven of the fatalities have been brought to the barangay's covered court while the remaining 16 are in the Tahuna Funeral Parlor.

Bagong Silangan Barangay Chairman Armando Indaya said at least 708 families are now staying in the Bagong Silangan covered court.

As campaigning was closing for the German general election Sunday, attention was already turning to what coalition will rule the country.

Few doubt that Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, CDU, will win most votes.

So, will Merkel continue the current center right-center left "grand coalition" with the Social Democrats or will the votes suffice for a coalition with the business liberal but centrist Liberal Democrats or the FDP, a constellation Germans refer to as "Black-Yellow."

At a press conference ostensibly to outline Germany's position at this week's G-20 summit Merkel apparently let the cat out of the bag. "We are in a time of crisis," she said, "and I believe we can pull out of the crisis faster with a Black-Yellow government."

But some political analysts believe she would prefer to keep the Social Democrats as the junior coalition partner.

Polls indicate the CDU and FDP could gain a razor thin majority to form a governing coalition. Recent polls put their combined tally at around 48 percent.

That is not exactly a large majority, but it's two percent more than the left of center parties, the Social Democrats, the Green Party, and the left wing "Die Linke," who would reach about 46 percent if polls are accurate.

The Liberal Democrats have been in opposition since 1998 and at a rally in Berlin, their leader Guido Westerwelle was sure his time has come.

"I think the voters won't allow a coalition of the left to be in power. I think they want a conservative government and they will vote to put us in power," he said.

Westerwelle is eyeing the post of foreign minister under a future Merkel government.

A government of CDU and FDP, conservatives and liberal would probably be more business friendly than the current grand coalition.

Both the CDU and FDP want to cut taxes to further jumpstart Europe's largest economy which emerged from its deepest recession only a few months ago.

But even optimistic economists believe cutting taxes will be all but impossible for a government which will inherit the largest public deficit in German history after the current government was forced to ruin in its public finances to bail out banks and industrial companies in the wake of the international financial crisis.

And it appears more trouble lies ahead.

"After the economic crisis we will see a social crisis," says Henrik Enderlein an economics professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.

Enderlein believes a coalition with the liberals would put Merkel under pressure to implement wider ranging tax breaks than she feels are sustainable.

That is why some believe Merkel would not mind continuing her coalition with the Social Democrats who oppose tax cuts and call them irresponsible in a time of disastrous public deficits.

The Social Democratic contender running against Merkel, Frank Walter Steinmeier, however, has all but given up any hopes of winning. "We want to prevent a "black--yellow" coalition," he keeps repeating at rallies. Confidence sounds different.

Polls currently have the Social Democrats at around 26 percent of the vote, a disastrous figure for a party that in 1998 gained more than 40 percent.

But the Social Democrat ranks were decimated in the seven years they ruled the country under Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Many traditional left wing SPD voters felt Schroeder betrayed the powerful labor wing of the party by cutting social benefits while making it easier for companies to fire employees in times of crisis.

The SPD was further hit when many loyal members splintered off and joined the left wing party die Linke which also incorporates remnants of the former communist party that rules East Germany.

Now Steinmeier is trying to lead the Social Democrats out of the impasse and he realizes his real chance to stay in power would be as the junior partner to Merkel.

Steinmeier would keep his post as foreign minister and many political experts in Berlin think this might be what both Merkel and Steinmeier are really striving for.

"They worked very well together," said Gero Neugebauer of the Freie Universitat Berlin. "The atmosphere was very good and that is very important for such a coalition."

For Germans it seems like the two choices are realistic: A coalition of CDU and FDP, or a grand coalition of CDU and SPD, like the one that is currently governing the country.

Those options haven't exactly fired up the election campaigns.

Both Merkel and Steinmeier were loath to attacking each other and both of them cancelled several scheduled TV appearances which would have seen them go head to head.

"This election seems kind of lame," one young summed it up when I asked him near Berlin's technical university. International experts have a similar opinion.

One issue they feel has gotten short shrift was the war in Afghanistan. Germans have the third largest troop contingent in the country with about 4,200 soldiers stationed in the north.

But Afghanistan played only a minor role in the election campaigns and in their only televised debate, Merkel and Steinmeier devoted less than three minutes to the issue, less than a week after a German ground commander had called an air strike that killed almost 100 Afghans and possibly also civilians.

"It is simply not high on the political agenda," says Jan Techau of the German Council on Foreign Relations., "Most Germans are against the war in Afghanistan and having German troops there, but they don't care about it enough for it to influence the way they vote."

So Merkel and Steinmeier were careful to keep Afghanistan off the campaign agenda as best they could because they agree German troops need to stay in Afghanistan like they agree on so many topics.

That did not make for an exciting campaign, but it could make for a good continuation of the grand coalition.

President Obama's accusations that Iran's nuclear program runs afoul of international agreements are "baseless," the Islamic republic's president told CNN's Larry King on Friday.

"We did not expect Mr. Obama within less than 48 hours, to basically violate the commitment that he spoke of at the United Nations," said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian leader was referring to Obama's Wednesday speech to the U.N. General Assembly, where Obama called for international unity in attacking the world's challenges.

Asked if he was expressing disappointment in the U.S. president, Ahmadinejad responded, "We simply didn't expect him to say something that was ... was baseless."

Earlier Friday evening Obama said "Iran is on notice" regarding its nuclear efforts, and that the international community is united in its opposition to Tehran's nuclear program.

"They are going to have to make a choice: Are they willing to go down the path to greater prosperity and security for Iran, giving up the acquisition of nuclear weapons ... or will they continue down a path that is going to lead to confrontation," he said at a news conference at the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Obama's comments came hours after Iran acknowledged the existence of a second uranium enrichment facility and ahead of next week's planned meeting between Iran and the five permanent United Nations Security Council members, plus Germany. The October 1 meeting will take place in Geneva, Switzerland.

Obama said he would not speculate on any course of action absent a satisfactory response from Iran.

"Even countries who a year ago or six months ago might have been reluctant to even discuss things like sanctions," are starting to become concerned, Obama said.

Obama said his "preferred course of action is to resolve this in a diplomatic fashion. It's up to the Iranians to respond."

The U.S. president said the conclusions about Iran's nuclear ambitions came as a result of the work of three intelligence agencies -- those of Britain, France and the United States. The work, Obama said, was done "to make sure that we were absolutely confident about the situation there."

It wasn't until Monday that Iran wrote a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency, revealing the existence of the underground facility on a military base near the Shia Muslim holy city of Qom.

The facility is thought to be capable of housing 3,000 centrifuges, which is not enough to produce nuclear fuel to power a reactor but is sufficient to manufacture bomb-making material, according to a U.S. diplomatic source who read the letter.

Iran told the IAEA there is no nuclear material at the site, an agency spokesman said.

Once Iran alerted the IAEA, Obama began sharing U.S. intelligence on the nuclear site with allies, particularly with Russia and China in an effort to get those countries on board with new sanctions against Iran, the officials said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Friday that Iran admitted the existence of the "new pilot fuel enrichment plant," prompting Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy to respond at the G-20 economic summit.

"Iran's decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the nonproliferation regime," Obama said, with Brown and Sarkozy standing at his side.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not mention the Qom plant during his visit to New York this week for the U.N. General Assembly sessions. He reiterated earlier claims that Iran has fully cooperated with nuclear inspectors.

He emphasized this again Friday afternoon at a news conference, where he said Iran complied with IAEA regulations requiring it be informed at least six months before an enrichment facility becomes operational.

"We still have a year left before that six months kicks in," Ahmadinejad said.

"I thought we were supposed to be encouraged for taking this action," he said.

Iran's revelation of a new nuclear site could actually "strengthen their hand" as Tehran heads into next week's talks, according to Paul Ingram, an analyst who studies Iran and nuclear nonproliferation.

"It will be seen as an indication that they are willing to play by the rules," said Ingram, the executive director of the British American Security Information Council in London, England.

He said the timing of Iran's revelation, between the U.N. General Assembly sessions and the October 1 meeting, is deliberate on Iran's part.

"This will make it more difficult to persuade them to abandon enrichment," Ingram said.

Iran claims its nuclear enrichment program is intended for peaceful purposes, but the international community accuses it of continuing to try to develop nuclear weapons capability.

Iran had acknowledged only a uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, which nuclear inspectors visited recently. Iran also has an unfinished nuclear research reactor in Arak, and U.N. nuclear inspectors were allowed access to that facility this month.

Other important nuclear sites in Iran include its Bushehr nuclear power plant and the Isfahan uranium conversion plant.

Washington became aware of the covert facility near Qom several years ago, but a clearer picture about the facility emerged later, a U.S. counter-proliferation official said. The enrichment facility would probably not be operational for another year, the official said.

The official said the newly unveiled facility "doesn't really change the baseline" conclusion of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran could manufacture a nuclear weapons between 2010 and 2015.

The official added that there are suspicions about other possible hidden or undeclared nuclear-related facilities

Scientists are one step closer to knowing what you've seen by reading your mind.

Having modeled how images are represented in the brain, the researchers translated recorded patterns of neural activity into pictures of what test subjects had seen.

Though practical applications are decades away, the research could someday lead to dream-readers and thought-controlled computers.

"It's what you would actually use if you were going to build a functional brain-reading device," said Jack Gallant, a University of California, Berkeley neuroscientist.

The research, led by Gallant and Berkeley postdoctoral researcher Thomas Naselaris, builds on earlier work in which they used neural patterns to identify pictures from within a limited set of options.

The current approach, described this week in Neuron, uses a more complete view of the brain's visual centers. Its results are closer to reconstruction than identification, which Gallant likened to "the magician's card trick where you pick a card from a deck, and he guesses which card you picked. The magician knows all the cards you could have seen."

In the latest study, "the card could be a photograph of anything in the universe. The magician has to figure it out without ever seeing it," said Gallant.

To construct their model, the researchers used an fMRI machine, which measures blood flow through the brain, to track neural activity in three people as they looked at pictures of everyday settings and objects.

As in the earlier study, they looked at parts of the brain linked to the shape of objects. Unlike before, they looked at regions whose activity correlates with general classifications, such as "buildings" or "small groups of people."

Once the model was calibrated, the test subjects looked at another set of pictures. After interpreting the resulting neural patterns, the researchers' program plucked corresponding pictures from a database of 6 million images.

Frank Tong, a Vanderbilt University neuroscientist who studies how thoughts are manifested in the brain, said the Neuron study wasn't quite a pure, draw-from-scratch reconstruction. But it was impressive nonetheless, especially for the detail it gathered from measurements that are still extremely coarse.

The researchers' fMRI readings bundled the output of millions of neurons into single output blocks. "At the finer level, there is a ton of information. We just don't have a way to tap into that without opening the skull and accessing it directly," said Tong.

Gallant hopes to develop methods of interpreting other types of brain activity measurement, such as optical laser scans or EEG readings.

He mentioned medical communication devices as a possible application, and computer programs for which visual thinking makes sense -- CAD-CAM or Photoshop, straight from the brain.

Such applications are decades away, but "you could use algorithms like this to decode other things than vision," said Gallant. "In theory, you could analyze internal speech. You could have someone talk to themselves, and have it come out in a machine."

Families long separated by the Korean War will be able to see their loved ones for the first time in years in a series of reunions starting Saturday near the border between North and South Korea.

The reunions -- the first in nearly two years -- are taking place through October 1 on Mount Keumgang, a North Korean resort near the eastern part of the border.

Millions of families were separated by the Korean War, which ended in 1953 with a cease-fire and no formal peace treaty. No mail, telephone or e-mail exchanges exist between ordinary citizens across the Korean border.

The agreement to hold the reunions came after North and South Korea held three days of talks, mediated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, last month, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported at the time.

About 10,000 people applied to take part in the reuinion, but fewer than 200 families were allowed to participate. Ninety-seven families were scheduled to meet Saturday and another 99 families are expected to meet next week, authorities said.

Participants are selected randomly, and there is no date set for a further reunion, which means the tens of thousands of others who were separated by the Korean War have no idea when they may get a chance to see their loved ones -- if ever.

For the many separated family members who are elderly, a reunion may never be possible.

Reunions between North and South have been taking place off and on since 2000 after an inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang, Yonhap says. The last reunion took place in October 2007.

Rapprochement talks between the two Koreas have hit a wall since conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak took office in early 2008 with a tougher stance toward the North than his liberal predecessor, Roh Moo-Hyun.

The two Koreas have remained in conflict since the conclusion of the Korean War in 1953.

Last month, officials from both sides had the first high-level, cross-border contact in nearly two years when South Korean Unification Minister Hyun In Taek met with North Korean unity leader Kim Yang Gon.

The meetings and reunions are in stark contrast to the tense public statements each side made about each other earlier this year.

Tensions between the two were heightened in July when North Korea launched seven short-range missiles toward the Sea of Japan. The launches came after North Korea conducted a nuclear test on May 25 and threatened the United States and South Korean ships near its territorial waters.

South Korea condemned the action, calling the launches "unwise."

The U.S. military prison at Guantanamo in Cuba is unlikely to close by the Obama administration's deadline of January 2010, two senior administration officials said late Friday.

They cited legal complications for the delay, but said they were still optimistic about shutting the facility soon.

The announcement represents a blow to the president, who signed an executive order and set the deadline with great fanfare in January during his first week in office.

The delay may provide fodder for Republicans such as former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has argued that shutting the Guantanamo prison would make the United States less safe. He said Obama should have had a detailed plan in place before signing the order.

"Even White House officials are now acknowledging that there is still no alternative that will keep Americans as safe as housing detainees at that secure facility off our shores," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said in a written statement.

"Americans and a bipartisan majority in Congress will continue to reject any effort to close Guantanamo until there is a plan that keeps Americans as safe or safer than keeping detainees in the secure detention center," McConnell's statement said.

The senior administration officials insisted the White House is making progress in finding third-party countries to accept the remaining detainees.

MANILA - At least 10 people were reported dead or missing and more than 1,800 were forced to evacuate as tropical storm Ondoy lashed the Philippines Saturday, officials and radio reports said.

The government declared Manila and 25 other provinces to be in a "state of calamity," Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said, as heavy rains brought by the storm caused the worst flooding seen in the capital in some 20 years.

A wall, weakened by floodwaters, collapsed in a suburb of Manila, killing a father and child while five children drowned in flooding elsewhere in the city, radio station DZMM said.

Three other people were swept away by a swollen river outside the capital, it said.

Over 1,800 people were forced to flee their homes and take refuge in evacuation centres due to rising waters, the civil defence office said.

Flooding was reported in many districts with waters in some areas reaching as high as the rooftops of one-storey buildings, the civil defence office said.

Power was cut in many parts of the city, partly due to flooding but also as a protective measure in some districts to prevent people attempting to escape the floodwaters from being electrocuted by fallen lines.

Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, who is also in charge of civil defence operations, said all the efforts of the police and the military were being concentrated on rescuing people trapped on rooftops.

But he said the flooding in the streets and the large numbers of stalled vehicles were giving rescue units "a hard time" in reaching those affected.

In a radio broadcast, he advised that "if you are on the roof, don't try to leave. Just remain there on the roof and we will do everything to rescue you."

He remarked that even he had to swim through chest-deep waters to reach his office.

The storm, bearing winds of 85 kilometres (53 miles) per hour with gusts of 100 kph, hit the main island of Luzon near the town of Infanta at about 0200 GMT Saturday, moving west at 19 kilometres per hour, the weather station said.

Government weather forecaster Gener Quitlong said the equivalent of one month's worth of rain fell on the city in less than a day.

"We knew there would be rain but not like this," Quitlong told reporters.

One of the three airport terminals in Manila was forced to cancel and divert flights after the flooding hampered its electrical system.

Local officials interviewed on radio said they were moving to evacuate more of their residents.

At least four hospitals in the capital had to move their patients to higher floors after water began seeping into lower levels.

The highways leading to metropolitan Manila were rendered impassable due to the huge number of vehicles stalled in the floodwaters.

Local officials made radio appeals asking rescue agencies to send rubber boats to rescue stranded people, some of whom had been on their rooftops all day and were panicking because of rising waters.

In a suburb of Manila, residents in a flooded area were seen rescuing children from rooftops by placing them in inflated inner tubes before dragging them to higher ground.

The second level of a three-step storm alert was raised over the eastern provinces of Luzon while the first level alert was hoisted over metropolitan Manila and surrounding areas, the government said.

The storm is expected to move west, across the main island of Luzon, before exiting the country early Sunday. The government weather station said it is weakening and that rains are likely to ease up after sundown.

An average of 20 typhoons and storms enter the Philippines from the Pacific Ocean over the eastern seaboard every year.

An Indonesian woman has given birth to an 8.7-kilogramme (19.2-pound) baby boy, the heaviest newborn ever recorded in the country, a doctor said Wednesday.

The baby, who is still unnamed and is 62 centimetres (24.4 inches) long, was born by caesarean section Monday at a public hospital in North Sumatra province, a gynaecologist who took part in the operation told AFP.

"This heavy baby made the surgery really tough, especially the process of taking him out of his mum's womb. His legs were so big," Binsar Sitanggang said.

The boy is in a healthy condition despite having to initially be given oxygen to overcome breathing problems, the gynaecologist said.

"He's got strong appetite, every minute, it's almost non-stop feeding," he said.

"This baby boy is extraordinary, the way he's crying is not like a usual baby. It's really loud."

The boy's massive size was likely the result of his mother, Ani, 41, having diabetes, Sitanggang said.

She had to be rushed to hospital due to complications with the pregnancy, which had reached nine months. The baby, her fourth, was the only child not delivered by a traditional midwife.

When a diabetic mother's glucose level is high during pregnancy, the baby can receive too much glucose and grow too large, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Indonesia's previous heaviest baby, weighing in at 6.9 kilos, was born in 2007 on the outskirts of the capital Jakarta, according to the Indonesian Museum of Records website.

Australia's worst dust storm in 70 years blanketed the heavily populated east coast Wednesday in a cloud of red Outback grit, nearly closed the country's largest airport and left millions of people coughing and sputtering in the streets.

No one was hurt as a result of the pall that swept in overnight, bringing an eerie orange dawn to Sydney, but ambulance services reported a spike in emergency calls from people with breathing difficulties, and police warned drivers to take it easy on the roads.

Dust clouds blowing east from Australia's dry interior — parched even further by the worst drought on record — covered dozens of towns and cities in two states as strong winds snatched up tons of topsoil, threw it high into the sky and carried it hundreds of miles (kilometers).

International flights were diverted from Sydney to other cities — three from New Zealand were turned around altogether — and domestic schedules were thrown into chaos as operations at Sydney Airport were curtailed by unsafe visibility levels. Passenger ferries on the city's famous harbor were also stopped for several hours for safety reasons.

The dust over Sydney had largely cleared by midafternoon, though national carrier Qantas said severe delays would last all day because of diverted and late-running flights.

The dust was still flying further north, however, and the sky over the Queensland state capital of Brisbane was clogged with dust into the early evening.

Such thick dust is rare over Sydney, and came along with other uncommon weather conditions across the country in recent days. Hailstorms have pummeled parts of the country this week, while other parts have been hit with an early spring mini-heatwave, and wildfires.

"It did feel like Armageddon because when I was in the kitchen looking out the skylight, there was this red glow coming through," Sydney resident Karen told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

The storms — visible as a huge brown smudge in satellite photographs of Australia on Wednesday — are the most severe since the 1940s, experts said. One was recorded traveling from southern Australia all the way to New Zealand some 1,400 miles (2,220 kilometers) away.

Officials said particle pollution in Sydney's air rose to the worst on record Wednesday, and the New South Wales state ambulance service said it had received more than 250 calls before midday from people suffering breathing problems.

People with asthma or heart or lung diseases were urged not to go outside and to keep their medicine inhalers handy.

"Keeping yourself indoors today is the main thing to do if you have any of those conditions and particularly if you're a known sensitive sufferer such as children, older adults or pregnant women," said Wayne Smith, a senior state health official.

Sydney residents coughed and hacked their way through their morning commute, rubbing grit from their eyes. Some wore masks, wrapped their faces in scarves or pressed cloths over their noses and mouths.

"These dust storms are some of the largest in the last 70 years," said Nigel Tapper, an environmental scientist at Monash University. "Ten very dry years over inland southern Australia and very strong westerlies have conspired to produce these storms."

The formal announcement for the tandem of Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II for president and vice president in the 2010 national elections is set to be made on Monday.

A Liberal Party (LP) official on Sunday confirmed that Roxas has accepted Aquino’s invitation to run as his vice-president.

In an interview on ANC’s “Dateline Philippines” on Sunday, LP spokesperson and Quezon 4th district Rep. Lorenzo “Erin” Tañada III said Roxas and Aquino will make the formal announcement on Monday, Sept. 21. A media advisory has been sent by Roxas’s office for a press conference 11 a.m. Monday at Club Filipino.

The formal announcement will reportedly be made on the day when Muslims commemorate the Eid’l Fitr or the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting.

Monday also marks the commemoration of the 37th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law.

Meanwhile, the LP official has confirmed several of its senatorial candidates for the 2010 elections: former Senate President Franklin Drilon, Muntinlupa Rep. Rozzano Rufino “Ruffy” Biazon, former Rep. Nereus Acosta and Akbayan Rep. Ana Theresia “Risa” Hontiveros-Baraquel.

Tañada added that talks are ongoing with other parties for the eight remaining slots in its senatorial slate.

“We don’t want [the] LP slate to be dominated by LP,” he told ANC, adding that the party aims to create a “people’s slate.”

Noynoy is the son of the late former President Corazon “Cory” Aquino and the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr.

Roxas, meantime, is the grandson of former President Manuel Roxas and son of the late Sen. Gerardo “Gerry” Roxas.

Noynoy announced his presidential bid last Sept. 9

Mar earlier withdrew from the 2010 presidential race last Sept. 1. He also made known his support for Noynoy’s bid.

Both senators made their announcements at the Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan City. -- With a report from ANC and dzMM

Heavily armed mujahedeen guard the perimeter of a fortified bungalow office, as the veteran leader of the Philippines' decades-old Muslim insurgency makes a slow entrance.

At 61 and bespectacled, Murad Ebrahim looks more like someone's benign grandfather than the head of the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that has been waging a bloody campaign for an independent Muslim homeland in Mindanao, the predominantly Catholic nation's southern third.

His mangled fingers, however, are testament to his years on the field as chief of the MILF's fierce Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, before assuming the post as the organization's chairman and supreme leader in 2003.

Now in the twilight of his life and having been linked to countless deaths in battle, the civil engineering college drop-out says he wants to see peace and save the younger generation of Muslims from misery.

"The MILF leadership is very sincere and very determined to push through with the peace process," Murad told a small group of journalists that visited him at the MILF's Camp Darapanan, a sprawling territory bordering several Mindanao towns recognized by the government as the rebels' political center.

He said the quest for an independent homeland in the south had been paid for in too much blood. He wants to stem the flow before it spills over to younger fighters who are becoming increasingly radicalized by the continuing violence.

"It has already been about 40 years and this could still be carried on into the next generation, and the next," he said.

The Philippine military says up to 150,000 people have died in more than three decades of violence in Mindanao.

It has been a long journey of discovery for Murad, who was born in 1948 in the impoverished Muslim town of Sultan Kudarat, part of which is now a rebel stronghold.

He became involved in the Islamic movement ironically when he was a student at the Catholic-run Notre Dame University in Mindanao in the 1960s, Philippine government intelligence sources say.

Although he will not confirm it, the sources believe Murad joined anti-Soviet forces fighting alongside future Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Murad went underground at 22, when he met the charismatic Nur Misuari and the Egypt-trained Islamic scholar Salamat Hashim, the Philippine leaders of a Muslim-independence movement called the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

Internal differences would later force him and Salamat to split from the MNLF, and form the MILF in 1978.

The MNLF would eventually forge their own peace deal with the government in 1996, while the MILF remained more militant.

But now Murad talks with apparent angst about the horrors of conflict, particularly the past 12 months of violence in Mindanao.

It began with the Supreme Court's rejection of a proposed deal that would have given the MILF political and economic control of over 700 territories it claims as its ancestral domain.

In retaliation, two MILF commanders broke a five-year-old ceasefire and launched deadly attacks across the island, triggering fighting that left more than 300 people dead and 750,000 displaced.

"We have seen the experiences of the civilian population during the last resumption of hostilities and they have suffered so much," Murad said.

Both sides finally declared unilateral ceasefires in July, and last week indicated fresh peace talks would be held soon.

Those talks are the last chance to reach a settlement because those next in line to lead the MILF are fighters aged in their 30s or 40s who know little else beyond warfare, according to Murad.

And true to his warrior instincts, Murad warned that although the MILF was pushing for peace, it was also building up its strength "to be ready to defend ourselves" in case the government reneged on a future deal.

"Our training now (for young leaders) is geared towards nation building, geared towards the peace, but it is also geared towards a situation where they have to defend themselves."

Google Inc said Apple Inc rejected its Google Voice application for the popular iPhone, contradicting Apple's statement to regulators last month.

The issue prompted the Federal Communications Commission to send letters to the companies and AT&T Inc, the iPhone's exclusive carrier, demanding explanations.

The issue over Google's voice service could have far-reaching implications for the U.S. telecommunications industry. Depending on how the FCC responds, it could either pave the way for new entrants or hinder their ability to use large carriers' phones to offer discount services.

It also represents a quandary for regulators trying to promote the use of broadband among all Americans for communications, healthcare and education as wireless technology changes at such a rate that may outpace current rules.

According to redacted material made public on the FCC's website on Friday, Google said it was told of the rejection by Apple representatives after a series of meetings, telephone calls and emails.

In its response letter in August, Apple said it had not rejected the application and was still studying it because it appears to replace the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and user interface with its own system for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail.

Apple maintained that position on Friday. "We do not agree with all of the statements made by Google in their FCC letter," Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said. "Apple has not rejected the Google voice application, and we continue to discuss it with Google."

The letters from the companies were in response to an inquiry launched in July by the FCC, which under new leadership is also taking a fresh look into the state of competition in the wireless industry.

The FCC, chaired by Julius Genachowski, wanted to know why Apple rejected Google Voice and what was discussed among Apple, Google and AT&T.

One quandary regulators face is the fact that Google, which is not regulated by the FCC, has the right to restrict calls or connections.

That has raised the ire of carriers like Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T, Sprint Nextel Corp and Qwest Communications International Inc. The FCC essentially told those companies in 2007 that they could not restrict calls to avoid high fees associated with adult chat lines or free conference calls by companies routing calls through rural carriers aimed at generating fees.

In the 2007 order the FCC said: "All customers will continue to be able to connect with anyone on the network that they so choose."

In the redacted portion, Google said it had no communications with AT&T.

Google said Apple also rejected the Google Latitude application over concerns it would replace preloaded maps applications in the iPhone and create user confusion.

A new spate of violence has pushed the homicide rate in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez to an unprecedented 1,701 murders, breaking the record set just a year earlier in 2008.

Officials reported 14 new violent deaths over the weekend in the town, which sits across the border from Texas, pushing the homicide rate past last year's record level of 1,653 murders.

In all, 22 people were killed on Saturday night and Sunday in the two Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua, which border the US states of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

In Sonora state, a car was set ablaze after being riddled with bullets during a car chase, leaving five dead -- including two children aged five and two years old -- and a 17-year-old missing.

A 19-year-old girl injured in the incident said drugs had been hidden in the gas tank of the car, which was being used to transport drugs.

Since February, some 8,500 Mexican soldiers have been deployed in Ciudad Juarez, but they have failed to stop ongoing violence between members of the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels.

The two groups are fighting for control of the local market, but also the lucrative cocaine smuggling routes into the United States, according to local authorities.

In an effort to combat drug violence, the Mexican government has mobilized close to 50,000 soldiers across the country to assist local police forces.

President Felipe Calderon has made tackling the drug cartels, which have become increasingly powerful and bold in their actions, a key priority for his administration, but his efforts have so far failed to have a major effect on the gruesome cartel-related violence that has plagued the country.

President Barack Obama in an interview aired Sunday said all signs point to the U.S. economy starting to grow again but there may not be enough new jobs created until next year.

"I want to be clear, that probably the jobs picture is not going to improve considerably -- and it could even get a little bit worse -- over the next couple of months," he said in an interview taped Friday with CNN's "State of the Union."

"And we're probably not going to start seeing enough job creation to deal with the -- a rising population -- until some time next year," Obama said, adding that 150,000 additional jobs must be added each month just to keep pace with population growth.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on September 15 that the worst U.S. recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s was probably over but the recovery would be slow and it would take time to create new jobs.

In signs the U.S. economy is recovering, retail sales rose at the fastest pace in 3-1/2 years in August and a gauge of New York state manufacturing activity hit a nearly two-year high.

Obama has sought in recent weeks to highlight the signs of an improving economy in an effort to boost his popularity, which has suffered amid a heated debate over his plan to overhaul the nation's healthcare system.

In the interview, Obama said he will leave it up to Bernanke to pronounce whether or not the recession was officially over.

But he said the financial markets were working again and manufacturing had even ticked up, in terms of production, last month. "So all the signs are that the economy's going to start growing again," he said.

Obama said jobs figures tend to be the last to catch up in an economic recovery. "The other problem is, we lost so many jobs that making up for those that have already been lost is going to require really high growth rates," he said.

Obama is going to Pittsburgh during the week to host the Group of 20 leaders of the biggest industrialized and developing economies.

"That's part of what the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh is going to be about, making sure that there's a more balanced economy," he said.

"We can't go back to the era where the Chinese or the Germans or other countries just are selling everything to us, we're taking out a bunch of credit card debt or home equity loans, but we're not selling anything to them," he said.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo is supporting the presidential bid of Sen. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino, making him the first Arroyo Cabinet member to openly declare his support for the Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer.

In an interview with ABS-CBN's Europe News Bureau, Romulo cited his deep ties with the family of former President Corazon Aquino, saying Aquino supported him since his early days as a congressman until he became a senator for 12 years.

Romulo also served as Aquino's budget secretary.

The foreign affairs secretary said he sided with Aquino during the first People Power revolt in 1986 and again in the 2001 "EDSA Dos" revolt. He said he also backed Noynoy Aquino's senatorial bid in 2007.

Romulo refused to comment on the presidential bid of Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, who is being touted as the administration Lakas-Kampi-Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD) standard-bearer.

He said he has no plans of embarking again into politics after his term ends since he has spent a long time in government service. Aside from the DFA, Romulo also served as finance and executive secretary under President Arroyo.

His term as Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs ends on June 30, 2010.

Forget Hollywood special effects or Impressionist paintings -- some of the most stunning images are created by the mysterious and often violent forces in the universe.

Witness the handful of new snapshots taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, which was equipped with a new imaging camera during a space shuttle servicing mission in May.

It's back in business and there's lots to ooh and aah over.

"Let there be no doubt, this is truly Hubble's new beginning," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator, during a news conference Wednesday.

Take the image on the left of planetary nebula NGC 6302, also known as the Bug Nebula or the Butterfly Nebula.

Its "wings" are made of gas heated to more than 36,000 degrees Fahrenheit and there is a dying star at its center.

"The gas is tearing across space at more than 600,000 miles an hour -- fast enough to travel from Earth to the moon in 24 minutes," NASA's Web site says.

The "butterfly" is more than 2 light-years across.

NASA took advantage of the special filters on Hubble's camera to isolate the light of different elements, said Bob O'Connell, chair of the science oversight committee for Wide Field Camera 3.

The red in the image is nitrogen gas, for example, and the blue is oxygen.

Colors are also prominent in the image of globular star cluster Omega Centauri, which contains almost 10 million stars, but the color contrast here is real. The gold dots are stars like our sun, but the blue ones are extremely hot, while the red ones are cool, O'Connell said.

"Just by looking at the color of the stars in the picture, you can sort them by temperature and evolutionary state because the temperature differences here are caused by differences in the internal structure of these stars and in the kinds of fuels they're burning deep inside of them," O'Connell said.

Another image shows Stephan's Quintet, a group of five galaxies -- some of which are 290 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. Over time, those galaxies will eventually merge into a single big galaxy, O'Connell said.

Finally, images of a stellar nursery as seen in visible and infrared light reveal the secrets inside the Carina Nebula, located 7,500 light-years away.

"This is a cloud of dense material which is being bombarded by intense radiation from surrounding stars," O'Connell said.

"But dissolve to infrared and the cloud disappears. ... An energetic infant star is being formed inside this cloud."

Hubble is expected to continue its mission for at least five more years.

A former manager for the private contractor that provides guards for the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan said he tried to blow the whistle more than a year ago about inadequate staffing and improper behavior by guards, including going to brothels and sex trafficking.

James Gordon filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court Thursday claiming he was forced from his job illegally in February 2008 by ArmorGroup, North America (AGNA) -- a security contractor owned by Wackenhut Services Inc. Gordon said he asked the company and the U.S. State Department in investigate activities in Kabul by the company's guards, but there was no follow-up investigation.

Gordon's suit, which seeks back pay and unspecified punitive damages, follows separate reports last week by a watchdog group that the contractor allowed mistreatment, sexual activity and intimidation within the ranks of private guards hired to protect the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan.

A spokeswoman for Wackenhut at its Florida headquarters released a statement saying Gordon had resigned voluntarily and that his departure was not tied to whistleblowing nor was there retaliation by the company.

"We found that Mr. Gordon's factual allegations and legal claims were overstated, ill-founded, not based on any personal knowledge, or otherwise lacking in legal merit. We chose not to accede to the demands of Mr. Gordon and his lawyers and instead to let them present their case in court if they chose to do so," the Wackenhut statement said.

Gordon spoke to a Washington news conference by telephone Thursday, saying he is working for another security firm in Kabul but declining to give any further details.

Explaining his lawsuit, Gordon said, "I set out two years ago to see to it that the U.S. Embassy in Kabul was protected. I am hoping that the public airing of this lawsuit will bring us closer to that goal."

Last week a watchdog group, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), released photographs showing raucous partying and sexual hazing by private embassy guards. POGO sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and briefed reporters on its findings, which it said were based on e-mails and interviews with more than a dozen guards who have worked at the U.S. compound in Kabul.

In the wake of POGO's actions, the State Department said the behavior shown in the photos was "disgusting" and launched several investigations and said it had removed some of the private guards from the country.

Meanwhile the same company continues to guard the U.S. Embassy, a contract worth more than $180 million a year.

State Department Spokesman P.J Crowley said in his daily briefing in Washington that the department had "aggressively overseen" the contract for embassy guards and had issued nine so-called "cure notices" to correct specific deficiencies since the contract began in 2007.

"At no time was the security of the embassy ever threatened or compromised," Crowley said.

But Gordon called the assertion "ludicrous."

"If you hire a guard force that is placing you at risk because of their behavior, and is also inadequate with regard to the fact of language difficulty between elements of the guard force, I don't see how anyone can say the government is getting what they are paying for and it doesn't compromise the integrity of the embassy itself," Gordon said, referring to reports that some of the private guards hired by the contractor were non-English-speaking Gurkhas from Nepal.

"If the guards can't communicate with each other, how are they going to communicate in a disaster? How are you going be able to properly respond to a scenario if you have to use pantomime to properly convey a message to a member of the security force? It is ludicrous for anyone to say that is a safe environment and an effective security force," Gordon said.

Crowley said State Department officials had interviewed more than 150 guards since pictures were released last week by the watchdog group, and that a total of 16 people had been kicked out of the country.

But Crowley would not comment on the new claims that private guards had patronized brothels and allegedly been involved in sex trafficking, with Crowley saying he would not discuss any matters that might be under litigation.

In his lawsuit Gordon said one employee "had to be forcibly removed from a brothel in Kabul during working hours."

Gordon said he tried to have that person dismissed but found other ArmorGroup personnel, including "the AGNA medic and the program manager himself had frequented the brothels with him."

"On the heels of this incident I learned that there had been an outbreak of sexually transmitted disease among AGNA guards in 2007 that had never been reported as required to the State Department, and that the guard force routinely frequented brothels," Gordon said Thursday.

Gordon said the company resisted "with outright hostility" his efforts as a manager to impose a no-brothel policy. And Gordon said he asked both the company and the State Department to investigate whether guards were personally involved in sex trafficking, and that to his knowledge nothing was done.

"United States law, known as the Trafficking in Victims Protection Act, prohibits contractors from procuring commercial sex while working on the contract," Gordon said in a statement. "Many of the prostitutes in Kabul are young Chinese girls who were taken against their will to Kabul for sexual exploitation."

Gordon said a trainee had boasted that he could purchase a girl for $20,000 and turn a profit after a month.

"I immediately notified both the State Department and AGNA's president, and urged the company to thoroughly investigate whether sex trafficking was occurring among the guard force ... To my knowledge neither AGNA nor the State Department conducted a follow-up investigation," Gordon said.

Another former manager of guards in Afghanistan spoke with Gordon during the news conference. The second manager, John Gorman, is not involved in Gordon's lawsuit but said he wanted to highlight what he called fraud, deception and incompetence, as well as what he called "sexually deviant behavior" exhibited by people hired as guards in 2007.

Gorman, who said he is a former U.S. Marine, also said he was forced out after he tried to spread the alarm about embassy security.

"Knowing full well that our jobs were on the line, we went to the embassy out of a sense of duty and patriotism," Gorman said. He said he went to the embassy to report problems after first complaining toArmorGroup North America about what he called the company's "inability to provide for the security and safety of the U.S. personnel."

"In any interaction I have had with corporate officials from AGNA, no one -- no one -- ever mentioned or indicated a concern for the actual safety of the embassy. The greatest and only concerns were the profit margin," Gorman said.