Any attempt to pardon Mikhail Khodorkovsky — once Russia’s richest man, now its most famous inmate — must follow standard procedure, including an admission of guilt, the nation’s president said Sunday.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, is imprisoned in a work camp 4,000 miles from Moscow.

“Concerning the possibility of a pardon for someone, Khodorkovsky or anyone else, the procedure has to be carried out in accordance with our country’s rules,” President Dmitry Medvedev said in a transcript on his Web site. “In other words, a person must appeal to the president, plead guilty to having committed a crime and seek the appropriate resolution.”

The president dismissed talks of a pardon, saying, “at this point, there is nothing to discuss.”

Khodorkovsky once headed the Yukos oil company, once Russia’s largest oil producer. He is serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and tax evasion.

Medvedev described corruption as a “very serious Russian disease” and emphasized the need to fight it.

“To this end, we have enacted a number of measures, including new legislation on corruption and special arrangements relating to government officials, their disclosures, declarations of income and so on,” he said. “We are determined to continue this work, because we believe it is extremely important.”

The former oil magnate is incarcerated in a work camp near the town of Krasnokamensk, 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers) from his native Moscow. He has been imprisoned since his arrest in 2003.

Khodorkovsky had expressed a desire to run for office at the time and funded opposition political parties. He said the trial was part of a Kremlin campaign to destroy him and take the company he built from privatization deals of the 1990s. The Kremlin denied any role in his downfall.

Yukos, which has since been crushed by a $27.5 billion back-tax bill, has been the object of a lengthy campaign by prosecutors and tax authorities.

The court also ordered Khodorkovsky and his partner to pay about $600 million in back taxes.

Tournament host Tiger Woods overcame a shaky start to his third round at Congressional Country Club to set up a final-day showdown with holder Anthony Kim at the AT&T National in Maryland.

Tiger Woods is seeking to win the tournament that he hosts, having missed it last year due to injury.

World number one Woods shot a level-par 70 to remain in the lead heading into the fourth round on 10-under-par.

However, he shares that advantage with fellow-American Kim, who posted a 68 to reach the same mark and make a date in the final pairing in Bethesda on Sunday.

Woods’ bid to win the PGA Tour tournament he hosts to benefit the Tiger Woods Foundation had suffered a series of setbacks having begun the day with a one-shot lead at 10-under-par.

The 33-year-old had led Australia’s Rod Pampling with Kim in third place at eight-under at the start of the day.

But playing with Pampling in the final group, in front of big crowds celebrating American Independence Day, Woods immediately hit trouble, bogeying the 402-yard, par-four first hole to fall into a shared lead with Pampling on nine-under.

Pampling then moved into the outright lead with a birdie at the par-four third to go to 10-under, one shot ahead of Woods, who won the Bay Hill and Memorial tournaments earlier this year.

However, the Australian bogeyed holes four and five while Woods bogeyed the par-four sixth before recording his first birdie of the day with a three at the eighth.

An eagle three followed at the 602-yard ninth but Woods then double bogeyed the par-four 11th, before a birdie at the par-five 16th helped him to what was a disappointing 70.

“Eighteen pars today, just a real consistent round,” Woods joked with reporters. “It was a tough day out there.

“The wind was all over the place. It was hard to not only figure out the intensity but also the direction.”

Kim, who on Thursday had shot a course-record 64, had also got off to a bad start with a bogey at the opening hole but he bounced back with a birdie at the third and eighth.

A bogey followed at the ninth but he birdied the 12th and 16th en route to a 68 that will help Kim fulfil a dream held since he was nine.

“I used to practice thinking I was in the final round with Tiger, final putt, had to make a 10-footer to win the golf tournament, he was watching me,” Kim said.

Kim admitted he was relishing the situation and confident he could successfully defend his title. “I’m excited to be honest with you,” he added. “I’m excited to be there. I’m excited for the opportunity.

“There’s not too many chances you get to play against the best in the world at his golf tournament. “I’ve won this tournament before, and I don’t see why I won’t have a good opportunity on Sunday.”

Woods and Kim are a shot clear of American duo Michael Allen, the 50-year-old U.S. Senior PGA champion who shot a 65, and Cameron Beckman, whose 66 got him to nine-under.

A 69 put Jim Furyk on eight-under while Pampling crashed the American party to share fifth place with a 71 that featured an 83-foot birdie putt at the par-four 14th hole.

A monorail train at Walt Disney World crashed into the back of another train early Sunday, killing one driver, according to an amusement park spokesman and a witness interviewed by CNN.

A 2 a.m. ET monorail crash at Disney World killed one person, a park spokesperson said.

The crash occurred about 2 a.m. at one of the monorail stops at Disney World in Florida, said the witness, who requested anonymity.

“Today we mourn the loss of our fellow cast member,” said a statement by Mike Griffin, Disney’s vice president for public affairs. “Our hearts go out to his family and to those who have lost a friend and co-worker.”

The statement said the monorail was shut down, “and we will continue to work closely will law enforcement to determine what happened and the appropriate next steps.”

The witness said one monorail train rammed into the back of a stationary train. A photo of the crash provided by the witness showed the front car of a train badly damaged where it hit another train at a station.

According to the witness, a family of six in one train was freed from a damaged car. The witness said the family was shaken but uninjured.

Serena gets her hands on the Venus Rosewater Dish for the third time

World number two Serena Williams questioned the ranking system after winning Wimbledon to hold three of the four Grand Slam titles.

The 27-year-old beat her sister Venus 7-6 (7-3) 6-2 in the final, and then called the ranking system “shocking”.

“I think if you hold three Grand Slam titles, maybe you should be number one, but not on the WTA Tour, obviously.

“My motivation is maybe just to win another Grand Slam and stay number two, I guess.”

Serena remains behind Russia’s Dinara Safina in the rankings despite being the reigning US Open, Australian Open and Wimbledon champion.

Safina, in contrast, has yet to win one of the sport’s four major titles and was thrashed 6-0 6-1 by Venus in the Wimbledon semi-finals on Friday.

There’s no ‘easy’ to losing, especially when you’re so close to the crown Venus Williams

Serena declared herself “the real number one” back in March and repeated her dissatisfaction with the system after regaining the Wimbledon crown.

“If it disappointed me I’d go crazy just thinking about it, I think anyone really could, but it’s just shocking,” she said.

“But whatever, it is what it is, I’d definitely rather be number two and hold three Grand Slams in the past year than be number one and not have any.”

Asked if she still believed she was the rightful number one, Serena added: “I see myself as number two, that’s where I am. I think Dinara did a great job to get to number one, she won Rome and Madrid.”

The American has set her sights on matching Billie Jean King’s total of 12 Grand Slam titles after winning her 11th at Wimbledon and moving to seventh in the all-time list.

“It’s unbelievable,” she said. “Now I’m just looking at the next goal. Someone like Billie Jean King is completely my idol. To get to her level and have 12 would be even better.”

GRAND SLAM WINNERS 24 - Margaret Smith Court 22 - Steffi Graf 19 - Helen Wills Moody 18 - Chris Evert 18 - Martina Navratilova 12 - Billie Jean King 11 - Serena Williams

She added: “I’m really just playing for me, I can’t even put myself in a sentence with the greatest because I think about people like Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf and Billie Jean King - they were such great champions and even to be mentioned with those is a real honour to me.

“I feel like I’m really young and I’m only thinking about my career and continuing playing.”

Serena, who lost to Venus in last year’s final after beating her for the title in 2002 and 2003, defeated her sister for the 11th time in 21 meetings on Saturday, and admitted: “It definitely wasn’t easy, especially on this surface and out there on that court.

“Also, she’s my sister, someone I want to see win and do well at all times.”

And she added: “This is one of the few times I didn’t expect to come out with the win today. I felt like I had nothing to lose, I’d defended every (ranking) point I had from last year.

“I felt like all I have to do is go out there and do my best, just stay even, because she’s such a good player. When I won that first set I was like, ‘Wow, this is great, no matter what I’m a set away.’ I just tried to relax.”

Asked if losing to her sister made the defeat easier, Venus said: “There’s no ‘easy’ to losing, especially when you’re so close to the crown. Either way is not easy.”

And the 29-year-old again refused to give any details about the left knee problem that has seen her wear heavy strapping throughout the tournament.

The five-time champion lost her way on serve in the closing stages of the final, but insisted: “I’ve no complaints, everybody has something they’re dealing with and I just wish I could have done a few things different in this match, but it was close.”

Venus missed her chance to move ahead with two break points in game eight, missing with an attempted pass on the second.

“I don’t think she was recovering and I thought she was going to be there, so basically I just went for too much,” said Venus.

The Williams sisters have dominated at Wimbledon in recent years, with one of them taking the title in eight of the last 10 years.

“I think the big difference between her, and me also, is the serve,” said Venus.

“There are women out there who also can serve big, but we serve big and very effectively, especially off the first serve. It seems like when we need the first serve, most of the time it’s there.”

Yousuf has spent 18 months out of the Pakistan side

Mohammad Yousuf scored a century on his return to the Pakistan side to help the tourists earn the initiative in the first Test in Sri Lanka.

Yousuf was back for Pakistan after a spell in the unsanctioned Indian Cricket League and helped them recover from an overnight 15-2 to 342 all out.

He was given good support by Misbah-ul-Haq (56) before eventually being run out on 112 after his 24th Test ton.

Sri Lanka, with a 50-run deficit, were 0-0 off one over before the close.

The hosts appeared in a strong position on the second day when they took the wickets of nightwatchman Abdur Rauf and Younus Khan.

Rauf made 31 of Pakistan’s first 40 runs in the morning session and put on a third-wicket partnership of 50 with Khan before being caught by keeper Tillakaratne Dilshan off the bowling of Nuwan Kulasekera.

Dilshan also caught Khan, who fell for 25, as debutant Angelo Mathews grabbed a wicket in his first over to leave Pakistan on 80-4.

But that only brought Misbah to the crease and, along with Yousuf, the pair put on a 139 run fifth-wicket stand.

Misbah struck nine fours in his total before edging to Mahela Jayawardene in the slips off left-arm spinner Rangana Herath.

Yousuf was then kept company by Shoaib Malik but was run out as his 186-ball innings came to an end.

Kulasekara struck late on in the day to bowl Malik and Umar Gul as Sri Lanka quickly polished off Pakistan to limit the tourists’s advantage.

Sri Lanka had one over to negotiate before the end of the day’s play and did so without scoring or losing a wicket.

Honeybee hordes use two weapons - heat and carbon dioxide - to kill their natural enemies, giant hornets.

Japanese honeybees form “bee balls” - mobbing and smothering the predators.

This has previously been referred to as “heat-balling”, but a study has now shown that carbon dioxide also plays a role in its lethal effectiveness.

In the journal Naturwissenschaften, the scientists describe how hornets are killed within 10 minutes when they are trapped inside a ball of bees.

Japanese giant hornets, which can be up to 5cm long, are voracious predators that can devastate bees’ nests and consume their larvae.

But, if the bees spot their attacker in time, they mount a powerful defence in the form of a bee ball. This study found that the heat inside the bee ball alone was not enough to reliably kill the hornets.

Giant hornets were taped to temperature and gas probes

“They can survive for 10 minutes at a temperature up to 47C, and the temperature inside the bee balls does not rise higher than 46C,” said Fumio Sakamoto, a researcher from Kyoto Gakuen University in Japan, and one of the authors of the study.

His team recreated experimental bee balls and took direct measurements from inside them.

They anaesthetised giant hornets and fixed them to the tip either of a thermometer probe, or the inlet of a gas detector.

Once the hornets recovered from their anaesthesia, the probes were touched to the bees’ nest.

“The bee ball formed (around the hornet) immediately,” said Dr Sakamoto.

After 10 minutes the bees were packed solidly enough around the probe to be removed from the nest in a distinct ball.

As the temperature inside the ball increased to more than 45C, the carbon dioxide level also rose sharply.

In a parallel experiment, the scientists found that in an atmosphere relatively high in carbon dioxide, the temperature at which hornets could survive for 10 minutes was lowered.

“So we concluded that carbon dioxide produced inside the bee ball by the honeybees is a major factor, together with temperature, involved in the bees’ defence.”

The bee ball formed as a bump on the bottom of the nest

Dr Sakamoto is not sure, at this point, whether the bees were effectively “gassing” the hornets, or simply depriving them of oxygen.

“Either way, the carbon dioxide increase and/or the oxygen decrease lowered the temperature that was lethal to the hornets, ” he told BBC News.

“We are going to do the additional experiments about this point using mixed air of various oxygen and carbon dioxide (concentrations).”

The mob of bees also appeared to operate in “two phases”.

“The hornet may be killed during the first 0-5 minute period, in which the highest level of heat production and carbon dioxide emissions take place,” said Dr Sakamoto.

This might suggest that the bees are aware of what physiological state the hornet is in.

Dr Sakamoto said: “The latter 5-10 min period may be free running to ensure their victim’s death.”

MG Rover collapsed in April 2005

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is to investigate the circumstances surrounding the demise of Birmingham-based carmaker MG Rover in 2005.

BBC business editor Robert Peston says Business Secretary Lord Mandelson will issue a brief written statement on Monday confirming the move.

It follows a four-year inquiry into the collapse, which led to 6,000 job cuts.

The four executives in control of MG Rover at the time said there was “no suggestion of improper conduct”.

A spokesman for the MG Rover directors said: “The directors have at all times willingly accounted for their actions, which kept MG Rover alive for five years.”

When the MG plant at Longbridge, Birmingham, closed the government announced a £150m support package for those losing their jobs and for the estimated 12,500 people affected in subsidiary firms.

Report delayed

The new investigation comes after the completion of a four-year inquiry under section 432 of the Companies Act by inspectors appointed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

There are likely to be questions raised about why the case has been referred to the SFO only after completion of the inspectors’ enquiry BBC business editor Robert Peston Read more from Robert here

Part of that investigation was supposed to find out what had happened to the more than £400m left to Phoenix Ventures when it took over MG Rover from BMW in 2000.

Our correspondent says the report by the business department’s inspectors will now be delayed pending a decision on whether there will be criminal prosecutions.

MG Rover went into administration under insolvency procedures in April 2005, with debts of more than £1bn. Its assets were sold in 2006 to China’s Nanjing Automobile, which revived the MG sports car brand.

A quartet of executives known as the Phoenix Four had taken control of the company in May 2000 after originally buying MG Rover for a nominal £10.

The business came with an interest-free loan of £427m from BMW, the previous owner.

Four years on, any suggestion of another further investigation is frankly ridiculous and smacks of kicking this issue into the long grass MG Rover directors’ statement

“John Towers, Nick Stephenson, Peter Beale and John Edwards are estimated to have taken out more than £40m in pay and pensions in the years before the business went down,” said our correspondent.

The Commons public accounts committee criticised the government in 2006 for being too distant from Phoenix Ventures and not sufficiently prepared for its demise.

Our correspondent says there are likely to be questions raised about why the case has been referred to the SFO only after completion of the inspectors’ inquiry, rather than bringing in police at an earlier stage.

‘Heart of the matter’

A spokesman for the directors said that “time and again they asked for government help and didn’t get it”.

“Four years and £16m of taxpayers’ money has been swallowed up on this [Department for Business] inquiry and the directors’ major concern that it will fail to get to the heart of the matter, which is why the government withdrew its offer of a loan to the company at the eleventh hour, allowing 6,000 workers to lose their jobs,” they said.

Their statement added: “Four years on, any suggestion of another further investigation is frankly ridiculous and smacks of kicking this issue into the long grass.”

They also said the government had refused more than 30 requests under the Freedom of Information Act which would have revealed correspondence and documents.

They said these would have “shed some light on the government’s role in the affair”.

The WTO says poorer countries need to exit the current crisis

Aid agencies and major world bodies are to meet to to seek ways of encouraging trade by emerging nations during the economic downturn.

The two-day WTO Aid for Trade meeting will also be attended by the IMF, World Bank, UN, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

It will examine how aid - which is used to boost trading in poorer states - can be sustained during a global recession.

“Aid for trade is needed now more than ever,” said the WTO and OECD.

Earlier this year the WTO warned that poorer countries would see their exports fall by 2-3% in 2009.

‘Development promises’

The two-day meeting takes place in Geneva on Monday and Tuesday.

“This… meeting is designed to support developing countries as they seek to better integrate into the multilateral trading system and to take advantage of export opportunities,” said WTO director general Pascal Lamy.

“This is even more relevant today - aid for trade is needed to prepare poor countries to exit the crisis. This is no time to fail our development promises.”

He said developing countries needed infrastructure, enhanced production capacity and trade-related training if their trade was to be “streamlined” into development and poverty reduction strategies.

The WTO and OECD said that aid for trade grew by more than 10% in 2007 compared to 2006, with new funding pledges reaching $25bn a year.

However, “the global economic crisis will affect the medium term outlook”, it added.

A Herefordshire beer festival has been stopped early after it was “drunk completely dry”, said organisers.

The Sunday session of the Beer on the Wye festival has been called off, despite an emergency delivery of 18 barrels of drink on Saturday afternoon.

Herefordshire Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) said: “The cider bar was closed at about 9pm and virtually the last drop of beer went by closing time.”

The event, which is in its fifth year, began in Hereford on Friday.

Mark Haslam, from Camra, said Sunday’s family fun events had also been cancelled because food had also run out.

Local beer

He apologised for any disappointment caused and said this year the attendance had been about 30% higher than last year.

“People just kept coming and coming,” he said. “I mean it is a nice location, in a marquee by the river, but we have had nice weather before.”

The festival normally attracts about 3,000 people over three days, but about 3,800 had already attended by Saturday night, he said.

He also believed the popularity of local beers was growing and helped attract people of all ages.

Mr Haslam said organisers brought in their back-up plan and ordered extra barrels on Saturday, but this was soon used up.

He said next year Camra would order more beer and have a bigger back-up supply.

HMAS Success carries a crew of 220 male and female sailors

An investigation is under way in Australia over claims that navy sailors competed with each other to bed their female colleagues for cash prizes.

According to Channel Seven news, sailors on board HMAS Success put a cash value on each woman’s head.

Sleeping with a female officer or a lesbian, or having sex in a strange place, won more money, the report said.

The Defence Department confirmed that a number of individuals had been sent back to Australia for interviews.

HMAS Success, which has a crew of 220, is currently on exercises in South East Asia.

According to the Channel Seven report, the contest came to light in May, when the vessel was in Singapore.

It said that the sailors recorded their efforts in a book called The Ledger, challenging each other to sleep with as many female colleagues as possible.

Sex on a pool table or with a lesbian reportedly scored higher points.

The Defence Department did not confirm how many sailors were involved.

But, in a statement to Seven Network, it said that a number of concerns raised by female crew members were “now subject to formal inquiry”.

The “veracity of any allegations” had yet to be confirmed, it said.