Much of the cargo is still intact

Underwater archaeologists in Italy have discovered the wrecks of five ancient Roman ships in the Mediterranean, with their cargo still largely intact.

The ships are lying in up to 150 metres (500 feet) of water off the tiny island of Ventotene, between Rome and Naples.

They are between 1,600 and 1,900 years old, and were laden with - among other things - jars for carrying wine, olive oil and fish sauce.

One expert said: “It is like an underwater museum.”

Also on board were kitchen tools, and certain metal and glass objects which have not yet been identified.

The discovery of wrecked ships is not unusual - there are said to be thousands dotted around the Mediterranean.

But Annalisa Zarattini, from the Italian Culture Ministry, said the latest to be found are much better preserved than usual because they sank in deeper water, which protected them from destructive currents.

The ships also sank without capsizing, she said, allowing examination of the cargo in almost the form it had been loaded.

Officials say the latest finds are the result of a new drive by archaeologists to scan deeper waters, organised by the culture ministry and the Aurora Trust, a maritime research group.

The plan was prompted in part by a desire to prevent the looting of treasures.

Because of improving technology, looters are now able to dive to greater depths than in the past.

Italian authorities are trying to stay ahead of looters

“It’s important that we arrive there first,” said Ms Zarattini.

The team of archaeologists and deep sea divers used sonar technology and miniature robotic submarines in their latest operation.

The biggest of the ships discovered is about 20 metres long (60 feet).

The area they were found in was on a major route for trade between Rome and its North African territories.

Some of the objects are being put on display on Ventotene.

Mr Schwarzenegger talks about the budget in a Twitter video

California lawmakers have passed a plan to plug a state deficit of $26bn (£17bn), and sent the deal to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign into law.

The package of 31 bills passed the Senate, but the Assembly rejected two key measures that cut income by $1.1bn.

A plan for offshore oil drilling and a proposal to take petrol tax from local governments were vetoed.

The resulting loss of income will force Mr Schwarzenegger to make deep cuts in public spending to close the gap.

Financial hole

The deal already includes $15bn in spending cuts in education and healthcare, and calls for pay cuts for state workers. It also accelerates the collection of some taxes.

The package was agreed on Monday by the Republican governor and leading lawmakers from California’s Democrat-controlled legislature after more than two weeks of intense negotiations.

The deal amounts to a revision of a budget package approved by California’s lawmakers in February that was designed to plug the state’s deficit until the summer of 2010.

But the recession has sharply reduced California’s revenues, forcing the state to send promissory notes, or IOUs, to thousands of contractors who provide state services.

Earlier this month, Mr Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency after legislators missed a deadline to agree a budget.

Microsoft was fined by the Commission last year

Microsoft has made a new proposal to European competition regulators that it hopes will end their row over the firm’s Internet Explorer web browser.

It proposes that European buyers of its new Windows 7 operating system will be offered a list of potential browsers when they first install the software.

The move comes a month after Microsoft said European buyers of Windows 7 would have to download a web browser.

Brussels ruled in January that pre-bundling Explorer hurt competition.

The Commission welcomes this proposal, and will now investigate its practical effectiveness Commission regulators

Microsoft said its proposal meant that users would be able to “easily install competing web browsers, set one of those browsers as a default, and disable Internet Explorer” from a “ballot screen” of alternative browsers.

“We believe that if ultimately accepted, this proposal will fully address the European competition law issues relating to the inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows,” said Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith.

‘Investigate’

“The Commission welcomes this proposal, and will now investigate its practical effectiveness in terms of ensuring genuine consumer choice,” said Commission regulators.

They added that Microsoft was also proposing to disclose more interoperability information about Windows to external software providers.

Last year Microsoft was fined 899m euros ($1.4bn; £680.9m) by the Commission for separate anti-competitive practices.

This penalty - the largest ever from the European Commission - came after Microsoft failed to comply with a 2004 ruling that it abused its market position.

Windows 7 is due to go on sale from 22 October.

Thousands of displaced civilians are still being held in detention camps

The International Monetary Fund has approved a $2.6bn (£1.6bn) loan to help Sri Lanka weather the global economic crisis and rebuild war-torn regions.

The first $322m tranche of the 20-month loan is available immediately, with the rest subject to quarterly reviews.

Britain and the US abstained from the vote, citing humanitarian concerns during the government’s recent fighting against Tamil Tiger rebels.

Colombo says the money will be used to start the country’s “healing process”.

Sri Lanka’s Enterprise Minister, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, said the money would pay for post-war reconstruction work in the north and east of the island - areas previously controlled by the rebels.

“We have completely destroyed one of the worst terrorist outfits in the world and it is time to start the reconciling and healing process in our country,” Mr Yapa told Reuters news agency on Friday.

Humanitarian concerns

The loan comes two months after the government crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, ending Sri Lanka’s bitter 37-year civil war.

The conflict has claimed up to 100,000 lives and left some 300,000 civilians displaced in the north of the country.

British Financial Secretary Stephen Timms said it was “not the right time for the programme”.

In a letter to a special parliamentary group, Mr Timms said the UK wanted to “secure long-term peace and prosperity” for Sri Lanka through reconciliation between its communities.

Now that the loan has passed, Mr Timms said the UK would turn its attention to monitoring developments on the ground.

“We expect the government of Sri Lanka’s commitment to reduce defence spending whilst safeguarding spending on humanitarian assistance and [the resettlement of displaced people] to be implemented in full,” he told the PA news agency.

Sri Lanka approached the IMF regarding a loan in March, when its balance of payments fell into deficit for the first time in four years.

Michael Jackson’s personal doctor has been identified as the target of a manslaughter investigation into the singer’s death, US court papers say.

Dr Conrad Murray’s medical clinic in Houston, Texas, and another site rented by him were searched on Wednesday.

Police have said previously that Dr Murray is not a suspect but the search warrant allowed the authorities to seek evidence of manslaughter.

The doctor was at Jackson’s mansion and tried to revive him before he died.

Dr Murray has already been interviewed twice by police, who had asked for medical records in addition to those already provided.

He has not been arrested or formally charged.

Unwelcome attention

According to the warrant, approved by a Houston judge and filed in Harris County District Court, authorities were looking for “items constituting evidence of the offence of manslaughter that tend to show that Dr Conrad Murray committed the said criminal offence”.

Items seized during the searches included 27 tablets of the weight loss drug phentermine, a tablet of the muscle relaxant clonazepam, two hard drives, notices from the Internal Revenue Service and a controlled substance registration.

Speaking a few days after Jackson’s death, Dr Murray’s lawyer, Edward Chernoff, denied his client administered painkilling drugs that could have contributed to the singer’s death.

But he said that, because of his closeness to Jackson at his death, the doctor had received unwelcome attention from people angry at the singer’s demise.

Mr Chernoff was present at Wednesday’s searches.

“I do not know what they are looking for and I can’t possibly tell you how anything they took in any way connects with the death of Michael Jackson,” he was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying.

The BBC’s Peter Bowes in Los Angeles, where Jackson died, says it is now up to public prosecutors to sift through the considerable amount of evidence and decide whether to charge Dr Murray.

An official determination of what killed Jackson will not be made until after a toxicology report, which is expected to be completed next week.

Prior to this year Blur last performed as a foursome in 2002

Singer Damon Albarn has said there are no plans for Blur to perform together again following the band’s successful series of summer reunion concerts.

“I think this is beautiful, what we’ve done, and I don’t want to ruin it,” he told the latest edition of Q magazine.

“With touring the repetition will come back,” he added. “If we carried on the same problems would rear their head.”

Earlier this week bassist Alex James said the group had not talked about “doing anything else whatsoever”.

Blur’s comeback gigs included performances at London’s Hyde Park, T in the Park in Scotland and the Glastonbury Festival.

‘Cynicism’

Albarn said Blur’s Glastonbury set had been “truly ecstatic”. “When I die that will be the one moment that will flash before me,” he added.

Despite this, however, the 41-year-old - currently working on the third Gorillaz album - said “cynicism” would return if he and his fellow bandmates remained together.

“I just can’t do it any more,” he said, adding that his main motivation had been to reconcile with guitarist Graham Coxon.

“What I wanted to do was heal to the point where I know I can always ring Graham up in the future and it will be fine.

“That’s all I wanted to do and we’ve done that, definitely.”

US President Barack Obama has told reporters he should not have described the arrest of a black Harvard professor as “stupid”.

Mr Obama has faced criticism for wading into the controversy during a televised news conference on Wednesday.

Professor Gates was apprehended at his own home after a witness saw him apparently trying to force his way in.

He was held for disorderly conduct after allegedly accusing the arresting officer, Sgt James Crowley, of racism.

I could have calibrated those words differently President Barack Obama Harvard row highlights US tensions

Making a surprise appearance at the daily White House press briefing, Mr Obama said he should have chosen his words more carefully at his Wednesday news conference.

“Because this has been ratcheting up and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up, I wanted to make clear in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt Crowley specifically,” Mr Obama said.

“I could have calibrated those words differently,” he added.

Mr Obama also revealed that he had spoken to Sgt Crowley on the telephone, and described him as an “outstanding police officer and a good man”.

He said he continued to believe that Professor Gates’s arrest was “an overreaction”, but that “Professor Gates probably overreacted as well”.

Obama critics

On Wednesday, Mr Obama had said: “The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”

Professor Gates leads the African American research centre at Harvard

And he put the arrest in the context of “the long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately”.

Critics seized on his comments, saying the president should not be getting involved in individual cases, especially if he was not in full possession of the facts.

Officers were called to Prof Gates’s house after a woman reported seeing two black males - the professor and his driver - trying to force entry.

Prof Gates’s lawyer later said the professor had just returned from a trip overseas and, upon arriving at the property with a driver, found his front door jammed and had to force it open.

Although the exact facts of the incident are disputed, Prof Gates was asked to provide the officer with identification. He was then asked to step outside his house and was arrested.

According to police, Prof Gates shouted at the officer and accused him of racial bias.

Suicide bombers have attacked the police chief’s office in Khost, eastern Afghanistan, as suspected Taliban fighters confronted security forces.

Heavy gunfire and explosions were also heard near the main police station, attorney general’s office, courts and a local bank branch, witnesses said.

There were reports of casualties, and the battle was said to be going on.

It comes amid a spike of violence ahead of elections on 20 August, and follows recent provincial attacks by Taliban.

City confusion

A senior security official at the Interior Ministry in Kabul told the BBC: ”Several suicide attackers have tried to enter the police chief’s office in Khost province.

“Our forces are trying to stop them, there is a serious shoot-out between us and them.”

Khost resident Mohammad Goal Jan described the confusion.

“I can hear a lot of gunshots and loud explosions from the police chief’s office.

“Police and army have blocked the main roads. Khost city is empty. There is a lot of confusion at the moment.”

Rockets and guns

Defence Minister spokesman General Mohammed Zahir Azimi said the fighting was still going on.

“There are casualties but at this moment we don’t know exactly how many people have been killed and injured,” he was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

“They are armed with AK-47s and rockets. They are surrounded in a building from where they resist.”

In May, six people were killed when militants launched simultaneous assaults on government buildings in Khost.

Last week at least four security personnel were killed in attacks on Gardez, about 50 miles (80km) northwest of Khost, when militants attacked the police chief’s office, a police station and the intelligence directorate, as well as the governor’s compound.

Another security personnel died in an attack in eastern city of Jalalabad.