Suicide bomber apparently targeting anti-Taliban mayor injures dozens

A father carries his injured son through the halls of a hospital in Peshawar after a suicide bomber struck a nearby livestock market.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A suicide bomber apparently targeting an anti-Taliban mayor struck a crowded market Sunday in northwest Pakistan, killing the mayor and 11 other people and injuring dozens, police said.

The morning attack took place in the town of Adazai, about 10 miles south of the main northwest city of Peshawar. The market was crowded with shoppers and goats being sold to celebrate the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid.

The mayor, Abdul Malik, who was initially reported to have survived, died in the attack, said Sahibzada Anis, the top official in Peshawar.

Malik, who had once been a Taliban supporter, had later switched sides and formed a local militia to help fight the militants.

“Malik had survived several attacks on his life in the recent past, since he turned against the militants,” said Anis. “But today the militants have finally killed him.”

Eleven bodies and 25 injured people had been rushed to the hospital, police officer Abdul Sattar Khan said. A young girl was among those killed and several of the injured were in critical condition, officials said.

‘Turned into a hell’
Khan Zamir was buying goats for the Eid celebration when an explosion ripped through the street.

“That place turned into a hell where the dead and injured were lying everywhere and blood and flesh were spread around,” he said, adding that two of his relatives were badly injured. “Now we have our blood in this war,” he said, vowing revenge against the attackers.

Photovoltaic panels, which convert laser light into electrical energy similar to solar panels, are seen on the bottom of the LaserMotive entry in the $2 million Space Elevator Games at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force

A space elevator may not be rocket science but it can be just as complicated - and rewarding.

After three years without a winner in a NASA-backed competition to develop the science fiction space elevator concept, a team from Seattle on Friday collected $900,000 after its laser-powered robotic machine raced up more than 2,950 feet (nearly 1 kilometer) of cable dangling from a helicopter.

LaserMotive LLC was presented the check by Andy Petro, progam manager of NASA’s Centennial Challenges, in a ceremony at Dryden Flight Research Facility on Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert.

Powered by a ground-based laser pointed up at the robot’s downward-facing photo voltaic cells that converted the light into electricity, the LaserMotive machine completed one of its climbs in about three minutes and 48 seconds, good for second-place money.

The three-day contest required competitors’ vehicles to get to the top, with rewards possible for completing climbs at two levels of speed. LaserMotive could have claimed $2 million if its robot had climbed faster.

The two other teams, KC Space Pirates of Kansas City, Mo., and the University of Saskatchewan’s Space Design Team, finished out of the money. Neither of their machines made it to the top.

Space elevators have been theorized since the 1960s but only exist in science fiction. Theoretically, such an elevator would provide access to space by climbing up a tether anchored in the ground and extending out to a mass orbiting in a fixed spot over the Earth, just as communications satellites do now.

The fourth Space Elevator Games addressed a baby step in the engineering challenging of the concept, not the larger debates of whether physics, materials technology and economics would ever allow one to be built.

“I think it was an ideal Centennial Challenges competition,” Petro said in a telephone interview. “We had students, entrepreneurs and independent inventors. It’s a very difficult challenge. It’s taken the teams four years for anyone to win.”

Thomas Nugent, one of the principals of LaserMotive, said the company believed the contest would demonstrate the concept of “power beaming” - transmitting energy by laser over long distances.

Nugent said there are numerous immediate applications such as providing power to remote areas of military bases or operating electrically powered unmanned aircraft for extended periods.

Nugent said he personally doesn’t believe a space elevator would work on Earth but may be practical for the moon or Mars.

“It took a lot of years of hard work by just a great team of people who have understanding families,” he said.

Huge blocks stretching for 1 mile to be toppled as part of celebrations

Dominoes stand in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Saturday. Students made the around 1,000 dominoes placed on the former border.

BERLIN - Massive colorful dominoes painted by German students have been placed along the former path of the Berlin Wall to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of the barrier that divided the city for nearly three decades.

Many of the upright 7.5-foot-high plastic foam dominoes carried messages, including “We are one people.” The approximately 1,000 dominoes stretching for 1 mile will be toppled Monday as part of wider celebrations of the wall’s fall.

One labeled “bleeding heart” showed a sword cutting through the city of Berlin, starting a crimson flow of blood speckled with crosses.

“Everyone has walls in their heads to a certain extent,” Berlin resident Stefan Schueler as he perused the domino display Saturday. “It’s always a good thing if one can break them down, and I think this is a good symbol.”

Former Polish leader Lech Walesa, whose pro-democracy movement Solidarity played a key role in ending communism in Eastern Europe, is to tip the first domino Monday as the artistic display comes toppling down.

‘Very big event’
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dimitry Medvedev also are expected to be on hand Monday for the formal commemorations of the wall’s opening on Nov. 9, 1989.

“The fall of the wall was a very big event, and I think most Berlin residents are thankful to those who made it happen,” said Berlin resident Guenter Nowak standing beside one stretch of dominoes.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, herself a resident of East Germany when the wall fell, said in her weekly podcast Saturday that it was a day that “changed the lives of many people including me.”

“It is particularly nice for us to be able to celebrate this day with our European neighbors,” Merkel said. “We Germans will not forget our neighbors and allies who made the path to German reunification possible.”

Researchers estimate that 136 people were killed while trying to cross the barrier during its 28-year existence.

On Saturday in a village outside Berlin, three new memorial stones were dedicated to victims of the wall.

First Mare to Win the Classic in its 26-Year History

Zenyatta, ridden by jockey Mike Smith, is lead onto the track for the Breeders’ Cup Classic horse

Zenyatta beat the boys in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday, running her record to 14-0 in the most impressive effort of her career.

The 5-year-old mare rallied from last in the early going and fought off Gio Ponti in the stretch to win by a length at Santa Anita, beating a loaded field of 11 males and becoming the first female to win the Classic in its 26-year history.

Quality Road was scratched at the starting gate after he acted up and scraped his hind leg, delaying the start by several minutes. That may have explained Zenyatta’s poor start as she broke from the gate on the wrong foot and trailed early in the race.

Ridden by Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith, Zenyatta still ran 1 and 1/4 miles in 2:00.62 and paid $7.60, $5.60 and $3.80 as the 5-2 wagering favorite of the 58,845 fans.

Gio Ponti returned $9.20 and $6.60, while Britain-bred Twice Over paid $7 to show.

Belmont Stakes winner Summer Bird was fourth and Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird ninth, extending his losing streak to five straight since his 50-1 upset on the first Saturday in May. Irish import Rip Van Winkle was 10th.

Zenyatta was the star of the show, prancing as she paraded past the grandstand on her way to the gate. Fans held up pink signs reading “Girl power! Go Zenyatta” and roared when the hometown hero came through the tunnel and stepped onto the synthetic track.

Owners Jerry and Ann Moss decided to enter Zenyatta in the Classic instead of trying to defend her title in the $2 million Ladies’ Classic on Friday. Her presence gave a big boost to the signature event of the two-day world championships, which was missing the year’s other star female, Rachel Alexandra.

That 3-year-old filly went 8 for 8 this year, including three wins against the boys, one coming in the Preakness Stakes. But Rachel Alexandra’s owner, Jess Jackson, shut her down for the season rather than run her on the synthetic surface, which he dislikes.

Debate had raged in the week leading up to the race about whether Zenyatta could handle an international field of males and possibly snatch away Horse of the Year honors from Rachel Alexandra. The argument only intensifies after her explosive performance.

Smith let Zenyatta lope along at the back of the field, her usual position early in races. Rounding the final turn, Zenyatta still had a lot of ground to make up on the leaders and her chances appeared bleak.

Zenyatta then made a bold inside move midway through the far turn to gain momentum. After the field turned for home, Smith angled her to the far outside and the crowd erupted.

Showing the grit of an undefeated champion, Zenyatta closed relentlessly and denied Gio Ponti the upset. Smith pumped his left arm as Zenyatta galloped past the grandstand for possibly the last time in her career.

The Mosses have said Zenyatta, named after the 1980 album “Zenyatta Mondata” by The Police, will go to the breeding shed next year.

Pledges, part of China’s growing push in continent, watched warily by West

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt - China’s premier on Sunday pledged $10 billion in concessional loans to African nations over the next three years and said Beijing would cancel the government debts of some of the poorest of those countries, as the Asian powerhouse looked to deflect criticism that its investments in the continent were motivated purely by greed.

At a two-day China-Africa summit that began on Sunday, Wen Jiabao also said China would build 100 new clean energy projects for Africa over the same period as part of an effort to help the continent deal with climate change issues.

‘We will help Africa build up financing capacity,” Wen said at the start of the two-day Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit. “We will provide $10 billion in concessional loans to African countries.”

The pledges are part of China’s increasing push into Africa, a drive that has drawn criticism from some who argue that Beijing’s quest for natural resources to fuel its growing economy is ignoring the troubling human rights record of many of Africa’s governments.

‘Mutually beneficial cooperation’
But Wen said while many in the world have only now begun to take note of China’s role in Africa, it was a relationship that dates back five decades and included helping the countries throw off the yoke of colonialism.

“The Chinese people cherish sincere friendship toward the African people, and China’s support to Africa’s development is concrete and real,” Wen said at a forum that attracted leaders such as Sudan’s Omar el-Bashir and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe — heads of state out-of-favor with the West.

“Whatever change that may take place in the world, our friendship with African people will not change,” Wen said. “Our commitment to deepening mutually beneficial cooperation … will not change, and our policy of supporting Africa’s economic and social development will not change.”

Wen said that as part of its support for Africa and growing trade ties with China, Beijing would take eight new measures over the next three years, including helping Africa build up its financing capacity.