Lenovo Builds Notebooks for SMBs

Small business owners are constantly on the go and always looking for the chance to squeeze in a few more hours of work. That makes them perfect candidates for a notebook computer.

In a move designed to zero in on the SMB-notebook love connection, Lenovo today introduced the SL ThinkPad line, which the company says was designed specifically for smaller companies. The SL300, SL400 and SL500 are designed to accommodate a mobile work style, add a touch of multimedia sizzle and sport stylish good looks.

According to Charles Sune, worldwide segment manager for ThinkPad SL Series, the new small business line delivers high-quality, affordable prices and reliable service and support. Sune said SMBs are the fastest-growing segment of the notebook market.

To reinforce notebooks' big appeal to small business, Sune points to IDC data that predicts that in 2009 31 percent of all notebook sales will be made to small businesses. While that's impressive, it doesn't stop there. Sune said SMBs are also "the fastest growth area" for notebook sales, out-pacing sales to large enterprises.

"That got our attention, and we decided to more directly address this segment." In the U.S., IDC predicts that the number of notebooks used by SMBs will to grow from 7.5 million notebook PCs in 2007 to 11.6 million in 2011.

You Want That to Go?

You could argue that M in SMB stands for "mobile." Sune said Lenovo designed the notebooks to meet the way small businesses work, which includes in the office, at home or maybe at a coffee shop. To address on-the-go businesses, the SL notebooks offer several flavors of wireless connectivity.

In addition to supporting Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and WiMax, the SL notebooks also feature an option ($25, according to Sune) for a built-in connector for high-speed mobile broadband. He said Lenovo is partnering with AT&T to offer optimized mobile broadband service.

While AT&T's reputation took a bit of public relation hit due to its notoriously slow Internet access speed on the iPhone, Sune pointed out the SL notebooks support AT&T's HSPA/GSM network, not the much-maligned Edge network. Lenovo didn't have a lot of options for partners in this country. Sune said At&T is only provider to offer GSM in the U.S. He added that they will have multiple mobile broadband partners worldwide.

While the SL notebooks are built to be business-savvy, they also pack a multimedia punch and the company seeks style points for the line's attractive looks. "Buyers in the 1-99 employees category are similar to pure consumers," Sune said. "They are interested in an eye-catching design." To meet that interest, the ThinkPad SL series features a glossy-black top cover, which is a first for the ThinkPad line, he said.

On the multimedia side, the SL line comes with speakers, microphones and an optional Web cam that provides Internet voice and video conferencing. If you want to watch movies or other video content in high-definition, the SL lines supports HDMI/VGA. To help you create multimedia content, the SL line also includes Roxio Creator for Small Business.

Lenovo says its ThinkPad SL line is designed with small (and mobile) businesses in mind.

The SL notebooks offer up to 320GB hard drives to help accommodate video, photos and music. It also has a 1394 port to allow you to connect external storage devices.

It's no secret that small businesses often have lean IT resources. In an attempt to provide a layer of data protection and security, Lenovo also announced ThinkPlus Secure Business. Among other services, it offers online data backup. You get 5GB of backup space at no charge or can expand to 50GB for $149 (for a year) or $439 for three years.

What's It Gonna Cost?

While features are, of course, important, price is paramount, according to Sune, who described small businesses as "the most price sensitive segment of the notebook market." The SL line is "cost-optimized first, but we had to be careful about tradeoffs."

For example, Sune said, the SL lines does not incorporate a proprietary docking station (which in effect turns your notebook into a desktop PC). However, small businesses can get some of that functionality through port replicators.

"SMBs are [also] willing — to some extent — to trade weight and size for a lower price," Sune said. The ThinkPad SL400 and SL500 notebooks, which feature 14-inch and 15-inch wide screens, respectively are available immediately for a base price of $799. The 13-inch screen SL300 will available in August for $899. The SL300, SL400 and SL500 weigh in 4.6 pounds, 5.5 pounds and 6.4 pounds, respectively.

The SL notebooks incorporate Lenovo's Active Protection System, which is designed to sense sudden movement. It then locks the hard drive heads to prevent damage to drive.

All three SL notebooks can accommodate various Intel Core 2 Duo processors and will soon be available with Intel Centrino 2 processor (which were released this week).

Stolen Bank Data Dirt Cheap Online

LONDON -- Prices charged by cybercriminals selling hacked bank and credit card details have fallen sharply as the volume of data on offer has soared, forcing them to look elsewhere to boost profit margins, a new report says.

Researchers for Finjan, a Web security firm, said the high volumes traded had led to bank and credit card information becoming "commoditized" -- account details with PIN codes that once fetched $100 or more each might now go for $10 or $20.

In its latest quarterly survey of Web trends, the California-based company said cybercrime had evolved into "a major shadow economy ruled by business rules and logic that closely mimics the legitimate business world."

Finjan's Israel-based chief technology officer, Yuval Ben-Itzhak, said in a telephone interview that new types of stolen data were now commanding a premium, such as patient health care information that can be used for insurance fraud or to illicitly acquire and sell medicines.

Other premium data includes business information, company personnel files and intercepted commercial emails.

Mafia Structure

The Finjan report, partly based on contacts the company established with five groups trading online in stolen data, described a Mafia-type cybercrime hierarchy in which bosses operate as business entrepreneurs and typically leave the actual online attacks to underlings.

An "underboss," or second-in-command, provides the Trojan infiltration software for launching attacks. The workforce that carries these out is paid according to the rate of infections achieved and the country of origin of the infected computers.

"Resellers" then trade the hacked financial data in the same way that a criminal "fence" disposes of stolen goods.

In online exchanges with resellers, Finjan researchers were offered a menu of stolen data, with platinum, gold and corporate card details commanding the highest prices.

Sellers promised the data was "fresh," and one even offered a 48-hour guarantee to supply new details if those originally bought were rejected by payment systems as stolen cards.

"It's like in the regular business world -- when you buy a good and it doesn't work, you go back and you want to replace it," Ben-Itzhak said.

"It indicates a competitive environment...They need to build reputation, they want to show they're providing high quality data for your money so you can go back and buy from them rather than go to the other groups."

Ben-Itzhak predicted banks, which until now have shouldered the burden of compensating people whose data are hacked, would seek to put some of the onus for security on the customer.

"So far the banks are not mandating the end user to have some sort of security on their desktop," he said. "They're taking the risk, better to say they're paying the risk, when your account has been compromised."

"However, what we noticed recently is the volume increased significantly and the banks are starting to ask the question: Did you install something or do you have something running on your desktop. ... The banks will start to ask questions of the end users and put some responsibility at least on them."

New Launch for AOL in Personal Finance

Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) AOL will launch a personal finance site on Tuesday, adding to a roster of new properties that do not bear its name.

The new site, called WalletPop.com, is a spin-off of AOL's Money & Finance channel and will focus on consumer and personal finance. AOL Money & Finance will continue to offer business and investing news and tools.

The launch of another site not bearing the AOL brand is part of a plan to create new online businesses courting younger audiences unfamiliar with a company whose heyday ended with the popularity of high-speed Internet access.

TMZ.com, a celebrity entertainment site created by AOL and a unit of Warner Bros., added 35 percent more users in May, now attracting about 9.2 million visitors monthly, according to comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR). Asylum, which the company said is now the top men's site, attracted 2.7 million unique visitors in May.

Walletpop offers "a comprehensive, accessible, and interactive Web site focused exclusively on the money matters of real people, such as debt management, finding the best deals, saving, retirement, insurance, real estate, banking, taxes and more," Marty Moe, senior vice president for AOL’s Money & Finance division, said in a statement.

Walletpop's launch follows on the heels of the July launch of BigDownload.com, a site targeting PC gamers.

A $3B Investment in Superfast Broadband for BT

Britain's telecom company BT (NYSE: BT) plans to invest 1.5 billion pounds ($3 billion) to roll out superfast broadband to up to 10 million U.K. homes by 2012, enabling services such as videoconferencing and interactive gaming.

The group said it would suspend its share buyback program from July 31, given the strategic priority of the broadband investment, but remains committed to its dividend.

It will also make the fiber network available to other Internet service providers (ISPs), such as Carphone Warehouse and BSkyB, through wholesale to ensure the broadband market remains competitive.

Those ISPs, which have put their copper lines into BT's networks in recent years to give them more control over pricing, could also decide to repeat this process with fiber.

The program is Britain's largest ever investment in superfast broadband, which will deliver speeds of up to 100 megabytes per second.

The fiber will be linked to the street cabinet -- and in some cases, such as the Olympic village for the 2012 Games -- directly to the premises.

Homes linked to a fiber-to-the-cabinet network will receive initial speeds of up to 40 megabytes (MB), but BT expects this to increase to 60MB with new technologies. Those on a fiber-to-the-premises network will see speeds of up to 100MB.

"Broadband has boosted the U.K. economy and is now an essential part of our customers' lives," Chief Executive Ian Livingston said in a statement.

"We now want to make a step change in broadband provision, which will offer faster speeds than ever before,” Livingston said. “This is a bold step by BT and we need others to be just as bold.”

"We want to work with local and regional bodies to decide where and when we should focus the deployment,” he added. “Our aim is that urban and rural areas alike will benefit from our investment.”

BT noted a supportive and enduring environment was "essential" for the investment, which adds about 1 billion pounds to its existing expenditure plans for fiber deployment, to take place.

It expects the initial investment will result in around 100 million pounds of incremental capital expenditure in each of the 2008/09 and 2009/10 financial years, with the remaining incremental spend of 800 million pounds being spread over the subsequent three years.

Analysts welcomed the announcement, which they said had been mostly expected, although shares in BT were down 2.3 percent at 197 pence at 0815 GMT, in an overall lower market.

"This phased rollout is very much in line with our expectations, and provides clarity on capex needs whilst reaffirming dividend guidance," analysts at Investec said in a note to clients.

"With much of the spend back-end weighted we see little change to near-term EPS forecasts and cash flows."

Analysts at Morgan Stanley said the investment would also help protect BT from competition from cable group Virgin Media (NASDAQ: VMED), which is rolling out faster broadband speeds.

iPhone Looms Over Palm's New Treo

Palm on Monday introduced a new high-end Treo mobile phone, hoping to challenge the BlackBerry's dominance with business users.

But its debut fell in the shadow of the launch of Apple's debut of its new, less-pricey iPhone, which sold more than 1 million units over the weekend.

Shares of Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) closed down nearly 2 percent after Palm unveiled its 800w smartphone, available for $250 after signing up for a service contract with its wireless carrier partner Sprint (NYSE: S), and a $100 rebate.

By contrast, Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone 3G sells for about $200, nearly half the price of its previous version. Apple's stock closed up 0.75 percent.

The lower price has spurred iPhone rivals to keep prices low, such as Samsung Electronics recently introduced "Instinct" -- also available via Sprint -- which is set at $130 after rebate.

"Despite recent price cuts in the smartphone sector, the new Treo is priced at $249.99 with a two-year contract, making the 800w model one of the most expensive smartphones offered at Sprint," said Lawrence Harris, an analyst with CL King & Associates, in a client note.

Smartphones like the Treo, iPhone and Research in Motion's (NASDAQ: RIMM) Blackberry Curve -- which sells for $149 after rebate according to Sprint's Web site -- offers features such as a high-speed Internet connection and access to e-mail and documents.

The new Treo comes with a full keyboard, which the iPhone lacks. Both have Wi-Fi wireless Internet capability, satellite navigation systems and built-in digital cameras.

Palm executive Brodie Keast told Reuters that the Treo is primarily meant to take on the Blackberry's dominance among business users, although he acknowledges that the iPhone has drawn a lot of attention.

But, he says there remains a lot of room for growth in the smartphone market.

"It's also a very large market," he said. "We don't need to defeat RIM or Apple in order to succeed."

Shares of Palm fell 11 cents to $5.42 on NASDAQ.

Morales: Government will take over for DEA in Bolivia

(CNN) -- Bolivian President Evo Morales said Saturday that he was suspending the work of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Bolivia and that the government will take control of its activities in the war on drugs.

Bolivian President Evo Morales, seen last month, says his government will control its anti-drug activities.

Morales made the remarks in a speech in a remote part of Bolivia, carried on national television and radio stations.

The announcement comes more than a month after Morales kicked DEA agents out of the country's coca-producing Chapare region, saying the government could no longer protect them amid a growing revolt. At least 30 people died in the violence, and Morales accused Washington of fomenting the unrest.

Bolivia and the United States each expelled the other's ambassadors in September as well, and Morales launched a verbal assault against the U.S. government at the United Nations General Assembly.

For its part, the United States accused Bolivia of not doing enough to stop the flow of drugs out of the country. Last month, President Bush said he had proposed cutting off special trade deals with Bolivia "until it fulfills its obligations."

As he left Bolivia after his expulsion, U.S. ambassador Philip Goldberg warned the Bolivian government that reducing ties with Washington was "a grave mistake."

Morales' accusations that the United States had helped foment the violence in his country are "false and baseless," Goldberg said in September, and Morales "insulted us."

The DEA has not been officially notified of any suspension or expulsion, spokesman Garrison Courtney said Saturday. He would not say how many agents are in Bolivia for security reasons but said it was not a significant presence.

"If this is true, it is an unfortunate situation," Courtney said. "We've been working with our counterparts for over 30 years and have a tremendous working relationship with our Bolivian counterparts."

The violence broke out in September as Morales, the nation's first Indian president, battled an autonomy movement in the natural gas-rich eastern departments of Santa Cruz, Pando, Beni and Tarija. The movement was triggered by Morales' pledge to redistribute wealth from the eastern departments to the country's poorer highlands.

Some of Latin America's leaders have supported Morales. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, long a critic of Bush and the United States, expelled the U.S. ambassador from Caracas in solidarity with Bolivia and recalled his own ambassador from Washington.

In late October, Bolivia's Congress approved an agreement between the government and opposition leaders to hold a referendum on a constitution that would grant more power to the nation's Indian majority, according to the Bolivian Information Agency, or ABI, the state news agency.

To spur the negotiations, ABI reported, Morales agreed to seek only one more term as president.

The agreement followed weeks of negotiations between the government and political opponents, including the governors of the eastern provinces.

U.N. says Colombian military executing civilians

BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- Colombia's U.S.-backed security forces are engaging in "systematic and widespread" extrajudicial executions of innocent civilians as part of their counterinsurgency campaign, a top United Nations diplomat said Saturday.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, in Bogota, says Colombia must rein in its security forces.

Speaking in Bogota after a weeklong fact-finding tour, Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the scale of the killings could constitute a "crime against humanity" under international humanitarian law, adding that international courts could intervene if the Colombian government was "unwilling or unable" to handle the investigations itself.

"An offense becomes a crime against humanity if it is widespread and systematic against the civilian population," Pillay said at a news conference.

"We are observing and keeping a record of the number of extrajudicial killings [in Colombia], and it does appear to be systematic and widespread in my view. Watch Pillay explain the investigation process »

"The goal is to have the national authorities these crimes and prosecute the perpetrators. It's only when a country is unable and unwilling that the International Criminal Court, for instance, would have the power to intervene," she added.

Her comments come three days after Colombian President Alvaro Uribe fired 25 army officers and non-commissioned officers, including three generals and 11 colonels, for alleged involvement or negligence in a case involving the forced disappearance and summary executions of at least 11 young men from a poor Bogota suburb this year.

It was the biggest purge in Colombian military ranks for alleged human rights abuses.

Although Pillay welcomed the move, she said Saturday that she hoped it would be the start -- not the end -- of a thorough process to improve the human rights record of the Colombian military.

U.N. officials say they don't keep comprehensive statistics of forced disappearances and summary executions blamed on the security forces. But a U.N. source said the organization received between 200 and 300 such complaints every year.

A U.N. report published last year said the organization had seen "significant increases" in the number of cases.

Meanwhile, the government attorney general's office says it opened close to 800 investigations into accusations of summary executions by the police and military between January 2003 and September 2007.

Typically, according to the U.N. and the attorney general's office, security forces will "disappear" or kill civilians and later present them to the media as leftist rebels or right-wing paramilitary fighters killed in combat.

Since 2000, Colombia has received about $5 billion in mostly military aid from the United States to fight drugs and the guerrilla war.

Under the terms of the aid package, Washington is supposed to thoroughly vet the human rights record of Colombian military units. If abuses are uncovered, Washington can suspend aid to the offending units.

U.S. authorities have not publicly said whether aid will be affected by the latest investigations and subsequent purge of the military high command.

None of the commanders fired earlier this week has been arrested or charged with any crime. But Uribe has said criminal investigations are ongoing and promised that offenders would be jailed.

Amnesty: Rape girl, 13, killed for adultery

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- A 13-year-old girl who said she had been raped was stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery by Islamic militants, a human rights group said.

Dozens of men stoned Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow to death Oct. 27 in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses. The Islamic militia in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, the rights group said.

Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13. Some of the Somali journalists who first reported the killing later told Amnesty International that they had reported she was 23 based upon her physical appearance.

Calls to Somali government officials and the local administration in Kismayo rang unanswered Saturday.

"This child suffered a horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayo," David Copeman, Amnesty International's Somalia campaigner, said in a statement Friday.

Somalia is among the world's most violent and impoverished countries. The nation of some 8 million people has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991 then turned on each other.

A quarter of Somali children die before age 5; nearly every public institution has collapsed. Fighting is a daily occurrence, with violent deaths reported nearly every day.

Islamic militants with ties to al-Qaida have been battling the government and its Ethiopian allies since their combined forces pushed the Islamists from the capital in December 2006. Within weeks of being driven out, the Islamists launched an insurgency that has killed thousands of civilians.

In recent months, the militants appear to be gaining strength. The group has taken over the port of Kismayo, Somalia's third-largest city, and dismantled pro-government roadblocks. They also effectively closed the Mogadishu airport by threatening to attack any plane using it.

Parents arrested at wedding of boy, 7, girl, 5

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) -- A Pakistani court has freed the parents of a 5-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy on bail a day after police raided an illegal wedding for the children.

Police arrested the parents and a cleric preparing to perform the ceremony before 100 guests in Karachi on Friday.

On Saturday, a judge ordered the parents released pending the next hearing in their case.

Marriage below the age of 18 is illegal in Pakistan, though some Muslim scholars say it is permissible if the bride and groom have reached puberty.

The parents reportedly arranged the wedding to end a long feud between the families.

A Pakistan Human Rights Commission official says the maximum punishment for the parents would be one month in prison and a fine of about $10.

Obama's Kenyan half-aunt in Boston illegally

WASHINGTON (AP -- Barack Obama's aunt, a Kenyan woman who has been quietly living in public housing in Boston, is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago, The Associated Press has learned.

Zeituni Onyango, 56, referred to as "Aunti Zeituni" in Obama's memoir, was instructed to leave the United States by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP late Friday.

This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango's case.

Obama said he did not know his aunt was living in the country illegally.

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one of them a federal law enforcement official.

The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release.

Onyango's refusal to leave the country would represent an administrative, non-criminal violation of U.S. immigration law, meaning such cases are handled outside the criminal court system. Estimates vary, but many experts believe there are more than 10 million such immigrants in the United States.

The AP could not reach Onyango immediately for comment. No one answered the telephone number listed in her name late Friday. It was unclear why her request for asylum was rejected in 2004.

Onyango is not a relative whom Obama has discussed in campaign appearances and, unlike Obama's father and grandmother, is not someone who has been part of the public discussion about his personal life. Obama has only met his father once.

A spokeswoman for U.S.. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Kelly Nantel, said the government does not comment on an individual's citizenship status or immigration case.

Onyango's case -- coming to light just days before the presidential election -- led to an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations before Tuesday's election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors, the U.S. law enforcement official told the AP.

The unusual directive suggests that the Bush administration is sensitive to the political implications of Onyango's case coming to light so close to the election.

Kenya is in East Africa between Somalia and Tanzania. The country has been fractured in violence in recent years, including a period of two months of bloodshed after December 2007 that killed 1,500 people.

The disclosure about Onyango came just one day after Obama's presidential campaign confirmed to the Times of London that Onyango, who has lived quietly in public housing in South Boston for five years, was Obama's half aunt on his father's side.

It was not immediately clear how Onyango might have qualified for public housing with a standing deportation order.

McCain pokes fun at campaign in 'SNL' visit

NEW YORK (CNN) -- With three days to go before the elections and polls showing him trailing, Republican presidential candidate John McCain appeared on NBC's late night comedy show "Saturday Night Live," poking good-natured fun at his campaign.

The Arizona senator appeared in the opening skit, next to former cast member Tina Fey reprising her role as his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

"This past Wednesday, Barack Obama purchased airtime on three major networks," he said in the first skit. "We, however, can only afford QVC (the television home shopping network)."

Later, McCain -- who delivered his lines with a smile on his face -- took another shot at his own expense.

"Look, would I rather be on three major networks? Of course," he said. "But I'm a true maverick -- a Republican without money."

Throughout the skit, McCain and Fey hawked campaign memorabilia such as a set of knives that cuts through pork, and a jewelry collection that McCain's wife, Cindy, held up.

He dubbed the latter "McCain Fine Gold," a play on the name of the campaign reform act that he sponsored with Russ Feingold, a Democratic senator from Wisconsin.

McCain also took humorous potshots at his Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, and his vice-presidential pick, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden.

McCain pointed to a set of 10 commemorative plates that he said celebrates the 10 town hall meetings he would have had with Obama.

"They are blank," he said. "He wouldn't agree to those debates."

Obama had rejected McCain's proposal for the joint town hall meetings. The two participated in one such appearance as part of the three presidential debates.

As for Biden, the SNL skit had Fey hawking a set of "Joe" action figures: Joe the Plumber, Joe Six-Pack and Joe Biden.

The plumber reference was meant to invoke the now-famous Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, who McCain has held up as a small business owner who will see his taxes rise if Obama wins the presidency. Joe Six-Pack is a term Palin has used to describe a regular American.

Fey, as Palin, pointed to the Joe Biden doll and said, "If you pull this cord, he talks for 45 minutes." McCain added, "It's great if you want to clear out a party."

The skit ended with the senator delivering the signature line that opens the show every weekend: "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night." iReport.com: Palin talks equality with iReporter

McCain also joined cast member Seth Meyers in the "Weekend Update" segment, where he unveiled radical last-minute campaign strategies he was considering.

Among them was the 'Reverse Maverick' ("that's where I do whatever anybody tells me"), the 'Double Maverick' ("that's where I go totally berserk or just freak everybody out, even the regular mavericks") and the "Sad Grandpa."

"That's where I get on TV and go, 'Come on, Obama's gonna have plenty of chances to be president. It's my turn,'" he said.

McCain has made two previous appearances on the show, which airs Saturday nights on NBC.

The program, which has drawn attention for its political skits this year, garnered its highest rating in 14 seasons two weeks ago when Palin made an appearance.

Obama canceled an appearance in September as a result of Hurricane Ike, but he appeared on the show in November 2007, making an unannounced cameo during an opening skit about a Halloween party at the house of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama's rival during the Democratic primary.

UK commander in Afghanistan resigns

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The commander of British special forces in Afghanistan, who has in the past expressed concerns about military equipment failures, has resigned, the Ministry of Defense said Saturday.

A ministry spokesman said Major Sebastian Morley, head of the Britain's SAS forces in Afghanistan, cited only personal reasons when he resigned Friday.

The British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, however, reported Saturday that Morley "resigned in disgust" because military commanders and government officials repeatedly ignored his warnings about the safety of Snatch Land Rovers used by the British Army in Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Defense spokesman, who declined to be named in line with policy, said Morley had previously expressed concerns about military equipment but did not mention that in his resignation.

"Equipping our personnel is a clear priority and we are absolutely focused on providing them with a range of vehicles that will protect them from the ever-shifting threats posed by the enemy," the ministry said in a statement Saturday.

"Just this week we announced a 700 million pound ($1.1 billion) spend on more than 700 new and upgraded armored vehicles," the ministry said. "This was on top of the 10 billion pounds ($16.2 billion) of new equipment delivered to the forces in the past three years."

The Telegraph reported Morley was especially angry over the June 17 deaths in Afghanistan of four of his soldiers, including Corporal Sarah Bryant, the first female coalition soldier to die in Afghanistan.

The soldiers died when an explosion hit their vehicle near Lashkar Gah in southern Afghanistan. The Telegraph reported the soldiers had been traveling in a Snatch Land Rover.

In his resignation letter, Morley said "chronic underinvestment" in equipment by the Ministry of Defense was to blame for their deaths, according to the Telegraph.

The Ministry of Defense describes Snatch Land Rovers as protected patrol vehicles for use in "low-threat areas." Originally used in Northern Ireland, they are now deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ministry says.

U.S. border agents detain Mexican troops

(CNN) -- Seven members of the Mexican military were found inside the United States on Friday, telling border agents they had become disoriented while on patrol and accidentally crossed into the country, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said.

The incident began about 8 a.m. Friday, when the Border Patrol's Yuma, Arizona, sector was notified that a military-style Hummer was broken down, Customs and Border Patrol said in a written statement.

Agents said they found the vehicle about 200 yards from the Colorado River, and the seven individuals were dressed in military-style clothing. Customs and Border Patrol later determined that the troops' entry was unauthorized.

U.S. agents told the Mexican troops they were inside the United States and "peaceably" took them into custody, the statement said. "At no time were any hostilities exchanged between the agents and military officials." Watch how Mexican troops found their way in the United States »

The Hummer was equipped with a turret-mounted machine gun, the Border Patrol said.

According to Customs and Border Patrol, the soldiers were assigned to the 23rd Regiment Motorized Cavalry of the Mexican Army. The soldiers said they believed that they were still in Mexico because they remained on the south side of a newly constructed border fence.

"The soldiers, weapons and vehicle were placed in Border Patrol custody and transported to the CBP San Luis, Arizona, Port of Entry, where each of the subjects was processed in accordance with Border Patrol policy," the statement said. None of the seven had any criminal or immigration history, the agency said.

The soldiers, weapons and vehicle were repatriated and "remanded into the custody of their commanding officer," the Border Patrol said. The incident remains under investigation, however, and the Border Patrol's Office of Internal Affairs was notified, the statement said.

"This is not an uncommon occurrence," Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, told CNN. "Often times, it is the result of the Mexican military providing cover essentially for drug transportation across into our country, and/or creating a diversion so it will draw our people away from the place where the drugs are coming across."

In August, the Border Patrol said Mexican troops had crossed the border illegally 42 times since October 2007.

Tancredo said the U.S. State Department lodged a complaint with the Mexican government for the first time over the military incursions a few weeks ago. Attempts to contact the State Department and the Mexican government Friday were unsuccessful.

Congo cease-fire holding, U.S. diplomat says

Both sides in the Congo rebel fighting that has displaced thousands of people seem committed to maintaining the days-old cease-fire, the top U.S. diplomat for Africa said Saturday.

Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer, in an interview with CNN International, was asked whether troops of the Democratic Republic of Congo and followers of rebel Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda were intent on disengaging their forces.

"So far, yes," Frazer said from Kigali, Rwanda, one of Congo's neighbors.

"I think we're starting to move down a political track, but I certainly do think that it's very fragile," she said.

Frazer's comments came on a day when the United Nations and other relief agencies delivered food and water to a refugee camp north of Goma, where Nkunda established a narrow "humanitarian corridor" after the cease-fire started Wednesday.

Tens of thousands of hungry people scrambled and fought Saturday for their first meal in several days.

Foreign Affairs Correspondent Jonathan Miller of Britain's Channel 4 videotaped the "complete pandemonium" in the Kabati camp for displaced persons about 10 miles north of Goma, where he said people were "desperate, scared, hungry."

In one area, aid workers were handing out biscuits -- but only to children.

"You see how desperate the needs are. People haven't eaten in several days, since they fled Monday and Tuesday. It's a drop in the ocean," said an unnamed aid worker.

There were thousands of people beyond the camp that aid workers were unable to reach, the worker said.

A woman at the camp told Miller: "Since I left my home village ... I haven't eaten anything. We can't go back home because we fear those who forced us to flee. They're killing us, and they're raping the women."

The Kabati camp's population grew from 1,000 to about 50,000 over a few days this week as people fled the advance of rebel soldiers.

The United Nations' refugee agency estimated Friday that 1 million people had been displaced by the recent fighting.

Getting Nkunda's National Congress for the Defense of the People back into a political process, ensuring regional and international cooperation and enforcing the cease-fire are most important to returning eastern Congo to stability, Frazer said Saturday.

Both sides need to return to promises made in peace agreements signed in 2007 and early 2008 in Nairobi, Kenya, and Goma, capital of North Kivu province, according to Frazer.

Under the Nairobi accord, the Congolese government, among other things, agreed to rout Rwandan Hutu extremists who fled to eastern Congo after the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

The Tutsi government in Rwanda, in turn, is being pressured to stop supporting the Congolese rebels in Rwanda.

Frazer and diplomats from Britain and France have been shuttling between Goma and Kigali, meeting this weekend with leaders to determine how a peace process can get back on track.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was in Congo's capital, Kinshasa, with his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner. He said of the humanitarian crisis, "It is essential it ends immediately. There is only a political solution to this." Watch Miliband respond to questions about the crisis »

France holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, which is weighing its options, officials have said.

"We're not at the moment looking at adding British troops to Congo" but want to be sure the 17,000 U.N. troops in the country are deployed most effectively, Miliband said.

Earlier Saturday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown also stressed the need for a political solution.

"My worry is about the thousands of people being displaced at the moment by the violence that is taking place," he said in a statement from Britain's Foreign Office.

Britain's Africa minister, Lord Malloch-Brown, did not rule out the use of EU troops in the region.

He told BBC radio, "I think we've certainly got to have it as an option, which is on the table and developed if we need it, but frankly the first line of call should be deployment of the U.N.'s own troops from elsewhere in the country ... but we have to have plans. If all else fails, we cannot stand back and watch violence erupt."

Gunmen kidnap French aid worker from Kabul street

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Gunmen kidnapped a French aid worker off the streets of Kabul on Monday and killed an intelligence agency employee who tried to intervene, in the latest attack against Westerners in the Afghan capital.

Three assailants in a red Corolla blocked the roadway, then tried to grab two French aid workers on their way to work, officials said. After a scuffle they got away with only one, said Mohammad Daud Amin, a neighborhood police commander.

A witness, Mohammad Shafi, said the man who intervened lived across the way.

"He grabbed the machine gun of one of the kidnappers, who opened fire, burning his hand. After that the kidnapper shot him three times in the chest," Shafi said.

The Interior Ministry said the dead Afghan was the driver for the provincial intelligence chief.

"A resident tried to prevent this kidnapping. A kidnapper opened fire and killed him. They were able to kidnap one Frenchman," Amin told The Associated Press.

Etienne Gille, president of AFRANE, a French aid group focusing on education, said the kidnapping took place as a member of its staff and a man from a second French aid group were being driven from a residence rented by ARFANE to its offices.

"The car was blocked by another car that was driving the wrong way," from which "an armed man emerged," Gille told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. AFRANE's employee managed to escape, while the other aid worker was taken, he said.

Gille declined to provide the name or organization for which the kidnapped man worked but said he was in his 30s. The man, a French national, had been in Afghanistan about a week, Gille said, adding he believed it was his first time in the country.

The man's family has been informed, Gille said.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied Taliban involvement.

The abduction adds to the increasing anxiety felt by the international community in Kabul, which has experienced a rise in abductions and targeted shootings in recent weeks.

Kidnappings by criminal groups in Afghanistan have spiked over the last year because of the lucrative ransoms that are paid to free hostages. Wealthy Afghans are typically targeted in the kidnappings, which are rarely reported in the media. The Taliban also kidnap Westerners and Afghans, but those abductions typically take place in rural provinces.

Last month, U.S. special forces freed an American working for the Army Corps of Engineers who had been kidnapped and held for two months in Wardak province, one province west of Kabul.

But Kabul itself has also seen a spike in crime against Westerners. Last month, a British-South African dual citizen aid worker was killed by Taliban gunmen while walking on the street. Also, two employees of the international shipping company DHL, one a British citizen and the other a South African, were killed by a gunman outside their office.

Criminal gangs also kidnapped a former Afghan presidential candidate and the son of the president of a large Afghan bank. The two were rescued by Afghan intelligence officials.

Gille said the group was considering how best to respond to the kidnapping, in consultation with its three French volunteers in the country.

"We are obliged to think about the situation of the current volunteers," he said. "We will maintain some kind of presence in Afghanistan but obviously we are forced to think about the current parameters of our presence."

In southern Afghanistan, coalition and Afghan troops hunting for Taliban militants discovered a drug lab and destroyed more than 40 tons of hashish Monday, officials said.

"Today's discovery clearly demonstrated the links between the Taliban and drug trafficking," said Col. Greg Julian, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Gen. Abdul Raziq, the border police commander for southern Afghanistan, said the drugs were in the basement of a compound in Nawa Kili village. He said American military helicopters were used during the raid.

The area where the drugs were discovered is littered with small drug labs. Drug runners transporting Afghanistan's major cash crop — opium — over the border with Pakistan use the region as a staging ground.

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium, the main ingredient for the production of heroin. But the country also grows large quantities of cannabis, the plant used to produce hashish and marijuana.

Aid convoy delivers medical supplies in Congo

KIBATI, Congo (AP) — A 12-vehicle U.N. aid convoy rumbled past rebel lines Monday in eastern Congo, carrying medical supplies for clinics looted by retreating government troops. It was the first humanitarian aid delivery behind rebel lines since fighting broke out in August.

U.N. peacekeepers escorted the trucks north from the provincial capital of Goma, past the village of Kibati, where tens of thousands have sought safety from the fighting of the past week, to Rutshuru, a village 55 miles (88 kilometers) north of Goma.

Both the Congolese army and the rebel leader it has been battling assured the convoy's safe passage, said Gloria Fernandez, head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in eastern Congo.

Medical supplies and tablets to purify water were the priority in this shipment, she said, adding that another convoy on Tuesday would be bringing food for some of the 250,000 refugees displaced by fighting in this central African nation.

She said health clinics north of Goma have been "looted and completely destroyed," leaving the Rutshuru hospital as the only operating medical facility in a region of hundreds of thousands of people.

Food, however, was the critical issue for most people.

"Everybody is hungry, everybody," said Jean Bizy, 25, a teacher, who watched with envy as the U.N. convoy stopped to deliver a sack of potatoes to U.N. troops in Rugari. Bizy said he has been surviving on wild bananas for days.

Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda went on the offensive Aug. 28 and brought his fighters to the edge of Goma last week before declaring a unilateral cease-fire.

The conflict is fueled by festering ethnic hatred left over from Rwanda's 1994 genocide and Congo's civil wars from 1996-2002. Nkunda claims the Congolese government has not protected ethnic Tutsis from the Rwandan Hutu militia that escaped to Congo after helping slaughter a half-million Rwandan Tutsis.

All sides are believed to fund fighters by illegally mining Congo's vast mineral riches, giving them no financial interest in stopping the fighting.

Tens of thousands of people in Kibati have received little food aid since they fled their homes a week ago. Fernandez said families here have been forced to move four or five times in the past 10 days.

"They go around in circles ... fleeing the movement of troops and the lines of combat," she said.

Since Thursday, streams of refugees have thronged the roads around Goma trying to get home, lugging babies and bundles of belongings, guiding children, pigs and goats.

To ease food shortages, rebels on Monday allowed farmers to reach Goma in trucks packed with cabbages, onions and spinach.

Nkunda began a low-level insurgency in 2004, claiming Congo's transition to democracy had excluded the Tutsi ethnic group. Despite agreeing in January to a U.N.-brokered cease-fire, he resumed fighting in August.

Nkunda wants direct talks with the government. He has especially complained about a $9 billion agreement in which China gets access to Congo's valuable minerals in return for building a highway and railroad.

Nkunda's rebellion has threatened to re-ignite the back-to-back wars that afflicted Congo from 1996 to 2002, drawing in a half dozen African nations. Congo President Joseph Kabila, elected in 2006 in Congo's first election in 40 years, has struggled to contain the violence in the east.

Congo has charged Nkunda with involvement in war crimes, and Human Rights Watch says it has documented summary executions, torture and rape committed by soldiers under Nkunda's command in 2002 and 2004.

Yet rights groups have also accused government forces of atrocities and widespread looting.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo is its largest in the world, yet only 6,000 peacekeepers of the 17,000-strong U.N. mission in Congo are in the east because of unrest in other provinces.

ANC sues defectors over name

ANDTON, South Africa, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Leaders of a new South African political party meant to rival the African National Conference say ANC leaders are trying to legally intimidate them.

Former ANC leaders Mosiuoa Lekota, Mbhazima Shilowa and Mluleki George announced Friday they were forming a new party called the South African Democratic Congress to compete in next year's South African elections. But Shilowa says the ANC is "abusing" the legal system to sue them over the name of their founding convention, the Independent On Line (South Africa) reported Monday.

Shortly after announcing he had decided to quit, Lekota and his rebel comrades Shilowa and George were slapped with court papers over the SADC's decision to call its founding meetings the National Convention.

Shilowa accused the ANC of "abusing the courts" in a bid to try to prevent the convention from going ahead and saying the ANC was behaving like South Africa's former apartheid government, the Web site said.

But an ANC spokesman told the Saturday Star newspaper the move was only "an application to restrain (Shilowa, Lekota and George) from using the name S.A. National Congress, or S.A. National Convention ... because they are confusingly similar (to the ANC's own brand)."

Press hails landmark Taiwan visit

Commentators in the Chinese and Hong Kong press view the visit to Taipei of China's top official Chen Yunlin as a significant step forward for cross-strait relations and China's image in the world.

Taipei and Hong Kong papers wonder how the Chinese representative will address the Taiwanese leader. An earlier report had suggested he would not use the title of "president". Two Hong Kong papers urge him to be "magnanimous" in his choice of language.

Some pro-independence sections of the Taiwanese press condemn the visit, seeing it as a betrayal of their cause. However other Taiwanese commentators urge pragmatism, with one paper saying independence is not likely to happen soon.

China official says tainted eggs "isolated" case

BEIJING (AP) — China's agriculture minister has called the discovery of melamine-tainted eggs "isolated cases," but urged continued scrutiny over the animal feed industry to ensure food safety.

In remarks posted on the ministry Web site late Sunday, Minister Sun Zhengcai said that "very few batches of eggs from very few companies" contained the chemical melamine.

Calling them "isolated cases," he nevertheless said the Agriculture Ministry's departments "should pay high attention" to the feed quality to ensure the safety of eggs and other animal products, and protect farmers' interests.

Sun made the remarks during a trip to a farm in Dingxing county in northern Hebei Sunday.

Last week, four brands of Chinese eggs were found to be contaminated with melamine, and agriculture officials speculated that the cause was adulterated feed given to hens. No illnesses have been linked to melamine in eggs.

Other ministry officials have asserted that the practice of deliberately adding melamine to animal feed was widely practiced, signaling that melamine contamination may be more widespread than in just baby formula and dairy products.

Inspectors have destroyed 3,682 tons of animal feed that was tainted with the chemical. Commonly used in plastics and fertilizers, melamine is high in nitrogen, which registers as high protein levels in routine tests of food and feed.

Infant formula tainted with the chemical has been blamed for sickening tens of thousands of children and causing the deaths of four infants.

Though experts say at low levels it does not pose a risk to human health, higher concentrations of melamine harm the kidneys.

Over the weekend, Agriculture Ministry official Wang Zhicai said that inspection teams have descended on feed makers nationwide in a "punishment" campaign to ferret out those found using excessive amounts of the chemical melamine.

Among the 250,000 feed-makers and animal breeding farms inspected, inspectors found more than 500 engaged in illegal or questionable practices, with police further investigating 27 companies, Wang said. He likened the behavior of some of the companies to organized crime, calling them "black nests of gangsters."

China has struggled to appear responsive to a widening food scandal. In the nearly two months since the government first acknowledged that melamine contaminated the milk supply, the chemical has been detected in eggs, candy and other products. Its presence in feed raises fears about the safety of meat and fish.

A little more than a year ago, China vowed to minimize the use of melamine after it was found in pet food exports that killed dogs and cats in North America in 2007.

Fanatics fury over executions

FAMILY and supporters of the Bali bombers are using the time before their executions to peddle anti-Australian conspiracy theories and praise the condemned men as holy warriors as they complained bitterly yesterday about being locked out of the prison where Amrozi, Mukhlas and Imam Samudra are being held.

An Indonesian judge insisted yesterday that an appeal by the bombers would not delay their executions, meaning they could go ahead as early as today.

Extra security was in place in the port town of Cilacap, a short distance from the prison island of Nusakambangan, with barbed wire being rolled out around the docks to prevent access by supporters and journalists.

A large team of lawyers and family members are in Cilacap, spending much of their time holed up in a mosque. They have brought food and letters of support for the condemned men but have so far been denied access by the Jakarta office of the Attorney-General.

They arrived at the docks in a minivan yesterday with a huge media entourage in tow but were blocked by police. They vowed to stay in the town until they were allowed to visit the prisoners and threatened protests if they continued to be denied access.

Already, the family and lawyers in Cilacap have been holding court with the media as authorities decide when they are going to put the killers in front of a firing squad.

Lulu Jamaludin, a younger brother of Imam Samudra, said that members of the Bali nine - the Australians convicted of heroin smuggling - should be killed before the bombers, adding that Australia had been paying for the executions of his brother and his co-conspirators.

"Obviously, Australia is funding it," he said

Islamist websites in Indonesia were promoting the same conspiracy theory, saying Australia had donated 3 billion rupiah (about $420,000) to pay for the execution.

The charge is absurd but is indicative of the kind of rhetoric that is getting play in Indonesia in the rarefied atmosphere as the executions approach.

Agus Sentiana, a lawyer who acts for Imam Samudra, said a group of supporters wanted to set up a foundation in his honour and build a militant Islamic boarding school in his home town of Serang in West Java.

"We want to immortalise his spirit," he said.

Another part of the public relations strategy employed by advocates for the bombers is to launch legal challenges such as an appeal made yesterday to the Denpasar District Court.