Pakistan on course to become Islamist state, U.S. experts say
6:36 AM Diposkan oleh arfa
WASHINGTON — A growing number of U.S. intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials have concluded that there's little hope of preventing nuclear-armed Pakistan from disintegrating into fiefdoms controlled by Islamist warlords and terrorists, posing the a greater threat to the U.S. than Afghanistan's terrorist haven did before 9/11.
"It's a disaster in the making on the scale of the Iranian revolution," said a U.S. intelligence official with long experience in Pakistan who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
Pakistan's fragmentation into warlord-run fiefdoms that host al Qaida and other terrorist groups would have grave implications for the security of its nuclear arsenal; for the U.S.-led effort to pacify Afghanistan ; and for the security of India , the nearby oil-rich Persian Gulf and Central Asia , the U.S. and its allies.
" Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al Qaida sitting in two-thirds of the country which the government does not control," said David Kilcullen , a retired Australian army officer, a former State Department adviser and a counterinsurgency consultant to the Obama administration.
" Pakistan isn't Afghanistan , a backward, isolated, landlocked place that outsiders get interested in about once a century," agreed the U.S. intelligence official. "It's a developed state . . . (with) a major Indian Ocean port and ties to the outside world, especially the (Persian) Gulf, that Afghanistan and the Taliban never had."
"The implications of this are disastrous for the U.S.," he added. "The supply lines (from Karachi to U.S. bases) in Kandahar and Kabul from the south and east will be cut, or at least they'll be less secure, and probably sooner rather than later, and that will jeopardize the mission in Afghanistan , especially now that it's getting bigger."
The experts McClatchy interviewed said their views aren't a worst case scenario but a realistic expectation based on the militants' gains and the failure of Pakistan's civilian and military leadership to respond.
"The place is beyond redemption," said a Pentagon adviser who asked not to be further identified so he could speak freely. "I don't see any plausible scenario under which the present government or its most likely successor will mobilize the economic, political and security resources to push back this rising tide of violence.
"I think Pakistan is moving toward a situation where the extremists control virtually all of the countryside and the government controls only the urban centers," he continued. "If you look out 10 years, I think the government will be overrun by Islamic militants."
That pessimistic view of Pakistan's future has been bolstered by Islamabad's surrender this week for the first time of areas outside the frontier tribal region to Pakistan's Taliban movement and by a growing militant infiltration of Karachi , the nation's financial center, and the industrial and political heartland province of Punjab, in part to evade U.S. drone strikes in the tribal belt.
Civilian deaths in the drone attacks, the eight-year-old U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and U.S. support for Pakistan's former military dictatorship also have sown widespread ambivalence about the threat the insurgency poses and revulsion at fighting fellow Muslims.
"The government has to ratchet up the urgency and ratchet up the commitment of resources. This is a serious moment for Pakistan ," said Sen. John Kerry , D- Mass. , the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, on April 14 in Islamabad . "The federal government has got to . . . define this problem as Pakistan's ."
Many Pakistanis, however, dismiss such warnings as inflated. They think that the militants are open to dialogue and political accommodation to end the unrest, which many trace to the former military regime's cooperation with the U.S. after 9/11.
Ahsan Iqbal , a top aide to opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif , said the insurgency can be quelled if the government rebuilds the judicial system, improves law enforcement, compensates guerrillas driven to fight by relatives' deaths in security force operations and implements democratic reforms.
"It will require time," Iqbal told McClatchy reporters and editors this week. "We need a very strong resolve and internal unity."
Many U.S. officials, though, regard the civilian government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari as unpopular, dysfunctional and mired in infighting. It's been unable to agree on an effective counterinsurgency strategy or to address the ills that are feeding the unrest. These include ethnic and sectarian hatreds, ineffective police, broken courts, widespread corruption, endemic poverty and a deepening financial crisis, they said.
Pakistan's army, meanwhile, is hobbled by a lack of direction from the country's civilian leaders, disparaged for its repeated coups and shaken by repeated defeats by the militants. It remains fixated on India to ensure high budgets and cohesion among troops of divergent ethnic and sectarian allegiances, U.S. officials and experts said.
Many officers and politicians also oppose fighting the Islamist groups that Pakistan nurtured to fight proxy wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir , and because they think the U.S. is secretly conspiring with India to destabilize their country.
Alarm rose in Washington this week after the parliament and Zardari agreed to impose Islamic law in the Swat district, where extremists have repelled several army offensives; closed girls' schools; and beheaded, hanged and lashed opponents and alleged criminals.
The government's capitulation handed the militants their first refuge outside the remote tribal area bordering Afghanistan , and less than 100 miles north of Islamabad . Taliban fighters also advanced virtually unopposed from Swat into the Buner district, 60 miles north of Islamabad .
Buner is close to a key hydroelectric dam and to the highways that link Pakistan to China , and Islamabad to Peshawar , the capital of the North West Frontier Province , much of which is already under Taliban sway.
Many U.S. officials and other experts expect the militants to continue advancing.
The Taliban "have now become a self-sustaining force," author Ahmed Rashid , an expert on the insurgency, told a conference in Washington on Wednesday. "They have an agenda for Pakistan , and that agenda is no less than to topple the government of Pakistan and 'Talibanizing' the entire country."
Iqbal, the adviser to Sharif, disagreed. While militants will overrun small pockets, most Pakistanis embrace democracy and will resist living under the Taliban's harsh interpretation of Islam, he said.
"The psychology, the temperament, the mood of the Pakistani nation does not subscribe to these extremist views," Iqbal said.
The U.S. intelligence official, however, said that Pakistan's elite, dominated since the country's independence in 1947 by politicians, bureaucrats and military officers from Punjab, have failed to recognize the seriousness of the situation.
"The Punjabi elite has already lost control of Pakistan , but neither they nor the Obama administration realize that," the official said. " Pakistan will be an Islamist state — or maybe a collection of four Islamic states, probably within a few years. There's no civilian leadership in Islamabad that can stop this, and so far, there hasn't been any that's been willing to try."
Several U.S. officials said that the Afghanistan - Pakistan strategy that President Barack Obama unveiled last month is being called into question by the accelerating rate at which the insurgency in Pakistan is expanding.
The plan hinges on the Pakistani army's willingness to put aside its obsession with Hindu-dominated India and focus on fighting the Islamist insurgency. It also presupposes, despite doubts held by some U.S. officials, that sympathetic Pakistani military and intelligence officers will sever their links with militant groups.
Worst athletes from whom to ask financial advice
6:33 AM Diposkan oleh arfa
Blessed with millions of dollars at a young age, professional athletes often seem more concerned with inane spending and unwise investments than savings accounts and 401Ks. And that doesn’t even mention their tax return mistakes, of which there are enough to make Timothy Geithner embarrassed. From fleets of cars to yachts to entourages to even Bengal tigers, the ways some athletes chose to spend their money is comical at best and ignorant at worst.
In August of 2007, a federal marshal seized Latrell Sprewell’s $1.5 million yacht (famously named “Milwaukee’s Best”) after Sprewell had failed to pay his mortgage on the boat. He also lost his house, and now the state of Wisconsin has filed a lawsuit for unpaid taxes. This all, of course, comes after Sprewell turned down a three-year, $21-million contract, saying, “I have a family to feed.”
Some athletes prefer to travel extravagantly by land instead of sea, however. Take former Red Sox slugger Jack Clark, for example. One story says Clark was once on his way to the ballpark for a game when he passed a car lot. Clark saw something he liked and dropped in to buy two sports cars for $90,000 each before continuing on to the game. At the time he filed for bankruptcy, Clark still owed money on 17 of his 18 automobiles.
Clark and Sprewell lost their fortunes in a hurry, but perhaps there’s no faster fall from grace than Michael Vick. In 2006, Sports Illustrated estimated that Vick made $25.4 million. Now, he owes well over $10 million to a variety of different companies. How did Vick go from being one of the highest paid athletes to owing millions? The entourage didn’t help, especially since he was spending about $300,000 a month to support friends and family. But a bigger financial gaffe was entrusting his money to a woman who is now banned from working with any firm that trades on the NYSE because she bilked two old women out of $150,000, and a man who’s been accused of defrauding church members. His finances were such a mess that the bankruptcy judge appointed a trustee to help him out. But don’t feel sorry for Vick just yet – in an effort to pay down his debt, Vick will be selling three of his six homes.
Yachts? Six homes? That’s more luxurious than what most of us get to enjoy, but it’s nothing compared to the spending done by Mike Tyson. He might be the most well-known fighter of his generation, but if there was one thing Tyson was better at than boxing, it was spending money. In 2003, he filed for bankruptcy after his debt reached over $27 million, about half of which was to the IRS. What was he spending all his money on? For starters, two Bengal tigers for $140,000, for which he also had to pay a trainer $125,000 a year. But that was just a drop in the bucket. There was also the $4.5 million he spent on cars, and perhaps the most inane purchase of all, a bathtub for his first wife, Robin Givens, at a cost of $2 million.
RI cops: Case similar to Boston Craigslist slaying
6:31 AM Diposkan oleh arfa
AP – This frame grab from a video surveillance camera at the Marriott Copley provided by the Boston Police …
WARWICK, R.I. – An attempted robbery of a woman at a suburban Providence hotel may be linked to the slaying at an upscale Boston hotel of a woman who advertised massage on Craigslist, police said Friday.
A 26-year-old woman who also advertised massage services on Craigslist was bound with cord and held at gunpoint at the Holiday Inn Express at about 11:15 p.m. Thursday, Warwick Police Chief Stephen McCartney said. The assailant fled when the victim's husband returned to the room.
The husband briefly chased the assailant out of the room, but then returned to check on his wife, McCartney said. The woman told police she worked at The Cadillac Lounge, a Providence stripclub.
"She may have been involved in some sort of a sex-for-money transaction at the point in time when she had the confrontation with this alleged assailant," McCartney said.
The suspect's description matches that of a "person of interest" wanted for questioning in the fatal shooting of 26-year-old Julissa Brisman of New York City at the Marriott Copley Place in Boston on Tuesday night.
And the same person may have been involved in the robbery last week of a woman at the Westin Copley Hotel, Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis said.
That woman had also advertised massage services on Craigslist, the online classified service.
Police in Warwick, which is about 60 miles south of Boston, describe the suspect as a clean-cut white male, approximately 6-foot tall, 200-pounds, with blond hair, wearing a black coat and blue jeans.
Warwick police said they are working with Boston police on the case.
Police in Boston have said that they believe the victim at the Westin was involved in prostitution but that they are uncertain about Brisman.
Brisman's friends said they didn't know she had advertised massage services online.
Matthew Terhune, 34, a photographer from New York City, said he photographed Brisman last year for head shots she needed for a tanning salon.
He said Brisman told him she had been paid $1,000 to fly out to private parties in Chicago and walk around in a bikini or topless. "But I don't think it went beyond that," Terhune said. "They were just parties where guys wanted to see hot girls."
Makeup artist Emily Claire, 30, Terhune's girlfriend, worked with Brisman during the photo shoot. She said Brisman, a recovering alcoholic, wanted eventually become an Alcoholics Anonymous counselor.
Ashton Kutcher Becomes First Twitter Member To Net 1 Million Followers
6:30 AM Diposkan oleh arfa
Ashton Kutcher 2009
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Ashton Kutcher has become the first member of Twitter to have over one million followers.
Surrounded by his wife, Demi Moore , Soleil Moon Frye and Sean "Diddy" Combs supporting him via phone, the star officially crossed the one million mark, beating out rival CNN Breaking News shortly after 11 PM Pacific time.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Latest Star Sightings
"Where's the champagne, where's the champagne," Ashton said on his Ustream.TV web feed just a short while before reaching his goal. "We've gotta pop the cork on this folks."
CNN, which lost by less than 1,200 followers, quickly congratulated the star.
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Ashton Kutcher & Demi Moore
"Congrats @aplusk. Ashton Kutcher is the first twitter account to reach 1MM followers," someone wrote on their Twitter account page.
The race was a tight one with only a handful of followers separating the two Tweeters as their numbers inched closer to one million on Thursday evening.
"Tell me this isn't better than watching tv," Ashton Tweeted on Thursday, just a few hours before he crossed the finish line. "We get to participate in the entertainment. I feel like I'm directing an episode of punk'd"
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Stars Who Twitter
Ashton was in the lead for most of the day, but just before 10 PM local time, CNN took over the top spot, leaving the actor to Tweet about the news network's on-air push for more followers.
"Why R they pushing so hard if this doesn't mean anything? It's a changing of the guard. the old way the new way," he wrote, as his followers reported back that CNN was using their live broadcast to seek out new followers.
It was at that point that Ashton jumped on Ustream.TV, speaking live with his fans who rallied around the star.
While Ashton crossed one million followers, earlier in the day it appeared the actor's account was hit by a bug in the run up to meeting his goal.
"Both Ashton @aplusk and myself @ mrskutcher have had our updates blocked for the last 2 hours somebody is playing dirty!" Ashton's wife, Demi Moore , wrote on Thursday afternoon.
Ashton promised if he became the first user to reach 1 million followers on Twitter, he would buy 10,000 mosquito nets, a pledge he repeated on Thursday afternoon.
"I'm calling to have a check made out for $100,000 to the Malaria No More Fund," he wrote.
He also promised that his one-millionth follower would be made into a Sims character.
Doctor in hepatitis B case has license suspended
7:09 PM Diposkan oleh arfa
AP – Dr. Parvez Dara, an oncologist with offices in Toms River, N.J., watches a hearing concerning his medical …
NEWARK, N.J. – State regulators on Friday temporarily suspended the medical license of a doctor who health officials suspect is linked to a hepatitis B outbreak.
Nearly 3,000 of Dr. Parvez Dara's patients have been warned to get tested after five cancer patients tested positive for the disease, which is transmitted through exposure to infected blood and can cause serious liver damage.
On Friday, the state presented evidence about the conditions at the oncologist's Toms River office. Investigators said they found blood on the floor of a room where chemotherapy was administered, blood in a bin where blood vials were stored, open medication vials and unsterile saline and gauze.
Inspectors also cited problems with cross-contamination of pens, refrigerators and countertops; use of contaminated gloves; and misuse of antiseptics, among other health code violations.
"This was not a one-time episode," Deputy Attorney General Siobhen Krier told regulators. "This is a case of egregious, bad medical judgment displayed over a long period of time."
A special committee of the state Board of Medical Examiners issued the suspension, effective immediately, on an emergency basis. The full board will consider whether to continue the suspension on Wednesday.
During the hearing Friday, Krier said Dara had a history of health code violations dating to 2002 and posed "a clear and imminent danger to the public."
Since 2002, Dara has paid nearly $56,000 in fines for infection control health code violations, court records show.
Dara said he only used sterile supplies and equipment and took steps correct the violations. He questioned whether the patients may have contracted the disease some other way, such as from a hospital or from surgery, and suggested some may have been latent carriers — meaning they had the virus but it was dormant — until they began receiving chemotherapy, which can suppress the body's immune system.
"It's not that rare," Dara said.
In making its decision, the committee said Dara showed "a significant and gross deficiency in judgment" and that that could not be remedied by changing office practices.
"Dr. Dara's own testimony has not persuaded the committee that he has an appreciation for the gravity of multiple breaches of basic infection control practices," the committee said in its order to suspend Dara's license.
Dara did express sympathy for his patients: "This is hurting them so much more than it's hurting me."
A March 28 letter was sent to his patients warning them of the risk and suggesting they be tested for the liver diseases hepatitis B and hepatitis C and for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Dara, originally from Pakistan, has been practicing at his Toms River office for 23 years. He estimated that he sees between 45 and 60 patients a day, with about a dozen receiving chemotherapy each day.
His attorney, Robert Conroy, argued to the board that there was no direct evidence the hepatitis cases were linked to Dara's office. He characterized the state's investigation as sloppy and said the fact that the outbreak investigation is ongoing should have precluded regulators from drawing any conclusions.
"There's no proof," he said. "This is a rush to judgment ... before they get test results back."
Conroy said Dara plans to immediately appeal the decision.
Blubbery 'researchers' lend fin to climate science
7:07 PM Diposkan oleh arfa
AP – In this Nov. 9, 2007 file photo, a scene of melting icebergs is shown in Antarctica. (AP Photo/Roberto …
TROLL RESEARCH STATION, Antarctica – Into the Antarctic enigma, the puzzle of a place with too few researchers chasing too many climate mysteries, slowly waddles the elephant seal.
The fat-snouted pinniped, two ugly tons of blubber and roar, is plunging to its usual frigid depths these days in the service of climate science, and of scientists' budgets.
"It would take years and millions and millions of dollars for a research ship to do what they're doing," Norwegian scientist Kim Holmen said of the instrument-equipped seals, whose long-distance swims and 1,000-foot (300-meter) dinnertime dives for squid are giving investigators valuable data about a key piece of southern ocean.
Climatologists and others say the icy continent has been monitored too thinly for too long in a warming world. Weather stations, glacier movement detectors and research treks over the ice are too few and far between.
"We're monitoring routinely a small portion of the continent. I'd say 1 percent," said David Holland, an Antarctic expert at New York University.
The reason to worry is clear: If all the land ice here melted, it would raise ocean levels 187 feet (57 meters) worldwide.
That theoretical possibility would take many centuries, but "Antarctica is huge, so even a small change would make a big difference," said Jan Gunnar Winther, director of the Norwegian Polar Institute which operates this research station in East Antarctica.
Even a 1 percent loss of Antarctic ice would raise sea levels 2 feet (65 centimeters), a slow-motion disaster for global coastlines.
Clues to the future emerge in bits and pieces, sometimes in chunks:
_In 2002, the floating Larson B ice shelf fringing the West Antarctica peninsula, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island, collapsed into the ocean, and the glaciers behind it began dumping land ice into the sea more quickly. Scientists are now watching for the imminent collapse of another peninsular ice shelf, the Wilkins.
_In a new analysis of the sparse data, scientists reported in January that Antarctica warmed by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degrees Celsius) between 1957 and 2006, contrary to earlier belief that much of the continent was cooling.
_In 2004, grass began growing on the warming West Antarctica peninsula. Just last month, researchers reported on dramatic biological changes under way: a decline in plankton in the nearby sea, in the krill that feed on it, and in the penguins that feed on the krill.
"Antarctica is changing rapidly in unpredicted ways," Holmen, the Norwegian institute's research director, told environment ministers and other international officials visiting this outpost in East Antarctica's icebound mountains in February.
He said the shelf collapses in the west may eventually be replicated here in the east. Computer models show that warming waters would weaken the 7,000-square-mile (18,000-square-kilometer) Fimbul ice shelf, which reaches 60 miles (100 kilometers) to sea from the coastline north of here, fed by one of Antarctica's largest ice streams, the Jutulstraumen glacier.
It's a neighborhood the huge bull elephant seals know well, since they migrate over a 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) stretch of ocean between uninhabited Bouvet Island and the Fimbul shelf.
"It was a stroke of luck that the seals swim in that area," Holmen told a visiting Associated Press reporter — a stroke that put the marine mammal with the protuberant proboscis in a position to do "field research."
Institute teams captured 20 of the animals on Bouvet's stony shores where they are at their most ungainly, throwing hoods over their heads and gluing small instrument packages to their backs. The devices measure depth, salinity, water temperature and locations via the Global Positioning System.
The seals were then set free to do their work.
"Capturing elephant seals is not the easiest task," Holmen said, noting that one team member suffered a serious gash when a furious bull bit him. And the institute must find new candidates yearly, since the instruments will fall away with the seals' annual fur molting.
But the deep-diving hunters have already come through for science, helping confirm that southern ocean temperatures are rising faster than the global average, the institute said. The seal data is proving "strategically important to climate and ocean modeling," it said.
The human-pinniped partnership is one of many ambitious projects mounted in the just-ended International Polar Year of intensified research.
Among others, scientists are mapping, via reconnaissance satellite snapshots, the speed with which Antarctica's ice sheets are moving seaward; drilling 2 miles (3,500 meters) deep into the ice to analyze its chemistry and Antarctic climate reaching back 100,000 years; and sending an unmanned minisubmarine miles (kilometers) under a fringing shelf to check its status.
New data "confirm that warming in the Antarctic is much more widespread than was thought prior to IPY," said the organizing committee of the International Polar Year.
Because the planet's future may hinge on the future of Antarctica, its least studied continent, "the need for polar research" — human or otherwise — "has never been greater," it said.
Ferguson rounds on Liverpool after Villa thriller
7:06 PM Diposkan oleh arfa
AFP – Manchester United's Italian forward Federico Macheda (R) leaves the pitch at the final whistle after …
MANCHESTER, England (AFP) – Sir Alex Ferguson resumed his mind games with Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez after Manchester United's dramatic 3-2 win over Aston Villa enabled his side to reclaim the leadership of the Premier League.
Ferguson still has an opportunity to collect five trophies this season now that United have one a point lead at the top of the table with a marvellous morale boost ahead of Tuesday?s Champions League quarter-final first leg against Porto.
But the United manager is more interested in stirring up trouble for his closest challengers for the Premier League title, in response to Benitez's query over whether United can handle the pressure after Liverpool beat Fulham on Saturday.
Ferguson has turned the heat back onto Benitez and, in a deliberate move to intensify further the rivalry between Liverpool and Chelsea ahead of their Champions League quarter-final on Wednesday, has claimed that two-legged affair is also a contest to determine who will challenge United for the title.
Liverpool are still viewed as the leading contenders but Ferguson encouraged Chelsea, four points off top spot having, in common with Benitez's men, played one more game than United.
"Everyone is screaming that Liverpool are our challenge," Ferguson said. "But I think whoever wins between Liverpool and Chelsea in the Champions League will be our biggest threat because of the effect it will have on them.
"It is an emotional fixture. There are never a lot of goals and it's very, very tight and whoever wins that will take a big step forward."
Whatever the outcome of that domestic battle, Ferguson also believes his side deserve to claim an 18th English title, because of the adventurous manner they have adopted all season, even during Sunday's win over Villa when they were without Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic and Paul Scholes.
Former Lazio youth team striker Federico Macheda's winning goal three minutes into stoppage time provided a late show to better Liverpool's against Fulham 24 hours earlier while putting a huge dent into Villa's own hopes of Champions League qualification.
Ferguson believes the adventurous ethos at Old Trafford, exemplified by his bringing 17-year-old Macheda off the bench, made United the more worthy title winners ahead of Chelsea and Liverpool.
"At 2-2 I was thinking gamble," he said of a match where Cristiano Ronaldo equalised to make it 2-2 with 10 minutes left after headers from John Carew and Gabriel Agbonlahor had put the visitors on course for victory following the Portugal winger's opener.
"Winning is the name of the game at this club," Ferguson said. "We play the right way and we deserved to win, even if we took some risks. Risks are part of football and this club is built on that.
"It has been around a long long time and I love the thrill of it myself.
"Yes we defend poorly at times and we defended poorly for the goals but there is always a goal threat in us.
"You think we will score a goal and it is a great boost for us to come from behind and secure a great win.
"We are the top of the table and that is where we want to be in terms of points," said Ferguson of a win which followed league defeats at the hands of Liverpool and Fulham.
"We have had a little blip but we have recovered to win with seven or eight players out, four or five of our very top team.
"These young players are prepared to go to the very end. They deserve great credit for that. Through that (Villa) result, the season could change for us."
Massa opposes moves to rank F1 season on race wins
6:36 PM Diposkan oleh arfa
AP – Ferrari Formula One driver Felipe Massa of Brazil adjusts his cap during a press conference at in Melbourne, …
MELBOURNE, Australia – If 2008 season results were repeated this year, Ferrari's Felipe Massa would have the most to gain from any change in Formula One regulations to award the world championship to the driver with the most GP wins.
Yet even he opposes any move to change a system which rewards the most consistent driver with the title.
"I think for sure the winner needs a better advantage from first to second, but not in terms of victory, in terms of points," Massa said Thursday at the Ferrari team launch ahead of Sunday's season-opening Australian GP.
Auto racing governing body FIA — in the face of pressure from teams and drivers — last week backed down from a new scoring system for 2009 that would have meant the title awarded to the driver with the most race wins instead of the highest accumulated points total.
Massa last year lost the closest championship battle in F1. He won the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix, but lost the drivers' title by one point to McLaren's Lewis Hamilton after the Briton passed Toyota's Timo Glock around the final corner to finish fifth — giving him enough points (98) to win the title.
Hamilton would have finished second to Massa had the race victories system applied last year. Massa won six GP races to Hamilton's five.
Massa said he was in favor of a proposal by The Formula One Teams' Association that there be a bigger points differential between first place and second place in each race. Currently, the first eight drivers in each race get points, ranging down from 10 awarded to first, 8 to second place and six for third.
But he said FIA's bid to introduce its new system, then deciding in the wake of backlash from teams and drivers to postpone the changes to 2010, was disruptive.
"One week you have some news, the next everything changes, so I think we need to some consistent rules and consistent working to make things a little more serious," he said.
"To be honest, when I saw the points coming out from FOTA that increased the difference between first and second (place) ... for me it was the best for Formula One. Then there came out a completely different story a few weeks ago and it was a mess. Nobody liked it to be honest."
Massa said the F1 championship was similar to most other sports in that it should be based on consistency over a season, not a single race.
"I've heard many people saying that the driver doesn't fight so much for the victory. The driver always fights for the victory, but he needs to concentrate on the whole championship," he said "You need to think of the whole championship, not just one race, because if the driver wins two races or three races the championship is finished.
"Even within a team, if one driver wins three races the other driver has no chance (under FIA's proposed system) because the team will do everything for the driver who won the three races. You force the teams to have a first driver and that's not good for the sport."
After a disastrous start to last season, when he retired on the 30th lap at Melbourne before spinning out in Malaysia the following week, Massa knows how important early points can be at the end of the season.
"For sure I'm looking for the victory and the best I can to try and win the race, but it's important to finish in the points," he said. "We saw last year the points can be very important at the beginning of the season. At the end as well, but at the beginning it's always important not to lose points."
While teammate Kimi Raiikonen was impressed with Ferrari's new F60 race car, he was noncommittal on its chances at Melbourne.
"I think it's a good package, but it's too early to tell how strongly we'll do. We'll see tomorrow and over the weekend," said the Finnish driver, who finished third in last season's championship.
Massa was also reluctant to make predictions.
"With testing it's important to have an idea (how the car performs), but for a race weekend you have not a clue of how you're comparing with other teams."
Bad pit stop keeps Edwards from Texas threepeat
6:35 PM Diposkan oleh arfa
AP – Marcos Ambrose drives through turn four after blowing an engine during the NASCAR Samsung 500 auto race …
FORT WORTH, Texas – Carl Edwards looked like he might deny Jeff Gordon his first Texas win while getting his third straight Sunday.
The final pit stop with 30 laps to go changed everything.
Edwards went to pit road with the lead just a few laps after he overtook the four-time Sprint Cup champion, who was struggling to keep his car under control. Moments later, Gordon's crew was celebrating wildly, while a problem with a tire change left Edwards angry.
The only three-time Sprint Cup winner at Texas Motor Speedway dropped an astonishing 10 spots because of the mistake and was relegated to spectator for Gordon's historic win.
As mad as he looked in the car after leaving the pits, Edwards chose the philosophical route after the race.
"They don't yell at me when I hit the wall, so it's not my position to be mad at them," said Edwards, who settled for 10th. "We just have to do whatever we can to fix it."
Edwards spent most of the day in the bottom half of the top 10 before surging to the front after a restart with about 80 laps to go. He looked a little faster than Gordon when the final caution came out, raising the stakes for the pit stop.
All the crews figured the winner of the pit stop would win the race, and Gordon proved it.
"You never know how the result would have changed had Carl not had his problems," Gordon said. "All I know is we had a great pit stop."
It was still a strong day for Edwards' team, Roush Racing. Greg Biffle took third and led the second-most laps (93). Matt Kenseth also ran strong all day and took fifth. Edwards gave Roush three drivers in the top 10 after the team had just two top 10s the previous three races.
___
BRIEFLY UP FRONT: Dale Earnhardt Jr. was out front coming out of a caution about 75 laps from the end, but the lead disappeared in a hurry.
Trying to keep from going two laps down, Kyle Busch tried to make a move and slid up the track. Earnhardt said he didn't hit Busch, but he had to swing way wide, almost into the wall, to avoid contact.
Earnhardt dropped to fifth quickly and later hit the wall. He finished 20th, same as his starting position.
"He had gotten his car a little bit better and saw an opportunity to try to get his laps back," Earnhardt said of Busch. "Tough deal. He races really aggressively."
Earnhardt said he spun his tires on the restart, giving Busch hope for a pass. Trailing closely, Gordon saw it differently.
"I thought he had a good restart," Gordon said of Earnhardt. "It's just that (Busch) obviously came out of nowhere. He just shot up there. It was a big moment that I thought we were going to have a heck of a wreck."
___
SOLID STEWART: Tony Stewart finished fourth, one spot shy of his best with his new Stewart-Haas Racing team. But this might have been his most solid effort.
After starting seventh, Stewart ran in the top five all day and led four times for 16 laps.
"The car owner is happy, the driver is ticked off," Stewart said. "We weren't very good at taking off, but after about 25 laps, we were the fastest car on the race track all day."
___
MORE PITFALLS: Pole sitter David Reutimann knocked himself out of contention about halfway through the race by missing his pit box. The one-lap penalty knocked from the top five to the back half of the field.
Reutimann eventually got the lap back on a caution and finished 11th, but he wasn't a factor again after leading 40 of the first 51 laps.
"A car was coming out of its pit stall and we kind of had to take evasive action there," Reutimann said. "We just spent the rest of the day trying to battle back, and we were able to do that."
___
GOIN' OLD SCHOOL: Kyle Busch drove with a throwback Bobby Labonte paint scheme to pay homage to the Texan who used to drive the No. 18 car.
Busch, normally in the yellow M&M's car, drove a green Interstate Batteries car Sunday, just like the veteran Corpus Christi native used to do.
Part of the plan was to honor Labonte's induction this week into the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame. An inscription on the trunk made reference to the induction.
Labonte, driving the white Ask.com No. 96, finished 40th after his car was damaged when he got caught behind a smoky spin by Sam Hornish Jr.
___
AWESTRUCK BUSH: New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush experienced his first Sprint Cup race Sunday. The former Heisman Trophy winner was in awe.
He even forgot that he once played for a national championship in front of about 100,000 people at the Rose Bowl, overestimating the announced crowd of 176,300.
"The amount of people that come out for this is three times any football game I've ever played in," he said.
Bush said he's intrigued enough that he might one day invest in racing, just as former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman did.
"Maybe 10, 15, 20 years from now, who knows?" Bush said.
___
PIANO PRODIGY: Lewis Warren Jr., a 12-year-old prodigy on the piano, played like a seasoned veteran with a stirring rendition of the national anthem.
The Dallas-area native was featured last year on NBC's "America's Got Talent" series and has studied at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York. His mother said he sets himself apart with his improvisation, and he showed it in front of his largest crowd yet.
Dressed in a flashy white suit, Warren was in position on a flatbed trailer at the start-finish line in plenty of time, which is significant because of what happened 12 years ago with world-famous pianist Van Cliburn, a Fort Worth native.
Cliburn was lined up for the anthem at Texas Motor Speedway's first race, but officials didn't realize he wasn't there until three minutes before he was supposed to play. He was waiting for someone to fly him by helicopter over a disastrous traffic jam. Instead, Cliburn did the honors a year later.
___
ATTENDANCE DROP: Add the biggest sporting event in Texas to the list of victims of the economy. The spring race had its lowest attendance to date at 176,300, about 13,700 lower than last spring.
The spring numbers in Texas have been down since a fall race was added in 2005, but Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage was prepared for even lower numbers this year.
___
NUTS AND BOLTS: Sunday's race blew away the Texas record for the latest caution flag. The first caution came on Lap 98 for debris. The previous record was 64 laps in the 2006 spring race. ... Mark Martin celebrated the 28th anniversary of his first Sprint Cup race in 1981 at North Wilkesboro, N.C. Martin finished sixth in his 729th career race.
Jamey Johnson among early Country Awards winners
6:33 PM Diposkan oleh arfa
AP – Jamey Johnson performs 'In Color' at the 44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas on …
LAS VEGAS – Newcomer Jamey Johnson beat out veterans like George Strait and Brad Paisley in nabbing the first honor at the Academy of Country Music Awards on Sunday, winning song of the year for his poignant hit about an old man looking back on his life, "Living in Color."
"Thanks to my band going in off day and producing an off record," Johnson quipped in a brief acceptance speech. Later, Rascal Flatts won the award for top vocal group of the year, their seventh in a row. Julianne Hough won top new artist.
The show began by featuring country's top superstars in a medley of hits anchored by Brooks & Dunn's "Play Something Country." It included Taylor Swift's fiery "Picture to Burn," Sugarland's "It Happens," Carrie Underwood's "All American Girl" and Rascal Flatts' "Me and My Gang."
Hosting for the 11th year, Reba McEntire cracked, "Now that's what I call a stimulus package."
Strait and Brad Paisley led all nominees with six. Paisley was linked up by video from Nashville, where his wife Kimberly Williams-Paisley is expecting their second child.
Jamie Foxx introduced Strait's performance of "Troubadour," and joked that the country scene was getting more diverse.
"Things are changing," Foxx said, mentioning his repeat appearance at the ACMs and Darius Rucker's success on the country charts. "(An) African-American singing country. Things are changing. Got a black man running the country. Things are changing. ... I mean what's next, white people going to Tyler Perry movies?"
Strait was nominated for a leading six ACMs along with Brad Paisley. Other top nominees were former Trick Pony singer Heidi Newfield and newcomer Johnson with five each, followed by Kenny Chesney and Underwood with four apiece and Keith Urban with three.
Along with Strait, nominees for entertainer of the year — the night's top trophy — were Paisley, Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban.
If Chesney wins, it would be his fifth consecutive time and tie him with Alabama for most wins in a row for the honor. If Underwood takes it, she'd become only the seventh female act to do so, putting her alongside Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Barbara Mandrell, Reba McEntire, Shania Twain and, most recently, the Dixie Chicks in 2000.
The show was to feature appearances by all five entertainer nominees as well as Trace Adkins, Lady Antebellum, Miley Cyrus, Rascal Flatts, Johnson, Miranda Lambert, McEntire, Swift and other top names. Tim McGraw was supposed to perform but abruptly pulled out of the show; a person with knowledge about the show who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter said McGraw and the ACM Awards producers had a dispute about his stage performance.
Among the celebrities on hand to help present awards will include Matthew McConaughey, Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Love Hewitt.
The show aired live from the MGM Grand on CBS.
