'The Muppets' stage a comeback (AP)

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. ? Jason Segel is balancing a bowling pin atop his noggin.

The jolly actor-screenwriter is perched on the stage of a makeshift Muppet Theater that's been erected inside a mammoth Universal Studios soundstage. He's nervously grimacing while the furry blue daredevil Gonzo the Great winds his arm up in preparation to launch a bowling ball toward Segel for a stunt the pair are filming for "The Muppets."

Segel, who co-wrote the movie with "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" director Nicholas Stoller, is balancing more than just a bowling pin on his head these days: The Walt Disney Co., which acquired The Muppets franchise from The Jim Henson Co. in 2004, has entrusted him with the first big-screen adventure starring the felt-covered performance troupe in 12 years.

"I think at some point, The Muppets changed a little bit," said Segal during a break from filming earlier this year. "Our goal with this movie is to reintroduce The Muppets to kids in a way that's reminiscent of the movies from the late `70s and early `80s. The great thing about those movies and what Pixar does now is they don't pander or condescend to children."

Segel, a hardcore Muppet fan best known for his R-rated roles in such movies as "Knocked Up" and "I Love You, Man," petitioned Disney brass to resurrect The Muppets with Stoller in a way that would appeal to both nostalgic adults who grew up watching "The Muppet Show" and children more familiar with computer-generated 3-D animation than big-eyed puppets.

In the film, out Wednesday, Segel and Amy Adams play a small-town couple named Gary and Mary who ? along with Gary's puppet brother Walter (portrayed by Peter Linz) ? work to reunite The Muppets. It seems the felt ones have found themselves irrelevant in an entertainment landscape dominated by such over-the-top fictional game shows as "Punch Teacher."

The musical's storyline mirrors The Muppets' own reality. They haven't starred in a film together since the 2005 made-for-TV movie "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" and have been absent from theaters since 1999's "The Muppets in Space."

"It's funny that the success of the movie might undue the story itself," said director James Bobin. "That's what actually drew me to the story. I was struck by how honest it was and with real artistic license portrayed how people perceive The Muppets at this time. One of the great emotional drives in any story is getting the band back together."

The new movie finds The Muppets off doing their own thing: Fozzie Bear is languishing in a tribute band called The Moopets, Miss Piggy is sashaying around Paris as a fashion editor, Animal is treating his anger management issues at rehab, Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem are performing in the New York subway and Scooter is working at Google.

The filmmakers, most of who have never worked with puppets, let alone The Muppets, closely collaborated with the puppeteers who have been portraying these characters for years. One particular meeting with them led Segel and Stoller to axe any self-referential jokes and puns about The Muppets being puppets. "I wonder how that felt," for example, was a goner.

"We're all partners on this movie," said producer Todd Lieberman. "We grew up on The Muppets, but these guys have been living it for 20 years. They know these characters better than any of us possibly could because they've been doing it for 20 years. They know the characters, and they know the style. They know what to do and what not to do for the brand."

Adams, who ran the award show gauntlet earlier this year for her role in "The Fighter," found it more difficult to switch between flashy gowns at night and Mary's conservative ensembles by day during production than working with puppets. She said acting opposite puppets like Walter wasn't any more difficult than working opposite actors like Mark Wahlberg.

"Once you accept that the puppet that you're working with is an actual character, it really is no different from working with another human actor," said Adams. "The puppeteers are geniuses at disappearing. I don't know how they do it, but they do it. I see Peter and Walter as two completely separate beings. Peter is Peter, and Walter is Walter."

The immersive set design helped, too. For the new Muppet Theater that's supposed to look like it's abandon until The Muppets give it a makeover, production designer Steve Saklad and his team incorporated the towering theater set built in 1924 for "Phantom of the Opera," which is still standing inside a soundstage on the Universal Studios backlot.

"We were originally going to shoot the parts of the Muppet Theater scenes that face the audience in a historic downtown Los Angeles theater, but it would've been limiting for the director to split everything up," said Saklad. "I think it worked out for the best because now we've got this huge, luscious theater covered in a thousand coats of paint."

Saklad said the new Muppet Theater set was put in storage after production on "The Muppets," just in case it's required for a sequel, and he's hoping that no one paints over the "Phantom of the Opera" walls. However, the prospect of The Muppets as a rejuvenated franchise featuring Segel is one the actor-screenwriter can't seem to fathom.

"That would certainly be amazing," said Segel sheepishly. "It's not something I'm even thinking about right now. I'm still focused on this movie. My big goal was just to re-establish The Muppets where they belonged. From there, everything else is gravy. I just wanted to see The Muppets again the way I remembered them."

___

Online:

http://disney.go.com/muppets/

___

AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang/.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111121/ap_en_ot/us_film_the_muppets

california earthquake jenna lyons jenna lyons stephen sondheim san francisco earthquake san francisco earthquake nextdoor

American spies outed, CIA suffers in Lebanon (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The CIA's operations in Lebanon have been badly damaged after Hezbollah identified and captured a number of U.S. spies recently, current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press. The intelligence debacle is particularly troubling because the CIA saw it coming.

Hezbollah's longtime leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, boasted on television in June that he had rooted out at least two CIA spies who had infiltrated the ranks of Hezbollah, which the U.S. considers a terrorist group closely allied with Iran. Though the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon officially denied the accusation, current and former officials concede that it happened and the damage has spread even further.

In recent months, CIA officials have secretly been scrambling to protect their remaining spies ? foreign assets or agents working for the agency ? before Hezbollah can find them.

To be sure, some deaths are to be expected in shadowy spy wars. It's an extremely risky business and people get killed. But the damage to the agency's spy network in Lebanon has been greater than usual, several former and current U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about security matters.

The Lebanon crisis is the latest mishap involving CIA counterintelligence, the undermining or manipulating of the enemy's ability to gather information. Former CIA officials have said that once-essential skill has been eroded as the agency shifted from outmaneuvering rival spy agencies to fighting terrorists. In the rush for immediate results, former officers say, tradecraft has suffered.

The most recent high-profile example was the suicide bomber who posed as an informant and killed seven CIA employees and wounded six others in Khost, Afghanistan in December 2009.

Last year, then-CIA director Leon Panetta said the agency had to maintain "a greater awareness of counterintelligence." But eight months later, Nasrallah let the world know he had bested the CIA, demonstrating that the agency still struggles with this critical aspect of spying and sending a message to those who would betray Hezbollah.

The CIA was well aware the spies were vulnerable in Lebanon. CIA officials were warned, including the chief of the unit that supervises Hezbollah operations from CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., and the head of counterintelligence. It remains unclear whether anyone has been or will be held accountable in the wake of this counterintelligence disaster or whether the incident will affect the CIA's ability to recruit assets in Lebanon.

In response to AP's questions about what happened in Lebanon, a U.S. official said Hezbollah is recognized as a complicated enemy responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist group before September 2001. The agency does not underestimate the organization, the official said.

The CIA's toughest adversaries, like Hezbollah and Iran, have for years been improving their ability to hunt spies, relying on patience and guile to exploit counterintelligence holes.

In 2007, for instance, when Ali-Reza Asgari, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of Iran, disappeared in Turkey, it was assumed that he was either killed or defected. In response, the Iranian government began a painstaking review of foreign travel by its citizens, particularly to places like Turkey where Iranians don't need a visa and could meet with foreign intelligence services.

It didn't take long, a Western intelligence official told the AP, before the U.S., Britain and Israel began losing contact with some of their Iranian spies.

The State Department last year described Hezbollah as "the most technically capable terrorist group in the world," and the Defense Department estimates it receives between $100 million and $200 million per year in funding from Iran.

Backed by Iran, Hezbollah has built a professional counterintelligence apparatus that Nasrallah ? whom the U.S. government designated an international terrorist a decade ago ? proudly describes as the "spy combat unit." U.S. intelligence officials believe the unit, which is considered formidable and ruthless, went operational in about 2004.

Using the latest commercial software, Nasrallah's spy-hunters unit began methodically searching for spies in Hezbollah's midst. To find them, U.S. officials said, Hezbollah examined cellphone data looking for anomalies. The analysis identified cellphones that, for instance, were used rarely or always from specific locations and only for a short period of time. Then it came down to old-fashioned, shoe-leather detective work: Who in that area had information that might be worth selling to the enemy?

The effort took years but eventually Hezbollah, and later the Lebanese government, began making arrests. By one estimate, 100 Israeli assets were apprehended as the news made headlines across the region in 2009. Some of those suspected Israeli spies worked for telecommunications companies and served in the military.

Back at CIA headquarters, the arrests alarmed senior officials. The agency prepared a study on its own vulnerabilities, U.S. officials said, and the results proved to be prescient.

The analysis concluded that the CIA was susceptible to the same analysis that had compromised the Israelis, the officials said.

CIA managers were instructed to be extra careful about handling sources in Lebanon. A U.S. official said recommendations were issued to counter the potential problem.

But it's unclear what preventive measures were taken by the Hezbollah unit chief or the officer in charge of the Beirut station. Former officials say the Hezbollah unit chief is no stranger to the necessity of counterintelligence and knew the risks. The unit chief has worked overseas in hostile environments like Afghanistan and played an important role in the capture of a top terrorist while stationed in the Persian Gulf region after the attacks of 9/11.

"We've lost a lot of people in Beirut over the years, so everyone should know the drill," said a former Middle East case officer familiar with the situation.

But whatever actions the CIA took, they were not enough. Like the Israelis, bad tradecraft doomed these CIA assets and the agency ultimately failed to protect them, an official said. In some instances, CIA officers fell into predictable patterns when meeting their sources, the official said.

This allowed Hezbollah to identify assets and case officers and unravel at least part of the CIA's spy network in Lebanon. There was also a reluctance to share cases and some files were put in "restricted handling." The designation severely limits the number of people who know the identity of the source but also reduces the number of experts who could spot problems that might lead to their discovery, officials said.

Nasrallah's televised announcement in June was followed by finger-pointing among departments inside the CIA as the spy agency tried figure out what went wrong and contain the damage.

The fate of these CIA assets is unknown. Hezbollah treats spies differently, said Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism and intelligence expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies who's writing a book about the terrorist organization

"It all depends on who these guys were and what they have to say," Levitt said. "Hezbollah has disappeared people before. Others they have kept around."

Who's responsible for the mess in Lebanon? It's not clear. The chief of Hezbollah operations at CIA headquarters continues to run the unit that also focuses on Iranians and Palestinians. The CIA's top counterintelligence officer, who was one of the most senior women in the clandestine service, recently retired after approximately five years in the job. She is credited with some important cases, including the recent arrests of Russian spies who had been living in the U.S. for years.

Officials said the woman was succeeded by a more experienced operations officer. That officer has held important posts in Moscow, Southeast Asia, Europe and the Balkans, important frontlines of the agency's spy wars with foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations.

___

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCInvestigations(at)ap.org

Follow Apuzzo and Goldman at http://twitter.com/mattapuzzo and http://twitter.com/goldmandc

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/mideast/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111121/ap_on_go_ot/us_hezbollah_cia

october 28 2011 jenelle evans jenelle evans miami hurricanes vlad the impaler steven tyler michael lohan

Analysis: Afghan mines no solution for economic woes (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) ? The Afghan government, struggling to rebuild one of the world's poorest countries, believes it holds a trump card in its estimated $3 trillion in natural resources. But minerals in the ground are very different to cash in the bank.

Assessment, extraction, processing, transportation and sales will take a lot of investment, and a long time -- bad news for a country that says it expects a $5 billion annual security bill after a pullout of foreign troops is completed in 2014.

Even if production does crank up fast enough to pay the army and police salaries without foreign assistance, mining income is unlikely to assuage the economic woes of a country riven by insurgency with broken infrastructure, dismal education levels and unemployment believed to run as high as 40 percent.

"Mining is seen as a silver bullet, not only by the Afghan government but also by the international community," said Thomas Ruttig, co-founder of the Kabul-based Afghan Analysts' Network.

"It is very welcome that Afghanistan has mining on the horizon... (but) extraction of mineral wealth does not necessarily produce an improvement of life for the local population. Very often, mining under a weak state which cannot control it is a recipe for more conflict."

Afghan officials claim its deposits -- including copper and iron ore, oil and gas, niobium, cobalt, gold, molybdenum, silver and lithium -- could generate $3.5 billion a year.

Mineral wealth is attractive in a year when prices of metals like gold and copper have hit record highs. But there are many bridges to be crossed before the country can capitalize on its riches.

Much information now available on the country's deposits dates from the Soviet era, and geologists say more evaluation is necessary before their potential can accurately be assessed.

"Until (it) is ascertained that the mineralisation exists, it is only a potential resource which may or may not be there," said Hassan Alief, an Afghan-American geologist who has worked extensively in Afghanistan.

WESTERN MINERS CAUTIOUS

After decades of conflict, Afghanistan lacks vital infrastructure and has little hope of changing that fast. The United Nations said this year that violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the Taliban regime was toppled 10 years ago.

"The smallest projects cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the larger projects cost in the billions," said Richard Lachcik, a mining lawyer with Macleod Dixon in Toronto.

"People just aren't going to invest that level of capital in a country like Afghanistan. It's just not stable enough."

Western mining firms are predictably reluctant to invest, analysts say.

"I'd be most surprised if a company like Rio Tinto, Anglo American or BHP Billiton went into such a risky area, and there are plenty of other places for the juniors to operate," said Neil Buxton, an analyst at metals consultancy GFMS.

However, companies from resource-hungry China -- the world's biggest consumer of copper and iron ore -- and India have wasted no time moving into Afghanistan.

A consortium led by the Metallurgical Corp of China won the country's first big mining contract to develop the Aynak copper deposits in 2008, and Indian firms are currently bidding billions of dollars to develop the Hajigak iron ore concession.

But despite sizeable payments to governments, their self-sufficient operating methods in other countries often bring very limited benefits to the wider local economy. There are fears Afghanistan may also see few trickle-down effects.

BENEFITS FOR ALL

Bidders for the Aynak project were expected to show a commitment to Afghan social development as part of the tender process. While details of the MCC contract are unforthcoming, analysts say it has so far generated few jobs for Afghans.

"MCC and all the (bidding) companies said they would be hiring Afghans locally and had a timetable for when Afghans would be in technical and management positions," says James Yeager, an adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Mines during the Aynak tender process.

"Take a look at what MCC have since done. They brought in their own people, they buy their own goods from China and have them shipped in. The large capital investments by MCC are not benefitting the Afghan people like they should."

Neither MCC nor the Ministry of Mines responded to questions on current and planned employment of Afghans at Aynak.

Managing its mineral resources is particularly critical for Afghanistan, given how narrow the country's economic base is after decades of conflict.

Other mineral-rich countries like Nigeria have shown that, poorly managed, such resources can bring in billions of dollars while making little impact on the poverty levels of most of the population.

Sayed Massoud, an economist at Kabul University, warns that mistakes made now in monetizing the mineral wealth could cost the country dearly in future, when it tries to balance its budget.

"There are only two sources which can provide this budget. One is the finance ministry (from taxes), another is mines.

"Today, with Afghanistan full of corruption and insecurity, we can earn hundreds of millions of dollars from these mines. But if we (develop) them in the next few years, through partnerships, we will earn billions of dollars."

(Reporting by Jan Harvey; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111122/wl_nm/us_afghanistan_mining

jessica chastain jessica chastain nook tablet eagles magic johnson involuntary manslaughter stevens johnson syndrome

One-Minute Physics: How to weigh money with your mind

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

Imagine you're stuck on a desert island with no measurement tools or computers and need to find out how much a million dollars weighs. How can you quickly get a reliable ballpark figure?

In our latest One-Minute Physics video, animator Henry Reich shows how to use known quantities to make quick calculations and obtain an accurate estimation.

If you enjoyed this video, check out our previous episodes, for example why GPS is just a big clock in space or why light slows down in glass.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1a465cf9/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cnstv0C20A110C110Cone0Eminute0Ephysics0Ehow0Eto0Eweigh0Emoney0Ewith0Eyour0Emind0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

ronan diane sawyer nba lockout clay matthews nba season kenny chesney matt kemp

The Union Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Culture, Kum. Selja addressing at the inauguration of ?The embodied Image Krishna Reddy ? A Retrospective?, in New Delhi on November 19, 2011.

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://pib.nic.in/release/phsmall.asp?phid=37714

libya bay area news lettuce recall lettuce recall zanesville ohio zanesville ohio light field camera

Pressure for fast action after Spain election win (Reuters)

MADRID (Reuters) ? Prime Minister elect Mariano Rajoy was under pressure on Monday to give rapid details of his policies to overcome the worst economic crisis for generations, after his center-right party won Spain's biggest election victory in 30 years.

The euro zone debt crisis claimed its fifth government victim in Sunday's election as voters savagely punished the outgoing Socialists for a crisis that has pushed unemployment to the highest rate in the European Union at 21 percent.

Under Spain's long transition process, Rajoy will not take power until around December 20 but he will have little time to bask in the huge victory for his People's Party.

There is pressure for him to calm jittery markets with some word on what are expected to be deep and painful austerity measures. Since his victory he has only said that there will be no miracles to fix the crisis.

Spaniards are resigned to a battery of measures to resuscitate the economy that could make things worse before they get better and at least initially increase unemployment, with 5 million people already out of work.

Spain, the euro zone's fourth largest economy, has been pushed closer to the kind of bailout claimed by Ireland, Greece and Portugal as its borrowing costs soared last week to untenable levels.

Rajoy has so far pointed to labor market and a financial reform as well as sweeping changes in the public sector, but has not given clear policy lines, relying instead on voter anger against the Socialists to rocket him into power.

"It will not only be demanded that Rajoy fix the economy but that he also renews political life," said right-leaning newspaper El Mundo in an editorial.

"He will have to adopt unpopular measures which will probably not be accepted either by unions or by the Socialist opposition," it added.

Spaniards blame the Socialists for reacting too late to manage a collapsed housing boom which has left the nation sliding toward its second recession in two years.

"There will be no miracles, we haven't promised them, but we have seen in other times that when things are done well, they produce results," Rajoy, 56, told rapturous supporters in his victory speech on Sunday night.

"Spain's voice must be respected again in Brussels and Frankfurt... We will stop being part of the problem and will be part of the solution," said Rajoy.

FIFTH VICTIM

Spaniards were the fifth European nation to throw out their leaders because of the spreading euro zone crisis, following Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Italy.

The People's Party (PP), formed from other rightist parties in the 1980s after Spain returned to democracy at the end of the Franco dictatorship, won the biggest majority for any party in three decades.

The PP took 186 seats in the 350-seat lower house, according to official results with all the vote counted.

The Socialists slumped to 111 seats from 169 in the outgoing parliament, their worst showing in 30 years.

MARKET FRIENDLY

Spain's stock and bond prices may initially react positively to the vote because Rajoy, a former interior minister, is seen as market friendly and pro-business, although the landslide victory was anticipated for months in opinion polls.

The nation's borrowing costs are at their highest since the euro zone was formed and yields on 10-year bonds soared last week to close to 7 percent, a level that forced other countries like Portugal and Greece to seek international bail-outs.

The Spanish Treasury heads back to the markets with debt auctions on Tuesday and Thursday this week, the first key tests of confidence in Rajoy's leadership.

"The spectre of recession and an unavoidable commitment to reduce the public deficit will stitch a straight jacket to restrict the hand of the new economy minister," said newspaper Expansion in an editorial.

Economic gloom dominated the election campaign, with more than 40 percent of young Spaniards unable to find work and a million people at risk of losing their homes to the banks.

TREASURED INSTITUTIONS

Many leftist voters are concerned Rajoy will cut back Spain's treasured national health and education systems.

Fed up with the Socialists, they turned to smaller parties or stayed away from the polls and the abstention rate was higher than in the last election in 2008.

The United Left, which includes the former communist party, won 11 seats in the lower house, its best showing since the mid-1990s and way up from the previous legislature when it had only two seats.

Small parties doubled their presence in the lower house of parliament, taking 54 seats compared with 26 in the last legislature.

When the Socialists took power in 2004 Spain was riding a construction boom fueled by cheap interest rates, infrastructure projects and foreign demand for vacation homes on the country's warm coastlines.

But the government, consumers and companies were engulfed in debt when the building sector collapsed in 2007, leaving the landscape dotted with vacant housing developments, empty airports and underused highways.

"Something's got to change here in Spain, with 5 million people on the dole, this can't go on," said Juan Antonio Fernandez, 60, a jobless Madrid construction worker who switched to the PP from the Socialists.

(Additional reporting by Tomas Cobos, Nigel Davies, Martin Roberts and; Carlos Ruano in Madrid; Editing by Barry Moody)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111121/wl_nm/us_spain_election

grimm fairy tales gold rush gold rush chili recipe chili recipe grimm jello shots

Ethiopian troops move into Somalia: witnesses (Reuters)

MOGADISHU (Reuters) ? Scores of Ethiopian military vehicles pushed at least 80 km (50 miles) into neighbouring Somalia on Saturday, residents said, five weeks after Kenya entered Somalia to fight Islamist militants it blames for a wave of kidnappings on its soil.

"The Ethiopian troops, which are in convoys of armoured vehicles, come to us today, crossing from Balanbale district on the border," Gabobe Adan, an elder in the central town of Guriel told Reuters.

"They were in about 28 trucks and armed battle wagons - the armed vehicles are very big."

Other residents told Reuters that the Ethiopians had set up a base in Guriel and moved troops to other towns nearby.

Residents and officials in northeast Kenya later told Reuters that Ethiopian troops had also crossed through their towns and taken up positions near bases from where the Kenyan military is launching its offensive.

"We have seen Ethiopian troops. They are clearly known to us," a local named Lesamow Said told Reuters. "They arrived this evening at Damasa. Some of the soldiers crossed over to the Somalia side and started patrolling immediately."

People in the Kenyan town of Mandera, which is near both Somalia and Ethiopia, said the Ethiopians had passed through there in a convoy of 10 trucks and several armoured vehicles.

A spokesman for the Ethiopian government, Shimeles Kemal, would neither confirm nor deny the reports.

Another Ethiopian official told Reuters that an Ethiopian move to support the Kenyan assault on the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group was likely.

"There is a strong possibility that we will be sending troops to Somalia soon to support Kenya's operation against the al Shabaab extremists," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Our deployment could either be implemented under the umbrella of AMISOM or under another form, such as a separate operation alongside Kenya," he said.

FINAL ASSAULT ON AL SHABAAB?

AMISOM is an African Union force of Ugandan and Burundian troops that has been largely responsible for keeping al Shabaab from ousting the internationally backed government.

The intention of the Ethiopian troops was not immediately clear and one local elder who did not want to be named said that they would train Somali fighters loyal to the government.

Senior Kenyan government ministers have shuttled around the east Africa region this week and travelled to the Gulf to drum up political and financial support for a coordinated campaign to rout the rebels.

Some analysts say Ethiopia may want to take advantage of al Shabaab's withdrawal from the capital Mogadishu in August to wipe out a group it sees as a threat to its stability.

Since that pullout, the militants, who want to introduce a strict version of sharia law, have resorted to suicide attacks and guerrilla-style tactics against African Union troops.

Although Ethiopian troops regularly cross the border with Somalia, and it has admitted opening "humanitarian corridors" into the country that it says are for food relief, residents said the numbers and locations of the troops were unusual.

"I have seen about 30 Ethiopian military vehicles myself. They have entered," another Guriel resident, Farah Hussein, told Reuters. "We are very happy to see them -- it is a sign of putting an end to al Shabaab."

Other people in the area, including some Ethiopian businessmen, told Reuters that Ethiopian army officers had been meeting elders in central Somalia for weeks.

Ethiopia entered Somalia in 2006, with tacit U.S. backing, to oust another Islamist movement that had taken control of the capital Mogadishu and large swathes of the country.

Its army set up a base in Guriel during that operation.

The presence of the Ethiopian troops was hugely unpopular with Somalis, and with some analysts saying it was fanning support for new militant groups, they withdrew in early 2009.

(Writing by Barry Malone; Additional reporting by Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa, Sahra Abdi in Nairobi and Noor Ali in Garissa)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111119/wl_nm/us_somalia_ethiopia

2005yu55 advanced search a christmas carol personhood amendment haynesworth haynesworth michelle duggar