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BEIJING, July 6 -- The chairman of CNOOC Ltd., the Chinese energy firm embroiled in a thorny campaign to purchase the U.S. oil company Unocal Corp., voiced dismay on Wednesday over what he called "overreaction" from Washington by those portraying the deal as a threat to fair trade and U.S. national security.In an interview with The Washington Post at CNOOC's headquarters in Beijing, Chairman Fu Chengyu said critics of his company's bid for Unocal were guilty of viewing China through an outdated lens by failing to appreciate how economic reforms have forced Chinese companies to adopt market principles and focus...

SHANGHAI, July 4 -- The Chinese government on Monday sharply criticized the United States for threatening to erect barriers aimed at preventing the attempted takeover of the American oil company Unocal by one of China's three largest energy firms, CNOOC Ltd.Four days after the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging the Bush administration to block the proposed transaction as a threat to national security, China's Foreign Ministry excoriated Congress for injecting politics into what it characterized as a standard business matter. "We demand that the U.S. Congress correct its mistaken ways of politicizing economic and trade issues...

Fake Microsoft Security Trojan on the Loose, Antivirus Firm SaysA new campaign by malicious hackers uses a Web site designed to look like Microsoft's Windows Update page to trick unwitting Internet users into infecting their computers with a Trojan horse remote access program, according to antivirus experts at Sophos. The scam uses e-mail messages that appear to come from Microsoft to get recipients to visit a Web page that uploads the malicious program. Using the promise of Windows software patches to distribute malicious code isn't new. However, the latest attacks show that scammers are adopting strategies used by phishers to...

DENVER - It was the kind of blow that occurs thousands of times in boxing matches across the country: In the third round of a women's bout, Becky Zerlentes took a shot to the head above her left eye, then staggered forward and fell to the canvas. Only this time, Zerlentes never regained consciousness and died, becoming the first female boxer to die in a sanctioned event. The death stunned those who knew Zerlentes, a 34-year-old college instructor remembered as a fun-loving, adventurous person who had a particular fondness for sports. "This is so much more than about boxing," said...

MORE THAN 1 Billion CATHOLICS AROUND THE WORLD PRAY FOR POPE JOHN PAUL II    

The Pope still alive

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Ethiopia ordered the expulsion of three Americans who were helping prepare the Horn of Africa country for elections in May, alleging Thursday that they entered the country illegally. But the expulsions ordered Wednesday — the Americans are still in Ethiopia and have until Friday to leave — followed a critical U.S. report about human rights in the country. The May 15 elections in this country of 25.6 million would be only the third democratic ballot in its history. All the elections have been won by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front. As a rebel movement, the...

Among the ranks of the Fortune 500, just 11 corporate chief executives have remained in their jobs past the age of 70. Of the 100 members of the U.S. Senate, by contrast, 22 have reached septuagenarian status -- and seven of them are either older than 80 or will be before their terms expire. Of the U.S. Supreme Court justices, only one -- Clarence Thomas, 56 -- is not old enough to collect Social Security. These numbers make it plain that the top tier of the federal government remains the most welcoming arena in American society for people who want...

SAN FRANCISCO - A thief recently walked into a University of California, Berkeley office and swiped a computer laptop containing personal information about nearly 100,000 alumni, graduate students and past applicants, highlighting a continued lack of security that has increased society's vulnerability to identity theft. University officials waited until Monday to announce the March 11 crime, hoping that police would be able to catch the thief and reclaim the computer. When that didn't happen, the school publicized the theft to comply with a state law requiring consumers be notified whenever their Social Security numbers or other sensitive information have been...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Sales have dropped sharply at Wendy's fast food restaurants in the area of northern California where  a woman claimed she found part of a finger in a bowl of chili, but analysts say the company's long-term prognosis should not be affected. Peter Oakes, a restaurant analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co. in New York, said he doesn't expect Wendy's business to suffer long term from the discovery Tuesday night of a partial finger. The hamburger chain serves about 6 million meals a day across the country and has a "national reputation for both quality and cleanliness,"...

Sofia Vergara

For a Lost Brother, A Search For Justice The five McCartney sisters walked into the American Ireland Fund dinner looking nothing like avenging angels. Dressed in cocktail dresses, they stopped and posed calmly for the horde of photographers jostling for a picture. Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern stood at their side, wordlessly linking his passion to their cause. In the seven weeks since their brother was murdered outside a Belfast pub, they have become international celebrities for their battle with the Irish Republican Army and its political arm, Sinn Fein. "I do want to say here to this great...

President Bush has chosen Rep. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) as the new United States Trade Representative, according to an administration source. He will replace Robert B. Zoellick, who is leaving to become the number two person in the State Department.

WASHINGTON - Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush (news - web sites).he Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year's budget, preventing opponents from using a filibuster — a tactic that has blocked repeated past attempts to open the Alaska refuge to oil companies. The action, assuming Congress agrees on a budget, clears the way for...

Nicole DeHuff, an actress who played Teri Polo's sister in Meet the Parents, has died of causes related to pneumonia. She was 30. The actress died Feb. 16 in Hollywood, four days after she reportedly checked into a Los Angeles hospital, was misdiagnosed and sent home with orders to take Tylenol. When her condition worsened, she returned to the hospital and was prescribed antibiotics for bronchitis and again sent home. Two days later, paramedics were called to her home after she collapsed, gasping for breath. By the time she reached the hospital, she was unconscious and passed away soon after....

China Steps Up Pressure on Taiwan BEIJING (AP) - China unveiled a law Tuesday authorizing an attack if Taiwan moves toward formal independence, increasing pressure on the self-ruled island while warning other countries not to interfere. Taiwan denounced the legislation as a ``blank check to invade'' and announced war games aimed at repelling an attack. The proposed anti-secession law, read out for the first time before the ceremonial National People's Congress, doesn't say what specific actions might invite a Chinese attack. ``If possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the state shall employ nonpeaceful means and other necessary...

  2005 Sports Illustrated Swimsuits    Michelle Alves BORN: Londrina, Brazil AGE: 25 Ana Beatriz Barros BORN: Itabira, Brazil AGE: 22 Yamila Diaz-Rahi BORN: Buenos Aires AGE: 28 Alicia Hall HOMETOWN: Las Vegas AGE: 19 Bridget Hall BORN: Springdale, Ark. AGE: 27 Michelle Lombardo BORN: Glastonbury, Connecticut AGE: 21 Marisa Miller BORN: Santa Cruz, Calif. AGE: 25 Fernanda Mota BORN: Rio de Janeiro AGE: 23 Petra Nemcoba BORN: Karvina, Czech Republic AGE: 25 Oluchi Onweagba BORN: Lagos, Nigeria AGE: 23 Frankie Raider BORN: River Falls, Wisc. AGE: 30 Daniella Sarahyba BORN: Rio de Janeiro AGE: 19 Shakara Ledard BORN:...

Why Men Prefer Pretty Faces So you think beauty is in the eye of the beholder? Think again. According to new research from the University of Exeter in Great Britain, the preference for pretty faces over ugly ones is embedded in our brains from the moment of birth and possibly prior to birth. Newborn babies come fully equipped with built-in preferences, including a preference for an attractive face, that help them make sense of their new environment, report the BBC News Online and Newsweek magazine. The Exeter researchers showed more than 100 infants two images that were placed side by...

Reward Offered for Bin Laden in PakistanSLAMABAD, Pakistan - A television and radio campaign offering a $25 million reward for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) hit the airwaves in Pakistan this week in a U.S.-government funded drive to get fresh leads about the al-Qaida leader. The 30-second television spot flashes photographs of bin Laden and 13 other top terror suspects, including his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, with an emotional appeal for help in bringing them to justice. "Who are the people who are suffering from terrorism? Our mothers,...

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) is turning up the heat on the Russian government for ignoring pleas to cooperate in verifying an expanding body of anecdotal evidence that American servicemen from World War II and the Korean War were secretly held in prison camps in Siberia. Russian inaction has made the effort to confirm information about the presence of Americans in the gulag — the network of penal camps that stretched across the former Soviet Union — "a distinctly unilateral U.S. pursuit," Norman Kass, a leader of the Pentagon project, wrote in the introduction to a new...