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Cheryl Cole has had to cancel her appearance at V Festival in August

Cheryl Cole: My life is killing me

The singer’s hectic lifestyle finally catches up with her as she’s hospitalised with a potentially fatal disease

Up until last week, it seemed Cheryl Cole  was unstoppable.

But after unexpectedly collapsing on the set of an X Factorshoot on Sunday 4 June, then discovering she has the deadly disease malaria, the singer got  her harshest reality check.

The 27-year-old star's mapped-out future is hanging precariously in the balance.

‘This situation is devastating for her on so many levels,'  an insider tells Now.

‘Being helpless, scared and not in control right now will be more difficult for her to handle than for others.

'She's totally bought into this "brand Cheryl" thing.

‘Her mum Joan's been pleading with her to take a year off.'

Experts warned that Cheryl, who had fluid on the lungs and who says she ‘feels like death', wasn't recovering as speedily  as initially hoped, meaning she could be out of commission for the foreseeable future.

Malaria is likely to recur in patients who haven't built up a strong enough immunity, so Cheryl is very vulnerable if she doesn't change her current lifestyle.

‘It's not known which strain of the disease Cheryl has yet,' says Dr Wiselka, a specialist in infectious diseases at Leicester Royal Infirmary.

‘She'll need a period of rest and to seriously pare down her schedule. If you're under strain, it affects all your organs and can be fatal because  it affects the blood, which then travels around the body and can cause complications.'

Five hires Red Bee for Five HD playout

Broadcast operator Red Bee Media has been appointed by Five to provide playout and media management services for the new Five HD channel.

Five HD, which launched today on Sky andVirgin Media, offers a high definition simulcast of the main Five channel, including HD versions of Australian soaps, US dramas and sport.

Red Bee will now manage the distribution of Five HD, which builds on its existing deals with Five for playout of the Fiver and Five USA digital channels.

The firm also handles all Five's video on-demand services, including Demand Five and the long-form video streaming deal with YouTube UK.

"Five HD is an exciting addition to our portfolio of channels that will broadcast a wide range of high quality programmes including dramas, entertainment, movies and sport in high definition," said Five controller of operations and technology David Burge.

"Coupling with Red Bee Media and their proven expertise in this area, Five HD will deliver an even more compelling experience for our viewers."

Red Bee Media chief commercial officer Alan Wright added: "We're delighted to add the media management and distribution of Five HD to the range of operations we already provide to Five, including playout of Fiver and Five USA, and management of VOD, access and metadata services.

"HD is fast becoming the standard as media companies realise the potential of digital. Five HD adds to our portfolio of HD channels that we manage and furthers our strategic growth at the forefront of digital media management."

Red Bee, which was previously BBC Broadcast, also handles distribution for BBC HD, Channel 4 HD, E4 HD, Living HD and BBC Worldwide HD in Scandinavia
.

Five hires Red Bee for Five HD playout

Orlando Bloom 'chuffed' at honorary degree in Kent

Orlando Bloom and his fiance Miranda Kerr

Orlando Bloom and his fiancee Miranda Kerr attended the ceremony in Kent

Actor Orlando Bloom said he was "chuffed" to receive an honorary degree from the University of Kent.

The 33-year-old star took his place alongside graduates for the ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral in the city where he was born.

He was joined by his fiancee Miranda Kerr, his parents and sister Samantha.

Also honoured with a degree was fellow actor David Suchet, best known for his title role in the TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's Poirot.

Bloom first caught the attention of audiences in Peter Jackson's award-winning Lord Of The Rings trilogy and went on to star in Pirates of the Caribbean.

He said: "It's a really big deal. It's an exciting day for me. I'm really honoured to be back in my home town.

"I have so many amazing memories of the cathedral and Canterbury.

"I have lived near the university so it's like my playground. It's a huge, huge honour and I feel chuffed, as does my mother - nobody more than my mother."

Bloom was also set to visit the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury where he made his stage debut aged four.

The venue is being redeveloped at a cost of £25.6m and is due to reopen in autumn 2011.

Microsoft Extends Windows XP Downgrade Option to 2020

Corporations are well known for their continued love of Internet Explorer 6 and their inability to trust any operating system until Microsoftslaps on a Service Pack, so this really shouldn't come as a surprise...

Having discovered that a mind numbing 74 per cent of businesses still run Windows XP as their main OS and that their computers are an average of 4.4 years old, Microsoft has announced it has pretty much abandoned the idea of ever retiring the platform.

Having extended the XP downgrade option for Vista and Windows 7 no less than six times, the ubiquitous Microsoft communications manager Brandon LeBlanc has now confirmed it will exist throughout the entire Windows 7 support cycle meaning you'll be able to utilise it up until 2020!

"Our business customers have told us that the removing end-user downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional could be confusing," he explained on the Windows Blog. "To support our customers’ 'unprecedented move' to migrate their PC environment to Windows 7, we have decided to extend downgrade rights to Windows XP Professional beyond the previously planned end date at Windows 7 SP1. This will help maintain consistency for downgrade rights throughout the Windows 7 lifecycle [my italics]."

Yep it's an odd one - especially given Windows Vista won't even be available in its boxed version after 22 October. Not that it'll be much missed we'd imagine. Still Windows 7 Sales figures continue to be extremely impressive and are driving the 64bit uptake so as long as it is shifting licences I suspect Microsoft won't really care.

Then again, it is somewhat familiar...

Link:
XP Stats Via BusinessInsider

L'Oréal row minister to resign as Sarkozy party treasurer

Eric Woerth, labour minister embroiled in Liliane Bettencourt tax scandal, seeks to appease critics calling for his resignation

French labour minister Eric Woerth stepped down as treasurer of the ruling centre-right UMP party today. He is at the centre of a furore over alleged illegal political donations. Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/Reuters

Eric Woerth, the French minister at the heart of a political furore surrounding the fortune of L'Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, said today he would step down as treasurer of Nicolas Sarkozy's party in a move designed to appease critics calling for his resignation from the government.

In the latest twist of a saga which has focused attention on the habits and alleged hypocrisies of the French power elite, the labour minister told journalists this morning he would be giving up his responsibilities over the finances of the rightwing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party before the end of the month.

"Yes, I'm going to do it. I will look at the calendar and I will do it, of course," said Woerth, leaving a cabinet meeting at which he presented the president's flagship pensions reform.

Sarkozy, who has backed the former budget minister to the hilt, is depending on Woerth's survival as a credible minister to push through the single biggest – and most divisive – reform of his remaining time in office.

To that end, he said in a television interview last night that he had "advised" Woerth to step down as party treasurer – a fundraising job that has led to accusations of a conflict of interests since suggestions of Bettencourt's tax evasion emerged last month.

Until March, Woerth was France's budget minister in charge of stamping out tax fraud. Opposition critics have accused him of turning a blind eye to the inconsistencies in the management of the 87-year-old heiress's €17bn fortune – a charge vehemently rejected by Woerth and Sarkozy, and ruled out by an official finance ministry report.

It is also Woerth who is directly implicated by allegations of illegal funding to Sarkozy's presidential campaign. He is alleged to have accepted a donation of €150,000 from Bettencourt in the months leading to the president's victory in 2007.

After a television performance hailed by UMP members as a "breath of fresh air" following weeks of alleged scandal and rampant speculation, Sarkozy will hope to raise his floor-scraping approval ratings before Paris goes on summer holiday.

A key part of that effort is focused on the controversial pensions reform, which plans on raising France's legal retirement age from 60 to 62. That proposal – marketed by Woerth as "pragmatic and responsible" and endorsed by the cabinet today – is likely to see the government battered by fresh union-led protests come September.

IDF confirms making contact with Gaza-bound Libya ship
Photo by: Associated Press

IDF confirms making contact with Gaza-bound Libya ship

Organizers report Navy ship shadowing vessel, pledge to steam on for Gaza; aid ship had previously agreed to dock at el-Arish in Egypt, but appears to have changed intentions.

he IDF on Tuesday afternoon confirmed that it had made radio contact with a Libyan aid ship trying to breach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The confirmation came after the ship's organizers said that an Israeli military vessel had confronted the ship and ordered it to change course for the Egyptian port of el-Arish.

The Gadhafi International Charity and Development Foundation said its boat refused to alter its destination and will steam on for Gaza.

The foundation said in a statement posted on its website Tuesday that the Israeli vessel was continuing to shadow the aid ship. Loading Libyan aid ship.

There was no immediate comment from the IDF.

The ship's intentions appeared conflicted. Earlier Tuesday, one of the owners of the Amalthea said that the crew would unload itshumanitarian goods in the Egyptian port of el-Arish if refused permission to reach Gaza.

"If this is the only option put forward by the Israeli authorities, we will choose to sail to the port of el-Arish and transfer the assistance by ground to Gaza," Greek businessman Aleksei Angeolopoulos said in an interview with the Arabic newspaper Ashraq al-Awsat.

However, it appeared the ship was now resolutely sailing toward Gaza, rather than agreeing to dock in a neighboring port.
Angeolopoulos told Israeli authorities that, "the ship is carrying humanitarian aid and food and there are no weapons or prohibited materials, as claimed by Israel."

"If Israel wants, the Israeli navy is invited to board the ship and to search it so that they can see with their own eyes that it is only carrying food and allow it to continue to the port of Gaza."

Activists aboard the Libyan aid ship headed for Gaza plan to arrive at their destination Wednesday, AFP news agency reported Monday.

Missing Iranian scientist surfaces in Washington

WASHINGTON — A missing Iranian nuclear scientist, who has sought refuge at a Pakistani embassy office in Washington and who Iran claims was abducted, is free to return to his homeland, the State Department said Tuesday.

It was the latest development in a murky case that has been shrouded in mystery since the scientist, Shahram Amiri, disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009.

"He has been in the United States of his own free will and obviously he is free to go," department spokesman P.J. Crowley said. "In fact, he was scheduled to travel to Iran yesterday but was unable to make all of the necessary arrangements to reach Iran through transit countries."

Crowley said Amiri was at the Pakistani embassy. "He traveled there on his own," he added, but would not elaborate. Other officials said Amiri arrived there Monday evening.

Iran's foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, told reporters at a news conference in Madrid that Amiri was found after having been kidnapped during the Hajj and taken to the U.S. against his will. He demanded that Amiri be allowed to return home "without any obstacle."

In brief remarks to reporters, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Amiri was free to go.

"These are decisions that are his alone to make," Clinton said. "In contrast, Iran continues to hold three young Americans against their will, and we reiterate our request that they be released and allowed to return to their families on a humanitarian basis."

Clinton was referring to three American hikers who have been held by Tehran since July 2009 on an accusation of illegally entering the country. They have not been charged.

Clinton and Crowley also mentioned the case of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007.

"We also continue to have concern about others, including Robert Levinson. We have asked Iran many, many times for information about his whereabouts and we still do not have that information," Crowley said.

Iran has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. abducted Amiri — charges the Americans deny. U.S. media reported in March that the 32-year-old scientist had defected to the U.S. and was assisting the CIA in efforts to undermine Iran's disputed nuclear program.

Adding to the confusion, Amiri himself appeared in a series of videos making conflicting claims, including one where he said he was kidnapped by American and Saudi agents and taken to the U.S. and another in which he said he was freely studying in the United States.

Iranian state television reported that Amiri entered the Pakistani embassy's office representing Iranian interests in Washington and demanded an "immediate return" to Iran.

The Iranian interest section is technically part of Pakistan's embassy and is under Pakistani legal protection but is run by Iranians who issue visas for travelers to Iran and perform other functions.

A Pakistani diplomat in Washington said Amiri arrived at the interest section, which is separate from the main Pakistani embassy building, at 6:30 p.m. EDT Monday, and told Iranians there that he had been dropped by what he called his captors.

The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. He added that Pakistani officials had yet to speak directly to Amiri.

Mostafa Rahmani, head of the Iranian office in Washington, said Amiri was there but declined to provide details.

Amiri's sudden appearance could prove an embarrassment to Washington, which accuses Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons. Iran denies that and maintains that its nuclear research is for peaceful purposes.

Iranian State TV's website quoted Amiri as saying in a telephone interview that the U.S. was planning to send the scientist back to Iran following release of the videos.

"Since the release of the videos, the Americans have come out as the losers," Amiri was quoted as saying. He said he was under psychological pressure in recent months.

The United Nations in early June slapped a fourth round of sanctions on Tehran over its refusal to curtain its nuclear program.

Before he disappeared, Amiri worked at Tehran's Malek Ashtar University, an institution closely connected to the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard.

Iran's state TV has periodically showed purported videos of Amiri claiming abduction and torture by the U.S.

Crowley, the State Department spokesman, disputed the claim of torture.

"I have no information to suggest that he has been mistreated while he has been in the United States," Crowley said.

Russian spy Anna Chapman is stripped of UK citizenship

A woman identified by reporters as Anna Chapman in an image taken from her Facebook page and marked "added May 23"

Russian spy Anna Chapman was married to a British man

Anna Chapman, one of the Russian spies deported from the United States, has been deprived of her British citizenship, the BBC understands.

She is expected to be "formally excluded" within the next few hours, meaning she cannot travel to the UK.

She was among 10 Russians arrested in the US who admitted to being agents for a foreign country.

Last week her lawyer said she would like to come to the UK as she has a UK passport through a previous marriage.

Russia agreed to exchange four US spies for the 10 Russian agents and the swap was carried out in Vienna on 9 July.

Ms Chapman, who is also known as Anya Kushchenko, worked in the financial sector for a few years after moving to London in 2002.

Earlier this month, Briton Alex Chapman, 30, from Bournemouth, Dorset, talked to a newspaper about his four-year marriage to the 28-year-old Russian.

He said they had met at a party in London in 2002 and married five months later.

'Ordinary citizens'

Following the Vienna spy swap, a UK Home Office spokesperson had said they were reviewing Ms Chapman's passport situation.

"The home secretary has the right to deprive dual nationals of their British citizenship where she considers that to do so would be conducive to the public good. This case is under urgent consideration," the spokesperson said.

Shadow home secretary Alan Johnson had said it "cannot be in our interests" to let Ms Chapman settle in the UK.

The 10 Russian agents had pleaded guilty in New York to "conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country".

More serious money-laundering charges against them were dropped.

Prosecutors said the accused had posed as ordinary citizens, some living together as couples for years, and were ordered by Russia's External Intelligence Service (SVR) to infiltrate policy-making circles and collect information.

Rogue Afghan soldier kills three British Gurkhas

KABUL — A renegade Afghan soldier remains at large after killing three British army Gurkha troops in a "suspected premeditated attack" on Tuesday, officials said, pledging a full investigation.

The killer was still on the run, but "strenuous efforts" were being made to find him, they said, voicing determination the deadly assault would not damage trust between foreign forces and the Afghan counterparts they are training.

Britain's Defence Secretary Liam Fox called it a "despicable and cowardly act", but insisted it would not deter British troops from their training mission.

A spokesman for Task Force Helmand, Lieutenant Colonel James Carr-Smith, said the three soldiers from the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles Battle Group, drawn from Nepal, were killed in southern Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand Province.

"We believe these were the actions of a lone individual who has betrayed his International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Afghan comrades," he said.

In a statement, the Ministry of Defence said that the "soldiers were killed in a suspected premeditated attack by a member of the Afghan National Army using a combination of weapons".

The killings drew parallels with an attack by an Afghan policeman last November who shot dead five British soldiers at a checkpoint in southern Helmand province, where the majority of Britain's troops are based.

A police official in Helmand, where Britain has about 10,000 troops, said the Afghan soldier had escaped after Tuesday's attack.

Fox said: "This is a despicable and cowardly act, and my thoughts go out to the family and friends of those who have lost their lives.

"This incident will be thoroughly investigated by ISAF and the Afghan security forces, and we will do everything we can to bring the individual responsible to justice.

"Training and developing the Afghan National Security Forces is vital to the international mission in Afghanistan and today's events will not undermine the real progress we continue to make.

"British and ISAF forces are working shoulder to shoulder with Afghans and will continue to do so undeterred."

The Afghan presidency called for a thorough investigation and expressed regret at a news conference, but was unable to confirm any details of the incident.

"The president was upset to hear this," said spokesman Waheed Omar.

US General David Petraeus, who assumed command of NATO troops in Afghanistan earlier this month, also offered his condolences.

"We have sacrificed greatly together and we must ensure that the trust between our forces (Afghan and international) remains solid in order to defeat our common enemies," said Petraeus.

Afghan army chief General Sher Mohammad Karimi said investigators "will seek to determine how this event could have occurred and we will prosecute those responsible".

Helmand is one of the most volatile regions of southern Afghanistan, where about 1,000 British troops are expected to leave Sangin, making way for US forces, and be redeployed to central Helmand by the end of the year.

The deaths bring to 356 the number of foreign troops to have died in the Afghan war so far this year, according to an AFP tally based on a count kept by icasualties.org. The total for last year was 520.

The United States and NATO have 143,000 troops in Afghanistan fighting a Taliban insurgency, with the number due to rise to 150,000 in coming weeks.

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Cheryl Cole: My life is killing me

Five hires Red Bee for Five HD playout

Five hires Red Bee for Five HD playout

Orlando Bloom 'chuffed' at honorary degree in Kent

Microsoft Extends Windows XP Downgrade Option to 2020

L'Oréal row minister to resign as Sarkozy party treasurer

IDF confirms making contact with Gaza-bound Libya ship

Organizers report Navy ship shadowing vessel, pledge to steam on for Gaza; aid ship had previously agreed to dock at el-Arish in Egypt, but appears to have changed intentions.

Russian spy Anna Chapman is stripped of UK citizenship

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