Arsenal end Chelsea hoodoo

Gunners pile more misery on under-pressure Ancelotti

Cesc Fabregas goal celeb Arsenal v Chelsea
Cesc Fabregas is mobbed by his team-mates after his goal
Theo Walcott Arsenal v Chelsea celebrate
Walcott: Put in fine display
John Terry & Theo Walcott Arsenal v Chelsea Premier League
John Terry and Walcott tussle for the ball
Man of the match: Theo Walcott takes this award after scoring one and bagging an assist - Fabregas was also excellent.
Goal of the match: Walcott's effort was a cool finish after Fabregas slipped him through - right in the bottom corner.
Save of the match: Petr Cech did brilliantly to tip behind an exquisite Samir Nasri chip in the first-half to keep the score goalless at that stage.
Moment of the match: The opening goal from Alex Song sent the Gunners into the break in high spirits and the came out firing for the second 45.
Talking point: Will Carlo Ancelotti last the winter at Chelsea? Another defeat leaves them in real trouble and the Italian cut a forlorn figure on the touchline at the Emirates.
Arsenal finally ended their barren run of form against Premier League champions Chelsea with an impressive 3-1 victory at the Emirates.
So often have the Blues tormented their London rivals in recent seasons but Carlo Ancelotti's men were pegged back for the most part on an evening where the Gunners turned their possession into goals.
Alex Song broke the deadlock just before half-time, stroking home from inside the area to give the home side the lead at the break.
Arsene Wenger sent his troops out firing as the excellent Theo Walcott picked out Cesc Fabregas to sweep home the second six minutes after the restart, and the captain returned the favour to send Walcott through to finish emphatically for the third.
Branislav Ivanovic headed a consolation and while there was a momentary period of pressure, Chelsea limped to yet another defeat to leave them with six points from their last eight league games - the club's worst run since 1998.
Arsenal, beaten at Manchester United in their previous game, were positive during the opening exchanges.
Robin van Persie almost collected Song's chip into the box, but the ball bounced just ahead of the Dutch striker.

Warning

There was a warning with Chelsea's first meaningful attack as Didier Drogba - with 13 goals in as many games against the Gunners - shrugged off his marker to drag a 20-yard shot wide.
John Terry pulled back Van Persie as the Gunners looked to break on the half-way line, but a stern talking-to from referee Mark Clattenburg was all the Chelsea skipper received.
The home side continued to press, and had a penalty appeal waved away when Florent Malouda looked to have made some contact with Van Persie at the edge of the box.
Samir Nasri's 25-yard free-kick was on target, but held by Petr Cech.
Walcott latched on to a long ball over the Chelsea defence, but just as he aimed to cut back into the area, his touch was poor and Terry recovered to clear.
On 29 minutes, former Gunner Ashley Cole went into the referee's book for tripping Walcott as his England colleague turned him on the right touchline.
Van Persie was then put through into the left by Nasri after some clever one-touch passing, the Dutchman snatched at his angled shot, which flew high and wide.
Salomon Kalou was perhaps fortunate to receive only a yellow card after jumping in, studs up on Gael Clichy.
Arsenal increased the tempo as half-time approached. Walcott scampered into the right side of the Chelsea penalty area and was blocked by Cech at the near post before the goalkeeper turned over Nasri's chip which was looping into the top-left corner.
The Gunners finally made the breakthrough after 43 minutes. Jack Wilshere and Song exchanged passes on the edge of the area, with the Cameroon midfielder carrying the ball into the box.
Paulo Ferreira slid in and tripped Fabregas, but Song had the presence of mind not to wait for a whistle and swept a low left-footed shot across goal and into the bottom right corner.
Chelsea made a change at the start of the second half as the creative Brazilian Ramires replaced John Obi Mikel.
Arsenal, though, had a two-goal cushion after 51 minutes. Van Persie held the ball up 30 yards out, and, as he was closed down, Michael Essien's challenge inadvertently pushed the ball straight to Walcott clean through on goal.
The England winger dashed to the edge of the box, where he drew Cech before sliding the ball along to Fabregas and the Arsenal skipper made no mistake from 15 yards.
Chelsea had little chance to recover, as Walcott smashed in goal number three just 90 seconds later.
Walcott robbed Malouda and fed Fabregas, who repaid the favour by sending the Arsenal winger away down the right for him to slot a low shot into the bottom left corner.
Ancelotti had to do something, and sent on Gael Kakuta, replacing Malouda. Chelsea snatched a lifeline after 57 minutes when Drogba's free-kick floated through to the six-yard box, where it was nodded in by Ivanovic.
Record
Given Arsenal's recent record of failing to hold on to winning positions, the visitors rallied. Chelsea made a final change when Ferreira was replaced by Jose Bosingwa.
Arsenal just about weathered the storm as the contest entered the final 20 minutes.
Nasri should then have done better when Kakuta's tame back-pass presented him with the ball 10 yards from goal, but Cech was out quickly to block.
With 18 minutes left, Walcott was replaced by defensive midfielder Abou Diaby who made his first appearance since mid-October, before Marouane Chamakh came on for Van Persie.
Diaby's close-range effort was blocked by Frank Lampard and Kakuta's bundled effort was ruled out for offside as the Gunners closed out for a long-overdue victory against their championship rivals and moved within two points of leaders Manchester United, albeit having played a game more.
Click Here for Your Free Bet

Apple removes iPhone Wikileaks app from iTunes

Wikileaks logo on iPhone The material offered by the Wikileaks iPhone app can still be accessed for free via the phone's browser

Related stories

Apple has confirmed that it removed a Wikileaks iPhone app from its iTunes store.
Wikileaks App was an unofficial, paid-for download that gave people access to the free Wikileaks Twitter feed and documents held on its website.
It was removed three days after it was launched on 17 December.
Apple said that the app, which had more than 4,000 downloads before its was pulled, "violated" developer guidelines.
"Apps must comply will all local laws and may not put an individual or targeted group in harms way," said a spokesperson for the firm.
Alien interest The app's Russian developer, Igor Barinov, said that Apple had told him it specifically violated two of its guidelines.
The first on personal attacks states: "Any app that is defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited, or likely to place the targeted individual or group in harms way will be rejected."
The second says "apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users".
"[Apple] said there is no way back for this application," Mr Barinov told BBC News.
The removal comes at a time when a series of firms - including Amazon, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal - have removed services - including web hosting and processing of donations - to Wikileaks.
These have prompted a series of attacks on the firms' websites and services by a group of activists, who call themselves Anonymous.
Although the Wikileaks app was unofficial, Mr Barinov said that $1 from every $1.99 (£1.19) sale was channelled to the organisation.
Mr Barinov said he created the app to support Wikileaks because he was interested in "information about UFOs" that may be contained in documents leaked to the organisation.
Wikileaks apps are still available for other phones, such as those running Google Android.
All of the material offered by the Wikileaks iPhone app can be accessed for free via the phone's browser and other non-Wikileaks apps.

Microsoft warns on IE browser bug

Screengrab of Internet Explorer homepage, MicrosoftMicrosoft's workaround for the IE bug will not protect all users of its web browser.

Related stories

Microsoft has issued a warning about a serious vulnerability in all versions of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser.
If exploited by a booby-trapped webpage the bug would allow attackers to take control of an unprotected computer.
Code to exploit the bug has already been published though Microsoft said it had no evidence it was currently being used by hi-tech criminals.
A workaround for the bug has been produced while Microsoft works on a permanent fix.
Code injection The bug revolves around the way that IE manages a computer's memory when processing Cascading Style Sheets - a widely used technology that defines the look and feel of pages on a website.
Hi-tech criminals have long known that they can exploit IE's memory management to inject their own malicious code into the stream of instructions a computer processes as a browser is being used. In this way the criminals can get their own code running and hijack a PC.
Microsoft has produced updates that improves memory management but security researchers discovered that these protection systems are not used when some older parts of Windows are called upon.
In a statement Microsoft said it was "investigating" the bug and working on a permanent fix. In the meantime it recommended those concerned use a protection system known as the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit.
Installing and applying the toolkit may require Windows XP users to update the version of the operating system they are using. But even if they do that some of the protection it bestows on Windows 7 and Vista users will not be available.
"We're currently unaware of any attacks trying to use the claimed vulnerability or of customer impact," said Dave Forstrom, the director of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, in a statement.
"As vulnerabilities go, this kind is the most serious as it allows remote execution of code," said Rik Ferguson, senior security analyst at Trend Micro, "This means the attacker can run programs, such as malware, directly on the victim's computer."
He added: "It is highly reminiscent of a vulnerability at the same time two years ago which prompted several national governments to warn against using IE and to switch to an alternative browser."

US airports reopen after blizzard

Blowing snow shrouds a British Airways aircraft following a blizzard at Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey. Photo: 27 December 2010 Many flights are still experiencing severe delays, US officials say

Related stories

Airports have reopened in the north-eastern US after blizzards caused some 7,000 flights to be cancelled over the busy post-Christmas travel period.
Services have now resumed into and out of New York, Boston and Philadelphia.
But officials warn it could take days to clear the flight backlog for tens of thousands of stranded passengers.
Analysts say the storm and its aftermath could cost the airlines up to $100m (£64m). The blizzards also disrupted rail and road traffic.
The conditions were blamed for a car crash in Maine in which a 59-year-old man died, and for stranding two buses carrying some 50 passengers on a New Jersey motorway.
National rail operator Amtrak - which earlier shut its New York-Boston route - announced a limited resumption of services.
The US National Weather Service says the monster snow storm is the result of a low pressure system which originated off North Carolina.
However, forecasters are now expecting milder weather for the rest of the week, which could help in speeding up the clearing of snow.
'Jigsaw puzzle'
Stranded passengers at JFK. Photo: 27 December 2010
Many passengers had to camp out on floors in terminals
Three airports serving New York - JFK, La Guardia and Newark Liberty International Airport - and also Boston's Logan and Philadelphia International reopened on Monday evening.
They had been closed since early morning, forcing thousands of passengers to camp out on floors in terminals.
Overall, nearly 7,000 flights were cancelled on Sunday and Monday.
Although the worst weather is thought to have passed, many flights are still experiencing severe delays because of strong winds and what remains of the snow.
And airline officials warn that it could take days to rebook passengers whose flights were delayed or cancelled.
"Any airline scheduler will tell you it's like playing with a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces keep changing shape," American Airlines spokesman Ed Martell was quoted as telling the Associated Press.
"In some cases we can't give them a new seat because we don't know."
Sales hit Six US states - Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia - earlier all declared emergencies.
Map locator
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick warned that the storm was "expected to produce widespread heavy snowfall, periods of zero visibility, high winds, power outages, coastal flooding, and beach erosion", AFP reported.
Power had already reportedly been cut to tens of thousands of homes in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
The New York area received up to 51cm (20in) of snow over the last two days.
A subway train was trapped for seven hours before passengers were rescued.
The southern states of Georgia and South Carolina had their first white Christmas in more than a century.
But Washington DC escaped the blizzard, with only a dusting of snow.
The storm moved to Canada's Atlantic coast early on Monday. Around 27,000 homes in Nova Scotia and 11,000 consumers in the New Brunswick area were reportedly left without power.
The timing of the snowstorm meant disruption for many thousands travelling after Christmas reunions and hampered the start of the shopping sales season and the return to work for many commuters.
Map key

Billion-dollar year for Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo DiCaprio was 2010’s Top-Grossing Actor, according to Forbes Magazine.
Leonardo DiCaprio was 2010’s...
Gisele Bundchen’s ex, Hollywood hunk Leonardo DiCaprio, has a billion reasons to smile this year.
The “Inception” star tops Forbes Magazine’s list of Top-Grossing Actors of 2010, thanks to the $1.1 billion his flicks earned at the worldwide box office in 2010.
Leo’s big year is due to two major successes: Martin Scorcese’s made-in-Massachusetts mystery “Shutter Island,” and the trippy thriller “Inception,” which added at least $50 million to Leo’s own bank balance. In a surprise tie for second place on the Tinseltown top-earners list is Aussie actress Mia Wasikowska. The 21-year-old newcomer starred as Alice in Tim Burton’s version of “Alice in Wonderland,” which brought in more than $1 billion in ticket sales. She also appears in the critical fave “The Kids Are All Right” alongside Julianne Moore and Annette Bening. Her next role is in the big-screen adaptation of “Jane Eyre.” Johnny Depp also tied for second place, even though “The Tourist,” his latest $100 million film, bombed critically and commercially. 

Rounding out the top five are Comeback Kid Robert Downey Jr. at fourth place with $808 million, thanks to audience favorites such as “Iron Man 2” and “Due Date,” and Harry Potter [website] himself, Daniel Radcliffe. Radcliffe’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1” opened only a month ago but is already the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2010 with $780 million in global ticket sales.

Skype apology for global blackout


People using Skype
Around 20 million people a day use the Skype internet calls service
Millions of people around the globe have been hit by an outage at the popular internet phone service Skype.
Users as far afield as Japan, Europe and the US have all reported problems.
The company which prides itself on providing relatively reliable service last suffered a major outage in 2007.
"We take outages like this really seriously and apologise for the inconvenience users are having," Tony Bates, Skype chief executive officer told BBC News.
"Right now it looks like clients are coming on and offline and sometimes they are crashing in the middle of calls. We are deep in the middle of investigating the cause of the problem and have teams working hard to remedy the situation," Mr Bates said.
On Skype's Twitter account, the company said their "engineers and site operations team are working non-stop to get things back to normal".
The news blog ReadWriteWeb said they have monitored complaints from users who reported that they are unable to log into the service and that the programme is crashing across all platforms, whether on their mobile device or PC.
Mr Bates did not rule in or rule out the possibility of a malicious attack and said "all avenues" were being explored.
He estimated that as a result of the outage, Skype has lost around 10 million calls.
Mr Bates told the BBC that normal call volume for the time of day would be 20m.
Om Malik, an industry commentator and editor of the Gigaom.com website, is not impressed.
"Skype is one of the key applications of the modern web," he said.
"It is already a hit with consumers, and over the past few years it has become part of the economic fabric for startups and small businesses around the world. I am not sure we can comprehend the productivity cost of this outage.
"The outage comes at a time when Skype is starting to ask larger corporations for their business. If I am a big business, I would be extremely cautious about adopting Skype for business, especially in light of this current outage," added Mr Malik.

Samuel Eto'o Africa player of the Year 2010

Samuel Eto'o, right, and Asamoah Gyan

Samuel Eto'o plays down tag of Africa's greatest after another award

• Striker crowned African Player of the Year for record fourth time
• 'I don't think it gives me the right to say I am the best'
    Samuel Eto'o, right, and Asamoah Gyan collect their awards in Cairo. Photograph: Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters The newly-crowned African Player of the Year, Samuel Eto'o, has played down suggestions his latest award makes him the continent's greatest ever player.
    The Cameroon and Internazionale striker took the prize for the fourth time at the awards ceremony in Cairo last night, finishing ahead of the Chelsea striker Didier Drogba from Ivory Coast and Sunderland's Ghanaian front-man Asamoah Gyan. It saw Eto'o surpass Abedi Pele and George Weah, who took the title three times each in the past.
    "To win footballer of the year four times is to create a new record but I don't think it gives me the right to say I am the best," Eto'o insisted. "There were greats in previous generations who had different challenges and situations to me. You can't really compare."
    The 29-year-old enjoyed little success with his country over the past 12 months as they went out early in both the African Nations Cup and the World Cup in South Africa with Eto'o scoring two goals in each tournament. But he flourished with his Italian club where he scored 16 goals during a highly successful campaign under the then coach José Mourinho, who took them to the treble.
    "It is a pleasure to be a winner again, to take it for the fourth time against such top opposition," Eto'o continued on the Confederation of African Football (CAF) website. "Africa now has so many good players and there is lots of talent coming up, so this might be a last chance for me."
    Eto'o had been the second favourite behind Gyan, the Ghanaian whose goalscoring exploits guided his nation to the quarter-finals of the World Cup, the first global finals on African soil. Gyan also helped the Black Stars reach the final of Afcon and he added: "He [Eto'o] is a great player who has been a fantastic example to many of us in Africa."

Ginnifer Goodwin dieting since she was 9?

Ginnifer Goodwin appears in a scene from the HBO series Big Love. - Provided courtesy of HBO

Ginnifer Goodwin, who plays a "sister wife" on the HBO polygamy drama series "Big Love", has reportedly said she has been a member of the Weight Watchers diet program for 23 years - which means she started when she was about 9 years old.
The 32-year-old actress made her comments to Health magazine. Goodwin said she considers herself to be "extremely healthy" nowadays but was overweight when she was in grade school.
"I changed my eating habits in fourth grade because I was a heavy little girl, and I was unhappy," she said. "I remember my mom making dinner for me the first night that I was on this new program, and I burst out crying because the vegetables were green, and I thought she was trying to starve me to death. I have been a member of Weight Watchers for 23 years, and I'm back on it right now."
Goodwin also praised her "Big Love" costar Jeanne Tripplehorn, saying she taught her to make the "most amazing thing in the world" - a mixture of instant oatmeal, peanut butter and jelly.
"Big Love" returns for a fifth and final season on Jan. 16, 2011.

Benitez axed by Inter

Benitez axed by Inter
There's more live football on Sky Sports than ever before, including the Barclays Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Clydesdale Bank Premier League, England away Euro 2012 qualifiers and La Liga. With four live Sky Sports channels, as well as Sky Sports News, you'll never miss a moment on Sky. Click here for more.
Sky Sports News understands Rafa Benitez has been sacked from his post as Inter Milan manager after just six months in charge.
The former Liverpool boss was only appointed by the Serie A giants in the summer but has failed to impress during his time in Italy.
Benitez was handed the unenviable task of following in the footsteps of Jose Mourinho after the former Chelsea chief secured an unprecedented treble of the UEFA Champions League, Serie A and Coppa Italia titles.
The 50-year-old has seen his side struggle in league action this season and they are currently seventh in the Serie A standings, 13 points adrift of leaders AC Milan, although they do have two games in hand.

Outburst

Inter's defence of their European crown has also stuttered as they finished second in Group A behind Tottenham and suffering a miserable 3-0 defeat at the hands of Werder Bremen in their final group fixture.
A meeting with Bayern Munich, who Mourinho's Inter defeated in the Champions League final last summer, was on the cards in the last 16, but there will be a new man at the helm for that fixture in February.
Benitez was understood to be on borrowed time after his outburst in the wake of the Club World Cup success when he called on club president Massimo Moratti to back him in the transfer market if they wanted him to stay as coach.
Moratti has pointedly refused to stand by the Spaniard following his explosive comments and it now appears his patience has run out.

Facebook suffers brief shut down

Facebook on smartphone, BBC
An accidental leak of upcoming services on Facebook forced the social network to take itself offline.
Facebook was forced to take itself offline after a staff member accidentally leaked internal product prototypes.
The social network was unreachable for about 20-30 minutes while the mess was cleared up.
The outage happened as the site introduced redesigned brand pages, a revamped photos section and a new page management feature.
In a statement on its blog, Facebook apologised for the brief downtime.
"For a brief period of time, some internal prototypes were made public to a number of people externally." read the message. "As a result, we took the site down for a few minutes. It's back up, and we apologise for the inconvenience."
The BBC understands that the problem arose when code for a number of new products was exposed to the public before they were ready to be launched. This included a feature called "memories" that indexed what people have done on Facebook chronologically.
"They're not pleased that they had to shut the website down for 30 minutes," said Sam Gustin at Wired.com.
"But it comes with the territory when you have a culture of iterative innovation, they say," he said. "Sometimes code gets pushed out before it's ready."

Related stories

 "There's probably an engineer at Facebook who is feeling pretty sheepish that he or she caused the world's biggest online social network to shut itself down for a half an hour," added Mr Gustin.
The news blog ReadWriteWeb saw the funny side of things by listing five things to do during a Facebook outage. They included resorting to instant messaging, using the phone to connect with people and reading a book.
On Twitter, one widely circulated tweet doing the rounds read "Facebook is down. Half the world population had suddenly become productive. The other half of the population is using Twitter."

Julianne Hough: Seacrest & Hough Engagement ...

Julianne Hough - Julianne Hough Julianne Hough is an American professional ballroom dancer, country music singer and actress. She is most widely known for being a two-time winner of ABC's Dancing with the Stars. Julianne Hough is not engaged to Ryan Seacrest, despite persistent rumors swirling online.
Derek Hough took it upon himself to put the rumors to rest.
Derek told People Magazine, “I haven’t heard anything and I am sure I would have if the rumours were true. I think she might be a little young”.
“We are all very supportive, and as long as she is happy that is what matters”.
Julianne previously went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and gushed about Secrest, telling Ellen he is "phenomenal," according to NYDailyNews.com.
"He's really romantic," Hough says. "He's not even in town, and I got in my car and there are flowers everywhere."
"I could not be happier," Hough says. "Everything is wonderful."
In related news, Hough joked about Country Music Television (CMT) banning a video for her song, "Is That So Wrong". In it, the actress and country music singer, 22, strips down to her bra as she rolls around in bed.
"This next song -- funny story. I shot a music video for it... and CMT kind of banned it.
"Apparently I was taking off too many clothes as I was dancing around my bedroom.
"But I don't know -- I kind of liked it."

Kindle eBook Reader Now the Most Popular Gift on Amazon

Kindle eBook Reader Now the Most Popular Gift on Amazon
Kindle eBook Reader Now the Most Popular Gift on Amazon
A message from The Kindle Team on Amazon says, “Kindle is far and away our bestselling gift item.” In fact sales of the updated version of the eBook reader have grown so fast in the current period that the statement also says, “in just the first 73 days of this holiday quarter, we’ve already sold millions of our all-new Kindles with the latest E Ink Pearl display. In fact, in the last 73 days, readers have purchased more Kindles than we sold during all of 2009.”
The reasons for the success of Kindle are:
  • it is a convenient way to read and store books and reports.
  • It is light, compact and easy to carry around.
  • Ebooks are cheap, usually much cheaper than conventional books.
  • The Kindle display is easy to read in any light, even bright sunlight.
  • Kindle can also be used to browse the web.
  • User feedback and comment is universally favourable – over 11,000 reviewers gave the product 5 stars.
  • Tablets are growing in popularity with Kindle and the iPad capturing people’s imagination.
Click this link to learn more about the excellent Kindle 3G Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 3G Works Globally, Graphite, 6

Vatican: Pope did not back condom contraception use

Pope Benedict XVI delivers his Christmas message to the Curia in the Vatican's Regia Hall, 20 December 2010
The CDF reaffirmed that the Church considered prostitution 'gravely immoral'

Related stories

The Vatican has clarified recent comments by Pope Benedict XVI on condoms, saying he did not mean they could be used to avoid pregnancy.
The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith said some analysts had misunderstood the remarks, made by the Pope in recently published interviews.
He said condoms could reduce the risk of HIV infection in certain cases, such as for a male prostitute.
The interviews were published in a book entitled Light of the World.
The Church's hard-line stance over contraception has led to the Vatican being heavily criticised for its position on the global Aids crisis. Some commentators suggested the comments represented a softening of this stance.
'Taking responsibility'
The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) is the Vatican's moral watchdog, which Cardinal Josef Ratzinger led before he was elected Pope in 2005.
It stressed the Pope's logic was "in full conformity with the moral theological tradition of the church".
In a statement, the CDF said that he had not been talking about sex between a married couple or using condoms as a form of contraception.
Pope Benedict XVI attends the Consistory ceremony in Saint Peter's Basilica at the Vatican The Pope was not talking about condoms as a means of contraception
"The idea that anyone could deduce from the words of Benedict XVI that it is somehow legitimate, in certain situations, to use condoms to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is completely arbitrary and is in no way justified either by his words or in his thought," said the statement.
It confirmed that the Pope's attitude towards homosexuality and artificial contraception had not shifted; other passages in the book reaffirm the Vatican's opposition to both, the CDF said.
Reaffirming that the Church considered prostitution "gravely immoral", the statement continued: "However, those involved in prostitution who are HIV positive and who seek to diminish the risk of contagion by the use of a condom may be taking the first step in respecting the life of another even if the evil of prostitution remains in all its gravity."
In Light of the World, when asked whether the Catholic Church was not opposed in principle to the use of condoms, the Pope had replied: "She [the Catholic Church] of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."
He cited the example of the use of condoms by male prostitutes as "a first step towards moralisation", even though condoms are "not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection".
Translation confusion The Pope's meaning had originally been questioned because the Italian translation of the book used the feminine form of the word for prostitute, whereas the original German used the masculine.
There was further confusion when Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said he had personally asked the Pope if there was a serious, important problem in the choice of the masculine over the feminine.

Start Quote

We're dealing here not with abstract moral teaching, but concrete pastoral application to a specific set of facts”
End Quote John Allen National Catholic Reporter
"He told me 'No'," Fr Lombardi said. "The problem is this... It's the first step of taking responsibility, of taking into consideration the risk of the life of another with whom you have a relationship."
"This is if you're a woman, a man, or a transsexual," he added.
Veteran Vatican analyst John Allen said what was at issue was not abstract moral teaching, but rather concrete pastoral application to a specific set of facts.
"If someone were to ask a Catholic priest, 'Is it okay to use a condom?' the answer is still supposed to be 'No'," said Mr Allen, a senior correspondent for the US-based National Catholic Reporter.
"Catholic teaching holds that to be fully consistent with God's plan, sexuality should occur only inside marriage and should be open to new life.
"If the question, however, is, 'I'm HIV positive and will have sex regardless of what the Church thinks, so is it better to use a condom to try to save lives?' the Pope has implied that a pastor might legitimately say 'Yes,' while still stressing that condoms ultimately are not, as Benedict says in his interview, a 'real or moral solution.'"
The book - Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times - is based on interviews that the Pope gave the German Catholic journalist, Peter Seewald, earlier this year.

Lunar eclipse tonight will likely be totally eclipsed by clouds

Lunar eclipse: For some cities, the local weather will unfortunately not cooperate for a view of tonight's big moon show.

The Earth casts a shadow over the moon during a partial lunar eclipse that is observed in this June 26 file photo, in Yogyakarta, Central Java, Indonesia.
It appears that for about half the country, the local weather will unfortunately not cooperate for a view of tonight's big moon show. For cities such Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver and Boston, the total lunar eclipse will likely be totally eclipsed by clouds. On the other hand, New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Dallas should enjoy mainly cloud-free conditions.
During tonight's lunar eclipse, the Earth will align between the full moon and the sun, covering the lunar surface in shadow. The eclipse is also falling on the same day as the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere – a rare occurrence that hasn't happened in 372 years. And to top it all off, the Ursids meteor shower is expected to create a few shooting stars tonight that should be especially visible given the dimmed moon. [Complete Lunar Eclipse Guide]
That is, if the weather cooperates.
Stubborn low clouds are expected to disappoint prospective eclipse watchers across much of the upper Midwest, lower Great Lakes, and parts of the South and nation's heartland. Light snows will fall from northern Indiana through the Chicago area, then northwestward into much of Wisconsin, northern Minnesota and northeast North Dakota.
Meanwhile, an active storm track from the Pacific Ocean is expected to bring a widespread swath of clouds and precipitation across much of California, and parts of the intermountain region and desert Southwest. Heavy rains will soak the Los Angeles area, while heavy snows are forecast for parts of southern and western Utah and over the Park and Sawatch Ranges of Colorado.
Much of Washington State, western Oregon and northern Idaho will also likely be robbed of a view of the totally eclipsed moon, thanks to an offshore Pacific storm system.
Finally, central and northern New England will likely be plagued by cloud cover, the result of an intensifying storm southeast of Nova Scotia. The storm will backlash this region with strong, gusty winds, considerable cloud cover and light snows for northern Vermont, northern New Hampshire and much of Maine.
The rest of the United States should be able to partake in at least some views of tonight's lunar eclipse.
Regions that are highly favored to have clear skies include the greater New York area and points south down into the middle Atlantic Coast, as well as much of Texas and southern and central Florida.
Two valuable weather links
There are two ways that you can deduce your chances of getting a view of tonight's eclipse. You can visit this National Weather Service site, which will provide you with links to more than 100 local Service Forecast Offices for the very latest forecasts, as well as satellite images and radar scans.
You should also check out Canada's Weather Office, which was developed by Environment Canada. This site provides cloud forecasts for the United States and much of southern and central Canada, at hourly intervals up to 48 hours, which can be interpreted in the same way as satellite pictures in the visible spectrum. This site is particularly useful if you're in a zone where the weather is expected to be unfavorable; if you're mobile, you can determine where the nearest area of clear skies might be.

Celebrity Gossips


*' Prince