Evening Edition

As the work continued, incoming BP boss Bob Dudley vowed that the oil giant would not abandon residents affected by the spill after the well is finally sealed.

BP hopes to drown the well in an operation dubbed a “static kill,” in which mud and cement will be injected down into the ruptured wellhead via a cap installed on July 15.

The pull-out is the first significant drawdown of troops from the Afghan war, now in its ninth year, and comes as Taliban-led violence worsens and US forces suffered their worst month for casualties.

Troops held a “change of command” ceremony at the main military base in central Uruzgan province, where most of the country’s 1,950 soldiers have been deployed, a Dutch embassy official said.

“We have decided, by narrow majority, to suspend the strike,” the head of the Greek truck owners confederation, George Tzortzatos, told reporters after a union meeting that lasted over three hours.

“Transporters will be back at the steering wheel as of tomorrow,” he said.

A strike wave against austerity policies, a violent May protest in which three people died in a firebombed bank and unionist action targeting cruise ships and flights have made for a calamitous season, operators say.

And additional disruption caused to tens of thousands of travellers by the fuel holdup caused by a trucker walkout could not have come at a worse time for a sector which makes up nearly a fifth of the troubled Greek economy.

The UAE suspension would kick in on October 11 and last until a legal solution was reached, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) said in a statement on its website.

It said the decision was taken “after failing to make progress in repeated attempts to make BlackBerry services compatible” with the Gulf state’s legislation.

The 33-year-old Red Bull driver took full advantage of other people’s problems, including those of his German team-mate Sebastian Vettel, to produce an assured drive that brought him his fourth win of the season and the sixth of his career.

“It was a bit of a gift for me but you know I haven’t had many of them,” said Webber, who was taking part in his 150th Grand Prix.

The astronomical sums of last summer, when Real Madrid broke the world transfer record twice, have given way to caution and prudence as clubs contend with mounting debts and uncertain futures.

Barcelona, the world’s most fashionable club, are currently saddled with a record debt of 442 million euros and announced in early July that they had taken out a loan of 155 million euros to ease their cash-flow problems.

Sleeping fewer than five hours a day, including naps, more than doubles the risk of being diagnosed with angina, coronary heart disease, heart attack or stroke, the study conducted by researchers at West Virginia University’s (WVU) faculty of medicine and published in the journal “Sleep” says.

And sleeping more than seven hours also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, it says.

Highlighting the conundrum has been the death of wealthy Americans including oil tycoon Dan Duncan and New York Yankees baseball owner George Steinbrenner, who can pass on their fortunes to heirs with no taxes. Duncan’s fortune was estimated at nine billion dollars and Steinbrenner’s at 1.1 billion by Forbes magazine.

If they had died in 2009 or 2011, their estates would have paid huge amounts of taxes to the US Treasury. The heirs avoided the tax man because a law enacted in 2001 under president George W. Bush phased out the estate tax entirely in 2010.

Incoming BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley said the British energy giant would attempt a “static kill” operation on Tuesday to try to plug the blown-out deep-sea well that caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

This marks a slight delay. The U.S. official overseeing the spill response, retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, had said on Thursday he hoped the operation to pump mud and cement into the well could be performed as early as this weekend.

But the EPA indicated in a statement on Sunday that the difference between what the agency directed and what BP and the U.S. Coast Guard achieved is slight — the difference between a 75 percent cut in dispersant use and a 72 percent cut.

The environmental agency acknowledged, however, that the use of dispersants is “always a difficult decision.”

The whistle-blowing website published tens of thousands of war records a week ago, a move the Pentagon has said could cost lives and damage the trust of allies by exposing U.S. intelligence gathering methods and names of Afghan contacts.

Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, the top U.S. military officer, appeared on television talk shows renewing those concerns amid fears WikiLeaks may publish more documents.

Pakistan’s spy chief, who had been due to visit London on Monday for talks on counter-terrorism, canceled his trip in protest at Cameron’s remarks, a spokesman for the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) agency said on Saturday.

Cameron, speaking in Pakistan’s rival India on Wednesday, told Islamabad that it must not become a base for militants and “promote the export of terror” across the globe, raising the ire of several officials and many people in the key U.S. ally.

The five-week mission, the third joint expedition in as many years, employs two powerful icebreakers from the nations’ Coast Guard fleets.

Both are scheduled to depart Monday, from ports in Alaska and Canada’s Nunavut territory respectively, for a rendezvous point at sea, said the U.S. Geological Survey, a participating agency.

Engineers are preparing to launch a so-called static kill as early as Monday evening, shoving mud and perhaps cement into the blown-out well to make it easier to plug the gusher up forever and end the Summer of the Spill.

The effort carries no certainty, and BP PLC engineers still plan to follow it up days later by sending a stream of mud and cement into the bottom of the mile-deep underground reservoir through a relief well they’ve been digging for months.

The documents show the Coast Guard approved 74 waivers over a 48-day period after the restrictions were imposed, resulting in hundreds of thousands of gallons of the chemicals to be spread on Gulf waters. Only in a small number of cases did the government scale back BP’s request.

The extensive use of dispersants to break up oil gushing from BP’s Deepwater Horizon raised concerns early on as to what long-term damage the toxic chemicals might be doing to the Gulf’s aquatic life. That prompted the Environmental Protection Agency on May 26 to direct BP to stop using the chemicals on the water surface except in “rare cases.”

The government cited a potential security threat because encrypted data sent on the devices is moved abroad, where it cannot be monitored for illegal activity. But the decision – quickly followed by a similar move in Saudi Arabia – raises questions about whether the conservative Gulf nations are trying to further control content they deem politically or morally objectionable.

BlackBerry phones have a strong following in the region, not only among foreign professionals in commercial centers such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but also among youth who see their relatively secure communication channels as a way to avoid unwanted government attention.

Eleven generations and 378 years later, his field-weary descendants – arthritic from picking fruits and vegetables and battered by competition from supermarkets and pick-it-yourself farms – are selling their spread, which is among the oldest continuously operated family farms in America.

“We’ve been here for 40 years, doing what we love to do,” said Lucy Tuttle, 65, who runs the 134-acre farm with brother Will. “But we’re not able to work to our full capacity any longer, unfortunately.”

In his latest rant, the outspoken Guillen also said he’s the “only one” in baseball teaching young players from Latin America to stay away from performance-enhancing drugs and that Major League Baseball doesn’t care about that.

He said MLB only cares about how often he argues with umpires and what he says to the media.

The departure of the small force of nearly 1,900 Dutch troops is not expected to affect conditions on the ground. But it is politically significant because it comes at a time of rising casualties and growing doubts about the war in NATO capitals, even as allied troops are beginning what could be the decisive campaign of the war.

Canada has announced it will withdraw its 2,700 troops in 2011 and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski has promised to pull out his country’s 2,600 soldiers the year after.

New Iraqi government figures tell a different story, however, showing civilian casualties hitting their highest level in more than two years – figures the U.S. rushed on Sunday to dispute.

The rejection of the figures, compiled by the Iraqi ministries of defense, interior and health, comes at a delicate time. The American military has pronounced Iraq’s security as stabilizing and is going ahead with plans to send home all but 50,000 troops by the end of the month, leaving Iraq’s nascent security forces in control. The last American soldier is due to leave by the end of 2011.

Amanpour claimed her role at “This Week” on Sunday, replacing George Stephanopoulos on the show that competes with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CBS’ “Face the Nation” and “Fox News Sunday.”

She appeared comfortable and aggressively inquisitive in her new position.

Even more races from California to New York could become competitive by November as voters look to blame someone for the sluggish economic recovery and take out their frustration on the Democrats who run the government. As of now, enough seats are in play that Republicans could gain the 39 they need to reclaim the House, dealing a blow to Obama in the first midterm elections of his presidency.

Primary outcomes and national polls show a restless electorate and energized Republicans. Independents who propelled the Democrats to power in 2006 and 2008 in scores of swing districts are leaning toward the GOP, expressing concerns about excessive spending, government overreach and the spiraling national debt.

After costly wars, and a financial crisis that has left the government’s coffers bare, military officials and ministers will spend the summer grappling with a pressing problem – can Britain still afford to be a military power?

Britain’s defense ministry is in the midst of the first major review of its capabilities and priorities since 1998 – a process aimed at predicting future threats and answering weighty questions over the country’s role in the world. At the same time, the new coalition government is undertaking a grueling spending squeeze, aiming at restoring the nation’s finances with uncompromising budget cuts.

Canadian prisoner Omar Khadr, accused of killing an American soldier during a raid on an al-Qaida compound, is scheduled to go to trial Aug. 9 at the U.S. base in Cuba.

But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the attacks, and four alleged accomplices are still sequestered at Guantanamo without charges. The Obama administration, after months of review, hasn’t made a decision on whether to seek a military or civilian trial.

It’s an approach that nervous Democrats are watching closely in one of the most politically explosive cases in years.

Should it go to a public trial this fall, smack in the middle of the election season, and should his defense fall short, that won’t help Democratic candidates forced to defend their party’s ethics against Republican campaign attacks.

The attack Chris Paget showed Saturday illustrates weaknesses in GSM, one of the world’s most widely used cellular communications technologies.

His attack was benign; he showed how he could intercept a few dozen calls made by fellow hackers in the audience for his talk at the DefCon conference here. But it illustrates that criminals could do the same thing for malicious purposes, and that consumers have few options for protecting themselves.

While many have come to revile or laugh at Illinois’ disgraced former governor, a small but dedicated band of supporters gathered at the courthouse during his seven-week corruption trial to cheer him.

No matter about Blagojevich’s job ratings sinking to nearly 10 percent before he left office, or revelations about his alleged criminal schemings, or all the salty language the FBI captured on the wiretaps played in court. This odd bunch – mostly senior citizens – insisted they were sticking with him.

The county Board of Supervisors last week overwhelmingly approved a project to turn the abandoned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard into a bustling 700-acre residential and commercial center on the southeast shoreline of San Francisco Bay. The Miami-based developer, Lennar Corp., is in the process of negotiating with lenders to finance the initial home construction, which could begin later this year.

Supporters say the development, which will stretch west to Candlestick Park, will breath new life into the rough-edged Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood by bringing jobs, affordable housing and recreation options into an area plagued by gang crime and poverty.

His people call him Onerekowa, the name his predecessors have borne for a thousand years. Each month, when he gathers with the 49 other chiefs from the six Haudenosaunee nations, he stands to speak in the language of his ancestors. And when the 50 come to a decision, they don’t take a majority vote. Instead, as it has for a millennium, the leaders of the Iroquois Confederacy decide by consensus.

Today Thompson awaits the start of a meeting of the Haudenosaunee Peace and Trade Committee, where tradition will grapple with the outside world. The issue is passports.