By MIKE ECKEL, Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW - A Soyuz capsule carrying South Korea’s first astronaut landed in northern Kazakhstan Saturday, 260 miles off its mark, Russian space officials said.

Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said the condition of the crew — South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko — was satisfactory, though the three had been subjected to severe G-forces during the re-entry.

The Russian TMA-11 craft touched down at 4:51 a.m. EDT about 260 miles off target, Lyndin said, a highly unusual distance given how precisely engineers plan for such landings. It was also around 20 minutes later than scheduled.

Officials said the craft followed a so-called “ballistic re-entry” — a very steep trajectory that subjects the crew to extreme physical force. Lyndin said the crew had experienced gravitational forces up to 10 times those on Earth during the descent.

The crew were being examined on site by medical officials, and were later to return to Moscow for further evaluation.

It is the second landing in a row of a Soyuz capsule that has gone awry.

Last October, a technical glitch sent a Soyuz spacecraft carrying Malaysia’s first space traveler and two Russian cosmonauts on a steeper-than-normal path during their return to Earth.

A similar problem happened in May 2003 when the crew also experienced a steep, off-course landing. It then took salvage crews several hours to locate the spacecraft because of communications problems.

Yi traveled to the station on April 10, along with cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, who have replaced Whitson and Malenchenko. South Korea paid Russia $20 million for Yi’s flight.

Whitson and Malenchenko spent roughly six months performing experiments and maintaining the orbiting station.

American astronaut Garrett Reisman, who arrived last month on the U.S. space shuttle Endeavour, is also on board the station.

By Augustine Anthony
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, who went missing in February in the Khyber region, appeared on Arabic television on Saturday saying he was being held by the Taliban and urged Islamabad to meet their demands.

Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin appeared in a video tape on Al Arabiya television surrounded by armed militants to make his first public statement since going missing.

“We were kidnapped by mujahideen from the Taliban,” the ambassador, wearing an open-necked shirt and looking calm, said in the remarks which were translated from Urdu into Arabic.

“I suffer health problems such as high blood pressure and heart pains,” said the bespectacled and grey-bearded ambassador, who gestured to his armed captors in an arid, hilly region.

Scores of people have been kidnapped in the dangerous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the ambassador’s disappearance highlighted instability in nuclear-armed Pakistan — a major ally in the U.S.-led crackdown on militants.

The Pakistani government had not publicly confirmed he had been kidnapped but a senior government official said on Saturday Azizuddin was being held by militants who were demanding the release of their arrested colleagues.

In a message to Pakistan’s foreign ministry undersecretary, its envoys to China and Iran, and his brother, Azizuddin said:

“Because of my health condition I … appeal to them to do all they can to preserve our lives and meet the demands of the Taliban mujahideen as soon as possible.”

The ambassador was on his way to Kabul from the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on February 11 when he disappeared along with his driver and bodyguard in the Khyber tribal region.

Azizuddin said he, his driver and bodyguard had been held for 27 days at the time the tape was filmed.

According to a senior Arabiya journalist, the ambassador said in the tape that Azizuddin spoke about “the release of any Muslim held in Pakistan whose release is demanded by Taliban.”

This remark appeared to refer to Taliban commander Mullah Mansour Dadullah held by Pakistan, the Arabiya journalist said, adding the tape was sent to the offices of Dubai-based Arabiya.

Two days after he went missing, a spokesman for Pakistani Taliban militants denied they had kidnapped Azizuddin and the Foreign Ministry denied media speculation that the Taliban had demanded the release of Dadullah in exchange for the envoy.

DANGEROUS BORDER REGION

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said there was no mention of any demands in the four-and-a-half minute tape he had seen and he was not aware of any demands.

“Yes, it is him, but … we’re not in a position to verify if he’s in the custody of the Taliban,” Sadiq said.

Azizuddin’s captors wore traditional baggy trousers and tunics and two of them held assault rifles but were not pointing them at him as he spoke.

“We have been here for 27 days and we are in a comfortable condition and are being taken care of and respected,” he said.

A Pakistani security official said at the time the envoy was to have changed cars at the border but did not show up. Afghan President Hamid Karzai had said he was sure the envoy had been snatched.

The historic Khyber Pass is the main road link to landlocked Afghanistan in northwestern Pakistan and a main supply route for foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Khyber is notorious for smugglers and bandits, but unlike other parts of the tribal belt on the Afghan border it has been relatively free of violence linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban, though militant activity has picked up in adjoining regions.

Scores of people were killed late last year in clashes between militants loyal to rival clerics in Khyber, and there have been more clashes in recent days.

The security situation in Pakistan has deteriorated markedly since mid-2007, mainly in the northwest, with militants linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda carrying out suicide bombings.

More than 600 people have been killed in militant related violence since the beginning of this year.

(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Robert Birsel)

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are walking a delicate line as they promise to aggressively tackle global warming while trying to assure voters that they continue to believe in the future of coal.

In states like Pennsylvania, where voters will cast ballots this Tuesday, and in West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana and Montana — upcoming primary states — coal sways voters.

While increased mechanization has produced a dramatic decline in coal industry employment, the numbers remain substantial. There are 47,000 coal workers in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and 21,000 in Kentucky, according to the National Mining Association. The three states are the country’s biggest coal producers after Wyoming.

Both Obama and Clinton have rallied environmentalists with their promises to develop windmills, solar power and other renewable energy sources and order mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases from power plants to counter global warming.

It’s an energy policy that would seem to target coal, which produces half the country’s electricity but also nearly 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, each year.

Instead, “clean coal” has become the mantra of both candidates. Some environmentalists are not too happy with that.

“They keep using the term ‘clean coal.’ That’s really an oxymoron,” snaps Brent Blackwelder, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth. “They absolutely are pandering the coal industry’s propaganda that clean coal is the hope of the future. There’s no such animal as clean coal.”

Not all environmentalists are as critical, acknowledging that coal will remain an integral part of the country’s energy picture. The two Democratic presidential aspirants’ support for coal is outweighed by their strong push for renewable fuels and — unlike President Bush — their call for mandatory, economy-wide action on climate change.

“How they finesse things on the margin is up to them,” said Cathy Duvall, the Sierra Club’s national political director, as long as they also “talk about moving away from conventional coal … and putting money into and investing in a renewable energy economy that will provide jobs.”

Obama, by representing Illinois, a top 10 coal producing state, has a little more experience at it than Clinton. Fifteen months ago, he joined Republican coal-state Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky in calling for loan guarantees and tax breaks for coal-to-liquid processing plants.

Environmentalists protested and he modified his proposal to include a requirement that such plants have carbon-capture technology and produce 20 percent less greenhouse gases than conventional diesel fuel refineries.

In reality, there is little difference in the broad energy agendas of Obama and Clinton.

Both have endorsed Senate legislation that would cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 70 percent by mid-century through mandatory pollution limits on power plants, transportation and industry. Both have called for a $150 billion, 10-year clean-energy research and development program.

But neither has embraced the call by Al Gore and many Democrats in Congress for a moratorium on new coal burning power plants until carbon capture can be commercially developed.

The coal states are pivotal not only in the Democratic primary but also in the general election in November. Gore and John Kerry carried two of them — Pennsylvania and Illinois — in the last two presidential elections, but both lost to President Bush in West Virginia, historically a Democratic stronghold.

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, also has endorsed a limit on greenhouse gases, although one less aggressive, but views continued coal use as imperative to meeting future energy needs.

At stops in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Montana and Wyoming, the Democratic rivals have been careful to tell voters they don’t want coal to disappear. Frequently they couch it in terms of clean, green energy development and jobs.

“We could invest in renewable sources of energy and in clean coal technology and create up to 5 million new green jobs in the bargain, including new clean coal jobs,” Obama declared at a stop in Charleston, W.Va.

Clinton also gave a nod to King Coal when she was in Charleston.

“I’ve been saying all along we should have clean coal, the cleanest coal possible,” she told a high school gymnasium crowd. “If we’re serious about investing in clean coal and clean energy, we can create 5 million new jobs in 10 years.”

Is it what coal producers and users want to hear?

“Absolutely,” said Joe Lucas, a vice president for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. “None of them are saying that we aren’t going to need coal.”

But Lucas, whose group is financed by coal companies, utilities and transportation interests, also compared the candidates’ pitches to their embrace of corn-produced ethanol in Farm Belt states such as Iowa.

At times, walking the line between coal and environmentalists hasn’t been easy, especially when the topic became mountaintop mining, a practice prevalent in West Virginia, where large areas of mountain tops are stripped away to reach the coal.

Clinton drew the ire of some environmentalists when in public radio interview there she said she was “concerned” about mountaintop mining but also viewed it as an “economic and environmental trade-off” that must be “looked at … from a practical perspective.”

Facing a group of environmentalists opposed to mountaintop mining at a meeting in the coal town of Beckley, W.Va., Obama also talked about the balance between economics and environmental protection.

“There are environmental consequences to coal extraction,” said Obama, “just as there are with any energy source.” That’s just what some of the mine workers in the audience wanted to hear.

___

Associated Press writer Tom Breen in Charleston, W.Va., contributed to this report.

CHICAGO (AFP) - A lack of magnesium accelerates aging in human cells, which may explain the link between any long-term deficiency and a higher risk of aging-related diseases, according to a new study.

Magnesium is essential for hundreds of biochemical reactions in the body. It helps maintain normal muscle and nerve function, keeps heart rhythm steady, and keeps bones strong.

Yet research has shown that, at least in the United States, more than half the population is lacking in magnesium due to deficiencies in their diet, potentially increasing their risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis and some cancers.

To try to understand why magnesium deficiency predisposes people to disease, Bruce Ames and researchers at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California studied the long-term effects of moderate magnesium deficiency on human fibroblasts, cells that provide a structural framework for many tissues in the body.

They cultured the cells for their entire lifespan, a period of three to four months, to mimic the effects of a lack of magnesium in the study which appeared Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They found that while the cells survived and divided normally under moderate magnesium-depleted conditions, they appeared to become older quicker than cells grown in normal magnesium concentrations.

“Magnesium deficiency affects the way the cells age. Accelerated cellular aging affects the way tissue functions,” said David Killilea, an associate staff scientist in the Nutrition and Metabolism Center at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute.

“We are now thinking that cellular consequences of magnesium deficiency may be driving long-term chronic disease.”

Ames and Killilea suggested the markers of accelerated cellular aging in magnesium-deficient cells may indicate that the cells were in triage mode, saving resources for indispensable metabolic processes at the expense of long-term function.

As for diagnosing and treating chronic moderate magnesium deficiency, there is no good laboratory marker for this type of condition. It tends to fly under the radar, the scientists said.

“You could be moderately deficient for a long time and not know it,” said Killilea.

Food sources rich in the micronutrient include green vegetables such as spinach, beans, nuts, and unrefined grains.

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Olympic torch reaches San Francisco on Wednesday and although pro-Tibet protests made laps in London and Paris chaotic, Olympics chief Jacques Rogge said there are no plans to cut short a global relay.

Hundreds of security officers deployed across San Francisco for the flame’s only U.S. stop. Activists fueled by anger about Beijing’s policies in Tibet and its reaction to deadly rioting in the Himalayan region last month were gathering for demonstrations.

Several hundred paraded through the city’s streets on the eve of the torch procession, many carrying Tibetan flags and signs and chanting “Shame on China.”

On Wednesday, some 700 security officers deployed in the West Coast city and airspace restrictions were imposed. Barricades were set up outside the Chinese consulate.

Coast Guard boats were to patrol the waterfront route of the torch. The relay was to start at 1 p.m. (4:00 p.m. EDT).

The fierce protests in London and Paris in recent days — efforts that succeeded even in extinguishing the flame for brief periods — have put city officials on edge.

“It’s getting a little scarier,” said retired State Appellate Court Judge Harry Low, a prominent figure in the city’s Chinese-American community. “The intensity of the opposition to the torch and to China seems to be increasing.”

The official route takes the torch from near the city’s baseball stadium along its scenic waterfront to the Fisherman’s Wharf area favored by tourists. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said he expected tens of thousands to attend and hundreds of police to patrol the route.

Authorities were stepping up patrols on the Golden Gate Bridge after three protesters scaled its cables on Monday to hang pro-Tibet banners.

China’s crackdown on anti-government protests in Tibet in March, which it says were orchestrated by Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, has drawn sharp international criticism and clouded preparations for the Beijing Olympics in August.

Hours before the San Francisco torch relay, President George W. Bush urged China to open a dialogue with the Dalai Lama.

He said he agreed at a meeting with Singapore Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong “that it would stand the Chinese government in good stead if they would begin a dialogue with the representatives of the Dalai Lama.”

Rogge told the Wall Street Journal that reports the International Olympic Committee executive board would consider scrapping the torch relay outside China, to avoid more ugly scenes, were “based on a misunderstanding.”

“I am saddened that such a beautiful symbol of the torch, which unites people of different religions, different ethnic origin, different political systems, cultures and languages, has been attacked,” Rogge said of the disruptions.

OLYMPIC FLAME

Rogge met Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao for about an hour on Wednesday. “It was a good meeting where a range of Games topics were discussed between both parties,” said an IOC statement.

Wen told Rogge the Olympic flame was a symbol of “peace, friendship, advancement and brightness.”

“We firmly believe that the Olympic flame, which belongs to all mankind, will never be extinguished,” the Foreign Ministry’s Web site paraphrased Wen as saying.

The troubled torch procession has kept Tibet in the headlines, and become a magnet for other groups unhappy about a range of China-related issues, including its involvement in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Beijing fiercely condemns the protests, and they have stirred up patriotic resentment among many ordinary Chinese who feel they politicize a sporting event that should be a celebration of 30 years of economic development and opening to the outside world.

Western leaders are facing a delicate balancing act as calls mount for them to boycott the opening ceremony.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in a speech to Chinese students that it was important to recognize there were “significant human rights problems” in Tibet, although he did not back calls for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics.

“I believe the Olympics are important for China’s continuing engagement with the world,” Rudd said, according to a transcript of the speech made on Wednesday.

China blames the Dalai Lama and his associates for orchestrating monk-led protests which later turned violent as part of a campaign for independence. The Dalai Lama denies the claims.

(Additional reporting by Guo Shipeng and Nick Mulvenney in Beijing, Lucy Hornby in Xiahe, and John Ruwitch in Hong Kong; Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Charles Dick)