Somalia asks for more funds at London conference

LONDON (AP) — Somalia's president urged donors at an international conference Tuesday to provide "considerable investment and support" for his beleaguered government, arguing that the fate of his country and the region hangs in the balance.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and British Prime Minister David Cameron were co-hosting the conference in London that aimed to bolster Mohamud's government in Mogadishu.

"There is a huge amount at stake right now," Mohamud told the delegates. "The future of our country, the security of the region, and the wider world, and the removal of the piracy stranglehold on the Gulf of Aden."

Somalia was expected to detail its plans to develop the country's security forces, justice sector and financial management systems in hopes of getting more international aid.

The British prime minister praised the gains made in Somalia over the past year, saying that extremism is in retreat, piracy attacks are down and the government is moving ahead.

"After two decades of bloodshed and some of the worst poverty on earth, hope is alive in Somalia," Cameron said. "Now it is time to fulfill the hope for the people of Somalia. That is what they have been living and waiting for, and we must not let them down."

Cameron acknowledged that the east African nation still faces huge challenges from poverty, malnourishment and extremism.

"These challenges are not just issues for Somalia," Cameron told the conference. "When young minds are poisoned by radicalism, and they go on to export terrorism and extremism, the security of the whole world, including people here in Britain, is at stake. "

He said support for Somalia must include humanitarian relief and helping the Somali government provide security — which includes protecting women from sexual attacks — as well as stability and services.

Donors should help Somalia develop a transparent government so it can access the funding it needs, Cameron said, adding that Britain will commit 10 million pounds ($15.5 million) to help develop Somalia's armed forces and 14.5 million pounds ($22.5 million) toward increasing the number of police officers and training judges and lawyers.

Delegates at the conference included a number of African heads of state and representatives from the IMF and the World Bank.

The meeting came under harsh criticism from Al-Shabab, an al-Qaida affiliate that seeks to overthrow the Mogadishu-based government and install an Islamic one.

Al-Shabab, which counts several hundred foreign fighters among its ranks, controlled Mogadishu from roughly 2006 to 2011 until African Union troops forced it out of the capital. The group still controls wide swaths of south-central Somalia.

Al-Shabab leader Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr released an audiotape over the weekend in which he called Tuesday's meeting a plot to "plunder" Somalia's mineral wealth "under the guise of international trade relations and fighting corruption." He said the international community wanted to discard Islamic law in Somalia and replace it with Western laws and constitutions.

Zubeyr also urged his followers to increase suicide attacks to "permanently cripple" Mohamud's government. The next day a suicide car bomb attack in the Somali capital killed at least seven people.

Zubeyr blames the area's tensions over land and ethnicity on Britain's colonial-era partitioning of Somalia between Kenya and Ethiopia.

Mohamud, the president, was inaugurated in September at the end of an eight-year U.N.-backed transitional government.

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Jason Straziuso in Kenya contributed to this report.

Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd

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Ferran Adria brings elBulli exhibition to London

LONDON (AP) — You've eaten at the restaurant — or probably you haven't. Now visit the exhibition.

Spanish chef Ferran Adria, the man behind the late, lamented elBulli restaurant, is bringing an exhibition dedicated to the art and science of his distinctive brand of molecular gastronomy to London.

Diners lucky enough to get reservations at elBulli before it closed two years ago feasted on 50-course tasting menus featuring frozen cocktails, ham tapioca, lobster and lamb's brain salad and many other challenging creations.

Visitors to "elBulli: Ferran Adria and the Art of Food" will see sketches, menus, film, photographs and even plasticine models of food, showing how those memorable menus were created. Just don't expect to eat.

"If you go to the Barcelona football team museum, you don't play football," Adria said unapologetically Thursday as he announced the London show. "If you go to an airplane museum, you don't fly a plane."

The hunger-inducing nature of the exhibition didn't prevent 650,000 people visiting it over the course of a year at Barcelona's Palau Robert.

In London, it will be on display from July 5 to Sept. 29 at Somerset House, a palatial 18th-century edifice beside the River Thames that has been transformed over the last decade from dusty tax office to busy arts and cultural center.

The exhibition is the latest stage in the expanding afterlife of elBulli, which closed its doors in July 2011 after a final meal that included "Clam Meringue," ''Olive Spheres" and "Hot Cold Gin Fizz."

Adria, who started at elBulli in 1984 and became head chef three years later, used the restaurant to explore his fascination with the essence of food and the experience of eating.

In the restaurant's kitchen and a scientific lab in Barcelona, he and his team deconstructed ingredients to what he calls the molecular level, then reconstructed dishes using unexpected re-combinations of the original components, presenting the results in mouthful-sized portions.

"For every 100 dishes we created, one was brilliant," said Adria, a compact, energetic 50-year-old in gray jeans, black jacket and sneakers, who proves incapable of remaining seated as he discusses his work with journalists.

The restaurant, tucked in a cove on the rocky coast of northeast Spain, maintained a three-star Michelin rating for more than a decade and was ranked the world's best place to eat five years running by Restaurant magazine.

It also made Adria — part celebrity chef, part twinkling mad scientist — one of the food world's most famous figures. He voiced a character in the Spanish version of Pixar's animated film "Ratatouille," and made an appearance in "The Simpsons."

Molecular gastronomy has inspired chefs from Britain's Heston Blumenthal to Chicago's Grant Achatz and Denmark's Rene Redzepi. Some of its signature touches — foams, jellies, liquid nitrogen — have almost become culinary cliches.

"Everybody agrees that there is a before and an after in gastronomy, thanks to Ferran," said Ignasi Genoves, general director of Palau Robert.

Adria, however, says elBulli's legacy isn't a style of food, but an ethos of authenticity, experimentation and risk.

"People believe the legacy of elBulli is a type of cooking, but it's not," he said through a Spanish interpreter. "The important thing is the philosophy we are transmitting to all the people who worked with us."

Hundreds of people have passed through elBulli's kitchens, then marched out into the food world. Adria noted with pride that the four top chefs on Restaurant magazine's influential top 50 ranking this year are elBulli alumni.

The restaurant may be closed, but Adria says elBulli's work is just beginning.

In 2011 he and business partner Juli Soler announced plans to transform the site into a gastronomic think-tank and research institute called elBulliFoundation.

Due to open in 2015, it's an ever-evolving concept. Adria's attempt to explain it Thursday involved much arm-waving and diagram-scrawling, as he described a multipronged structure that will encompass a history of cuisine ranging "from the Big Bang to the Neolithic period" and beyond, taking in the origins of human life.

"If there's no homo sapiens, there's no cooking," he said.

More prosaically, Adria and elBulli have been the subject of a documentary, and a feature film about the restaurant is in the works.

The chef, who ranges the world collaborating with artists and scientists, clearly enjoys the freedom of not having to run a kitchen and worry about his Michelin ranking.

"The restaurant is closed — not elBulli," he said.

"We have a bigger impact being closed, because I'm not competing anymore."

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Online: www.elbulli.com

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Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

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London property being snapped up as quickly as before 2007 crisis - Hometrack

LONDON (Reuters) - Property in London is being snapped more quickly than at any time since October 2007 when the market hit its peak before the financial crisis, according to figures from real estate data firm Hometrack.

Homes in London were typically on the market for 4.6 weeks in April - nearly half the period of more than eight weeks seen at the end of 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. Sellers achieved more than 95 percent of their asking price, also a level not seen since 2007.

Property prices in the capital rose 0.7 percent in April, matching March which was the biggest jump since Feb 2010. Prices in England and Wales rose 0.3 percent, also the joint-biggest rise in three years.

Hometrack's findings, based on 5,000-6,000 completed questionnaires covering all postcode districts in England and Wales, come as concerns grow that recent government initiatives could fuel a new house price bubble.

The government's Help to Buy programme, unveiled in its March budget, and its Funding for Lending scheme, launched with the Bank of England last summer and expanded last week, are both likely to boost mortgage lending and help buyers with small deposits get on the property ladder.

Richard Donnell, Hometrack's director of research, noted there had been a marked decline in reports of mortgage availability acting as a barrier to purchase, a direct result, he said, of the Funding for Lending Scheme.

"In each of the last three months the growth in supply has failed to keep pace with demand," he said.

Property prices in Britain didn't fall as sharply as most parts of Europe and the United States during the financial crisis, and are already testing historically high levels relative to income.

House prices in London have also been supported by international demand, with the market seen as a safe haven at a time of uncertainty in the euro area.

(Reporting by Christina Fincher; Editing by Susan Fenton)

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London School of Economics denounces BBC tactics

LONDON (AP) — The renowned London School of Economics has denounced the BBC for using a student-organized trip to North Korea as "cover" for a reporting trip to the secretive communist country.

The LSE said in a statement Saturday the BBC put students at risk by having at least one of a team of three journalists pretend to be affiliated with the university to gather material for a TV program set to be broadcast Monday.

The university says it has tried and failed to persuade the BBC not to air the program. LSE blamed BBC for not being forthcoming about its reporting plans in North Korea, where foreign reporting crews usually have to operate under strict supervision.

The BBC's John Sweeney, who LSE officials say posed as a post-graduate LSE student, said Sunday it was "entirely wrong" for the university to try to prevent the broadcast from going forward.

LSE student union general secretary Alex Peters-Day said the students were lied to and that at least one of the students on the trip was not told in advance of the journalists' participation.

"This is a student welfare issue," she said. "We don't know what could have happened to those students and, truthfully, neither does the BBC. It's absolutely disgraceful that he (Sweeney) put students in that position. It's incredibly reckless."

BBC News Head of News Programs Ceri Thomas said on a BBC News program Sunday that the students were given the information needed to give informed consent to the increased risk of traveling with journalists who did not have authorization to work in North Korea.

He said, however, that the students were told roughly a month before the trip that there would be "a journalist" traveling with them but were later told, once they were already en route to North Korea, that there would be three journalists who would be conducting undercover filming for TV.

He said the students may have been under the impression that a print journalist, not a three-person TV crew, was going to be involved.

Thomas said BBC would air the documentary despite LSE's concerns because of high public interest in the show.

"It is disappointing for us that LSE has chosen to make this public," he said. "We would have kept them out of this altogether. They could have avoided the publicity and we think that would have lowered the reputational risk."

He said BBC executives felt that if the deception was discovered the students likely would have been deported, but he admitted he could not "categorically" rule out the possibility that their lives might have been at risk.

In an email sent to staff and students, the university complained that the BBC "Panorama" program was "produced using as cover a visit to North Korea which took place from 23-30 March 2013 in the name of the Grimshaw Club, a student society at LSE."

It said the group included Sweeney and journalists Alexander Niakaris and Tomiko Sweeney.

"In advance of the trip, it was not known to the rest of the party that they were three journalists working for or with the BBC," the email said. "Their purpose, posing as tourists, was to film and record covertly during the visit in order to produce the 'Panorama' program."

The BBC has faced intense criticism in the last year for its handling of an investigation into alleged sexual abuses committed by the late Jimmy Saville, one of its star presenters.

A BBC statement released Sunday indicated that the students "were all explicitly warned about the potential risks" of traveling to North Korea with journalists as part of this group. It said they were warned that the might face "arrest and detention."

The statement said BBC recognized it was raising the risks to the students by adding a journalist to the group.

Sweeney also defended the BBC on one of its programs Sunday morning. He said the LSE's version of events is not accurate.

A BBC story about the trip says Sweeney and a two-person crew that included his wife spent "eight days undercover" in North Korea.

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G8 foreign ministers meet in London to address Syria, North Korea

By Natalie Huet

LONDON (Reuters) - G8 foreign ministers meet on Wednesday in London, where host Britain will press its case for doing more to help the Syrian opposition against President Bashar al-Assad and end a devastating civil war.

Responding to threats from North Korea of an imminent conflict with its southern neighbor will also be high on the agenda of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations - the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia - gathered in Britain's capital till Thursday.

Leaders of the Syrian National Coalition will be present on the sidelines of the G8 and hold talks with those foreign ministers willing to meet them, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters on Tuesday.

Hague, his French counterpart Laurent Fabius and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry are expected to hold talks with the civilian opposition figures.

"I will be joining and convening some of those meetings to discuss the urgent humanitarian needs and the urgent need for a political and diplomatic breakthrough on Syria," Hague said.

France and Britain are expected once again to press the case for amending or lifting an arms embargo on Syria to support the outgunned rebels waging a two-year-old uprising against Assad and help end a civil war that has already claimed an estimated 70,000 lives and displaced millions of people.

"This is turning into the greatest humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century so far, and we cannot watch this happen," Hague said, adding that humanitarian aid, while indispensable, would not alone solve the Syrian crisis.

"We certainly believe that it's necessary to continue, if the situation continues to deteriorate, to increase the practical help we give to the Syrian opposition," Hague said.

ARMS TALKS

Paris and London say they want to raise pressure on Assad and try to force him to the negotiating table by allowing the supply of arms to the rebels.

But other G8 countries such as Russia and Germany have opposed the move, fearing it could lead to weapons falling into the hands of Islamist militants and fuel a regional conflict.

Changing the EU arms ban on Syria, which must be renewed or amended by June 1, needs backing from all 27 EU states. Britain and France have said they could act alone if they do not get their way.

Hague said Britain had made no decision yet to supply lethal weapons to the Syrian opposition, but that he would discuss the matter with his French counterpart Fabius on Wednesday.

"We think that as things stand today there is going to be a very strong case for further amendments to the embargo or the lifting of the embargo," he said.

G8 foreign ministers will also discuss how to respond to North Korea, which has waved threats of imminent conflict against the United States and South Korea and on Tuesday warned foreigners to evacuate the South to avoid being caught in a war.

Russia said on Tuesday the G8 was in agreement in rejecting North Korea's recent provocative behavior and urged all sides to pursue diplomacy to calm the increasingly tense situation in northeast Asia.

Hague said that, just like Iran, nuclear-ambitious North Korea had the choice between engaging in "realistic" international talks or facing increased international sanctions.

"If they continue on this path ... they will end up with a broken country that is isolated," Hague said, noting that even longtime ally China was disapproving of North Korea's actions.

Other than top international issues, Hague said foreign ministers planned to discuss Burma, Somalia, cyber-security and the issue of preventing sexual violence in warzones.

(Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Hotel Contracts for Biden Trip to London, Paris Totaled $1 Million

Vice President Joe Biden's trip to Europe last month led to a hefty tab with over $1 million for hotels for himself, staff and security for two nights in London and Paris, government documents show.

As first reported by The Weekly Standard, documents show that the U.S. State Department obtained contracts with two five-star hotels in London and Paris where the vice president stayed for two nights during a five-day tour of Europe last month.

One contract was awarded to the Hyatt Regency London for a total of $459,338.65 while another went to the Hotel Intercontinental Paris Le Grand for $585,000.50

While the figure may be eye-popping, a State Department official said these costs are par for the course in high-level international trips as they also include accommodations for staff, security details and military personnel.

"These costs are nothing out of the ordinary. They are in line with high-level travel across multiple administrations," the State Department official said. "The contract costs cover the entire range of support, including accommodations for military, communications, secret service staff, and other support professionals. Security experts are also required to travel in advance of the president or vice president. Safety and security are not negotiable."

A 1999 GAO report showed that trips President Bill Clinton took to Africa, Chile and China in 1998 cost $42.8 million, $10.5 million and $18.8 million, respectively - adding up to over $72 million. There were 1302 travelers to Africa, while 592 and 510 people were on the trips to Chile and China, respectively.

The White House normally does not disclose the amount paid for the vice president and president's travel. Last year, an Air Force official told ABC News that one hour of flying time aboard Air Force One totaled $179,750 in FY2012.

White House press secretary Jay Carney would not reveal how much the president's day trip to Illinois earlier this month would cost when asked about it by ABC News' White House correspondent Jonathan Karl.

"I don't have a figure on the cost of presidential travel. It is obviously something, as every president deals with because of security and staff, a significant undertaking," Carney said. "But the president has to travel around the country. He has to travel around the world. That is part of his job."

In an interview during the campaign last year, President Obama said the decisions about travel are not up to him when he was asked if he was out of touch with ordinary Americans when his family is "jetting around" on Air Force One.

"The fact of the matter is, I think if you look at my track record, I'm raising a family here. When we travel, we got to travel through Secret Service, and Air Force One, that's not my choice. I think most folks understand how hard I work and how hard this administration is working on behalf of the American people," Obama told KMOV of St Louis.

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London rail workers find likely plague burial pit

LONDON (AP) — Workers digging a new railway line in London have uncovered what they believe is a burial ground containing victims of the Black Death — a plague that wiped out as much as half of London's inhabitants when it swept the city in the mid-14th century.

Workers involved in the Crossrail project located 13 skeletons lying in two carefully laid out rows on the edge of historic Charterhouse Square, an area where historical records suggest a burial ground was located. Project archaeologist Jay Carver said scientists will study the bones to establish cause of death, and hope to map the DNA signature of the plague bacteria.

"This is a pretty rare find within London," Carver said Friday. It is the latest in a string of unusual discoveries that have been a byproduct of the Crossrail project, which has also uncovered amber that is 55 million years old, bison and mammoth bones 68,000 years old, the remains of a large manor house surrounded by a moat dating to the 1500s and remains from Roman times.

At a time long before people moved quickly, the plague traveled fast. The bacillus spread via fleas on rats, cutting a swathe through populations ignorant of its cause.

It began racing from Asia through Europe and North Africa in 1347, moving quickly among people who had no idea how to stop it. By 1348 it struck this island nation. While estimates vary, it is thought to have killed roughly 75 million people worldwide in a four-year pandemic.

Among the millions killed were thousands of Londoners, though the exact number is unclear because record-keeping was so poor, said Roy Stephenson, the head of the Museum of London's archaeological collections and archives.

Still there was order in the Charterhouse site, and the regular spacing between the bodies suggests some sort of municipal control, Stephenson said.

The way the bodies are laid out also corresponds to a similar Black Plague burial ground. The depth of the burials — 2.5 meters below a road that surrounds the square — together with artifacts dating from the area, also add to the case that it contained the pandemic's victims.

Historical records also suggest a burial ground had been located in the area of the dig. But the area — considered somewhat of a "no-man's land" at the time of the plague — sits at the edge of a historic square, and thus was never really pinpointed or excavated until the rail project.

Scientists have brought the remains to the Museum of London Archaeology for laboratory testing, hoping to map the DNA signature of the bacteria, which could be found in the teeth or bones. Radiocarbon dating could also be used to establish burial dates.

But there's no chance that a new outbreak of bubonic plague might be ignited from the find. Stephenson said the bacillus is quite fragile and dies without a host.

Researchers hope, simply, that the study of the bones might add to an understanding of the plague and the lives of the people who lived in the city at the time.

Crossrail, an ongoing 14.8 billion pound ($22.4 billion) project to put a new rail line from west to east London, has been digging big holes all over the city — and adding to the understanding of London's past in the process.

The mammoth project has involved more than 100 archaeologists. They haven't had to dig down far to find layers of the past in a city that traces its history back millennia.

A vast array of treasures has been uncovered, including medieval ice skates, an underground vault filled with Victorian-era jars, three cannons, an 800-year old piece of ship and the foundations of an 18th century shipyard.

And it has also found other bodies. Archaeologists uncovered more than 300 skeletons at the New Cemetery near the site of the Bedlam Hospital at Liverpool Street.

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