In Gabon, Lure of Ivory Proves Hard to Resist

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

SEIZED AND DESTROYED Gabon burned 10,000 pounds of ivory in June to show its commitment against poaching, but elephants are still being slaughtered. More Photos »

OYEM, Gabon — This lush country, often called a “forest republic,” used to stand proudly apart from its shaky neighbors, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, tropical disaster zones where state failure, rebel marauders and loose weapons conspired to spell doom for endangered wildlife.

The Price of Ivory

This is the second installment in a series of articles exploring how the surge in poaching of African elephants both feeds off and fuels instability on the continent.

Gabon’s government, blessed with billions of dollars of oil money and miles and miles of virgin rain forest, has made many of the right moves to protect its animals by setting aside chunks of land for national parks, actually paying wildlife rangers on time (a rarity in Africa) and recently destroying a towering mountain of ivory in a statement of its refusal to look the other way.

But as the price of ivory keeps going up, hitting levels too high for many people to resist, Gabon’s elephants are getting slaughtered by poachers from across the borders and within the rain forests, proof that just about nowhere in Africa are elephants safe.

In the past several years, 10,000 elephants in Gabon have been wiped out, some picked off by impoverished hunters creeping around the jungle with rusty shotguns and willing to be paid in sacks of salt, others mowed down en masse by criminal gangs that slice off the dead elephants’ faces with chain saws. Gabon’s jails are filling up with small-time poachers and ivory traffickers, destitute men and women like Therese Medza, a village hairdresser arrested a few months ago for selling 45 pounds of tusks.

“I had no idea it was illegal,” Ms. Medza said, almost convincingly, from the central jail here in Oyem, in the north. “I was told the tusks were found in the forest.”

She netted about $700, far more than she usually makes in a month, and the reason she did it was simple, she said. “I got seven kids.”

It seems that Gabon’s elephants are getting squeezed in a deadly vise between a seemingly insatiable lust for ivory in Asia, where some people pay as much as $1,000 a pound, and desperate hunters and traffickers in central Africa.

It is a story of temptation — and exploitation — and it shows that the problem is not just about demand, but about supply as well. Poverty, as well as greed, is killing Africa’s elephants.

Across the continent, tens of thousands of elephants are being poached each year in what is emerging as one of the gravest wildlife crises in decades. Gabon’s elephants are among the last of the planet’s rare forest elephants, a subspecies or possibly a totally distinct species (scientists can’t agree), which makes the stakes particularly high here. Forest elephants are smaller than their savanna cousins and have an alluring, extra-hard pinkish ivory that is especially prized.

A few decades ago, there were perhaps 700,000 forest elephants roaming through the jungles of central Africa. Now there may be fewer than 100,000, and about half of them live in Gabon.

“We’re talking about the survival of the species,” said Lee White, the British-born head of Gabon’s national parks.

In June, Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo, defiantly lighted a pyramid of 10,000 pounds of ivory on fire to make the point that the ivory trade was reprehensible, a public display of resolve that Kenya has put on in years past. It took three days for all the ivory to burn, and even after the last tusks were reduced to glowing embers, policemen vigilantly guarded the ashes. Ivory powder is valued in Asia for its purported medicinal powers, and the officers were worried someone might try to sweep up the ashes and sell them.

Some African countries, like Zimbabwe and Tanzania, are sitting on million-dollar stockpiles of ivory (usually from law enforcement seizures or elephants that died naturally) that someday may be legal to sell. Gabon has the unusual luxury of kissing its ivory mountain goodbye because it has an even more lucrative resource: two billion barrels of crude oil.

But it is not clear how long Gabon will continue as this relatively prosperous, politically stable corner of Africa. Protesters recently began chaffing against Mr. Bongo’s rule, saying he rigged an election to ensure that he would take over from his father, who died in 2009 after 41 years in office.

Read More..

DC police investigating 'Meet the Press' incident

WASHINGTON (AP) — District of Columbia police say they are investigating an incident in which NBC News reporter David Gregory displayed what he described as a high-capacity ammunition magazine on "Meet the Press."

Police spokesman Tisha Gant said Wednesday the department is investigating whether Gregory may have violated D.C. firearms laws that ban the possession of high-capacity magazines. She declined to comment further.

While interviewing National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre on Sunday's program, Gregory held an object, apparently as a prop to make a point, and said it was a magazine that could hold 30 rounds.

High-capacity ammunition magazines are banned in the District of Columbia, regardless of whether they're attached to a firearm. "Meet the Press" is generally taped in Washington.

An email seeking comment from NBC was not immediately returned.

Read More..

Creating the Ultimate Housework Workout

Robert Wright for The New York Times

Chris Ely, an English butler, and Carol Johnson, a fitness instructor at Crunch NYC, perfecting a houseworkout.

CAN housework help you live longer? A New York Times blog post by Gretchen Reynolds last month cited research linking vigorous activity, including housework, and longevity. The study, which tracked the death rates of British civil servants, was the latest in a flurry of scientific reports crediting domestic chores with health benefits like a lowered risk for breast and colon cancers. In one piquant study published in 2009, researchers found that couples who spent more hours on housework had sex more frequently (with each other) though presumably not while vacuuming. (The report did not specify.)

Intrigued by science that merged the efforts of a Martha with the results of an Arnold (a buffer buffer?), this reporter challenged a household expert and a fitness authority to create the ultimate housework workout — a houseworkout — in her East Village apartment. Perhaps she could add a few years to her own life while learning some fancy new moves for her Swiffer. Christopher Ely, once a footman at Buckingham Palace, and Brooke Astor’s longtime butler, was appointed cleaner-in-chief. Mr. Ely is a man who approaches what the professionals call household management with the range and depth of an Oxford don. Although he is working on his memoirs (he described his book as a room-by-room primer with anecdotes from his years in service), he was happy enough to put his writing aside for an afternoon. His collaborator was Carol Johnson, a dancer and fitness instructor who develops classes at Crunch NYC, including those based on Broadway musicals like “Legally Blonde” and “Rock of Ages.”

Mr. Ely arrived first, beautifully dressed in dark gray wool pants, a black suit coat and a crisp white shirt with silver cuff links. He cleans house in a white shirt? “I know how to clean it,” he countered, meaning the shirt. When Ms. Johnson appeared (in black spandex and a ruffly white chiffon blouse, which she switched out for a Crunch T-shirt), theory, method and materials were discussed.

“If you’re dreading the laundry,” Ms. Johnson said, “why not create a space where it’s actually fun to do by putting on some music?” If fitness is defined by cardio health, she added, it will be a challenge to create housework that leaves you slightly out of breath. “I’m thinking interval training,” she said. As it happens, one trend in exercise has been workouts that are inspired by real-world chores, or what Rob Morea, a high-end Manhattan trainer, described the other day as “mimicking hard labor activities.” In his NoHo studio, Mr. Morea has clients simulate the actions of construction workers hefting cement bags over their shoulders (Mr. Morea uses sand bags) or pushing a wheelbarrow or chopping wood.

Mr. Ely averred that service — extreme housekeeping — is physically demanding, with sore feet and bad knees the least of its debilitating byproducts. Mr. Ely still suffers from an injury he incurred while carrying a poodle to its mistress over icy front steps in Washington When the inevitable occurred, and Mr. Ely wiped out, he threw the dog to his employer before falling hard on his backside. And the right equipment matters: After two weeks’ employ in an Upper East Side penthouse, he was handed a pair of Reeboks by his new boss, the better to withstand the apartment’s wall-to-wall granite floors. (For cleaning, Mr. Ely wears slippers, deck shoes or socks.)

Mr. Ely, whose talents and expertise are wide-ranging (he can stock a wine cellar, do the flowers, set a silver service, iron like a maestro and clean gutters, as he did once or twice at Holly Hill, Mrs. Astor’s Westchester estate), is a minimalist when it comes to materials. He favors any simple dish detergent as a multipurpose cleaner, along with a little vinegar, for glass, and not much else. “Dish detergent is designed for cutting grease; there’s nothing better,” he said. He’s anti-ammonia, anti-bleach. He said bleach destroys fabric, particularly anything with elastic in it. “Knickers and bleach are a terrible combination,” he said. “I had a boss who thought he had skin cancer. His entire trunk had turned red and itchy.” It seems his underpants were being washed in bleach. (Collective wince.) “It’s horrible stuff.”

As for tools, he likes a cobweb cleaner — this reporter had bought Oxo’s extendable duster, which has a fluffy orange cotton duster that snaps onto a sort of wand, but Mr. Ely prefers the kind that looks like a round chimney brush. (If you live in a house, he also suggests leaving the cobwebs by the front and back doors, so the spiders can eat any mosquitoes coming or going.) Choose a mop with microfiber fronds (he suggested the O Cedar brand) because it dries quickly and doesn’t smell. And a sturdy vacuum. Also, stacks of microfiber cloths or a terry cloth towel ripped up.

But first, to stretch. Ms. Johnson took hold of this reporter’s Bona floor mop (it’s like a Swiffer, but with a reusable washcloth) and Mr. Ely followed along with an old-fashioned string mop. Though Mr. Ely has a kind of loose-limbed elegance, he is not exactly limber. He grimaced as he parroted Ms. Johnson, who used her mop as Gene Kelly did his umbrella, stretching her arms overhead, one by one, twisting from side to side, sucking in her stomach, rising up on tip toes. (Mr. Ely said his old poodle-hurling injury was kicking in.) Ms. Johnson adjusted his chin — “You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep sticking your neck out,” she warned — and Mr. Ely raised a black-socked foot napped with cat hair and chastised this reporter: “Would you look at that?” (The cat had vanished early on, but his “debris,” as Mr. Ely put it, was still very much in evidence. The reporter hung her head. Did she know that cat spit is toxic? Mr. Ely wondered.)

“We’re warming up the spine,” said Ms. Johnson. “Squeeze your abdominals.”

Mr. Ely looked worried: “I don’t think I have abdominals!”

MR. ELY’S technique is to clean a room from top to bottom. That means he begins with the cobweb cleaner, wafting it along ceiling corners, moldings, soffits and, uh, the top of the fridge (major dust harvest there). His form was pretty, like a serve by Roger Federer, if not exactly aerobic. For Mr. Ely kept stopping to lecture this reporter — on condensation; on the basic principles of heat transfer and why one needs to vacuum the refrigerator coils; on the movement of moist air in a kitchen; on floor care, which involved a long story about a Belgian monastery whose inhabitants never washed the kitchen floor; on how to dust the halogen spot lights (use a cotton cloth, not a microfiber one, and make sure the lights are off, and cool).  “I do rabbit on, don’t I?” he said. Ms. Johnson gamely hustled him along, noting that anytime you raise your arms over your head you can raise your heart rate. “What about a balance exercise?” she cajoled, executing a neat series of leg lifts. “That’s good for the butler’s booty!”

Read More..

In Gabon, Lure of Ivory Proves Hard to Resist

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

SEIZED AND DESTROYED Gabon burned 10,000 pounds of ivory in June to show its commitment against poaching, but elephants are still being slaughtered. More Photos »

OYEM, Gabon — This lush country, often called a “forest republic,” used to stand proudly apart from its shaky neighbors, like the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic, tropical disaster zones where state failure, rebel marauders and loose weapons conspired to spell doom for endangered wildlife.

The Price of Ivory

This is the second installment in a series of articles exploring how the surge in poaching of African elephants both feeds off and fuels instability on the continent.

Gabon’s government, blessed with billions of dollars of oil money and miles and miles of virgin rain forest, has made many of the right moves to protect its animals by setting aside chunks of land for national parks, actually paying wildlife rangers on time (a rarity in Africa) and recently destroying a towering mountain of ivory in a statement of its refusal to look the other way.

But as the price of ivory keeps going up, hitting levels too high for many people to resist, Gabon’s elephants are getting slaughtered by poachers from across the borders and within the rain forests, proof that just about nowhere in Africa are elephants safe.

In the past several years, 10,000 elephants in Gabon have been wiped out, some picked off by impoverished hunters creeping around the jungle with rusty shotguns and willing to be paid in sacks of salt, others mowed down en masse by criminal gangs that slice off the dead elephants’ faces with chain saws. Gabon’s jails are filling up with small-time poachers and ivory traffickers, destitute men and women like Therese Medza, a village hairdresser arrested a few months ago for selling 45 pounds of tusks.

“I had no idea it was illegal,” Ms. Medza said, almost convincingly, from the central jail here in Oyem, in the north. “I was told the tusks were found in the forest.”

She netted about $700, far more than she usually makes in a month, and the reason she did it was simple, she said. “I got seven kids.”

It seems that Gabon’s elephants are getting squeezed in a deadly vise between a seemingly insatiable lust for ivory in Asia, where some people pay as much as $1,000 a pound, and desperate hunters and traffickers in central Africa.

It is a story of temptation — and exploitation — and it shows that the problem is not just about demand, but about supply as well. Poverty, as well as greed, is killing Africa’s elephants.

Across the continent, tens of thousands of elephants are being poached each year in what is emerging as one of the gravest wildlife crises in decades. Gabon’s elephants are among the last of the planet’s rare forest elephants, a subspecies or possibly a totally distinct species (scientists can’t agree), which makes the stakes particularly high here. Forest elephants are smaller than their savanna cousins and have an alluring, extra-hard pinkish ivory that is especially prized.

A few decades ago, there were perhaps 700,000 forest elephants roaming through the jungles of central Africa. Now there may be fewer than 100,000, and about half of them live in Gabon.

“We’re talking about the survival of the species,” said Lee White, the British-born head of Gabon’s national parks.

In June, Gabon’s president, Ali Bongo, defiantly lighted a pyramid of 10,000 pounds of ivory on fire to make the point that the ivory trade was reprehensible, a public display of resolve that Kenya has put on in years past. It took three days for all the ivory to burn, and even after the last tusks were reduced to glowing embers, policemen vigilantly guarded the ashes. Ivory powder is valued in Asia for its purported medicinal powers, and the officers were worried someone might try to sweep up the ashes and sell them.

Some African countries, like Zimbabwe and Tanzania, are sitting on million-dollar stockpiles of ivory (usually from law enforcement seizures or elephants that died naturally) that someday may be legal to sell. Gabon has the unusual luxury of kissing its ivory mountain goodbye because it has an even more lucrative resource: two billion barrels of crude oil.

But it is not clear how long Gabon will continue as this relatively prosperous, politically stable corner of Africa. Protesters recently began chaffing against Mr. Bongo’s rule, saying he rigged an election to ensure that he would take over from his father, who died in 2009 after 41 years in office.

Read More..

Jobs Compete With College in Montana Oil Country

Matthew Staver for The New York Times

Shay Findlay is 19 and earns $40,000 a year at his second job since graduating from high school.

SIDNEY, Mont. — For most high school seniors, a college degree is the surest path to a decent job and a stable future. But here in oil country, some teenagers are choosing the oil fields over universities, forgoing higher education for jobs with salaries that can start at $50,000 a year.

Matthew Staver for The New York Times

Today’s headlong race for oil and gas is reshaping communities in the northern Plains, bringing floods of cash and job prospects.

It is a lucrative but risky decision for any 18-year-old to make, one that could foreclose on his future if the frenzied pace of oil and gas drilling from here to North Dakota to Texas falters and work dries up. But with unemployment at more than 12 percent nationwide for young adults and college tuition soaring, students here on the snow-glazed plains of eastern Montana said they were ready to take their chances.

“I just figured, the oil field is here and I’d make the money while I could,” said Tegan Sivertson, 19, who monitors pipelines for a gas company, sometimes working 15-hour days. “I didn’t want to waste the money and go to school when I could make just as much.”

Less than a year after proms and homecoming games, teenagers like Mr. Sivertson now wake at 4 a.m. to make the three-hour trek to remote oil rigs. They fish busted machinery out of two-mile-deep hydraulic fracturing wells and repair safety devices that keep the wells from rupturing, often working alongside men old enough to be their fathers. Some live at home; others drive back on weekends to eat their mothers’ food, do loads of laundry and go to high school basketball games, still straddling the blurred border between childhood and adulthood.

Just as gold rushes and silver booms once brought opera houses and armies of prospectors to rugged corners of the West, today’s headlong race for oil and gas is reshaping staid communities in the northern Plains, bringing once untold floods of cash and job prospects, but also deep anxieties about crime, growth and a future newly vulnerable to cycles of boom and bust.

Even gas stations are enticing students away from college. Katorina Pippenger, a high school senior in the tiny town of Bainville, Mont., said she makes $24 an hour as a cashier in nearby Williston, N.D., the epicenter of the boom. Her plan is to work for a few years after she graduates this spring, save up and flee. She likes the look of Denver. “I just want to make money and get out,” she said.

The shift appears to be localized around centers of oil production like Sidney. School counselors in western Montana, far from the boom, said that few of their students were abandoning college for energy jobs. And even here, a majority of graduates are still choosing universities and community colleges.

But school officials in eastern Montana said more and more students were interested in working for at least a year after graduation and getting technical training instead of a four-year degree.

Last year, one-third of the graduating seniors at Sidney High School headed off to work instead of going to college or joining the military, a record percentage. Some found work making deliveries to oil rigs, doing construction and repairing machinery. Others decided to first seek training as welders or diesel mechanics, which pay more than entry-level jobs.

Meanwhile, enrollment at Dawson Community College in Glendive, about an hour from Sidney, has fallen to 225 students from 446 just a few years ago, as fewer local students pursue two-year degrees.

“It’s the allure of the money,” said Thom Barnhart, a guidance counselor at Sidney High.

As more families arrive from Florida and Michigan and throughout Montana, seeking a new start after bankruptcies and layoffs, schools in places like Sidney are buckling. School enrollment leapt to 863 students from 723 in three years. The district is scrambling to hire good teachers who can get by on a $32,000 yearly salary in a town where apartments can rent for $1,500 a month. Freshmen are sharing lockers, and the district reopened a school that had been shuttered for years.

But every year, hundreds of those new students depart within a few weeks, tugged along by parents heading off to another job in another town.

“It’s a revolving door,” said Daniel Farr, the district’s superintendent.

At the end of a gravel highway in northeastern Montana, graduating seniors in Bainville are asking similar questions about their future. Should they get an education and pursue their interests? Or should they stick close to home and surf a wave of cash and jobs that will only grow as companies begin to build a new industrial rail terminal and worker camps, forever transforming this quiet farm town where residents say the population has doubled since the 2010 census found 300.

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8 Festive Christmas Tumblrs, Presented by Santa Dogs

365 Days of Christmas

Image courtesy of Flickr, nicktakespics

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 10 Holiday Stock Photos That Make Your Christmas Look Normal]

If the endless loop of Wham and Mariah Carey Christmas tunes still hasn’t put you in the holiday mood, let the Internet help.

SEE ALSO: 20 Amazing Christmas Surprises

[More from Mashable: Now and Then: 10 Awesome Past and Present Pics]

We ho, ho, ho‘ed around Tumblr in our digital sleigh to track down eight Christmas-themed Tumblr pages. As if the jolly Tumblrs weren’t enough, we also paired each of our favorites with a dog dressed like Santa Claus — or Santa Paws.

Merry Christmas, Internet!

Image courtesy of Flickr, H.L.I.T.

Click here to view this gallery.

Image courtesy of Flickr, jacilluch

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Jessica Simpson's Christmas gift: She's pregnant

NEW YORK (AP) — Jessica Simpson's daughter has the news all spelled out: "Big Sis."

Simpson on Tuesday tweeted a photo of her baby daughter Maxwell playing in the sand, the words "Big Sis" spelled out.

The 32-year-old old singer and personality has been rumored to be expecting again. The tweet appears to confirm the rumors.

"Merry Christmas from my family to yours" is the picture's caption. Simpson used a tweet on Halloween in 2011 to announce she was pregnant with Maxwell. She is engaged to Eric Johnson and gave birth to Maxwell in May.

One possible complication regarding her pregnancy: She is a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers.

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Recipes for Health: Penne With Mushroom Ragout and Spinach

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Penne with mushroom ragout and spinach.

​​Mushrooms and spinach together is always a match made in heaven. I use a mix of wild and regular white or cremini mushrooms for this, but don’t hesitate to make it if regular mushrooms are all that is available.

 

1/2 ounce (about 1/2 cup) dried porcini mushrooms

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1/2 medium onion or 2 shallots, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 pound mixed regular and wild mushrooms or 1 pound regular white or cremini mushrooms, trimmed and cut in thick slices (or torn into smaller pieces, depending on the type of mushroom)

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1/4 cup fruity red wine, such as a Côtes du Rhone or Côtes du Luberon

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme or a combination of thyme and rosemary

6 ounces baby spinach or 12 ounces bunch spinach (1 bunch), stemmed and thoroughly cleaned

3/4 pound penne

Freshly grated Parmesan to taste

 

1. Place the dried mushrooms in a Pyrex measuring cup and pour on 2 cups boiling water. Let soak 30 minutes, while you prepare the other ingredients. Place a strainer over a bowl, line it with cheesecloth or paper towels, and drain the mushrooms. Squeeze the mushrooms over the strainer to extract all the flavorful juices. Then rinse the mushrooms, away from the bowl with the soaking liquid, until they are free of sand. Squeeze dry and set aside. If very large, chop coarsely. Measure out 1 cup of the soaking liquid and set aside.

2. Heat the olive oil in a large, heavy, nonstick skillet over medium heat and add the onion or shallots. Cook, stirring often, until tender, about 5 minutes. Turn up the heat to medium-high and add the fresh mushrooms. Cook, stirring often, until they begin to soften and sweat, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and salt to taste, stir together for about 30 seconds, then add the reconstituted dried mushrooms and the wine and turn the heat to high. Cook, stirring, until the liquid boils down and glazes the mushrooms. Add the herbs and the mushroom soaking liquid. Bring to a simmer, add salt to taste, and cook over medium-high heat, stirring often, until the mushrooms are thoroughly tender and fragrant. Turn off the heat, stir in some freshly ground pepper, taste and adjust salt.

3. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt generously. Fill a bowl with ice water. Add the spinach to the boiling water and blanch for 20 seconds only. Remove with a skimmer and transfer to the ice water, then drain and squeeze out water. Chop coarsely and add to the mushrooms. Reheat gently over low heat.

4. Bring the water back to a boil and cook the pasta al dente following the timing suggestions on the package. If there is not much broth in the pan with the mushrooms and spinach, add a ladleful of pasta water. Drain the pasta, toss with the mushrooms and spinach, add Parmesan to taste, and serve at once.

Yield: Serves 4

Advance preparation: The mushroom ragout will keep for 3 or 4 days in the refrigerator and tastes even better the day after you make it.

Nutritional information per serving: 437 calories; 9 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 5 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 73 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 48 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste or Parmesan); 17 grams protein

​

Up Next: Spinach Gnocchi

 

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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Pope Prays for Freedom in China and Peace in Syria

Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

Pope Benedict XVI blessed the crowd during his "Urbi et Orbi" address fin St. Peter's Square in Vatican.

ROME — Speaking from the balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica, Pope Benedict XVI called Tuesday for religious freedom in China and peace for the “defenseless” in Syria in his annual Christmas Day message.

“May peace spring up for the people of Syria, deeply wounded and divided by a conflict which does not spare even the defenseless and reaps innocent victims,” Benedict said. “I appeal for an end to the bloodshed, easier access for the relief of refugees and the displaced, and dialogue in the pursuit of a political solution to the conflict.”

Wearing a short red cape lined with snow-white ermine and trimmed with gold embroidery, Benedict smiled as he offered Christmas greetings in 65 languages to thousands of faithful in Saint Peter’s Square. Marching bands from from the Italian armed forces and the Carabinieri police played festive anthems. During Christmas Eve Mass on Monday evening, the 85-year-old pontiff had appeared tired and his voice hoarse, but on Tuesday he appeared more vivacious as he delivered the traditional message, “Urbi et orbi” — to the city and the world.

He also addressed China, where in recent weeks the Vatican has been increasingly at odds with the government over the ordination of bishops, who cannot hold office without approval from the authorities, to the dismay of the Vatican.

“May the King of Peace turn his gaze to the new leaders of the People’s Republic of China for the high task which awaits them,” Benedict said. “I express my hope that, in fulfilling this task, they will esteem the contribution of the religions, in respect for each, in such a way that they can help to build a fraternal society for the benefit of that noble people and of the whole world.”

Aggravating tensions, the Chinese Bishops’ Council, a government entity, stripped Thaddeus Ma Daqin, 45, the auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, of his title this month, according to Catholic Web sites that cited sources in the Chinese church.

The bishop had been under house arrest since he shocked Communist Party officials and his faithful by renouncing his government position during his consecration in July. In recent years, China’s Patriotic Catholic Association, which does not recognize the authority of the pope, has consecrated a number of bishops over the Vatican’s objections, resulting in their excommunication.

On Tuesday, Benedict asked God to give Israelis and Palestinians the “courage to end to long years of conflict and division, and to embark resolutely on the path of negotiation” and called for peace in Egypt, “land where the Redeemer was born.”

The pope also urged “the return of peace in Mali and that of concord in Nigeria, where savage acts of terrorism continue to reap victims, particularly among Christians.” He prayed for “the refugees from the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo,” and for peace to Kenya, “where brutal attacks have struck the civilian population and places of worship.”

On Monday evening, communicating through his new Twitter handle, @Pontifex, Benedict recalled that as a boy he loved his family’s Christmas crèche, and asked his followers what their favorite Christmas traditions were. “The cribs that we built in our home gave me much pleasure,” his message read. “We added figures each year and used moss for decoration.”

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Reaction to the death of actor Jack Klugman

Celebrities on Monday reacted to the death of "Odd Couple" star Jack Klugman, who died Monday at age 90. Here are samples of sentiments expressed on Twitter:

___

"R.I.P. Jack Klugman, Oscar, Quincy a man whose career spanned almost 50 years. I first saw him on the Twilight Zone. Cool guy wonderful actor." — Whoopi Goldberg.

___

"You made my whole family laugh together." — Actor Jon Favreau, of "Swingers," ''Iron Man" and other films.

___

"I worked with Jack Klugman several years ago. He was a wonderful man and supremely talented actor. He will be missed" — Actor Max Greenfield, of the "New Girl" on Fox.

___

"So sorry to hear that Jack Klugman passed away. I learned a lot, watching him on television" — Dan Schneider, creator of Nickelodeon TV shows "iCarly," ''Drake and Josh" ''Good Burger," ''Drake & Josh."

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