Kabir Khan’s forthcoming film Ek Tha Tiger has managed to creat a lot of buzz with the release of its first theatrical trailer. The director has been getting lots of compliments from his fans and friends from the industry. However, Kabir is constantly being posed one question: Is Ek Tha Tiger an anti-Pakistan film?

As its promo suggests the question is much obvious. But Kabir denies it. He said, “I have been getting lots of comments from people thinking ETT is anti Pak. Let me say this once & for all, No ETT is not anti Pak,”

Overwhelmed by the response, Kabir informs that the film will be a total entertainment for Salman fans. He himself watched the first teaser at the theatre to check out audience response.

“I spent 15 days on just the sound design of the teaser but in the theatre there was so much screaming & shouting that I couldn’t hear a thing. Salman is very happy with the tremendous response,” he says, smiling.

New Delhi: Royal Challengers Bangalore player Luke Pomersbach has been arrested for allegedly misbehaving with a foreign woman during a post match IPL party at ITC Mourya here on Thursday night.

Who is Luke Pomersbach? 

An FIR was lodged against the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s Australian recruit at the Chanakyapuri police station late last night.

The player molested the American woman of Indian origin and then beat up her fiancé who tried to prevent him from molesting the woman during an IPL post match party.

The victim alleged that Pomersbach came to his room and molested her in front of her fiancé. 

The 27-year-old player has been booked under the sections 354 (outraging modesty of woman), 323 (hurt), 454 (lurking house trespass) and 511 (Punishment for attempting to commit offences punishable with imprisonment for life or other imprisonment) of the Indian Penal Code.

The RCB team yesterday won their important IPL encounter with Delhi Daredevils in the capital and then went to attend the post match party.

It’s not the first time Western Australian player Pomersbach violated law as he was fined USD 3500 and banned from driving for six months after pleading guilty to six charges arising out of a night of drunken madness in 2009.

Meanwhile, IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla washed his hands off by saying that the player went to the party on his own as IPL organizes no official party.

“Let me clear you that IPL hosts no party. The player must have gone to his individual capacity. We have nothing to do with it. Let law takes its own course.”

“It is an individual behavior of the individual player,” he said.

KC Dwivedi, Additional Commissioner of Delhi Police confirmed that Luke Pomersbach has been arrested for molestation and has been taken for medical examination.

He also informed that the player would be produced before the court once his medical examination was over.

Royal Challengers Bangalore owner Vijay Mallya, however, regrets the incident saying that Pomersbach won’t be allowed to play for his team unless he clears his name.

“Law should take its course. He won’t be allowed to take to the field till the investigations are over,” he said. 

The condition of 32-year-old Sohail Pirzada, the fiancé of the woman, is stated to be normal. 

Dr DK Baluja, executive directive of the Primus Hospital, where Pirzada was taken for treatment, said that he came to the hospital at around 7.30 am this morning. 

They examined him but did not find any critical external injury, he added. 

MCA president and Union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh while announcing the ban on Shah Rukh in a press conference in Mumbai said, "the rules apply to all – no one is above them." 

Shah Rukh’s behaviour was not proper and against the rules, said the MCA chief. 

The former Maharashtra chief minister added that after his fight at the stadium on Wednesday night, the superstar has shown no regrets for his action and behaviour, in fact, he justified his actions. 

The decision was taken in MCA’s board meeting held in Mumbai. 

The MCA owns the Wankhede stadium, but the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will take a final call on the ban, said IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla. 

On Thursday, the Marine Drive police registered a non-cognisable offence against the actor after he had got into a verbal spat with MCA officials and a few security personnel after Indian Premier League’s T20 cricket match at Wankhede Stadium. 

The filing of a non-cognisable offence means that the police are unlikely to take a strong action and might just issue a warning after his IPL team routed Mumbai Indians on Wednesday night. 

On Wednesday, the MCA filed a police complaint against the Bollywood star for abusing and assaulting its officials in an inebriated state; the Bollywood star, in turn, sought an apology from the association for security guards shoving his daughter and other kids around and its officials’ "unpardonable" behaviour. 

By many accounts, a large group of children accompanying Khan tried entering the stadium’s field to play but were stopped by security personnel at the boundary line. Khan said the guards "manhandled" some children to hold them back and "touched little girls in the garb of security". This led to an argument, in which Khan and his associates allegedly abused and shoved MCA officials and security guards. 

The MCA version differed greatly. In a complaint filed at Marine Drive police station, MCA secretary Nitin Dalal said Khan and his entourage "entered the ground without proper accreditation along with 15-20 boys". "When a young girl wished him… Mr Shah Rukh Khan abused her in most dirty and vulgar language (like f*** off)… an MCA watchman came forward and asked everyone to vacate the stadium. Shah Rukh charged at the watchman and hit him and continued to use abusive language like f*** MCA, f*** BCCI," the complaint asserted.

What the former Bosnian Serb military commander hopes to gain and exactly what he is trying to defend are unclear. He may be the only one who expects an outcome other than guilty.

He seems almost eager to fight all comers to the bitter end.

The women of Srebrenica are in the Hague too. All these years later, they stand before him, with international justice on their side.

These women — the widows, mothers, victims of one of the worst atrocities since World War II — occupy the moral high ground. They will not be moved.

Mladic shows no remorse

But they have sunk so low in despair and desolation that even a bone unearthed in a mass grave raises spirits — maybe something tangible from a loved one, something to cling to, a hint that truth and justice may not escape them.

Almost 1,000 miles away, most of Bosnia goes about its business with little talk of the war; life goes on. If a question is unwittingly asked by an outsider, it is met with grace, but it hangs awkwardly over the conversation, like an unwanted guest at a dinner table everyone would rather not be there.

So back here, in a courtroom in the Netherlands, it is the women of Srebrenica who have the moral weight to slug it out. Eight thousand murders in Srebrenica alone. This is what gives their families such power: There are so many of them.

They’ve become a force Mladic must reckon with, by proxy of course. The international community, in the form of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), controls this courtroom battlefield. They are such a force, in fact, that the whole country must listen, too, awkward or not. No amount of reconciliation — not that there is a lot — can really happen until the women of Srebrenica and their families get the justice they are looking for.

Can their moral high ground be shared with other Bosnians? Can the country untether itself from the weight of this anchor on progress? If so, then a bigger battle will have been won in the Hague.

Ratko Mladic: Villain to many, hero to others

Will a guilty verdict in the battle still playing out in the courtroom here be enough to win — Mladic vanquished to jail, banished from the battlefield by a long sentence?

If not, then no prison sentence will bring back the dead, rectify the wrongs, and Bosnians hopeful of a better future will be hostage to their history and to those who more than anyone deserve a better future, the families of Srebrenica.

The co-founder of Facebook, whose falling out with CEO Mark Zuckerberg was immortalized in the film "The Social Network," moved from the U.S. to Singapore in 2009. It was also recently revealed that Saverin, who was born in Brazil, gave up his U.S. citizenship a few months ago and became a permanent Singapore resident.

Why Singapore? According to his spokesman, Saverin’s move was just "practical" as he plans to invest in companies "that have strong interests in entering the Asian markets. Accordingly, it made the most sense for him to use Singapore as a home base."

One other glaring possibility? Singapore has no capital gains tax. So depending on the size of his actual stake in Facebook, Saverin stands to realize substantial tax savings on any stock sales. According to Singapore- based "Wealth-X" which gathers information on "ultra high net worth individuals," Saverin’s estimated tax savings are "at least $39 million as a result of renouncing U.S. citizenship."

Saverin’s spokesman denies the move was done for tax reasons.

Whatever drew him to Singapore, Saverin can find lots of ultra-rich company here. The tiny country is a playground for the super rich, with plenty of fast cars, luxury shopping, high priced gourmet restaurants and trendy bars. And Singapore’s stable government and tax benefits have also drawn the wealthy from the region. Singapore has one of the world’s highest number of millionaires per capita and a good share of billionaires, like Saverin.

And Saverin is known to like the good life in Singapore, driving a Bentley and partying at several local clubs, including a members only nightclub. He’s also appeared in "Singapore Tatler," the local leading society magazine.

Singapore is eager to attract wealthy investors like Saverin, and offers plenty of tax incentives and even permanent residency for big investors. Angel investors in local start-ups enjoy reduced income tax — and in some cases, pay no income tax.

Saverin has invested in a few Singapore mobile app companies, including Anideo and Perx, which has an increasingly visible customer loyalty reward program in Singapore.

He has also invested in a cosmetics company run by a friend Rachel Kum, a former Miss Singapore Universe. Saverin appears with Kum in a profile of her company and is termed her "mentor." He’s shown drinking champagne and also offers some business advice, saying "companies need to listen to their customers," one of the "biggest things" he says Facebook has done.

Still Singapore is a good place to live if you are seeking privacy. Most of the media is government backed and keeps a fairly tight lid on private lives, and while the internet has plenty of gossip, Saverin won’t likely find paparazzi chasing him in Singapore.

To you, those are ways to enjoy, expand and improve your experience on Facebook. To Facebook, they’re the building blocks of a multibillion-dollar company.

In business, there’s a well-worn line that could apply to the social-networking behemoth: If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer. You’re the product.

In this case, you’re a product worth, to Facebook, an average $4.84 a year.

As Facebook hits Wall Street this week with a public stock offering that could value the company at more than $100 billion, investors appear dazzled by the company’s uncannyability to put the right advertisements in front of its roughly 900 million users.

"The unique thing about these guys is the accuracy with which they can help advertisers and marketers understand who they’re getting," said Arvind Bhatia, an analyst with Sterne Agee Financial Services. "On Facebook, your information is authentic; they are able to basically make the ads, and your experience, more relevant. I think that is unique. It’s unprecedented and the reach is unparalleled."

In documents filed in relation to its stock offering, Facebook says that about 85% of its revenue comes from advertising. The other 15% comes from payments made within apps that run on the site (a head-turning 12% is from a single source — Zynga, makers of social games such as "FarmVille.")

As Bhatia suggests, Facebook’s unprecedented advertising advantage is built upon the service it provides. As users interact with the site, they gradually build a fuller and fuller picture of themselves. That, in turn, lets Facebook sell advertisers on its ability to put their product in front of the people most likely to be interested.

CNNMoney: You’re only worth $1.21 (per quarter) to Facebook

How targeted ads work

For example, say a woman who has listed her hometown as New Orleans changes her relationship status from "single" to "engaged." Facebook suddenly has a hot prospect to offer up to a bridal retailer or caterer in the Big Easy. To dig deeper, if she lists her MBA from Loyola and has "liked" pages for, say, Saks Fifth Avenue and Mercedes Benz, you get a fuller picture of how much she might be willing to spend.

"With a reported 901 million members, Facebook is a great test bed for understanding consumers and their purchasing interests," said Jan Rezab, CEO of Socialbakers, a social-media analytics firm. "Before Facebook, marketers relied on online surveys or focus groups to determine customer interest. Now, they can reach the customer directly on their Facebook page."

Facebook doesn’t publicly give away the details of how its system works.But as it has begun wooing potential investors, the company has been more willing to talk about its advertising approach.

Dan Rose, Facebook vice president of partnerships and platform marketing, discussed the appeal of its social ads at an event recently in Austin, Texas.

According to research from Pew, the average Facebook user has 229 friends.When that user likes a product or company’s ad, it serves as an endorsement to those friends from someone they know and, presumably, trust.

"When I raise my hand and say, I like Einstein (Bros.) bagels, and then one of my friends sees that ad, they’re going to see my name in that ad," Rose said. Through Facebook’s partnership with the media-research firm Nielsen, "We found that when my friend’s name is in an ad, I’m over 60% more likely to remember the ad, and I’m over four times more likely to purchase the product," he said.

"This is word of mouth. This is word of mouth at scale. This is what, as marketers, we’ve always been trying to bottle up and find a way to take advantage of. And the social Web is finally allowing us to do that."

In his 2010 book, "The Facebook Effect," David Kirkpatrick recounts chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s arrival in 2008, when she sharpened the company’s focus on what would become the current advertising model. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, remained focused on growing the site and improving user experience — a focus he reportedly maintains to this day.

Kirkpatrick writes of the level of detail a Facebook ad can reach:

"Anybody can pick through endless combinations on Facebook’s self-service ad page," he wrote, referring to the tool advertisers use to target their ads. "You can show your ad only to married women aged 35 and up who live in northern Ohio. Or display an ad only to employees of one company in a certain city on a certain day. (Employers aiming to cherry-pick people from a competitor do this all the time).

"Customers for Facebook’s more expensive engagement ads can select from even more detailed choices — women who are parents, talk about diapers, listen to Coldplay and live in cities, for example."

In its Wall Street filing, Facebook listed its Average Revenue Per User at $1.21 per quarter, or $4.84 a year. That’s less than rivals like Google and Yahoo and miniscule compared to companies with more traditional business models, like wireless providers and cable companies.

But, as Rose says, it’s all about scale for a company that will likely reach 1 billion user accounts by the end of the year.

Are you living without Facebook?

User data and privacy

Not that the model hasn’t made some folks antsy. Time and again, tweaks to Facebook’s privacy settings have prompted user backlash, occasionally to the point that the site has reversed or modified those changes.

According to a recent Associated Press/CNBC poll, three out of five users say they have little or no faith that the company will protect their personal information. Half of those who use the site daily say they wouldn’t make a purchase through it and 57% of all users claimed they never click on ads or other sponsored content.

On a page about its advertising approach, Facebook makes it clear that it never sells user data, saying that "if you don’t feel like you’re in control of who sees what you share, you probably won’t use Facebook as much, and you’ll share less with your friends."

Facebook officials also emphasize that while advertisers can market to specific users, they don’t receive the data that was used to make the selection and never know the actual names of the people they’ve reached. Facebook’s policy is to not actually look at user data except to check whether someone is violating the site’s terms of service.

Doubling down on user satisfaction is the most important thing Facebook can do, Bhatia said, even if it occasionally means passing up chances to max out the amount it could earn on the data users provide.

"For them, the user experience does come first and I think that’s the right strategy for the long term," he said. "Along the way, putting the user experience first makes a lot of longer-term business sense."

As an analyst, Bhatia is bullish on Facebook, leading the pack with an early "buy" rating at the beginning of this month. With Facebook reportedly looking at expanding into China and at monetizing its mobile app (an untapped resource even though the majority of time on the site is now spent on mobile devices) he expects its data-driven model to keep making money well into the future.

"Facebook is going to become just like search, [which] disrupted online advertising," he said. "What Google did eight years ago — that is what Facebook is doing now. The reach is unparalleled and they’re just scratching the surface."

(CNN) – Recording traveling expenses can be one the most frustrating aspects of the business traveler’s busy life on the road. Restaurant bills, train tickets, hotel receipts; they all have to be accurately accounted for.

This can be a time consuming chore, but an array of high-tech devices have hit the market with the aim of simplifying the process.

According to Duncan Bell, operations editor of tech magazine T3, receipt scanners and, to a greater extent, smartphone apps, are the main drivers of these developments.

“Technology has made quite major changes in terms of how people do their expenses — particularly in larger companies,” Bell says.

“Whereas before it was inevitably hand written, and then later typed into a spreadsheet, which involved bringing expenses into the office, now it can be done on the fly on a variety of different technologies,” he adds.

Bell took a look at some of the most prominent products that are streamlining the expenses process.

Planon Slimscan

The Planon Slimscan is a pocket-sized scanner that enables users to record small receipts, business cards and all manner of other expenses-related paperwork.

It’s a device that looks “impressive” and is easy to carry around, says Bell.

Given its diminutive size, however, the Planon Slimscan is unable to scan larger items of paperwork, such as hotel or taxi receipts, he adds.

“They’re not actually physically wide enough to actually scan them (larger paperwork) in,” Bell says.

“(It’s) something that you produce with a flourish from your wallet … but is overshadowed by the usability element,” he concludes.

See also: Higher air fares, more mergers?

Epson WorkForce DS-30

A much larger device that aims to cater for receipts both large and small is the Epson WorkForce DS-30.

This portable scanner is still relatively lightweight but definitely something you would “put in your luggage rather than your wallet,” says Bell.

The extra bulk and size enables users to digitize larger pieces of paper up to A4 size. According to Bell, however, recording small receipts and most “expenses-related things” doesn’t require such high quality or precision technology.

“They are nice pieces of hardware, but maybe not the perfect solution for (recording expenses),” he says.

NeatReceipts scanner

The NeatReceipts scanner is a slim and lightweight device that its makers say can scan receipts, business cards and documents of all sizes to produce electronic files that are stored in a “digital filing cabinet.”

Despite overcoming the difficulties posed by documents of differing dimensions, Bell says NeatReceipts isn’t as efficient as it could be.

He describes the technology as similar to the prospect of flying cars — “a nice idea but (one that) never actually quite works” — because of the scanner’s propensity to misread entries on receipts.

“You have to think of it more as a means of scanning the receipt and then you changing the various mistakes,” he adds. “If you are expecting this to do your accounts for you — well it ain’t — but it will help.”

Concur

The Concur app is one of the many smartphone software programs now on the market. Bell says apps will likely be the future of expense-recording devices.

“They basically do the same job as scanner-based solutions … and (are) capable of putting (expenses) in a format that is useable by your accounts department,” he explains.

Concur itself enables users to photograph, record and collate invoices via an easy-to-use interface. According to Bell, it doesn’t try anything too clever and provides a simple system for digitally capturing and filing data that can then be passed onto accounting departments to process.

Even if accounts don’t accept digitized images of receipts, “the scans mean you’re not struggling to remember which taxi fare cost what when you come to fill in your expenses,” he adds.

ExpenseMagic

Another useful smartphone application for the tech-savvy business traveler is ExpenseMagic, says Bell.

“What ExpenseMagic does is use the hardware of your phone and an app to photograph receipts and enter various bits of information — but the main body of the work is done by an actual living person.”

“They have a team of accountants who will go though your photographed receipts and turn it into a form suitable for use by your accounts department.”

This takes away much of the stress of recording and sifting through mountains of crumpled up pieces of paper, explains Bell.

“The downside of this is obviously they are not doing this out of the good of their hearts, so there is a subscription cost that needs to be borne,” he adds.

Perhaps that’s another cost to add to your travel expenses.

Usain Bolt was the name on everyone’s lips after the Beijing Olympics the following year, when a hamstring injury meant Gay could only compete in the 100 meters — and he didn’t even reach the final.

However, 2012 finds the 29-year-old from Lexington, Kentucky, in prime condition and ready to challenge Jamaica’s world record-holder in London in August.

CNN’s Human to Hero series tracked down Gay as he prepares for battle with Bolt in the UK capital, having decided to focus on the 100m event in June’s U.S. trials.

Starting out

“I played football in high school, I played baseball when I was younger, things like that, but I think it was the passion I had for track where you want to do an individual sport and be the best, I think — there’s nothing that can replace that.”

Gay’s promise on the track was clear from an early age, though it wasn’t until he had turned 14 that he could beat his older sister Tiffany, who he says has inspired him.

He became a three-time 100m state champion at Lafayette High School and his time of 10.46 seconds in a 2001 state meeting remains a record. He was the first athlete in history from the University of Arkansas to claim a National College 100m title.

Heroes

Gay says an illustrious American quintet of Olympic medal winners have proved an inspiration to his career.

Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson, who share 13 Olympic gold medals between them, are joined by the legendary Jesse Owens, who won four golds at the Berlin Games of 1936.

Jon Drummond, who won a gold and a silver in Atlanta in 1996, and Maurice Greene, who secured two golds at Sydney in 2000, complete the list.

“When I grew up Carl Lewis was still running, Maurice Greene was running — he was that figure I see, like Michael Johnson. I really wanted to look up to the fast guys — so those two guys were some of the guys I looked up to.

“In history class at school it was Jesse Owens. You had to learn about him first before you got to Maurice Greene and those guys.

“I do some training with Jon Drummond — he’s given me a lot of great advice. Maurice Greene as well. He’ll text me sometimes to check how I’m doing to see how an injury is going. That really means a lot to me.”

London 2012

Gay has never made an Olympic final but is intent on breaking that run in London when, once again, 100m and 200m world record-holder Bolt will be the man to beat.

“This is my biggest Games. I think this is me in my prime. I’m gonna be fit and ready. I’m gonna put everything into this one,” Gay said.

“I really believe it’s going to be one of the most exciting Olympics in history. I want to run with the best, that’s how I’ve always lived.

“Basically, last year I ran on one leg and ran 9.7 seconds. I know I can be a lot more dangerous as long as I stay healthy and get a lot stronger in the weight room.

“I haven’t been to an Olympic final yet, so I know it’s going to be a different type of atmosphere but I’m thinking I can control it.

“I’ve really learned over the years how to control my adrenaline and let it all out when they shoot the gun versus letting the crowd and the lights and the camera get to me.

“So I’m thinking I can handle it, but I think I will be a little bit nervous.”

The situation is further complicated by tribal rivalries and a growing presence of Islamist militants in some areas.

One source briefed by Western intelligence officials said that of particular concern is the city of Derna on the Mediterranean coast some 160 miles (260 kilometers) west of the Egyptian border.

The source told CNN that hundreds of Islamist militants are in and around the town, and there are camps where weapons and physical training are provided to militants. He said one official had described the area as “a disaster zone.”

Tensions have grown between local people and the militants. Last month, a number of Derna residents went to a camp on the outskirts of the city, according to the source, and forced militants to leave.

There have also been a number of car bomb explosions in Derna in recent months, apparently as rival Islamist factions compete for supremacy in the area. One is said to have targeted Abdel Hakim al Hasadi, a former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group who spent time in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

He told reporters last year he had been handed over to the Americans and sent back to Libya, where he was jailed for six years. The LIFG formally repudiated al Qaeda in 2009 and disbanded shortly afterward.

The source said that groups sympathetic to al Qaeda as well as former members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group had converged on Derna, and the presence of one man was especially worrying: senior al Qaeda operative Abdul Basit Azuz. He had been sent to the area last spring by al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and had some 300 men under his command, the source said.

Azuz was operating at least one training facility and has sent some of his men to establish contact with other militant Islamist groups as far west as Brega, the source said.

Al-Zawahiri’s plan was for him to establish a “home base for al Qaeda” in Libya, the source said.

A senior counterterrorism official told CNN that Western intelligence is aware of Azuz’s presence, his recruitment and training of fighters, and believes his redeployment to Libya had the backing of al-Zawahiri.

The official said it was unclear whether former LIFG militants were contesting Azuz’s presence in Derna. It was possible, he said, that al Qaeda had grown strong enough in the area to deter such a confrontation.

However, one Libyan official familiar with the situation downplayed the threat of Islamist militancy in Derna. He acknowledged that there are Islamist militants in the city, but said he was “100% sure” that al Qaeda have not established a presence there. He said the militants amounted to a few dozen and that security in Derna was “better than in Tripoli.”

The official said there are two military camps in Derna, and one was occupied by Islamists known as the al-Nour Brigade, but they are now “tied in” to the Libyan Interior Ministry. He denied there are any camps dedicated to training terrorists, adding that if groups like al Qaeda were operating in Libya, the country would have seen by now terrorist attacks targeting foreigners or foreign missions.

The threat to Western security posed by al Qaeda in eastern Libya was mainly “over-the-horizon” according to the Western counterterrorism official who spoke with CNN. But the official said it has the potential to become significant because of Libya’s proximity to Europe.

Azuz has been close to al-Zawahiri since the 1980s and first traveled to Afghanistan in the early 1990s to join mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation, as did hundreds of Arab fighters.

Azuz later moved to the United Kingdom and lived in Manchester, where he increasingly cropped up on the radar screen of British counterterrorism services who suspected he was trying to radicalize youngsters, according to the source briefed by Western intelligence.

In the period after the July 7, 2005, London bombings, he was one of about a dozen Libyans held under so-called “control orders” and detained at Belmarsh high-security prison. After being released, he left Britain around 2009 for the Afghan-Pakistan border region, along with the son of another militant who was subsequently killed there.

Derna has long been associated with Islamic militancy. It was an area where the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was strong during Gadhafi’s rule. Many of the Libyan fighters who joined al Qaeda in Iraq came from the Derna area, according to documents seized by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2006. Many returned, while other recruits never reached Iraq, making the area potentially fertile ground for al Qaeda recruitment.

In 2008, a U.S. diplomat who visited Derna noted in a cable: “Unlike the rest of the country, sermons in eastern Libyan mosques are laced with phraseology urging worshippers to support jihad in Iraq and elsewhere through direct participation or financial contributions.”

One source told CNN that the situation in the east was complicated by the presence of foreign fighters from Algeria, Morocco and the Sahel, including some from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Al Qaeda has tried to harness the unrest in north Africa to its advantage over the past year. One senior figure in the group, Abu Yahya al-Libi, said in a video message to fellow Libyans distributed on jihadist forums last year: “At this crossroads you have found yourselves, you either choose a secular regime that pleases the greedy crocodiles of the West and for them to use it as a means to fulfill their goals, or you take a strong position and establish the religion of Allah.”

The Libyan official who spoke to CNN said there is no desire for extremism among the Libyan people. Diplomats in Tripoli agree with that assessment but say Islamist militants could take advantage of poor security, wide open spaces and porous borders.

The official said the Islamist trend in Libya — represented by the Muslim Brotherhood and former fighters of the LIFG — is strong but not united. He and other observers said it is notable that a prominent former figure in the LIFG, Abdel Hakim Belhadj, resigned this week as head of Tripoli’s Military Council to run for public office. Diplomats say Belhadj is making the transition from jihadist to politician.

Many challenges confront Libya as it approaches June’s elections, including that different militia remain influential players and have not been disarmed. Last week there was a gun battle in Tripoli close to the prime minister’s office.

The special U.N. envoy to Libya, Ian Martin, has expressed concern over prisons run by militia that hold an estimated 4,000 detainees alleged to have been Gadhafi supporters

In a recorded message, Andre Kuipers, an astronaut with the European Space Agency on his second mission to the International Space Station, said he had a unique view of the earth which he orbits 16 times a day.

“From space, you see the forest fires, you see the air pollution, you see erosion,” he said, launching the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report for 2012.

The biennial survey shows the world is still consuming far more than the Earth can replenish, along with a widening and “potentially catastrophic” gap between the ecological footprints of rich and poor nations.

“The report is clear that we’re still going downhill, that our ecological footprint, the pressure we put on the earth’s resources, continues to rise so we’re now using 50% more resources that the earth can replenish and biodiversity continues to decline,” said Jim Leape, Director General of WWF International.

The report includes a list of the world’s top 10 polluting countries topped by Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East. They’re followed byDenmark, Belgium and the United States. Australia,Canada, the Netherlands and Ireland make up the remainder.

Countries are ranked on their consumption of renewable resources versus their biocapacity, or ability to produce renewable resources and absorb CO2 emissions. Dominating the list are high-income countries, whose average ecological footprint is now five times that of low-income nations.

And the gap is increasing. Between 1970 and 2008, the ecological footprint of high-income nations rose seven percent, the report said. Over that period, the same index for poor countries tumbled 60%.

The disparity indicates richer nations are buying resources from poorer countries which have natural resources available to exploit, the report said.

“What one of the things that we as a global community have been slow to realize is that even in an industrialized economy will still demand very directly on the health of natural systems to provide the water we drink and to keep the climate stable,” Leape said.

“As you see forest loss continue, as you see the depletion of rivers, you are undercutting the foundation for economic development in those countries,” he said.

Leape said there are signs some large business and governments are taking steps to reduce their burden on the environment. Denmark, for example, number four on the list of worst polluters, has pledged to double the nation’s windpower and to wean itself off fossil fuels by 2050.

“What you see now is companies and governments who are on the vanguard beginning to make shifts but those shifts have to be driven down into entire markets and across all governments. We’re not yet getting to the scale required to begin to bend the curves,” Leape said.

The impact of rich nations worldwide is clear in figures showing that the steepest drop in biodiversity over the past 40 years has occurred in poorer countries. The decline, the report said, demonstrates “how the poorest and most vulnerable nations are subsidizing the lifestyles of wealthier nations.”

“Growing external resource dependencies are putting countries at significant risk,” said Mathis Wackernagel, President of Global Footprint Network, which collaborated with the WWF and the Zoological Society of London on the report.

“Using ever more nature, while having less is a dangerous strategy, yet most countries continue to pursue this path,” he said.

The main feature of the Living Planet Report is the Living Planet Index which tracks the health of the world’s ecosystems by monitoring 9,000 populations of more than 2,600 species.

It shows a near 30% drop in biodiversity since 1970, and an even faster decline in the tropics of 60%. However, the index for temperate regions rose 31%, as some species showed signs of recovery after huge biodiversity losses the previous century.

“The read down on the temperate zone masks much more precipitous declines in other parts of the world. You see a huge loss of biodiversity across the tropics and in the poorest countries and I think that’s the most alarming fact in those indices,” Leape said.

The report was released just five weeks before the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, otherwise known as Rio +20.

“We need to see real leadership from the governments of the world coming together to commit themselves to step up to this challenge,” Leape said.

“They can take some decisions in Rio that really would make a difference in terms of setting a new course for the global economy.”