SAVAR, Bangladesh (Reuters) - Rescuers pulled a woman on Friday from the rubble of a Bangladesh garment factory 17 days after it collapsed, astonishing workmen who had been searching for bodies of victims of a disaster that has killed more than 1,000 people.

Hundreds of onlookers burst into cheers as army engineers pulled the woman from the basement of the building after a workman helping to clear the wreckage reported hearing her faint cries of "Save me, save me" from beneath the ruins.

Pale, drawn and seemingly unable to walk, the woman, identified by Bangladeshi media only as Reshma, was hoisted out of the rubble on a stretcher, then loaded into an ambulance in scenes broadcast live on television.

Mohammad Rubel Rana, a workman who had been cutting iron rods, said he had alerted rescue crews after hearing a feeble voice.

"I heard a faint voice saying 'Save me, Save me'," Rana told Reuters television. "She was given water, biscuits and oxygen."

"She has been rescued and taken to a military hospital," said Bangladesh's army spokesman Shahinul Islam.

Rescuers speculated that she may have survived by drinking water that had pooled in the site when firemen doused a fire that had broken out earlier in the rescue effort.

It was not clear if she was one of the thousands of garment workers who had been working in the eight-storey building, which collapsed on April 24, a day after its owner assured factory owners and news crews it would stand for "a century".

The woman was found hours after the death toll from the world's worst industrial accident since the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India climbed above 1,000 as rescuers struggled to end the salvage operation.

SPOTLIGHT ON RETAILERS

Bodies were still being pulled from the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex, and on Friday a spokesman at the army control room coordinating the operation said the number of people confirmed to have been killed had reached 1,045.

A series of deadly incidents at factories have focused global attention on safety standards in Bangladesh's booming garment industry. Eight people were killed in a fire at a factory this week, which an industry association said on Friday may have been started deliberately.

About 2,500 people were rescued from Rana Plaza, in the industrial suburb of Savar, 20 miles northwest of Dhaka, including many injured, but there is no official estimate of the numbers still missing.

The disaster, believed to have been triggered when generators were started up during a blackout, has put the spotlight on Western retailers who use the impoverished South Asian nation as a source of cheap goods.

Nine people have been arrested in connection with the disaster, including the building's owner and bosses of the factories it housed.

Hundreds of relatives remained at the site, some holding up photographs of family members. Rescue workers have found it increasingly difficult to identify decomposing bodies and are using ID cards found on them or their mobile phones to do so.

"A total of 156 unidentified victims have been buried," said Dhaka District Administrator Mohammad Yousuf Harun, adding that DNA samples taken from the bodies had been preserved so tests could be done if relatives come forward later.

The government has accused the owners and builders of the complex of using shoddy construction materials, including substandard rods, bricks and cement, and failing to obtain the necessary clearances.

Bangladesh's garment industry, which accounts for 80 percent of its exports, has seen a series of deadly accidents, including a fire in November that killed 112 people.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Editing by Matthew Green and Alex Richardson)

The attack struck multiple locations in the hard-hit town of Bama in Nigeria's Borno state, where shootings and bombings have continued unstopped since an insurgency began there in 2010. Fighters raided a federal prison during their assault as well, freeing 105 inmates inanother mass prison break to hit the country, officials said.

What exactly happened in the attack remains unclear, though military spokesman Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said some 200 fighters in buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns attacked the barracks of the 202 Battalion of Nigeria's beleaguered army. Musa said two soldiers died in the attack, while some 10 insurgents died. However, the military routinely downplays their casualties in such assaults.

"They came in army uniform pretending to be soldiers but were able to detect them," Musa said.

The attackers struck the federal prison, killing 14 guards there, Musa said. They also attacked and razed a police station, a police barracks, a magistrate's court and local government offices, the lieutenant colonel said.

At least 22 police officers, three children and a woman were killed in those attacks, said Bama police commander Sagir Abubakar.He said officers killed three insurgents in the fighting.

Calls rang unanswered or couldn't connect Tuesday night to those living in Bama, a town 65 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Repeated attacks by Islamic extremists have seen mobile phone towers bombed and burned to the ground there, making communication even more difficult for security officials and civilians as well in the region. At least 17 people died in an attack in Bama in late April alone.

Much of the violence has been blamed on the extremist network known as Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's north. That group has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and Nigeria to adopt strict Shariah law across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

While President Goodluck Jonathan has started a committee to look at the idea of offering an amnesty deal to extremist fighters, Boko Haram's leader, Abubakar Shekau, has dismissed the ideain messages.

The Islamic insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri that ended in a military and police crackdown that killed some 700 people. The group's leader died in police custody in an apparent execution. From 2010 on, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings, attacks that have killed more than 1,500 people, according to an Associated Press count.

Despite the deployment of more soldiers and police to northern Nigeria, the nation's weak central government has been unable to stop the killings. Meanwhile, violent atrocities committed by security forces against the local civilian population only fuels rage in the region.

In late April, at least 187 people were killed in fighting between Islamic extremists and the military in Baga, another city in Borno state that sits along the banks of Lake Chad. Witnesses say soldiers angry about the death of a military officer set fire to homes there and killed civilians.

Human Rights Watch recently said an analysis of satellite imagery before and after the attack led them to believe the violence destroyed some 2,275 buildings and severely damaged another 125.

___

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Lagos, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

So emotionally drained was the audience at Saturday afternoon's performance at the Metropolitan Opera that silence lingered in the house for several moments after the curtain fell. Only then did tumultuous applause erupt for the terrific performance that had just taken place.

But there is another death scene much earlier in the opera that is almost as wrenching. As the old prioress, Madame de Croissy, lies writhing on her deathbed, she cries out that God has forsaken her and the Carmelite order. As vividly portrayed by the veteran mezzo-soprano Felicity Palmer, the agonies and blasphemies of the prioress were painful and even shocking to witness.

Palmer was part of a uniformly strong cast the Met assembled for this revival of the classic John Dexter production, first seen in 1977 and absent from the stage for a decade.

As Blanche, mezzo Isabel Leonard sounded vibrant, even if she didn't always capture the vulnerability of the young postulant who struggles with her fear of death. Though the role was written for soprano, it is often taken by mezzos, and Leonard matched her rich lower register with secure high notes. Her voice contrasted nicely with the light soprano of Erin Morley, who was captivating as Sister Constance, the cheerful country girl who comforts Blanche.

Soprano Patricia Racette brought a sense of serenity and strength to the role of Madame Lidoine, who succeeds the old prioress and leads the nuns to their martyrdom. Mezzo Elizabeth Bishop sang with plush tone as Mother Marie, who is prevented by fate from joining her sisters in death. Baritone David Pittsinger etched a sympathetic cameo as Blanche's aristocratic father, and as her brother, tenor Paul Appleby sang with honeyed tone in the scene where he bids Blanche farewell the closest thing this opera has to a love duet.

Conductor Louis Langree led the orchestra in a wonderfully idiomatic account of the haunting and lushly melodic score.

Dexter's staging looks barely touched by time and remains a marvel of simplicity, starting with the opening image of 13 nuns lying prostrate with arms outstretched on a raised wooden platform shaped like a cross. It reportedly cost less than $100,000 at the time mere pocket change compared with many lavish and less effective productions that have come and gone from the Met stage since.

"Dialogues," first performed at La Scala in 1957, is one of a handful of post-1950 operas that have found a permanent place in the repertory. It's a shame the Met scheduled only three performances in the closing days of the season. Let's hope it won't be another 10 years before we see it again.

___

Online:

http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/

TORONTO (Reuters) - It's looking like an unsettling spring in Canadian housing, a market that has proven far more even-keeled and less scary for investors in recent years than in the United States.

In what is traditionally the best season of the year for real estate agents, Toronto agent Ecko Jay says the industry is seeing far fewer buyers, a result of tighter lending rules, high prices and fear of a bubble. In Toronto alone, sales dropped 40 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, making homeowners and investors jumpy.

"Some people want to cash in and pull out now," said Jay, a 26-year veteran of the Toronto housing market, noting some are spooked by worst-case predictions of a 20 percent drop in prices from current levels.

"They say, 'Before it gets low, let's sell,'" Jay added. "And some of my clients want to sell and rent, hoping that when it goes down they will pick up something at a better price. Nobody has a crystal ball."

But then there are Canadian policymakers, economists and market watchers who have the next best thing to a crystal ball. Their data and analysis point not to a bursting of the bubble like in the United States in 2007-08, when prices from peak to trough dropped 35 percent, but rather a gentle easing in Canadian housing prices, or perhaps just a momentary pause.

Naysayers believe Canada may be too optimistic and relying heavily on that old saw that Canada is not nearly as reckless as the United States. After all, the debt-to-income ratio of Canadians is at a record high, close to the levels experienced in the United States before its market crashed, and home ownership is at nearly 70 percent, also a record and five points more than its neighbors to the south.

But Canada does have some things going for it, most notably a move by the government to tighten mortgage lending rules four times in five years, most recently in July 2012, which has taken some buyers out of the market, dampening demand.

"If you look at the developments over the last year in Canada and compare them to the situation in the U.S. before the crisis, there is a clear difference," said Julien Reynaud, an economist at the International Monetary Fund who follows Canada.

"It is not just a question of housing supply and demand; it is rather a difference in the system of mortgage finance."

Canadians have more equity in their homes than Americans did, the default rate is lower, the sub-prime market is tiny, and mortgage interest is not tax-deductible, so there's no incentive to build up debt.

Finally, mortgages are structured as recourse loans in which assets other than the house are held as collateral. That makes Canadian homeowners less likely to walk away than their American cousins.

"What makes Canadian housing different makes it stronger," says Tom Lewandowski, who analyses Canadian banks for Edward Jones in St. Louis.

LEARNING FROM THE NEIGHBORS

Lewandowski believes Canada will not suffer a U.S.-style housing crash simply because policymakers had the benefit of watching it happen next door.

"What we experienced here in the U.S. with housing markets and regulators goes directly to the attitude and changes the minister of finance has made in Canada. A regulator who is being proactive is taking Step One in making sure the housing market doesn't find itself in a bubble," Lewandowski said.

Both Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty have been on the march against a housing bubble for years, aware how low rates and loose lending standards in the United States ignited a boom and bust there.

The central bank has held rates low since the global financial crisis because growth remains tepid and global woes weigh on Canada's export market, and Canadians can find a five-year mortgage rate below 3 percent.

But the government's gradual tightening of rules for borrowers - a firm admission that the market was hotter than anyone was comfortable with - has taken some steam out of the market, and economists, like Carney, seem to believe a soft landing may be at hand.

"We're encouraged by the fact the level of housing starts has come down to slightly below demographic demand, as we see right now, there's still more adjustments to go," he said in testimony to Parliament last week. "We're encouraged by the evolution of house prices in a number of markets. We're on the path to a balanced evolution of the household sector and we all have to continue to be vigilant."

PATRIOTISM MASKS PROBLEMS?

Recent history shows, however, that even the top policymakers can make huge miscalculations on housing. The most notorious case might be that of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who failed to see the U.S. housing catastrophe on the cards before he left in 2006.

Carney may be on to his next job in Europe before any hard downturn in the market proves him wrong. He leaves the Bank of Canada in June for a job heading the Bank of England.

The latest figures suggest Canada's housing market is slowing rather than collapsing. National sales of existing homes were down 15 percent in March from a year earlier, but they edged up from the prior month as spring buyers breathed a little life back into the market that had been cooling all winter.

Prices, which rose 84 percent in the last 10 years, are still rising, though they were up less than 3 percent from last year in March - a slowdown welcomed by everyone but sellers. But bidding wars remain commonplace in hot markets like Toronto, where immigration and low supply fire demand.

Interest rates are stuck at historic lows, so affordability is actually improving as the market cools, though it still takes about 42 percent of pre-tax income to cover the typical costs of owning a detached home. Canadians have $1.65 in debt for every dollar they earn, a ratio that makes policymakers shudder.

The notorious debt-to-income ratio, at a record high, has been cited time and again by Finance Minister Flaherty and Carney as a sign consumers have taken on too much debt.

But while many economists are reassured by the differences between the Canadian and U.S. housing markets, there are some who care more about the similarities.

Yale economist Robert Shiller, one of the few to predict the U.S. housing crash, sees the same thing happening in Canada - just in slow motion.

To Shiller, whose Case-Shiller Home Price Index is widely recognized as the best measure of U.S. house prices, the parallel between the U.S. bubble and Canada's run-up in home prices measured by the Teranet index is obvious.

"I just plot. I plot the Vancouver Teranet index with my own San Francisco index. It looks the same. Vancouver is no tamer than San Francisco, and San Francisco is one of our bubbliest cities," said Shiller, who looks at psychology as much as data to draw his pessimistic conclusions.

He's an outlier. A February Reuters poll of 15 forecasters, including most of the major Canadian banks, predicted Canadian house prices will fall just 7.5 percent in the next few years. None believe the correction will result in the devastation seen in the United States five years ago.

"It's not even this time that is different, it is that this place is different," said David Onyett-Jeffries, an economist at Royal Bank of Canada, the nation's largest lender.

But Shiller said the psychology and patriotism of bubbles -- the idea that a national can't spot the problems that an outsider can -- are not represented by Canada's low default rates and a system of mortgage insurance that protects banks from default.

"Patriotism needs to be researched more in economics," said Shiller. "There are psychological and sociological factors as well. Maybe we need a sociologist here."

(Editing by Janet Guttsman, Mary Milliken and Leslie Gevirtz)

The video game publisher announced Wednesday that the next installment in its successful "Call of Duty" franchise will be titled "Call of Duty: Ghosts" and feature a new story and characters.

Activision Blizzard Inc. said "Ghosts" will be released Nov. 5 for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and next-generation consoles.

The game is being developed by Infinity Ward, the Encino, Calif., studio that created the original "Call of Duty" and reignited the military first-person shooter franchise with 2007's "Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare" and its two sequels.

"'Ghosts' delivers an all-new story, all-new characters, an all-new 'Call of Duty' world, all powered by a next generation 'Call of Duty' engine, which is a leap forward for the franchise," Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said in a statement. "Infinity Ward is going all-in to create the next generation of 'Call of Duty' worthy of the world's greatest fans."

For more than five years, the action-packed "Call of Duty" franchise has garnered unprecedented success.

The previous "Call of Duty" game, Treyarch's futuristic "Call of Duty: Black Ops II," crossed the $1 billion mark in worldwide retail sales 15 days after its release last year. Infinity Ward's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" hit the $1 billion mark in 16 days after its 2011 debut.

Activision said more details about "Ghosts" will be revealed May 21 at a Seattle presentation where Microsoft is expected to unveil the next Xbox.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang .

___

Online:

http://www.callofduty.com/ghosts

WASHINGTON/WELLINGTON (Reuters) - A trip to New Zealand will put America's chief prosecutor on the same soil as a flashy internet mogul who is fighting extradition to the United States on charges he assisted massive piracy of copyrighted movies and music.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder visits New Zealand next week for an annual meeting of a "quintet" of attorneys general from mostly English-speaking countries - and not to meet up with the entrepreneur Kim Dotcom.

The founder of defunct file-sharing service Megaupload, Dotcom has oscillated between assailing Holder's trip and wanting to hear what he has to say in person.

It was unclear on Thursday whether Holder would appear in public. His speech at the University of Auckland is planned primarily for students and will be closed to the public and the media, although his U.S. speeches are usually open to the media.

In Twitter posts, Dotcom requested a ticket to the speech, offered to send T-shirts and an ethics manual to wherever Holder is staying and challenged his followers to film Holder while a Megaupload theme song plays for a $500 prize.

Dotcom tweeted that he would like to understand Holder's definition of cybercrime, one issue the quintet works on.

An extradition hearing for Dotcom is scheduled for August, although appeals could further delay it, said Ira Rothken, a lawyer for Megaupload. He told Reuters by phone he had no reason to expect a meeting between Holder and Dotcom.

Holder declined an interview through a spokeswoman on Thursday. Federal prosecutors in Virginia who are handling the case declined to comment on how it is proceeding.

Dotcom got rich from founding Megaupload, which allowed users to upload and download movies, music, television shows, e-books and software. The site once commanded 4 percent of global online traffic before U.S. prosecutors shut it down.

The United States began a criminal copyright case against Dotcom in January 2012. At Washington's request, New Zealand law enforcement officers conducted a dramatic raid on his mansion outside Auckland.

Attempts to have him sent to the United States for trial were delayed after a New Zealand court last year found that New Zealand used unlawful warrants in his arrest and illegally spied on him in the lead-up to the raid.

PRECEDENT SETTER?

Dotcom and six associates face U.S. charges that they conspired to infringe copyrights, launder money and commit racketeering and fraud.

The copyright case could set a precedent for internet liability laws and, depending on its outcome, may force entertainment companies to rethink their distribution methods.

Dotcom maintains that Megaupload, which housed everything from family photos to Hollywood blockbusters, was merely a storage facility for online files, and should not be held accountable if content stored on the site was obtained illegally.

The Justice Department counters that Megaupload encouraged piracy by paying money to users who uploaded popular content and by deleting content that was not regularly downloaded.

It said Megaupload cost copyright holders such as movie studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more than $175 million in criminal proceeds. It called the case among the largest ever involving criminal copyright.

Dotcom launched a new file-sharing service, Mega, in January.

Many New Zealanders view Dotcom, born in Germany as Kim Schmitz, as a folk hero fighting for online freedom and willing to stand up to the U.S. and New Zealand governments.

Dotcom, who has been released on bail and is suing the New Zealand government for illegal surveillance, predicted Holder would keep a low profile during his visit.

"It's probably risk management and avoidance of bad PR because the story has not yet arrived in any big way in the U.S. media," he wrote in an email to Reuters. "Any bad coverage here might spill over to the U.S."

Holder's visit to Dotcom's country of residence is not his choice. The attorneys general of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States began meeting as a quintet in 2009 to discuss legal matters including cybercrime.

After a gathering in Ottawa last year, it was New Zealand's turn to host.

(Reporting by David Ingram in Washington and Naomi Tajitsu in Wellington; Editing by Howard Goller and Xavier Briand)

LONDON (Reuters) - Some of Google's clients have questioned its assertion that it does not sell to customers from its London office, a key plank in its ability to operate almost tax-free in Britain, a poll said on Friday.

Meanwhile, the company began amending advertisements for London-based jobs on its website, which previously said that candidates would have to achieve "sales quotas" and "drive revenues".

Google Inc says it sells all advertising in the UK, France and Germany from its Dublin office.

The Drum, a magazine for marketing professionals, asked 80 ad buyers and digital agencies - companies that purchase advertising products on behalf of clients - about their dealings with Google's London office and their interaction with the office in Dublin.

Of the 29 that replied to the survey, "Almost 80 percent of respondents said they dealt with London when buying Google advertising. Around 14 percent said they used Dublin, the remainder said they did not know," an article posted on The Drum's website said.

(http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/05/03/google-tax-row-80-media-buyers-say-they-deal-london-when-buying-advertising-google)

Google declined to comment on Friday on the details of the survey.

Corporate tax avoidance has become a hot political issue in Britain amid austerity measures to pay for the banking crisis.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has said he is working to address the problem and plans to put it on the agenda for the G8 meeting of the world's largest economies to be held in Northern Ireland in June.

From 2006 to 2011, Google generated $18 billion in revenues from Britain, according to statutory filings, and Google UK paid just $16 million in taxes, its accounts show.

"When asked what they considered they were doing when dealing with Google's London team, 76 percent said they considered they were buying from them. 17 percent said they were receiving general advice in order to buy through Dublin," the Drum report added.

When asked what they considered to be the primary role of Google's London advertising team, 80 percent said "sales", while 17 percent said "support", the report said.

CHANGING THE ADVERTS

Earlier this week British lawmakers said they planned to call Google back to testify to a parliamentary committee after Reuters revealed the company advertised for UK staff to "negotiate" and "close" deals. A Google executive told the committee in November that UK staff did not sell to clients.

Google said: "We accept that the wording of some job adverts may have been confusing and we are working to make it clearer."

On Friday, Google had begun amending UK-based job advertisements on its website, which referred to sales activities.

A reference to "Acquire new strategic medium-sized clients" was removed from an advertisement for an "acquisition manager (UK/Ireland)". Prospective candidates are now told they need to "Approach prospects with tailored presentations and industry data".

All adverts for jobs based in Paris and Germany, which last month carried sales-related role descriptions, were amended by Friday afternoon.

Reuters also found that profiles of around 150 London-based employees on the LinkedIn networking website said they were involved in formulating sales strategy, managing sales teams, closing deals or other sales work.

Google has denied misleading lawmakers and said it complied with UK tax law. Google says it employs around 1,000 London-based "digital consultants" who educate customers about the benefit of Google products.

It said these people did "encourage" clients to buy but said all selling was done by "a couple of hundred" staff in Dublin.

The company declined to say specifically how the process of selling was divided between Dublin and London or whether this involved London staff negotiating contracts, which were then rubber-stamped by Dublin.

Under international tax law, companies are allowed to engage in promotional work in a country without creating a tax residence, but lawyers and academics said negotiating on British soil could mean Google's UK revenues became assessable for income UK tax purposes.

Currently, Google UK receives fees from Google Ireland that are intended to cover Google UK's costs, plus a small premium.

(Editing by David Cowell and Jane Baird)

By now, cars were supposed to be running on fuel made from plant waste or algae or powered by hydrogen or cheap batteries that burned nothing at all. Electricity would be generated with solar panels and wind turbines. When the sun didn't shine or the wind didn't blow, power would flow out of batteries the size of tractor-trailers.

Fossil fuels? They were going to be expensive and scarce, relics of an earlier, dirtier age.

But in the race to conquer energy technology, Old Energy is winning.

Oil companies big and small have used technology to find a bounty of oil and natural gas so large that worries about running out have melted away. New imaging technologies let drillers find oil and gas trapped miles underground and undersea. Oil rigs "walk" from one drill site to the next. And engineers in Houston use remote-controlled equipment to drill for gas in Pennsylvania.

The result is an abundance that has put the United States on track to become the world's largest producer of oil and gas in a few years. As domestic production as soared, oil imports have fallen to a 17-year low, the U.S. government reported Thursday.

And the gushers aren't limited to Texas, North Dakota and the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Overseas, enormous reserves have been found in East and West Africa, Australia, South America and the Mediterranean.

"Suddenly, out of nowhere, the world seems to be awash in hydrocarbons," says Michael Greenstone, an environmental economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The consequences are enormous. A looming energy crisis has turned into a boom. These additional fossil fuels may pose a more acute threat to the earth's climate. And for renewable energy sources, the sunny forecast of last decade has turned overcast.

Technological advances drove a revolution no one in the energy industry expected. One that is just beginning.

The new century brought deep concerns the world's oil reserves were increasingly concentrated in the Middle East and beginning to run out. Energy prices rose to record highs. Climate scientists showed that reliance on fossil fuels was causing troubling changes to the environment.

"The general belief was that the end of the oil era was at hand," says Daniel Yergin, an energy historian and author of "The Quest: Energy, Security and the Remaking of the Modern World."

As a result, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and governments were pouring money into new companies developing alternative forms of energy that promised to supply the world's needs without polluting.

But while the national focus was on alternatives, the oil and gas industry was innovating too. New technology allowed drillers to do two crucial things: find more places where oil and gas is hidden and bring it to the surface economically.

Large oil companies such as Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP turned up huge discoveries offshore in ultra-deep water with the help of faster computers and better sensors that allowed them to see once-hidden oil deposits.

Onshore, small drillers learned how to pull oil and gas out of previously inaccessible underground rock formations.

For most of the oil age, drillers have looked for large underground pools of oil and gas that were easy to tap. These pools had grown over millions of years as oil and gas oozed out of what is known as source rock. Source rock is a wide, thin layer of sedimentary rock like frosting in the middle of a layer cake that is interspersed with oil and gas.

An engineer named George Mitchell and his company, Mitchell Energy, spent years searching for a way to free natural gas from this source rock. He finally succeeded when he figured how to drill horizontally, into and then along a layer of source rock. That allowed him to access the gas throughout a layer of source rock with a single well. Then he used a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to create tiny cracks in the rock that would allow natural gas to flow into and up the well.

The United States, which was facing a gas shortage five years ago, now has such enormous supplies it is looking to export the fuel in large volumes for the first time.

The common wisdom in the industry was that the process Mitchell had invented for natural gas wouldn't work for oil. Oil molecules are bigger and stickier than gas molecules, so petroleum engineers believed it would be impossible to get them to flow from source rock, even if the rock were cracked by fracking. But Mark Papa, the CEO of a small oil and gas company called EOG Resources, didn't accept that.

"The numbers were too intriguing, the prize was so big," he remembered.

He thought there could be as much as a billion barrels of oil within reach in Texas, North Dakota and elsewhere if only he could squeeze it out.

In 2003, he had a "eureka!" moment while poring over pictures of rock. Sections of a 40-foot-long column of source rock had been run through a CT scanner, the same type used to peer into the human body.

He saw something in the source rock sections the rest of the industry didn't know was there: a network of passageways big enough for oil molecules to pass through. Papa believed the passageways could act like rural roads for the oil to travel through. Fracking could then create superhighways for the oil to gather and feed into a pipe and up to the surface.

EOG began drilling test wells, and in 2005, Papa got some results from one in North Dakota that made him realize oil could flow fast enough to pay off.

"It was kind of like holy cow," he says. "My first thought was we need to replicate this, make sure it's not a freak result."

It wasn't.

Papa thought the Eagle Ford might hold 500,000 barrels of oil. The Department of Energy now predicts it holds 3.4 billion. Some even expect 10 billion, which would make it the biggest oil field in U.S. history.

But even after drillers figured out how to find oil and gas deep offshore and in onshore source rock, they still needed to develop technology that would make it economical.

At the tip of every oil or gas drill is a rotating mouth of sharp teeth that chews through rock. In the past, these drill bits could only dig straight down. Now they are agile enough to find and follow narrow horizontal seams of rock.

And behind the drill bit, attached to a long line of steel known as the "drill string," is an array of sensors that collect data about the rock and underground fluids. The data, which is sent to engineers via fiber-optic cables, is run through supercomputers as powerful as 30,000 laptops to create a picture of the earth thousands of feet below the surface.

"To the layman, it looks like dumb iron, but you'd be shocked about what's inside," says Art Soucy, president of global products and services at Baker Hughes.

When the drilling is done, the rig itself can "walk" a hundred feet or so to another location and start drilling again. In the past, rigs had to be taken down and reassembled, which could take days.

"It has made possible things that were unthinkable 10 years ago," says Claudi Santiago, managing director at First Reserve Corp., a private-equity firm that invests in energy companies.

Renewable technologies have had their successes. Solar now generates six times more electricity in the U.S. than it did a decade ago, and wind produces 18 times more. Most major automakers offer some type of electric vehicle.

But the outlook for wind, batteries and biofuels is as dim as it's been in a decade. Global greenhouse gas agreements have fizzled. Dazzling discoveries have been made in laboratories, and some of these may yet develop into transformative products, but alternative energy technologies haven't become cheaper or more useful than fossil fuels.

It's certainly possible the world will change direction again in the next five years. After all, experts didn't see the oil and gas boom coming five years ago.

There are hundreds of companies, including fossil fuel giants, working on renewable-energy projects. And despite growing supplies of oil, prices remain high because developing nations are consuming more.

But EOG's Papa says oil and gas companies will just invest in even more sophisticated technology. He estimates that current techniques pull only 6 percent of the oil trapped in source rock to the surface. Learning to double that would yield yet another enormous trove of hydrocarbons.

"Now we go into the next phase of technology," he says. "How are we going to get the rest of it out of the ground?"

Follow Jonathan Fahey on Twitter at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey.

OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - Warren Buffett and the board of his conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc are "solidly in agreement" on who should be the company's next chief executive, he said at Berkshire's annual shareholder meeting on Saturday.

But the 82-year-old Buffett also insisted the company would remain a partner of choice for distressed companies even after he is gone, saying if the tides went out, the "naked swimmers" struggling in the water would seek Berkshire's help.

Whoever ultimately takes over Berkshire will run a conglomerate that employs more than 280,000 people in dozens of businesses worldwide, covering everything from ice cream to insurance and retail to railroads.

During the financial crisis and its immediate aftermath, Berkshire helped prop up a number of companies, among them blue-chips such as General Electric and Goldman Sachs. Many have referred to those deals as Buffett effectively granting his seal of approval to those businesses.

Short-seller Doug Kass, invited to the meeting by Buffett to offer a contrarian point of view, asked whether the successor would have the same heft. Buffett said it would not matter.

"Berkshire is the 800 number when there is really some panic in the markets, and people really need significant capital," Buffett said.

"If you come to a day when the Dow has fallen 1,000 points a day for a few days and the tide has gone out and you find some naked swimmers, those naked swimmers ... will call Berkshire," he added.

But Buffett, as with past practice, did not actually identify his successor as CEO. Speculation usually focuses on a small group of top Berkshire executives, among them insurance boss Ajit Jain and railroad leader Matt Rose.

Both Rose and Greg Abel, the CEO of Berkshire utility company MidAmerican Energy, answered portions of audience questions Saturday, which is unusual for the meeting.

"Buffett hasn't broken much new ground, but he's handled Doug (Kass)'s question well ... and, as always, reinforced the Berkshire culture every chance he's had," said Jeff Matthews, founder of hedge fund Ram Partners LP and a noted Buffett biographer.

ECONOMIC INDICATOR

Berkshire's breadth means that its performance is often seen as a barometer for the broader economy. On Saturday, Buffett said he stood by the actions taken by the U.S. Federal Reserve, even as he cautioned the Fed's program could be "very inflationary."

"This is like watching a good movie, and I do not know the end," said Buffett. "We have benefited significantly, and the country has benefited significantly, by what the Fed has done."

Earlier Saturday, one of Buffett's top lieutenants said things were picking up but could improve further.

"It feels like a 2 percent economy. If we want to see GDP click up to 3.5 percent, 4 percent, you need to see more consumption," said Rose, CEO of the railroad Burlington Northern, in an interview.

Rose said BNSF was seeing "across the board" increases in demand to ship things like concrete, roofing tiles and cars.

NO TWITTER, THANK YOU

Buffett may be optimistic about the economy, but he is decidedly more cautious about technology. Earlier this week he finally joined Twitter, taking the handle @WarrenBuffett - but insisted he only knew enough about it to press a button when someone told him to.

On Saturday he said he disagreed with the recent guidance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that lets companies release material information on Twitter. Some see that as a threat to Berkshire's press release service Business Wire.

"The key to disclosure is accuracy and simultaneity ... I do not want it, if I am buying Wells Fargo, to keep hitting up their web page and hoping I'm not 10 seconds behind someone else for some important announcement," he said.

He also stuck by one of Berkshire's more controversial investments, its recent acquisition of a number of newspapers. The annual meeting crowd applauded when CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin asked a critical question about the stable of papers.

"It's not going to move the needle in Berkshire ... we are buying the papers at very, very low prices with (regard to) current earnings," Buffett said, adding that he expected to meet or beat a 10 percent rate of return, after-tax.

Yet as much as investors want to hear about Berkshire's growth potential and the state of the economy, some also attend the meeting just for a good laugh.

The meeting opened, as it does every year, with a video montage. This year's included a duet between Buffett and singer Jon Bon Jovi and a take-off on the TV series "Breaking Bad."

Some of the best comedy, though, usually comes in the verbal sparring between Buffett and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger over the course of the day. The two are close - they shared an oversize box of peanut brittle during the meeting - but Munger's acerbic tongue pops out from time to time.

"I come to see Charlie Munger needle Warren Buffett - only he can," said Sherman Silber, a doctor and shareholder.

(Writing by Ben Berkowitz; editing by Matthew Lewis and Bob Burgdorfer)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is expected to clear Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry mobile devices for use on Defense Department networks in the next few weeks, part of an effort to ensure the military has access to the latest communications technology, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

The decision will set the stage for an intensified struggle for Pentagon customers among BlackBerry devices, Apple's iPhones or iPads and units using Google's Android platform such as Samsung Electronics' phones. The Pentagon currently has some 600,000 users of smart phones, computer tablets and other mobile devices.

The Pentagon unveiled a plan in February aimed at giving the military services a much broader range of choices among mobile devices. The department currently has 470,000 BlackBerry users, 41,000 Apple users and 8,700 people with Android devices. Most Apple and Android systems are in pilot or test programs.

"We are working towards establishing a multi-vendor environment that supports a variety of devices and operating systems, to include Samsung, Apple and BlackBerry," said Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart, a Pentagon spokesman.

"A key objective of the plan is to establish a department-wide mobile enterprise solution that permits the use of the latest commercial technology such, as smart phones and tablets," he added.

Several mobile devices and operating systems are currently going through a security review and approval process with the Defense Information Systems Agency, Pickart said.

Once the devices have cleared the process for creating a STIG - for Security Technical Implementation Guide - Pentagon organizations will be able to order them knowing that they have the necessary security configuration to be used on the Defense Department's internal networks, he said.

Pickart said Samsung's Knox version of Android currently is going through the security review process, with a decision expected in the next two weeks.

A full security review for Apple's iOS 6 system is expected in early May, and BlackBerry has submitted security plans for its BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry Device Service, with a decision expected in two weeks.

The security reviews are part of the Commercial Mobile Device Implementation Plan unveiled by the Pentagon in February.

Major General Robert Wheeler, deputy chief information officer, told reporters at the time that the effort aimed to ensure the Pentagon's mobile devices, wireless infrastructure and mobile applications remain "reliable, secure and flexible enough to keep up with the fast-changing technologies of today."

(Reporting By David Alexander; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)