LONDON (Reuters) - The Co-operative Bank ruled out government support on Friday, after a warning from ratings agency Moody's that it might need taxpayers' money to plug a capital shortfall prompted its chief executive to resign.

Speculation about Co-op Bank's weak capital position has grown since it pulled out of a deal to buy 630 branches from Lloyds Banking Group last month.

The bank, one of Britain's smaller lenders with 6.5 million customers and a 1.5 percent share of the current account market, said it did not need a bailout.

"We would like to reassure customers and members that we haven't sought nor do we need government support," the Co-op said.

The bank is part of Co-op Group, Britain's biggest mutual business, which is owned by individuals and includes supermarkets, funeral services and pharmacies.

Britain spent a total 124 billion pounds bailing out Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group, Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley during the 2008 financial crisis, according to the independent National Audit Office.

The financial regulator said in March that UK banks must raise 25 billion pounds of extra capital by the end of the year to absorb any future losses on loans.

Industry sources have told Reuters that the Co-op's shortfall could be in the region of 700 million pounds to 750 million pounds.

The Co-op said Barry Tootell would step down as chief executive of its bank and that Rod Bulmer, who has held a number of senior positions at the bank, would step into the role until a permanent replacement is found.

A source familiar with the situation said Tootell had planned to leave following the collapse of the Lloyds deal, but the Moody's report accelerated the process.

RISKY LOANS

Moody's said late on Thursday the bank faced the risk of substantial losses in its non-core portfolio - loans the bank has identified as risky - and the low level of funds it had set aside to deal with them left it vulnerable to losses.

The agency said there was "moderate potential for systemic support likely to be forthcoming from the UK authorities," to maintain regulatory capital levels.

That support could also come from the Co-op Group itself, which has gross assets in non-financial operations of 6.3 billion pounds and net equity of 4.5 billion pounds.

Moody's lowered the deposit and senior debt ratings of the bank and placed it under review for further downgrades.

The agency said the Co-op bank's capital levels were low compared with peers. Co-op's core tier one capital ratio was 6.3 percent at the end of 2012, assuming the full implementation of tougher global rules that are being phased in. Britain's regulator wants banks to hold at least 7 percent.

Moody's said most of the risk on the Co-op's books stems from loans it took on via its acquisition of the Britannia Building Society in 2009.

The downgrade hit Co-op Bank's preference shares, which were trading down 24 percent at 1542 BST while spreads on the bank's subordinated and covered bonds widened.

Co-op said it would drive through plans to improve its capital position in the coming months.

The mutual said in March that it would sell its general insurance arm to bolster its finances. Analysts have said that business could fetch as much as 600 million pounds.

It has also agreed to sell its life insurance business to Royal London Mutual Insurance for 220 million pounds.

Chancellor George Osborne told reporters on Friday that Co-op's plans to strengthen its capital position would be supervised by the regulator. The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) declined to comment.

Tootell's departure from Co-op Bank follows that of James Mack, who stepped down as its finance chief in February and leaves the bank with no permanent chief executive or finance director. The bank made a loss of 674 million pounds last year, hit by bad loans.

(Additional reporting by William Schomberg and William James; Editing by Erica Billingham)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Best-selling adventure author Clive Cussler, who published his first book 40 years ago, is still entertaining fans. His newest novel, "The Striker," released this month, has already sold thousands of copies.

"The Striker," Cussler's 55th book, follows detective Isaac Bell's investigation into union strikes in early 1900s coal country.

It contains many of the hallmarks of his earlier work. The story pits young Bell against another detective and his ruthless sponsor, both bent on fomenting violence between miners and industrialists. Bell does his best not to take sides as he has roughly a week to thwart a potentially bloody uprising.

Cussler, who writes with a co-author, said he will be producing more books, including one for The Fargo Adventure series, another for the underwater exploration series The NUMA Files, and a third for The Oregon Files about Juan Cabrillo and a special U.S. government sponsored group called the Corporation.

The 81-year-old author spoke to Reuters about the newest book, his method of writing and future plans.

Q: Your latest book, which is the sixth in the Isaac Bell character series, chronicles his early days as a detective at the Van Dorn agency. Why did you choose to go back in time for "The Striker"?

A: I had always wanted to do a western, just for fun. I didn't want to do one with stagecoaches, bandits and horses, and all that. So I moved it up to 1906 to get in old cars and old motorcycles, which I collect. The publisher asked me if I could continue the series because people quite like the hero Isaac Bell, which led me to write about railroads and mining for this book.

Q: The plot of the story includes great details about shipyards and coal mining. What inspired you to use this backdrop?

A: I wanted to get back to the early 1900s, when steamboats were still running on the various rivers pushing coal barges. This was an era that included the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and Carnegies, who were heavily involved in coal. Coal was and remains a pretty big deal, and the more research I did on the subject, the more fascinating it became. I looked into the Pullman strikes and strikes around Telluride, which is where I also own a house. This is really the only series that takes place around that time.

Q: The conflict between unions and corporate owners has been longstanding. It seems that the main protagonist, Isaac Bell, who comes from a privileged background, appeared more partial to the plight of the working man. Was this intentional?

A: I thought we were probably closer to 50/50. There were crooks on both sides, and I guess there still are.

Q: Can you provide a preview of what comes next in the Isaac Bell series? Do you plan to focus more on his younger days or do you see yourself reverting back to the more established version of the character?

A: We have fun moving him around. In the next book, we are going to have him get involved in Prohibition and bootlegging. That era, of course, comes in a little later.

Q: You have four books coming out this year, including this one, that involve several of the ongoing characters. How did you conceive them and what are your plans for new characters? Any plans to slow down?

A: I should slow down since I am 81. Dirk Pitt was the series that started it all, and the publishers asked if I could develop other characters given the success of that series. The Oregon came from one of the Pitt books and we began developing a storyline around mercenaries that go around the world like Mission Impossible and the captain of that ship, Juan Cabrillo.

Isaac Bell came up because the original book, "The Chase," did very well. The publishers mentioned that there are very few husband-and-wife series out there, and so I came up with a couple that looks for treasure in The Fargo series. This is as far as I am going to go with new characters, though.

Q: Can you discuss the creative process behind your books?

A: I usually sit down with my co-author, say Jack (Du Brul), for The Oregon Files and come up with the plot. When I start a book, I often have the ending in mind but not always the middle, and we work toward filling it out.

I love to do the research - it's one of my favorite things about writing. He'll start writing, say 100 pages, and I'll pump him the information. I get the pages back to do some re-writes, and that's the process. As he gets back to writing, I may start working on another book. I wish I could retire but they won't let me.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Philip Barbara)

DETROIT, May9,2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --Four Detroit Medical Center (DMC) Hospitals - DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital, DMC Harper University & Hutzel Women's Hospitals, DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital andDMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital have received "A" rankings from theLeapfrog Group's Hospital Safety Scores for 2013, making DMC Hospitals among the safest in the country.Hospital Safety Scores are calculated under the guidance of an eight-member Leapfrog Blue Ribbon expert panel of patient safety experts who used publicly available hospital safety data. U.S. hospitals wereevaluatedon preventable patient injuries, medication errors and infections, and each wasassigned aletter grade of A, B, C, D, or F reflecting on how safe hospitals are for patients.

These scoresempower patients to make informed choices about where they and their family will seek medical care and are meant to significantly reduce the 180,000 annual deaths attributed tohospital errors by publicly recognizing safety and exposing harm.

"The DMC hospitals have a long tradition of innovation and quality care. However, over the past several years, there has been even more emphasis and energy placed on quality and safety - it is the foundation of everything we do in healthcare. Every person at the DMC is committed to the highest quality and safest hospitals,includingthe governing boards, leadership,medical staff, and front line employees," said DMC CEO Joseph Mullany.

The DMC has focused on several key initiatives to help drive quality improvement. The first is the electronic medical record. DMC hospitals are among the most advanced in the country for their health information technology. With Computerized Physician Order Entry and bar code scanning, medication errors have been reduced significantly. Quality and safety dashboards are included in daily workflow through the EMR, which allows staff to focus on quality in "real time." Electronic records also allow for care to move away from memory based practice withimproved standardization, and quick access to data. Other initiatives have included a successful focus on reducing hospital acquired infections, a system-wide approach to intensive care, and more quality and safety training.

"Being recognized by the Leapfroggroup is a tremendous honor. The"leaps" to improve healthcare quality, including intensivists in intensive care units,a commitment to national best safe practices, computerized order entry, and improved efficiency, are priorities at all DMC hospitals," states Dr. Suzanne White, DMC Chief Medical Officer. "Recognition that our hospitals are among the safest in the nation, demonstrates proof ofour commitment."

This is the fifth year in a row DMC has earned top honors from the Leapfrog Group.

About Detroit Medical CenterThe Detroit Medical Center includes DMC Children's Hospital of Michigan, DMC Detroit Receiving Hospital, DMC Harper University Hospital, DMC Huron Valley-Sinai Hospital, DMC Hutzel Women's Hospital,DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan, DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital, DMC Surgery Hospital, and DMC Cardiovascular Institute. The Detroit Medical Center is a leading regional healthcare system with a mission of excellence in clinical care, research and medical education.

SOURCE Detroit Medical Center

BOSTON (Reuters) - Writer Dan Baum, a self-described Jewish liberal Democrat and a gun enthusiast since childhood, strapped a revolver to his side in 2009 and set off on an 18-month, 15,000 mileexploration of the U.S. firearms culture.

His book, "Gun Guys: A Road Trip," was released this month amid a gun-control debate rekindled by the December 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

Baum, who lives in Boulder, Colorado, says it was a challenge to write for two polarized audiences: liberals and fiercely protective gun lovers.

He spoke to Reuters about America's gun culture, semi-automatic weapons and what he learned about himself from writing the book.

Q: Are you a gun guy, or were you acting?

A: I'm a gun guy, and I live in a world of anti-gun people. Being a liberal Democrat, my whole social world is among people who dislike guns and dislike gun people.

Q: What should gun-control advocates know about America's gun culture?

A: Guns are cool; they're fun; they're mechanically gorgeous; they last forever.

But the really deep stuff is - we have a lot of freedom in this country to own guns. Our gun laws bespeak a trust in the people. And for the gun guys, this is really what America is about.

The ones who mostly buy guns are straight, white, middle-aged men, rural, who have not finished college, and that is a demographic that has seen their world collapse in all kinds of ways. The NRA (National Rifle Association) comes along and whispers in their ear, "Yeah, you're pissed, you know why? Because the liberals want to take away your guns."

Gun guys derive tremendous pride from being able to manage these incredibly dangerous devices safely, and then along come these pointy-headed urban liberals who have never had any guns, and they want to tell you that you can't be trusted with this device. It is unimaginably offensive.

I'm not asking you to like these people. But I'm asking you to listen to them. They are not just testosterone-poisoned death freaks.

Q: And what can the 100 million U.S. gun owners do to lower the temperature?

A: Gun guys have to get serious about locking up their guns. Most of the bad (stuff) that happens with guns in the United States happens with guns that some law-abiding gun owner left unattended.

The problem is, gun guys do not see themselves as responsible for gun violence. Gun guys have to accept, I have to accept, that my guns affect you.

Q: You quote a prediction that President Obama would push for gun control if re-elected.

A: I lost a $100 bet with a guy. I said there's no way that the Democrats are going to make another serious run at gun control. I think they're going to pay big time. Until the gun-control push after Sandy Hook, we had a chance of taking the House (of Representatives) ... Now we have no chance.

Q: Is it wrong to focus on controlling semi-automatic rifles, particularly the AR-15.?

A: It's ignorant. The gun-control world is trying to pass off the AR-15 as some kind of bizarre outlier of the gun world, when in fact it's all anybody wants to shoot.

Q: What did you learn about yourself through this book?.

A: I am no less a Democrat, I am no less an Obama supporter. But I really understand the conservative lament that we are becoming a nation of weak, disrespected, over-managed individuals.

Q: You depicted conversations and scenes at which you were not present. How did you come about your story-telling style.?

A: I ask a lot of questions. If I can go see the place where it happened I do that. I try to talk to as many people who were there as I can. It takes time to get that out of people. I'm writing about ordinary people and I try very hard to portray them the way they want to be portrayed.

Q: You've also written about the drug wars. How does the gun-control effort compare?

A: The gun issue, like the drug issue, is used to avoid talking about all kinds of stuff that's much more central. We have gone out of our way to avoid having any sense of collective care. If we have people wigging out and killing people, maybe it's because we have created a society where everybody is extremely alienated and extremely stressed. And it's getting more so, because the one percent are getting an increased amount of wealth, leaving less for the rest of us.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Paul Simao)

The Air Force's reached a top speed of Mach 5.1 during the test flight, traveling more than 230 nautical miles in just over six minutes before crashing into the Pacific Ocean off the California coast as planned, Air Force officials announced today (May 3).

Wednesday's flight used the last of four X-51A vehicles built by Boeing for the Air Force experiments. While the previous test, in August 2012, , Wednesday's mission pulled off the longest air-breathing hypersonic flight ever, officials said.[]

"It was a full mission success," Charlie Brink, X-51A program manager for the Air Force Research Laboratory Aerospace Systems Directorate, said in a statement.

The X-51A took off Wednesday morning from Edwards Air Force Base in California under the wing of a B-52H Stratofortress. The Waverider was released at an altitude of approximately 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) and used a solid rocket booster to accelerate to Mach 4.8 in just 26 seconds.

The Waverider then separated from the rocket and sped up to Mach 5.1 at an altitutde of 60,000 feet (18,300 m), powered by its air-breathing supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engine, officials said.

The X-51A burned up the scramjet's four-minute fuel supply and was destroyed as expected upon impacting the Pacific Ocean. All told, the vehicle returned 370 seconds of flight data.

While there is no plan to build any more X-51A vehicles, officials said the $300 million technology demonstration program, which began in 2004, leaves a valuable legacy.

"I believe all we have learned from the X-51A Waverider will serve as the bedrock for future hypersonics research and ultimately the practical application of hypersonic flight," Brink said.

is generally defined as anything that reaches speeds above Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. (The speed of sound at sea level is about 762 mph, or 1,226 km/h.)

While most other hypersonic vehicles use hydrogen propellant, the X-51A's scramjet is powered by hydrocarbon fuel, which Air Force officials say is more logistically feasible and could allow the technology to be applied on a broader scale.

The first X-51A test flight occurred in May 2010. It was hailed as a success, as the vehicle flew for more than three minutes and reached Mach 4.88. The next two flights, in June 2011 and August 2012, both failed.

The U.S. military has been studying hypersonic flight in order to develop new weapons capable of striking targets anywhere on Earth within an hour. In addition to the Air Force's work with the X-51A, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched two test flights of its HTV hypersonic bomber prototype, which reached Mach 20 in an August 2011 test flight before losing control.

While that 2011 HTV mission lasted nine minutes, the vehicle only demonstrated controlled flight for three minutes during the test. The HTV was also a glider vehicle, and not an air-breathing scramjet.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitterand.Follow us , or . Originally published on

Conte was jailed in 2005 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute banned steroids and his association with Khan has been criticized by UK Anti-Doping.

However, Khan said the controversial American, who was introduced to the boxer by trainer Virgil Hunter, had passed on a lot of invaluable tips.

"The advice he's been giving me has been brilliant," Khan told the BBC's website. "I know he's had a bad background and has done things he shouldn't have.

"Virgil Hunter is my trainer and he's the one who's told me we are going to use Victor Conte as an assistant in a way, as he has a team of trainers who can teach you stuff.

"On the training methods he's brought so much good training into the game. He's introduced me to a lot of new trainers who have helped me on my running, sprinting, on my engine really, which is working my fitness, also breathing methods and telling me what to do and what not to do."

Conte was at the center of the BALCO doping program which included several high profile athletes like Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.

A steroid specifically designed to fool testers, dubbed tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), was produced and distributed by BALCO.

Following his release from prison, Conte became an anti-drug campaigner who works with several anti-doping bodies in a bid to clean up sport.

(Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

About 500,000 Jews served in the Soviet Red Army during World War II. Most of those still alive today about 7,000 are said to live in Israel.

Every year on Victory Day, which falls on Thursday this year, they parade in uniform throughout Israel to celebrate Nazi Germany's surrender to the Soviet Union.

Afterward, they return home to their modest apartments, where some tick off the days in solitude and poverty.

"The ceremonies are beautiful. People like to come and say nice words. But nice words don't put food on your plate," said Abraham Michael Grinzaid, 87, head of an association of Soviet war veterans. "The rest of the year, no one thinks of us."

About 1.5 million Jews fought in Allied armies, including 500,000 in the Red Army, 550,000 in the American army, 100,000 in the Polish army and 30,000 in the British army, according to Israel's Holocaust museum Yad Vashem.

Some of those who fought in the Red Army served in the highest levels of command. About 200,000 Soviet Jewish soldiers fell on the battlefield or into German captivity. Those who survived built families and careers in the Soviet Union, until the Communist regime collapsed and many of them ended up in Israel.

They formed a veterans' association, opening 50 chapters across the country. Today, most of them are nearly 90 years old, but they gather regularly for lectures and concerts. Some sing in the 42 veterans' choirs nationwide.

Israel is home to the world's largest population of Holocaust survivors. Memorials to Holocaust victims and underground partisans are aplenty. But only in recent years has the Jewish state begun to salute its Jewish war veterans.

That's mostly because many of the veterans immigrated just two decades ago and key war archives are only now being opened, allowing researchers to discover the full extent of Jewish soldiers' role in fighting the Nazis, said Red Army scholar Yitzhak Arad.

It wasn't until last year that Israel erected its first monument to Soviet Jewish soldiers who served in WW II. A museum dedicated to Jewish Allied fighters is still under construction.

Grinzaid, of the veterans association, complained that some Soviet war veterans in Israel receive government stipends amounting to just $50 a month, a pittance compared to the financial support Israeli Holocaust survivors receive.

But Roman Yagel, the head of another group of Soviet veterans, countered that veterans receive generous Israeli support. He accused Grinzaid of securing stipends for undeserving veterans who did not fight on the battlefield with weapons in hand one example of bitter political infighting within the Soviet veteran community.

Holocaust survivors are frequently invited to speak about the horrors they experienced. But Soviet war veterans arrived in Israel as pensioners and most never learned Hebrew so few Israelis know their stories.

Grinzaid was 17 when he enlisted in the Red Army. He was a paratrooper and served in an intelligence unit, earning five medals for his participation in battles across Europe. When Russian President Vladimir Putin came to Israel last year, he shook his hand.

Another Soviet veteran, Matvey Gershman, 87, helped liberate the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland. He remembers walking past storerooms filled with women's hair and children's shoes.

Suddenly, he stumbled upon a woman sitting and crying.

"I said, 'Grandmother, why are you crying? It's all over,'" Gershman recalled. "She lifted her head, looked at me, and said, 'I am 20 years old.'"

Gersham used to march in Israel's annual Victory Day parade before he had heart problems.

One year, he walked to the parade with his daughter and grandson, wearing his navy blue uniform featuring a cascade of medallions. Israeli teenagers on the street pointed at him and laughed.

"They treated him like he was a clown," said his daughter, Rimma. "He doesn't want to go out with these medals on anymore. He's embarrassed. They don't know what it is at all."

His invigorated regime has gone on the offensive both on the ground and in its portrayal of the conflict as a choice between Assad and the extremists.

Several factors appear to have convinced Assad he can weather the storm: Two years into the uprising against his family's iron rule, his regime remains firmly entrenched in Damascus, the defection rate from the military has dwindled, and key international supporters Russia and China are still solidly on his side.

Moreover, the regime has benefited from the fallout created by audio distributed last month in which the head of the extremist Jabhat al-Nusra group, one of the most powerful and effective rebel groups in Syria, pledged allegiance to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

There are signs of Assad's renewed confidence.

After dropping largely out of sight following an hour-long speech at the Opera House in central Damascus in January, Assad has appeared in two TV interviews in the past month. His wife, Asma, appeared in public in March for the first time in months, surrounded by women and children for a function honoring mothers.

"I can say, without exaggeration, that the situation in Syria now is better than it was at the beginning of the crisis," Assad said in an interview with state-run broadcaster Al-Ikhbariya on April l7.

"With time, people became more aware of the dangers of what was happening. ... They started to gain a better understanding of the real Syria we used to live in and realized the value of the safety, security and harmony, which we used to enjoy," he added.

On Wednesday, a smiling Assad made another rare public appearance, visiting a Damascus power station just a day after a bombing in the capital and two days after his prime minister escapade an assassination attempt.

Syrian TV showed Assad, looking confident and wearing a dark business suit, chatting with workers and shaking their hands on May Day.

"They want to scare us, we will not be scared. ... They want us to live underground, we will not live underground," Assad was shown telling a group of workers gathered around him in a garden.

Since the beginning of the uprising in March 2011, Assad's regime has tried to portray the movement as being driven by what it called terrorists and foreign-backed mercenaries. The government responded with a brutal military crackdown that led many to take up arms to fight back. Gradually, the rebellion turned into an armed insurgency, drawing in radicalized elements and foreign fighters from other countries.

Jabhat al-Nusra, designated a terrorist group by the U.S., has emerged as one of the most potent fighting forces.

Assad's regime has seized on the recording of Nusra Front's leader pledging allegiance to al-Qaida as proof it is fighting terrorists, prompting some members of the Syrian opposition to claim the audio was faked by the government to tarnish their movement.

"The regime is trying, and succeeding unfortunately, in brainwashing some segments of society into thinking that they are their protectors and whoever follows will massacre them," said opposition figure Kamal Labwani.

Many Syrians acknowledge feeling more secure under Assad.

A Christian Syrian tailor who fled last month to Lebanon said at least Assad was a known quantity. He said people fled when "heavily armed and bearded gunmen" from an anti-Assad group arrived in his hometown last month, setting up roadblocks and checking people's IDs. The tailor insisted on identifying himself only as Amin, his first name, for fear of reprisals from the regime or its opponents.

Despite losing large swaths of territory in northern and eastern Syria, Assad's military has retained his firm grip on Damascus, his seat of power, and key coastal areas. In recent weeks, his troops have made advances, pushing back rebels in parts of the Damascus suburbs and some areas where rebels regularly fire mortars on the capital.

Inspecting the site of a car bombing Tuesday in Damascus, Interior Minister Mohammed al-Shaar told reporters the attacks in the capital were in response to the "victories and achievements scored by the Syrian Arab Army on the ground against terrorism." Al-Shaar himself escaped a bomb that targeted his convoy in December.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which closely monitors the civil war, said the number of defections from the military as well as political circles has gone "significantly down" in recent months. Those who are now fighting are considered the "hard-core regime supporters" who will stay until the end, he said.

Syrians opposed to Assad accuse him of encouraging and planting extremists in the ranks of the rebellion, including releasing hundreds of jihadis from prison early in the uprising, knowing full well that they were bound to take up arms against it.

Ammar Abdulhamid, a Washington-based Syrian pro-democracy activist and director of the Tharwa Foundation, said that while the regime has probably lost control over these cells by now, their presence has helped it achieve its goal.

They can now point to these cells and their activities to bolster their message of "either us or the terrorists."

The Assad dynasty has long tried to push a secular and nationalist identity in Syria while flirting with extremists when it suited it. In 2003, the Syrian regime was known to be providing safe passage to jihadis to enter Iraq to fight U.S. forces.

"This is a game that the Assad regime has perfected by now. They create the problem and then they offer their services to the world to solve that problem," said Randa Slim, a research fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington.

Still, the extremists' role in the civil war has raised alarm among Syrians and officials in the West. Their presence has been among the chief reasons behind international reluctance to arm the rebels.

Allegations that the regime used chemical weapons have not triggered an international response, despite President Barack Obama's earlier assertion that use of such weapons would be a "game-changer" and a "red line."

Obama said Tuesday that the evidence available does not yet merit the quick use of U.S. military power.

Russia and China, Assad's main allies, have stuck by him during the course of the uprising, as have his supporters in the region Iran and Lebanon's militant Hezbollah group.

In a further boost, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech Tuesday that Syria's "real friends," including his Iranian-backed group, would intervene on the side of Damascus if needed.

Abdulhamid said that if groups like al-Nusra increase their profile in Syria, there will be a greater willingness among some Western leaders to listen to Assad's argument again.

"The mantra of 'Either us or the extremists' is slowly but surely regaining some of its popularity and relevance in decision-making circles in the West," he said.

Goggles didnt recognize anything, said Google.

I love this idea. Like many people, my phone is the first screen I now touch in the morning. Im happy to have Google Now acknowledge that app-use is circadian.

But is my day a Google Now day? Thats where doubts creep in. I know that, first thing, I turn to , a peaceful, slow-lighting wake-up clock. Thenfor stretching demos. Thento enter in my priorities for the day, andfor 5 minutes of meditation. Finally, with coffee, I fire up . The night before, Ive received a canny email from , which shows the days weather in the form of a proposed outfit.

In other words: I dont look at weather in the morning. I dont consult a stock ticker; I dont look at traffic because I dont have a car. I dont look at sports scores because none of them are for my son's playground games. And though I travel a fair amount, its still a rare day when I need flight info.

The info that Google Now imagines to be the sine qua non of daily existence is, in fact, pretty much the very same data that the English company Filofax believed was indispensable...to the smart gentleman...circa 1960. (Google Now does leave off the numbers of tailors in Paris and Bombay, which once came on Filofax inserts.) Google Now hardly seems to acknowledge that most peoples days have more to do with childcare than with airplanes; with their personal workouts than with the Knicks; and with shift work than with the NASDAQ.

Or maybe there are no most people: some people want yoga on waking, some want metrics on their blood sugar, some want to know if Kayla is out of the office and theyll need to cover for her. And none of those things can be found on Google Now.

There are glimmers of hope. I really like having friends birthdays on Now, but for now its only the birthdays my Google+ friends, whom I cherish, especially since I have so few. Facebook friends with birthdays today are out of luck; theyre invisible to Now.

And the info you do get from Nowcurrency conversions and translations of every kindis buttoned-up and clean-looking. Its also all free. If you dont mind cramping your style a bit for the Google paradigm (get set to feel like what you mostly do is look for restaurants and watch fluctuations in the Euro), youll find stuff to use here. And the Voice technology is silky smoothsends you right to answers on the Web.

Maybe this is good news, then: Google Now has some promising features, but it doesnt fully recognize the real you with your real needs quite yet -- unless, perhaps, you're a hedge fund manager with a passion for professional lacrosse who lives his life between Singapore and Frankfurt. (Speaking of finance: I just tried Wall Street on Google Goggles again. Nothing.)*.

Twenty-four Premier League players are among the top 100 richest sportsmen in Britain and Ireland.

Rooney's fortune has risen by six million pounds from 2012 and his combined wealth with wife Coleen is estimated at 64 million pounds.

United team mate Rio Ferdinand is ranked second on 42 million pounds while Stoke City striker Michael Owen is third on 38 million.

Values are based on identifiable wealth including land, property, assets including art and race horses, and shares in publicly quoted companies.

Former England captain David Beckham, now playing for Paris St Germain, is ranked 11th in the Sunday Times world sporting rich list with a worth of 165 million pounds.

World number one golfer Tiger Woods is top of that chart on 570 million pounds.

Premier League top 10:

1. Wayne Rooney (Manchester United) 51 million pounds

2. Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United) 42 million

3. Michael Owen (Stoke City) 38 million

=4. Ryan Giggs (Manchester United) 34 million

=4. Frank Lampard (Chelsea) 34 million

6. Steven Gerrard (Liverpool) 33 million

7. Fernando Torres (Chelsea) 26 million

8. John Terry (Chelsea) 24 million

9. Joe Cole (West Ham United) 21 million

10. Petr Cech (Chelsea) 20 million

($1 = 0.6455 British pounds) (Reporting by Josh Reich; editing by Tony Jimenez)