He said the Afghan government had been receiving funds from CIA for more than a decade as part of regular monthly assistance from the U.S. government.

Karzai had earlier confirmed that his government had received such payments following a story published in The New York Times that said the CIA had given the Afghan National Security Council tens of millions of dollars in monthly payments delivered in suitcases, backpacks and plastic shopping bags.

"The help and assistance from the U.S. is for our National Directorate of Security. That is state-to-state, government-to-government regular assistance," Karzai said. "So that is a government institution helping another government institution, and we appreciate all this assistance and help, all this assistance is very useful for us. We have spent it in different areas (and) solved lots of our problems."

Karzai would not say how much assistance his government had received because it was being used for intelligence work, but acknowledged it was in cash and that "all the money which we have spent, receipts have been sent back to the intelligence service of the United States monthly."

He claimed that much of the money was used to care for wounded employees of the NDS, Afghanistan's intelligence service, and operational expenses.

"It is an official government deal between the two governments. This is happening all over the world such deals between governments and in Afghanistan, which is a needy country, these sorts of deals are very important and useful," he said at the news conference, held to announce the results of his recent trip to Europe.

Karzai confirmed the payments during a news conference earlier this week in Helsinki, Finland. After Karzai's confirmation in Europe, White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to comment on the newspaper report, referring questions to the CIA, which also declined comment.

In his gathering with reporters at the presidential palace, Karzai said he had met earlier in the day with the Kabul station chief of the CIA. "I told him because of all these rumors in the media, please do not cut all this money because we really need it," Karzai said. "We want to continue this sort of assistance and he promised that they are not going to cut this money."

He added that negotiations for a new bilateral security agreement with the United States had been delayed because of conditions that Afghanistan had placed on such a deal. The security agreement is to govern a U.S. military presence after 2014 when nearly all foreign combat troops are to have finished their withdrawal from Afghanistan. The talks, which started in late 2012, are set to last up to a year.

President Barack Obama has not said how many troops will remain, although there have been estimates ranging from 8,000 to 12,000. It is unlikely such an announcement will be made until the security agreement is signed. Those troops would help train Afghan forces and also carry out operations against al-Qaida and other militant groups.

Karzai said Afghanistan was ready to sign a deal as long as the American government in exchange for being able to stay on bases in the country agrees to terms of Afghan security, funding assistance and help with training and equipping Afghan security forces. It is thought that the contentious issue of providing U.S. troops immunity from Afghan law is a low priority for the Afghan government in the negotiations.

The Afghan government has not said how much rent it would want for three or four U.S. bases, but it is believed to be in the billions. Afghanistan is also thought to be seeking security guarantees to protect its porous borders, including the frontier with Pakistan that is the main infiltration route for insurgents who retain sanctuary in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.

"The position of the United States about the security of Afghanistan and relations with neighboring countries, or whatever attacks are happening from the neighboring countries to Afghanistan, should be very clear," Karzai said. "So we are trying our best that the security of Afghanistan should be guaranteed, peace in Afghanistan should be guaranteed, a strengthening of the Afghan security forces should be guaranteed, as well the economy of Afghanistan should be guaranteed."

It was unclear how Karzai expected the United States or any of its allies to guarantee Afghanistan's borders against attack.

Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have been severely strained in recent months, especially over the delicate issue of the demarcation of their border.

Afghan and Pakistani forces engaged in a nearly five-hour exchange of fire last Tuesday along Afghanistan's eastern border. One Afghan border policeman was killed and two Pakistani soldiers were wounded in the fighting in eastern Nangarhar province.

The main problem is that Afghanistan does not recognize the disputed Durand Line, the 19th century demarcation between present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, while Pakistan does.

"Since the Durand line has been imposed on Afghanistan, it was not acceptable to the Afghans and we cannot accept the Durand line," Karzai said. "No government in Afghanistan will accept the Durand Line."

Pakistan and Afghanistan have long been tense neighbors. Afghanistan has been deeply suspicious of the motives of a government that long backed the Taliban regime and has since seemed unable or unwilling to go after militant leaders taking refuge inside its borders. The killing of al-Qaida chief, Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan only strengthened Afghan wariness of the neighboring country.

In an effort to defuse tensions, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on April 24 brought Karzai and Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani together in Brussels for security talks. But he meeting apparently did little to ease the tension.

"We need Pakistan. They are our neighboring country," Karzai said. "While I'm president, I will continue to improve relations with Pakistan. But our position is clear, we don't accept the Durand Line and we will not accept it.

"Whatever the British empire imposed on Afghanistan, it was not acceptable in 1893 and it is not acceptable to us today."

The new analysis, described today (April 17) in the journal Nature, could help to reveal how primitive fish swapped their fins for limbs when they moved from land to sea.

The fish, called a , seems to carry snippets of DNA that can turn on genes that code for forelimbs and hind limbs in mice. The new discovery could shed light on how four-legged creatures, called tetrapods, evolved. []

"It really is a cornerstone from which we can view tetrapod ," said study co-author Chris Amemiya, a geneticist at the Benaroya Research Institute in Seattle, Wash.

Living fossil

The coelacanth was once thought to have gone extinct about 70 million years ago, roughly around the time dinosaurs vanished. But in 1938, a fish trawler brought a bluish-purple, 3.3-foot-long (1 meter) fish with fleshy fins to the South African naturalist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer. It turned out to be an African coelacanth.

Over the next several decades, scientists unearthed a few hundred of the elusive creatures living around the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean, as well as off parts of Indonesia.

The coelacanth intrigued scientists because it was a kind of "living fossil": It had changed so little over the last 400 million years that it might reveal howand walked on land.

Deepening the mystery, other research showed that fish, mice and other animals carry many of the same genes. But in fish, those genes code for fins, whereas in land-based animals, they create limbs.

Mysterious genes

Because the fish were so endangered, it was difficult to study their body plan in detail. But Amemiya and his colleagues managed to get tissue samples from a coelacanth from the Comoros Islands.

Using that tissue, the team sequenced the primitive fish's genome and analyzed it. They found a small snippet of DNA called an enhancer that was present in both coelacanths and four-legged creatures, but missing in other fish.

The enhancer was part of the "dark matter" of the genome the large fraction of the genome that doesn't code for proteins, but somehow turns genes on and off.

When they put the DNA snippet into mice, it seemed to turn on the genes to make the forelimbs and hind limbs in mice, Amemiya told LiveScience.

Limb beginnings

The coelacanth's genome may harbor many more secrets to the , said Nancy Manley, a developmental geneticist at the University of Georgia, who was not involved in the study.

"The genome really sets a path forward for the next 10 or 20 years," said Scott Edwards, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, who was not involved in the study.

But coelacanths aren't the only primitive fish that could shed light on limb evolution. Anothercalled the lungfish may actually be more closely related to four-legged creatures, "so that's going to be an important species to look at," Edwards told LiveScience.

Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter .FollowLiveScience , & . Original article on.

Pope Francis welcomed Benedict outside his new retirement home a converted monastery on the edge of the Vatican gardens and the two immediately went into the adjoining chapel to pray together, the Vatican said.

The Vatican said Benedict, 86, was pleased to be back and that he would as he himself has said "dedicate himself to the service of the church above all with prayer." Francis, the statement said, welcomed him with "brotherly cordiality."

A photo released by the Vatican showed the two men, arms clasped and both smiling, standing inside the doorway of Benedict's new home as Benedict's secretary looks on.

Unlike the live, door-to-door Vatican-provided television coverage that accompanied Benedict's emotional farewell in February, the Vatican provided no television images of his return Thursday.

The low-key approach followed the remarkable yet somewhat alarming images transmitted on March 23 when Francis went to visit Benedict at the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, south of Rome, where Benedict was living. In that footage, Benedict appeared visibly more frail and thinner only three weeks after resigning.

Some Vatican officials questioned whether those images should have been released, given how frail Benedict appeared. Thursday's photo showed no obvious signs of further decline.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, has acknowledged Benedict's post-retirement decline but has insisted the 86-year-old German isn't suffering from any specific ailment and is just old.

"He is a man who is not young: He is old and his strength is slowly ebbing," Lombardi said this week. "However, there is no special illness. He is an old man who is healthy."

Benedict chose to leave the Vatican immediately after his resignation to physically remove himself from the process of electing his successor and from Pope Francis' first weeks as pontiff.

His absence also gave workers time to finish up renovations on the monastery tucked behind St. Peter's Basilica that until last year housed groups of cloistered nuns who were invited for a few years at a time to live inside the Vatican to pray.

In the compact, four-story building, Benedict will live with his personal secretary, Monsignor Georg Gaenswein, and the four consecrated women who look after him, preparing his meals and tending to the household. The building also has a small library, a study and a guest room for when his brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, comes to visit.

"It is certainly small but well-equipped," Lombardi said.

When Benedict announced his intention to resign the first pontiff to do so in 600 years questions immediately swirled about the implications of having two popes living alongside one another inside the Vatican.

Benedict fueled those concerns when he chose to be called "emeritus pope" and "Your Holiness" rather than "emeritus bishop of Rome." He also raised eyebrows when he chose to continue wearing the white cassock of the papacy.

Given the political intrigues that plague the Vatican, it wasn't much of a stretch of the imagination to wonder if some cardinals, bishops and monsignors not to mention ordinary Catholics might continue making Benedict their point of reference rather than the new pope.

But Benedict made clear on his final day as pope that he was renouncing the job and pledged his "unconditional reverence and obedience" to his then-unknown successor. It was a pledge he repeated in person on March 23 when Francis went to have lunch with him.

It was during that visit that the world saw how weak Benedict had become: Always a man with a purposeful walk, he shuffled tentatively that day, using his cane.

Francis, for his part, seems utterly unfazed by the novel situation. He has frequently invoked Benedict's name and work and has called him on a half-dozen occasions, making clear he has no intention of ignoring the fact that there's another pope still very much alive and now living on the other side of the garden.

Francis' gestures to Benedict during that March 23 visit were also remarkable: He refused to pray on the special papal kneeler in the small chapel of Castel Gandolfo, preferring to join Benedict on a kneeler in the pews, and referring to his predecessor as his "brother."

Now that they're neighbors, they might bump into one another on walks in the Vatican gardens or at the shrine to the Madonna, which is just a stone's throw from Benedict's new home.

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday nominated a veteran Democratic congressman to oversee mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a choice that could set up a contentious political debate over housing policy.

Representative Mel Watt, a longtime consumer advocate who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, understands the roots of the housing crisis, Obama said at the White House.

"He knows what it's going to take to help responsible homeowners fully recover and he's committed to helping folks ... who work really hard, play by the rules, day in and day out, to provide for their families," he said.

The 67-year-old North Carolina lawmaker is expected to face a tough confirmation battle in the Senate, where Democrats are likely to need some Republican support to get Watt approved.

If confirmed, Watt would replace Edward DeMarco, a career civil servant who has led the Federal Housing Finance Agency in an acting capacity since 2009.

Consumer and housing advocacy groups, along with some Democratic lawmakers, had piled pressure on Obama in recent months to replace DeMarco. The regulator blocked a White House proposal to let government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac slash mortgage debt for borrowers who owe more on their taxpayer-backed loans than their homes are worth.

DeMarco has argued that there are other ways to help distressed homeowners that pose less risk to taxpayers, and Republicans see him as a trusty steward for the public.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in an analysis on Wednesday that the government could actually save money and reduce foreclosures if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac participated in a principal forgiveness program. The study, was requested by a group of House Democrats, including Watt.

"We need someone that will stand up for borrowers," said Tracy Van Slyke, co-director of The New Bottom Line, which is leading a grassroots campaign called "Dump DeMarco." "This is an important victory. It's a good day for millions of homeowners."

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which currently back about half of existing U.S. home loans, were seized by the government in 2008 as mortgage losses mounted. They have received $187.5 billion in taxpayer funds to stay afloat, while paying about $58 billion to the Treasury in dividends.

Republicans pin Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's 2008 failure on government efforts to extend credit to unworthy borrowers.

"I could not be more disappointed in this nomination. This gives new meaning to the adage that the fox is guarding the hen house," said Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who sits on the banking committee that will consider whether to send Watt's nomination to the full Senate for approval.

"The debate around his nomination will illuminate for all Americans why Fannie and Freddie failed so miserably."

SHOW TRIAL?

During his two decades in the House of Representatives, Watt has fought against predatory lending and pushed for increased loan access for minority and low-income borrowers.

"This move will help the administration build support on the left, which is necessary for the impending budget battles, and it puts Republicans on the other side of a credible nominee," said Isaac Boltansky, a policy analyst with Compass Point Research and Trading.

Obama had nominated North Carolina banking commissioner Joseph Smith for the position in 2011, but he was blocked by Republicans and eventually withdrew his name from consideration.

Before settling on Watt, a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Obama had considered economist Mark Zandi, a registered Democrat who was an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. When Zandi's name surfaced, some conservatives made clear his ties to McCain were not enough to appease them.

In addition to weighing in on the question of loan forgiveness, the next FHFA director would be expected to guide Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac through an overhaul to reduce their dominant role in the housing finance system.

"Congressman Watt has a reputation for integrity, knowledge, and fairness. He certainly can't be said to be a shill for the far left," said Julia Gordon, director of housing finance and policy at the Center for American Progress, a group aligned with Democrats. "It is going to be hard to find a principled basis to oppose his nomination."

Democratic Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson called Watt a "superb pick" and said he wanted to move the nomination expeditiously.

The response from Republicans, however, signaled a potentially long slog ahead.

"I am very concerned about this nomination," said Senator Mike Crapo, the top Republican on the banking panel. "By making a political appointment, the president is ignoring the importance that the head of the FHFA must be independent."

(Reporting by Margaret Chadbourn and Steve Holland; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Tim Ahmann)

(Reuters) - The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday appealed a court order directing the agency to make "morning-after" emergency contraception pills available without a prescription to all girls of reproductive age.

Lawyers with the Justice Department filed the appeal with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, according to court documents.

The appeal is the latest foray in the years-long legal battle over the pill known as "Plan B," a drug that has also sparked political and religious clashes. If taken up to 120 hours after unprotected sex, it is designed to prevent pregnancy.

The government is seeking to overturn U.S. District Judge Edward Korman's ruling from April 5 that required the FDA to make the emergency contraception available over-the-counter to women of all ages within 30 days.

The Justice Department has asked the district court to temporarily stop its order from taking effect while the appeal is pending, said FDA spokeswoman Erica Jefferson.

The district judge's ruling came in response to a lawsuit originally filed in 2005 by the Center for Reproductive Rights and other groups seeking to strike down age and access limits to the emergency contraception. They argued that there was no scientific proof that girls of reproductive age could not safely use the drug without supervision.

Korman's order reversed a surprise December 2011 decision by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. At the time, the FDA had decided to approve over-the-counter sales with no age limits when Sebelius ordered it to reverse course, barring girls under 17 from buying the pills without a prescription.

President Barack Obama supported that restriction, invoking his daughters. But the timing, 11 months ahead of the presidential election, sparked criticism that he was trying to placate social conservatives.

In his ruling, Korman called Sebelius' decision "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable."

"The motivation for the secretary's action was obviously political," he wrote.

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, criticized the government's decision to appeal.

Obama's "administration has decided once again to deprive women of their right to obtain emergency contraception without unjustified and burdensome restrictions," she said in a statement.

Before filing its appeal, the FDA said on Tuesday that it would allow girls as young as 15 years old to buy without a prescription the Plan B One-Step emergency contraceptive, made by a unit of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

The agency said its decision to lower the age limit for Plan B One-Step was based on scientific data submitted by Teva that showed girls as young as 15 could safely use the drug without the intervention of a healthcare provider. Cashiers will still have to verify the customer's age before selling it, the FDA said.

The case is Tummino et al. v. Hamburg et al., U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, No. 12-763.

(Reporting by Terry Baynes in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

LONDON (AP) -- What's new for fashion in the coming winter? Consider glamorous animal prints, a touch of punk, polished tailoring, furry collars and lashings of shiny PVC.

London Fashion Week on Tuesday wrapped up a whirlwind of runway previews that offered a huge variety of looks from dozens of designers, but one thing seemed clear: This season, many of the styles were more wearable by women who aren't necessarily models.

That's not to say the looks were boring or conventional. Glossy rubberized material think translucent raincoats was everywhere, as were boxy, roomy jacket shapes. There were punk-inspired biker zips and a black and red theme at Preen, but clean and minimalist tailoring kept the outfits sophisticated.

Erdem offered dark dresses brightened up with neon florals, while Christopher Kane, recently acquired by luxury conglomerate PPR, showcased a whole range of creative looks from camouflage-printed kilts to dark velvet dresses to feather trims.

Roksanda Ilincic brought out a series of feminine dresses and separates in peachy pinks, but clashed them with fluorescent green and emerald accents, ghostly makeup and statement striped lace-up boots in bright metallic hues.

"It's about daring to bring the pink into winter because it's such a spring color, and it's such a girly color," the designer said after her show on Tuesday the fifth day of the British capital's fashion week.

Earlier, the headline acts of the week lived up to high expectations.

Luxury brand Burberry updated its classic trenches with bold animal prints and more of the ubiquitous plastic, latex-like material, while Tom Ford unveiled bright, saturated tribal patterns. Vivienne Westwood delivered what she does best: draped dresses and jackets that magically create hourglass shapes for the wearer.

Color-wise, Ilincic and others brought pink and coral to the catwalk, but a deep palette of burgundy and wine, navy and bottle green was most popular.

Compared to New York, Milan or Paris, London fashion attracts many with its younger, edgier and more urban vibe, and catwalk shows were often full of theatrical or even madcap looks.

"I find it an exuberant, inspirational city, so that's why I chose to show here," said Ford, who staged a lavish runway showcase on Monday night, marking the first full-fledged womenswear catwalk show for his Tom Ford brand.

Officials have made a point of nurturing that creative energy, though increasingly designers based in the capital are encouraged to take a more business-savvy approach to fashion the leading creative industry in Britain, worth 21 billion pounds (US$33 billion) to the U.K. economy.

"Before it was more like an art show, but now now the creativity is still there, though with collections that are saleable, that generate a profitable business," said British Fashion Council chief executive Caroline Rush.

Designers including handbag specialist Anya Hindmarch, Ashish and newcomer Simone Rocha were the last to show at the fashion event on Tuesday.

As the runways get dismantled in London, models, editors and bloggers are jetting off to more womenswear shows in Milan, which begins its fashion week Wednesday, followed by Paris next week.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc on Monday agreed to buy Life Technologies Corp for $13.6 billion in a deal that would make it one of the top two companies in the hot field of genetic testing.

The pact values Life Tech at $76 per share, a 12 percent premium, and is one of the year's biggest corporate takeovers.

It would catapult Thermo, the world's largest maker of scientific and laboratory equipment, to the forefront of the fledgling field of personalized medicine, where research is uncovering the hereditary underpinnings of diseases to better tailor treatments to patients.

"Genetic sequencing is an area that will become increasingly important over the years in terms of specialty diagnostics, and Thermo needs to compete in that market because they have a number of products in that area that ultimately could get displaced by sequencing applications," said Macquarie Capital analyst Jonathan Groberg.

Thermo Chief Executive Marc Casper said advanced genetic testing was an important field going forward, and his company wanted to get into it as an industry leader. Life Tech is considered No. 2 behind Illumina Inc in the race to produce faster and less expensive gene sequencing technology.

"We didn't want to be a more distant participant, and this transaction facilitated us having a stronger position there," Casper said in a telephone interview.

Illumina last year rebuffed a $6.8 billion hostile takeover bid by Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG. Shares of Illumina, which will now have to compete with a far larger rival with much greater resources, were down nearly 3 percent.

Interest in buying Illumina could heat up again, given the company's unique position in advanced gene sequencing.

"They've only got one target they can think about," Mizuho Securities analyst Peter Lawson said of potential buyers. "There's a lot of experimental technologies out there, but if you need something that functional, you need either Illumina or Life Tech's Ion Torrent business."

Both companies have dramatically cut down the time and cost of sequencing human DNA, a major boon to researchers and drugmakers developing gene-based diagnostic tests and treatments. Life Tech's Ion Proton System can complete the sequencing process, which recently took several days, in a couple of hours for about $500. The technology has more than 1,000 times the sequencing capacity of Life Tech's original sequencing chip.

AN IMMEDIATE PROFIT BOOST

Thermo said the deal would add 90 cents to $1 to its per-share profit in the first full year, initially sending its shares higher. After jumping nearly 6 percent, the shares gave back those gains and were down almost 1 percent at $78.98 in late afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Life Tech shares were up 7.4 percent at $73.05, below the offer price.

Analysts estimate the combined company's 2013 revenue at about $17 billion. The acquisition will also enhance Thermo's offerings in the fast growing field of food safety, and its ability to grow in China and other emerging markets.

"The combined company has significant scale in emerging markets and scale makes a huge difference there," said Casper, adding that the deal "will put us in even better position to grow in the fastest growing regions in the world."

The acquisition is by far the biggest deal for Thermo since the company was created in the $12.8 billion merger of Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific International in 2006. It is also far larger than the biggest previous deal on Casper's watch - the $3.5 billion acquisition of Phadia in 2011.

Thermo expects the transaction to close early in 2014, pending U.S. regulatory and shareholder approvals.

Thermo will assume Life Tech's net debt of about $2.2 billion. In the third year following the deal's closing, Thermo said it expects to achieve cost savings of $250 million by consolidating facilities and support functions.

Thermo's products range from basic scientific instruments to advanced mass spectrometry equipment used to determine the chemical structure of molecules. It also sells chemicals, agents and antibodies used in the manufacture and research of biotech medicine - a line that will be complemented by Life Tech's product lines - and in recent years has increased its portfolio of products for testing air and water quality and food safety.

LIFE TECH EXPLORED MANY OPTIONS

Life Tech explored a sale after previous attempts by Chief Executive Gregory Lucier to boost the value of the company's stock and capture more market share from Illumina.

Lucier said the company explored many options during a lengthy strategic review, with the ultimate sale of the company always one of them. "We are very satisfied both with the process and the outcome," he said in a telephone interview.

Lucier oversaw the merger of his former company Invitrogen and Applied Biosystems that created Life Tech.

Life Tech President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Stevenson is expected to play a significant role in the combined company, the companies said.

Thermo has obtained committed bridge financing from JPMorgan and Barclays, which also acted as the company's financial advisers.

Sources familiar with the deal told Reuters that Life Tech chose Thermo over Sigma-Aldrich Corp, a maker of chemicals for research laboratories, and a private equity consortium consisting of Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, KKR & Co and Temasek Holdings.

Deutsche Bank Securities and Moelis & Co advised Life Tech.

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz and WilmerHale are legal counsel to Thermo Fisher; Cravath, Swaine and Moore is legal counsel to Life Tech.

(Additional reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Michele Gershberg)