A Ministry of Defense statement from the former Soviet republic said Alasania met Friday with his Afghan counterpart, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi.

Afghan official Mohammad Omar Zwark says a suicide attacker drove the truck full of explosives into the entrance of the camp in Helmand province Thursday, causing a huge blast.

The Georgian ministry says all seven killed were members of the same unit and had been in Afghanistan only since April.

Last month, three Georgian soldiers were killed in an attack at another Helmand base.

Georgia has 1,545 troops serving in Afghanistan.

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Manchester City flexed their financial muscle in the transfer market and signalled their intent to reclaim the Premier League title by signing Brazil midfielder Fernandinho from Shakhtar Donetsk on Thursday.

City, who have yet to appoint a successor to sacked manager Roberto Mancini, did not give any financial details of the deal but British media have widely reported the transfer fee to be about 30 million pounds.

The pacy 28-year-old Fernandinho had been on City's radar for much of the season and is known in England for scoring in the Ukrainian club's 2-1 victory at home to Chelsea in the Champions League group stages last season.

"This is a change, a challenge and a chance that I have been waiting a long time for. Playing in the Premier League for City is like a dream," he told the club's website (www.mcfc.co.uk)

"My ambition here is to win all the titles, the team here is strong, and so is the greatness of the club and the supporters."

Fernandinho, who has five Brazil caps, had previously said he hoped a move to City would improve his chances of making the national squad for the 2014 World Cup on home soil.

He started his career with Atletico Paranaense in his homeland before becoming one of a host of talented Brazilians to head for Shakhtar with whom he has spent the last eight seasons and won the 2009 UEFA Cup.

Before his departure, Mancini had spoken of the need for the club to act faster than last season in the transfer market if they wanted to prise the Premier League crown back from arch-rivals Manchester United.

The Italian may have left but City, widely expected to name departing Malaga coach Manuel Pellegrini as the new boss, seem to have heeded Mancini's words as the signing comes days after Sevilla said their winger Jesus Navas was joining the club.

City gave up the Premier League title without much of a fight as United secured a 20th league trophy with four games to spare. City also lost the FA Cup final to Wigan Athletic, who were relegated from the top flight days later.

Mancini had laid some of the blame for their disappointing season on the failure to capture Netherlands striker Robin van Persie, who joined United in the close season and whose league-leading 26 goals drove their title charge.

Everyone knows somebody who is always starting sentences with for the record, like a narcissistic nod to a cosmic stenographer chronicling their every move. But just what does off the record mean? Is it always bad? Who are those unnamed "senior administration officials" you read so much about? And how can you sound smart at the bar if youre unlucky enough to be trapped in a discussion of Beltway media jargon?

First, a bit of background: Holder called major outlets to come discuss the Justice Departments handling of national security leaks. The invitation followed disclosures that the department had seized reporters telephone and email records and had even suggested one journalist, James Rosen of Fox News, had acted like a spy by doing his job.

But there was a catch: Holder said the details of the meeting would be off the recordcould not be reported. Some rejected the overture, essentially arguing thatwhat Holder had to say. (Yahoo News partner ABC News accepted his invitation.) Under heavy pressure, Holder relaxed the requirement enough to let those who attended describe in general terms what took place.

But anyone not steeped in reportorial jargon might be confused by how such ground rules are set. Since the Holder-media talks are sure to continue and because the issue is linked to the way reporters protect the identity of whistle-blowers, its worth giving the matter a second look.

Yahoo News reached out to a handful of reportersincluding two who endured furious disputes with more than one White House over the definition of off the recordas well as some respected communications aides of both parties. These hacks and flacks offered guidance through this frequently murky terrain.

CNN's Jake Tapper summed up the broad consensus. "What I do isbefore I agree to go on background, or deep background, or off the recordI clarify what that means to the person with whom I'm speaking," he said. "I don't want any misunderstandings."

Tapper's point is vital, because there are no official definitions, no universally accepted rules, that govern what is essentially a negotiation between an individual source and an individual reporter.

Why does it matter? Reporters want to inform their audience, and to do so they need to be informed themselvesand to do that they generally need to build trust with their sources. If you quote Official A by name as saying His Boss is screwing something up after you agreed to cite Official A only as "person close to His Boss"that person is unlikely to talk to you again. The same goes, or should go, for sources who deliberately mislead reporters.

Two flacks who disagree on most issuesTommy Vietor, former spokesman for President Barack Obama's National Security Council, and Don Stewart, communications director for Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnellagree on how they define the unofficial rules.

Two reportersWashington Post columnist Dana Milbank, who clashed with then-President George W. Bush's White House, and Michael Hastings, whose name still makes Obama aides grind their teethagreed on their view of the rules. (More on the heartburn Milbank and Hastings gave officials a bit below.)

What is 'on the record'?

Vietor: "'On the record' means you will be quoted by name and title. Tommy Vietor said X."

Stewart: "'On the record' is fairly obvious. The information and quotes can be used and cited to the person by name."

What is 'on background'? This is where "senior administration officials" are made and where the true silliness starts.

Milbank: The reporter "can attribute to agreed-upon anonymous title."

Stewart: "'Background' is one that requires a little nuance. At bottom, it means the information can be used and even quoted, but not attributed directly to the source. This is where people sometimes run into misunderstandings as many reporters believe background to mean that the info/quotes can be attributed to the persons organization ('said a spokesman for Sen. Jones' or 'according to Sen. Jones staff') when sometimes the spokesman would prefer 'House leadership aide' or an 'industry spokesman.' Thats why its important to nail that down upfrontbefore the conversation."

Vietor: "'On background' means different things to different reporters. At the White House, some reporters interpreted on background as meaning they could quote me as a 'White House official' while others took it as 'senior administration official.' It seems minor, but there is actually an enormous difference between the twothe former is a small group while the latter is hundreds of people (depending on how loosely you define 'senior')."

Yahoo News note: As a White House correspondent, I tried to limit "senior administration official" to someone who regularly met with, or briefed, the president on policy.

It will surprise no one that these terms are often abused. When Bush went overseas, his communications shop regularly brought along "senior administration officials" to brief reporters on official U.S. policy. Those officials would later go before the TV cameras and give the exact same information, often with the exact same wording.

One senior Bush aide was famous for insisting on anonymity before piously telling reporters that, behind closed doors, the president was calm, resolute, determined, loves America, etc.

In the 2004 election, The New York Times let an anonymous Bush supporter mock Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, saying he "looks French." In February 2007, Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan. On the way home, a senior administration official speaking on condition of anonymity told reporters, Cheney discussed the trip's purpose extensivelyand .

The practice hasn't changed much under Obama. But his team frequently releases even the most routine information on the condition that it be sourced to "a White House official." No name, no title. This can result in laugh-out-loud reports. Consider a recent example, drawn from the response to the devastating tornado in Oklahoma:

"The Administration continues to urge all those in affected or potentially affected areas to follow the direction of state and local officials as this severe weather continues," a White House official said on condition of anonymity.

One solution: Source official policy to "the White House." For background briefings, let the setting speak for itself: "Senior officials said at an official briefing for reporters to deliver the official message on Topic X."

What is 'deep background'?

Stewart: "'Deep background' means the information can be used but not attributed to the individual or her organization. There can be nothing linking the information to the source."

Vietor: "This term is meaningless. Some people think 'deep background' means that the information is usable but not quotable. Others think it means the information is usable from 'a source with knowledge' or some other utterly vague description. I recommend everyone just avoid it all together."

Milbank: When you get information, you "can use it without attribution or quotation."

In practice, this sometimes becomes "officials said." It's several steps removed from where officials might be held accountable for what they say.

What is 'off the record'?

Milbank: "You can't use it, but you can use the knowledge to try to get information from a different source."

Vietor: "'Off the record' should mean that the reporter cannot use the information in his article. That said, reporters who want to use something you say 'off the record' will call around and try to get someone else to confirm it."

Stewart: "'Off the record' means information can be used by the reporter to find their own information, but cannot be reported or sourced on its own."

That seems awfully straightforward. You can take what Official X told you off the record and call Official Y to try to get that information confirmed. Otherwise, you can't use it.

In practice, though, "off the record" informs a lot of reporting.

Bush and Obama have held off-the-record sessions with reporters. Network news anchors and other top journalists are often invited to off-the-record meetings with the president right before the State of the Union or other major speeches. The journalists then relay the information obtained at those meetings under the guise of their own shrewd political instincts. Op-ed columnists, pundits and outlets seen as sympathetic to a president's arguments are are often summoned to privileged off-the-record briefings.

In at least one history-making precedent, then-President Gerald Ford held regular off-the-record conversations with reporter Tom DeFrank.

Sensitive logistical informationlike White House travel arrangements, particularly to sensitive destinationsis often off the record. I've been on at least three overseas trips where a condition of being part of the voyage was agreeing to inform only his spouse and one editor beforehand.

Just to muddy the waters a little more, a campaign-trail "OTR" (off the record) is an unannounced stop by the candidate. But what she or he says is on the record.

"People usually have different understandings of these ideas, so it's good to have a long and thoughtful talk with your interview subject before proceeding about the ground rules they are comfortable with," Hastings said.

"I prefer to avoid all these in my columns and tell people it's either for attribution or not for attribution, i.e., I'll use the info but in my own voice," Milbank said.

If this is so easy, how did Milbank and Hastings get into trouble with two different presidents? In much the same way, about a decade apart.

In August 2003, Milbank wrote a detailed account of an off-the-record barbecue on Bush's ranch. Sample sentence: "In a gesture that vastly raised the journalists' assessment of Bush, the teetotaling president arranged for them to be served beer from coolers and Australian (read: not French) red wine." Bush aides were furious, judging that Milbank should not have reported any part of the event.

Hastings, in turn,with reporters at a Florida hotel bar during the 2012 campaign. Obama aides insisted that the very existence of the get-together was off the record (though I was merely told the goings-on at the event were off-limits). They still bristle at the mention of what one jokingly dubbed "."

By this point, you may be wondering why this matters, notably in the case of Eric Holder vs. the media.

Hastings has one explanation.

"If the government can spy, eavesdrop, and review the electronic communications of investigative journalists, then they are totally undermining the ability for journalists to make these kinds of good faith agreements that have been the bedrock of modern investigative journalism," he said by email. "If Nixon could have just legally spied on Woodward with the FBI, as Obama/Holder have done to Fox and the AP, Nixon wouldn't have needed his 'Plumbers.'"

Independent national security writerwarns that "off the record" "makes it a lot harder to hold the Admin(istration) accountable. Ithat it seems DOJ intends only to redefine things, while still using the same aggressive tactics. Given that no one can quote this as an official proposal, it makes it harder to push back against."

In principle, every reporter-source exchange is assumed to be on the record unless explicitly otherwise agreed to by both sides. In practice, though, reporters and sources sometimes build relationships in which thats not the case.

If I were to disclose the content of my exchanges, youd mostly learn that one former Republican aide quipped that I was an evil, no-good Froggy scribbler (from my days at Agence France-Presse), and that an Obama aide once greeted me on the telephone with a sarcastic but not mean-spirited what do you want, you incredibly annoying Frenchie pain in my ass? And a long conversation at a bar in Waco with one of my favorite sources could have resulted in a lengthy account of that persons romantic frustrations, who should get the credit for NAFTA and what the Franco-U.S. relationship was and ought to be.

Obviously, how to apply these rules, and when, and to whom, is open for extensive debate.

Andis just a short stroll from the White House.

(Photo: )

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Employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Internal Revenue Service and the Office of Management and Budget stayed home on Friday.

The furlough affects about 5 percent of the federal workforce, according to Cory Bythrow, communications director at the National Federation of Federal Employees, a union representing government workers. Bythrow tracks workplace fallout from the budget cuts, known as sequestration.

Eighty-five percent of the workers who were furloughed on Friday are based outside Washington, Bythrow said by telephone. They include union and non-union employees, depending largely on where they are, he said.

The furloughs come as the United States heads into a holiday weekend, with Memorial Day celebrated on Monday, when government offices will be closed.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Friday found 37 percent of Americans feel sequestration has hurt them personally, up from 25 percent in March. About half of those affected say the harm to them has been "major."

(Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko; Editing by Eric Beech)

MADRID (Reuters) - World number one and defending champion Serena Williams continued her serene progress at the Madrid Open when she eased past Spanish wildcard Lourdes Dominguez Lino 6-2 7-5 in the second round on Tuesday.

Chasing a fourth title of the year and the 50th of her career, Williams had too much power for the slightly-built Dominguez Lino, who nonetheless managed to unsettle her illustrious opponent with some clever drop shots and lobs.

Williams was joined in the third round by Maria Sharapova after the Russian second seed thumped American qualifier Christina McHale 6-1 6-2 in Tuesday's night session.

Sharapova, a former number one who won her 29th career title in Stuttgart last month, will play Sabine Lisicki for a place in the last eight. The unseeded German upset 15th seed Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 7-6 7-6.

Williams, 31, said she had enjoyed the test against Dominguez Lino and the experience would stand her in good stead the next time she came up against a player like the 47th-ranked Spaniard, who likes to mix up her shots.

"I made a lot of errors, but her game kind of forces you to make errors," the American told a news conference. "It was a really good claycourt tennis match for me.

"Seeing as I have a few more tournaments on clay, it was perfect to play a match like this, so I know if I face another opponent like that I'll have that experience and I'll know how to play."

A 15-times grand slam singles champion, Williams will play unseeded Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic or 13th-seeded Russian Maria Kirilenko for a place in the quarter-finals. (Editing by Clare Fallon and Nick Mulvenney)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- New Zealand authorities say exports of frozen lamb, beef and mutton to China should resume next week after a paperwork problem resulted in hundreds of tons of meat getting stranded at Chinese docks.

New Zealand's Minister for Primary Industries Nathan Guy said Thursday that ministry officials were to blame for making certification mistakes which have now been resolved. New Zealand exporters changed the branding on their certificates in March after government departments merged.

Exporters say China stopped accepting any of their frozen meat two or three weeks ago and it has piled up on the docks there since. Because the meat is frozen, it hasn't spoiled and should now get clearance for sale and consumption.

China is New Zealand's largest export market and its largest buyer of sheep meat.

A spokeswoman for the Dusseldorf opera house said Tuesday that members of the audience "booed and were shocked" by Saturday's opening performance.

Monika Doll said the company of Deutsche Oper am Rhein is debating whether to tone down the provocative parts, added to the original by producer Burkhard Kosminski.

"Members of the audience booed and banged the doors when they left the opera house in protest before the end of the show," the head of the city's Jewish community told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Michael Szentei-Heise called the adaptation at the city's Deutsche Oper am Rhein "tasteless and not legitimate."

The director, Christoph Meyer, said in a statement that the opera company never wanted to hurt the feelings of the viewers. "This is not about mocking the victims, but mourning them," Meyer said.

At the opening of the Duesseldorf performance, performers could be seen inside glass chambers, falling to the floor as white fog flowed an allusion to the mass killings of the Jews in the Nazis' death camps. After a half hour, the music stopped and a family stepped on stage. The parents and their children were having their hair shaved off and then they are shot dead another reference to treatment of Jewish captives during the Holocaust.

The original Tannhauser opera is set in the Middle Ages and was first performed in Dresden in 1845. It is based on a traditional ballad about the bard Tannhauser and features a singing contest at the Wartburg Castle in south-central Germany.

Szentei-Heise, the Jewish community leader, objected to the inclusion of scenes reminiscent of the Holocaust, which occurred nearly a century after the opera was first performed.

"This opera has nothing to do with the Holocaust," Szentei-Heise said. "However, I think the audience has made this very clear to the opera and the producer."

Wagner, an ardent anti-Semite, remains a controversial figure in Germany and elsewhere nearly 130 years after his death. Adolf Hitler was an admirer, and playing Wagner's music is still considered a taboo in Israel.

People in La Ruana in Michoacan state lined the main road to greet more than a dozen troop transports and heavily armed Humvees with applause and shouts of joy.

The town's supplies had been blocked after the Knights Templars cartel declared war on the hamlet. The cartel dominates much of the state, demanding extortion payments from businessmen and storeowners, and even low-wage workers.

In February, the town formed self-defense squads to kick the cartel out, drawing the wrath of the gang. Convoys of cartel gunmen attacked the town, which was forced to throw up stone barricades and build guard posts.

Supplies like gasoline, milk and cooking gas began to run low as cartel gunmen threatened to burn any trucks bringing in goods.

On Monday, hundreds of soldiers moved in, erecting checkpoints on the highway leading into La Ruana and setting up an operating base in the town.

"This war has been won!" Hipolito Mora, leader of the self-defense movement, told hundreds of cheering townspeople gathered along the main road, including dozens of self-defense patrol members wearing white T-shirts and carrying shotguns.

Mora said the town had agreed to stop community patrols and let the army take over security in La Ruana. But he said the community would keep its weapons and would start patrols again if the army left.

The idea that troops might come in and seize a town's weapons, or stay only a few weeks, worried people throughout the crime-ridden area. So in town after town along the main highway through Michoacan's hot lowlands known as the Tierra Caliente, self-defense squads welcomed the army's arrival, but vowed to keep their guns.

The highway is littered with the charred hulks of supply trucks, the smoking remains of burned-out sawmills and the fire-blackened walls of fruit warehouses set afire by the Knights Templars cartel in retaliation for the towns' rebellion.

In the nearby town of Buenavista, many of the masked, lightly armed self-defense patrol members manning a highway checkpoint said they welcomed the army but vowed to resist any attempts to take their guns.

They hung a banner beside the roadway: "Gentlemen of the federal police and the Mexican army, we would prefer to die at your hands, than at those of these stupid, stinking scum," it said, referring to the cartel.

A healthy dose of skepticism remained about the chances of success for sending the army into Michoacan a tactic that then-President Felipe Calderon used to launch his offensive against drug cartels in 2006.

The Michoacan-based Knights Templar is, by all accounts, at least as strong today as its predecessor cartel, the La Familia gang, was in 2006. Instead of attacking the cartel's strongholds in nearby cities like Apatzingan, the troops are fighting a sort of rear-guard action, protecting towns outside the main urban areas without going to the root of the problem.

Rafael Garcia Zamora, mayor of Coalcoman, a town largely cut off from the outside world after it formed its own self-defense force last week, said residents welcomed the arrival of troops, but worried the force might soon leave again and expose the town to the cartel's wrath.

"We don't doubt their ability," he said of the army. "But we need them to help us" root out the criminals and not let the cartel continue to grow.

"The government should have mobilized the army to do this 10 or 12 years ago," Garcia Zamora said.

"We have had temporary raids, with three or four thousand soldiers, but they come and they leave. And you know what? Every time after there is a raid, severed heads show up," he said, referring to drug cartel retaliation against those who help the army.

"People have the courage to speak up, but that has its consequences," he said.

A new study of the bacteria living on family members and their dogs revealed some surprises in the way microbes are shared within a household.

"One of the biggest surprises was that we could detect such a strong connection between their owners and pets," Rob Knight, a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a statement. "In fact, the microbial connection seems to be stronger between parents and family dogs than between parents and their children." []

By swabbing tongues, foreheads, feces, palms and paws, Knight and his colleagues collectedsamples from 60 families, including 17 households with children, involving 159 people and 36 dogs in total.

Overall, the researchers' findings showed that the people and theircan greatly influence the microbes that live in the body. Sharing surfaces (countertops, doorknobs, you name it) and breathing the same indoor air seems to make it much easier for family members to swap skin microbes than tongue or gut bacteria in a home, the scientists say. And pets are part of the exchange.

"Ourin particular seems to be the most malleable by our immediate surroundings, which includes the presence of household pets," study researcher Se Jin Song, a CU-Boulder doctoral student, said in a statement. Couples who had a dog shared more skin bacteria with each other than couples without a canine companion, the researchers found.

Meanwhile, parents seemed to have much more tongue and gut bacteria in common with their own children than with other children, but only after about age 3. (Kids are not born with a built-in , but acquire most of it by age 3.) The foreheads and palms of fathers and their infants had the weakest microbial connection of all the body sites and relationships studied by the researchers.

Microbes vastly outnumber human cells in the body. Whereas some kinds of bacteria can make you sick, others are vital for various aspects of a person's health. Gut microbes, for example, can help to digest food, make vitamins and fight off disease.

The new study, which was detailed online today (April 17) in the open-access journal , adds to previous research showing that the makeup of human bacteria is affected by factors like environmental exposure. For example, the "," first put forth in the 1980s, posits that exposure to bacteria and other microorganisms can help bolster immunity to environmental antigens, cutting the risk of asthma and food allergies. There's more and more evidence that pets could play a role in this process.

"Recent studies link early exposure to pets to decreased prevalence of allergies, respiratory conditions and other immune disorders in later stages of development, and skin microbes in particular are now receiving more focus as important players in immune regulation," the researchers wrote.

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