Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for The Aviator

Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett is in talks to star opposite Harrison Ford in the long-awaited return of Indiana Jones, her publicist has confirmed. “She is in negotiations, yes,” publicist Lisa Kasteler told the AP news agency.

Shooting is due to begin in June with the movie expected to open in May 2008.

The original Indiana Jones trilogy was a tribute to Saturday morning B-movies, and made more than $1.1bn at the box office in the 1980s.

The fourth instalment was in development for more than 10 years before creator George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg finally signed off the script.

Earlier in the year, Lucas said it would be “a character piece” including some “very interesting mysteries”.

The screenplay was written by Jurassic Park and War of The Worlds scribe David Koepp, who told film website IGN it had taken “about a year” to complete.

Harrison Ford, who last played the Jones role in 1989, is now 64.

Last year he said he would “bring the same physical action” to the new film as he did to the original trilogy.

Blanchett, who won a best supporting actress Oscar in 2004 for The Aviator, most recently starred in Notes on a Scandal and Babel.

Endesa is at the centre of a takeover battle

The European Commission says it has received a reply from Spain regarding the way Madrid handled a controversial power sector takeover bid.EU regulators had complained about conditions the Spanish government imposed on German company E.ON’s bid to buy Spanish electricity firm Endesa.

Brussels had given Madrid one week to drop restrictions it had set on the 41bn-euro ($53.9bn; £27.9bn) deal.

The EU considers conditions set by Spain to have broken competition rules.

Takeover conditions

E.ON wants to get a foothold in Spain’s power market, which has grown seven times faster than Germany’s since 1990.

But conditions on a takeover, set by the Spanish government included keeping the Endesa brand for at least five years, only Spanish coal being used in power stations and the stipulation that certain assets cannot be sold off.

“We did receive the reply this morning,” the Commission’s competition spokesman Jonathan Todd told a regular briefing.

“We are now going to study this reply very carefully.”

Last week, the European Commission said that if it is not told the measures have been withdrawn, it might refer Spain to the European Court of Justice.

There was widespread agreement on the need to cut emissions

Germany’s environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, says the United States has blocked progress on two key issues to protect the global environment.He was speaking after a two-day meeting of environment ministers in the German city of Potsdam.

The issues were carbon emissions trading and rewarding developing nations for protecting their natural assets, he said.

Mr Gabriel said the US opposition was “not a surprise”.

The Potsdam conference brought together ministers from the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations - the United States, Canada, France, UK, Germany, Japan, Italy and Russia - and Brazil, India, China Mexico and South Africa from the developing world.

‘Not subtle’

Ministers stressed that the meeting had shown that there was a good deal of consensus on the scale and nature of the problem of climate change - but a lack of agreement on the tools to tackle it.

The BBC’s Matt McGrath in Potsdam says there was a widespread acceptance that sustainable economic development had to go hand in hand with efforts to cut emissions of carbon dioxide.

But disagreements surfaced over specifics such as extending the global system of carbon trading, one of the central planks of any proposed deal to curb emissions.

According to one delegate the United States was “not subtle” in its opposition to carbon trading, and to another proposal that would pay developing countries to preserve rainforests.

“We find this regrettable,” Mr Gabriel told reporters.

But he said: “I would have been disappointed if I’d expected something different.”

Four other soldiers were injured in the attack near Basra Susan Hull reaction

The US State Department has rejected a coroner’s conclusion that the “friendly fire” death of a British soldier in Iraq was unlawful and a criminal act.Lance Corporal Matty Hull, 25, died near Basra in March 2003 when a US pilot fired on his convoy.

US spokesman Sean McCormack said the death was a “terrible accident”.

The coroner was critical of US failure to send witnesses to the inquest but the Pentagon said he had access to most information from its own inquiry.

Speaking at a State Department briefing in Washington, Mr McCormack said: “We would not agree with any categorisation that this was a criminal act.

“This was a terrible accident. We mourn the loss of life and our hearts go out to his family… but we have come to a different conclusion.”

Recording a narrative verdict, Oxford assistant deputy coroner Andrew Walker said L/Cpl Hull’s death was “entirely avoidable”.

“The attack on the convoy amounted to an assault,” he said.

“It was unlawful because there was no lawful reason for it and in that respect it was criminal.”

How pilots fired on ‘friendlies’ Finding solace after long wait

The US pilots from the Idaho Air National Guard should have flown lower to confirm identities before opening fire, he added.

“I don’t think this was a case of honest mistake.”

Speaking after the verdict, widow Susan Hull said she felt a great sense of relief that it was over and it had confirmed that her husband’s death was “entirely avoidable”.

“I think all of our family feel it was the right verdict. It was what we’d waited four years to hear.”

She said she was now prepared to “draw the line” on the event.

“It’s been a long and painful time and we need to move forward.”

But she said the lack of co-operation from the US was “very disappointing”.

The Ministry of Defence said it was “very sorry for confusion and upset” caused by the handling of the US cockpit tape.

The recording was not initially shown to the inquest, but the US authorities only agreed for it to be released after the footage was leaked to the Sun newspaper.

An MoD spokesman said a team has been set up to liaise with coroners and bereaved families and to ensure documents are made available quickly to inquests.

Lawyer Geraldine McCool said the verdict did not suggest there would be a prosecution of the US pilot and the Hull family would not be calling for one.

‘Combat environment’

The Hull family believes key information was blacked out of a US Friendly Fire Investigation Board Report given to the coroner investigating his death.

The cockpit video ‘Friendly fire’ transcript

Constitutional affairs minister Harriet Harman, who met with US diplomats in London ahead of the inquest, said she shared the “frustration” at their failure to send witnesses.

“I explained that this was not a criminal court, nobody could be found guilty and sent to prison, it is simply asking questions and requiring answers,” she said.

In a statement the US Department of Defense said the US shared all the information from its inquiry with the MoD, except those parts that had to be withheld for “security, privacy or other reasons”.

“The investigation determined that the incident took place in a complex combat environment, the pilots followed applicable procedures,” it said.

L/Cpl Hull, who was from the Household Cavalry, died from multiple injuries inside his blazing Scimitar tank despite efforts by colleagues to save him.

Four other soldiers travelling in the convoy of light armoured vehicles were also injured in the incident on 28 March 2003 near Basra.

Italy’s Romano Prodi raised the thorny issue of human rights with Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday, but appeared at pains to avoid any clash that could damage relations with Moscow.

“The summit touched on all themes. We also spoke about freedom of the press, freedom of association and human rights as fundamental values of our societies,” the Prime Minister told a news conference after a meeting in this southern Adriatic city.

Activists had urged Prof. Prodi to drive home the human rights issue at the summit, at which both sides stressed how a string of business and cultural deals had strengthened good relations.

The Prime Minister’s mention of freedom of the press appeared significant because Italian groups had also raised the case of crusading journalist Anna Politkovskaya, whose murder last year intensified concern about freedom of speech in Russia, as did the killing of US journalist Paul Klebnikov in 2004. “Nobody is indifferent when a person’s rights and those of peace between peoples are compromised,” Prof. Prodi said.

Earlier this month a human rights report by the US State Department ranked Russia as a serious offender, part of a recent worsening in US-Russian relations. Russia rejected the report as biased, confrontational and politicised.

Rights activists had asked Prof. Prodi to press Mr Putin in particular over allegations of torture and kidnapping of civilians in the rebellious province of Chechnya.

The Moscow-backed Chechen government led by former rebel Ramzan Kadyrov, promoted to acting President by Putin last month, has denied accusations that security forces there take hostages and use torture in secret detention centres.

Mr Putin said “there are many problems in the Chechen republic but all democratic institutions including the presidency, Parliament and courts are in place there”.

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Mexican police have seized what they say is one of the biggest amounts of cash confiscated in an anti-drug raid.More than $205m (£103m) were found in the Mexico City safe house, as well as guns and drugs.

Seven people were arrested. They are accused of illegally importing chemicals used to make amphetamines.

The total recovered in similar raids in 2006 was about $53m. The government has vowed to crack down on the drug cartels which are terrorising parts of Mexico.

Gabriel was the driving force behind the festival in the early 1980s

Musician Peter Gabriel is to perform at this summer’s Womad festival to mark its 25th anniversary.Gabriel, the co-founder of the world music event, will appear on 27 July with a line-up which includes 70 artists from 40 countries.

The event will be held at Charlton Park in Wiltshire for the first time, after 17 years at Rivermead in Berkshire.

Organisers chose to move the festival from its former site in Reading because it was becoming too crowded.

‘Negative noise’

Gabriel said: “It has been wonderful to see what has happened with Womad over the last 25 years. It is different from any other festival I’ve even been to.

“Although I usually get to enjoy it from the audience rather than the stage, I’m delighted to come back for this 25th anniversary,” added the performer.

Gabriel originally inspired the idea for a world music festival in 1980, leading to the first edition in 1982.

Since 1988, other Womad festivals have taken place at different locations around the world.

Former Genesis star Gabriel endorsed the decision to move the principal site to Wiltshire, saying “it just felt that there was beginning to be a negative noise about Reading”.

Despite switching venues, there are no plans to increase the 20,000 capacity of the event, which will take place between 27-29 July.

 Panda has released NanoScan, an online virus scanning service that is able to perform a full sweep of a computer in less than one minute. The speed is a vast improvement over current virus scanners, which take as much as an hour or more to complete.

The company isn’t giving specifics on how the software works, only saying that it will require a small 400KB ActiveX download. No software is installed on the user’s computer, and is hosted on Panda’s servers. This would ensure that the signature files were continually up-to-date.

Hosting the signature file online solves a problem that the company said will eventually require a new way to combat virus and malware writers.

“Panda had foreseen that digital vandals and Internet criminals would eventually win the day simply by overwhelming systems with signature files too large to be of practical use, unless something radically new and different were done,” the company said in a statement.

Around 600,000 threats will be detectable through the service, with more added daily through the company’s ‘Anti-Malware Collective Intelligence’ platform. The system uses detection of new threats worldwide as a way to keep its anti-virus signature files continuously up-to-date.

This system works hand-in-hand with its TruPrevent technology, the company said, which detects malicious code without the need for it to be in the antivirus softwares signature file.

In beta, the scanner is available for use free of charge from nanoscan.com. It was not immediately clear if the company will charge for the final version.

US consumers are the biggest driver of the world’s largest economy.

US producer prices have jumped by more than analysts forecast in February.According to the latest Labor Department figures, prices climbed by 1.3% in February compared to last year. In January, prices dipped by 0.6%.

The driving force behind the increase was a surge in the cost of food, energy and toys, the Department said.

The figures underline fears that US inflationary pressures are still strong and will need further interest rate rises to bring them under control.

At present, the US interest rates stand at 5.25%, and some economists had been calling for a rate cut amid fears that the world’s largest economy may be slowing and the belief that inflation was under control.

But now concerns are mounting that the US Federal Reserve may increase the cost of borrowing at its meeting next week, especially as consumer prices have also been climbing.

“The Fed is not cutting anything if this is the type of inflation we are seeing.” said Robert MacIntosh, chief economist at Eaton Vance Management in Boston.

Exxon is in talks with the government over the state takeover

US oil giant Exxon Mobil is considering its future in Venezuela as the country’s president drives through nationalisation plans.Exxon has said it will comply with a decree by President Hugo Chavez to hand over its multi-billion dollar Orinoco reserve operations by 1 May.

But the world’s biggest oil company has yet to signal whether it will maintain a minority interest in the project.

Exxon is currently in talks with the government over the state takeover.

Negotiating terms

Mr Chavez has pledged to nationalise key Venezuelan companies as part of plans to transform the country into a full socialist state.

He has said the government is prepared to negotiate terms should Exxon wish to continue its involvement in the Cerro Negro crude upgrading project, in which British oil giant BP also has a stake.

Venezuelan media reports had suggested that Exxon was planning to retain an interest in the project once it comes under state control.

But a spokesman for the firm said it had made no such decision yet.

Mr Chavez, who last month threatened to nationalise privately owned supermarkets that sell meat above government-set prices, has announced plans to nationalise four other major oil projects in the Orinoco reserve.

The projects, which involve leading global oil firms including ConocoPhillips and Statoil, have a combined value of about $30bn (£15.5bn).