India: Pakistan won't get access to Mumbai gunman (AP)

MUMBAI, India ? A Pakistani commission investigating the 2008 terror attack in Mumbai will visit in early February, but will not be allowed to interrogate the lone surviving gunman, Indian officials said Monday.

The visit is the result of intricate negotiations between the nuclear-armed neighbors, but is unlikely to resolve tensions over whether Pakistan is sincerely working to prosecute the attack's perpetrators ? who India says are linked to Pakistani security forces.

Disagreements over access to gunman Ajmal Kasab, who has been sentenced to death in India for his role in the rampage that killed 166, have spilled into public view.

Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, told India's NDTV last week that Pakistani officials would like to speak with Kasab directly to verify his confession.

"It can be verified either by bringing Ajmal Kasab to Pakistan or the judicial commission goes and personally interviews the witnesses, including Ajmal Kasab," he said. "That's what we have requested."

Ira Joshi, a spokeswoman for India's Ministry of Home Affairs, said Monday that such access was not part of the memorandum of understanding governing the visit.

In his confession before the court ? which he later tried to retract ? Kasab described in detail a network of training camps and safe houses across Pakistan, revealing the names of four men he said were his handlers.

India has accused Pakistani intelligence of being intricately involved in the planning of the attack, and officials have complained that Pakistan is not acting vigorously enough to bring the masterminds to justice.

Pakistan bristles at that criticism, noting that seven suspects in the Mumbai attack have been put on trial.

The Pakistani delegation will visit Mumbai in the first week of February and speak to doctors who did the post-mortems on the nine gunmen killed during the attack, as well as to the magistrate who recorded Kasab's confession and the chief investigating officer of the attacks, an official at Mumbai's high court said on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the visit.

___

Associated Press writer Aijaz Ansari contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/terrorism/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_on_re_as/as_india_mumbai_attacks

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FBI arrests 4 police officers in Conn. bias probe

U.S. Attorney David B. Fein, left, listens as Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division speaks about an indictment charging four East Haven police officers with federal civil rights offences during a press conference in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Sgt. John Miller and Officers David Cari, Dennis Spaulding and Jason Zullo are accused of harassing and intimidating Latino residents in East Haven, including their advocates, witnesses and other officers who tried to investigate or report misconduct. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post, Ned Gerard) MANDATORY CREDIT

U.S. Attorney David B. Fein, left, listens as Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division speaks about an indictment charging four East Haven police officers with federal civil rights offences during a press conference in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Sgt. John Miller and Officers David Cari, Dennis Spaulding and Jason Zullo are accused of harassing and intimidating Latino residents in East Haven, including their advocates, witnesses and other officers who tried to investigate or report misconduct. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post, Ned Gerard) MANDATORY CREDIT

U.S. Attorney David B. Fein, left, and Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, speak about an indictment charging four East Haven police officers with federal civil rights offenses during a press conference in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Sgt. John Miller and Officers David Cari, Dennis Spaulding and Jason Zullo are accused of harassing and intimidating Latino residents in East Haven, including their advocates, witnesses and other officers who tried to investigate or report misconduct. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post, Ned Gerard) MANDATORY CREDIT

U.S. Attorney David B. Fein, left, speaks about an indictment charging four East Haven police officers with federal civil rights offenses during a press conference in Bridgeport, Conn. on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012. Sgt. John Miller and Officers David Cari, Dennis Spaulding and Jason Zullo are accused of harassing and intimidating Latino residents in East Haven, including their advocates, witnesses and other officers who tried to investigate or report misconduct. (AP Photo/The Connecticut Post, Ned Gerard) MANDATORY CREDIT

FILE - In this Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2010 file photo, East Haven police vehicles are seen outside the police department in East Haven, Conn. The FBI on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2012, arrested four East Haven police officers on conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges following an investigation into possible civil rights violations. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) ? Four police officers, including the president of the local police union, were arrested Tuesday by the FBI on charges that they used excessive force against illegal immigrants and covered up abuses in a New Haven suburb where a federal investigation found life was made miserable for Hispanics.

The East Haven officers assaulted people while they were handcuffed, unlawfully searched Latino businesses and harassed and intimidated people, including advocates, witnesses and other officers who tried to investigate or report misconduct or abuse the officers committed, the federal indictment said.

Police treatment of Hispanics in the seaside city of East Haven has been under federal scrutiny since 2009, when the U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil rights probe that found a pattern of discrimination and biased policing.

The arrests were welcomed by local Hispanic business owners, including Luis Rodriguez, an immigrant from Ecuador who had complained of harassment by police at his Los Amigos Grocery store.

"They should have to pay, not with many years, but enough to make an example of them. They should not abuse their power," Rodriguez said. "All I ever wanted was to be left in peace."

Officers Dennis Spaulding, David Cari and Jason Zullo and Sgt. John Miller, president of the police union, are each charged with conspiracy against rights, which carries a maximum prison term of 10 years. Some also face charges including deprivation of rights, obstruction of justice and use of unreasonable force.

All four defendants pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, and three were released on bond. The highest bond amount ? $300,000 ? was set for Spaulding, who was described by prosecutors as facing the most serious charges. Zullo was ordered to remain in custody until another hearing Thursday because he was not immediately able to post bond.

The U.S. attorney for Connecticut, David Fein, said the criminal investigation is still looking at other people and urged tipsters to contact the FBI.

The profiling claims emerged with a dramatic demographic shift in East Haven, a predominantly Italian-American suburb of 28,000 people that was 10.3 percent Hispanic in 2010, compared with only 4.4 percent in 2000. Latino business owners said rough treatment by police drove away many of the newcomers from Mexico and Ecuador, although business has recovered in recent months as residents report less profiling.

At My Country Store on Main Street, where the defendants are accused of carrying out illegal searches and a false arrest, owner Marcia Chacon said she is grateful for the tranquility.

"Things have gotten much better," she said. "Business has started to come back."

Federal officials say the officers denied Latino residents and their advocates the right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to not be arrested and detained without probable cause and the right to not be arrested on false and misleading evidence.

"In simple terms, these defendants behaved like bullies with badges," said Janice Fedarcyk, assistant director of the New York office of the FBI.

Zullo described taking joy in singling out Latinos, authorities said, telling Spaulding in a 2008 exchange quoted by the indictment that he liked harassing drivers and referred to "persons who have drifted to this country on rafts made of chicken wings" and living in East Haven.

Miller repeatedly slapped a man handcuffed in his car, while Spaulding threw a man to the ground and repeatedly kicked him while he was handcuffed, according to the indictment.

Mayor Joseph Maturo said the four men were arrested around 6 a.m. Tuesday at their homes and at the police department.

Miller's lawyer, Donald Cretella, said his client has been honored with awards and risked his life in shootouts.

"John Miller is a hero in East Haven," he said. "He's decorated. He's a wonderful family man. Hopefully, we'll clear his name."

Spaulding's attorney, Frank Riccio Jr., said his client is an exemplary police officer.

"At this early stage it's our position Mr. Spaulding is not guilty of the charges," he said. "He's been nothing but an exemplary police officer. That's why this is shocking."

Attorneys for Cari and Zullo declined to comment.

The indictment says Miller reported to a police department leader described as a co-conspirator who blocked efforts by the police commission to investigate Miller's misconduct. That refers to Chief Leonard Gallo, according to his attorney, Jon Einhorn, who denied that Gallo blocked the investigation.

"It's unfair that he is mentioned in this regard when he isn't even indicted," Einhorn said.

The indictment also accuses unnamed union leaders of intimidation and interference to protect the officers, including a depiction of a rat posted on a bulletin board and a cartoon saying "You know what we do with snitches?" in a police locker room.

Maturo, who took office Nov. 19, reinstated Gallo as police chief. Gallo had been on paid administrative leave since federal authorities began investigating in 2010.

"I stand behind the police department," Maturo said. "We have a great police department."

The Department of Justice, which has pledged to reach out to the police department to work on reforms, said last month that the police department engaged in a pattern of discrimination against Latino residents. Investigators said their probe was complicated by efforts to interfere with witnesses and by police silence.

Nearly half or a third of the drivers pulled over by certain officers were Latino, and the number of Latinos pulled over by certain squads was "extraordinarily high," said Roy Austin Jr., deputy assistant attorney general for the civil rights division. Latinos who were stopped for minor violations were subjected to harsher punishments, such as arrest or vehicle towing, than were non-Latinos.

The East Haven Police Department, of some 50 officers, has come under scrutiny previously for civil rights issues. A federal jury ruled in 2003 that a white officer used excessive force and violated the rights of a black man he fatally shot after a chase.

Some officers involved in that case kept their jobs and were promoted, and there was no evidence that anyone received training to prevent similar confrontations in the future, Austin said.

___

Associated Press writer Michael Melia in Hartford contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-01-24-Police%20Discrimination-Conn/id-195e51437e3544019237a853c525f42c

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Arab League extends Syria mission 1 more month (AP)

BEIRUT ? A clash between Syrian forces and army defectors erupted Sunday in a suburb of the tightly held capital of Damascus, adding urgency just as the Arab League was extending an observers' mission that so far has failed to end long months of bloody violence.

The two events outlined how an uprising against President Bashar Assad that started with mass popular protests is moving now toward an armed conflict that could draw international intervention ? an outcome the Arab League is trying to avoid.

Arab League foreign ministers, meeting in Cairo, extended the much-criticized observers mission for another month, officials from the 22-member organization said.

The League decided to add more observers and provide them with additional resources, the officials said.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to reporters, said the U.N. would train the observers.

The observer mission is supposed to be the first step toward implementing an Arab League plan to end the Syria crisis. Other points are pulling heavy Syrian weapons out of cities, stopping attacks on protesters, opening talks with the opposition and allowing foreign human rights workers and journalists in.

"There is partial progress in the implementation of the promises," Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby said in Cairo about Syria's implementation of the plan. Syria "did not carry out all its promises, although there are some implementation of pledges."

He added that the use of "extreme force" by Syrian forces have led to a reaction by the opposition "in what could lead to civil war."

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told reporters that his country will pull out its observers because "the Syrian government did not implement the Arab plan." He urged Muslim countries, China, Russia, Europe and the U.S. to put pressure on Assad's government to stop the violence.

Saudi Arabia has been one of the harshest Arab critics of the crackdown, It recalled its ambassador from Damascus last year in protest.

So far the observer mission has not gone well. Though some credit it with tamping down violence in some places, the Local Coordination Committees activist group said Sunday that 976 people, including 54 children and 28 women, have been killed since the observers began their mission last month.

The U.N. estimates some 5,400 have been killed since it began in March.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch called on the Arab League to "maximize" the effectiveness of the mission of the observers in Syria "to stop the killings."

"The deployment of the observers, has been disappointing ... Assad played games with observers," by moving around forces instead of removing them from cities, while the killing continues, Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

The Arab League faced three options Sunday: ending the mission and giving up its initiative, extending it, or turning the crisis over to the U.N. Security Council, as some opposition groups have urged. There, however, it would face a possible stalemate because of disagreements among permanent members over how far to go in forcing Assad's hand.

The mission's one-month mandate technically expired on Thursday.

The pullout of Assad's security forces from the Damascus suburb of Douma marked the second time in a week that troops have redeployed from an area near the tightly-controlled Syrian capital, an indication that Assad might be losing some control.

Diplomacy has taken on urgency as opponents of Assad's regime and soldiers who switched sides increasingly take up arms and fight back against government forces.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights' head Rami Abdul-Rahman said government troops had pulled back early Sunday to a provincial headquarters and a security agency building in the Damascus suburb of Douma after hours of clashes, although they still controlled the entrances. The clashes broke out after Syrian troops opened fire at a funeral on Saturday.

On Sunday afternoon, the battles resumed between the defectors and troops loyal to Assad, according to the Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, another activist group. The LCC said that heavy machine gun fire was used in the clashes, and five people were killed.

Abdul-Rahman had no information on casualties from the clashes but said security forces at an entrance checkpoint shot dead one man who was passing by on Sunday. He added that one person was shot dead in a nearby town of Rankous as well as another person in the northwestern province of Idlib.

The LCC said 12 people were killed in Syria Sunday. The LCC and the Observatory reported intense gunfire in the central city of Homs that left at least one person dead.

State-run news agency SANA said gunmen opened fire at the car of an army brigadier general, killing him and another army officers who was in the vehicle.

Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso confirmed that security forces had abandoned Douma.

A video posted by activists on social media showed five masked gunmen, one of them in uniform, who read a statement saying, "the city of Douma has been liberated from Assad's gangs." He warned Syrian troops not to try enter Douma or defectors would "fire rockets at the presidential palace" in Damascus and execute five prisoners they are holding.

The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the video.

Also Sunday, state-run SANA, said an estimated 5,255 Syrian prisoners have been released over the past week under an amnesty, raising the total freed since November to more than 9,000. Opposition groups say thousands are still being held.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Syria as the bloodshed escalates. The U.S. has long called for Assad to step down, and officials say his regime's demise is inevitable.

Two U.S. Senators plan to introduce a bill to stiffen the sanctions.

The bill, sponsored by Democratic Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York would require President Barack Obama to identify violators of human rights in Syria, call for reform and offer protection to pro-democracy demonstrators. It would also block financial aid and property transactions in the United States involving Syrian leaders involved in the crackdown.

___

Al-Shalchi reported from Cairo.

Bassem Mroue can be reached on http://twitter.com/bmroue

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_syria

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Consumer finance chief touts enforcement powers (AP)

WASHINGTON ? The government's new consumer finance watchdog agency is prepared to sue companies that offer unfair or deceptive mortgages and credit cards, its director said Tuesday.

Addressing a congressional panel, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray defended his appointment to the post and assured critics that the agency will work with financial companies whenever possible.

But "we will not hesitate to use enforcement actions to right a wrong," Cordray told the Republican-controlled subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee.

Cordray was addressing Congress for the first time since his recess appointment by President Barack Obama earlier this month. He faces questions about the bureau's actions and the legitimacy of his appointment.

Republicans call the appointment illegal because the Senate technically was not in recess. Republicans were holding minutes-long sessions during their vacation to prevent the President from making any appointments.

The CFPB might lack credibility in part because it is run by a director whose "appointment was constitutionally questionable," said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., chairman of the subcommittee.

McHenry is a major beneficiary of political donations from the payday lending industry, which will face much tighter oversight because of Cordray's appointment.

Cordray said that he is aware of objections to his appointment, but "I'm in the job, it's an important job, it's a big job, it commands all of my time and attention, and all I can do is try to carry out the responsibilities."

Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asked whether the agency has made plans for what to do it Cordray's nomination is invalidated by a legal appeal.

"We have to carry out the intent of that law," Cordray replied. "Either we do or we don't. It seems to me that the right answer is that we do."

Senate Republicans had refused to confirm Cordray because many opposed the creation of the agency. They wanted it run by a bipartisan commission and pledged to block any nominee until the powers of the director were reduced.

Officials from the team that set up the agency, including Elizabeth Warren, now running for Senate from Massachusetts, had testified before Congress 11 times since the agency was created under the financial overhaul law in July 2010.

___(equals)

Follow Daniel Wagner at www.twitter.com/wagnerreports.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personalfinance/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120124/ap_on_bi_ge/us_consumer_protection_cordray

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Jackson's 'Hobbit' doubles film speed to 48 frames (AP)

PARK CITY, Utah ? Peter Jackson is making his hobbits and dwarves march double-time in his "The Lord of the Rings" prequel, which he's shooting in a faster film speed than the Hollywood standard.

Jackson hopes the 48-frames-a-second rate ? twice the 24 frames that has been the custom since the 1920s ? will help bring about a gradual transition to faster speeds that can bring more life-like images and action to the screen.

Digital cameras allow for shooting at 48 frames or faster, reducing the blurry effect known as strobing that can come with 24-frame filming.

Jackson said he hopes there will be a fair number of theaters equipped with digital projectors that can handle the faster film speeds by December, when Warner Bros. will release "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," the first chapter in his two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy classic.

"You shoot at 48, project at 48 and you get an illusion of life that's remarkable. You don't realize just how strobing and how flickery 24 frames is," Jackson said at the Sundance Film Festival, where he presented the documentary "West of Memphis," produced by him and his wife, "Hobbit" co-writer Fran Walsh. "You look at something at 48 frames, and it looks gorgeous. It looks like real life. It's amazing."

Other digital pioneers are making the same push for higher film speeds. "Avatar" creator James Cameron has said he will shoot the sequel to his science-fiction blockbuster at 48 or 60 frames a second.

At the CinemaCon convention for theater owners in Las Vegas last March, Cameron showed footage he shot at 24, 48 and 60 frames a second. The faster speeds noticeably reduced or eliminated blurriness in action sequences or when the camera panned and dollied down the length of a crowded banquet table.

As Hollywood moved into the digital age, movie makers generally have stuck with the 24-frame speed at which celluloid film moves through cameras and projectors. "The Hobbit" will show that it's an outdated way to shoot films, Jackson said.

"I'm hoping it'll be just the first gentle step into changing film rates because we can change them, especially with all the digital technology now," Jackson said. "Twenty-four is irrelevant. It doesn't mean anything anymore. It's just a traditional thing. It's far from the best visual way to present a film."

"The Hobbit" has had a hard road to the screen after Jackson's blockbuster "Lord of the Rings" trilogy," whose 2003 finale, "The Return of the King," swept the Academy Awards with 11 trophies, including best picture and director.

Jackson planned only to co-write and co-produce "The Hobbit," but he stepped in to direct after Guillermo del Toro dropped out because of delays caused by the bankruptcy of MGM, which owned half of the project.

"It's actually been a reasonably joyous thing to do," said Walsh, who returned as a co-writer and co-producer. "I'm surprised to say that because I thought it would be very hard. Certainly, it was a difficult birth of this film. It was protracted and fought. ... But it's surprisingly pleasant, if I can use that word. Pleasant. So far. So I hope I haven't jinxed it."

The two films are being shot simultaneously in 3-D, with the second one, "The Hobbit: There and Back Again," due in theaters in December 2013.

British actor Martin Freeman stars as Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit who acquires the evil ring that sets the action of "The Lord of the Rings" in motion. Cast members returning from that trilogy include Ian McKellen, Elijah Wood, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Ian Holm, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving and Andy Serkis.

Jackson joked that the snowy mountains surrounding Sundance's home in the ski resort of Park City remind him of the heavy workload still ahead on "The Hobbit."

"We have a hundred days of shooting to go, which still feels like we're at the bottom of a mountain. I kind of don't like being in Park City because I look up the mountain, and I kind of think, well, `The Hobbit's' at the top of that mountain. I've got to kind of climb this. It looks pretty daunting," Jackson said.

Yet Jackson said he's having a great time revisiting Tolkien's Middle-earth.

"If I show up at work every day happy to be there and excited about what we're shooting, to me, that's always a good sign," he said. "So I think we're making a couple of pretty entertaining movies."

___

Online:

http://www.sundance.org

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120123/ap_en_ot/us_film_sundance_the_hobbit

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Rashida Jones unveils her rom-com at Sundance (AP)

PARK CITY, Utah ? Rashida Jones was almost upstaged by her famous father, Quincy Jones, at the Sundance premiere of her film, "Celeste and Jesse Forever," but the actress and screenwriter didn't mind.

"He's what he is and he will always be and has always been, way before I was here," Jones said Saturday. "I feel lucky to hang out with him. And we're different, too. People like us for different reasons."

She added that her dad loved the film, which explores the nature of relationships, marriage and its meaning in society.

Jones' first screenwriting effort (with co-writer Will McCormack) emerged from "pain, lots of pain."

"We're both very deeply feeling people, and we love to talk about relationships and love and feelings," she said. "We like to be as inappropriate as possible when things are grave and difficult, so I think it probably came from that place. It also came from, as an actress, reading so many scripts, you kind of intrinsically absorb storytelling script structure into your being without even knowing it, and we wanted to try and tell this story."

Jones stars in the film alongside Andy Samberg, Emma Roberts and Elijah Wood.

She brought her folks and her friends to Friday's premiere, but unveiling the film was still nerve-racking.

"I felt everything ? literally the whole spectrum of feelings," the 35-year-old said. "It felt 8 1/2 hours long. It's not, it's short. But it was 8 1/2 hours in the way that I was wanting to feel what everybody was feeling and thinking."

After the premiere, the cast celebrated at a party where Wood served as DJ and danced with Jones' mom, actress Peggy Lipton.

The Sundance Film Festival continues through Jan. 29.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: http:// www.twitter.com/APSandy

___

Online:

http://www.sundance.org/festival/

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120121/ap_en_mo/us_film_rashida_jones

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Ship search finds 12th body, captain's documents (AP)

GIGLIO, Italy ? Divers plumbing the capsized Costa Concordia's murky depths pulled out the body of a woman in a life vest Saturday, while scuba-diving police swam through the captain's cabin to retrieve a safe and documents belonging to the man who abandoned the cruise liner after it was gashed by a rocky reef on the Tuscan coast.

Hoping for a miracle ? or at least for the recovery of bodies from the ship that has become an underwater tomb ? relatives of some of the 20 missing appealed to survivors of the Jan. 13 shipwreck to offer details that could help divers reach loved ones while it is still possible to search the luxury liner. The clock is ticking because the craft is perched precariously on a rocky ledge of seabed near Giglio island.

"We are asking the 4,000 persons who were on board to give any information they can about any of the persons still missing," said Alain Litzler, a Frenchman who is the father of missing passenger Mylene Litzler. "We need precise information to help the search and rescue teams find them."

Early Sunday, instruments monitoring any movement of the Concordia indicated that vessel had shifted slightly, so search efforts were suspended for the night, Italian state radio reported.

The death toll rose to at least 12 Saturday after a water-logged body was extracted from a passageway near a gathering point for evacuation by lifeboats in the rear of the vessel, Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini said. It was not immediately clear if the woman was a passenger or crew member. A female Peruvian bartender and several adult female passengers were among the 21 people listed as missing before the latest corpse was found.

Relatives of the bartender and of an Indian crewman, along with two children of an elderly couple from Minnesota who are among the missing, boarded a boat Saturday to view the wrecked Concordia Saturday, said a maritime official, Fabrizio Palombo.

Family members tossed flowers near the site while islanders standing on the rocky edge of the island also strew bouquets on the water in a tribute to the victims.

Another Coast Guard official, Cosimo Nicastro, said the woman's body was found during a particularly risky inspection.

"The corridor was very narrow, and the divers' lines risked snagging" on furniture and objects floating in the passageway, Nicastro said. To help the coast guard divers reach the area, Italian navy divers had preceded them, setting off charges to blast holes for easier entrance and exit.

Meanwhile, police divers, carrying out orders from prosecutors investigating Captain Francesco Schettino for suspected manslaughter and abandoning the ship, swam through the cold, dark waters to reach his cabin. State TV and the Italian news agency ANSA reported that the divers located and remove his safe and two suitcases. His passport and several documents were also pulled out, state media said.

Searchers inspecting the bridge Saturday also found a hard disk containing data of the voyage, Sky TG24 TV reported.

Three bodies were found in waters around the ship in the first hours after the accident. Since then, divers have gone inside the Concordia to recover all the remaining victims, who were apparently unable to escape the lurching ship during a chaotic evacuation launched almost an hour after the liner hit a reef.

Some survivors who couldn't board lifeboats waited for hours aboard the capsizing craft for rescue by helicopters while others jumped into the water and swam to safety.

The last survivor, found aboard 36 hours after the crash, was an Italian crewman who broke his leg in the confusion and couldn't leave the ship.

The Concordia hit the reef, well-marked on maritime and even tourist maps, while most of the passengers sat down to dinner in the main restaurant, about two hours after the ship had set sail from the port of Civitavecchia on the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Costa Crociere, the ship's operator and subsidiary of U.S.-based Carnival Cruise Lines, has said the captain had deviated without permission from the vessel's route in an apparent maneuver to sail close to the island of Giglio and impress passengers.

Schettino, despite audiotapes of his defying Coast Guard orders to scramble back aboard, has denied he abandoned ship while hundreds of passengers were desperately trying to get off the capsizing vessel. He has said he coordinated the rescue from aboard a lifeboat and then from the shore.

The effort to find survivors and bodies has postponed an operation to remove heavy fuel in the Concordia's tanks; specialized equipment has been standing by for days.

Light fuel, apparently from machinery aboard the capsized ship, was spotted in nearby waters, authorities said Saturday.

But Nicastro said there was no indication that any of the nearly 500,000 gallons (2,200 metric tons) of heavy fuel oil has leaked from the ship's double-bottomed tanks, seen as a risk if the ship's position changes. He said the leaked substance appears to be diesel, which is used to fuel rescue boats and dinghies and as a lubricant for ship machinery.

There are 185 tons of diesel and lubricants on board the crippled vessel, which is lying on its side just outside Giglio's port. Nicastro described the fuel in the sea as "very light, very superficial" and appearing to be under control.

But an official leading rescue, search and anti-pollution efforts for the ship suggested that the luxury liner would have leaked contaminants on board when it tipped over.

"We must not forget that on that ship there are oils, solvents, detergents, everything that a city of 4,000 people needs," Franco Gabrielli, the head of Italy's civil protection agency, told reporters in Giglio.

Gabrielli was referring to the roughly 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew who were aboard the cruise liner when it ran into the reef and, with seawater rushing into a 230-foot (70-meter) gash in its hull, listed and fell onto its side. "Contamination of the environment, ladies and gentlemen, already occurred" when the liner capsized, Gabrelli said.

Vessels equipped with machinery to suck out the light fuel oil were in the area. Earlier on Saturday, crews removed oil-absorbing booms used to prevent environmental damage in case of a leak. Originally white, the booms were grayish.

Schettino, is under house arrest for investigation of alleged manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all were evacuated.

The search had been suspended Friday after the Concordia shifted, prompting fears the ship could roll off a rocky ledge of sea bed and plunge deeper into the pristine waters around Giglio, part of a seven-island Tuscan archipelago.

___

D'Emilio reported from Rome. Colleen Barry contributed from Milan and Andrea Foa from Giglio.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/topstories/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_italy_cruise_aground

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