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To call any of the 'Madagascar' productions a 'movie' is like saying it snows in Alaska, because over the years these films have all grown to be more than just stories on celluloid. Madagascar is a brand, a franchise, an icon; the sort of thing today's children will view with tears of nostalgia on some highly advanced version of Blu-ray in much the same manner as yesterday's children behaved with Toy Story when it came out on VCD. Seven years and three feature films down the line, Madagascar has sealed itself as a force to be reckoned within the animation industry, and even if they don't end up making a fourth production, the value that animation geeks see in Madagascar isn't going to disappear into the backlogs anytime soon.

But yes, every brand makes a bad maneuver once in a while. Madagascar did too, with Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. Let's admit it, that film strayed too much into Lion King territory, but without half the charm and enigma of Disney's classical epic. Escape to Africa wasn't half the film that the original Madagascar was, and the same metric being applicable, the original Madagascar isn't half the film that Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is.

With their third outing, DreamWorks have pulled out all the stops to redeem themselves from the last Madagascar blunder. There's a good, exciting story, great jokes, breathtaking visual appeal and the added novelty of finally taking our favorite animals out of the jungle and into the city. Europe's Most Wanted finds Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippo and Melman the giraffe in the midst of European metropolitan opulence, where they befriend a troupe of circus animals in a bid to find their way back home to Central Park Zoo. The film really rides high on the adventure quotient scale at this point, with the animals becoming a part of the circus act.

Of course there are the bumbling penguins, King Julien XIII plus his side-kicks and the notorious chimps. And of course a host of new characters from the 'Circus Zaragoza'; Vitaly the tiger, Gia the jaguar, Stefano the sea-lion, a group of thuggish Yorkshire terriers who dress in drag and the villain, Cpt. Chantel Dubois; police chief and trophy collector who won't stop until she has obtained Alex's head for her wall. One of the most memorable moments throughout the whole film, in fact, depicts Dubois (voiced by Oscar winner Frances McDormand crooning a raucous, yet enjoyable, version of Edith Piaf's Non, je ne regrette rien.

The animals seem more human than before, more spontaneous, and the humor is more relatable than what the previous two Madagascar outings have explored, meaning that this film isn't exactly for children. The one-liners come hard and fast, the pop culture references can be very rude and it might even get a little unbearable for someone who doesn't have a penchant for hyperactive, hyper-colored, blink-and-you miss it style animation. In fact, it's worth wondering how anyone below the age of thirteen will fully manage to grasp the slightly more mature nuances of this film. But perhaps this is a good thing. It retains a whole different world of interpretation for these children to explore when they watch the same movie years later.

Narrative wise, the film wraps up on a note of closure, suggesting that Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is the final film in the Madagscar franchise. If so, the conclusion could not be any more epic. With the summer vacations just concluding, this is a film that you want to hurry up and watch with the kids before their school-bus begins pulling up outside your home again.

At first glance, the irony is staggering.

A country pretending to be another, brighter country, being shown up by a film that itself borrows form and content from another country. Yet so strident is Dibakar Banerjee's voice as a filmmaker that even this adaptation -- of Vassilis Vassilikos' Z, about a wholly different time and political situation -- is turned into a strikingly relevant story of our times and our crimes.

From collision to collusion, it's remarkable -- and alarming -- how a novel about a specific real-life assassination in Greece can be transposed onto a local, current setting, as Banerjee and co-writer Urmi Juvekar very effectively make the story ours.

The fact that this can at all be done, of course, goes beyond irony and into absurdity, and this futility of man versus machine fuels both Banerjee's Shanghai and the original Z. The wrong remains the same.

The time is now, the location pointedly fictional and decidedly familiar. Banerjee's burgeoning Bharatnagar is the crown jewel of its rotund Chief Minister's forward-thinking (and builder-friendly) new state. Her political party is unsubtly called IBP, which stands for India Bane Pardes, a frighteningly believable extension of the India Shining wool pulled over offscreen voter eyes.


Investments are on the up, ambitious structures with futuristic names are poised to hoist a skyline that never was, and all is well with the overfed world. Or all would be, if not for social activists determined to ask sticky questions and rally the exploited masses. And thus is a stone hurled at activism's head.

Dr Ahemadi, struck by said rock, reaches his makeshift stage undeterred and brushes it off dryly, calling it hail. Cue applause.

The man is a convincing speaker, a natural leader of emphatic grace and significant charisma, and a serious itch IBP can't wait to scratch. Or scratch out.

Ahemadi finishes speaking and is mowed down in what the police explain away as a drunk-driving case. The activists are enraged and Ahemadi's wife, declaring the incident a premeditated attack, cries out for justice on national TV, forcing the Government to set up a routine enquiry. The film then unfolds out into a constantly tense procedural with unlikely protagonists, a dark and shadowy ride that lives up to its immense promise.

Banerjee's genius has always been most visible in his meticulous detailing, and this latest film is expectedly crammed with beautiful nuance. A minister strikes poses alone ahead of a green screen, his droves of supporters to be chromakeyed in later. An opportunistic hoodlum takes English language classes, eager to score a job where he can wear a necktie. An IAS officer, in turn, warily slips his tie on only for meetings, and conducts his evening prayers with the help of a laptop.

High-ranking policemen play badminton, and swarthy politicians jog on treadmills with assistants standing by holding water and snacks. And helpless indecision is expressed fantastically by a man twirling a paneer tikka, too worried to actually eat it.

The little touches are smashing, fleshing out most of the characters and making them into more than words and actors.


Yet what words, what actors. Emraan Hashmi , as the scruffy videographer out for a quick buck, delivers a knockout punch as he masters a complicated role. From his infuriatingly goofy laugh to poor attempts at making conversation, Hashmi proves himself the best of a very fine ensemble. He occasionally shoots porn -- this is off-camera, we see him ask his subjects to clear up and hear the hurried sounds of straps and zippers -- and later, when the film's heroine is about to sit on his bed, he instinctively barks that she sit somewhere else, because the bed's dirty. It's a throwaway grunt but Hashmi nails it -- just like he nails highly energetic pelvic thrusts in a streetdance, one where he keeps biting his tongue, faux-scandalised by the words of the song.

It's one of the best performances from one of our leading men in quite some time, and in one chilling pre-climactic moment, when sitting on the floor and confounded by the situation, his plaintive wail is fittingly reminiscent of the late great Ravi Baswani's angst in Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro's darkest minute.

Bravo.

Pitobash Tripathy is a treat, uninhibited enough to propel the narrative forward himself. As the ambitious thug wondering what they call 'mutton' in English, he's a firecracker with a very distinctive screen presence.

While on presence, Bengali veteran Prosenjit Chatterjee is perfectly cast as the unflinching rabble-rouser, commanding even with his matinee-idol persona muted.

Farooque Shaikh is reliably excellent, while Abhay Deol manages to make his silences count. Playing an IAS officer applauding an item song with an eye on a Stockholm assignment, Deol wears his inscrutability thickly and delivers a strong performance.

Kalki Koechlin is given a newly-minted character that is flawed from the start, a too-defiant activist who spends most of the film wound unbearably, annoyingly tight, but this is made up for by a moment near the end of the film where she explodes into a magnificent mess. It's the film's most searingly honest moment.


Banerjee's film borrows from Costa Gavras' 1969 adaptation of Z frequently, with a photographer carrying his camera consistently near his torso, scrutinisingly tight close-ups and a nearly-identical scene with a bathroom mirror, but, most critically, he follows the narrative pace almost exactly, and keeps up perfectly, even if the new version is more dramatic. It is the departures from the blueprint that don't always work, like the creation of Kalki's character and turning her into a lone crusader, or the climactic piece of evidence that's impossible to swallow and wraps up the proceedings all too conveniently. And yet Banerjee must be lauded for not dumbing things down and creating a mature, serious film that engages, thrills and amuses.

Z was named after an iconic one-letter cry of Greek protest, but Shanghai is all Dibakar, who we must lift on our shoulders with grateful pride. And we must exult in the fact that this D is never silent.

The hype surrounding Prometheus, Ridley Scott's return to the realm of sci-fi, is inescapable.

Like any internet junkie will tell you, ever since its first teaser, cyber space has been alarmingly inundated with fresh new clips of this sort-of prequel to the filmmaker's 1979 classic, Alien.

The real deal, of course, is much more cohesive and three-dimensional in its magnificence even if not quite designed for cinematic fulfillment. But isn't that a given in today's sequel age? Films exult in leaving loose ends, sly suggestions and unsolved imagery to ensure a redux in order to procure finality and box office bliss.

If you subscribe to this mindset, Prometheus can be partially enjoyed as a striking journey that begins and ends in interrogation.

Its grand and Greek title refers to the space vessel carrying a 17-member crew to explore mankind's origins on a little known planetoid as well as the metaphor of the eponymous demi-god who stole fire from Zeus and returned it to earth. As penalty, Prometheus is chained to a rock where an eagle feeds on his liver every single day only to regenerate back to normal by morning till he is, eventually, rescued by Hercules.


The idea is to correlate the mythology with Scott's futuristic script but the ambiguity of the cluttered proceedings and concealed motives makes it burdensome to draw parallels as well as concentrate on the ensuing horror.

Coming back to Alien, the one with face-hugging creepy creatures and deadly, mucous dripping organisms jutting out of a man's chest and a heroine whose bravado set the benchmark for on-screen female fervor, Scott's maiden venture into the unknown, along with Steven Spielberg , is Hollywood's revered guidebook into extraterrestrial terrain. While Alien is much more atmospheric, thanks to its wonderfully detailed albeit claustrophobic architecture (designed by Swiss surrealist HR Giger) generating an ambience of genuine dread and distress, Prometheus trades eerie for sophistication.




Alien is all about survival. With a hostile alien on the loose, there's hardly any time to question or probe. The inhabitants of the commercial spaceship Nostromo are primarily concerned with getting back home, safe and sound. The horrific discoveries made along the way are purely coincidental.

Set in 2093, Prometheus, conversely, is specifically designed to understand the significance behind its symbolic opening scene, a pale-faced, biped alien falls into a gushing waterfall and disintegrates into a dark ink-like fluid that contaminates the stream with his genetic contents

Once the aforementioned team arrives at the remote destination, they delve inside a curious rock that loosely resembles a giant version of Phantom's Skull Cave. Without getting into further details, let's just say from here onwards Prometheus steps into unmistakably Alien territory. Pity then, how Scott trades potential terror to overindulge in biomechanical gross and goop.

The scrupulous standards of its visual grandeur are impressive and induce awe, especially the tangible quality of 3D making this a thing of marvel since Avatar. At the same, this calculated exhibition of scientific eminence and digitally generated design robs Prometheus with a sense of organic, which it so steadfastly pursues in the first place.

Scott's engagement with technology navigates the story into multiple directions and after an exciting build-up, the inter-stellar safari doesn't quite hold up. As always, this translates to cast-level casualties. Most members of this elaborate crew are deemed unworthy of adding any value except maybe die and underscore the severity of the scenario.

Charlize Theron achieves a back-to-back control freak designation (following last week's Snow White and the Huntsman) minus the screeching in a terribly one-dimensional role.

Noomi Rapace's faith-driven Shaw brings in vulnerability to the scale-obsessed premise while also collecting points for conducting one of the most brutal surgical procedures witnessed in recent movie history. Even so, neither she nor Theron (or their combination) comes close to the fiery display of Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley in this peculiar franchise.


The men fair marginally better. While Guy Pearce is virtually unrecognizable, under layers of meticulously plastered prosthetics, as the immortality driven billionaire Weyland, Idris Elba plays out like that inquisitive voice in your head asking the same relevant questions but doesn't quite possess the enigmatic charisma of Michael Fassbender's pasty android, David.

Fassbender, like he's being doing in every other film lately, steals the scene with his pitch-perfect delivery of a remarkable robot resembling a cross between David Bowie and Peter O Toole, finding comfort in the latter's philosophy from Lawrence of Arabia -- 'The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts,' when derided for not being human.

Normally a Hollywood-spewing android borderline on cheesy but Fassbender's inscrutable disposition, akin to the prototypes of Blade Runner, makes his complexities both endearing and questionable.

Pretty much like Prometheus itself. When not fooling us with its pretense of existentialism babble, does reasonably well as a creep-thrills packed sci-fi thriller that has more blockbuster than breakthrough on its mind.

At 118 miles per gallon, the Honda Fit electric vehicle is the most fuel-efficient in the United States. But getting that mileage isn't cheap — and it isn't always good for the environment.

Honda announced the eye-popping figure Wednesday, making the small, four-door hatchback more efficient than electric rivals like the Ford Focus, Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi i-MiEV. It goes on the market this summer in Oregon and California.

The electric Fit has an estimated price tag nearly twice as high as the gasoline-powered version. It would take 11 years before a driver makes up the difference and begins saving on fuel.

With gas prices falling, the high sticker price for electric vehicles is becoming more of a barrier for American buyers, even though the vehicles are far more efficient than their gas-powered counterparts. That's hurting sales of electrics.

Through May, carmakers sold just over 10,000 electric vehicles, less than 0.2 percent of U.S. car and truck sales.

That's because the numbers don't add up for the average consumer.

— The electric Fit needs 28.6 kilowatt hours of electricity to go 100 miles. At the national average price of 11.6 cents per kilowatt hour, that costs $3.30.

A gas-powered automatic-transmission Fit, which gets 31 miles per gallon, needs to burn 3.2 gallons to travel 100 miles. At the national average price of $3.57 per gallon of gasoline, that's $11.52.

— People drive an average of almost 13,500 miles a year, so a typical driver would spend $445 on electricity for an electric Fit over a year, and $1,552 on gasoline for a regular Fit.

— Honda has valued the price of an electric Fit at $29,125 after a $7,500 federal tax credit. That's $12,210 more than the gas-powered Fit — a savings of $1,107 per year to make up the difference between the electric and the gas-powered version.

Customers don't want to spend the extra money up front and wait for years for payback, said Geoff Pohanka, who runs 13 auto dealerships in Virginia and Maryland, including three that sell the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt electric cars.


"People are smart. They're looking for the deal," he said. "Is somebody going to fork out $15,000 more for something that gets them less range than their car now? It's not happening."

At first, Honda will only be leasing Fit EVs in Oregon and California, for $389 per month. The subcompact seats up to five people and can be recharged in three hours with a 240-volt charging station. A fully charged Fit EV can go 82 miles, meaning a daily commute could cost nothing for gasoline.

And leases can make sense for consumers. Carmakers can lower rates and subsidize deals in order to make a car — especially one with new, expensive technology — more attractive to buyers.

Jesse Toprak, vice president of market intelligence for the car buying site TrueCar.com, said he tested an electric Chevrolet Volt, driving it less than 35 miles a day from his Los Angeles-area home to work and back. The cost of leasing it — $369 a month — is comparable to the $300 he would spend on gas.

"In a lot of these cases, I'm surprised that people are not lining up to get these things," he said.

The comparison between gas and electric cars also can vary with geography, largely because energy prices vary wildly across the country.

In Oregon, where gasoline is 18 percent more expensive than the national average and electricity is 16 percent lower, an electric Fit will save $121 per month in fuel. In Connecticut, which has the highest power prices in the country, the monthly savings are just $83.

The fuel used to generate electric power and the cost of gasoline also vary by region —and that affects how environmentally friendly an electric car purchase is.

In Midwestern states that rely heavily on coal, driving an electric car produces 18 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than driving a typical gasoline-powered car, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Surprisingly, driving an electric car there produces 50 percent more greenhouse gases than driving a 50 mpg electric hybrid.

In the Northeast and Northwest, where a bigger portion of the power is produced with nuclear reactors, hydroelectric dams, natural gas-fired power plants and wind farms, an electric car will produce 76 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a typical gasoline-powered car and 56 percent fewer emissions than a hybrid.

No matter what the energy costs, Honda expects to trumpet the Fit EV's 118 mpg figure, even though it will lease only 1,100 of the cars in its first two years on the market.

Honda predicts that the initial customers for the Fit EV will won't be focusing on a cost-benefit analysis. Instead, they'll want to make a statement about cutting greenhouse gases and reducing dependence on foreign oil, said Robert Langford, Honda's manager of plug-in electric vehicle sales.

Like the rest of the auto industry, Honda isn't sure when or if electric vehicles will ever replace those that run on gas, he said. The company keeps constant watch on sales of electric cars already on the market like the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt.

"That's constantly on our mind right now and on our radar screen," said Langford.

Chevrolet doesn't actively market the Volt's 94 mpg figure, because it's too confusing to explain to consumers that the car can drive that distance while running on electricity. The Volt, unlike other electrics, has a small gas engine on board to generate power for the car after the battery is depleted.

What resonates more with consumers is that the average Volt driver goes 900 miles before buying gasoline, said Cristi Landry, the car's marketing director.

She also isn't sure when electric cars will go beyond the environmentally conscious buyer and into the rest of America's driveways.

Electric vehicles, Toprak said, won't sell en masse until customers know they will ultimately save enough to take a risk on new technology.

"You're not buying it to save the trees," Toprak said. "You're buying it to save money for yourself."

Sokopol, Bulgaria, could soon join the ranks of popular vampire sites, such as Dracula's Castle in Romania and the Vampire Museum in Paris. Archaeologists excavated two suspected "vampire" graves in the Black Sea town last Sunday, and each 700-year-old skeleton had an iron rod pinned into its chest.

 Bozhidar Dimitrov, the director of the National Museum of History in Sofia, told local media that this was common practice in the Middle Ages, as people feared "bad men" would raise from the dead as vampires. The museum is planning a special exhibit around the two skeletons.

 "Every few years we hear of the latest archaeological find, and its attribution to vampire-lore," said a 33-year-old vampire researcher and the current administrator of Voices of the Vampire Community who goes by the name Merticus.

 According to the Associated Press, Dimitrov said he did not understand why an "ordinary discovery" like this one became so popular. "Perhaps because of the mysteriousness of the word 'vampire'," he said.

 Most of the vampire folklore originated in Slavic countries, so there is a higher prevalence of burial instances in that region.

 "Having such a wide assortment of physical records is invaluable to researchers and enthusiasts," said Merticus. "The Bulgarian and Italian burial claims in the past couple of years add to the mystery and lure of the vampire across all cultures, even for real vampires.

 "Real vampires," Merticus explains, "believe they must consume the blood of other living humans by consensual means in order to maintain their well-being."

 But rather than worrying about iron stakes through the heart, or being hunted at local hangouts, modern vampires say it's time to stop focusing on folklore.

 "While exhibits are fascinating, I would like to see more responsible scientific interpretation and less knee-jerk 'put a vampire on it' claim, even if the Bulgarian burials are in fact directly linked to vampire lore. As a society we are rapidly approaching vampire overload - on all fronts."

Ridley Scott's long-awaited return to sci-fi is finally here with "Prometheus" (and we talked to him about it too). The star-studded film, mostly set in a place in a faraway solar system, was shot in 3D. And while it's quite nice to look at in any venue, I have a geeky tip to share: I'm told IMAX 3D is the preferred viewing experience for this particular flick.

Michael Fassbender's performance as David the android seems to be getting the most buzz among critics and he is featured prominently in the film. Other standout performances include Charlize Theron as the cold-hearted Vickers, Noomi Rapace -- who is the focus of the most talked about scene in the film -- and Idris Elba (who we also spoke with ahead of the release) as the ship captain.



Prometheus


Rated R for sci-fi violence including some intense images, and brief language.

What's the story?

In case you have been living under a moon rock: A group of explorers discover archeological clues on earth that lead them on a journey to a distant solar system in search of the answers of the origins of human life. Encountering unforeseen hostility in foreign terrain, the team makes the disturbing discovery that they may have set off a chain of events that could wind up decimating the human race. Whoopsie!

Who will dig it?

Sure, diehard "Alien" fans should enjoy this film as it makes several plot tie-ins to the 1979 film (without being an out-and-out prequel); but fans of the hit television show "Lost" should also revel in the many symbols and clues prevalent in the story -- which was written, in part, by show co-creator Damon Lindelof.




Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted


Rated PG for some mild action and rude humor.

What's the story?

The gang is back, are in Europe, and are still trying to get back to their hometown of New York City. This time, they must hide within the confines of a traveling circus in order to stay safe from authorities. Polka dots, a rainbow afro hairdo dance, a hilariously awkward love interest, and delightful European venue changes ensue.

Who will dig it?

This is the first kid-friendly film that has come out since "The Pirates! Band of Misfits" (in late April). Being the first major kids flick of the summer, the little ones --and parents looking to distract them for a few hours -- are in dire need of big screen entertainment inside a cool, air conditioned theater.

Now that the first trailer for Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" is out (see below), we'll get you up-to-date on the facts.

Some have dubbed the film Tarantino's "Southern" -- a play on the fact the film's title borrows from 1966 Italian spaghetti Western "Django," includes Western film elements, but is set in the South. In the revenge-themed "Unchained," Jamie Foxx plays Django --a freed slave who becomes a bounty hunter and faces off with an evil plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio), all the while seeking the whereabouts of his slave wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington).

Foxx, however, was not the first actor envisioned for the role. Tarantino originally wrote "Unchained" with Will Smith in mind. (One can imagine why Smith -- a major box office draw who attracts audiences of all backgrounds -- turned down the opportunity to play a character who expresses pleasure in getting paid to "kill white folks.")


Talks devolved and Foxx was eventually cast in the leading role. He recently said what drew him to the role:  "This is a love story. He's not trying to stop slavery. He's not trying to do anything but find the love of his life — which is like trying to find a needle in a world of haystacks."

Foxx and Smith are friends in real life and both appeared in 2001's "Ali," for which Smith was nominated for an Oscar. The two were later said to be vying for the role of President Barack Obama in a biopic -- but that never happened.

Foxx went on to win an Oscar for 2004's "Ray," in which Washington also plays his wife.

Here are more interesting details around "Django Unchained":
Tarantino has been courting DiCaprio for a while: He had written the role of one of the villains in 2009's "Inglorious Basterds" for him. It was the role of Hans Landa played by Christoph Waltz -- who is also in "Unchained" -- that eventually won him a best supporting actor Oscar. Perhaps DiCaprio is avoiding making the same mistake twice.
This is the first time DiCaprio has played a villain in a major motion picture. And in this one, he is said to be evil.
Brad Pitt, who too appeared in "Basterds," is said to have turned down many "juicy" roles in "Unchained." But don't count him out yet -- Harvey Weinstein says surprise actors are in store.
The film also stars Don Johnson (you heard correctly) and Samuel L. Jackson and opens on Christmas Day -- pitting DiCaprio against himself as he also stars in Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby," out the same day.

A NASA mission to study the tiny algae vital to the ocean's food chain has turned up a massive amount of phytoplankton where scientists least expected it -- under the Arctic ice.

In a project that uses both satellites and on-site measurements to study this important food source for many of the ocean's creatures, NASA sent a team to sample the ice pack off the Chukchi Sea along Alaska's coast.

Researchers aboard the US Coast Guard icebreaker ship, Healy, sampled beneath the 0.8-1.3 meter (2.4-4.0 feet) thick sea ice and found phytoplankton biomass was "extremely high, about fourfold greater than in open water."

The "massive under-ice bloom" also appeared to extend about 100 kilometers (60 miles) into the ice shelf, until "the waters literally looked like pea soup," mission leader Kevin Arrigo told reporters.

"We were astonished. It was completely unexpected. It was literally the most intense phytoplankton bloom I have ever seen in my 25 years of doing this type of research," said Arrigo, a scientist at Stanford University in California.

"Just like the tomatoes in your garden, these and all phytoplankton require light and they require nutrients to grow," Arrigo explained.

"It has been presumed that there was very little light under the ice and we didn't expect to see much."

Known formally as "Impacts of Climate on Ecosystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment," or ICESCAPE, mission scientists went on two expeditions in June-July of 2010 and 2011.

The latest findings are published in the June 7 edition of the journal Science.

Arrigo said the discovery caused "a fundamental shift in our understanding of the Arctic ecosystem," which was previously believed to be cold and desolate.

Before, the tiny single-celled plants were not believed to grow until the ice melted.

"If you rank all the phytoplankton blooms anywhere in the world by the amount of phytoplankton that is contained in them, the under-ice bloom that we saw during ICESCAPE would finish at the very top of the list," he added.

"And it was growing beneath a layer of sea ice as thick as a five-year-old child is tall."

Phytoplankton were scarcer and deeper in the open waters, and were "greatest at depths of 20 to 50 meters (66-164 feet) because of nutrient depletion near the surface," said the study.

More research is needed to determine how these under-ice phytoplankton affect local ecosystems.

Phytoplankton blooms in the Arctic have been observed to peak as many as 50 days earlier than they did a dozen years ago, a development that could have implications for the larger food web, scientists have said.

"My concern is that if phytoplankton continue to develop and grow earlier and earlier in the year, it is going to become increasingly difficult for those animals that time their life cycle to be in the Arctic... to be there at the right time of year," Arrigo said.

The microscopic organisms are the base of the food chain and drive the food and reproductive cycles of fish, seabirds and polar bears. How larger animals may react to phytoplankton changes remains unknown.

Phytoplankton are also important because through the process of photosynthesis they remove about half of the harmful carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels worldwide.

Previous research has shown the microscopic organisms have been disappearing globally at a rate of one percent per year.

Since 1950, phytoplankton mass has dropped by about 40 percent, most likely due to the accelerating impact of global warming, said a 2010 study in the journal Nature.

Mumbai, June 7  Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) plans to invest nearly Rs.1 trillion ($18 billion) on expansion of its retail, petrochemical and telecom businesses in India over the next five years and targets to double profit during this period.

"We will invest nearly Rs.1 lakh crore (Rs.1 trillion) over the next five years in India to build a stronger and more diversified Reliance," Reliance Industries Limited chairman Mukesh Ambani said at the 38th annual general meeting of the company.

He said the company targets to double operating profits over the next five years.

Ambani's statement came against the backdrop of recent decline in profit. RIL has reported second quarterly drop in profit in the quarter ended March 31.

"I have set myself the target to double the operating profit of your company in about five years," Ambani told shareholders in his keynote address.

RIL's operating profit declined by nearly nine percent to Rs.22,225 crore in 2011-12. This was the first decline in the company's profit in nine years.

Ambani said high inflation, slowdown in economic growth, decline in the value of rupee and high government subsidies on petroleum products have negatively impacted the company's business and profitability.

"Businesses of Reliance are equally influenced by development in the Indian Economy," he said.

"High rates of domestic inflation, adverse foreign exchange rate movements, continuing state subsidies for petroleum products and slowdown in rate of economic growth have had an impact on doing business in India," Ambani added.

India's economic growth has slumped to nine-year low of 5.3 percent in the quarter ended March 31. For whole fiscal 2011-12, the country's GDP expanded by a sluggish 6.5 percent, the slowest growth in almost a decade.

Ambani said despite the recent slowdown, the long-term India growth story remained intact.

"The currency difficulties faced by the Indian economy are temporary. I have full confidence in India's fundamental resilience to overcome these difficulties and emerge stronger," he said.

New Delhi, June 7  The union cabinet Thursday discussed a fresh row between the home ministry and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and decided both will collect biometric data of 1.2 billion Indians, said sources.

The home ministry, headed by P. Chidambaram, and the UIDAI, headed by Nandan Nilekani, have been battling over the issue of collection of biometric data which entails the right to scan people's eyes and fingerprints.

In January, a cabinet committee on UIDAI, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, had settled the turf war between the home minister and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and said UIDAI (which comes under the Planning Commission) would issue 600 million cards in 16 states and union territories.

The home ministry will cover the remaining 600 million people as part of the National Population Register (NPR) being prepared by the Registrar General of India, the cabinet panel had said.

Sources said the cabinet again discussed the issue Thursday after Chidambaram recently wrote to the prime minister complaining that the NPR project had "come to a standstill" because of the UID scheme.

"The collection of photographs and biometrics has been facing hurdles at every step on account approach of the UIDAI, which, it seems, has failed to appreciate the core purpose of the National Population Register," Chidambaram said in his letter.

He also slammed the UIDAI for allegedly not following the cabinet's orders.

"Despite clear orders from the cabinet, the UIDAI is objecting to the conduct of NPR camps in certain states and is also refusing to accept the biometric data of NPR for de-duplication and generation of Aadhaar number," he said.

The NPR would lead to a resident identity card which will culminate in a citizenship card.

The UID project seeks to provide unique identity numbers to the marginalised sections of society and strengthen equity.

The Hague, June 7  Arnold Muhren, who helped the Netherlands win the 1988 European Football Championship, says the new Dutch generation can repeat the feat in the 2012 edition beginning Friday.

In the early '70s, Muhren was part of the Ajax squad that reigned Europe, and after spells at FC Twente, Ipswich Town and Manchester United he returned to Ajax at the age of 34. Three years later, he was member of the team that became European champions.

"I must say I am one of the few to have played with such great players," Muhren told Xinhua.

"At first the generation with Johan Cruyff, Piet Keizer, Johan Neeskens and others. Later, I had the privilege to play together with Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten, Frank Rijkaard."

"When I returned to Ajax, the club had a very young group. Dennis Bergkamp was one of them at a certain moment. To see these boys grow up gives an enormous satisfaction, that I have contributed to their development."

"In 1988, we had a combination of players who all had something extra," Muhren declared.

Muhren the team in 1988 was a balanced one.

"If you want to have a good team, you need a good balance and that's what we had. We had great defenders, with backs Berry van Aerle and Adri van Tiggelen who was actually not playing on his favourite position, but we did a great job."

"And Frank Rijkaard, who I think was the best player in the tournament. We had a midfield with everything in it, the toughness of Jan Wouters, the running ability of Erwin Koeman and forwards who could decide matches. The team was actually a great team with different characters but also a team that was full of balance."

Muhren is positive about the chances of the current team. "They have proven themselves by reaching the World Cup final with players with extra quality," he said.

"Of course, we are not alone now. Spain and Germany also have good teams. It is important that we stay fit."

KABUL  - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday the United States was reaching the limits of its patience with Pakistan because of the safe havens the country offered to insurgents in neighbouring Afghanistan.

 It was some of the strongest language by a senior U.S. official to describe the strained ties between Washington and Islamabad.

 "It is difficult to achieve peace in Afghanistan as long as there is safe haven for terrorists in Pakistan," said Panetta.

 "It is very important for Pakistan to take steps. It is an increasing concern, the issue of safe haven, and we are reaching the limits of our patience."

 He was speaking in the Afghan capital Kabul where he held talks with military leaders amid rising violence in the war against the Taliban.

 Pakistan's ambassador to the United States called Panetta's remarks "unhelpful," saying they reduced the space for narrowing bilateral differences at a critical moment.

 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also implicitly defended Washington's use of drone strikes against suspected militants, just days after one of them killed Abu Yahya al-Libi, al Qaeda's second-ranking leader, in northwest Pakistan.

 "We will always maintain our right to use force against groups such as al Qaeda that have attacked us and still threaten us with imminent attack," Clinton said in Istanbul at a meeting of the Global Counterterrorism Forum, a U.S.-and Turkish-chaired group.

 Pakistan has termed the attacks as illegal and a violation of its sovereignty. The United States has long pushed Islamabad to do more to help in the war against militancy.

 Panetta urged Pakistan to go after the Haqqani militant network, one of the United States' most feared enemies in Afghanistan, and said Washington would exert diplomatic pressure and take any other steps needed to protect its forces.

 "It is an increasing concern that safe havens exist and those like the Haqqanis make use of that to attack our forces," he said.

 "We are reaching the limits of our patience for that reason. It is extremely important for Pakistan to take action to prevent (giving) the Haqqanis safe havens, and for terrorists to use their country as a safety net to conduct attacks on our forces."

 Panetta blamed the group for an attack last week on a U.S. base in the east in which several insurgents, including some wearing suicide vests, used rocket-propelled grenades.

 The attack was foiled, but it underlined the challenge facing Western and Afghan forces in the east where insurgents take advantage of the steep, forested terrain and the Pakistani border to launch attacks and then slip back, commanders say.

 "What happened the other day in Salerno is an indication that they are going to continue to come at us and, let me be clear, anybody who attacks U.S. soldiers is our enemy and we are going to take them on. We have got to be able to defend ourselves," Panetta told U.S. troops earlier at Kabul airport.

 Washington appears to be looking to other allies in the region for help in the face of Pakistan's foot-dragging. Panetta arrived in Kabul after a visit to India, Pakistan's old enemy, where he urged New Delhi to take a more active role in Afghanistan.

 LAND ROUTES

 NATO has signed an agreement with three countries to the north of Afghanistan for land routes as the U.S.-led alliance begins a withdrawal of its forces from the country next year.

 NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said earlier this week the "reverse transit" deal was signed with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

 Pakistan closed the shorter and cheaper routes through its territory last year to protest a cross-border NATO air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Discussions to reopen the Pakistan routes have stalled.

 Resupplying troops in Afghanistan through the Northern Distribution Network is about two and a half times more expensive than shipping items through Pakistan, a U.S. defense official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

 The United States wants Pakistan to launch a full-scale offensive in the North Waziristan border region to go after the Haqqani group, which is close to the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda.

 "We have made that clear time and time again, and will continue to make clear, that it is an intolerable situation to have those people attacking our people, our forces and to have the convenience of being able to return to safe havens in Pakistan," Panetta said.

 Pakistan has strong traditional links with the Afghan Taliban and other militant groups. Islamabad denies that it uses them as proxies to gain leverage in Afghanistan ahead of any settlement to the war, or in case a civil war breaks out after most foreign combat troops leave in 2014.

 General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, suggested the withdrawal timeline added urgency to the need to tackle the Haqqani threat.

 "We've got to get (eastern Afghanistan) and the Haqqani influence reduced in order to meet our timelines for the transition that we're moving toward, and at the end of '14," Dempsey told reporters at the Pentagon.

 Anti-American feelings runs deep in Pakistan over issues like drones, and with a general election expected in early 2013, no politician will want to be seen as soft on the Americans.

 U.S. President Barack Obama will have to look tough against militancy during in this presidential election year in the United States.