S. Korea must tackle huge household debts: watchdog

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/korea-must-tackle-huge-household-debts-watchdog-060526814--finance.html

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Palestinians: Arafat's body can be exhumed over poison claim

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - New suspicions that Yasser Arafat was murdered, perhaps poisoned by radioactive polonium, prompted the Palestinian Authority on Wednesday to agree to exhume the body of the iconic leader.

Israel, seen by many Arabs as the prime suspect behind the mysterious illness that killed the 75-year-old Arafat in 2004, sought to distance itself anew from the death of the man who led Palestinians' bid for a state through years of war and peace.

A Swiss institute which examined clothing provided by Arafat's widow Suha for a documentary by Qatar-based Al Jazeera television said its radiation protection experts had found "surprisingly" high levels of polonium-210, the same substance found to have killed a former Russian spy in London in 2006.

But it said symptoms described in the president's medical reports were not consistent with the radioactive agent.

"I want the world to know the truth about the assassination of Yasser Arafat," Suha Arafat, 48, told Al Jazeera, without making any direct accusations, but noting that both Israel and the United States saw him as an obstacle to peace.

Allegations of foul play - and of Palestinian involvement in it - have long marked factional fighting among Palestinians. The latest revelation coincides with renewed tensions within Arafat's Fatah movement, now headed by his successor President Mahmoud Abbas, and between Fatah and Hamas, the Islamist movement which controls the Gaza Strip.

Abbas's administration said it would approve Suha Arafat's request to bring her husband's remains out for autopsy from a limestone mausoleum built next to his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, without giving a date for such a move.

"The Authority, as it always has been, is ready to completely cooperate with and clear the way for an investigation into the true causes leading to the martyrdom of the late president," said Nabil Abu Rdeineh, spokesman for Abbas.

Saeb Erekat, a senior member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), told Reuters the exhumation could take place as soon as "religious and family procedures" were complete.

"If you ask me, it's a matter of a days, not more than a few days," he said. "Then we will be in contact with the Swiss team or any other team that could come and exhume the body."

FINAL DAYS

Confined by Israel to his West Bank headquarters in Ramallah for three years after a Palestinian uprising erupted, an ailing Arafat collapsed in October 2004.

Foreign doctors flocked to his bedside from Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan amid public assurances from Arafat's aides over the next two weeks that he was suffering from no more than the flu.

But looking weak and thin - and telling aides "God willing, I will be back" - he was airlifted to a military hospital in France, where he slipped into a coma and died on November 11, 2004.

At the time, rumors flew that he had died from anything from stomach cancer to poisoning to AIDS. French doctors who treated Arafat in his final days said they could not establish the cause of death. French officials, citing privacy laws, refused to give details of the nature of his illness.

Israel denied involvement in Arafat's death and the head of its Shin Bet intelligence service at the time, Avi Dichter, said on Wednesday it was for Palestinians to investigate: "The body is in their hands. It is in Ramallah, and really, all the keys are in their hands," he told Israel's Army Radio.

Polonium, apparently ingested with food, was found to have caused the slow death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. At high doses, polonium-210 causes damage to organs and tissues. Britain tried and failed to extradite from Russia a suspect who was a former Kremlin security officer.

Israeli Army Radio said introducing polonium into food was the only way to kill someone with the poison and asked Dichter, whose agency had overall responsibility for monitoring the Palestinians, whether it would have been possible with Arafat.

"You're asking me as his cook?" he answered, laughing.

"MANY ENEMIES"

He continued: "No, we were focused on more serious things. Arafat's food did not interest us. I think it interested those around him, in order, really, to keep his health up, as he was indeed known to be unwell. But the Shin Bet, or the State of Israel, were not involved in Yasser Arafat's food."

Pressed on the poisoning scenario, Dichter said: "Yasser Arafat had many enemies, domestically, abroad. But let them investigate ... The Palestinians know well how to investigate what goes on in their house. Let them investigate and find out."

A Hamas official, Salah Al-Bardaweel, called for an investigation, suggesting Palestinians might have helped Israel kill him, calling them "sinful hands that cooperated or facilitated the occupier's mission to get these poisonous materials into the body of President Arafat".

Commenting on the Al Jazeera report, Paddy Regan, professor of nuclear physics at Britain's University of Surrey, said "there is not enough information in the public domain to be clear about whether polonium-210 was, or indeed could have been, the cause of death".

Regan said there could be several other explanations, such as naturally occurring radioactivity, for the high readings on Arafat's clothing. He said all such "natural sources" must be ruled out before concluding polonium-210 was "a murder weapon".

In 1997, Israeli assassins were caught trying to poison a senior member of Hamas in Jordan. Israel is also suspected in the 2010 death in a Dubai hotel room of a Hamas commander, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who UAE authorities said had been drugged.

Suha Arafat, who lives in Malta and France and whose lavish lifestyle abroad has made her a controversial figure among Palestinians, said determining there had been a plot to kill her husband "will glorify more his legacy" and harden Palestinian resolve in any future negotiations with Israel.

U.S.-sponsored peace talks collapsed in 2010 in a dispute over Israeli settlement building in the occupied West Bank.

"Arafat wanted to arrive with the Palestinian cause to a Palestinian state, and because of this they got rid of him," she said, without elaborating.

Israel's foreign minister in 2004, Silvan Shalom, rejected at the time as "scandalous and false" the idea that his country had a role in Arafat's death. But Israel had earlier threatened Arafat, blaming him for Palestinian violence.

After losing 15 citizens to suicide bombings in September 2003, Israel's security cabinet decided to "remove" Arafat, without elaborating publicly on the precise action it planned to take. An Israeli newspaper quoted Dichter as saying at the time that it would be better to kill Arafat than exile him.

(Additional reporting by Noah Browning and Ali Sawafta in Ramallah,; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Alastair Macdonald)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/palestinians-arafats-body-exhumed-over-poison-claim-104057488.html

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Get Used to It

Today?s suggestion? Get used to it.

Days of unspeakable heat? The heat taking the usual storm systems and turning them excessively violent? Lack of investment in infrastructure making recovery from those storms lengthy and piecemeal?

Check, check, and check. Remember the ?Snowstorm of 88? narratives we all grew up listening to? The next generation of the-weather-is-bigger-than-we-are stories will be the ones people on the Mid-Atlantic are telling this week: ?Where were you when the lights went out??

As for me, I was hanging around at my house in Raleigh, NC. Guests gone, kids asleep, and sudden wind gusts as we felt the very bottom end of ? something. Something turned out to be a derecho, a kind of thunderstorm on steroids. As the earthsky.org story says, ?the above average temperatures being experienced across the area ? act[ed] as fuel for this system.? Check out some of the videos on the site, especially the radar maps. That storm crossed the eastern states at 60 mph!

Wind blew down a tree somewhere in my neighborhood, and my block went dark. A midnight adventure down our darkened street with my wide-eyed seven-year-old showed no damage at the substation and lights on in adjacent blocks, so we knew our wait would be short. It was.

Not for everybody else. As of June 30 at 5 .m., more than a million and a half people were facing more 90-plus-degree weather without a cold drink or an electric fan, much less air conditioning and cable.

Above average temperatures? Bigger and worse storms? Get used to it.

As for the power grid, according to Venturebeat, ?An outage of Amazon?s Elastic Compute Cloud in North Virginia [took] down Netflix, Pinterest, Instagram, and other services.? They were back up soon enough, but this is what it looks like now when the power goes out. The next day we went to a movie and saw a sign on the door that if the theater experienced one of the brownouts they were having, we were to keep calm; they?d get the movie back up as soon as they could. We were lucky ? ?Brave? ran uninterrupted. You should see it ? it?s real good.

Anyhow, that grid, though, and recovery from storms and response to demand surges? Uh-oh. The American Society of Civil Engineers in its 2009 Report Card gave our electrical infrastructure a D+, and a 2011 followup report under the title ?Failure to Act? laid out the economic consequences of standing around and watching stuff fail. If you think a few trillion dollars of lost GDP by 2040 and more than a half million lost jobs by 2020 you?ll be right on. Again ? that?s not the trillions of dollars by which we?re behind in maintaining and building our infrastructure ? that?s the money we?ll fail to make because we don?t have it. See? Failure to plan earns interest!

And have you noticed the resulting spending spree as investors and taxpayers lined up to make the unsexy investments in transmission lines, backup generation, peaker plants, distribution redundancy, and the kind of smart grid technology that limits outages to the smallest possible area and communicates trouble to the central office? Don?t feel bad ? I haven?t noticed it either.

As for communication, remember ? the way most electrical utilities get information on downed power lines is by using trained mammals to push buttons when the power goes off, and when they push the buttons a bell rings in the utilities? offices. That is, they wait until you and I call them to tell them the power?s off. The Urban Land Institute?s ?Infrastructure 2012? doesn?t paint a much prettier picture.

So. Hurricane season is just starting, and the ocean is warming up. Thunderheads get bigger every day, and there?s only so many trucks with yellow rotating lights. Where were you when the lights went out? I was inside, banging on my VOIP phone, unable to tell the power company my power was out. Fortunately, the cell phone was charged and the tower had a generator.

?

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=410b8e5219b081a585c1ea77f46f38a0

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East Coast outages could last most of the week

Marcia McCloud (right) and her great-granddaughter Makayla Milton, find some comfort together at the Red Cross cooling shelter at Sandusky Middle School in Lynchburg, Va., July 1, 2012. Milton was visiting her great-grandmother Friday when the storm hit and the two were forced to find other shelter. McCloud explained, "It's like a vacation, vacation away from home!" (AP Photo/The News & Advance, Parker Michels-Boyce)

Marcia McCloud (right) and her great-granddaughter Makayla Milton, find some comfort together at the Red Cross cooling shelter at Sandusky Middle School in Lynchburg, Va., July 1, 2012. Milton was visiting her great-grandmother Friday when the storm hit and the two were forced to find other shelter. McCloud explained, "It's like a vacation, vacation away from home!" (AP Photo/The News & Advance, Parker Michels-Boyce)

Baltimore city worker Joe Lane give away free bags of ice to residents at the Northwood Plaza shopping center, in Baltimore on Monday, July 2, 2012. Around 2 million customers from North Carolina to New Jersey and as far west as Illinois were without power Monday morning after a round of summer storms. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

A pedestrian takes a look at downed trees blocking the entrance of a house in Baltimore on Monday July 2, 2012, after a severe storm swept through the region late Friday. Power outages left many to contend with stifling homes and spoiled food over the weekend as temperatures approached or exceeded 100 degrees.(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? From North Carolina to New Jersey, 2 million people without electricity are asking the same question: Why will it take so long to get the lights back on?

Nearly three full days after a severe summer storm lashed the East Coast, utilities warned that many neighborhoods could remain in the dark for much of the week, if not beyond.

Friday's storm arrived with little warning, so utility companies have had to wait days for extra crews traveling from as far away as Quebec and Oklahoma. And the toppled trees and power lines often entangled broken equipment in debris that must be removed before workers can even get started.

Adding to the urgency of the repairs are the sick and elderly, who are especially vulnerable without air conditioning in the sweltering triple-digit heat. Many sought refuge in hotels or basements.

Officials feared the death toll, already at 22, could climb because of the heat and widespread use of generators, which emit fumes that can be dangerous in enclosed spaces.

At the Springvale Terrace nursing home and senior center in Silver Spring, Md., generators were brought in to provide electricity, and window air conditioners were installed in large common rooms to offer respite from the heat and darkness.

Residents using walkers struggled to navigate doors that were supposed to open automatically. Nurses had to throw out spoiled food, sometimes over the loud objections of residents who insisted their melting ice cream was still good.

The lack of power completely upended many daily routines. Supermarkets struggled to keep groceries from going bad. People on perishable medication called pharmacies to see how long their medicine would keep. In Washington, officials set up collection sites for people to drop off rotting food. Others had weekend cookouts in an attempt to use their food while it lasted. And in West Virginia, National Guard troops handed out food and water and made door-to-door checks.

When it comes to getting the power running again, all utilities take a top-down approach that seeks to get the largest number of people back online as quickly as possible.

First, crews repair substations that send power to thousands of homes and businesses. Next, they fix distribution lines. Last are the transformers that can restore power to a few customers at a time.

In Great Falls, Va., just outside Washington, patent attorney Patrick Muir found out firsthand who was high on the priority list. The area is sparsely populated and wealthy, with mansions spread across secluded, wooded lots. Muir had been raiding water bottles from his powerless office to supply his home, which is on a well that was not working. His 8-year-old daughter spoke hopefully of a beach trip to escape the heat. Dad said it was under consideration.

"Great Falls always seems to be the first to go down and the last one to come back up," Muir said.

A Safeway supermarket trying to stay open with a limited power supply handed out free bags of dry ice. But after two days of temperatures in the 90s, the air inside was stale. Shopping carts with spoiled food, buzzing with flies, sat outside the store.

At a CVS pharmacy, Mahesh Tickle did the best he could. He had no cash register, so he made change with loose bills and coins stuffed inside a Ziploc bag. Tickle filled what prescriptions he could and fielded questions from customers wondering if medications such as insulin had spoiled.

Some people said the destruction over the weekend was reminiscent of that caused by Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and Hurricane Irene in 2011.

Some backup utility crews arrived Sunday in Maryland, but many were not expected until sometime Monday. That's because the storm arrived so quickly, unlike hurricanes, which approach with several days of warning and give out-of-state crews plenty of time to get into place.

After Isabel, it took electricity supplier Pepco eight days to restore power to most of the 500,000-plus customers in Washington and the surrounding areas. About 443,000 lost power at the peak of this storm, and restoration work will likely last into the weekend.

Last year, it took Baltimore Gas and Electric company eight and a half days to restore power to all 750,000 customers who lost power during Hurricane Irene. This time, the power company initially confronted more than 600,000 people without power. It said restoration efforts will extend into the weekend.

BGE said in a letter posted on its website that it would take hundreds of thousands of man-hours to clear debris and work through outages. Crews are working around the clock in 16-hour shifts.

"This type of widespread, extensive damage also complicates our ability to quickly provide accurate restoration times, especially when original damage assessments are revised upon closer inspection of the work required," the letter said.

However, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley has been blunt that the utilities must work faster: "No one will have his boot further up Pepco's and BGE's backsides than I will," O'Malley said Sunday.

Pepco spokeswoman Myra Oppel said the differences between storms can be significant. Two storms could have the same number of customers with outages, but the root of the problem could be downed wires in one situation and downed poles in another. But repairing poles takes a lot longer.

As a result, the length of time it takes to restore power "depends on what damage has occurred, not the number of outages," Oppel said.

In the case of Friday night's storms, crews are contending with trees that have to be removed before crews can get to damaged infrastructure.

She said the fact that neighboring states were also hard-hit meant many utilities were competing to get the same backup crews for help.

In Baltimore County, Eveena Felder, a registered nurse, had been relying on air-conditioned public areas to keep cool during the day and a fan to help her family sleep.

"We've purchased a ton of batteries, that's where most of our money has gone," Felder said. "Turn the fan on and keep still, don't move, less energy."

Officials were especially concerned about people in isolated rural areas.

In Greenbrier County, W.Va., "they have no radio station. They have no TV station. They have no communications because without power, they don't have phones," said Lt. Col. David Lester of the West Virginia National Guard.

Back at the nursing home, the cable was out as well, so in the common rooms with generator power the center played movies on old VHS tapes, including the 1932 classic "Grand Hotel."

Ninety-three-year-old Margaret Foster and 95-year-old Helen Ofsharick passed the time outside.

"You wouldn't want to live this way more than a day or so," Foster said. "There are sick people here, or people who don't think too well. They need help."

___

Barakat reported from Falls Church, Va., and Silver Spring, Md. Associated Press writers Dan Sewell in Cincinnati; Kantele Franko in Columbus, Ohio; and Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-07-02-Summer%20Storms/id-901523f59d2841958e6af4f6df1f7de6

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Jonathan Horton makes 2nd Olympic gymnastics team

Jonathan Horton competes on the parallel bars during the final round of the men's Olympic gymnastics trials, Saturday, June 30, 2012, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Jonathan Horton competes on the parallel bars during the final round of the men's Olympic gymnastics trials, Saturday, June 30, 2012, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Jonathan Horton reacts after competing in the floor exercise event during the final round of the men's Olympic gymnastics trials, Saturday, June 30, 2012, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Jake Dalton competes on the pommel horse during the final round of the men's Olympic gymnastics trials, Saturday, June 30, 2012, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Jake Dalton performs on the horizontal bar during the final round of the men's Olympic gymnastics trials, Saturday, June 30, 2012, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Sam Mikulak performs on the pommel horse during the final round of the men's Olympic gymnastics trials, Saturday, June 30, 2012, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) ? Jonathan Horton is heading back to the Olympics with a bunch of rookies in tow.

The two-time Beijing medalist was picked for the U.S. men's gymnastics team for the London Games on Sunday, joined by Jake Dalton and Sam Mikulak. Danell Leyva and reigning national champion John Orozco automatically qualified for the five-man squad after the conclusion of Olympic trials Saturday night.

Chris Brooks, Steven Legendre and Alex Naddour are the alternates.

Horton gives a veteran presence to the deepest U.S. Olympic team in recent memory. The 26-year-old helped the U.S. win a team bronze in Beijing four years ago, then added a silver medal on high bar. None of the other four members are over 20.

Mikulak, the 2011 NCAA champion, earned a spot despite spraining his left ankle on vault during the opening night of trials last Thursday.

The injury limited Mikulak to just one event Saturday ? pommel horse ? but his steady rise over the last month was enough for the five-man selection committee to award him a spot. Mikulak was third at nationals in St. Louis three weeks ago and posted the highest score during preliminaries Thursday, his 91.8 just enough to edge Leyva's 91.7.

Mikulak will undergo intense rehab and likely won't be able to do full routines on floor or vault for two weeks. He will join the rest of the team at training camp in Colorado Springs, Colo., from July 8-11.

Dalton, the reigning NCAA champion, gives the U.S. someone who can put up eye-popping numbers on floor and vault. The 20-year-old won both events during trials easily, his explosiveness on the floor leaving Brooks to joke he was "disgusted" watching Dalton's powerful tumbling runs.

Horton makes the team nine months after ripping up his left foot at the world championships in Tokyo last October. The two-time U.S. champion finished third at trials and his steadying presence should help calm any lingering nerves as the U.S. prepares to take on longtime powers Japan and China in London.

Leyva, Orozco, Dalton and Horton were all members of the bronze-medal winning team at worlds last fall, with Leyva taking gold on parallel bars. The dynamic 20-year-old Cuban-born Leyva said a team Olympic gold and an all-around gold are next on his check list, though there's little doubt which one matters most to team organizers.

The U.S. hasn't claimed the top of the podium in the games since Los Angeles in 1984. The Americans head to London with the ability to put up impressive numbers in five of the six rotations. Pommel horse remains an issue, though Orozco and Leyva are much improved, and Mikulak is more than serviceable when completely healthy.

Men's team coordinator Kevin Mazeika insisted he was focused on a team gold and acknowledged the decision to trim Olympic rosters from six to five made the process particularly difficult for a program that's as good as it has been in a generation.

The narrowing of the rosters likely cost Brooks a spot. The affable 25-year-old struggled during preliminaries Thursday, at one point flying off the parallel bars then taking out his frustrations in a nearby hallway. He roared back into contention Saturday and ended up tying Dalton for fourth. Considered more of an all-around gymnast than a specialist, Brooks is good insurance if Mikulak's ankle doesn't recover in time for London.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-07-01-GYM-Gymnastics%20Trials-Men/id-5bb98075e9d944ae9f6f65a57b8b3eb8

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Bonnie Fuller: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes Prove Marrying for the Wrong Reasons Is a Recipe for Divorce

Marriage is NOT a fairy tale, Katie Holmes. Just because you have crushed on someone since you were a teenager doesn't mean you should marry them when they're a devoted Scientologist and you're not.

Katie Holmes - when you filed for divorce from Tom Cruise you just became another real-life example of what not to do when choosing a life mate.

Tom Cruise may have been -- and still is -- a handsome, rich superstar and a gorgeous guy who starred in your Top Gun bedroom poster, but you and all the women out there have to marry the real man and not a fictionalized man of your dreams.

As dull as it sounds, it is totally true that you must marry a man who shares your same life goals and values, and the two of you have to have common interests that you both enjoy.

That doesn't mean that you have to come from the same ethnic background, have the same skin color, or even be a member of the same religion. Lots of people have happy, successful and long-term marriages even if their backgrounds are diverse.

But, you have to be on the same page when it comes to the most important guiding principles of your life.

And Katie, in this case, the man you married was a very devoted member of an extremely demanding and possessive religion -- Scientology. And Scientology has some very strange beliefs. So much so that many people are convinced that it's a cult.

On the other hand, you Katie are a Catholic, raised by parents who are devoted Catholics.

There was no way when you finally realized that you couldn't become a fervent Scientologist devotee or have your daughter become indoctrinated into Scientology, that your marriage could last.

You should have paid attention to Nicole Kidman's marital experience with Tom. Not only did their union end up in a nasty divorce but it appears that Nicole basically lost the two children she adopted with Tom. Tom got custody and her two kids also became devoted Scientologists -- and she is now rarely seen with them.

You never should have rushed into marriage and motherhood; getting engaged after two months of dating and then pregnant shortly after that.

So Hollywoodlifers, learn from Katie Holmes' mistake. No matter how glamorous, sexy and powerful a man may seem, he's not Mr. Right unless you and he see eye-to-eye on how you want to live, where you want to live, whether you want to have children, how you want to raise them, whether you will be a two or one-career marriage and more.

Click here to read more at HollywoodLife.com.

?

Follow Bonnie Fuller on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bonniefuller

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bonnie-fuller/tom-cruise-katie-holmes_b_1639233.html

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Italy has offensive edge

By TREVOR HUGGINS

Associated Press

Associated Press Sports

updated 4:25 p.m. ET June 29, 2012

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -Italy will head into Sunday's European Championship final with one significant advantage over a Spain side that has dominated world football for the last four years.

It can score goals.

While Spain has tried to pass its opponents to death at Euro 2012, Italy has stuck to what's almost a quaintly old-fashioned approach of making the net bulge with pinpoint headers and blistering shots. Mario Balotelli's two goals against Germany in Thursday's semifinals were superb examples of both.

"We had the determination to go and attack Germany right from the off," Italy coach Cesare Prandelli said. "We had the courage to play the ball in midfield. I have always been an advocate of this style of play because I am convinced that we have a lot of quality players."

By contrast, Spain has found it increasingly difficult to score in open play as the tournament has progressed.

Its penalty shootout victory over Portugal in the semifinals after a 0-0 draw was far from the most entertaining match of the championship to date. Its 2-0 victory over France in the quarterfinals included a penalty and its 1-0 win over Croatia in Spain's final group match needed an 88th minute winner from Jesus Navas.

That's just two goals from open play in 300 minutes of football.

Spain coach Vicente del Bosque is well aware of his team's predicament, due in part to opponents' tendency to sit back and defend.

"There are two parts to football, the offensive and defensive aspects, and we're sharper on the defensive end," he said.

By contrast, Italy has respected a national tradition stretching back decades of getting better as a tournament continues. Its best game by far was the Azzurri's 2-1 victory over hot favorite Germany in Warsaw and the margin of victory should really have been greater.

Balotelli burst into form and midfielder Andrea Pirlo continued to reproduce the outstanding form that helped Italy win the 2006 World Cup. Claudio Marchisio meanwhile missed two glaring opportunities from inside the penalty box, either of which could have settled Italian nerves well before the final whistle.

And that's the key difference between Spain's victory over Portugal and Italy's shootout win over England after a 0-0 draw in the quarterfinals.

The world and European champions never really looked like scoring against the well-drilled Portuguese, while it was a minor miracle that Italy failed to find the net against Roy Hodgson's side.

The Italians had shown their attacking intent in the third minute of that match with a swerving half-volley by Daniele De Rossi that rattled Joe Hart's post from 30 meters.

A succession of chances then fell to Balotelli, while Riccardo Montolivo sent a shot over the top with the England goal at his mercy, Antonio Nocerino had a goal ruled out for offside, and Alessandro Diamanti hit the bar.

For Spain, it was more of the grindingly familiar game that has taken it to the verge of a third consecutive major title. And it wasn't pretty.

Spain's short passing game draws heavily on the style of football played at club level by Barcelona, whose players are the heart of the national team's midfield in Xavi Hernandez, Andres Iniesta and Cesc Fabregas.

In turn, Barcelona's footballing culture is rooted in the philosophy of its former playing great and manager Johan Cruyff, who is widely quoted as having said: "If you play on possession, you don't have to defend, because there's only one ball."

While there's no arguing with the Dutchman's arithmetic, Spain's current problem is that its possession is not producing anything else except more possession. Like a cat or dog chasing its tail, Spain often appears to be turning the ball round and round in circles, without getting anywhere.

At Barcelona, there is the goalscoring phenomenon, Lionel Messi.

Spain has Fernando Torres. Not a goalscoring phenomenon.

More worrying for Spain is that Italy scored first when these two sides met for their opening game in the group stage on June 10. That time, Fabregas was able to produce a quick equalizer.

Spain may not be so lucky a second time.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Italy has offensive edge

Italy will head into Sunday's European Championship final with one significant advantage over a Spain side that has dominated world football for the last four years.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/48012461/ns/sports-soccer/

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