FIFA to introduce amnesty for match-fixers

LONDON (AP) — FIFA will offer financial rewards and amnesties for information on match-fixing and other corruption in football, the organization's security chief said Monday.

"This is new ground for sport," Chris Eaton said. "I'm afraid criminals have changed the nature of sport."

Eaton has found mounting evidence that international and club matches are being targeted by criminal gangs who bribe players and referees. Match-fixing scandals have tarnished leagues in Turkey, Italy, Israel, Finland and Greece this year.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has made tackling corruption — both within his organization and in leagues around the world — a priority for his fourth term and …

German officials blast banker's remarks as racist

Top German officials and immigrant leaders have condemned remarks by a board member of Germany's federal bank as racist and anti-Semitic. Chancellor Angela Merkel said the Bundesbank should discuss dismissing the banker.

Thilo Sarrazin of the Bundesbank came under fire Sunday for telling the weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag that "all Jews share the same gene." He also said Muslim immigrants across Europe were not willing or capable of integrating into western societies.

Last year, Sarrazin, who previously served as finance minister for Berlin, told a magazine that "I do not need to accept anyone who lives on handouts from a state that it rejects, …

GOP: Landing a Delaware Punch

A plan to radically overhaul the way Republicans select presidential nominees was overwhelmingly rejected at the Republican National Convention. By a 66-33 vote, the Convention Rules Committee - the body that sets the parameters for the full convention to consider changes to national party rules - killed the so-called Delaware Plan, which sought to curb the tendency of states to set their primary dates earlier than ever.

The Delaware Plan, so named because that state's Republican Party championed it, would have scrapped a helter-skelter nomination system widely denounced as too heavily reliant on big money and media.

The Delaware Plan would have divided the states and …

India holds massive military exercise close to Pakistan border

The Thar desert boomed with artillery guns as tanks kicked up dust and fighter aircraft flew on bombing runs.

It may have looked like war, but it was actually an elaborate simulation to demonstrate to international observers that India has become a major military power.

Observers from 60 countries watched Wednesday's war games, code-named "Brazen Chariots," in Pokharan, the site in the western desert of Rajasthan where India conducted a series of underground nuclear tests in 1998.

The area is 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Pakistan, but officials said the war games were not directed at their neighbor. The nuclear-armed rivals have …

Opposition refuses to join new Ivory Coast govt

An Ivory Coast opposition spokesman says they will not join the new government created by President Laurent Gbagbo unless he agrees to restore recently fired opposition ministers.

Bertin Kouadio Konan says the opposition wants Gbagbo to give the ministers their jobs back, as he did with many fired ministers from his ruling party.

Gbagbo plunged the country into …

NEW RELEASES

Plenty of new titles are coming out on videotape this week, butonly a few are notable. The top video this week is "Nuns on the Run"(CBS/Fox Video, $89.98), a comedy about two hoods who disguisethemselves as nuns to avoid capture. Eric Idle and Robbie Coltraneare the stars.

Oldies buffs will be interested in several new releases: "TheTeahouse of the August Moon" (MGM/UA, $19.98), the 1956 comedy aboutAmericans who try to Americanize Okinawa after World War II, starringMarlon Brando and Glenn Ford; "The White Buffalo" (MGM/UA, $19.98),a 1977 Western about Wild Bill Hickock, starring Charles Bronson andKim Novak; "A Patch of Blue" (MGM/UA, $19.98), a 1965 drama about …

Brees happy to take a lead role for players

RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. (AP) — Saying "this fight was brought to us," New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees felt it was the right thing to do to put his name on an antitrust lawsuit against the NFL.

"I understand the sacrifices that guys made before me, veteran players, retired players, former players. and I feel that it is my responsibility to represent not only those guys, not only current players, but future players and the future of this league," Brees said Wednesday.

"I can't tell you how many guys have come up to me and say how much they appreciate having a quarterback, having a guy like me, to stand up for them and represent them. That means so much to me because …