At an age when many girls are still playing with their Barbie dolls, Bindi Irwin has moved on to something a bit more challenging.

"I have Blackie my black-headed python. I also have Corny the corn snake. He sleeps with me at night," the 8-year-old-daughter of the late crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin, says proudly as she rattles off the names of the menagerie she keeps back home in Queensland, Australia.

It's a group she hopes to introduce to the rest of the world through her new television show, "Bindi the Jungle Girl," airing Saturdays on the Discovery Kids Channel (5 p.m. ET).

"I also have Jaffa my koala and Ocker, my favorite cockatoo. And I have other birds that stay with me. And Candy, my pet rat, sometimes stays with me," the blonde-haired, pigtailed bundle of energy continues until her enthusiasm gets the better of her and her words begin to run together, finally tripping over one another in a heap.

"Sorry," she offers with a giggle as she comes up for air.

Then, a moment later, she's on a roll again, passionately recounting the horror stories her father would come home with about the way he saw exotic animals mistreated in shows around the world. He witnessed cobras in India, he told her, that had their teeth yanked out before they were put in baskets for snake charmers with flutes to coax them out of. He saw monkeys that had their young taken away as an incentive to perform.

"They take their babies away until the monkey does the trick, and then they give the baby back," he told her.

"It's terrible what people are doing," she says, her voice rising. "And they're just doing it for a living because they don't know any better. They've just grown up like that. I think we really need to teach all people, big or little, they should all know the message of conservation."

Her effort to teach them is "Bindi The Jungle Girl," which takes viewers around the world to see animals in their natural habitat while Bindi discusses things like the status of those in danger of extinction.

"There are only a few thousand left in the wild and they could all be gone by the time I'm old enough to drive," she says of tigers and cheetahs.

As her father did, she also frequently makes pitches not to use products that result in the needless deaths of animals.

Each show also returns home to Bindi's two-story tree house in Queensland, Australia, where the little girl with the soft Aussie accent interacts naturally with her exotic animals and where, Bindi says, she is always happiest.

"I love it in my tree house. It's the best place to be, pretty much," she says by phone. "I just go there to sleep over sometimes. My brother comes to visit me for a little sleepover as well. He has his own little snake, Basil. Basil is actually a girl. I know, that's a strange name for a girl," she says, letting loose with another giggle.

She also keeps a supply of videos of her father there.

"I'm ever so lucky because I have so much footage of my dad in the tree house with me," she says. Then she adds softly, "Which is very nice to have because some people only have like one or two pictures of their father or the one who died."

She was barely 8 when her father was killed by a stingray while filming an underwater documentary at Australia's Great Barrier Reef last September.

The two already had begun working together on what would become "Bindi The Jungle Girl," and Irwin is featured prominently in early episodes doing things like climbing trees to visit the nests of endangered orangutans. In one comical moment, a nest's startled resident briefly shakes a fist in Irwin's face before deciding he's all right.

Almost from the day Bindi was born, says her mother, Terri Irwin, she has embraced exotic animals with the same passion her father had.

"Steve was so excited," she recalls. "He kept saying, `I'm really looking forward to the day when Bindi takes over for me and I can just kick back.'"

Still, in many ways, she adds, her daughter is just a typical kid, one who keeps busy with school and pesters her family from time to time for a pony to go with Peru the iguana and the other exotic animals.

As for taking up her famous father's legacy at such a tender age, Bindi doesn't see it as a big deal. She began accompanying him on film shoots when she was just 6 days old and learned early on, she says, what her life's work would be.

"I've always wanted to teach people about animal conservation," she said. "I want to follow in my father's footsteps. I loved him so very, very much."

I think her father would be proud. 

Angry protesters took to the streets in Pakistan and Malaysia on Wednesday to denounce a British knighthood for author Salman Rushdie, whose novel the "Satanic Verses" outraged Muslims worldwide.

Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents also condemned the knighthood, which Britain's Queen Elizabeth awarded the Indian-born British writer last week for services to literature.

A hardline cleric in Pakistan called for Rushdie's death, saying whoever was in a position to kill him should do so while protesters in Pakistan and Malaysia demanded that Britain withdraw the honor.

"This is an attempt to provoke Muslims all over the world," Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a leader of an Islamist alliance, told a rally of about 200 women outside parliament in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The "Satanic Verses" prompted protests, some violent, by Muslims in many countries after it was published in 1988. Muslims say the novel blasphemed against the Prophet Mohammad and ridiculed the Koran and events in early Muslim history.

British High Commissioner to Pakistan Robert Brinkley said on Monday Rushdie's knighthood was a reflection of his contribution to literature and was not intended as an insult to Islam or the Prophet Mohammad.

But on Tuesday, Pakistan summoned Brinkley to protest against the award. Britain's envoy in Iran was also summoned.

In Islamabad, a pro-Taliban cleric said Rushdie should be killed. "He is condemned to death. Whosoever is in position to kill him, he should do so," Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a cleric at the capital's hardline Red Mosque, said in a statement.

In the central Pakistani city of Multan about 300 people chanted "Death to the British Queen" and "Death to Rushdie." They burned a British flag and effigies of Queen Elizabeth and Rushdie.

Several hundred people including members of the provincial parliament protested in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

The Pakistani parliament adopted a resolution on Monday deploring the knighthood, and the religious affairs minister said the honor could be used to justify suicide bombings. He later said he did not mean such attacks would be justified.

The late Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa death warrant against Rushdie in 1989, forcing him into hiding for nine years.

"SUDDEN FEELING OF ANGER"

About 30 supporters of Malaysia's hardline Islamic party protested outside the British embassy in Kuala Lumpur chanting "Destroy Salman Rushdie" and "Destroy Britain."

"This has tainted the whole knighthood, the whole hall of fame of the British system," the party's treasurer Hatta Ramli told reporters after the party handed a protest note to embassy officials.

"The British government must be responsible because it has created a sudden feeling of anger not just on Salman Rushdie but on the British government," he said.

Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents also condemned the knighthood for the "apostate" British writer, who was born into a Muslim family in 1947.

"We ... consider this another major affront to Islam by the infidels," said a Taliban spokesman.

In 1998 Iran's government formally distanced itself from the fatwa death warrant issued by Khomeini, but hardline groups in Iran regularly renew the call for his murder, saying Khomeini's fatwa is irrevocable.

(Additional reporting by Jalil Hamid in KUALA LUMPUR, Sayed Salahuddin in KABUL, Rehmatullah Mehsud in ISLAMABAD, Asim Tanvir in MULTAN)

I think that all of you are nuts, Christians, Muslims...all you religious groups are completely mad! 

There is not a God of any sorts..you stupid craps! 

LS 

More than a year after its premiere, "The Da Vinci Code" is being investigated by Italian state attorneys on the grounds that it is "obscene" from a religious perspective.

Earlier this year, a complaint against the film was filed by a group of clergy near the Italian village of Civitavecchia, where the state prosecutor's office said it would open a criminal investigation into the film. The complaint says the film violates Article 528 of Italy's Penal Code.

The complaint names 10 people, including director Ron Howard and author Dan Brown.

The investigation means the case will have its day in court in the seaside port village about 40 miles north of Rome, though a judge could elect to throw out the charges. But it is significant that the state prosecutor agreed to investigate it.

It is unclear what the unnamed complainants -- reported by the state prosecutor to be Catholic clergy from the area -- are seeking.

Under the terms of Article 528 of the Penal Code, if found guilty the defendants will have a criminal record in Italy and would each face jail time of at least three months and fines of at least 103 euros ($139). Jail time is capped at three years, but there is no upward limit on the fines, legal experts said. The defendants cannot be extradited for the charges, but they can be apprehended if they are already on Italian soil.

The development comes as Howard is beginning preproduction work here on "Angels and Demons," the highly awaited sequel to "Da Vinci," also authored by Brown.

Asked why the case is being opened now, some 13 months after the film debuted at least year's Cannes Film Festival, an official at the Civitavecchia state prosecutor said he wasn't sure.

"I don't know," the official said in a telephone interview. "Maybe they (the clergy who filed the complaint) have just seen the film."

Both the book and film version of "Da Vinci" attracted widespread criticism from religious groups, but this appears to be the first time parties have taken legal action against the work.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

NOW WHAT?

WHAT MAKES RELIGION SO SPECIAL THAT PEOPLE CANNOT BE CRITICAL OR EXPRESS THEIR OWN DISAGREEING VIEWS WITHOUT FEAR OF EITHER PROSECUTION FROM THE LAW OR DEATH BY RADICALS ?

JEEZ! 

..LS 

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro discussed Cuban-supported education and health care programs in Nicaragua and Venezuelan, state-run media reported on Sunday.

"The meeting between the two leaders served to deepen bilateral relations between Cuba and Nicaragua. Comrade Fidel was very satisfied with his meeting with Daniel," the government communique said.

Ortega was the third Latin American socialist president to visit the convalescing Cuban leader in less than two weeks. Castro recently met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales.

The four-hour meeting with Ortega on Saturday also covered Cuban support for Nicaragua's efforts to improve the energy grid, and regional and global issues, like global warming, according to the statement.

Ortega also met with Raul Castro, Vice President Carlos Lage and other officials in charge of the day-to-day management of the government since Castro temporarily stepped aside July 31.

Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have formed an alliance called the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, which opposes U.S. policy in the region. The alliance is named after Simon Bolivar, the area's 19th century independence leader.

Castro underwent several operations last year for a life-threatening intestinal condition that has kept him from reappearing in public. He provisionally handed over power to his 76-year-old brother and Defense Minister Raul Castro nearly a year ago.

Cuban officials say the 80-year-old Castro has markedly improved over the last few months, written numerous opinion columns castigating the United States and held more frequent meetings with foreign visitors.

Castro's ailment, condition and whereabouts are considered state secrets.

An 111-year-old Japanese just named the world's oldest man said he owed his longevity to steering clear of alcohol.

"I don't drink alcohol -- that is the biggest reason for my good health," Tomoji Tanabe told reporters on Monday. He also told media he does not smoke and likes a glass of milk a day.

Asked how much longer he wanted to live, the besuited Tanabe, a former local government worker, said simply: "I don't want to die."

Tanabe, who lives with his 66-year-old son and the son's wife in Miyakonojo, about 900 km (560 miles) southwest of Tokyo on the island of Kyushu, met the city's mayor to receive a certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records recognizing him as the oldest man.

But he has some years to go to equal his female compatriot Yone Minagawa, 114, who is listed by Guinness as the world's oldest person and also lives in Kyushu.

A former shepherd in Ukraine, Hyrhory Nestor, also claims that title, saying he celebrated his 116th birthday in March.

The Japanese are among the world's longest-lived people, with 28,395 people aged 100 or above in Japan at the end of September last year, according to the Health Ministry. Researchers have attributed the phenomenon to factors including healthy diet and tight-knit communities.