Pakistani police don't know who kidnapped American

Authorities were still searching Sunday for clues about who kidnapped an American in Pakistan but came up with no leads after questioning the guards at his house when he was abducted, police said Sunday.

Gunmen snatched development expert Warren Weinstein before dawn Saturday after tricking his guards and breaking into his house in the eastern city of Lahore, a brazen raid that heightened fears among aid workers, diplomats and other foreigners already worried about Islamic militancy and anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan.

Weinstein is the Pakistan country director for J.E. Austin Associates, a development contractor that has received millions of dollars from the aid arm of the U.S. government, according to a profile on LinkedIn, a networking website. He had told his staff that would be wrapping up his latest project and moving out of Pakistan by Monday, just a couple days after he was kidnapped.

Police were hoping the guards could shed some light on who targeted Weinstein but came up empty-handed, said Shoaib Khurram, a senior police official in Lahore.

"We do not yet have any concrete information that there was a specific threat," Khurram told The Associated Press.

Kidnappings for ransom are common in Pakistan, with foreigners being occasional targets. Criminal gangs are suspected in most abductions, but Islamic militants, are believed to also use the tactic to raise money.

J.E. Austin Associates stressed Weinstein's commitment to Pakistan's economic development in a written statement and said he has worked with a wide range of Pakistani government agencies, including the Pakistan Furniture Development Company and the Pakistan Dairy Development Company.

"His efforts to help make Pakistani industries more competitive have resulted in many hundreds of well-paying jobs for Pakistani citizens and contributed to raising the standard of living in the communities where these businesses are located," it said.

Shahab Khawaja, a former official at Pakistan's Ministry of Industries and Production, said Weinstein has been working in Pakistan since 2004 and was scheduled to finish his contract with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on August 15. The two men, who are close friends, met in the capital, Islamabad, in recent days.

"I was shocked and deeply disturbed by his kidnapping," said Khawaja.

Police said Weinstein, believed to be in his 60s, had returned to his home in Lahore on Friday evening from Islamabad.

According to Pakistani police, two of the kidnappers showed up at Weinstein's house Saturday and told the guards inside the gate of the walled compound that they wanted to give them food, an act of sharing common during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The guards opened the gate, and five other men suddenly appeared. The armed assailants overpowered the guards and stormed into the house. Some gunmen are believed to have entered through the back. They snatched the American from his bedroom but took nothing else.

Hussain Bhatti, who worked with Weinstein in Pakistan, said the American decided to replace the security company guarding his house in recent months because of general threats to U.S. citizens working in Pakistan. But he did not know who would have targeted Weinstein.

Americans in Pakistan are considered especially at risk because militants oppose Islamabad's alliance with Washington and the war in Afghanistan. The unilateral U.S. raid that killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden on May 2 in northwest Pakistan only added to tensions between the two countries.

China tries to end sex-selective abortions

The Chinese government says it will be cracking down on sex-selective abortions for non-medical purposes.

The family planning policy, announced by the Chinese government in a release Monday, is an attempt to put an end to illegal sex-selective abortions and balance the sex ratio in the country where many people highly value male children to preserve bloodlines, Xinhua reported.

The Outline for the Development of Chinese Children (2011-2020) says efforts to "eliminate discrimination against girls" and continue promoting gender balance should be made.

"Using ultrasonic techniques to conduct non-medical sex determination" should be strictly prohibited, it says.

Family planning policies have been implemented in China for about three decades to control the population. Previously, couples in urban areas were only allowed to have one child.

Nowadays, polices have been loosened. Couples in some parts of the country can have two children if both parents are from one-child homes.

How Can Solar Energy be Utilized in the Future?

When you think about it, the sun is probably the biggest reason we exist and the only reason we have fuel to supply our insatiable rate of development. For one, if it wasn't for the heat of the sun, fossil fuels wouldn't have been formed. And we have been using it to our advantage in some way or the other, like drying clothes or building houses according to the sunrise to optimize the amount of light that enters our home. We are now into an era where if we do not manage to harness this solar energy to the max, we will face severe setbacks. This leads us to three questions:

• Of the 5700ºC on the sun's surface, we get only 20ºC (the average temperature of the earth's surface). How do we intend to make the most of this?
• The sun shines only in the day. How do we make the energy last us through the night?
• With current methods, we cannot manage to harness the entire energy falling on a particular surface. How do we concentrate all this energy into one spot?

The answers to these questions lead us to think about the future of solar energy. Leaders in energy management predict that solar energy will soon be introduced as a fully competitive energy source along with all the ones currently used. Shell predicts that 50% of the total energy intake of the earth will be from solar energy by 2040. Learn more on how they intend to do that.

Environmental assessments said too narrow

Assessments of human impact on a natural environment aren't broad enough because they don't see effects on neighboring habitats, an Israeli researcher says.

When development is planned, the environmental risks to plant and animal life in the region are considered, but what's environmentally acceptable for one area may be an environmental disaster for an adjacent one, Tel Aviv University researcher Guilad Friedemann said.

Indigenous species displaced by such development migrate to neighboring habitats and compete for space and food with significant impact on the species and resources that were already there, he said.

Friedemann studied two raptor species in the Judean Foothills, the long-legged buzzard and the short-toed eagle, a TAU release said Wednesday.

The long-legged buzzard had always made its home in the open spaces of the Judean Mountains, Friedemann said, using the mountain cliffs for nesting and hunting. But human activity caused the buzzards to migrate elsewhere, and they now make their nests in the trees of the Judean Foothills, threatening the nesting ground and food source of the short-toed eagle.

"Every time you have strong competition between two species, one is more successful," he says. "There is a negative impact on the weaker species.

"There needs to be a broader consideration not just of the directly affected area, but of neighboring areas as well -- especially if there is a species that will be forced to abandon the original area and seek out a new place to live," Friedemann says.

Rosa Parks' estate to be auctioned

An attorney for an organization named for Rosa Parks says the U.S. civil rights icon's friend are "mortified" that her personal letters are to be auctioned.

The battle between Parks' relatives and the Rosa and Raymond Institute for Self Development over her estate has been ongoing since Parks' death in 2005, ABC News reported. A Michigan court settled the dispute by authorizing Guernsey's Auctioneers and Brokers of New York to sell Parks' property.

Among the items to be sold is civil rights-era memorabilia with an estimated value of $8 million to $10 million. It includes personal letters written by Parks as a teenager and later in life to her mother and husband, one of which details an rape attempt on Parks by a white neighbor.

"The folks who cared about Rosa Parks the most, the folks at her institute, her best friend, Elaine Steele, and others are mortified that her private thoughts have now been published," said Steven Cohen, an attorney for the Institute.

Arlan Ettinger, president of Guernsey's Auctioneers and Brokers said he is acting on the court's authority.

"The court decided that the archive needed to be sold and that the proceeds would be divided by the court in a matter it saw fit," Ettinger said. "The court has spoken repeatedly and repeatedly informed us to do what we're doing. We are neutral here and simply following the dictates of the court."

Universal inks deal with Ferrell's company

Hollywood's Universal Media Studios says it has signed a deal with Gary Sanchez Productions Television, headed by producers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.

Ferrell and McKay are the producers of "Step Brothers," "The Other Guys," "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," "Eastbound and Down." They also are the creators of the "Funny or Die" video Web site.

The deal between their production company and Universal was announced Monday by Robert Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment.

"This development deal with Will and Adam is a major step forward for our studio," Greenblatt said in a statement. "They know how to make people laugh, aren't afraid to take risks, and are among the elite of the entertainment industry's creative leaders."

Ferrell began his career on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and recently appeared in a multiple-story arc on the network's comedy series "The Office."

McKay directed and wrote Ferrell's films "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," "Talledega Nights," "Step Brothers" and "The Other Guys."