Don't Scared To Talk

Boom Blox, a collaborative creation by Steven Spielberg and Electronic Arts, is part of a three-game deal between Spielberg and EA. According to Amir Rahimi, senior producer, "Steven came up with the idea for the game after playing Wii Sports with Shigeru Miyamoto. He then came to EA with a very simple and universal idea to build a game that leverages the Wii Remote and allows players to stack up blocks and knock them over. It was also very important to him to create a game that he could play with his family."

That's the easiest way to understand what Boom Blox is all about, even though the game is huge with 300 levels, several different types of game modes, and a cast of 30 wacky block characters. Not only that but you can construct your own levels with an editor that enables you to create your own games, too.

Rahimi says that between film projects, Spielberg would visit the EA offices every week to review progress on the game, provide feedback, and pitch ideas. "Steven would take early versions home," he recalls, "to play with his family."

One of the fascinating things about Boom Blox is that while it appears to be simple to play every puzzle challenges you to come up with unique strategic solutions. This is a Wii Remote-only game with a primary gameplay mechanic that's literally a snap to learn. In most levels you're confronted by some structure that's composed of stacks of blocks of different shapes and sizes. Just like the ones you might have constructed as a kid, every block building looks like it might topple over at any minute. Boom Blox, however, is about you tossing something into it to knock it all down.

To do that, you need to zero in on a block you'd like to hit. Just point the Remote like a flashlight and you can rotate the camera all around the structure see every nook and cranny.

When you find a potential target, you aim a cursor somewhere on a block, press and hold A to lock it onto the spot. Draw the Remote back like a fly swatter, and then flick it forward while simultaneously releasing A to toss a projectile. And there's a ton of stuff to throw. Baseballs, bowling balls, Eight balls, footballs, other blocks, all kinds of items become potential weapons of mass Blox destruction. The impressively robust Boom Blox physics engine endows each one with the appropriate mass and velocity, too.

Once your shot connects, Blox puts on a spectacular show of chaos and collision. And if you hit just the right spot, you might knock the entire thing over with just one shot. Some structures have exploding blox in place. Hit one of those and the debris really flies!

Other Blox challenges require you to grab and pull with the Remote. Similar to Jenga, you pull out certain pieces except that you're trying to make others fall.

In all the puzzles, you're under some sort of time limit and sometimes you're tasked to knock something down to advance a brief story line. In adventure mode you travel through four differently themed worlds--a medieval world, a wild west world, a haunted world, and a tiki island. Each world is a self-contained little story that casts you in good versus evil battles starring Blox creatures.

Boom Blox also looks like a cool party game, too. Multiplayer mode consists of competitive and cooperative games. There are 70-plus levels where two people join forces to figure out the puzzles. In competitive mode up to four players can play against each other in 11 different game modes.

If you prefer to blast apart your own constructions, create mode enables you to remix any level in the game with blocks, props, and even characters or you can just design your own. Additionally, you can engineer massive block "machines" that operate not unlike those domino designs where tipping one domino over makes all the others fall in sequence.

Like a pup, he lay curled against the cold, pressed between dozens of other children sleeping head-to-toe on the concrete floor. His T-shirt was damp with the dew that seeped through the thin walls. The older boys had yanked away the square of cloth he used to protect himself from the draft. He shivered.

It was still dark as he set out for the mouth of a freeway with the other boys, a tribe of 7-, 8- and 9-year-old beggars.

Coli padded barefoot between the stopped cars, his head reaching only halfway up the windows. His scrawny body disappeared under a ragged T-shirt that grazed his knees. He held up an empty tomato paste can as his begging bowl.

There are 1.2 million Colis in the world today, children trafficked to work for the benefit of others. Those who lure them into servitude make $15 billion annually, according to the International Labor Organization.

It's big business in Senegal. In the capital of Dakar alone, at least 7,600 child beggars work the streets, according to a study released in February by the ILO, the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Bank. The children collect an average of 300 African francs a day, just 72 cents, reaping their keepers $2 million a year.

Most of the boys -- 90 percent, the study found -- are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. For among the cruelest facts of Coli's life is that he was not stolen from his family. He was brought to Dakar with their blessing to learn Islam's holy book.

In the name of religion, Coli spent two hours a day memorizing verses from the Quran and over nine hours begging to pad the pockets of the man he called his teacher.

It was getting dark. Coli had less than half the 72 cents he was told to bring back. He was afraid. He knew what happened to children who failed to meet their daily quotas.

They were stripped and doused in cold water. The older boys picked them up like hammocks by their ankles and wrists. Then the teacher whipped them with an electrical cord until the cord ate their skin.

Coli's head hurt with hunger. He could already feel the slice of the wire on his back.

He slipped away, losing himself in a tide of honking cars. He had 20 cents in his tomato can.

Three years ago, a man wearing a skullcap came to Coli's village in the neighboring country of Guinea-Bissau and asked for him.

Coli's parents immediately addressed the man as "Serigne," a term of respect for Muslim leaders on Africa's western coast. Many poor villagers believe that giving a Muslim holy man a child to educate will gain an entire family entrance to paradise.

Since the 11th century, families have sent their sons to study at the Quranic schools that flourished on Africa's western seaboard with the rise of Islam. It is forbidden to charge for an Islamic education, so the students, known as talibe, studied for free with their marabouts, or spiritual teachers. In return, the children worked in the marabout's fields.

The droughts of the late 1970s and '80s forced many schools to move to cities, where their income began to revolve around begging. Today, children continue to flock to the cities, as food and work in villages run short.

Not all Quranic boarding schools force their students to beg. But for the most part, what was once an esteemed form of education has degenerated into child trafficking. Nowadays, Quranic instructors net as many children as they can to increase their daily take.

"If you do the math, you'll find that these people are earning more than a government functionary," said Souleymane Bachir Diagne, an Islamic scholar at Columbia University. "It's why the phenomenon is so hard to eradicate."

Middle men trawl for children as far afield as the dunes of Mauritania and the grass-covered huts of Mali. It's become a booming, regional trade that ensnares children as young as 2, who don't know the name of their village or how to return home.

One of the largest clusters of Quranic schools lies in the poor, sand-enveloped neighborhoods on either side of the freeway leading into Dakar.

This is where Coli's marabout squats in a half-finished house whose floor stirs with flies. Amadu Buwaro sleeps on a mattress covered in white linens. The 30 children in his care sleep in another room with dirty blankets on the floor. It smells rotten and wet, like a soaked rag.

Buwaro is a thin man in his 30s who wears a pressed olive robe and digital watch. The children wear T-shirts black with filth. He expects them to beg to pay the rent, because there are no fields here to till.

But their earnings far exceed his rent of $50. If the boys meet their quotas, they bring in around $650 a month in a nation where the average person earns $150.

Buwaro expects the children to suffer to learn the Quran, just as he did at the hands of his teacher.

So when Coli failed to return, Buwaro was furious. He flipped open his flashy silver cell phone and called another marabout who kept a blue planner with names of runaway boys. The list stretched down the page. He added Coli's name.

His tomato can tucked under one arm, Coli jumped on the back of a bus, holding on to the swinging rear door. He was hundreds of miles from the village where he grew up speaking Peuhl, a language not commonly heard in Dakar.

He could not ask the Senegalese for help. So he got directions in Peuhl from other child beggars, who like him were trafficked here from the zone of green savannah just outside Senegal.

Coli made his way to a neighborhood where he had heard of a place that gave free food to children like him.

"Do you know where you come from?" asked the kind-faced woman at Empire des Enfants. The shelter's capacity is 30 children, but it usually houses at least 50.

Coli knew the name of his mother, but not how to reach her. He knew the name of the region where he was born, but not his village. "My mother is black," he said. "I'm sure I'll recognize her."

The shelter worker told Coli what to do if his marabout came. We will protect you, she said. If he tries to grab you, scream.

Days went by. Maybe weeks.

Then Coli's marabout arrived.

In 2005, Senegal made it a crime punishable by five years in prison to force a child to beg. But the same law makes an exception for children begging for religious reasons. Few dare to cross marabouts for fear of supernatural retaliation.

Coli's marabout entered the shelter flanked by a column of religious leaders in cascading robes that tumbled onto the ground. One of them stabbed his finger at the clouds and yelled out, "The sky will fall down on you if you don't hand over our children."

The shelter is used to such threats. But this time the marabouts had discovered the center's legal paperwork was not complete. They threatened to close the shelter if it did not hand over 11 boys.

To save more than 40 others, the shelter handed over the 11. Coli was on the list.

Back at the school, they beat the 9-year-old until he thought he was going to faint. At night, they dragged him off the floor, doused him in water and beat him again.

Three days later, he ran away again. When he arrived at the shelter, he said: "I want to go home to my mom."

To find Coli's mother, aid workers broadcast his name on the radio in Guinea-Bissau. The names of over a dozen children also from Guinea-Bissau played in a continuous loop, like sonic homing pigeons trying to find their target.

No response. Some boys worried their parents might be dead.

"I'm sure my mother is still alive," Coli reasoned. "When I left her she was well, so why wouldn't she be well now?" Underneath his bright eyes is another worry. Will she be angry that he disobeyed his teacher?

Over the past two years, the International Organization for Migration has returned over 600 child beggars to their homes. Several had been hit by cars. Some had scars on their backs. One 10-year-old was so hungry he ate out of the trash. Soon after he returned home, he vomited worms and died.

Almost all the boys had begged on behalf of Quranic instructors in Senegal.

"Cultural habits have been manipulated for the sake of exploitation," said the IOM's Laurent de Boeck, deputy regional representative for West and Central Africa.

Two months went by before a shelter worker pulled Coli aside. His parents were alive.

The 13 boys from Guinea-Bissau pile into a bus. Coli screams with glee as it takes off for the airport.

"Is this Guinea-Bissau?" one of them asks as they descend onto the cracked runway and enter the small airport of the nation's capital. "Senegal looks better," says another.

Though Senegal is among the world's poorest nations, it's visibly more developed than Guinea-Bissau, listed 160th out of 177 countries on the U.N.'s human development index. The capital they left had streets clogged with taxis and flashy 4-by-4s. The buildings were tall. The capital they returned to has squat, low buildings and crumbling colonial villas.

"I'm not sure I like it," Coli confides.

As the bus leaves the capital, they pass villages of cone-shaped huts and fields where boys herd bulls. They sing songs, clapping their hands. As they pull into the shelter where their parents were told to expect them, the boys fall silent.

Timidly, they file off the bus. A few of the 12- and 13-year-olds recognize their families. They approach them respectfully, shaking hands.

Coli's mother is not there.

A judge tells the parents they will be jailed if they send their children away to beg again. They have to sign a statement promising to protect their boys from traffickers. Most are illiterate, so they leave a thumbprint in blue ink next to their names.

"You sent your kids to hell," the judge says. "You can't say that because you are poor you're going to allow your kids to be abused."

His booming voice ricochets off the cracked walls of the building. The parents stare straight ahead.

But the conditions that made these families send their children to hell still persist.

Many of the villages do not have enough food. Few have schools. In one, the schoolhouse is a bamboo enclosure that doubles as an animal corral. "We haven't had classes here in over a year," an elderly man says as he ducks into the classroom and skirts a pile of bull manure.

The aid group pays for school fees and supplies. But the stipend cannot cover the economic worth of a child. Some of the children returned in previous months now work as bricklayers and goatherds. Others have already been sent back to the marabouts by their parents. The idea of child trafficking as a crime is so new in the region that no African language has a word for it, experts say.

With each passing day, more parents and relatives come, but not Coli's.

On the third day, the shelter pays for another radio address.

By the fourth, half the 13 children are gone.

The others become increasingly agitated. Maybe the radio is broken, Coli muses. His wet eyes fill with the invisible color of worry.

Early on the fifth morning, a woman in a pressed peach robe walks up to the shelter.

Coli rushes outside. He stands a few feet away as tears topple down his cheeks. She covers her face with her veil and weeps.

The two sit side-by-side in plastic chairs. Coli's mother looks at her feet. Her family is poor, she says, and she wanted Coli to get an education. It took her several days to reach the shelter because she didn't have $2 for the bus fare.

For more than an hour, Coli cries. Tears run down either side of his cheeks, forming two watery garlands. They meet at his chin and plop down on his collar bone, pooling above his shirt.

She stands up and wipes his chin. They leave, crossing the dusty boulevard.

Her arm reaches around his shoulder and the long sleeve of her robe falls around the little boy. It hides him from the remaining children, who silently watch Coli go home.

Soon after Coli left, his marabout traveled to Guinea-Bissau. He angrily demanded to know why Coli had run away.

Ashamed, Coli's father promised to make up for the boy's bad behavior.

An emergency text message would be sent in the event of a widespread disaster, severe weather or child abduction.

The representative said cell phone companies that voluntarily opt into the system would send text-based alert messages to subscribers in response to three types of events:

The IMF, in a World Economic Outlook released Wednesday, slashed growth projections for the United States -- the epicenter of the woes -- and the global economy as a whole.

Economic growth in the United States is expected to slow to a crawl of just 0.5 percent this year, which would mark the worst pace in 17 years, when the country last suffered through a recession, the IMF said. The United States won't fare much better next year; the IMF projected the U.S. economy will grow by a feeble 0.6 percent in 2009.

"The U.S. economy will tip into a mild recession in 2008 as the result of mutually reinforcing cycles in the housing and financial markets," the IMF said.

Many private economists and members of the U.S. public believe the country has already fallen into its first recession since 2001. For the first time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke acknowledged last week that a recession was possible.

An increasing number of analysts think the U.S. economy, which grew by 2.2 percent in 2007, started shrinking in the first three months of this year and is still contracting. Under one rough rule, if the economy contracts for six straight months it is considered to be in a recession. A panel of experts at the National Bureau of Economic Research that determines when U.S. recessions begin and end, however, uses a broader definition, taking into account income, employment and other barometers.

To limit the damage, the Federal Reserve has been slashing interest rates since last September and has taken a number of extraordinary measures to avert a financial meltdown, which would have dire consequences for the U.S. economy.

"The financial market crisis that erupted in August 2007 has developed into the largest financial shock since the Great Depression," the IMF declared.

Looking at other countries, the IMF trimmed its projection for Germany, with economic growth slowing to 1.4 percent this year and weakening to 1 percent in 2009. In Britain, growth will slow to 1.6 percent this year and next. France also will see growth decelerate to 1.4 percent this year and 1.2 percent next year.

Japan's economy will expand by 1.4 percent this year and 1.5 percent next year, which would mark a loss of momentum from last year. Canada's growth would slow to 1.3 percent this year and pick up slightly to 1.9 percent next year.

Global powerhouse China, which barreled ahead at an 11.4 percent pace last year, would see growth moderate to 9.3 percent this year and then strengthen a bit to 9.5 percent next year. India, which grew by a blistering 9.2 percent last year, is expected to grow by 7.9 percent this year and 8 percent next year. Russia, which logged growth of 8.1 percent last year, will see growth moderate to 6.8 percent this year and then 6.3 percent next year.

Problems started in the United States with risky "subprime" mortgages made to people with blemished credit and quickly spread into other areas, hitting more creditworthy borrowers. Foreclosures in the U.S. hit record highs and financial companies racked up multibillion-dollar losses as mortgage-backed investments soured with the collapse of the U.S. housing market.

The fallout gripped investors on Wall Street and in other countries, creating a panicky atmosphere that threatened to paralyze financial markets in the United States and beyond.

Against that backdrop, the IMF now expects the world economy, which grew by a hardy 4.9 percent last year, to lose considerable momentum. The fund is projecting the global economy to grow by 3.7 percent this year and 3.8 percent next year.

"The global expansion is losing speed in the face of a major financial crisis," the IMF said.

There's a risk that things could turn worse, it cautioned.

"The IMF now sees a 25 percent chance that global growth will drop to 3 percent or less in 2008 and 2009 -- equivalent to a global recession," the fund said. "The greatest risk comes from the still-unfolding events in financial markets, particularly the potential for deep losses" on complex investments linked to the U.S. subprime mortgage market, the IMF said.

The nation's biggest airline had already canceled 460 flights on Tuesday, stranding thousands of travelers. Federal inspectors found problems with wiring work done two weeks ago, although the airline says passenger safety was never jeopardized.

Airline officials said the flights would have averaged more than 100 passengers, meaning that more than 100,000 travelers could have been left scrambling to book new flights.

Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American, said the cancellations could continue beyond Wednesday as the airline works on its fleet of 300 MD-80 jets. By Wednesday morning, only 30 of the planes were back in service.

American uses the MD-80s mostly on mid-range flights, particularly from hub airports in Dallas and Chicago. Wagner said 208 of Wednesday's cancellations would occur at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and 138 at Chicago O'Hare.

At New York's LaGuardia Airport, hundreds of passengers stood in a check-in line. The airline offered free doughnuts, coffee and orange juice, but there were few takers.

Bishop Bernard Jordan, a Harlem minister, was in a first-class line trying to catch a flight to Atlanta, where he was scheduled to preach Wednesday night.

"It would have been good to know in advance," said Jordan, who said he has 4 million frequent-flier miles with American and flies to Atlanta every other week. "I would have booked with another airline."

At Dallas-Fort Worth, Mike Barnes was wearing the same clothes he had on Tuesday morning when he left San Diego for a business trip to Indianapolis. The trip was interrupted by the sudden midday announcement of cancellations, leading Barnes to call the airline "totally unprepared."

"If it was safe enough to fly from San Diego to Dallas, why isn't it safe enough to fly from Dallas to Indianapolis?" asked the 53-year-old information technology consultant.

The airline issued a fresh apology Wednesday from Gerard Arpey, the chief executive of American and its parent, AMR Corp. Arpey said American "will do whatever it takes" to help affected customers, including compensating those who stayed overnight somewhere other than their final destination.

The Fort Worth-based carrier said it would put displaced travelers on other American flights or those operated by competitors. Wagner said that because the delays were "within our control" and not weather-related, American was offering meals, lodging and ground transportation to those affected.

American operates about 2,300 daily flights, more than one-third with MD-80s.

It was American's second bout with mass cancellations in less than two weeks for failing to meet the same wiring rules set by the Federal Aviation Administration, which is cracking down on airlines after admitting its inspectors were too lax last year with Southwest Airlines Co.

Since the FAA began looking more closely at airlines' compliance with safety directives, there have been cancellations at Southwest, Delta Air Lines Inc. and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines. The agency levied a $10.2 million civil penalty against Southwest for using planes that had missed inspections for cracks in the fuselage.

This week, FAA inspectors looked at 19 of American's planes and found that 15 violated regulations on bundling of wires in the wheel well, said FAA spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere. According to American, the issue revolves around the spacing and direction of cords used to secure bundles of wires in the planes' auxiliary hydraulic systems.

The airline said flight safety was never compromised, but began yanking planes out of service around mid-afternoon Tuesday so that wiring bundles could be inspected and stowed properly in the wheel wells.

The cancellations and resulting loss of revenue could hardly come at a worse time for American, which is facing high fuel prices and a weakening economy that could hurt demand for travel.

AMR is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings in two weeks, and analysts are forecasting a loss of more than $300 million, according to a survey by Thomson Financial.

"One candidate will continue the war and keep the troops in Iraq indefinitely. One candidate only says he will end the war," she said while campaigning in Pennsylvania.

"And one candidate is ready, willing and able to end the war and to rebuild our military while honoring our soldiers and our veterans."

The senator from New York tried to make her case that Sens. Barack Obama, her Democratic rival, and John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, can't be trusted to end the war.

Her comments come one day after she told Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, that it would be "irresponsible" to continue American military involvement there.

Before a backdrop reading "Solutions for a Strong Military," Clinton accused McCain of wanting to keep troops in Iraq "for up to 100 years," an allegation the Republican's campaign has disputed.

"Yesterday, he basically reiterated his commitment to the course we are on," she said. "Well, I don't agree with that."

In response, Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant accused Clinton of not listening to Petraeus and Crocker.

"Sen. Clinton's calls for retreat would leave Iraq to the terrorists and lead the U.S. into a wider and more difficult war in the future. It's clear Clinton is listening to her party's left-wing base and not Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker," he said.

Clinton's plan calls for withdrawing troops within 60 days of her becoming president, in consult with military advisers. In her speech Wednesday, she questioned Obama's commitment to achieving the same goal.

"Sen. Obama on the other hand says he will end the war, but his top foreign policy adviser said he won't necessarily follow the plan he has been talking about during this campaign, that his plan is just words," she said. "You can count on me to end the war safely and responsibly."

Clinton was referring to former Obama adviser Samantha Power, who told the BBC in March that it would be difficult for the next president to commit firmly to a campaign pledge to withdraw troops, when no one can predict what the situation on the ground in Iraq will be in January 2009.

Power said Obama's plan to withdraw combat troops within 16 months is a "best-case scenario." She resigned last month after a Scottish newspaper quoted her calling Clinton a "monster."

The Obama camp issued a statement saying the senator from Illinois "is the only candidate who had the judgment to oppose the war from the very beginning, not just from the beginning of a campaign for president."

"Hillary Clinton's tired and discredited attack is just the same old politics that won't end this war that she voted to authorize, and won't change the fact that she has repeatedly misled the American people about her Iraq record," said Hari Sevugan, spokesman for Obama for America.

Obama on Tuesday called the invasion of Iraq a "massive strategic blunder" that enabled al Qaeda and Iran to spread their influence into Iraq, and he said the United States should pressure Iraqi officials to settle the war by threatening to leave.

He questioned whether the conditions set by U.S. commanders for withdrawal would lead to a war that could last 20 to 30 years.

"Nobody's asking for a precipitous withdrawal. But I do think it has to be a measured, but increased, pressure and a diplomatic surge that includes Iran," Obama said.

"Because if [Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki] can tolerate normal neighbor-to-neighbor relations in Iran, then we should be talking to them as well. I do not believe we're going to be able to stabilize the situation without them."

McCain on Tuesday said that success in Iraq was "within reach."

"Our goal -- my goal -- is an Iraq that no longer needs American troops, and I believe we can achieve that goal, perhaps sooner than many imagine," he said.

"But I also believe that the promise of withdrawal of our forces regardless of the consequences would constitute a failure of political and moral leadership."