In an interview published on Saturday, Dench said an age-related condition called macular degeneration meant she had lost part of her eyesight and struggled to read film scripts or see people sitting in front of her.

The admission led to widespread media speculation about the 77-year-old actress. "In response to the numerous articles in the media concerning my eye condition — macular degeneration — I do not wish for this to be overblown," Dench said.

"This condition is something that thousands and thousands of people all over the world are having to contend with. It’s something that I have learnt to cope with and adapt to — and it will not lead to blindness."

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Ashgabad, Turkmenistan – Senior school students were taken to a court house in Turkmenistan’s capital Ashgabad [Ashgabat] for what one fellow Jehovah’s Witness described to Forum 18 News Service as a “show trial” for their latest conscientious objector. Akmurad Nurjanov was given a one-year suspended prison sentence on 13 February for refusing compulsory military service. “Taking them to the trial appears to have been designed as a warning of what will happen to the young men if they refuse military service,” the Jehovah’s Witness told Forum 18. At a ten-minute hearing the following day, Ashgabad City Court rejected in his absence the appeal of fellow Jehovah’s Witness Vladimir Nuryllayev against his four-year prison term on charges of “spreading pornography” which members of his community insist were fabricated to punish him for his religious affiliation.

Meanwhile, Forum 18 has learnt of another religious believer refused permission to leave Turkmenistan for religious studies in another former Soviet republic.

The woman who answered the phone on 15 February of the secretary of Yazdursun Gurbannazarova, Director of the government’s National Institute for Democracy and Human Rights in Ashgabad, told Forum 18 it was a wrong number. Other numbers at the Institute went unanswered.

The telephone of Gurbanberdy Nursakhatov, Deputy Chair of the government’s Gengesh (Council) for Religious Affairs in Ashgabad, also went unanswered on 15 February.

Trial

Nurjanov, who is from Ashgabad, refused military service on grounds of his religious faith. Turkmenistan has no alternative to military service, which is compulsory for all young men. His 13 February trial took place at Azatlyk District Court, an official of the court confirmed to Forum 18 on 15 February. But the official – who would not give her name – declined to give any further details on the case or why school students were brought along to attend the trial.

Like other sentenced conscientious objectors, Nurjanov was convicted under Article 219, Part 1 of the Criminal Code. This punishes refusal to serve in the armed forces in peacetime with a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment. Turkmenistan has ignored international calls for conscientious objector prisoners to be freed and a civilian alternative service to be introduced.

However, unlike most other conscientious objectors, Nurjanov was given a suspended sentence rather than a term of imprisonment. Jehovah’s Witnesses speculated that the presence of many school students might have led the authorities to choose a non-custodial sentence.

It remains unclear what restrictions Nurjanov will be required to live under as he serves his suspended sentence. Others who received suspended sentences have faced tight restrictions. They cannot leave their home town without special permission and must be back home each evening by 8 pm. They must also find work.

Another Jehovah’s Witness is still believed to be serving a suspended sentence under Article 219, Part 1: Denis Petrenko, given a two year suspended sentence in Ashgabad in April 2010. This required him to live under some restrictions at home and report regularly to the authorities.

Imprisoned conscientious objectors

The five current known imprisoned Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objectors sentenced under Article 219, Part 1 are: Ahmet Hudaybergenov, 18 months, Turkmenabad Court, September 2010; Sunet Japbarov, 18 months, Turkmenabad Court, December 2010; Matkarim Aminov, 18 months, Dashoguz Court, December 2010; Dovran Matyakubov, 18 months, Dashoguz Court, December 2010; and Mahmud Hudaybergenov, 2 years, Dashoguz Court, August 2011. All five are being held at the general regime labour camp in the desert near the town of Seydi in the eastern Lebap Region.

Also held in the same camp is another religious prisoner of conscience, Protestant Pastor Ilmurad Nurliev. He leads Light to the World Protestant Church in the town of Mary and was given a four-year prison sentence in October 2010 on charges of swindling, which members of his congregation insist were fabricated to punish him for leading his unregistered church.

Freed from Seydi

Conscientious objector Dovleyet Byashimov was freed from Seydi on 28 January at the end of his 18-month sentence, Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18. Arrested and sentenced in Turkmenabad (formerly Charjew) in August 2010, he was the victim of brutality in prison. When his parents were allowed a short meeting with their son in Turkmenabad prison in early September 2010, just weeks after his trial, they “saw that he had been beaten black and blue,” Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18.

Another Jehovah’s Witness conscientious objector, Aziz Roziev, was freed from Seydi on 4 February on the completion of his 18-month sentence.

Three other former religious prisoners of conscience – who all completed sentences at the Seydi camp in summer 2011 – revealed that solitary confinement and beatings were routine treatment within the camp.

10-minute appeal fails

Fellow Ashgabad Jehovah’s Witness Nuryllayev failed in his appeal at Ashgabad City Court on 14 February, Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18. Arrested in November 2011, several weeks after police seized his religious literature and his computer, he was accused of “spreading pornography” under Criminal Code Article 164, Part 2. He was tried on 18 January at Ashgabad’s Azatlyk District Court, found guilty and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. His family and friends were not told in advance that the trial was taking place.

At the 14 February appeal hearing, Nuryllayev’s lawyer insisted on his behalf that the charges against him of distributing pornographic films had been fabricated. The lawyer pointed out that no official witnesses had been present as required when Nuryllayev’s computer was taken and also that the statements by the two men who alleged that he had given them pornographic films had been identical, suggesting they had been dictated by the police.

However, after the ten-minute hearing, the panel of three judges rejected Nuryllayev’s appeal. The written judgment is expected to be handed down on 22 February.

Only six people attended the appeal hearing: the three judges, the prosecutor Meretdurdieva (first name unknown), Nuryllayev’s lawyer and one Jehovah’s Witness. “Many community members came to the court house, but they wouldn’t let them in,” Jehovah’s Witnesses told Forum 18. “Eventually they allowed them into the building but not into the courtroom. The presiding Judge screamed at those who had come, asking who had allowed them off work and telling them to leave. She screamed at one of them who managed to get in to leave her courtroom, but the Jehovah’s Witness insisted on staying.”

As during the initial trial, neither of the two men who alleged Nuryllayev had given them pornographic films was present at the appeal hearing.

Nuryllayev was not even brought for the appeal from the pre-trial detention centre in Yashlyk, 40 kms (25 miles) south-east of Ashgabad, where he has been held since his arrest in November 2011. Jehovah’s Witnesses said he has apparently become pale since his arrest but does not appear to have been maltreated. “They seem to be afraid of touching him,” they told Forum 18.

Is latest exit ban legal?

Meanwhile, another religious believer was denied permission to leave Turkmenistan in late 2011, Forum 18 has learnt. The Migration Service at Ashgabad airport prevented the individual from leaving for another former Soviet republic where further religious studies were planned. Officials gave no reason for preventing the individual from boarding the aeroplane for which a ticket had already been bought. “Go to the National Security Ministry [secret police] in your home district – they’ll tell you why you have been banned from leaving,” Migration Service officials told the individual.

The individual is from a non-Muslim religious community and lives away from the capital. However, friends asked Forum 18 not to identify the individual to prevent further state harassment.

Turkmenistan operates a secret exit blacklist and often prevents individuals whose activity it does not like from leaving the country. A number of active religious believers are known to be on the list.

Turkmenistan’s 2005 Migration Law declares in Article 26: “Every citizen of Turkmenistan has the right to leave Turkmenistan and enter Turkmenistan. A citizen of Turkmenistan cannot be deprived of the right to leave Turkmenistan or enter Turkmenistan.” Article 32 of the Law allows for “temporary” restriction of this right, including for those awaiting criminal trial, those under police supervision, and those in possession of state secrets. The eleventh reason for denying the right to leave is for those whose exit “contradicts Turkmenistan’s national security interests”, a category which is not defined.

Officials only rarely explain to those they have barred from leaving why the move was taken.

The Dow Jones in New York briefly topped the 13,000 mark for the first time since May 2008 before closing nearly flat, while markets in London, Frankfurt and Paris all fell slightly.

The euro was little changed from Monday's closing price.

Shares across Europe rose on Monday in anticipation of a deal being reached, with bank shares doing well.

Europe's banking industry has been bolstered by support from the European Central Bank.

In the latest bailout deal, Greece is to receive loans worth more than 130bn euros (£110bn; $170bn).

In return, it will undertake to reduce its debts to 120.5% of its GDP by 2020 and accept an "enhanced and permanent" presence of EU monitors to oversee economic management.

Greece needs the funds to avoid bankruptcy on 20 March, when maturing loans must be repaid.

"Effectively Europe's banks have been given almost half-a-trillion euros at 1%, very cheap money that has sort of ring-fenced the banks from the crisis. The thinking is that banks will not go bust if Greece fails," said Louise Cooper, market analyst at BGC Partners.

But she said few in the markets thought the latest bailout was the answer.

"This just puts off the inevitable. It's the second deal in two years. You're talking almost 20,000 euros per person [in Greece] in total bailout funds and even that amount has not solved Greece's problems. That suggests the money has not been well spent," she added.

"It [the deal] probably avoids a messy and chaotic default on 20 March, there are still a lot of steps to go through before then, but does it solve any of its problems? No."

Also on Tuesday, Bank of Cyprus, the island's largest lender, unveiled a 1bn euro loss for 2011.

The bank said the cost reflected a 60% writedown in the value of Greek bonds it holds.

Every combine has a story, just as every draft has one. Often it’s about the quarterback. Fourteen years ago, with a significantly smaller media crowd (maybe 10 or 12 reporters) on hand, Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf competed to be No. 1, and Leaf came in overweight and botched his interview with the first-picking Colts, and the rest is history. Five years ago, it was the duel (yikes!) between JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn, two guys who clearly did not like each other, for the top spot in the draft. This year, there’s about as much drama accompanying the top pick as 2007. Al Davis wanted the big arm of Russell then. I believe Jim Irsay wants the risk-averse Andrew Luck of Stanford to lead the Colts now. We shall see. But prepare this week for an onslaught of news about Luck and the quarterback sure to be taken very soon after him (likely second if St. Louis trades the pick, or third or fourth if the Rams don’t deal), Baylor’s Robert Griffin III.

I spoke to their two coaches late last week, Art Briles of Baylor and David Shaw of Stanford, just to get a flavor of the two top prospects in the draft, and what impressed me was how similar the two quarterbacks are in many ways.

Both are 22 (born exactly five months apart). Both were recruited by Stanford. (Didn’t know that, did you? Shaw, then Stanford’s offensive coordinator, went hard after Griffin, even with Luck already in house; Griffin preferred Baylor, where he knew he’d have a chance to play early and often after starring at Briles’ football camp.) Both were high school stars in Texas. (Luck at Houston Stratford, Griffin at Copperas Cove.) Both declared for the draft with a year of college eligibility left. Both starred academically; Griffin graduated with a 3.67 grade-point average in political science, and Luck was an academic All-America in architectural design and engineering. Both are athletic, though Griffin’s more of an athlete. He had a Cam Newton-type career, with 2,199 rushing yards and 32 rushing touchdowns at Baylor.

But what’s most interesting aside from the football is what both coaches stressed about their players. I asked both coaches to tell me about the life each man is about to dive into. In college, there was pressure on the shoulders of both Luck and Griffin, obviously. College football is a pressure-packed sport at the level each was playing in. But, I told Shaw and Briles, both players are about to enter a different world. There will be pressure to succeed from a city, a region and the national and local media, and to succeed right away. They will be playing for teams, in all likelihood, that were not very good in 2011. They’ll be looked at as saviors.

"How will they respond?” I asked.

Shaw, on Luck: "You saw the USC game this year. Andrew threw an interception in the fourth quarter that they returned for a touchdown to put them up, and then we had to respond. He went to everybody on the offense on the sideline. His message was the same up and down the sideline: ‘We have no choice here. We’re going to take the ball downfield and score, and we’re gonna win.’ He drove them to the tying touchdown, and we won in overtime. That’s who he is. He will not accept failure, in anything. Wherever he goes, he will have a drive to succeed. And when he gets picked, all the extraneous stuff, he’ll do what he has to do.

"But all the stuff he can’t control, I guarantee you he won’t worry about it. He’s a guy who will have faith in his coaches. I can’t tell you how smart he is. I used to tell him, ‘OK, take the stuff you don’t want out of this game plan. Kill the plays you don’t like.’ He hated that. HATED it. The way he knows football, the coach coaches, and he plays. So wherever he goes, he’s going to master what is in his control, and he’s going to forget everything else. It’s not his job.

"One other thing: I remember early on at Stanford, I told him one time, ‘Andrew, this is your huddle, take charge of the huddle.’ He looked at me and said, ‘Coach, before that can be my huddle, I have to earn it. I don’t want it handed to me.’ That is how he will approach the NFL — like whatever he gets, he’ll earn. The position is about finding completions, about moving the offense. You watch how he played, how he checked down, how he always found the open receiver. He will have no ego about throwing the ball deep or throwing it short. He’ll be throwing for completions.”

Briles, on Griffin: "The thing about Robert is he’s a football player. Some of his happiest times are not when he’s done something great himself, but when he’s done something for a teammate. You ask him about our bowl game against Washington this year, and he’ll tell you the play he loved was making a block downfield to spring our ballcarrier. That’s what his new team will realize about him. It’s not about the stats, or the fame. It’s about elevating the team any way he can.

"I believe with Robert that going to a team that isn’t very good will be inspiring to him. Because he’ll realize he has to elevate that team any way possible. If you allow people responsibility, you’ll soon find out if they have the capacity to handle it. Robert always could handle as much as you gave him. And I don’t mean to keep coming back to this but a leader on a team is one who cares for everyone else before he cares for himself. And the excitement and gratitude he has for others on his team … it’s something I saw every game he ever played. That’s going to translate to the NFL. This is a great team player.”

More about Griffin and Luck from Indy later in the week.

It’s all good now. The news always is in February. But the sense you get from the scouts and GMs who are studying both players is you won’t find many holes in either one — and certainly not on the personal side.

***

Four thoughts about the upcoming free-agent market:

1. We’ve thought all along spending would be curtailed because the cap is flat from 2011 to 2012. We thought wrong. As of the close of NFL business Thursday, 26 days before teams can sign free agents, the 32 teams in the NFL had a total of $700 million available to spend in free agency. Now, that number will be decreased by the March 13 market opening, because teams will be signing their own free agents and putting franchise tags on some other veteran players whose contracts have expired. But teams will also be cutting players, so that will create more room, and more unemployed free agents. What does it mean? A couple of things.

Some teams with monstrous cap room (Tampa Bay, with $67 million under the cap) are going to have to spend to justify to their fans that they’re trying to win. In Tampa, it won’t be good enough for GM Mark Dominik to sign quarterback Josh Freeman to a rich extension. He’s got to go out and spend big on a free agent or two — even though player development, not player purchasing, will be the hallmark of the Greg Schiano regime — to spur fans to come back and buy season tickets in a depressed NFL market.

I predict a few guys will make a fortune. Mario Williams, if he’s not franchised by the Texans, should lead the way. Five or six others should follow. But too many GMs have been burned too many times to spend crazy money in the market. I expect more teams to wait out the initial frenzy and try to do smarter deals 10 days down the road.

2. The franchise period opens today, and the Lions and Cliff Avril are on the clock. Avril doesn’t like it, but he’s not going anywhere, and I doubt he’ll get the long-term deal he wants. The Lions have $11.7 million to spare under the cap. Avril’s franchise number would be $10.6 million. Now, they don’t want Avril on the books for that much in 2012. They’d rather do a long-term contract with a much lower cap number this year, so they can address other needs. But they know they can franchise him if they have to.

3. Ray Rice might be disappointed. I’m hearing Rice wants an Adrian Peterson-type of contract; Peterson signed a seven-year deal worth up to $100 million last September, with the major provision that he’ll make $40 million in the first three years. I don’t see the Ravens doing that for Rice. I see them, if they can’t do a new deal, using the reasonable franchise tag of $7.7 million for running backs on Rice. I’m sensing the Ravens really want Rice back, but the Ravens have too many great players to sign to go nuts on him. Even though they paid Haloti Ngata $12.2 million a year on a five-year contract in September, I don’t see them going anywhere near that for Rice — and certainly not in the Peterson league. Baltimore usually finds a way to sign the players it really wants to sign, and I know it wants to keep Rice.

4. The most intriguing free-agent case out there? Matt Flynn. Two starts, 68 percent passing, 731 yards, nine touchdowns, two picks … against two playoff teams. That’s the maddening thing about Flynn. So alluring, so tempting, so dangerous. Not just for another team interested in him — Miami (with former offensive coordinator Joe Philbin the new coach), Seattle (with GM John Schneider part of the Green Bay scouting team that drafted Flynn 209th overall in 2008) or Washington. But for Green Bay GM Ted Thompson.

The Packers have $14.42 million available to spend. The franchise number for Flynn would be $14.41 million. Easy! (Kidding. Just kidding.) The Packers have to worry about tight end Jermichael Finley ($5.5 million in a franchise tag), and Thompson has to be concerned about this: What if he franchises Flynn and then can’t find a taker for him, a trade partner that would give him a second-round pick or something valuable in exchange for Flynn?

"Flynn’s the most dangerous player in free-agency,” said one rival GM. "The Packers need two teams to compete for him. If not, he’s not going to get anything close to real value for him. I think it’s too risky to franchise him. His resume’s just not that strong.” Maybe — but the way he played on the road in New England last year, and the way he riddled the Lions this year has to be extremely tempting for the Dolphins and Seahawks.

But is Flynn truly ready to lead a franchise? It’s entirely likely one of the aforementioned teams will find out.

***

Remembering a man who deserves our attention today: Anthony Shadid, foreign correspondent, The New York Times.

Shadid died Thursday at 43 of an apparent asthma attack while in the process of stealthily covering the deadly uprising in Syria. I’m writing about him not because he was a huge Packer fan, though he was. I’m writing about him because he was a heroic foreign correspondent, a two-time Pulitzer winner, the kind of man journalism schools should name buildings after. He’s the kind of reporter we in the business all aspire to be: fearless, curious, dedicated, prolific and able to go to the very roots of a story to find out the truth. Reading Shadid several times over the years, I always thought how impressive it was that he was able to get to a story by going to the regular people to find it. I’ll give you an example from a 2010 story about the casualties of war in Iraq, in the enormous city of Baghdad, when Shadid went to a morgue to find out exactly who the faceless casualties were:

BAGHDAD — In a pastel-colored room at the Baghdad morgue known simply as the Missing, where faces of the thousands of unidentified dead of this war are projected onto four screens, Hamid Jassem came on a Sunday searching for answers. In a blue plastic chair, he sat under harsh fluorescent lights and a clock that read 8:58 and 44 seconds, no longer keeping time. With deference and patience, he stared at the screen, each corpse bearing four digits and the word "majhoul," or unknown:

No. 5060 passed, with a bullet to the right temple; 5061, with a bruised and bloated face; 5062 bore a tattoo that read, "Mother, where is happiness?" The eyes of 5071 were open, as if remembering what had happened to him.

"Go back," Hamid asked the projectionist. No. 5061 returned to the screen. "That’s him," he said, nodding grimly.

His mother followed him into the room, her weathered face framed in a black veil. "Show me my son!" she cried.

Behind her, Hamid pleaded silently. He waved his hands at the projectionist, begging him to spare her. In vain, he shook his head and mouthed the word "no."

"Don’t tell me he’s dead," she shouted at the room. "It’s not him! It’s not him!"

No. 5061 returned to the screen.

She lurched forward, shaking her head in denial. Her eyes stared hard. And in seconds, her son’s 33 years of life seemed to pass before her eyes.

"Yes, yes, yes," she finally sobbed, falling back in her chair.

Reflexively, her hands slapped her face. They clawed, until her nails drew blood. "If I had only known from the first day!" she cried.

The horror of this war is its numbers, frozen in the portraits at the morgue: an infant’s eyes sealed shut and a woman’s hair combed in blood and ash. "Files tossed on the shelves," a policeman called the dead, and that very anonymity lends itself to the war’s name here — al-ahdath, or the events.

It is no wonder that colleagues and ordinary citizens were so profoundly affected when Shadid died the other day. He was one of the giants in our business, going where so many were afraid to go, telling the stories that have to be told. I only wish I’d known him.

When the Packers made the Super Bowl a year ago, this University of Wisconsin grad, born in Oklahoma City, wrote about his love of the Packers in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, hearkening back to his days in a Middle East bureau. Shadid wrote: "Budgetary constraints aside, I listened to every game in Baghdad. When I won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004, my editor at the [Washington] Post, Phil Bennett, gave me front-row tickets to a game with the Washington Redskins. Forget the Pulitzer! I’m going to the game! I could have written another book if I had somehow managed not to spend countless hours reading about the Packers online.”

Now there’s a man even a Bears fan could love.

***

The NFL comes together for Tommie Harris.

Good to see such an outpouring of fellowship for former Bears defensive tackle Tommie Harris after the death of his wife, Ashley, to either a stroke or brain aneurysm on Feb. 12. She was 29. A cadre of Bears, including coach Lovie Smith, attended Friday’s funeral in New Orleans, along with players from other teams. I was blown away to see that Larry Fitzgerald, who has never been a teammate of Harris and never even been in the same division to develop any sort of rivalry, flew from South America (where he was vacationing) to go to the service.

I went on a USO trip with Harris to Afghanistan in 2008, so I know why so many people are drawn to him. In a tough, football-player sort of way, he’s a magnetic figure who has no patience for fools. As tough as it must be for him right now to imagine life raising two children without their mother and without his wife, it has to be fulfilling for him to know so many people he’s played with and against wanted to be there for him when Ashley Harris died.