News

[Scheherazade]

SA damages after toilet collapse

A South African woman has won damages of R80,000 ($13,000, £7,000) after a toilet collapsed beneath her.
The Pretoria High Court ordered the minister of defence to pay damages for the incident, which took place in a military hospital in 1999.

Susanna Jacoba de Beer was visiting her husband, a retired soldier, in hospital when she needed to use the toilet.

She told the court she still suffered pain as the result of injuries sustained in the incident.

Mrs de Beer had been directed to the gents' toilet, as the ladies' was out of order.

In her submission to the court, Mrs de Beer said that seconds after she sat down, the toilet bowl shattered beneath her, and the cistern also fell down.

Scarred

Mrs de Beer landed on broken pieces of the toilet bowl, and her right knee was twisted and trapped under rubble.

She still bears scars from the accident.

Taxpayers' money will have to meet the R80,000 damages, plus legal costs.

Mrs de Beer's initial damages claim had been for R587,000 (nearly $100,000).


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4558055.stm



Vanishing lake baffles Russians

Residents of a village in central Russia are trying to solve the mystery of a lake that disappeared overnight. Russia's NTV channel showed a huge, muddy basin where the lake once was, in the village of Bolotnikovo.

"It looks like somebody has pulled the plug out of a gigantic bath," said the TV's correspondent, next to a deep debris-filled hole.

Local officials in Nizhny Novgorod region say the lake was probably sucked into an underground cave.

The name of the village - which lies about 250 km (155 miles) east of Moscow - roughly translates as "boggy".

No water

The discovery was made by local fishermen when they arrived at the lake early in the morning.


"I looked and there was no water. I thought: Oh my God, what's going on?" one of them told the TV.

Rescuers were called out to search the uncovered lake bed to see if anybody could have been sucked under, but it is thought no-one was on the lake when the waters vanished.

"It's very dangerous. If somebody is caught by such a calamity, the chances of survival are practically nil," fireman Dmitry Zaitsev said, pointing out that lakeside trees appeared to have been dragged down with the water.

The lake's disappearance may have been caused by subsidence allowing the water to drain into a cave system or underground river, local official Dmitry Klyuev said.

According to Mr Klyuev, several houses were swallowed up in similar circumstances 70 years ago.

'Dark mystery'

But more supernatural explanations were circulating among the villagers, including the influence of dark forces.

Village youngsters said the lake had appeared during the reign of the feared Tsar Ivan the Terrible and had been "shrouded in dark mystery" ever since.

"We used to go swimming there, but we were rather afraid of its depth, and there were various rumours. For instance people said there used to be a church there underwater," one girl told the TV.

But one elderly villager sitting outside her house had another kind of force in mind.

"I thought the Americans had got here," she said, laughing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4566355.stm



'Ghost-eye' film angers doctors

Eye doctors in India have asked a court to ban a movie in which the heroine sees ghosts after a cornea transplant. They say the film will scare off eye donors and patients.

The All India Ophthalmological Society (AIOS) told Delhi's High Court that the film Naina (Eyes) reinforced myths about cornea transplants.

The AIOS said that the movie was "detrimental to the cause of eye donations" and that there were no dangers in such operations.

Reincarnation

"This movie could create a fear psychosis among cornea recipients and their relatives as well as among potential eye donors," ophthalmologist Navin Sakhuja told the Reuters news agency.

The AIOS said that perspective donors could be wrongly influenced by the film, fearing their eyes would "live on after they are dead".

Doctors say that some Hindu people fear they will be reborn blind if they give up their eyes because their behaviour in this life affects them in the next.

The AIOS argues that the film's depiction of a cornea operation going wrong is inaccurate and misleading.

It says that the movie undermines extensive campaigning by the Bollywood actresses Aishwarya Rai and Sharmila Tagore which encourages people to make eye donations.

'Misconceptions'

Ms Tagore is herself a censor board chairperson, the AIOS says, and should have "thought" before giving a certificate of general screening to the film .

"We have a huge backlog of people, particularly children, waiting to get new corneas. This movie adds to misconceptions and could hurt efforts to get them those corneas," Mr Sakhuja told Reuters.

But Naina's director, Shripal Morakhia, said the heroine's visions after the transplant following 20 years of blindness are caused by what the donor had seen and experienced in life.

"If such objections are taken into account, no horror film will ever be made," the Times of India quoted him as saying.

The court is due to hear the case on Wednesday, even though the film was released across India on Friday.

Correspondents say that India needs 40,000-50,000 corneas a year but only 15,000 are donated.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4566753.stm

[mono]

Voice of Fred Flintstone Dies at 85

Henry Corden, the voice of cartoon caveman Fred Flintstone's "Yabba-dabba-doo!" for more than two decades, has died. He was 85.

Corden died of emphysema Thursday night at AMI Encino Hospital, his longtime agent Don Pitts said Friday. Corden's wife of nine years, Angelina, was with him at the time.

He took over as the lovable loudmouth Fred Flintstone when original voice Alan Reed died in 1977. Reed had been doing Flintstone since the character debuted in 1960.

Born in Montreal, Corden moved to New York as a child and arrived in Hollywood in the 1940s. His first acting role was in the 1947 film "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." Known for playing villains, he found small parts in movies, including 1952's "The Black Castle" and "The Ten Commandments" in 1956.

"As Henry said, he always played the cold-blooded creeps," Pitts said.

Corden moved into voice acting in the 1960s, and deployed his dialect skills in bit parts for Hanna-Barbera, including "Jonny Quest," "Josey and the Pussycats" and "The New Tom & Jerry Show."

Since "The Flintstones" echoed "The Honeymooners," Corden tweaked his role to approximate Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden character, Pitts said.

Corden, who lived in Encino, had been working until his health suffered about three months ago. He can most recently be heard on ubiquitous cereal commercials yelling "Barney, my Pebbles!"

Besides his wife, Corden is survived by five children and five grandchildren. A private memorial "party" is planned, Pitts said.

(http://tv.yahoo.com/news/ap/20050520/111663024000.html)

[Scheherazade]

'Japan soldiers' found in jungle

Japanese officials are investigating claims that two men living in jungle in the Philippines are Japanese soldiers left behind after World War II. The pair, in their 80s, were reportedly found on southern Mindanao island.

The men were expected to travel to meet Japanese officials on Friday, but have yet to make contact.

The claim drew comparisons with the 1974 case of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, who was found in the Philippines jungle unaware the war had ended.

'Incredible if true'

The two men on Mindanao contacted a Japanese national who was collecting the remains of war dead on Mindanao, according to government sources.

They had equipment which suggested they were former soldiers.

"It is an incredible story if it is true," Japan's consul general in Manila, Akio Egawa, told the AFP news agency.

"They were found, I believe, in the mountains near General Santos on Mindanao Island.

"At this stage we are not saying either way whether or not these two men are in fact former soldiers. We may be in a better position later today," he said.

According to Japanese media reports, the pair had been living with Muslim rebel groups and at least one of them has married a local woman and had a family.

The BBC's Tokyo correspondent says the likelihood is that they are well aware the war is over but have chosen to stay in the Philippines for their own reasons.

Remote jungle

Mindanao has seen more than two decades of Muslim rebellion and many areas are out of central government control.

Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and set up a brutal puppet government.

In the closing months of the war, there was heavy fighting with US troops in the mountainous, heavily forested islands.

The Sankei Shimbun daily said the men would most likely be members of the Panther division, 80% of whom were killed or went missing during the final months of the war.

It speculated there could be as many as 40 Japanese soldiers living in similar conditions in the Philippines.

When Lt Onoda was found on the Philippines island of Lubang in 1974, he initially refused to surrender.

Only when his former commanding officer was flown over from Japan did he agree to leave the jungle.

He later emigrated to Brazil.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4585287.stm


Toddler acquitted of 'adultery'

A court in the northern Bangladeshi city of Bogra has acquitted a two-year-old child accused of adultery and theft, officials say. The infant appeared in court on his mother's lap to seek bail.

Saiful Islam was accused along with six others in the case. The Magistrate expressed "surprise" at the charges, and immediately released him.

They also ordered the complainant in the case to explain why he was filing such charges against a toddler.

Infant 'complicit'

Magistrate Naveed Shafiullah also told local politician Yunus Ali - who launched a preliminary investigation into the case - to explain how the incident happened.

A report in the Daily Star newspaper said that the charges against the child and seven others were filed by Jahangir Alam on 9 February.

He alleged that Saiful Islam, other family members and his neighbours were all complicit in stealing gold ornaments and clothes worth between 3,000 Bangladeshi Taka ($47 ) and 13,000 Bangladeshi Taka ($204) from his house.

Mr Alam also alleged that the named parties lured away his wife, Mabia Khatun, to marry another man even though she was not properly divorced.

Mabia Khatun is Saiful Islam's sister-in-law.

The case is not the first in Bangladesh to involve infant children facing serious charges.

In March, Bangladesh's High Court stepped in to halt the trial of four infants - all members of an extended family - who were accused of looting and causing criminal damage.

Four police officers were suspended for negligence in the case and an inquiry was ordered.

The infants, aged between three months to two years, appeared in court in their parents' arms, and were bailed.

Correspondents say that case highlighted the widespread practice of harassing people by filing false complaints.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4582311.stm

[mono]

Ga. Residents Relieved Crane Standoff Over

ATLANTA - A 56-hour standoff with a homicide suspect clinging high atop a construction crane ended early Saturday when the man thirstily reached for a drink of water offered by police and was subdued with a quick shot from a stun gun.

Carl Edward Roland was lowered safely to the ground and taken to a hospital, allowing a return to normalcy for the businesses and residents whose lives and livelihoods were disrupted by the spectacle over their neighborhood north of downtown Atlanta.

At Nava, an upscale Southwestern eatery, beverage manager Stephen Pouleris was among those glad to be rid of the drama.

"Now it's back to the other circus show in Buckhead," he said of the area where thousands of locals and tourists flock to rows of nightclubs and restaurants.

Roland, 41, climbed the 18-story-high crane Wednesday evening and told police he was thinking of killing himself by jumping, authorities said.

Roland was wanted in Pinellas County, Fla., in the death of ex-girlfriend Jennifer L. Gonzalez, 36, whose body was found Tuesday. An arrest warrant affidavit accuses Roland of strangling Gonzalez and dumping her body in a pond behind the apartment complex where she lived.

The confrontation brought Buckhead to a standstill for more than two days, shutting down Peachtree Road, the main drag through the district, disrupting traffic and providing free entertainment.

Lunch and dinner crowds packed restaurant patios that offered clear views of the crane.

Some complained that the spectacle hurt business, but Pouleris said the scene itself was never what threatened business at the busy restaurant.

"The media saying, 'Stay away from Buckhead' was more detrimental," Pouleris said.

Officials at Grady Memorial Hospital said Roland was in good condition Saturday, but doctors were monitoring him. Police expected to charge him with crimes in Atlanta in addition to the Florida charges.

Pinellas County authorities were in Atlanta when Roland was arrested, and Assistant Police Chief Alan Dreher said he expected them to begin the extradition process soon.

During the early negotiations while police tried to talk him down from his perch, Roland had refused offers of food and water but accepted a jacket that he used for protection from the chill at night and the sun during the day.

A Thursday attempt by his younger sister, Tiwana Allen, to talk him down also was futile. She was not allowed to go up on the crane, so she borrowed a mirror and tried to get his attention by flashing sunlight at him and shouting "Sugarfoot, it's your baby sister!"

Early Saturday, Sgt. John Quigley said, police again offered water and Roland got close enough to them that a SWAT team officer was able to stun him with a Taser.

"Apparently, he was thirsty," Quigley said.

Dreher said later in a news conference that officers felt Ronald was in a position where they could use the electrical stun gun without harming him.

Dreher said Roland showed mixed emotions during negotiations, but he chose not to speak to any of his family members after his arrest.

"At times he was calm. At times he was cordial. At times he was irate. At times he was argumentative. It just depended on the situation," he said.

Since March, the Clearwater, Fla., man had quit his job as a software salesman, filed for bankruptcy and talked about moving to Las Vegas, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reported Friday. He had also talked about getting back together with Gonzalez.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/fugitive_crane;_ylt=AnzN02_RRMKNmuAAyTJTC7kDW7oF;_ ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

[Basil]

The confrontation brought Buckhead to a standstill for more than two days, shutting down Peachtree Road, the main drag through the district, disrupting traffic and providing free entertainment.
Pfffft, Buckhead is ALWAYS at a standstill!

[Scheherazade]

Swazi king marries eleventh wife

King Mswati III, ruler of the tiny southern African kingdom of Swaziland, has married his eleventh wife. Noliqwa Ntentesa, 21, was selected by the king three years ago at an annual ceremonial dance.

She is pregnant with his 25th child. Two more young women have already been lined up to marry the king.

Africa's last absolute monarch has been criticised for having so many wives in a country with one of the world's highest rates of HIV infection.

Lavish lifestyle

He owns a fleet of luxury cars, including a $500,000 (£260,000) Maybach, and has spent millions of dollars refurbishing palaces for his wives.

The 37-year-old's lavish lifestyle is at odds with the living conditions of his people, most of whom live in poverty.

The unemployment rate stands at 40% while nearly 70% of the country's one million inhabitants live on less than $1 a day and nearly 40% of adults are HIV positive.

Noliqwa Ntentesa, who was forced to give up high school when she was picked three years ago, was smeared in traditional red ochre and married in a secret wedding service held last week at a royal palace.

King Mswati's late father, King Sobhuza II, who led the country to independence in 1968, had more than 70 wives when he died in 1982.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4592961.stm


US chicken ducks jaywalking fine

A chicken fined $54 for illegally crossing a road in California has had the charge thrown out by a court. The fine was dismissed after a lawyer for the bird's owners argued that the fowl was domesticated and could not be classified as livestock.

California law bans livestock from highways, but not domestic animals.

Linc and Helena Moore had been fined on 26 March after their chicken wandered onto a road in the small rural mining town of Johannesburg in Kern county.

They were warned by their lawyer that if the bird continued to cross the road unattended they could face a minor misdemeanour infraction, the Daily Independent newspaper reported.

Allegations

The Moores say they were fined because of their repeated complaints that local authorities had not done enough to curb off-road drivers.

"For the last two-and-a-half years, no-one has been able to stop the kids riding their bikes in the middle of the road or the neighbours' dogs running around our neighbourhood," Linc Moore was quoted as saying.

"But when our chicken escaped and crossed the road once it became a huge issue."

Officials from the sheriff's department rejected the allegations.

The couple are now seeking legal assistance to file harassment charges against Kern County's Sheriff Department.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4591869.stm

[Scheherazade]

Bottle message saves lost vessel

Costa Rican officials say 86 shipwrecked migrants have been rescued after fishermen found a message in a bottle they had thrown overboard. The migrants, mainly teenagers from Ecuador and Peru, had been adrift in their packed boat for three days.

The vessel had been floating near Cocos Island, a deserted nature reserve 600km (372 miles) off the Costa Rican coast.

It is believed that the group were abandoned by people smugglers when the vessel got into trouble.

Deserted isle

The smugglers stripped the boat of radio and communication equipment when they left it.

"Incredibly [...] these people, who are quite young, wrote a message saying: 'Please Help Us' and put it in a bottle," said Francisco Estrada of marine protection group MarViva.

The bottle, and the SOS message it contained, was found by local fishermen who alerted the park wardens, the only inhabitants of the island, a world heritage site.

The wardens then told MarViva who were able to rescue the group, which included women and children.

The group was hoping to reach Guatemala, from where they wanted to cross the border to Mexico, according to a spokesperson for Costa Rica's public security ministry.

The migrants are now on the island and awaiting the arrival of a ship with food and medical supplies.

Many of them are suffering from dehydration and sea-sickness.

A doctor and an immigration official are also being sent to the island.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4594591.stm

[Scheherazade]

'Inbreeding threat' to bumblebees (Surprise, surprise! ;))

Bumblebees could be facing extinction as inbreeding in colonies turns hard-working female bees into useless males, scientists have found. The bee populations are now mainly confined to nature reserves - isolated by intensively farmed land with no other bees around.

This forces them to mate with relatives, the study found.

Male bees are "basically lazy", said study leader Dr David Goulson of the University of Southampton.

A bumblebee queen usually produces a large number of worker daughters to help in the nest and with gathering nectar and pollen.

But if the queen mates with a relative, many of the genetically female offspring develop into sterile males.

"Since male bumblebees do no work, and have only one purpose - mating - a sterile male is worse than useless," said Dr Goulson.

"If the queen is producing sterile sons instead of worker daughters, the nest is probably doomed.

"This means that, even on well-protected nature reserves, the last populations of these rare insects may be driven to extinction."

Researchers studied a number of species, including the Moss Carder Bee (Bombus muscorum), at various sites across the UK, from the Hebrides in Scotland to Dungeness on the Kent coast.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4605357.stm


Wedding on top of Mount Everest

A Nepalese couple have exchanged wedding vows on top of Mount Everest, the first people ever to marry there. They briefly took off their oxygen masks and put on plastic garlands, while the groom symbolically applied red powder on the bride's forehead.

Moni Mule Pati and Pem Dorjee Sherpa were part of the Rotary Centennial Everest Expedition earlier this week.

They had kept the plan secret as there was no guarantee they would reach the top of the world's highest peak.

Arriving back in Kathmandu, the bride said it would not have been possible to meet all the religious requirements, so they did what they could with what was available.

"We were there only for 10 minutes, just enough for us to get married and our friends to take pictures of us," Ms Mulepati said.

They plan to hold a more formal ceremony soon.

Interracial marriage

Mr Dorjee said other couples had wanted to do the same in the past, but none had managed because they could not get up on top of the peak together.

Fearing the same possibility, they had kept their own plan secret.

The surprised families have welcomed the marriage, which is also unusual because it cuts across Nepal's deep-rooted caste and ethnic divisions.

"With our interracial marriage, we also wanted to give the message that caste and race has no barriers when it comes to marriage," Pem Dorjee, is quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

One Nepalese paper joked that this was a marriage which, if not made in heaven, was solemnised closest to it.

Record

It has been a busy week of mountaineering at Mount Everest at the start of the popular spring climbing season.

On Monday, 45 climbers scaled the 8,850-metre (29,035-feet) peak - including Pem Dorjee and Moni Mulepati.

Nepalese Appa Sherpa broke his own world record by climbing it for the 15th time while two Iranian climbers became the first Muslim women on top of the peak.

A helicopter also crashed at the Everest base camp but there were no major injuries.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4605711.stm

[Scheherazade]

By Trevor Timpson
BBC News


Their names have passed into common vocabulary but their lives are little-known. As Down's Awareness Week gets under way, we look at the lives behind the names of some of the world's most well known diseases.

Some of the most famous people in the world are virtually unknown to millions of people who mention them every day.

Little more is widely known about these people than the names, which have been given to some of the most serious diseases afflicting humanity.

But their lives were often remarkable, both in and out of the medical sphere.

JOHN LANGDON-DOWN

The man after whom Down's Syndrome is named did not want to be called Down at all.

Born in 1828, John Langdon Haydon Down wanted to change his name officially to Langdon-Down and settled eventually for John Langdon Haydon Langdon-Down.

His own grandson, born in 1905 nine years after his death, had Down's Syndrome.

Dr Langdon-Down pioneered education and training of the mentally handicapped in his own Normansfield Hospital in Teddington, Middlesex, from 1868.

He and his wife Mary, known as "Little Mother", ran a community surrounded by a farm and wooded grounds, where the patients learned trades, and imprisonment and teasing were forbidden.

The crowning glory was the theatre, opened in 1879, with the finest workmanship in scenery and lighting.

From the 1860s, Dr Langdon-Down published works classifying conditions by their mental and physical characteristics.

In line with popular theories of the time, he classed these types in racial terms, most of them long forgotten - but the term "Mongolism" was common until it was officially replaced by "Down's Syndrome" in the 1960s.

Conversion of the disused Normansfield Hospital to a hotel is planned. The magnificent theatre remains, though much restoration work has been necessary on its sumptuous scenery.

ALOIS ALZHEIMER

The story of the identification of Alzheimer's Disease has been made into a play in Germany, exploring "a fear none of us escapes - of losing our memory and suffering an undignified death."

Alois Alzheimer was born in 1864. In 1901, at the Frankfurt psychiatric institute, he examined a 51-year-old woman, Auguste Deter.

Alzheimer's notes on his conversations with Auguste reveal many sad losses of comprehension: "What is your name? Auguste. Last name? Auguste. What is your husband's name? Auguste, I think... She became agitated, screamed, was non-cooperative."

The papers in the case were rediscovered in 1995 by psychiatrist Konrad Maurer, and the conversations made into a play, The Case of Auguste D, by Dr Maurer and his wife Ulrike.

After Auguste's death Alzheimer discovered protein deposits and decayed nerve cells in her brain. He described the case in a lecture in 1906; the term Alzheimer's Disease was first used in 1910. Alzheimer died in 1915. His birthplace at Marktbreit in south-west Germany has been renovated and opened as a museum by the Eli Lilly Deutschland company.

JAMES PARKINSON

James Parkinson (1755-1824) was a physician who lived all his life in London's Shoreditch and was a keen geologist and fossil hunter.

In the turbulent years following the French revolution, he wrote radical pamphlets under the pseudonym "Old Hubert" and was questioned about an alleged plot to kill the King with a poisoned dart.

His Essay on the Shaking Palsy - defined as "involuntary tremulous motion, with lessened muscular power, in parts not in action" - was published in 1817 and is still hailed as a masterpiece of medical description. Of the six case studies set out, two were "casually met with in the street" and a third was only "seen at a distance".

Parkinson did not know what caused "his" disease. Scientists now say the disease is caused by a deficiency of the brain chemical dopamine.

He wrote a wacky children's book called Dangerous Sports - apparently a worthy volume of safety advice, but actually an uproarious satire in which a boy is hoisted up to the roof by a rope tied to a roasting spit, and the hero turns out to have been maimed by a tiger.

THOMAS HODGKIN

Hodgkin has gained immortality as a medical researcher - but his work came to a sudden halt in 1837. Aged 39, he failed to gain appointment as assistant physician of Guy's Hospital in London and quit all his posts at the hospital.

A lifelong campaigner for aboriginal peoples, he had protested at the effects of the fur trade on the natives of northern Canada - and angered Guy's autocratic treasurer, Benjamin Harrison, who was deputy governor of the Hudson's Bay company.

Hodgkin's Disease is one form of lymphoma - cancer of the network of vessels that drain and filter the body's fluids, which is known as the lymphatic system.

He described the disease as "some morbid appearances of the absorbent glands and spleen" in 1832. Thirty years later his successor as anatomy teacher at Guy's, Sir Samuel Wilks, insisted that the malady should bear Hodgkin's name.

There are 29 other diseases grouped under the heading of Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, which together are much more common.

But Hodgkin did not know that there was a special kind of cancerous cells (Reed-Sternberg cells) by which researchers decades later would define "his" lymphoma and distinguish it from the others.

He was once sacked by a wealthy patient for charging him too little and he also gave a celebrated lecture on the barks of different dogs - with impressions.

He died in Jaffa (now Yafo near Tel Aviv) in 1866 while on a visit with his friend Sir Moses Montefiore, and is buried there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4593311.stm

[Scheherazade]

Two worried young children phoned police for help when they found handcuffs in their parents' bedroom, put them on - and could not escape. It was one of the top 10 strange calls received by Dyfed-Powys Police during the past six months.

There was also the woman who found a tarantula in a bunch of bananas... which turned out to be a leaf.

The force has set up a new number, 0845 330 2000, for non-emergency calls to ease pressure on 999 operators.

The new number replaces the 43 different police station numbers which were available.

Ch Insp Iain Sewell said: "Our aim is to make it easy for people to contact us. But some calls never cease to amaze our trained telephone operators.

"We wish to be helpful but while requests for directions, bin bags or weather reports may sound amusing, there is a serious implication when it stops our staff dealing with matters of real concern, real emergencies where a life could be in danger.

"I hope people will store the new telephone number and use it for non-emergency calls in the future; calls which report an incident or crime that has already taken place and is no longer urgent; calls about cases or for information that are police matters," he added.

The new number is being introduced after it emerged that just one in five 999 calls to the police was for a genuine emergency.

"People perceive the police as a service to the community - a one-stop shop for advice on all kinds of things," said Ch Insp Sewell.

"Many like the fact that they can speak to real people and not the automated service which many companies provide.

"Although we are here to help and treat all calls the same, it is important that people do not abuse the telephone line and use it only for the correct purposes," he said.

Top 10 strange calls

1. Two young embarrassed children: "Can you send the police up here? Mum and dad went out and we found some handcuffs in their bedroom and put them on and now we're stuck together and don't have a key. Come quick, they'll be home soon."

2. A woman rang up screaming that she had been to her local supermarket and bought bananas. When she got them home, a tarantula crawled out. It turned out to be a leaf from the garden.

3. "My husband's late home from work. Where is he?" (Police said: "A call like this could be important ... but this was just a personal moan").

4. "What's the weather like in Carmarthen? There's snow in Brecon."

5. A school rang up to say there was a pigeon in the building and wanted police to get it out.

6. A man rang to say that he had received an electricity bill but had already paid it. It turned out he had changed supplier so had two bills.

7. "Get the police now, there's a peacock on my lawn."

8. Man: "My next door neighbour is in my garden". Police: "Have you asked him what he's doing?", Man: "No. Get the police straight away." (It turned out he was gardening).

9. "I've lost my snake in the house."

10. A teenager rang to say he missed the bus home from school and wanted a lift from the police as his dad could not pick him up.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4071066.stm

[mono]

Actress Anne Bancroft Dies At Age 73 :(

NEW YORK - Friends recalled Anne Bancroft as anything but ordinary Tuesday, a day after the actress died at age 73. She died of uterine cancer, according to John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, producer Mel Brooks.

In a long list of memorable film and stage roles, Bancroft was best known for her role as Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate." It was a part she almost didn't take.

She said in 2003 that nearly everyone discouraged her from playing the role of Dustin Hoffman's middle-aged seductress "because it was all about sex with a younger man." Yet Bancroft saw something deeper, viewing the character as having unfulfilled dreams and having been relegated to a conventional life with a conventional husband.

"Film critics said I gave a voice to the fear we all have: that we'll reach a certain point in our lives, look around and realize that all the things we said we'd do and become will never come to be — and that we're ordinary."

Friends recalled Bancroft as anything but ordinary Tuesday, a day after the actress died at age 73. She died of uterine cancer, according to John Barlow, a spokesman for her husband, producer Mel Brooks.

"Her combination of brains, humor, frankness and sense were unlike any other artist," Mike Nichols, who directed her in "The Graduate," said in a statement. "Her beauty was constantly shifting with her roles, and because she was a consummate actress she changed radically for every part."

The lights on Broadway will be dimmed Wednesday in Bancroft's honor.

Bancroft was among the most lauded actresses of the 1960s and 1970s, earning five Academy Award nominations and one Oscar, for playing the teacher of a young Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker," a role that also brought her one of two Tony Awards.

Yet "The Graduate" overshadowed her other achievements. Hoffman delivered the famous line when he realized his girlfriend's mother was coming on to him at her house: "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?"

"I am quite surprised that with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about `The Miracle Worker.' We're talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world," she said in 2003. "I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet."

Bancroft's beginnings in Hollywood were unimpressive. She was signed by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1952 and given the glamour treatment. She had been acting in television as Anne Marno (her real name: Anna Maria Louise Italiano), but it sounded too ethnic for movies. The studio gave her a choice of names; she picked Bancroft "because it sounded dignified."

After a series of B pictures, she escaped to Broadway in 1958 and won her first Tony opposite Henry Fonda in "Two for the Seesaw." The stage and movie versions of "The Miracle Worker" followed. Her other Academy nominations: "The Pumpkin Eater" (1964); "The Graduate" (1967); "The Turning Point" (1977); and "Agnes of God" (1985).

Bancroft became known for her willingness to assume a variety of portrayals. She appeared as Winston Churchill's American mother in the film "Young Winston"; as Golda Meir in "Golda" onstage; a gypsy woman in the film "Love Potion No. 9"; a centenarian for the TV version of "Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All."

In recent years, Bancroft appeared opposite Demi Moore as a feminist U.S. senator in "G.I. Jane," lent her voice to the computer-animated feature "Antz," and played for laughs in 2001's "Heartbreakers."

After an unhappy three-year marriage to builder Martin May, Bancroft married comedian-director-producer Brooks in 1964. They met when she was rehearsing a musical number, "Married I Can Always Get," for the Perry Como television show.

In a 1984 interview she said she told her psychiatrist the next day: "Let's speed this process up — I've met the right man. See, I'd never had so much pleasure being with another human being. I wanted him to enjoy me too. It was that simple."

A son, Maximilian, was born in 1972. She also is survived by her mother, two sisters, a daughter-in-law and a grandson.

Bancroft appeared in three of Brooks' comedies: "Silent Movie," a remake of "To Be or Not to Be" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It." She was the one who suggested that he make a stage musical of his movie "The Producers." She explained that when he was afraid of writing a full-blown musical, including the music, "I sent him to an analyst."

When Bancroft watched Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick rehearse "The Producers," she realized how much she had missed the theater. In 2002 she returned to Broadway for the first time since 1981, appearing in Edward Albee's "Occupant."

She was born Sept. 17, 1931, in New York City to Italian immigrant parents. She recalled scrawling "I want to be an actress" on the back fence of her apartment when she was 9. Her mother encouraged her to enroll at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts.

Live television drama was flourishing in New York in the early 1950s, and Bancroft appeared in 50 shows in two years. "It was the greatest school that one could go to," she said in 1997. "You learn to be concentrated and focused."

In mid-career Bancroft attended the Actors Studio to heighten her understanding of the acting craft. Later she studied at the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women at UCLA. In 1980 she directed a feature, "Fatso," starring Dom DeLuise. It received modest attention.

Among her notable portrayals: a potential suicide in "The Slender Thread"; Mary Magdalene in Franco Zeffirelli's miniseries "Jesus of Nazareth"; actress Madge Kindle in "The Elephant Man"; Anthony Hopkins' pen pal in "84 Charing Cross Road"; and the Miss Havisham role in a modernized "Great Expectations."

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050608/ap_on_en_mo/obit_bancroft;_ylt=Am7q9_6uLl8jG3SLPbPdyztI2ocA;_y lu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

[Basil]

Well, hopefully this will dispel those unfounded rumors of autoerotic asphyxiation:

Israeli Doctor: Clot May Have Killed Jesus
JERUSALEM - Jesus may have died from a blood clot that reached his lungs, an Israeli physician said Wednesday, challenging the popular conception that he died of asphyxiation and blood loss during his crucifixion.
[. . .]
"It is known that the common cause of death in the setting of multiple trauma, immobilization and dehydration is pulmonary embolism," wrote Brenner in Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. "This fits well with Jesus' condition and actually was in all likelihood the major cause of death of crucified victims."
A pulmonary embolism is caused when a blood clot travels to the lungs, usually from the leg, causing an acute shortness of breath and chest pains. It is frequently fatal.
[. . .]
But Bible scholars said that focusing on Jesus' physical suffering as the cause of death missed the point.
"What they are doing is the autopsy of the physical body, which is always interesting from an academic standpoint," said Stephen Pfann, a Bible scholar in Jerusalem. "But if people concentrate on that part of the event alone they are missing the most important part, which is the spiritual suffering."
"The major trauma for the son of God is the spiritual trauma, the loneliness feeling the rejection of God and the shame of the world that came upon him at that point," he said.

[Scheherazade]

At a time when most children prepare to go to school, Saurabh Nagvanshi is off to the office. Saurabh works at a police station in Raipur, the capital of India's central state of Chhattisgarh. He is five years old.

He is part of an Indian system that allows a family member to take the post of a government employee who dies while in service.

There is no age limit and many families have no alternative but to send young children to work to make ends meet.

Saurabh has to feed a family of five and so his mother, Ishwari Devi Nagvanshi, holds his hand and takes him the 110km (68 miles) from Bilaspur, where they live, to Raipur.


Signing for the cheque

In this surrogate police job, a child must work one day and go to school the next. At work, the children are asked to do filing and bring tea and water for senior officials. The children are paid 2,500 rupees ($57) a month.

At an age when children are learning how to write, Saurabh now knows how to sign his name when he receives his monthly salary.

He is quiet. If you try to talk to him he will either run away or hide behind his mother.

Mrs Nagvanshi says: "In order to run the house I had no option but to make my child work. It's not nice. He should be jumping around and playing at his age."

Respect

For most of the children who take on the responsibilities of their dead fathers, there is no time to play.

Manish Khoonte, who is 10, works as a child officer in the Korba police station.

His begins at 0600 by going to school with his two younger brothers. In the afternoon, after finishing his studies, he goes to work. He gets extra tuition in the evening.

He loves football, but has no time to play.

But he does get 2,400 rupees a month and the respect of his peers - they call him "policeman".

Manish says he wants to become an inspector someday.

Jitesh Singh, 13, wants to leave his job as a child officer as soon as possible but thinks it could be many years before that happens.

Janki Prasad Rajwade, 18, feels the same way. She joined the police in 1994 after her father's death.

Since then, she has spent every day wondering when she will be able to leave.

She says she does not like filing and serving tea but has little choice.

She hopes to finish her studies and get a job with the federal Indian Police Service, not the state force.

'Illegal'

Railway Police superintendent in Raipur, Pawan Dev, says the employment of the children in the police must be seen from a social perspective.

The money is a great relief to the families, he says. In addition, the workload is light.

But Subhash Mishra, a member of the state's Human Rights Commission, says it is wrong to make children work like this.

He says, instead, the families should be given an equal amount of money to pay for the child's upbringing and education.

Subhash Mahapatra, president of a human rights organisation called Forum for Fact-finding, Documentation and Advocacy, goes further.

According to the Geneva Convention, he says, employing children as police officials and making them work at such a young age is against Indian and international laws.

"It is very similar to the definition of child soldiers as outlined by the United Nations," he says.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4073204.stm

[mono]

'Earth's Bigger Cousin' Detected
Hot and rocky extrasolar planet orbits star similar to sun

Astronomers announced today the discovery of the smallest planet so far found outside of our solar system. About seven-and-a-half times as massive as Earth, and about twice as wide, this new extrasolar planet may be the first rocky world ever found orbiting a star similar to our own.

"This is the smallest extrasolar planet yet detected and the first of a new class of rocky terrestrial planets," said team member Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "It's like Earth's bigger cousin."

Currently around 150 extrasolar planets are known, and the number continues to grow. But most of these far-off worlds are large gas giants like Jupiter. Only recently have astronomers started detecting smaller massed objects.

"We keep pushing the limits of what we can detect, and we're getting closer and closer to finding Earths," said team member Steven Vogt from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The discovery of Earth’s distant cousin was announced today at a press conference at the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Va.

The new planet orbits Gliese 876, an M dwarf star 15 light years away in the constellation Aquarius. The “super-Earth” is not alone: there are two other planets — both Jupiter-sized — in the same system. This third world was detected by a tiny extra wobble that it caused in the central star.

From this wobble, the researchers measured a minimum mass for the new planet of 5.9 Earth masses. The planet makes a full orbit in a speedy 1.94 days, implying a distance to the central star of 2 million miles — or about 2 percent of the distance between the Earth and the sun.

Orbiting so close to its star, scientists speculate that the planet’s temperature is a toasty 400 to 750 degrees Fahrenheit (200 to 400 degrees Celsius). This is likely too hot for the planet to retain much gas, like Jupiter does. Therefore, the planet must be mostly solid.

"The planet's mass could easily hold onto an atmosphere," said Gregory Laughlin from UC Santa Cruz. "It would still be considered a rocky planet, probably with an iron core and a silicon mantle. It could even have a dense steamy water layer.”

(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8206263/)

[Scheherazade]

Lawyer invents lobster stun-gun

Lobsters could soon be "crusta-stunned" to death, if an invention by a British barrister takes off. Simon Buckhaven says his electronic stun-gun would be a humane way of killing the creatures.

He has worked for two years with scientists from the University of Bristol to make the Crusta-stun and has estimated its cost at up to £2,000.

Currently most lobsters are either drowned in fresh water or stabbed before being cooked.

Mr Buckhaven told BBC News the new device conformed with slaughter regulations applied to animals such as cows or sheep.

'Very viable'

He said: "In a fraction of a second it knocks them unconscious and then, by the sustaining of the current, it destroys the entire nervous system, which kills them."

Last year Mr Buckhaven told a parliamentary select committee that workers in the fishing industry would be able to afford the stun-gun.

"Until now there has been no electronic method of dealing with crabs, lobsters and crayfish. We have it now. We know it works," he said at the time.

"When the question of cost has been raised, the shellfish producers in Cornwall think it is very viable in terms of the equipment they have to use."

He said that the cost for restaurants would be between £1,000 and £2,000 for one machine.

On the BBC Food website, Lloyd Burgess from Masterchef has argued that freezing lobsters is a humane alternative.

In his recipe for Lobster Fricassee, he said: "Live lobsters can be humanely killed by putting them in a plastic bag in the freezer for about two hours. They slowly lose consciousness and die."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4097798.stm


US teen on 'vomit assault' charge

A US high school student who vomited on his Spanish teacher has been charged with battery against a school official. The 17-year-old from Olathe, Kansas, explained it was an accident brought on by the stress of final exams.

But prosecutors said witnesses alleged the boy intentionally threw up on teacher David Young.

Assistant district attorney Rick Guinn said they were seeking an apology from the teenager, who has since been expelled from the school.

Teacher Mr Young described the incident as "outrageous".

"I think a message is being sent by both the school district and the district attorney that this behaviour will not be tolerated," he told the Associated Press news agency.

The charge of battery against a school official was filed on Monday against the student of Olathe Northwest High School.

The teenager's father said the district had advised his son to enrol in an alternative school at the start of the new school year.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4094120.stm

[Scheherazade]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40652000/jpg/_40652024_thewriter203300_pa.jpg The sculpture is a tribute to the loneliness of writing

A table and chair the size of a house have been captivating visitors to north London's Hampstead Heath.

The 30ft (9m) sculpture, The Writer, will be on Parliament Hill for four months before returning to Italy.

The tribute to the loneliness of writing is meant to inspire visitors to the heath, which has associations with writers Keats and Coleridge.

Leslie Mare, from the Corporation of London which runs the heath, said: "People seem to love it or hate it".

Giancarlo Neri, who used to play soccer for New York Apollos in the seventies, chose the heath, one of London's most popular parks, after hearing of its artistic heritage.

The Naples-born artist used six tons of steel and 1,000lb of wood to create the giant sculpture.

He said he wants people to interact with it, using it as a picnic spot or using the legs as goal posts.

When it was on display in Rome two homeless people were said to have lived underneath it.

Ms Mare told BBC News: "People talk about it, look at it, some people have even graffiti'd on it but it's really engaged people.

"It's almost a reminder of the heath's hidden heroes, and hopefully will encourage new young budding artists and writers."

The sculpture will be officially unveiled at a party on the heath on Wednesday, during the first week of Art Fortnight London.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4117974.stm

[Scheherazade]

A 13-year-old girl has become the youngest author to be published in South Africa's main medical journal for her research on "PlayStation thumb". Safura Abdool Karim interviewed 120 of her former schoolmates for a science project about whether they suffered problems after playing computer games.

Symptoms of "PlayStation Thumb" include blisters numbness and tingling, mainly in the thumb, she wrote.

She said the condition is similar to Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).

"Although RSI is not new, in the past it occurred mainly among adults," she said.

"Today computers and computer games are creating new medical problems, such as PlayStation thumb, which are becoming common in children."

'Waste of time'

South African Medical Journal's deputy editor, Professor JP van Niekerk, said Ms Karim's work would be listed on the Index Medicus, an international registry of medico-scientific articles, "so the world can see this and cite it".

"I think it's a jolly good article. It was accepted on merit, but we also thought it was great fun," he said.

Her study found that 28 of the 60 boys and 17 of the 60 girls she spoke to played regularly.

Of these, eight boys and seven girls complained of symptoms such as redness, tingling and blisters.

Ms Karim said she had not seen the journal yet, "but I was really happy to hear it had been accepted".

She said she herself did not own a PlayStation because they were a "waste of time".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4122828.stm

[mono]

Disaster On A Stick
Snapple's attempt at popsicle world record turns into gooey fiasco

NEW YORK - An attempt to erect the world’s largest popsicle in a city square ended with a scene straight out of a disaster film — but much stickier.

The 25-foot-tall, 17½-ton treat of frozen Snapple juice melted faster than expected Tuesday, flooding Union Square in downtown Manhattan with kiwi-strawberry-flavored fluid that sent pedestrians scurrying for higher ground.

Firefighters closed off several streets and used hoses to wash away the sugary goo.

Snapple had been trying to promote a new line of frozen treats by setting a record for the world’s largest popsicle, but called off the stunt before it was pulled fully upright by a construction crane. Authorities said they were worried the thing would collapse in the 80-degree, first-day-of-summer heat.

“What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming,” Stuart Claxton of the Guinness Book of World Records told the Daily News. “It was quite a lot of fluid. On a hot day like this, you have to move fast.”

Snapple official Lauren Radcliffe said the company was unlikely to make a second attempt to break the record, set by a 21-foot ice pop in Holland in 1997.

The giant ice pop was supposed to have been able to withstand the heat for some time, and organizers weren’t sure why it didn’t. It had been made in Edison, N.J., and hauled to New York by freezer truck in the morning.

(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8321110/)

[amuse]

:lol: gross! :D

[Jay]

They should have attempted that in winter, lol

[Scheherazade]

Following from http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=95917&postcount=267:

A huge table and chair have been erected on Hampstead Heath in London. It's an artwork called The Writer, by Italian Giancarlo Neri. But what does it mean? Here are 10 interpretations - add your own at the bottom.

1. It's about writers' block. Simon Gillespie, of the ROLLO gallery which arranged the installation, states: "For me, The Writer works on many different levels but succinctly, it summarises the pressure one can feel in front of a blank page."

2. It's about absurd self-deprecation. Poet Olivia Cole says: "[T]he desk looming ridiculously large, there's as much hopelessness as hopefulness and as much absurd self-deprecation as lyricism. Writers seem less appealing than the broken story of life interrupted."

3. It's just for effect. The London News Review says: "The chair is pushed into the table. The writer is not at his desk. The act of writing is not being done at this table and chair. Where is the writer? Presumably out with friends, or in bed with two prostitutes. Either way, neither loneliness nor writing is celebrated in this work. If anything, The Writer celebrates shirking. However, it is obvious that the primary response one has to The Writer has nothing to do with writing or not writing, it is simply 'cor, that's big'."

4. It's about creation. Francesca Gavin wrote in BBC Collective that it "is sharp, funny and fits perfectly with its surroundings", and that it plays with the ides of "the epic process of inspiration and something fundamental about creation". "This epicness is highlighted by the location. At the base of a large hill, resting in an alcove of trees, the sculpture doesn't impose itself on the Heath but slots into it. The grass and trees are transformed into an invisible giant's garden."

5. It glamorises being a writer, and will make writers feel how lucky they are. Author Deborah Moggach wrote in the Guardian: "Stewing away alone, writers are prone enough to both self-pity and delusions of importance. This will only encourage them. What about a monument to the ghastlier life of a call-centre operative? Not only would it give them some much-needed recognition, but would make writers realise how lucky they are not to have to do it."

6. It's just original. Hampstead Heath local Mel Barrett, 33, says: "'It is so original it is great. So many writers have lived in Hampstead that it is fitting that it is here. I think it works well that it is so large and surprising.'

7. It's about the unknown... perhaps sex? Poet Michael Rosen says: "[People] are going to wonder about what's on top? There's a lovely not-being-able-to-see-the-top about it, and of course, people will think about all sorts of activities and what might be going on there. After all we have a mile-high club, well, we might get a 30-foot high club."

8. It's a glimpse into a private world. Columnist Natasha Walter says it "manages to look as if something has been pulled out of a private place and into the public arena. The table and chair are domestic, vernacular objects recast into public art by a playful imagination."

9. It's about size. But, according to Carl, a commenter on the Punclox weblog: "It's not big. We are just small."

10. It's about loneliness. Giancarlo Neri, the artist himself, says: "I will say that The Writer was prompted by the idea of the writer's condition: that in order to write about people and life, they actually have to set themselves apart. Of course, much thought went into the look, the colour, the style, but the idea is that it should suggest nothing in particular. It's as ordinary as possible. I think of it as a stage set waiting for actors who never come. In that sense, it's interactive."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4123406.stm

[Scheherazade]

Indians are the world's biggest bookworms, reading on average 10.7 hours a week, twice as long as Americans, according to a new survey. The NOP World Culture Score index surveyed 30,000 people in 30 countries from December 2004 to February 2005.

Analysts said self-help and aspirational reading could explain India's high figures. Time spent on reading meant fewer hours watching TV and listening to the radio - India came fourth last in both.

The NOP survey of 30,000 consumers aged over 13 saw China and the Philippines take second and third place respectively in average hours a week spent reading books, newspapers and magazines.

Britons and Americans scored about half the Indians' hours and Japanese and Koreans were even lower - at 4.1 and 3.1 hours respectively.

Social change

R Sriram, chief executive officer of Crosswords Bookstores, a chain of 26 book shops around India, says Indians are extremely entrepreneurial and reading "is a fundamental part of their being".

TOP READERS

1. India 10.7 hours a week
2. China 8
3. Philippines 7.6
7. Russia 7.1
16. Australia 6.3
23. US 5.7
26. UK 5.3
29. Japan 4.1
30. S Korea 3.1
Global average 6.5
Source: NOP World Culture Score

"They place a great deal of emphasis on reading. That's the reason why they do well in education and universities abroad," he told the BBC News website.

"People educate themselves and deal with change throughout their lives. And the way to do that is to update themselves with books."

Mr Sriram says social changes have also made a difference: "Earlier people could turn to their parents and grandparents for advice. Now they turn to books."

Indian writer and editor, Tarun Tejpal, said the survey only made sense if it excluded the high numbers of illiterate Indians.

The National Readership Survey shows more than one-third of rural Indians and about 15% of the urban population is still illiterate.

"A lot of [book reading] is aspirational, getting ahead in the rat race, getting admission into schools and colleges etc. It has less to do with reading, more to do with rote," Mr Tejpal said.

Leading columnist, Venkateshwar Rao, told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper he could not see Indians flocking to book stores.

"Reading books just isn't a habit with them because they're not into cultural pursuits. It's not a part of their make-up. All they want to do is consume."

Mr Tejpal said: "A good book in India will sell only a few thousand copies, in the UK or US it could sell tens of thousands.

"It gives you a sense of what we value - in the UK or US if you haven't read a book in the bestseller list, you would be socially dead."

India's strong reading score may have helped push it down the TV and radio list.

Indians came fourth from bottom of the 30-strong list in both, with an average of 13.3 hours watching TV and 4.1 hours listening to the radio.

Thais were the biggest TV watchers, admitting to watching an average of 22.4 hours a week, while Argentineans listened to most radio.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4626857.stm

[amuse]

in the UK or US if you haven't read a book in the bestseller list, you would be socially dead."i'm socially dead! :eek2:

[mono]

New Jack the Ripper theories put sleuths in a spin

LONDON (Reuters) - A mental patient, a butcher, the artist Walter Sickert, a serial wife poisoner and even Queen Victoria's grandson have all been touted as Jack the Ripper suspects in one of the greatest whodunits in history.

But what if Jack the Ripper was not a Londoner, not even British? What if he was a merchant seaman, who pursued his blood lust as far afield as Nicaragua and Germany?

Ripperologists -- self-appointed sleuths on the Ripper's trail who number in the thousands -- are in a spin over a new book proposing that Britain's most famous serial killer was a merchant sailor who murdered when his ship was docked.

In London's grimy East End the Ripper slew five prostitutes over 10 weeks in 1888, leaving their throats slashed from ear to ear and lacerations up and down the bodies of all but one of the victims. Some of their organs were also removed.

Trevor Marriott, a former detective and author of the controversial new book "Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation," says police on the case wrongly assumed that the killer lived and worked in London's East End and failed to see a pattern between the dates of the crimes.

"I believe the police were blinkered and didn't choose to look at the possibility the killer could be a merchant seaman," he told Reuters.

LUCRATIVE INDUSTRY

The Ripper has spawned a multi-million pound industry in books, souvenirs, a musical and films -- most recently "From Hell" starring Johnny Depp -- showing that the public's fascination with the murderer is very much alive.

The macabre Ripper tour is by far the most popular walking tour in London, pulling in around 60,000 people annually, curious to visit the murder sites and haunts of the victims.

To the annoyance of local residents, the summer brings a surge in tourists to Whitechapel district, where blood from slaughterhouses once ran down the cobbled streets and around 40,000 prostitutes plied their wares by gas light.

Here, in the teeming slum beyond the city walls, the Ripper hunted his prey and then vanished into the twisting alleyways.

Marriott believes the murderer arrived on one of a handful of ships that were docked in or near the East End around the dates of the killings. However, records of their crews were destroyed or lost, making it impossible to focus on one sailor.

What Marriott did find were reports of six prostitutes carved up, Ripper-style, in Nicaragua over 10 days in January 1889, just two months after the murder spree supposedly ended.

These were followed by a similar killing in London in February, one in the German port of Flensburg in October and another in London in July 1891.

But the Ripper had no medical knowledge, Marriott says, contrary to some assumptions. Even if the Ripper were a practised surgeon, he would have trouble carving out women's organs in a pitch black alley, he argues.

Marriott suggests the organs were removed at the mortuary for sale in the thriving illegal organ market of the time.

His theories have set blogs buzzing among Ripper enthusiasts, who are estimated by some to number 50,000. One old hand called Marriott's findings "the same old cod," while others said the sailor idea had been around since the killings.

UNCLE JACK?

A second new book, "Uncle Jack" by Tony Williams, proposes the killer was the author's ancestor, Sir John Williams -- a gynecologist to Queen Victoria's children and the founder of the National Library of Wales.

Williams had set out to explore his family history when he stumbled upon a box of Sir John's personal effects, including a knife, three medical slides and diaries with the 1888 entries ripped out.

He discovered that besides his posh Harley Street surgery, Sir John had a clinic in Whitechapel, giving him access to the prostitutes who thronged the area.

His medical notes showed he had performed an abortion on the Ripper's first victim, Mary Ann Nichols, in 1885.

Williams believes Sir John was enraged by the prostitutes he saw getting pregnant while his own wife was unable to have children and killed them either out of vengeance or to use their organs for researching a cure for infertility.

"These women were having children left, right and center and he wanted this cure," said Williams.

However, shortly after the killings stopped, Sir John had something akin to a nervous breakdown, gave up medicine and returned to Wales for good.

Again, most Ripperologists were scathing of Williams' theory. "I felt so cheated after reading this nonsense I demanded, and received, my money back," wrote Horace Kelly.

But one, Amanda C, found his arguments convincing. Betraying what may be the real reason for such vehement skepticism from the sleuth community, she asked: "What will we all do if the mystery is solved?"

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050627/od_nm/arts_ripper_dc;_ylt=Am1y6pQkb_n8oGGBw.29RowSH9EA;_ ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

[Scheherazade]

FAUJA SINGH'S STATS

Born: 1 April 1911 in India
Former occupation: Farmer
Running career: Rediscovered at age of 81
Diet: Ginger curry
Marathons: London (5), Toronto (1), New York (1)
Marathon debut: London, 2000 aged 89
London marathon pb: 6hrs 2mins

It's just six years until the Queen's telegram lands on your mat congratulating you on your 100th birthday.

You're taking it easy, right? Slippers on, trips to the coast with a blanket on your lap and a short shuffle to the newsagent's for your Werther's Originals the closest you get to exercise.

Not if you're Fauja Singh - who can regularly be spotted flying down the streets of Essex in his spikes.

At 94, he's run seven marathons (five in London), countless half-marathons and was recently part of the world's oldest marathon team in Edinburgh.

Fauja's jogging skills were developed on an Indian farm in Punjab, and then at the magical age of 81, when he moved to the UK, his love for the sport became more "serious".

Next up? He's set his sights on being a record breaker.

And Asafa Powell might have to watch his back. The Jamaican may have the new 100m record, but Fauja's after eight of them - in one day.

On Saturday, London's Mile End Park Stadium will witness the great man attempting to set world bests for men over 90 in the 100m, 200m, 300m, 800m, 1500m, 1 mile, 3,000m and 5,000m.

The action starts at 10:30BST with proceeds going to charity and the event is in support of the London 2012 Olympic bid.

So any secrets to fitness? Fauja's training regime includes a daily eight-mile walk and run, no smoking or drinking, plenty of smiling and lashings of ginger curry.

100m WORLD RECORDS BY AGE
All: 9.77secs Asafa Powell
35-39: 10.03s Linford Christie
90-94: 18.08s Kozo Haraguchi
95-99: 22.04s Kozo Haraguchi

The pounding pensioner is already a superstar. Last year Adidas signed up Fauja alongside David Beckham and Jonny Wilkinson as part of its 'Impossible is nothing' campaign.

And next on the list?

More marathons - and coach Harminder Singh is trying to set up a showdown between Fauja and Japan's Kozo Haraguchi - the new 100m world record holder for the 95-99 age group.

Expect some serious fireworks on the starting line.

So, having only run seriously for the last 13 years, when does Fauja think he'll trade in his spikes for a zimmer frame?

"When I die!" he laughs.

So at least another 50 years, then.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/4631111.stm

[Scheherazade]

Two Texas students have been charged with arson after agreeing to torch a teacher's car so she could collect insurance money. Roger Luna, 18, and Darwin Arias, 17, were failing their chemistry class but got passing marks in exchange for stealing and burning the car.

Houston teacher Tramesha Fox hatched the scheme in May after falling behind in payments on her Malibu Chevrolet.

Ms Fox, 32, has been charged with arson and insurance fraud.

Suspicious

Ms Fox, of Aldine Senior High School, reported her 2003 Chevrolet stolen on 27 May. It was found burned out 12 days later near the home of Mr Arias.

On the last day of school, the boys allegedly took the unlocked vehicle from a shopping mall car park to a wooded area and set it alight.

Mr Luna and Mr Arias had been failing Mr Fox's class until their final exam but both received high enough marks to pass the year.

Investigators became suspicious when they discovered Ms Fox had bought a new Toyota Corolla a week before the Chevrolet was reported stolen.

She reportedly still owed $20,000 on the Chevrolet.

Fire investigator Dustin Deutsch, of the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office, said Ms Fox initially blamed the damage on students.

He said she provided a list of up to seven potential suspects which did not include the names of her alleged co-conspirators.

Mr Luna and Mr Arias were identified after investigators checked Ms Fox's mobile phone call list.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4641075.stm

[Scheherazade]

A new picture by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered, the National Gallery in London has said. It said experts using infra-red techniques found a drawing under the surface of the Virgin of the Rocks painting which hangs at the gallery.

It believes the drawing shows a woman kneeling with one arm stretched out.

Experts believe the Italian Renaissance painter was planning a picture of an adoration of the child Christ but abandoned the idea.

Leonardo was commissioned to paint the Virgin of the Rocks to decorate an altarpiece in a chapel in Milan in 1483. The artist appears to have painted two versions. One, which now hangs in the Louvre, was probably sold to a private client, says BBC arts correspondent Rebecca Jones. The other, which hangs in the National Gallery, was placed in the chapel in 1508.

It is under this painting that experts believe they have found a drawing of a kneeling woman.

She is pictured with her eyes downcast and one of her hands stretched out.

Experts think Leonardo da Vinci was probably planning a picture of an adoration of the Christ child, but abandoned the idea before drawing Jesus as a baby, our correspondent says.

However, why he painted over the work may never be known, she adds.

Milan arrival

The Virgin of the Rocks was the first painting executed by Leonardo after his arrival in Milan.

Critics have argued over exactly what the painting depicts.

Some claim it shows the Immaculate Conception, while others believe it recalls the moment when the infant Christ met St John the Baptist.

Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa, considered to be among the world's most famous paintings.

His other masterpieces include the Last Supper and Adoration of the Magi.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/05/entertainment_enl_1120212265/img/1.jpg


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4639945.stm

[Scheherazade]

Human settlers made it to the Americas 30,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new evidence. A team of scientists came to this controversial conclusion by dating human footprints preserved by volcanic ash in an abandoned quarry in Mexico. They say the first Americans may have arrived by sea, rather than by foot.

The currently accepted theory is that the continent's early settlers arrived around 11,000 years ago, by crossing a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska.

Ancient lake

Dr Silvia Gonzalez of Liverpool's John Moores University and her colleagues found the footprints in the quarry, some 130km (80 miles) south-east of Mexico City, in 2003. But they have only finished dating them this year.

The footprints were preserved as trace fossils in volcanic ash along what was the shoreline of an ancient volcanic lake. They were soon covered in more ash and lake sediments and, when water levels rose, became as solid as concrete.

Dr Gonzalez was under no illusions that the finding would be controversial: "It's going to be an archaeological bomb," she told the BBC News website, "and we're up for a fight."

The team used several methods to date a variety of material from the site near Puebla, Mexico, in order to be sure they were right about the age.

"We have materials that have been dated below the footprint layer, the footprint layer itself and on top of the footprint layer. Everything is making sense," said Dr Gonzalez.

The researchers used radiocarbon dating on shells and animal bones in the sequences and dated mammoth teeth by a technique called electron spin resonance. The sediments themselves were dated by optically stimulated luminescence.

"Some lake sediments were incorporated into the ash and were baked. They look like small fragments of brick and these were the ones we dated in the footprint layer. They gave us a result of 38,000 years," Dr Gonzalez.

Land crossing

Under the traditional view, humans trekked from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge that linked these land masses at the end of the last ice age (between about 10,000 and 12,500 years ago).

Central to the theory, called the Clovis First model, are Clovis points - the tools these settlers used to hunt large beasts, or megafauna, such as mammoths and mastodons.

"The existence of 40,000-year-old human footprints in Mexico means that the Clovis First model of human occupation can no longer be accepted as the first evidence of human presence in the Americas," said co-investigator David Huddart, of Liverpool John Moores.


Dr Michael Faught, an expert in early American archaeology, was reserving judgment until evidence was published: "It would be significant if it were demonstrated, but usually those (early) sites don't hold up well," he told the BBC News website.

But, he added: "There's more and more evidence that Alaska was not the only place people came into the continent."

Dr Gonzalez is a proponent of the Coastal Migration Theory. This proposes that people arrived on the west coast in boats, hugging the coastline from North to South.

But where these settlers came from is still a mystery, she says. Some have proposed that the earliest humans to reach the continent could have come from south-east Asia or even Australia.

Genetic studies of present-day Native American populations support a recent arrival from north-east Asia, which agrees well with an entry through the Beringian land bridge at the end of the last Ice Age.

Dr Gonzalez suggests that the earliest settlers may have become extinct, leaving no genetic legacy today. She thinks these hunters may have been highly mobile, living in small groups, perhaps explaining why they left scant trace of their presence.

Dr Gonzalez and ancient DNA expert Alan Cooper, of the University of Adelaide in Australia, have managed to extract genetic material from three molars belonging to Peñon Woman III, a 13,000-year-old partial skeleton from Mexico. The analysis is still underway.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4650307.stm

[mono]

Green Tea May Protect Against Autoimmune Diseases

FRIDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- Green tea, already lauded for its cancer-fighting ability, may also protect against certain autoimmune diseases, new research suggests.

Green teas inhibit the expression of antigens made by the body, substances that can trigger an immune response, explained study author Stephen Hsu, an associate professor in the School of Dentistry at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. He is to report on the research Sunday at the Arthritis Foundation's Arthritis Research Conference in Atlanta.

He focused on EGCG, a substance found in green tea known to suppress inflammation, and its effect on skin and salivary gland cells. In one autoimmune disorder, Sjogren's syndrome, the salivary glands are affected, causing dry mouth. In another autoimmune disorder, lupus, the skin is affected.

Hsu's team isolated 130 autoantigens from cells and exposed them to EGCG. Autoantigens are molecules in the body with useful functions, according to Hsu, but changes in either their amount or their location can result in an unwanted immune response.

Of the 130 autoantigens "most were inhibited or without changes" when exposed to the EGCG, he said. "Among them, a group of key autoantigens were inhibited."

While the research is very preliminary, he said, eventually green tea might help protect cells from being attacked by the autoantigens. Besides applications for the dry mouth that affects those with Sjogren's, Hsu said green tea might prove useful for the skin found in lupus.

The Georgia researcher speculated that EGCG modulates the presence of the autoantigens, in addition to its ability to suppress inflammation.

According to Hsu, other research with green tea in animal models has shown it can reduce arthritis.

The new study is "a significant beginning," said Nihal Ahmad, an assistant professor of dermatology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who was part of a team in 1999 that showed that polyphenols (of which EGCG is one) in green tea could prevent induced arthritis in mice.

The Hsu research, he said, "appears to have great potential," though it "needs more work." However, "based on the cell culture study, we can only say that we can be hopeful."

(http://articles.health.msn.com/id/100107689)

[Scheherazade]

(Sheep are gonna be sheep, I guess!)

Turkish shepherds watched in horror as hundreds of their sheep followed each other over a cliff, say Turkish newspaper reports. First one sheep went over the cliff edge, only to be followed by the whole flock, according to the reports.

More than 400 sheep died in the 15-metre fall - their bodies cushioning the fall of 1,100 others who followed.

The sheep belonged to villagers in the eastern Van province. Papers say the sheep were worth around £42,000 in all.

"Every family had an average of 20 sheep," one villager told the Aksam daily newspaper.

"But now only a few families have sheep left. It's going to be hard for us."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4665511.stm

[Scheherazade]

If you think economics is all boring tables and pie charts - all "footsies" going up or down and other seemingly inexplicable events described in the pink bit of the newspaper that most of us discard - think again.

Steven Levitt, an economist at the University of Chicago and editor of the Journal of Political Economy, has won widespread praise and fame on both sides of the Atlantic for making economics, and specifically statistics, exciting.

There isn't a "footsie" in sight in his new book, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Instead, Levitt applies economics to everyday life.

Taking something of a surreal approach to stats, his book analyses data to answer such eclectic questions as: Why do crack dealers tend to live with their mothers? Why is a man called DeShawn likely to have different job prospects from a man called Jake?

And the most controversial question of all in the book, is there a link between rising numbers of abortions and falling crime rate? (If you're itching to know the answers, don't worry - all will be revealed in a mere moment.)

Distasteful

Freakonomics has stoked controversy, become an international bestseller and won itself a cult following to boot. It has already topped the New York Times bestsellers' list and the Canadian non-fiction book chart, and Levitt has been hailed even by the normally stuffy Wall Street Journal as the "Indiana Jones" of economics.

"What I do is actually quite simple," he tells me during his whistlestop and, by the sound of things, quite exhausting trip to London to promote Freakonomics, published here this week.

"My book simply shows that you can use data to understand a modern world that seems incredibly complex. We show that, sometimes, you can make a little headway to understanding the world and its weird phenomena if you are armed with some of the ideas of economics, as well as the data."

My book is very politically incorrect, but not purposefully or ideologically incorrect

Steven Levitt
So, to return to the three taster questions posed above. Levitt carried out an economic analysis of a drugs cartel to show that the reason crack dealers tend to live with their mothers is because it's all they can afford.

He found that a crack-dealing outfit is usually a pretty ruthless pyramid-shaped organisation, where those at the top make a lot of cold hard cash but those who dispense the wicked white stuff on street corners tend to earn less than the US minimum wage.

Levitt analysed job market data to show that those with a "black" name - that is favoured by African-America families - such as DeShawn, are likely to have worse job prospects than those with a "white" name, such as Jake.

Why? "The kind of parents who name their son Jake don't tend to live in the same neighbourhoods or share economic circumstances with the kind of parents who name their son DeShawn," he writes in Freakonomics.

"A DeShawn is more likely to have been handicapped by a low-income, low-education, single-parent background. His name is an indicator - not a cause - of his outcome."

Snapshot

Then there is Levitt's economic analysis of abortion and crime rates, which has rattled America. He claims that Bill Clinton's apocalyptic warning of a crime wave in the 90s did not come to fruition because of Roe vs Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling of 1973 that legalised abortion in the USA.

He argues that the women most likely to have taken advantage of Roe vs Wade were poor and unmarried, whose kids - if they had been born - would apparently have "led unhappy and possibly criminal lives".

Do you see where the argument is heading? In a nutshell, Freakonomics claims that legalised abortion killed off many future criminals, using data to show that 20 years after Roe vs Wade there was a dip in the crime rates. It's a distasteful claim and it has stuck in the throats of many in the USA. But Levitt stands by it.


Levitt: Data can reveal a lot
"We simply followed the data and that is where we ended up," he says. "My book is very politically incorrect, but not purposefully or ideologically incorrect. It's just that we went with the numbers, regardless of whether our conclusions might cause offence."

This is a common theme in Levitt's book, indeed he says that relying on data to make sense of seemingly peculiar things is "the only unifying theme of the book".

But can we really hope to understand the world through stats, data, percentages and tables? Can making sense of society and why people behave as they do be reduced to a number-crunching exercise?

Isn't there a danger that Levitt overlooks political and social forces and the fact that people can shape their destinies, even if it's not in circumstances of their own choosing, in favour of turning humanity into something to be studied under a microscope?

Social phenomena

"No one individual could hope to explain everything that is going on in modern life," he says. "But we can offer a snapshot of why certain things happen. The data can reveal a great deal about people and their lives."

To me, this reliance on data is both the strength and weakness of Levitt's book. It is what makes his book fascinating and quirky, providing new ways of looking at old problems. But it also means that social phenomena are only ever described - and described in narrow numerical terms - rather than analysed or potentially resolved.

Indeed, when I suggest that some of the issues highlighted in Levitt's book are as susceptible to political solutions as much as statistical analysis, and that sometimes DeShawns do get as good jobs as Jakes, he responds: "Yes, but we cannot fundamentally reorganise society - that would be politically untenable and too expensive.

"Well, maybe someone smarter than me - one of those true scholars, perhaps - could tell us how the world should be. But I'm interested in using my skills as an economist to describe the world we're in now."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4674897.stm

[JWright]

well, i was in a car crash...roll over. I read in the news another kid rolled his car but everyone in the car died. I walked away with scratches....pretty weird.

[amuse]

glad you're okay, JWright.

[mono]

Not quite news, but new research on old news (and interesting, nonetheless) --

Cell Phone Use Quadruples Car Crash Risk

TUESDAY, July 12 (HealthDay News) -- Drivers distracted by cell phone conversations quadruple their risk of a serious accident, according to new research out of Australia.

The University of Sydney study also found that hands-free mobile phones are no safer than handheld mobile phones while driving.

Researchers analyzed data on 456 drivers who owned or used mobile phones and had been in a traffic crash resulting in injuries requiring hospitalization.

As part of the study, they interviewed the drivers and used phone company records to assess their mobile phone use immediately before the crash and during trips occurring at roughly the same time of day 24 hours, three days, and seven days before the crash. This meant, in effect, that researchers could compare crash risks in the same driver at the same time of day, with the only difference being whether or not they were using their cell phone.

Reporting Tuesday in the online edition of the British Medical Journal, they found that cell phone use occurring in the 10 minutes prior to a crash was linked to a quadrupled risk of having an accident. The researchers also found similar results for the interval of up to five minutes before a crash.

This link between mobile phone use and increased crash risk held true irrespective of driver age, sex, or whether or not he or she was using a hands-free mobile phone, the researchers added in a prepared statement.

(http://articles.health.msn.com/id/100108359)

[Scheherazade]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut Tuesday joined a growing effort to weed out marijuana-flavored candy from store shelves when its attorney general said he would sponsor a statewide ban on "Pot Suckers" lollipops.

Five other states have either banned or are considering a ban on the candy, causing New Jersey distributor ICUP to suspend further sales of the green candy as of June 28.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said the candy was being sold in novelty stores in large malls throughout the state, marketed with slogans such as "Every lick is like taking a hit."

The candy, which is flavored with hemp essential oil, does not contain THC, the hallucinogenic compound in marijuana, but Blumenthal called it "a gateway product" that "glamorizes drugs for children."

The candy has been banned by the Chicago City Council and in Suffolk County, New York. The New York City Council and the states of Michigan, New Jersey and Georgia are considering legislation to ban them.

ICUP president Steve Trachtenberg said reaction to the Pot Suckers "borders on ridiculous."

"Is it a novelty? Yes. Was it meant to encourage kids to use drugs? Absolutely not," he said, noting that more than 70 percent of U.S. candy consumption is by adults.

Trachtenberg said that in addition to suspending distribution of Pot Suckers because of the backlash, his company has put on hold plans for related items, including a hemp-flavored chocolate candy Buzz Bar.

Other marijuana-flavored candy products have found their way to the market place in recent months including "Kronic Kandy," made in the Netherlands and sold in the Atlanta area, and items from the Mary Jane Candy Company including "Ganja Pops" and "Icky Sticky Nuggets."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050713/od_nm/life_candydope_dc;_ylt=AhJFI1vj3bNz9DYuSy1TEOntiBI F;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

[JWright]

In a benchmark study released today, researchers found an average of 200 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of newborns, including 7 dangerous pesticides-some banned in the United States more than 30 years ago.....pretty sick stuff or what!?!?

[JWright]

In addition to the pesticides found, chemicals from 2 widely used household products-Teflon and Scotchgard-were found in every baby tested....

[mono]

In a benchmark study released today, researchers found an average of 200 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in the umbilical cord blood of newborns, including 7 dangerous pesticides-some banned in the United States more than 30 years ago.....pretty sick stuff or what!?!? . . . In addition to the pesticides found, chemicals from 2 widely used household products-Teflon and Scotchgard-were found in every baby tested....
Wow, that sounds like some scary, twisted stuff.
By the way, you may want to cite your sources, in case of copyright. ;)

[Scheherazade]

A Canadian teenager caught driving at almost twice the speed limit told police he had overdosed on a protein drink and was looking for a toilet. Hayder Mobarak, 19, was caught driving at 195km/h (121mph) on a highway near the Canadian capital, Ottawa.

"I was taking a protein shake and if you overdose it's really painful... I wasn't thinking, I was in pain," he told the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.

A local judge fined him $760 and banned him from driving for 30 days.

An official from Ontario's provincial police told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) that having to go to the toilet was probably the second most common excuse for speeding given to police.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4688133.stm

[mono]

Woman Gives Birth to Two Sets of Twins

TRENTON, N.J. - LeAnn and Stephen Beloyan struggled for more than a decade to start a family. Then just weeks into LeAnn's pregnancy, they discovered they were having not one, but two sets of identical twins.

"We were elated and overwhelmed, and concerned about how we were going to handle all this," Stephen Beloyan, 39, said Saturday, when two of the babies were expected to go home.

Lauren, Sarah, Benjamin and Samuel each were born a minute apart on June 7 by Caesarean section at Capital Health System's Mercer Campus.

Eight weeks early but otherwise healthy, the newborns weighed from slightly more than 2 pounds to 3 pounds.

"It's been an exciting process and a long process. We're grateful for the attention. We want our kids to know how special and how rare they are," said LeAnn Beloyan, 37, who was put on bed rest 21 weeks into her pregnancy and was admitted to the hospital a few weeks before she gave birth.

Lauren and Benjamin — slightly bigger than their siblings — were expected to go home Saturday. Sarah and Samuel had some minor complications from the premature birth. But doctors say they are growing and are expected to likewise go home soon.

"The prognosis for all the babies is good," said Dr. Naheed Abedin, one of the family's neonatologists.

The Beloyans struggled for 12 years to have children. They turned to in vitro fertilization in May 2004, which increases the odds of multiple births since more than one embryo is often implanted to improve the chances of conceiving.

According doctors at Capital Health System, the odds of having two sets of identical twins from the same pregnancy are anywhere from 1 in 8 million to 1 in 25 million.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/twins_times_two;_ylt=ArijIXk3o4E5YgEfo9A4XZCs0NUE; _ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-)

[Scheherazade]

By Rhys Blakely, Times Online

Pope Benedict XVI has condemned the Harry Potter books as "subtle seductions," capable of corrupting young Christians, in two letters which have now been published online.

However, despite criticism from the pontiff, it would appear the boy wizard Harry has built a fanbase close to the headquarters of Catholicism. Amazon.co.uk, the online bookseller, today revealed it had received advance orders for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, published on Saturday, from over 90 countries - including the Vatican.

The Pope's comments were included in two letters to Gabriele Kuby, the German religious author, who had sent him a copy of her book, Harry Potter - gut oder böse? (Harry Potter: Good or Evil?)

In one response, dated March 2003, he wrote in German: "It is good that you enlighten us on the Harry Potter matter, for these are subtle seductions that are barely noticeable, and precisely because of that have a deep effect and corrupt the Christian faith in souls even before it could properly grow."

He also thanked the author for her "instructive" book, in which Frau Kuby says the hugely popular Potter novels risk corrupting young people, preventing them from developing a proper sense of good and evil. She argued this could harm a child's developing relationship with God.

In a second letter sent to Kuby on May 27, 2003, Cardinal Ratzinger "gladly" gave his permission for Frau Kuby to make public "my judgement about Harry Potter."

He also encouraged her to send her book to the Vatican prelate.


The letters, parts of which had already been made public, have been published on the LifeSiteNews site just days before the publication of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

"We do note that these letters were written some time ago and certainly way before he became Pope," said Neil Blair, a spokesman for Christopher Little, JK Rowling’s literary agent.

It is not the first time Harry Potter and Pope Benedict have gone head-to-head. Earlier this year the Pope's new book Salz der Erde (Salt of the Earth) overtook advance sales of The Half-Blood Prince in the German bestseller list with a five-figure print run being ordered to meet demand


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1-1692541,00.html

[mono]

A Manet uncovered in Swiss flea market?

GENEVA (AFP) - A Swiss antiques dealer believes he has found an unsigned work of master impressionist Edouard Manet, but has run into a brick wall in the labyrinthine corridors of the art world in his bid to get the painting recognised.

Jules Petroz and his wife Aicha made the discovery at Geneva's Plainpalais flea market in 1997. "I'd seen this ordinary pastel-on-paper sitting on the ground for some time. No one wanted it," he said.

"But this time I noticed a small tear in one corner and glimpsed what appeared to be an oil painting underneath. I hid my excitement and bought it for 15 Swiss francs (10 Euros)."

Back home, he ripped off the pastel and he and Aicha gasped at the quality of a painting that revealed a red-headed beauty with bare breasts.

Petroz, who freely admits he is not an expert on impressionists, immediately took the painting to the Geneva offices of Christie's and Sotheby's.

Both houses pronounced it a likely masterpiece and said it resembled the work of Edouard Manet. But they stressed the only way it could be sold or auctioned was to get a certificate of authenticity from the Wildenstein Foundation in Paris, which has exclusive rights to attribute the works of the 19th-century master.

Petroz immediately wrote a letter to what he would discover was one of the world's most powerful and secretive art houses. He enclosed an enlarged photograph of the painting and offered to pay all expenses if Daniel Wildenstein would come to Geneva to inspect it.

Wildenstein's response to Petroz reads in part: "Unfortunately in my opinion the painting you have sent me is not a work of Manet. It resembles the work of a later painter, about 1900, for it certainly does not lack in quality."

Four years later, Daniel Wildenstein died at the age of 84, leaving his vast collection of impressionist paintings estimated at around eight billion dollars to his sons Guy and Alec.

But a few months later, Petroz received a visit from leading Paris art dealer Charles Bailly.

"He came to my apartment to see the painting but gave no reaction and made me no offer at that time."

Bailly called again a few months later. "He said he would be at the Geneva airport that afternoon. 'Bring the painting!' ... But it was too late to get it out of the bank vault.

"I went anyway and he told me 'I know who painted it. Give it to me for six weeks. It should be worth around 3,000,000 francs (about 450,000 euros). I will give you half. Take it or leave it.' I asked him who the painter was but he said he couldn't tell me, so I told him I would leave it."

Bailly, who could not be reached for comment, has in the past denied making Petroz any offers for the painting.

"Of course I'd like some money because I've never had much and if the Wildensteins wait long enough I may get hungry enough to sell it for less than it is worth. They can afford to play the waiting game. I don't know if I can," said Petroz.

He noted that the last Manet sold at Christie's in May for 2.9 million dollars.

In the intervening years, Petroz has done a lot of research on the painting which he believes is of Mery Laurent, a courtesan who was the subject of many other Manets.

He learned that Mery Laurent came by her unusual name because that was the way Dr. Thomas Evans, her British lover and dentist to French royalty, pronounced Marie.

"Around 1874 Evans set Mery up in a building on the rue de Moscou not far from Manet's studio and around the corner from a canvas shop whose stamp is on the back of 'my' portrait. Coincidence? I think not."

Petroz thinks Manet and Mery Laurent became lovers, something neither wanted their 'official lovers' to know about. He speculates this is the reason the painting was hidden or covered up and unsigned.

The painting has also intrigued many art and antique dealers in Geneva and Paris, but when asked about the Wildenstein Foundation and its monopoly on authentication, they all refused to be quoted.

One French dealer in the Louvre des Antiquaires in Paris, insisting on anonymity, explained only a work depicted in the Wildenstein Foundation's "catalogue raisonne" (complete works monograph) is considered authentic and without this seal of approval, no auction house or antique dealer will touch it.

For the moment, it's not at all clear who will certify certain impressionist paintings following the death of Daniel Wildenstein. Sophie Pietri, a curator at the Foundation says there is a committee but when pressed, she referred to the Foundation's extensive files compiled in 1930.

"Monsieur Petroz can always give us the opportunity to give his painting a closer examination including any new information he may have found," she said.

But Petroz says he is afraid to take his painting across the border to France because of outstanding lawsuits against the Wildenstein family and allegations of selling stolen art to Nazi collaborators.

The Wildensteins have called the allegations a misunderstanding, but recently lost a court case against American author Hector Feliciano, who first published the charges in his book "The Lost Museum: the Nazi conspiracy to steal the world's greatest works of art".

Petroz has been advised by people in the art world either to hang the painting on the wall and enjoy it or to sell it for a few thousand euros.

But he has decided instead to present it to art experts and the general public at Geneva's Grand Chapiteau antiques fair October 6-9 on the site where it all started, the grounds of Plainpalais.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/afplifestyleartswitzerland;_ylt=AqXhZplI4S9BTSFVJ3 7n6Hqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-)

[Scheherazade]

Ever been baffled by the bard? Vexed by his verse? Or perplexed by his puns? London's Globe theatre thinks it has the answer: perform Shakespeare's plays in Shakespeare's dialect.

In August the theatre will stage an "original production" of Troilus and Cressida - with the actors performing the lines as close to the 16th century pronunciations as possible.

By opening night, they will have rehearsed using phonetic scripts for two months and, hopefully, will render the play just as its author intended. They say their accents are somewhere between Australian, Cornish, Irish and Scottish, with a dash of Yorkshire - yet bizarrely, completely intelligible if you happen to come from North Carolina.

For example, the word "voice" is pronounced the same as "vice", "reason" as "raisin", "room" as "Rome", "one" as "own" - breathing new life into Shakespeare's rhyming and punning.

'Visceral' text

Giles Block, the play's director, believes the idea could catch on. He first tried the technique for three performances of Romeo and Juliet last year.

"I think it helps the audiences enter more into the visceral nature of the text. It brings out the qualities of the text, the richness of sound which is closer to our emotions than the way we speak today," he says.

The actors have been coached by David Crystal, one of the world's most prominent language experts. He prepared the phonetic script by meticulously researching the rhymes, meter and spellings within Shakespeare's plays - as well as contemporary accounts of how the language was pronounced.

"We can deduce the value of a vowel from the way words rhyme. We can deduce whether a consonant was sounded from the way puns work," he said in an earlier interview.

For example, in Romeo and Juliet the word "mine" is used to rhyme with "Rosaline" - showing clearly that "Rosaline" rhymed with "fine" rather than "fin", he said.

Toilet humour

Philip Bird, who plays the Trojan king Hector (pronounced 'Ecter), admits the he felt "apprehensive" at first, but he says within a matter of minutes the material becomes "totally understandable". He says the "earthy, gutsy, grounded" accent forces the actors to find different ways of portraying power and seniority.

"When you're asked to play someone who is powerful or of high status, you act class, you act posh - but with this production it is not available because everyone spoke the same way 400 years ago."

But the accent also resurrects some classic Shakespearean puns. Ajax, who is the butt of many jokes in the play, is pronounced "a-jakes" - which, conveniently, is an Elizabethan word meaning toilet.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4694993.stm

[mono]

Get ready to e-mail this one to your friends...

LONDON (Reuters) - The word "fail" should be banned from use in British classrooms and replaced with the phrase "deferred success" to avoid demoralizing pupils, a group of teachers has proposed.

Members of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT) argue that telling pupils they have failed can put them off learning for life.

A spokesman for the group said it wanted to avoid labeling children. "We recognize that children do not necessarily achieve success first time," he said.

"But I recognize that we can't just strike a word from the dictionary," he said.

The PAT said it would debate the proposal at a conference next week.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050720/od_nm/britain_failure_dc;_ylt=AiJclVWFUJgc3PE0bSTxxies0N UE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-)

[Scheherazade]

The American bankers will be kicking themselves because they didn't think of this first! :D

Injecting excitement into the faintly dreary business of using a cash machine may seem a tall order, but one Japanese bank is trying its best. Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank is introducing fruitmachine-style games of chance which run while the ATM processes its more mundane transactions.

Get three sevens, and your withdrawal fee is waived; three golds promise a jackpot of 1,000 yen (£5; $9).

The purpose of the gimmick, says the bank's Yoshi Enami, is simply "fun".

Trying harder

There is a more serious intent, however.

Since Japan's economy turned sour a decade ago, its once-complacent banks have had to work harder to attract custom.

And cash machines have been relatively slow to catch on, not least because most banks still insist on charging for withdrawals.

In order to persuade clients to use their machines, Japanese banks have introduced a range of inventive selling-points.

Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi, for example, has pioneered biometric security technology, and is working on ATMs that scan the veins in a customer's hand.

Rival Resona, meanwhile, has profited by locating machines at unusual sites, such as race courses and noodle bars.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4700053.stm

[mono]

Medication Triggered Madness Of King George

LONDON (Reuters) - Far from making him better, the medication used to treat the madness of England's King George III may actually have made him worse, according to research published Friday.

One of the longest serving British monarchs who ruled for nearly 60 years, George had five very public bouts of madness culminating in his death -- blind, deaf and insane in January 1820.

The generally accepted theory has been that his fits of insanity -- the best documented lasting from October 1788 to February 1789 and triggering a constitutional crisis -- were due to a genetic disorder that caused variegate porphyria.

But there was no explanation of why the disease that causes symptoms such as lameness, hoarseness, acute abdominal pain, insomnia and temporary mental disturbances hit so late in his life or why the bouts were so deep and lasted so long.

Now a team of scientists from Britain and Australia have found high concentrations of arsenic in samples of the king's hair and suggested it came from the antimony-based medicine administered -- sometimes by force -- to cure him.

"If George III did indeed inherit the inborn error of metabolism that causes porphyria, he would be sensitised to the effects of arsenic and other heavy metals," they wrote in Friday's issue of the Lancet medical journal.

"Indeed, amounts of toxic metal insufficient to induce frank poisoning would, in all probability exacerbate porphyric attacks in a susceptible individual," they added. "The toxic metal most abundant in our findings was arsenic."

And it was not that the king's physicians were trying to kill him. Even into the 20th century arsenic was widely used as a medicine.

The researchers found that the principal tonic administered to the king during his bouts of insanity was emetic tartar which contained antimony which in turn was commonly contaminated by up to five percent arsenic.

According to medical records of the time, George was sometimes forced to take medicine that would have contained up to nine milligrammes of arsenic a day -- well below a lethal dose but easily enough to cause chronic poisoning.

"The presence of arsenic in a sample of the king's hair provides a plausible explanation for the length and severity of his attacks of illness; and contamination of his antimonial medications is the probable source of the arsenic," the scientists wrote.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050722/od_nm/britain_george_dc;_ylt=AtQdyuCtd_r48M3YNvcXLcys0NU E;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-)

[Basil]

This article (http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-07-24T152402Z_01_N24673977_RTRIDST_0_USREPORT-PEOPLE-HEMINGWAY-DC.XML) contains a rather startling revelation concerning Papa Hemingway, but you'd never know it from the headline. Whether his claim is true or not remains to be seen.

[Scheherazade]

A rap artist has translated some of the best known works of poet Geoffrey Chaucer into hip-hop to make them appeal to schoolchildren. Canadian Baba Brinkman wants modern teenagers to warm to the 14th-century Canterbury Tales.

He is to tour English schools with his versions of the Pardoner's Tale, Miller's Tale and Wife of Bath's Tale.

Some of Chaucer's original bawdier language had to be "toned down" for his young audience.

Miller light

Baba told the BBC News website: "All the themes of rap music are there in the tales: jealousy, anger, greed, lust.

"The Miller's Tale in particular contains a lot of references to genitalia and body humour. Some of it had to be censored to make it suitable for children."

Baba had the idea of converting Chaucer into rap when he was doing a masters' degree on the poet in the late 1990s.

He said: "I tried to keep the rap versions as close as possible to the original, so I went through the tales line-by-line.

"It was a painstaking process to convert Chaucer into a rhyme scheme that young people would like."

The tales have been condensed for performance, but with the aim of maintaining their original sense.

For instance, the phrase "goone towards that village" translates to "hit the streets".

Getting it down

Baba said: "My work is really part of a tradition because Chaucer took his tales from classical literature and put them into the English used in his day. It was an original thing to do.

"The Knight's Tale came from a 10,000-line story from Boccaccio, which Chaucer brought down to 2,000. The rap version takes it to 400 lines.

"I don't want to replace Chaucer's version, which is wonderful, but it should help young people to see how vibrant his stories are and make them more interested."

His visits to classes of 15 and 16-year-olds are part of a Cambridge University project to encourage children to love literature.

Research associate Sarah James said: "Sometimes children find Chaucer's language hard to understand as it's 600 years old.

"Rap is a wonderful way to get through that and hooking them into the stories. Hopefully it will inspire some of them to go further and read the original texts."

Baba's motives might not be very far removed from Chaucer's.

Ms James said: "We know, from several illustrated medieval manuscripts, that Chaucer's works were read aloud for entertainment.

"Most people in those days could not read and even those who could would have found books very expensive.

"Baba is fantastic at conveying the sense of poetry and storytelling."

Chaucer, who lived from around 1340 to 1400, was also a courtier and diplomat.

Six of his tales were adapted into modern-day TV versions for the BBC's Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in 2003.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4721073.stm

[mono]

Lennon lyric sheet could break record

LONDON (Reuters) - A handwritten song lyric used by John Lennon and found on the floor of a television studio in 1967 is set to fetch 500,000-600,000 pounds ($870,000-$1.04 million) at an auction Thursday, organizers said.

The manuscript is part of a pop memorabilia sale featuring clothes, paintings and musical instruments from Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and others.

The "All You Need Is Love" manuscript was used by Lennon during a television performance by the Beatles and could be seen on film footage dropping to the floor after the song was performed, said Ted Owen, director of auctioneers Cooper Owen.

A girl working for the BBC at the time retrieved the lyric from beneath Lennon's music stand. She has provided a letter of authenticity for Thursday's sale.

"If this lyric reaches 500,000 pounds, and it could well go for a lot more, it would have doubled the world record price (for a pop manuscript)," said Owen.

Other highlights include a military-style tunic worn by Lennon that inspired the Beatles' famous "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" record sleeve.

Owen expects the sale to fetch 1.5-2.0 million pounds and the Lennon memorabilia alone to raise 1.2 million pounds.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050728/od_nm/lennon_auction_dc;_ylt=AmAaKwUg1IgeleHrKqpSBqis0NU E;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-)

[Scheherazade]

Australia's foreign minister asked for a date, the US deputy secretary of state played a cowboy, and the Japanese team ran wild with a rugby ball.
But the stars of a skit at a dinner after the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) summit in Laos were the Russians, participants agreed.

Dressed as a Jedi knight, Darth Vader, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stole the show.

Cloak-clad and with a lighted sword, Mr Lavrov brought the house down.

Helped by his assistant, Mr Lavrov entertained delegations from the 10-member Asean group by launching a tirade to the tune of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar hit.

Asean, Superstar... Do you think you're what they say you are? Asean, Asean! Why we accept whatever you have done? he chanted.

"We'd have managed better if we'd had it planned. Why'd we chose such a remote Aseanis land?" the Russian minister quipped.

His assistant replied: "You didn't do your homework, it's Asean way. You are too suspicious, their motives are good."

Rugby gag

Other performances included Australian FM Alexander Downer crooning "It's now or never", and US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick belting the Wild West hit "Oh my darling Clementine".

The Japanese - aiming to host the rugby World Cup in 2011 - appeared on stage with a rugby ball.

They chanted that the Asean team can "stand tall and catch the high ball".

However, most of the participants agreed that the Russians were the star performers.

"The Russians were out of this world," Indian diplomat Sanjay Panda was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

The skits are a regular feature of the gala dinners at the end of the annual Asean foreign ministers summit.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4728347.stm

[Scheherazade]

The lighthouse which inspired a Virginia Woolf novel has been saved from closure. Officials from UK lighthouse authority Trinity House had planned to axe the Godrevy landmark near St Ives, Cornwall, by 2010.

However, a public outcry has forced the authority's re-think.

Protesters said closing the site which inspired Virginia Woolf's best known work To The Lighthouse would put lives at risk.

Light dimmed

Trinity House had argued modern navigational aids such as global position systems by satellite meant there was no need for lights.

But after numerous meetings with harbour authorities, fishermen's associations and other organisations in Cornwall, Trinity House said that in the best interests of protecting the safety of mariners the lighthouse should stay.

However, there will be some changes. The power of the light will be reduced to have a range of 10 miles (16km) instead of 12 miles (19km).

But county councillor and Mayor of Hayle Terry Lello, who campaigned to save the light, said it was the right decision that would benefit many sailors; including local fishermen.

She said: "For larger ships I didn't think there was such an issue for them, unless their navigational equipment broke down.

"But this means a huge deal to small craft users who would traverse the northern coast and who don't have that equipment and can't afford it. So this, to them, is securing the future of fishing in Hayle."

The octagonal white tower marks a reef called the Stones and has been in service since 1859.

Woolf's novel To The Lighthouse drew on her memories of childhood holidays in St Ives.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/4738211.stm

[Scheherazade]

Bob Dylan's song Like a Rolling Stone has topped a poll of rock and film stars to find the music, movies, TV shows and books that changed the world. The 1965 single beat Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel into second place in the survey for Uncut magazine.

Sir Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher, Robert Downey Jr, Rolling Stone Keith Richards and Lou Reed were among those who gave their opinions.

Rocker Patti Smith said of the winning song: "It got me through adolescence."

Ex-Beatle Sir Paul picked Heartbreak Hotel as his number one choice. He said: "It's the way [Presley] sings it as if he is singing from the depths of hell. "His phrasing, use of echo, it's all so beautiful. Musically, it's perfect."

Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange was the highest-placed movie at number five, followed by The Godfather and The Godfather II films.

The Prisoner was the top-ranking TV series at number 10 while Jack Kerouac's novel On the Road was the highest book, in 19th place.

Actors Edward Norton and Juliette Lewis and ex-Beach Boy Brian Wilson also took part in the poll, marking the magazine's 100th issue.

Uncut editor Allan Jones said: "This list has been a massive undertaking and considering which films have had a greater cultural impact than Bowie, for example, has fuelled many discussions.

"What we have been left with is Dylan as the most seminal artistic statement of the last five decades - but I'm sure others will disagree."

MUSIC, FILMS, TV AND BOOKS THAT 'CHANGED THE WORLD'
1. Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone
2. Elvis Presley - Heartbreak Hotel
3. The Beatles - She Loves You
4. The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
5. A Clockwork Orange
6. The Godfather and The Godfather II
7. David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
8. Taxi Driver
9. Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols
10. The Prisoner
Source: Uncut magazine

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4747739.stm

[mono]

French Muslim-Themed 'Beurger King' Opens

PARIS - Muslims in France are having it their way with "Beurger King" — a new fast-food restaurant that caters to the country's large Islamic population.

The bright and colorful eatery was launched in July in an eastern Paris suburb crowded with immigrants and dilapidated housing projects. Its name plays on the French word "Beur," meaning a second-generation North African living in France.

The menu at Beurger King Muslim, or BKM, is standard fast-food fare: burgers, fries, sundaes and doughnuts, and prices are comparable to those at major chains. But the beef and chicken burgers are halal — meaning made with meat slaughtered according to Islamic dietary laws.

Waitresses wear Islamic head scarves, as do many of their customers.

Mouna Talbi, 24, traveled 55 miles to Clichy-sous-Bois with her husband and two small sons to try it out.

"I was so happy to come here that I had tears in my eyes when I walked in," she said, watching her sons climb on colored blocks in the play area as she ate a halal burger.

After the success of Mecca Cola, a soft drink marketed to French Muslims, it was perhaps only a matter of time before a Muslim-themed, fast-food restaurant opened in the country with Western Europe's largest Islamic population.

Talbi's children always clamor for fast food, but this was the first time they've been able to order something other than fish, she said.

"A woman in Muslim dress feels at home here," she said, sitting in a red tunic and matching head scarf.

Three Muslim friends from the Paris suburbs set up the restaurant after seeing similar restaurants in Thailand and Algeria.

They saw a demand for a clean, family-oriented halal fast-food restaurant that would offer an alternative to the big non-halal chains and the many downscale halal street vendors.

One of the founders, Morad Benhamida, 33, said he and his partners worked for almost two years on a business plan to convince French backers.

"I was shocked when my bank manager believed in the project straight away," he said, sitting under an umbrella on the restaurant's terrace.

Burger King, the U.S.'s second-largest fast-food chain, has no restaurants in France, according to its Web site. When asked about the Muslim restaurant, Lauren Hammann, a spokeswoman for Burger King Corp. in Miami, would only say: "We are aware of the matter and we're looking into it."

Benhamida said the business plan showed the halal meat came from reputable wholesalers and was inspected twice daily. But he had not anticipated how successful the idea would be.

"I was very surprised because people really liked the restaurant, so much so that we have tripled stocks since opening a month ago," he said. "It seems like magic."

He is planning to hire eight new employees in fall, expanding his staff of 28.

In an area with high unemployment, people are grateful to find work. Some female employees said they took the job because they were allowed to wear head scarves, unlike workers in other French fast-food restaurants.

Female customers also seemed happy. Cherifa Halimi, 19, sat in a booth sipping drinks with four friends, all dressed in black flowing gowns covering all but their hands and faces.

"There are a few changes they could make to give the place a completely Muslim image," Halimi said. "The television is OK, but there shouldn't be any music.

"But I'd like to work here."

Muslim diners said they felt more misunderstood in France since last month's terror attacks in London.

"Even the media demonizes the image of Islam in this country," Ahmed Talbi said, sitting in a booth opposite his wife. "People are afraid of terrorist attacks here, too."

Customers, including non-Muslims, said the restaurant was not segregating Muslims but showing a normal, peaceful Muslim activity that was open to all.

"Both Muslims and other people feel at ease here," Talbi said. "Maybe this kind of place will help to correct the bad image of Muslims and tell the world to stop talking nonsense about us."

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050806/ap_on_he_me/fit_france_muslim_fast_food;_ylt=ApdleQ6M_uJcpwk0v dIez6Ss0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3czJjNGZoBHNlYwM3NTE-)

[Scheherazade]

Wood pigeons in Whangarei, New Zealand, are having to be rescued by locals after becoming drunk. The birds have taken to eating guava berries after a hard winter killed off much of the forest vegetation that forms their normal diet.

However, the berries then ferment and cause intoxication.

A total of 26 birds have been rescued in the last month, said Robert Webb of the Whangarei Native Bird Recovery Centre.

"The birds are coming into the city to look for food and are eating the guava berries which gets them paralytic.

"We have to sober them up, give them lots of water and fresh liquids and keep them for a few days," he added.

Although the centre has had to deal with double the number of injured wood pigeons than is normal at this time of year Mr Webb expects their drunken antics to tail off in the coming weeks.

"The berries will finish soon and new shoots will grow in the forest and then they can feed there," he said.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4131674.stm

[Scheherazade]

"Rocking up" to a restaurant for a "Ruby Murray" is now officially part of the English language, with the phrases making it into the Oxford Dictionary. The latest edition defines rock up as arrive, or turn up, and Ruby Murray as rhyming slang for a curry.

Other new words to make the cut include "lush" - meaning very good - and "phishing", sending fraudulent emails to get hold of personal information.

The old rhyming slang for tea, "Rosie Lee", also makes it for the first time.

And "chav" appears, an increasingly used derogatory word to describe a "young lower-class person typified by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of [real or imitation] designer clothes".

New words being added simply reflect the fact that the language naturally keeps expanding, said researchers at the Oxford Dictionary of English.

Lollywood

"To suit the pace of lifestyle there is even a growing tendency to mix words together to make entirely new ones called blends," they said.

A person who approaches passers-by in the street looking for donations or subscriptions to a charity is now officially a "chugger" - a mixture of charity and mugger.

A type of English used by speakers of Hindi - "Hinglish" - is another new entry this year.

And Lollywood joins Bollywood in the English language, this time describing the Pakistani popular film industry based in Lahore.


Vicky Pollard, from the BBC's Little Britain, was the ultimate "chav"

Musical references like "beatbox", "Europop", "J-pop" (Japanese pop music), and "sing-jay" (a Dj who raps and sings) also make the grade.

On the technology front, "chip and pin" (a new way of paying for goods by debit or credit card) makes it into the dictionary, as does "gamepad" (hand-held controls for video games).

"Podcast" (digital recording of a radio broadcast made available on the internet for downloading to a personal audio player) is also included.

Researchers said the dictionary now included 350 ways of insulting someone, but only 40 expressions to compliment them.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4136108.stm

[Scheherazade]

It costs $100m but conditions will be cramped for the voyage in Soyuz
A US firm that has already sent two wealthy space tourists into orbit is now offering a trip around the moon. Virginia-based Space Adventures was on Wednesday unveiling a deal with Russian space officials for the $100m voyage.

Two passengers will join a Russian pilot for a trip lasting from 10 to 21 days, depending on whether they stop at the International Space Station.

In 2001, financier Denis Tito became the first space tourist, spending $20m on what proved a controversial tour.

Mr Tito's visit to the ISS sparked a row between Nasa and the Russian space agency.

Booster rocket

Space Adventures says its research suggests that between 500 and 1,000 people around the world could afford to undertake the trip, which could go ahead as early as 2008.

The passengers would be sent up in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, a vehicle that would be cramped and quite uncomfortable for an extended trip, according to space experts.

Because the craft does not have the power to reach the moon unaided, it would have to dock with a booster rocket sent up separately which would propel it towards the moon.

Eric Anderson, CEO of Space Adventures, says the timing of the announcement - a day after the landing of the Space Shuttle - was not a dig at Nasa.

"We believe private space flight and space exploration can go hand in hand," he told the New York Times newspaper.

Another Space Adventures client, Greg Olsen, has been undergoing training for a voyage to the ISS in October. He will be the third space tourist.

South African Mark Shuttleworth visited space in 2002.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4139188.stm

[Scheherazade]

The authorities in the Indian capital Delhi have turned to microchips to tackle the growing problem of stray cows roaming the streets. A court had earlier ordered authorities in south Delhi to offer a reward of $45 to anyone delivering a stray cow.

The authorities then sell the cow to a new owner but they are concerned people might take advantage by bringing back the same cow for the reward.

A $11 microchip in the cow's gut will now show a cow already brought in.

Protected

Commissioner of the local municipal corporation, Rakesh Mehta, said the chips would allow resident welfare associations to determine whether the cow brought to the local authorities was a stray one or not.

"Otherwise, people can sell their own cows for quick money," he said.

Following the earlier Delhi High Court order, a number of cows and buffaloes have been brought to the authorities by people eager to receive rewards.

Cows are revered as sacred among Hindus and are protected by law.

There are nearly 40,000 thought to be roaming the streets of the Indian capital.

Officials say unauthorised dairy farms are one of the main causes.

They say stray cows pose a serious traffic hazard.

This week a woman broke her arm after a cow being chased by residents slammed into her.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4141296.stm

[mono]

Men do have trouble hearing women, scientists find

LONDON (AFP) - Men who are accused of never listening by women now have an excuse -- women's voices are more difficult for men to listen to than other men's, a report said.

The Daily Mail, quoting findings published in the specialist magazine

NeuroImage, said researchers at Sheffield university in northern England discovered startling differences in the way the brain responds to male and female sounds.

Men deciphered female voices using the auditory part of the brain that processes music, while male voices engaged a simpler mechanism, it said.

The Mail quoted researcher Michael Hunter as saying, "The female voice is actually more complex than the male voice, due to differences in the size and shape of the vocal cords and larynx between men and women, and also due to women having greater natural 'melody' in their voices.

"This causes a more complex range of sound frequencies than in a male voice."

The findings may help explain why people suffering hallucinations usually hear male voices, the report added, as the brain may find it much harder to conjure up a false female voice accurately than a false male voice.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/britainsciencehearing;_ylt=AkcAF2UVEajZEkZVTzJ0uc2 s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-)

[Scheherazade]

Men who are accused of never listening by women now have an excuse -- women's voices are more difficult for men to listen to than other men's, a report said. And here I was thinking it had something to do with selective attention/hearing! :p

[mono]

And here I was thinking it had something to do with selective attention/hearing! :p
Me too, and I belong to the male population! Finally, I have a decent excuse to use when someone accuses me of not listening! :D

[Scheherazade]

Bees prefer floral paintings - even if they have never seen flowers before, scientists have suggested. University of London's Queen Mary college researchers put four paintings - two of flowers - beneath bees' flight paths, and tracked where they landed.

The bees landed on the floral two most. Van Gogh's Sunflowers was favourite.

The study, made on three colonies raised in captivity and which had never seen flowers, was reported in the journal Optics and Laser Technology.

About 11% of approaches to the flower paintings ended with a landing, compared to just 4% with the other paintings, the study found.

As well as Sunflowers, the team showed the bees Paul Gauguin's A Vase of Flowers, Patrick Caulfield's Pottery, and Fernand Leger's Still Life with a Beer Mug.

The bees flew towards the Van Gogh picture 146 times and landed on it 15 times.

A Vase of Flowers produced 81 approaches and 11 landings.

Caulfield's Pottery produced 138 approaches but only four landings.

And Still Life with a Beer Mug attracted bees on 117 occasions, but again only four landings.

Blue appeal

Professor Lars Chittka said: "The results show that the flower paintings have captured the essence of floral features from a bee's point of view, and that these features are recognised by bees that have never been exposed to flowers before.

"Flowers contain all the goods that a bee needs to thrive - pollen and nectar - and selection has therefore favoured bees with 'aesthetic preferences' for those flowers which offer the best bonanzas."

A bee's favourite colour is blue, he added, which is associated with high-nectar flowers.

This could be why the bees were strongly drawn to the blue "Vincent" signature in Van Gogh's painting, as well as the blue blooms in A Vase of Flowers, and a light blue square in Still Life with a Beer Mug.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4150200.stm


Finally, I have a decent excuse to use when someone accuses me of not listening!Yes: 'It is not me, dear! It is your vocal cords/melodious voice!' :D

[kilted exile]

Google pauses online books plan

Google has put the brakes on its programme to digitise the books in several major university libraries.

In its blog, the search giant said it would temporarily stop scanning copyrighted texts until November to allay concerns about the plan.

The company's library project aims to put millions of volumes online and accessible everywhere via the web.

Google's plan has come under fire from several groups who object to what they say are violations of copyright.

Google is pumping $200m (£110m) into creating a digital archive of millions of books from four top US libraries - the libraries of Stanford, Michigan and Harvard universities, and of the New York Public Library - by 2015.

It is also digitising out-of-copyright books from the UK's Oxford University.

'Grave misgivings'

Google says the aim is to make the text of the world's books searchable by anyone in the world, especially when it comes to out of print and obscure texts.

"We think most publishers and authors will choose to participate in the publisher programme in order introduce their work to countless readers around the world," wrote Google Print's Adam Smith on the Google blog.

"But we know that not everyone agrees, and we want to do our best to respect their views too."

In an attempt to assuage concerns about copyright, Google has stopped scanning books which are in copyright until November.

The pause is designed to allow publishers to tell Google which books should not be included in the scanning programme.

But the changes do not seem to go far enough for leading publishers.

The trade body of the US publishing industry, the Association of American Publishers (AAP), said it still has "grave misgivings" about the project.

"Google's announcement does nothing to relieve the publishing industry's concerns," said AAP president Patricia Schroeder in a statement.

"Google's procedure shifts the responsibility for preventing infringement to the copyright owner rather than the user, turning every principle of copyright law on its ear," she added.

link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4146488.stm)

[mono]

That should seem like some whiskey!

Bottle of rare Irish whiskey for sale at $182,000

DUBLIN (Reuters) - A rare bottle of Irish whiskey is up for sale at a record 100,000 pounds, making it the world's most expensive single malt.

The whiskey -- spelled whisky in Scotland -- dates from the late 1800s and is believed to be the last surviving bottle from the Nun's Island Distillery in County Galway, western Ireland, which ceased production in 1913.

"It is a lot of money but it's like looking for the last dinosaur really," spirits expert Ken Thomas told Reuters on Friday. "This is surely one of the rarest bottles in the world."

Thomas, who runs a specialist drinks store in southwest England, is selling the whiskey via his Web site -- whiskyandwines.com -- on behalf of its owner, who inherited it.

"This woman walked in with the bottle in an old carrier bag and said she thought it might be worth money, and the more I looked into it the more exciting it became," Thomas said.

He said he believed the whiskey would be in good condition should its eventual buyer actually pull the cork.

"Whiskey is renowned for holding its own," he said.

Irish whiskey is generally smoother than Scotch, due to differences in the processing of the barley from which it is made. It is also often distilled three times as opposed to twice for Scotch, and lacks the "peaty" taste associated with single malts from Scotland.

The previous record price paid for a bottle of "the water of life" was 32,000 pounds, forked out by a businessman in a hotel in southern England two months ago.

The man and his friends reportedly polished off most of the 1943 vintage Dalmore 62 Single Highland Malt in an evening.

Earlier this year, a Hong Kong dealer bought six bottles of 1937 Glenfiddich Rare Collection for $48,500 each.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050815/od_nm/ireland_whiskey_dc;_ylt=AkPvcWP8y9jyZRhUJTexYBWs0N UE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-)

[Scheherazade]

A Roman Catholic nun has staged a protest over the filming of the Da Vinci Code at Lincoln Cathedral. Sister Mary Michael knelt in prayer outside the building for 12 hours to object to the production of the film, which stars Tom Hanks.

The 61-year-old believes the film, based on a book written by Dan Brown, contains heresy.

Tom Hanks and the Sony Pictures film crew are believed to have witnessed the nun's protest.

Large donation

Sister Mary Michael said she did not care about the effect on them.

"It matters to me what God thinks, not what the film crew think.

"When I face almighty God at my final judgement, as we all will, I can say I did try my best. I did try my best to protest," she said.

Producers were barred from filming at Westminster Abbey because the book suggests the church is covering up the truth about Jesus' life.

The novel portrays Jesus marrying Mary Magdalene and fathering a child.

The Dean of Lincoln Cathedral, the Very Reverend Alec Knight, stepped in and allowed production there.

The film company offered a donation of £100,000.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lincolnshire/4155422.stm

[mono]

Alleged Burglar Caught After Calling Mom

VILLA RICA, Ga. - A home invasion was solved by a phone's redial button when an accused burglar in this west Georgia town allegedly used the phone to call his mother for a ride after breaking in.

According to sheriff's investigator Alan Lee, a resident of Villa Rice returned home Sunday from a few days out of town and was missing credit cards, a check book, cell phone and jewelry. The victim tried hitting redial on her phone, and the mother of 23-year-old Kevin Tucker answered.

The call led to the arrests of Tucker and 18-year-old Brittany Leigh-Anne Smith, said Lt. Shane Taylor. Taylor said a deputy spoke with Tucker's mother, who said the two had called and asked her to pick them up from the residence.

The mother did not pick up the couple, and they spent the night in a motel. Police arrested them at about 12:30 a.m. after they checked out, with the stolen property in their possession. Both were charged, though they claimed innocence.

"Both pointed their finger at each other," Taylor said.

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050816/ap_on_fe_st/bungled_burglary;_ylt=AtejMMt54UkuC.lt2xCTGXPtiBIF ;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl)

[Scheherazade]

Swaziland's King Mswati III has ended a five-year sex ban he imposed on the kingdom's teenage girls a year early. The girls have had to wear large woollen tassels as a sign of their chastity since 2001. These are to be burnt in a huge ceremony on Tuesday.

The sex ban was imposed to fight the spread of HIV/Aids. Swaziland has one of the world's highest HIV infection rates, at almost 40% of the population.

The king fined himself a cow for breaking the ban by marrying again.

He took a 17-year-old girl as his ninth wife just two months after imposing the sex-ban in September 2001, sparking unprecedented protests by Swazi women outside the royal palace.

Ban enforced

No official reason has been given about why the sex ban was ended a year early.

The BBC's Thulani Mthethwa in Swaziland says the ban was very unpopular with young Swazis.

He says that few girls in urban areas wore the tassels, known as "umchwasho".

Many were unhappy that King Mswati's daughters were rarely seen wearing the tassels.

But our correspondent says that in rural areas, the tassels were common because the ban was enforced by local chiefs and some schools insisted that girls wore them to get a place.

"I have it in command from his majesty to order all the national flowers [virgins] to converge on Ludzidzini [royal palace] on Sunday so that they can drop the woollen tassels on Monday," said a spokeswoman for Swaziland's girls, Nkhonto Dlamini, in a broadcast on national radio.

King Mswati now has 11 wives and two more fiancees.

His late father, King Sobhuza II, who led the country to independence in 1968, had more than 70 wives when he died in 1982.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/default.stm

[Scheherazade]

Residents of Los Angeles have been hailing a new hero, a fugitive alligator basking in a city lake, which has outwitted captors for over a week. Dozens of local residents have been gathering daily at the lakeside in a city park, hoping for a glimpse of the elusive seven-foot reptile.

Officials have decided to suspend their search, hoping their prey will relax and become easier to snare.

They say they are still confident of capturing the animal.

No-one knows its origins, though authorities in the US city suspect it is an abandoned pet.

Alligators are not native to the state of California.

'Gator therapy'

Jay Young, an alligator wrangler, has made several unsuccessful attempts to capture the creature, nicknamed Carlito and Harbor Park Harry, since it first made an appearance in the lake on 12 August.

Now chasers have decided to take a break, hoping to get the reptile to lower its guard.

"The gator is stressed, and we don't want him scared or sick," Mr Young said.

"We're going to get him back to kind of relaxing and laying on the lily pads and having a good time again, so we're doing therapy for the gator," Harbor Area parks superintendent Ron Berkowitz told local TV.

Visitors have been tempting the alligator with food such as tortillas, French bread and doughnuts, but to no avail. It has not been seen since Wednesday.

T-shirts are on sale with alligator logos.

If captured, the animal will be taken to Los Angeles Zoo.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4167866.stm

[mono]

Gonzo Journalist's Sendoff Set for Sat.

DENVER - Firework shells carrying the sealed ashes of "gonzo" journalist Hunter S. Thompson arrived in an armored truck at his mountain home as final preparations were being made for his star-studded farewell.

The shells were scheduled to be launched Saturday night from a 150-foot-tall monument erected behind Thompson's house in Woody Creek, just outside Aspen. The event will be private, open to about 250 invited guests including Thompson's longtime illustrator, Ralph Steadman, and actors Sean Penn and Johnny Depp.

"We haven't noticed a lot of curiosity seekers or pilgrims, but the buzz and the excitement is increasing every hour," family spokesman Matt Moseley said Friday. "People are coming into town, people invited to the event, and I've been getting calls from fans who'll say things like 'I'm coming in from Wisconsin with a case of Chivas.'"

The scotch whiskey was a favorite of Thompson's.

The counterculture writer fatally shot himself six months ago in his home at the age of 67. Friends and family have said Thompson was rundown by pain and physical problems including hip replacement surgery and a broken leg.

Thompson is credited with helping pioneer New Journalism — or, as he dubbed his version, "gonzo" journalism — in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story. His most famous work is "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," a wild, sprawling satire featuring "Dr. Thompson," a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.

His widow, Anita Thompson, 32, has said she plans to publish at least three new books of her late husband's unpublished letters and stories and is looking for a permanent archive for his works.

Anita Thompson has said she doesn't want Saturday's farewell to be a solemn event. She said the memorial will include some reminiscence, readings from Thompson's work and performances by both Lyle Lovett and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

She said Depp, who grew close to Thompson after portraying him in the 1998 film version of "Fear and Loathing," funded much of the celebration.

"We had talked a couple of times about his last wishes to be shot out of a cannon of his own design," Depp told The Associated Press last month. "All I'm doing is trying to make sure his last wish comes true. I just want to send my pal out the way he wants to go out."

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050820/ap_on_re_us/thompson_memorial;_ylt=Ap28rnLAS2CufEBqtWCjknCs0NU E;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-)

[mono]

Convicted felon's 'Cures' tops book charts

NEW YORK (Reuters) - He went to prison for fraud and was ordered by the U.S. government to stop touting health products on infomercials, but Kevin Trudeau's book "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About" is a bestseller.

Trudeau, who for years sold snoring remedies and memory enhancers through long-format commercials dressed up as talk shows, says he is a consumer advocate battling the "unholy alliance" of drug companies and government regulators.

"It's all about money. The drug industry does not want people to get healthy," he says in a commercial for his book. Trudeau says he has sold about 4 million copies of the book in under a year, a huge amount for a self-published book marketed initially only through the Internet and television infomercials.

The book -- whose back cover says "Never get sick again!" and "Learn the specific natural cures for herpes, acid reflux, diabetes ... cancer ... and more!" -- has topped the Publishers Weekly nonfiction bestseller list for the past three weeks.

That attracted the attention of the New York Consumer Protection Board, which issued a warning this month that Trudeau promised cures he did not deliver.

"This book is exploiting and misleading people who are searching for cures to serious illnesses," said Teresa Santiago, who chairs the board. "From cover to cover, this book is a fraud," she said, adding that a doctor quoted apparently endorsing the book died in 2001.

Trudeau filed a lawsuit to stop the Consumer Protection Board from approaching TV stations to persuade them not to air his infomercials.

He says he recommends herbs, vitamins and other alternative treatments and, while urging people to consult doctors, lists cures such as shark cartilage for tumors and organic dark chocolate for stress.

"There are multiple ways to cure cancer without drugs and surgery," Trudeau told Reuters, adding that drug companies eschew natural products because they are unprofitable.

The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine said it is spending over $120 million this year investigating everything from acupuncture to chamomile tea and the
National Cancer Institute spends another $128 million.

'PARANOID FANTASY'

Stephen Barrett, a retired psychiatrist who runs a Web site called Quackwatch, described Trudeau's book as "a collection of false ideas" that included dangerous advice such as the claim that sunscreen can cause cancer so it should not be used.

"The danger of the book is it's an attempt to shape public opinion so people don't trust science-based healthcare."

Barrett said he too was suspicious about excessive profits in the drug industry, but said it was "paranoid fantasy" to suggest they would suppress or ignore cures.

"A lot of people are angry because drugs are so expensive," he said, explaining the book's draw. "He's promising magic."

In September, Trudeau agreed to pay $2 million to settle a U.S. Federal Trade Commission lawsuit over his claim that "Coral Calcium" could cure or prevent cancer but admitted no wrongdoing. Trudeau agreed to stop marketing health products but he was allowed to market books.

The FTC called the case an example to "other habitual false advertisers," prompting a lawsuit from Trudeau.

FTC attorney Laura Sullivan said the regulator was watching Trudeau carefully but had taken no action over the book.

Sullivan said the FTC sanction barring him from making infomercials for anything but books was "extraordinary" and followed a string of previous fraud charges that were settled.

Trudeau, 42, was jailed for 22 months in the early 1990s over credit card fraud -- something Trudeau dismissed as nothing more than a youthful indiscretion.

Reader reviews on Amazon.com revealed strong opinions, including complaints that his book refers readers to his Web site for more information.

Trudeau's site offers monthly membership at $9.95 and lifetime membership for $499. He said he charges because he takes no advertising and he spends $1.5 million a week on infomercials.

"I'm doing this virtually as a nonprofit," he said. "I'm not doing this for the money. It's a passion."

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050822/od_nm/media_cures_dc;_ylt=Ag2w9c4WoKNU8GoNZoxtMses0NUE;_ ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-)

[mono]

Woman Offended by Doc's Obesity Advice

ROCHESTER, N.H. - As doctors warn more patients that they should lose weight, the advice has backfired on one doctor with a woman filing a complaint with the state saying he was hurtful, not helpful.

Dr. Terry Bennett says he tells obese patients their weight is bad for their health and their love lives, but the lecture drove one patient to complain to the state.

"I told a fat woman she was obese," Bennett says. "I tried to get her attention. I told her, 'You need to get on a program, join a group of like-minded people and peel off the weight that is going to kill you.' "

He says he wrote a letter of apology to the woman when he found out she was offended.

Her complaint, filed about a year ago, was initially investigated by a panel of the New Hampshire Board of Medicine, which recommended that Bennett be sent a confidential letter of concern. The board rejected the suggestion in December and asked the attorney general's office to investigate.

Bennett rejected that office's proposal that he attend a medical education course and acknowledge that he made a mistake.

Bruce Friedman, chairman of the board of medicine, said he could not discuss specific complaints. Assistant Attorney General Catherine Bernhard, who conducted the investigation, also would not comment, citing state law that complaints are confidential until the board takes disciplinary action.

The board's Web site says disciplinary sanctions may range from a reprimand to the revocation of all rights to practice in the state.

"Physicians have to be professional with patients and remember everyone is an individual. You should not be inflammatory or degrading to anyone," said board member Kevin Costin.

Other overweight patients have come to Bennett's defense.

"What really makes me angry is he told the truth," Mindy Haney told WMUR-TV on Tuesday. "How can you punish somebody for that?"

Haney said Bennett has helped her lose more than 150 pounds, but acknowledged that she initially didn't want to listen.

"I have been in this lady's shoes. I've been angry and left his practice. I mean, in-my-car-taking-off angry," Haney said. "But once you think about it, you're angry at yourself, not Doctor Bennett. He's the messenger. He's telling you what you already know."

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050824/ap_on_fe_st/obesity_complaint;_ylt=ApZG5OwKvg2jk9G1aKGsyYms0NU E;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-)

[Scheherazade]

Crime author Patricia Cornwell has taken out full-page ads in two national newspapers to deny she is obsessed with Jack the Ripper. Cornwell claimed artist Walter Sickert was Jack the Ripper in a book in 2002. Ripper experts rejected that theory.

In Saturday's Guardian and Independent, Cornwell stands by her claim and calls on others to disprove it.

The ads are thought to have cost more than £10,000 each. An updated edition of her book will appear next year.

Cornwell wrote in the advert: "My ongoing investigation is far from an obsession but an excellent opportunity to provide a platform for applying modern science to a very old, highly visible case."

Cornwell has spent as much as $6m (£3.3m) financing her investigation into the Ripper case, including employing forensic scientists to work with her.

Her book Portrait of a Killer, Jack the Ripper: Case Closed named Sickert, a British Impressionist artist, as the infamous killer who terrorised London's East End between 1888.

Sickert, a pupil of Whistler, lived in London at the time. He died in 1942, aged 82.

Cornwell's main evidence was the discovery of the same watermarks on the artist's personal letters as on letters sent by Jack the Ripper, taunting the police.

But experts point out that many supposed "Ripper" letters were fakes and that Scotland Yard received such correspondence well into the 20th century.

They said Cornwell's evidence only showed a link between Sickert and these letters, not the murders themselves.

The author also put forward DNA evidence connecting Sickert to the crimes, but this was viewed as inconclusive.

While she has acknowledged she cannot prove Sickert was in London at the times of all the murders, she says it cannot be proved that he was elsewhere.

In Saturday's adverts, Cornwell called the case "far from closed" and challenged her critics to come up with concrete evidence of another suspect's guilt.

"I welcome everyone to investigate this case and perhaps find new evidence that factually argues for or against anything I have discovered," she wrote.

"If it turns out that something indisputably proved that this notorious killer was someone other than Walter Richard Sickert, I would be the first to offer congratulations and retract my accusations."

She adds that a revised edition of Portrait of a Killer, with her "latest" evidence, will be released early in 2006.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4190572.stm

[Scheherazade]

Pupils are being allowed to swear at one Northamptonshire secondary school -as long as they limit their use of bad language to five times a lesson. A tally of how many times the f-word is used will be kept on the board.

Parents of children at the Weavers School in Wellingborough were told of the new policy in a letter, according to a report in the Daily Mail.

The policy, which comes into effect when term starts next week, has been condemned by parents' groups and MPs.

"In these sorts of situations teachers should be setting clear principles of 'do and don't'," said Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education.

'Everyday language'

But headmaster Alan Large said he had received no complaints about the policy.

"The reality is that the f-word is part of these young adults' everyday language," he told the Daily Mail.

Assistant headmaster Richard White said the policy was aimed at two classes of 15 and 16-year-olds that were particularly unruly.

"Within each lesson the teacher will initially tolerate (although not condone) the use of the f-word (or derivatives) five times and these will be tallied on the board so all students can see the running score," he wrote in the letter.

"Over this number the class will be spoken to by the teacher at the end of the lesson."

The school, which has 1,130 pupils, also plans to send "praise postcards" to the parents of children who do not swear in class.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/4194098.stm

[dejosc]

ha ha ha look at this car

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4176126.stm

[mono]

Brits driving Austrians bonkers over rude village name

LONDON, (AFP) - British tourists have left the residents of one charming Austrian village effing and blinding by constantly stealing the signs for their oddly-named village.

While British visitors are finding it hilarious, the residents of F---ing are failing to see the funny side, The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported.

Only one kind of crimimal ever stalks the sleepy 32-house village near Salzburg on the German border -- cheeky British tourists armed with a sense of humour and a screwdriver.

But the local authorities are hitting back and with the signs now set in concrete, police chief Kommandant Schmidtberger is on the lookout.

"We will not stand for the F---ing signs being removed," the officer told the broadsheet.

"It may be very amusing for you British, but F---ing is simply F---ing to us. What is this big F---ing joke? It is puerile."

Local guide Andreas Behmueller said it was only the British that had a fixation with F---ing.

"The Germans all want to see the Mozart house in Salzburg," he explained.

"Every American seems to care only about 'The Sound of Music' (the 1965 film shot around Salzburg). The occasional Japanese wants to see Hitler's birthplace in Braunau.

"But for the British, it's all about F---ing."

Guesthouse boss Augustina Lindlbauer described the village's breathtaking lakes, forests and vistas.

"Yet still there is this obsession with F---ing," she said.

"Just this morning I had to tell an English lady who stopped by that there were no F---ing postcards."

(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050828/wl_uk_afp/britainaustriaoffbeat)

[mono]

Spanish paint town red in tomato fight

BUNOL, Spain (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of people armed with 100 tonnes of plum tomatoes took part in the "Tomatina" on Wednesday, joyously splattering each other in the Spanish town of Bunol.

The town hall of Bunol, which lies just inland from Valencia on Spain's Mediterranean coast, spent 24,960 euros on the fruit and dumped it the streets for the chanting masses.

Five truckloads of vitamin C and fiber were soon pureed on El Cid Street, the ripe redness smeared over walls and people.

"I feel like I connected with a lot of people today," said Karina Evans, 21, of Australia.

Frenzy erupted around the dump trucks and competition for the edible missiles was fierce. Whole tomatoes on the ground were treasured like ruby Easter eggs.

Kate Monroe, 28, and Ryan Altman, 31, both of San Diego, California, reflected the general lack of inhibition by rubbing their barely clad, pulp-slathered bodies against each other.

Some gave a moment's thought for the less fortunate.

"We were just talking about (famine in Africa). We thought we should get some garlic, make pizza and send it off," Altman said.

The origin of the tomato fight is disputed -- everyone in Bunol seems to have a favorite story -- but most agree it started around 1940, in the early years of the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.

"There are several versions, but the most important thing is that it was started by the people," said Eusebio Carrascosa, 66, a member of the Tomatina commission.

Like the weeklong celebrations held throughout Spain in the summer, the Tomatina encourages all-night public revelry and behavior that's frowned on for the rest of the year.

"This is even better than the running of the bulls in Pamplona," said Australian Sandy Koch, 25, referring to another one of Spain's famous events.

Not everyone in Bunol joins the party.

"These are human degenerates. This isn't culture," said Pilar Masmano, 81, peeking out on the messy aftermath from her front door. "I'm going back inside."

source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050831/od_nm/spain_tomatoes_dc)

[Scheherazade]

Men are tired of their portrayal in advertising, according to a new book by Michael Buerk. But images of men behaving stupidly is not the only cliche which irritates writer John Camm.

Dad in muddy boots walking blithely across a kitchen floor just cleaned by an exasperated mum who just gives a frustrated but loving smile to her giggly children, who cry out: "Da-a-ad!".

Just one advertising cliche, and just one where no-one behaves like people really do.

It's the kind of thing which irritates John Camm. "It's tiresome to see male characters in adverts who don't resemble anyone you know," he says. "But what's perhaps worse is the absolute reliance of advertising on its own regurgitated cliches."

He has drawn up a list of seemingly unwritten rules which, he concludes, might as well be the Advertising Bible. Add your views to his list at the foot of the page.

1. Men are obsessed with sex but will forego sex in order to watch football or drink beer.

2. Women are locked in a constant battle with their weight/body shape/hairstyle.

3. Career success is entirely based on your ability to impress your boss.

4. Mums are often harassed but NEVER depressed/unable to cope.

5. Any act of male stupidity (e.g. walking across a clean floor in muddy boots, putting the dog in the dishwasher, etc.) will be met with a wry smile, not genuine annoyance/anger.

6. Married men will flirt with other, younger women but NEVER act upon it.

7. Anyone with a scientific career will have a bad haircut and dreadful clothes.

8. If you work for the emergency services, you are a better person than the general population.

9. Elderly relatives NEVER suffer from senile dementia.

10. Scandinavians are, without exception, blonde and beautiful.

11. Women have jobs they never do in real life, e.g. dockworker (who looks like a model).

12. Children will not eat fruit or vegetables. Ever.

13. Both men and women find driving deeply pleasurable, never boring or stressful.

14. Men are inherently lazy/slobbish; women are the reverse.

15. Chocolate, however, will cause women to immediately fall into the languor of the opium eater.

16. High Street bank staff are (A) friends of the customers, and (B) of slightly above-average attractiveness (only if female).

17. Modern men own a cat.

18. Hot beverages have miraculous rejuvenating effects.

19. Professional people have strangely trivial preoccupations, e.g. a female barrister who is morbidly obsessed with finding a healthy snack bar.

20. All women (except stay-at-home housewives) have interesting and enjoyable careers.

21. Any over-the-counter medical product will work instantly and 100% effectively.

22. Children know more than adults.

23. Women never merely hop in and out of the shower, instead preferring to act out some sort of soapy Dance of the Seven Veils.

24. School is a happy experience for all children.

25. Tortilla chips are the most exciting experience any group of young people can experience.

26. Playing bingo is THE number one pastime among 18-25 year old British women.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4204412.stm

[Scheherazade]

A production of Love's Labour's Lost, set in Afghanistan and translated into the Dari language, has played to packed audiences in the capital city, Kabul. The William Shakespeare play is one of the first to be staged in the country since the fall of the Taleban in 2001.

"Theatre is much more popular than television," said Afghan playwright Aziz Elyas. "But during the Taleban's time it wasn't allowed."

The show, which ran for five nights, was sponsored by the British Council.

"It's a story about the survival of romantic love in difficult circumstances, like in Muslim countries and especially Afghanistan," said its representative, Malcolm Jardine.

Theatre is making a comeback in the land-locked country according to Aziz, whose latest work History is Witness won first prize at this week's Kabul Theatre Summer Festival.

"There's starting to be more and more shows being put on now," he said. "It's wonderful."

Strict taboo

The US Agency for International Development has even started using roving troupes of actors to stage plays in rural areas to educate people about forthcoming elections.

The actresses in Love's Labour's Lost did not hide behind veils or burqas and were allowed to flirt with their co-stars - a strict taboo in the world beyond the playhouse.

The plot has been recast so it features Afghan characters and locations, instead of the French ones used in the Bard's original.

"Shakespeare is so adaptable because he writes universal truths of human experience," said co-adaptor Steven Landrigan.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4226652.stm

[mono]

Apparent Hunter S. Thompson suicide note published

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Renegade author Hunter S. Thompson lamented the onset of old age and his physical limits, then concluded, "Relax -- This won't hurt," in an apparent suicide note published on Thursday by Rolling Stone magazine, his literary springboard.

The scrawled words -- perhaps the last he ever committed to paper -- were written on February 16, four days before the self-described "gonzo" journalist shot himself to death at his secluded home near Aspen, Colorado, the magazine said.

Thompson was 67, and at the time friends and family said he had been in pain from hip replacement surgery, back surgery and a recently broken leg. Those close to him said Thompson had contemplated suicide for years.

The content of the note was first revealed by Thompson's biographer and literary executor, Douglas Brinkley, in a Rolling Stone article recounting the August 20 memorial service in which Thompson's cremated remains were blasted out of a cannon.

Brinkley said Thompson had left the farewell note for his wife, Anita, but "Hunter was really talking to himself" as he sank into the despair of what was for him gloomiest time of year -- the month of February.

The brief message, scrawled in black marker and titled "Football Season Is Over" (an apparent reference to the end of the NFL season he avidly followed as fan), reads as follows:

"No More Games. No More bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always *****y. No Fun -- for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax -- This won't hurt."

At the bottom of the page, Brinkley said, Thompson drew a "happy heart," the kind found on Valentine's Day cards.

The article did not say how or when the note was discovered.

It was through his work for Rolling Stone that Thompson developed his presence as a counterculture literary figure who turned his drug- and alcohol-fueled clashes with authority into a central theme of his writing.

The most famous of his books, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," was adapted from a two-part article written for the magazine in 1971.

source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050909/od_nm/thompson_dc;_ylt=AsN30Zx5Qrbjn7IKDt2ksZCs0NUE;_ylu =X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-)

[mono]

Well, if you can't even trust a hitman..

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese woman called in the police after a hitman she paid to kill her lover's wife failed to carry out the job.

The 32-year-old Tokyo woman was arrested Wednesday for incitement to murder, the Daily Yomiuri newspaper said Friday.

The woman contacted a private detective through a Web site last November and paid him 1 million yen in cash to murder her love rival, the paper said.

The 40-year-old detective accepted the money and suggested he could carry out the job by chasing the victim on a motorcycle and spraying her with a biological agent in a tunnel.

Police also arrested the private detective and found the alleged target safe and well, the paper said.

source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050916/od_nm/japan_hitman_dc;_ylt=Ap4qmLF.RK__ZkW04sp3eLKs0NUE; _ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-)

[Scheherazade]

(What a breath of fresh air! A politician ready to keep his promise! :D)

A New Zealand politician who pledged to run naked through the street if a rival candidate won Saturday's election has promised to keep his word. Green Party MP Keith Locke had pledged to strip off in his Epsom constituency if Act Party leader Rodney Hide won the Auckland seat.

Seen as a long-shot, Mr Hide surprised pundits by winning a big majority.

Mr Locke said the Greens were a party of their word, and he did not want to break an election promise.

"We haven't set a date, we've got preparations to do in terms of choreography," Mr Locke told the Associated Press on Monday.

When asked about his nude run, he said: "It will be artistic and it will involve body paint."

A local business group, the Newmarket Business Association, has taken pity on the politician.

"We don't want our electorate to be the home of the first broken campaign promise," general manager Cameron Brewer told local media.

"When Mr Locke is ready, the Newmarket Business Association will warn the faint-hearted, clear the footpath...[and] ensure there are the necessary officials," said Mr Brewer.

He also said paramedics would be on hand, to look after Mr Locke as well as witnesses.

He added that he was happy to supply the lawmaker with a loin cloth if required.

"Newmarket is home to the country's best shopping. We don't want Mr Locke's organics to frighten away any of our customers so we will provide some cover, albeit skimpy," he said.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4260016.stm

[mono]

New Zealand MP to make naked dash
This reminds me much of a popular quote from Henry David Thoreau: "It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes."
:lol:

[Scheherazade]

An Israeli couple being married in India have found that you may not kiss the bride - the pair were fined $22 for indecency for their wedding embrace. A court in Rajasthan imposed the fine after Alon Orpaz and Tehila Salev had decided to get married in a traditional Hindu ceremony in Pushkar.

Priests were offended when the couple kissed and hugged during the chanting of religious verses.

The apologetic couple said they were unaware public kissing was banned. The couple, who had met in India while travelling separately, paid the 1,000-rupee fine for "committing an act of indecency" to avoid a 10-day jail sentence.

Some of the priests were upset by their actions at the wedding and filed a case claiming Hindu sentiments had been hurt.

SN Garg, president of the Priests and Pilgrimage Society, said: "It is a matter of concern for the priest community. We want the government to ensure that tourists visiting Pushkar must respect Indian culture."

Mr Garg said the couple had now been forgiven after they apologised for their behaviour.

The couple said their public embrace was done according to their own culture and was not intended to be hurtful.

Pushkar, on the banks of Pushkar Lake, is a popular pilgrimage spot for both tourists and Hindus.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4268058.stm

[Scheherazade]

King Mswati of Swaziland has chosen a teenager to be his 13th wife. Phindile Nkambule, 17, was revealed to the public when she took part in a traditional Reed Dance ceremony, in which girls perform before the king.

The announcement comes just weeks after Mswati III ended an official ban on sex for women under 18. The ban was aimed at curbing the spread of HIV/Aids.

According to custom, King Mswati, 37, will marry Phindile Nkambule once she becomes pregnant.

She is reported to have caught the king's eye during the main annual Reed Dance in late August, when tens of thousands of bare-breasted girls took part in a traditional rite of Spring.

Ms Nkambule is younger than the king's first daughter, Princess Sikhanyiso, who turned 18 this month.

She will now wear royal loin cloths when she appears in public and has dropped out of school in order to be groomed as the monarch's wife.

Unpopular ban

Days earlier, the king had rescinded a ban on sexual relations for girls younger than 18.

The ban was started by the king in 2001 to fight Aids in a country where some 40% of the population is HIV positive.

But the move had been unpopular with Swazi youths and its implementation had sparked controversy.

Just two months after imposing the ban, the king fined himself a cow for breaking it by taking a 17-year-old girl as his ninth wife.

The Swazi monarch married his 12th wife, aged 18, in June.

He has one other fiancee and 27 children.

Some Swazis are critical of King Mswati - an absolute monarch whose lavish lifestyle and many wives contrast with the poverty of many of his subjects.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4283932.stm

[Scheherazade]

Austria's national anthem is sexist and must be revised, the country's right wing women's minister has declared. Maria Rauch-Kallat objects to the anthem's description of Austria as a "fatherland" which is home to "great sons". She proposes several changes.

But while she has found support, one colleague called her moves "senseless".

A women's minister should work to improve the lives of women and girls, declared Uwe Scheuch, and not concern herself with such "side issues".

New identity

Mrs Rauch Kallat defended her objectives in an interview with the country's Kurier newspaper. THE FIRST VERSE

Land of mountains, land on the river
Land of fields, land of spires
Land of hammers, with a rich future
You are the home of great sons
A nation blessed by its sense of beauty
Highly-praised Austria, highly-praised Austria

"Women's politics are also the politics of language and of shaping consciousness," she said.

Her suggestions include losing a reference to a "brotherly chorus" and replacing it with a "joyful chorus" instead.

"The federal hymn should be part of every Austrian's identity," Mrs Rauch-Kallat said.

The national anthem, sung to the tune of a Mozart cantata dates from 1947 when the words were composed by female poet Paula von Preradovic.

Mrs Rauch-Kallat's proposals have met support from the opposition Social Democrats and Greens and are expected to be approved over the coming months.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4283434.stm

[mono]

Mexico Indians fete disputed bones of Aztec emperor

IXCATEOPAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Decked in glittering Aztec costumes with towering feather headdresses, Mexican Indians paid tribute on Monday to what they said were the bones of the last Aztec emperor, buried in a hilltop town nearly 500 years ago.

Nahua Indian men in gold, red and green warrior dress and women in "huipil" tunics danced with bells on their ankles and wafted incense over the disputed tomb of the emperor Cuauhtemoc to mark the anniversary of the day in 1949 when his remains were exhumed in the mountains of central Mexico.

A refusal by Mexican authorities to accept the bones as authentic, and local squabbling over who should guard them, marred the annual festivities around the blackened skeleton many indigenous Mexicans consider a sacred treasure.

"Cuauhtemoc was a martyr. He was tortured and killed defending his homeland from the invaders. For us he's more important than Jesus. He's our hero," said an Indian known as Metztli, as he adjusted his shimmering pheasant-feather headdress.

"For us these remains are very symbolic, but the authorities are crushing our culture and making a dispute out of our traditions," said Juan Ceron, one of a group of Indian activists who walked for eight days from Mexico City to Ixcateopan, to protest a local government move to seize the rights to the bones.

Cuauhtemoc led the desperate resistance to Spanish invaders who conquered the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, today's Mexico City.

According to local legend, when the Spaniards hung him in 1525, Aztec warriors slipped away with the body and partially cremated it.

They wrapped the charred skeleton in a bundle and carried it to Cuauhtemoc's birthplace, Ixcateopan, in a secret journey that took four years, traveling by night and hiding out for weeks at a time. The remains were buried in 1529 in a ceremony kept secret from the Spanish, locals say.

BODY EXHUMED

The secret was passed down from generation to generation for centuries, until in 1949 it leaked out and the federal government ordered the tomb exhumed.

Indigenous groups have marked the anniversary of the exhumation ever since with a ritual ceremony in the 16th century church that is now a shrine to Cuauhtemoc, the skeleton displayed behind glass at the altar.

After carbon-dating tests, archeologist Eulalia Guzman declared the remains were authentic, but over the years, other experts refuted the claim.

"It's very controversial, but the authorities eventually ruled that they are not Cuauhtemoc's remains," said German anthropologist Mechthild Rutsch at the National Institute of Anthropology and History.

Locals are bitter that the story is disputed. And many are angry that bickering among local politicians recently led to the town mayor stripping 69-year-old Jairo Rodriguez -- the 13th "keeper of the secret" -- of his title as guardian of the tomb.

While few tourists make the two-hour bus ride up a potholed mountain road to Ixcateopan from the bustling town of Taxco, history fans from as far away as Canada and Spain come here in February to celebrate Cuauhtemoc's birth date.

Locals say they are not interested in tourism, they just want to be taken seriously.

"Why do they deny what is in our blood? His remains must be somewhere and why not here? Aztec tradition says a king must be buried where he was born," said Claudia Sotero, who runs the cobblestoned town's telephone service.

source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050927/od_nm/mexico_emperor_dc;_ylt=AubTejMHImclR3uJJKmowQis0NU E;_ylu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-)

[amuse]

MILAN, Italy - Authorities have recovered works of art worth $1.8 million that had been stolen from churches, castles and private homes throughout northern Italy since 1990, the Carabinieri paramilitary police said Tuesday.

The 19 paintings and one 18th-century kneeling stool were discovered last month at the home of a farmer near the city of Cremona, about 62 miles southwest of Milan, officials said. The 59-year-old man is charged with receiving stolen goods and has been cooperating with authorities to identify accomplices, said Capt. Andrea Ilari of the Carabinieri's art theft squad.

The art work found at the farmer's home includes two paintings by 20th-century artist Carlo Fornara, which investigators said were stolen last year.

Officials said much of the art appeared to have been stolen from the Thun Castle in the Trentino-Alto Adige region, near the Austrian border. Among the most valuable works recovered were a 17th-century painting of Saint Jeremiah by Pietro Ligari, stolen in 1995 from a church; and "Ecce Homo," by 16th-century painter Denys Calvaert, which had been stolen from a home near the northern city of Varese, officials said.

Ilari said in a statement that the Lombardy region, which includes Milan, "has the most important market for high-level stolen art."



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050927/ap_en_ot/stolen_art

[Scheherazade]

The Danish air force has admitted causing the death of Rudolph the reindeer and has paid compensation to Father Christmas. Olovi Nikkanoff, one of Denmark's professional Santa Clauses, says his reindeer died of shock as fighter planes flew low overhead.

The air force admitted liability and paid him 31,175 kroner (£2,850).

"We're more than happy to pay if it means children around the world will get their presents," a spokesman said.

Mr Nikkanoff said he was devastated in February when he discovered his reindeer's body.

The animal had been grazing happily, he said, when two Danish F-16s thundered overhead.

He complained to the air force, which ordered an investigation.

"We got a letter from Santa complaining about his reindeer's death and looked into it seriously," air force spokesman Captain Morten Jensen told Associated Press.

Flight data showed the jets had been in the area at the time, and a vet concluded that their deafening roar had caused Rudolph to have heart failure.

Mr Nikkanoff feared he would have only one reindeer to pull his sleigh this Christmas.

But after the air force's decision he declared himself happy with the payout and said he was looking forward to this year's festive season with a new animal on his team.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4295968.stm

[Scheherazade]

Organisers have stoutly defended the Miss Tibet contest even though all the contestants bar one have pulled out, creating a walkover for the winner. Organiser Lobsang Wangyal said the name of the "lone brave contestant" would be kept secret until the 8 October gala.

The contest is set to take place in the Indian Himalayan resort of Dharamsala, which houses exiled Tibetan leaders.

The four-year-old contest has struggled to find its feet amid staunch opposition from conservative Buddhists.

Tiara

The BBC's Baldev Chauhan in Dharamsala says seven young women pulled out at the last moment.

This is the second time in the contest's brief history that a walkover has been awarded.

But Mr Wangyal told the BBC this was not the end of the road for the pageant.

"Absolutely not, a time will come soon when the conservative Tibetan society will break out of its traditional shackles and accept such shows with open arms," he said.

"The girls also have to give a lecture on Tibetan culture, history and current affairs. It is a Tibet beauty pageant, not aping Western culture."

The winner will get a tiara and a cheque for 100,000 rupees ($2,200).

Conservative Tibetan Buddhist society and the Tibetan government in exile are both opposed to the beauty contest.

A spokesman for the exiled leaders, Thupten Samphel, said: "Exhibiting of the female body in this manner is against Tibetan Buddhism and culture."

Our correspondent says commentators suspect the lone woman's name is not being disclosed by the organisers as pressure may be exerted on her to also opt out of the contest.

Tens of thousands of Tibetans, including spiritual leader the Dalai Lama have taken refuge in India since a failed uprising against China in 1959.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4299686.stm

[Scheherazade]

A female chimpanzee in a Chinese zoo has managed to kick the habit after smoking for 16 years, Xinhua news agency reported. Ai Ai, 27, first took up smoking after her mate died in 1989.

After a second spouse died in 1997 and her daughter was moved to another zoo, the broken-hearted chimp's health reportedly started deteriorating.

Zoo keepers say they are giving her mouth-watering food and playing pop music to improve her mood.

"In the first few days, she squealed for cigarettes every now and then," Xinhua reported one zookeeper at the safari park in the Shaanxi province, north-west China, as saying.

"But as her life became more colourful, she gradually forgot about them altogether."

Her new, busy lifestyle includes walking after breakfast, exercising in the evening and being served "fried dishes and dumplings at every meal" on top of bananas, rice and milk, he said.

Now and then, she can also borrow her human friend's walkman to listen to music.

It is not clear how Ai Ai developed her addiction, and whether she was first given cigarettes from the same guardians who have helped her quit.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4305600.stm

[Scheherazade]

An unusual clash between a 6-foot (1.8m) alligator and a 13-foot (3.9m) python has left two of the deadliest predators dead in Florida's swamps. The Burmese python tried to swallow its fearsome rival whole but then exploded.

The remains of the two giant reptiles were found by astonished rangers in the Everglades National Park.

The rangers say the find suggests that non-native Burmese pythons might even challenge alligators' leading position in the food chain in the swamps.

The python's remains with the victim's tail protruding from its burst midsection were found last week. The head of the python was missing.

"Encounters like that are almost never seen in the wild... And here we are," Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor, was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

"They were probably evenly matched in size. If the python got a good grip on the alligator before the alligator got a good grip on him, he could win," Professor Mazzotti said.

He said the alligator may have clawed at the python's stomach, leading it to burst.

"Clearly, if they can kill an alligator they can kill other species," Prof Mazzotti said.

He said that there had been four known encounters between the two species in the past. In the other cases, the alligator won or the battle was an apparent draw.

Burmese pythons - many of whom have been dumped by their owners - have thrived in the wet and hot climate of Florida's swamps over the past 20 years.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4313978.stm

[B-Mental]

By Jacqueline Blais, USA TODAY
Thu Oct 6, 6:52 AM ET



Kurt Vonnegut opens an interview at La Mediterranée, a pretty Manhattan restaurant, this way;
"What do you want to talk about? Politics? Our president is a complete twit. I'll talk about the death of the novel. I'll talk about anything you want."
And so it goes.

For all those who have lived with Vonnegut in their imaginations - with the listless soldier Billy Pilgrim in 1969's Slaughterhouse-Five, with the religious Bokononists whispering "busy, busy, busy" in 1963's Cat's Cradle- this is what he is like in person.

Polite, courtly even. He has thick, light brownish hair. He was born left-handed but taught, as they did back in the day, to write with his right. He says Law & Order on TV is "absolutely first-rate" - as long as the episode has Sam Waterston or Jerry Orbach in it. And at 82, this hero of the left is as unafraid as ever to speak out.

His new book is A Man Without a Country (Seven Stories Press, $23.95; edited by Daniel Simon). It is part commentary (some material was written for the left-leaning magazine In These Times), part memoir and all Vonnegut writing about our world today.

And what kind of planet do we have?
Well, he says, we are making "thermodynamic whoopee with atomic energy and fossil fuel." The part that makes him feel unfunny for the rest of his life: People don't "give a damn whether the planet goes on or not." We are, he writes, too cheap and lazy.

In short: "Human beings, past and present, have trashed the joint."
There is more where that came from.

The guessers (never filled with doubts) are in charge, wise people are despised, and the USA is now operating on the snake-oil standard, he writes.
Yes, and more.

From his perspective as a former World War II prisoner of war, Vonnegut writes that American soldiers in the Middle East are "being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas."

Then, beyond all the gloom and doom, there are things to cling to.

Music (especially the blues) cheers him, as do people who behave decently. Librarians, too - "not famous for their physical strength" - who resist having books removed from shelves and refuse to give names of people who have checked out certain books in the era of the Patriot Act.

"The America I loved," he writes, "still exists in the front desks of public libraries."

Within recent weeks, he has been on Real Time with Bill Maher and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Said Stewart, introducing him: "As an adolescent, (Vonnegut) made my life bearable."

No one can doubt Vonnegut's staying power. Seven Stories Press has gone back to print four times for 190,000 copies of A Man Without a Country. He has written 25 books, among them some of the best-loved in American literature. During the past three months, he was in the top 50 most-popular authors in North America searched on abebooks.com, an umbrella website for used books.

Vonnegut grew up in the Midwest during the Great Depression. He came from a family of three; his older brother, Bernard, was a highly respected physical chemist who worked on cloud seeding.

Vonnegut learned how jokes work, he writes, from top comedians on the radio. He went to Cornell for three years, studying chemistry, and did graduate work in anthropology at the University of Chicago.

He helped raise seven children: three from his first marriage; three adopted when his sister, Alice, and her husband died; and another adopted in his second marriage.

He joined the Army in World War II, was captured by the Germans and experienced the Allied bombing of Dresden, the inspiration for Slaughterhouse-Five.

His thoughts about gasoline dependency came early in life. He was born Nov. 11, 1922, in Indianapolis - home to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, established in 1911. "When I got here in 1922, this country was already roaring drunk on petroleum," he says. "We are still roaring drunk on petroleum."

At La Mediterranée, Vonnegut brings with him a November 1972 Harper's article he wrote about the Republican presidential nomination in Miami of Richard Nixon when the country was fighting the Vietnam War.

"Read the piece written 33 years ago," he says. Nothing has changed: The country is still "divided between winners and losers. The government is Democratic and Republican, but look, in this last election, they had to choose between two members of Skull and Bones ( John Kerry and George Bush's fraternity at Yale) out of 300 million people or however many people we are."

"I was lucky enough to live under one truly humane president: FDR," he says. "He gave the common people enough influence by strengthening the labor unions.

"Automation has made labor worthless, so the losers are in awful trouble, and have no power whatsoever. They used to be able to withhold labor."

But then again there is the humanistic Vonnegut, honorary president of the Humanist Association: In A Man Without a Country, he repeats something his Uncle Alex used to say when they were sitting under an apple tree, chatting and drinking lemonade.

"Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.' "

It is a saying he now carries around with him, and he urges everyone to "please notice when you are happy."

[B-Mental]

Its not often one of my favorites gets in the news.

[amuse]

LONDON (Reuters) - Swedish-born philanthropist Sigrid Rausing has bought Granta, the century old literary journal renowned for discovering new writers like poet Sylvia Plath and A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie the Pooh.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rausing, whose UK-based trust has given more than 65 million pounds over the past decade for international human rights work, also started publishing firm Portobello Books earlier this year with her husband, film producer Eric Abraham.

Granta, which publishes books alongside its quarterly literary magazine, will be kept separate from Portobello.

"I am delighted that Granta will remain an independent publishing company and that it will be in the good and capable hands of Sigrid Rausing, who has a strong sense of appreciation for Granta," said Rea Hederman, the New York Review of Books owner who took a controlling share in Granta in 1994.

Granta was founded by Cambridge University students in 1889 to create a journal filled with political discourse and literary criticism. It has evolved into a favorite among literati in the United States and Britain for spotting up-and-coming writers.

Among the Granta contributors have been Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Michael Frayn, Salman Rushdie and Paul Theroux.

"As a showcase for new writing, the magazine is unrivalled, and as a publisher of innovative work, both it and Granta Books have few equals," Rausing said.

"I intend to ensure both have the human and financial resources to flourish," she added.

After years of financial woes, Granta last year swung to a profit of 168,000 pounds on about 3 million pounds of sales from a 129,000 pound loss in 2003 and 2.3 million pounds of sales.

Rausing's family, whose wealth came from the Tetra-Pak drinks carton manufacturing company, moved to Britain from Sweden in the early 1970s. The family was third on the Sunday Times list of richest people in Britain last year, with an estimated fortune of 5 billion pounds.

Sigrid set up the trust in 1995, originally naming it after her grandparents. It was changed to the Sigrid Rausing Trust in 2003 to more closely link it with her own aims and ideals.

source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051007/en_nm/media_granta_dc)

[mono]

Art exhibit a rough roe to hoe...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A top Moscow gallery bowed to religious sensibilities and pulled an exhibit that combined two potent symbols of Russia -- a gold icon and black caviar -- local media reported Thursday.

Churchgoers had appealed to the state Tretyakov gallery, objecting to "Icon-Caviar," which depicts hundreds of tiny fish eggs where the face should be on an icon, saying it was trivial and insulting.

The artist, Alexander Kosolapov, told Ekho Moskvy radio that his work was in no way religious: "The icon frame -- that's a metaphor for Russia. The caviar, that's also a metaphor."

The work was part of a major exhibition of Russian pop-art, which also includes a picture of the Kremlin under a computer-game-style alien attack.

source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051007/od_nm/russia_art_dc;_ylt=Ao91Su4Da3icHWA8cFbW_AGs0NUE;_y lu=X3oDMTA3NW1oMDRpBHNlYwM3NTc-)

[Scheherazade]

A great white shark crossed the Indian Ocean from South Africa to Australia and back again within just nine months. It was one of several great whites tagged by researchers in an attempt to improve conservation strategies.

Writing in the journal Science, they say the journey is unparalleled among fish - only tuna come close.

The mere act of tagging a great white is something of a feat; several people need to hold the creature still while the satellite tracker is attached.

EPIC OCEAN JOURNEY

This device was fixed to the female shark's trademark dorsal fin. Thankfully no scientists - and no sharks - suffered during the tagging.

The conservationists were investigating how far great whites wander, to see what protection measures might be needed to save them from extinction.

Several of the sharks migrated from South African to Mozambiquan territorial waters - where they are not protected.

Mate search

But Ramon Bonfil of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, US, and colleagues were stunned by the epic journey of the shark they called Nicole - after the shark-loving Australian actress Nicole Kidman.

"We suspect that she went for reproductive reasons," Dr Bonfil said.

"There's plenty of food around South Africa and she would be using too much energy to just go to Australia to feed. Of course we can't prove this at this stage, it is just a hunch."

Great whites were once thought to keep to coastal regions, but this was a trek across a vast expanse of open ocean.

The journey was very direct, not some aimless wandering. And the stay near Australia was only brief.

The researchers say the fact that they saw a shark make the journey at all - after observing only about 20 animals - suggests it is common behaviour.

Their concern is that such migrations make the great whites vulnerable to long-line fishing.

It is already known that lesser sharks do get captured and killed this way.

Given that the great white's population is small anyway, the species can ill afford to lose numbers in this way.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4317536.stm

[Scheherazade]

The winner of the prestigious Man Booker Prize, the UK's best known literature prize, is to be announced. Bookmakers have installed Julian Barnes as favourite to win with his novel Arthur and George.

Also on the shortlist are Zadie Smith and Kazuo Ishiguro, who won the prize in 1989 for Remains of the Day.

Ali Smith, Sebastian Barry and John Banville are also in contention for the £50,000 prize.

Bookmaker Ladbrokes has given Barnes odds of 6/5 to win the prize, followed by Ishiguro at 4/1 for Never Let Me Go.

A panel of judges whittled down a longlist of 17 books, which featured four previous winners. But of that quartet only Ishiguro made it to the final stages.

BOOKER SHORTLIST
Julian Barnes - Arthur and George
Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go
Zadie Smith - On Beauty
Sebastian Barry - A Long Long Way
John Banville - The Sea
Ali Smith - The Accidental


Booker author profiles

Zadie Smith is nominated for On Beauty, a homage to EM Forster's Howards End.

Her first two works, White Teeth and The Autograph Man, made previous Booker longlists but this is her first appearance on a shortlist.

However, White Teeth did win a clutch of awards, including the Whitbread first novel award in 2000.

Novelist and playwright Sebastian Barry is nominated for A Long Long Way, about an Irish soldier fighting in the British Army during World War I.

John Banville, another Irish writer, is in the running for The Sea, about a man who confronts his past in a town where he spent a childhood holiday.

And The Accidental by Ali Smith tells the story of a mysterious girl who turns a family upside down when she arrives on their doorstep.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4319734.stm

[Scheherazade]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40900000/jpg/_40900824_baboonbody.jpg
Baby baboon bald and beautiful


A new baby at a Devon zoo has been attracting a lot of attention - for all the wrong reasons. The bald truth is that Reggie the hamadryas baboon has had his hair licked off with some excessive tender loving care by his mother.

Reggie was born at Paignton Zoo three weeks ago, weighing 18oz (510g) with a normal covering of hair.

A zoo spokesman said: "Mostly they're born hairy and stay hairy, but in this case the mother has been over-zealous."

Phil Knowling added: "It will grow back and he will be fine, but he is a baboon curiosity at the moment."

The idea of changing Reggie's name is being toyed with.

The youngster was initially named after the late Reggie Kray, but after a lot of head scratching and hair pulling, keepers think the baboon with the shiny pink head looks more like Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

The zoo has about 60 hamadryas baboons, which are native to north-east Africa and were considered sacred by the ancient Egyptians.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/4334440.stm

[Scheherazade]

An 80-page handwritten manuscript by Beethoven which was missing for 115 years has been put up for auction. The score of Grosse Fuge, which has the composer's changes, was found by a librarian at a US religious school.

It is expected to fetch up to £1.5m when it goes on sale at Sotheby's auction house in London on 1 December.

Sotheby's says the score, which was last seen at an auction in Berlin in 1890, is "the most important Beethoven manuscript to appear in recent memory".

The buyer at the 1890 Berlin auction is now believed to have been an industrialist from Ohio who took the manuscript to the US.

The German composer wrote Grosse Fuge while contending with deafness.

The score dates from 1826, the year before he died.

Dr Stephen Roe, head of Sotheby's manuscript department, said the discovery was "an amazing find".

Chance find

"It has never before been seen or described by Beethoven scholars," he said.

"Its rediscovery will allow a complete reassessment of this extraordinary music."

The script, which contains multiple deletions and corrections, was found by librarian Heather Carbo at the Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

Ms Carbo was conducting an inventory of the seminary's archives when she came across the manuscript in a basement cabinet.

Manuscripts by Mozart were discovered at the seminary in 1990.

President Dr Wallace Charles Smith said: "At the time, we called it 'the Mozart miracle'. It seems appropriate that this time we are thankful for the 'Beethoven blessing'."

The last missing Beethoven manuscript to be discovered was found in Cornwall in 1999 and sold by Sotheby's for £166,500.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4337858.stm

[Scheherazade]

The head of a US Catholic school has cancelled prom night because of objections to a "bacchanalian" culture of "financial decadence". Kenneth Hoagland, of Kellenberg Memorial High in Long Island, took action via a letter to parents.

"[Kellenberg] is willing to sponsor a prom, but not an orgy," he wrote, after consultations that began last year.

Prom night is a rite of passage for US students and there have been passionate reactions for and against the move.

'Emotionally traumatic'

"It is not primarily the sex, booze, drugs that surround this event, as problematic as they might be," Brother Hoagland wrote.

"It is rather the flaunting of affluence, assuming exaggerated expenses, a pursuit of vanity for vanity's sake. In a word, financial decadence," he added.

"Each year it gets worse, becomes more exaggerated, more expensive, more emotionally traumatic.

"We are withdrawing from the battle and allowing the parents full responsibility."

The principal began looking into the future of the prom last Spring after it was discovered that 46 Kellenberg seniors made a $10,000 down payment on a $20,000 house rental in the Hamptons for a post-prom party.

When school officials found out, they forced the students to cancel the deal.

But Mr Hoagland said some parents went ahead and rented a Hamptons house anyway.

The school says it is open to prom alternatives and says most parents support the move.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4350764.stm

[Scheherazade]

People could apparently be misidentified by hi-tech scanners developed for national ID cards because their fingerprints have been worn away. Could this really happen?

Manual work has never been good for the hands, but now it seems it could get a person in trouble with authorities.

Labourers and builders could find their fingerprints are not recognised by new high-tech equipment, an internal report for the government has reportedly warned.

They are not alone - typists, pianists, violinists and guitarists also face inaccurate readings.

The problem is that fingerprints can be severely worn down, particularly among people who work with abrasive materials.

Skin grafts

"The ridges that make up fingerprints are like a ploughed field," says fingerprint expert Raymond Broadstock.

"Work such as labouring and typing wears down those ridges and affects the smoothness of the skin. It can make fingerprints very hard to read. Certain vitamin deficiencies can also do the same."

The damage is not permanent as the skin rejuvenates within days. But for those who work in such professions there is little chance for their fingers to get a long enough rest for the ridges to rebuild - except on holiday.

"Prisoners have been known to rub their hands against the rough walls of prison cells to try and wear away the ridges," says Mr Broadstock. "They are just placed in cells with smooth walls for a few day until the skin rejuvenates itself."

Government's trials are said to have suggested that worn away fingerprints - along with problems with face and iris scans - could identify one in 1,000 people as someone else.

One possible way round the problem would be to develop machines that also scan palms, as they have the same unique ridges, says Mr Broadstock.

"One criminal in the US obliterated his fingerprints by taking skin from other parts of his body and grafting it onto his fingertips. It worked but he still got caught because he had forgotten about his palms. He was surprised to say the least."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4349232.stm

[Scheherazade]

Environmental group Greenpeace has been fined almost $7,000 (£4,000) for damaging a coral reef at a World Heritage site in the Philippines. Their flagship Rainbow Warrior II ran aground at Tubbataha Reef Marine Park, in the Sula Sea, 650km (400 miles) south-east of Manila.

Park officials said almost 100 sq m (1,076 sq ft) of reef had been damaged.

Greenpeace agreed to pay the fine, but blamed the accident on outdated maps provided by the Philippines government.

"The chart indicated we were a mile and a half" from the coral reef when the ship ran around, regional Greenpeace official Red Constantino told AFP news agency.

"This accident could have been avoided if the chart was accurate," he said, adding, however, that Greenpeace felt "responsible" for the damage.

'Immediate action'

The accident happened while the Rainbow Warrior was on a four-month tour of the Asia-Pacific region to promote environmentally-friendly energy sources.

Greenpeace divers were at the Tubbataha park, off the coast of Palawan island, to inspect the effect of global warming on the coral reef.

Mr Constantino said the reef appeared to be healthy, with no evidence of bleaching which is believed to be caused by warmer sea temperatures.

The Rainbow Warrior II escaped serious damage and was towed into deeper water by its own rubber boats.

Tubbataha park manager, Angelique Songco, praised the work Greenpeace was doing to protect the environment.

"We also appreciate the immediate action they took to get the full assessment of the damage," she said.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4395572.stm

[kilted exile]

Twin bluffs his way past guards

Police have launched a hunt for a young offender who escaped from behind bars by posing as his identical twin.

Teenager Gary O'Donnell, believed to be from the Glasgow area, had been serving four-and-a-half years for assault.

He has been on the run from the Polmont Young Offenders Institution in central Scotland since Thursday.

He stepped out as guards were releasing his twin brother John. He was freed after serving 60 days in the same block for traffic offences.

Gary O'Donnell was thought to have walked out of his cell when his brother's name was called.

Brother John was still freed because he had served his time.

A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service confirmed Gary O'Donnell was being sought by police.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4409568.stm

[Scheherazade]

Scientists say they have probably solved the mystery of where the father of modern astronomy was buried. Nicolaus Copernicus' 16th century theory that the Earth orbits the Sun was a key scientific development.

A skull and partial remains were discovered two months ago in Frombork Cathedral in north-eastern Poland.

A computer-generated reconstruction of the man's face bears a strong enough resemblance to portraits of Copernicus to convince the scientists.

Piercing eyes

The remains were examined by specialists at the central crime laboratory in the Polish capital, Warsaw.

They found it was the skull of a man who had died aged 60-70. Copernicus died in 1543 aged 70.

Their computer-generated reconstruction shows a white-haired man with a large nose and a small scar above one of his piercing eyes.

Copernicus lived and worked at Frombork cathedral. For many years he was canon there and only carried out his astronomical studies in his spare time.

But despite several archaeological searches, his grave was never located - until last summer's apparent breakthrough.

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40982000/jpg/_40982156_portrait_afp203.jpg


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4405958.stm

[Scheherazade]

A US woman selling her house in Denver, Colorado over the internet has decided to throw in a little extra - herself. The house is 95 years old. The bride who comes with it is 48.

Deborah Hale, a jewellery designer who runs her own business, says she set up her House with Bride website because she "had not met that special someone to share this house with".

She is asking $600,000 (£343,000) for the house and furnishings.

She herself is "priceless", she says many of her girlfriends advised her.

"I hope to find that special man who wants to build a life with me and share this special home with me," her website says.

Her ideal candidate is between 40 and 60 years old, educated, well-spoken, professional and "spiritual".

Ms Hale's business is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but because her life there "revolved solely around my work", she bought the house in Denver in order to "make some changes to improve my social life and hopefully meet my 'soul mate' ", she writes.

She says she was unsuccessful using dating agencies and going on blind dates.

Ms Hale invites bidders to send videos or DVDs of themselves, plus "information about why you are interested either in this house and/or Deborah" and "any additional information you would like to provide".

The auction - which is also listed on eBay - closes on Valentine's Day 2006.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4409364.stm

[Scheherazade]

Israeli officials say they have discovered what may be the oldest Christian Church in the Holy Land - on the site of a maximum security prison. Israel's Antiquities Authority said the church at the Megiddo jail dated back to the third or fourth century AD and was "a once in a lifetime find".

It contained a mosaic bearing the name of Jesus Christ in ancient Greek, fish murals and an altar, officials said.

The dig took place near the biblical site of Armageddon in northern Israel.

'Great discovery'

"This is a once in a lifetime find and the inscriptions are very rare," excavation supervisor Jotham Tefer told Israel's Channel Two television.

"This is a very ancient structure, maybe the oldest in our area," he said.

Mr Tefer added that the discovery could help shed new light on an important period of Christianity, which was banned by the Romans until the fourth century.

"Normally we have from this period in our region historical evidence from literature, not archaeological evidence," he said.

"There is no structure you can compare it to, it is a very unique find."

The Vatican's ambassador to Israel, Pietro Sambi, described the find as a "great discovery".

Megiddo is Hebrew for Armageddon, the site which Christian teachings say will herald the final battle before the coming of the messiah.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4411286.stm

[Scheherazade]

An old people's home in Sweden found itself under siege from two drunks. But these were no ordinary drinkers - the tipsy pair were elks who had come upon some fermented apples outside the home in Sibbhult, southern Sweden.

The cow and her calf developed such a taste for the intoxicating fruit they refused to bow to police attempts to chase them away from the home.

Police officers were forced to take tougher measures to make them leave, bringing in a hunter with a dog.

The elks did not need telling twice, and left without protest.

The only thing police needed to do to ensure the pie-eyed pair did not return was remove the remaining apples, police chief Bengt Hallberg said.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4419876.stm

[Scheherazade]

By Sandeep Sahu
BBC News, Bhubaneswar

Officials in India's eastern Orissa state fear a three-year-old who has become famous for running marathon distances is being exploited. Budhia Singh, who recently ran 60km (33 miles) in six and a half hours, has appeared in a spate of TV commercials.

The state government says it also fears the long distances may be damaging the boy's heart and lungs.

His mentor, Biranchi Das, dismissed the fears, saying Budhia had regular medical check-ups.

Orissa's sports minister, Debashis Nayak, said the government would not be a mute spectator to the exploitation and would intervene, if necessary, to "save his future".

Budhia recently ran non-stop from the holy town of Puri to Bhubaneswar, a distance of 60km (37 miles).

A few days before that, he ran non-stop from Bhubaneswar to Cuttack - 35km.

During a recent visit to Orissa, former top Indian runner, PT Usha, also said running for 50 to 60km so frequently could have disastrous long-term consequences for Budhia's health.

Scolded

But Budhia's mentor, Mr Das, is undeterred by the criticism.

"A team of three doctors conducts regular check-ups on Budhia to find out if anything is wrong with him.

"I don't know why these people are so concerned."

The state government has announced a monthly stipend of 500 rupees ($12) for Budhia but Mr Das said: "The amount would not be enough to meet the expenses for even two days."

Mr Das, a judo coach, noticed Budhia's talent when scolding him for being a bully.

"Once, after he had done some mischief, I asked him to keep running till I came back," Mr Das said.

"I got busy in some work. When I came back after five hours, I was stunned to find him still running."

Budhia had been sold by his poverty-stricken mother to a man for 800 rupees.

Mr Das summoned the man who had bought Budhia and paid him his money back.

He then started a strict diet and exercise regimen that saw Budhia adding a few kilometres to his running every few days.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4421446.stm

[Scheherazade]

An 18-year-old American is about to combine high school with politics - by becoming mayor of his home town. Michael Sessions - who last year ran for his school council and lost - has been elected mayor of Hillsdale, a town of 8,200 in the US state of Michigan.

He ousted the 51-year-old incumbent in a campaign costing $700 (£400) paid for by a summer job selling toffee apples.

Mr Sessions says he intends to carry on studying through his four-year term and will go to town meetings after class.

He is due to take up the part-time position, which offers a $3,600 (£2,070) stipend, on 21 November.

Homework

Since beating incumbent Douglas Ingles, he has become an overnight celebrity, giving media interviews and appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman.

He seems to have won over voters with his enthusiasm, despite his obvious youth.

"They'd look at me and say 'How old are you again?'," he said, explaining he went on to tell them his ideas for attracting money and jobs to the town.

To make matters harder, the teenager had not turned 18 before the deadline for filing his name for the ballot paper had passed.

Undeterred, he went to the town hall to register as a voter on his birthday and a week later declared he would run a write-in campaign.

This meant spending the next month going door-to-door with business cards and a sample ballot to show people where to write in his name on polling day.

Although the day-to-day running of the town will continue to fall to the city manager, Mr Sessions will have to attend two meetings a month after school.

Peter Beck, principal of Hillsdale High, is quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying: "I told him that if he wins, he'll still need to finish his homework... I'd hate to have to suspend a city official."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4429192.stm

[Scheherazade]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41020000/jpg/_41020548_bbc_harriet203.jpg

A zoo in Australia has held a 175th birthday party for one of the world's oldest known living creatures, a Giant Galapagos tortoise. Australia Zoo, where the tortoise has lived for the last 17 years, marked the day with a pink hibiscus flower cake.

Although the animal's exact date of birth is not known, DNA testing has indicated its approximate age.

Some people believe the tortoise, known as Harriet, was studied by British naturalist Charles Darwin.

Darwin took several young Giant Galapagos tortoises back to London after his epic voyage on board HMS Beagle.

DNA testing has suggested the giant creature was born around 1830, a few years before Darwin visited the Galapagos archipelago in 1835.

However, Harriet belongs to a sub-species of tortoise only found on an island that Darwin never visited.

Plate to table

At the time of Darwin's visit, Harriet would have been about as big as a dinner plate. She now weighs 150kg (23 stone) and is roughly the size of a dinner table.

According to the BBC's Phil Mercer, in Sydney, Harriet has become somewhat of a celebrity at the Australia Zoo on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.

She receives a thorough wash every morning and is fed a vegetarian diet that includes green beans and celery.

Her keepers believe she has survived for so long because she has enjoyed a stress-free life.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4438448.stm

[Scheherazade]

The authorities in India's Uttar Pradesh state are trying to work out what to do with a senior police officer who likes dressing up in drag.

Things came to a head last week when inspector general Devendra Kumar Panda turned up in court in a yellow dress and dark red lipstick.

TV news channels flocked to his home to film him worshipping Hindu deity Lord Krishna in the form of a tree.

Mr Panda says he is the reincarnation of Goddess Radha, Lord Krishna's beloved.

His wife takes a different view - she has filed for separation because he is not behaving like a husband.

The court in Lucknow ordered Mr Panda to pay 7,000 rupees ($150) a month in maintenance allowance.

Wife's fears

Mr Panda's wife, Veena, fears he may lose his job - and she her maintenance allowance.

"Please keep my future in mind," she told reporters. "I am a 51-year-old lady and a graduate. I should not suffer due to any action against him."

The couple have been married for 33 years and have two sons, but Mr Panda now pays his family no attention.

He has been spending his time embracing a peepal, or holy fig, tree in his garden, chanting mantras to his beloved Lord Krishna.

One room in his house is kept sacred and secret.

"That is my private bed room. Only Krishna can enter there," he says.

'Strange behaviour'

There is nothing unusual in a Hindu ascetic getting up early and quoting from scriptures, as Mr Panda does.

Nor is it uncommon for Hindu sects to worship deities as lovers, or for men to live like women devotees.

But Mr Panda's position is a tricky one, seeing as he is a senior police officer.

Colleagues kept his penchant for ladies' clothes a secret for years, but must now decide what to do with a man who has become a figure of ridicule.

"The appearance and behaviour of Mr Panda is strange," admits director general of police, Yashpal Singh.

"But maybe he is suffering from some mental problem and any disciplinary action may precipitate things."



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4440504.stm

[Scheherazade]

Teachers in the north Indian state of Punjab have gone to court to protest at being forced to cook meals for pupils. The primary teachers say the government should cook the food and leave them to do the teaching.

Cooked food must be provided under a government scheme to improve nutrition and attendance.

But teachers say they are given no facilities so must cook in classrooms and then wash up, taking up to four hours from teaching time.

The teachers say unless the situation changes it will have a terrible effect on the learning of Punjab's schoolchildren.

Drop outs

The state schoolteachers' union has petitioned the High Court in the Punjab capital, Chandigarh, demanding that the government be directed to provide cooked food for distribution under the government's Mid-Day Meal Scheme for schools.

The scheme, introduced last year, is part of the federal ministry of human resource development's effort to improve the nutritional status of children and encourage increased levels of attendance.

But the schoolteachers' lawyer, Atul Lakhanpal, said not one of the state-run schools in Punjab had the facilities to cook the meals.

"The chore of cooking, unfairly delegated to the teachers, easily takes up three to four hours of their time in school," Mr Lakhanpal said.

The High Court issued a notice to the Punjab state government to reply by 16 January.

The Mid-Day Meal Scheme was introduced to counter a high drop out rate among pupils.

Parents in poor families were keeping them at home to do menial jobs to contribute to the family income.

For many years, schools simply distributed uncooked flour and groceries to the children.

But in many instances this encouraged corruption with school heads either selling off the food or enrolling non-existent students to claim larger quantities of uncooked food to sell at a profit.

Now teachers are supplied raw materials and told to cook them. There are periodic checks on quality, with the teachers held responsible.

Teaching unions have made representations to the government over the issue in the past but say no action has been taken.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4449426.stm

[Scheherazade]

A competition has been launched in Australia to find a new way of describing kangaroo meat. Organisers want to find a name less offensive to diners sensitive about eating a national symbol.

Australia has millions of kangaroos, whose lean red meat has generated a multi-million dollar export industry.

Kangaroo meat is popular in Germany, France and Belgium. Russians have a taste for sausages, but Australia's enthusiasm has always been lukewarm.

This is partly for sentimental reasons. The kangaroo appears on Australia's coat of arms and is one of the country's most recognisable symbols.

Somehow throwing a 'roo steak on the barbecue just doesn't feel right.

Attempts are now being made to combat this national squeamishness.

Australia's kangaroo industry is planning to publish new recipes and develop ready-to-eat marsupial meals and burgers.

They will be promoted as a low-fat alternative to lamb and beef.

Skippy steak?

Organisers are also looking to give kangaroo meat a palatable new name.

Hundreds of suggestions for a new name have already been put forward.

They range from the obvious - including Skippy, the name of an old television series that featured a very sensible kangaroo - to others that will probably make the judges wince, such as Yummy and Kanga.

Up to four million of these unique animals are culled every year under official quotas.

Wildlife activists have described this as a barbaric slaughter.

One campaigner said that turning these beautiful creatures into Russian sausages was a national disgrace


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4452704.stm

[starrwriter]

A competition has been launched in Australia to find a new way of describing kangaroo meat. Organisers want to find a name less offensive to diners sensitive about eating a national symbol ...
Skippy steak! That's classic.

When I was in Australia, I met a lot of Aussies who despised roos. They eat farm crops and cause human injuries and fatalities when they are struck by vehicles on remote highways.

[Scheherazade]

A French woman has admitted attempting to open an aeroplane door mid-flight so that she could smoke a cigarette. Sandrine Helene Sellies, 34, who has a fear of flying, had drunk alcohol and taken sleeping tablets ahead of the flight from Hong Kong to Brisbane.

She was seen on the Cathay Pacific plane walking towards a door with an unlit cigarette and a lighter.

She then began tampering with the emergency exit until she was stopped by a flight attendant.

Defence lawyer Helen Shilton said her client had no memory of what had happened on the flight on Saturday, and that she had a history of sleepwalking.

She pleaded guilty to endangering the safety of an aircraft at Brisbane Magistrates Court and was given a 12-month A$1,000 (£429) good behaviour bond - she will forfeit the money if she commits another offence.

The French tourist was at the start of a three-week holiday in Australia with her husband.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4456076.stm

[Logos]

Today, an impending environmental disaster in China along the Songhua river, and in the city of Harbin (http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a99bb0f0-5c54-11da-af92-0000779e2340.html)

:(

[starrwriter]

Today, an impending environmental disaster in China along the Songhua river, and in the city of Harbin (http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a99bb0f0-5c54-11da-af92-0000779e2340.html)
Last night I saw a TV news report that concluded China "has polluted its way to prosperity," but will now have to face the dire consequences. For one thing, the report said 190 million Chinese drink water that is contaminated with carcinogens and/or dangerous pathogens.

[Logos]

PetroChina was first saying the `damage' had been contained after their explosion.

As usual `news' from China is questionable. Russian gets to deal with the consequences of this accident as well.

Can you imagine what percentage of 9 million people are poor, poor enough they can't get out of the city to somewhere where they do have access to water, so poor they can't afford to buy drinking water, they get to `deal' with it for at least 4 days, probably longer.

It's reminding me of the people in New Orleans and LA who were stuck in the city during the flooding. Very sad. The haves and the have-nots. The very people who work like dogs to build for prosperity are literally poisoned by it.

[starrwriter]

The haves and the have-nots. The very people who work like dogs to build for prosperity are literally poisoned by it.
It's amazing how much "communist" China is beginning to resemble 1900 America: sweatshops with no worker rights, massive pollution, a small number of tycoons becoming filthy rich at the expense of everyone else, etc. Whatever happened to the dictatorship of the proletariat? The more things change, the more they stay insane.

[Scheherazade]

The latest Harry Potter film has been screened to the two-man crew of the International Space Station (ISS). Mission Control in Houston transmitted Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on Tuesday on the request of US astronaut Bill McArthur, the station's commander.

It followed a live link-up earlier this month that saw Sir Paul McCartney play two songs to the ISS crew members.

McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev, the 12th crew of the ISS, are 55 days into their six-month mission.

"ISS crew members have busy work schedules but they also have a little scheduled downtime," said a Nasa spokesperson.

"Over the years the station has compiled a DVD movie library, along with books, magazines, CDs and other materials to help the astronauts relax."

The Goblet of Fire is now the most successful film in UK cinema history, having made £14.9m in its first three days on release.

On Thursday the ISS crew will celebrate the US Thanksgiving holiday with irradiated smoked turkey, dehydrated green beans and a thermo-stabilised cranberry-apple dessert.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4465760.stm

[Basil]

Elton plans 'quiet' wedding
24 November 2005
Sir Elton John and David Furnish are to "marry" in a private ceremony with only their parents as witnesses, they revealed today

The couple's big day was expected to be a star-studded occasion attended by their celebrity friends, including the Beckhams and Liz Hurley.

But they have decided to keep the ceremony uncharacteristically low-key - although they will follow it up with a lavish evening reception.

Sir Elton said: "The ceremony itself will be very private. That much we know. It'll be a very small family affair and then in the evening there'll be a soiree somewhere, which we have yet to work out.

"But the ceremony itself will be David's parents and my parents and the two of us. They'll be our witnesses. That's the way we want to do it. They've been so fantastic to us and so supportive. Out of respect for their support, we want to just keep it small. Not to make a ballyhoo of the ceremony.

"There will be a party somewhere, but the day will be very low-key and we'll take our parents to lunch afterwards.

"I haven't thought so much about the emotional side of it yet, but I'm sure this is going to be an incredibly emotional day."

Sir Elton and Furnish, a Canadian-born film-maker, have been together for 12 years.

They will tie the knot on December 21, becoming one of the first same-sex couples to "marry" following the introduction of the Civil Partnership Act.

Furnish told Attitude magazine: "As far as I'm concerned, I've always considered myself committed to Elton and he's the person that I want to spend the rest of my life with. So in that sense I don't feel like the dynamic of our relationship is going to change.

"But from a social standpoint, I think it's hugely significant. It is a major, major change. It is one of the defining issues of our times. And I applaud Britain for embracing the diversity of our society."

Is Elton John gay?!? :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

[Scheherazade]

By Jodi Wilgoren / New York Times

CHICAGO -- Bridget Dehl shushed her 21-month-old son Gavin, then clapped a hand over his mouth to squelch his tiny screams amid the Sunday brunch bustle. When Gavin kept yelping "yeah, yeah, yeah," Dehl quickly whisked him from his highchair and out the door.

Right past the sign warning the cafe's customers that "Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven," and right into a nasty spat roiling the stroller set in Chicago's changing Andersonville neighborhood.

The owner of A Taste of Heaven, Dan McCauley, said he posted the sign -- at child level, with playful handprints -- in the hope of quieting his tin-ceilinged cafe, where toddlers have been known to sprawl between tables and hurl themselves at display cases for sport.

But many neighborhood mothers took umbrage at the implied criticism of how they handle their children. Soon, whispers of a boycott passed among the playgroups in this North Side hamlet, once an outpost of edgy artists and hip gay couples but now a hot real estate market for young professional families shunning the suburbs.

"I love people who don't have children who tell you how to parent," said Alison Miller, 35, a psychologist, corporate coach and mother of two. "I'd love for him to be responsible for three children for the next year and see if he can control the volume of their voices every minute of the day."

McCauley, 44, said the protesting parents are "former cheerleaders and beauty queens" who "have a very strong sense of entitlement." In an open letter to the community, he warned of an "epidemic" of anti-social behavior.

"Part of parenting skills is teaching kids they behave differently in a restaurant than they do on the playground," McCauley said. "If you send out positive energy, positive energy returns to you. If you send out energy that says I'm the only one that matters, it's going to be a pretty chaotic world."

And so simmers another skirmish between the childless and the child-centered, a culture clash increasingly common in restaurants and other public spaces as a new generation of busy, older, well-off parents ferry little ones with them.

• An online petition urging child-free sections in North Carolina restaurants drew hundreds of signers, including Janelle Funk, who wrote, "Whenever a hostess asks me 'smoking or nonsmoking?' I respond, 'No kids!' "

• At Mendo Bistro in Fort Bragg, Calif., the owners declare "Well-behaved children and parents welcome" to try to stop unmonitored youngsters from tap-dancing on the 100-year-old wood floors.

• Menus at Zumbro Cafe in Minneapolis say: "We love children, especially when they're tucked into chairs and behaving," which Barbara Daenzer said she read as an invitation to cease her weekly breakfast visits when her son was born.

• Even at the Full Moon in Cambridge, Mass., a cafe created for families, there are rules about inside voices and a "No lifeguard on duty" sign to remind parents to take responsibility. "You run the risk when you start monitoring behavior," said the Full Moon's owner, Sarah Wheaton. "You can say no cell phones to people, but you can't say your father speaks too loudly, he has to keep his voice down. And you can't really say your toddler is too loud when she's eating."

Here in Chicago, parents have denounced Toast, a popular Lincoln Park breakfast spot, as unwelcoming since a note about using inside voices appeared on the menu six months ago.

The owner of John's Place established a separate "family-friendly" room a year ago, only to face parental threats of lawsuits.

When a retail clerk in Andersonville asked a woman to stop breast-feeding last spring, "the neighborhood set him straight real fast," said Mary Ann Smith, the area's alderwoman.

Things got ugly

After a dozen years at one site, McCauley moved A Taste of Heaven six blocks away in May 2004, to a busy corner on Clark Street. The clientele is whiter, wealthier and louder, he said. Teachers and writers seeking afternoon refuge were drowned out not just by children running amok but also by oblivious cell phone chatterers.

Children were climbing the cafe's poles. A couple were blithely reading the newspaper while their daughter lay on the floor blocking the line for coffee. When the family whose children were running across the room to flail themselves against the display cases left after his admonishment, McCauley recalled, the restaurant erupted in applause.

So he put up the sign. Then things really got ugly.

"The looks I would get when I went in there made me so nervous that I would try to buy the food as fast as I could and get out," said Laura Brauer, 40, who has stopped visiting Taste with her two kids.

"I think that the mothers who allow their kids to run around and scream, that's wrong, but kids scream and there is nothing you can do about it. What are we supposed to do, not enjoy ourselves at a cafe?"

Miller said that one day when her son, then 4 months old, was fussing, a staff member rolled her eyes and announced for all to hear, "We've got a screamer!"

Kim Cavitt recalled having coffee and a cookie one afternoon with her boisterous 2-year-old when "someone came over and said you just need to keep her quiet or you need to leave."

"We left, and we haven't been back since," Cavitt said. "You go to a coffee shop or a bakery for a rest, to relax, and that you would have to worry the whole time about your child doing something that children do -- really what they're saying is they don't welcome children, they want the child to behave like an adult."

Why suffer such scorn, the mothers said, when clerks at the Swedish Bakery, a neighborhood institution, offer children -- calm or crying -- free cookies? Why confront such criticism when the recently opened Sweet Occasions, a five-minute walk down Clark Street, designed the bathroom aisle to accommodate double strollers and offers a child-size ice cream cone for $1.50? (At A Taste of Heaven, the smallest costs $3.75.)

"It's his business; he has the right to put whatever sign he wants on the door," Miller said. "And people have the right to respond to that sign however they want."

Owner won't back down

McCauley said he had received kudos from several restaurant owners in the area, though none had followed his lead. He has certainly lost customers because of the sign, but some parents say the offense is outweighed by their addiction to the scones, and others embrace the effort at etiquette.

"The litmus test for me is if they have high chairs or not," said Dehl, the woman who scooped her screaming son from his seat during brunch, as she waited out his restlessness on a sidewalk bench. "The fact that they had one high chair, and the fact that he's the only child in the restaurant is an indication that it's an adult place, and if he's going to do his toddler thing we should take him out and let him run around."

McCauley said he would rather go out of business than back down. He likens this one small step toward good manners to his personal effort to decrease pollution by only hiring employees who live close enough to walk to work.

"I can't change the situation in Iraq; I can't change the situation in New Orleans," he said. "But I can change this little corner of the world."

[kilted exile]

Ahem...Some people may not like this comment, however. The guy who owns the restaurant is quite right kids/weans/sprogs/whatever are terrible,annoying things and this is only made worse by parents who are the strange opinion that their "little angels" should be tolerated and not chastised in any way no matter how much their behaviour interferes with the enjoyment of other patrons. It's quite simple if the thing isnt old enough to sit in a chair without getting up and running around it is not old enough to go to a restaurant.

[RobinHood3000]

Hmm. My parents would smack me as a kid, and I think I turned out okay. Just letting "kids be kids" is like asking people to "let rapists be rapists," on a less extreme level. The excuse that the children are doing what children do is flimsy--after all, the parents are the ones that control what the kids do, are they not?

[ho'nehe]

Sorry if this upsets sme folk but this attitude of *children will be children* is
just an excuse and taking the easy way out.

What is wrong with showing children that there is a right and a wrong way to behave and what makes these parents of unruly children think they have a right to let them run riot? I whole heartly agree with the manager, when I go out for a meal I would like to sit and enjoy it without someone's five year old crawling under my table or screaming in my ear. I wonder how they would feel if someone's excited overgrown pup wanted to play 'fetch' or sit on their lap when they went out for dinner sans brats.

[starrwriter]

Ahem...Some people may not like this comment ...
You call kids sprogs and things? I called mine rugrats when they were young and they thought it was funny. My daughter used to imitate a rat to irritate her mother.

As well-behaved as my kids usually were, I never took them to sit-down restaurants until they were older. It was either home delivery or drive-through window and eating in the car.

[kilted exile]

You call kids sprogs and things?

The term sprog is not an unusual phrase to hear in Glasgow, Many men who have a pregnant wife/girlfriend are often asked "so when she gonna drop the sprog then?" It probably sounds strange to everyone from outside Glasgow/West of Scotland but....

[starrwriter]

The term sprog is not an unusual phrase to hear in Glasgow, Many men who have a pregnant wife/girlfriend are often asked "so when she gonna drop the sprog then?" ...
Drop the sprog! I love it. Sounds so reptilian.

[mono]

China Aims to Put Man on Moon by 2020

HONG KONG - Fresh from its second manned space mission, China's space program wants to be able to put a man on the moon and build a space station in 15 years, an official said Sunday.

"I think in about 10 to 15 years, we will have the ability to build our own space station and to carry out a manned moon landing," said Hu Shixiang, deputy commander of China's manned space flight program.

But the goal is subject to getting enough funds from the government, Hu said, explaining that the space program must fit in the larger scheme of the country's overall development.

Hu was in Hong Kong with the two astronauts who conducted China's second successful manned space mission in October. He spoke during a televised question-and-answer session with executives from various television stations and newspapers.

Nie Haisheng and Fei Junlong circled Earth for five days aboard the Shenzhou 6 capsule, traveling 2 million miles in 115 hours, 32 minutes. China's first manned mission was in 2003, when astronaut Yang Liwei orbited for 21 1/2 hours.

China wants to master the technology for a space walk and docking in space by 2012, Hu said. He said China was developing its space program at its own pace, not in competition with the United States. "It's not the competition of the Cold War era," he said.

Hu stressed China's intention to use space exploration for peaceful ends, saying the government "is willing to work hard with people around the world for the peaceful use of space."

He said Chinese space officials want to study the possibility of making rockets with the capacity to carry spacecraft weighing 27.5 tons — three times the capacity of their existing rockets — but the government hasn't approved the funding.

Hu dismissed suggestions the space program is too costly for a country that, despite rapid economic growth, is still struggling to eradicate rural poverty.

He noted the recent space mission cost $111.4 million, compared to the $23.5 billion that China spent on combating pollution last year.

source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051127/ap_on_sc/china_space;_ylt=AkxUtEpdbolWuCrTqTb_AQ2s0NUE;_ylu =X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM-)

[Scheherazade]

Some couples may disagree, but romantic love lasts little more than a year, Italian scientists believe. The University of Pavia found a brain chemical was likely to be responsible for the first flush of love.

Researchers said raised levels of a protein was linked to feelings of euphoria and dependence experienced at the start of a relationship.

But after studying people in long and short relationships and single people, they found the levels receded in time.

The team analysed alterations in proteins known as neurotrophins in the bloodstreams of men and women aged 18 to 31, the Psychoneuroendocrinology journal reported.

They looked at 58 people who had recently started a relationship and compared the protein levels in the same number of people in long-term relationships and single people.

In those who had just started a relationship, levels of a protein called nerve growth factors, which causes tell-tale signs such as sweaty palms and the butterflies, were significantly higher.

Of the 39 people who were still in the same new relationship after a year, the levels of NGF had been reduced to normal levels.

Report co-author Piergluigi Politi said the findings did not mean people were no longer in love, just that it was not such an "acute love".

Stable

"The love became more stable. Romantic love seemed to have ended."

And he added the report suggested the change in love was down to NGF.

"Our current knowledge of the neurobiology of romantic love remains scanty.

"But it seems from this study biochemical mechanisms could be involved in the mood changes that occur from the early stage of love to when the relationship becomes more established."

However, he said further research was needed.

Dr Lance Workman, head of psychology at Bath Spa University, said: "Research has suggested that romantic love fades after a few years and becomes companionate love and it seems certain biological factors play a role.

"But while we are a pair-bonding species, there is some doubt over whether this is within monogamous relationships or not.

"Different societies have different practices and trends."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4478040.stm

[RobinHood3000]

To my knowledge, such a phenomenon hardly needs a scientific study to identify. I mean, anyone who's been in a relationship can likely attest that the first few months in the average relationship tend to have a certain emotional rush to them (the 'new-relationship smell') that, without a certain element of compatibility, tends to diminish over time.

[starrwriter]

To my knowledge, such a phenomenon hardly needs a scientific study to identify.
It's been done. For all of you love junkies:
http://www.oxytocin.org/oxytoc/index.html

[Scheherazade]

Shoppers at a kitchen store were left open-mouthed when a video promoting an onion chopper cut to hardcore porn. Dave Casson, who owns the Cook Shop in Macclesfield, Cheshire, put the video on in his store to show customers how the new chopping device worked.

But halfway through, viewers' eyes were left watering when the scene switched to a very different kind of action.

Mr Casson, 50, said: "We had a few old ladies in and I knew straight away it wasn't going to be good for business."

The video had been sent by Mr Casson's suppliers as a promotional tool for the kitchen utensil, to be played in his shop in the Cheshire town.

Most of our customers are middle-aged and really don't expect something like this

Dave Casson

"The tape looked very professional when we got it from the company we deal with and we just put it in," he said.

"It was supposed to just be on a continual loop, so it would start playing over and over again.

"For some reason it didn't work."

A few minutes in, the footage of the Swedish-made onion chopper stopped and, after a short time on a menu screen, cut to the pornographic movie.

"Somebody must have taped it over the other movie and it went on to that," added Mr Casson.

"Most of our customers are middle-aged and really don't expect something like this."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4494660.stm

[RobinHood3000]

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: Yikes. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

[Nightshade]

Maccelsfield heh? thats only about an hour from my house, maybe Ill go have a nosy pity its too far for the local papers to pick up, maybe the Cheshire monthly will??

hah! Ive been to their library (actually thought of applying there but 4 hours comuting every day from 7 in the morning and not be home till after 10 was too much) and they have the biggest "romance" selection I have seen anywhere and I think Ive been now to nearly everyone of the major libraries in cheshire.
Good scifi/fantasy too.
Beautiful building though and town and they have these gorgeous cobbles everywhere and I sooo want to live there one day.

[Scheherazade]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41091000/jpg/_41091444_borneanfront203.jpg

In the dense central forests of Borneo, a conservation group has found what appears to be a new species of mammal.

WWF caught two images of the animal, which is bigger than a domestic cat, dark red, and has a long muscular tail.

Local people, the WWF says, had not seen the species before, and researchers say it looks to be new.

The WWF says there is an urgent need to conserve forests in south-east Asia which are under pressure from logging and the palm oil trade.

The creature, believed to be carnivorous, was spotted in the Kayan Mentarang National Park, which lies in Indonesian territory on Borneo.

The team which discovered it, led by biologist Stephan Wulffraat, is publishing full details in a new book on Borneo and its wildlife.

"You don't find new mammals that often, and to do so must be extraordinary," said Callum Rankine, head of the species programme at WWF-UK.

"We've got camera traps there, which are passive devices relying on infra-red beams across forest paths," he told the BBC News website.

"Lots of animals come past - it's much easier than pushing through the forest itself - and when an animal cuts the beam, two cameras catch images from the front and back."

So far, two images are all that exist. But they were enough to convince Nick Isaac from the Institute of Zoology in London that the animal may indeed be new.

"The photos look most like a lemur," he told the BBC News website. "But there certainly shouldn't be lemurs in Borneo."

These long-tailed primates are confined to the island of Madagascar.

"It's more likely to be a viverrid - that's the family which includes the mongoose and civets - which is a very poorly known group," Dr Isaac said.

"One of the photos clearly shows the length of the tail and how muscly it is; civets use their tails to balance in trees, so this new animal may spend chunks of its time up trees too."

That could be one reason why it has not been spotted before. Another could be that access to the heart of Borneo is becoming easier as population centres expand and roads are built.

The WWF says this is the heart of the issue. It accuses the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia, which each own parts of Borneo, of encouraging the loss of native jungle by allowing the development of giant palm oil plantations.

Last week Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, chief minister of Sarawak, the larger Malaysian state on Borneo, said that such claims are unfounded and part of a smear campaign.

He told the BBC News website that palm oil plantations are mainly sited on land which had previously been cleared for cultivation or are in "secondary jungle".

But the WWF says species like the new viverrid - if new viverrid it be - are threatened by such development.

It is concerned that other as yet unknown creatures may go extinct before their existence can be documented.

The group is planning to capture the new species in a live trap so it can be properly studied and described.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4501152.stm

[Scheherazade]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41098000/jpg/_41098424_homeonbus203.jpg

Falling asleep on the bus is about to become easier as a new scheme providing short-term housing aboard double deckers is to be launched.
Eight buses have been refitted with kitchens, bathrooms and living space.

The buses, with solar panels and recycling bins, will be lent to a London homeless charity over Christmas.

Double Decker Living, a new London company, aims to provide alternative housing for the homeless and key workers such as NHS staff on call.

The idea for the bus, which can house up to five people, was prompted by the phasing out of the Routemaster, the distinctive hop-on, hop-off red London bus.

Life skills

"The double decker is such an iconic London image, we wanted to see what we could do with it," said Jason Hart of Double Decker Living.

"Everyone I speak to laughs because it sounds so strange but once they see it for themselves, they become very enthusiastic about the idea."

For the first stage of the project - to be launched on 19 December - Leyland Olympian double deckers are being used, but plans are under way for a Routemaster version.

Centrepoint charity for young homeless people will use the buses as teaching venues for life skills classes, covering topics such as cooking and interview preparation.

[Pensive]

Wow, What a bus!

[Nightshade]

* gets life plan list out pencils in LIVE IN LONDON at least for 9 months *


:D

[Scheherazade]

A teenager who fled the Taleban regime has made history by being the first Muslim to represent England in the Miss World beauty contest in China. Hammasa Kohistani, 18, had been third favourite but Misses Iceland, Mexico and Puerto Rico were voted top three.

Islamic extremists had sent her death threats for taking part in the competition, watched by two billion.

Miss Kohistani, who was born in Uzbekistan, fled Afghanistan with her parents in 1996.

She went to the UK via Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Dubai.

She recalls seeking cover in her Kabul apartment block, as a child, when it came under attack from bombs and bullets.

On arriving in Britain, Miss Kohistani's father Khushal set up a takeaway food business while her mother Layla worked as an interpreter.

Spotted on the London Underground at the age of 14, the A-level student speaks six languages and has modelled for Gap and Superdrug.

She has also been offered a part in a Bollywood film.

Miss Kohistani said: "This is a real life fairy story that couldn't happen in any other country.

"So many people from so many nations have been interested in my progress, because I am not what was expected."

Among those Miss Kohistani beat to the Miss England crown was another Muslim entrant, Sarah Mendly, 23, who was voted Miss Nottingham.

Miss Mendly had been among the favourites but Liverpool's Islamic institute called on her to pull out because contestants are often scantily clad.

A total of 102 contestants are in the Miss World final - now in its 55th year - including Miss Wales Claire Evans, 22, and 23-year-old Miss Scotland Aisling Friel.

Nigeria hosted Miss World three years ago and around 250 people died in riots after a journalist infuriated Muslims by suggesting the Prophet Mohammed might approve of the contest.

On Saturday Unnur Birna Vilhjalmsdottir, Miss Iceland, was crowned Miss World 2005.

The runner-up was Miss Mexico, Dafne Molina Lona, while Miss Puerto Rico, Ingrid Marie Rivera Santos, came third.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4515836.stm

[Scheherazade]

A strong earthquake has hit north-eastern Afghanistan, the US Geological Survey (USGS) has said. The tremor of 6.7 magnitude struck the mountainous Hindu Kush region bordering Pakistan early on Tuesday, it said.

Residents in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, where tens of thousands died in October's earthquake, fled their homes, reports say.

The tremor was also felt in India's capital, Delhi. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The earthquake in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the USGS said.

The tremor was felt in Pakistan's cities, including Muzaffarabad and Balakot, that were devastated by the 8 October earthquake, local television reported.

More than 73,000 people were killed in the earthquake which left at least three million people homeless, according to officials in Pakistan.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4523250.stm

[RobinHood3000]

73,000...holy hannah...

[Virgil]

I mean, anyone who's been in a relationship can likely attest that the first few months in the average relationship tend to have a certain emotional rush to them (the 'new-relationship smell') that, without a certain element of compatibility, tends to diminish over time.

From a few posts back.

"New relationship smell"???? What?

[RobinHood3000]

New relationship smell: the period common to the early stages of most relationships where it seems like every interaction is brimming with chemistry, stemming possibly from genuine compatibility but existing at least in part in the sheer novelty and excitement of a new relationship.

[Virgil]

Oh, now I get it. The chemistry is letting off fumes, which have that new-relationship odor. Makes a lot of sense, and brought a smile to my face!

[Scheherazade]

Thousands of people have subscribed to a self-destruct text message service which started on Sunday in the UK, says the firm behind the system.
The commercial service allows sensitive messages to be destroyed 40 seconds after being read.

Developed by a British firm, Staellium, it is designed to allay worries about incriminating messages.

The company said it has had interest from businesses, the Ministry of Defence, as well as celebrity agents.

Mission possible

Staellium likened its system to that of the self-destructing tape recorders featured in the 1970's TV show, Mission Impossible.

"The technology behind StealthText is derived from military technology, so the comparisons with Mission Impossible are justified," said Carole Barnum, chief executive of Staellium UK.

"The ability to send a self-destruct message has massive benefits for people from all walks of life, from everyday mobile users through to celebrities and business people," she said.

The most high-profile case of embarrassing text messages in recent years was the revelations of messages sent from England football captain David Beckham to his personal assistant Rebecca Loos.

Privacy comes at a price. Each text using the system costs 50 pence, though users have to sign up for a minimum of 10 messages.

People interested in using the service to send messages have to register and download a small program onto their mobile phone.

Once a message has been sent, the recipient receives a text notification showing the sender's name and a link to the message.

After they have opened it, the message disappears after 40 seconds.

Despite the fact the message will be removed from phones, users cannot entirely avoid a data trail.

For legal reasons, a log of the message will remain on a secure server to which they have no access.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4524770.stm

[Scheherazade]

Municipal regulations normally ban anything from smoking in public places to parking in certain zones. But officials in the Brazilian town of Biritiba Mirim, 70km (45 miles) east of Sao Paulo, have gone far beyond that.

They plan to prohibit residents from dying because the local cemetery has reached full capacity.

Mayor Roberto Pereira says the bill is meant as a protest against federal regulations that bar new or expanded cemeteries in preservation areas.

"They have not taken local demands into consideration", he claims.

Mr Pereira wants to build a new cemetery, but the project has been stalled because 98% of Biritiba Mirim is considered a preservation area.

A 2003 decree by Brazil's National Environment Council forbids burial grounds in protected areas.

'Ridiculous'

Biritiba Mirim, a town of 28,000 inhabitants, not only wants to prohibit residents from passing away.

The bill also calls on people to take care of their health in order to avoid death.

"I haven't got a job, nor am I healthy. And now they say I can't die. That's ridiculous," Amarildo do Prado, a unemployed resident, told local media.

The city council is expected to vote on the regulation next week.

"Of course the bill is laughable, unconstitutional, and will never be approved," said Gilson Soares de Campos, an aide to the mayor.

"But can you think of a better marketing strategy to persuade the government to modify the environmental legislation that is barring us from building a new cemetery?"

The bill states that "offenders will be held responsible for their acts". However, it does not say what the punishment will be.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4527868.stm

[Nightshade]

This sounds like a Terry pratchhet book... cant you just see poor Deaths shocked face?
:D

[Scheherazade]

Penguins at a zoo in northern Japan have been taken on their first walk of the season in an attempt to keep them trim during the winter. Asahiyama Zoo on the northern island of Hokkaido take its King Penguins on a 500-metre walk twice a day to stop them getting too fat during the cold months.

Spokesman Tetsuo Yamazaki said penguins gained weight in winter because they stood still to conserve energy.

The exercise programme takes place between December and the Spring.

"This stroll is done twice - 11 o'clock and 1430 - of every day until the snow disappears," Mr Yamazaki said, adding that each walk lasted about 30 minutes

"Just like in humans... the fat accumulates during the winter months, and the blood-sugar level rises," Mr Yamazaki said.

The penguins can only be taken on walks during the snowy months because their feet are unsuitable for walking on other surfaces, Mr Yamazaki said.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4530928.stm

[Nightshade]

Seee they are controlling them!!
:eek:
I need to start a panic button thread aka The Hills where we can all be safe!
:eek:
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!:eek2:

[Scheherazade]

India's state-owned airline Air India has threatened to ground its overweight cabin crew unless they shed their excess pounds over the next two months.
Some 10% of its 1,600-strong cabin crew are estimated to be overweight or suffering from obesity.

S Venkat, Air India's general manager public relations, told the BBC that the airline would strictly implement the directive.

"We have a tolerance limit that cannot be exceeded," he said.

Airline officials say the move is to try and improve the airline's poor image in the face of increased competition.

Air India has an excellent safety record. However it is has a reputation for dowdy looking aircraft, lengthy delays and sloppy service.

But a recent boom in Indian aviation has meant that the airline faces stiff competition from a host of newly launched private airlines within India, and increased services by international airlines.

Glamour of flying

Indian air travel has undergone a revolution in recent years with the new airlines offering cheaper fares combined with top-level service from glamorous, young crew members.

It is estimated that the Indian aviation market will grow to some 45 million passengers by 2010 from an existing 14 million passengers.

To meet the increasing demand, Air India announced this year that it would buy 68 aircraft from US aircraft manufacturer Boeing over the next 10 years.

"We are expanding and we need more crew," said Mr Venkat.

But they would have to conform with the weight restrictions which have been drawn up by the airline's insurance company.

Crew happy

The move has been welcomed by the cabin crew.

"We welcome the decision, as it is for our own benefit," Raju Joshi of the Air India Cabin Crew Association is quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times newspaper.

Under Indian law, female crew members can fly up to the age of 50 while males are allowed to fly till they are 58.

Reports say many of the crew members found overweight tended to be older staff.

Airline officials now say the sight of portly flight attendants lumbering up and down the aisles will rapidly fade away.

"Imagine if crew members can't fasten their seat belts, how can they fly?" an Air India spokesman, G Prasad Rao, is quoted as saying by the Associated Press.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4530914.stm

[Scheherazade]

An Australian and a New Zealander have been rescued off the Vietnamese coast after 11 days adrift in a lifeboat. Mark Smith, 49, and Steven Freeman, 30, left Hong Kong on a 65-ft yacht early in December, but it developed problems and sank soon afterwards.

The men say they had no food, drank their own urine and rainwater and huddled "like two babies" to keep warm.

They were weak and dehydrated by the time they were found by Vietnamese fishermen off the country's coast.

The men said that when their ship sank in the East China Sea during a storm, they were left with just two sponges and an oar.

When it rained, they used the sponges to collect rainwater, according to the Associated Press news agency.

"It was sheer will power that kept us alive," said Mr Smith.

His fellow sailor said: "It's been unreal, incredible."

They were forced to resort to drinking their own urine, and said they were most afraid at night.

'Unable to walk'

They were taken to a clinic on Ly Son island, about 54km (34 miles) off the coast of central Quang Ngai province, said Nguyen Thanh Tung, deputy head of the island's People's Committee.

The centre's director, Le Van Phuong, said the two men were in poor condition when they arrived.

"When we received them on Saturday afternoon, they were cold, exhausted and could not walk on their own," he said. "We warmed them up and gave them food. They are in good condition now, ready to return home."

When that may be remains unclear.

A speed boat was sent to Ly Son island on Sunday to take the men to mainland Vietnam, but was forced to turn back because of rough waves, Mr Nguyen said.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4541186.stm

[Scheherazade]

A simple typing error has triggered mayhem on the Tokyo stock exchange and cost one bank £190m. But in a world where almost everyone now is expected to type, how many of us really can?

Think back to those initial days when you made the leap from pen and exercise book to the infinitely more sophisticated keyboard, and how bewildering the jumble of keys seemed to be under your ill-guided fingers.

The "P", tucked away in the upper-right-hand reaches of the keyboard always seemed particularly aloof.

But in time the apparently random distribution of letters, numbers, punctuation and other function keys fell into place.

Diplomatic incident

The Qwerty layout was developed in the late 18th Century not to ease the flight of the touch typist's nimble digits, but the opposite.

It was designed to slow her - and in those days it was almost exclusively women who carried out secretarial duties - down and prevent a typewriter's clunky typebars from getting jammed.

It's ironic then that today, in an era when lightning-fast computers are de rigueur and typing is no longer the preserve of skilled secretaries, but expected of just about everyone, that the Qwerty layout has never been more widespread.

Its popularity, however, is less certain, particularly among those who've been at the sharp end of an embarrassing "fat fingers" incident - the term given to a simple typing error caused by hitting the wrong key.

It happens millions of times a day, but once in a while the result can be devastating. Earlier this month a trader on the Tokyo stock market accidentally blew £190m because of a simple typing error.

A computer which should have cancelled the transaction failed to click in, and this further embarrassment led to the resignation on Tuesday of the head of the Tokyo stock exchange.

'Hunt and peck'

In March this year the Sudanese government was irked to read on a US Congress website that America had carried out nuclear tests in Sudan in the 1960s.

Fears were allayed however when it turned out to be a typing error. The report should have said Sedan - a test site in Nevada.

Occasionally, such errors can even play into the hands of ordinary folk - such as when online traders accidentally under-price a product.

TYPING & TEMPERATURE
Prof Alan Hedge, Cornell University, found typing accuracy depends on room temperature
At 77ºF employees had a 10% error rate
At 68ºF speed slowed by almost half, and error rate rose to 25%
Hedge also estimated this caused a 10% increase in labour costs per worker hour
Mostly, though the clumsy two-fingered typist has little to smile about compared to his or her infinitely faster and more accurate touch-typing colleague.

Anecdotal evidence suggests not only are "hunt and peck" typists less efficient, they are also more likely to suffer an industrial injury.

"As more and more people are getting computers at their desks we are becoming a nation of two fingered typists," said the TUC general secretary Brendan Barber this year.

"While you can become quite proficient without typing properly, you are putting yourself at serious risk of developing RSI."

Phobia

Part of the problem rests with perceptions, says Sue Westwood, who is campaigning for touch-typing to be taught to children.

"In schools we still get comments about it being a secretarial skill and the 'less able' children will make use of it."

She compares two-fingered key bashing to "like trying to write with a quill and a pot of ink, because you've got to keep stopping to look up at the screen."

In the eyes of John Sutherland, an English professor at University College London, "tough guys don't touch type".

His words are meant as caricature. One of the initial problems in selling computers was getting men to touch the keyboard, he says. Having got over that phobia, many are reluctant to see typing as a skill, to be learned.

In fact, hunt and peck typists have always been around. The iconic American journalist HL Mencken suffered not a bit from "writing ceaselessly using a staccato two-fingered typing process that made him look like a bear cub imitating a drum majorette" - to quote his biographer Terry Teachout.

But times have moved on, and the question for many now is not whether to learn, but how best to learn.

French man Daniel Guermuer has a novel approach.

Blank keyboards

M Guermeur felt frustrated when, as a young student, he signed up for a computer science course in the US, only to find his classmates were adept touch typists. (Typing is commonly taught in US schools, says M Guermuer.)

He tried some traditional typing courses without any luck, before hitting on the idea of scrubbing all the letters from his keyboard; effectively typing blind.

"It's analogous to a piano - there are no marking on piano keys, you just have to learn them," he says.

It did the trick and earlier this year M Guermuer began selling blank keyboards for others who want to learn, under the brand Das Keyboard.

"You go through two weeks of pain. In the first week your typing slows greatly, but by the end of week two you are touch typing," says M Guermuer. Journalists who have tried the keyboard have reported some success with it.

But it's tempting to get things out of hand. Millions of people find the hunt and peck method adequate, some even reporting speeds of up to 60 words per minute. As Alan Knifton, of Pitman Training, acknowledges, "if you don't do a lot of typing, the two-fingered approach is probably sufficient".


Just so long as you can remember where that errant "P" went.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4545714.stm

[Virgil]

Why does this article remind me of Nightshade?

[Nightshade]

:p and :p
and abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
I know where all the letters are I just cant spell the words I can type though somtimes at least.

:brow:

[Scheherazade]

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41148000/jpg/_41148206_ap_santapope203.jpg


Pope Benedict XVI appears to be getting into a different kind of Christmas spirit, donning a Santa-style hat for his weekly appearance at the Vatican. At a chilly St Peter's Square, the Pope draped a red cloak over his shoulders and covered his head with a red velvet hat lined with white fur.

Vatican officials said the hat, known as a camauro, has been part of the papal wardrobe since the 12th century.

But it has not been worn in public since the death of John XXIII in 1963.

Riding the popemobile and waving to crowds, the 78-year-old pontiff smiled as he was cheered into the square.

Follower of fashion

Although missing Father Christmas' trademark white furry bobble, the pope's timely discovery of the long-forgotten camauro seemed as much a nod to the season as to the chilly weather.

The traditional Santa Claus figure is based on Saint Nicholas - a bishop in fourth century Lycia, now part of modern Turkey.

Ordinarily, the pope covers his head with a more traditional white skullcap, which he donned instead of the camauro by the time he reached his podium in the square.

Benedict, who was elected pope in April after the death of John Paul II, has already made a sartorial mark in the Holy See.

He is reported to favour medieval-style red slippers over more practical shoes while padding around his Vatican apartments.

Fashion-watchers have also reported spotting the pope wearing Gucci sunglasses and Prada shoes in recent months.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4551348.stm

[Scheherazade]

A woman's row with her boyfriend about a mobile phone suddenly went quiet - when she swallowed the handset whole. Police in Blue Springs, in the US state of Missouri, said they were called out by a man who said his girlfriend was having trouble breathing.

When they arrived at the house, they found a phone lodged in her throat.

"He wanted the phone and she wouldn't give it to him, so she attempted to swallow it," an officer said. The woman was expected to make a full recovery.

The 24-year-old woman was taken to hospital in Blue Springs, Det Sgt Steve Decker told local media.

"She just put the entire phone in her mouth so he couldn't get it," he said.

"This is the first I've heard of this happening," he added.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4557192.stm

[samercury]

....this is strange.....

[Anon22]

Woah, that is strange... strange... strange, indeed

[Virgil]

Not so much strange, but silly. Luckily she's OK.

[Scheherazade]

Australian farmers could be about to get an unusual new weapon to protect their crops from rampaging kangaroos.

Researchers in Melbourne have found that these voracious marsupials can be scared off by the thumping sound of their own large feet on the ground.

There could be as many as 60m kangaroos in Australia, and they often compete with livestock for food and water.

Keeping these fleet-footed marsupials away from their crops and water supplies has become a constant battle.

A traditional deterrent has been a series of high pitched squeals emitted from loudspeakers.

Researchers have found that kangaroos often become accustomed to these artificial sounds and take little notice of them.

However, a recording of a 'roo thumping its foot appears to have been quite a breakthrough. This is the noise these macropods make when they sense danger before taking flight.

Using the animal's own alarm system could be what irate farmers have been looking for. They often complain that kangaroo numbers have reached plague-like proportions. Several million are shot dead every year as part of an official cull.

Animal rights campaigners have insisted that many of these pouched mammals die a painful death at the hands of unlicensed or inexperienced marksmen.

A large number of marsupials are also killed or injured on Australian roads by cars and trucks. Researchers, who are hoping to develop their foot thumping technology, believe it could also be used to guide kangaroos away from busy highways.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4554640.stm

[Scheherazade]

Scientists are delaying the start of the new year by adding the first "leap second" in seven years. The Paris Observatory said an extra second would be added to clocks worldwide at the stroke of midnight on 31 December.

Leap seconds are required every so often to keep our clocks in sync with solar time used by astronomers.

"Enjoy New Year's Eve a second longer," said the researchers at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Tidal friction

The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, based at the Paris Observatory, tells the world every six months whether to add or subtract a second from atomic clocks, the standard for everyday timekeeping.

A leap second is added to Co-ordinated Universal Time (UTC) to keep it in step with solar time - based on the Earth's rotation on itself - to within a second.

Tidal friction causes the Earth's rotation to slow down, which means that solar time tends to drift out of sync with atomic clocks.

If this disparity was not corrected, the error could increase to several seconds within a few decades; and would very quickly make software and possibly hardware used by astronomers obsolete.

There have been 22 leap seconds added - and no subtractions - since the first one on 30 June, 1972.

The new leap second will be inserted at the end of the final minute of 2005, giving the familiar "six pip" BBC radio time signal an extra pip before the long pip marking the hour.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4562194.stm

[Virgil]

I saw this today too and found it interesting. I didn't know we added leap seconds. Should I mark it on the calendar?

[Anon22]

3, 2, 1, 1 Happy New Year!

lol

If you want you can mark it on the calendar, I guess

[RobinHood3000]

No no no...

"THREE...TWO...ONE AND A HALF...ONE...ZERO!!"

[Anon22]

No no no...

"THREE...TWO...ONE AND A HALF...ONE...ZERO!!"


ah, you're right :)

[smilingtearz]

...u mean we have to wait a second before shouting HAPPY NEW YEAR!??

[Scheherazade]

A judge in New Mexico has lifted a restraining order on talk show host David Letterman sought by a woman who said he sent her coded messages by TV. The Santa Fe resident had obtained the order on the grounds that Mr Letterman had caused her mental cruelty for 11 years, forcing her to go bankrupt.

Lawyers for the TV host, who records his shows in New York, dismissed the claims as "absurd and frivolous".

The same judge who granted the ban accepted their request to quash it.

In her request filed on 15 December, Colleen Nestler asked for Mr Letterman to stay at least three metres (yards) away from her and not "think of me, and release me from his mental harassment and hammering".

She accused the host of using code words, gestures and "eye expressions" to send her messages since she began sending him "thoughts of love" after his Late Show programme began in 1993.

One alleged message was for Ms Nestler to come east to New York to be trained as the Late Show's co-host.

'I'll break their legs'

In court on Tuesday, a lawyer for the talk show host, Pat Rogers, argued that his client was "entitled to a protection of his legal rights and a protection of his reputation".

He also said that the New Mexico court had no jurisdiction over Mr Letterman, a resident of Connecticut.

Questioned by Judge Daniel Sanchez, Ms Nestler, who defended herself in court, said she had no proof of the alleged messages from Mr Letterman.

She added that if Mr Letterman or any of his representatives came near her, she would "break their legs" but denied after the hearing that she was making a threat.

She had, she said, achieved her purpose since "the public knows that this man cannot come near me".


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4563212.stm

[RobinHood3000]

Uh...huh. The Litigation Circus is making its rounds around the nation...

[Scheherazade]

A rule that will allow public libraries in the US city of Dallas to ban people who are considered to smell badly has drawn criticism by charity groups. Under the guidelines, which come into force in February, sleeping, eating, loud talking, fighting, bare feet, sex and washing will also be banned.

Officials say the moves aim to provide a better environment for library users.

But charity workers say the plans unfairly target Dallas' poor and homeless people.

The rules follow complaints by library patrons over homeless people using the downtown public library for washing in the toilets or loitering outside.

Lack of facilities

Dallas library Director Laurie Evans said the intention was to create a welcoming environment for library users.

"They deserve to be comfortable, they deserve to feel welcomed in public buildings," he told the AP news agency.

He added library employees would be trained to implement the new regulations consistently.

Violations of the rules would be addressed on a case-by-case basis, he said.

The American Library Association has supported the change.

"If people can't take care of basic hygiene and are disturbing to the 100 or so people around them, then it's perfectly acceptable for the library to say, 'Will you please sit somewhere else?'", Leslie Burger, president-elect of the association told AP.

But charity groups say the ruling discriminates against homeless people, who already suffer from a lack of facilities in the city.

James Waghorne, a Dallas homeless advocate, said the city did not provide enough washing facilities for the homeless.

Homeless people often need libraries for resources they cannot get elsewhere, he said.

Libraries across the United States, including Redwood City, California, Boston and Houston have adopted similar policies.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4568348.stm

[Scheherazade]

People around the world are being invited to vote in a survey for the New Seven Wonders of the World. A privately funded organisation, the New 7 Wonders Foundation, has put forward a shortlist of 21 landmarks from across the globe.

They include Rome's Colosseum, Jordan's ancient city of Petra, Britain's Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China.

The Swiss-based foundation is asking people to vote for their favourites by phone during 2006.

The winning septet will be announced on New Year's Day 2007.

Half of the money raised will go towards funding the Foundation's heritage work.

Man-made monuments

The list also includes a number of more modern candidates, such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, New York's Statue of Liberty and the Sydney Opera House.

NEW WONDERS?

Acropolis, Athens
Alhambra, Spain
Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Chichen Itza, Mexico
Kyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan
Kremlin, Moscow, Russia
Pyramid of Giza, Egypt
Taj Mahal, India
Timbuktu, Mali

The Great Pyramid of Giza, which is included in the new list, is the only original wonder to remain in contention.

The Seven Wonders of the ancient world were selected by a Greek philosopher, Philon of Byzantium, over 2,000 years ago.

All of his choices were situated around the Mediterranean basin.

To be included on the new list, the wonders had to be man-made, completed by 2000, and in an "acceptable" state of preservation.

The New Seven Wonders Foundation, which includes among its members the former head of the United Nations cultural agency, Unesco, says it is using its survey to alert the world to the destruction of the world's cultural heritage.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4574336.stm

[Virgil]

You mean there was no BBC story detailing Scher's birthday?

[Nightshade]

I was going to postthat bit of news scher :p
anyway if you want to vote the link is here, in fact this might be intresting to discuss....
http://cms.n7w.com/voting1f.php
:brow:

[Basil]

You mean there was no BBC story detailing Scher's birthday?
They had a Scheherazade quiz. I got 6 out of 10. I can't find the link, but here are the answers:

1. Mrs. Dalloway

2. Kitkats

3. 67 years old

4. True

5. The Sting

6. http://img491.imageshack.us/img491/2209/scheherazade5vq.jpg

7. Kitkats

8. Boo Radley

9. "Moon River"

10. A Kitkat By Any Other Name by Jonathan Gluckman

[starrwriter]

They had a Scheherazade quiz. I got 6 out of 10. I can't find the link, but here are the answers:

1. Mrs. Dalloway

2. Kitkats

3. 67 years old

4. True

5. The Sting

6. http://img491.imageshack.us/img491/2209/scheherazade5vq.jpg

7. Kitkats

8. Boo Radley

9. "Moon River"

10. A Kitkat By Any Other Name by Jonathan Gluckman
Scher, I'm donning my hair suit and humbly apologizing for unleashing the Bon Mot Beast Of The UK on you.

[Scheherazade]

They had a Scheherazade quiz. I got 6 out of 10. I can't find the link, but here are the answers:

1. Mrs. Dalloway

2. Kitkats

3. 67 years old

4. True

5. The Sting

6. http://img491.imageshack.us/img491/2209/scheherazade5vq.jpg

7. Kitkats

8. Boo Radley

9. "Moon River"

10. A Kitkat By Any Other Name by Jonathan Gluckman
Scher, I'm donning my hair suit and humbly apologizing for unleashing the Bon Mot Beast Of The UK on you.But Starr... You are surely giving yourself too much credit!

:p

[kilted exile]

Education reforms get thumbs down

Scottish councils believe education reforms planned for England stand no chance of being replicated in Scotland.

Critics have said a bill to be debated in the Commons later this month would result in local authorities having less control over education.

But the UK Government said the bill's aim was to give schools more freedom.

Ewan Aitken, spokesman for the Scottish Convention of Local Authorities, said Scottish schools were hugely successful and did not need major change.

The government claims the bill has been widely misunderstood.

Unveiling the proposed reforms last October, Education Secretary Ruth Kelly said parent power would be the driving force behind improving England's schools.

Under the proposals, groups of parents concerned about underachieving schools can ask their local authorities or Ofsted inspectors to intervene - or else set out plans for the creation of their own school.

If local authorities reject proposals, the parents can appeal for adjudication - which Ms Kelly said could lead to the government forcing local authorities to fund such new school projects.

Newly-created trusts would run individual schools or else groups of schools, under the leadership of a successful school or an outside organisation, such as a university, business or faith group.

link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4579166.stm)


Ok, I am attempting to resist the urge to make a political comment about this. However, I must say that the idea having businesses and "faith groups" running schools seems like a pretty slippery slope to me.

[Weeping Willow]

I have paset this thread several time.. never thougth i would post in it..
But here we go..
Last night Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon suffered a major stroke and now is fighting for his life.
For more details you can go here.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10709976/ -

Takan From MSN news.

I Pray for his recovery.

[Scheherazade]

Golf clubs which ban women from the bar or restrict times when they can play will be violating EU law from 2007 onwards, the European Commission says. The statement came in reply to Irish MEP Proinsias De Rossa, who asked if such practices would be outlawed by a new sex discrimination directive.

The directive bans discrimination in the provision of goods and services.

"This includes leisure activities such as those offered by golf clubs," said EU Commissioner Vladimir Spidla.

Mr De Rossa tabled his question in the wake of a 2003 petition to the European Parliament by a UK woman, Clare Oliver.

Women's complaints

She complained that many British golf clubs did not treat men and women equally when it came to playing in tournaments or standing for election to club committees.

The European Commission replied that there were no EU laws in force at the time obliging clubs to apply the same rules to men and women, but it said the directive on equal treatment between men and women in goods and services would plug the gap.

Last year, Mr De Rossa asked for confirmation that the directive would indeed apply to golf clubs, and he got the answer this week.

The news was welcomed by the English Ladies Golf Association.

"We think it's time women had equal opportunities and we support the moves by the EU," said spokeswoman Clare Tyler.

She said restrictions on the times women could play, and access to the bar, were the most common forms of discrimination - and that they particularly irritated the new, younger generation of women golfers.

Some women, usually of an older generation, did not object to restricted access, if their membership fee was reduced, she added.

Single-sex clubs

The directive does not ban single-sex private clubs, which are regarded as legitimate on grounds of the right to freedom of association.

Mr De Rossa's office said it was unclear how the directive would affect Ireland's exclusive Portmarnock golf club, whose men-only membership policy is being challenged in the courts by Ireland's Equality Authority.

The club allows women to play if they pay green fees, but they cannot join the club or use "recreational facilities".

In a ruling last summer, a judge said there was nothing wrong with people of the same sex, nationality or religion wanting to be together.

Mr Justice Kevin Higgins said: "You could have a bridge club for Bulgarians, a chess club for Catholics, a wine club for women or a golf club for gentlemen."

The Equality Authority is appealing to Ireland's Supreme Court.

EU member states have until December 2007 to enact laws upholding the provisions of the directive.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4584958.stm

[Nightshade]

Book clubs go online

Suddenly it seems we're all reading
Anyone who's ever finished the last page of a great novel will know how frustrating it is not to be able to share the experience with someone else.

Whether it's a spine-tingling thriller or a heart-melting romance, it's always good to be able to mull over your favourite book with a friend.

That's why book clubs have become such big news in the last ten years.

Now, the idea is going online, with a new website which gives readers the chance to swap books for free.

and from me(night)the link to the website they were talking about..... (http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/TheLibrary.aspx)

[emily655321]

The death toll from a hostel that collapsed in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia has risen to 53.

A Saudi official confirmed the number of deaths after rescuers searched through the night hoping to find trapped survivors.

Rescuers have been using heavy-lifting equipment and sound-detecting gear.

The hostel, just outside Mecca's Great Mosque, fell down on Thursday as people prayed in the nearby streets.

At least 64 people were wounded, officials said.

...

The building - on al-Ghazal Street - is only 60m from the walls of the Great Mosque - and was said to have been used by pilgrims from Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and India.

Prayers

The hotel is surrounded by markets and pilgrims had been praying when the incident happened. Reports said at least 30 people were staying there.

Eyewitnesses say they heard a huge cracking sound before the four-storey building toppled onto worshippers streaming out of the eastern gates of the mosque.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4586678.stmMy heart goes out to the victims and all their loved ones, and to all the Muslims on the forum who have loved ones participating in the Hajj.

[Scheherazade]

A 77-year-old Frenchman has spent a night in custody in Paris after attacking a plain porcelain urinal considered to be a major artwork. The urinal - called Fountain - was slightly chipped after the man hit it with a hammer on Wednesday.

The piece by French-US artist Marcel Duchamp was on display at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.

Police said the man had urinated on the same piece at an exhibition in Nimes, southern France, in 1993.

The work, a replica of the 1917 original , is on display as part of a wider Dada exhibition, is believed to be worth some 3m euros (£2m).

Police said the man claimed the hammer attack was a work of performance art that Marcel Duchamp himself would have appreciated. (I love people! :D)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4587988.stm

[emily655321]

I've been to the Pompidou Centre. I don't think a few chips and stains are going to make anything in there much uglier. :rolleyes: The next people who see the "piece" will probably comment on how the chips are clearly the artist's statement on the nature of human existence.

[Logos]

I've been to the Pompidou Centre. I don't think a few chips and stains are going to make anything in there much uglier. :rolleyes: The next people who see the "piece" will probably comment on how the chips are clearly the artist's statement on the nature of human existence.

Yeah it's got to be one of the ugliest buildings in Paris! :lol:

[emily655321]

Well, the building itself looks kind of like the children's slide at a MacDonald's. I suppose it has a certain charm. But, anyway, it's not nearly as ugly as the stuff inside, IMHO. (A giant blank canvas?? C'mon, people! I mean... c'mon!)

[Virgil]

Book clubs go online

Suddenly it seems we're all reading
Anyone who's ever finished the last page of a great novel will know how frustrating it is not to be able to share the experience with someone else.

Whether it's a spine-tingling thriller or a heart-melting romance, it's always good to be able to mull over your favourite book with a friend.

That's why book clubs have become such big news in the last ten years.

Now, the idea is going online, with a new website which gives readers the chance to swap books for free.

and from me(night)the link to the website they were talking about..... (http://www.readitswapit.co.uk/TheLibrary.aspx)
Hey, they must be talking about us! Nice find, Nightshade.

[Nightshade]

yeah I turned on the tv and they were discussing it :nod:

[smilingtearz]

over 100 die in Delhi,India: due to the sudden decrease in temperature...
temp 0.2 on sunday at 8:30 in the morning, the lowest ever recorded in 70 years
frost and icy deposits on roofs of houses and cars and dew drops on grass in ice form for the first time ever...

[Scheherazade]

The charity Keep Britain Tidy has asked footballers to stop spitting as young people are copying the habit. The group, based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, criticised players for making a "filthy habit appear macho".

In a poll of nearly 300 fans, 75% said they were upset by the incident when Bolton striker El-Hadji Diouf spat at Portsmouth player Arjan de Zeeuw.

Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson was also mentioned for spitting out chewing gum after matches.

'Spreading the flu'

Alan Woods, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, said spitting was the ultimate insult, and "a contemptuous gesture drowning in hate."

He added: "But it is not just revolting - it has a cost.

"Saliva and chewing gum deposited on the pavement needs to be washed and cleaned-up and when it is aimed at another person, spit can spread colds, flu, measles and mumps."

To encourage footballers to stop spitting, Mr Woods is writing to the Professional Footballers Association, to say why he thinks players should set a better example.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/4594052.stm

[Virgil]

Too funny.

Mouse thrown into fire sets home ablaze
January 8, 2006
FORT SUMNER, N.M. --A mouse got its revenge against a homeowner who tried to dispose of it in a pile of burning leaves. The blazing creature ran back to the man's house and set it on fire.

Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner said he caught the mouse inside his house and wanted to get rid of it.
"I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire, and the mouse was on fire and ran back at the house," Mares said from a motel room Saturday.

Village Fire Chief Juan Chavez said the burning mouse ran to just beneath a window, and the flames spread up from there and throughout the house.

No was hurt inside, but the home and everything in it was destroyed.
Unseasonably dry and windy conditions have charred more than 53,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes in southeastern New Mexico in recent weeks.

"I've seen numerous house fires," village Fire Department Capt. Jim Lyssy said, "but nothing as unique as this one."

[smilingtearz]

:lol: :lol:

[emily655321]

That'll teach him to hurt a poor little mousey that way!

[rachel]

how dare he throw the mouse into the fire. how would he like to be picked up by a great big guy and thrown into a blazing fire. I think he is a jerk. i am not glad about his house but it does seem rather just considering how it suffered before it died.

[kilted exile]

With apologies to Rabbie Burns......

To A Man, on the occassion of burning down his house in January 2006.

Big, stompin', greetin', murd'rous beastie
Oh whit panic's in thy breastie
Ah laf tae see ye sat there cursin'
wi' tears a rollin
It is me that cud dae wi nursin'
Flames put oot

Twas yer ain belief in Mans dominion
That broke natures solemn union
An justifies ma glorius revenge
that makes yer heart twinge
At the loss o' yer ain dear hoose
Instead o jist a stupid moose

I dinna doubt yer wife wis feart o' me
Sae whit? she saw naw hide nor hair o me
Some respite frae the world, a fair request
Instead thrown to a bonfire nest
An never miss'd

Thy huge big house, is noo in ruins
Its whitewashed wa's the fires strewin'
An no time now tae build a new yin
of stone n clay
An swift approaches noo yer wifie
Wi her bitin tongue

Thou saw me scurryin quickly past
wi wifie comin up the gairden path
An' straight intae the burnin' leaves
Ye thought tae throw me
Till straight back tae the hoose ah ran
Wi flames a lickin'

That wee pile o brick an' mortar
cost thee mauny a weel earnt nickel
Noo its gaun fir aw' yer trooble
Nae hoose or hame
Tae shield ye fae yer wife
Or mither in law

But Man thou art no thy-lane
In proving foresight may be vain
The best laid schemes of men an' mice
Aft gang agley
An leave us naught but grief an' pain
For promised joy

But yer still good, dinnae ye see?
house rebuilt by the insurance company
But och, I feel the flames still burn
Aroun' ma back
Burnin doon yer hoose wis a jist return
I laugh an' cheer

[Virgil]

Hey that was great, Kilted. It all reminds me of the Talking Heads song:

Burning Down The House by The Talking Heads

Watch out you might get what you're after
Cool baby strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house

Hold tight wait 'til the party's over
Hold tight we're in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house

Here's your ticket pack your bag; time for jumpin' overboard
Transportation is here
Close enough but not too far, baby you know where you are
Fightin' fire with fire

All wet hey you might need a raincoat
Shakedown thieves walking in broad daylight
Three hundred sixty five degrees
Burning down the house

It was once upon a place sometimes I listen to myself
Gonna come in first place
People on their way to work say baby what did you expect
Gonna burst into flame
Go ahead

My house S'out of the ordinary
That's right Don't want to hurt nobody
Some things sure can sweep me off my feet
Burning down the house

No visible means of support and you have not seen nothing yet
Everything's stuck together
I don't know what you expect staring into the TV set
Fighting fire with fire

Burning down the house
Burning down the house
Burning down the house

[Scheherazade]

There are now some 8m people of Ashkenazi origin around the world
Almost half of Europe's Jews are descended from just four women who lived 1,000 years ago, a study says. Scientists studied the mitochondrial DNA - passed from mother to daughter - of 11,000 women of Ashkenazi Jewish origin living in 67 countries.

The Ashkenazis moved from the Mid-East to Italy and then to Eastern Europe, where their population exploded in the 13th Century, the scientists say.

One of the authors said the study shows the importance of Jewish mothers.

"This I could tell you even without the paper," Dr Doron Behar of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology told Reuters news agency.

Genetic signature

The four women are thought to have lived in the Middle East about 1,000 years ago but they may not have lived anywhere near each other, according to the study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

However, they bequeathed genetic signatures to their descendents, which do not appear in non-Jews and are rare in Jews not of Ashkenazi origin.

The Ashkenazis are thought to have travelled from the Middle East to Italy in the first or second Centuries.

In Central and Eastern Europe, many spoke Yiddish - a form of German, mixed with Hebrew.

Ashkenazi comes from an old Hebrew word for Germany.

By the outbreak of World War II, there were some nine million, some two-thirds of whom were killed by the Nazis.

There are now some eight million people of Ashkenazi origin living around the world, the researchers say.

Some 3.5m, or 40%, of them are descended from the four women, they say.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4611592.stm

[emily655321]

That's pretty cool. I absolutely love anthropology. A couple of years ago I watched a documentary which attempted to discover the common ancestor of all modern people. By using genetic code and inherited physical characteristics, rather than traditionally accepted paths of migration, they discovered that after leaving Africa, people migrated first up into central Asia, and then split off from there, some moving west to Europe and others east to China. They found a man in southern Kazakhstan, or perhaps Kyrgyzstan, but somewhere around there, who they believed to carry the most ancient surviving bloodline from that time (the split), and they told him, and he cried. :D It was pretty awesome.

[Scheherazade]

Bangladeshi authorities have ordered mobile phone operators to stop offering free calls after midnight, to protect the morals of young people.

A telecommunications regulator said it had received scores of complaints from parents that children were using the service to form romantic attachments.

They said children were losing sleep and some indulged in "vulgar talk".

Many people are conservative in Bangladesh, where arranged marriages are the norm and dating is discouraged.

Driving change

In a letter sent to all five of Bangladesh's networks, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission said the "free calls after midnight" offers were being abused by the young.

A senior official at the regulator told the BBC they had received scores of complaints from parents.

The rapid expansion of mobile phone use is driving social and economic change in Bangladesh.

By the end of last year, Grameen was signing up one million new customers every 40 days.

But many Bangladeshis are conservative, particularly when it comes to matters of the heart.

The country's biggest mobile phone operator, Grameen Phone, says it will meet its competitors to try to come up with a joint response.

The phone companies say they are surprised by the order, which the regulator says must be obeyed immediately.

One spokesman has been quoted as saying that if the authorities wish to stop young people meeting each other, by the same logic, fast food restaurants and universities should be shut down, too.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4614640.stm

[RobinHood3000]

Hmm. The concept of phone sex corrupting children. Sounds kind of like the arguments for book-burning.

[Scheherazade]

Hmm. The concept of phone sex corrupting children. Sounds kind of like the arguments for book-burning.Yes, I agree! Children should be encouraged to take part in such activities... Earlier the better! (Brave New World style, even classes at schoosl!) On second thought, maybe the parents who are against such modern ideas should be sent courses and encouraged to do it themselves! That is sure to stop 'em objecting!

[emily655321]

:lol: I have a better idea. How about the parents decide what is acceptable behavior for their children, and impose it at a household level, instead of trying to make the corporations responsible for how they raise (or don't raise) their kids? This seems like something that could be easily solved by a "no cell phone after midnight" rule.

[Scheherazade]

Yes!!!!

'Empty your pockets and hand in all your personal belongings at the stroke of midnight, before you proceed to your bedroom!'

*visualises high-tech, sensitive detectors at bedroom doors!

Hmm... Maybe children should be taught morse code... or how to train pigeons (or maybe penguins??) to carry their letters in the absence of high tech devices!

[RobinHood3000]

I agree with emily. "No cell phones after midnight rule" is definitely less absurd than a "no cell phones after midnight law" (no facetiousness).

Feeling kinda sarcastic today, aren't we, Scher?

[Basil]

You know how when they show movies on television, they often dub less-offensive words over the really naughty words? They ought to have that technology installed on kids' cell phones, so when they try to talk dirty, it would automatically be converted to a more wholesome topic. But the kids would persist anyway and you'd have these great conversations.......

"Baby, you make me so HUNGRY!"
"Really?"
"God yes! You know, I'd really like to EAT PIE with you."
"Oh baby, I want to EAT PIE with you, too!"
"Have you ever EATEN PIE before?"
"No, but I want you to be the first guy I EAT PIE with."
"Maybe I could sneak out and we could EAT PIE tonight."
"Do you have any FRUIT TOPPING?"
"What?"
"FRUIT TOPPING. I won't EAT PIE with you unless you put on FRUIT TOPPING."
"Umm, I guess I could stop at the 7-11 on the way over."
"Actually, I just thought of something. We can't EAT PIE tonight."
"Why not?"
"It's not a good time for me. It's that time of the month."
"What do you mean?"
"Do I have to spell it out?" I'm on A DIET."
"Oh."

And then the girl would call her girl friend, and they would have a conversation in which they would speculate about the size of the guy's FORK.

[emily655321]

:lol:

Oh, my god, Basil.

[Scheherazade]

Feeling kinda sarcastic today, aren't we, Scher?Speak for yourself, young Robin! For me, it is just another day in Paradise! Or was that a royal 'we'?

:p


And then the girl would call her girl friend, and they would have a conversation in which they would speculate about the size of the guy's FORK.:D

I think girls are more concerned about boys' 'table manners' than size of their cutlery, though!

[RobinHood3000]

More proof that one must be careful about whom one invites to dinner.

[Scheherazade]

Scientists claim to have solved the murder mystery of the baby that holds the key to all of humanity's ancestry. For decades, scientists have argued over what killed the 2m-year-old Taung Child, found in 1924: the first ape-man fossil to be discovered in Africa.

Some researchers had believed the child was killed by leopards.

Professor Lee Berger challenged this, suggesting that the Taung child was attacked from above by a bird.

But until now, Professor Berger - an American palaeontologist working at South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand - was unable to find definitive proof for his hypothesis.

Scientists had missed the evidence right in front of their eyes, even though the Taung child (thought to belong to the humanlike species Australopithecus africanus) is believed to be the most photographed and observed fossil in history.

Window into the past

The injuries on the Taung child's skull mimic those on the skull of a baboon killed by an eagle.

Professor Berger explained how birds such as eagles kill their prey and eat the brain, which is the most nutritious part of the animal.

"They first kill the young child or a primate by jamming their talons - up to 14cm in length - though the back of the brain and that kills the animal instantly," he said.

"They make sure the animal is dead, then they go down, disembowel it, rip it apart. Take out the eyes, very delicately with their talons, reach in, following the optic nerve with their beak, after eating the eye of course, and go in."

Professor Berger describes his finding as "an extraordinary window into our past" that tells of how our ancestors lived millions of years ago.

"We now know that it's not the furry things with claws that we had to be afraid of, we were driven by other stresses. We were being driven by attacks from the sky.

"Can you imagine what it must have been like back then? Not only were we afraid of cats, and leopards - you had to watch for aerial attacks from these ferocious predators preying on your young."

Professor Berger's findings are to be published in a scientific journal next month.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4609222.stm

[Scheherazade]

The owner of a Corvette sports car stolen when it was brand new in 1969 is to be reunited with the vehicle after it was finally found, 37 years later. Alan Poster's prized possession went missing in New York, but was found 3,000 miles away in California, just as it was about to be shipped to Sweden.

"We can call this a miracle," Mr Poster told the New York Times.

The car had just been sold to a Swede, who was not aware of the car's past, for $10,000 (£5,700).

However, because Mr Poster had not insured the car, he was not compensated when it was stolen and is entitled to it back.

The Corvette Mako Shark, which was originally painted blue with matching upholstery, is now silver with a red interior.

It has had a new engine, but is missing some vital parts and does not run, a spokesman for the homeland security department said.

Mr Poster, who is now 63, said it was "probably the only car I've ever really loved".

Needle in a haystack

He said said he bought the car as a wild indulgence after his divorce, when he was a guitar salesman living in Queens, New York.

"That car and my new life started together," he said.

He went on to move to California, and so, unbeknown to him, did the car.

"Up until this moment, I thought it was chopped up and shipped away," Mr Poster said after learning it had been found. "It's in great shape, I understand."

The car was found during a customs check as it was being loaded onto a ship to be taken to Sweden.

New York police spent a month sifting through about 10,000 archived stolen car reports to find the original owner.

"It was the equivalent of finding a needle in a haystack," said Detective William Heiser of the New York Police Department.

The car, which Mr Poster bought for $6,000, is now a classic which could fetch up to $60,000.

"It's not getting away from me again," Mr Poster told The New York Post.

"They're going to have to kill me to get this car."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4620914.stm

[RobinHood3000]

I worry that we'll hear about the same guy in a week, saying that he's been murdered.

[Scheherazade]

A leading Spanish museum has admitted it has lost a massive steel sculpture which weighs 38 tonnes. The Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid bought the huge Richard Serra sculpture in the 1980s at a cost of more than $200,000.

The museum says that in 1990 it put the sculpture in a warehouse belonging to a company that specialises in storing large-scale artwork.

But when it sought to put the sculpture back on display a few months ago, no-one knew where to find it.

The police are now investigating its disappearance.

The museum, one of Madrid's largest, commissioned the sculpture by American artist Mr Serra in 1986 and acquired it a year later.

The company that was supposed to be holding the sculpture - comprising of four steel slabs - was dissolved in 1998, daily newspaper ABC has reported.

The piece's disappearance only came to light when the museum's director Ana Martinez de Aguilar decided to put it on display again.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4626502.stm

[RobinHood3000]

Well, gee, how did THAT happen??

[emily655321]

:lol: Well, they're four steel slabs in a warehouse. If I found them, I don't think "$200k work of art" is the first thing that would occur to me. It's probably helping to hold up some scaffolding elsewhere in the city.

[RobinHood3000]

Hehe, somebody's walking along the street and looks at the scaffolding and says, "Well, I don't like the symmetry, but the profile is intriguing when viewed from this angle..."

[Scheherazade]

An Indian man is being refused entry to his house - because his family say he is a spirit come back to haunt them.

Raju Raghuvanshi was greeted with cries of "ghost" and neighbours locking doors when he returned from a short spell in jail to his village in Madhya Pradesh.

He had fallen ill in prison and was taken to hospital. Relatives heard he had died and performed his last rites.

Now, unable to convince them he is alive and well, he is staying nearby and has asked the police for help.

Mr Raghuvanshi told the BBC his cousins had denied him entry to his house in the village of Katra, in Mandla district about 300km (200 miles) from state capital Bhopal, despite his protests.

They even dismissed his pleas that he could not be a spirit because his feet were properly attached to his body and not turned backwards, a characteristic which locals ascribe to ghosts.

The 45-year-old said his cousins insisted they had performed his last rites as required and so he should not come back to haunt them.

Exaggerated rumour

Mr Raghuvanshi, who is unmarried with no living parents or brothers, has had to move to the nearby village of Bamni while he struggles to convince his cousins to let him come home.

Mr Raghuvanshi has turned to the police for help has now filed a case for defamation against his family.

His lawyer, Maonhar Soni, said the refusal of relatives to accept that his client is alive could also be because of Mr Raghuvanshi's property and the few acres of land that he owns.

The rumour that he had died and been cremated started when he fell ill and was transferred from prison to a hospital in another town for treatment, police chief NV Vayangankar said.

Ganeshi, the wife one of Mr Raghuvanshi's cousins, said that when they heard of his death they had informed the village elders, who had told them to carry out the rituals immediately.

"Later on he turned up and we were surprised to see him," she said.

Rural India remains deeply traditional and many believe that a dead man's spirit will not rest until the last rites are performed.

In this case, the last rites have happened and it is not clear what proof the villagers need to accept that Mr Raghuvanshi is alive.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4624444.stm

[RobinHood3000]

Now that could be inconvenient...

[Scheherazade]

An Australian couple who picked up an odd-looking fatty lump from a quiet beach are in line for a cash windfall. Leon Wright and his wife took home a 14.75kg lump of ambergris, found in the innards of sperm whales and used in perfumes after it has been vomited up.

Sought after because of its rarity, ambergris can float on the ocean for years before washing ashore.

Worth up to $20 a gram, Mr Wright's find on a South Australian beach could net his family US$295,000 (£165,300).

At first, Mr Wright and his wife Loralee left the strange lump on the beach where it was found.

However, two weeks later the couple returned to Streaky Bay and found it still lying there.

Floating gold

AMBERGRIS FACTS

Found in warm water oceans around the world
Bile secreted by sperm whales as a digestion aid
Solidifies and floats on water, sometimes for years
Used in perfumes, medicines, flavourings
Banned in US under endangered species legislation

Curious, Mrs Wright persuaded her husband to take it home. Internet investigations failed to resolve the mysterious matter of the lump's identity, so the couple turned to local marine ecologist Ken Jury for help.

"I immediately decided it was ambergris - it couldn't be anything else," Mr Jury told Australia's ABC radio.

Mythologised for thousands of years, ambergris has been referred to as "floating gold" by scientists and scavengers who long for a windfall amid the surf.

Expelled from the abdomen of the giant sperm whale, often while hundreds of kilometres away from land, ambergris is a natural excrement thought to be used by the whale as a digestion aid.

The hard beaks of giant squid, a main source of food for the whale, have often been found inside lumps of ambergris.

Initially, ambergris is a soft, foul-smelling waste matter that floats on the ocean.

But years of exposure to the sun and the salt water of the ocean transform the waste into a smooth, exotic lump of compact rock that boasts a waxy feel and a sweet, alluring smell.

"It's quite remarkable when you think about it, because when the whale throws this out, it's discarded material that they can't digest," Mr Jury explained.

"[But] after 10 years, it's considered clean and all you're getting then is the wonderful musky, very sweet perfume, which I've got to say is ultra smooth - it's unbelievable."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4642722.stm

[RobinHood3000]

Some people have all the luck, eh?

[Scheherazade]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/sci_nat_enl_1138180578/html/1.stm

The world's smallest known fish can measure as little as 7.9mm

Researchers have found the smallest known fish on record in the peat swamps of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

Individuals of the Paedocypris genus can be just 7.9mm long at maturity, scientists write in a journal published by the UK's Royal Society.

But they warn long-term prospects for the fish are poor, because of rapid destruction of Indonesian peat swamps.

The fish have to survive in extreme habitats - pools of acid water in a tropical forest swamp.

Food is scarce but the Paedocypris - smaller than other fish by a few tenths of a millimetre - can sustain their small bodies grazing on plankton near the bottom of the water.

Human threat

To keep their size down, the fish have abandoned many of the attributes of adulthood - a characteristic hinted at in their name.

Their brain, for example, lacks bony protection and the females have room to carry just a few eggs.

The males have a little clasp underneath that might help them fertilize eggs individually.

Being so small, the fish can live through even extreme drought, by seeking refuge in the last puddles of the swamp; but they are now threatened by humans.

Widespread forest destruction, drainage of the peat swamps for palm oil plantations and persistent fires are destroying their habitat.

Science may have discovered Paedocypris just in time - but many of their miniature relatives may already have been wiped out.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4645708.stm

[Taliesin]

Well, it is old news, by now, but we couldn't find any recent information on it.
By the way, they voted "yes".

Call to Condemn Communist Crimes Upsets Party Faithful
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
December 16, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - To the dismay of many of world's surviving communist parties, a leading European political human rights watchdog will next month consider a proposal calling for the crimes of communism to be condemned internationally and investigated more thoroughly.

The proposal's supporters argue that communism has never been internationally repudiated to the same degree as Nazism was after World War II, and they warn that unless this happens, communism may see a revival in some areas.

At a meeting in Paris Wednesday, a political affairs committee of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) agreed a draft resolution should be put before the assembly's next plenary session, in Strasbourg next month.

The resolution "strongly condemns the massive human rights violations committed by the totalitarian communist regimes and expresses sympathy, understanding and recognition to the victims of crimes."

It also calls on communist or post-communist political parties in Council of Europe member states -- if they have not already done so -- "to reassess the history of communism and their own past, clearly distance themselves from the crimes committed by totalitarian communist regimes and condemn them without any ambiguity."

PACE is a body of European lawmakers representing the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, a grouping formed in the aftermath of World War II and responsible for the European Convention on Human Rights and European Court of Human Rights.

Much larger than the European Union, the Council of Europe's members include not only the formerly communist Warsaw Pact states of Eastern Europe, but also constituent parts of the former Soviet Union, including Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The resolution text was prepared by Swedish lawmaker Goran Lindblad, who argues that because all former communist countries in Europe -- except Belarus -- are members of the Council of Europe, the grouping is an appropriate forum for the debate.

This was also the right time to have it, he said, pointing to the 15th anniversary of the disintegration of communism in Europe.

"Whereas another totalitarian regime of the 20th century, namely nazism, has been investigated, internationally condemned and the perpetrators have been brought to trial, similar crimes committed in the name of communism have neither been investigated nor received any international condemnation," he said in an explanatory memo.

Lindblad said this could be partly attributed to a reluctance to upset surviving communist regimes.

China, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and Laos fall into that category.

"The wish to maintain good relations with some of them may prevent certain politicians from dealing with this difficult subject," he said.

Lindblad gave several reasons for believing there was an urgent need for public debate on the crimes of communism and their condemnation at an international level.

"It seems that a sort of nostalgia for communism is still alive in some countries. That creates the danger of communists taking over power in one country or another."

It was important that all crimes be condemned, without exception. "This is particularly important for young generations who have no personal experience of communist rules."

Another reason, he said, was the fact that communist regimes still exist and "the crimes committed in the name of communist ideology continue to take place."

"International condemnation will give more credibility and arguments to the internal opposition within these countries and may contribute to some positive developments," he added.

Estimates of the number of victims of communist regimes during the 20th century vary, but are generally placed at more than 100 million. A rough breakdown includes China (38-72 million), Soviet Union (20-62 million), Cambodia (2-2.3 million), North Korea (2 million), Africa (1.7 million), Afghanistan (1.5 million), Vietnam (1 million), Eastern Europe (1 million) and Latin America (150,000).

Communists unhappy

Wednesday's decision to forward the resolution to PACE's plenary session - it's on the draft agenda for Jan. 25 - came despite opposition from Russia's representative.

"We do not intend to justify crimes of totalitarian regimes, but will not support the current version of the resolution," Russia's RIA Novosti news agency quoted senior Russian lawmaker Konstantin Kosachev as saying.

An earlier attempt to have the resolution considered at a previous PACE session was unsuccessful, in part because of opposition from communist parties.

At a meeting in Athens last month, more than 70 communist parties from around the world, including the Communist Party of the U.S.A., backed a measure demanding that the PACE stop what they called "political provocation.

"Primitive anti-communism is unacceptable for sober-minded people," it said.

In a speech delivered at the meeting, a Portuguese Communist Party delegate called the PACE resolution "fascistic."

Several individual parties have also written to PACE chairman, Dutch lawmaker Rene van der Linden, to complain.

Equating communism with the "misanthropic, racist, violent and criminal ideology of fascism has nothing to do with the historical reality," said Yrjo Hakanen, chairman of the Communist Party of Finland in one letter.

The move was "aimed to serve the political interests of the right," he charged.

Liana Kanelli, a lawmaker and member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) worried in her letter that the resolution would provoke "witch hunting" in 21st century Europe.

Revival?

The Athens meeting was hosted by the KKE, and saw some participants predict a revival in the fortunes of communism.

Australian delegate Rob Gowland wrote in this week's edition of the Communist Party of Australia's publication, Guardian, that there were "open calls" to create a new Communist International.

"Notable was the complete absence of the 'doom and gloom' of the early 90s," he reported, adding that "one was most conscious of a prevalent confidence and optimism, a confidence in the correctness and viability of socialism."

One of the resolutions agreed upon at the conference was for a campaign to highlight "the contemporary relevance of socialism," to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the Russian revolution, in 2007.

In an essay published last September, the KKE attributed what it called a "systematic stepping up of reactionary assaults" to anxiety that communism was making a comeback.

"Europe's reactionary forces are worried," it said in an article published in the party journal, Rizospastis. "About 15 years ago all the talk was about the death of communism and the end of history."

[amuse]

oy...

Coretta Scott King, first known as the wife of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., then as his widow, then as an avid proselytizer for his vision of racial peace and non-violent social change died Monday night, according to Andrew Young, the former United Nations ambassador who is an old friend of the King family. She was 78 and had been in failing health for years following a stroke...

more here: (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/national/31cnd-king.html )

[Scheherazade]

Kenya's government is outraged by an offer of food aid from a New Zealand dog food manufacturer to help the 4m people hit by drought. But Christine Drummond told the BBC she could assure Kenyans that the nutritional supplement she was offering was "definitely not dog food".

It is "a high-powered food full of nutrients. It tastes yummy," she said.

The minister co-ordinating the relief effort, John Munyes, told the AFP news agency the offer was in "bad taste".

Kenyan government spokesman Alfred Mutua told Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper that any food aid must be up to standard.

"Kenyan children are not in such shortage of food to resort to eating dog food," he said.

'Loving country'

The founder of the company which makes Mighty Mix dog biscuits says her freeze-dried Raw Dry Nourish is "like having a big meal in a teaspoon".

"I have been formulating it for special people like in Kenya, the people who need it the most to keep strong," Ms Drummond told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

She was originally quoted in the Daily Nation as saying she wanted to send dog biscuits but when she heard how many people needed food aid, decided to send the powder.

But she said that this was a misunderstanding and her only desire had been to help malnourished children in Kenya.

She said she was also sending 42 tons of maize.

"I am offering a natural food supplement... I am donating this food out of the goodness of my heart and to try and show that New Zealand is a loving country," Ms Drummond said.

She said she sprinkles the powdered supplement on her porridge every morning.

Kenya's Director of Medical Services Dr James Nyikal said: "There is no way that the ministry can allow dog food mixture to be brought in for human consumption."

Kenya has declared a national disaster because of the food shortages, which follow poor rains across the north.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4664884.stm

[RobinHood3000]

Would it be inappropriate for me to cite the "Beggars can't be choosers" proverb at this point?

[kilted exile]

More depressing news from my hometown

'DOZENS' UNDER 12 ON HEROIN
By Ron Moore

AS many as 80 youngsters under the age of 12 may be hooked on heroin in one city it emerged yesterday.

Education bosses, police and council chiefs held talks after an 11-year-old girl collapsed in school after smoking the drug.

Last night she was still in hospital being treated for withdrawal symptoms.

She will not be released until medical staff and social services are sure she will not fall victim again.

Glasgow city council said: "The health and well-being of the girl is our priority."

First Minister Jack McConnell described the situation as "horrendous."

SNP Justice spokesman Stewart Stevenson said:

"She is far from alone. There are several dozen heroin addicts of primary age in the Glasgow area.

"I understand there are probably as many as 50."

But a study of pre-teens in the city in 2003 showed four per cent of the 2,000 asked had tried drugs."

The girl, who lives with her mum, bought £10 wraps of heroin and smoked it for two months.

link (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16646604%26method=full%26siteid=94762% 26headline=%2ddozens%2d%2dunder%2d12%2don%2dheroin %2d-name_page.html)

[Scheherazade]

Would it be inappropriate for me to cite the "Beggars can't be choosers" proverb at this point?Very much so.

[RobinHood3000]

That's what I was afraid of.

Would it be too idealistic for me to say that it appears to be pride and misperception shutting out potential aid to the hungry?

[kilted exile]

Would it be too idealistic for me to say that it appears to be pride and misperception shutting out potential aid to the hungry?

Jeez Rob, I dont know if I'd call it idealistic in any way....but I would call it damned insensitive. They are people, not animals. For this company to turn around and offer them food designed for dogs is incredibly wrong, It gives the impression that they consider themselves above the suffering.
I'll give you an analogy, suppose a company offered to replace the homes of the people who were caught up in the hurricanes last year with straw huts. Should those people accept that, smile, and say thank you?
Anyway, I'm going to stop ranting now before I start going on about politics.

[beer good]

Chuck Norris has written a novel. (http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=114&sid=686317) http://www.5wwwww5.com/forum/images/smiles/icon_rofl.gif

[Scheherazade]

Would it be too idealistic for me to say that it appears to be pride and misperception shutting out potential aid to the hungry?If you are unable to get any food and starving, maybe you wouldn't mind eating dog food or even scraping the bottom of the rubbish bins; however, how would you feel if someone said 'Hey, since you are already starving, why don't you have some of my dog's food?' (while he is enjoying a hotdog meanwhile)?

This is not about hunger but the moral stand the NZ company takes.

[Scheherazade]

After 14 years as the world's most expensive city, Tokyo has been knocked off its top spot - by Oslo. The dubious honour to the Norwegian capital was awarded by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which compared the cost of living in 130 cities.

Fellow Nordic city, Reykjavik, in Iceland, jumped to third place, and Japan's second city, Osaka, was fourth.

And the cheapest place to spend hard earned cash? Tehran - which was the most expensive city 14 years ago.

EU effect

Apart from the Japanese entries all of the top 10 on the survey were in Europe.

The EIU said the result "highlights a much wider increase in the relative cost of living across Europe".

10 MOST EXPENSIVE CITIES
1st - Oslo, Norway
2nd - Tokyo, Japan
3rd - Reykjavik, Iceland
= 4th - Osaka, Japan
= 4th Paris, France
6th - Copenhagen, Denmark
7th - London, UK
8th - Zurich, Switzerland
9th - Geneva, Switzerland
10th - Helsinki, Finland

"The displacement of Tokyo comes as little surprise. A gradually weakening yen has been compounded by years of low inflation and deflation in the Japanese economy," the EIU said.

"Norway has seen strong economic growth following a recovery in 2004, enjoying high consumer confidence, rampant investment and still-low interest rates," it added.

Eastern Europe has seen price hikes too, especially in countries given entry to the EU or undertaking accession talks.

The cost of living jumped more than 5% in Istanbul (48th place), Prague (58th place), Warsaw (63rd place), Kiev (82nd place), Bucharest (95th place) and Belgrade (107th place) .

Cheapest spots

The cost of goods and services in the 130 cities was compared in US dollar terms, so the results partly reflect the currency's long-term underperformance, the report said.

The highest placed US city was New York, ranked at number 27.

In South America the biggest rises were in Brazil where Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo jumped 22 places to the joint 87th spot thanks to an economic revival in the region.

While Tokyo and Osaka are among the most expensive cities in the world, the cheapest region as a whole is Asia, home to five of the seven lowest-priced cities.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/4669400.stm

[RobinHood3000]

Perhaps I misunderstood, but I was under the impression that the food was not made for dogs but was human-appropriate food that came from someone affiliated with a dog-food manufacturer. Did I misread?

[Darlin]

That's got to be some of the saddest most discouraging news I've ever heard. I hope they can help those children. Children succumbing to drugs at that tender age is so hard to believe. Drug dealers that cater to children should be punished in unmentionable ways much like child molesters.


More depressing news from my hometown

'DOZENS' UNDER 12 ON HEROIN
By Ron Moore

AS many as 80 youngsters under the age of 12 may be hooked on heroin in one city it emerged yesterday.

Education bosses, police and council chiefs held talks after an 11-year-old girl collapsed in school after smoking the drug.

Last night she was still in hospital being treated for withdrawal symptoms.

She will not be released until medical staff and social services are sure she will not fall victim again.

Glasgow city council said: "The health and well-being of the girl is our priority."

First Minister Jack McConnell described the situation as "horrendous."

SNP Justice spokesman Stewart Stevenson said:

"She is far from alone. There are several dozen heroin addicts of primary age in the Glasgow area.

"I understand there are probably as many as 50."

But a study of pre-teens in the city in 2003 showed four per cent of the 2,000 asked had tried drugs."

The girl, who lives with her mum, bought £10 wraps of heroin and smoked it for two months.

link (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16646604%26method=full%26siteid=94762% 26headline=%2ddozens%2d%2dunder%2d12%2don%2dheroin %2d-name_page.html)

[Darlin]

Sounds like the intent was good though not well thought out. Since it's associated with dog food I think Scher' has a point. If a family were starving and offered dog food or dog food type supplements they would probably be embarrassed, humiliated and or deeply hurt not to mention angry despite their status. I think poor people, even starving, want to maintain their dignity and though Ms. Drummond felt it was good enough for her porridge she perhaps wasn't thinking of that need for dignity that any person needs. Fascinating news though. I hadn't read it before.

[RobinHood3000]

I agree with Darlin about the poor children using heroin--it takes a real sociopath to offer drugs to someone that young. And if there's anybody that knows how horrible heroin use among youngsters is, it's Green Arrow...

[Darlin]

Yay for Ollie and others out there looking to save the children! Sometimes I guess a little humor's required to lighten the burdens! :)

[kilted exile]

That's got to be some of the saddest most discouraging news I've ever heard. I hope they can help those children. Children succumbing to drugs at that tender age is so hard to believe. Drug dealers that cater to children should be punished in unmentionable ways much like child molesters.

The most depressing is that isnt the worst of Glasgow.

[Scheherazade]

A US man has praised the "good, honest" people of Utah after a wallet he left behind 39 years ago was returned to him in Pennsylvania. Doug Schmitt, 57, left his wallet on the counter of a petrol station in Logan, Utah, in the spring of 1967.

The owner put the wallet in a drawer in the hope Mr Schmitt would come back to collect it.

Decades on, his son-in-law found it, tracked Mr Schmitt down on the internet and sent it to him.

Full head of hair

The wallet still contained $5 in cash and 8-cent airmail stamps. An equivalent stamp today costs 39 cents.

It held Mr Schmitt's student identity card from Utah State University.

"I had a real full head of hair back then," said Mr Schmitt.

He also found pictures of his high-school girlfriends and a dry-cleaning ticket in there.

"It makes me wonder if I still got some dry-cleaning out there," he said. "I don't know."

Ted Nyman was clearing out his father-in-law's estate when he came across the wallet and sent it 2,158 miles (3,472 km) across the US.

Wonderful

Mr Schmitt, an antiques dealer, said he was used to looking through people's old relics and letters, but was surprised to find himself looking at his own history.

"I never thought I would be the object of something like this - not at this age, anyway," he said.

"It's wonderful that people will take the time to research that, then return something to someone they don't even know," his wife, Vickie, added.

"It's great to see how he looked when he was a freshman in college."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4674374.stm

[RobinHood3000]

It's nice to see that there is hope for all lost items...now if someone would just send me my socks...

[Scheherazade]

An international team of skydivers says it has set a new world record for the largest connected free-fall formation. World Team 2006 said all of its 400 jumpers, from 31 countries, had held hands for several seconds during a jump in north-eastern Thailand.

It said the record had been certified by judges from the Switzerland-based Federation Aeronautique Internationale.

The previous record of a 357-member formation was also set by World Team skydivers - in 2004.

Earlier failures

"What an amazing jump it was, 400 people in one formation! It was beautiful!" World Team 2006 organiser and record jump participant BJ Worth said.

"When we landed we all felt that everything had come together and we had the record. The team has been working hard to make this happen," Mr Worth said.

The divers managed to clinch hands in the skies over Udon Thani, drifting down in a circular formation for nearly five seconds, the team said.

They then broke off at 7,500 feet (2,286m) and flew away so that they could safely deploy their parachutes.

The group had failed to completely link up for a measurable amount of time in two earlier jumps on Wednesday.

World Team 2006 is an informal association that includes current and former world champion skydivers.

The record jump was part of festivities honouring the 60th anniversary of the reign of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4693912.stm (you can watch a video clip here as well!)

[Scheherazade]

A New Zealand diver was found alive on Wednesday after three days adrift in waters near the capital Wellington. Robert Hewitt, 38, was reported missing on Sunday after failing to surface from a dive near Mana Island, off the west coast of the North Island.

The former navy diver's colleagues found him after three days without water and only a crayfish and four sea urchins from his dive bag to eat.

"I don't think I would have made last night," Mr Hewitt told local radio.

Dehydrated and cold

Mr Hewitt, the brother of former All Blacks rugby player Norm Hewitt, said he had been suffering hallucinations after so long without fresh water.

"I honestly thought yesterday [Wednesday] afternoon I was at home. I started taking off some of my gear, here and there, floundering around like I was lost," he told radio station Newstalk ZB.

Mr Hewitt was said to be dehydrated and very cold after three days in the water.

A police launch brought him to shore, where he was met by weeping relatives before being taken to Wellington Hospital.

From his hospital bed he said: "The love of my fiancée and family got me through, and the knowledge that I have gained from the navy allowed me to adapt to the different conditions."

He said his hopes of being rescued faded after he surfaced and realised he was being swept north along the coast.

"Just one crayfish and four kina [sea urchins], after the first night I knew I had enough sustenance for 24 hours," he said.

"I must say I was dying of thirst, but you look at the young kids overseas who haven't got water to drink so I just put myself in a mental state like that," he added.

He joked: "I shed a few kilos, but maybe they were the kilos that needed to be shed."

Lieutenant Commander David Turner, of the Royal New Zealand Navy diving team, said chief petty officers Lyle Cairns and Buzz Tomoana decided to check local information about a sheltered cove where seaweed and flotsam usually washed up.

"They went to see if there was anything there that could give searchers a clue - and it was there they found him," he said.

Mr Hewitt's brother Norm said the extended family - who are part indigenous Maori - met at the local marae, or meeting place, to pray for his safe return on Monday.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4696796.stm

[Riesa]

Posted on Thu, Feb. 09, 2006
2 arrested in killing of `Curious George' collaboratorBY EDWARD SIFUENTESSouth Florida Sun-SentinelBOYNTON BEACH, Fla. - Alan J. Shalleck, 76, a collaborator on the popular "Curious George" books and cartoons, was described as a quiet, friendly man who read books to children at local schools.
But the investigation of his stabbing death led to the arrest of two men he met through a gay sex network, police said Thursday.
Boynton Beach Police Maj. Wendy Unger said Shalleck knew his killers, having met them because they were all members of a group that Unger described as a "sex organization, dating type of a club."
Police found Vincent J. Puglisi, 54, of Oakland Park, Fla., through phone records, Unger said. Puglisi led police to Rex Spears Ditto, 29, of Pembroke Pines, Fla. Both men were arrested shortly before midnight Wednesday on charges of murder, home invasion and dealing in stolen property.
"After some diligent interrogation, both of these individuals admitted to their participation in the murder of Mr. Shalleck," Unger said.
The suspects took jewelry from Shalleck's home and stole money from his checking account, according to police.
Shalleck's body was found stabbed and covered under garbage bags near the driveway of his Boynton Beach home on Tuesday morning. Police said it had been there more than 24 hours.
Unger said police investigators found telephone numbers stored in Shalleck's cordless phone. The numbers led them to Puglisi, who was questioned by police.
Police said Puglisi admitted that he and Ditto drove to Shalleck's home Sunday night to rob him. Unger declined to say how the robbery led to killing.
"There are some parts of this investigation that I'm not at liberty to share with you at this time," she said. Investigators said they found several pools of blood leading to the master bedroom, where they found more blood. Several knives and broken glass were found inside the home.
Unger said Shalleck was probably expecting the men who killed him because there were no signs of forced entry.
Neighbors said they first saw the garbage bags Monday morning, but thought it was trash. Police responded to a call Tuesday from a maintenance man who was taking out bags of trash from residents' front lawns.
Neighbors described Shalleck, a Westchester County, N.Y., native, as a quiet man who kept to himself. He gained local recognition as Gramps, the name he used while reading books to schoolchildren.
But police said there was another side to Shalleck's life that involved being a member of a gay sex network in which men call each other for encounters, Unger said.
Several neighbors in the Royal Manor Estates, a senior citizen retirement community where he lived, said Shalleck had frequent male visitors.
"He had a male friend in a silver truck visiting almost every day," said Raymond Robinson, a neighbor across the street.
A landlord said Puglisi had violent mood swings.
"He was quiet, but when he got angry about something, he would get violent," said Derrick Allen, who rented a house in Oakland Park to Puglisi. "I honestly think he's that type of person that could just snap at any time."
Allen said he evicted Puglisi earlier this week over not paying rent, trashing the home and complaints from neighbors.
In 1950, Shalleck got his start in the CBS mailroom and worked his way up to associate producer for "Winky Dink and You," a children's television show. He later produced children's films and formed his own company.
Shalleck, a divorcee and father of two, in the 1980s wrote and directed 104 five-minute episodes of "Curious George," which aired on the Disney Channel. The episodes were adapted into 28 books he collaborated on with Margret Rey, who created Curious George along with her husband, Hans Rey, more than 60 years ago.
A new "Curious George" movie opens in theaters Friday, but Shalleck had no part in it. He made a modest living supplementing his Social Security income with low-paying jobs, including his last at Borders Books & Music.
Unger said Shalleck's involvement with the Curious George character was not a factor in the killing. The suspects claim they were unaware of his celebrity, she said.
"It's my understanding from our investigators that these guys were acquaintances and weren't even familiar ... with the fact that he was associated with this movie at all," Unger said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
South Florida Sun-Sentinel correspondent Brian Haas and researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.
email thisprint this

[Virgil]

Goodness. I used to read those Curious George books as a child.

[emily655321]

Just goes to show you, dating services are no good.

[RobinHood3000]

eHarmony.com, my eye...

[Scheherazade]

Nanotechnology may yet rescue us from the drudgery of the weekly ritual of blitzing the bathroom. Scientists in Australia have developed an environmentally friendly coating containing special nanoparticles that could do the job of cleaning and disinfecting for us.

"If you have self-cleaning materials, you can do the job properly without having to use disinfectants and other chemicals," says researcher Rose Awal at the Particles and Catalysts Research Group, University of New South Wales, where the coating is being developed.

Previously self-cleaning materials were limited to outdoor applications because ultraviolet light was required to activate the molecules in the coatings.

These surfaces contain tiny particles of titanium dioxide, which become excited when they absorb ultraviolet light with a wavelength of less than 380 nanometres.

Light activated

This gives the particles an oxidizing ability stronger than chlorine bleach. The excited particles can break down organic compounds and kill bacteria.

The new coating contains modified particles of titanium dioxide, which are doped with other cations like iron or vanadium and anions like oxygen, nitrogen or carbon.

This coating can absorb light at the higher wavelengths in visible light, such as the bathroom light.

Lab experiments revealed the surface of coated glass could kill the bacteria E. coli (Escherichia coli) and degrade volatile organic compounds in visible light.

The oxidising properties also mean fungus cannot grow on the surface. And because the coating is hydrophobic - it does not like water - the water simply slides away carrying any dirt with it, rather than gathering as droplets.

Using the coating in baths and sinks would not pose any problems with skin irritation, according to Amal.

"When the bath is filled, the water would attenuate the light so I don't think the surface would activate. It will only be active if the light can reach the surface," she says.

Possible disadvantages

Friends of the Earth spokesperson Mary Taylor said that if materials like this could prolong the lifetime of an object, this would be an advantage in environmental terms.

But she warned: "Such a hi-tech material might have some disadvantages.

"We would have to consider, for example, whether the material could be recycled or disposed of safely, and how much more energy went into production of the raw materials and its manufacture."

However, she added: "Less time cleaning the bathroom is rather appealing, and there might be some special uses, maybe in hospitals, where such materials could be a boon."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4696434.stm

[kilted exile]

Some peoples high schools are known for producing great minds or athletes: mine on the other hand had race riots (folk jumping out of vans in balaclavas wielding baseball bats) and gave the world Ian Brady (myra hyndley's sidekick/mentor depending on who you believe) and now its used to kick off an anti gang initiative: wonderful, really makes you proud.

Police launch anti-gang strategy
An operation to tackle a gang culture that police say has "ignited community fears" is under way in Glasgow.

Operation Tag will target 63 gangs with 1,700 members - some as young as 12 - and arrest the hardcore while offering those on the periphery a way out.

Superintendent John Paisley said: "People feel intimidated, frightened and frustrated and want action."

Police said gang-related crime ranged from drinking in the street and vandalism to drug abuse and murder.

The operation will specifically target the south of the city.

Intelligence has identified hot spots where a police presence will be enhanced in coming weeks and months.

Gang members include both boys and girls, typically in their teens.

Former gang member James said it was difficult to escape a gang once you became a member.

The 15-year-old said: "You just go out and whatever happens, happens.

"You get into fights, you get injured or you don't - it's one of those things.

"I was seven or eight when I joined, it was my decision.

"We hit windows, got drunk, fought, broke into places and got a criminal record.

"It's good the police are trying to do something.

"I walked out but your pals can turn on you."

James escaped when his mother and father split up and he moved from the area.

Tackle gangs 'robustly'

Uniformed and plain-clothed police officers will "identify and disrupt" gangs.

Officers will patrol parks and areas where gangs gather to drink and "disperse troublesome youths".

Supt Paisley, the officer in charge of the operation, said: "Youth disorder and anti-social behaviour is a trend in our community that has ignited the public's fear.

"Operation Tag is designed to tackle these issues robustly and make a real difference in our communities.

"Those involved are loosely associated with each other and the violence is recreational with no purpose or gain.

"It is random and sporadic and often fuelled by excess alcohol and drugs."

A dedicated prosecutor will deal with Operation Tag cases.

Anne Currie, procurator fiscal for Glasgow south, said: "The fiscal service is working with police to ensure relevant information on the crime and the impact of offending on the local community are taken into account."

Information will be used when considering whether to oppose bail or seek curfew orders.

A 'scourge'

Glasgow City Council will also work on creating opportunities for gang members in outward bound schemes, training and employment with local businesses.

The operation was launched at Shawlands Academy.

Ken Goodwin, head teacher, said: "There are gang members in every school.

"We must never forget that the vast majority of our young citizens are effective contributors to our society."

Glasgow MSP Frank McAveety, who attended the launch, described gangs as a "scourge".

He added: "We are talking about young people's lives.

"The damaging effect of gang culture could result in a pathway to crime."

Last year, the initial phase of Operation Tag ran for six months.

In that time 500 people were arrested or reported for a range of crimes including abduction, mobbing and rioting and attempted murder.

More than 2,000 people were stopped and searched and hundreds of weapons confiscated.

link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4700922.stm)

[Scheherazade]

Some peoples high schools are known for producing great minds or athletes: mine on the other hand had race riots (folk jumping out of vans in balaclavas wielding baseball bats) and gave the world Ian Brady (myra hyndley's sidekick/mentor depending on who you believe) and now its used to kick off an anti gang initiative: wonderful, really makes you proud.Great credentials! ;)


Thousands of sports shoes have been washed up on a Dutch island after a ship lost some of its containers in heavy weather. Residents of Terschelling island rushed to get the trainers, but were faced with having to search for shoes that matched in size and design.

Police made no effort to stop people taking goods from containers that had broken open, reports say.

Other items washed up included briefcases, toys and meat.

The ship, the Mondriaan, got into difficulties on Thursday night about 14 km (9 miles) off the Terschelling coast.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4704810.stm

[Scheherazade]

A strong "toxic smell" which led to the evacuation of two Mexican schools over gas leak fears turns out to have been produced by a skunk, officials say. Security officers from the state-owned oil firm Pemex were called in to deal with the suspected leak in Nanchintal, in the eastern state of Veracruz.

Experts from the local petrochemical plant said they inspected the schools and gas pipelines but found no leak.

They said they had finally traced the smell to a skunk kept in a school lab.

However, the mayor of Nanchintal, a town of 28,000 inhabitants, accused Pemex of a cover-up.

The Tabasco Hoy newspaper quoted Francisco Leon Ocejo Meza as saying there had been a "toxic cloud" which he blamed on Pemex's activities.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4724908.stm

[Scheherazade]

A South Korean man has claimed he is the natural father of US skier Toby Dawson, who won a bronze in the Winter Olympics last week, media reports said. Dawson, 27, was adopted by US parents in 1982, from an orphanage in Seoul who did not know who his parents were.

Kim Jae-su, 52, said his lost son went missing during a shopping trip with his mother near a market in the South Korean city of Busan, in 1981.

Dawson was found near the same market, South Korean's Yonhap news agency said.

Kim Jae-su said Dawson looked very like his lost son.

He said he made the connection after friends and relatives called him, saying Dawson looked just like him.

"So I looked at the papers and confirmed it myself," Mr Kim told the newspaper Chosun Ilbo. "There is no doubt that this is the son I lost 25 years ago."

No records

Mr Kim said he never reported the fact his son was missing to police, because he did not think it would help, instead looking for the child himself.

Deborah and Mike Dawson, ski instructors from Colorado, were told the three-year-old had been abandoned.

Deborah Dawson has told the US broadcaster NBC that the child was very traumatised when he first arrived from South Korea.

Toby Dawson said his childhood shyness ultimately helped his skiing.

"I was definitely more aggressive in that area of my life because I was so shy otherwise," NBC quoted him as saying.

Dawson won bronze in the men's mogul competition at the Olympics in Turin.

He has recently said he is searching for his biological parents. Kim Jae-su said he was willing to take a DNA test to prove his paternity.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4732042.stm

[kilted exile]

Man raped his dying stepdaughter

A man who raped his unconscious teenage stepdaughter as she lay dying from a head injury has been jailed for nine years at the High Court in Glasgow.

Sentencing Judge Lord Philip told George McKee, 50, he had committed an "appalling crime" which filled members of the public with "horror".

McKee admitted raping Kerry Muchan, 14, in her Paisley home on 23 July, 2005 while she was unconscious.

Kerry died soon after the rape from a head injury caused by a fall.

Lord Philip said: "Any sentence I impose has to reflect the revulsion and horror society feels at this kind of behaviour."

Kerry was drunk and had fallen several times before she was raped.

Lord Philip said: "Instead of looking after her and being concerned for her condition and seeking medical help, you took advantage of her complete helplessness and raped her when she was in a state of complete unconsciousness."

In addition to the nine-year sentence, McKee will be monitored for three years after release.

Stair fall

He pleaded guilty to raping Kerry at her home in Dalskieth Avenue, Paisley.

The court heard Kerry had fallen ill after taking a cocktail of alcohol and drugs.

Her death less than two and a half hours after being raped was caused by head injuries sustained during falls.

These included a fall down stairs after which McKee took her to his bed and raped her.

He was found in bed with his stepdaughter by a relative.

Still alive

When paramedics arrived, they found a faint pulse.

However, she died later in the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

A postmortem examination revealed she was still alive when her stepfather raped her.

It found she had horrific injuries consistent with being raped with considerable force.

The court was told McKee and Kerry's mother Lorna Muchan had lived as man and wife and he treated the girl as his own.


9 Years!!!!! Guy got off light, but it's ok when he gets to barlinnie someone'll cut his......

[RobinHood3000]

Grrrrr...RAAAAARGGGHHH!!!!


Let me do the deed. Brutality shall be met in kind.