Israeli troops kill top Palestinian fugitive
Israeli troops killed a top Palestinian fugitive and a close accomplice in a West Bank shootout Monday, prompting threats of "unprecedented" revenge by the violent Islamic Jihad group.
The wanted man, Luay Saadi, was the leader of Islamic Jihad's military wing in the West Bank and was blamed for the deaths of 12 Israelis in a series of attacks in recent months. Saadi, 30, was killed in a hail of bullets as he fired on troops during an attempted escape from a hideout, an Israeli army commander said.
Also Monday, an international envoy accused Israel of stalling in talks with the Palestinians on opening a key Gaza border crossing and other issues left unresolved after Israel's withdrawal from the coastal territory.
Envoy James Wolfensohn has pushed for a quick deal, saying it's crucial for the economic recovery of impoverished Gaza.
"The government of Israel, with its important security concerns, is loath to relinquish control, almost acting as though there has been no withdrawal, delaying making difficult decisions and preferring to take difficult matters back into slow-moving subcommittees," Wolfensohn wrote in a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, obtained by The Associated Press.
The West Bank firefight erupted in the Tulkarem refugee camp before dawn Monday.
Israeli commandos surrounded an apartment building after learning that Saadi and his top lieutenant, Majed al Askar, were hiding there, said Col. Aharon Haliva, the top Israeli army commander in the area.
As soldiers approached the building, al Askar and another man ran toward a car parked outside and opened fire from the vehicle, wounding one soldier, Haliva said. The commander of the force returned fire, killing al Askar and arresting the second man.
Saadi, meanwhile, tried to flee through a back door, but ran into an Israeli force, Haliva said. Saadi opened fire and was killed by troops, the commander said.
Islamic Jihad threatened revenge attacks.
"Our retaliation for this crime will be unprecedented," said a spokesman for the group in Gaza, who only gave his code name, Abu Abdallah, for fear of Israeli reprisals.
In a statement, the Islamic Jihad's military wing blamed Israel for the breakdown of an informal, nine-month-old truce, or "calm."
Saadi's killing "reflects the serious intention of the enemy to end this calm, which we do not regret," the statement said. "We are not going to stand with our hands tied while the blood of our holy warriors is being shed everywhere."
Islamic Jihad, one of the smallest of the Palestinian militant groups, has been ambivalent about the informal truce, which has largely been kept by the larger Hamas group since February.
Islamic Jihad has carried out a series of attacks in recent months, including suicide attacks in the towns of Tel Aviv and Netanya. Islamic Jihad maintained the attacks were carried out in retaliation for perceived Israeli truce violations.

Wilma kills 13 on way possibly to Mexico or US
Hurricane Wilma has killed at least 13 people in the Caribbean and forced evacuation of 50,000 from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on Thursday before heading to Florida.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, said Wilma remained a Category 4 hurricane with powerful winds of 230 kph, and meteorologists forecast it would be gaining force in the coming hours.
If Wilma touches down on the Yucatan Peninsula, it is expected to bring heavy downpours to the beach resorts and western Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico, experts said.
Authorities had ordered evacuation of residents, mainly from the popular resort of Cancun and other towns in the eastern coast of Quintana Roo state.
Some 27,000 tourists from beach hotels and 30,000 residents in Mujeres Island, Puerto Juarez, Holbox, Arenas, Contoy, Punta Allenislets and Tulum coast had been evacuated on Thursday.

The National Water Commission said one of the two scenarios under consideration was that the hurricane "would be directly hitting Cancun" on Friday morning.
Another projection indicated that Wilma would spin off south of the hurricane-weary Florida, the United States.
Wilma was moving northwest at about 8 kph with a 700 km diameter, 100 km more than the deadly Katrina, which killed over 1,200 people in the US Gulf in August, said Alberto Hernandez, spokesman of the National Meteorological Service.

According to reports from Havana, Cuba, Wilma hit some parts of the three eastern provinces of the country, forcing more than 5,200 people to seek shelters.
Since Wednesday tourists had been advised to leave south Florida and Mexico's Mujeres Island and authorities planned to evacuate people in lowlands ranging over Cuba, Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and Cayman Islands.

Henry’s return a boon in Arsenal victory
Striker scores twice in 2-0 win over Sparta Prague for Champions win

Thierry Henry returned from injury to score two goals Tuesday and help Arsenal maintain its perfect record in the Champions League with a 2-0 win at Sparta Prague.
Six minutes after he came off the bench to replace injured Jose Antonio Reyes, Henry showed his class. He collected a pass from Kolo Toure, fouled a defender and sent a curling foot shot into the corner of Sparta's goal from the edge of the area with goalkeeper Jaromir Blazek diving in vain.
Henry's second came 16 minutes before the final whistle. Robert Pires provided him with a precise pass, and Henry broke into the area and beat two Sparta defenders before scoring with a low shot.

Beckhams seek libel damages over claims their marriage is unhappy
Soccer star David Beckham and his wife, former Spice Girl Victoria are taking legal action against a newspaper that claimed their "happy marriage" is a sham.
The pair are seeking libel damages against the News of the World newspaper over an article which carried the headline: "Posh and Becks on the Rocks." The case will be heard before a judge and jury at London's Law Courts in December.
During a pretrial hearing Monday, the couple's lawyer Hugh Tomlinson said the Beckhams would argue that they had been defamed by the newspaper and there was no truth in the story that alleged that the pair were maintaining a false image of a happy marriage to protect their financial interests.
Richard Spearman, for News Group Newspapers - publishers of the News of the World, said the article suggested that because the Beckhams' "substantial fortunes depend upon their public perception, the claimants have been cynically and hypocritically trying, for financial reasons, to convince the public that they continue to enjoy a happy marriage."
Spearman said the defence would argue that that suggestion was true and would also question the state of the celebrity marriage.
"Is it unhappy, rocked by rows and tensions because of David Beckham's infidelity or is it happy? We say unhappy," Spearman said.
Tomlinson, speaking for the Beckhams, said the couple promote themselves as a happily married couple because they are.
The trial starts Dec. 5 and is expected to take two weeks.
It is not the first time that David Beckham, the England and Real Madrid soccer star whose income is the highest in world soccer, has pursued libel action against Britain's tabloid media.
In August, Beckham accepted damages from the People tabloid for an article that falsely accused him of making hate calls to a former nanny.

Saddam Goes on Trial for 1982 Massacre
Saddam Hussein went on trial Wednesday for a massacre of his fellow Iraqis, turning immediately argumentative and challenging the legitimacy of the court trying him two years after his capture for the killings of 150 Shiites.
When the trial began, the 68-year-old ousted Iraqi leader looking thin with a salt-and-pepper beard in a dark gray suit and open-collared white shirt stood and asked the presiding judge: "Who are you? I want to know who you are."
"I preserve my constitutional rights as the president of Iraq," Saddam said. "I do not recognize the body that has authorized you and I don't recognize this aggression. What is based on injustice is unjust … I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect."

The presiding judge, Rizgar Mohammed Amin, a Kurd, tried to get Saddam to formally identify himself, but Saddam refused. After several moments, he sat down.
Amin later read the charges, which are the same for all the defendants, and told them they face possible execution if convicted. The panel of five judges will both hear the case and render a verdict in what could be the first of several trials of Saddam for atrocities carried out during his 23-year-rule.
Saddam faces charges in a 1982 massacre of nearly 150 Shiites that could carry the death penalty if he is convicted. The former leader and his seven co-defendants were seated in three rows of black chairs, partitioned behind a low white metal barrier, in the center of the court directly in front of the judges bench.

Bill Gates
Well, somebody had to be the richest man on Earth, but why did it have to be him? William Henry Gates III, now just called "Bill Gates" or "billg", rules over a company that is the undisputed monopoly of the computer software business, with tendrills extending in nearly all related fields (and some unrelated ones as well). Through his efforts and the efforts of the folks he has groomed over the decades, his domain and personal wealth have increased at near psychotic-levels while at the same time causing what some might consider permanent damage to the landscape of the very industry he helped form.
In the present day, it is quite useless to discern where Microsoft ends and Bill begins, and vice versa. Instead, to get any idea of Bill Gates, it's best to go back to the 1970s and the early 1980s, before Microsoft went public and shot the little dweeb into the financial stratosphere.
People with roman numerals after their names generally don't lead hard lives, and Gates started his life in a rich suburb of Seattle, Washington. He was sent to the Lakeside Private school starting at age 13, where the school started acquiring a number of high-tech toys from local industry and sales. Gates fell in love with computers at that point, a relationship that never really soured for him.
With his best friend Paul Allen, Gates founded the Lakeside Programming Group in 1971. Not a company but really more of a social group, they made it a goal to get as much computer time as possible from local businesses. One particularly useful contact was the Computer Center Corporation, C-Cubed, which Gates and the rest of the Programming Group would do computer work for in exchange for time on the machines at night. In the first of several major ironies, Gates and pals would comb through the source code of the computer systems they worked on to get programming ideas. more

Jet Stolen From Fla. Winds Up Near Atlanta

A 10-passenger charter jet that was reported stolen from St. Augustine, Fla., was found at an airport near Atlanta, and authorities were attempting to figure out who had flown it there.
The plane, a $7 million Cessna Citation 7, was found at the Gwinnett County Airport-Briscoe Field on Monday and remained there Tuesday morning, said Darren Moloney, spokesman for the Gwinnett County Police Department. The plane is owned by Pinnacle Air of Springdale, Ark., which had no comment on the incident Tuesday.
Crime scene technicians have investigated the interior of the plane, and Moloney said there is no evidence that there were weapons or drugs on it.
"We've ruled out anything diabolical or sinister," he said. "We didn't find anything threatening on the plane."
The FBI is also investigating although the theft does not appear to be linked to terrorism, said Lisa Ray, spokeswoman at the Georgia Office of Homeland Security.
The plane landed at the airport sometime between 9 p.m. Saturday and 6 a.m. Sunday, Moloney said. It had some damage to the front edge of one wing but was not disabled, authorities said.
Although the plane landed when the airport's flight tower was not operating, officials said that is not unusual. Once on the ground, an automatic gate would have let the person out of the airport, Moloney said.
The Federal Aviation Administration is probing its own traffic system to see if there is any record of the plane flying during the time in question, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said.
Moloney said there were not yet any suspects and it was not known whether more than one person was involved in the theft. But officials said the person who took the plane is likely an experienced pilot.
Planes are easy to steal if you know how to fly them, because they usually do not require a key to start the engines, Gwinnett County Police Sgt. D. Mattox told the Gwinnett Daily Post.
Ray had no comment on whether this latest incident raised larger questions of security at the airport, which is the fifth-busiest in Georgia. Two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan al- Shehhi, trained there for a time.

Recognising Maldivian children's resilience
Every year, TIME publishes their Asian Hero edition, highlighting 20 exceptional people. This is the story of one of them.
When TIME international were looking for a young person to represent all the children of the tsunami they found the perfect example; 14 year old Maldivian Zaeema Ismail.
Zaeema, who lives on Dhaal atoll is like so many other young people who survived the December tidal wave; she is a quiet hero.
Zaeema came to UNICEF's attention when child protection officer, Mohamed Naeem visited Dhaal to provide assistance for people traumatized by the tsunami. During that January 2005 meeting, Zaeema stepped forward.
"It struck me as highly unusual," says Naeem, "We Maldivians don't like asking for help, no matter how desperate the circumstances. And for a young girl to do it was extraordinary. She has such courage."
Zaeema told Naeem that when the wave hit she had grabbed her three year old brother and held him above the incoming waves. (The family home, indeed, the entire island where they lived was wiped out and due to its vulnerability, will not be resettled).
Zaeema said her brother suffered from nightmares and daytime terrors. Her mother, Faheema, was distraught, in shock and unable to look after the family. Nor was she able to look after herself. Simple tasks like bathing, eating, cooking and feeding the family were beyond her. Zaeema's beloved grandmother was drowned in the wave. Dad was in Male' ? his job as a fisherman keeps him away for months at a time.
The trauma visited on the family was enormous.
Zaeema stepped into the breach to provide comfort and structure for the family. She was all at once mother, carer, cleaner, janitor, and counselor. She was reluctant to mention her own state of mind to Naeem. Her concerns were for her mother, brother and two younger sisters. How could she help them through this period of intense emotion and anguish?
Only later was it discovered that Zaeema too was suffering from nightmares. "I wake up in terror," she said "and then I pray."
For now home is in temporary and cramped accommodation in an internally displaced people's camp. Zaeema attends school and wants more than anything, for life to return to normal.
Time reporter Alex Perry was struck by Zaeema's quiet dignity. "She revived her family from inconsolable loss and keeps it together," says the South Asia Bureau Chief. "The deftness with which she navigates both Maldivian mores and the intricate social balance of her family, and her courage and smiling determination, will stay with us for a long time."
And of becoming an Asian hero? "I am a simple girl" says Zaeema. "and all I did was something simple."
Time "Asian Hero" edition is published this week.
For more information please contact :Virginia MoncrieffCommunications and Media OfficerPhone : + 960 3322 017Cell : + 960 77 88 096Fax : + 960 3326 469Email : vmoncrieff@unicef.org

Militants attack police, government buildings in Russian city; over 50 killed
Scores of Islamic militants launched simultaneous attacks on police and government buildings in this city in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region Thursday, sparking battles that killed at least 63 people.
Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the attacks, which forced the evacuation of schools and left corpses littering the streets of Nalchik, the capital of the republic of Kabardino-Balkariya.
President Vladimir Putin ordered a total blockade of Nalchik, a city of 235,000, to prevent militants from slipping out, and he said armed resisters would be shot, according to Russian Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Chekalin.
Estimates of the number of militants involved ranged from 60 to 300. The attacks began with heavy arms fire and explosions, and sporadic shooting continued for four hours afterward.
Of the 63 killed, 50 were militants and at least 10 were police officers, Chekalin said. Local Health Ministry spokesman Stepan Kuskov said at least three civilians were among the dead, and 84 people were wounded. The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted a doctor at a city hospital, Asker Zhigunov, as saying 15 civilians' bodies had been brought in.
Dmitry Kozak, Putin's envoy to the southern region, said Thursday's attackers were holding hostages at a police station, but he did not specify whether they were civilians or officers. A spokeswoman for the republic's Interior Ministry, Marina Kyasova, said police on the upper floors of the building were battling attackers on the ground floor, and denied that hostages had been taken.

A top Syrian minister commits suicide days before UN report

Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan is seen in Amman in this May 2005 file photo. Kanaan committed suicide at his office on Wednesday.

Damascus says longtime head of Syria's military intelligence in Lebanon killed himself Wednesday.
The Syrian general who effectively ran Lebanon for 20 years was found dead Wednesday morning in Damascus, just nine days before the release of a potentially explosive United Nations report that could implicate senior Syrian officials in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri last February.
The Syrian government said that Ghazi Kenaan, 63, the interior minister and former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, committed suicide in his office in central Damascus.

"The relevant agencies are investigating," according to a statement published by Syria's official news agency (SANA).
Gen. Kenaan's death is a stunning development as the UN-backed investigation into the killing of Mr. Hariri reaches a nail-biting climax.
"It's certainly related to the Hariri inquiry and absolutely will have an impact because a major witness has disappeared," says Marwan Hamade, Lebanese minister of telecommunications and a close friend of the slain premier who narrowly survived an assassination attempt a year ago.
Aside from the connection to the Hariri investigation, Kenaan was a powerful figure from the Alawite community, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam which forms the backbone of the Baathist regime in Syria. As such, some analysts say that the wily and experienced general was a potential candidate to replace Syria's youthful President Bashar al-Assad, especially as he may well have been considered an acceptable figure in American eyes. more

The Personal History of Saddam Hussein

The current leader of Iraq is was born on April 28, 1937, in a small village of al-Auja near the town of Takrit. His early child hood was spent in a mud hut in a mostly Sunni Muslim part of Iraq, which is approximately (100) one-hundred miles north of Baghdad. Hussein's father, Hussein al-Majid, died or abandoned the family (according to who is reporting the story), within a short time of his birth. Accurate records are difficult to obtain in a country where Hussein's birthday is celebrated as a national holiday.
He was reared alone by his mother Subha, until she took a second husband, Ibrahim Hassan. Hassan, often said to have been brutal and a thief, was a sheepherder by profession and enlisted Saddam in his ventures. According to a former personal secretary of Hussein, his step father abused Saddam and sent him to steal chicken and sheep to be sold. This pattern continued until 1947 when, at the age of ten, he was allowed to move in with his mother's brother, Khayrallah Tulfah, in Baghdad.
In Baghdad, Hussein began to learn more than reading and writing. His tutor, Khayrallah had been "cashiered" from the Iraqi army for supporting a "Pro-Nazi" coup attempt that failed. Khayrallah's bitterness towards the British and imperialism, soon was transferred to Saddam. In fact, some confidants of Hussein point to his relationship with Tulfah as a turning point in his political awareness. To demonstrate Tulfah's importance to Hussein, he was later made Mayor of Baghdad under the Hussein regime. Saddam finished intermediate school (roughly the equivalent of 9th Grade) at the age of sixteen, and attempted to be admitted to the prestigious Baghdad Military Academy.
Unfortunately, his poor grades prevented him from doing so, and he became more deeply involved in political matters. In 1956, he participated in a non-successful coup attempt against the monarchy of King Faisal II. In 1957, he joined the Baath party, a radical nationalist movement. In 1958, a non-Baathist group of army officers succeeded in overthrowing the King. The group was led by General Abdul Qassim. In 1959, Saddam and a group of Baathist supporters attempted to assassinate Gen. Qassim by a day-light machine-gun attack. The attack was unsuccessful, but it helped to place Hussein in a leadership position in the Baathist movement and furthered the process of nationalist political indoctrination. After the attack, in which Hussein is slightly wounded, he fled to Syria. From Syria, he went to Cairo, Egypt where he would spend the next four (4) years. more

‘Captain’ Owen wants Team improvement

England Striker Michael Owen, who will captain England in tomorrow’s final World Cup qualifier against Poland, admits his team have been poor and lack confidence.
Saturday’s 1-0 win over Austria in Manchester, secured despite a red card for skipper David Beckham, helped England qualify for the finals after a season littered with defeats and miserable performances.
“There is no hiding the fact that we have been below par,” Owen said in a Times newspaper column yesterday as he prepared for the game at Old Trafford.
“The competitive results have been decent enough —seven wins, one draw, one loss.

How they kill homos in Iran
First, catch them in the act; if that's impossible, accuse them. Bind their hands; transport to cranes. Allow enough time for family, friends and passersby to gather. Place noose over juvenile's head; signal crane operator. Slowly raise homosexual juvenile to a good height for 24 hour public viewing, less if demand is high. Quick, easy, no hand-wringing. The right thing is done, and poof. A nation cleansed.Homos are troubling wherever they're found because real men live in fear that people might someday find out that they had several homosexual experiences as they came into puberty. Most men played with other men's weenies as boys, behavior that stops in 88% of them the moment a girl becomes available, at which point they enter the grand mating dance that ends with 37 grandchildren and a shared slab of marble. Hard years between. Natural selection compels them to do their best not to merely be laid but to lay eggs of such quality that all the world will bow at the feet of their progeny. The sons and daughters of real men are the promise of the future because their fathers made them that way, chiseled them out of stone, same way they got this beautiful house, this lovely wife, and all the other things they possess. There's only one thing that could bring down the real man's purpose, and that's a boy's memory. Homos, therefore, aren't welcome round here.While male homosexuals have been vilified through most of recorded history, they did enjoy a few decades of being in fashion, here and there, followed by purges lasting centuries. Their female counterparts, meanwhile, are photographed and studied by all men behind closed doors, and women too. Is it fair? No, it's not. Not here. But it is in Iran.Iran executes more than its fair share of young women in the same manner and for a different sexual crime, adultery. The men are generally not hung for this offense, under the theory, perhaps, that they can't help it. Or perhaps because they wrote the rules.Testosterone is a bigoted and belligerant hormone that will not be denied for any reason, and it receives its best nourishment from fear.

Hundreds of fans turn out to see Michael Jackson attend London show
Hundreds of Michael Jackson fans turned up outside a London theatre Saturday to catch a glimpse of the pop star as he arrived to see the stage version of hit movie Billy Elliot.
Security staff forced a path for Jackson, 47, through a crowd of admirers and photographers standing outside the Victoria Palace theatre so he could reach the front door. But the singer fell to the ground in the commotion.
Jackson's children accompanied him to the show but had their faces covered by clothing as they entered the theatre.
Jackson was staying at the Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane. His fans had gathered outside the luxury hotel in hope of seeing him before heading to the theatre.
"We were outside his hotel and there was a rumour that he was coming here, so we came down," said admirer Phillip Goldstone, 22, from east London.
During the performance interval, Jackson mingled with other spectators, chatting and signing autographs.

18,000 reported dead in Asia quake
More than 18,000 people were killed when a powerful earthquake struck northern Pakistan, a military spokesman said today, in a disaster that entombed hundreds of children in their schools, flattened a high-rise apartment building in the Pakistani capital and devastated an untold number of villages.
The 7.6-magnitude quake struck just after 8:50 a.m. yesterday in the disputed territory of Kashmir, and reverberated across a swath of northern Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. The epicenter was in a mountainous region about 60 miles northeast of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan told Pakistan's Geo television network today that 17,000 of the dead were in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir. Thousands more were wounded and missing. In India, the death toll was in the hundreds.
But rescue teams have yet to reach many areas, including Balakot, a town in northern Pakistan that was reduced to rubble. Survivors here said that at least 5,000 people were killed in the town, but that number could not be confirmed.
Hundreds more were missing in the debris in Balakot, including hundreds of children buried in the wreckage of 10 schools, survivors said. With rescuers thwarted by landslides and heavy rainfall, parents clawed through the rubble looking for their children.
A woman who gave her name only as Saira sat in the ruins next to her child's body. "I have lost everything," she said. "This is God's wrath."
In the town of Garhi Habibullah, residents said about 300 bodies had been recovered from the ruins of a girls school there. Five hundred other students were injured.
"Many villages have been wiped out in the earthquake-hit areas of the province," a witness, Abdul Makjeed, said by phone from Mansehra, near Garhi Habibullah.
In Islamabad, rescuers worked into the night trying to save scores of people believed trapped in the rubble of an apartment complex in an upscale district of the capital. At least 20 people were killed and 85 others injured when one building in the Margalla Towers complex collapsed and another was severely damaged.
Soon after the quake struck, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said the country's armed forces had helicopters and C-130 transport planes ready to ship emergency relief supplies into the affected areas.

Hundreds killed in Kashmir quake
Pakistan says more than 1,000 may have died in a powerful quake that also hit north India and Afghanistan and wiped out whole villages in Kashmir.
The US Geological Survey said the quake in Kashmir measured at least 7.6. The epicentre was 80km (50 miles) north-east of Islamabad.
Rescuers are trying to reach residents in collapsed buildings in Islamabad and Pakistan's interior ministry have said several villages may have been destroyed.

Something you should know very well !?.
We all have heard about the new entrant into the telecommunication of the Maldives. Of courses Watania telecom. They now have made certain criterions for the price fixation and services ahead. This special piece of information is to let others know something about the monopoly in the market. DHIRAAGU is the sole service(telecom) provider now. to be very honest it will implement some barriers for making it difficult for Watania telecom to serve. They can reduce current prices of the SMS and calling rate(now that's very clear), reduce connection kits, and etc. These specially planned techniques will make Watania telecom to shoot their prices of almost every piece of service while entering the market. This would make a slight misunderstanding to the locals, many would not actually understand what is going on. they may rather support DHIRAAGU and leave the Watania Telecom to 'hang' in the short run. But while thinking on the real surplus of consumers, local people should be aware enough to support both companies equally. Because then only there could be an Oligopoly system on this market where there will be enough benefits to consumers. Think again. Be aware enough.

Nobel Prize Goes to Green Chemistry
American Robert H. Grubbs, Richard R. Schrock and French Yves Chauvin have won the 2005 Nobel Prize for chemistry.
The Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation awarded the three chemists for “the development of the metathesis method in organic synthesis”.
Grubbs, 63, of the California Institute of Technology, Schrock, 60, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Chauvin, 74, of the Institut Francais du Petrole will share 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.29 million) award.
The Nobel winning scientists’ studies are based on “metathesis”, when chemical bonds are broken and reformed between carbon atoms in a way that causes the atom groups to change places.
The method discovered by Chauvin, Grubbs and Schork will usher in a new era for production of drugs and plastics that are more efficient and less harmful to nature.
“This represents a great step forward for ‘green chemistry,’ reducing potentially hazardous waste through smarter production,” the Nobel committee said. “Metathesis is an example of how important basic science has been applied for the benefit of man, society and the environment.”
For further information please visit http://www.cihannews.com/

Can scratch cards save the planet?
Last Updated: Thursday, 6 October 2005, 12:21 GMT 13:21 UK
Can scratch cards save the planet?
By Hannah Goff BBC News Website
Scratch cards, prize draws and discount vouchers are to be offered in scores of new schemes to get people recycling more of their rubbish.
But can bribing people with the chance to win really cut the amount of junk thrown into landfill sites. Or is this just an untested gamble?
You've got to be in it to win it - is the theory behind the latest bid to get more householders recycling.
Around 50 councils across England are running catchy promotions, perhaps more at home in a casino than a town hall.
Lancashire County Council is giving each of 100,000 householders in the scheme's area a chance to win instant money prizes on free scratch cards.
And primary school children in the county and neighbouring Cumbria will be rewarded with an MP3 player for getting the most recycling pledges in their school from friends and family.

Google and Sun joining forces
Firms to forge partnership that will offer alternative to Microsoft products.
Internet search giant Google and network computing company Sun Microsystems have entered into a multi-year agreement to distribute Sun's software technologies, a move some say is meant to offer users an alternative to Microsoft products.
Both Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Sun CEO Scott McNealy kept mum on the specifics of the partnership, apart from announcing a deal to distribute the popular Google toolbar, which allows users to search both the Web and their desktops through Sun's Java Runtime Environment, a software package that needs to be installed on a machine in order to run Java technology-based applications. As part of the deal, users who download the JRE software package will have the option of downloading the Google Toolbar.

Dear bank, IOU seven million pounds
A British bank employee who stole huge sums from his employer left a note in a safe admitting he had "borrowed" seven million pounds (10.3 million euros, 12.3 million dollars), a court was told Tuesday. In fact, the true scale of financial consultant Graham Price's theft and deception totalled nearer 10 million pounds, Swansea magistrates' court in South Wales heard. Price faces 43 separate charges and asked for a further 263 offences to also be considered by the court. Asked whether he admitted the charges, the 58-year-old Price said: "Each and every one." Prosecutor Linda Baker said Price was working for the Halifax Bank when he stole the money from the bank and dozens of investors over a four-year period from 2001. He was found out when a cash audit was carried out at the branch and three boxes taped together were found in a safe. Inside one of the boxes was an envelope containing a note which read: "Borrowed, seven million pounds from the Halifax", signed by Price. The former banker will be sentenced next month.

127 names short listed for 75 scholarship opportunities
Department of Higher Education and Training has said that 125 names have been short listed for the 75 scholarships provided by the national fund which offers higher educational opportunities on loan. According to an official who spoke on behalf of the department, among the 200 candidates who applied names of 127 eligible candidates have been short listed. “We are choosing 75 candidates by taking points. Among the 127 candidates we will be choosing 75 by calculating points from their educational achievements. We will be doing this in the near future,” an official from Department of Higher Education said. Department of Higher Education is giving scholarships on loans in four different categories. 15 scholarships will be given for those who have a good educational background. 15 scholarships for employed candidates, 25 scholarships for candidates who have completed 50 percent of their education and 20 scholarships for gaining higher education in industrial work. The surveys shown by Department of Higher Education yesterday showed that most number of eligible candidates came under educational achievement category. Under that category 70 people were eligible for the scholarships. Under the category of employed candidates, 40 were eligible. Candidates eligible for the scholarships, under the category of people with 50 percent completion of their education were nine and eight were enlisted in the field of industrial work.“We have opened the opportunity to clarify any doubts about the scholarships until 13 October. After that we will choose the 75 people who will be given the scholarships. A short period of time will be taken for that,” the official who spoke of behalf of Department of Higher Education said. The loans for the scholarships have to be paid within ten years. This year the government has increased the number of scholarships provided by three times. Last year the government had given 25 scholarships but this year it was increased to 75.

Gerrard reveals England incentive
Steven Gerrard has revealed England will use the "embarrassment" of defeat against Northern Ireland as a World Cup inspiration against Austria.
Liverpool captain Gerrard admitted Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad were still hurting from the shock 1-0 loss in the qualifier at Windsor Park.
He said: "We can't wait to get that result out of our systems.
"We let ourselves, the country and the fans down in Belfast and it is still fresh in our memories. It hurts."
Gerrard added: "It's going to be very important to bounce back. We need a performance against Austria. The three points are the most important but the fans deserve a good performance from the team.
"The players were embarrassed by the defeat in Belfast and we need to put that right. There is too much quality in our changing room to get beaten by Northern Ireland, with all due respect to them.

Doctors give Hollywood and Bond a "sex" rating
The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has criticized Hollywood and a number of films for being responsible for the incease in sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies.
"James Bond" was one of the characters singled out as a promoter of unsafe sex in the film Die Another Day. We can't actually recall any scene that proves Bond wasn't using a contraceptive and how do the doctors know he hadn't placed one (or two?) under the pillow earlier along with his gun?
If the medical profession had their way, every film would resemble some health documentary. No drink, no smoking, no sex, no viewers! ...he he he .......

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Bored person's Guide to the internet
What? Somebody asked me today "Hey give me a cool site man, am bored". Man, how long have you been on the internet? Do you think I am some kind of a mind reading therapist search engine for bored fucks like you? I get bored too, and if I want to search, I find my way around on my own. This is rocket science? Look idiot, even grade schools kids can use Google. If you don't know your way around, get off the net. Go fly a kite, do your worldly thing and never come near the internet.Ok chill. I did not say all that to the guy. Infact I gave him several links that came to my mind. some websites that I frequently check. So, in case there are any such cases among you few readers, I would like to write this tiny guide for the bored.First, if you regularly read blogs (more than a few that is) you can save yourself a million minutes by using a news reader. I recommend you signup for Newsgator and subscribe to the RSS feeds of your favorite blogs and websites on Newsgator. Why waste the time going into each and every blog site just to see if there is a new post? Have them on your screen if there are any, and continue from there if you wish to. Feeds are not just for the high tech people. It is a normal thing, for normal people, just like email and messaging.Next, search engines. Use Google and type your wish. Google is the mother and father and also the child of all seach engines. If you can't find it with Google, you may not find it at all. But you see Google's results are a little bit commercialish. Want the ability to filter your searches by their "commercialness"? Use Yahoo! Mindset. Mind you, do not underestimate Yahoo, their searches are as accurate as Google. Really, they are. This Mindset thing is highly recommended (more recommended than Google itself). If you are looking for more people stuff (average people's writings, like this post you are reading now), opinions (on anything) and stories and so on, you might want to just search within blogs. Use Technorati. Technorati indexes all the blogs on all platforms and also lists links and photos from Flickr and Del.icio.us. You use del.icio.us to manage your bookmarks online, highly recommended for everyone.Finally, here are some raw links for the impatient. PostSecret is a blog to which you can send your little secret and they will put it up. They have got some interesting things there. The Best Page in the Universe attracts more hate mails than bush. Go there for some creative humorous pieces of writings. Chances are you will actually hate the guy for most of the stuff there. There is also Slashdot for the tech minded, Wikipedia for your research and contribution to global knowledge. and Dhivehi Observer for the political minded. There is also the AYBABTU website, Goatse phenomena, BBC for your news, Engadget for the coolest gadget stuff, Boing Boing for random interesting stories and finally World Sex for all your free porn.

Death is Inevitable
+Every person who smokes, is going to die
Every person who never smokes, is going to die
+Every person who is "overweight", is going to die
Every person who is never "overweight", is going to die
+Every person who uses illicit drugs, is going to die
Every person who never uses illicit drugs, is going to die
+Every person who drinks alcohol, is going to die
Every person who never drinks alcohol, is going to die
+Every person who fails to heed the advice of health advocates, is going to die
Every person who devotedly follows all the advice of health advocates, is going to die

Now the question comes - since we are all going to die, no matter what precautions we may take is it justifiable for health advocates to force people to conform to certain lifestyles which those advocates claim will maximize the length of a person's life?Death is inevitable, but health advocates such as the anti-smoking industry claim that they are justified in using punitive pressures of various kinds to force people to conform to their definitio of healthy lifestyle".

The argument from "natural death"
Most people would probably agree that it is preferable for a person's death to be a "natural" death - but what does that mean? The only definition of a natural death, in medical science, comes from pathologists. Their definition is this; "A natural death is a death that results from a natural disease process, distinct from a death that results from accident or violence."All of the smoking related deaths involve natural disease processes; cancer, heart disease, stroke, emphysema - these are all "natural disease processes". Smoking-related deaths are "natural" deaths.

The argument from "premature death"
The concept of "premature" death is entirely statistical. A "premature death" is a death which occurs before the average age of death within a given population.According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), the average age of death by all causes in North America in 1994 was 70 years of age. An analysis of the CDC's own figures for the years 1990-1994 showed that the average age of death for smoking-related deaths was 71.9 years of age.Some smoking-related deaths are therefore, statistically "premature" - but many are not. About 17% of smoking-related deaths occur at ages greater than 85, fewer than O.5 % of smoking-related deaths occur at ages less than 35.
It may be true that the incidence of chronic degenerative illnesses in the elderly population occur at lower rates for non-smokers, non-drinkers and those who have never been "over-weight", but that does not mean such persons have any guarantee that they will never develop these illnesses. Even if you were a health fanatic from the day you were born, the longer you live the greater the likelihood becomes that you will develop some kind of chronic degenerative illness. Human beings do not have a "life energy" that gets used up as time goes on, causing us to mysteriously die, in perfect health, in our sleep when it 'runs out'.One of the world's most renowned pathologists, Dr. Ludwig Aschoff, stated that he had never found a case of purely natural death: autopsy had always revealed some pathological process as a cause.Dr. Hans Selye of Montreal, probably the world's leading authority on human stress, asserted that in all his autopsies he has never yet seen a man who died simply of "old age", nor does he think anyone ever has.

Since death cannot be eliminated, the health sciences can only exchange one cause of death with another
Life expectancy at birth within the industrialised nations grew considerably in the 20th century, from about age 35 for men and 37 years for women in 1900 to about age 70 for men and 77 years for women in 1994. The term "premature death" clearly is more meaningful in relation to persons who die between the ages of twenty-five and forty, than it is in relation to persons who die between ages of sixty-five and eighty.You will see, from the charts below - that the tragedy of people being struck down at say, age twenty or thirty by tuberculosis, influenza or pneumonia was quite prevalent in 1900 - but deaths from cancer and heart disease were substantially more rare at that time. That's not because there were no people who smoked or drank or ate more than they probably should - it's because the chronic degenerate illnesses take time to develop. If you died of influenza at age 27, you hadn't had time to develop lung cancer - even if you'd started smoking at the age of 12.

Dhiraagu and Red
There would be two reasons for Dhiraagu's color change. One, because Wataniya is red. Two, because red is the color of dominance, energy and power. It is an aggressive color. Red plays with the human mind, and this is proven in business and in sports.The problem is Dhiraagu's red is not really the correct shade of red that is actually used for such things. Dhiraagu's red is more orangish than the red used by Wataniya, Manchester United, Marlboro, Coca Cola (Coke's spectrum is much wider actually) and McDonalds. Dhiraagu's red is irritating to the eyes.

Kobaa Susan????

Anna Nicole Smith - principle is more important than the money!
Anna Nicole Smith, the ex-topless dancer who married one of wealthiest men in Texas, J. Howard Marshall II, is to get her case heard at the U.S. Supreme Court. She has spent the last 10 years trying to get millions of dollars she claims her late husband promised her.
Smith (real Vickie Lynn Marshall) was originally awarded $475 million following the death of her husband, even though she wasn't mentioned in his will, but this was later reduced to $88.5 million and a further ruling decided she should get nothing.
J. Howard Marshall II died in 1995 and his son has disputed Smith's claim to any of his money. Marshall senior married Smith when he was 89 and she was 26, and he died a year later. They had met 3 years earlier in a Topless Club.