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.