STARS TURN OUT FOR BROWN FUNERAL !

Thousands of fans, friends and celebrities have paid final tributes to soul star James Brown at an emotional public funeral in his Georgia hometown.
He lay in an open golden coffin in the packed James Brown Arena in Augusta.
Singer Michael Jackson kissed Brown's forehead and called him "my greatest inspiration". Black rights activist Al Sharpton delivered the main eulogy.
Famous for hits like Sex Machine, Brown died suddenly on Monday in hospital after suffering pneumonia. He was 73.
He was a God-sent person - almost like an angel
Vickie Greene, James Brown fan
The Augusta funeral was the third memorial event in as many days for the musician known as the Godfather of Soul.
On Thursday, thousands of fans poured into the Apollo Theatre in New York, where Brown made his stage debut in 1956 and recorded several live albums.
A private service for family and close friends was held in South Carolina on Friday, with mourners including boxing promoter Don King, rapper MC Hammer and comedian Dick Gregory.
'Master at work'
After friends and relatives filed past the coffin, a video of Brown's last performance in Augusta and final concert in London were played and tributes were performed.
Despite several requests for the capacity crowd to behave as if they were at any other funeral, the funky rhythms that characterised the singer's sound and life soon had everyone on their feet, reports the BBC's Matt Wells from the stadium.

Brown was in his third costume change in as many days.
But for many, the highlight of Saturday's ceremony was a rare public appearance by the controversial pop star Michael Jackson.
"Ever since I was a small child, no more than like six years old, my mother would wake me no matter what time it was, if I was sleeping, no matter what I was doing, to watch the television to see the master at work," Jackson said.
"And when I saw him move, I was mesmerised. I had never seen a performer perform like James Brown, and right then and there I knew that that was exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life because of James Brown."
Reverend Al Sharpton said the singer had made an advance request for Jackson to be at his funeral in Augusta.
The whole world, he said, changed its beat because of James Brown.
Known for his frequent costume changes, Brown was in his third wardrobe change in three days - a black jacket and gloves, with a ruby red shirt.

Earlier fans filed past Brown's coffin.
Before the funeral started in earnest, fans queued in the rain to file past his coffin.
"He was a God-sent person - almost like an angel," said Vickie Greene, who had come to view Brown's body with her husband and grandson.
"He was so inspirational to people about sharing and helping and giving."
Atlanta resident Maynard Eaton, who organised a bus to carry 20 people to the funeral, said it was Brown's political message he valued.
"'I'm black and I'm proud' was the most influential black slogan of the 1960s," he said, referring to the refrain of Brown's song Say It Loud.
Adopted home
Brown was born in 1933 in Barnwell, South Carolina. He spent much of his childhood in Augusta, and adopted the town as his home.
He remained involved with the city throughout his stardom, handing out Thanksgiving turkeys every year, providing meals for more than 1,000 families.
The singer had also participated in an annual toy drive in the city just three days before his death.
As well as the auditorium named in his honour, the town renamed one of its streets James Brown Boulevard, and erected a statue to the singer last year.
Since his death, fans have flocked to the statue, leaving flowers, records and messages at its feet.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KABILA APPOINTS DR CONGO PREMIER !

Joseph Kabila took power in 2001 after his father was assassinated. The newly-elected president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, has named a former opposition figure as the country's prime minister.
The nomination of Antoine Gizenga, 81, leader of the Unified Lumumbist Party (Palu), was widely expected as it had figured in electoral accords.
Mr Gizenga must now nominate ministers to form a government, a statement said.
Mr Kabila is DR Congo's first freely elected leader in 40 years having won October's run-off presidential poll.
The 35-year-old took power in 2001 after his father was assassinated.
'Extremely pleased'
Mr Gizenga, who came third in the first round of the presidential election in July, signed an agreement with Mr Kabila ahead of the run-off, promising his support reportedly in exchange for the post of prime minister.
"Palu is extremely pleased. We have finally come back to where we were when we were pushed aside," a spokesman for Mr Gizenga told Reuters news agency.
Mr Gizenga has been a prominent figure in Congolese politics for nearly five decades.
His support is concentrated in Bandundu province and Kinshasa, where Joseph Kabila is weaker. Palu won 35 seats out of 500 in the parliamentary poll.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GDDAFI REJECTS RELEASE OF MEDICS !

Libya has faced strong criticism over the conduct of the trials. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has rejected calls for the release of six foreign medics sentenced to death for infecting children with HIV/Aids.
Those who committed crimes must accept the consequences, he said.
Libya has been under increasing pressure because of international doubts over the fairness of the trial.
Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been tried and found guilty twice of deliberately infecting more than 400 children with HIV.
Colonel Gaddafi stressed the "the independence of the Libyan judicial system", and he rejected what he called "Western intervention and pressure in this affair".
The medics have been in detention since 1999, during which time 52 of the 426 infected children have died of Aids.
Academic bodies have argued that the guilty verdicts run counter to scientific evidence.
Defence lawyers have said that the medics will file an appeal against the new verdict with the Supreme Court.
'Unhygienic hospitals'
The medics have protested their innocence throughout, retracting confessions that they said were obtained under torture and arguing that they are being made scapegoats for unhygienic hospitals.

The six foreign medics were arrested in 1999.
Lawyers for the medics have argued that the HIV virus was present in the hospital, in the town of Benghazi, before the nurses began working there in 1998.
Medical experts including the French co-discoverer of the HIV virus had testified on their behalf.
Oxford University in the UK said the verdict ran counter to findings by scientists from its Zoology Department.
A research team had concluded that "the subtype of HIV involved began infecting patients long before March 1998, the date the prosecution claims the crime began", a statement from the university said.
Libya has asked for 10m euros (£6.7m) compensation to be paid to each of the families of victims, suggesting the death sentences could be commuted in return.
But Bulgaria has rejected the proposal, saying any payment would be seen as an admission of guilt.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DUTCH BROTHELS TAKE CITY TO COURT !

Dutch brothels take city to court.
By Geraldine Coughlan BBC News, the Hague.

Amsterdam's mayor says the sex industry attracts criminalityBrothel owners in Amsterdam's red light district have taken the city council to court over its decision to close a number of sex businesses.
The council is demanding the closure of 33 brothels, which account for around a third of the district's sex businesses, by the end of the year.
The prostitutes union says the move will force many women to work illegally.
Prostitution was legalised in the Netherlands five years ago.
Criminal activity
The brothel owners say they will go to the highest court to save a third of the windows in Amsterdam's famous red light district from disappearing.
Amsterdam's mayor, Job Cohen, claims that many sex businesses are fronts for criminal activity, such as women trafficking and money laundering.
But the prostitutes' union, the Red Thread, which represents 20,000 prostitutes, argues that closing legal brothels will force many women onto the streets.
The city council wants the banks to play a role by making it easier for sex businesses to get financing.
Many have loans from private companies which the city council says are too risky.
The city believes that with proper paperwork for registered brothels and prostitutes, banking could have a positive effect on the fight against crime at the heart of the sex industry.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TOP INDIAN MAOIST 'IS SHOT DEAD' !

Maoists are active across a number of Indian states. Police in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh say they have killed a senior leader of a banned Maoist group.
Chandramouli, alias Devanna, one of the most wanted Maoist leaders, carried a reward of one million rupees (£11,500) on his head.
He is the second member of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-M) leadership council to be killed in the state this year, police say.
More than 200 people have been killed in Maoist-related violence this year.
There has been no comment from the Maoists.
Senior police official JG Murali said that Chandramouli and his wife were shot dead in a clash with a special security team, the Greyhound force, in Visakhapatnam district on Wednesday night.
The Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of the poor and landless in India. They are active across a number of states.
Earlier this year India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described the Maoists as the single greatest threat to the country's internal security.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA'S INTERNET USERS JUMP 30%

China still blocks news sites such as the BBC's. The number of people using the internet in China grew by 30% over the last year to 132 million, state media reports.
And the number of people with access to broadband rose to 52 million, Xinhua news agency says.
China already has the world's second largest population of internet users after the United States.
The government encourages internet use for education or business purposes, but has been criticised for censoring items it deems subversive or offensive.
China's internet users rose from 123 million at the end of June to 132 million, according to the state Internet Network Information Centre, Xinhua reports.
Such a rapid rise has boosted the country's online commerce, advertising and games industries, the report adds.
Several people have been jailed in China in recent years for posting information on the internet deemed subversive.
The Chinese government has denied such reports, and insists its regulation of the internet is in line with the rest of the world.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SECOND DIRTY WAR WITNESS MISSING !

Mr Gerez said he had been arrested and given electric shocks. A man who testified he was tortured by Argentina's military junta has become the second witness in the "Dirty War" trials to go missing in recent months.
Police are searching for Luis Gerez, a 50-year-old construction worker, who has not been seen since Wednesday.
He had implicated a former police chief in the human rights abuses committed by the 1976-83 military regime, helping block his bid for a seat in Congress.
Another witness who testified against Dirty War suspects remains missing.
Julio Lopez vanished in September, after giving evidence at the trial of a former police chief accused of human rights abuses during military rule in the 1970s and 80s.
Marchers took to the streets demanding more effort be made to find him, amid fears that he had been kidnapped and killed by supporters of the military regime.
An estimated 30,000 people were killed, or "disappeared" during military rule.
The military's repression of alleged left-wing opponents came to be known as the Dirty War.
Presidential concern
Mr Gerez told a congressional investigation this year a former police chief, Luis Patti, had been involved in torturing him.
Mr Gerez said he had been arrested and given electric shocks. He was reportedly blindfolded at the time but said he could identify Mr Patti by his voice as one of the men who tortured him.
Mr Patti had been elected to congress but Mr Gerez's testimony helped prevent him from taking his seat.
Mr Patti told Argentine media he was concerned by Mr Gerez's disappearance.
"I hope nothing has happened to him," he said.
Argentina's President Nestor Kirchner had cancelled a holiday to oversee the search for Mr Gerez, his office said.
The first civilian governments after military rule passed laws which allowed Dirty War suspects to walk free.
The current series of trials began after the Argentine Supreme Court last year ruled those laws to be unconstitutional.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SADDAM TEAM 'TO TAKE BELONGINGS '!

Saddam Hussein will be hanged despite a second trial taking place. Lawyers for former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein have confirmed to the BBC that they have been asked to pick up his personal effects.
But an Iraqi official denied that he has been handed from US military to Iraqi custody, following earlier reports this had already happened.
Saddam Hussein could be hanged at any time over the next four weeks, after an appeal against his execution failed.
The sentence is for the killings of 148 Shias in Dujail in the 1980s.
A trial for a second case, genocide against the Kurds, continues.
In further violence, nine people have been killed in a suicide attack near a Shia shrine north of Baghdad, police say.
Family visits
Correspondents say Friday's comments have created a storm of speculation.
According to Iraqi state TV, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said that there would be no delay in carrying out Saddam Hussein's death sentence.
"No-one can oppose the decision to execute the criminal Saddam," Mr Maliki was quoted by AFP as saying. "Those who reject the execution of Saddam are undermining the dignity of Iraq's martyrs."
Chief defence lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi told the BBC that US officials had asked him to appoint someone to collect Saddam Hussein's possessions, or give an address where they could be sent.

THE VERDICTS

Saddam Hussein, former Iraqi president: found guilty and sentenced to death
Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein's half-brother: found guilty and sentenced to death
Awad Hamed al-Bandar, Chief Judge of Revolutionary Court: found guilty and sentenced to death
Taha Yasin Ramadan, former Iraqi vice-president: found guilty and sentenced to life in jail
Abdullah Kadhem Ruaid Senior Baath official: found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in jail
Abdullah Rawed Mizher, Senior Baath official: found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in jail
Ali Daeem Ali, Senior Baath official: found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in jail
Mohammed Azawi Ali, Baath official: acquitted

Excerpts: Saddam letter
World reaction to sentence

The lawyer said the Americans neither confirmed nor denied he was actually handed over from US military custody near Baghdad.
Another lawyer told the BBC that Saddam Hussein's half-brothers Sabawi Ibrahim and Watban Ibrahim - also in prison - were taken to visit him on Thursday.
Iraqi Deputy Justice Minister Bosho Ibrahim confirmed to the BBC that Saddam Hussein had not yet been handed over.
The time and location of the hanging has not been made public - and may be revealed only after the former president is dead to avoid civil disruption and unrest.
The confusion surrounding Saddam Hussein's fate comes a day after his lawyer urged the international community to stop him being handed over to the Iraqi authorities for execution.
Mr Dulaimi said he was a prisoner of war and should not be handed to his enemies.
In a letter written from his prison cell, Saddam Hussein said he was ready to die as a "sacrifice" for Iraq.
Dujail
Saddam Hussein was convicted of human rights abuses in relation to the killings of the 148 Shias in Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt against the former Iraqi leader in 1982.
Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar were also sentenced to death.
Former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life imprisonment and three others received 15-year prison terms.
Another co-defendant, Baath party official Mohammed Azawi Ali, was acquitted. The White House has called the ruling a milestone in Iraq's efforts "to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law".
Many critics have dismissed the trial as a form of victors' justice, given the close attention the US had paid to it.
Saddam Hussein's defence team had also accused the government of interfering in the proceedings - a complaint backed by US group Human Rights Watch.
The 5 November verdict sparked celebrations in Baghdad but protests in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

C.A.R. LEADER ORDERS HOUSE BURNING !

President Francois Bozize confirmed his order on radio. The president of the Central African Republic has ordered the army to set fire to the homes of two church leaders "to teach them a lesson".
The Baptist Church pastors had burnt down the home of another pastor in a row over the use of a chapel for Christmas services in the capital.
One of the men was subsequently beaten up and the other has been arrested.
Francois Bozize said he wanted them "to experience the suffering they had inflicted on others".
The BBC's Joseph Benamse says people in the capital, Bangui, are surprised that the order came from the head of state.
But Mr Bozize confirmed on a private radio station and he himself gave the instructions.
"It is the anger of God which strikes those who offend or do wrong to a servant of God," AFP news agency quotes him as saying.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOMALI TROOPS CLOSE IN ON CAPITAL !

The speed of the government's advance has surprised observers. thiopian and Somali government forces have reached the outskirts of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, after Islamist forces abandoned the city.
Eyewitnesses say Somali troops were cheered by crowds, but some residents condemned the Ethiopian presence.
Ethiopia's prime minister said his men were consulting Somali officials and Mogadishu elders about what do to next.
In recent days Ethiopian troops have helped the interim government capture ground previously held by Islamists.
"People are cheering as they wave flowers to the troops," resident Abdikadar Abdulle told Reuters news agency, adding that military vehicles had passed the Somalia National University.
However another resident told the BBC: "The entire people of Somalia are ready and working against the Ethiopian armed forces... As Muslims, God willing we will defeat the enemies of Islam and their lackeys."

Conflict in pictures
Violence alarms press
US keeps a close watch

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan, in the city, says clan militiamen seized key buildings - like the airport and old presidential palace - as soon as Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) withdrew its fighters early on Thursday.
Residents in the north of the city have reported cars and mobile phones being stolen. Rising insecurity has forced most businesses to stop trading.
The situation seems to be descending back into anarchy, our correspondent adds.

Observers say the UIC's departure leaves a power vacuum in Mogadishu, raising fears of a return to clan warfare that has plagued the city and Somalia for 16 years.
In Ethiopia, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said: "We will act on the basis of the advice of the transitional government and in consultation with the elders of Mogadishu but at the moment we are not in Mogadishu, we are just outside."
He added: "Our mission in Somalia is very very limited... we are not there to reconstruct Somalia economically, politically or otherwise. We are there to remove the threat of the Islamic Courts militia on Somalia and Ethiopia."
Defiant
Islamic fighters have fled towards the port city of Kismayo, their last remaining stronghold, 300 miles (500km) to the south.

In parts of Mogadishu, life seemed to be going on as normal
A senior UIC official Omar Idris said the retreat was "not the end".
He told the BBC's World Today radio programme: "We know what happened in Iraq... I think this is very, very early to say that the Islamic Court forces were defeated."
Meanwhile, a UIC delegation has been in Nairobi, meeting Kenyan officials and Western diplomats.
At the weekend Ethiopia began a major offensive to support the weak government against the UIC - which previously held much of central and southern Somalia.
The conflict has killed hundreds of people. The head of the International Red Cross Somalia delegation said it was "extremely concerned about civilians caught up in the fighting".
The African Union has called for Ethiopian forces to leave Somalia.
However the UN Security Council has failed to agree on a statement calling for the withdrawal of all foreign forces.
Hardline elements
The UIC has its roots in the north of Mogadishu.
Courts administering Islamic law restored order in a city bedevilled by anarchy since the overthrow of former President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
The UIC assumed control of the whole capital in June, driving warlords out and rapidly extending their influence to much of southern Somalia - with the exception of Baidoa, the seat of the transitional Somali government.
That body, set up in 2004 after talks between Somali factions, has been unable to meet in the capital because of opposition first from warlords, then from the UIC.
Almost all Somalis are Muslim and after years of lawlessness, many were happy to have some kind of law and order under the UIC.
But some are wary of the hardline elements among the UIC and do not want to be cut off from the rest of the world.
The UIC have staged public executions and floggings of people they have found guilty of crimes such as murder and selling drugs.
UIC leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys is accused by both Ethiopia and the US of having links to al-Qaeda - charges he denies.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE HOLDS 16,000 OVER MINING !

Mugabe says illegal mining destroys Zimbabwe's forests and land. Police in Zimbabwe are reported to have arrested more than 16,000 people as part of a government drive to curb illegal mining.
The three-week-long campaign targeted settlements around the mining fields and seized large quantities of gold and diamonds, state media said.
During the raids, police officers burnt temporary homes used by panners.
Tens of thousands have turned to mining following the collapse of commercial agriculture, correspondents say.
People dig or pan for gold or diamonds, risking their lives in shallow mines which frequently collapse, says the BBC's Tony Andoh-Korsah.
Critics say President Robert Mugabe has ruined what was one of Africa's most developed economies.
Zimbabwe has the world's lowest life expectancy, highest inflation rate and chronic unemployment.
Mr Mugabe says he is the victim of a Western plot to bring him down because of opposition to his seizure of white-owned land.
Environmental damage
During the raids, officers recovered more than 500,000kg (79,000 stone) of gold and gold ore, and nearly 5,000 diamonds.
Most of the arrests and recoveries were made near border posts and included dealers from neighbouring Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique.
The suspects were trying to smuggle the minerals to neighbouring countries, reports the government newspaper The Herald.
Police say the suspects were all released after paying or promising to pay admission of guilt fines.
Police launched the campaign codenamed Chikorokoza Chapera (which means The End of Illegal Gold Dealings) following concerns over rampant smuggling of precious stones and environmental degradation in mining areas.
The government accuses powerful politicians and businessmen of buying minerals from panners and smuggling them outside the country.
"A few greedy fat cats have monopolised the industry and engaged every other person in the villages, farms and elsewhere to recklessly pan for gold and other precious minerals," Augustine Chihuri, the country's Police Commissioner, was quoted as saying recently by the Herald.
"We are also worried about the level of siltation in our dams and land degradation," he said referring to extensive destruction of the environmental by the panners.
In his state of the nation address last week, Mr Mugabe said Zimbabwe was witnessing rampant destruction of forests and land through uncontrolled fires and illegal panning.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

100 THINGS WE DID NOT KNOW LAST YEAR !

1. Just 20 words make up a third of teenagers' everyday speech.More details
2. There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts.More details
3. Urban birds have developed a short, fast "rap style" of singing, different from their rural counterparts.More details
4. Bristol is the least anti-social place in England, says the National Audit Office.More details
5. Standard-sized condoms are too big for most Indian men.More details
6. The late Alan "Fluff" Freeman, famous as a DJ, had trained as an opera singer.More details
7. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.More details
8. There are 6.5 million sets of fingerprints on file in the UK.More details
9. Fathers tend to determine the height of their child, mothers their weight.More details
10. Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet.More details
11. An infestation of head lice is called pediculosis.More details
12. The Pope's been known to wear red Prada shoes.More details
13. The fastest supercomputer in the UK can make 15.4 trillion calculations per second.More details14. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up.More details
15. Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defence secretary in US history.More details
16. Spending on Halloween has risen 10-fold - from £12m to £120m in the UK, in five years.More details
17. Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.More details
18. Up to 25% of hospital keyboards carry the MRSA infection.More details
19. The UK population grew at a rate of 500 per day last year as immigration out-stripped emigration.More details
20. Sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.More details
21. English is now the only "traditional" academic subject in the top 10 most popular university courses.More details
22. The number of people committing suicide in the UK has fallen to its lowest recorded level.More details
23. More than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet, says a study.More details
24. One third of all the cod fished in the world is consumed in the UK.More details
25. In Kingston upon Thames, men on average live to be 78. In Kingston-upon-Hull it is 73.More details
26. Each person sends an average of 55 greetings cards per year.More details
27. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles.More details
28. More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.More details
29. Tony Blair’s favourite meal to cook is spaghetti bolognaise.More details
30. The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.More details
31. The Mona Lisa used to hang on the wall of Napoleon’s bedroom.More details
32. Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.More details33. Eating a packet of crisps a day is equivalent to drinking five litres of cooking oil a year.More details
34. Plant seeds that have been stored for more than 200 years can be coaxed into new life.More details
35. There were no numbers in the very first UK phone directory, only names and addresses. Operators would connect callers.More details
36. The InterCity 125 train was designed by the same man who came up with the angle-poise lamp and Kenwood Chef mixer.More details
37. Pavements are tested using an 80 square metre artificial pavement at a research centre called Pamela (the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory).More details
38. A common American poplar has twice as many genes as a human being.More details
39. The world's fastest supercomputer will have its speed measured in "petaflops", which represent 1,000 trillion calculations per second. More details
40. The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is "superior temporal sulcus".More details
41. Some Royal Mail stamps, which of course carry the Queen's image, are printed in Holland.More details
42. Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Moronoff, the daughter of a Russian-born violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.More details
43. There is only one cheddar cheese maker in Cheddar, even though cheddar is the most popular hard cheese in the English-speaking world.More details
44. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality.More details
45. Cows can have regional accents, says a professor of phonetics, after studying cattle in Somerset More details
46. Involuntary bad language, a symptom affecting about one in 10 people with Tourette's syndrome, is called "coprolalia". More details
47. Watching television can act as a natural painkiller for children, say researchers from the University of Siena. More details
48. Allotment plots come in the standard measure of 10 poles - a pole is the length of the back of the plough to the nose of the ox. More details
49. When filming summer scenes in winter, actors suck on ice cubes just before the camera rolls - it cools their mouths so their breath doesn't condense in the cold air. More details
50. There are 60 Acacia Avenues in the UK. More details
51. Gritters come out in hot weather too - to spread rock dust, which stops roads melting.More details
52. Forty-eight percent of the population is ex-directory. More details
53. Red Buttons - real name Aaron Chwatt - took his surname from the nickname for hotel porters, a job he did in his teens. More details
54. The CND symbol incorporates the semaphore letters for N and D for nuclear and disarmament. More details
55. While 53% of households have access to a garage, only 24% use them for parking cars. More details
56. Mortgage borrowing now accounts for 42% of take-home salary.More details
57. The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary. More details
58. Forty-one percent of English women have punched or kicked their partners, according to a study. More details
59. Dogs with harelips can end up with two noses. More details
60. The clitoris derives its name from the ancient Greek word kleitoris, meaning "little hill". More details
61. A domestic cat can frighten a black bear to climb a tree. More details
62. Thirty-four percent of the UK has a surname that is ranked as "posher" than the Royal Family's given name, Windsor. More details
63. The Downing St garden is actually a Royal Park. More details
64. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666. More details
65. The more panels a football has - and therefore the more seams - the easier it is to control in the air. More details
66. One in four smokers use roll-ups. More details
67. Music can help reduce chronic pain by more than 20% and can alleviate depression by up to 25%. More details
68. The egg came first. More details
69. Humans were first infected with the HIV virus in the 1930s. More details
70. Sir Paul McCartney is only the second richest music millionaire in the UK - Clive Calder, is top. More details
71. Publishers have coined the term "Brownsploitation" for the rash of books that have sprung up in the wake of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code blockbuster. More details
72. Modern teenagers are better behaved than their counterparts of 20 years ago, showing "less problematic behaviour" involving sex, drugs and drink. More details
73. George Bush's personal highlight of his presidency is catching a 7.5lb (3.4kg) perch. More details
74. Britain is still paying off debts that predate the Napoleonic wars because it's cheaper to do so than buy back the bonds on which they are based. More details
75. Five billion apples are eaten a year in the UK. More details76. In Bhutan government policy is based on Gross National Happiness; thus most street advertising is banned, as are tobacco and plastic bags. More details
77. Metal detector enthusiasts are referred to as "detectorists"; there are about 30,000 in the UK. More details
78. The Labour Party spent £299.63 on Star Trek outfits for the last election, while the Tories shelled out £1,269 to import groundhog costumes. More details
79. The best-value consumer purchase in terms of the price and usage is an electric kettle. More details
80. Camel's milk, which is widely drunk in Arab countries, has 10 times more iron than cow's milk. More details
81. Iceland has the highest concentration of broadband users in the world. More details
82. There are 2.5 million rodent-owning households in Britain, according to the Pet Food Manufacturers' Association. More details
83. Rainfall on the roof and gutters of a three-bed detached house can amount to 120,000 litres each year. More details
84. Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger. More details
85. The age limit for marriage in France was, until recently, 15 for girls, but 18 for boys. The age for girls was raised to 18 in 2006. More details
86. Six million people use TV subtitles, despite having no hearing impairment. More details
87. Goths, those pasty-faced teenagers who revel in black clothing, are likely to become doctors, lawyers and architects. More details
88. Nelson Mandela used to steal pigs as a child. More details
89. There are an average of 4.4 sparrows in each British garden. In 1979, there were 10 per garden. More details
90. The Himalayas cover one-tenth of the Earth's surface. More details
91. Lord Levy, recruited by Tony Blair to raise money for the Labour party, made his own fortune managing Alvin Stardust, among others. More details
92. In a fight between a polar bear and a lion, the polar bear would win. More details
93. If left alone, 70% of birthmarks gradually fade away. More details
94. There are two million cars and trucks in Brazil which run on alcohol. More details
95. US Secret Service sniffer dogs are put up in five-star hotels during overseas presidential visits. More details
96. Flushing a toilet costs, on average, 1.5p. More details
97. Tufty the road safety squirrel had a surname. It was Fluffytail. More details
98. A "lost world" exists in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of hitherto unknown animal and plant species. More details
99. The term "misfeasance" means to carry out a legal act illegally. More details
100. In the 1960s, the CIA used to watch Mission Impossible to get ideas about spying. More details
Phew. If, after all that, you're still craving news-y facts, click here for an archive of 10 things.

BBC MAGZINE.

NIGERIA VOWS TO CURB OIL BLAZES !

The intense heat hampered recovery efforts. Nigeria's government has promised measures to avoid future disasters, after a pipeline explosion killed at least 260 people in Lagos.
Pipeline fires occur frequently in Nigeria as people try to scoop up fuel leaking from pipes that have broken or been vandalised.
Information Minister Frank Nweke told the BBC the government was encouraging people to report pipeline vandalism.
He said Nigeria was investing in more refineries to end petrol shortages.

NIGERIA PIPELINE DISASTERS

May 2006: At least 150 killed in Lagos
Dec 2004: At least 20 killed in Lagos
Sept 2004: At least 60 killed in Lagos
June 2003: At least 105 killed in Abia State
July 2000: At least 300 killed in Warri
Mar 2000: At least 50 killed in Abia State
Oct 1998: At least 1,000 killed in Jesse
Pictures from the scene

The government is encouraging the establishment of more refineries... so there will be less incentive for people to try to profiteer from the sale of petroleum products," Mr Nweke told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
He said the government had solved the problem of fuel shortages, "but there's this expectation that there may be some sort of scarcity, so people begin to hoard and to profiteer".
Some 2,000 people have died in similar incidents in recent years in Nigeria.
Although Nigeria is Africa's largest oil exporter, it suffers regular shortages of petrol and diesel because it relies on imports of refined fuel from the West.
Theft
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said he was "shocked and saddened" by the vandalisation of an oil pipeline that led to Tuesday's disaster.
Hundreds of people in a Lagos suburb were scooping fuel from a pipeline punctured by thieves when it exploded.
It took the emergency services hours to extinguish the flames and many of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition.
Adding his voice to the condolences, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan called for "a review of the country's fuel supply management, as well as a thorough regional review of risks that could lead to other environmental or technological disasters in West Africa."
Some of those injured in the blast are believed to have gone into hiding to avoid arrest. Others may not have gone to hospital because they lack money to pay for treatment.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BACK IN THE DYING USSR !

Back in the dying USSR
By Steven Eke BBC Russia analyst.

December 1991 was a miserable time to be living in the Soviet Union. I was a student, in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Or, as it was then known, the Belarussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Gorbachev saw his authority ebb away as the USSR collapsedDuring the Soviet years, it had been seen as rather a desirable place to live.
"That's Eastern Europe, not the USSR," people would tell me.
They were alluding to its easy-going atmosphere, and the fact that you could once buy a reasonable range of food and consumer goods there.
Not during those final few months of the Soviet Union, though.
Minsk was totally destroyed during World War II. Rebuilt in the 1950s and 60s, it became a testing ground for Soviet architecture. Not all of it attractive, of course.
Profound pride
The suburb where I lived was called "Green Meadow 6". There was neither anything green, nor meadow-like there.
But in Belarus, there was a strong sense that the Soviet Union was something worth saving. Indeed, there was a profound pride in its achievements.
Yet, on the eve of the announcement that the USSR had ceased to exist, I spent three or four hours queuing outside a Soviet food store. Such shops had the laughable name Gastronom (Gourmet).

Minsk was rebuilt in Soviet style from the ruins of World War III froze, in driving snow, asking myself what on earth I was doing. For my efforts I eventually obtained a scrawny, blue, battered chicken.
But still, it was quite a find. There was real fear of hunger at that time.
Few people in the West can imagine the economic hardships that accompanied the Soviet Union's collapse.
It took a decade - or more - for national economies to begin to recover.
The agreements signalling the end of the Soviet state were signed in a place where, just months earlier, I had spent what I still consider to be some of the most blissful days of my life.
Vanished empire
I had friends in high places, working in state television and Minsk state university.
They were members of the Soviet elite, people who lived a life of relative - but still real - comfort. They were people who could not imagine waking up to find that the world's last great empire - their country - had simply vanished.
They had taken me to a lodge, Communist Party property, hidden deep inside an unspoilt forest on the border between Poland and the Soviet Union.
It was the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, home to the zubr, the European bison. Yes, there is such a creature.

Many in the ex-Soviet states feel nostalgic about the USSRIf air can be fresher than it was there, I am yet to breathe it. If the night sky can be darker, or more full of stars, I am yet to see it.
In the lodge, I had servants at my beck and call. Servants - in a country still calling itself communist, one that professed equality for all.
We feasted on roasted elk and hare, as well as several sorts of delicious, unusual mushrooms. The room in which I slept was the epitome of luxury.
I had become used to queues, empty shops, the incredible rudeness of officials, their petty, humiliating treatment of ordinary people, and the difficulties that characterised trying to do just about anything, anywhere, in the Soviet Union.
And so there was a chasm between what I saw, felt and ate in the Communist Party lodge, and the real struggle of everyday life.
As the scrawny, blue, battered chicken suggested, Soviet reality was, actually, quite wretched.
Yet in Belarus, the USSR was the country that defeated Nazi Germany, and then built a modern, educated and industrialised state.
Perhaps therefore, when it was announced that President Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned, and that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was no more, some felt that a calamity of indescribable proportions had enveloped them.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

VISTA OPENS NEW DAWN FOR SECURITY !

Vista opens new dawn for security.
By Mark Ward Technology Correspondent, BBC News website.

Windows Vista will be available to consumers in early 2007Hi-tech criminals are looking forward to the consumer release of Windows Vista, say security experts.
Vista will be the big event in computer security in 2007, say experts and add that it will have a profound effect on both sides of the security world.
Many organised crime gangs are already tearing the new version of Windows apart looking for ways to exploit its weaknesses, say some.
Others are expecting to see Vista attacked soon after it debuts.
Fresh target
While Microsoft's business customers have been able to buy Vista since 30 November, consumers are being forced to wait until late January 2007 to get their hands on the next version of the Windows operating system.
Microsoft has said that the whole development process of the operating system has been run with better security in mind.
Within Vista are several technologies that could stop many people falling victim to the most common sorts of malicious attack, said Kevin Hogan, director of security operations at Symantec.
In particular, he said, the way Vista handles user accounts will limit the freedom malicious programs have to run and install themselves surreptitiously.
Increasingly, said Mr Hogan, hi-tech criminals were booby-trapping benign looking webpages with code that slips through vulnerabilities in the various versions of Windows. It should also help stop people being caught out by malicious attachments on e-mail messages.
"That'll deal with a lot of the current threats we are seeing," said Mr Hogan.

Hypponen: Cyber criminals are translating their wares to work on VistaMikko Hypponen, chief research officer at security firm F-Secure, said the warnings that these account controls display when malicious code tries to install itself will prove useful.
"It'll become much more obvious when they get infected," he said.
But, said Mr Hypponen, as well as stopping some of the threats hitting users, Vista is also likely to spur many hi-tech criminals to step up their research efforts and translate their old malicious wares to the new software.
"None of the existing bots, backdoors, trojans in general run on Vista," said Mr Hypponen.
Already security experts are seeing exploits for Vista vulnerabilities being sold on underground websites and proof-of-concept code appearing on discussion boards.
Gerhard Eschelbeck, chief technology officer at security firm Webroot, said he expected the hi-tech criminals to start exploiting the many ways that Vista tries to warn people about security threats.
He said it was only a matter of time before cyber criminals find a way to mimic the security warnings that Vista uses to try to trick people into installing a malicious program.
"They are thinking how to attack the user directly rather than try to penetrate the applications," he said.
Old iron
While Vista might help many users stay safer online, many criminals would be happy targeting the tens of millions of people who own older versions of Windows, said Mr Eschelbeck.

Hi-tech criminals are targeting web-based databasesIn 2007 he said he expected to see malicious code turning up on many different types of sites - many of which looked completely benign.
Those behind malicious programs were also more interested in having their creations hang around longer, said Mr Eschelbeck.
"The goal is to stay undetected for a long time," he said. "It's being driven by people looking for financial gain."
The diversity of the hi-tech underground was also shown by the new targets many were going after, said Paul Davie, chief executive of security firm Secerno.
He said many hi-tech criminals were now targeting web shops that use a database to handle orders in a bid to steal valuable information they can sell or use.
Many attackers, he said, were using sophisticated techniques to squeeze information out of databases.
"These attacks - examples of which include hackers exposing hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers worldwide - certainly will increase sharply in 2007," he said.
"The security sector is coming to terms with the fact that it is dealing with highly financially motivated, technologically advanced and professional database infiltrators," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MIXED REACTIONS TO SADDAM VERDICT !

Saddam Hussein will be hanged despite a second trial taking place. The US has hailed a ruling by an Iraq court that Saddam Hussein be executed within 30 days, while the EU has urged Baghdad not to carry out the sentence.
The former leader could be hanged on any day over the next four weeks, after an appeal against his execution failed.
The sentence is for killings in the town of Dujail in 1982. He is on trial in a second case, but under Iraqi law the execution must go ahead regardless.
The time and location of the hanging has not been made public.
Correspondents say it may only be revealed after the former president is dead in order to avoid civil disruption and unrest.
No further appeal
The White House called the ruling a landmark in Iraq's efforts "to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law".

THE VERDICTS

Saddam Hussein, former Iraqi president: found guilty and sentenced to death
Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein's half-brother: found guilty and sentenced to death
Awad Hamed al-Bandar, Chief Judge of Revolutionary Court: found guilty and sentenced to death
Taha Yasin Ramadan, former Iraqi vice-president: found guilty and sentenced to life in jail
Abdullah Kadhem Ruaid Senior Baath official: found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in jail
Abdullah Rawed Mizher, Senior Baath official: found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in jail
Ali Daeem Ali, Senior Baath official: found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in jail
Mohammed Azawi Ali, Baath official: acquitted

World reaction to sentence

But a number of groups have complained about the legality of the proceedings, including US-based Human Rights Watch, which said the Iraqi government had undermined the credibility of the trial.
India meanwhile has urged clemency - expressing concern over any delay to the restoration of peace in Iraq, while the EU has called on Iraq not to carry out the death sentence.
Appeals Court judge Arif Shaheen told a news conference in Baghdad the execution date could not "exceed 30 days".
"As from [Wednesday] the sentence could be carried out at any time," he said, adding that there could be no further appeal and the sentence could not be commuted.
Saddam Hussein's defence lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said the court's verdict "was expected".
"We were not at all surprised, as we are convinced that this has been - 100% - a political trial," he said.
'Too lenient'
The Dujail case relates to killings that followed a failed assassination attempt against the then Iraqi leader in 1982.
Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti and Iraq's former chief judge Awad Hamed al-Bandar were also sentenced to death.
Former Vice-President Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life imprisonment and three others received 15-year prison terms.
The appeals court said Ramadan's sentence was too lenient and returned it to the High Tribunal for consideration of the death penalty.
Another co-defendant, Baath party official Mohammed Azawi Ali, was acquitted.
Saddam Hussein is on trial separately in connection with a military campaign against Kurdish communities in the 1980s.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ASIA COMMUNICATIONS HIT BY QUAKE !

The quake was felt across Taiwan. Telecommunications across Asia have been severely disrupted because of damage to undersea cables caused by Tuesday's earthquake near Taiwan.
Banks and businesses in Taiwan, South Korea, China and Japan reported telephone and internet problems.
The earthquake, a magnitude 7.1 according to the US Geological Survey, struck off Taiwan's southern coast
Two people were killed and at least 42 injured in the temblor, which shook buildings across the island.
The earthquake took place at 2026 (1226 GMT) south-west of Hengchun. It was followed by a number of aftershocks.
Japan's Meteorological Agency had warned of a possible localised tsunami heading towards the Philippines, but nothing was later reported.
'Seriously affected'
Taiwan's largest telephone company, Chunghwa Telecom Co, said damage to an undersea cable had disrupted 98% of Taiwan's communications with Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.
Repairs could take three weeks, Vice-General Manager Lin Jen-hung said, but quality would improve daily.

Telecommunications companies in Hong Kong, Japan and China also reported problems.
China's biggest telecoms provider, China Telecommunications Group, said that communications cables to the US and to Europe had been damaged.
"Internet connections have been seriously affected, and phone links and dedicated business lines have also been affected to some degree," it said.
In South Korea, broadband provider KT Corp said six submarine cables had been affected, interrupting services to customers including banks.
Some foreign exchange trading was reportedly affected.
"Trading of the Korean won has mostly halted due to the communication problem," a dealer at one South Korean domestic bank told Reuters news agency.
Several companies have warned of slow internet access over the next few days.
In Taiwan, rescue workers were searching through rubble for people injured in the earthquake.
Two members of a family died in Hengchun when their house collapsed, Taiwanese officials said
The earthquake came on the second anniversary of the Asian tsunami, which claimed almost 250,000 lives.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.S. WARY OF SOMALI 'TERROR' LINKS !

US wary of Somali 'terror' links
By Martin Plaut - BBC Africa editor.

Somali government soldiers have advanced with Ethiopian backingThe United States has closely followed the gains made by Somali government forces, supported by Ethiopian armour and troops, against Islamist militiamen.
Washington is determined to prevent the spread of fundamentalist Islam to Africa and has been deeply concerned by the rise of the Union of Islamic Courts.
The US has seen the fight against terrorism as its highest priority in Africa ever since 7 August 1998, when two car bombs exploded outside the American embassies in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.
Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the explosions, which killed more than 250 people and left 4,000 wounded.
Since then US officials say they have found links between key supporters of the UIC, and the attacks on the US embassies.
'Threat'
"We continue to be concerned about the state of security in the sub-region in eastern Horn of Africa; the threat that in some ways Somalia poses in terms of criminality and arms coming out of there, as well as the issue of terrorists' safe haven," the US Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, said while visiting Kenya earlier this year.
The UIC leadership has denied links to al-Qaeda, but there is evidence to suggest that some supporters of the UIC were indeed connected to the embassy attacks.
The US developed a strategy to tackle the Islamists. First Washington supported the warlords who controlled the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
But in June the militia of the Islamic Courts drove out the warlords, who are believed to have escaped to an American ship waiting offshore.
Since then the US has given diplomatic backing to the Somali transitional government at the United Nations, pressing for an African peacekeeping force to be sent to strengthen its position.
The Americans have worked closely with Ethiopia, using troops based in neighbouring Djibouti.
There is no suggestion that American forces are involved in the current Ethiopian offensive in Somalia, but Washington has satellite images and intelligence information that would be extremely useful to Addis Ababa as it attempts to crack the Islamic Court's hold on Somalia.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGERIA MOURNS PIPELINE VICTIMS !

The intense heat hampered recovery efforts. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has said he is "shocked and saddened" by the vandalisation of an oil pipeline that led to at least 260 deaths.
Hundreds of people in a Lagos suburb were scooping fuel from a pipeline punctured by thieves when it exploded.
It took the emergency services hours to extinguish the flames and many of the bodies were burnt beyond recognition.
Some 2,000 people have died in similar incidents in recent years in Nigeria, which suffers frequent fuel shortages.
President Obasanjo blamed the tragedy on vandals damaging the pipeline and said he was sad that such vandalism continued despite his warnings that it was "not only illegal but a dangerous pursuit".

NIGERIA PIPELINE DISASTERS
May 2006: At least 150 killed in Lagos
Dec 2004: At least 20 killed in Lagos
Sept 2004: At least 60 killed in Lagos
June 2003: At least 105 killed in Abia State
Jul 2000: At least 300 killed in Warri
Mar 2000: At least 50 killed in Abia State
Oct 1998: At least 1,000 killed in Jesse
Pictures from the scene

Adding his voice to the condolences, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said the UN was ready to provide immediate assistance. and also to help assess gaps in disaster response.
Mr Annan also called for " a review of the country's fuel supply management, as well as a thorough regional review of risks that could lead to other environmental or technological disasters in West Africa."
Despite being Africa's largest oil producer, Nigerians often suffer fuel shortages because of corruption, poor management and infrastructure problems.
It appears that thieves broke into a pipeline passing through the Abule Egba area of Lagos early on Tuesday to siphon off large amounts of fuel.
Some time later, hundreds of local people had arrived on the site carrying jerry cans and plastic buckets when a vast explosion shook the neighbourhood.
The Nigerian Red Cross (NRC) says at least 260 people were killed and dozens were injured.

Some of those injured in the blast are believed to have gone into hiding to avoid arrest. Others may not have gone to hospital because they lack money to pay for treatment.
Lagos journalist Adeyinka Adewunmi witnessed the aftermath of the explosion.
"The pipelines are in a popular neighbourhood, very close to the express road, which I normally use for my journey to work," he told the BBC News website.
"I could see fire, state ambulances, ambulances of the Red Cross, firefighters, government officials. There were scores of dead bodies on the ground and injured people being carried into ambulances.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CATHY BUCKLE'S WEEKLY LETTER FROM ZIMBABWE !

Dear Family and Friends,

This December, for the second year in a row, my Christmas Tree has remained outside in the garden. This tree began life as a seedling amongst the firtrees behind our house on the farm. Just a couple of inches tall I planted the seedling in a black plastic bag when we were being evicted from our farm just before Christmas in 2000. Every year at Christmas time I dragged the pot inside, covered the tree with bits and pieces, starved it of water for a week and then back outside it went. As the tree grew I transplanted it into ever bigger pots and the Christmas tree has survived but not really thrived.
Two years ago my son and I planted the Christmas tree in the garden, agreeing that it would stay there until there was a change in the situation in Zimbabwe. At first when I took the tree out of its pot it stood there in the rich earth in a state of shock. For months it did nothing, did not seem to grow or lift up its branches or show any sign oflife. Then suddenly as if it finally realised it was free of the restrictions on its roots, my little Christmas tree began to grow. Now it is over six feet (two metres) tall and is alive and well and growing on the front lawn. This week, standing on tip toes I have put a small silver star on top of the Christmas tree in the garden and it stirs gently in the breeze of our hot and humid December days. Having my Christmas tree outside in the garden is symbolic of the state of affairs in Zimbabwe.
Christmas is not completely cancelled but it is not far off. All the usual traditional Christmas trappings are just not possible anymore. The traditional Christmas meal is off the menu, unaffordable by almost everyone. Most families are again separated by borders, countries and even continents as almost a quarter of our population remain in exile across the world. Christmas gifts are this year sparser than ever before - restricted almost entirely to just the children. I thought how I could best describe the atmosphere of this Christmas to people outside of the country and all week have added words to a list.

This is December in Zimbabwe:
Two inch long Msasa beetles armed with fierce nippers;
Great fat sausage flies everywhere telling us the rain is near;
Flame lilies - scarlet and yellow in the jungly green bush;
Paradise flycatchers trailing exquisite long orange tail feathers;
The bubbling call of the Coucal and the mocking warnings of the Go Away BirdsBig, orange, sticky mangoes.Towns seething with people and monstrous queues - not for presents or treats
but queues for money, for petrol and, longest of all, queues for sugar. This is Christmas in Zimbabwe in December 2006. To all my family and friends and to Zimbabweans wherever you are in the world, I send love and thanks for everything you all to do help this wonderful country. Until my next letter in 2007, have a peaceful and happy Christmas and New Year, love cathy.

Copyright, cathy buckle, 23rd December 2006.https://webmail.plus.net/parse.pl?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fafricantears.netfirms.comMy books "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.com

AN ARMY CHRISTMAS IN IRAQ !

An army Christmas in Iraq
By Martin Bell BBC News, Iraq

There are more than 7,000 British troops in southern Iraq.
Thousands of British troops remain in Iraq and most of them will remain on duty over Christmas. Army padres there will be trying to give the troops some spiritual cheer over the festive period.
There is not much to be said for war.
But one thing it does is to allow the military chaplains to hold their Christmas services at the right time, with the men and women of the armed forces all around them.
At home the services would be held days or even weeks before the event, in garrison churches, before the regiments dispersed for Christmas.
By contrast the 12 chaplains - 11 from the Army and one from the Air Force - serving more than 7,000 troops in southern Iraq will be in the thick of things.
They will hold midnight Masses and carol services in every unit for those who wish to attend provided they are off duty.
For the rest, Christmas is like any other day.
Patron of lost causes
Those attacking them do not take the day off and the defenders will, if anything, be extra vigilant.
We might want to give them encouragement and help rather than pull them down
Reverend Andrew MartlewBritish chaplain
Rocket and mortar attacks on British bases occur every day - three rockets fell on the Shaiba logistics base while we were with a padre visiting a sentry on a watchtower.
An artillery battery which went home on the last rotation lost four men killed out of 110: in modern soldiering, those are not light casualties.
Some of the young men, aged 18 or 19, are on their first operational duty, and even in their first foreign country.
Others have had one, two or even three previous tours of duty in Iraq.
All of them are facing six months of concentrated reality amid conditions of hardship, danger and boredom, which most of us who live in peace and comfort can hardly imagine.
Their homes are tents and their churches are portakabins.
In such conditions one of the few advantages of being an Army padre rather than a village vicar is that you can rename your church if you want to.
The Reverend Andrew Martlew, chaplain to 40 Field Regiment of the Royal Artillery, holds services in a metal hut behind blast walls 10ft high which, when he arrived, was the Church of St Paul in the Desert. It is now the Church of St Jude.
St Jude is known, among his other functions, as the patron saint of lost causes.
Fag-break visits
The chaplains are frank about it: their task is harder because the soldiers feel more isolated, and have more questions to ask, because they are serving in a cause that is either unpopular or misunderstood at home.

Tony Blair spent three hours meeting troops before Christmas
The padres also wonder, "What are we doing here and why?"
The Reverend Andrew Martlew adds: "This is quite a difficult thing to say and an even more difficult thing to think, but almost by taking the Queen's Shilling we're putting elements of our consciences into cold storage.
"In order to help the guys we might be not necessarily economical with the truth, but we might want to give them encouragement and help rather than pull them down."
Another sign of Christmas is the seasonal migration of chiefs of staff and politicians. Like birds of passage, they fly into Basra and then out again.
As a disaffected soldier put it, they stay for the length of a fag break.
Tony Blair, on his fourth and last pre-Christmas visit, actually spent three hours with the troops.
The theatre of war - an aircraft hanger at Basra Air Station - was decorated with two Challenger tanks outside and two Warrior armoured personnel carriers, a Lynx helicopter and 300 serving men and women of all three armed forces inside.
These things are not left to chance. The prime minister's travelling party of 13, excluding bodyguards, included seven whose job was in one way or another to deal with the press.
Twenty reporters were also on the plane. That is a ratio of more than one to three of sheepdogs to sheep. On what is still a controversial conflict, presentation matters.
Getting on with it
The prime minister insisted there was no change of policy: "British troops will stay until the job is done."
Yet the soldiers themselves know that the Shaibah logistical base will be handed back to the Iraqis in the spring or early summer.
The three British bases in Basra will close. Forces will be concentrated around the airport.
The visible symbols of occupation, like tanks in the streets, will diminish to little or nothing.
The conditions will be in place to declare victory - or at least something less than defeat - and leave the field.
The troops just get on with it. They always have. They always will.
If there is a message from them this winter, it is more than one of seasonal goodwill. It is: remember we are here. We are here to stay or, better still, to go. And - please - do not take us for granted.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 24 December, 2006 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CRITICS OPPOSE CHRISTMAS IN CHINA !

Chinese retailers and young people have embraced Western festivals. A group of Chinese students has criticised a rise in Christmas revelry, urging people to "resist Western cultural invasion", state media says.
The 10 students, all from elite universities, posted their views on an internet website, the China Daily said.
They condemned the proliferation of Christmas trees, seasonal messages in the media and people celebrating "until very late" on Christmas Eve.
The government was to blame for failing to maintain traditions, they said.
"Occidental culture has been more like storms sweeping through the country rather than mild showers," the students argued.
People were joining in Christmas partying without giving its meaning much thought, they said.
"This is a phenomenon of the collective loss of sense," they said, urging a return to Confucianism.
But the posting had drawn heavy criticism, China Daily said, and was unlikely to receive much support.
Western festivals like Christmas and Valentine's Day have been enthusiastically embraced by Chinese retailers and young people alike in recent years.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BA RESUMES U.K. FLIGHTS AT HEATHROW !

Domestic flights restarted on Saturday afternoon. British Airways domestic flights have resumed at Heathrow after being cancelled since Wednesday due to fog.
The first flight to take off following the suspension left at 1322 GMT, bound for Newcastle.
The airline hopes to operate 95% of its Heathrow services - including 87% of short-haul flights - on Saturday, and a full service on Sunday.
More than 1,000 flights have been cancelled in recent days, and other airports in the UK have been affected.
BA said 55 flights to and from Heathrow, including 10 domestic flights, were scrapped on Saturday morning but hoped all 27 domestic flights would fly in the afternoon.
It is still using 30 buses to get people around the country.
A number of domestic flights operated by other airlines have also been taking off from Heathrow.
'Running normally'
Mark Bullock, managing director of Heathrow, told BBC News 24 the airport terminals were running normally and normal service would be resumed by the end of Sunday.
He said the biggest problem airport staff now faced was passengers turning up early for their flights.
"Today is a busy day. It's our third busiest day of the year.
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Travel advice at-a-glance
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"But as I speak the terminals are running normally. Passengers are passing through security in the terminals as we'd expect ordinarily.
"If I could offer some advice, it would be to passengers: please check with your airline before departing for the airport, to check that your flight is still going. And please, do not turn up early."
A spokesman for BAA - which runs several UK airports, including Heathrow - said the tents which have been used to shelter passengers waiting for flights would remain outside the airport "for at least today" and that the situation was being kept under review.
Bmi has not cancelled any of Saturday's flights from Heathrow, and said it was looking to operate as full a service as possible.
BA flights from Heathrow to Paris and Brussels will resume on Sunday.
The flight cancellations came about after air traffic control placed restrictions on flights landing and taking off at Heathrow, because of the low visibility.
In the run-up to the festive holiday, the Highways Agency has suspended more than half of its 83 roadworks, and many rail engineering works are also being delayed until Christmas.
On the roads
RAC spokesman Adam Cracknell said major problems were not expected on the roads over the weekend.
"We expect there to be about 9 million or 10 million cars on the road on both Saturday and Sunday, mostly between 10am and 4pm as people carry out last-minute Christmas shopping," he said.
"There may be problems in city centres with parking but otherwise we are over the worst of the Christmas traffic."
At Gatwick Airport, where many tourist and ski holiday travellers are expected, there are no reported cancellations and most flights are leaving on time, although there may be some delays.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.N. PASSES IRAN NUCLEAR SANCTIONS !

The Iranian government has vowed to continue its nuclear programme. The United Nations Security Council has unanimously voted to impose sanctions against Iran over its failure to halt uranium enrichment.
The sanctions ban the supply of nuclear-related technology and materials, freeze certain assets and limit travel for specific individuals.
The US representative warned that Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons would make it less, not more, secure.
Iran says its programme is for peaceful purposes and has vowed to continue.
The draft was amended several times to meet objections from Russia and China.
Hours before the vote, Russia's Vladimir Putin and US President George W Bush discussed the issue by telephone, agreeing on the importance of a unified stance.
The US ambassador to the UN said the resolution sent a strong warning that there would be serious repercussions to Iran's continued defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"If necessary, we will not hesitate to return to this body if Iran does not take further steps to comply," he said.
Delayed vote
The main sticking point for the five permanent members of the Security Council was getting Russia to agree on sanctions, the BBC's Andy Gallacher reports from the UN.
After protracted negotiations, Russia agreed to back the resolution, saying it would send a "strong message" to Iran about the need to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In a statement before the Security Council, the Russian representative emphasised that the resolution did not authorise the use of force.
The text has been watered down to take account of Russian concerns over such provisions as a freeze on the assets abroad of specific Iranian individuals and organisations.
Both China and Russia have strong financial ties with Iran.
Russia is building a nuclear power station in the country and China has significant oil interests in Iran.
The resolution demands that Tehran end all uranium enrichment work, which can produce fuel for nuclear plants as well as for bombs.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to reconsider relations with those countries which support sanctions.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DO THEY CARE IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME? !

Do they care it's Christmas time?
VIEWPOINT : Menghestab Haile.

'Tis the season when some concerned present-buyers choose to sponsor goats for families in drought-hit regions. Schemes like this are little more than token gestures, says the World Food Programme's Menghestab Haile; a real gift would be serious political action to help those struggling with climate change.

We need to help protect people from every single drought or other calamity pushing them into destitution The growing damage wrought by climate change in sub-Saharan Africa demands more than seasonal good will; it needs true political will, matched by real action, if we are to halt the ever growing problem of world hunger.
Ask Mohamed Abey, a pastoralist leader in the dusty roadside community of Skanska in north-eastern Kenya. The 47-year-old says he owned 400 livestock before the 2005 drought; now he has just 20.
He admits pastoralism is no longer sustainable. While he is grateful for the monthly package of food aid, he urges the world to do more so the 2,000 people in Skanska can get back on their own feet.
Told that a lack of support for restocking or safety net schemes means that food is about all they can currently expect, he predicts: "If there isn't enough rain and we cannot return to pastoralism, we will come up with other options."
He then suggests trying farming, but admits he first needs help with seeds and irrigation.
Mohamed says some of his 14 children have been to school and he cannot see them returning to the pastoralist life. "The only option is to take them to school," he says.
If we cannot help people survive today's extreme weather, there's little point worrying about future climate change
Only too aware that droughts are hitting faster across East Africa and the Horn, pastoralists now know their best insurance is to educate their children so they join the modern economy.
Then when drought returns, pastoralists will not just rely on a fickle international community often prone to distraction by new emergencies.
Stark challenge
Compounded by climate change, the challenge in Africa is greater than ever.
In its annual report on the state of food insecurity, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the number of undernourished people in the world was rising by four million a year.

Live Aid focussed attention on poverty; but for how long?The situation is worst in sub-Saharan Africa with some 206 million hungry people, 40 million more than in 1990-1992.
At the height of the regional drought this year, WFP gave food rations to three million people in Kenya alone. Even after the rains, WFP reaches 2.41 million Kenyans because of the severe impact of drought.
If we cannot help people survive today's extreme weather, there's little point worrying about future climate change.
Regular meals
WFP does indeed invest in the longer-term.
As part of its drought response, 550,000 children still receive meals at schools in the worst drought-hit areas. Another 1.1 million children receive school meals in Kenya from WFP's regular programme, which has run since 1980 and focuses on arid and semi-arid areas.
Some critics complain it is not right that 70% of global food aid is donated in kind, rather than as cash. They say that when hunger is caused by poverty, cash can be better than food aid.
And they call for less food aid from abroad, so local purchases help support farmers in developing countries.

The pastoralist way of life may no longer be sustainableSuch suggestions are often unqualified, even when there is clear need.
Mohamed's family eats food aid from the WFP. Little else is on offer in just about every community in the 80% of Kenya that is arid or semi-arid, despite development and investment plans and projects dating back to the 1980s.
On the issue of buying locally-produced food, WFP emergency operations often depend on food donations. We can only make local purchases when food is available and at the right price to balance the needs of producers and saving lives without disrupting markets.
In emergencies, local and regional food prices often skyrocket, making purchases uneconomical.
Food aid is one of many tools available to fight food insecurity. There is, however, insufficient evidence to conclude that cash transfers outperform food in contributing to food security - except in some particular contexts.
In most cases, it seems that food aid and cash together would provide a powerful response, especially if targeted to women.
WFP, like others, holds that the aid system must support people's livelihoods before and after crises, as well as meet the immediate needs of the hungriest.
This is a major reason why WFP is piloting humanitarian drought insurance in Ethiopia as one of several tools to help people hit by climate change before they have to sell their assets, lose their livelihoods and pull their children out of school.

Climate insurance for poor

People who depend on the land need all our efforts to build livelihoods that are less vulnerable to bad weather.
But it will take some time to increase overall education levels and employment. In the meantime, we need to help protect people from every single drought or other calamity pushing them into destitution.
Mohamed's children eat WFP food to stay alive and because it buys them time.
As with climate change, buying time definitely isn't a solution.
But in both cases, it is much better than doing nothing, in the absence of a massive sustainable drive to tackle the true causes of both climate change and the hunger fast growing across Africa.
Dr Menghestab Haile is a meteorologist responsible for integrating climate and weather analysis into food security monitoring for the UN World Food Programme
The Green Room is a series of opinion pieces on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website
Do you agree with Menghestab Haile? How can we tackle the growing problem of hunger? Are you doing anything for charity this Christmas? Send us your comments with the link below:
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BBC NEWS REPORT.

CAMEROON CORRUPTION HINDERS AIDS FIGHT !

Cameroon corruption hinders Aids fight
By Jenny Cuffe BBC World Service, Cameroon.

Patients at Abongmbang say they are being charged for HIV testsIn Cameroon alone, the Global Fund and World Bank have allocated more than $133m (£68m) to stem the tide of HIV/Aids. But with corruption endemic, are the millions being spent on combating the disease being used effectively?
Latest figures show that 5% of Cameroon's population are infected with HIV/Aids, and there are plans to ensure they all have access to anti-retroviral drugs and cheaper treatment.
Both the Global Fund and a local NGO, the Scouts Association, have recently given money or testing kits to a hospital in Abomngbang in the rural east of the country so that it can provide free screening.
But when Serge Tchapdar went along, he was told he would have to pay - and he tells me his friends were also asked to do so.
And four members of staff - including the one in charge of the unit - say the hospital did not give any free tests.
The hospital's director, Dr Jean-Paul Kengue, says the tests were done for free - but the records he shows me as proof do not show this.
Suffering
The tests are indicative of the problem in Cameroon. Tackling Aids cannot happen until a cure is found for Cameroon's second deadly virus - corruption.

The policies and strategies are to help the poorest, and now we have to work on the effectiveness of our policies
Urbain OlanguenaCameroon's public health minister
The government says it has put more than $4.5m (£2.3m) into the fight against Aids; resulting in treatment at specialist centres for 25,500 patients, the cost of anti-retrovirals falling to $5 from $13, and pregnant women, children and the very poor getting them free.
Roffine tells a different story.
"I am really suffering, because for the past four years I have been sick from HIV," she says.
"My parents discovered I was HIV-positive and they threw me out. I can't pay rent. I can't afford payment for my treatment.
"I don't have any work. I can't do anything for myself. I do everything to get drugs. At times I beg."
Roffine attends one of Yaounde's HIV clinics where she is entitled to free anti-retrovirals.
But after giving her the first month's supply, the pharmacist told her she would have to pay for any more - because her clinic did not receive enough money to buy the drugs it needed from the national supplier Cename, and the only way to get more was to charge.
It is a familiar story throughout Cameroon - patients complaining they are not getting the free or subsidised drugs they are entitled to.
Urbain Olanguena, the Cameroon's minister of public health, says Roffine's case is an isolated incident due to structural problems.
"It doesn't question the global system that today permits Cameroon to give drugs free of charge to people with no money," he adds.
"But if they need treatment they must get it free of charge... the policies and strategies are to help the poorest, and now we have to work on the effectiveness of our policies and ensure the implementation of these policies."
Abuse
The $133m coming into Cameroon from the World Bank and the Global Fund has dwarfed the government's annual spending on HIV/Aids.
To distribute the funds, the minister has devised an elaborate system, co-ordinated by the National Aids Control Committee.

'Free' anti-retrovirals often end up being sold at Yaounde market
The committee passes money to Provincial Technical Groups, who then divide it between 48 private and several thousand non-governmental organisations (NGOs). At the bottom are the local committees, groups of volunteers who develop their own plans.
This system is wide open to abuse.
Halidou Demba of international NGO Action Aid says local committee presidents and treasurers sometimes misuse the money to buy food grains, stock them in their houses and sell them when food prices are very high in their local market.
Effectively, there is a hierarchy of individuals and organisations all giving money to the man above and taking from the man below.
The individual sums may be small, but multiply them across the country and you're talking millions of dollars.
Challenge
The complete absence of written records makes proving corruption extremely difficult, and until recently the subject has been taboo in government circles. But in the New Bell Prison in Douala, three former civil servants are now awaiting trial, accused of embezzling $700,000 that should have been used for the fight against Aids.
Damaris Mounlom, who runs an NGO for women's health and development, blew the whistle on the financial irregularities in the Provincial Technical Group, where the accused worked.
"When we went to the field we found that every local committee have spent the money in the corruption," she says.
"The people responsible came to see them and said, 'Give me 200,000 because I am here, I have spent the petrol. I must teach you how to protect yourself. Give me 200,000.' - and so on."
But when Mrs Mounlom blew the whistle, she found herself blacklisted by the health ministry, and has now been removed from the National Aids Strategy Committee.
And corruption means donors are now asking whether there is sufficient return for their investment.
Francois Mkounga, who oversees the World Bank's HIV project - a loan of $50m (£25m) - says they are trying to improve the situation, but there is only so much they can do.
"If the civil society is not providing good information on what is being done on the field it will be very difficult to address those issues of corruption," he explains.
"There will be always allegations, but no way to address specific issues.
"We need to have a clear view of the mechanism being put in place by people dealing with corruption... we discuss with the government and try to get the government to understand where things are not working well.
"It's a challenge every day."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

RUSSIA LINES UP $12bn BANK SALES !

Russia's economic and business growth is attracting investors. Russia has decided to sell stakes in Sberbank and VTB, two of its biggest state-owned lenders, in deals that will be worth a total of about $12bn (£6bn).
The country's largest lender, Sberbank, will sell shares worth about 200bn roubles ($7.6bn) in February.
VTB, Russia's second-biggest bank, will try to raise 120bn roubles in May.
Russia has been selling stakes in some of its top firms. This year, it offloaded $10.4bn-worth of shares in oil company Rosneft.
Investors are interested in Russian firms because the country is benefiting from higher prices for crude oil and natural gas, as well as other metals and commodities.
At the same time, Russia's economy is expanding at a steady pace, helping boost the income of consumers.
There are concerns about shareholder rights in Russia, however, and critics have accused the Kremlin of ignoring rules and regulations when it suits their interests.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

THE BIG YIN TOPS CHRISTMAS POLL !

Visitors would most like to spend Christmas with Billy Connolly. Comedian Billy Connolly is the favourite Scots celebrity with tourists, according to a new poll.
The Big Yin was voted the Scots celebrity that visitors would most like to spend Christmas with.
Movie star Ewan McGregor was in second place followed by Hollywood legend Sir Sean Connery.
The most popular female celebrity in the new survey by VisitScotland was Strictly Come Dancing star and TV presenter Carol Smillie.
Other popular choices included John Hannah, Dougray Scott, Daniella Nardini and KT Tunstall.
The Big Yin came out on top with 30% of the votes in a VisitScotland poll asking potential visitors which Scot they dreamed of spending a white Christmas with.
Not surprised
Suzanne Casey, a VisitScotland manager, said: "Billy Connolly is a great ambassador for Scotland.
"We are well known for our sense of humour and our friendly people, so I am not surprised that he has come out on top in our poll."
The poll was part of a campaign promoting "white" things to do in Scotland this winter, from white wine at a rural hotel to attending the Scottish Snowdrop Festival.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MAYOR'S FRESH ATTACK ON PHILLIPS !

Ken Livingstone called Mr Phillips a "complete dud". London mayor Ken Livingstone has attacked race equality chief Trevor Phillips, saying he could not have carried out his job if he was white.
The mayor said Mr Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), was a "complete dud" and said he no longer defended victims of racism.
He said a white man would not have been able to oversee the winding down of the CRE which is being replaced next year.
A CRE spokeswoman said the mayor's comments were "unfortunate".
'Cunning wheeze'
Mr Livingstone told LBC radio: "I think, if Trevor Phillips wasn't black, he couldn't have done what he's done.
"If a white man had been put into the CRE with the job of winding it down, there would have been uproar and they wouldn't have got away with it.
"It really was a quite cunning wheeze on the part of those people in government who never really liked the idea. 'Oh, look at these difficult black and Asian people making demands' - and now its been silenced and wound down."
The new Commission for Equality and Human Rights will combine the Commission for Racial Equality, the Disability Rights Commission and the Equal Opportunities Commission.

Trevor Phillips will head the new commission
Mr Livingstone said he was opposed to the winding down of the CRE, saying he did not believe all minority groups should be included in the human rights commission.
The mayor also said he believed Mr Phillips was more interested in media coverage than helping people who had suffered racial abuse.
"Trevor thinks he's doing his job as long as he's all over the media," he said.
"Any public figure has got to project their views, but they used to do a lot of work at the CRE in taking up genuine cases of racism and prosecuting people and dealing with it there. All that's been wound down now."
The CRE spokeswoman said: "The CRE has always prided itself on bringing issues of race away from the margins and into the mainstream."
In September, Mr Livingstone accused Mr Phillips of "pandering to the right" so much that "soon he'll be joining the BNP".
Ken Livingstone said Mr Phillips had "an absolutely disgraceful record" at the Commission for Racial Equality.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MAN FIGHTS TO KEEP BULLET IN HEAD !

Mr Bush's lawyers say removal would infringe civil rights. A search warrant has been issued in the US for a potentially vital clue to a violent crime - a bullet lodged in a teenager's head.
Texan prosecutors want the bullet, embedded under the skin in 17-year-old Joshua Bush's forehead, to be removed.
They say it could help convict Mr Bush of the attempted murder of a used-car salesman in a row following a robbery.
The case has raised privacy concerns, with Mr Bush's lawyers fighting to have the bullet remain in his head.
'Big old knot'
Prosecutors say the 9mm bullet became lodged in the soft fatty tissue in Mr Bush's forehead in a shootout with the car salesman.
Police say Alan Olive returned fire after Mr Bush tried to shoot him.
I just can't believe I missed him at that distance
Alan Olive, businessman
They say Mr Bush was part of a gang that had tried to take cars from the forecourt.
Identified to police by other gang members, Mr Bush was interviewed.
Mr Olive, a competitive pistol shooter, said a man returned after the police had investigated, threatening to kill him if he gave evidence. The shootout followed.
"I just can't believe I missed him at that distance," Mr Olive says in court papers.
Prosecutor Ramon Rodriguez told Associated Press news agency that Mr Bush "looked like hell. He had a big old knot on his forehead".
Mr Rodriguez said Mr Bush later said he was hit by a stray bullet while on his couch in his flat.
A judge issued a warrant for the bullet's removal in October but a doctor said he did not have the proper tools.
A second operation was ordered for last week at a hospital but that was postponed for unspecified reasons.
Now Mr Bush's lawyers say the removal would be a denial of his civil rights, although the surgery would not be life threatening.
The lawyers base their case on the constitution's protection against unreasonable searches.
Rife Kimler, Mr Bush's lawyer, told AP: "When the medical profession divorces itself from its own responsibility and makes itself an arm of the state, it's a dangerous path."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE IN TALKS ON CHINA LOAN !

Critics say President Robert Mugabe has ruined Zimbabwe's economy. Zimbabwe is preparing to open talks with China for a $2bn (£1.1bn) loan, in a bid to boost its crumbling economy.
Much of the money would be used to fight Zimbabwe's soaring inflation, the state-run Herald newspaper reported.
China has been looking to extend its influence in Africa and recently hosted a summit of African leaders.
Zimbabwe has been struggling to cope with economic collapse brought about, critics say, by the policies of President Robert Mugabe.
The southern African country - previously one of the continent's most developed economies - has seen inflation leap above 1,000%, while food and fuel shortages are rife.
The International Monetary Fund warned earlier this week that Zimbabwe's dire economic situation could get worse.
Economic myth
If agreed, the Chinese loan would be the biggest foreign loan secured by President Mugabe's government.
"China's government is ready to negotiate with the government for a $2bn loan facility to fight inflation and other aspects of the economy," Zimbabwe's ambassador to China, Chris Mutsvangwa, said.
He said China's assistance to Zimbabwe would "dispel the myth" that the country's economic problems were beyond redemption.
China had appointed an official to open talks with Zimbabwe's finance minister and central bank governor, the Herald reported.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHRISTMAS TRAVEL CHAOS CONTINUES !

Restrictions have been put on flights because of poor visibility. Christmas travellers are enduring a third day of misery as thick fog causes more flight cancellations and delays.
More than 300 flights have been cancelled at Heathrow, including all British Airways domestic flights, with 40,000 people expected to be affected.
BA said it planned to start operating domestic services to and from Heathrow from noon on Saturday.
Train firms have laid on extra services to cope and the roads were generally flowing smoothly on Friday morning.
BA's services from Heathrow to both Paris and Brussels will begin again on Christmas Eve, having been axed because of weather conditions.
The airline also said it hoped to operate 95% of its services on Saturday, including 87% of short-haul flights, and plans a full Heathrow service on Sunday.
Low visibility had caused air traffic control to place restrictions on flights landing and taking off at Heathrow, where 300 passengers slept at the airport overnight.
TRAVEL ADVICE
British Airways customers should contact 0800 727 800 or check the www.britishairways.com website to see if their flight is still operating
There is regular travel information on BBC News 24, BBC Radio Five Live and the BBC's local radio and regional TV news.
This website will have updated advice and there are links to the BBC's travel and weather web sites below.
Travel advice at-a-glance
BBC Travel
BBC Weather
One traveller waiting for news of their flight at Heathrow said: "I've been here basically since Wednesday night, and I got rebooked three times and all my flights have been cancelled so far.
"So right now it's Friday morning and I don't know how much longer I'm going to stay here."
The BBC's Lucy Wilkins at Heathrow Airport said queues of people continued to file into the heated marquees set up in Terminal One, hoping to have their cancelled flights rescheduled.
Some were optimistic they may leave soon, while others were resigned to a long wait for news of their onward journey.
BA transported about 3,000 passengers to UK destinations from Heathrow by coach on Thursday.
And the airline was laying on similar services again to Newcastle, Manchester, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh on Friday.
Thomsonfly departures from Coventry Airport have been switched to Birmingham due to fog, which has also caused disruption at Cardiff and Southampton airports.
Other regional airports have suffered knock-on effects from Heathrow.
Geoff Want, BA's director of ground operations, apologised to customers and said that the airline was "working around the clock" to try to get people to their destinations.
The airline has announced that passengers whose flights have been cancelled are entitled to a full refund.
A spokesman said BA "felt it was the right thing to do".
Backlog
BMI, Heathrow's second-busiest airline, has cancelled eight flights so far, adding to the 40 scrapped on Thursday.
Chief executive Tim Bye said if necessary the airline would fly on Christmas Day to get people back home.
We have fundamental capacity constraints at Heathrow
Simon Baugh, BAA
Why fog causes air chaos
Little cheer at Heathrow
But Simon Baugh, from airports operator BAA, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the main problem at Heathrow was one of capacity.
He added: "It's the world's busiest international airport, we only have two runways, if you compare our main competitors in Europe, Frankfurt has three, Paris has four, Amsterdam has five.
"We have fundamental capacity constraints at Heathrow."
Extra runway
With flights cancelled, many travellers have turned to trains to complete their journeys.
Avoid BA, avoid BAA. Never seen anything less organised
Andrew, Richmond
Virgin Trains and GNER, which both run services between London and Scotland, have announced they will be offering extra trains.
Network Rail said there were still some seats available on other services and advised passengers to contact National Rail Enquiries.
Edward Funnell, spokesman for the Association of Train Operating Companies, told Today that rail services would cope.
"Many of the long-distance operators lay on extra services and we believe we will be able to cater for air passengers who wish to transfer to the trains, to get people away and home today but also tomorrow and Sunday."
Eurostar said its services to Europe were running as usual, but passengers were also warned to contact the company before travelling to check if seats were available.
Road jams
Meanwhile forecasters at the BBC's Weather Centre said forecasters were now "reasonably confident" visibility would improve around Heathrow on Saturday, as the fog moved north.

Motorists are being warned to expect delays on the roads
Most of England and Wales has been affected, with only the north of England, the south coast and parts of Cornwall escaping the fog on Friday.
People who have opted to travel by car could also face jams on major routes as last-minute Christmas-shoppers and people travelling home for the festive break head for the roads.
However, it was a quiet start to Friday, according to road information company Trafficmaster, with roads flowing normally.
The RAC said an estimated 18m people were expected to be driving over the next few days with the rush hour on Friday expected to start at 2pm and last until 7pm.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BLAIR ISSUES TERROR PLOT WARNING !

Blair issues terror plot warning.

Sir Ian's interview

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair claims the UK is facing an unparalleled and growing threat of a terrorist attack.
However, he said there was "no specific intelligence" about an imminent attack but the threat was "ever present".
Sir Ian also said he is "confident" of being cleared of misconduct over the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes.
And he defended an anti-terror raid in Forest Gate claiming the shooting of a man during the raid was an accident.
Subsequent terror plots justified the decision to launch the operation, he told the BBC's Today programme.
'No intelligence'
Defending the high security levels which have been maintained in London, Sir Ian said the threat of terrorism was "far graver" than those faced during World War II, the Cold War or the IRA.
He said although there were no details about a terrorist attack during the Christmas period, the country faced a "level of unparalleled threat".

Mr Menezes was on a Tube train in Stockwell when he was shotHe added: "I think the threat of another terrorist attempt is ever-present.
"We have no specific intelligence but listeners may remember that there was a terrorist plot in Germany against one of their Christmas markets in 2002, so it's a possibility."
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is conducting an inquiry into the death of 27-year-old Jean Charles de Menezes in July 2005.
He was shot inside a train at Stockwell Tube station by police who mistook him for a suicide bomber.
Sir Ian said: "I'd say this: I, for my own part, I am quite confident that I will not face any kind of misconduct... in relation to Stockwell."
When questioned about his confidence, he added: "I'll just say that I'm confident, shall we leave it at that?"
'Cliff-edge choice'
The commissioner criticised the length of the inquiry, adding: "It's difficult to understand how an organisation can take 13 months to investigate what I did or did not say on one particular day."
Defending the Forest Gate raid, which cost police £2m, Sir Ian said officers have to take with tough decisions.

Mohammed Abdul Kahar (right) was shot during the Forest Gate raid"I describe that as a cliff-edge choice, if you fall one way you knock your head on the rock and the other way you fall 200ft into the sea.
"We have learnt a lot from Forest Gate and you saw that in the way we handled the airline plot."
Sir Ian also said that nowadays officers are so overwhelmed in paperwork that their work is suffering.
"When I was a young officer I could carry out three straightforward arrests in eight hours. No officer could do that now... now its one (arrest)."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IMF WARNS ZIMBABWE OVER ECONOMY !

Food shortages are acute.Conditions in Zimbabwe will get worse unless the government stabilises the economic situation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.
IMF officials, who recently spent 10 days in Zimbabwe, said conditions had deteriorated in the past year and that food and fuel shortages were "acute".
Inflation is above 1,000%, while most Zimbabweans are out of work.
The government must cut total spending while prioritising food imports and health services, the IMF said.
Stability first
The country must also improve its relations with the international community, the IMF added, to build support for much-needed reforms.
Many foreign governments blame President Robert Mugabe's policies for the country's crippling economic problems.
Without a fundamental change in policies, prospects are for a continued deterioration in the economic situation
International Monetary Fund
He, in turn, says Western countries are sabotaging the economy to remove him from power because of his land reform programme.
The IMF said the government's main aim should be to stabilise the economy as a first step to raising living standards.
But it said rampant inflation and falling economic output were increasing poverty.
"Zimbabwe's economic crisis calls for the urgent implementation of a comprehensive policy package," the IMF said in a statement.
"Without a fundamental change in policies, prospects are for a continued deterioration in the economic situation."
Safety nets
Sharp cuts in public spending were needed to help reduce inflation, the IMF said.
This should be accompanied by reform of exchange rates, liberalisation of price controls, the removal of restrictions on current account payments and the strengthening of private property rights.
At the same time, the government must provide support for the poorest in society, those affected by HIV-Aids and the government's mass clearances of slum areas, the IMF said.
Zimbabwe avoided expulsion from the IMF earlier in the year after it repaid some of its debt and pledged to clear the entire sum by December.
IMF officials will meet in March to decide on the status of Zimbabwe's debts and its membership.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'MASS PURGES' AT IRAN UNIVERSITIES !

'Mass purges' at Iran universities
By Frances Harrison BBC News, Tehran

Iranian students say there is a second cultural revolution under way in the universities with scores of professors forcibly retired and politically active students being threatened with expulsion.
Student anger exploded with an unprecedented show of defiance when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went to Tehran's Amir Kabir University on 12 December.
Pictures shot on a mobile phone showed angry students chanting against the president, accusing him of being a fascist and a puppet of the hardliners.
They held portraits of Mr Ahmadinejad upside down to mock him and then set them on fire.
The ears of the government are open to hear the student demands
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Iranian President
The day before the president visited, the university was in turmoil with students shouting "Death to the dictator".
Iranian television only showed a few seconds of the disturbance. Later Mr Ahmadinejad put a brave face on it saying the protest showed there was freedom of speech in Iran compared to his student days under the Shah.
'Harassment and purges'
When Mr Ahmadinejad came to power the universities were quiet.

They [the government] have stepped up the pressure to scare students; to send a message that if you want to be politically active you will have problems in the future
Ali Nikoo NesbatiIranian activist
But by trying to stop students getting involved in politics, the new government has antagonised them.
"They have stepped up the pressure to scare students," says activist Ali Nikoo Nesbati.
"We think they've done this on purpose to frighten us; to send a message that if you want to be politically active you will have problems in the future," he says.
According to student activists 181 students have received letters warning them not to get involved in politics, while 47 student publications and 28 student organisations have been closed in the last year.
"They threatened me that if I talked to the media it might make things much worse for me," says Mehdi Aminzadeh, who has been banned from doing a masters in political science because he has been too active in politics.
"But if we keep silent it's easier for them to do the same things to other people," he says.
'Three-star students'
Mr Mehdi has twice been arrested and still has court cases pending against him.

Photos of the 6 December rally at Tehran University show a large crowd
He is what is known perversely in Iran as a three-star student. That means he has three bad marks against his name for political activism - enough to be banned from the university.
"We are not working against the system here," says fellow student Mohammad Gharib Sajadi, who has also been banned.
"The constitution has given us this right to education," he says.
"Freedom of speech is being restricted more than before in Iran," says Iran's Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi.
"They think students should go to their classes, read their books and then go back home and shouldn't get involved in the social and political issues around them in society - that's asking a lot!"
But President Ahmadinejad denies that his government is harassing students.
He says it has created an open atmosphere in the universities.
"The ears of the government are open to hear them," he said referring to student demands during a news conference.
Turban incident
It was the president who appointed a cleric for the first time since the revolution to head Tehran University - the country's most political and prestigious university.

Some students say the government is trying to frighten them
Mr Ahmadinejad told journalists the chancellor should be friendly with the students, moving among them and visiting their dormitories - otherwise he should give up his job to someone else.
The first time the new chancellor entered the university, students protested by knocking off his turban - a sign of extreme disrespect for a cleric.
"If I had not been well protected I would have been suffocated and there was a possibility of a crime like murder being committed," said the chancellor, Ayatollah Amid-Zanjani, after the incident.
However he added that "students have the right to protest".
The chancellor denies student allegations that there have been 17 protests against him inside Tehran University in the last year alone.
He says apart from the turban incident there was only a protest on Iranian Students' Day on 6 December, which, he said, was attended by at most 40 people.
'Cleaning the slate'
The photographs of the event showed the crowd was much bigger.

President Ahmadinejad denies harassing academics and students
And there is mobile phone footage from a demonstration in the summer at which the posters make it pretty clear what the students think of their new Ayatollah-turned-chancellor.
"This is not a religious seminary - it's a university," read one poster.
But it is not just students who are angry - professors have also faced problems.
The new chancellor forcibly retired 45 teachers from Tehran University. He said they were past the retirement age, although they were younger than him.
"The majority of the retired teachers couldn't reach the standard of a full professor after 30 years of teaching at this university. They didn't manage to do any research to improve their position," Ayatollah Amid-Zanjani said.
"It seems this is the start of a project to clean the slate - to get rid of those intellectuals who are secular opponents of the government," says student activist Abdullah Momeni.
He believes the purge started after President Ahmadinejad spoke about the need to remove secular and liberal thought from the universities.
Students complain the international community is not paying enough attention to the worsening human rights situation in Iran because of the obsession with the nuclear issue.
"The Islamic Republic has managed to focus the international community's attention on Iran's nuclear case and the possibility of an Israeli attack. That has diverted attention from the human rights situation in Iran," says Mr Nesbati.
He believes it is possible that one day Iranian officials will solve the nuclear crisis but "in the mean time they will have crushed all their internal critics".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

INDIA AND CHINA IN WARMING STUDY !

Both countries are worried about meltdown in the Himalayas. India and China have agreed to send an expedition to the Himalayas to study the impact that global warming is having on glaciers there.
They fear that melting glaciers could threaten rivers which support the lives of millions of people.
Scientists and mountaineers from the two countries are now planning to head for the source of two rivers.
Last week a report said that Asia's greenhouse gas emissions would treble over the next 25 years.
The Asian Development Bank report provided detailed analysis of the link between transport and climate change in Asia.

Asia's greenhouse gases to treble .

Air pollution and congestion would seriously hamper the ability to move people and goods effectively, it warned.
It pointed out that China was already the world's fourth largest economy, and the number of cars and utility vehicles could increase by 15 times more than present levels to more than 190 million vehicles over the next 30 years.
In India, traffic growth is likely to increase by similar levels over the same time period, the report said.
Carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles could rise 3.4 times for China and 5.8 times for India.
Melted ice
The BBC's Mark Dummett in Delhi says that scientists and mountaineers from the two countries are now planning to head for the source of two rivers, the Sutlej and the Brahmaputra.
These flow from the mountains of Tibet, and along with the Ganges and Indus rivers, provide water to millions of people in the plains of north India and its neighbouring countries.
The expedition's organisers are worried that global warming is melting the glaciers that sustain them.
In the short term, this could cause flooding as the rivers swell with melted ice.
But later if the glaciers disappear, the rivers might too, for part of each year.
The Director of the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, which is leading the Indian side of the expedition, HPS Ahluwalia, said that the melting of the ice sheets and the glaciers is "a crisis in the Himalayas".
He said the last attempt the chart the area around Mount Gang Rinpoche, known by Indians as Mount Kailash, was carried out a century ago.
The scientists say their findings will help the management of water resources for the whole region.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

INQUIRY CALL ON 'SUSPECT IN VEIL' !

Mustaf Jamma is thought to have returned to Somalia. Opposition MPs want an inquiry into claims a Pc Beshenivsky murder case suspect fled the UK in a Muslim veil.
Mustaf Jamma reportedly evaded Heathrow checks last year to return to Somalia. Shadow home secretary David Davis said tighter border checks were needed.
Labour MP John Denham said sensitivity around veils meant the claim could cause "huge damage".
The Home Office said the claim was unlikely to be true as women can be asked to lift veils in identity checks.
Visual checks are carried out on people arriving in the UK.
BAA, which owns and operates Heathrow airport, said it was the responsibility of individual airlines to confirm the identity of passengers at check-in and boarding gates.
The Home Office said police and immigration officers carried out checks on those leaving the UK on an "intelligence-led basis".
Human rights laws
Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said keeping paper records of all arrivals and departures, which were scrapped by the Conservatives for EU travel in 1992 and for the rest of the world by Labour in 1998, was no longer suitable.
The government wants to use details stored in biometric passports to introduce electronic border controls from 2009.
Mr Denham, a former Home Office minister, said the suggestion that a veil disguise was used, when there was no evidence to support the claim, was potentially damaging because "veils are a very sensitive issue in our society at the moment".
Mustaf Jamma was released from jail six months before Pc Beshenivsky was killed.
He was considered for deportation after his release but was allowed to stay in the UK because Somalia was thought too dangerous.
'Standard practice'
Pc Beshenivsky's widower, Paul, condemned human rights laws for preventing Mustaf Jamma's deportation.
But Mr Denham, who chairs the Home Affairs Select Committee, said the UK could not send asylum seekers back to countries "where they are likely to be killed or tortured".
"It is one of the things that marks us out as part of the club of civilised countries and we have to live with some of the really bad consequences of that, as well as the fact it enables us to hold our heads up," he said.
The wanted man is the brother of Yusuf Jamma who this week was found guilty of Pc's Beshenivsky's murder in Bradford.
We are calling for an inquiry into exactly what happened - David Davis, shadow home secretary.
Some newspaper reports have suggested the 26-year-old stole his sister's passport after he was put on police wanted lists and wore a full niqab, a veil that totally obscures the face, to evade capture at the airport.
Shadow home secretary David Davis said the UK's borders "are not just porous, but non-existent".
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg has said if the reports are true it "beggars belief" that there are no visual facial checks when a person leaves the country at an airport.
It is understood West Yorkshire Police - who have not commented on reports about the veil theory - regard it only as one of a number of possibilities.
On Tuesday the jury in the trial of four men over 38-year-old Pc Beshenivsky's death was discharged after failing to reach a verdict on a final count of robbery.
Three men have been found guilty of killing the officer, who was shot after an armed raid in Bradford in 2005. Another man had earlier admitted murder.
The jury could not decide if Raza Ul-Haq Aslam, 25 - who was cleared of murder, manslaughter and firearms offences - was guilty of robbery, and a retrial was ordered.
As well as Mustaf Jamma another man called Piran Ditta Khan, whom the prosecution alleged was the "architect of the robbery", remains on the run from police.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

REFUGEE FOUND DEATH, NOT SANCTUARY !

Refugee found death, not sanctuary
By Chris Summers BBC News.

One youth has been convicted of murder and three others of manslaughter over the killing of a woman at a christening party as she held her baby niece. The victim had fled civil war in Sierra Leone only to meet her death on an estate in south London.

Mrs Kalokoh had come to this country to flee war-torn Sierra Leone, her homeland, doubtless in the reasonable expectation that this country would provide her family and her with a peaceful, violence-free life
Brian AltmanProsecutor
Killers' lies exposed
Adama's parents will never forget the day of her christening.
Alfred Sesay and his partner, Zainab, had hired out a community centre on the Acorn estate in Peckham, south London, on the night of 27 August 2005.
They wanted to hold a party to celebrate their daughter's baptism and had invited about 100 friends and relatives, many of them - like the Sesays - from Sierra Leone or other west African countries.
At about 2200 BST Adama's mother went to the toilet, leaving her daughter with the child's aunt, Zainab Kalokoh.
Gunfire
Seconds later four youths, wearing balaclavas and brandishing guns and knives, entered the hall through the fire exit, which had been left open because it was such a warm night.
The gang, intent on robbing the guests of their valuables, fired wildly into the air and one of them fired a shot at the head of Mrs Kalokoh.
She collapsed onto the floor, mortally wounded, but she did not drop Adama and her body cushioned the blow as she fell. The child was covered in her aunt's blood, but unhurt.

The entire estate will be demolished early next year.
As partygoers fled the party in panic or cowered on the ground, the gang collected handbags, mobile phones, watches and jewellery and threw them into a binbag they had brought with them.
Grabbed jacket
But they had not bargained on pensioner Assie Munu. When one of them grabbed hold of the 70-year-old's handbag, she held on.
After a brief tussle, he snatched it off her, but she grabbed hold of his jacket and held on as he fled through the fire exit and up some stairs. Finally he shook her off and vanished into the darkness.
Brian Altman, prosecuting, said: "Mrs Kalokoh had come to this country to flee war-torn Sierra Leone, her homeland, doubtless in the reasonable expectation that this country would provide her family and her with a peaceful, violence-free life. She was tragically wrong."
"She cared for everybody around her. She was a very good lady. She took care of people. She loved people."

She was a very good lady. She took care of people. She loved people. Brian Altman Prosecutor.
Mr Altman said she was targeted while attending a party on the "squalid" Acorn estate.
Mrs Kalokoh, a healthcare worker and mother-of-two, lived in Stratford, east London and was separated from her husband, Alieu Kargbo.
He said: "She came here because of the war in Sierra Leone, because she wanted a better life.
A series of 999 calls brought a fleet of ambulances and police cars to the Acorn estate but paramedics were unable to save Mrs Kalokoh's life.
Police set up a cordon around the murder scene and it was not long before the defendants began to raise the suspicions of uniformed officers manning the cordon.
One of the defendants hurled abuse at an officer and said: "I'm gonna pop you!" after he refused to let him cross the cordon.
Flat searched
The following day two of the defendants, brothers Timy and Diamond Babamuboni, who lived on the estate, were arrested by police.
Later that evening police began a meticulous search of the flat.
They found seven 9mm gun cartridges in the pocket of a jacket hanging up in the hallway.
But even more significantly they found the binbag, secreted behind a wall unit, which contained the stolen handbags.
Among the items inside it were a handbag, keys and a mobile phone which had been stolen from Adama's older sister, Kadie.

The shooting took place at a community centre.Four youths, one of whom cannot be named for legal reasons, were eventually charged with Mrs Kalokoh's murder.
During the trial the jury was shown footage - taken on a mobile phone - of one of the killers pointing the shotgun at a terrified youth who was forced to strip to his underpants as his tormentors laughed.
A key prosecution witness, E, told the trial he was friends with the defendants and had been at one of their flats at the time of the shooting.
He said they returned at about 2300 BST and began exchanging recriminations.
In the witness box E said: "They were arguing about someone who had got shot and who had shot the woman or something.
They were arguing about someone had got shot and who had shot the woman or something
Prosecution witness
"One was saying it could not have been the shotgun as it would have caused much more damage. The other was saying it was not him."
E also explained why the party had been targeted: "Most of us had all been to some African parties in our upbringing. The men spend to show they have a lot of money - showing off their jewellery. That's the reason we were going there. We would take it."
The youth who is thought to have fired the fatal shot owed £5,000 - a drug debt - to a member of the notorious Peckham Boys gang known as Mad Larry.
In 2000 Southwark Council voted to demolish all 317 homes on the estate, a decision which was backed by the residents.
The estate is now empty, and cordoned off with a heavy duty security fence, and demolition will start early next year.
The council hopes it will help to erase the murder of a woman who came to Britain seeking sanctuary.

BBC NEWS REPORT

SOMALI 'AT WAR' WITH ETHIOPIA !

The government is getting military help from Ethiopia. The leader of the Union of Islamic Courts, which controls the capital and much of southern Somalia, says they are in a state of war with Ethiopia.
"All Somalis should take part in this struggle against Ethiopia," Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said from Mogadishu.
Fresh heavy fighting is reported near the weak Somali government's Baidoa base, amid fears conflict could plunge the entire Horn of Africa into crisis.
Local residents say Ethiopian troops are clashing with Islamist militias.

See map of flashpoints
Ethiopia denies its forces are battling the advancing Islamist militias.
If you cannot fight you can contribute in other ways to the effort
Sheikh Hassan Dahir AweysUIC leader
Q&A: Islamist advance
Town on brink of war
The two countries have a long history of troubled relations, and Islamists have long called for a holy war against Ethiopian troops in Baidoa.
Both the Islamist and interim government agreed to a ceasefire and to unconditional talks on Wednesday after meetings with a visiting European Union envoy.
But there has been no let up on the ground, with heavy artillery and mortar fire heard in Daynunay, some 20 km (12 miles) from Baidoa where the government has a military base.
Local media report bodies strewn along streets. Both sides claim to have killed and wounded dozens of fighters.
Talks
Somalia's Deputy Defence Minister Salad Ali Jelle told reporters in Baidoa that 71 Islamic fighters had been killed and 221 injured so far during clashes in three locations.

Louis Michel pressed both sides to resume negotiations
But in Mogadishu, UIC official Sheik Mohamud Ibrahim Suley claimed his fighters had killed 70 fighters, mainly Ethiopian troops.
Neither claim can be independently verified.
As the shelling continued close to Baidoa, Mr Aweys urged all Somalis to take up the struggle against Ethiopia.
"If you cannot fight you can contribute in other ways to the effort," he said.
After talks in Baidoa and Mogadishu on Wednesday, EU envoy Louis Michel announced both parties had agreed to resume efforts to find a negotiated settlement of their differences.
A nine-point memorandum of understanding included agreement to begin talks again without preconditions, he said.
The UIC set aside a demand that Ethiopian troops withdraw from Somalia as a precondition for talks, Mr Michel added, although it remained a major grievance.

Mr Michel has urged both sides to begin talks as soon as possible, at the latest early in January.
Are you near Baidoa? Send us your experiences
Both sides have blamed each other for the fighting.
The UIC has introduced law and order to the capital and much of southern Somalia for the first time in 15 years and denies links to al-Qaeda.
Ethiopia has admitted to having some military trainers in Somalia, but our correspondent says that as he drove to the airport in Baidoa on Wednesday, he was stopped by a huge convoy of Ethiopian military armour.

The United Nations estimates that at least 8,000 Ethiopian troops may be in the country backing the government while regional rival Eritrea has deployed some 2,000 troops in support of the Islamic group.
Other countries are thought to have become involved in arming both sides.

Click to return

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MELBOURNE 'TERROR GROUP' IN COURT !

The men were arrested in a large co-ordinated raid. Thirteen men accused of belonging to a terrorist cell that was plotting an attack on Australian soil have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
At a pre-trial hearing in Melbourne, they each denied a variety of offences, including being part of a terrorist group.
The men were among 18 suspects arrested last year in co-ordinated raids in Melbourne and Sydney.
It was the largest counter-terrorism operation staged in Australia.
At the time, police said a "potentially catastrophic attack" had been averted.
So far few details have emerged of the alleged attack plans, but police admitted they had been tracking the men for many months before launching the pre-dawn raid.
The other five people arrested during the operation are still awaiting trial in Sydney.
Ringleader
According to the Herald Sun newspaper, the 13 men in court on Monday face a variety of charges, including planning a jihad to force the Australian government to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, holding training camps in remote areas, collecting extremist Islamic material and attempting to buy bomb-making equipment.
The alleged ringleader of the group, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, also known as Abu Bakr, was one of those in court on Monday.

Profile: Abu Bakr

He made headlines last year when he told ABC News that he thought Osama bin Laden was "a great man".
According to the Herald Sun, the court heard that Mr Bakr was recorded by undercover investigators urging alleged group members to be patient, and saying "something big'' was going to happen.
"We have to do maximum damage... damage their buildings with everything and damage their lives," he is alleged to have said.
While the court heard that no target had been chosen for the attack before the arrests were made, there has been speculation in the Australian media that a nuclear research reactor near Sydney could have been a likely target.
There has never been a major terrorist attack on Australian soil, although 88 Australians died in the 2002 Bali bombings, and Australia's embassy in Indonesia was bombed in 2004.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SHELL BOSS HEADS FOR RUSSIA TALKS !

Shell's boss is expected for talks in Russia later this week. The boss of Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell is to fly to Moscow for talks with Russia's energy minister over a $22bn (£11bn) oil and gas project.
Jeroen van der Veer is expected to meet Viktor Khristenko later this week to discuss the Sakhalin-2 project.
Shell is widely expected to cede control of the venture to Russia's state-run energy firm Gazprom.
Shell has been under intense pressure from officials keen to regain control of Russian assets, analysts have said.
Japanese partners

The massive Sakhalin-2 is worth billions of dollars to investors.
Earlier this month Moscow suspended 12 vital water-use permits for Sakhalin-2, after previously revoking environmental approval for the project.
Shell recently restarted talks with Gazprom over a possible swap or sale of assets in the project, which is situated off Russia's Pacific coast.
Shell currently holds a 55% stake in Sakhalin-2, with Japanese companies Mitsui and Mitsubishi sharing the rest.
Reports have suggested that both Japanese firms are seeking cash from Gazprom in exchange for a slice of their stakes in Sakhalin-2.
Mitsui said talks on the issue were progressing constructively.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

COLIN POWELL: U.S. LOSING IRAQ WAR !

Powell said the military was too overstretched to send extra troops. Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said overstretched US troops are losing the conflict in Iraq.
Mr Powell told CBS News that bolstering troop numbers would be unlikely to reverse the "grave and deteriorating situation" in the country.
President Bush is trying to shape a new strategy for Iraq, with officials suggesting more soldiers may be sent.
The recent Iraq Study Group review said the US strategy of "staying the course" was no longer viable.
It suggested combat troops could be withdrawn by early 2008.
But on Friday, an administration official said up to 25,000 more troops could be deployed in the country to try to help end the violence and make cities like Baghdad more secure.
There are currently 140,000 US troops in Iraq.
'Overstretched'
The leader of the Democrats in the US Senate has backed the reported plan to boost troop levels, but only if it is part of a longer-term strategy.
"If it is for a surge, that is, for two or three months, and if it is part of a programme to get us out of there as indicated by this time next year, then, sure, I'll go along with it," Harry Reid said.
However, Mr Powell told CBS he was not convinced more soldiers on the ground would quell the violence.
"I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work," he said.
He added that such was the overstretch of the US military, there were no additional troops that could be sent.
"We are losing - we haven't lost - and this is the time, now to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

INDIAN ATHLETE FAILS GENDER TEST !

Soundararajan cleared a gender test last year. A top Indian woman athlete who won a silver medal at a recent regional championship has failed a gender test, officials say.
Santhi Soundararajan, who took the silver in the women's 800m race at the Asian Games in Doha, is likely to be stripped of her medal, reports say.
Soundararajan, 25, was declared the best athlete at an Indian championship in the capital, Delhi, this year.
In 1999, a woman in an Indian state football team failed a gender test.
Not mandatory
"Santhi was subjected to a gender test in Doha and we have received the report which says she failed the test," said Manmohan Singh, chairman of the Indian Olympic Association's Medical Commission.
Soundararajan is refusing to comment. "I was not informed about the test results and I don't know much on that. I do not want to talk about it," she told journalists.
The test is not mandatory, but is carried out if officials want it or a rival team protests, reports say.
KP Mohan, a sports journalist, said athletes were usually examined by a team of doctors, including a gynaecologist, endocrinologist and psychologist, and put through physical and clinical examinations during a gender test.
The test was carried out soon after Soundararajan came second in the women's 800m race on 9 December.
Reports say the athlete cleared the gender test at the Asian track and field championship in South Korea last year where she won the silver medal in the 800m.
It is not clear how she failed the test at the Asian Games in Doha.
This is the second controversy to hit Indian athletes within a month - female shot putter Seema Antil was withdrawn from the Asian Games after she failed a pre-competition dope test.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

EX-DIPLOMATS URGE SUDAN SANCTIONS !

About 2.5 million people in Darfur have been made homeless. Sudan should accept an international peacekeeping force in Darfur or face tough sanctions, a group of 15 former foreign ministers has said.
The group, including former US top diplomat Madeleine Albright, said they want Sudan to accept a joint UN-African Union force by the end of this year.
Sudan has so far refused to allow UN peacekeepers to augment the AU force.
Three years of fighting have left at least 200,000 people dead and made another 2.5 million homeless.
"As former diplomats, we support one last effort to persuade Khartoum to accept the proposal for a hybrid force," the group wrote in the Financial Times newspaper.
Escalating violence
If President Omar al-Bashir continues to refuse a joint force, sanctions should be applied, say the former diplomats, who come from Thailand and Turkey as well as Europe and the US.
These would include travel bans on military and civilian leaders, the freezing of assets, and measures to target Sudan's oil revenue and limit sales of equipment needed to produce oil, the group said.
But it does not call for is any kind of military action - including a naval blockade of Port Sudan, which would cut Sudan's oil exports at a stroke.
Nor does it include the idea of enforcing a flight ban over Darfur, which has been under consideration at the UN.

Q&A: Peacekeeping in Darfur

The UN has proposed that the current weak AU force of 7,000 soldiers be bolstered with more money and equipment supplied by the UN, eventually merging with UN troops into a hybrid force.
The violence has escalated sharply in Darfur in the last several weeks.
Late last week, the AU blamed the deteriorating security situation on the re-emergence of the pro-government Arab Janjaweed militias, and urged Khartoum to disarm the groups.
Aid agencies have withdrawn 250 workers this month, leaving many in Darfur vulnerable.
There are also fears that the fighting is destabilising neighbouring Chad where there has been an upsurge in violence.
The conflict began in early 2003, when a rebellion by local groups triggered a counter-offensive by the army and government-backed Arab militias.
Sanctions have been proposed before, but so far they have made little progress.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

THREE DIE IN NAIROBI SLUM CLASH !

Nearly half of Kibera's 800,000 residents could lose their homes. Three people have been killed and at least four shot and wounded in clashes between police and demonstrators in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
The police were deployed in the Kibera slum to stop a political rally for a former leader of the banned Mungiki religious sect, Ndura Waruinge.
Mr Waruinge intends to be a candidate in next year's Kenyan parliamentary elections.
Kibera is Africa's largest slum with 800,000 people living in a square mile.
Residents have little access to running water and other basic services.
Violence between rival gangs has caused several deaths in recent months.
Kibera's MP and prominent opposition leader Raila Odinga has protested against the use of "excessive force" by the police. Mr Waruinge intends to stand against Mr Odinga.
Witnesses said the police opened fire on rioters, but a police commander denied there were any orders to fire live bullets and said they were investigating.
Police said one of the demonstrators had fired at the security forces.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

G.M. POTATO FARMER 'FEELS UNSAFE' !

The potatoes were engineered to be resistant to blight. A farmer who agreed to grow genetically modified potatoes for a scientific trial has withdrawn because he fears for his safety.
The government was planning two trials of a GM variety that should be resistant to potato blight.
One trial was to be held in Cambridge and the other at a farm in Derbyshire.
But the Derbyshire farmer pulled out after receiving anonymous phone calls. He feared for his family's safety and was worried about potential protests.
The GM potatoes, which were engineered by German chemical company BASF, were due to be planted next spring.
The farmer's decision has been welcomed by the organic lobby.
However, many scientists are angry and have criticised what they deem to be intimidation.
They say threats should not be allowed to undermine research.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGERIAN VIOLENCE THREATENS POLLS !

Nigerian violence threatens polls
By Sola Odunfa BBC Focus On Africa magazine.

There are desperate efforts under way to calm the situationDuring a recent visit to the Nigerian city of Ibadan in Oyo State, I watched my brother Kunle tend to the chickens in his backyard. Like most residents on that morning, he was filled with anxiety, and had no intention of venturing onto the streets.
It was the day that the impeached state Governor Rashidi Ladoja had promised to return to his office to reclaim the seat his erstwhile deputy, Christopher Alao-Akala, had usurped.
After all, the Court of Appeal had declared his impeachment following accusations of corruption as unconstitutional.
But this is Nigeria, where the rule of law is usually determined by those who are applying it.
The acting governor was convinced that the appeal justices erred in their judgement and, backed by the might of the federal government and the fearsome muscle of Ibadan's acclaimed political godfather, Chief Lamidi Adedibu, he had announced that no court could remove him from office.
War had effectively been declared.
Thugs in charge
On the way to talk to the governor, I noticed that mine was virtually the only car on the road.
I parked in a side road and approached groups of people discussing the situation. Suddenly, two jeeps tore down the road, each was packed with thugs: armed men hanging on the doors, shouting obscenities and brandishing guns and gleaming cutlasses, daring anyone to take them on.

Mr Ladoja claims legislators were coerced into impeaching himPedestrians scampered for safety and shop owners locked up.
I went for a look round town. Thugs were in charge everywhere.
Shops were randomly broken into, with looting widespread. Some innocent residents were beaten up and dispossessed of valuables.
But the police were busy protecting "public property" - by which I suppose they mean government buildings and, of course, politicians.
For us ordinary people, our continued welfare was in the hands of the gods.
As this macabre drama played out in Ibadan, the people of Anambra State in the south-east and Plateau State in the north central were watching developments in their own governors' offices with equal trepidation.
Their governors were being removed through legislative processes which turned the country's constitution on its head.
Many Nigerians no longer feel democracy is worth defending, having become cynical of politicians.
Eight people, including a member of the Board of Trustees of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the personal assistant to the impeached governor, are facing murder charges for the gruesome killing in August of a former World Bank consultant, Ayo Daramola, who was campaigning for election as the next state governor.
And such violence has engulfed several other states, including Kogi in the north-central, Abia in the south-east, Rivers and Delta in the Niger Delta and Yobe in the north-east.
Fear
The situation is now so serious that most prominent politicians surround themselves with armed guards.
Senior PDP members and government functionaries have armed policemen for their own protection, while others draw from the large pool of unemployed youths for whom they procure arms.

Even the most peaceful areas are now heavily fortifiedBusiness is booming for illegal firearms dealers across the country. Caches have been reported to be stockpiled in many towns and villages. The police are active across the country.
And there is talk everywhere in Lagos, the commercial capital, that it is easy to procure prospective killers at a price as low as $700.
The price is said to increase with the status of the prospective victim. But as the elections draw nearer the value of human life is diminishing in Nigeria.
Highway bandits, armed robbers, political agitators, ethnic and religious bigots, student cultists all spill blood and snuff life out of their innocent victims without even a wink.
Houses and office blocks in even the most sophisticated areas are built with military fortifications.
Popular actress Taiwo Ajai-Lycett lives a quiet life in what is regarded as a peaceful part of Lagos.
She is neither a politician nor a socially flashy person, yet she has been attacked by robbers twice in the last year, and is still trying to recover from the trauma.
"We live in a war zone in Nigeria right now," she says.
"It is when you are involved that you'll know how bad the situation is. Here people are living under siege. It happened to me, it could have happened to anybody else.
"In fact, it's happening to many people. There is nothing the law enforcement agencies do about it."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

UGANDANS FLOCK TO CONCRETE CROSS !

Ugandans flock to concrete cross
Abraham Odeke BBC News, Osia, eastern Uganda.

Rumours that minor ailments and bad habits can be cured after kissing a giant cross atop a high hill in eastern Uganda has Catholic pilgrims flocking to the area.

The giant cross cost more than $4,000 to construct.
The new 40-foot cross dominates the rural skyline across Tororo district - even at night it is visible for miles around as it is lit up with huge yellow lights, powered by solar panels.
Since its completion in April, more and more people join the pilgrimage up the hill which takes place on the first Friday of each month.
Most wear canvas shoes for the tough climb and slowly make their way up the path, while singing hymns, their rosary beads dangling around their necks.
At the top they kiss the cross, pray - some in a special night-long session - before preparing for the three-kilometre descent.
"I had been having sleepless nights from the evil spirits in my house," says Margret Atyang, a widow who has made the pilgrimage.
"But right from the time I began going to the top of the hill to pray under the big cross, the evil spirits disappeared from my house.
"Now I spend the nights like any other normal person. This means that Jesus is present on the hill."
Herbal healing
In fact, the area has been rechristened the Hill of Salvation by Father Mathew, an Indian priest who came up with the idea of building the towering concrete cross.

Statues decorate part of the journey up the hill. "The Hill of Salvation is where Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross. Our Christians now appreciate the fact that they can come and hold special prayers on this small mountain," he says.
His colleague Father Sebastian Nirapel explains that in all religions shrines tend to be built in the highest of places.
"For example, in the Bible's Old Testament, God comes to speak to Moses at the top of a mountain," he says.
And the hill on which Osia village nestles has always been associated with the power of healing.
Its original name was Osukuru, which means a place where people collect medicinal and rare herbs for use in local remedies.
Cement bags
The cross has cost the village's Catholic Parish about $4,350, which it raised from well-wishers abroad.

Paul Ongemi, who organised its construction, said it took 58 bags of cement and 20 workers to erect it.
The Catholic fathers say the cash donations given by pilgrims to the site will assist the poor communities in the Archdiocese of Tororo.
Efforts have also been made to ensure that the entire pilgrimage is a spiritual experience.
On the lower reaches of the climb, pilgrims go through a pass decorated with beautiful statues and stone paintings honouring saints, angels and the Virgin Mary.
Beyond that the Stations of the Cross - a series of 14 paintings which depict Jesus' journey to his crucifixion - have been conspicuously laid out.
At the foot of the hill a large cave, where villagers say foxes and hyenas used to seek sanctuary, has been transformed to resemble Jesus' burial place.
And as Tororo district's main road passes nearby, linking the region to the capital, Kampala, the Hill of Salvation and its concrete cross promises to become an even bigger tourist destination.

To hear more about the pilgrimage tune in to the BBC World Service's Weekend Network Africa on Sunday 17 December.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MOVE TO EXTEND MUGABE RULE BACKED !

Robert Mugabe is in his sixth term as president. Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party has backed a move to extend the mandate of President Robert Mugabe by two years.
The annual party conference approved a plan to postpone the next presidential election - when Mr Mugabe has said he will retire - from 2008 to 2010.
Delegates said there should be no debate on succeeding the president, because there were no vacancies.
Zimbabwe has the world's lowest life expectancy, highest inflation rate and chronic unemployment.
Mr Mugabe's critics say he has ruined what was one of Africa's most developed economies.
The president says he is the victim of a Western plot to bring him down because of opposition to his seizure of white-owned land.
[Mr Mugabe] basically has decided to succeed himself - Jonathan MoyoIndependent MP.

Zimbabwe police abuse 'rises'

Following last year's parliamentary elections, Zanu-PF has a two-thirds majority, enabling it to change the constitution.
Mr Mugabe has been president since Zimbabwe became independent in 1980.
BBC Southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles says that behind the scenes there is serious in-fighting within Zanu-PF, and no clear decision about who should succeed Mr Mugabe.
That is partly why the issue has been shelved until 2010, our correspondent adds.
'Democrat'
Thousands of delegates cheered as a party official read the resolution on the controversial issue, which said:
"We want to reaffirm the leadership of President RG Mugabe [...] and thus resolved that there should be no debate on succession because there are no vacancies."

The proposal still has to go to the party's central committee and to parliament, but that is expected to be a formality.
Although Zanu-PF describes the constitutional changes as an effort to achieve "harmony" in the election process, critics say the move is really about Mr Mugabe holding on to power.
"He basically has decided to succeed himself," independent MP Jonathan Moyo told the BBC.
But Information Minister Paul Mangwana said Mr Mugabe was a "democrat".
"If the people want him, let him remain in power," he said.
Mr Mangwana also denied that Mr Mugabe was too old to continue to run Zimbabwe: "He's agile, he's lucid, he has a clean bill of health."
But the Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube - one of President Mugabe's strongest critics - says he is obsessed with clinging on to power.
"On the one side, you remember he was saying he would retire at 78. Now he's approaching 83. He keeps changing his goalposts. 'this is my last time, this is my last time'.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

Dear Family and Friends,

"Congratulations! You are a grandfather!" These were the words that greeted my friend Patson when he arrived back in the rural village after another arduous week working in the nearby town. His wife was sitting there outside their house holding a tiny baby in her arms. This miniscule little baby was Patson's grandson. Patson did not know his first born son had a girl friend or that she was pregnant. For a while Patson just stared at his wife and the baby and the young teenage mother who sat nearby. She was still a child herself and had not even finished school. The girl had given birth to the baby at her own rural village but then her mother had said she had no money and would not support them. They must go to the father of the baby - he and his parents must take this responsibility.

Patson said that as the reality of the grandchild sunk in he got angrier and angrier. Patson is the only member of the family who is employed and the burden is very heavy. With his very small wage he already supports his wife and two children, he buys all the food, toiletries, medicines, seeds and fertilizer. He pays school fees for his two children and always has the worry of how to buy any of the clothes, shoes and school uniforms needed. Now, with the grandchild, the burden had increased by three. Patson said" the load is just too heavy for me now."

For a whole day Patson would not speak to anyone. The congratulatory jokes and calls from neighbours in the village just enraged him more. He could not think of anything positive. He did not experience any of the emotions of being a grandparent - pride, euphoria, amazement, delight, joy and the desire to tell the whole world of the momentous news. Patson said all he could think about was how on earth he was going to cope with all this now.

The baby had nothing at all and so much was needed. Nappies, clothes, a blanket, a towel, cotton wool, vaseline - the list just went on and on. For a while Patson tried not to think about his new grandson and the overwhelming burden of responsibility. Patson was just 19 when Zimbabwe became Independent and Robert Mugabe came to power. Patson's son was born when Robert Mugabe was still in power and now his grandson has just been born and still Mr Mugabe is in power.

Patson thought about the news of the week, President Mugabe saying that there were"No Vacancies in the Presidency." Just as Patson could not accept a newgrandson, it seemed that the President also could not accept anyone else to lead Zimbabwe. At the end of the first day Patson's wife came in but he would still not speak to her or take food from her. Quietly she put the thin, naked baby down on the ground behind her husband. "Your musukuru (grandson) is at your back" she said to him. Patson said he didn't move or respond but after awhile he felt tiny feet kicking him and then he heard, for the first time,the voice of his grandson who began to cry. He turned and looked, and loved. This was his blood. A new Zimbabwean has been born, the child has no name yet, his beginnings will be impossibly difficult but with life comes hope. Until next week, thanks for reading. love cathy.

Copyright cathybuckle. 16 December 2006http:/africantears.netfirms.comMy Books "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.com

NO DEAL FOR U.S.-CHINA TRADE GAP !

China and the US talk, but don't see eye to eye yet. China has promised a more flexible currency policy to help close the trade gap with the United States, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has said.
US manufacturers say China's currency is kept deliberately weak to boost its exporters, making it hard for US firms to gain market share in the country.
The US-China trade deficit is set to reach a record $229bn (£116bn) in 2006.
Both governments launched a "strategic economic dialogue" with talks in Beijing to improve relations.
'Some consensus'
Mr Paulson said China and the US had agreed to "take measures to address global imbalances through greater national savings in the United States, and to increase consumption and exchange rate flexibility in China".
However, Mr Paulson and his high-powered delegation failed to agree a firm timetable for a further strengthening of China's yuan.
His opposite number, Vice Premier Wu Yi, described the talks as useful "to build mutual understanding," but did not comment on the currency issue herself.
"We have reached some consensus, although we remained different on some issues," Ms Wu said at the end of the two-day meeting.
China used to have a fixed exchange rate to the dollar, but in July last year allowed the yuan to trade in a very narrow range against the US currency.
Over the past year-and-a-half the yuan has gained just 3.74% against the US dollar, reaching a new high of 7.8185 on Friday.
Strategic economic dialogue
Strengthening the yuan would improve the lives of ordinary Chinese and help ease global trade imbalances, said Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the US central bank.
Speaking at a Chinese government think tank he added that a stronger Chinese currency would also "reduce the incentive for Chinese firms to focus on exporting".
The lack of a firm deal on the yuan, however, is likely to stoke the worries of US politicians and manufacturers.
"We cannot continue to wait for this long-term goal [of floating the yuan] and suffer the consequences of insignificant short-term action," said Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd and his Republican counterpart Richard Shelby in a joint statement.
The new biannual economic dialogue was agreed in September during a meeting of US President George W Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
The US treasury secretary was accompanied not only by Mr Bernanke but also by six members of President Bush's cabinet.
On the sidelines of the talks, both countries struck a deal that will allow the two top stock markets in the United States, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange, to open offices in China.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PACIFIC COAST STORM KILLS THREE !

A storm hitting the Pacific coast of Canada and the United States has killed three people in Washington state.
Heavy rain and winds gusting at more than 90mph (145km/h) caused flooding and knocked down power lines leaving thousands without electricity.
A 41-year-old woman drowned in Seattle, Washington, while two people in the state were killed in traffic accidents blamed on wind-toppled trees.
It is the third storm to hit parts of the region in the last week.
Morning traffic was thrown into confusion in both Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, as officials closed bridges due to the high winds.
Falling trees knocked down electricity lines, causing a loss of power to about one million utility customers in both Canada and the US.
BC Hydro said crews on Vancouver Island were still struggling to repair damage from an earlier storm.
The storm had begun to calm by Friday morning, but snow was expected at lower elevations.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

VIOLENCE FOLLOWS HAMAS ACCUSATION !

Security forces loyal to Fatah clashed with Hamas in Ramallah. Clashes have erupted between rival Palestinian factions after Hamas accused Fatah of trying to assassinate Prime Minister Ismail Haniya of Hamas.
Hamas accused a senior Fatah figure of organising an attack on Mr Haniya as he crossed into Gaza from Egypt.
Medical sources in the West Bank town of Ramallah said 32 people had been injured in clashes there. Fighting was also reported in Gaza City.
Mr Haniya called for calm and unity at a mass rally held in Gaza City.
Tens of thousands of supporters gathered in a Gaza City football stadium to mark the 19th anniversary of the founding of Hamas.
Hamas gunmen patrolled the streets of the city in a show of strength.
We did not join this movement to become ministers but rather to become martyrs
Ismail HaniyaPalestinian Prime Minister

Q&A: Palestinian crisis

Mr Haniya said Hamas had the names of those responsible and that the law would be used to bring them to justice.
But he vowed that the shooting would not frighten members of Hamas.
"We did not join this movement to become ministers but rather to become martyrs."
One bodyguard was killed and Mr Haniya's son was among five injured in Thursday's gun battle at the Rafah border crossing.
The BBC's Alan Johnston, in Gaza, says Mr Haniya struck a less strident tone than some, but there is every danger that the situation could get worse.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority (PA) president and head of Fatah, is due to speak on Saturday, and may call early elections in an effort to break the political deadlock between Fatah and Hamas.
Hamas has said it will boycott Mr Abbas' speech in protest at "dangerous and bloody" recent events.
Egyptian negotiators, who have mediated between Hamas and Fatah in the past, met Hamas on Friday in an effort to ease tensions.
Russia also called for the quarrelling factions to show restraint.
'Grave threat'
The violence in Ramallah on Friday flared as Hamas supporters attempted to march towards the centre of town but found the path blocked by Mr Abbas' security forces, reports said.

Ramallah residents condemn violance between Palestinian factions.
In pictures

Fighting broke out, with hospital officials saying that at least 32 people were injured by gunfire and stone-throwing.
Shooting also erupted in Gaza City between masked Hamas gunmen and PA police allied to Fatah.
A Hamas spokesman had earlier said the Rafah attack was "an assassination attempt carried out by traitors led by Mohammad Dahlan".
Mr Dahlan, an ally of Mr Abbas, is a former Palestinian Authority security chief and a fierce critic of Hamas.
He rejected the Hamas accusations, saying the governing party was trying to "mask its failures".
A Fatah spokesman said the attack was a "grave threat" to Palestinian unity.
Chaotic scenes
Inter-faction tensions have increased since the killing of three sons of a pro-Fatah security chief on Monday.

In pictures: Rivals clash

Mr Haniya had tried to cut short his first trip abroad as prime minister to deal with the crisis.
But Israel on Thursday closed the Gaza border, saying the reported $30m (£15.3m) Mr Haniya was carrying in donations as he returned from his foreign trip would fund "terrorist operations".
When Mr Haniya eventually crossed late in the evening, without the money, guards allied to Fatah exchanged fire with Mr Haniya's security forces.
Hamas, a militant Islamic group, won elections in January, but has faced a Western aid boycott after refusing to renounce violence and recognise Israel.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BLAIR DEFENDS SAUDI PROBE RULING !

Mr Blair is embarking on a Middle East tour.
Blair takes questions

Tony Blair has hit back at claims a corruption probe into a Saudi arms deal with BAE Systems was dropped after commercial and political pressure.
The Lib Dems believe the Serious Fraud Office was told to drop the case, owing to concerns that another multi-million pound Saudi deal would be lost.
Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell said it was deeply damaging to the rule of law and set a dangerous precedent.
Mr Blair has said the probe was dropped because of national security concerns.
The SFO was investigating claims that Britain's biggest defence firm BAE had paid bribes to secure an arms deal with Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. BAE has always denied the claims.
'Effectively blackmailed'
But on Thursday the attorney general said the investigation was to be stopped, because of doubts over a potential prosecution and on grounds of national security.
It came weeks after reports that the Saudis were threatening to pull out of a deal to buy 72 Eurofighter jets from BAE and deal with France instead.
The Lib Dems argue it was "effectively blackmail" by the Saudis and the SFO decision "came from the top".

Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is vitally important for our country...that strategic interest comes first - Tony Blair.

Blair embarks on Mid-East tour

Speaking at an EU summit in Brussels, Mr Blair said he had put to one side the effect on "thousands of British jobs and billions worth of pounds for British industry" - basing a decision on this would have potentially put Britain in conflict with international law.
He said his role as prime minister was to advise on what was in the best interests of the country.
Prosecution doubts
"Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is vitally important for our country in terms of counter-terrorism, in terms of the broader Middle East, in terms of helping in respect of Israel and Palestine. That strategic interest comes first."
He said the probe would have led to months or years of "ill feeling between us and a key partner and ally and probably to no purpose" and he was certain the right decision had been taken.

Check BAE's share price

Speaking later on the BBC's World At One programme, Lord Goldsmith said the decision had to be made on the merits of the case.
"There were some very big problems with this and my judgement was it [a prosecution] wouldn't succeed," he said.
The prime minister's spokesman also said the impact on jobs had been a "consideration", but was not the reason the probe was dropped.
'Damaging precedent'
But Sir Menzies Campbell told the BBC the government could not "have it both ways" and has demanded to see the attorney general's legal advice on the decision.
He said it had been a political decision, but any decision into whether a prosecution is pursued should be done "entirely independently".
"We are entitled, I think, to a much clearer exposition of how this decision was taken. It creates a very damaging precedent which Britain will come to regret."
Mr Blair also denied accusations he had tried to "bury bad news" by deliberately timing his police interview on the cash for honours allegations to coincide with the SFO announcement, and the publication of Lord Stevens' report into the death of Princess Diana.
On Thursday, Mr Blair became the first sitting prime minister to be interviewed as part of a criminal investigation - but Downing Street stressed he spoke to police as a witness and not a suspect.
On Friday he repeated Downing Street's claim that he was within his rights as Labour leader to nominate a number of working peers every year.
The rows threaten to overshadow his planned trip to the Middle East in which he hopes to make progress on the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GREAT LAKES SECURITY PACT SIGNED !

Mr Museveni wants to be able to pursue rebels into DR Congo. African leaders from the Great Lakes have signed a $2bn security and development pact aimed at preventing further bloodshed in the region.
It is not clear if a key section was changed to allow countries to pursue rebels based in neighbouring states, after a request from Uganda's leader.
Yoweri Museveni has said the roots of the bloodshed are rebel groups based in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Uganda has been battling rebels with camps in DR Congo for two decades.
Tens of thousands of people have died and more than one-and-a-half million displaced because of Lord's Resistance Army attacks in northern Uganda and southern Sudan.
Response
The leaders signed the treaty at the Great Lakes summit taking place in the Kenya's capital, Nairobi.

Congolese President Joseph Kabila is expected to deliver his first international speech since winning the presidential election three months ago.
The BBC's Josphat Makori at the summit says many will be watching to see if Mr Kabila will respond to accusations by Mr Museveni that his country was contributing to instability in the region.
A five-year conflict in DR Congo, which officially ended in 2002, pitted government forces, supported by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, against rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda.
The conflicts in DR Congo and Burundi and the 1994 Rwandan genocide were closely linked.
Disarmament
The treaty covers issues such as security, governance and economic development.
It also includes measures to disarm remaining rebel groups, prevent arms trafficking and help millions of refugees.
The BBC's Adam Mynott in Nairobi says the proposals will be backed by an undertaking to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a whole raft of different projects.
Leaders also pointed to a peace deal and successful elections in Burundi, which has had more than a decade of conflict.
On Thursday, Mr Museveni said that 50% of the region's problems were the "myriad of negative terrorist groups" based mainly in the eastern DR Congo.
Violence has continued involving small militia groups in the east who do not accept control from Kinshasa, the capital, which lies some 1,500km to the west away across vast tracts of forest.
Rebel groups from Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda have also been based in the area.
The world's largest peacekeeping force is in DR Congo, tasked with keeping the peace and helping disarm the groups.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZAMBIA DROPS CHARGES AGAINST SATA !

Michael Sata is a long-time opponent of the president. A Zambian court has dropped charges against opposition leader Michael Sata of making a false declaration of his assets before recent polls.
A magistrate said that because his application was not made under oath, he could not be charged with any criminal offence under electoral laws.
Mr Sata's lawyers said the allegations were malicious. The government says it will appeal against the acquittal.
Mr Sata said he was cheated of victory in September's elections.
Under Zambian law, the candidates are required to state their assets and liabilities before they are allowed to contest.
Mr Sata also faces other charges of sedition, espionage and defaming the poll winner, President Levy Mwanawasa.
His supporters staged violent protests after Mr Mwanawasa's victory.
Mr Sata, whose nickname is King Cobra, campaigned for he what he called "Zambia for Zambians" and criticised the influence of economic partners like China.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE POLICE 'BRUTALITY RISES' !

Zimbabwe police 'brutality rises'
By Peter Biles BBC News, Johannesburg.

President Mugabe is accused of colonial-era behaviour. Police brutality in Zimbabwe has increased since the government began a crackdown against the opposition, two non-governmental organisations say.
The Solidarity Peace Trust and the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation say police brutality under President Robert Mugabe has become routine.
They say Zimbabwe's government has reverted to patterns of state control established under colonialism.
The two NGOs examined the details of 2,000 politically-motivated arrests.
They say that increasing police brutality coincided with the rise of the opposition, primarily the Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai.
'Vicious reaction'
The report says that political arrests peaked in 2003, when the ability of the opposition to organise was at its height.
The Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, who is one of the government's most prominent critics, says state reaction to peaceful protest has become swift and vicious.
"The September 2006 attempt by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions to march on the streets of Harare lasted less than two minutes," he said.
"The few activists who took part were brutally tortured and beaten."
The new report concludes that since the end of last year, the opposition in Zimbabwe has been in serious disarray, and has no effective response to state oppression.
The government's critics argue that the police force no longer serves the Zimbabwean people, but merely President Mugabe's political party - Zanu-PF.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DIANA DEATH A 'TRAGIC ACCIDENT'

Lord Stevens said he hoped the report would bring some closure.
Lord Stevens' findings

An official UK police inquiry into the Paris car crash which killed Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed has found no evidence the couple were murdered.
Lord Stevens, who led the three-year investigation, said the 1997 crash was a "tragic accident".
The inquiry report said chauffeur Henri Paul, who also died, was speeding and over the legal drink-drive limit.
A spokesman for Mr Al Fayed's father said he does not accept the findings as questions remain "unanswered".
Michael Cole said it was "highly unsatisfactory" that up to 18 key witnesses to the crash were not interviewed by the Metropolitan Police's inquiry into the death.
He called for next year's inquests into the deaths to be heard before a jury so that the evidence presented by Lord Stevens could be "thoroughly tested".
The princess, 36, and Mr Al Fayed, 42, died when their Mercedes crashed in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel in August 1997.

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"There was no conspiracy to murder any of the occupants of that car," Lord Stevens said.
The findings - contained within an 832 page document - form part of the inquest, into the deaths of the couple.
Lord Stevens told a news conference in London the report addresses the key issues emerging from a "most complex and challenging" investigation.

The inquiry brought together 1,500 witness statements
"I have no doubt that speculation as to what happened that night will continue and that there are some matters, as in many other investigations, about which we may never find a definitive answer.
The evidence suggests Princess Diana was not engaged or about to get engaged and scientific tests showed she was not pregnant, he said.
"We have spoken to many of her family and closest friends and none of them have indicated to us that she was either about to or wished to get engaged," he said.
"Prince William has confirmed to me that his mother had not given him the slightest indication about such plans for the future."
Some 400 people, including Prince Charles, the Duke of Edinburgh and the heads of MI5 and MI6, were interviewed or contacted by the inquiry.
Referring to claims by Mr Al Fayed's father, Mohamed, the report said there was no evidence of a connection between the Duke of Edinburgh and MI6.

Reaction to report findings

Mr Stevens said the various legal cases currently being pursued by Mr Al Fayed through the French courts are "unlikely, in my opinion, to have any bearing on my conclusion that there was no conspiracy or cover up".
He said he was satisfied the US Central Intelligence Agency had made no attempt to hold back information that could have altered the inquiry's conclusions.
"I very much hope that all the work we have done and the publication of this report will help to bring some closure to all who continue to mourn the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, Dodi Al Fayed and Henri Paul," said Lord Stevens.
Clarence House said later that Princes William and Harry hope the "conclusive findings" of the report will end speculation surrounding their mother's death.
Paparazzi pursuit
Harrods department store boss Mr Al Fayed is due to issue a response to the report.
In advance of the publication, he told BBC News that, if Lord Stevens made the "really shocking" conclusion that the deaths were an accident, he would refuse to accept it.
The crash took place as the couple were pursued by paparazzi photographers during the drive from the Ritz hotel to Mr Al Fayed's flat.
A French investigation into the crash concluded Mr Paul had lost control of the car because he was driving too fast while under the influence of alcohol and prescription drugs.
Meanwhile, lawyers for bodyguard Trevor Rees, the sole survivor of the crash, said he will not be making any comment on the report or the inquest.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

INDIA SEEKS JAPAN'S HELP ON NUKES !

Singh will be seeking Japanese support for the nuclear deal with US. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Japanese parliament to support India's bid to join the club of civilian nuclear powers.
At the same time, he has reiterated India's "unshakable" commitment to nuclear non-proliferation.
India's nuclear deal with the US needs approval of the Nuclear Suppliers' Group, of which Japan is a member.
The two countries have come a long way since Tokyo imposed sanctions on Delhi following India's 1998 nuclear tests.
Mr Singh addressed the lower house of parliament and met the trade minister on the first of his four-day visit of Japan, the first by an Indian prime minister in five years.
He will meet Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, on Friday.
Japan has been seeking warmer relations with India but has yet to offer a position on the India-US nuclear pact.

The controversial pact was signed last year to give India access to civilian nuclear technology even though it has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty on atomic weapons.
"Like Japan, India sees nuclear power as a viable and clean energy source to meet its growing energy requirements," Mr Singh was quoted by the AFP news agency as telling the Japanese parliament.
"We seek Japan's support in helping put in place innovative and forward looking approaches of the international community to make this possible."
In an aside from his prepared text, Mr Singh added: "At the same time, I would like to confirm that India's commitment to work for universal nuclear disarmament remains unshakable."
In a short speech to welcome Mr Singh, the speaker of the lower house, Yohei Kono, thanked the Indian parliament for its annual silent prayer for the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He called on India to "mutually cooperate to abolish nuclear weapons".
Analysts say Japan's approval of the nuclear deal with the US would help Mr Singh.
Critics, including his Communist allies and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, argue he is too closely aligned with Washington.
Industrial corridor
Mr Singh also called upon Japan to help strengthen trade and investment ties between the two countries, saying they were "well below potential".

Japanese cars are household names in India.
India is the largest recipient of Japanese development aid, but Japanese companies have focused on markets such as China, Thailand and Vietnam.
The Japanese trade minister, who met Mr Singh, pledged cooperation to create a mega "industrial corridor" including a high-speed train link between Indian capital Delhi and its financial hub, Mumbai (Bombay).

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TASMANIAN TOWN CUT OFF BY FIRES !

Firefighters are struggling to cope Tasmanian firefighters are battling to save a small town that has been completely cut off by raging bushfires.
Residents of Four Mile Creek have fled to the beach, out of the path of what has been described as a "large fireball".
Other parts of southern Australia are also under threat from encroaching bushfires, and firefighters are struggling to cope.
Fires have already destroyed vast areas of forest and farmland in four states.
Four Mile Creek is now completely isolated, with fires burning right up to the sea, and all evacuation routes cut off.
"The best bet is head to the beach and hope the fire brigade and fire fighters are doing their job," one resident, Shane Hodge, told reporters.
The nearby villages of Cornwall and St Marys are also at risk, and firefighters have started marking out homes they will be unable to save.
"If a property has trees right up to the back door, then it's going to put lives at risk and we have to declare those houses as undefendable," fire service spokesman Michael Watkins told Reuters news agency.
The mainland state of Victoria has also been affected by bushfires, with thousands of firefighters battling a reported 11 blazes.
Bushfires are common in Australia's summer, but officials say the situation is even worse than normal this year, because of a long-standing drought.
Many fires are caused by lightning, while others are started deliberately.
A 58-year-old man was recently charged with arson by police in Western Australia.
So far few injuries have been reported from this year's bushfires, although the authorities across this arid continent are warning that the worst may be yet to come.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHERNOBYL VOICES : ANATOY RASSKAZOV !

As Ukraine marks the 20th anniversary of the completion of the sarcophagus encasing the ruined reactor at Chernobyl, we publish the story of the first man to photograph the wreckage - on 26 April 1986, the morning after the disaster.

Anatoly Rasskazov, 66Former photographer and artist at Chernobyl nuclear power station
It was a weekend. Everyone was relaxing, or preparing for the 1 May parade, when the power station was meant to receive the Order of Lenin and become a Hero of Socialist Labour.
There were rumours of a minor accident at the station, but I cleaned the windows of our flat in Pripyat as usual. Then at about 9am I was summoned urgently to the station.
No-one believed that something so awful could occur.

MORE CHERNOBYL VOICES
Hanna, zone resident
Igor, thyroid surgeon
Lena, irradiated mother
Mikhail, evacuee
Mykhailo, sick lorry driver
Natalia, sociologist
Oleg, Chernobyl employee
Viktoria, student activist
Vladimir, liquidator

I went down into the bunker where the authorities were working, and I understood that they did not really know whether the active zone of the reactor was destroyed or not. They wanted pictures taken from above to see what had really happened.
In the helicopter, there were two soldiers and two civilians from Atomenergo, who had flown down from Moscow. There was so much ash flying around, it was impossible to take photographs through the glass. I said, "Comrades, we have to open the window." They protested, saying it would contaminate the helicopter. They knew what it was, the material rising up from the reactor.
But the window was opened. I leaned out with my camera, a wide-format Kiev-6, and a soldier held my legs to stop me falling. Then I doubled up with a Zenit.
Graphite blocks
When we returned I reported to the station director, Viktor Petrovich Bryukhanov, and he said, "Good, now do it from the ground."

The reactor's glow was obscured when the picture was shown on TVI set off on foot with a radiation safety official and a dosimetrist. One of them shook his head. "Oi-oi-oi, we'll receive such a dose," he said. So we got into one of the fire engines left on the territory of the station and started it up. There was no room on the road, so we drove along the railway, bumping over the sleepers.
There were some graphite blocks lying on the ground near the third reactor. I jumped out and photographed them with the Zenit, leaving the other camera in the cabin. Then we drove up to within 50 metres of the ruins of fourth reactor. I took 12 pictures with each camera, and we returned the same way as we arrived, praying to God that the engine would keep going.
I develop the first film, from the Zenit, and it is black, completely burnt out by radiation - probably from the graphite block. I think, "That's it. It's all over." But the second film, from the other camera was successful, only slightly clouded. When I got to the station the First Department [security] took the prints, numbered them and took the films. "Everything you saw and heard - keep your mouth locked!" they said. From the photographs it was clear that the active zone was badly damaged. Until May, no-one else was allowed to take pictures.
Radiation burn
When I returned home at midnight, I was vomiting. I was all red. I had a sore on my forehead which has remained unhealed for 20 years. A radiation burn. And my whole throat was burning, because I had been inhaling this soup of radionuclides.

Mr Rasskazov in action at the plantLater, my job was to photograph the building of the sarcophagus. I took pictures from three sides of the reactor, and twice a week from above, in a military helicopter. This allowed the authorities to see how the sarcophagus was being built. September was the peak period, when the sarcophagus was nearing completion. In October I already began to feel bad. I went to work and an ambulance took me from there to hospital.
They wrote down that I had received an emergency dose, more than 25 roentgens. In January I was taken to the 6th clinic, in Moscow. There a doctor told me, "Anatoly Ivanovich, you do not count as a case of radiation sickness - to qualify for radiation sickness you need to have been working on the night shift." So I got no special benefits. But I have had lots of illnesses, including blood diseases and cancer. My health is ruined.
To begin with they did not publish my pictures. In May they showed one on central television, but it was one taken from the ground so the scale of the destruction was not visible. Later they showed one of the pictures taken from above, but they touched it up so that the ray of light emanating like a burning sun from the reactor, along with the smoke, ash and other flakes of material, was not visible.
Long afterwards they were published in a book called Chernobyl Reportage, but my name did not appear.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SUDAN DISMISSES DARFUR 'THREATS' !

Sudan has agreed to let the UN provide logistical support in Darfur. Sudan has dismissed warnings of tough action by the US and the UK if it continues to block the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force.
Foreign Minister Lam Akol told the BBC that "threats, blockades and no-fly zones... would not solve the problem" but would increase suffering in Darfur.
The US says it might take up "other options" in Darfur, while the UK has mentioned a no-fly zone.
Some 200,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003, the UN says.
The violence has intensified in recent months despite the presence of some 7,000 African Union peacekeepers.
But Sudan rejects plans for the United Nations to take control and increase the number of peacekeepers to 20,000.
Meanwhile, the UN Human Rights Council has agreed to send a team to investigate abuses.

Clooney lobbies on Darfur
Q&A: Peacekeeping in Darfur

But the world's top human rights body has refrained from criticising Sudan's government over the violence.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said the UK would agree to a UN-sanctioned "plan B" to impose a no-fly zone in the region.
A UN resolution was passed last year banning military flights over Darfur but this has not been enforced.
The issue was raised at a meeting between US President George W Bush and Mr Blair in Washington last week.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said: "We have to start thinking of other ideas on how to protect the people" from the violence in Darfur.
Referring to the no-fly zone, he said, "Prime Minister Blair talked about it as an idea," but Mr McCormack refused to give further details.
The BBC State Department correspondent says other options could include a naval blockade or targeted air strikes against Sudan, but that these would need the backing of the UN Security Council.
Our correspondent says until now some council members, such as China, have shown little enthusiasm for increasing pressure on Sudan over Darfur.
Growing urgency
Meanwhile, President Bush's special envoy to Darfur, Andrew Natsios, has just visited Khartoum for talks with Sudan President Omar al-Bashir.
However, the BBC's correspondent says that, while Mr Natsios said the talks had been productive, there is still no sign that Sudan's government will agree to a UN force.
There is a growing sense of frustration and urgency in Washington over the situation in Darfur, he says.
Sudan has agreed to let the UN provide logistical support to a larger AU force, but refuses to allow UN troops into Darfur.
The human rights council cannot force Sudan to accept UN peacekeeping troops.
But human rights groups say a resolution sending the UN's top human rights experts to Darfur to investigate would have moral authority.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DISASTER FUNDS 'UNFAIRLY DIVIDED' !

Tropical Storm Stan received less attention than Hurricane Katrina. Millions of people are missing out on vital aid despite record-breaking donations from governments and the public, a report says.
In 2005, emergency aid reached at least $17bn (£8.6bn) - outstripping any other year, the World Disasters Report says.
But while high-profile cases such as the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina attracted donors, countless other crises were neglected, it says.
It calls on governments, aid agencies and the media to redress the balance.

More than 99,000 people were killed and 161 million affected by natural disasters last year, according to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Find out how aid was distributed in 2005

The report says a string of sudden disasters including the 2004 tsunami, the South Asia quake and a record hurricane season along the US Gulf Coast, led to unprecedented generosity in 2005.

The cost of the crises totalled about $160bn - more than double the decade's annual average, the federation says.
Governments donated more than $12bn in aid - the highest figure since records began in 1970.
Individuals gave more than $5.5bn for survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami alone - the most NGOs worldwide have ever collected in a year.
Yet, despite these enormous contributions, many millions of people are still suffering, the report says.
Emergency appeals for Chad, Guyana, Ivory Coast, Malawi and Niger raised on average less than $27 in humanitarian aid per person compared with $1,241 for the tsunami.
Appeals for the Republic of Congo, Djibouti and Central African Republic were 40% funded, while the tsunami and South Asia quake appeals were funded 475% and 196% respectively, the report said.
Media spotlight
International Federation President Juan Manuel Suarez Del Toro said such huge disparities were unacceptable.

Hurricane Katrina generated huge amounts of media coverage.
"The generous response in 2005 shows people and governments are committed to helping those in need.
"Now we must ensure aid goes where it is most needed and that it is not skewed for political, security or media reasons," he said.
The report argues that uneven media coverage - with its ability to sway the public and politicians - contributed to the inequitable spread of funding.
Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast in August 2005, killing about 1,300 people, generated 40 times more Western print coverage than Hurricane Stan that killed more than 1,600 people in Guatemala soon afterwards, the report says.
Money sent by Guatemalans working abroad to areas affected by the hurricane totalled $413m - 20 times more than the UN appeal had raised by early December 2005.
Underlying causes
Many millions of people also miss out on potentially life-saving aid because crises go unrecorded, the report says.
In Guatemala, as in many countries, the main disaster databases fail to record vast numbers of localised floods, mudslides or earthquakes.

About 35,000 women and babies die each year in Nepal due to unsafe childbirth practisesNo-one records, for example, how many migrants die in the Sahara or in small boats while attempting to reach Europe.
These small crises add up to more deaths and affect many more people than a few major events, the report says.
The federation advocates directing political will towards creating conditions in which humanitarian agencies can operate in the more hidden and dangerous parts of the world.
The report also calls for large, common emergency response funds; developing a global measure of humanitarian need; and agreeing trigger points for action with donors and host governments.
Markku Niskala, International Federation Secretary General, also called for a better understanding of the underlying causes of disasters such as food insecurity and regional conflict.

"For many people, daily life contains the seeds of crisis. Neglecting their vulnerability turns today's risk into tomorrow's disaster," he said.
AID DISTRIBUTION

1 Tsunami (*More than $1,000)2 Sudan3 South Asia earthquake; Chechnya4 Guatemala; Benin; DCR; Republic of Congo5 Guinea; Palestinian Territories6 Great Lakes; Djibouti; Eritrea; Uganda; Burundi7 Somalia; West Africa; Central African Republic8 Niger; Malawi; Ivory Coast; Guyana; Chad

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MBEKI WARNS ON CHINA-AFRICA TIES !

Thabo Mbeki and Hu Jintao met at China's recent African summit. Africa must guard against falling into a "colonial relationship" with China, South African President Thabo Mbeki has warned the continent.
His comments come as fast-growing China is continuing to increase its push for raw materials across Africa.
Mr Mbeki said African nations must strive for their relationship with China to be based on equal trade.
Last month, China hosted an Africa summit attended by 50 African leaders including Mr Mbeki.
His warning about the risk of a colonial relationship with China was given to a student congress in Cape Town.
'Condemned'
Mr Mbeki said that if Africa just exported raw materials to China while importing Chinese manufactured goods, the African continent could be "condemned to underdevelopment".
He said that this would simply mean "a replication" of Africa's historical relationship with its former colonial powers.
China, which expects annual trade with Africa to total $100bn (£53bn) by 2010, has long said that it wants its growing trade relationship with Africa to equally benefit both sides.
In addition to its growing trade with Africa, China has promised $5bn (£2.5bn) in loans and credit for African nations.
However, critics have said China is too happy to support repressive African regimes.
Mr Mbeki's latest comments appear to be a hardening of his position on the subject.
On a recent visit to Beijing he said he understood that the Chinese leadership recognised Africa's concerns about its increasing trade relationship with China, and wanted to help lift the continent out of poverty.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IRAQ VIOLENCE SPARKS EXODUS TO SYRIA !

Iraq violence sparks exodus to Syria.
By Chris Morris BBC News, Damascus

More and more families are leaving amid escalating violenceOn the desert border between Syria and Iraq, a group of tents clings to the shifting sands. This is a desolate place at the best of times.
Now it has become an unwanted home to more than 300 Palestinian refugees. They fled from violence in Baghdad seven months ago, only to get stuck in no-man's land.
As Palestinians, they do not have proper passports - so Syria will not let them in; and it is too dangerous to go back into Iraq.
Amin Ramadan left his neighbourhood and his elderly mother when sectarian violence made it too dangerous for him to stay. Now he is trapped again.
"It's getting really cold here at night," he said. "We have to break the ice on top of the water in the mornings. Many people are sick. We can't stay here for a long time."
The United Nations is providing basic food and shelter, and the Syrians grant temporary access to urgent medical cases. But it is a bleak situation.
And while the Palestinians say they would like to go to Europe or Canada, there is hardly a queue of countries willing to help.
"We're desperately trying to find a more durable solution," admits Laurens Jolles, the UNHCR representative in Damascus, "to find someone prepared to take them in. The least favoured option is for them to remain in limbo between two countries."
'Everyone is leaving'
But as sad as it is, the dusty Palestinian camp is just a small statistic - part of a mass movement of people, an exodus from Iraq.

Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003 as many as two million civilians searching for sanctuary have fled into neighbouring countries like Syria, Jordan and Iran.
They are ill-equipped to cope. The pressure group Refugees International calls it the fastest growing humanitarian crisis in the world.
Just up the road from the stranded Palestinians, the Syrian border crossing at al-Tanaf feels like a safe haven for Iraqis who make it this far.
Cars and trucks are packed with possessions. But for most people, escaping into exile, the future is uncertain.
"I'll find a place to stay, anywhere I can afford," Mohammed Abu Muhy says. "Everyone is leaving Iraq."
And they bring everything they can carry. Expressionless faces look on as border guards rummage through their worldly goods.
The numbers are staggering - at least three quarters of a million Iraqis have fled to Syria alone. And every month the rate of arrival is higher than it has been before.
'No-one's helping'
Many people head to the capital, Damascus, slowly changing the character of entire neighbourhoods.
In Sayida Zeinab, out towards the city's airport, the music blaring from loudspeakers in the market comes from Iraq. And posters on the wall back the Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr.
They took my house, they killed my father and my two brothers. I had no choice - there is only death in Iraq.
Refugee Nathir Rahim
Jalil Abu Mohammed arrived here a month ago with his wife and four children. He wants to buy a small food stall, but he cannot afford it. It is a familiar story.
"I must find a job in order to survive and to stay here," he tells me. "I simply have to. We sold everything we had back in Iraq and came here with our families. We sacrificed everything - houses, furniture, everything we owned."
As we talk, a crowd quickly gathers around us. Nearly all of them are from Iraq. Everyone is careful to thank the Syrian regime, but they are close to despair.
"Look at these children," Anwar says. "What have they done wrong? I can't begin to describe to an outsider what's really happening inside Iraq."
"No-one's helping," he adds angrily, "not the Arab countries, nor the western countries. It's all lies. The whole thing is lies."
Voting with their feet
The latest arrivals from Iraq register at the Damascus office of the UN refugee agency. Tens of thousands need urgent financial or medical assistance, or trauma counselling.

A growing number of Iraqis are in the Syrian capital
But who is prepared to pay to help them?
"The funds we have at the moment are not sufficient," says Laurens Jolles. "We are asking for more, we're approaching individual countries to contribute. This is quite a small office and in no way capable of dealing with the numbers that are here."
But still they come. Nathir Rahim is sitting at a café in what's become known as the Street of the Iraqis. It is Baghdad in exile, just a few minutes drive from the centre of Damascus.
"They took my house," Nathir says, "they killed my father and my two brothers. I had no choice. There is only death in Iraq."
And there is a knock-on effect in Syria as well. People see what is happening in Iraq and many draw their own conclusions. If this is what the promise of western-style democracy brings, they argue, then we are happy with the system we have.
Some see the situation as a choice between stable authoritarianism in Syria, and dangerous, frightening chaos and violence in Iraq.
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have already voted with their feet.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

THE ETHICS OF ANIMAL RESEARCH !

The ethics of animal research.
VIEWPOINT By Professor Michael Reiss.

"Do animals have rights?", asks Professor Michael Reiss. And if they do, how can we better make decisions about the animals used for scientific research?

Just what rights do animals have? Many people have very firm views about whether it is right or wrong to use animals in scientific research.
The question about when such use is acceptable can be put at its starkest by asking: "How many animals is the alleviation of one person's suffering worth?"
This is, in essence, the sort of question that Home Office inspectors have to answer each time they receive an application to use animals in research.
But this question makes the fundamental assumption that animals do not have rights.
If you think animals do have rights, then it is surely immoral to start sacrificing them even to help us.
The whole point about rights, such as the right to education, the right to life and the right not to be tortured, is that they cannot be overridden for someone else's benefit.
Clear-cut differences?
It might be thought possible to argue that humans have rights but animals do not.
However, although there are plenty of clear-cut differences between humans and animals, when we think of an adult chimpanzee or gorilla and compare such a creature with a new-born human it is difficult to see why one does not have rights and the other does.

Future for animal-free testing

Of course, the new-born human will, all being well, grow up to have the intellectual, linguistic and other capacities of its fellow humans.
But unless you believe, perhaps on religious grounds, that humans are in a fundamentally different category from other animals, it is difficult to maintain any dividing lines between us and other animals.
The morally relevant differences between us and animals, are, surely, of degree, not kind.
Different species
The question also makes a second assumption, namely that we can make comparisons across species.
Yet it is difficult to compare the suffering caused by an open wound that you or I have with an open wound a rat, dog or baboon has.
The problems are even greater when we move beyond physical suffering.
Can we, for example, compare human blindness with rat blindness, or Alzheimer's in genetically engineered mice with Alzheimer's in our relatives?
So where does all this leave us in regard to animal experimentation and testing?
A House of Lords Select Committee looked into the workings of the 1986 Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act and reported in 2002.
It concluded that while a number of improvements to the present system could be suggested, the broad thrust of the way in which the use of animals for research and testing is regulated in the UK should continue.
In particular, animals should still only be used when there are no alternatives, and then only if the benefits of their use exceed the costs.
This means that the cost-benefit approach currently in place should continue to be at the heart of UK regulation, as it is worldwide.
But at the same time, one particular problem with the present cost-benefit approach is that the calculations are almost never made.
Nobody ends up saying, for example, that 4,000 mice lost their lives in this research and our best estimate is that as a result x women with breast cancer will each live on average y more years.
Moving forward
One way forward may be to try some retrospective calculations along these lines.
Although difficult, I think transparency and, ultimately, public confidence in the regulatory process would be enhanced by attempts to make these calculations.

Rodents do most of the work in laboratories.
This would mean applicants seeking Home Office approval to use animals in their scientific work would be required to provide an attempt at a cost-benefit justification.
It is true that these would not be fully quantitative, but such an attempt at least begins to make it more feasible either to refute or corroborate the researcher's claims.
I am well aware that these proposals carry a number of risks, in particular with regard to inflaming the whole debate still further and, in a worst case scenario, increasing illegal threats or attacks by the minority of animal rights extremists who are prepared to go so far.
However, I doubt that either public policy or the actions of scientists should be determined to too great an extent by such extremists.
Indeed, increasing openness is likely eventually to lead to less extremism.
Michael Reiss is professor of science education at the Institute of Education, London, and director of education at the Royal Society. These views are those of the author and should not be taken as being the views of the Royal Society.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WIDE AWAKE HAVING BRAIN SURGERY !

Wide awake having brain surgery
By David Fenton BBC South Health Correspondent.

It was the strangest interview I have ever done. Half sitting, half lying in front of me was a man talking about his holidays.
He wanted to go to Italy. The strange part was that as he spoke, surgeons were cutting out a tumour from deep inside his brain.
The patient, Trevor Burlton, was completely conscious and aware of what was going on around him throughout the four-hour operation.
He chatted, he joked, he looked around - he looked bored.
For me, dressed in full surgical scrubs and watching him from behind a camera, it was a very strange experience.
Really awake
But probably not as strange as hearing a drill going in the back of your head and not being bothered by it.
I was spending a week at the Wessex Neurological Centre at Southampton General Hospital, for a series broadcast this week on BBC South Today.
Trevor was undergoing a craniotomy while awake. I was keen to see how it went.

Trevor Burlton said he felt fine but "a little strange" during the surgery.
"No problem," said the surgeon Paul Grundy.
"But will he really be awake? I mean will he be able to talk to me, or just grunt?" I ask, knowing how these things have a knack of turning out to be not what you expected.
He just smiled and said: "See for yourself."
The first thing to happen was that Trevor's brain was scanned and "mapped" so that the precise location of the tumour could be determined.
He was then put into place on the operating table and his head was secured in a clamp - which looked a bit alarming but was vitally important.
Opened skull
If Trevor moved - even just a few millimetres - the computer mapping would not work.
I feel I could just get up and walk away."
Trevor Burlton
Then it was down to business. The surgeon opened up the back of Trevor's skull and began searching for the tumour.
With the medics behind him, and me in front of him, Trevor had quite a lot to contend with but he coped admirably.
"What does it feel like?" I asked, when they got down to the tumour - which was somewhere about level with his eyes.
"It feels fine," he said. "Just slightly hot now and then but nothing serious.
"I was told I was going to be relaxed, and I am relaxed. I feel quite all right. It's strange, very strange. I feel I could just get up and walk away."
Although Trevor was conscious, he was receiving small doses of anaesthetic to help keep him calm and relaxed; a tricky and very specialised job.

24 hours after the operation Trevor was sitting up reading. "Really there is not any discomfort for the patients," said Paul Grundy.
"There aren't any pain receptors inside the head, so nothing inside the head hurts."
But why bother with all this? Why not just put the patient under and be done with it?
Well - it's better for the patient , and in Trevor's case the tumour was close to a part of the brain which controlled his left leg and arm.
Any mistake with the scalpel and he could have been paralysed down one side.
As Paul Grundy and his team operated they continually checked that the parts they were cutting out were not needed - by asking Trevor what he felt and testing his reflexes.
This could be done only with a conscious patient.
Twenty-four hours after the operation Trevor was sitting up in bed reading. It was a success. He has now returned home to Bournemouth where he is busy planning his holiday to Italy.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MENGISTU 'TO REMAIN IN ZIMBABWE' !

Mengistu Haile Mariam has lived in exile in Zimbabwe for 15 years. Ethiopia's Marxist ex-ruler Mengistu Haile Mariam will not be extradited from exile in Zimbabwe to face justice, Zimbabwe's government has said.
Mengistu was found guilty in absentia on Tuesday of genocide after a 12-year trial in the capital, Addis Ababa.
"Mengistu applied for asylum and we granted him... the position remains the same," Zimbabwean Information Minister Paul Mangwana told Reuters news agency.
Mengistu and dozens of his officials could face the death penalty.
Under his rule, thousands of suspected opponents to the regime were rounded up and executed and their bodies tossed on the streets - a campaign known as the Red Terror.
Guest
After being ousted in 1991, the former leader fled to Zimbabwe, where his friend President Robert Mugabe gave him sanctuary.

MENGISTU HAILE MARIAM
1937: Born in Walayitta
1974: Emperor Haile Selassie overthrown
1977-78: Thousands killed during Red Terror
1994: Genocide trial in Ethiopia begins
2006: Found guilty of genocide

Profile: Mengistu Haile Mariam

Mr Mugabe has always refused requests to extradite Mengistu to Ethiopia.
"We have no control over the judiciary process in other countries but we are also a sovereign state and as I am talking now that position we made has not changed," Mr Mangwana said.
He said that if there was a change in Zimbabwe's position it would be announced.
"As of now he remains our guest and we will continue to accommodate him," he said.
All bar one of the other 72 officials also on trial were found guilty of genocide at the trial in Addis Ababa.
Thirty-four people were in court, 14 others have died during the lengthy process and 25, including Mengistu, were tried in absentia.
Sentencing is expected on 28 December.
Mengistu himself refuses to recognise the legal basis of the trial, accusing those who overthrew him of being mercenaries and colonisers.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE 'CAN'T AFFORD' PASSPORTS !

Zimbabwean passport holders find it difficult to get visas. Zimbabwe's authorities have temporarily suspended the issuing of new passports as it is too expensive to produce them.
Would-be travellers have been told to wait until next March for passports, and only temporary six-month travel documents are being issued.
The passport office says it has not been allocated enough foreign currency to import special passport paper.
Correspondents say the demand for passports is high as people seek to escape the deepening economic crisis.
Zimbabwe has the world's highest rates of annual inflation - at more than 1,000% and unemployment stands at more than 70%.
Many hundreds of thousands have left Zimbabwe in recent years, though even those with Zimbabwean passports often find visas hard to come by.
Local journalist Brian Hungwe told the BBC that students that have secured places at foreign universities and local businessmen with committments outside the country could find themselves stranded.
According to a parliamentary committee report the registrar general's office has a backlog of 300,000 passports, AFP news agency reports.
Thousands of Zimbabweans risk the perilous border crossing over the crocodile-infested Limpopo river in a bid to reach South Africa illegally.

BBC NEWS REPORT

CIRCUMCISION 'CUTS' HIV INFECTION !

Foreskin cells are thought to be more vulnerable to HIV infection. Circumcision can cut the rate of HIV infection in heterosexual men by 50%, results from two African trials show.
The findings are so striking, the US National Institutes of Health decided it would be unethical to continue and stopped the trials early.
It supports a previous South African study which reported similar results.
Experts said it was a significant breakthrough but could not replace standard methods of preventing infection such as condoms.
These findings are of great interest to public health policy makers who are developing and implementing comprehensive HIV prevention programmes
Dr Elias ZerhouniUS National Institutes of Health
The two trials of around 8,000 men took place in Uganda and Kenya were due to finish in July and September 2007 respectively.
But after an interim review of the data by the NIH Data and Safety Monitoring Board decided to halt the trials as it was unethical not to offer circumcision in the men who were acting as controls.
Bleeding less likely
The trial in Kenya found a 53% reduction in new HIV infections in heterosexual men who were circumcised while the Ugandan study reported a drop of 48%.
Men must not consider themselves protected
Dr Kevin De CockWorld Health Organization
Results last year from a study in 3,280 heterosexual men in South Africa, which was also stopped early, showed a 60% drop in the incidence of new infections in men who had been circumcised.
There are several reasons why circumcision may protect against HIV infection.
Specific cells in the foreskin may be potential targets for HIV infection and also the skin under the foreskin becomes less sensitive and is less likely to bleed reducing risk of infection following circumcision.
When Aids first began to emerge in Africa, researchers noted that men who were circumcised seemed to be less at risk of infection but it was unclear whether this was due to differences in sexual behaviour.
A modelling study done by international Aids experts earlier this year showed that male circumcision could avert about six million HIV infections and three million deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.
A further trial in Uganda to assess the risk of HIV transmission to female partners is due to report in 2008 but the effect among men who have sex with men has not yet been studied.
Implementation
Dr Kevin De Cock, director of the HIV/Aids department of the World Health Organization told the BBC the results were a "significant scientific advance" but were not a magic bullet and would never replace existing prevention strategies.
"We will have to convene a meeting which we hope will happen quite soon to review the data in more detail and have discussions about the implications.
"This is an intervention that must be embedded with all the other interventions and precautions we have. Men must not consider themselves protected. It's a very important intervention to add to our prevention armamentarium."
Dr De Cock said that countries in Africa who wanted to use this approach would still have to decide what age groups to target and there would have to be training and hygienic practices in place.
"This is about as good epidemiological data as we can request. There will be many other research questions about implementation but this is very persuasive."
NIH director Dr Elias Zerhouni said: "Male circumcision performed safely in a medical environment complements other HIV prevention strategies and could lessen the burden of HIV/Aids, especially in countries in sub-Saharan Africa where, according to the 2006 estimates from UNAids, 2.8 million new infections occurred in a single year."
Dr Jeckoniah Ndinya-Achola, co-principal investigator at the University of Nairobi, Kenya said: "The Ministry of Health of the Kenyan government is already holding discussions about how this can be made available. It will need a certain amount of improvement to existing facilities."
But Tom Elkins, Senior Policy Officer at the National AIDS Trust warned: "There is a real danger in sending out a message that circumcision can protect against HIV. This is not the case and could lead to an increase in unprotected sex.
"There is still a long way to go in providing comprehensive prevention programmes in many countries, and resources should go into normalising the use of condoms, which are the most effective method currently available for preventing HIV."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

INDIAN SCHOOL THROWS OUT HIV BOY !

A four-year-old boy has been thrown out of nursery school in India because he has been found to be HIV-positive.
The government-run school in Alwal, near the southern city of Hyderabad, sent the child home after parents of other children protested.
It is the latest in a series of similar cases in India, which has the highest number of HIV infections in the world.
Recently, former US President Bill Clinton called India the epicentre of the global HIV/Aids epidemic.
Threats
The boy's mother, Jayalakshmi, told the news agency Reuters: "The school teacher called me and asked me to take my son somewhere else as parents of other children in the locality were objecting."
Ms Swaroopa, who runs the Venkatesh Yuvjana Sangam nursery, says she was forced to send the child back because of pressure from other parents.
"Other parents, fearing for the safety of their children, threatened to close down the school if the HIV-positive boy continued to attend the school.
"Moreover, this boy was disturbing other students."
Jayalakshmi has now approached a non-governmental organisation for help in getting her son admitted to a special school for HIV-positive children.
She was infected with the HIV-virus by her husband, who died from Aids three years ago.
Earlier this month, in a similar incident, five HIV-positive children were asked to leave a school in the southern state of Kerala after protests from parents.
Children infected
Two years ago, two HIV-positive children were taken back into school after they went on hunger strike, after which India's president and Health Ministry intervened.
The United Nations estimates that India has the highest number of HIV infections in the world, with 5.7 million people living with the virus.
And according to Indian government figures, nearly 8,000 children have been infected with the HIV virus this year alone.
More than a quarter of those children are in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, of which Hyderabad is the capital.
Activists say one of the major problems in India's battle against HIV/Aids is lack of awareness about the disease and stigma associated with it.
At the start of December, Mr Clinton, whose foundation is active in fighting HIV, described the challenge to control the spread of the virus in India as "breathtaking".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CONCERN OVER KAZAKH RELIGOUS ROW !

Concern over Kazakh religious row.
By Natalia Antelava BBC News, Kazakhstan.

From one angle it looks as if an earthquake has hit the village. From another, it is obvious that whatever the disaster, it picked its victims carefully.
The destruction of the village did not make local headlines.
In pristine snow by a shimmering lake, the ruins of 13 houses lie scattered amid the untouched cottages of their neighbours.
The iron fence around them is smashed. Just by its side, two Barbie dolls lie abandoned, their blue plastic eyes staring into the distance.
"This was the living room," Marina says, pointing at the pile of rubble.
She picks up her bundled-up three-year-old son and remembers how representatives of the local administration burst through a hole they made in the wall. Their unexpected visit, she says, was announced only by a loud rumble of a bulldozer.
We apply for land registration, and every time we are turned down. But then the authorities come and destroy our homes because we don't have the registration
Maxim VarfolameevKrishna community spokesperson
"I had just put the baby to sleep, and heard the noise," Marina said. "I thought the road was being fixed, next thing I knew there was a hole in my wall and it all came crushing down. And I just starting screaming and crying, and the baby started crying".
Twelve other families lost their homes in a very similar way, as the local authorities of Karasai district destroyed part of the Hare Krishna settlement just outside Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty.
They also vowed to come back to take down the rest.
Economic boom
Local authorities say the decision had nothing to do with religion, but with the fact that the community is occupying the land illegally.

Not everyone is convinced by President Nazarbayev's pledges.
But it is an argument no-one in the village seems to believe.
The self-sustained farm of 60 households is the only Hindu settlement in Central Asia and has existed for more than a decade.
Over the years, the festivals held on the farm had become famous among Hindus across the region.
With Kazakhstan's economy booming, the value of the land began to climb a few years ago.
Ever since then, the Hare Krishna followers say, the local government has begun to pressure them to leave.
The authorities say the community does not have proper land registration documents. But the followers say they have been continuously turned down while trying to register.
"It's a vicious cycle," said Maxim Varfolameev, the spokesman for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in Kazakhstan.
"We apply for land registration, and every time we are turned down. But then the authorities come and destroy our homes because we don't have the registration."
Religious harmony
Whether this is about religion or about land, destruction of this community does not seem to fit the image Kazakhstan has been trying hard to project.
Rich in natural resources and Central Asia's emerging economic giant, Kazakhstan is ambitious about becoming a serious political player too.

Religious tolerance is one of the main themes President Nursultan Nazarbayev has chosen for promoting his country.
He has built a giant pyramid of peace in the country's capital, Astana, which recently hosted an inter-religious congress that was also initiated by the president.
"Just the fact that we have this congress, during which Iranian mullahs and Israeli rabbis come together, just the fact that we have 140 confessions living in peace, shows what kind of country we are," Mr Nazarbayev said in a recent interview with the BBC.
He also added that his government understood that religious harmony was crucial to the country's stability.
Mr Nazarbayev has never commented on the issue of the Hare Krishna commune, even though it was brought up during his recent meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in London.
And, in a country where the media is tightly controlled by the state, the destruction of the village never made headlines.
'Rising' harassment
Even so, not everyone in Kazakhstan believes President Nazarbayev.
"This talk about religious tolerance is pure bluff," says Ninel Fokina, the head of the Almaty branch of Helsinki Committee for the Human Rights.
Her organisation works with various religious minority groups, and she says that the number of complaints about official harassment is on the rise.
Also of concern, Ms Fokina says, are recent changes to legislation that have made it much more difficult for religious organisations to operate in Kazakhstan.
"The government is using this religious tolerance card to promote itself internationally, but in reality they are becoming more and more repressive towards non-traditional groups that are outside the mainstream religious movements," she says.
"If it's a small Christian group you belong to, or a non-traditional Muslim group, if you are Baptist or member of some Sufi brotherhood - then you will run into problems."
Over the years the Kazakh Hindus never managed to secure a permission to build a temple.
They have been using their farmhouse by the lake for prayer. Now they are afraid of losing that too. The commune is waiting for another round of evictions.
Theirs maybe an extreme case. But to religious minorities here it serves as an example that in Kazakhstan stability is not always guaranteed, and that religious harmony does not always stretch very far.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

LITVINENKO CASE : KEY NAMES !

Brief profiles of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko who was poisoned by polonium-210 and some of his associates.

ALEXANDER LITVINENKO
Alexander Litvinenko became an officer in the FSB's predecessor, the Soviet-era KGB, after transferring from the military. He was reported to have fallen out with President Vladimir Putin, then head of the FSB, in the late 1990s, arguing that the organisation had not done enough to tackle internal corruption.
He accused FSB agents of plotting to assassinate the then powerful tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who himself now lives in self-imposed exile in the UK.
Mr Litvinenko later wrote a book alleging that FSB agents co-ordinated the 1999 apartment block bombings in Moscow that killed more than 300 people. The Russian government blamed Chechen separatists for the blasts and later that year Russia poured troops into Chechnya in a new offensive.
Mr Litvinenko was thought to have been close to journalist Anna Politkovskaya - a fierce critic of the Kremlin's policies in Chechnya. Politkovskaya was shot dead in October in Moscow, and Mr Litvinenko had said he was investigating her murder.
Mr Litvinenko died in London last month.

Following the polonium trail

ANDREI LUGOVOI
Andrei Lugovoi is a former KGB officer who now heads a private security firm.
He met Mr Litvinenko on 1 November at London's Millennium Mayfair Hotel - the day Mr Litvinenko fell ill.
Mr Lugovoi denies any wrongdoing, suggesting that someone has been trying to frame him.
He is currently undergoing medical checks in hospital after traces of polonium-210 have been reportedly found in his body.
On Monday, he was questioned by Russian and British detectives as a witness.
"They made no charges against me," he was quoted as saying by Russia's Itar-Tass news agency.
Mr Lugovoi says he got acquainted with Mr Litvinenko 10 years ago, but it was neither a friendship nor business partnership. Mr Lugovoi says his security work brought him into contact with Boris Berezovsky, who also knew Mr Litvinenko.

DMITRY KOVTUN
Dmitry Kovtun is another former KGB officer-turned-businessman, who met Mr Litvinenko at the Millennium Mayfair Hotel on 1 November.
Mr Kovtun - a business associate of Mr Lugovoi - denies any involvement in Mr Litvinenko's death.
Mr Kovtun - who has also been questioned by the detectives - has reportedly been diagnosed with radioactive poisoning and is currently in a Moscow hospital.
A car, understood to be used by Mr Kovtun, has tested positive for polonium-210, according German authorities. They have also said that Mr Kovtun's ex-wife, her partner and two children have been contaminated with the radioactive substance.
Mr Kovtun stayed at his ex-wife's flat in Hamburg before flying to London, according to German authorities.
It is not yet clear whether Mr Kovtun is a victim or a suspect in the case, German police say.
Mr Kovtun studied at the same elite Moscow military academy as Mr Lugovoi. The pair were childhood friends who lived in the same apartment block and their fathers also served together at the defence ministry.

VYACHESLAV SOKOLENKO
Vyacheslav Sokolenko - an ex-KGB officer who currently heads a security firm - denies claims that he was the "third man" at the Millennium Mayfair Hotel meeting on 1 November.
However, he admits that he was staying at the hotel at the time.
Mr Sokolenko says he had travelled to London with Mr Lugovoi and his family purely to see a football match between CSKA Moscow and Arsenal.

MARIO SCARAMELLA
Mario Scaramella - an expert on post-World War II KGB spying in Italy - met Mr Litvinenko on 1 November at a sushi bar in central London.
They had met to discuss e-mails claiming that both he and Mr Litvinenko were "under the special attention of hostile people", Mr Scaramella said in an interview with CNN.
Earlier this week, he was given a clean bill of health, several days after he was hospitalised in Britain by doctors who had found traces of polonium-210 in his body.

THE POLONIUM TRAIL

London
1 Emirates Stadium: Traces of radioactive material found at Arsenal's ground, where ex-KGB man Vyacheslav Sokolenko attended a match during his stay at the Millennium Hotel 2 University College Hospital, where Litvinenko died on 23 November. Mario Scaramella, who met Litvinenko at sushi bar, also treated there3 Central London: Litvinenko met associates at Millennium Hotel and at Itsu sushi bar on 1 Nov4 Heathrow Airport: Radioactive material found in three aircraft frequently used in flights between London and Moscow, since given all-clearMoscow
Traces of radioactive material found on a Finnish plane and at British Embassy, visited by Andrei Lugovoi, one of those who met Litvinenko in London
Another contact Litvinenko met at the Millennium Hotel - Dmitry Kovtun - treated for radioactive poisoning
Hamburg
More radioactive material found in flat of Kovtun's ex-wife, where he had stayed before flying to London, in a car he used and at his mother-in-law's home
She, her new partner and her two children are contaminated.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.K. EXPERTS BACK PRIMATE RESEARCH !

UK experts back primate research
By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News.

Macaques are the most used primate species in researchThere is a "strong scientific and moral case" for using primates in some research, a report has concluded.
It said in certain circumstances, using non-human primates remained the only way of answering important scientific and medical questions.
However, the report made a number of recommendations, including the creation of dedicated primate research centres.
Scientists welcomed the findings, however an animal rights organisation called it a "whitewash".
About 3,300 primates are used in British laboratories each year; the vast majority are macaque or marmoset monkeys.

Do animals have rights?
Quick guide: Animal testing

Many researchers say primates' genetic and physiological similarities to humans make them a prime candidate for testing the safety and efficacy of drugs (about 75% of primates are used for this) or for more fundamental biological research.
However, it is this similarity that makes their use so controversial, and this is reflected in the types of primates that are used.
Since 1997, the Home Office, which regulates animal research in the UK, has not issued licences for great apes, including chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, which in the animal kingdom are Homo sapiens' closest relatives.
'Meticulous regulation'
The Weatherall report was commissioned by the Academy of Medical Sciences, Royal Society, Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust to review the scientific case for such research.
Its chair, Sir David Weatherall, emeritus professor of medicine at Oxford University, said: "There is a scientific case for careful, well-monitored and meticulously regulated non-human primate research, at least for the foreseeable future, provided it is the only way of solving important scientific or medical questions.
"At this moment in time, if we were to take [primate research] away tomorrow, there would be certain areas of science which I think might suffer very greatly," Sir David added.

A nine-strong working group spent 18 months examining the areas of science where primates are most heavily employed, although it did not look at their use for toxicity testing of medicines.
It concluded non-human primate research remained vital for understanding the basic biology of the brain, neurological diseases, communicable diseases, and some aspects of fertility and ageing.
The working party visited four primate centres, and said although the conditions for the animals in these centres were excellent, other evidence they heard from the RSPCA suggested more could be done to improve animal welfare.

'Primates changed his life'

They suggest that national centres of excellence should be created for primate research in the UK. Focusing all research of this kind in a limited number of UK centres, the authors said, would have huge scientific and welfare benefits.
They also recommended continued investment in finding alternatives to primates in the laboratory.
But against this backdrop, the report also said UK primate research was in peril.
Intimidation by animal rights activists, said Sir David, high costs and a shortage of animals were forcing scientists to pursue non-human research oversees.
This, he said, required urgent investigation by government and funding bodies.
The report also concluded the often-polarised debate surrounding primate research would be better informed by a more open attitude from scientists and the pharmaceutical industry.
'Whitewash'
Scientists welcomed the report.
Professor Chris Higgins, director of the Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Centre, said: "Although nobody likes the idea of any research using non-human primates, if it comes to a choice between regulated studies on a few animals and a treatment for an incurable disease affecting hundreds of thousands of people, most people reluctantly make the same choice."
But the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) said, while the report should be commended, it did not go far enough.
Chief executive Dr Vicky Robinson said: "It is disappointing that, despite a ringing endorsement for the work being done to reduce primate use, the report did not go far enough in trying to map out the priorities for development and adoption of new alternatives."
The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (Buav) called the report a "whitewash".
Buav chief executive Michelle Thew said: "Although we welcome the report's commitments to investment in alternatives, it simply fails to properly address the welfare needs and moral case for subjecting these sensitive, intelligent creatures to a lifetime of suffering in UK labs."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WHY ARE JEWS AT THE HOLOCAUST DENIAL' CONFERENCE? !

Why are Jews at the 'Holocaust denial' conference?
WHO, WHAT, WHY? The Magazine answers...

Why are Jews attending a conference on the Holocaust in Tehran at which star guests include deniers of the genocide? Clue: they also want an end to the Israeli state.
A handful of Orthodox Jews have attended Iran's controversial conference questioning the Nazi genocide of the Jews - not because they deny the Holocaust but because they object to using it as justification for the existence of Israel.
With their distinctive hats, beards and side locks, these men may, to the untrained eye, look like any other Orthodox believers in Jerusalem or New York. But the Jews who went to Tehran are different.
Some of them belong to Neturei Karta (Guardians of the City), a group of a few thousand people which views Zionism - movement to establish of Jewish national home or state in what was Palestine - as a "poison" threatening "true Jews".
A representative, UK-based Rabbi Aharon Cohen, told the conference he prayed "that the underlying cause of strife and bloodshed in the Middle East, namely the state known as Israel, be totally and peacefully dissolved".
In its place, Rabbi Cohen said, should be "a regime fully in accordance with the aspirations of the Palestinians when Arab and Jew will be able to live peacefully together as they did for centuries".
Neturei Karta believes the very idea of an Israeli state goes against the Jewish religion.
The book of Jewish law or Talmud, they say, teaches that believers may not use human force to create a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews argue that the Holocaust was "divine will"But how does Neturei Karta and other Orthodox Jews such as Austria-based Rabbi Moishe Ayre Friedman justify attending such a controversial conference?
Rabbi Friedman told BBC Radio Four's PM programme that he was not in Tehran to debate whether the Holocaust happened or not, but to look at its lessons.
He says the Holocaust was being used to legitimise the suffering of other peoples and he wanted to break what he called a taboo on discussing it.
The main thing, he argued, was not Jewish suffering in the past but the use of the Holocaust as a "tool of commercial, military and media power".
In what many other Jews would consider the height of naivety, he commended Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for wanting "a secured future for innocent Jewish people in Europe and elsewhere".

The conference was just the latest anti-Israeli event sponsored by IranIn his speech to the conference, Neturei Karta's Rabbi Cohen said there was no doubt about the Holocaust and it would be "a terrible affront to the memory of those who perished to belittle the guilt of the crime in any way".
However, he also argued that the genocide had been divine will. "The Zionists, with their secular pompous approach behave in complete opposition to this philosophy and dare to say 'Never Again'.
"They have the audacity to think that they can prevent the Almighty from repeating a Holocaust. This is heresy."
Neturei Karta have been condemned by other Orthodox Jews as an extreme fringe movement while the Tehran conference has been denounced by the Israeli parliament.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ETHIOPIA AWAITS MENGISTU VERDICT !

Mengistu has lived in exile for 15 years. A verdict is expected in the 12-year genocide trial of Ethiopia's former Marxist ruler, Mengistu Haile Mariam.
He is accused of killing tens of thousands of people after he ousted Emperor Haile Selassie.
In a notorious campaign - known as the Red Terror - thousands of suspected opponents were rounded up, executed then tossed onto the streets.
The ex-leader fled to Zimbabwe in 1991 and is being tried in absentia but 34 members of his junta are in court.
Twenty-seven more people are being tried in absentia.
If found guilty by the Supreme Court, they could face the death penalty for crimes against humanity and genocide.
Presiding judge Medhin Kiros has started to read out his verdict, starting with a long list of charges against the numerous defendants.
The verdict was expected in May but Judge Medhin said the court needed more time to assess the huge body of evidence.
The evidence against Mengistu, who is nearly 70, includes signed execution orders, videos of torture sessions and personal testimonies.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has so far refused requests to extradite Mengistu to Ethiopia.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHILE'S GEN PINOCHET DIES AT 91.

Gen Pinochet celebrated his 91st birthday last month. Chile's former military leader Augusto Pinochet has died, the Santiago hospital treating him after an earlier heart attack has announced.
The hospital said the condition of the 91-year-old general had suddenly worsened, AP news agency said.
Gen Pinochet was in power from 1973-90, during which time more than 3,000 people were killed or "disappeared".
He is accused of dozens of human rights violations but has never faced trial because of poor health.
"He died surrounded by his family," the hospital's Dr Juan Ignacio Vergara told reporters.
He said more details would be made available later, Reuters news agency reported.
Gen Pinochet suffered a heart attack a week ago. He underwent medical procedures and received the last rites from a Catholic priest.
But in the days afterwards his condition had been thought to be improving.
The BBC's Daniel Schweimler in Buenos Aires said about 150 Gen Pinochet supporters had been keeping a vigil outside his hospital for since he was taken ill.
"I believe they will be joined now by other supporters as news of his death spreads," our correspondent said.
"There has been no immediate reaction from his opponents as yet, but I'm sure they feel very cheated that they have not been able to bring him to court to face the various charges being made against him."
Earlier in November, Gen Pinochet was placed under house arrest over the abduction of two people in 1973.
The charges related to the Caravan of Death - a military operation to remove opponents of his rule.
Our correspondent said that despite his human rights record, many Chileans loved him and said he saved the country from Marxism.
But even many loyal supporters abandoned him after it became clear in 2004 that he had stolen about $27m in secret offshore bank accounts that were under investigation at the time of his death, our correspondent says.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE'S AWFUL RECORD !

# 1.6m ORPHANS - ONE IN FOUR ZIMBABWEANS CHILDREN
THE WORLD'S HIGHEST RATE .

# AVERAGE LIFE EXPECTANCY : 34 FOR WOMEN - 37 FOR MEN
WORLD'S LOWEST.

# INFLATION : 1070% (OCTOBER) - WORLD'S HIGHEST.

# MINIMUM MONTHLY BUDGET FOR A FAMILY OF SIX: Z$209,000 (£442)

# AVERAGE SALARY: Z$50,000 (106)

# BUDGET DEFICIT: 43% OF GDP

# UNEMPLOYMENT: 70%

(Sources: Unicef, World Health Organisation, Zimbabwe government)

The icing on the cake is that as Mugabe has done so many wonderful things for the country that he is to be rewarded at his party's annual confernce this week, by being made president for life............!!!

QUOTES!

"TWO MEN LOOK OUT THROUGH THE SAME BARS;

ONE SEES THE MUD

AND ONE THE STARS"!

~~ Frederick Langbridge ~~

EARLY ELECTION TALK ANGERS HAMAS !

The Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee has backed early elections to end the deadlock over forming a national unity government.
The Hamas group, in power since winning January's parliamentary polls, reacted by condemning the suggestion.
PLO officials said after meeting President Mahmoud Abbas that he would have their support for early polls.
The Palestinian Authority has been under a Western financial boycott since Hamas's victory.
Mr Abbas is expected to announce his decision in the coming week.
Speaking to the BBC, one of his top officials said he believed the president was minded to call parliamentary and presidential polls.
"The status quo cannot be continued - it is a disaster on the Palestinians," said Saeb Erekat.
Palestinians, he added, had to choose between the approach of Mr Abbas and his Fatah faction and that of Hamas.
The current Hamas-led administration has been denied direct Western aid because it refuses to renounce violence, recognise Israel or accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
'Coup'
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya condemned the idea of early elections, saying they would accentuate "crisis and tensions".
"I think that the invitation to carry out the elections in this way is disrespectful to the Palestinian people," he told Iranian television, in an interview dubbed into Persian.
A Hamas spokesman in Ramallah, Ismail Rudwan, described the PLO committee's statement as a threat to democracy.
"We will not allow any coup against this government," he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas's exiled leadership, said the group would not mind a new presidential ballot but opposed new parliamentary elections.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BEATRIX POTTER !

The film Miss Potter, starring Renee Zellweger and Ewan McGregor, which previewed in London this week, turns the spotlight on one of Britain's best loved authors, Beatrix Potter.
Just how did a repressed Victorian woman manage to produce some of the most endearing children's literature of the 20th century?
Beatrix Potter's natural empathy with children was, perhaps, surprising given her upbringing. Born in 1866 into a middle-class Victorian family, her parents set a strict code of behaviour.
Beatrix had a lonely childhood; her brother, Bertram, born five years later, was sent off to boarding school while she remained at home to be educated by a succession of governesses.

Renee Zellweger plays Beatrix in Miss Potter. She found consolation in her menagerie of pet animals including frogs, newts and even a bat. She had a succession of rabbits, the first two of which were named Benjamin and Peter, the latter being happy to go everywhere with her on a lead.
She began sketching her pets and gradually improved her technique to include the use of watercolours.
Her illustrations won influential admirers. The painter John Everett Millais gave her encouragement and, in turn, she declared that the Pre-Raphaelites' admiration for copying natural details certainly influenced her.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit began as a series of letters written to the sick child of a former governess and were illustrated with her sketches. It was almost 10 years before she decided to publish the story, having been rejected by six publishers.
Eventually Frederick Warne offered to take the book if she added colour to her sketches. It finally appeared in the small format that she insisted upon to ensure her works would fit in to the tiny hands of her readers.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit was something of a revelation. Its soft watercolours, elegant language, and gently ironic tone set it apart from the heavy humour and condescending baby talk which typified many children's books of the time.
Wealthy landowner
Financially independent by the age of 36, she bought a small farm in the Lake District. She had also fallen in love with her editor Norman Warne, a relationship bitterly opposed by her parents who saw publishing as "trade". She was not allowed even to talk about it in London's high society.
In 1905 Norman proposed but sadly, less than a month later, had died of leukaemia.
Beatrix Potter buried herself in the Lake District where she worked on her books in order to generate the money needed to keep her farm going. She built it up and became a wealthy landowner, a woman ahead of her time.
In 1912 she received a marriage proposal from William Heelis a local solicitor. Her parents again opposed the match (she was 46) but she received support from her brother Bertram and eventually was able to marry.

Beatrix Potter became a wealthy landowner in the Lake DistrictShe published her final book at the time of her wedding. With a husband to love, she no longer needed her animal fantasies for company. She died in 1943 leaving 4,000 acres of Lake District property to the National Trust.
Potter's little books show no sign of losing their appeal and there is hardly a top 50 list of children's literature that does not feature half a dozen of her volumes. Part of that appeal lies in her beautifully detailed illustrations.
It is a measure of her skill that, in an age when children are bombarded with computer games, DVDs and television programmes, her books still find ready buyers.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit alone has sold more than 40 million copies and been reprinted over 300 times.
Potter's books have generated a flood of merchandise, much of which the author licensed and controlled in her lifetime. The new film can only add to the plethora of Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddleduck items in the shops, while Potter's enchanting books look set to continue selling well into their second century.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PROTESTS BLOW TO BEIRUT ECONOMY !

Protests blow to Beirut economy.
By Kim Ghattas BBC News, Beirut.

Anti-government protesters have occupied Beirut's centre for days. The newly rebuilt centre of Beirut, once buzzing with shoppers and restaurant dwellers, has been taken over by hundreds of anti-government protesters.
The protesters are vowing to stay put until the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora resigns.
The city centre has taken on the air of a permanent carnival, with tents set up for the protestors to sleep in and maintain a round-the-clock presence.
But while vendors selling balloons, sandwiches and coffee are making some profit, the presence of the protestors is having dire consequences for local businesses.
Lebanon's Economy Minister, Jihad Azour, recently said that every day of disturbances, whether protests or violence, costs the Lebanese economy some $70m.
Shops and restaurants in the centre have kept their shutters closed since last Friday, when the protests, led by the pro-Syrian Hezbollah movement, started.
Sealed off
The demonstrators have taken over two main squares in the centre of Beirut and the adjacent streets, making access to the commercial district difficult.

Soldiers have prevented access to Lebanon's Government house.
Out of fear of violence or rioting because of the tension between rival camps, the army has practically sealed off the whole of downtown Beirut with barbed wire and armoured personnel carriers.
"I cannot even get to my own shop without asking permission from the army," said Jihad el Murr, CEO of the local branch of Virgin Mega Store.
Housed in Beirut's old opera house, the multi-storey music and book shop represents 50% of Virgin's business in Lebanon and employs 120 people.
"We will not be able to survive much longer, maybe another few weeks but after that we might have to close this branch," said Mr Murr.
"If they want to have a demonstration, they can do it one day but is not permitted to do this to the economy."
A lot of businessmen also criticise the government for not helping small enterprises get over the shock of the war by alleviating taxes, for example, or offering other incentives.
Pedestrian streets lined with beautiful, newly renovated Ottoman-style and French mandate era buildings are deserted.
Shop owners have moved their merchandise to branches outside the area.
The real impact on shops, restaurants and clubs may only be known after things return to normal and businesses count their losses. Many may not re-open at all.
The centre of Beirut was gutted during Lebanon's 1975-1990 war but was lavishly renovated afterwards and became once more a favourite tourist attraction, especially among Arabs from the Gulf.
Tourism hit
The assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005 triggered massive anti-Syrian demonstrations in downtown Beirut, which regularly brought the area to a standstill.

Hezbollah says protests will continue until the government fallsIn the summer, a 34-day-long war between Hezbollah and Israel ruined the tourist season, during which a million tourists were expected.
"We get 40% of our income in July and August, and we expected a million tourists instead of that we had a million refugees in Beirut," said Paul Achkar head of the Lebanese hotel association, adding that hotel occupancy around Lebanon was currently around 25%.
"Now for December, we expected 300,000 to 400,000 tourists. Instead we received 400,000 demonstrators."
Mr Achkar said that the hotel industry made a very quick recovery after the war ended because "that was that, it was over".
In mid-November, some hotels were already boasting occupancy rates of 80% but tourists and businessmen quickly packed their bags after the assassination on 21 November of cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel.
"What is happening now is that instead of having an attack from the Israelis, we have an interior attack and it hurt us even more because of the uncertainty it causes and Lebanon's history of civil war," said Mr Achkar, who estimates that some 15,000 tourism industry employees may lose their jobs by early next year.
Holiday season
In the aftermath of this summer's war, Mr Murr had to lay off 20% of his employees and is losing approximately $50,000 each day of closure.
With the holiday season coming up, businesses are concerned they will lose even more of their yearly income to political instability.
With a large Christian community, Christmas is big in Lebanon but a Muslim holiday, Eid el Adha, falls around 27 December as well, and Lebanon is usually a favourite holiday destination for people from the region.
"We can still have a decent Christmas season if it ends this week, otherwise it will be terrible," said Mr Murr.
"We will barely have a holiday season for the Lebanese, no-one will want to come to Lebanon.
"We already noticed a 50% decrease in our sales in shops outside the centre. All we want is to be left alone so that we can work."

Mr Murr and Mr Achkar said that pressure from the business community on political leaders to find a solution to help save the economy had had little impact.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CANADIAN PIG FARMER DENIES MURDER !

Judges banned pre-trial reports of evidence against Pickton. A pig farmer accused of being Canada's worst serial killer has pleaded not guilty to six charges of murder.
Robert Pickton, 56, is suspected of killing at least 26 Vancouver sex trade workers over a period of three decades from the late 1980s.
The court in New Westminster was also due to begin screening some 600 potential jurors on Saturday for the first of two multiple murder trials.
Mr Pickton, who was arrested in 2002, denies the charges.
He answered: "Not guilty, your honour," to each count of murder.
In a letter from prison published in a Vancouver newspaper in September he claimed he was a "fall guy" for the police's failure to capture the real killer.
Farm razed
The court has imposed a ban on the publication of details of the killings in advance of the trial, which begins with opening statements on 8 January.

Investigators spent months combing the Vancouver farmThe decision to split the case against Mr Pickton was taken because a judge felt a single hearing involving all 26 murder charges would take too long.
Mr Pickton was arrested in 2002 when dozens of police swept onto his farm in the suburbs of Vancouver.
Police say his victims were female drug addicts and prostitutes who began disappearing from a poor Vancouver neighbourhood in the late 1980s.
He was initially charged with 27 killings but one was dropped by the court when the remains could not be identified.
The investigation proceeded at a very slow pace, but culminated with police razing Mr Pickton's farm at a cost of millions of dollars to sift through acres of soil after his arrest.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NEW TALENT AT CAIRO MUSIC FESTIVAL !

New talent at Cairo music festival
By Sarah Loat Cairo, Egypt.

Fifteen thousand young music fans attended the recent SOS Music Festival held in the Egyptian capital, Cairo. Fans disillusioned with commercial found an outlet at the festival.
Disillusioned with what they see as the low quality, sexualised, commercial pop music available on the Egyptian television and airwaves, a group of young musicians began an ambitious project to share original, underground music and support Egypt's home-grown talent.
The music was highly diverse - rock, metal, reggae, modern Egyptian, rai, contemporary oriental jazz and hip-hop.
The driving force behind the festival is 28-year-old Ousso, a session musician and guitarist in jazz fusion band Eftekasat.
"I decided to create a platform for good music, original music, underground music. Confidence is low in Egypt. People tend to imitate more than innovate," Ousso said.
"I'm against that, I want to create an opportunity for this generation to innovate and for the audience to enjoy good music absolutely new to them."
Musical revolution
With the support of major sponsors, the event was free for the 15,000 invited fans.
Ousso he is aiming to begin a musical revolution.

To play in the festival I have to feel that a band is trying, that they are hard-working, have a real message and are in love with what they're doing. Music should touch your mind and heart
OussoFestival organiserBeing a young musician in Egypt is a challenge. There are few music schools and teachers.
Getting hold of equipment is difficult, it's hard to find drums or a guitar and even tougher to find a rehearsal studio or a place to play.
Venues are small and thin on the ground and audiences are rarely greater than 400 people.
But you wouldn't know this from the thousands at the SOS festival.
Young families picnicked on the grass; metal fans with piercings head-banged wildly and hijab-wearing young women bounced on the shoulders of friends up against the stage.
Euphoria
Music fans were treated to eight hours of polished, professional music performances as the festival ran on until midnight.
"This festival is awesome," said 19 year old Deena. "Jaffa Phonix are incredible, their lyrics are powerful and hip-hop is so cool. I'm so thankful that I am here to see them."

Metal bands and fans in Egypt were labelled Satanists 10 years ago.
Jaffa Phonix are brothers Faisal and Ali Abu Ghaban, Palestinian refugees who now live in Egypt.
They spit angst-ridden political rhymes and spike the crowd's energy levels through the roof.
They rap about Middle East issues, money, relationships and hardship. They touch a chord with the euphoric audience and bound off the stage to rapturous applause.
For Ousso, this is the kind of reaction he is looking for.
"To play in the festival I have to feel that a band is trying, that they are hard-working, have a real message and are in love with what they're doing," he says.
"Music should touch your mind and heart and have a message."
Metal returns
It's almost 10 years since the Egyptian authorities branded all heavy metal musicians and fans as Satanists.

Corporate sponsorship made the whole event to free to 15,000 fans. Dozens of fans were arrested, charged with contempt for religion, and heavy metal concerts were banned.
Restrictions have eased over time and bands have quietly performed to small gatherings over the years, but the public performance of Egyptian metal band Wyvern to a crowd of almost 15,000 at the SOS festival was a breakthrough.
Fans chanted the band's name in unison, head-banged and punched the air.
"A campaign was started against metal music and we were labelled as Satanists and evil," says Wyvern drummer Seif El-Din Moussa.
"We ended up playing in remote locations with bad sound systems and small audiences.
"This is the first time we've played on such a sound system on a huge stage to an amazing crowd. We were on top of the world."
Egypt may just be on the verge of a new musical revolution as a growing community of optimistic and dedicated musicians and fans are adamant the country will return to the days of musical legends like Oum Kulthoum.
So confident are the organisers of the festival that they are scheduling the next for late February to early March 2007.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WOMEN DEMAND END TO DARFUR RAPES !

Thousands have died, hundreds of thousands are displaced. International stateswomen have made a joint call for an end to rape and sexual violence in Sudan's conflict-torn region of Darfur.
Peacekeepers must be sent to protect women there, the group said in a letter published by newspapers worldwide.

Signatories include former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the Irish former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson.
The call comes as protests on the issue are planned in 40 countries.
The letter says rape is being used "on a daily basis" as a weapon of war in Darfur.
The main signatories were joined by other prominent women including:
veteran Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi
Graca Machel, wife of Nelson Mandela
Edith Cresson, former French prime minister
Glenys Kinnock, a UK member of the European Parliament
Carol Bellamy, former head of the UN children's fund.

'Constant fear'
Published on the eve of the Global Day for Darfur, the letter says that "women and young girls live in constant fear of attack". African peacekeepers struggle to protect vulnerable civilians.
Sudan's government is accused of being "unwilling or unable to protect its own civilians".
The international community is called upon to "deliver on its responsibility to protect these civilians".
Events to mark Darfur Day are due to take place in more than 40 countries and will include women-led protests outside Sudanese embassies.
The BBC's Jonah Fisher, in Khartoum, says the three-year war in Darfur has been characterised by rape and violence against women, mostly by the pro-government Arab Janjaweed militia.
The protests around the world will have no direct impact on the Sudanese government, he adds.
The government views the three-year crisis in Darfur as a Western invention, insisting that just 9,000 people have died.
It also denies reports of widespread rape, pointing out that the people of Darfur are Muslim and, therefore, incapable of rape.
In reality, though, at least 200,000 people have died in Darfur's and an estimated two million people, mostly black Africans whose villages have been attacked by the Janjaweed, have fled their homes.
Khartoum denies accusations it is backing the militias to put down an uprising by Darfur's rebel groups in 2003.
A force of 7,000 African Union peacekeepers has struggled to protect civilians in the absence of a strong, UN contingent.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SPY WIDOW POINTS FINGER AT RUSSIA !

Mrs Litvinenko said her husband had been a "very good friend". The widow of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko has said she believes the Russian authorities could have been behind his murder.
Marina Litvinenko, 44, told the Mail on Sunday: "Obviously it was not Putin himself, of course not."
But she said what President Putin "does around him in Russia makes it possible to kill a British person" in Britain.
She said she had confidence UK police would find her husband's killer, but would not help Russia's planned probe.
Mrs Litvinenko told the paper Russian authorities had not yet been in touch with her.
We were both completely sure he would recover - Marina Litvinenko.
"I do not think I will help them with their investigations," she said.
"I can't believe that they will tell the truth. I can't believe if they ask about evidence they will use it in the proper way."
Traces of a radioactive substance, polonium-210, were found in Mr Litvinenko's body.
Two of the 26 police officers closely involved in the Litvinenko inquiry have tested positive for traces of that radioactive substance.
The Metropolitan Police said the polonium traces were "relatively small" and were "below defined safety limits".
Both officers are being monitored by health specialists.

Mr Litvinenko's widow denied he had ever been a spy.
Mrs Litvinenko also told the Mail on Sunday her husband's last words to her last month before he died of suspected polonium-210 poisoning were: "Marina, I love you so much."
She also said she would do everything she could for "Sasha", as her husband was known to family and friends.
"Even until the last day, and the day before when he became unconscious, I thought he would be okay. We were both completely sure he would recover, " she told the newspaper.
"We had been talking about bone-marrow transplants and looking to the future."
Mrs Litvinenko said the couple's 12-year-old son had found his father's death "very difficult", but he had been trying to comfort his mother.
Friends of Mr Litvinenko believe he was poisoned because of his criticisms of the Russian government, but the Kremlin has dismissed suggestions it was involved in any way as "sheer nonsense".
'Speaking out'
His widow told the Sunday Times she had decided to speak out after some "completely untrue" reports suggested her husband was a man of dubious character.
She told the paper he had been an honest man and a crime fighter rather than a spy.
Mrs Litvinenko also told the Sunday Times: "Everybody tries to write about Sasha like he was an ex-spy, but it's completely untrue. He never was a spy."
She said her husband's public claims about his former employers at the FSB, Russia's secret police, had alienated them, the paper reported.
She said Mr Litvinenko knew "you can never escape from the FSB and he was starting to speak openly about crime."
She added: "I can't say (it was) these people but I'm absolutely sure they didn't forgive him for what he did."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ABUSED WOMAN BRAVES TANZANIA'S MEDIA !

Abused woman braves Tanzania's media
By John Ngahyoma BBC, Dar es Salaam

A Tanzanian woman, who endured bad beatings from her husband for more than five years, has braved the public glare of the cameras to speak out about her ordeal.
Agnes Mbuyamajuu told reporters that the police never took her complaints seriously and their corruption endangered her life.
"At night, in my nightdress, following a severe beating I would go to the police station, where I would have hoped that I would be safe and that the police would protect my life," she said at a press conference in Dar es Salaam.
"After opening a case file, they would turn around and say that I had to give them money for transport to go and bring in the suspect.
"I had just been beaten and run away from home in my night clothes, where would I get even one cent to give it to the police?"

Police have promised to be more sympathetic to abused women.
Ms Mbuyamajuu is among many women who suffer from domestic violence in Tanzania.
Her testimony was all the more moving as it is unusual for women to publicly discuss the subject.
"We all know that the majority of women who are abused tend to suffer in silence, they fear to come out in the open for many reasons like shame, reprisals or lack of information of where or how to seek assistance," deputy Gender Minister Salome Mbatia said.
Maimed
Both women were talking at an event this week to launch a special edition of the Sauti ya Siti (Voice of Woman) magazine to coincide with a national campaign against domestic violence, female genital mutilation, rape and trafficking.
The tardiness of the courts was also lambasted by Ms Mbuyamajuu.

Women in Tanzania tend to suffer in silence.
"The thing that has discouraged me is the fact that five years have gone by and my case has not yet been heard and all the injuries have now disappeared," she said.
"Tell me, the blow that I got in 2000, how can I describe it in 2006?
"In the same year I was maimed as a result of a severe beating, I was unable to move... Now, after treatment I manage to walk. What evidence can I show now?
"But if six years ago the court had listened to me, justice would have been done.
"But they kept on changing magistrates and moving the case from one court to another."
The police force promised to do all it can to fight gender-based violence.
However, its director of criminal investigations, Robert Manumba, said laws such as the 1998 sexual offences act are all very well but in practice changing public perception was more important.
As an example he said rapes and defilements were on the increase - incidences often associated with traditional belief in witchcraft - despite stiff penalties for such sexual offences.

BBC NEWS REPORT

UGANDA BANS 'PORNOGRAPHIC' PAPERS !

Ugandan newspapers containing sexually erotic photographs or cartoons have been banned from general sale.
The country's Media Council says that in future "pornographic content" should only be sold at specially designated shops to people over the age of 18.
The council's Paul Mukasa denied the move was overly puritanical.
Correspondents say tabloids showing pictures of half-naked women and graphic cartoons are popular in Uganda especially with young people.
Sale
Mr Mukasa claimed that such content was harmful and the "decision has received a lot of support from members of the public".
"The council has defined pornography as a publication, graphic, picture or photograph or literature which depicts an unclothed or under-clothed sexually arousing parts of the human body; or reflects and describes or narrates sexual intercourse," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
He said the ban comes into effect immediately and was not targeting any particular publication.
The BBC's Siraj Kalyango in the capital, Kampala, said newspapers like Kamunnye, which often contain raunchy stories written by readers and illustrated with lewd cartoons, were still on sale at news stands on Friday.
But the editor of the Red Pepper newspaper, which owns Kamunnye, told the BBC News website that he was not worried about the new regulations.
Richard Tusiime said that Kamunnye was suitable for under 18s as "the content being talked about does not run in that newspaper".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

Dear Family and Friends,

A shameful and very distressing report has just been released in Zimbabwe. This time it does not come from the UN or any other international body, but from Zimbabwe's own Ministry of Public Service and Social Welfare. Research was undertaken and statistics gathered right across the country and included 58 rural districts and 27 urban areas.

The report says that living standards in Zimbabwe have dropped by 150% in the last ten years. Malnutrition in children under 5 has increased by 35% and the number of people without access to health care has increased by48%.

Seeing the percentages in black and white is bad enough but when you seefor yourself the evidence of this dramatic decline, it is truly terrifying. In the last month the basic cost of living in Zimbabwe went up by 47% percent. When you go shopping in a supermarket, everywhere you look people are carrying almost nothing. Finding sources of affordable protein is almost impossible. Meat is a luxury now - out of reach for almost all Zimbabweans. Long, long gone are the days when we would buy strips of biltong to snack on as we walked or when butchers would break off pieces of beer sticks to quieten niggling kids. Now people are buying scraps, bones and something called "shavings" which are the white crumbs which accumulate under the blade of the saws and butchery knives. Cheese is off the menu permanently; eggs and milk are very close behind. This week one single egg is selling for 200 dollars and half a litre of milk for 600 dollars (add 3zeroes for the real cost). A cup of milk or an egg for breakfast is now the height of luxury and when you understand that, then you understand why malnutrition has increased by 35% in young children. It hardly bears thinking how bad nutrition levels must be in the vast majority of our adult population. Adults who, when you ask them if they have had breakfast say they are not hungry because they have had a "very big drink of water" to fill their stomachs - it will see them through till lunch time.

Outside the supermarkets these days there are the usual swarm of street children but if you look a bit harder, in between the hordes, you see the really desperate ones. Old men, skin and bone, bare feet, shaking hands, sunken eyes and it makes you just weep to see the depths we have dropped to. So very many people need help now but so few are able to help anymore.

I end on a positive note with congratulations for our rugby team. Its always very dangerous for me to write about sports because I know so little about it - and understand even less, however this is a story as much about patriotism as of sports. A friend wrote to say he had just watched the Zimbabwean rugby team do a lap of honour in the pouring rain at the end of a tournament being played outside the country. He said the team had lost in the end but they had done Zimbabwe proud. They were fine, upstanding men who had given their all and were so very obviously proud to be Zimbabweans. The Zimbabweans in the crowd were equally proud to stand and cheer thes portsmen from the country that is in such a mess, but that we all love so much. The rugby pitch might be a million miles away from the "shavings" in the butchery but all tell the story of the people in this wonderful country. As hard as it is, we all try to carry on as normal because we know that bad times don't ever last. Until next week, with love, cathy

Copyright cathy buckle 9 December 2006.http:/africantears,netfirms.comMy books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.com

NO ISRAEL RECOGNITION - HAMAS P.M.

Palestinian PM Ismail Haniya has reiterated that his Hamas-led government will not recognise Israel.
This a key demand of Western donors who have suspended direct aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Mr Haniya is on a visit to the Iranian capital, Tehran. He made the comments during a Friday prayers address.
He said efforts to "liberate usurped Palestinian lands" would never stop, and he praised Iran for its support of the Palestinian people.
His four-day visit to Iran began on Thursday with talks with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mr Haniya is expected to meet Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali during the visit.
Standing with Iran
"We will not give up our Jihadist movement until the full liberation of Beit al-Muqqadas [Jerusalem] and Palestinian land," Mr Haniya said.
"We are standing by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and with this country we will resist American and Zionist pressures," he said.
Iran, like Hamas, refuses to recognise Israel.
Tehran is reported to have given Hamas US $120m since it came to power.
The Hamas-led Palestinian Authority has been in financial crisis since Hamas took over. International donors insist that Hamas recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements.
Mr Haniya's tour of the Middle East has already taken in Qatar, Bahrain and Syria.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CONFIRM TO OUR SOCIETY, SAYS P.M.

Conform to our society, says PM

Mr Blair urged the public to embrace multiculturalism,
Speech in full

People entering the UK must be prepared to be tolerant or not become part of society, Tony Blair has said.
In a speech at Downing Street, the prime minister said that tolerance was "what makes Britain" and warned "we must be ready to defend this attitude".
The threat came not from "generalised extremism" but "a new and virulent form of ideology associated with a minority of our Muslim community".
The Muslim Association of Britain said Mr Blair's speech was "alarming".
Wars 'not helping'
A spokesman said the prime minister should be "investing in our society" to help the deprived, rather than investing "millions and billions in illegal occupations" which had "not helped to promote multiculturalism in this country".
If you come here lawfully, we welcome you. If you are permitted to stay here permanently, you become an equal member of our community and become one of us
Tony Blair
"Rather than standing up and lecturing us, it's time he puts his money where his mouth is," the spokesman said.
Mr Blair also used the speech to announce a crackdown on funding for religious and racial groups, saying in the future they would have to prove they aimed to promote community integration.
Conservative community cohesion spokesman Dominic Grieve said the speech was a "remarkable turnaround".
"Many of the problems in relation to the issues he addresses are at least in part the consequence of a philosophy of divisive multiculturalism and political correctness that has been actively promoted by the Labour Party over many years at both national and local government levels."
Funding crackdown
Liberal Democrat communities spokesman Andrew Stunell said: "We must ensure that the voices of moderation have their say, but support for organisations must not be distorted by government-driven targets or Tony Blair's personal agenda."

He said: "The right to be in a multicultural society was always implicitly balanced by a duty to integrate, to be part of Britain, to be British and Asian, British and black, British and white."
Mr Blair "multicultural Britain" should be dispensed with, adding: "On the contrary, we should continue celebrating it,"
But he said the suicide bombings in London on 7 July last year had thrown the whole concept of a multiculturalism "into sharp relief", the prime minister said.
"The reason we are having this debate is not generalised extremism. It is a new and virulent form of ideology associated with a minority of our Muslim community.
"It is not a problem with Britons of Hindu, Afro-Caribbean, Chinese or Polish origin. Nor is it a problem with the majoirty of the Muslim community."
'Essential values'
But he said there was a "problem with a minority of that community, particularly originating from certain countries".
The failure of that part of the community to integrate did not mean multiculturalism was dead, said Mr Blair, but it would be useful to define "common values" all citizens were "expected to conform to".
"When it comes to our essential values - belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for this country and its shared heritage - then that is where we come together, it is what we hold in common."
Mr Blair also said: "If you come here lawfully, we welcome you. If you are permitted to stay here permanently, you become an equal member of our community and become one of us.
"The right to be different, the duty to integrate: that is what being British means.
"And neither racists nor extremists should be allowed to destroy it."
Race equality
Mr Blair said the Equal Opportunities Commission would be looking at concerns about women's status inside Muslim communities.
He also praised Tory leader David Cameron, saying it was "not conceivable in my view" that he would seek to exploit immigration to win votes.
Labour MP Keith Vaz MP has criticised the newly formed Commission for Equality and Human Rights for taking just one of its nine commissioners from a background in working for race equality.
Only chairman Trevor Phillips had this experience, he added.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TAIWAN ABORIGINES KEEP RITUALS ALIVE!

Taiwan aborigines keep rituals alive
By Caroline Gluck BBC News, Taiwan.

Once upon a time, so the legend goes, the Saisiyat people - one of Taiwan's 12 officially-recognised aboriginal groups - lived in mountains next to a tribe of dark-skinned dwarves, or pygmies.
The short-people were both feared and admired by the Saisiyat as they were thought to have magical powers. But they also had bad tempers, and often flirted and made advances towards the Saisiyat women.

The Saisiyat keep the "ritual to the short people" alive today
The story varies in detail but, according to one version, the short people were invited to the Saisiyat's annual harvest festival and angered one man by making advances towards his wife.
He took revenge by cutting down a bridge that killed all but two of the short people, who put a curse on the Saisiyat.
Alarmed, the Saisiyat begged for mercy and were forgiven on one condition - that they sing the songs and dances of the pygmies - called the Ta'ai - to appease the spirits of those they killed.
Protective grass
That ritual ceremony is said to have been carried out for as many as 400 years, and continues today.
Last weekend, the Saisiyat - who number about 5,000 people and live in two main areas in northern Taiwan - observed the rituals of the Pas-ta'ai, the Ritual to the Short People.

The message is Saisiyat people should reflect on themselves - what they say, what they do. It's the true meaning of peace for [us]
Obay A-Awi Tawtawazy
It is an elaborate ceremony, held at two complementary and overlapping sites in Miaoli and Hsinchu counties over several nights, during the full moon of the 10th lunar month.
It takes place every two years. And every 10 years - which happens to be this year - it is larger and takes on added significance.
Thousands gathered for the first day of the ceremony in Wufeng, Hsinchu county, many of them drunk thanks to the potent local rice wine.
I was asked to enter a building where tribal members tied pieces of Japanese silver grass, which grows wild in the area, around my arm, camera and tape recorder.
"If you put on this grass, it protects you from evil things," explained Galah A-Talo, as he tied the grass. "It gives us security; it's a blessing."
"If you enter Saisiyat territory, you have to wear this; respect our tradition," he went on.
The main ceremony was taking place in an open field.
Men and women were dancing and singing, arms crossed, hand-in-hand and moving in and out of a huge circle.
They all wore bright red and white traditional costumes with intricate weaving, and beading.
Some have ornate decorations at the back, from which hang mirrors, beads and bells that ring and clang as the dancers move - representing a communion with the spirit world.
"This is the biggest event for the Saisiyat people, and it helps to unify and solidify the tribe," said elder Tahes A-Obay.
Bad luck
The ceremonial ground is the focus of attention and visitors are welcome.
But some rituals are held in secret by tribal leaders, including those to welcome and send away the spirits of the small people.
Local villagers believe the pygmies lived in nearby caves, which are considered sacred, and warn that terrible things can happen to curious visitors.
Photographers and cameraman will discover their pictures have been erased, and some people are said to have been struck down with terrible illnesses.
Bad luck can also follow those who misbehave at the ceremony.
"One of my relatives just disappeared, with only his shoes left behind," said Obay A-Awi Tawtawazy. "No-one found his body... he disappeared without trace."
"Another cousin said something bad to the elders and did not apologise. All of a sudden, he got hurt when he was doing farm work. He went into a coma for a year and passed away.
"The message is Saisiyat people should reflect on themselves - what they say, what they do. It's the true meaning of peace for the Saisiyat people."
Academics are divided about whether pygmies could have been Taiwan's earliest inhabitants, pre-dating Austronesian-speaking groups.
Some theories suggest dark-skinned, short people could have been slaves brought by early traders.
"There's no conclusion about the out-of-Africa theory," said anthropologist, Hu Chia-Yu, at National Taiwan University.
"We haven't found any physical remains of pygmies in Taiwan; although in historical letters by Dutch traders in the 16th century, there were mentions about short people. Several other indigenous tribes also have legends about small people," she said.
But the Saisiyat legend and the ceremony have a powerful resonance.
Anthropologist and filmmaker Hu Tai-li, from the Institute of Ethnology at Academia Sinica, has been visiting the Pas-ta'ai for the past 20 years and says the traditions have got stronger over the years - paralleling the push by Taiwan's aboriginal groups for greater public recognition and political rights.
"The first one... only a very few people could sing the songs; most were elders... but after 20 years, through their efforts and some stimulation from outsiders like us... young people began to start learning.
"Now, a lot of people can sing. They take turns for the whole period. It's very difficult for only a few people to sustain this for three nights... But they had consciousness of the dangers of the dying out of these very sacred songs."
As day breaks, the dancers wind down.
There is a special feeling in the air after this marathon communion with the spirits.
It has brought a sense of unity to the Saisiyat community who feel proud that they are still carrying out traditions in the way their ancestors had wanted.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BIRTH RATE 'HARMS POVERTY GOALS' !

Birth rate 'harms poverty goals'
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website

Rapid population growth is principally an African phenomenonThe UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are "difficult or impossible to meet" without curbing population growth, a UK parliamentary group says.
It concludes that a high birth rate in poor nations contributes to poor health and education and environmental damage.
The global population is forecast to reach about nine billion by 2050.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health will publish its report later this month.
The MDGs are going to be difficult or impossible to attain without a levelling out of population growth
Richard Ottaway MPIt has spent six months taking evidence from expert witnesses for the report, Population Growth - Its Impact on the MDGs.
"No country has ever raised itself out of poverty without stabilising population growth," said the group's vice-chairman, Richard Ottaway MP, at a seminar on population issues this week.
"And the MDGs are going to be difficult or impossible to attain without a levelling out of population growth in developing countries."
Dividing world
Over the course of the last century, the global population rose from under two billion to just over six billion.
The bulk of the growth came in developing countries.
"Ethiopia had five million people in 1900; now it has 64 million, of whom eight million are receiving food aid," said Mr Ottaway. The projected figure for 2050, he said, was 145 million.

THE MILLENNIUM GOALS
1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2: Achieve universal primary education
3: Promote gender equality and empower women
4: Reduce child mortality
5: Improve maternal health
6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7: Ensure environmental sustainability
8: Develop a global partnership for developmentGrowth is now levelling off in most of Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East; but in much of sub-Saharan Africa it remains very high.

Whereas many Asian countries are seeing birth rates of about two children per family, some African nations are still around five per family.
The UN's own report into the MDGs earlier this year noted that the number of people living on less than $1 a day in Asia dropped by nearly a quarter of a billion people between 1990 and 2002. But in Africa, the number in extreme poverty increased by 140 million.
Easy as ABC
Mr Ottaway told the seminar, organised by the Population and Sustainability Network, that high birth rates compromised adults and children through:
Poorer infant nutrition
Higher risk of death in pregnancy and childbirth
Less chance of receiving education
"I would agree with that," said Dr Tiziana Leone, a population studies lecturer at the London School of Economics who submitted evidence to the All Party Group.
"We do see an impact of rapid population growth on poverty and on the health of mothers and babies," she told the BBC News website.
"But we are also seeing an impact of the ABC rule (Abstinence, Be faithful, Condoms) for funding health programmes which has shifted a lot of funds into the A and the B, and you're seeing the price of condoms in Uganda for instance going really high."
The ABC approach is encouraged by the US government, which was accused earlier this month by the UN's HIV/Aids envoy Stephen Lewis of practising "incipient neo-colonialism" by telling African nations how to fight the disease.
On the environmental side, Mr Ottaway said the evidence was more equivocal.

Earth too crowded for Utopia

Population growth was not at the moment contributing to climate change, he said, because the fastest growth was seen in countries with the lowest emissions.
But it did contribute to strains on water resources, fish stocks, farmland, forests and wildlife.
Earlier this year, the head of the British Antarctic Survey, Chris Rapley, said the Earth was struggling to sustain current population levels.
Period of doubt
In the 1950s and 60s, concern about the Earth's burgeoning population was widespread among academics, including economists, said Adair Turner, who also spoke at the London seminar.
Mr Turner headed the British government's Pensions Commission and is a former director of the Confederation of British Industry.
"The economics community went through a period of doubting whether it should be addressing the issue," he said.
"That was primarily for reasons of economic theory, although there were religious reasons in there too."
Now, he said, economists were revisiting the subject. Even in developed nations, said Mr Turner, going beyond a certain population density would impact economic progress.
He said the approach should be to tackle high birth rates with voluntary measures - providing education for women and making family planning available - with which Richard Ottaway agreed.
"We have the solution; it's not that difficult," he said. "The question is: will we go for it?"
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TENSION OVER NIGERIA STATE RULING !

Mr Ladoja has not returned to his office. A Nigerian policeman has died in south-western Oyo State amid high tension after the Supreme Court reinstated the state's governor.
A BBC reporter in the state capital, Ibadan, says some 200 youths were arrested and there is a heavy police presence across the city.
The Supreme Court ruled that January's impeachment of Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja was illegal and he should return.
Five state governors have been sacked controversially in the past year.
Political tensions are high across Nigeria, ahead of next year's elections.
The BBC's Umar Shehu Elleman says the policeman was killed and several detained youths badly injured after they were involved in a car crash.
He says it is not clear why the youths were arrested but those who were not injured then fled after the accident.
'Democratic institutions'
Supporters of Christopher Alao-Akala, who was sworn in to replace Mr Ladoja, say he remains governor, despite the court ruling.
Our reporter says Mr Alao-Akala remains in his office for the moment.

President Olusegun Obasanjo has ordered the police to enforce the Supreme Court's decision.
The president described the ruling as "an affirmation of the efficacy of the country's judiciary in the resolution of disputes that are bound to arise as we strive to build and strengthen our democratic institutions".
Nigeria has been ruled by the military for most of the 46 years since independence.
Mr Ladoja was impeached by 18 of the state's 32 legislators and arrested on allegations of corruption.
Unless impeached, governors enjoy judicial immunity.
Mr Obasanjo, who is barred from standing for re-election, has called for a crackdown on corruption.
His critics say this is cover for the persecution of his opponents.
Nigeria's anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission recently said they were investigating two-thirds of the country's governors for alleged corruption.
Suspension illegal
Meanwhile, a court has decided that the ruling People's Democratic Party's (PDP) suspension of Vice-President Atiku Abubakar is illegal.
He was suspended on corruption allegations, which he denies.
He has, however, missed a deadline to submit a request to stand as the PDP presidential candidate.
He fell out with Mr Obasanjo, when he opposed moves to change the constitution to allow the president seek re-election.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DIANA PRE-INQUEST HEARING PUBLIC !

A decision will be made whether to hold separate inquests. The coroner in charge of the Princess Diana inquest has decided to hold a preliminary hearing in January in public, rather than in private.
Mohammed Al Fayed, who mounted a legal challenge for the hearing about Diana and his son Dodi to be held in public, said he welcomed the decision.
UK law states inquests must be held in public, but early hearings need not be.
Lady Butler-Sloss was said to have been persuaded to change her mind because of public interest in the case.
Harrods boss Mr Al Fayed said that although happy with the decision, he would not tolerate any more attempts to conceal the truth.
I will not tolerate further attempts to sweep dirt under the carpet and conceal the truth
Mohammed Al Fayed
"The public and I have a right to know how my son and Diana, Princess of Wales, were really killed on that awful night.
"I will not tolerate further attempts to sweep dirt under the carpet and conceal the truth."
He added that he wanted to see whether a forthcoming report by Lord Stevens would help uncover the truth.
The preliminary hearing will be held at the Royal Courts of Justice in January, with a full inquest held at a later date at an undecided venue.
A spokesman for the Judicial Communications Office said: "The reasons she [Lady Butler-Sloss] had in mind that led her to conclude initially that the meeting should be held in private were entirely pragmatic - such as the size of the courtroom."
Among the matters that will be decided at the hearing include whether a jury will sit on the inquest.
It would be made up of members of the Royal Household as Diana was still considered a member of the Royal Family when she died.
French investigation
Lady Butler-Sloss will also decide whether the princess and Dodi Al Fayed's inquests - first opened and adjourned in January 2004 - will be held jointly or separately.
She was appointed to her new role after the Coroner of the Queen's Household, Michael Burgess, stepped down from the task in July.
Diana, 36, and Mr Fayed, 42, were killed along with chauffeur Henri Paul when their Mercedes crashed in the Pont d'Alma tunnel in Paris in 1997.
They were pursued by paparazzi photographers after leaving the Ritz Hotel for Mr Fayed's apartment.
A two-year investigation in France blamed Mr Paul for losing control of the car because he had drunk alcohol and had taken prescription drugs and was driving too fast.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGERIA FISH FESTIVAL BANS FISH !

Photos of a previous festival

People in north-western Nigeria are angry that fishing has been banned at Kebbi State's Argungu fishing festival.
A fishing competition is the highlight of the festival when fishermen jump into a river and have an hour to scoop the biggest catch for a big cash prize.
But organisers say as the water level is so low the narrow Matan Fada river is very muddy, raising safety concerns for the estimated 30,000 competitors.
The event usually happens in March but was postponed because of a census.
It was rescheduled for October, but had to be postponed again when the sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, died in a plane crash.
Kebbi State Governor Adamu Aleiro says there will be a fishing display for symbolic purposes to show how the fish are caught using traditional nets and gourds.
But the BBC's Hassan Sahabi in Argungu says that local people are angered that Saturday's event will be something of a damp squib.
The arrival of thousands of fisherman for the competition is usually a good money-making opportunity for them, he says.
The Argungu fishing festival began in 1934 - and was used to mark peace between the former Sokoto Caliphate and the Kebbi Kingdom.
The two empires had fought for centuries, and hostilities only ceased with the arrival of the British.
The competition is usually the culmination of a four-day cultural event and a motor rally, musicals and cultural dances are still taking place this year.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SEMINOLE TRIBE IN HARD ROCK DEAL !

There are Hard Rock outlets are in 45 countries. British entertainment company Rank Group has agreed to sell its Hard Rock Cafe chain to an American Indian tribe for $965m (£490m).
The business is being bought by the Seminole tribe of Florida, which already runs Hard Rock-branded hotels and casinos in Tampa and Hollywood.
The Hard Rock business made a pre-tax profit of £35m in 2005 and has 132 outlets worldwide.
Rank will now focus on online and phone betting, casinos and bingo clubs.
It has sold off a number of leisure businesses in recent years, including Butlin's, Warner Holidays, Odeon Cinemas, Pinewood Studios and pub chain Tom Cobleigh.
No surrender
Rank said it would pass £350m of the sale proceeds to shareholders via a special dividend.
"Today's announcement sets a clear strategic course for Rank as a focused gaming business," said chief executive Ian Burke.
"We have established clear plans to capitalise on the changes taking place in UK gaming."
The 12,000-strong Seminole tribe has lands in Oklahoma and Florida, and its main business interests are in tobacco, tourism and gambling.
The Florida Seminoles had relied on cattle, citrus fruits and federal loans for economic survival until the late 1970s, when they opened their first bingo hall and tax-free tobacco store.
The tribe now runs two massive Hard Rock hotels and casinos on two of its reservations in Florida and has gaming businesses on three other sites.
It is the only American Indian tribe never to have signed a peace treaty with the United States.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.N. URGES FREEDOMS FOR ARAB WOMEN !

Discrimination against women is holding back economic and social development across the Arab World, a report by the UN's development agency says.
Arab women must be given greater access to education, employment, health care and public life, the report says.
The Arab Human Development Report is an annual overview compiled by Arab academics and experts in the field.
Islam is not to blame for the problem, the report says, but rather political inflexibility, male domination and war.
Disadvantaged
The BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the Unite Nations Development Programme's report, entitled Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World, reveals deep-seated discrimination against women across the region.
Maternal mortality rates remain unacceptably high and women suffer more overall ill-health than men.

The rise of women is in fact a prerequisite for an Arab renaissance.
Arab Human Development Report 2005
Maternal mortality rates average 270 per 100,000 live births, but this rises to 1,000 in the Arab League's poorest countries.
In all but four Arab countries, fewer than 80% of girls go to secondary school.
Half of all women are illiterate compared to one-third of men.
But there are exceptions. In Tunisia, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, more girls go to school than boys.
And across the region, girls appear to make up more than half the top-scoring pupils, despite the disadvantages they face.
"Arab countries stand to reap extraordinary benefits from giving men and women equal opportunities to acquire and utilise knowledge," the report says.
Masculine culture
In public life, though, women's involvement is very limited: they make up an average of only about 10% of members of parliament, for example - the lowest proportion in the world.
The Arab experts and academics writing this, the fourth, annual AHDR suggest that some Islamic law should be re-examined to reflect modern Arab societies.
The authors also challenge the belief, often heard in the West, that Islam is the main reason for discrimination.
Instead they say a deep-seated masculine culture, conservative and inflexible political forces, conflict and, in some cases, foreign occupation are to blame.
"The rise of women is in fact a prerequisite for an Arab renaissance," the report concludes.
"At a time when the Arab world needs to build and tap the capabilities of all its peoples, fully half its human potential is often stifled or neglected."
The solution should lie in short-term affirmative action to expand women's participation and longer term, sustained collective action that would benefit of the whole region.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

OPPOSITION MOUNTS TO FIJIAN COUP !

Fijians are being called on to peacefully resist the coup. The military leaders of Fiji's coup are facing mounting opposition over their decision to depose the prime minister and his government.
Powerful tribal and church leaders are refusing to recognise the new regime, while ordinary Fijians have been urged to begin peaceful resistance.
The new PM conceded the coup was "illegal" but said it was better than what he called a corrupt government.
Tuesday's military coup has angered the Great Council of Chiefs, a hugely influential body with the power to appoint the president and vice-president, on the advice of the government.
The Council's Chairman, Ratu Ovini Bokini, said its members still regarded Ratu Josefa Iloilo as president and described the military's removal of the vice-president as "illegal".
Coup leader Commodore Frank Bainimarama had hoped to get approval for an interim government next week, but council chiefs have cancelled the meeting in protest.
International condemnation
Fiji's Council of Churches - another key body in Fijian society - described the coup as the "manifestation of darkness and evil in society".

Profile of army chief
In pictures: Fiji coup
Press reflects unease

Its president, Tuikilakila Waqairatu, said on Tuesday the deposed Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase had the backing of the Christian community.
"We are supporting the rule of law and the democratically elected government," he said.
Fiji's new leadership is also facing international condemnation, with sanctions imposed by Australia and New Zealand and aid suspended by the US and UK.
Australia and New Zealand have urged Fijians to show passive resistance, while Laisenia Qarase has encouraged non-violent protests similar to those that took place outside his residence during the coup.
Text messages are reported to be circulating around the capital Suva encouraging people to wear black in protest at the coup.
'Divine authority'
Newly-installed Prime Minister Jona Senilagakali - a 77-year-old military doctor with no political experience - defended the coup leaders' actions.

Mr Senilagakali said elections could be as far as two years away.
"It's an illegal takeover to clean up the mess of a much bigger illegal activity of the previous government," Mr Senilagakali said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
He said a general election was 12 months to two years away, when the new leadership determines the time is right.
And he suggested Fiji needed a different kind of democracy "from the type of democracy both Australia and New Zealand enjoys".
Cmdr Bainimarama later presented a softer message, saying "we do not deny that democracy is good for the people," but he added: "Democracy must not be used to hide corruption."
He is now inviting people to apply for positions in the new interim administration, and adverts are due to be posted in newspapers on Friday.
The coup, which took place on Tuesday, was the fourth in the former British colony in 20 years.
Fiji has a population of only 900,000 but is a major tourist destination and attracts up to 400,000 visitors a year.
It has also witnessed considerable political tension over the past 20 years between ethnic Fijians, who make up about 50% of the population, and ethnic Indians, who make up about 44%.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ISLAMIST WARNING FOR SOMALI FORCE !

Both government and Islamist forces have been preparing for war. The Islamists who control much of southern Somalia have warned they will fight any peacekeepers sent there, after the UN approved a peace force.
"We see this as creating instability in Somalia. Most of Somalia is peaceful," Union of Islamic Courts official Ibrahim Adow told the BBC.
The UN resolution backs the sending of an 8,000-strong African force to support Somalia's weak government.
It also called for the easing of an arms ban to let the government re-arm.
"Deploying foreign forces to Somalia is seen as invading forces and the Somali people are prepared to defend themselves against aggression," Mr Adow told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
The choice of doing nothing is really not a choice at all
John BoltonUS ambassador to the UN
The US-led resolution, adopted unanimously by the 15-nation Security Council, said Somalia's transitional government represented "the only route to achieving peace and stability" in the country, which has been without effective central government since 1991.
But Mr Adow said supporting the government, which only controls the area around the town of Baidoa, would create more trouble and complications in Somalia.
However, observers believe it will be a long time before any peacekeepers arrive and say the UN resolution may be primarily intended to show symbolic support for the government.
The East African body, Igad, which is supposed to supply the troops is understood to be split over the idea.
'Holy War'
Somalia's government has welcomed the resolution.
"We thank all the members of the Security Council, especially the American government," Deputy Defence Minister Salad Ali Jelle told Reuters news agency.
"This will bring solutions not war."
The government and the Union of Islamic Courts are due to hold peace talks in Sudan next week.
The UIC say they are capable of restoring security to the country, so there is no need for foreign peacekeepers.
They have organised several demonstrations against foreign forces being deployed.
They see a peacekeeping force as cover for Ethiopian troops being sent to help the government, even though the UN resolution rules out troops from countries which border Somalia, such as Ethiopia.
The UIC has declared "Holy War" on Ethiopia, which has twice fought wars with Somalia, over control of Ethiopia's large Somali-speaking region.
Ethiopia denies sending troops to help Somalia's government but admits to providing military trainers.
Spiralling conflict
Outgoing US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said not intervening was not an option.
"The other option is that the instability we have seen in Somalia for over 15 years would spread to the region," he said.

The Islamists have held protests against peacekeepers"I think the choice of doing nothing is really not a choice at all."
The aim of the force would be to protect transitional institutions located in Baidoa, some 250km (155 miles) north-west of the capital.
Washington also fears the Islamists are offering shelter to al-Qaeda operatives, a charge they deny.
Experts worry a spiralling conflict could spill over into other countries in the Horn of Africa.
The fear in particular is that Ethiopia and Eritrea will come into conflict because they support opposite sides and might see in Somalia another battleground in which to continue the intermittent war over their own border dispute.
A recent UN report accused several countries, including Ethiopia and Eritrea, of breaking the international arms embargo.
The Islamists have removed the check-points, at which gunmen used to extort money from commercial vehicles since taking control of the capital, Mogadishu, in June.
In some areas, they have imposed strict Sharia law, such as public executions of murderers and floggings for drug dealers.
Some cinemas which show foreign films and football matches and radio stations which ban Western music have been closed but in other areas under UIC control, such activities have been allowed to continue.
They have also banned the popular stimulant, khat, used by many Somali gunmen.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TRIBE BLESSES LESBIAN 'MARRIAGE' !

Tribe blesses lesbian 'marriage'
By Sanjaya Jena Orissa

An Indian tribe has given its consent to a lesbian 'marriage' in the eastern Indian state of Orissa.
A priest belonging to the Kandha tribe led the ceremony between Wetka Polang, 30, and Melka Nilsa, 22, in Koraput district recently.
Both the women are day labourers and now live together in Dandabadi village.
Same-sex relationships are outlawed in India. The 145-year-old colonial Indian Penal Code clearly describes a same sex relationship as an "unnatural offence".
Sociologists say that a community blessing a same-sex 'marriage' is unheard of in India.
It was not easy for Wetka and Melka to convince their tribe that they wanted to get married and live together - the local community at first fiercely protested at the idea.
The two women then eloped to another village to escape the wrath of their neighbours.
'Unhappy'
After much persuasion by family members, Kandha villagers of Dandabadi finally gave consent to the formal wedding.

We love each other very much. We are leading a blissful married life
Wetka Polang
"They [Wetka and Melka] wanted to prove that they can live without the help of men. They also love each other very much. So we decided to forgive them," said village elder Melka Powla.
But the two tribal women had to pay fines to their community to get it to bless their union - they offered a barrel of country liquor, a pair of oxen, and a sack of rice and hosted a family feast.
Eventually, last month, Wetka applied vermillion on Melka's forehead in the tradition of Indian marriage ceremonies before a disari or community priest, said village elder Dalimangi Chexa.
Now the couple say they are happy.
"We are leading a blissful married life. We love each other very much," Wetka told the BBC.
Both the women have had unhappy experiences with men in the past.
Wetka says she walked out of her marriage to an alcoholic after years of abuse.
Melka's family had arranged her marriage with another local man much against her wishes - she managed to break the engagement by telling the man's family that he was mentally "not normal".
The two women now hope to extend their family by adopting the son of Wetka's elder brother.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SADDAM MAKES A SURPRISE SHOWING !

The court heard the last prosecution witness on Wednesday. Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has appeared in court, despite saying a day earlier that he would refuse to attend further hearings of his genocide trial.
On Tuesday, he had said he could no longer put up with "continued insults" by the chief judge and prosecutors.
The deposed leader and six others are on trial over their role in a campaign against the Kurds in the 1980s in which more than 100,000 people died.
Saddam Hussein is currently appealing a death sentence from a separate trial.
He entered the courtroom smiling, and took his place to hear a Kurdish medical worker describe how he treated victims of gas attacks in 1987.
Boycott threat
It is not clear what prompted Saddam Hussein's return to court after his defiance on Tuesday.
In a handwritten letter, he had said he would refuse to attend, whatever the consequences.
He wrote that he had not been given an adequate chance to defend himself over his role in the Anfal campaign.
"I ask you to relieve me from attending the sessions of this new farce and you can do whatever you want," he wrote.
Saddam Hussein and his six co-defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection with the campaign against the Kurds, code-named al-Anfal, or "the spoils of war".
Saddam Hussein and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, also face charges of genocide.
More than 70 witnesses have been heard in the Anfal trial. After the last prosecution witness on Wednesday, the trial is expected to focus on documents allegedly linking the defendants to the killings.
The defence argues it was a legitimate operation to quell a rebellion after some Kurds sided with the enemy during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUOTES!

"ENJOY THE LITTLE THINGS IN LIFE,

FOR ONE DAY YOU MAY LOOK BACK

AND REALISE THEY WERE THE BIG THINGS "!

## ANONYMOUS ##

KHMER ROUGE TRIALS 'OBSTRUCTED' !

Khmer Rouge victims have already had to wait 30 years for justice. A human rights organisation has called on Cambodia to stop interfering in preparations for the trials of former leaders of the Khmer Rouge.
Human Rights Watch blamed government interference for the recent failure by Cambodian and foreign judges to agree on rules for the UN-backed tribunal.
Cambodia dismissed the accusation as "politically motivated".
About two million people died during the years that the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia in the 1970s under Pol Pot.
The trials are due to start next year and aim to put the surviving leaders of the brutal Maoist regime - some of whom are still living freely - in the dock.
'Screeching halt'
A week-long meeting between Cambodian and international legal officials last month broke up following "substantive disagreement" over the rules that would govern the tribunal.
HRW said Cambodian officials had acted on instructions from government officials by delaying the adoption of draft rules.
"Many of the Khmer Rouge leaders are old and increasingly frail, but until the rules are adopted, prosecutions and trials cannot move forward," said Brad Adams, Asia director of HRW.
"Political interference has brought the whole process to a screeching halt."
But government spokesman Khieu Kanharith adamantly rejected the accusations, calling them politically motivated and saying tribunal officials were just being thorough about working through complex legal issues.
Up to two million people were murdered, starved or worked to death between 1975 and 1979 under the Khmer Rouge regime.
Pol Pot, the founder and leader of the Khmer Rouge, died in a camp along the border with Thailand in 1998.
Other key figures have also died. Ta Mok - the regime's military commander and one of Pol Pot's most ruthless henchmen - died on 21 July 2006.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DUTCH IMMIGRANT AMNESTY OVERRULED !

Rita Verdonk has introduced hardline anti-immigration policies. The outgoing Dutch government has vetoed a motion by the country's new parliament to grant amnesty to thousands of failed asylum seekers.
Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk said it might have led to 200,000 illegal immigrants applying for residence.
"This is going to lead to a gigantic burden... we simply can't carry out" the motion, she said.
The motion was passed last week by one vote, thanks to a swing from right to left in recent Dutch polls.
Coalition negotiations are ongoing. It is thought likely that the centre-right coalition, which remains in a caretaker role, will be replaced by a centre-left one.
Ms Verdonk's Liberal Party is likely to lose its role in government.
Correspondents say the motion on asylum may have been a way for the left-leaning parties to prove their increased power over the Liberals and others on the right.
The motion referred to about 26,000 failed asylum seekers who entered the country before tougher immigration laws were introduced in 2001.
Ms Verdonk vowed to deport them all. About half are thought either to have been sent home or to have left of their own accord.
But an opinion poll in October showed 63% of Dutch people supported an amnesty for the rest, some of whom have been living in the Netherlands for more than a decade.

BBV NEWS REPORT.

U.N. PULLS STAFF FROM DARFUR TOWN !

Those in camps near El Fasher will be more isolated. The United Nations has withdrawn its non-essential workers from El Fasher, capital of Sudan's North Darfur state.
The UN said the move is temporary until the risk of fighting between Arab Janjaweed militia and rebels subsides.
The African Union has warned that El Fasher is at risk of being attacked by a coalition of Darfuri rebel groups.
At least 200,000 people are estimated to have died and more than two million driven from their homes since the conflict began in 2003.
"The schools have shut down and all the markets are closed," a resident told Reuters news agency, speaking on condition of anonymity. "People are worried."
Clashes reported
The aid workers were relocated "as a result of increased Janjaweed presence in the town and armed movements in the area", said Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the UN mission in Sudan.
Janjaweed militia and rebel fighters clashed in the town's market on Monday, leaving two SLM rebels dead, the Associated Press news agency said.

See which parts of Darfur are too dangerous for aid workers.
More than 300 humanitarian workers are based in the town, which is one of two key centres for Darfur's huge aid operation.
Late on Tuesday night a UN plane flew 134 of them out.
Hundreds of thousands of people live in the town or in the camps that surround it, says the BBC's correspondent in Khartoum, Jonah Fisher.
Its airport is the key supply route used by Khartoum to arm and equip government forces, says our correspondent.
An African Union statement said that the town was at risk of being attacked and that its headquarters there was a possible target.
The Sudanese government is still resisting pressure for the UN to take control of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur.
The outgoing UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland, has said that one of his biggest regrets was that more was not done for Darfur in the early stages of the crisis.
"We're saving really the assets that we can at the moment, protecting the life of our own people," he said of the UN pullout from El Fasher.
"But we're not protecting the lives of the vulnerable women and children and there are four times more of them now than when we started in 2004."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SPAIN AND SENEGAL IN MIGRANT DEAL !

Some 4,000 Senegalese have been repatriated this year. Spain and Senegal have agreed a series of measures to curb illegal migration to the Canary Islands.
Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said that over the next two years, 4,000 Senegalese would be allowed to work temporarily in Spain.
Mr Zapatero was in Senegalese capital, Dakar, for a day of talks.
Spain's Canary Islands are a tempting destination for many Africans, and at least half of almost 30,000 illegal arrivals in 2006 have been Senegalese.
Spain repatriated 4,000 of them recently after an agreement with the West African nation.
'Human capital'
After signing the accords with Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, Mr Zapatero said: "This makes possible the emigration of Senegalese under a legal framework through our labour ministry and the job market. Happily, we are in need of labourers."
Mr Zapatero said Spain would keep its promise, made earlier in the year, to give 20m euros ($26.6m) to Senegal to fund job training and create economic opportunities for youth.
"Nothing is worse for a country than losing its human capital," he said.
Both countries have also agreed to extend till June a border patrol operation to deter potential migrants.
The joint operation was due to expire at the end of December.

Tens of thousands of Senegalese, seeking to escape poverty and unemployment, have tried to make the dangerous journey to the Canary Islands over the years.
Many have died at sea, and joint patrols have been sent up to try to prevent illegal immigrants reaching Europe.

See details of the patrol deployment

In Senegal, jobs are scarce and the average income is less than $2 (£1) a day compared to about $70 (£35) a day in Spain.
Presidential polls
In the past, President Wade has been criticised by many in the country for allowing the repatriation of Senegalese from Spain.
Critics say this blocks a migrant's only chance at a better life when jobs are scarce at home.
The president is seeking re-election in February, and correspondents say that with unemployment a major problem, the promise of job opportunities in Spain will do his campaign no harm.
But Spain will only be able to offer contracts to a fraction of those looking for work, so gaining a visa will still be a lottery and illegal journeys by land and sea will not be ended, they say.

FRONTEX DEPLOYMENT

Mauritania: 4 former Guardia Civil patrol boats, 1 Guardia Civil patrol boat, 1 Guardia Civil helicopter, 1 Customs patrol
Senegal: 1 Italian ship, 1 Italian plane, 1 Guardia Civil patrol boat, 1 Spanish Police helicopter, 3 Senegalese boats, 1 Senegalese plane, 1 Finnish plane due
Cape Verde: 1 Portuguese frigate

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA'S 'GREEN EYES' FOCUS ON PROTECTION !

As part of a series on young environmentalists in the BBC's Generation Next season, Quentin Sommerville in Wenzhou meets teenagers exposing animal rights abuses and environmental damage in China's industrial heartland.

Sun Miaosun collects evidence of rare animals being sold for foodSun Miaosun devotes precious hours to the protection of rare species in Zhejiang province in eastern China.
The crowded outdoor food markets of Pingyang county display long lines of cages and crates crammed full of animals, many of them endangered.
Miaosun and his friends rise early, sometimes before dawn. Wearing their distinctive Green Eyes China baseball caps they move through the market quickly, recording what they see with video cameras.
Endangered breeds of frogs, snakes, owls and eagles are for sale - some already prepared for the cooking pot.
Social stability
"When we arrive the stall-holders run away, or they say the animals don't belong to them," he said.
Sun Miaosun, 17, is one of the 2000 members of Green Eyes China, a young person's environmental group which is working to expose the animal rights abuses and environmental damage in China's industrial heartland.

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They face a huge challenge. China's environmental record is one of the poorest in the world, and animal rights are a relatively new concept.
Acid rain falls on around at third of the country, the water in most of its rivers is unfit to drink or fish in. Campaigners say that the country is on the brink of environmental collapse.
Even the government agrees. The State Environmental Protection Administration (Sepa) recently warned that the situation was endangering people's health and risking the social stability of the country.
"The brick factories here pollute the environment terribly because they burn lots of coal," said another campaigner Zen Ruigui. "The dyeing factories drain their effluent directly into the rivers. There's also been extensive deforestation," he added.
Suspicion
The Green Eyes activists keep a watch on polluters. The emphasis is on supervision and reporting - they work with older members to avoid direct confrontation with polluters, or with those trading in endangered species.
Their work is all the more impressive given the difficulty facing non-governmental organisations in China. Such groups are regarded with suspicion by the ruling communist party.
China's first environmental group was established in only 1995, Green Eyes in 2000.
We want to give society a signal that schoolchildren have the right to take part in environmental protection -Fang Minghe
It was founded by Fang Minghe, 22, when he was a schoolboy. Being young is an advantage, he says.
"People think we're too innocent to be a threat," he said. "We want to give society a signal that schoolchildren have the right to take part in environmental protection.
"It's not only their obligation, it's their right - it's in the UN convention on the rights of the child. Though for some Chinese people this is a step too far."
The group works with the local authorities, including the police, and claims credit for some 26 criminal prosecutions. It also helps on environmental clean-ups, and runs an animal sanctuary, saving around 100 animals a year.
China's government agencies are ill-equipped for the enormous task facing them. SEPA has only 200 staff and little clout within the government structure.
Earlier this year China's Forestry bureau provoked outrage when it attempted to