CAMEROONIAN GORILLAS ARRIVE HOME!

The journey was due to take 18 hours
The gorillas in a zoo

Four rare gorillas have been flown from South Africa to Cameroon, five years after they were illegally smuggled to Taiping Zoo in Malaysia.
The Malaysian authorities returned the four Western Lowland gorillas to South Africa in 2004 and they have since been kept at Pretoria Zoo.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare said the "Taiping Four" will now be taken to a wildlife sanctuary.
The male and three females were sedated before being put into giant crates.
The BBC's Francis Ngwa Niba says Cameroon's environment minister, along with a host of well-wishers, were at Doula International Airport to receive the gorillas.
"The return of the gorillas to Cameroon is a manifestation of Cameroon's commitment to... the conservation of nature," Elvis Ngole Ngole said.
Tinu, Izan, Oyin and Abbey, all six years old and weighing about 100kg each, are to be transported to the Limbe Wildlife Sanctuary in south-west Cameroon.
The vet who travelled with the animals said the journey had taken 18 hours from Johannesburg, which included a six-hour stopover in Nairobi, Kenya.

Enlarge Image
"These animals are doing pretty well," he told the BBC after the crates were loaded off the Kenyan Airways aeroplane.
"The break in Nairobi gave us an opportunity to feed them and care for them, so they were adequately rested," he said.
Ifaw's Christina Pretorious said the return of the Taiping Four sends a clear message that Africa wildlife is worth fighting for and that international law must be upheld.
"Africa's wildlife is disappearing from the earth right in front of our eyes," she told the AFP news agency.
Our correspondent says another welcome ceremony is planned for the gorillas in Limbe on Saturday, when people will be able to see the gorillas for themselves.
There are believed to be fewer than 100,000 Western Lowland gorillas in the wild. Their status was recently upgraded to critically endangered.
Gorillas and other primates are often hunted to be eaten in Cameroon and neighbouring countries.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

EU AND IRAN IN KEY NUCLEAR TALKS !

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana has met Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili hours before reporting to the UN on the Iranian nuclear issue.
Mr Jalili said they had had "positive negotiations", but Mr Solana said he was disappointed with the talks.
Correspondents say the talks may determine whether the US and its allies press for more sanctions on Iran.
The UN has demanded Iran suspend uranium enrichment, but Tehran insists its programme is peaceful.
Some Western powers fear it is seeking to make weapons.

BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says Mr Solana was looking for signs that the Iranians are prepared to suspend uranium enrichment experiments as demanded by the UN Security Council, but his comments after the talks suggest there has been no progress on the issue.
The UN had earlier commissioned two reports on Iran's nuclear programme - one from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the other from Mr Solana.

Ahead of the talks, Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham did say that Mr Jalili would "present new ideas and initiatives" to Mr Solana.
However, on Wednesday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted Iran was "a nuclear nation", adding: "After this, no-one can threaten the Iranian nation as we have all stood united so far and [the West] did not do anything."
The BBC's Pam O'Toole says there is a distinct air of pessimism around the latest talks, given that Iran has on a number of occasions announced proposals and suggested initiatives while continuing to defy the UN on uranium enrichment.
Mr Solana has himself appeared frustrated that his talks with Mr Jalili have been frequently delayed.
Mr Jalili, a close ally of Mr Ahmadinejad, recently replaced Ali Larijani, who resigned as chief nuclear negotiator amid reports of differences with the leadership.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SUDANESE PRISONS 'WORST IN WORLD' !

Gillian Gibbons has been imprisoned for 15 days in Sudan - a country with "the worst prisons in the world", according to campaigners.
Justice Africa, a UK-based research group, said even a Sudanese person, used to the hardship of daily life, would find conditions hard.
Sudan co-ordinator Hafiz Mohammed said guards "treated inmates like slaves".
However, observers point out that some categories of prisoners can receive preferential treatment.
The Sudanese authorities have frequently refused prison inspections by international agencies.
Mrs Gibbons was jailed for 15 days by a court in Khartoum for being guilty of insulting religion after naming a teddy bear Muhammad.
She is expected to be held at Omdurman, the largest women's prison in Sudan and usually full of women convicted of making and selling alcohol.
Although Mr Mohammed said there was a possibility she may be given special treatment, he said she will have "a very difficult time" in an institution without beds, clean drinking water and with such poor quality food that she'll be unlikely to eat it.
"Prisons are overcrowded, there are no roofs so most of the women have to use sheets to keep the sun off them.
"It's not divided into cells but just one large area with one wall surrounding them."
Mr Mohammed said Mrs Gibbons would find hygiene "very poor, and she won't be able to drink from the taps. She'll have to rely on bottled water and food brought to her."
Relatives of Sudanese inmates are allowed to bring food and water to the prison.
"But it's very difficult even for the Sudanese people who are used to living in the harsh conditions of the country."

According to the US State Department's report on human right practices, Sudan's prisons are "harsh and overcrowded".
The report from 2006 says: "Most prisons were old and poorly maintained, and many lacked basic facilities such as toilets or showers.
"Health care was primitive; prisoners usually relied on family or friends for food. Prison officials arbitrarily denied visits to prisoners."
But it pointed out: "High-ranking political prisoners reportedly often enjoyed better conditions than did other prisoners."
It also reported that security forces "routinely mistreated persons in custody.
"There were credible reports that security forces held detainees incommunicado; beat them; deprived them of food, water, and toilets; and forced them to sleep on cold floors."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ARRESTS MADE IN BOTNET CRACKDOWN !

The FBI said more than $20m has been stolen via botnets. Police in New Zealand have questioned a teenager believed to be the ringleader of an international cyber-crime group. The group is alleged to have infiltrated more than one million computers and skimmed millions of dollars from people's bank accounts.

The teenager, who is 18, cannot be named for legal reasons but was known by an alias as "Akill".
He was detained as part of an FBI crackdown on hi-tech criminals who run botnets - networks of hijacked PCs. Global crackdown After being questioned "Akill" was released without charge, but police say he is still being investigated. Police allege that he was responsible for setting up a global network of hijacked PCs - known as a botnet.

The term describes the process of installing malicious software on PCs around the world to collect information such as login names, bank account details and credit card numbers. The FBI estimates that 1.3 million computers were under the control of "Akill" and more than US$25m (£12.1m) was illegally embezzled.

The FBI is running a campaign against botnet controllers"Akill" was still at school when his hacking allegedly began, and he is said to be very bright and very skilled. The 18-year-old was detained in New Zealand's North Island city of Hamilton. He could face charges which carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The arrest comes as part of the FBI's Operation Bot Roast II - the second phase of its campaign to tackle those who set up and run botnets for criminal gain. The running total of money stolen by the botnets is $20m (£9.7m).

The botnets were used to commit a variety of crimes. Some were simply used to steal saleable personal data, others acted as relays for spam and phishing and some were used to flood other websites with data to knock them offline. The first phase of the FBI campaign identified more than one million computers in the US that were part of botnets and produced several arrests. The second phase has resulted in three new indictments of people that ran botnets; jail sentences for three others and guilty pleas from a further two botnet controllers.

To stay safe, the FBI urged PC users to install and maintain anti-virus software, employ a firewall, use strong passwords and not open unknown attachments on e-mail messages.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"THERE IS NO ROCK SO HARD

THAT A LITTLE WAVE MAY BEAT

ADMISSION IN A THOUSAND YEARS" !

DR CONGO CHILD RAPE VICTIM DIES!

Even the youngest children are not spared from violence. An 11-month-old baby girl has died in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo a day after she was raped, the UN says. The alleged rapist, a man aged 20, has been detained by Congolese police about 140km west of Goma. He faces a life sentence.

Reports of the atrocity came as the Red Cross held a news conference in Geneva to denounce the "systematic violence" against girls and women in DR Congo. Aid workers blame combatants on all sides for a culture of sexual violence. ICRC official Dominik Stillhart said that in his recent visit to eastern DR Congo, he found some 370,000 people had been driven from their homes since fighting resumed in December between the army and fighters loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda.

"What really shocked me personally the most, was the systematic violence especially against women and girls which is producing immense suffering," Mr Stillhart said. The UN Mission in Congo (Monuc), which told the BBC of the latest rape atrocity, have themselves been accused by lobby group Human Rights Watch, of failing to act against the widespread use of rape against civilian victims of all ages. The BBC's Arnaud Zajtman heard the harrowing story of one young victim.

Victims say the army dispenses summary justice to rapists. A six-year-old girl named Mushika told our correspondent she was looking after goats in her village when a soldier grabbed her and abused her. "He laid me on the ground and lifted my skirt... I was trying to shout but he put his hand on my mouth. After he had finished, he ran away. When I tried to walk, I was dizzy." When the girl's mother discovered what happened she took the child to the military camp where she was asked to point out the man.

"The soldier was then shot in front of me," Mushika said, "but later his uncle came to our home and threatened to kill the whole family to take revenge." Some 15,000 UN peacekeepers are in DR Congo to secure peace after a five-year conflict officially ended in 2002.

But violence continues to rage in the east.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WW11 ARMY BAG IS FOUND IN DESERT!

A bag belonging to a World War II soldier from Lancashire has been discovered in the Egyptian desert after lying there for more than 60 years.
Alec Ross, from Burnley, lost the bag containing personal letters and photos, while serving with the 8th Army.
Egyptian tour guide Kahled Makram found the bag in the Sahara desert and traced Mr Ross's family through a BBC website on World War II.
The bag is being sent to Burnley to Mrs Ross's sister, Irene Porter.
Mr Ross, who settled in Whaddon, Buckinghamshire, after the war and died three years ago at the age of 87, was a despatch rider in the Long Range Desert Group.
According to Mrs Porter, who was only eight years old when he was serving in Egypt, her brother was a member of a unit known as Popski's Private Army, one of a number operating behind enemy lines.
She has been able to read the letters - sent by her parents, herself and her brother's two girlfriends - from photographs put onto disc by Mr Makram.
Mrs Porter, 75, of Burnley, said: "I was stunned when I found out about this and it is just incredible the way the bag has come to light.
"I will be so pleased when I can actually hold the letters in my hand and feel something my mother actually wrote to Alec all those years ago.
Photos and letters were found in the bag which was lost 65 years ago.
"I just wish the bag had been found a few years earlier so that Alec could have been reunited with its contents.
"He would have been thrilled, if a little embarrassed about having had two girlfriends on the go."
Tourist Geoff Kolbe, who helped track Mrs Porter down, is now trying to arrange for Mr Makram to go to Lancashire to personally hand the bag over.
Mr Kolbe said he was on a tour of the Sahara desert in the south west corner of Egypt at Gilf Kebir "when the guide happened to mention that he had recently found the bag of a soldier who had been serving in World War II lying in the sand.
"He said he had put some details on an internet search engine and had found Mrs Porter's account of her brother serving in Egypt but didn't know how to get in contact with her.
"When I returned home I contacted the website and managed to get hold of Mrs Porter to tell her about the find."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINESE MEDIA REPORTS TIBET RIOT !

Chinese state media has carried a rare report of disturbances in Tibet. Almost 200 people were involved in a riot following an argument between Buddhist monks and a local shopkeeper, Xinhua news agency said.
Shops and government offices were reportedly destroyed in the riot, which took place more than a week ago.
The agency said two Buddhist monks had been among seven people arrested. Xinhua gave no reason for the delay in reporting the riot.
The two monks were accused of robbing a Chinese-run motorcycle maintenance shop on 19 November in the town of Paingar, about 300km (190 miles) north-east of the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, Xinhua reported.
Five other people were arrested for "fanning the riot" the day after the monks' arrest.
About 190 people, including monks, gathered outside local government headquarters to demand the release of those arrested.
The crowd then "destroyed shops and government facilities", Xinhua said.
The agency reported that crowds had been "persuaded to return home later the same day by government workers".
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told Reuters news agency that that the situation in Tibet was now stable.
"Anyone who tries to disrupt Tibet's stability and development will not have the support of the people and will not succeed," he said.
Analysts say a growing population of Chinese settlers in Tibet has resulted in increased ethnic tensions in the province.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

OLMERT WARNS OF 'END OF ISRAEL' !

Mr Bush wants a Middle East peace deal by the end of 2008. Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said failure to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians would spell the end of the State of Israel.
He warned of a "South African-style struggle" which Israel would lose if a Palestinian state was not established.
Mr Olmert was returning from the Annapolis conference in the US where he and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas pledged to launch formal peace talks.
The two leaders set a goal of reaching a peace deal with US support in 2008.

Reactions to Annapolis

US President George W Bush called Annapolis, the first substantive Arab-Israeli peace talks in seven years, a "hopeful beginning" for Mid-East peace.
Mr Olmert said it was not the first time he had articulated his fears about the demographic threat to Israel as a Jewish state from a faster growing Palestinian population.
He made similar comments in 2003 when justifying the failed strategy of unilateral withdrawals from Israeli-occupied land which holds large Palestinian populations.
"If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished," Mr Olmert is quoted saying in Haaretz newspaper.
After the ceremonies at Annapolis and the White House, the US appointed former Nato commander Gen James Jones as its new Middle East envoy.

KEY ISSUES
Jerusalem
Water
Refugees
Borders and settlements
History of failed talks

Among his tasks will be to monitor how the Israelis and Palestinians live up to the security commitments made under the relaunched international peace plan known as the roadmap, which forms the basis for the negotiations.
"Building security in the Middle East is the surest path to making peace in the Middle East," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said of his appointment.
"Gen Jones is the best individual to lead our efforts in this essential endeavour."
Mr Bush promised to use American power "to help you as you come up with the necessary decisions to lay out a Palestinian state that will live side-by-side in peace with Israel".
According to the agreement, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders will meet every other week and teams of negotiators led by a joint steering committee will meet on 12 December.

HAVE YOUR SAY
Ignoring Hamas and the Iranian regime could increase their popularity in the Arab world
Shahram, Isfahan
Send us your comments

Last year's Palestinian parliamentary election winner Hamas - which does not recognise Israel and has been shunned by the US and Israel as a terrorist organisation - immediately rejected Annapolis as a "failure".
There have been angry protests in the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, and the West Bank since the summit.
Expectations had been low as representatives of more than 40 countries and international agencies gathered in Annapolis ahead of Tuesday's conference.
But in a joint statement concluded with only minutes to spare before the conference formally opened, the two sides agreed to launch negotiations for a treaty "resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception".
Both sides have said those "core issues" will include the thorny so-called "final-status issues" - the future of Jerusalem, borders, water, refugees and settlements - which have scuppered previous attempts at a peace deal.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PIPELINE BLAZE RAISES OIL PRICE!

Most Canadian oil exports to the US use Enbridge's pipelines. Oil prices have jumped after a fire shut down the main pipeline delivering Canadian crude oil to refineries in the US Midwest.
The blaze near Enbridge's Clearbrook oil terminal in Minnesota killed two employees, with local officials saying it could burn for three days.
Pipelines from Canada carry about 1.9 million barrels of oil per day and the closure has hit 20% of US oil imports.
A barrel of New York light crude oil rose $3.77, or 4.2%, to $94.39.
In London, Brent crude gained $2.23, or 2.5%, to $92.04.
The incident has reversed some of the recent price falls caused by the smaller than expected drop in US oil stockpiles.
"My initial impression is that (this) will put a halt to the slide in oil prices and put us back on the march towards $100 a barrel," said Mark Pervan, senior commodities analyst at ANZ.
"The timing is pretty bad. We are coming to the strongest demand period for crude with the approach of the northern winter."
Canada is the biggest supplier of foreign crude oil to the US and nearly all of it is delivered along Enbridge's pipelines.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MOSCOW COURT CONVICTS BEREZOVSKY!

Russian authorities also accuse Mr Berezovsky of plotting a coup. A Moscow court has found the exiled businessman Boris Berezovsky guilty of embezzling millions of dollars from the Russian national airline Aeroflot.
Mr Berezovsky, who has political asylum in Britain, controlled the airline in the 1990s.
The court said Mr Berezovsky had stolen 214m roubles (nearly $9m) from the airline, in what it described as an organised criminal fraud.
Mr Berezovsky told the BBC the verdict was "a farce".
He is a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin and Britain's refusal to extradite him has been one of several irritants straining relations between London and Moscow.
He made a huge fortune in the political and economic upheaval following the collapse of communism in the early 1990s.
Russian prosecutors have asked the court to jail him for nine years.
"This court has no significance for me or for those who abide by the law," Mr Berezovsky told BBCRussian.com. "I instructed my lawyers not to participate in this farce."
Mr Berezovsky was a close associate of Russian former secret agent Alexander Litvinenko, whose fatal poisoning in London last year triggered a British-Russian diplomatic row.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

OAP'S WARNING FOR SWEEPING LEAVES!

A council has apologised to an 88-year-old widow after a street cleaner told her she could be fined for sweeping leaves from her porch. Betty Davies said the council worker had seen her sweeping the leaves and later knocked on her door in Splott, Cardiff. Mrs Davies said she was "lost for words" when told she could be fined, but was being let off with a warning. Cardiff Council said sorry and it would not fine people for sweeping leaves.

Mrs Davies said last Friday was a windy day, so she had decided to sweep the front of her house, where she has lived for 62 years. She said: "I swept the leaves out into the pavement and I came back into my house and shut the door. I'm 88 and although I can look after myself, I'm a pensioner and quite old -Betty Davies.

"A road sweeper, who was on the other side of the road, knocked on my door and when I answered he said 'you could be fined for doing that'. "I was lost for words - I just didn't know what to say. He then said 'I'm just giving you a warning this time'. "I went back inside and sat down and thought 'what a blimmin cheek'. "I'm 88 and although I can look after myself, I'm a pensioner and quite old." She added: "I've lived here for 62 years and that is the first time anything like that has happened. "I'm just glad I'm able to sweep up at my age."

Splott councillor Alex Evans said: "I think he (the road sweeper) is totally out of order and to have knocked her door, well that is a 'no, no'. "He shouldn't have done that but approached his management." A spokesman for Cardiff Council said: "The council apologises for the reported comments made to Betty Davies. "The council would not fine people for sweeping leaves on the highway from the front of their home."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'MY STUDENTS WERE SCARED OF ME' !

In the run-up to World Aids Day on Saturday, the BBC is debating how Aids is affecting teaching in Africa. Kenyan teacher Margaret Wambete, 45, tells the BBC News website how finding out that she was HIV positive five years ago was shameful, but activism has turned her life around:

Margaret has been in good health since taking anti-retrovirals It was really hard in the beginning.
I didn't go willingly to be tested even though I was sick. I had TB [tuberculosis]. The children at school were all running away from me because I was so thin.
I frightened them and they called me "scarecrow".
And then when I discovered my status I told the head teacher in confidence.
But he breached my confidentiality and it was not long before everyone knew I was HIV positive.
My students were scared of me and were disrespectful - they refused to hand in assignments for marking and would not take orders from me.

My teaching colleagues were no better either.
People rejected me, saying they were not ready to bury me.
I suffered.
I kept being transferred from one school to another because of my status.
But before I arrived at a new school, my papers would have already arrived which stated that I was HIV-positive and so I would be met with hostility and moved on once more.
I never got to teach. I never gained acceptance in those days.
It took some time but after a while the stigma and discrimination I was facing stopped bringing me down and instead made me want to rise up.

AFRICA HAVE YOUR SAY

HIV-positive people still have to earn a living. It is however important that patients are counselled and assessed to ensure that they do not pose any risk to their students
Annette, Uganda
Send us your comments

All of them, all those who had treated me the way they had, they had formed a challenge for me - I decided to fight their attitudes from the grassroots so people like me could be seen differently.
I wanted to unite HIV-positive people in Kenya to fight stigma and promote access to education, care, support, treatment. I wanted myself and others like me to be able to live positively with the virus.
My vision still is to empower HIV-positive teachers with social and economic support to ensure that their ability as those determining knowledge is not compromised.
I started the Kenya Network of HIV-Positive Teachers (Kenepote) in 2004, three years ago with support from Unesco and USAid.
Now we have about 3,000 members across Kenya's eight provinces.

We target stigma aggressively by holding workshops - teachers are ignorant of the available services and so don't want to come out because they are afraid of the repercussions.
If you as a teacher are sick and cannot make it into class to teach then because of absenteeism you can be sacked and removed from the registrar.
Whereas in fact there are policies in place to protect you.
But if you don't know this, then what can you do?
So that it is my task - to educate and hopefully bring acceptance.
And it is working well. The students react quite differently now - instead of shunning you - they come to you and tell you, "Please come to my home because I need you to speak to my father and mother. My father is sick."
Once statuses are known, conversations are more open. I do quite a lot of counselling.
The burden is shared.
And when I am in town these days I tend to go by car because if I walk on foot everyone wants to talk to me and it takes too long to get things done.
It is so strange how something that was so shameful at the beginning is now bringing me so much joy and pride.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE,

BUT KNOW NOT WHAT WE MAY BE" !

TEACHER CHARGED OVER TEDDY ROW!

Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons said she made an "innocent mistake". A British teacher has been charged in Sudan with insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs.
The Foreign Office has confirmed that charges have been laid against Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool.
She was arrested in Khartoum after allowing her class of primary school pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said he will summon the Sudanese ambassador "as a matter of urgency".
In a statement, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "surprised and disappointed" at the charges.
A spokesman said the first step was to "understand the rationale behind the charge", something which would be discussed by Mr Miliband and the ambassador as soon as possible.
"We will consider our response in the light of that," he added.
Lawyers say Mrs Gibbons faces six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine if convicted.
Sudanese state media said prosecutors had completed their investigation and decided to charge Mrs Gibbons under Article 125 of the Sudanese criminal code.

What can't be named Muhammad?

The BBC's Amber Henshaw, in Khartoum, said Mrs Gibbons was expected to appear in court on Thursday.
The Muslim Council of Britain reacted angrily to the news, saying it was "appalled" and demanded Mrs Gibbons' immediate release.
"This is a disgraceful decision and defies common sense. There was clearly no intention on the part of the teacher to deliberately insult the Islamic faith," said Secretary-General Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, in a strongly-worded statement.
"We call upon the Sudanese President, Omar al-Bashir, to intervene in this case without delay to ensure that Ms Gibbons is freed from this quite shameful ordeal," said Dr Bari.
Mrs Gibbons taught at the fee-paying Unity High School in Khartoum and the school's director, Robert Boulos, said earlier: "This is a very sensitive issue. We are very worried about her safety.
Earlier, the Sudanese Embassy in London said the situation was a "storm in a teacup" and signalled that the teacher could be released soon, attributing the incident to a cultural misunderstanding.
But Sudan's top clerics have called for the full measure of the law to be used against Mrs Gibbons and labelled her actions part of a Western plot against Islam.
"What has happened was not haphazard or carried out of ignorance, but rather a calculated action and another ring in the circles of plotting against Islam," the Sudanese Assembly of the Ulemas said a statement.
The semi-official clerics body is considered relatively moderate and is believed to have the ear of the Sudanese government.
Mrs Gibbons was arrested on Sunday after several parents made complaints to Sudan's Ministry of Education.
The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner said the situation could potentially become a very serious diplomatic incident.
Catherine Wolthuizen, chief executive of Fair Trials Abroad, told BBC News 24 that getting fair legal representation for Mrs Gibbons is a priority: "We are shocked and dismayed as I think many people are."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

OUTCRY AT TANZANIAN HIV BEATING!

President Kikwete was tested at the start of the HIV testing campaign. There has been an outcry in Tanzania over a woman who was badly injured by her husband after she took an HIV test which is being encouraged nationwide.
Tumaini Mbogela said her husband beat her when she returned from a voluntary counselling centre in the town of Makete where she took the HIV test.
Rights activists say the attack was "uncalled for" and women do not need permission to check their HIV status.
Half of the 1.6m Tanzanians living with HIV are women, recent figures show.
Reports from Makete say the husband is on the run from the police.
Relatives claim that he is mentally confused after the realising that the law-enforcers were looking for him.
Nationwide testing
Women's rights activist Jostina Katunzi said 34-year-old Tamali Mbogella was responding to a nationwide drive when she went for an HIV test in Makete.
"Women are so concerned about their health and she was free to go for the test - I do not think she had to consult her husband," Ms Katunzi said.
The BBC's John Ngahyoma in Dar es Salaam says the Makete area is one of the worst-affected regions in Tanzania with a 24% HIV prevalence rate compared to 7% nationally.
When the health ministry launched a nationwide testing campaign in July, Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete was one of the first to take the HIV test.
Following the Makete case, the head of Tanzania's Commission for Aids, Taj Liundi, has advised married couples to consult each other before going for the test.
"This is an isolated case of a violent man and does not represent all men in Tanzania," Mr Liundi said.
"But we shall intensify our efforts to raise awareness of the importance of going for a test."
Mrs Mbogela has now been discharged from hospital, our correspondent says.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

JUDGE SUSPENDED FOR JAILING COURT !

A US judge has been removed from the bench for jailing an entire courtroom audience after none of them admitted being responsible for a ringing phone.
Judge Robert Restaino was presiding over a domestic violence case in the city of Niagara Falls in March 2005.
A commission on judicial conduct said Judge Restaino had acted "without any semblance of a lawful basis" and behaved like a "petty tyrant".
The judge has said he was under stress in his personal life at the time.
He has 30 days to appeal against the commission's decision.

In its ruling on Tuesday, the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct recommended the removal of Judge Restaino for what its chairman called "two hours of inexplicable madness" on the morning of 11 March 2005.
It said the 48-year-old judge had been presiding over a series of domestic violence cases when he heard a mobile phone ring and "snapped".
"Every single person is going to jail in this courtroom unless I get that instrument now," he told the courtroom's audience, according to the commission.
"If anybody believes I'm kidding, ask some of the folks that have been here for a while. You are all going."
Security officers then attempted to find the phone but failed.
After a brief recess, Judge Restaino returned to the bench and again asked who had been responsible for the ringing phone.
When no-one came forward, the judge ordered that the entire courtroom audience of 46 people be taken into custody and set bail at $1,500.
"This troubles me more than any of you people can understand," the judge explained.
"This person, whoever he or she may be, doesn't have a whole lot of concern. Let's see how much concern they have when they are sitting in the back there with all the rest of you," he added.
"Ultimately, when you go back there to be booked, you've got to surrender what you got on you. One way or another, we're going to get our hands on something."
One defendant, according to the report, told the judge: "This is not fair to the rest of us."
"I know it isn't," Judge Restaino replied.
The audience and defendants were then taken to Niagara City jail, where they were searched and packed into crowded cells.
Fourteen people who could not post bail were later shackled and transported to another prison.
He explained that he simply focused on attempting to locate the phone's owner and was frustrated by his inability to do so

It was only later in the afternoon, when reporters began to ask questions about the ruling, that Judge Restaino ordered their release.
The judge told the commission he had known that he had no legal basis for his actions and that they had been "improper and inexcusable".
"He explained that he simply focused on attempting to locate the phone's owner and was frustrated by his inability to do so," the commission said.
The judge told the panel he had been under stress in his personal life at the time of the incident, it added.
Nevertheless, the commission's administrator, Robert Tembekjian, said the fundamental rights of 46 people had been "deliberately and methodically violated" and insisted there could be no excuse.
The judge's lawyer, Terrence Connors, told the Associated Press that he would exercise his right to appeal the decision within 30 days. He will remain in office during that time.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

US OIL MAN JAILED FOR UN SCANDAL !

American oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt has been sentenced to one year and a day in prison for conspiracy in the UN oil-for-food programme scandal.
The Texas oilman, aged 83, had agreed last month to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
He admitted he agreed to pay $200,000 (£97,000) into an Iraqi bank account.
Under the oil-for-food programme, some companies paid bribes to officials in Saddam Hussein's Iraq in order to secure contracts to buy oil.
The programme was established in the wake of sanctions imposed on Iraq after the country invaded Kuwait in 1990.
It allowed Iraq to sell oil in order to buy humanitarian provisions.
A UN-commissioned inquiry found that 2,200 companies in 66 countries paid $1.8bn in bribes to Iraqi officials to win oil contracts.
Under Mr Wyatt's plea bargain, prosecutors dropped four other charges against him and he agreed to the prison term and to forfeit $11m (£5.3m).
He is the most prominent figure to be jailed over the scandal.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE INFLATION 'INCALCULABLE'!

Basic goods have disappeared from supermarket shelves. Zimbabwe's chief statistician has said it is impossible to work out the country's latest inflation rate because of the lack of goods in shops.
"There are too many data gaps," the Central Statistical Office's Moffat Nyoni told state media.
Many staple goods are often absent from shop shelves after the government ordered prices to be halved or frozen in a bid to stem galloping inflation.
September's inflation rate was put at almost 8,000%, the world's highest.
Other reports suggest the rate could be at near 15,000% and the International Monetary Fund had warned it could reach 100,000% by the end of the year.
Black market
Mr Nyoni said the Central Statistical Office has delayed the release of the inflation figure until an accurate way of calculating it can be found.
"We went to too many shops to observe and so compilations have not been completed," he said.
Maize meal, bread, meat, cooking oil, sugar and other basic goods used to measure inflation largely disappeared from shops after Robert Mugabe's government ordered prices to be slashed.
Manufacturers have said they cannot afford to sell goods at below the cost of producing them.
Most basics are intermittently available on the black market at well over the official prices.
Last month, the central bank offered loans, known as Bacossis, to businesses at 25% interest to restore supplies to shops, AP news agency reports.
"We hope the situation will improve, especially with the availing of Bacossi funds," Mr Nyoni said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZUMA - SOUTH AFRICA'S COMEBACK KID!

Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma is now the clear favourite to become the next leader of the African National Congress, after receiving more nominations than any other candidate. This would put him in pole position to become South Africa's next president, in elections due in 2009.

And yet just two years ago, his political career was all but written off, when he was battling sleazy allegations of rape and corruption. But Mr Zuma was acquitted of rape - and the corruption case against him has been put on hold. His friends say the accusations against him were politically-motivated and it was not long before support rallied again around the ANC's most prominent left-winger. His supporters have never doubted that he had the popular touch. They contrast him to President Thabo Mbeki, seen as rather aloof.

Popular support for Zuma was unwavering though the court cases. "He is a man who listens; he doesn't take the approach of an intellectual king", said one unnamed supporter, in an apparent swipe at Mr Mbeki. Born in 1942 and brought up by his widowed mother in Zululand, Jacob Zuma had no formal schooling. He joined the ANC at the age of 17, becoming an active member of its military wing, Umkhonto We Sizwe, in 1962. He was convicted of conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government and was imprisoned for 10 years on the notorious Robben Island. Mr Zuma subsequently left South Africa, living first in Mozambique, then Zambia as he rose through the ANC ranks to the executive committee, becoming one of the first leaders to return home in 1990 when the ANC was unbanned, to take part in negotiations with the white minority government.

He credits his political awakening to a family member who was an active trade unionist and throughout his political career, Mr Zuma has championed the rights of the people. His supporters believe the man they call JZ will redistribute South Africa's wealth in favour of the poor. Yet fears that a potential Zuma candidacy could have a negative influence on the economy and scare off foreign investors appear over-stated. Business leaders have told the BBC that they are not worried - they have received assurances from Mr Zuma that policy is set by the ANC conference, not the party leader, and he will abide by official party policy.

Securing the endorsement of the ANC Women's League - in defiance of an earlier league decision to put forward a female candidate for the party leadership - will have given a great boost to the Zuma campaign. Some analysts had predicted he would divide the women's vote, with many unwilling to forgive him for the admission that he had unprotected sex with the HIV-positive family friend at the centre of the rape case.

His statement that he showered afterwards to guard against possible infection provoked public criticism and ridicule in equal measure. The BBC's Mike Wooldridge says his apology appeared to do little to dilute the charge that Mr Zuma's judgement and integrity are questionable. And yet his popularity is undiminished. The outcome of the nominations process has been described on the Friends of Jacob Zuma website as having "confounded the analysts, revealing that the media and political commentators are out of touch with sentiment in the ANC."

Proof positive will come from the secret ballot at the ANC conference in Polokwane and if, as now seems likely, Mr Zuma emerges triumphant, then the party's most prominent Zulu will be favourite to succeed Thabo Mbeki as head of state in 2009.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"RESPONSIBILITY MUST BE SHOULDERED,

YOU CANNOT CARRY IT UNDER YOUR ARM"!

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: RUSSIAN WOMEN SPEAK OUT!

NOne Russian woman dies at the hands of her husband or partner every hour, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. Last year there were more than 15,000 criminal cases in Russia against men accused of violent crimes against their wives. Campaigners say this is the tip of the iceberg. Violence is considered "normal", so few women report it and even fewer cases make it to court.
A few years ago the pop star Valeria made headlines when she wrote a personal account of domestic violence and took part in an international campaign against it. The BBC's Russian service has been speaking to some women who have survived domestic violence. For their own security, their names have been changed and photographs taken in a way that does not identify them.

Click here for the BBC Russian Service's domestic violence reports

IRINA

"I believed it was normal to be beaten up." My husband would come home from work, often a little drunk. And he would hit me if something was wrong, like I forgot to take the garbage out or the soup for dinner was not warm enough. First he would just give me a blow on the head, not too hard. But gradually he got into the habit of hitting me harder and harder.
Why didn't I leave? First of all, because my husband and all our friends and relatives kept telling me: how will you survive alone with three small children? You will never be able to remarry. And also because everyone around me told me that it was completely normal. And with time I started to believe that it was normal to be beaten up and humiliated.
I woke up in hospital with small tubes sticking out of my stomach and drips in my veins.
I was like a fish in a tank: all alone. You open your mouth, try to say something, but nobody hears you. Everyone was just waving me off: this is nothing, it's your family business.
The last time he beat me up I woke up in hospital, with small tubes sticking out of my stomach and drips in my veins. I was told that I was in hospital and I had just been operated on. My first thought was: but how did I end up here? Oh, but I ended up here because I was beaten up by my husband. And why did he beat me up? Oh, because I was foolish enough to let him do it.
I managed to recover after all this violence. But it's better not to let things come to this. We should stand up to them. If a man hits a woman once and she doesn't leave him straight away, he will feel encouraged to hit her again, as nobody punished him for hurting another person.

LYUDMILA

"They appealed to me as fellow police; they wouldn't get a bonus."
After my husband beat me up really badly, I was in hospital for about a month. And all this time the police officer, the investigator and my ex-husband kept telling me that I shouldn't start criminal proceedings and that I shouldn't tell anyone about what happened.
The police hoped that I would withdraw my report. When they found out that I worked for the police myself, they started appealing to me as a fellow police employee. They said it was a waste of time for them to investigate a domestic violence case, that they wouldn't get any bonuses for this.
It was pity of the kind which said 'poor little thing, she doesn't know how to handle men'.
Most people around me disapproved of me. They said this was a family matter and it shouldn't be made public. If I failed to find common ground with my husband, it was my problem. If he hit me, I was myself to blame. Had I found the right words, he would never have hit me, they said. Some felt pity for me, but it was pity of the kind which went "poor little thing, she just doesn't know how to handle men".
The legislation concerning domestic violence needs to change. The state should start supporting women in such situations. There are already crisis centres that support women, but they can do very little until the law changes.

MASHA

Masha was raped like a "chunk of meat" in front of her children.
It started out as a nice marriage. We had two children. Then my husband started to change, as he was getting more money and more power. And I was just a housewife, at home with the children and pots and pans.
We started to have scenes. Then he started hitting me. I kept it to myself, I didn't want to tell anyone. I tried to drown my grief in alcohol. Then he stopped seeing me as human.
Once he raped me in a perverted fashion in front of the children. He beat me first and then he raped the "hunk of meat" that he considered me to be.
I am happy with my life now but there are no guarantees I won't end up on the streets again.
After this I broke up with him and started binge-drinking. He set the police against me and eventually they came and took me away. When the police let me go I came back to a locked door of the flat I shared with my husband. I was without my things, without documents, without any money.
I was homeless on the streets of St Petersburg for several years. Eventually I got really ill and doctors referred me to a crisis centre for women. They helped me get new documents and find a job where I can live in a dormitory room.
I tried to get in touch with my children, I sent them presents and tried to inquire through friends, but at the moment they don't want to see me. I'm happy with my life now: just to have a roof over my head, even if it is only a small dormitory room. There are no guarantees, of course, that I won't end up on the streets again. And this is what frightens me. I don't think I will survive this a second time.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PAVAROTTI'S WIDOW SUING FRIENDS!

Mantovani said she "owed it to the people closest to me" to speak out. Luciano Pavarotti's widow Nicoletta Mantovani is suing two of the late opera star's friends for defamation.
The move comes weeks after Ms Mantovani, 37, attacked the Italian media for reporting "unseemly gossip" about her marriage to the tenor.
"Since the comments did not cease - and were, in fact, reiterated - Mantovani had no choice but to file the lawsuit," said her lawyer, Anna Maria Bernini.
Pavarotti died aged 71 in Modena, northern Italy, in September.
The two people named in the legal case are Franca Corfini Strata, the wife of the late singer's dietician, and Lidia La Marca, who is married to conductor Leone Magiera.
Ms Mantovani is seeking 15 million euros (£10.7m) in damages from each, and intends to to donate any award to charity, Ms Benini said.
Neither woman was available for comment, and no date has been set for a hearing.

Pavarotti died at his home in Modena, Italy. Pavarotti had one child, Alice, with Ms Mantovani, who was his second wife.
In his will, the performer left half of his estate to Ms Mantovani - formerly his personal assistant - and half to his four daughters.
Speaking to Italy's RAI state TV in October, Ms Mantovani said she wanted to leave her daughter with solid evidence she had defended herself and Pavarotti from press gossip.
She denied being left in debt or that she was squabbling with his three adult daughters over his will.
"I'm here and can defend myself. But Luciano can't, and Alice is a four-year-old child," she said.
Pavarotti was famed for helping to popularise opera, particularly through his signature tune, Nessun Dorma, which became associated with the 1990 World Cup.
His performances with Placido Domingo and Jose Carerras at this time - in the Three Tenors concerts - were seen around the world.
The singer died at his home in Modena, northern Italy, having being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2006.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

AFRICAN NATIONS IN EU TRADE DEAL!

African nations are looking to boost their exports to key markets. The five countries that make up the East African Community have agreed a plan that will gradually open their markets to the European Union (EU).
Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda are covered by the EU deal.
The new agreement will replace preferential trade obligations, which are due to expire in December and hae proved controversial in recent years.
A number of other nations in Western Africa, and some Pacific nations, have yet to accept the new arrangements.

The East African Community (EAC) trading bloc has agreed to "gradually open their markets to goods from the EU over a period of 25 years", an EU official said.
Depsite giving European firms more access to their markets, some industries will still be protected from competition to prevent local businesses from going bankrupt.
Under the terms of the new deal, about a fifth of EAC trade would still be exempt from the requirement to lower customs duties.
Industrial products and agriculture are among the sectors that are to be given extra protection.
The EU said that negotiations would continue next year in an effort to have a more comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in place by 2009.

The new deals will replace earlier preferential trade obligations, which have been heavily criticised by other nations, particularly those in Latin America.
They have been ruled illegal by the World Trade Organization and the 27 members of the trade bloc have until the end of the year to establish new arrangements with partners.
But it is not thought that all 80 nations in Europe's former African, Caribbean and Pacific colonies will have signed up to the EPAs by 1 January because there is still a lot of opposition to the deals.
Critics argue that the EPAs could damage developing economies by cutting their customs revenue and making it harder for local businesses to compete with larger foreign rivals.

POLITICS 'STIFLING $100 LAPTOP!

By Jonathan Fildes Science and technology reporter, BBC News.

The government of Nigeria is still assessing the scheme.

Laptop in Nigeria

A lack of "big thinking" by politicians has stifled a scheme to distribute laptops to children in the developing world, a spokesman has said. Walter Bender of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) said politicians were unwilling to commit because "change equals risk". But, he said, there needed to be a "dramatic change" because education in many countries was "failing" children.

In an interview with the BBC, Nigeria's education minister questioned the need for laptops in poorly equipped schools. Dr Igwe Aja-Nwachuku said: "What is the essence of introducing One Laptop per Child when they don't have seats to sit down and learn; when they don't have uniforms to go to school in, where they don't have facilities?" "We are more interested in laying a very solid foundation for quality education which will be efficient, effective, accessible and affordable." The previous government of Nigeria had committed to buying one million laptops. Dr Aja-Nwachuku said he was now assessing OLPC alongside other schemes from Microsoft and Intel. "We are asking whether this is the most critical thing to drive education."

But speaking separately to BBC News, Professor Bender said: "We think that change has to be dramatic." "You've got to be big, you've got to be bold. And what has happened is that there has been an effort to say 'don't take any risks - just do something small, something incremental'." "It feels safe but by definition what you are ensuring is that nothing happens." OLPC was started in 2002 by Nicholas Negroponte, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It aims to put thousands of low-cost laptops, known as the XO, in the hands of children around the world. The machines are planned to cost $100 and have been especially designed for use in remote and harsh environments where there is little access to electricity or the internet. But getting the project off the ground has proved difficult.

Professor Negroponte has had high profile run-ins with major technology firms. He told an audience at a Linux event: "if I am annoying Microsoft and Intel then I figure I am doing something right." Microsoft head Bill Gates had questioned the XOs design, particularly the lack of hard drive and its "tiny screen". But recently, the firm announced that it was working on a version of Windows XP that would run on the pared down machines.

"We are spending a non-trivial amount of money," Microsoft's Will Poole told Reuters. Earlier this year, Professor Negroponte also accused Intel of selling its own cut-price laptop - the Classmate - below cost price to drive him out of markets. He said that Intel "should be ashamed of itself" and said its tactics had hurt his mission "enormously". Within weeks it was announced that Intel had joined the board of OLPC amid speculation that the firm was unhappy about the XO using a processor from its main rival AMD.

Although these episodes now appear to be behind OLPC, Professor Bender said there was still an "aggressive" effort to undermine the charity. "There is still a concerted misinformation campaign out there," he said. Mr Bender said he would not speculate on who was behind the alleged campaign. "Wherever it is coming from, it exists," he told BBC News. But he said the main problem for OLPC was dealing with conservative politicians. "Change equals risk especially for politicians. And we are certainly advocating change because the [education] system is failing these children," he said. "It has not been that processor versus that processor or that operating system versus that operating system - it's been small thinking versus big thinking. That's really the issue," he said.

Originally, the laptops were to be sold to governments in lots of one million for $100 apiece. Over time, however, the project has dropped the minimum number of machines that can be ordered, leading some to speculate that governments were not buying into the scheme.

Factfile: XO laptop

The project also recently launched an initiative to allow citizens of North America to buy two machines at a time; one for themselves and one for a child in a developing country. But Mr Bender said the shift was because of a better understanding of how to distribute smaller numbers cheaply and effectively, rather than a lack of orders. "Part of it was our understanding of how the supply chain was going to work and having enough flexibility in the supply chain to make it work with a small number," he said. "The big numbers were really about how you get this thing started not how you make it work in the long term. "That was always going to be about supporting any good idea that comes along. And we've been able to get it started without the big top down numbers so we are off and running."

Since the scheme was first announced in 2002 there have been reports of several countries signing up to it. Both Nigeria and Libya were reported to have ordered more than one million laptops. Other countries including Thailand and Pakistan had also placed orders, according to reports. But recently, OLPC revealed it had just taken its first order for 100,000 of the machines, placed by the government of Uruguay. "Uruguay is first then it will be Peru, Mexico, Ethiopia then we are going to be doing stuff in Haiti, Rwanda and Mongolia," said Mr Bender. In addition, he said, OLPC had done a deal with Birmingham, Alabama, in the US, to provide the laptop for schools in the city. "The numbers of countries where we have trials set up is also increasing," he said.

Tests were also going on in the Solomon Islands, Nepal and India, a country that had previously shunned the scheme. The Indian Ministry of Education had previously dismissed the laptop as "pedagogically suspect", whilst the Education Secretary Sudeep Banerjee said the country needed "classrooms and teachers more urgently than fancy tools".

The first machines will cost almost double the $100 originally planned. The high price has been blamed on the increasing cost of the raw materials for the components inside the XO. Each machine currently costs $188. "The price will come down as the numbers go up. It will take time but it will happen," said Mr Bender. The manufacturer of the laptop - Quanta - recently revealed it had started mass production of the machines, after a number of delays. Previously, OLPC had said it needed three million orders to make production feasible. Professor Negroponte said it was an important milestone that had been reached despite "all the naysayers". "We're not turning back - we have passed the point of no return," said Mr Bender. "It is happening."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

THE WORLD THIS WEEK !

A look at what could be dominating the headlines around the world this week - and some key background on those events.

MONDAY 26 NOVEMBER
LOOK OUT FOR -

BBC economics guru Evan Davis blogs stateside as the US dollar slides
A series of features exploring China's involvement in Africa
Reports from Russia in the run-up to Sunday's election.

Troika meeting: The EU, Russia and the US hold their final set of talks with Serb and Kosovo Albanian leaders over the future status of the province of Kosovo.
Race against time

Peace project: The former President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, is to be presented with the first Mo Ibrahim prize for excellence in leadership.
Mozambique ex-leader wins prize

TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER
Not plain sailing: A two-day peace conference takes place at the US Navy base of Annapolis, in Maryland. Arab countries confirmed their attendance only late last week after failing to win guarantees of Israeli concessions.
Rice sets Mid-East peace target

The Index: The United Nations Development Programme publishes its flagship Human Development Report, which ranks the countries of the world according to a wide range of social and economic indicators.
Inequality 'key to poverty fight'

Street style: British Fashion Awards are given to the brightest of the UK's style industry at a ceremony in London.
R4 Women's Hour: Is London lagging behind?

Computerised care: Tokyo's Waseda University unveils a robot designed to take care of the country's growing number of old people safely.
Japan eyes demographic time bomb

WEDNESDAY 28 NOVEMBER

China is one of the EU's biggest trading partnersBeijing business: European Union leaders begin a summit in the Chinese capital aimed at resolving trade tensions between the Asian giant and the world's biggest free trade area.
China and EU hold treaty talks

Shelling out: An intricately decorated Faberge egg, made for the Rothschild banking family in 1902 and containing an animated cockerel, is to be auctioned at Christies in London.
In pictures: Faberge treasures

Blood and grass: The European Union hosts a conference on sport and violence with UEFA to suggest ways to tackle violence in football and other sports.
Italian league halted by violence

THURSDAY 29 NOVEMBER
Ice rink trial: The trial opens in Traunstein, Germany, of four people involved in the construction of the Bad Reichenhall ice rink. Fifteen people were killed when the roof of the structure collapsed under heavy snow in 2006.
German ice rink collapses

Drawing lines: Thursday marks the 60th anniversary of the UN adoption of a partition plan for Palestine, then under a British mandate. The plan, which was rejected by the Palestinians, was never implemented.
Country profile: Israel and the Occupied Territories

FRIDAY 30 NOVEMBER

Ms Knox has changed her story about what happened several times. Student murder: A closed-door hearing is to take place in the central Italian town of Perugia. Lawyers for US student Amanda Knox and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito - both prime suspects in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher - are requesting their release.
Flatmate 'heard Meredith scream'

SATURDAY 1 DECEMBER
World Aids Day: A series of global events to highlight the issues surrounding the spread of HIV/Aids. This year will focus on the importance of leaders in tackling the epidemic.
World Service: World Aids Day 2006

Counting faces: The Palestinian Authority is to carry out the first census of the Occupied Territories for a decade. The area is among the world's most densely populated.

SUNDAY 2 DECEMBER
Long leadership: The President of Gabon, Omar Bongo Ondimba, marks four decades in power with celebrations in the capital, Libreville.
Gabon's president for life

Moscow votes: Polling in Russia's parliamentary election takes place. Among the candidates are President Vladimir Putin and the man British police suspect of killing former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, Andrei Lugovoi.
Russia's levers of power

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'MUHAMMAD' TEDDY TEACHER ARRESTED!

Gillian Gibbons had been working in Khartoum since August. A British school teacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting Islam's Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad. Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, said she made an "innocent mistake" by letting the six and seven-year-olds choose the name. Ms Gibbons was arrested after several parents made complaints.

A spokesman from the British Embassy in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, said it was unclear whether she had been charged. Embassy officials are expected to visit Ms Gibbons in custody later. "We are in contact with the authorities here and they have visited the teacher and she is in a good condition," an embassy spokesman said. The spokesman said the naming of the teddy happened months ago and was chosen by the children because it is a common name in the country.

"This happened in September and the parents did not have a problem with it," he said. The BBC's correspondent Amber Henshaw said Ms Gibbons' punishment could be up to six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine. The school has been closed until January for fear of reprisals. Fellow teachers at Khartoum's Unity High School told Reuters news agency they feared for Ms Gibbons' safety after receiving reports that men had started gathering outside the police station where she was being held. This was a completely innocent mistake. Miss Gibbons would have never wanted to insult Islam."

Mr Boulos said Ms Gibbons was following a British national curriculum course designed to teach young pupils about animals and this year's topic was the bear. So Ms Gibbons, who joined the school in August, asked a seven-year-old girl to bring in her teddy bear and asked the class to pick names for it, he said. "They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad," Mr Boulos said. "Then she explained what it meant to vote and asked them to choose the name." Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad as their favourite name. Mr Boulos said each child was then allowed to take the bear home at weekends and told to write a diary about what they did with it.

He said the children's entries were collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover and a message which read, "My name is Muhammad." The bear itself was not marked or labelled with the name in any way, he added. It is seen as an insult to Islam to attempt to make an image of the Prophet Muhammad. Mr Boulos said Ms Gibbons was arrested on Sunday at her home inside the school premises after a number of parents complained to Sudan's Ministry of Education.

He said police had seized the book and asked to interview the girl who owned the bear. The country's state-controlled Sudanese Media Centre reported that charges were being prepared "under article 125 of the criminal law" which covers insults against faith and religion. No-one at the ministries of education or justice was available for comment. One Muslim teacher at the school, who also has a child in Ms Gibbons' class, said she had not found the project offensive. "I had no problem with it at all," the teacher said. "I know Gillian and she would never have meant it as an insult. I was just impressed that she got them to vote."

Unity is an independent school for Christian and Muslim children and is governed by a board representing major Christian denominations in Sudan. Cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad printed in several European newspapers sparked violent protests around the world in 2006.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA IN AFRICA: DEVELOPING TIES !

Friend or foe?
Mineral trade
Have Your Say

In the first of a series on China's new relationship with Africa, the BBC's Adam Blenford looks at how their economic interests coincide. The next piece looks at the Chinese firms rebuilding the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. In almost every corner of Africa there is something that interests China. The continent is rich in natural resources that promise to keep China's booming, fuel-hungry economy on the road. There is copper to mine in Zambia, iron ore to extract in Gabon and oil to refine in Angola. In other countries less blessed by natural resources, Chinese companies have spied trading and investment opportunities.

See a map of China's investment in Africa

Africa's need for new and better roads, school buildings, computer networks, telecoms systems and power generation has opened a lucrative window of opportunity for Chinese firms. The new Sino-African dynamic can leave the West ill at ease, reviving memories of Europe's colonial domination in Africa and drawing complaints that low Chinese bids are freezing out Western companies.
China also offers "no-strings" aid, a marked contrast to Western donors who impose conditions on aid and tie trade sweeteners to human rights issues. Critics say China's approach has emboldened unsavoury governments, allowing them to ignore Western calls for reform, safe in the knowledge that Beijing will take up the slack. Sudan, with its vast oil reserves, is the number one recipient of Chinese investment, and sells some two-thirds of its oil to Beijing. As a result, China has been criticised for its links with a government ostracised by many for its role in the ongoing crisis in Darfur.
Elsewhere, stories of anti-Chinese unrest in Zambia and the killing of nine Chinese oil workers by rebels in Ethiopia's Ogaden region have focused Beijing's attention on the price it might have to pay for its African adventure. The Chinese insist they are not interested in dominating Africa.
Instead China says it seeks a "harmonious world", an evolution of its Cold War search for "peaceful co-existence", and it wants to coax African countries along the path towards development.

Instead of top-down aid projects, Chinese companies seek profits in Africa as they bequeath the continent a new infrastructure - one that will more than likely to be used to increase trade with China. "China consistently respects and supports African countries," Yan Xiao Gang, China's economic attache in Ethiopia, told the BBC. "It never imposes its own will on African countries, nor interferes in the domestic affairs of African countries." Ethiopian officials speak of "owning" their country's development, but do admit that major contracts usually go to Chinese firms because of their ability to keep costs down.

Many Chinese firms use large numbers of local workers but wages remain low. However, there is evidence that workers are learning new skills because of the availability of Chinese-funded work. Taking advantage of low labour costs, the Chinese are also building factories across Africa.
Observers say Beijing appears ready for the long haul in Africa. "For China to become a major power it needs to continue its double-digit economic growth of recent years. For this it needs energy and markets," Prof M Venkataraman, of the University of Addis Ababa, told the BBC. Those markets are proving receptive, and trade with the continent is famously booming - up to $40bn in 2004, a tenfold increase in under a decade.

Yet most African countries now have a growing trade deficit with China, in spite of favourable tax-free trading agreements. Ethiopian exports to China reached $132m (£63m) in 2006, a figure dwarfed by the value of Chinese imports of $432m (£206m). "It is not clear what the long-term effect of the Chinese projects will be," said Mr Venkataraman. "But the facts are very clear - there are going to be benefits to both sides. China is going to remain in this continent for a very long time." The China-Africa relationship shot to attention in November 2006 when 48 African heads of government attended a forum in Beijing. China's capital was festooned with images of exotic Africa for the occasion. Speeches were made and deals were struck.

See China's $150m gift to the African Union
Enlarge Image

Tsegab Kebebew, a senior official in Ethiopia's foreign ministry, was in Beijing for the meeting. One year on, he remains enthused about the relationship. "This is a new strategic partnership. There is no colonial history between Africa and China, so they are well received here," he told the BBC. "There is no psychological bias against the Chinese." In fact China has a history of involvement in Africa, and undertook major aid project in the 1960s and 1970s. Among Beijing's gifts was a railroad linking Zambia and Tanzania, now scheduled to be rebuilt by a Chinese company.

China's gifts to modern-day Africa will soon include a gleaming new conference centre at the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa - a symbol of Beijing's commitment to African development, says Mr Yan of the Chinese embassy. There is symbolism in the shops, too. With Ethiopia only now marking the turn of its millennium, seven years after the rest of the world, the country is in the grip of a 12-month millennium frenzy. Banners adorn public buildings and souvenirs are on sale in many shops. The government hopes the outbreak of national pride can spur Ethiopia to a new age of prosperity. Those browsing a local market for, say, a souvenir plate bearing the legend "Ethiopian Millennium 2000" would do well to turn the gift over and look underneath.

Embossed on the white plastic is a phrase already familiar to all in the West: "Made in China".
BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZUMA AHEAD IN ANC PRESIDENT RACE!

Jacob Zuma is seen as less business friendly than Mbeki. South Africa's former Deputy President Jacob Zuma is ahead in the race to become the next African National Congress leader, local media report.
He has reportedly secured the backing of five provinces, while the other four backed President Thabo Mbeki.
Winning the party leadership would make Mr Zuma favourite to become South Africa's president in 2009.
The leadership election will be conducted by secret ballot at the ANC's national conference next month.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) says the weekend provincial results are the "hardest information" to date on how the 4,075 ANC voting delegates are likely to cast their votes.
Mr Zuma secured 2,270 votes while 1,396 went to Mr Mbeki, said 702 Talk Radio.
But the ANC says it has not received the official nominations.
Analysts say these results are bad news for Mr Mbeki.
"This is a rejection of Thabo Mbeki by the ANC," said Pretoria-based political commentator Xolela Mangcu, according to the AFP news agency.

JACOB ZUMA
Top figure in fight against apartheid
Seen as less business-friendly than Mbeki
Sacked as deputy president in 2005
Corruption trial stopped
Acquitted on rape charges

Zuma on the rise?

According to Susan Booysen of Johannesburg's Wits University: "I can't see how this cannot be the end of Mbeki's candidacy."
The BBC's Peter Greste in Johannesburg says the ANC has rarely faced a leadership contest as divisive as this one and that everything rests on the result of the secret ballot at the 16-20 December conference in Polokwane.
If there is deadlock, our correspondent says it will open up the possibility of a compromise candidate, such as Cyril Ramaphosa or Tokyo Sexwale, around whom the ANC can unite.
SABC says Mr Zuma got overwhelming support from the provinces of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal on Sunday evening.
In his home province of KwaZulu-Natal, he got 580 votes to Mr Mbeki's nine, while in Gauteng he got 263 votes against 94 for the current president.
The provinces of Mpumalanga, Free State and Northern Cape have also indicated they will back Mr Zuma, who already enjoys the support of the ANC Youth League and the powerful Confederation of South African Trades Unions (Cosatu).
Mr Mbeki has so far won nominations from the Eastern and Western Cape, Limpopo and the North West.
He is stepping down as national leader in 2009 after serving two terms but observers say remaining ANC leader would leave him in a strong position to decide who becomes South Africa's next president.
Some ANC supporters and officials say Mr Mbeki is too business-friendly and want the government to do more to help the poor.
Mr Zuma was sacked as deputy leader in 2005, amid allegations of corruption.
The corruption trial was stopped but charges may be brought once more.
He was also charged with rape but acquitted.
Mr Zuma's supporters say the charges were designed to sideline him from the leadership race.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"YOU LEARN THE RULES BY STUDY,

AND THE EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULES

BY EXPERIENCE" !

CHILE COMPLETES SHIPWRECK AIRLIFT!

All passengers from the Explorer are safe. The last of the passengers and crew rescued from a shipwreck in Antarctica have been flown back to mainland Chile. A military plane transported a group of 77 people from a refuge in the Antarctic to Punta Arenas, where another 77 had been flown on Saturday. Some members of the first group have gone on to the capital, Santiago, and are due to start flying home soon. A total of 154 people had to take to lifeboats after their ship hit an iceberg on Friday and later sank.

In pictures: Ship rescue
Lure of polar extremes
Evacuees recount escape

A Chilean air force spokesman said that while in the military barracks on King George island, the tourists had been "doing very well and some of them have been in touch with their families via the internet".

Some 23 Britons, 17 Dutch and 13 Americans were among those on board the ship. There were also 10 Australians and 10 Canadians and other nationalities included Irish, Danish, Swiss, Belgian, Japanese, French, German and Chinese, said Gap Adventures, the Toronto-based tour company. The tour group had embarked from Ushuaia, on Argentina's southern tip, on 11 November for a 19-day "Spirit of Shackleton" cruise through the Drake Passage, costing from around $8,000 (£3,900) per cabin.

Graphic: Key facts about M/S Explorer
The ship, the Explorer, ran into trouble approximately 120km (75 miles) north of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Cruise ship 'fit'
Worldwide rescue hub

The company said pumps had been used in an effort to stop the ship sinking, but in the meantime the captain gave the order to abandon ship, and passengers were transferred to lifeboats. After several hours bobbing on the sea amid floating sheets of ice, they were plucked to safety by the Norwegian cruise ship, the Nordnorge. Coastguards said although the weather conditions were good for this time of year, the average temperature was still -5C.

Passenger Gillian Plant, 40, of Manchester, England, praised the ship's captain for the way the evacuation was handled. She told the BBC News website on Saturday: "There was no panic at all and no injuries. Everybody is perfect, no bruises, no scratches." She said the evacuees, clad in protective suits, passed the four-and-a-half-hour wait to be rescued by watching for whales. Argentine guide Andrea Salas, who was also on the ship, told Argentina's Radio Continental she was in the bar having a drink "when two passengers from the cabins down below came in wet, shouting: 'There's water, there's water!' "We ran out to see what was happening - and there was this hole in the cabins down below. The cabins were already quite flooded." She said: "There were people suffering from hypothermia and it felt like an eternity until the boats came to the rescue."

Following the news of the incident, the specialist Lloyds List maritime publication said the 2,400-tonne Explorer had had five faults at its last inspection. However, the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), whose inspectors found the faults, said that they had all been rectified by the time the ship set sail again.

M/S EXPLORER

Built: 1969, FinlandCapacity: 100 passengersTonnage: 2,400
Cruising speed: 11 knotsEngines: 3,800 hp dieselsCrew: 54
First custom-built expedition ship
Known as the 'Little Red Ship' to aficionados
Became the first passenger vessel to navigate the North West passage in 1984
Involved in rescue of crew from Argentine cargo vessel off Anvers Island, Antarctica, in 1989

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYAN POLICE 'KILLED THOUSANDS' !

Police carried out a major operation against Mungiki members in JuneA human-rights organisation has claimed that Kenyan police killed as many as 8,040 people by execution or torture during a crackdown on a banned sect.
The group said a further 4,070 people had gone missing as security forces tried to wipe out the Mungiki sect.
The deaths and disappearances occurred over five years up to August 2007, said the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic-Kenya.
A Kenyan police spokesman has dismissed the report as "fictitious".
"The people disseminating it have a questionable character and motive," Eric Kiraithe told the Associated Press news agency.

MUNGIKI SECT
Banned in 2002
Thought to be ethnic Kikuyu militants
Mungiki means multitude in Kikuyu
Inspired by the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s
Claim to have more than 1m followers
Promote female circumcision and oath-taking
Believed to be linked to high-profile politicians
Control public transport routes, demanding levies
Blamed for revenge murders in the central region

Profile: Secretive sect

The report said Kenya's General Service Unit carried out the killings during operations in slum areas.
The document was based on interviews with relatives, autopsy reports, and police and other records.
It comes shortly after the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights linked police to the execution-style deaths of nearly 500 Mungiki in a crackdown on the sect carried out over the last five months.
The police have said criminals are responsible.
The allegations of extrajudicial killings are being made at a politically sensitive time, just weeks before Kenya's presidential elections.
Police moved against the Mungiki after they terrorised parts of the Kenyan capital Nairobi and the centre of the country earlier this year.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Own goals.

Saturday 24th November 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

When I saw people running down the pavement I knew that some precious basic commodity must have arrived and that this rush was the start of the queue. I stepped out of the way so as not to get knocked down and carried on walking. I was amazed to see people pushing and jostling to get a place in line to buy the State controlled daily newspaper. This sudden enthusiasm for a dose of the latest propaganda has apparently got nothing to do with the government pronouncements but is related to the chronic national shortage of toilet paper. Not only does the newspaper double as toilet paper, it is also cheaper with one day's edition of propaganda costing less than a roll of loo paper.

I count myself very lucky that a neighbour hands me down two second hand independent newspapers every week - not because I want toilet paper but because these newspapers are now almost impossible to obtain - even more so than the State controlled ones. When the independent papers arrive in the town on a Friday morning you've got about half an hour to get to the roadside vendors before all their copies are sold out and then its another long week to wait for the next taste of the truth. To exacerbate this crazy situation, the government's price controllers recently ordered the Zimbabwe Independent to cut their price from 600 to 150 thousand dollars . This undoubtedly pushes the paper rapidly to the edge of bankruptcy, even less copies are printed and this means that the 10 or more people reading one carefully handed down newspaper are without information - and the last one without toilet paper!

All is not lost however because we still have Short Wave Radio Africa and night after night more and more Zimbabweans are sitting in the dark of the power cuts, using wind up radios and juggling between the two SW Radio Africa channels - depending on which is being jammed that night. Here at least people speak freely, not subject to State controls or even the self censorship we have all made a part of our existence in order to survive.Its ridiculous to think that we have to listen to a radio station broadcasting from London to hear news of events in our country but we do. The reports might be grim, the news depressing and the stories heartbreaking but at least they are an accurate reflection of everyday life in Zimbabwe.

It doesn't matter what kind of a spin the Zimbabwean authorities put on their TV and newspaper reports, they are so far from the glaringly obvious situation on the ground that no one at all believes them anymore. One outstanding example this week came when the President was shown on TV news addressing a gathering near Victoria Falls. He told the audience that he knew people were not getting enough bread but that they should be patient, not lose faith and trust the Government.

What shortage of bread? Surely that should be "what bread?" It might be selling on the black market for 700 thousand dollars a loaf but most everyone I know hasn't been able to buy bread for over three months. Zimbabwe's government has mastered the art of own goals and forcing us to look outside for real news of events inside is surely a classic.

Until next week, thanks for reading,
love cathy.

LEBANON POWER VACUUM SOWS CONFUSION!

By Kim Ghattas BBC News, Beirut.

Lahoud's exit has been welcomed by some, but the future is uncertain. The Lebanese woke up on Saturday to a country without a president, with a bitter row raging about who is in charge.

Amidst all the confusion, two things look certain: the country is in a state of political limbo but there are no signs of a state of emergency, despite the warnings of outgoing pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. He issued a convoluted statement just a few hours before he left the presidential palace, with his family, surrounded by guards and to the sounds of a marching band.
Earlier in the day, rival anti- and pro-Syrian blocs in parliament had failed yet again to elect a successor after a fifth attempt, and a new session has now been scheduled for 30 November.

In the Lebanese capital, people seem to go about their business as usual, shops are open and one popular cafe was full of people having breakfast, sipping on cappuccinos and enjoying the sunny weather on the terrace. A nearby farmers market was also abuzz with activity. Many Lebanese breathed a sigh of relief and even celebrated with fireworks the departure of a man they saw as the last remnant of Syria's influence over Lebanon.

For the Hezbollah-led opposition, Mr Lahoud was an ally who supported their right to bear arms against Israel. It was unclear whether a state of emergency was in force. Soldiers are visible on the streets, but the army has been deployed in Beirut for a year now, since the start of the stand off between the government and the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority on the one hand and the opposition, backed by Syrian and Iran on the other.

Troop reinforcements had also been brought into the capital ahead of the scheduled vote in parliament to elect a president on Friday, a vote that never happened but there were no unusual troop movements overnight. The presidential statement, which said that "conditions and dangers of the state of emergency existed on the ground" and entrusted "the security of the country to the army and put all armed forces at its disposal", was seized upon by the opposition.
Local television stations loyal to the opposition immediately flashed news captions on their screens saying a state of emergency had been declared, while members of the pro-Syrian bloc gave interviews confirming the state of emergency.

Meanwhile, media loyal to the government said this was not the case and interviewed members of the parliamentary majority and analysts who deconstructed the statement to back their claims. The cabinet also dismissed the decree as meaningless. According to the constitution the president cannot declare a state of emergency without the approval of the cabinet. With no successor for Mr Lahoud, the cabinet assumes executive powers and is entrusted with ensuring the swift election of a new president.

The vague statement was the parting shot of a controversial leader, a staunch ally of Syria, who had long warned he would not hand over power to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, whose legitimacy he had contested. If anything, the confusion reflected even further the deep divisions that have plagued Lebanon for some three years. A statement yesterday from the prime minister's offices said the cabinet would continue to shoulder its responsibilities and exercise its full authority. There has been no comment from the army so far but the cabinet said it has been co-ordinating with the army.

The presidential vacuum is viewed with worry by some of Lebanon's minority Christian community. Lebanon is the only country in the Middle East with a Christian president, the post of prime minister is always reserved for a Sunni, while that of speaker of the House goes to a Shia. But the presidential seat is now vacant for at least a week and there is no guarantee that the next scheduled session will produce a president.

In a move that was seen as an attempt to allay Christian fears, Mr Siniora paid a visit to the Maronite patriarch on Saturday. On his way out he said no-one was trying to usurp the post of president and that he more than anyone else wanted an election. He also said the patriarch had assured him of his support. It is still unclear what the opposition might do next. It has made threatening noises for a while and talked about taking to the streets with more demonstrations. But it is expected that no-one will take any radical steps until after the US-sponsored Middle East peace meeting in Annapolis next week.

The crisis in Lebanon is widely seen as an extension of the regional confrontation pitting the United States against Iran and Lebanon's former powerbroker, Syria. Progress in Annapolis might help break the deadlock in Lebanon over the choice of a president. Until then, Washington has given its full backing to the cabinet of Mr Siniora, while Tehran has warned that Lebanon is close to civil war.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

RAPE CASE ADDS TO BRAZIL JAIL NOTORIETY!

By Gary Duffy BBC News, Sao Paulo.

Brazilian jails have a long history of violence and overcrowding.It sometimes seems that there is little left to say about prisons and the system of detention in Brazil that still has the capacity to shock. Even so, the report that a young woman, possibly as young as 15, was left to share a cell in a police station with around 20 men and is said to have been repeatedly sexually abused, does stand out for its sheer horror.
The fact that police officers involved then started to dispute her age, as if it mattered whether she was 15 or 20, does say something about the inability to grasp the scale of what had been done. The girl does not appear to have been helped by the involvement in the case of women officials at various levels.
According to Brazilian media reports the officer in charge of the station where the case was processed was a woman, who has since been suspended, while a woman judge who dealt with the case did not authorise a transfer. The governor of the state of Para, where the incident happened, is also a woman.

TIMELINE
21 Oct: Police arrest girl for allegedly stealing and send her to a cell in a police station in Abaetetuba
5 Nov: Police chief asks for transfer to women's prison in city of Belem
14 Nov: Official responsible for child welfare discovers girl. She is taken to a room from where she escapes
16 Nov: Girl is found and sent to centre for young offenders in Belem
Source: Folha de Sao Paulo

"I am shocked and angry," Governor Ana Julia Carepa told the Brazilian media. "My political life was always dedicated to the defence of human rights and it would not be different in my administration." As an effort continues to shift blame for what happened, the civil police of Para say that the judicial officials knew that the girl was being held with a large number of male prisoners.
They have produced a document which suggests a request was made to transfer the girl to a centre for young offenders on 7 November, at least a week before she was discovered by an official responsible for child welfare. The discovery was only made after an anonymous tip-off. The document - presented to the judge - requested the urgent transfer of the young woman to a detention centre for women, and said that she ran the risk of "any type of violence".

The police request for a transfer was only made after the girl had been in custody for 15 days, and in total she was held for 26 days, according to the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo. Welfare officials say the girl reported that she had suffered sexual abuse from about 20 prisoners and had to offer sex in return for food. She also showed marks of cigarette burns on her body.

Brazilian prisons have long had a reputation for violence, appalling conditions and overcrowding.
Criminals using mobile phones in their cells are even able to directly organise crimes outside. In August, 25 prisoners died after fellow inmates set fire to mattresses in a cell in a jail in the state of Minas Gerais. The most notorious case in recent Brazilian history happened in 1992 following a riot in Carandiru jail in Sao Paulo when 111 prisoners were killed, the vast majority shot by military police.

In 2002 alone, 303 inmates were murdered by other prisoners. A preliminary report from the United Nations Committee Against Torture, released on Friday, makes a grim analysis of the state of Brazilian prisons. It speaks of endemic overcrowding, filthy conditions and pervasive violence, as well as torture "meted out on a widespread and systematic basis". Part of the problem is that Brazil does not have a federal prison system and all prisons are run by the 27 different systems, although they are governed by a single penal law.

Between 1995 and 2003, the number of prisoners in the system more than doubled, from 148,760 to 308,304 men and women. More than 100,000 new prison spaces were created but the country still has a huge deficit. In recent years as many as 25% of prisoners have been held in police cells due to shortage of space, even though this is illegal. In some states the figure is even higher. While the number of women in Brazilian jails is in line with other countries, it is clear that the level of overcrowding and violence means they can be extremely vulnerable.

Tim Cahill, Amnesty International's researcher on Brazil, said the organisation received extensive reports of women in detention who suffered sexual abuse, torture, substandard healthcare and inhuman conditions, showing that this case is far from isolated. "Even though women in Brazil make up a small percentage of the overall prison population, their numbers in detention are rising," he said. "There is a desperate need for the government to address their needs, which are rarely, if ever, met."

The security secretary for the state of Para, Vera Talvares, told Folha de Sao Paulo that any type of violation of a woman's rights was a violation of human rights and should receive exemplary punishment. If that resolve leads to a change in policy in Para, and in other parts of Brazil, it would at least be something, but past events do not leave much room for optimism.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DISC SEARCH MOVES TO COURIER FIRM!

The search for the two missing discs containing the details of 25m Child Benefit claimants has moved to a number of depots of courier company TNT. The computer discs went missing after being put into the internal post at HM Revenue and Customs in Tyne and Wear. Police are now focusing on premises of TNT, which delivers HMRC mail, after completing inquiries at HMRC's offices. A spokesman for TNT said it was impossible to say whether the CDs had ever entered its system. "We are all working on that theory, but it cannot be proved one way or the other," he said.

The missing discs hold the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16. The data on them includes the name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25 million people. The discs were intended for the National Audit Office (NAO) in London, but never arrived from HMRC's office in Washington, Tyne and Wear.

Police looking for the discs completed their search at the Washington HMRC building on Friday night. A Scotland Yard spokeswoman confirmed searches had now started at TNT buildings, but would not say at how many or reveal the locations. A core team of 47 detectives from the Specialist and Economic Crime Directorate has been involved in the search operation.
The TNT spokesman said the sender of the CDs had used the firm's general mail service rather than its facility that allows customers to monitor the progress of deliveries. However, TNT was fully co-operating with police, he said. He said the firm carried up to 100,000 items of mail each night on behalf of HMRC, and also had contracts with other government departments and bodies.

In March, officials at HMRC began the practice of downloading the entire Child Benefit database onto CDs and sending them through the internal mail to the NAO for auditing. The practice came to light only on Tuesday when it was revealed two discs had been lost - raising fears data protection laws had been broken.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown told MPs he "profoundly regrets" the loss of the records and he apologised for the "inconvenience and worries" caused to families. He said the government was working to prevent the data being used for fraud. But Conservative leader David Cameron said the government had "failed in its first duty to protect the public".
On Friday, it also emerged that the NAO had handed unencrypted discs containing details of all Child Benefit claimants to accountants KPMG. The NAO said they had been delivered by hand and returned safely.
Meanwhile, accountancy firm Grant Thomson has warned that the loss could be repeated if plans to reshape HMRC, including "slashing its funding and staff", continued. Francesca Lagerberg, head of the company's tax office, said the "hard-pushed" department was "being asked to provide more for less".

LOST CDS - SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

18 October - Junior official from HMRC in Washington, Tyne and Wear, sends two CDs containing password-protected records to audit office in London through courier TNT, neither recorded nor registered
24 October - When package fails to arrive, second one is sent by registered post and arrives safely
3 November - Senior managers are told first package has been lost
10 November - Prime minister and other ministers are informed
12 November - HMRC tell ministers CDs will probably be found 14 November - When HMRC searches fail, Metropolitan Police are called in
15 November- Richard Thomas, Information Commissioner, says remedial action must be taken before public is informed 20 November - HMRC Chairman Paul Gray resigns; Chancellor Alistair Darling makes announcement to House of Commons
21 November - Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologises and orders security checks

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"IF YOU WISH TO KNOW WHAT A MAN IS,

PLACE HIM IN AUTHORITY" !

10 THINGS !

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. The word Blighty comes from "bilayti", the Urdu for homeland.
More details

2. Spotting a bargain releases "happy chemicals" like serotonin and adrenalin in the brain.
More details

3. Babies make moral judgements about people.
More details

4. Japan’s population will fall by 30% in 50 years.
More details

5. The Queen took her corgi on honeymoon.
More details

6. The brains of migraine sufferers are thicker in part of the cortex than those free of the severe headaches.
More details

7. Radiohead's Thom Yorke paid nothing to download his latest album (just like the two-thirds of his fans who also got it for free).
More details

8. The presence of kingfishers indicate that a waterway is in a healthy ecological state.
More details

9. Beer has fewer calories than a similar measure of wine, milk or fruit juice.
More details

10. Each economically active person is on 700 databases on average.
More details
BBC NEWS MAGAZINE

ICE-RESCUE TOURISTS TO FLY HOME!

The Explorer lay on its side in the frozen seas for several hours. Passengers rescued from a cruise ship that sank after hitting ice in the Antarctic Ocean are expected to start their journeys home within hours.
The 154 tourists and crew from the M/S Explorer have been spending the night at a military base on a Chilean island.
They are due to be flown to Chile and then to their home countries. The ship's operator Gap Adventures said they were in "good spirits".
Some 23 Britons, 17 Dutch and 13 Americans were among those on board.
There were also 10 Australians and 10 Canadians and other nationalities included Irish, Danish, Swiss, Belgian, Japanese, French, German and Chinese, said Gap Adventures, a Toronto-based tour company.

Graphic: Key facts about M/S Explorer

All 91 passengers, nine guides and 54 crew members were safely evacuated to lifeboats, and then to another ship, after the Explorer was holed close to the South Shetland Islands, in the Antarctic Ocean.
It listed, lay on its side for some hours and by Friday night the Chilean navy said it had sunk.
Following the news of the incident, the specialist Lloyds List maritime publication said the 2,400-tonne Explorer had had five faults at its last inspection.
However, the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), whose inspectors found the faults, said that they had all been rectified by the time the ship set sail again.

Worldwide rescue hub
In pictures: Ship rescue
Lure of polar extremes

"These were not huge problems and were all rectified before the vessel sailed. It would not have been allowed to depart if everything had not been sorted out," MCA spokesman Mark Clarke said.
A Gap Adventures spokesman, John Warner, said the ship, which had been sailing in polar waters since the 1960s, had been certified as seaworthy only last month.
"The ship obviously goes through an annual rigorous inspection by the marine authorities," he told BBC News.
"What I am pleased to say is that the safety procedures for such an incident were adhered to, and all the passengers and crew are safe and well - and that's obviously of most importance to us as a company."
The tour group had embarked from Ushuaia, on Argentina's southern tip, on 11 November for a 19-day "Spirit of Shackleton" cruise through the Drake Passage, costing from around $8,000 (£3,900) per cabin.

The ship ran into trouble approximately 120km (75 miles) north of the Antarctic Peninsula.
The company said pumps had been used in an effort to stop the ship sinking, but in the meantime the captain gave the order to abandon ship, and passengers were transferred to lifeboats.
After several hours bobbing on the sea amid floating sheets of ice, they were plucked to safety by the Norwegian cruise ship, the Nordnorge.
Coastguards said although the weather conditions were good for this time of year, the average temperature was still -5C.
Speaking just after the rescue, passenger John Cartwright said: "We were in a lifeboat in fairly rough seas, strong winds.
"We all got a little nervous when the ship began to list sharply and the lifeboats still hadn't been lowered.
"We feel very relieved now. We're all sort of unwinding and happy to be up here warm and dry."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DR-CONGO THREATENS WAR ON REBELS!

Gen Nkunda says he is protecting DR Congo's Tutsi community. The head of the army in the Democratic Republic of Congo says he has given up all hope of a peaceful solution to the conflict in eastern Congo.
General Dieudonne Kayembe said force was now the only way to deal with dissident General Laurent Nkunda.
Fighting has continued in the North Kivu province for a third day, with government troops using heavy artillery against rebel forces in Rugari.
Gen Nkunda has threatened UN troops, accusing them of backing the army.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in DR Congo (Monuc) says the army has been sending reinforcements to the region ahead of a possible major offensive against Gen Nkunda.
The BBC's Arnaud Zajtman in the capital, Kinshasa, says the army has suffered military setbacks in previous offensives against the rebels.
Observers say the army seems to be trying to target Gen Nkunda's supply lines near the Rwandan border.
Rugari is 30km (19 miles) from the North Kivu regional capital, Goma, towards the border.
Rwanda has always denied claims it backs Gen Nkunda, who is an ethnic Tutsi, like most of the Rwandan leaders.
He argues he is trying to defend his community against armed Hutu groups, some of whom crossed into DR Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
"Now that all attempts to use persuasion, to use peaceful means have been used, I am here in Goma to set up plans for military force," Gen Kayembe said. "We are doing the military planning with Monuc."
But this has prompted Gen Nkunda to accuse the UN of taking sides.
The UN mission, "hitherto perceived as a guarantor of peace and international law... and a facilitator in the armed conflicts between Congolese, has taken the serious decision to side wholeheartedly with the FARDC [army] in its war against the CNDP [Gen Nkunda's forces]," he said in a statement sent to the AFP news agency.
Monuc "will have to assume fully all the consequences resulting from this choice", he said.
The army has deployed 20,000 men in North Kivu since August.
Gen Nkunda is thought to have between 6,000 and 8,000 men under arms but has failed to honour pledges to disarm his men and re-integrate them into the DR Congo armed forces.
Some 375,000 people have fled fighting in eastern DR Congo this year, on top of 800,000 who were already displaced.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NEW SOMALI PREMIER 'WANTS TALKS' !

Nur Adde said he wanted to promote reconciliation. Somalia's new prime minister has told the BBC he is willing to hold talks with armed insurgents.
Nur Hassan Hussein was named to replace Ali Mohamed Ghedi, who had refused to negotiate with armed Islamists and other opposition groups.
However, an opposition spokesman has dismissed the appointment of Mr Nur, also known as Nur Adde.
He takes office amid a humanitarian crisis in Somalia, where the UN refugee agency says 1m people are homeless.
Islamist insurgents are battling the Ethiopia-backed government forces in the capital, Mogadishu.
Some 200 000 people have fled their homes in the past two weeks, with aid agencies saying the country has been plunged into an unfolding disaster.
Mr Nur said his government would focus on reconciliation.
HAVE YOUR SAY
The nomination of this new prime minister will change nothing, as long as foreign troops, particularly Ethiopian troops remain inside Somalia
Ali Jama, Adele
Send us your comments
Profile: Nur Adde
The former policeman and head of the Somali Red Crescent organisation is seen as a neutral figure.
But Ahmed Abdallah of the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) told the Reuters news agency that the real issue was the presence of pro-government Ethiopian troops in Somalia.
"The issue is not changing one person for another. The [issue] is about a new strategy for the withdrawal of the Ethiopian occupation forces from all of Somalia."
After being appointed, Mr Nur said: "I pledge to do my utmost to perform the difficult obligations in front of me, by respecting the Somali federal charter."
He is from the Hawiye clan, the largest in Mogadishu, many of whom distrust President Abdullahi Yusuf, from the rival Darod group.
Somalia has not had a functioning national government since President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BAKASSI HANDOVER RULED 'ILLEGAL' !

The handover is unpopular with Nigerian residents. Nigeria's senate has approved a motion declaring that last year's handover of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon was illegal. The upper house of parliament said that no part of Nigeria could be ceded without changing the constitution.
Senators called on the government to halt the transfer of areas along the border further north.
In 2002, the International Court of Justice ruled in favour of Cameroon in the two countries' border dispute. The senate also called for more aid for those displaced by the handover - but did not say that Nigeria should retake Bakassi.

In pictures: Bakassi handover

''The agreement reached to cede the Bakassi region to Cameroon was not tabled before the National Assembly," Senator Muhammad Mana told the BBC.
"Therefore everything on the agreement should be stopped until it has been ratified by the National Assembly.''
The vote comes at a time of heightened tensions in the area.
Nigeria reinforced troops on its side of the border after 21 Cameroon troops were killed in Bakassi two weeks ago.
It is not clear who carried out the attack - Nigeria's oil militants have denied claims they were responsible.
Nigerian troops withdrew in August 2006 but the peninsula will remain under Nigerian civil administration until 2008.
Most of the residents were Nigerian and bitterly opposed the handover.
Nigeria and Cameroon sought arbitration after a series of bloody clashes in the 1990s.
Bakassi juts into the Gulf of Guinea, an area which may contain up to 10% of the world's oil and gas reserves. It is also rich in fish.
The peninsula was administered by Nigeria since independence from Britain in 1960.
However, Cameroon based its claim of sovereignty over the region on maps dating back to the colonial era.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

LISTEN TO THE YOUNG SAYS QUEEN!

The Queen watched a cultural show depicting the history of Uganda. The Queen has urged Commonwealth leaders to use the "optimism and enthusiasm" of young people as a resource to help solve world problems.
She spoke at the opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) during her state visit to the Ugandan capital, Kampala.
The 50 leaders at the gathering represent two billion people globally.
Her comments came as Pakistan was suspended from the Commonwealth "pending restoration of democracy".

For the first time Prince Charles also attended the Chogm.
Prior to the conference he toured one of Kampala's most impoverished districts and met former prostitutes who are being trained for legitimate work by a UK charity.
The Queen also spent time visiting other parts of the city.
On Thursday she toured an Aids clinic and shook hands with a HIV patient in public for the first time.
At the start of the three-day conference the Queen told delegates that a youth forum event held earlier in the week revealed people with a virtually boundless optimism and enthusiasm.

No single society has achieved perfection, and there is no single recipe for success -The Queen

Is Commonwealth relevant?

She said: "This is an energy that should be tapped more fully.
"Young people can and should play a part in the many global challenges that cannot be resolved by older generations alone, whether in the Commonwealth as a whole or in each of its member countries."
The Queen commended the gathered heads of government for their universal commitment to "respect for fundamental human rights".
She said: "The theme chosen for this Chogm, Transforming Societies, conveys a clear commitment to change for the better.
"No single society has achieved perfection, and there is no single recipe for success.
"No one could expect that. But we do know that giving people the greatest possible voice in the way they are governed, and the greatest possible access to education, are two of the most important ingredients."

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said the Commonwealth could help countries to transform their economies and way of life.
He told the gathering it was the duty of each nation to transform the lives of their rural poor.
President Museveni said: "You cannot, for instance, sustainably protect the environment if the majority of the people are still in primitive agriculture leading to the encroachment of forest reserves.
"Or if people are still using the biomass for cooking because they do not have electricity."
The organisation's outgoing secretary-general, New Zealander Don McKinnon, echoed the sentiments of the Queen.
He said: "[It] is young people - so often voiceless - who make up nearly half our number.
"Without them at the core of our planning, our budgeting and our doing, our Commonwealth has no future."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who also attended the meeting, used it as an opportunity to send out a message to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf who has declared a state of emergency and called off elections.
He told delegates: "President Musharraf has said that he will take steps necessary to restore democracy.
"The Commonwealth is strongly of the view that he must now do so.
"We will work with Pakistan and the Commonwealth to ensure Pakistan returns to its rightful position in the Commonwealth once the remaining steps are taken."
Pakistan said its suspension from the Commonwealth because of the imposition of emergency rule was "unreasonable and unjustified".
The Commonwealth had failed to appreciate Pakistan's "serious internal crisis", the foreign ministry said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MANY FLEE FROM PHILIPPINES STORM!

The Philippines is prone to devastating storms. Tens of thousands of people are being moved from their homes in the Philippines as emergency crews prepare for the oncoming Typhoon Mitag.
The storm, packing 175km/h (109mph) winds, is expected to strike in the Bicol region on Saturday and could hit the capital, Manila, the following day.
Officials fear the typhoon could cause lethal mudslides in some areas.
Meanwhile, Vietnam is bracing itself for Typhoon Hagibis, which left 13 dead in the Philippines earlier this week.
Thousand of people are being evacuated by the Vietnamese authorities, and a search is under way for at least 25 sailors whose boat capsized after being lashed by high winds in the South China Sea.

Forecasters said Mitag had slowed and was gathering intensity off the eastern islands of the Philippines.
Government meteorologist Nathaniel Cruz told the Associated Press there was a "strong possibility of storm surges".

Animated guide: Typhoons

He noted that Mitag could intensify into a "super typhoon" with winds reaching 220 kph.
"The end result is that more things will be blown down and destroyed," he said.
Joey Salceda, governor of Bicol's Albay province, said more than 60,000 people had been evacuated.
But he told the Philippines Daily Inquirer newspaper hundreds of thousands more still needed to be moved, and that the authorities were now carrying out "forced evacuations".
Classes in Albay's public schools have been suspended so the buildings can be converted into shelters.
Military and police trucks are being used to transport residents to evacuation centres.
The Japan Meteorological Agency said Manila was in the storm warning area, with the outer edges of the typhoon's centre due to pass the capital on Sunday.
Reuters reported that workers were dismantling advertisement billboards placed along the capital's major roads, fearing they could collapse and kill people.
Earlier, President Gloria Arroyo gave the order to evacuate those at risk.
She said she did not want a repeat of last year's Typhoon Durian - which killed hundreds and left tens of thousands homeless, mainly in the Bicol region.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ANTARCTIC CRUISE SHIP EVACUATED!

The ship was on a 19-day Antarctic cruise. More than 150 passengers and crew have been rescued from a tourist ship, after it hit ice off Antarctica.
The M/S Explorer began listing close to King George Island in the Antarctic Ocean, near the South Shetland Islands.
Susan Hayes, of Gap Adventures, which owns the ship, said some 100 passengers and 54 crew members were evacuated to lifeboats and then to another ship.
The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said about 20 Britons were among the evacuated passengers.
All the passengers were being transferred to a nearby vessel, the Endeavour, and a Norwegian cruise ship, the Nordnorge, said the MCA.
The Explorer left Ushuaia on Argentina's southern tip on 11 November for a 19-day trip through the Drake Passage.
The MCA said it was informed at 0524 GMT on Friday of the incident involving the 2,400-tonne vessel.

Graphic: Key facts about MV Explorer

The expedition ship ran into trouble approximately 120km (75 miles) north of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Ms Hayes, vice-president of marketing for Toronto-based Gap Adventures, told the BBC News website: "The M/S Explorer hit a lump of ice off King George Island this morning and the impact left the vessel with a crack in the hull the size of a fist.
"All passengers and crew have been evacuated, they are all accounted for and are safe and well and have been transferred to another vessel."

The captain and the chief officer remained on board while everyone was evacuated.
The MCA said the vessel was listing at 25 degrees but the tour company said it was only tilting at eight degrees.
Gap Adventures said the ship was taking on water and that pumps were being used to stop the ship sinking.
The company's spokeswoman did not have a passenger list to hand but said most of their customers on the cruise route were typically from Britain, Canada and America.
The rescue operation was co-ordinated by the Ushuaia coastguard.
The 19-day cruise costs around $11,600 (£5,630), not including international flights.
Coastguards said the weather conditions were good for this time of year.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

LITVINENKO A YEAR ON : OUR STORIES!

Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium-210. A year ago on Friday, the Russian dissident and writer Alexander Litvinenko died in London of radiation poisoning.
It subsequently emerged that he had been given a massive dose of polonium-210. British police tried, unsuccessfully, to extradite the chief suspect, the former KGB operative Andrei Lugovoi.
Here, various people who were caught up in the story at the time describe how they got involved, and what they have learned since.

MARINA LITVINENKO
This is one year of my life without Sasha and it's still not easy to understand that he's not here.
Marina Litvinenko says every day her husband was ill was a "torture"
This last month, November, has been the hardest time for me. It is like everything that happened is happening again - it is so fresh. After he died, it was like each day I had fight to be alive. Each day was like torture. It was horrible.
After my husband died it became necessary for people to know that somebody can use this polonium as a weapon against humanity. We have to know about this material so that people will not use it again.
What is important now is the investigation into his death. I am absolutely sure that Lugovoi is not the only person. He had nothing against Sasha... but who was behind him? Because Russia refused to extradite him I feel there are strong powers behind Lugovoi.
My message to Lugovoi is: Come to London and defend yourself in a British court.

DEREK CONLON, PIANIST, MILLENNIUM HOTEL BAR
I was the pianist in the Pine Bar at the Millennium hotel. That was where Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned. He was given the polonium in a cup of tea.
Derek Conlon suffered the 3rd highest level of contamination.
About an hour after he left, I sat at the same table, and drank coffee out of the same cup. They later found that although the cup had been through the dishwasher, it hadn't been cleaned properly.
A couple of days later they closed the bar - but no-one told me why.
It was only when I watched the news three weeks later that I learned about the poisoned Russian, and that I should contact the Health Protection Agency.
When I telephoned, I was told straight away to come into University College Hospital where doctors took samples of my urine and blood and sent them off for testing.
A week later I was called back to the hotel, and shown into a room where there were two doctors. The doctor said: "We have some bad news for you, the results are a little high."
I later learned that I had suffered the 3rd highest contamination of all the people affected.
I was really worried at first - I thought I might get cancer. But I've just had my last test and they have found that most of the stuff is out of my body.
As time has gone on I've decided that I will use the experience to make the most of my life.
I wrote a song - "A sad and lonely man" - based on my experience. It came second in the jazz and blues section of the UK Songwriting Contest.

PC ANDY WIGLEY, BARNET POLICE
One of my roles is to liaise with Barnet Hospital and when I got the call on my mobile saying a Russian spy had been poisoned, I thought my boss was joking.
I was taken up to the private ward and introduced to his wife. She told me the KGB was trying to kill him - they had been to the hospital a couple of times with what they originally thought was food poisoning. I then went through to the bedroom and there he was on the bed. He was yellow and had lost his hair.
I held his hand and chatted to him - he was sick about six times - once on my arm. He was genuinely terrified: once he heard a helicopter, and thought it was Russian special forces trying to kill him.
He appeared to know what was happening to him: he said he was a retired KGB spy himself and was convinced he had been poisoned with radioactive lithium. That's what the KGB used, he said.
Although I hadn't believed it at first about being a spy, Mr Litvinenko told me certain information when I was there. I can't repeat what he said, but it convinced me he was telling the truth.
I stayed with him until they moved him to UCHL hospital. Afterwards we helped secure the Litvinenko house while it was tested for radioactive contamination. I got a commendation last summer for the way I helped handle the situation.
Looking back on it now I can see he was terrified for good reason. Although as a police officer you have to distance yourself from some things, looking back on it I feel really sorry for the poor bloke. He must have been in awful pain.

NIGEL LIGHTFOOT, CHIEF ADVISER, HEALTH PROTECTION AGENCY
It was a huge job to trace the contamination and find out who had been affected. During the first two weeks I worked 18 hours a day, six days a week.
Professor Nigel Lightfoot conducted his investigation in the public gaze
Our teams eventually traced the contamination to around 40 separate premises. It was in hotels, a sushi bar, offices - basically everywhere the suspect had been.
It was like following a trail around London that got bigger all the time. Every time we identified a new site we had to seal it off, test for radiation and run a risk assessment.
In the end we calculated about 1,500 people might be at risk, of whom 17 were actually found to be contaminated with polonium, which puts them at a slightly higher risk.
It was all new territory for us: none of this incident had been rehearsed. But we learnt some valuable lessons. The first is that we were right to keep the public informed. It's important that people have the information that they need so that they can make their own risk assessment. That way you avoid panic.
And the other thing we learned was that you need a large team for this sort of incident - we had 400 people working at its peak - and they all need to work together.

ALEX GOLDFARB, LITVINENKO FRIEND AND CAMPAIGNER
On the first anniversary of Sasha's death on Friday, I will read out his last statement in front of the hospital where he died.
Alex Goldfarb is convinced that President Putin ordered the murder
It will be a rhetorical statement - when he died he did not know about polonium and the cover-up perpetuated by the Russian government and Mr Putin personally.
Putin was frustrated because he wasn't able to extradite Litvinenko to Russia, and he was mad at the British, so he decided to get him by other means.
When Sasha first got ill I discounted it because the doctors didn't think it was serious at first. I came to the hospital on the 14th day - the doctors still thought he had a stomach bug.
The day afterwards, it was official - as soon as it was clear it was polonium we knew he was doomed. He took one sip of the tea. But if he had taken two sips he would have died within the week.
I write in the book ("Death of a Dissident" by Alex Goldfarb and Marina Litvinenko) that our whole generation was turned into neurotic by fears of nuclear death by cold war, and now I saw it with my own eyes. It was our worst nightmare when he died.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

PAKISTAN BARRED FROM COMMONWEALTH!

Pakistan has been suspended from the Commonwealth because of its imposition of emergency rule, the organisation has announced after a meeting in Uganda.
Secretary General Don McKinnon said Pakistan was being suspended "pending restoration of democracy and the rule of law".
Earlier Pakistan's Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge to Pervez Musharraf's re-election as president.
The president has said he will now step down as head of the army.
Mr McKinnon said the 53-member Commonwealth had reached the decision by consensus.
Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the "decision was taken in sorrow, not in anger", and that he hoped the group would be able to welcome Pakistan back soon.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS

ROOFED IN WITH LOST OPPORTUNITIES" !

MBEKI LEADS ZIMBABWE CRISIS TALKS!

President Mbeki has been tasked to seek an end to the Zimbabwe crisis. South African President Thabo Mbeki is holding talks with President Robert Mugabe and opposition officials in the Zimbabwe capital, Harare.
All those involved are keeping their cards close to their chests, divulging very little about the South-Africa mediated talks on the Zimbabwe crisis.
Mr Mbeki is stopping off in Harare on his way to the Commonwealth meeting in the Uganda capital, Kampala.
Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has also gone to Kampala.
Mr Mbeki has a mandate from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to seek an end to the Zimbabwe crisis.

The MDC is lobbying Commonwealth leaders.
Mr Tsvangirai, who heads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), says there has been notable progress.
He said he was confident that the agenda set through the South Africa-led mediation would address the fundamental concerns around elections due next year.
Zimbabwe withdrew from the Commonwealth in 2003 after it was suspended because of allegations of poll rigging.
But Mr Tsvangirai told reporters in Kampala it was important for the body to continue engaging, to ensure Zimbabwe is rescued from its political and economic crisis.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GENET'S STORY : A LIFE ON THE STREETS!

Violence and sexual abuse within the home are among the main reasons children run away to live on the streets, according to a report, the State of the World's Street Children, published by a coalition of charities. In Ethiopia, an estimated 150,000 children live on the streets. The story of Genet, now living in a safehouse in Addis Ababa, is similar to those of many such children, especially girls.


My troubles began when I was 14 years old and my mother became too ill to care for my younger sister and me.
We were sent to live with a family as their domestic labourers.
We were both subject to frequent beatings and were not allowed to go to school.
A year later we were taken by our grandmother to live with a distant male relative elsewhere in Addis.
We were told our mother had died and this would now be our home.
It had been horrible with the family we had been living with before and I hoped the new family would be kinder to us now that our mother was gone.
I find it very difficult to talk about my time on the streets of Addis. I survived there as best I could for over two months.

State of the World's Street Children: Violence
In pictures: Underground children

But I was forced to go to bed with the male relative who we had been sent to live with and a woman in the household frequently beat us both.
I was pretty sure that the man was also sexually abusing my 11-year-old sister too. After two months I ran away but my younger sister was too frightened to come with me.
I ended up in the house of a family friend who took me in but they demanded that I pay my way by working as their domestic servant.
After being beaten and verbally abused, I decided to take my chances on the streets.
I find it very difficult to talk about my time on the streets of Addis. I survived there as best I could for over two months. I was often very hungry.

Other girls I met living and working on the street told me about the Drop-in Centre for street children operated by the Forum for Street Children.
It took a lot of courage to go there for help as I found it very difficult to trust adults.
But when I told the community workers there what had happened to me they immediately gave me a place in their safe home for girls.
I am now 16, I have started school again and I am being trained at a local health centre as a janitor so I will be able to support myself when the time comes to leave the safe home.
I am desperate to see my sister again. They tell me she has managed to escape from the abusive household we were in and is now living with our grandmother in her home village.
When I grow older I want to help other children in the same situation as me.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

QUEEN SET TO ADDRESS UGANDA MPS !

The Queen is due to address the Ugandan parliament during an official state visit to the east African nation.
Earlier, the Queen toured a specialist Aids clinic and children's hospital, unveiling a plaque for the hospital's new Elizabeth Wing.
Later she will attend a state banquet at the president's residence in the capital Kampala.
The Queen is in the country ahead of Friday's Commonwealth heads of government meeting.
The conference, which is held every two years, is expected to be dominated by the state of emergency in Pakistan.
The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh will be joined later by the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, who are also making an official visit to the country.
It will be the first time Prince Charles has been to a gathering of Commonwealth leaders held abroad.
The Queen flew into Entebbe airport accompanied by Prince Philip days after they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MCCLAREN SACKED AS ENGLAND COACH!

McClaren's England finished third in the Euro 2008 qualifying table. Steve McClaren has been sacked as England coach following his side's failure to qualify for Euro 2008. Assistant coach Terry Venables has also lost his job in what the Football Association said was a unanimous decision by its board. The FA brought a swift end to McClaren's 18-month reign as England's head coach at an emergency meeting. McClaren's position had become untenable after the 3-2 defeat to Croatia at Wembley on Wednesday.

News conference: FA confirm McClaren sacking

McClaren's failure to qualify for Euro 2008 cost him his job, said FA chief executive Brian Barwick. "I spoke to Steve this morning - we get on very well with him. I've had many grown-up conversations and had another one with him this morning - and I can only wish him well. But in the end, not qualifying for Euro 2008 comes up short," said Barwick.

606: DEBATE
Why the FA must change after McClaren sacking

McClaren had just 18 games in charge, the shortest tenure of any England coach. FA chairman Geoff Thompson said: "Like every England fan, we are all bitterly disappointed that we have failed to qualify for Euro 2008, and I know Steve feels that disappointment more than anyone. "Of course we have no divine right to play in major tournaments, but it is quite right that qualification is expected. "I would like to thank Steve for the work he has done since taking on the position last summer. His commitment to the job could not be questioned and I wish him the best for the future. "The recruitment process for the new coach begins now and we will do everything to get the right man for the job."

McClaren, 46, who had a four-year deal, is expected to be paid more than £2m in compensation and ex-Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho and Martin O'Neill are the bookies' favourite to succeed him. Former Real Madrid coach Fabio Capello has said he would be interested in the job. The FA has plenty of time to search for a replacement with the next scheduled fixture a friendly in France at the end of March. Barwick confirmed that nationality would not be an issue as he leads the search to find McClaren's successor. Barwick also admitted that errors were made in the selection process when McClaren was appointed in May 2006.

"The recruitment process for the new coach begins now and we will do everything to get the right man for the job," said Barwick. "It will be done differently. We've got to learn lessons from the way we did it." "Qualification for a major tournament is probably a minimum requirement."
Barwick also denied he regretted giving McClaren a four-year contract. "The contract is a private contract. I don't regret that now; I think he has tried very hard." FA board director and Premier League chairman Sir Dave Richards defended Barwick, saying: "Brian has taken a lot of stick about him being the sole person to appoint McClaren. "This responsibility has to be shared among us all. It's unfair to say he was Brian's man - he was the FA's man."

On the issue of the number of overseas players in the top flight, Richards added: "You would know as well as anybody that the Premier League is the best in the world, because it has the best stars in the world. "There are also rules in the European Union that allow players to come, and clubs will pick the best stars."

Barwick said he felt embarrassed and disappointed about the situation. "I'd like to apologise to the fans personally. "I care about this passionately, it has never been just a job. I'm in it because I care about football, football fans and football teams. "Last night was a tough, tough night. We care about this very much. I understand we have let them down and apologise for that." Former Middlesbrough boss McClaren admitted before the Croatia match that he would "take responsibility" if England failed to reach the European Championship finals in Austria and Switzerland.

The FA took action to dismiss McClaren ahead of the 2010 World Cup qualifying draw in Durban, South Africa, on Sunday. England's failure to reach a major tournament for the first time since the 1994 World Cup finals will cost the FA at least £5m in lost revenues, confirmed Barwick. Thompson promised the FA would conduct a "root-and-branch" review of the England team set-up, and would be led by chief executive Brian Barwick and would begin with immediate effect.

BBC SPORTS REPORT.

IMRAN KHAN RELEASED FROM PRISON!

Imran Khan was detained after attending a protest in Lahore.

Khan's reaction

The Pakistan opposition politician, Imran Khan, has been released from prison in southern Punjab where he has been held under anti-terrorism laws. The former cricketer was arrested by police last week after attending a protest at Punjab University in Lahore. On Monday, Mr Khan began a hunger strike in protest at his detention. He is demanding the restoration of the constitution and the reinstatement of supreme court judges who were sacked after emergency rule was declared.

Mr Khan's release comes a day after Pakistani authorities freed more than 3,000 people who were detained under emergency regulations imposed by President Pervez Musharraf on 3 November. A spokesman for the interior ministry said many others would be released soon. A senior leader of Mr Khan's Tehrik-i-Insaf party, Omar Cheema, told the BBC that he had been released from Dera Ghazi Khan jail on Wednesday. The prison's superintendent, Sheikh Inamur Rehman, later confirmed the release, adding that it had been carried out on the instructions of the provincial government at 1945 local time (1445 GMT).

Imran Khan's sister, Allema, said she was concerned by his health"I personally saw him off at the prison gate," he told the AFP news agency. The BBC's Chris Morris had travelled to the prison with three of Mr Khan's sisters earlier on Wednesday, only hours before his unexpected release. After visiting him inside, Mr Khan's sister Allema confirmed he had eaten no food since Monday and drunk as little as 100ml of liquid over the past two days. She said her brother appeared rather weak and that they were very concerned by his deteriorating health. "But he chided us for showing weakness and he said we should urge the youth of Pakistan to go on a token hunger strike to press for the restoration of the judiciary," Ms Khan added.

Our correspondent says Mr Khan's family were as surprised as anyone by his release. When 3,000 detainees were released on Monday, the Pakistani interior ministry said that anyone who had been charged would not be released anytime soon. Mr Khan's release may therefore be partly because his detention was making waves internationally and causing embarrassment for the government, our correspondent says. While he may not be one of the leading politicians in Pakistan, Mr Khan is a known name around the world, he adds.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GIRLS FOUND GUITLY IN GHANA DRUGS CASE!

The drugs war's new frontline

Two British 16-year-old girls have been found guilty of trying to smuggle cocaine from Ghana to the UK. Yasemin Vatansever and Yatunde Diya, both of north London, were arrested at Accra international airport on 2 July. They denied the charge of attempting to smuggle more than 6kg (13lbs) of the drug on a BA flight to London. The girls were found guilty by a Ghanaian court and could face up to three years in a juvenile detention facility when sentenced on 5 December.

The BBC's Will Ross in Accra said the girls will appeal against the verdict. "They are very upset at the moment," said lawyer Sabine Zanker, of Fair Trials Abroad, after the 90-minute hearing in a closed juvenile court.

"Their families are very deeply disappointed about the verdict." She added: "These are two extremely vulnerable young girls whose naivety was ruthlessly exploited by the man who lured them to Ghana and led them to this terrible fate. "They are together. It is a real blessing that they are together because it would be much harder if they were apart. They are very supportive of each other."

They had told the court they were set up, but the prosecution said they were involved from the start in a plot to smuggle drugs. The girls have already spent nearly five months in custody after they were arrested with laptop bags containing cocaine.

Ms Zanker added that it was unlikely the girls would be able to serve their sentence in the UK as, at the moment, there is no transfer agreement between the two countries. The girls were tried under Ghana's Juvenile Justice Act which meant their trial had to be completed within six months. They were caught under a joint operation set up between the UK and Ghana, a year ago, to combat drug smuggling from the west African country.

So far "tens of millions of pounds of drugs" has been seized and stopped from reaching the UK, the HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ARMY PATROLS KANO AFTER CLASHES!

Soldiers have taken control of Kano state in northern Nigeria after election-related violence over the weekend killed at least six people. Troops are patrolling key positions and have set up roadblocks. The army has urged people to remain calm and asked parents to control their children. An army spokesman said 280 soldiers had been deployed with 220 held in reserve.
Violence broke out when the state opposition accused the governing party of rigging state polls.
Kano is one of the few states that is controlled by the national opposition, while Nigeria's ruling PDP is in opposition locally.
Voters in Kano cast ballots on Saturday for local constituency leaders. By Sunday PDP supporters had set up barricades and lit fires, destroying state property and burning down local government buildings.
Police say they arrested many people and recovered weapons including guns and machetes.
The army spokesman said it was helping the police to restore law and order.
The BBC's Alex Last in Lagos says although these were only local elections, political office in Nigeria means the prospect of considerable money and power, so political violence is never far away.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

LISBON WANTS MUGABE TO STAY AWAY!

Robert Mugabe would be an unwelcome guest in Lisbon. Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe should consider staying away from the forthcoming EU-African summit,according to the host nation, Portugal.
"If you ask me if I would like him to come to Lisbon I would say that I would prefer that he ... not come," said Foreign Minister Luis Amado. British prime minister Gordon Brown has said he will stay away from the December meeting if Mr Mugabe attends.
But African states have made it clear that they want Mr Mugabe to attend.
And Mr Mugabe says he does want to be there.
Earlier this month the African Union (AU) chairman, John Kufuor of Ghana, told the BBC that Mr Mugabe had every right to attend the summit.
Britain accuses Mr Mugabe of human rights abuses and rigging elections. Scandinavian EU members have also voiced concern about him.

Mr Amado is a reluctant host where Mr Mugabe is concerned.
He is subject to a travel ban in Europe and his government is under EU sanctions. But travel bans are traditionally lifted for big international meetings.
Portugal says everyone will be invited, and it is up to each individual country to decide the level of its representation.
But Mr Amado told Portugese radio that Mr Mugabe's presence would "create noise around the summit that ... will distract from the essential points."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"EVEN A CLOCK THAT IS NOT GOING

IS RIGHT TWICE A DAY" !

FRENCH TRAINS 'HIT BY SABOTAGE'!

Rail workers have been striking for eight days France's high-speed TGV rail network has been damaged by a "concerted campaign of sabotage", the SNCF state-owned rail operator has said. It said acts of sabotage overnight, including fires, caused huge delays to TGV services already hit by a long transport union strike over reforms. The SNCF blamed militants for the attacks, saying they wanted to harm negotiations to end the strike.
The talks between rail unions and the government are to open on Wednesday. In a statement, the SNCF said there had been "several acts" occurring "at the same time" on TGV lines in the north, east and south-west of the country.

Sarkozy: 'Thatcher moment'?

It said these included a "very large" fire on the TGV's Atlantic branch that damaged signals affecting 30km (18 miles) of track. Union officials deplored the attacks as acts of vandalism, warning that they put people's safety at risk. The open-ended rail strike is over planned changes to the pension system by President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Mr Sarkozy has vowed to press on with the reforms. The TGV network was targeted several hours after French Labour Minister Xavier Bertrand had said he hoped the talks with transport unions would help end their strike.

'SPECIAL' PENSIONS SYSTEM
Benefits 1.6m workers, including 1.1m retirees
Applies in 16 sectors, of which rail and utilities employees make up 360,000 people
Account for 6% of total state pension payments
Shortfall costs state 5bn euros (£3.5bn; $6.9bn) a year
Some workers can retire on full pensions aged 50
Awarded to Paris Opera House workers in 1698 by Louis XIV

Can street protests succeed?
Solidarity amid French crisis

"I think the conditions are there for everyone to get out of it honourably," he was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency. President Sarkozy also urged the protesters to go back to work now that negotiations were beginning. "Everyone must ask whether it is right to continue a strike which has already cost users - and strikers - so dear. "I think of those millions of French people who after a day of work have no bus, metro or train to take them home and who are tired of being used as hostages."

The government has said there could be incentives of salary rises and a top-up scheme for pensions. But it has stressed that there will be no budging on the core issue of eliminating special pensions which allow 500,000 transport and utility workers to retire early. Didier Le Rester of France's General Labour Confederation has predicted that the negotiations could last up to a month.

Before the latest incidents, SNCF had estimated there would be slightly improved rail services on Wednesday as the number of strikers steadily declined. Paris transport operator RATP said about 25% of its metro trains would be running. The week of strikes has caused havoc for millions of commuters across France. Businesses have started complaining that the strikes are hurting their operations.

Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the dispute was costing France up to 400m euros (£290m) a day. On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of civil servants joined striking transport and energy workers over what they say is an erosion in their earnings and proposals to slim France's large public sector. But Mr Sarkozy said reforms were overdue and that they were necessary "to confront the challenges set by the world". "We will not surrender and we will not retreat," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

EX-RHODESIA LEADER IAN SMITH DIED!

Ian Smith obituary
The former prime minister of Rhodesia, Ian Smith, has died aged 88.

The cause of his death is unknown but he had been ill for some time at a residential home in South Africa.
He illegally declared independence from Britain in 1965 and his white minority government led the country for 14 years amid international scorn and sanctions.
Following a bitter bush war with black nationalists, his government was overthrown by Robert Mugabe in 1979, leading to the creation of Zimbabwe.
The BBC's James Robbins says that to the end of his days Ian Smith was convinced that Rhodesians, black and white, would have fared better under his leadership than in the Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party.
Steeped in the colonial values of his Scottish immigrant father, our correspondent says Mr Smith was a born leader with a distinguished war record as an RAF fighter pilot.
He helped to found the right-wing Rhodesian Front, which came to power in 1962, and when the-then prime minister, Winston Field, baulked at the prospect of seizing independence, the party turned to Smith, who gave them what they wanted.

Years of civil war followed the declaration of independence. Smith denied this was caused by the actions of his regime and insisted there was nothing wrong with five million blacks being ruled by 200,000 whites.
In the end, Smith maintained, it wasn't his enemies who beat him, but apartheid South Africa's threat to cut Rhodesia's lifeline.
Margaret Thatcher's government brokered a peace deal in the Lancaster House talks in 1979 and a black-majority government took over Zimbabwe.
Smith remained a key player in Zimbabwean politics until seats reserved for whites were abolished in 1987.
When in retirement, he failed to create a united opposition to Robert Mugabe, and Smith was finally relegated to the sidelines.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DALAI LAMA 'MAY PICK SUCCESSOR'!

The Dalai Lama says Tibet would reject a Chinese-picked successor. The Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, says he is considering breaking with centuries of tradition and naming his own successor.
Usually, following the death of a Dalai Lama, senior Tibetan Buddhist officials, guided by dreams and signs, identify a young child to succeed him. But the Dalai Lama said he feared China would try to influence this process.
He said he was considering whether his successor should be picked by him, or elected by high ranking Buddhist monks.
"If the Tibetan people want to keep the Dalai Lama system, one of the possibilities I have been considering with my aides is to select the next Dalai Lama while I'm alive," he told the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun during a visit to Japan.
Tibetans are concerned over what will happen when the 72-year-old Dalai Lama dies, fearing that Beijing will try to take control of the succession.
"If China selected my successor after my death, the people of Tibet would not support him as there would be no Tibetan heart in him," he said.

Beijing claims sovereignty over Tibet, which it has controlled since invading in 1950. However, many Tibetans remain loyal to the Dalai Lama, who fled in 1959.
China has opposed his involvement in politics, viewing him as a separatist, and has intervened before.
When he picked a six-year-old boy to be the second most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism - the Panchen Lama - China detained the boy and selected a replacement who was loyal to Chinese rule.
Beijing has denounced the Dalai Lama's many foreign trips, including recent visits to the US, Germany, and now Japan.
It says he should stay out of politics and restrict himself to a religious role.
Buddhists believe the current Dalai Lama is the reincarnation of his predecessors.
He was identified by a search party of High Lamas that scoured rural Tibet looking for a child born around the same time as the previous Dalai Lama died.
As a young child he successfully identified the prayer beads and relics that belonged to his predecessor.
The Dalai Lama has always said if he were reborn it would not be in a country ruled by China or anywhere that was not free

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DARLING ADMITS 25m RECORDS LOST !

The chancellor urged people to monitor their bank accounts.
Alistair Darling

Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing. The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25m people. Chancellor Alistair Darling said there was no evidence the data had fallen into criminal hands - but urged people to monitor their bank accounts. The Conservatives described the incident as a "catastrophic" failure.

CHILD BENEFIT HELPLINE
0845 302 1444

In an emergency statement to MPs, Mr Darling apologised for what he described as an "extremely serious failure on the part of HMRC to protect sensitive personal data entrusted to it in breach of its own guidelines". MPs gasped as Mr Darling told them: "The missing information contains details of all Child Benefit recipients: records for 25 million individuals and 7.25 million families. "

Point-by-point: Darling
Q&A: Records lost

The chancellor blamed mistakes by junior officials at HMRC, who he said had ignored security procedures when they sent information to the National Audit Office (NAO) for auditing. Mr Darling told MPs: "Two password protected discs containing a full copy of HMRC's entire data in relation to the payment of child benefit was sent to the NAO, by HMRC's internal post system operated by the courier TNT.

The package was not recorded or registered. It appears the data has failed to reach the addressee in the NAO." "The police tell me that they have no reason to believe that this data has found its way into the wrong hands. "The police are not aware of any evidence that it has been used for fraudulent purposes or criminal activity."

The HMRC has set up a Child Benefit Helpline on 0845 302 1444 for customers who want more details. The data was sent on 18 October and senior management at HMRC were told it was missing on 8 November and the chancellor on 10 November.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Check your bank statements for odd transactions
Monitor your account if you bank online
Change your account password if it is a date of birth or name
Source: Apacs

How worried should you be?

Mr Darling said banks were adamant that they wanted as much time to prepare for his announcement as possible. He added: "If someone is the innocent victim of fraud as a result of this incident, people can be assured they have protection under the Banking Code so they will not suffer any financial loss as a result." Mr Darling said people should monitor their accounts "for any unusual activity". He said police were investigating the disappearance of the two discs. He also announced that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which monitors HMRC, was likely to investigate the incident.

It is the latest and by far the most serious of a string of missing data incidents at HM Revenue and Customs. HMRC chairman Paul Gray resigned earlier after the latest incident came to light.
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne said: "Let us be clear about the scale of this catastrophic mistake - the names, the addresses and the dates of birth of every child in the country are sitting on two computer discs that are apparently lost in the post, and the bank account details and National Insurance numbers of 10 million parents, guardians and carers have gone missing.
"Half the country will be very anxious about the safety of their family and the security and the whole country will be wondering how on earth the government allowed this to happen." He urged the government to "get a grip" and said it was the "final blow for the ambitions of this government to create a national ID database" as "they simply can not be trusted with people's personal information".

Liberal Democrat Acting Leader Vince Cable said it was now the Treasury and not the Home Office that was "not fit for purpose". "Why does HMRC still use CDs for data transmission in this day and age? The ancient museum pieces it is currently using for computing must be replaced. "After this disaster how can the public possibly have confidence in the vast centralised databases needed for the compulsory ID card scheme. "Where does the buck stop after this catalogue of disasters?"

Giving his reaction, the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, said: "This is an extremely serious and disturbing security breach." Mr Thomas welcomed the Chancellor's announcement of an independent review of the incident by Kieran Poynter of PricewaterhouseCoopers and said he would decide on further action once he has received the report.

"Searching questions need to be answered about systems, procedures and human error inside both HMRC and NAO," said Mr Thomas. The prime minister's official spokeswoman said Gordon Brown has "full confidence" in Mr Darling. She added that Mr Darling has not offered to resign.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

FIFTH 21/7 LONDON BOMBER JAILED !

Manfo Asiedu dumped a rucksack containing explosives in a park.

CCTV footage

The last of five would-be bombers to target London on 21 July 2005 has been jailed for 33 years after admitting conspiracy to cause explosions.
Earlier this year a jury was unable to reach a verdict when Manfo Kwaku Asiedu went on trial accused of conspiracy to murder. That charge has been dropped.
The judge recommended Asiedu, 34, should be deported back to Ghana.
Four other men were jailed for life after being convicted of conspiracy to murder over the failed 2005 bombings. Muktar Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman were told they would serve a minimum of 40 years.

21 JULY BOMBERS
Muktar Ibrahim
Yassin Omar
Ramzi Mohammed
Hussain Osman
Manfo Kwaku Asiedu

Profile: Manfo Kwaku Asiedu
Bomber's 'cut-throat' defence

A sixth man, Adel Yahya, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge earlier this month and was jailed for six years and nine months.
After the jury in his original trial was unable to reach a verdict, Asiedu had been due to face a retrial, which would have been extremely costly.
But after he agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to cause explosions, the prosecution dropped the charge of conspiracy to murder and he was sentenced at Kingston Crown Court.
'Dedicated terrorist'
After the hearing, Peter Clarke, the head of the Metropolitan Police's counter terrorism branch, welcomed the jailing of Asiedu.
He said: "He is a dedicated terrorist who consistently lied about the role he played in this plot. Only now, has he finally admitted his guilt."
Mr Clarke said the public must remain alert and anybody with concerns about suspicious behaviour should report them to the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline.
He said; "In the weeks and months preceding the attacks, Asiedu and his accomplices compiled the raw ingredients to build their bombs.
"Much of the material was purchased on the high street and then put together in a flat in a busy residential area.
"We want people to look out for the unusual - some activity or behaviour which strikes them as not quite right and out of place in their normal day to day lives."

Earlier, Judge Mr Justice Calvert-Smith told the court Asiedu had lied on an "epic scale" about his part in the bomb plot and that it was "inconceivable" he did not know the gang's motives.
He told Asiedu he had become the "central figure" in researching and buying the chemicals needed for the bombs.
Mr Justice Calvert-Smith said the public had waited for Asiedu to admit his part in the attacks and "explain his motivation for the commission of such a dreadful crime".
"You have effectively chosen not to do so," he said.
The judge added Asiedu not only had not attempted to warn the police or Londoners of the plot, he had also continued to assist the conspirators by trying to dispose of incriminating evidence.
But he told Asiedu: "The maximum sentence for this offence is one of life imprisonment. I do not believe that the criteria for such a sentence are met in your case.
"Although your involvement was central, you were certainly not the leader or organiser of the plot." Asiedu, whose real name is Sumaila Abubakari, had claimed he was oblivious of the plan to kill anyone until hours before the plotters went into action.

He said that as soon as he had had the chance he had dumped his rucksack, containing explosives, in a park at Little Wormwood Scrubs in west London.
Defending Asiedu, Stephen Kamlish QC, told the court his client was a devout Muslim who had had "fallen in with the wrong crowd" after arriving in Britain from Ghana seeking a better life.
He said the other July 21 plotters took him in and gave him somewhere to live but also exposed him to their extremist views while they were living in the 'cauldron' of the council flat.
But Nigel Sweeney QC, prosecuting, said: "The defendant's principal role in the conspiracy was in the purchase of 443 litres [97.4 gallons] of hydrogen peroxide, which were a vital ingredient in the main charge of the explosive devices required to be connected.
"Further he took part in a cover-up after the bombs failed to explode both for his benefit and the benefit of his conspirators."
Having arrived in the UK on a false passport, he adopted the name Asiedu after finding documents belonging to a previous lodger of that name.
Asiedu then began attending a mosque in Finchley, north London, which was also frequented by co-defendant Yassin Omar.
And in June 2005, after a fire in his flat, he moved in with Omar at Curtis House in New Southgate.

Curtis House later became a "bomb factory", with hundreds of bottles of hydrogen peroxide littering the flat.
Taking the stand during the trial, Asiedu presented himself as a terrified man and unwilling participant in the events of 21 July.
However, he was intimately involved in the buying of bomb ingredients including the critical element of hydrogen peroxide hair bleach.
He had been working as a painter and decorator at the time and told several wholesalers he needed the chemical to bleach wood or to strip wallpaper.
Mr Sweeney said: "He is plainly, or thinks he is, a consummate liar or deceiver - only someone who thinks that could go about false entry into the UK, adopting a false identity to remain here and go to the police taking them on in over 1,000 transcripts of interviews during which he sewed an intricate web of lies to try and avoid his guilt.
"He went on to give false statements and evidence on oath."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WALKOUT FUELS FRENCH STRIKE WOES !

French commuters have been hard-hit by the transport strikes. Strike action spreads. Hundreds of thousands of civil servants have joined striking transport and energy workers as France is crippled by a second week of industrial action.
Postal workers, teachers, air traffic controllers and hospital staff are holding a 24-hour stoppage to protest against planned pay and job cuts.
Students are continuing demonstrations at plans for more university autonomy.
It could end up as the biggest protest over President Nicolas Sarkozy's reform plans since he took power in May.
The latest nationwide stoppage left many schools closed, hospitals providing a reduced service and newsagents without newspapers.
The French capital's two airports and Marseille airport in the south suffered delays and cancellations.

Strike fever hits France
France's workplace anger
In pictures: Strikes spread

French energy workers, who began a third 24-hour strike on Monday night, have cut nearly 9% of capacity at nuclear plants, union officials said.
Rail and bus workers are on their seventh day of an indefinite stoppage against planned pension cuts.
Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the dispute was costing France up to 400m euros (£290m) a day.
Half of the country's high-speed TGV trains were operating on Tuesday, while in Paris only one metro train in three was in service and less than half of buses were expected to run.

STRIKERS' GRIEVANCES

Teachers, civil servants oppose job cuts and want more pay
Newspaper distributors angry at planned restructuring
Transport workers on strike for a week over pension reforms
Students protest at changes they say could exclude poor

State rail operator SNCF says the number of its workers on strike had fallen since last week.
The strikes have caused havoc for millions of commuters across France and massive traffic jams built up on roads into the capital again on Tuesday morning.
BBC world affairs correspondent Nick Childs says the French president's recent public absence is striking, though he may be avoiding confrontation to test the mood.
But our correspondent says keeping quiet could be seen as uncertainty and weakness, leading to sentiment turning against Mr Sarkozy if the disruption drags on.
Opinion polls suggest voters back the French leader's pension reforms but a majority sympathises with the civil servants' pay and job cut grievances.
Analysts say Mr Sarkozy is attempting to succeed where his predecessor Jacques Chirac failed, by standing firm against the strikers and completing his reforms.
Walking to work in the centre of Paris, commuter Guy Cousserant, 56, told Reuters: "A small group of people are holding the country hostage. It's lamentable, very annoying."

But one woman in the capital told AP news agency: "The civil servants' purchasing power has dramatically lowered. I think they have the right to go on strike."
Eight unions representing 5.2 million state employees - around a quarter of the entire workforce - say their spending power has fallen 6% since 2000, though the government disputes that figure.
They also oppose plans to cut 23,000 jobs in 2008, half in education.
Students are continuing to block access to campus buildings in half of the country's 85 universities.

'SPECIAL' PENSIONS SYSTEM
Benefits 1.6m workers, including 1.1m retirees
Applies in 16 sectors, of which rail and utilities employees make up 360,000 people
Account for 6% of total state pension payments
Shortfall costs state 5bn euros (£3.5bn; $6.9bn) a year
Some workers can retire on full pensions aged 50
Awarded to Paris Opera House workers in 1698 by Louis XIV

Can street protests succeed?
Solidarity amid French crisis

They have been protesting since the start of November over plans to let faculties pursue non-government funding.
The transport workers' strike was triggered by plans to scrap "special" pensions privileges enjoyed by half a million staff.
SNCF bosses are due to hold talks with transport unions on Wednesday.
The government has relaxed its earlier stance on refusing talks unless strikers returned to work.
On Monday Prime Minister Francois Fillon said rail traffic must "progressively restart" for talks to take place.
But he insisted the government would not budge on its commitment to overhaul the French economy, saying it had a mandate to reform.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'SHUT UP' CHAVEZ IS RINGTONE HIT !

King Juan Carlos won plaudits in the media back home.

King says "shut up"

The king of Spain's recent undiplomatic outburst at the Venezuelan president has become a ringtone hit across Spain.
An estimated 500,000 people have downloaded the insult featuring the words "Why don't you shut up?", generating a reported 1.5m euros ($2m).
King Juan Carlos asked Hugo Chavez to "shut up" at a summit in Chile last week after the president said Spain's ex-PM Jose Maria Aznar was a "fascist".
Branded mugs, t-shirts and websites featuring the row are also profitable.
In Venezuela, a group of students who oppose Mr Chavez's government have also been downloading the ringtone, a US newspaper reported.
"It's a form of protest," a 21-year-old student in Caracas told the Miami Herald. "It's something that a lot of people would like to tell the president."
Companies selling the ringtones have avoided legal problems concerning breach of the king's image rights by using an actor to voice the line.

The spat began at the Ibero-American Summit in Chile's capital, Santiago, last Saturday when Mr Chavez called former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, a close ally of US President George W Bush, a fascist, adding "fascists are not human. A snake is more human."
Current Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero then said: "[Former Prime Minister] Aznar was democratically elected by the Spanish people and was a legitimate representative of the Spanish people."
When Mr Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, the king leaned forward and said: "Why don't you shut up?".
The row escalated when Mr Chavez said the king was "imprudent" and asked if he knew in advance of the 2002 coup against him.
President Chavez later accused the king of "arrogance" but said he did not want a political crisis with Spain - only that Venezuela's head of state be respected.
Spain has said it hopes for a swift return to normal diplomatic relations.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGER RAIDS LEAVES 'GHOST TOWN' !

Iferouane is in the region of Agadez.

The entire population of northern Niger's remote desert town of Iferouane has fled as a result of insecurity, the deputy mayor has told the BBC.
Mohammed Oumma says an insurrection by Tuareg nomads, food shortages and army harassment have forced a wholesale exodus of the town's 5,000 residents.
The government in Niamey denies that Iferouane, home to several uranium mines, has become a ghost town.
But a spokesman admitted that rebels had mined roads, blocking supplies.
Mr Oumma said the last straw for the residents was when the armed forces conducted raids on the civilian population, whom they accused of lending support to the rebels.
The Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ) launched an uprising in northern Niger in February to demand greater autonomy for the Tuareg people.
BBC West Africa correspondent Will Ross says the Tuareg rebels have threatened to attack the uranium mines, as they demand a greater share of the proceeds.
Most MNJ attacks have been concentrated on army garrison outposts in the desert areas between Agadez and the border.
The rebels say they have killed more than 50 government soldiers and taken dozens captive.
The central government says much of the insecurity has been fomented by bandits and smugglers.
But our correspondent says that, with a state of emergency in place and no journalists allowed in, it is becoming increasingly difficult to know what is taking place in the north of Niger.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE 'READY FOR UK INVASION' !

Robert Mugabe's government is subject to EU sanctions. The Zimbabwean government has accused the UK of plotting an invasion and considering assassinations of the country's political leadership.
Presidential spokesman George Charamba said Harare remained ready to defend itself against the "sinister threats".
He was responding to comments by a former British general Lord Guthrie in a UK newspaper a week ago.
Lord Guthrie recalled advising the ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair against invading Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe has often accused its former colonial ruler of attempts to interfere in its internal affairs, in part out of concern for white farmers - many of British origin - whose farms have been seized and redistributed.
But the UK accuses the government of President Robert Mugabe of gross human rights violations and of creating a "tragedy" in Zimbabwe.
In a frank interview with the UK's Independent on Sunday on 11 November, Lord Guthrie told the newspaper he had had a close relationship with Mr Blair.
"We used to talk about things," he said. "I could say anything to him because he knew I wasn't going to spill the beans." Among the subjects they discussed, the newspaper reported, was an invasion of Zimbabwe, "which people were always trying to get me to look at. My advice was, 'Hold hard, you'll make it worse.'"
In his comments on Sunday, Mr Charamba told the official Sunday Mail newspaper that the Zimbabwean leadership had been aware of a threat of invasion.
"The government was aware of the plans and the president made reference to the sinister [British] motives on several occasions," he was quoted as saying.
"A defence plan had been operationalised and in fact, it is still in operation. We were also aware that short of a fully-fledged invasion, the British were and are still contemplating the elimination of our political leadership through a number of assassinations," said Mr Charamba.
'British interests'
Mr Charamba said the British government wanted to stage the invasion in pursuit of British national interests - and in particular the control of Zimbabwe's resources.
"Britain views Zimbabwe's white community as an extension of its nation and the invasion would not have been about politics but about British interests," said Mr Charamba.
Mr Mugabe, 83, faces a travel ban in Europe and his government is subject to EU sanctions. In addition to rights abuses, Western powers accuse him of bringing his country's economy to the brink of collapse.
Mr Mugabe says his country's economic hardships are down to Western sabotage.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"THE GREATEST LOVE IS A MOTHER'S,

THEN A DOG'S,

THEN A SWEETHEART'S" !

QUEEN RELEASES 60 WEDDING FACTS !

The Duke of Edinburgh had two stag parties before his wedding to the Queen and the couple were showered with rose petals as they headed off on honeymoon.
The information is among 60 facts released by Buckingham Palace to celebrate their diamond anniversary.
Another fact reveals how their wedding cake on 20 November 1947 was 9ft (2.74m) high.
Royal family members will attend an event hosted by Prince Charles later at Clarence House to toast the milestone.
The Queen is the first British monarch to celebrate a diamond wedding anniversary.
The list of wedding facts also disclosed that on the day of the wedding, the grave of the Unknown Warrior was the only stone not covered by a special carpet inside Westminster Abbey.
The day after the ceremony, the Queen followed a tradition started by her mother of having her wedding bouquet returned to the Abbey to be laid on the tombstone.
And among the 2,500 wedding presents were two pairs of bed socks and a home-made tea cosy sent by members of the public.
Buckingham Palace said Prince Philip had his two stag parties the night before the wedding - the first, held at the Dorchester, saw the press being invited.
The second saw the groom head to the Belfry Club with a group of his closest friends.
Preparations for the historic event included the checking of BBC microphones due to a previous incident at a royal wedding in 1934, where the Abbey cross hit a microphone which was dangling above the altar steps.
They departed for their honeymoon in Broadlands in Hampshire, home of Prince Philip's uncle Earl Mountbatten, from Waterloo station, accompanied by Her Majesty's corgi, Susan.
The royal couple have already revisited Broadlands as part of their anniversary celebrations.
On Monday, the day before their actual anniversary date, they will be attending a service at Westminster Abbey, where they were married.
On the day of their 60th wedding anniversary, the royal couple will travel to Malta where they lived as a young married couple from 1949 to 1951 while Prince Philip was stationed there as a serving Royal Naval officer.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BIKE SEX CASE SPARKS LEGAL DEBATE!

The case has prompted debate and online discussion.

The case of a man convicted of simulating sex with his bicycle has sparked a debate about human rights and the privacy of an individual.
Internet message boards have been buzzing with comment about the case of Robert Stewart, 51, from Ayr.
He was reported by cleaners at a hostel who unlocked his door and found him engaged in a sex act with his bike.
Stewart was put on the Sex Offenders' Register, which some posters said was an over-reaction by the sheriff.
Stewart admitted a sexually aggravated breach of the peace by conducting himself in a disorderly manner and simulating sex. As well as being put on register for three years, he was put on probation for the same length of time.
More than a million people have read the story on the BBC news website and it has been hotly debated on forums elsewhere.
One contributor asked: "Would they have done the same to a woman with a sex toy?
This case should not prevent people who want to engage in this sort of activity doing so -John Scott Human rights expert
"Apart from the fact that the sex toy was manufactured for the purpose, and a bicycle wasn't, I really don't see that the two acts are all that different."
Another blogger said: "I am more disturbed by the sheriff's ruling than the act of having sex with a bike."
Those discussing the case online were also worried about the future implications.
One person wrote: "It's bad news for privacy in the UK because of how a ruling like this could be used to support similar cases in future."
Legal experts said he would have been placed on the Sex Offenders' Register under Section 80 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003.
This states that a person should be put on the register "if the court determines that there was a significant sexual aspect to the offender's behaviour in committing the offence".
This is not the first legal case involving someone simulating sex with an inanimate object.
In 1997 Robert Watt, 38, was fined £100 for trying to have sex with a shoe in an Edinburgh street
In 2002 the same man was arrested for simulating sex with a traffic cone in front of a crowd of people
Earlier this month, sentence was deferred on teenager Steven Marshall, from Galashiels, who admitted simulating sex on a pavement while drunk.
Human rights lawyer John Scott told the BBC Scotland news website that the case raised important privacy issues.
He said: "It certainly prompts questions about what people can and can't do behind closed doors with inanimate objects.
"However, the difficulty is that the man involved in this case pleaded guilty to a breach of the peace so these issues of privacy weren't considered by the court."
He added: "The sheriff had to act on the guilty plea and make a decision about whether or not there was a sexual nature to the offence. Clearly there was and that's why the man has ended up on the register."
However, Mr Scott said it should not be seen as a test case or one that would set a precedent in the future.
"This case should not prevent people who want to engage in this sort of activity doing so.
"What I would say to a client of mine that wanted to do this kind of thing is as long as it's behind a bolted door, with an inanimate object, then each to their own."

BBC NEWS REPORT

10 THINGS !

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. Superstitious people in rural India sometimes organise weddings to animals in the hope of warding off curses.
More details

2. Janet and John were named Alice and Jerry in the United States.
More details

3. Until the late 1990s, the RAF's nuclear bombs could be activated using a bicycle lock key.
More details

4. Qwerty is a regular on lists of most-popular passwords.
More details

5. Residents of Middlesbrough are 25% more likely to suffer from heart disease than the UK average.
More details

6. There is an average of 90 suicides a day in Japan.

7. Landfill rubbish sites in the UK cover in total an area of 109sq miles.
More details

8. Twelve per cent of people with no religion pray sometimes.
More details

9. Cats can be police constables.
More details

10. The next generation of chip will pack more than four hundred million transistors into an area the size of a postage stamp.
More details
BBC MAGAZINE

KOSOVO'S LONG-LASTING LEGACY OF WAR!

The people of Kosovo are voting to elect a new parliament, but next month the territory faces an even more fateful decision - whether to declare sovereignty or not. On a visit to Kosovo, the BBC's Humphrey Hawksley gauges the strength of pro-independence feeling.

It is evening in the Drenica Valley, the heartland of Kosovo Albanian nationalism. The Kosovo border has been operated by the UN since 1999. We are in a cafe in the small town of Skenderaj waiting for a phone call. The customers are men of all generations, eyes flitting occasionally towards a TV screen where a chat show is focusing on Kosovo's upcoming independence, as if it is a given. Above the bar are pictures of leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the guerrilla group that in 1999 fought with Nato to expel Serb forces from the province. At that time, many of the men here would have been signed-up members.

There is an edge of anticipation in the bar. This is a society used to looking after its own. The phone rings and our interpreter has a short conversation. "We wait here," he says. "Another 20 minutes." Earlier in the day, I had been in the Kosovan capital, Pristina, whose landmarks pay tribute to the 1999 intervention.

Bill Clinton visited Kosovo in 1999. A replica of the Statue of Liberty stands on the roof of a hotel, and a huge hoarding of Bill Clinton covers the outer wall of a city centre building. I was going round the main political parties trying to work out why the mindset of this society is so locked into getting full sovereign independence. It is not as if they did not already have huge backing from the international community."You can't have economic development unless you have sovereignty," explains Veton Surroi, the leader of a new centre-left party called Ora. "If we accept a lesser position than independence we would have continuous conflict caused by those who choose violence." "Why violence?" I ask. "What about Taiwan? It's one of the richest places in the world, but it has no official status at all."

"Taiwan has a totally different historical perspective," he counters. "Really?" I challenge. "All right. What's your policy towards health care?" "We advocate free health care," he replies. I notice, strewn right along the edge of the road, piles and piles of rubbish, just left, rotting.

"How much will it cost?" I ask.

"We have a budget."
"Which is?"
Silence.
"You can't give me a figure?"
He admits he has not yet worked it out, and sends me to see his party's workers, young educated men with degrees from US and European universities. "Why are you guys banging on about independence when you don't even have a health care policy?" I ask. "All Kosovo Albanians will die for independence," one says.

Outside it is raining, and getting into the car, I step into a huge pot-hole filled with water. Then I notice piles and piles of rubbish, strewn right along the edge of the road, just left to rot. A stray cat picks its way through. "I suppose you need independence to clear up the garbage and fix the roads," I say irritably to our interpreter.
"You don't understand, do you?" he says.
Which is how we find ourselves in the Drenica Valley cafe that evening, and when the phone rings for the second time, we leave. On a street corner, heading out of town, we pick up the intermediary who had been telephoning us.
He directs us along a narrow road to a junction with a dirt track, where we meet a middle-aged man, head shaved and dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans. We drive up the track and stop at a derelict building.
The man puts on a balaclava helmet so we cannot identify his face. He claims to be a member of the Albanian National Army, a group banned by the UN administration.
"If we see that we are not going towards the goal of independence we will start implementing our military plans," he says. "Which means we'll protect our land from Serb forces."
"But the Serb forces aren't here," I exclaim, "Nato's here."
"They'll be back," he replies. "We are recruiting in large numbers to protect our people."
"After nearly 10 years of peace, is it really worth bringing back this spectre of violence?" I ask.
Through the slits in his balaclava, his eyes are sharp and uncompromising.
"Not only 10 years but after even 20, it is worth starting a struggle against those who don't want Albanians to live on their own land," he tells me.
Had it been anywhere else, with his pot belly and his slogans, he might have cut a laughable figure. But on his wrist is a shrapnel wound from the guerrilla war of the 1990s.
As with so many conflicts, including the long-running one with the Palestinians in the Middle East, his comfort zone is within land and historical legends, not clearing rubbish and good governance.
He believes the UN will respond to his threat of violence by rewriting its resolutions and that his own mainstream politicians, and the US and Europe, will support his campaign for independence.
I find the encounter deeply depressing. On the drive back, I fall into silence, until my interpreter suddenly says: "We have a choice, don't we?" "What's that?" I ask. "Whether we want to end up looking like the Taiwanese or like the Palestinians."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 17 November, 2007 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Stumble and fall.

Saturday 17th November 2007
Dear Family and Friends,

Inflation in Zimbabwe doesn't go up by fractions, units or even hundreds anymore, instead it increases by multiple thousands of percentage points from one month to the next. The latest official figures have just been announced and in October 2007 the inflation rate was 14,840% - a staggering increase, almost doubling from eight thousand percent in September. If you sit down and try and work out a standard family budget with basic food needs, unavoidable service bills, transport costs and essential medical needs, and then factor in almost fifteen thousand percent inflation, you will get a glimpse of our life here. In a word, its a nightmare.

Every day people are being forced to juggle with priorities - what can they do without for another day, which bill can again be shuffled to the bottom of the pile and which packet of carefully saved food can be left in the cupboard for one more day. Wages need to go up by the week at the very least, by the day would be more realistic. Some employers are giving monthly increases, bonuses or allowances to their employees but many others are not - they have moved into self survival mode and find it useful to quote government regulations and do nothing as their workers struggle, stumble and fall. Now more than ever before life has been reduced to a primitive battle for existence and there is easily visible evidence of hunger, poor diet, and plain exhaustion. It is common to talk to people who are halving essential medications to make them last longer and very common to see people selling household items to raise money to get through one more month.

Those people that can are working harder, doing two jobs and trying to 'make a plan' that will get them through this. Some relief at least comes with nature and our ability to be less dependent on the rules, regulations and controls of The State The rainy season has now set in and everywhere green has replaced brown, mud has replaced dust and swarms of flies, gnats and mosquitoes have emerged. Our neighbourhoods are suddenly filled with men, women and children bent over and cultivating a few square metres of roadside. This year most people have resorted to planting seed saved from last year's crop - they know it will give greatly reduced yields but have no option. The usual piles of green and pink treated maize seed have not appeared in our shops this year and last week the shocking figures came out in a report by a Lands and Agriculture Committee. Of the fifty thousand tonnes of seed maize needed around the country this season, there is a deficit of 21 thousand tonnes - almost half. The government have proclaimed that this is to be: "The Mother Of All Seasons" - a phrase absurdly simplistic and totally unrealistic of the facts on the ground, not least of which include huge deficits of seed, fertilizer and fuel and an inflation rate of almost fifteen thousand percent. It's going to take much more than slogans and propaganda to get food growing this year. As impossible as it is to believe and to accept, it seems inevitable that still harder times lie ahead for Zimbabwe.

Until next week, thanks for reading,
love cathy.

WHALE FOUND DEEP IN AMAZON JUNGLE!

By Gary Duffy - BBC News, Sao Paulo.

The whale's back and fin were out of water and exposed to the sun.
Whale with swimmers

A 5.5m long minke whale has been spotted more than 1600km (994 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean, deep inside the Amazon rain forest.
The whale ran aground earlier this week but after being freed with the help of vets and biologists it disappeared shortly afterwards.
It is the second time this week in Brazil that a lost animal has been spotted in an unexpected location.
The minke whale ran aground on a sandbar deep inside the Amazon.
Local people had been splashing water on the whale's back and fin while it was exposed to the hot Amazon sun.
The whale is said to weigh about 12 tons.
Reports of a mysterious animal in the area had been causing alarm among locals near to the Tapajos river, a tributary of the Amazon.
Experts say the animal could have been in the area for a couple of months.
After the whale was freed, helicopters and boats were involved in a search of the area but nothing was found.
A biologist said it was thought the animal became separated from its group and swam upstream, until it ran aground near Santarem in Para state.
While it is not unprecedented, it is unusual for whales to venture so far into fresh water.

The whale is not the only animal to get lost in Brazil this week.
On Thursday a young reptile - which was 1.5m long - turned up at a popular beach in Rio de Janeiro and had to be rescued by firemen.
They had been searching for the alligator for some time and had closed Barra beach, but despite this some swimmers insisted on entering the water.
The caiman, or yellow stomach alligator as it is known in Brazil, was taken to a local zoo for treatment for a broken leg.
This endangered species is normally found in freshwater swamps and marshes, and the fire service in Rio said it was the first time they had rescued one from the sea.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DUTCH FLOAT 'MIGRANT PRISON' SCHEME !

By Dominic Hughes - BBC News, Zaandam.

In the middle of an industrial estate in Zaandam, just north of Amsterdam, stands the newest prison in the Netherlands. The prison is built by the side of an old wood yard. But the word "stands" is not quite right, because this prison is in fact moored on one of the country's many waterways.
And the inmates in this floating prison are not criminals but illegal immigrants, guilty of what the Dutch call an "administrative offence".
This is the answer to a problem the authorities faced in the late 1990s - how to separate illegal immigrants from ordinary criminals when you already have overcrowded prisons.
"It's easier to get a place on the water than to find land, plus it's easy to build," says Erik Nijman from the Dutch ministry of justice.
And he says a floating prison is also more flexible: "If we have a problem for example in Amsterdam, we can transport them over water."
Built by the side of an old wood yard, the prison sits on two concrete platforms, each in turn moored to large steel pilings.
Each cell holds two people and has TV, fridge and a coffee machine.

On dry land next door are two white domes specially designed by a Dutch artist. Made of a lattice-work of metal, this is where the inmates play sports like football or basketball.
To enter the prison, you walk across a small bridge. Inside the corridors of cells are bright and clean. There are communal areas with table football, table-tennis and payphones.
The cells themselves hold two people, with bunk beds, a desk, fridge, TV, even a coffee machine. An en-suite bathroom is fitted with a toilet and shower.
When the prison is full it will house 576 illegal immigrants.
But despite state-of-the-art facilities, this is no easy option.
Cells are locked for 15 hours a day, from 1700 to 0800. Inmates can stay for six months or longer, as the authorities try to identify them and persuade them to go home voluntarily.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) plays a crucial role here. They try to persuade people to travel home, providing help with tickets, passports and even cash. The prison can house nearly 600 people.
And although they do not like the idea of locking up illegal immigrants, they do support separating them from criminals.
"It's a concern to society if people with an administrative offence are put behind bars together with criminals who have committed a real crime," says Joost van der Aalst, the IOM head in the Netherlands.
"So, to have a mixed population isn't a good idea, and that's one of the reasons why the Dutch government has decided to establish floating detention centres for aliens."
But Mr van der Aalst admits only about 20% of those contacted by the IOM agree to return voluntarily.
If the authorities cannot identify someone properly, Dutch law says that after nine months in detention they have to be released back onto the streets.
Dutch police do not actively seek out illegal immigrants, but if someone is questioned by the police and does not have the right papers, they will be detained.

As a result people like Galina, a Ukrainian university graduate, live on the margins of society.
She was smuggled into the Netherlands from Poland after paying a local man her entire savings of 1,100 euros (£786). But promises of work soon evaporated and she has struggled to get by.
"It's very difficult because when I go across the street and see the police, every time I am afraid I will go to prison. But I only want to work and live here legally. It's a problem."
After five hard months, Galina has decided to head for home. And the Dutch authorities are hoping that a stay in their new floating prison will persuade other illegal migrants to follow her example.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"HE WHO STRIKES FIRST , STRIKES TWICE" !

MCCANN FRIEND TELLS OF ABDUCTION !

Jane Tanner says she saw an unknown man carrying a child.
Jane Tanner interview

A close friend of Kate and Gerry McCann has told the BBC she saw a man carrying a child through the Portuguese holiday resort where they were staying. In an exclusive interview, Jane Tanner said she remained adamant Madeleine McCann had been abducted. Ms Tanner was among a group of friends who dined with the McCanns on 3 May as they left Madeleine and their two other children asleep in an apartment nearby.

Her parents were named as official suspects in September. Madeleine, from Rothley, Leicestershire, vanished from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz days before her fourth birthday. Ms Tanner described how her friend Rachael came to her holiday apartment to tell her Madeleine had gone at about 10pm. "And then I saw Kate and Fiona running around shouting 'Madeleine', and Kate said to me, 'Jane, Madeleine's gone, Madeleine's gone'. "And that's the first I heard."

Jane Tanner is potentially a crucial witness in the police investigation. Ms Tanner says at about 9.15pm she saw a man walking away from the complex with a child, but at the time thought nothing of it. It was another 45 minutes before friends informed her Madeleine had disappeared and now she says she is convinced that child was Madeleine.

Much of the police investigation focuses on the timeline of events on the night of 3 May. And the group of friends who dined together - the so-called Tapas Nine - have been key to piecing it together. Among them were friends and fellow holiday-makers including Rachael Oldfield and Dr Fiona Payne.

The face was left blank as Ms Tanner could not recall some details. Ms Tanner insists she has done everything to help with the police investigation but decided to talk to the media after being called "a liar and a fantasist". "I know what I saw and I think it's important that people know what I saw because I believe Madeleine was abducted," she said.

Last month the McCanns released artist's sketches of a man drawn by an FBI-trained forensic artist using details from Ms Tanner. She had described the man she saw as aged about 35 to 40, 5ft 6in (1.7m) tall, and slim and the child he was carrying was described as wearing the same pyjamas as Madeleine. The artist, commissioned by private detectives working for the McCanns, left the man's face blank as Ms Tanner was unsure about some details

The police say they do want to speak to all friends who were with the McCanns on the night Madeleine vanished. They are reassessing the case but continue to believe that Madeleine was either abducted or died as a result of an accident in the holiday flat.

The full interview with Jane Tanner can be seen on Panorama: The Mystery of Madeleine McCann on BBC One at 2100 GMT on Monday 19 November.

FRANCO-BRITISH TENSIONS SURFACE!

By Nicholas Witchell - BBC Royal Correspondent.

Seven weeks into the inquest into the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Al Fayed, differences in approach are emerging between the British and the French.

Princess Diana died after the crash in the Pont de l'Alma Tunnel. Franco-British tensions are never far from the surface of this inquest. They have been most apparent in the arguments over whether the paparazzi photographers who pursued the princess' car and photographed its wreckage should be compelled to give evidence.

The French have decided that they should not. They say it is "far from clear" whether French law allows French courts to oblige witnesses to appear in proceedings such as these, which they argue are essentially "administrative" rather than criminal - a reference to a coroner's court. The French have also invoked something called "ordre publique" as a further justification for their refusal to force the paparazzi to testify. They say that any such compulsion could "damage relations between the media, the government and the general public". And if that isn't sufficient, the French authorities have also pointed out that the paparazzi have already given evidence to the French investigation into the crash and that they have nothing new to say.

According to the British coroner, Lord Justice Scott Baker, "the French authorities consider this a good argument". That certainly isn't how the British lawyers representing Dodi Al Fayed's father, Mohammed, see it. The thing that really raised British hackles was the disclosure by the coroner that the French decision not to compel potential witnesses to testify had been a "political" one.

Indeed, it would be fair to say that the French decision has dismayed virtually all the lawyers and officials involved in the inquest. They all regard the evidence of the paparazzi as potentially very important and agree that they, of all people, should be subjected to a proper cross-examination. There again, it seems that the French don't much care for the style employed by British barristers when it comes to cross-examination. This was evident after Richard Keen QC, representing the parents of Mercedes driver Henri Paul, had sharpened his tongue on French witness Stephane Darmon - a motorcycle rider carrying one of the paparazzi, Romauld Rat, as a passenger.

Word came back from Paris that the French authorities regarded Mr Keen's cross-examination as much too cross and much too aggressive for their rather gentler way of doing things. The coroner said there were questions over forensic tests.The thing that really raised British hackles was the disclosure by the coroner that the French decision not to compel potential witnesses to testify had been a "political" one. The decision had been taken in the offices of a French government minister, he said.

There is a distinct impression among inquest lawyers that the French are hypersensitive at the prospect of the British criticising the way the French handled the crash and its aftermath. In particular, there is a suspicion at the High Court that the French want to prevent some of their professional witnesses - notably the pathologists who examined Henri Paul's remains - from being "roughed up" by the British barristers.

As Lord Justice Scott Baker hinted in his opening statement to the inquest, there are some very real questions about the competence of some of the first forensic tests carried out by the French. And it seems the French authorities may wish to shield some witnesses from professional humiliation at the hands of a British court. Hence the "political" decision that if a French witness - even a paparazzo - decides not to give evidence, there is nothing the French authorities are prepared to do to force him or her to do so.

The fear is that a lack of wholehearted support from across the channel can only play into the hands of those conspiracy theorists who believe that the French - and possible some others - have something to hide.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

JOURNALISTS 'MURDERED' IN E TIMOR!

By Nick Bryant - BBC News, Sydney.

Relatives of the journalists were present for the judgement. A coroner in Sydney has ruled that five Australian-based journalists, known as the Balibo Five, were deliberately killed in East Timor in 1975.
The deputy coroner of New South Wales, Dorelle Pinch, said there was enough evidence to constitute a war crime.
She said two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander were killed by Indonesian special forces to stop them exposing the invasion of East Timor.
Official Indonesian reports always said they were killed in crossfire.
For more than three decades, the families of the Balibo Five have sought to correct the historical record and to prove that the newsmen were executed rather than accidentally killed in the heat of battle.
Now, they have finally been vindicated.
The court found that Britons Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, and New Zealander Gary Cunningham were deliberately shot or stabbed.

Ms Pinch found that members of the Indonesian special forces were acting on orders of their commanding officer to prevent the journalists revealing their participation in the attack on Balibo in East Timor.
She said that war crimes as defined by Australian law may have been committed, law and pledged to refer the case to the country's attorney-general, who has the jurisdiction to mount a prosecution.
But on the question of whether the Australian authorities were forewarned that the journalists were about to be killed, she said all the evidence was to the contrary.
In Jakarta, a spokesman for the Indonesian foreign ministry said that the coroner's findings would not change its official account of the killings.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ROYALS ATTEND KING TUT EXHIBITION!

The last exhibition in 1972 attracted 1.7m visitors.
Exclusive tour

The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall have attended the ceremonial opening of the new Tutankhamun exhibition in London this afternoon.
Tutankhamun and The Golden Age of The Pharaohs shows a new display of 3,000-year-old artefacts excavated from King Tut's tomb.
More than 130 items are on display, in the first exhibition of its kind to be held in the UK for 35 years.
The exhibition opens to the public on 15 November at The O2 in London.
Among the treasures are the royal crown that was found on the mummified head of Tutankhamun and one of the gold and precious stone coffinettes that contained his embalmed internal organs.
The Royal couple were given a tour of the exhibition and witnessed the installation of the final artefacts, ahead of the public opening later this week.
The last time such an exhibition was displayed in London, in 1972, it attracted more than 1.7 million visitors, and was the most successful exhibition in the capital's history setting a new record for travelling shows.
Earlier this month, Tutankhamun's mummy was put on public display for the first time inside his tomb complex in Luxor's Valley of the Kings.
Tutankhamun and The Golden Age of The Pharaohs runs at the O2 - the former Millennium Dome - until 30 August 2008.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SAUDI GANG-RAPE VICTIM IS JAILED !

By Frances Harrison - BBC News.

Saudi women are subject to strict sex segregation laws. An appeal court in Saudi Arabia has doubled the number of lashes and added a jail sentence as punishment for a woman who was gang-raped.
The victim was initially punished for violating laws on segregation of the sexes - she was in an unrelated man's car at the time of the attack.
When she appealed, the judges said she had been attempting to use the media to influence them.
The attackers' sentences - originally of up to five years - were doubled.

According to the Arab News newspaper, the 19-year-old woman, who is from Saudi Arabia's Shia minority, was gang-raped 14 times in an attack in the eastern province a year-and-a-half ago.
Seven men from the majority Sunni community were found guilty of the rape and sentenced to prison terms ranging from just under a year to five years.
But the victim was also punished for violating Saudi Arabia's laws on segregation that forbid unrelated men and women from associating with each other. She was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for being in the car of a strange man.

On appeal, the Arab News reported that the punishment was not reduced but increased to 200 lashes and a six-month prison sentence.
The rapists also had their prison terms doubled. But the sentences are still low considering they could have faced the death penalty.
The Arab News quoted an official as saying the judges had decided to punish the girl for trying to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media.
The victim's lawyer was suspended from the case, has had his licence to work confiscated, and faces a disciplinary session.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA SPYING 'BIGGEST US THREAT' !

The US must boost its computer security, congressional advisers say. Chinese espionage poses "the single greatest risk" to the security of US technology, a panel has told Congress.
China is pursuing new technology "aggressively", it says, legitimately through research and business deals and illegally through industrial espionage.
China has also "embraced destructive warfare techniques", the report says, enabling it to carry out cyber attacks on other countries' infrastructure.
A foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing denied any spying activities by China.
"China and the US have a fundamental common interest in promoting sound and rapid development," said Liu Jianchao, quoted by the Associated Press news agency.
The allegations were made by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in its annual report.

China denied reports that it had hacked into Pentagon computers.
The advisory panel, appointed by Congress, recommended that US security measures and intelligence be stepped up to try to prevent the theft of military technology, in particular.
"Chinese espionage activities in the United States are so extensive that they comprise the single greatest risk to the security of American technologies," the report said.
It urged Congress to study "military, intelligence and homeland security programmes that protect critical American computer networks and sensitive information, specifically those charged with protecting networks from damage caused by cyber attacks".
The report also identified other grounds for concern, such as the fact that the Chinese are manufacturing "sophisticated weapon platforms" speedily and efficiently.
The unexpected pace of China's military development has fuelled analysts' suspicions that it is being helped by stolen information, the commission said.

In addition, the Chinese media - firmly under state control - are being used to create "deep feelings of nationalism", it said.
In an international crisis, the panel warned, that could turn misunderstanding into conflict.
The report also criticised Chinese economic policy, saying that small and medium-sized American businesses "face the full brunt of China's unfair trade practices, currency manipulation and illegal subsidies for Chinese exports".
The BBC's Vincent Dowd in Washington says that this is a hard-hitting report which will be consumed eagerly and with concern in the US capital.
In September, the Chinese government denied reports that its military had hacked into the computer network of the US defence department in Washington.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

JIHAD AND THE SAUDI PETRODOLLAR !

BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy has spent the last two months investigating Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia's austere brand of Islam. In the first of a two-part series, to be broadcast on the BBC World Service, he looks at the fierce debate over whether Wahhabism and Saudi petrodollars have fomented extremism.

Saudis feature heavily among those accused of anti-US terrorism"The essence of Wahhabism is purity," says Lawrence Wright, author of a Pulitzer-prize-winning book about al-Qaeda.
"They are only interested in purification - and that's what makes them so repressive."
Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former head of Saudi intelligence and former ambassador in London and Washington, dismisses the accusation out of hand.
"From our point of view in the kingdom, there is no such thing as Wahhabism. That's a canard."
Saudis have never cared for the "Wahhabi" label which historically was a term of abuse applied to them by their critics.
They are highly sensitive to the charge that they have used their vast oil wealth to turn an obscure desert sect into a global force.
Charge and counter-charge
Over the last two months I've talked to officials of the Saudi government and Saudi charities who argue the campaign against them is unjust.
I've heard some of the world's leading experts, gathered in a small town in the Dutch countryside, attempt to define Wahhabism - and Salafism, the bigger family of conservative Sunni Islam of which it's part.

They are teaching the students that whoever disagrees with Wahhabism is either an infidel or a deviant -Hassan al-Maliki.
I've heard senior US investigators describe their deep-rooted suspicions about Saudi charities - and the frustrations of following the money trail.
Top US attorney Patrick Fitzgerald told me why he'd come to believe a Saudi charity headquartered in Chicago was an al-Qaeda front.
The US authorities shut down the charity, the Benevolence Foundation, in 2002.
Two years later another major Saudi charity, al-Haramain, came under scrutiny.
The US and Saudi governments designated 10 of its branches "financiers of terrorism".
But American investigators have often found it hard to turn suspicion into proof.
And that reinforces the scepticism of Saudi and American Muslims about US government claims.
Hate literature
I looked at the role of Wahhabi literature - used in Saudi schools and exported round the world - in promoting suspicion and hatred of non-believers.
The Saudi ambassador in Washington, Adel Jubeir, assured me a series of steps had been taken to reform the country's educational system to instil values of tolerance.
The genie came out of the bottle and the Saudis could no longer put it back in."
Bernard HeykelProfessor of Near East studies, Princeton
Saudi educationalist Hassan al-Maliki remains to be convinced.
"They are teaching the students," he told me, "that whoever disagrees with Wahhabism is either an infidel or a deviant - and should repent or be killed."
This, he added, was an attack on half of Saudi society, where Shia and Sufi minorities coexist uneasily with the dominant Wahhabi religious establishment.
I visited the offices of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (Wamy), part of the global network of well-funded Islamic institutions created by Saudi Arabia's King Faisal in the 1960s and 1970s.
These bodies built mosques and schools and provided humanitarian aid to Muslims in need.
But there is evidence that, over time, some of their local branches became involved in militant networks.
Bernard Haykel, professor of Near East studies at Princeton, believes the Saudis set in motion a process over which they lost control. The Saudis' funding of militant Islam reached a new pitch in the 1980s when, with the United States and others, they bankrolled the jihad against Soviet troops occupying Afghanistan.
The Afghan war was the crucible from which emerged al-Qaeda.
"The genie came out of the bottle," says Professor Haykel, "and the Saudis could no longer put it back in."
The first of Roger Hardy's programmes, Jihad & the Petrodollar, can be heard on the BBC World Service on Friday, 16 November.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

AUSTRALIANS NAMED WORST EMITTERS !

The inventory lists CO2 emissions from more than 4,000 companies. A study of the world's power stations has shown the extent to which developed countries produce more carbon dioxide per head than emerging economies.
Australians were found to be the world's worst polluters per capita, producing five times as much carbon from generating power as China.
The US came second with eight tonnes of carbon per head - 16 times more than that produced by India.
The US also produced the most carbon in total, followed by China.
The Carbon Monitoring for Action (Carma) website is the first global inventory of emissions and looks at 50,000 power stations.
Its data was compiled by the Center for Global Development, a US think-tank.
Carma points out that while US power plants emit the most CO2, releasing 2.5bn tonnes into the atmosphere each year, Australian power stations are the least efficient on a per capita basis, with emissions of 10 tonnes, compared with the US's 8.2 tonnes.

TOP 10 EMITTERS

National power sector emissions (in tonnes of CO2):
US - 2,530 million
China - 2,430 million
Russia - 600 million
India - 529 million
Japan - 363 million
Germany - 323 million
Australia - 205 million
South Africa - 201 million
UK - 192 million
South Korea - 168 million
(Source: Carma/CGD)

China's power sector emits the second-highest total amount of carbon dioxide, pumping 2.4bn tonnes of the gas into the atmosphere annually.
However, its emissions are only one fifth of Australia's when measured on a per capita basis.
The UK's 192 million tonnes make it the ninth highest emitter, with per capita CO2 emissions of 3.2 tonnes.
The nation's largest power station, the coal-fired Drax plant, is deemed to be the 23rd most polluting power station in the world.
Kevin Ummel, a research assistant at the Center for Global Development, hoped the online inventory would help the push towards a low carbon future.
"The experience of people in the environmental field has been that supplying the public and markets with information that they did not have has often led to improvements in environmental quality," he told BBC News.

CO2 EMISSIONS PER CAPITA

Australia - 10.0 tonnes
US - 8.2 tonnes
UK - 3.2 tonnes
China - 1.8 tonnes
India - 0.5 tonnes
(Source: Carma/CGD)

"There is no reason why this could not happen for carbon emissions."
He said that the data for power stations in the US, Canada, Europe and India came from official, verified reports.
For the power plants that did not have robust reports, Mr Ummel said a model was used to calculate the volume of emissions.
The figure is derived by taking factors such as fuel type, size, age and various other technical specifications in account.
"It turns out that if you have this information then you can predict emissions from the plants with a high degree of certainty," he said.
"Carma is built from a massive database provided by private sector (organisations). It includes every type of fuel and it includes power plants of almost any size.
"Not only do we have the massive plants, like Drax in the UK, but everything down to the solar panels on the local high school.
"We feel quite confident that no-one else has information in such detail."
The philosophy behind the website is to provide people with information that they currently do not have.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DISPLACED IN SOMALIA: ABDULLAHI

Somalis describe their lives in and around the capital, Mogadishu, amidst violence between insurgents and government troops backed by Ethiopian forces. Doctor Abdullahi (not his real name), 36, returned home to Mogadishu nine months ago after living and working abroad.

Wheelbarrows are used in Mogadishu to transport the sick I studied outside of Somalia for my university education and returned at the time when the Islamic courts were still in power, but after one month of coming back everything was turned upside down.
When I first came back we could drive around Mogadishu but now never, we would never think of driving around the city.
It is too unsafe.
The other night there was trouble from 1800 until 2300 hours local time; there was indiscriminate firing of heavy machine guns and mortars in and around our houses.
This is where civilians live.
It lasted for four hours and we could not stand, all we could do was lay down. I was on the floor with my children and all I could see was flashes of light.
I could hear my neighbour crying "help me, help me" outside but I could not go to him.
I can't describe how I felt.
His entire family was outside; he had been injured by shrapnel during the shelling.
They know that I am a doctor and were calling me to help, but I could not move.
Cars cannot move during these times, there is no-one moving outside.
We could not have even gotten him to a hospital. He bled to death. I can't tell you how it feels when you can't help your friend like this.
Civilians are being trapped between the insurgents and the army. If there is fighting in town normal people are trapped.
I have heard of a mortar landing on a tea shop with 15 people being injured and five people being killed.

Displaced mother: Khatija
Fleeing father: Yusuf
Rape in camps: Faduma
Helpless doctor: Abdullahi

But when it happens at night there is nothing you can do, you can't move until morning.
It's just not worth the risk to move at night, you will just lose more lives than just the injured - 99% of the stories you hear about people dying are at night; there is just no way to get to a hospital after dark.
The next morning when I passed the area that was heaviest hit, I couldn't believe that I was passing the same area I had walked past the night before on my way home.
The telephone wires and electricity cables were lying broken on the ground. You couldn't believe it.
We are waiting for our chance, because we have no real chance now.
Right now life is just a matter of luck.
You know they call this the Sunni triangle, like around Baghdad.
This is the worst time for us, but I will stay, I would even work for free as today is a time for humanity.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"AIM HIGH IN YOUR CAREER BUT

STAY HUMBLE IN YOUR HEART" !

IRAN GIVE IAEA NUCLEAR DESIGNS !

By Bethany Bell - BBC News, Vienna.

Iran has denied its nuclear work is intended to develop weapons. Diplomats say Iran has given the UN nuclear agency a document containing design information which could be used for parts of a nuclear weapon.
The IAEA has been asking Iran for the design document since 2005.
The move comes as Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the agency, the IAEA, is finalising his latest report on Iran.
The report is expected to shed light on what questions Iran has answered about its nuclear work and could determine if new UN sanctions are imposed on Tehran.
The design document contains information on casting uranium metal, a process related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components.

Iran says it was given the papers without asking for them during its black market purchases of nuclear equipment years ago.
But the document is one of a number of issues to have raised suspicions about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
IAEA inspectors have been permitted to view the document in Iran, but up to now, Teheran has refused to let them have a copy.
Now a document has been handed over to the IAEA.
Some diplomats see this as a sign of progress that Iran is co-operating with the IAEA and is revealing details about its past nuclear activities.
Others are sceptical, seeing this as a last minute attempt by Iran to stave off the threat of more UN sanctions.
One Western diplomat told the BBC that it was not a particular surprise if Iran had handed over the document.
But he said Iran should concentrate on answering all the outstanding questions without delay.
The next report by the IAEA on Iran, which is expected in the next day or two, could help determine whether or not world powers will move ahead with tougher sanctions against Tehran.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

POWERFUL QUAKE HITS NORTH CHILE!

A powerful 7.7-magnitude quake has hit north Chile, cracking roads, bringing down buildings and knocking out power. The quake hit at 1243 local time (1543 GMT), centring on Quillahua village, about 100km north-west of Calama town.
People were injured in the coastal city of Tocopilla and nearby, reports said, but none seriously.
The quake - lasting about 50 seconds - sent panicked residents out into the streets. It could even be felt in the capital Santiago, 1,260km to the south.
TV pictures showed cars crushed by the concrete awning of a hotel in Antofagasta.
I was very frightened. It was very strong. I've never felt one that strong -Paola Barria,hotel worker near Calama.
A reporter for local Radio Cooperativa said she saw cracks in the tarmac at the airport there.
"It was horribly strong. It was very long and there was a lot of underground noise," Andrea Riveros, a hotel worker in Calama, told news agency AP.
Another worker at a hotel close to Calama told AP the hotel felt "like a floating island" during the quake, which took down power lines, cracked windows and knocked masonry off nearby houses.
"I was very frightened. It was very strong. I've never felt one that strong," Paola Barria said.
A 5.7-magnitude aftershock struck the region two hours later, Reuters news agency reported.
"One of the most affected zones could be Tocopilla," Deputy Interior Minister Felipe Harboe said on television.
"Some houses in the western part of town, which are made of lighter materials, have been affected and we have some injured people," he said.

Twenty people were also hurt in Maria Elena, a small town some 60km south-east of Tocopilla, reported the Chilean news site La Tercera.
As well as in the distant capital Santiago, the quake was felt in neighbouring Argentina, Peru and Bolivia. In the Bolivian administrative capital La Paz buildings were temporarily evacuated but no damage was reported.
The quake happened relatively deep underground, diminishing its destructiveness, says the BBC's Daniel Schweimler in the Argentine capital.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii cancelled a regional tsunami alert issued shortly after the earthquake, as no damaging waves had been recorded.
But it cautioned that coastal areas in Hawaii could experience "small non-destructive sea level changes and strong or unusual currents lasting up to several hours".
Two tectonic plates - the Nazca and the South American - clash in this region.
In August more than 500 people died when an 8.0 magnitude quake struck neighbouring Peru just south of the capital, Lima.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOMALI INSURGENTS TARGET AU FORCE !

Somali insurgent leader Sheikh Aden Hashi Ayrow has ordered fighters to attack African Union troops based in the capital, Mogadishu. He also asked foreign fighters to join his al-Shabab group's war against the foreign forces in an audio clip posted on Somali websites.
President Abdullahi Yusuf blames the militant group for the recent violence.
Uganda has some 1,700 soldiers in Somalia as part of the planned 8,000-strong AU peacekeeping mission.
About 80 people have died this week.
The Ugandan military have dismissed the threat.
Their spokesman, Major Felix Kulaigye, said the peacekeepers will not withdraw and will defend themselves if necessary.
al-Shabab is the militant wing of the Union of Islamic Courts, which controlled Mogadishu for six months last year before being ousted by advancing Ethiopian troops.
In Mogadishu, Ethiopian and government troops have been conducting a door-to-door search for the insurgents in the capital over the past week sparking deadly clashes.

The United Nations says some 170,000 people have fled the violence this week and hundreds others have been injured in the crossfire.
Al-Shabab's Sheikh Ayrow said it was an obligation of all Muslims in Somalia to wage war against Ethiopian and Ugandan forces.
"To us the Ugandans, Ethiopians and Americans are all the same, they have invaded us and I am telling the Mujahidin [fighters], Ugandans must be one of our priorities," a tough talking Sheikh Ayrow said in the audio on Dayniile website.
He said Ethiopians had failed in their mission and were now facing their worst defeat.
Last week, masked armed men in Mogadishu dragged bodies believed to be those of Ethiopian soldiers killed during clashes with the insurgent groups.
On Tuesday, President Yusuf called on Mogadishu residents to join Somali and Ethiopian troops in the fight against the al-Shabab insurgents who are living among them.
The insurgents have been targeting government and Ethiopian troops but are yet to launch attacks on the Ugandan soldiers.
The al-Shabab militant group claims to have links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Last week UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, ruled out plans to deploy peacekeepers to Somalia saying it was not a viable option.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BRAZIL'S AIDS POLICY REMARKABLE!

By Gary Duffy BBC News, Sao Paulo.

Brazil saves money by producing cheaper versions of Aids drugs. Bargaining with pharmaceutical firms to bring down the price of Aids drugs and producing cheap generic versions has saved Brazil $1bn, a study has shown.
Infection rates in the Latin American country have been kept at a similar level to the US, the report finds.
And more than 180,000 Brazilians have access to Aids treatment.
Brazil's achievement is described as "remarkable", in the study published by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States.
Brazil's policy for dealing with HIV and Aids has long been widely admired for its commitment to effective treatment combined with an aggressive promotion of the safe sex message.
In 1996 it became the first developing country to commit to providing free and universal access to Aids drugs.
Now a study published in the Public Library of Science journal by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health suggests the policy has saved Brazil around $1bn between 2001 and 2005.

Brazil has provided free access to Aids drugs since 1996.
By threatening to produce cheaper generic versions of existing drugs, the government has repeatedly persuaded companies to reduce their prices.
Earlier this year Brazil broke the patent on the Aids drug Efavirenz and decided to import a cheaper version from India.
Drugs companies have warned that action like this would only discourage them from carrying out the expensive research needed to improve the drugs required to treat HIV.
Brazil says the decision was taken in the public interest, which is why it also produces generic versions of eight drugs that do not have patents.
To some extent the policy has been a victim of its own success, with the new research suggesting drug costs rose rapidly as treatment was provided to more people who were also living longer.
Researchers also say other developing countries are now proving more successful in producing cheaper generic Aids drugs and Brazil, which once led the way with this approach, needs to be more aggressive.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KHAN ARRESTED AT PAKISTAN PROTEST !

Imran Khan was held by students on the campus.
Khan being detained

Pakistani opposition politician Imran Khan has been arrested after making his first public appearance since emergency rule was declared, police have said. The former cricketer was detained after going to the University of Punjab in Lahore to address a protest by students against President Pervez Musharraf. Mr Khan was initially held for an hour by students from the Jamaat-e-Islami party after a confrontation on campus.

On Tuesday, Mr Khan said there should be no negotiations with Gen Musharraf. Mr Khan joins scores of other more powerful opposition politicians already in custody. The former cricketer is well known around the world from his sporting days, but his Tehrik-i-Insaf (Movement for Justice) party has little support in Pakistan. Witnesses said there were chaotic scenes at the university when Mr Khan arrived to try to address a rally of his student supporters on Wednesday morning. "I hope to start the movement for the restoration of democracy amongst the student community," he had earlier told the BBC.

There was a detention order against him and they have been served on him - we are going to place him under house arrest -Khalid Batti, Lahore police.

US hedges bets on Musharraf

"I want the students to be mobilised, as well as the lawyers and the political parties, because it has to be a comprehensive movement against the brute force of a military dictator." However, a large group of students from the rival Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami objected to his presence at the university and a confrontation developed, according to his spokesman, Seth Niazi. Mr Niazi said Mr Khan was subsequently locked inside a nearby building for an hour by the rival students before they put him in a van and drove him to police officers waiting at the campus gates. Hundreds of activists have been arrested under emergency rule.

Later, several Lahore police officials confirmed they had taken Mr Khan into custody. Mr Khan had been in hiding in Lahore for 11 days after escaping from his home when emergency rule was declared by Gen Musharraf. On Tuesday, he told the BBC he had agreed with ex-PM Benazir Bhutto, who is under house arrest, that the parliamentary election due to be held by mid-January would be meaningless if the state of emergency were not lifted. "I am glad that all the opposition parties have come round to our point of view, which is that there should be no compromise with a military dictator," Mr Khan said.

Earlier, Ms Bhutto called for the president to step down, saying the Pakistani people had lost confidence in his ability to steer the country towards democracy. The BBC's Damian Grammaticus in Islamabad says Ms Bhutto is due to be released in a few days, but Mr Khan, who has consistently taken a tougher line in criticising the president, is unlikely to be released from captivity any time soon.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ANTI-FRENCH RIOT ERUPTS IN CHAD!

There have been regular protests against the child abductions. Several thousand students haveheld violent anti-French protests in Chad.
Police dispersed demonstrators with tear gas in the capital, N'Djamena, after cars belonging to white foreigners and diplomats were attacked.
The protesters are demanding that six French aid workers charged with child kidnapping be tried in Chad.
France's President Nicolas Sarkozy had said he wanted to go to Chad to bring the aid workers from Zoe's Ark back to France angering many Chadians.
If found guilty, the charity workers face several years with hard labour in a Chadian prison.
They said they believed they were rescuing Darfur war orphans, but parents of many of the 103 children almost flown to France told the BBC they were promised they would be educated locally, and never gave permission for them to leave the country.
Crowds of students began gathering in the centre of N'Djamena shortly after 0730 hours local time.
Most of the demonstrators were high school students, wearing their school uniforms and chanting anti-French slogans.

Village pines for children

Before long, what was designed to be a peaceful protest, got out of hand, the BBC's Stephanie Hancock in the capital says.
The demonstrators began attacking white foreigners in their cars, hurling stones and shouting, "Whites - child kidnappers".
For several hours the young demonstrators took over the capital, running riot along N'Djamena's main streets and eventually converging at the French embassy.
The police used tear gas to disperse the protestors who were intent on finding French citizens to attack.
The students, who were holding banners saying "Sarkozy, out of Chad" eventually returned to the city's main square in front of the presidential palace where several thousand of them converged for a mass protest.
Riot police and soldiers are still trying to calm the situation down, although the protestors are finally beginning to wrap up their demonstration.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SUFFOLK BIRD FLUE IS H5N1 STRAIN !

All the birds at the farm are being culled as a precaution. The type of bird flu found in turkeys on a Suffolk farm is the virulent H5N1 strain, according to government vets.
The virus was discovered on Sunday at Redgrave Park Farm near Diss, where all 6,500 birds, most of them turkeys, are being slaughtered.
A 3km protection zone and a 10km surveillance zone have been set up and the farm is co-operating with vets.
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said that there might be further undisclosed cases of the disease in the area.
Mr Benn told the House of Commons: "I'm not going to speculate as to whether this outbreak is going to get larger.
"What we're doing is working our darndest to make sure that it stays where it is.

Map of surveillance zone

"The most important thing, having locked it down, is to trace the contacts and movements so we can take appropriate action."
A national and a local disease control centre have been established in Bury St Edmunds, with text messages sent to all bird keepers nationwide - especially those in zones on the poultry register.
Mr Benn said that movements within the restricted zones can take place, but not out of it. General licences for low risk movements out of the zone are expected to be available "shortly".

Mr Landeg has urged people with poultry to be vigilant for bird flu.
All birds at the affected premises - including approximately 5,000 turkeys, 1,000 ducks and 500 geese - will be slaughtered.
Police officers are at the entrance to the farm, and vehicles are being sprayed with a jet hose.
The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said some 10% of birds in one shed at the farm had died during one night.
Acting Chief Veterinary Officer Fred Landeg said there was "still some uncertainty" over the situation.
"We are at a very early stage of the investigation," he said.
"The initial sequence data suggests that it's closely related to outbreaks in the Czech Republic and Germany, which does suggest a possible wild bird source.
"However, at this stage we are looking with an open mind as to the origin and all potential sources of the origin will be investigated."
Mr Landeg also said there was a lake at the affected site with a number of wild fowl on it and that "no two outbreaks of the disease are ever the same".
The top priority is to get controls in place, to inform people of the controls in place -Heather Peck -Defra regional manager.

Latest blow for farmers
Anxious wait for test results

"This will not be a quick exercise. This is a particularly challenging site and our priority is to adhere to strict bio-security, and the health and safety of staff on site is paramount."
Earlier, Mr Landeg had said the risk of bird flu spreading was increased during the autumn months because of wild bird migration.
The affected birds were free-range - meaning they had access to the outdoors and may have been of greater risk of catching the disease.
There was a H5N1 outbreak at a turkey farm, also in Suffolk, in February.
The BBC's Andrew Sinclair, who is at the farm in Suffolk, said large trucks and gas canisters had been moved on to the premises earlier in preparation for the cull.
It is expected that all the birds will be gassed and then put in sealed containers.
Officials said further local surveillance work would happen before deciding on any culls on neighbouring farms.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CALL FOR US TO RE-OPEN UFO FILE!

By Will Grant - BBC News.

The group says the alleged sightings cannot be ignored. A group of former pilots and government officials has called on the US government to re-open an investigation into claims of UFO sightings.
Project Blue Book, run by the US Air Force, was stopped in the late 1960s.
The group, which includes former military officers from seven countries, all say they have seen a UFO or have conducted research into the phenomenon.
However, the Air Force says nothing has happened in the past four decades to justify resuming investigations.
Every year thousands of people say they have seen UFOs in the United States and their claims are usually met with scepticism.
We want the US government to stop perpetuating the myth that all UFOs can be explained away in down-to-earth, conventional terms - Fife Symington, Ex-Governor of Arizona.
But this panel of former military, government and aviation personnel from countries around the world has urged the US government to take such claims seriously.
The group say the apparent sightings of hovering orbs, glowing lights and high-speed spacecraft are a national security concern and should no longer be dismissed.

After the attacks of 11 September, the group said in a statement, it was no longer satisfactory to ignore radar returns that could not be associated with existing helicopters and other aircraft.
The panel has called on the US military to re-open an investigation dormant since 1969, called Project Blue Book, in which more than 12,500 UFO claims were investigated by the Air Force.
For now, it seems their pleas have fallen on deaf ears - the US Air Force says nothing has changed that would support a resumption of the investigation.
But those who believe they have seen UFOs, know they have influential supporters.
Among those on the panel is the former governor of Arizona, Fife Symington, and last month, the Democrat presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich, said during a televised debate that he'd seen a UFO.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TOMB HAVE AND TO HOLD !

By Mario Cacciottolo - BBC News Magazine.

The last Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972 saw queues around the block - which led Rod Coustan to meet his future wife Maja. Three children and 35 years later, the Magazine joined the couple for an exclusive preview of the new show. The English, it is often said, like to queue. While some other nationalities, this stereotype suggests, just stick out their elbows and get stuck into any line of people, the English wait patiently for something to actually happen. Rod Coustan joined a queue 35 years ago. And something really happened.

He queue-jumped to get to me
Maja Coustan -On the moment she met Rod.

See more of Rod and Maja at the exhibition on Tuesday's One Show, BBC One 1900 GMT

As he spent three hours in the snaking line outside the Tutankhamun exhibition at the British Museum in London, he had an encounter that changed his life. Somewhere up the line was Maja, a young Danish woman who had come to Britain with a friend to work as an au pair. Both were eager to see the relics from the tomb of the Egyptian boy king, in what was the blockbuster exhibition of the period. Rod caught her eye, the two began talking, later fell in love and now, after 30 years of marriage, three children and much travelling, have come back for a sneak preview of the latest exhibition of relics from the famous tomb. Through the tight security at the old Millennium Dome, now the O2 centre, and into the dim and eerie setting for the relics, Rod and Maja relive the moment they met.

The Coustans at the exhibition and, inset, shortly after they metAs he peers into the glass cases and murmurs recollections, Rod - a towering man of 62 with a permanent twinkle in his eye - explains how as a 26-year-old he was waiting with a newspaper and a bar of rum and raisin chocolate when he caught the eye of Maja. "I thought to myself 'I can't let that one go' says Rod with a grin. "So I offered her some chocolate, we started chatting and went from there." Maja, 54, giggles as she recalls the moment. "I had turned around and saw him looking at me over his newspaper. So I smiled, and threw my hair back over my shoulder.

"He was different to Danish guys because he was tall and dark, and I also found him quite handsome." In this era when singletons go to ever increasing lengths to find a like-minded significant other, Rod and Maja found being in the same queue evidence enough of shared interests. "He queue-jumped to get to me," Maja explains, clearly still surprised by Rod's bold actions, as if someone from the queue all those years ago might suddenly appear and complain.

One of the new show's exhibits.
Enlarge Image

"I can still see her face in the queue now," says Rod. "In fact, it's the strongest memory I have of the day, even more than the exhibition itself." So do the memories come flooding back every time they hear mention of the name Tutankhamun? "They certainly do," says Rod, as Maja nods her agreement. "I always tell people I met my wife in the queue for his exhibition." The couple, who now live in Devon, have been joined for the trip by their three children - Lina, 26, Miriam, 24, and Sebastian, 21.

In two days this place will be swarming with members of the public. But for now, the Coustans can wander around in the darkness, occasionally punctured by glass cabinets and the light bouncing off the aged artefacts within - gold statuettes, ornate walking sticks, and other ornaments. To see such beautiful objects, from so far away and long ago, created with such grace and delicacy, is a powerful experience. It was this magic that drew people into hours-long queues 35 years ago, and has been drawing crowds ever since around the world.

1.8m visitors went in 1972. Will that number be broken? "It's much better laid out this time, there's much more space, although the music is getting on my nerves," says Maja gently, referring to the pseudo-atmospheric "aaahs" and "ooohs" leaking out from unseen speakers. Upstairs the lighting is stronger and the exhibits larger, showing miniature boats which were intended to magically expand and be sailed in the afterlife.

It is here that Professor David Silverman who is the curator of the exhibition explains the significance of the 130 artefacts on display, and the 51 that directly relate to Tutankhamun. Of those, 48 are from his tomb, while 80 of the items are from the 100 years before the boy king's life. When asked the million-dollar question as to the reasons behind the enduring appeal of Tutankhamun, Prof Silverman smiles. "I've been asked that many times, and there are many answers. These include the fact that many ancient cultures have images and language that are alien, but Egyptian art and language uses imagery that's recognisable.

"Even hieroglyphics uses symbols that are recognisable images that aren't scary. Also, never underestimate the power of movies." Prof Silverman goes on to explain that classic films like The Mummy, from 1932 starring Boris Karloff, and the 1999 film of the same name starring Brendan Fraser, have done much to fuel the public's fascination with all things ancient Egyptian.
"I actually took Brendan through our exhibition and he's a big fan of it," says Prof Silverman with a dash of pride.

The Coustan's eldest daughter Lina Ficken, who is married to Neil, 29, is clearly impressed with the exhibition, not least because it brings to life a story which is a famous "family legend". But did the pair meet in a similar way? "Not really," says Lina with an embarrassed giggle. "We met on the dancefloor of a nightclub in Torquay."

King Tut would probably not approve.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

DON'T BARGAIN FOR FISH

WHICH ARE STILL IN THE WATER" !

LIBYA CHANGES TOURIST ENTRY RULES !

Libya's ancient Greek and Roman sites are a big tourist attraction. Hundreds of European tourists have been refused entry to Libya after an unannounced change to passport rules. From the evening of 11 November, visitors without an Arabic translation of their passports have been denied entry, even if they have valid visas. Libya is the only Middle Eastern country to take such a step.

Correspondents say the sudden change of policy appears to go against Tripoli's recent attempts to promote itself as a western tourist destination. No warning of the change was given to foreign embassies. "It was completely out of the blue" an official at the British Embassy in Tripoli told the BBC News website. "The consular department has written to request an explanation and we haven't received a reply yet."

Switzerland has lodged a formal complaint to Libya after about 40 air passengers on board a Swiss carrier were denied entry to Tripoli on Sunday. The travellers were forced to return to Switzerland on the same plane later that evening. More than 170 passengers on board a charter flight run by France's Air Mediterranee had to do the same. They were not allowed to get off their plane which had landed at Sebha airport, in southern Libya.

A passenger on board the PandO cruise ship Artemis has contacted the BBC to say the vessel was not allowed to land passengers in Tripoli on Tuesday morning for a planned day trip. A PandO spokeswoman said the vessel was heading to its next destination, Malta, earlier than scheduled. Libya's status as a tourist destination has grown since UN sanctions were lifted in 2003.

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam, unveiled a plan in September to protect and promote Libya's ancient archaeological sites and unspoilt Mediterranean coastline.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SA 2010 WORLD CUP STRIKE THREAT !

Work is already behind schedule at Green Point in Cape Town. An industrial relations dispute in South Africa is threating to halt building work for the 2010 World Cup. Construction workers' unions are seeking legal approval to hold strikes at all 10 venues being built or refurbished for the soccer tournament.

The World Cup organising committee has expressed concern at the strike threat. Construction has already been on hold for a week at the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban, where builders said they were unhappy with pay and conditions.

Most South African construction workers belong to the National Mineworkers' Union (NMU), whose spokesman Lesiba Seshoka said workers at the other stadia faced similar challenges. Tourism chiefs expect 450,000 fans to travel to South Africa for the finals, spending £800m.

BBC NEWS REPORT

KEY KHMER ROUGE FIGURES CHARGED!

Ieng Sary has repeatedly denied responsibility for any crimes. Cambodian authorities have arrested two leading figures from the notorious 1970s Khmer Rouge regime and charged them with crimes against humanity.
Former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife, Ieng Thirith, were taken into custody in the capital, Phnom Penh. The pair, who deny any wrongdoing, are due to appear at a UN-backed genocide tribunal on Wednesday.
The brutal Maoist regime, which ruled between 1975 and 1979, is blamed for more than one million deaths.
A tribunal was established last year to bring surviving leaders to the dock.
"Today Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith have been arrested in execution of an arrest warrant... for crimes against humanity and war crimes as regards Ieng Sary and for crimes against humanity concerning Ieng Thirith," a statement from the tribunal said. Police surrounded the couple's Phnom Penh house early in the morning.

WHO WERE THE KHMER ROUGE?

Maoist regime that ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979
Founded and led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998
Abolished religion, schools and currency in a bid to create agrarian utopia
Brutal regime that did not tolerate dissent
More than a million people thought to have died from starvation, overwork or execution.

Brutal Khmer Rouge regime

They searched the house for three hours and then drove Ieng Sary and his wife to the tribunal in a convoy of vehicles. The couple, who have been living freely in the Cambodian capital for more than 10 years, were key members of the Khmer Rouge leadership. Ieng Sary was Pol Pot's brother-in-law - his wife's sister was married to the Khmer Rouge founder. His wife, Ieng Thirith, was the Khmer Rouge's social affairs minister.
As foreign minister, he was often the only point of contact between Cambodia's rulers and the outside world. He was responsible for convincing many educated Cambodians who had fled the Khmer Rouge to return to help rebuild the country.
Many were then tortured and executed as part of the purge of intellectuals, some of them diplomats from his own office.
Prosecutors for the tribunal have said there is evidence of Ieng Sary's participation in crimes, including planning, directing and co-ordinating forced labour and unlawful killings.
Ieng Sary has repeatedly denied any crime. In 1996 he became the first senior leader from the Maoist regime to defect and as a result was granted a royal pardon.
But analysts say the validity of that agreement looks set to be tested with his arrest by the court. Ieng Sary and Ieng Thirith are the third and fourth people to be targeted by the tribunal.

KHMER ROUGE TRIBUNAL
Will try cases of genocide and crimes against humanity
Five judges (three Cambodian) sit in trial court
Cases decided by majority
Maximum penalty is life imprisonment
Budget of $56.3m

Key figures facing trial

In September, Pol Pot's second-in command, 82-year-old Nuon Chea, was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Two months before that, Kang Kek Ieu - or Duch - the head of the notorious Tuol Sleng prison, was charged with crimes against humanity.
Their trials, before a team of Cambodian and international judges, are expected to start in 2008.
Other top leaders are already dead. Pol Pot died in 1998 and Ta Mok - the regime's military commander and one of his most ruthless henchmen - died in July 2006.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DEADLY CLASH AT ARAFAT GAZA RALLY!

The rally was a rare chance for Fatah to show its Gaza support
Enlarge Image

At least six people have died in gunfire at a rally in Gaza City organised by Fatah to mark three years since the death of Yasser Arafat.
The violence occurred when Fatah supporters began taunting Hamas police and throwing stones, witnesses said.
The Hamas security forces reportedly responded by firing towards the crowd.
It was the biggest rally held by the late president's party since it was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in June after a series of bloody clashes.
Arafat died in Paris on 11 November 2004 and since his death Palestinian politics has been riven by splits, the most violent between the secular nationalist Fatah party and the radical Islamists of Hamas.
Hamas has banned opposition rallies since its takeover of Gaza, and its security personnel were out in force at the edge of Monday's massive gathering.

In pictures: Fatah rally

However, correspondents say any move to prevent a ceremony commemorating Arafat - whose following still crosses factional divisions - would have been widely unpopular in Gaza.
The rally was not only a chance for people to pay their respects to the former leader, but a rare opportunity for a show of Fatah strength in Gaza.
Hundreds of thousands of Fatah supporters, many carrying pictures of Arafat and waving yellow Fatah flags, had gathered in a large square in the centre of Gaza City.
Huge banners showing Arafat in his trademark black-and-white keffiyeh headdress hung from buildings overlooking the square and speeches by Fatah leaders were played over loudspeakers.
Zakaria al-Agha, the Fatah chief in Gaza directly challenged the Islamic movement as he read a statement from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas:
"We say to Hamas and these armed militias, stop your crimes," he read. "These crimes will not shake our determination."

The gathering descended into chaos as gunmen began shooting.
Hamas security officials said they fired toward protesters who threw stones at security compounds.
Witnesses said the first shots were fired after crowds started accusing Hamas security forces of being a proxy for Shia Muslim-ruled Iran, chanting the word "Shiite" repeatedly.

Yasser Arafat is still a unifying figure for some Palestinians. One man, calling himself Abu Samir, told the AP news agency that he believed that Hamas' security forces had definitely fired first.
"I saw brutality. I saw gunmen shoot at people. I saw them catch a boy and beat him with a stick," he added.
About 100 people were reported to have been wounded in the violence.
Hamas officials have accused Fatah of inciting the violence.
"Before the rally, Fatah militants were deployed throughout the area," Ehab Ghussen, from the Hamas-controlled interior ministry, told AP.
"Fatah is responsible for continued incitement against the Palestinian police, and there was a clear attempt to bring back chaos," he added.
Palestinian President and Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, denounced Hamas's actions as a "heinous crime," AP reported.
And Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan, now based in the West Bank, appealed for people not to allow the violence to escalate.
"I call on Fatah in Gaza to continue pursuing peaceful means in confronting Hamas," he told AFP. "I know many people in Gaza don't like this because emotions are running high but popular means are the only way to bring the downfall of this fascist movement."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ITALIAN FOOTBALL VIOLENCE RESURFACES !

By Frances Kennedy - BBC News, Rome.

The Italian government had taken measures to curb football violence
The explosion of violence in Italian football on Sunday shows that for all the new security measures imposed by the authorities after the last football-related death in February, it is a problem that has never gone away.
The Italian police chief, Antonio Manganelli, has promised there will be no cover-up.
And it is vital that the Italian public is given a truthful, accurate version of what happened, beyond the "tragic accident" that police referred to just after the event.
Italian newspapers on Monday all carried graphics showing the motorway, the restaurant, the police car and the vehicle containing Gabriele Sandri.
They gave the impression that rather than shooting in the air he shot straight across two lanes of traffic at head height.
The distraught police officer, quoted by Corriere della Sera newspaper, said that after firing in the air he failed to put his gun back in the holster and the second shot went off by accident.
The post mortem starting on Monday afternoon should provide further answers, in addition to what police, the fans and the eyewitnesses have already said in their statements.
As news of the death of the fan became public the football authorities were left with a dilemma.
Should they call off all matches as a sign of respect for the dead supporter, as they had done in February when a policeman was killed trying to contain fan violence in Sicily?
The response in the end was confused - two first division matches were officially called off, the others ran as usual.

Fans in Rome went on the rampage after the death of Gabriele Sandri.
The only evening fixture, Cagliari-Roma in the capital, was cancelled but only at 5pm local time.
"What do you expect? The cops shoot a fan in cold blood, then they cancel the match, no wonder they're on the rampage," said a shaven headed Roma fan carrying a Roma flag as he returned home on the train.
Like many others he had already been well on his way to Rome's Olympic Stadium when the decision was taken.
Yet elsewhere fans were demanding that play be stopped.
"For a policeman you stop play, for a fan no!" read one of the slogans on a banner in Milan.
"Death is not equal for all" read another.
In Bergamo, where AC Milan were playing Atalanta, enraged fans were demanding the match be cancelled as a sign of mourning.
They tried to smash down the glass barrier separating them from the pitch.
The referee had no alternative but to call off the game.
"Cancel everything or don't cancel anything at all" seemed to be the verdict issued in bars in the Testaccio area of Rome on Monday, a Roma stronghold.
This lack of leadership by the football authorities sent a message of uncertainty and played into the hands of the ultras, the hard core fans for whom football is an excuse for violence.
The comparison between the death of Gabriele Sandri and that of police officer Filippo Raciti outside a stadium in Sicily in February is misleading.
That occurred on a Friday afternoon, meaning the authorities had plenty of time to weigh the implications and reach a decision.
But on Sunday morning Italy's multi-million dollar football machine was already in motion and difficult to stop.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'MILITANTS KILLED' IN RUSSIA RAID !

Russian troops have killed up to eight suspected militants during a raid in the southern republic of Dagestan, officials say.
The troops stormed an apartment in the regional capital, Makhachkala, where the suspects were holed up.
The operation lasted several hours and involved armoured personnel carriers.
Dagestan lies next to volatile Chechnya in the North Caucasus and is the scene of frequent attacks blamed by Moscow on Islamist militants and criminals.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

COME ON HRW GROUPS - DO SOMETHING PLEASE !

Zimbabwean dies queuing for visa.

Many Zimbabweans head to South Africa to escape economic misery. A Zimbabwean job-seeker who collapsed and died in Cape Town last week, is said to have succumbed to starvation.
Adonis Musati, 23, was a police officer in Chimanimani in eastern Zimbabwe, but the economic crisis led him to South Africa to try to support his family.
He had spent a month at the Home Affairs Refugee Centre, trying to get a work permit, reportedly with nothing to eat, sleeping in a cardboard box.
His family said they had learned of Adonis's death on the internet.
The BBC's Southern Africa correspondent Adam Mynott says Adonis Musati left Zimbabwe and crossed into South Africa more than a month ago.
It is a disgrace that someone should die of hunger in one of South Africa's richest cities
Refugee rights spokesman Braam Hanekom
Like tens of thousands of his countrymen he had hoped to find work, but was unable to get a permit.
On Friday 2 November, he collapsed on a traffic island near the offices of South Africa's home affairs refugee centre in Cape Town and was found dead.
Braam Hanekom of Passop, a refugee rights organisation, told our reporter that Adonis appeared to have died of hunger, having not eaten for four days.
But fellow Zimbabweans who met him outside the refugee centre told the South African news website IOL that he had not eaten for two weeks.
"It is a disgrace that someone should die of hunger in one of South Africa's richest cities," said Mr Hanekom.
He said there are 25,000 Zimbabweans like Adonis Musati in Cape Town looking for work and food.
Up to 3m Zimbabweans have arrived in South Africa to escape the economic crisis in their own country.
Family members living in Sasolburg in the Free State, are now in Cape Town to identify his body and to make funeral arrangements.
His cousin Ivy Dhliwayo said the family had not heard of Mr Musati's death from the Zimbabwean consulate, nor from the South African government.
"(His twin brother) Adbell read a story on the internet, and that is how the whole family found out," she said.
Passop says it is funding the relatives' expenses and will try to get Musati's body back home for burial.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PROTEST THREAT OVER FUEL PRICES !

Prices have risen for ten consecutive weeks. Fuel protests could take place in the coming weeks as unrest grows over rising prices, it has been claimed.
The Road Haulage Association (RHA) said the recent price increases were causing growing anger amongst its members.
Prices have gone up every week for the past ten weeks with a more than two pence rise last week, it said.
Jack Semple, RHA Director of Policy said: "Our members are angry over the latest increases in fuel prices and the restarting of the fuel duty escalator."
The impact of the price increases was "quite severe" for many hauliers, he said.
Mr Semple said that hauliers were "frustrated" by the high prices and added that duty rates were "much higher" in Britain than in other European countries.
'Frustration and anger'
He said: "We are looking towards the government for help in terms of an equal duty playing field with Europe to achieve price stability."
Mr Semple added: "For hauliers, fuel is the biggest variable cost, and it has gone up every week for ten weeks."
He said meetings had been held to discuss protests, but there was not yet the groundswell of support needed to go ahead.
"But there is definite frustration and anger. There shouldn't be an increase in fuel duty at a time of clear volatility in oil prices."
A spokesman for the pressure group Transaction 2007, the reincarnation of organisations involved in the 2000 fuel protests, said they believed action would be taken imminently.
He said: "I think it will happen in the next seven to ten days. I can't say much about it."
The action was likely to take the form of "rolling road" blocks, he said.
Geoff Dossetter, director of external affairs at the Freight Transport Association, said: "I don't think there's the appetite for protests like there was before.
"But it is clear there's a problem. There's a lot of unhappiness about the fact that prices are going up remorselessly."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"HE WHO HAS DONE EVIL,

EXPECTS EVIL" !

CONGO ARRESTS AFTER TOXIC DUMPING!

Katanga has one of the world's richest belts of copper and cobalt. Six people have been arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo for allegedly dumping highly radioactive minerals into a river, officials say.
The authorities had ordered the nearly 20 metric tons of toxic material to be disposed of at an old uranium mine.
But some of those charged with the safe disposal of the waste are reportedly among those who have been arrested.
Residents of the large town of Likasi nearby are being warned not to use the water from the contaminated Mura river.
Authorities are still trying to trace the remainder of the waste, and an exclusion zone has been created around the site in south-eastern Katanga province.
Authorities in the region seized the 19 tons of copper and cobalt ore, which was due to be exported to a Chinese firm, last month.
Ore mined in Katanga, one of the world's richest belts of copper and cobalt, contains traces of uranium, which DR Congo is currently banned from exporting.
Tests have shown that radiation levels near the area where the material was dumped were nearly 50 times the legal limit.

Scramble for mineral wealth

"The damage is enormous," DR Congo's Environment Minister Didace Pembe, who led experts to the area, told Reuters news agency.
"We have asked people not to use water from the river and the entire commission charged with disposing of the minerals is now under arrest."
After seizing the copper and cobalt ore last month, the authorities had ordered its disposal at a nearby abandoned uranium mine, a report by the mayor's office in Likasi says.
An inquiry was launched after it was suspected that the radioactive material had been dumped into the river.
"Nineteen tons would be a small mountain. We did not see that, all the minerals were not dumped," Mr Pembe said.
He said the full extent of the contamination would be made public after the findings of the experts, who include International Atomic Energy Agency officials, are given to Prime Minister Antoine Gizenga.
DR Congo's national mining company, Gecamines, has been asked to begin a clean-up of the dumping site.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MUSHARRAF CALLS FOR JANUARY POLL !

President Pervez Musharraf has said he hopes new parliamentary elections can be held in Pakistan by 9 January.
Gen Musharraf said national and regional assemblies would be dissolved in the coming weeks and that elections would take place on a single day.
He tasked the Election Commission with preparing for the vote, and said it was up to them to determine the date.
Gen Musharraf was addressing his first news conference since declaring emergency rule on 3 November.
"I would request the Election Commission to hold the elections as soon as possible, as fast as possible, which means, if you calculate 45-60 days from 20 November, we should have the elections before 9 January, which happens to be the start of [the Muslim month of] Moharram," he said.
Eight days ago he imposed emergency rule, suspending the constitution and firing the Supreme Court's chief justice.
His allies abroad and political opponents in Pakistan have been calling for the emergency to be lifted as soon as possible.
On Thursday, Gen Musharraf said Pakistan would hold parliamentary elections before 15 February.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MALAYSIA POLICE BREAK UP PROTEST !

By Robin Brant BBC News, Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysian police have used tear gas and water cannon to disperse thousands of protesters who were marching in Kuala Lumpur to demand electoral reform.
The event was organised by a group called Bersih which is made up of opposition parties and dozens of non-governmental organisations.
The marchers were prevented from entering central Merdeka Square because police said they did not have a permit.
Police estimated the crowd at between 10-30,000 people.
Heavy rains could not stop the marchers as they made their way along the roads on the side of Merdeka Square.
Many of them were in the yellow shirts which organisers had asked them to wear.

Tension has been high in Malaysia ahead of the march. They were calling for changes to the electoral process in Malaysia to prevent fraud.
One demand is to use indelible ink to show who has voted.
Tension had been rising over the past few days with the prospect of violent confrontation at the march.
Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi said on Friday that he expected trouble, despite the police ban.
But participants told the BBC they had the democratic right to express their demands.
"We don't have to wait until election day, that's five years or more," one demonstrator told the BBC.
There was a heavy police presence and rally organisers said 20 people were arrested.
Although no one made it into the central square, a small group did march to the national palace, home of Malaysia's king, to present a memorandum detailing their concerns.

BBC NEW REPORT,

UN ENVOY TO PROBE BURMA CRACKDOWN!

The September crackdown sparked international outcry. Senior UN investigator Paulo Sergio Pinheiro has arrived in Burma - the first time the military government has allowed him to visit for four years.
Mr Pinheiro hopes to meet political prisoners and find out exactly how many people died when protests against the government were crushed in September.
The government says 10 people died. Others put the figure at more than 100.
The UN investigator has said he will leave immediately if the authorities fail to co-operate.
Mr Pinheiro, the UN's independent human rights investigator for Burma, has not been allowed to go there since November 2003.
His visit comes days after UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari spent six days in Burma, meeting a number of ministers as well as detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The UN said afterwards that a path to "substantive dialogue" was now under way.
Mr Pinheiro did not speak to reporters as he arrived in Rangoon, Reuters news agency reported.
His proposed itinerary for the visit was still being "fine-tuned", a UN spokesman quoted by Associated Press said.
BBC Asia correspondent Andrew Harding says Mr Pinheiro will need free and unrestricted access to Burmese prisoners to do his job.

Mr Pinheiro wants full and free access to political prisoners.
The military government clearly resents this sort of intervention, our correspondent says.
The Red Cross has suspended its own prison visits because it is no longer allowed private access to detainees.
There is some evidence that external and internal pressure is beginning to have an impact on Burma's generals - and the fact that Mr Pinheiro is being allowed in is a concession of sorts, our correspondent adds.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CAMBODIA'S PM TAKES ON BOY RACERS !

By Guy De Launey BBC News, Phnom Penh.

The racers disrupt traffic and there have been serious accidentsCambodia's prime minister has promised to resign if he cannot stop the children of the rich from misbehaving.
Hun Sen says he is tired of young men causing chaos on the streets of the capital, Phnom Penh, by racing their expensive cars and motorbikes.
He has ordered the police to detain parents if they come to collect their errant sons from custody.
If they are government or military officials they will be sacked. If not, Hun Sen says he will quit himself.
It is not just that Phnom Penh's traffic is getting worse. The quality of it is changing too.
Just a few years ago the streets were dominated by old Toyota Camrys and barely-functioning Daelim motorbikes - cast-offs from the United States and South Korea.

These days you are more likely to be forced into the gutter by a giant Hummer SUV, Mercedes S-Class, or at the very least a high-performance motorbike. And many of the drivers are little more than teenagers.
They are enjoying the benefits of Cambodia's rapid economic growth - thanks to their wealthy parents. But the only thing the rich kids are earning is a reputation for anti-social behaviour.
Come the late afternoon, groups of them turn public roads near the riverside into an impromptu racetrack. There have been a number of serious crashes - and some drivers have threatened local journalists for reporting on their antics.
The tuk-tuk drivers who look for passengers along the racers' route are fed up with the speed merchants.
"They don't drive slowly, they drive very fast. So it's very dangerous. The police are not here... they're never afraid of the police," one driver said.
Prime Minister Hun Sen is not the only one to notice that many of the boy-racers are related to government and military officials.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

For D.J., Amber and Gomo.

Saturday 10th November 2007

Tragedy came to my home area this week and I write this letter for a family represented by three generations who have worked to save an endangered species for Zimbabwe. More specifically I write this letter for D.J., Amber, and Gomo who were shot and killed one night this week.

These three Black Rhino were saved from rampant poaching that was ravaging Zimbabwe in the mid 1980's. Seven young Black Rhino calves, three males and four females were sent to Imire Game Park where they were hand reared. Standing chest high they were bottle fed on a carefully worked out milk formula from five litre plastic bottles fitted with calf teats. You have to see this to really appreciate it, the pushing and shoving, the loud schlurping noises and contented glugging, the vast streams of silver dribble and the look of contentment and pure delight in the eyes of the young animals.

These seven Black Rhino were part of a grand scheme by farmers and Government to save a species. Private Game Parks and Conservancies, at entirely their own risk and expense, would rear the animals, allow them to breed and then return the offspring to National Parks so that all Zimbabweans could share in this wonderous heritage.

Over 20 years those seven Black Rhino thrived at Imire. This was a superb achievement - for man and animal. The Rhino had to be guarded from poachers, day and night; they had to be fed on massive amounts of purchased supplementary feed and they had to be contented enough to breed and for the females to carry their calves for the full 450 day gestation. Vets and experts came in when needed and de-horned the Rhinos, removing the matted hair-like structure which was the lure to the poachers and the very cause of their persecution. Over two decades the Travers' family returned more than half a dozen Black Rhino reared on Imire to the Department of National Parks and gave a great gift back to our country.

Four poachers came to Imire at around 9.30 in the evening this week. D.J. was shot and killed. Her calf, just a few weeks old, survived. Amber, heavily pregnant, was shot and killed. Her unborn calf, almost at full term, did not survive. Gomo, a male, was shot and killed. The horn stump from one rhino, perhaps one handful, was taken by the poachers.

D.J.'s calf will be hand reared on Imire with two other young rhino. Already that precious milk formula has been sought and the ingredients searched for in this time of madness when our shops are empty and almost all goods are unobtainable.

I do not know the details of the crime, the slaughter and the perpetrators but I feel a great sadness inside me. It is many years since I had first hand encounters with elephants and rhino but they are memories ingrained in my heart: the feel of their skin, the look in their eyes, the sounds they make and the smell of them and knowing that their lives and their future depended on us. We must not give up.

Until next week, thanks for reading,
love cathy.

10 THINGS !

Snippets from the week's news, sliced, diced and processed for your convenience.

1. King Tut had buck teeth.
More details

2. Britons send as many text messages in a week now as they did in the whole of 1999.
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3. The defining measure for a kilogram is "Le Grand K", a cylinder of platinum and iridium held in Paris.

More details

4. Using camera traps to count tigers - differentiated by their stripe patterns - was pioneered in the 1920s by Englishman FW Champion.
More details

5. There are 29 "Labour and the Co-operative Party" MPs in Parliament, including Ed Balls.More details

6. The Italian Mafia have commandments.
More details

7. Gun ownership per person in Finland is the third highest in the world.
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8. Dinosaurs breathed like penguins.
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9. The brain can turn down its ability to see in order to listen to complex sounds like music.
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10. For every one millibar decrease in pressure the sea rises 1cm.
More details
BBC NEWS MAGAZINE.

MEHDI ARMY IN 'REIGN OF TERROR' !

All activities of the Mehdi Army militia were suspended in August. Iraqi police say the powerful Mehdi Army militia has been involved in killing of hundreds of people in the mainly Shia Muslim province of Karbala.
Maj Gen Raid Shaker told a public meeting the militia of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr had brought four years of terror and anarchy causing 670 deaths.
His allegations were backed by scores of angry people attending the meeting.
Mr Sadr's supporters have rejected the allegations, saying they are victims of a smear to cover up excesses by police.
The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says such direct and public allegations are unprecedented and may indicate growing confidence on the part of the authorities that they can take on the militia.
Mr Sadr suspended the activities of the Mehdi Army for six months in August "in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological image".
The allegations came out as part of a bitter war of words that is now raging between police chiefs and the Mehdi Army, our correspondent says.

Fighting in August blamed on the Mehdi Army left more than 50 dead.
During the four years to August 2007, Gen Shaker said more than 60 policemen and 600 civilians, including nearly 70 women, had been killed by the militia.
Many participants at the meeting made emotional statements giving details of relatives they said had been killed or tortured by the Mehdi Army.
The Mehdi Army's grip on Karbala - home to some of Shia Islam's holiest shrines - was broken in August after it was blamed for violent clashes with police in which more than 50 people were killed.
Before that, such public accusations against the militia would have been unthinkable, our correspondent says

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"SOME MEN GO THROUGH A FOREST

AND SEE NO FIREWOOD" !

MAFIA'S 'TEN COMMANDMENTS' FOUND !

The commandments were found during the arrest of Mr Lo Piccolo. Italian police have found what they say is a "Ten Commandments"-style code of behaviour for Mafia members, at the hideout of a captured Mafia boss. Prohibitions include frequenting bars and looking at friends' wives, while members are urged to treat their own wives with respect. The list was found during the arrest of Salvatore Lo Piccolo, the reputed new boss of the Sicilian Mafia.

It is thought to have been drawn up as a "guide to being a good mobster". Other activites apparently beyond the pale for Mafiosi are being friends with the police, being late for appointments and "appropriating money if it belongs to other Mafia members or to other families".

The document makes clear that people with police or informers in their family cannot become members of the Mob. And although mobsters' wives must be respected, they should not expect much support during childbirth: the rules state that "always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty - even if your wife's about to give birth".

The decalogue was discovered along with a large number of other coded documents in a house near Palermo where Mr Lo Piccolo was apprehended after spending more than two decades on the run from police. Investigators say that the documents - including the Ten Commandments - will give them an insight into how the Mafia operates. The papers also reveal details of companies with Mafia connections and information about the hierarchy within the organisation

The Mafia's "Ten Commandments"
The original Ten Commandments

1. No-one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it.
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me

2. Never look at the wives of friends.
2. Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol

3. Never be seen with cops.
3. Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God

4. Don't go to pubs and clubs.
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy

5. Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty - even if your wife's about to give birth.
5. Honor thy Father and Mother

6. Appointments must absolutely be respected.
6. Thou shalt not murder

7. Wives must be treated with respect.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery

8. When asked for any information, the answer m