BEIJING TO REINSTATE CAR RULES !

Beijing is preparing to reinstate certain traffic restrictions, after rules enforced during the Olympic Games helped clean the city's polluted air.
Analysts say the move is an unusual example of Chinese policy being shaped in response to public opinion.
Rules drawn up for the Olympics saw one million cars - a third of the total - taken off Beijing's streets.
The drastic action, along with a freeze on industrial production, brought unusually blue skies to the city.
The measures were taken to satisfy the International Olympic Committee.
They might have remained just an exercise in window-dressing for foreign consumption, but the response from Beijingers themselves was overwhelmingly positive, says the BBC's Andre Vornic.
Although there is no formal system for public consultation in China, internet forums and letters to the media conveyed genuine satisfaction.
Now the authorities have responded by bringing in a milder set of restrictions, which are to be trialled until April and made permanent if found to be working.
Beginning on Wednesday, the government is setting an example by keeping 30% of its vehicles off the streets at any one time.
Later in October, all cars will be banned from the roads on one day a week, depending on their number plates.
Employers are meanwhile being asked to stagger working hours to reduce peak traffic.
In just one generation, Chinese cities have turned from virtually car-free environments into traffic-choked ones.
There are now signs that people are growing more sceptical of cars, as happened in Western countries in the 1970s.
Correspondents say that in just a few more years, Beijingers could well come full circle and rediscover the bicycle - almost the only mode of private transport in their parents' time.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE OPPOSITION SAYS NO DEAL !

Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says talks with President Mugabe have failed to produce agreement on cabinet posts.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa accused Mr Mugabe of demanding all the key ministries for his Zanu-PF party in the new unity government.
He was speaking after a meeting between MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the Zimbabwean President.
A power-sharing deal was signed two weeks ago to end the political crisis.
Mr Chamisa said the opposition and Mr Mugabe remained far apart on the issue of who should control which ministries.
Further mediation
"He wants to grab all the resource ministries like finance, home affairs, information, justice and make the MDC a peripheral player," he said. "We will end up in but out of government."
Mr Chamisa also called for further mediation as well as African Union involvement.
Former South African President Thabo Mbeki mediated the negotiations which produced the power-sharing agreement.
On Monday, Mr Mugabe said he expected a unity government to be formed by the end of this week and rejected suggestions that the talks were deadlocked over appointments to cabinet posts.
Under the deal, Mr Mugabe will remain president, while Mr Tsvangirai will become prime minister.
The agreement also provides for Zanu-PF to hold 15 cabinet seats.
Economic crisis
Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC will get 13 cabinet posts, and a breakaway faction of the MDC, led by Arthur Mutambara, will be handed three positions, giving the combined opposition a narrow majority.
Mr Mugabe will chair the cabinet, which decides on government policy. Mr Tsvangirai will chair a council of ministers, which implements policy.
The president also keeps control of the military, while the MDC wants to direct the police.
The hope is that a new government can overcome the acute economic crisis. Inflation is still officially about 11 million per cent and there are severe shortages of food.
The crisis worsened after disputed elections earlier this year.
Mr Tsvangirai gained more votes than Mr Mugabe in the March elections but not enough for outright victory.
He pulled out of a run-off in June, accusing Zanu-PF militia and the army of organising attacks on its supporters which left some 200 people dead.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

SCORES DIE IN INDIA TEMPLE CRUSH !

At least 125 people have been killed in a stampede at a Hindu temple in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan.
Officials told the BBC that at least 100 more were injured in the incident at the Chamunda Devi temple in Jodhpur.
A wall near the temple is said to have collapsed, causing panic among thousands of gathered devotees.
There have been a number of deadly stampedes in India's temples recently - last month 140 people were killed in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.
Before dawn, thousands of people had made their way to the hill-top temple in a huge 15th Century fort overlooking Jodhpur.
They were gathering to celebrate the start of a nine-day Hindu festival known as Navaratra.
It is not entirely clear why the stampede happened, but an official in Jodhpur said the collapse of a wall on the narrow path leading to the temple caused people to flee in panic.
"People are still buried under the wall. We are pulling them out," Kiran Soni Gupta told AFP news agency.
TV news channels showed pictures of injured devotees lying on the streets, and relatives trying to revive unconscious pilgrims.
"When I arrived, I saw chaos, people running around the place. I was looking for my friend and after a while found him," local student Manish said.
"He was unconscious but without serious injuries."
The authorities have ordered an investigation into the incident.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

TIMELINE : GLOBAL CREDIT CRUNCH !

A year ago, few people had heard of the term credit crunch, but the phrase has now entered dictionaries.
Defined as "a severe shortage of money or credit", the start of the phenomenon has been pinpointed as 9 August 2007 when bad news from French bank BNP Paribas triggered sharp rise in the cost of credit, and made the financial world realise how serious the situation was.
The problems, however, started much earlier.
GROWING SUB-PRIME PROBLEMS
After a two year period between 2004 and 2006 when US interest rates rose from 1% to 5.35%, the US housing market begins to suffer, with prices falling and a rise in homeowners defaulting on their mortgages.
Default rates on sub-prime loans - high risk loans to clients with poor or no credit histories - rise to record levels.

APRIL-AUGUST 2007: SUB-PRIME CONTAGION
April

The credit losses associated with sub-prime have come to light and they are fairly significant...Some estimates are in the order of between $50bn and $100bn of losses
Ben Bernanke, Chairman US Federal Reserve, speaking on 20 July 2007
New Century Financial, which specialises in sub-prime mortgages, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and cuts half of its workforce.
As it sold on many of its debts to other banks, the collapse in the sub-prime market begins to have an impact at banks around the world.
July
Investment bank Bear Stearns tells investors they will get little, if any, of the money invested in two of its hedge funds after rival banks refuse to help it bail them out.
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke follows the news with a warning that the US sub-prime crisis could cost up to $100bn (£50bn).

AUGUST 2007: SCALE OF THE CREDIT CRISIS EMERGES
9 August 2007

BNP's statement is scary, to put it mildly
BBC Business Editor, Robert Peston
Read Robert's 9 August blog
BNP Paribas' statement
Investment bank BNP Paribas tells investors they will not be able to take money out of two of its funds because it cannot value the assets in them, owing to a "complete evaporation of liquidity" in the market.
It is the clearest sign yet that banks are refusing to do business with each other.
The European Central Bank pumps 95bn euros (£63bn) into the banking market to try to improve liquidity. It adds a further 108.7bn euros over the next few days.
The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of Canada and the Bank of Japan also begin to intervene.
17 August
The Fed cuts the rate at which it lends to banks by half of a percentage point to 5.75%, warning the credit crunch could be a risk to economic growth.
21 August
UK sub-prime lenders begin to withdraw mortgages or put up the cost of borrowing for UK homeowners with poor credit histories.
28 August
German regional bank Sachsen Landesbank faces collapse after investing in the sub-prime market; it is sold to larger rival Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg.
SEPTEMBER 2007: A RUN ON A BANK
3 September
German corporate lender IKB announces a $1bn loss on investments linked to the US sub-prime market.
4 September
The rate at which banks lend to each other rises to its highest level since December 1998.
The so-called Libor rate is 6.7975%, way above the Bank of England's 5.75% base rate; banks either worry whether other banks will survive, or urgently need the money themselves.
13 September

The fact that it has had to go cap in hand to the Bank is the most tangible sign that the crisis in financial markets is spilling over into businesses that touch most of our lives
Robert Peston, BBC business editor
Read Robert's 13 September blog
The BBC reveals Northern Rock has asked for and been granted emergency financial support from the Bank of England, in the latter's role as lender of last resort.
Northern Rock relied heavily on the markets, rather than savers' deposits, to fund its mortgage lending. The onset of the credit crunch has dried up its funding.
A day later depositors withdraw £1bn in what is the biggest run on a British bank for more than a century. They continue to take out their money until the government steps in to guarantee their savings.
18 September
The US Federal Reserve cuts its main interest rate by half a percentage point to 4.75%.
19 September
After previously refusing to inject any funding into the markets, the Bank of England announces that it will auction £10bn.
OCTOBER 2007: MAJOR LOSSES BEGIN TO EMERGE
1 October
Swiss bank UBS is the world's first top-flight bank to announce losses - $3.4bn - from sub-prime related investments.
The chairman and chief executive of the bank step down. Later, banking giant Citigroup unveils a sub-prime related loss of $3.1bn. A fortnight on Citigroup is forced to write down a further $5.9bn. Within six months, its stated losses amount to $40bn.
30 October
Merrill Lynch's chief resigns after the investment bank unveils a $7.9bn exposure to bad debt.
NOVEMBER 2007: UK HOUSING MARKET 'TURNS DOWN'
29 November
The Bank of England reveals the number of mortgage approvals has fallen to a near three-year low.
30 November
The Council for Mortgage Lenders (CML) issues the starkest warning yet of the impact of the credit crunch on the mortgage market, saying that without more funding available on financial markets, mortgage lenders will not be able to offer as many mortgages.
DECEMBER 2007: HELP IS AT HAND
6 December
US President George W Bush outlines plans to help more than a million homeowners facing foreclosure.
The Bank of England cuts interest rates by a quarter of one percentage point to 5.5%.
13 December
The US Federal Reserve co-ordinates an unprecedented action by five leading central banks around the world to offer billions of dollars in loans to banks.
The Bank of England calls it an attempt to "forestall any prospective sharp tightening of credit conditions". The move succeeds in temporarily lowering the rate at which banks lend to each other.
17 December
The central banks continue to make more funding available.
There is a $20bn auction from the US Federal Reserve and, the following day, $500bn from the European Central Bank to help commercial banks over the Christmas period.
NEXT UP: THE BOND INSURERS
19 December
Ratings agency Standard and Poor's downgrades its investment rating of a number of so-called monoline insurers, which specialise in insuring bonds. They guarantee to repay the loans if the issuer goes bust.
There is concern that insurers will not be able to pay out, forcing banks to announce another big round of losses.
9 January 2008
The World Bank predicts that global economic growth with slow in 2008, as the credit crunch hits the richest nations.
18 January
A rush to withdraw money from its commercial property funds forces Scottish Equitable to introduce delays of up to 12 months for investors wanting to take their money out.
It blames the rush of withdrawals on concerns about the US sub-prime mortgage collapse, recession worries and interest rates.
21 January
Global stock markets, including London's FTSE 100 index, suffer their biggest falls since 11 September 2001.
22 January
The US Fed cuts rates by three quarters of a percentage point to 3.5% - its biggest cut in 25 years - to try and prevent the economy from slumping into recession.
It is the first emergency cut in rates since 2001. Stock markets around the world recover the previous day's heavy losses.
31 January
A major bond insurer MBIA, announces a loss of $2.3bn - its biggest to date for a three-month period -blaming its exposure to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.
FEBRUARY - MARCH 2008: BIG NAME CASUALTIES
7 February
US Federal Reserve boss Ben Bernanke adds his voice to concerns about monoline insurers, saying he is closely monitoring developments "given the adverse effects that problems of financial guarantors can have on financial markets and the economy".
The Bank of England cuts interest rates by a quarter of one percent to 5.25%.
8 February

Some investors forgot the golden rule of financing: 'Don't buy things that you don't understand'
FSA chief executive Hector Sants, speaking on 27 February
In the UK, the latest CML figures show the number of homes repossessed in the UK rose to 27,100 in 2007, its highest level since 1999.
10 February
Leaders from the G7 group of industrialised nations say worldwide losses stemming from the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market could reach $400bn.
17 February
After considering a number of private sector rescue proposals, including from Richard Branson's Virgin Group, the government announces that struggling Northern Rock is to be nationalised for a temporary period.
7 March
In its biggest intervention yet, the Federal Reserve makes $200bn of funds available to banks and other institutions to try to improve liquidity in the markets.
17 March
Wall Street's fifth-largest bank, Bear Stearns, is acquired by larger rival JP Morgan Chase for $240m in a deal backed by $30bn of central bank loans.
A year earlier, Bear Stearns had been worth £18bn.
28 March
Nationwide predicts UK house prices will fall by the end of the year, revising its previous forecast of no change in prices.
APRIL 2008: THE 100% MORTGAGE IS CONSIGNED TO HISTORY
2 April
Moneyfacts, which monitors financial products, says 20% of mortgage products have been withdrawn from the UK market in the previous seven days.

I have a deep sense of shock at how deeply our successful industry has already been hit by these unprecedented funding market conditions
Steven Crawshaw, chairman of the Council for Mortgage Lenders, speaking on 11 April 2008
Five days later the 100% mortgage disappears when Abbey withdraws the last home loan available without a deposit.
8 April
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which oversees the global economy, warns that potential losses from the credit crunch could reach $1 trillion and may be even higher.
It says the effects are spreading from sub-prime mortgage assets to other sectors, such as commercial property, consumer credit, and company debt.
10 April
The Bank of England cuts interest rates by a quarter of one percent to 5%.
11 April
A warning is issued by the CML that the amount of funding available for mortgages in the UK could be cut in half this year.
It calls on the Bank of England to kick-start the money markets and ease the effects of the credit crunch.

The effects of the credit crunch are likely to be broader, deeper and more protracted than previously expected
IMF global stability report, 8 April 2008
15 April
Confidence in the UK housing market falls to its lowest point in 30 years in March, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, because of the "unique liquidity blight".
But it does add that the situation is good news for buyers with large deposits who can buy property that was previously out of reach.
21 April
The Bank of England announces details of an ambitious £50bn plan designed to help credit-squeezed banks by allowing them to swap potentially risky mortgage debts for secure government bonds.
APRIL - JUNE 2008: BANKS PASS ROUND THE HAT
22 April
Royal Bank of Scotland announces a plan to raise money from its shareholders with a £12bn rights issue - the biggest in UK corporate history.
The firm also announces a write-down of £5.9bn on the value of its investments between April and June - the largest write-off yet for a British bank.
25 April
Persimmon becomes the first UK house builder to announce major cutbacks, citing the lack of affordable mortgages and a fall in consumer confidence.
It adds sales have fallen by a quarter since the beginning of the year.

Because of the uncertainties in the global economy and the UK lending environment, it is difficult to predict when the [housing] market will improve
House builder Persimmon
Read the full story from 25 April
29 April
The CML says number of new mortgages approved in March slipped 44% to 64, the lowest monthly number since records began in 1999.
30 April
The first annual fall in house prices for 12 years is recorded by Nationwide.
Prices were 1% lower in April compared to a year earlier after a "steep decline" in home buying over the previous six months.
Later in the week, figures from the UK's biggest lender Halifax, show a 0.9% annual fall for April.
2 May
More than 850 companies went into administration between January and March, government figures show, a rise of 54% on the previous year. Retail and construction firms are hardest hit.
22 May
Swiss bank UBS, one of the worst affected by the credit crunch, launches a $15.5bn rights issue to cover some of the $37bn it lost on assets linked to US mortgage debt.
19 June
There are significant developments in two major credit crunch-related investigations in the US, which it is hoped will restore confidence in the credit markets.
The FBI arrests 406 people, including brokers and housing developers, as part of a crackdown on alleged mortgage frauds worth $1bn.
Separately, two former Bear Stearns workers face criminal charges related to the collapse of two hedge funds linked to sub-prime mortgages.
It is alleged they knew of the funds' problems but did not disclose them to investors, who lost a total of $1.4bn.
25 June
Barclays announces plans to raise £4.5bn in a share issue to bolster its balance sheet.
The Qatar Investment Authority, the state-owned investment arm of the Gulf state, will invest £1.7bn in the British bank, giving it a 7.7% share in the business. A number of other foreign investors increase their existing holdings.
JULY 2008: MAJOR LENDERS ON THE EDGE
8 July
The gloomy findings of a survey of its members prompt the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) to suggest that the UK is facing a serious risk of recession within months.
Meanwhile, the FTSE 100 stock index briefly dips into a "bear market", in which the market suffers a 20% fall from its recent highs.
The outlook is grim and we believe that the correction period is likely to be longer and nastier than expected
British Chambers of Commerce, 18 July 2008
Read the full story
13 July
US mortgage lender IndyMac collapses - the second-biggest bank in US history to fail.
14 July
Financial authorities step in to assist America's two largest lenders, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As owners or guarantors of $5 trillion worth of home loans, they are crucial to the US housing market and authorities agree they could not be allowed to fail.
The previous week, there had been a panic amongst investors that they might collapse, causing their share prices to plummet.
21 July
Just 8% of HBOS investors agree to take up the new shares offered in its £4bn rights issue, because they are priced higher than existing shares are trading on the stock market.
But HBOS still gets the £4bn it wanted, as the unsold new shares are bought by the issue's underwriters.
31 July
UK house prices show their biggest annual fall since the Nationwide began its housing survey in 1991, a decline of 8.1%.
The average home now costs £169,316. That is nearly £15,000 cheaper than in the same month last year.
Meanwhile, HBOS reveals that profits for the first half of the year sank 72% to £848m, while bad debts rose 36% to £1.31bn as customers failed to repay loans.
AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2008: GIANTS SUFFER
4 August
Global banking giant HSBC warned that conditions in financial markets are at their toughest "for several decades" after suffering a 28% fall in half-year profits.
Of Europe's top banks, HSBC has among the heaviest exposure to the troubled US housing and credit markets.
22 August
The bad news continues with revised figures from the ONS revealing that the UK economy is a standstill.
28 August
Nationwide reveals that UK house prices have fallen by 10.5% in a year.
A day later Bradford and Bingley posts losses of £26.7m for the first half of 2008, blaming surging mortgage arrears for a rise in impairment.
Looking ahead, it warned it expected arrears to remain at high levels for the rest of the year.
30 August
Chancellor Alistair Darling warns that the economy is facing its worst crisis for 60 years in an interview with the Guardian newspaper, saying the current downturn would be more "profound and long-lasting" than most had feared.
1 September
Official figures from the Bank of England show a slump in approved mortgages for July.
Meanwhile, while the pound falls to record lows of 81.21 pence against the euro and two-year lows of $1.80.
2 September
In an effort to kick-start the UK housing market the Treasury announces a one year rise in stamp duty exemption, from £125,000 to £175,000.
But there is more bad news, as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development forecasts that the UK will be in a full blown recession by the end of the next two quarters. A day later the European central bank cuts growth forecast 2009 to 1.2% from 1.5%.
4 September
The Bank of England leaves rates on hold at 5% while the latest figures from the Halifax show that house prices in England and Wales continue to fall.
5 September
A raft of negative news from around the world sees the FTSE notch up its steepest weekly decline since July 2002.
The US labour market figures - which showed the unemployment rate rising to 6.1% - were a further jolt to investors who have had to swallow a slew of poor economic data in recent days.
6 September
The Halifax warns that the impact of the credit crunch will be felt well into 2010. Chief executive Andy Hornby explains that British banks will continue to suffer major problems in offering loans until they can raise significant sums on wholesale markets, something that will not be possible until US house prices recover.
7 September
Mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - which account for nearly half of the outstanding mortgages in the US - are rescued by the US government in one of the largest bailouts in US history.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson says the two firms' debt levels posed a "systemic risk" to financial stability and that, without action, the situation would get worse.
At the same time, in the UK, the Nationwide announces it will merge with two smaller rivals, the Derbyshire and Cheshire Building Societies.
9 September
More bad news emerges for the UK economy as the ONS reveals manufacturing output fell by 0.2% between June and July, raising a real fear of recession.
Meanwhile, the British Retail Consortium reports UK retail sales values fell by 1.0% on a like-for-like basis from August 2007.
On the housing front, there were more negative headlines with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors published figures showing house sales were at their lowest level for 30 years, while the CML reported that the number of first-time buyers has hit its lowest level since its survey began in January 2002.
10 September
Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers posts a loss of $3.9bn for the three months to August.
The announcement comes against a background of further dire economic warnings from the European Commission, which warned that the UK, Germany and Spain will go into recession by the end of the year.
15 September
After days of searching frantically for a buyer, Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the first major bank to collapse since the start of the credit crisis.
Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan dubs failure as "probably a once in a century type of event" and warns that other major firms will also go bust.
Meanwhile fellow US bank Merrill Lynch, also stung by the credit crunch, agreed to be taken over by Bank of America for $50bn, the latest twist in a dramatic turn of events on Wall Street.
16 September
The US Federal Reserve announces an $85bn rescue package for AIG, the country's biggest insurance company, to save it from bankruptcy. AIG gets the loan in return for an 80% public stake in the firm.
17 September
Britain's biggest mortgage lender HBOS is taken over by Lloyds TSB in a £12bn deal creating a banking giant holding close to one-third of the UK's savings and mortgage market. The deal follows a run on HBOS shares.
25 September
In the largest bank failure yet in the United States, Washington Mutual, the giant mortgage lender which had assets valued at $307bn is closed down by regulators and sold to its rival Citigroup.
Analysts say much of its problems have been caused by the group's 2006 purchase of mortgage lender Golden West for $25bn at the height of the then US housing boom.
28 September
The credit crunch hits Europe's banking sector as the European banking and insurance giant Fortis is partly nationalised to ensure its survival. It is seen as too big a European bank to be allowed to go under.
Authorities in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg agree to pour in 11.2bn euros ($16.1bn; £8.9bn). Fortis' share price has fallen sharply amid concerns about its debts.
In the US lawmakers announce they have reached a bipartisan agreement on a rescue plan for the American financial system.
The package, to be approved by Congress, allows the Treasury to spend up to $700bn buying bad debts from ailing banks.
It will be the biggest intervention in the markets since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
29 September
In Britain the mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley is nationalised. The British government takes control of the bank's £50bn mortgages and loans, while its savings operations and branches are sold to Spain's Santander.
The Icelandic government takes control of the country's third-largest bank Glitnir after the company had faced short-term funding problems.
Wachovia, the fourth-largest US bank, is bought by its larger rival Citigroup in a rescue deal backed by the US authorities. Under the deal, Citigroup will absorb up to $42bn of Wachovia losses.
The US House of Representatives rejects a $700bn rescue plan for the US financial system - sending shockwaves around the world. It opens up new uncertainties about how banks will deal with their exposure to toxic loans and how credit markets can begin to operate more normally. Wall Street shares plunge, with the Dow Jones index slumping by 770 points, its biggest ever one-day fall.

BBC NEWS REPORT

HOUSE VOTES DOWN BAIL-OUT PACKAGE !

The lower house of the US Congress has voted down a $700bn (£380bn) plan aimed at bailing out Wall Street.
The rescue plan, a result of tense talks between the government and lawmakers, was rejected by 228 to 205 votes in the House of Representatives.
About two-thirds of Republican lawmakers refused to back the rescue package, as well as 95 Democrats.
Shares on Wall Street plunged within seconds of the announcement, after earlier falls on global markets.
A White House spokesman said that President George W Bush was "very disappointed" by the result.
He would meet members of his team in the coming days to "determine next steps", spokesman Tony Fratto said.
The BBC's Adam Brookes, in Washington, said Democratic leaders in the House were likely to try and convince a number of their members who voted against the bill to change their minds in coming days.
Speaking after the vote, Republican leaders in the House of Representatives suggested the Democrats were to blame, accusing them of failing to mobilise their majority in the chamber.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke shortly after the vote, saying it was an outrage that ordinary people were being asked to clean up Wall Street's mess.
Impassioned debate
Speaking ahead of the vote, Mr Bush had argued that the bail-out plan was a "bold" one which he was confident would restore strength and confidence to the US economy.
But after a several hours of impassioned debate, the bill's opponents - the majority of whom were from the Republican Party - got their way.
They had raised concerns about both the content of the plan and the speed with which they were being asked to pass it.
Some agreement on issues such as oversight, greater protection for taxpayers and curbs on executive bonuses had been reached in fraught weekend talks.
But these concessions ultimately failed to persuade many lawmakers that the plan was in the best interests of the nation.
The vote came as banks failed in the US, Europe and the UK.
The fourth largest US bank, Wachovia, is being bought by Citigroup after becoming the latest to hit problems.
In Europe, Benelux giant Fortis was bailed out by three governments, while in the UK the Bradford & Bingley bank was nationalised.
The US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and eight other central banks announced further moves to combat the crisis, by making a further $330bn available to provide liquidity to global money markets.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'CAR SLEEPERS' THE NEW U.S. HOMELESS !

By Rajesh Mirchandani - BBC News, Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara boasts a classic laidback California lifestyle, with uncongested beaches, wholesome cafes and charming Spanish-style architecture.
Of course there's a hefty price tag: nestled between the gentle Santa Ynez mountains and the inviting Pacific Ocean are multi-million dollar homes.
But in this sun-washed haven of wealth, many live far from the American dream.
In a car park across the street from luxury mansions, the evening brings a strange sight.
A few cars arrive and take up spaces in different corners. In each car, a woman, perhaps a few pets, bags of possessions and bedding.
Across the street from homes with bedrooms to spare, these are Santa Barbara's car sleepers.
Homeless within the last year, they are a direct consequence of America's housing market collapse.

In this woman-only parking lot, Bonnee, who gives only her first name, wears a smart blue dress and has a business-like demeanour.
A year ago, she was making a healthy living as, ironically, a real estate agent. But when people stopped buying houses, her commission-based income dried up, and, like many clients, she too was unable to pay her mortgage.
Car sleeper Bonnee still works in the real estate business
Soon she found herself with nowhere to live but her 4x4.
Piles of blankets are in the back of the vehicle. Personal documents are stuffed into seat pockets. Books litter the back seat. A make-up bag and gym membership card (she washes at the gym) are in the front. With her constantly, are photos of her former life.
She can't quite believe her situation.
"My God, America's heart is bleeding," she tells me.
Tears fill her eyes.
"I know it'll get better. But it feels sad. I really fought hard."

A medium-sized 4x4 pulls into the parking lot and 66-year-old Barbara Harvey gets out.
She opens the back door and two large Golden Retrievers jump out.
Barbara begins her nightly routine. She moves a few bags from the boot to the front seat and takes out pyjamas and a carton of yoghurt (her dinner). She then arranges blankets in the back of the car.
Barbara used to work in housing finance - this is the double whammy of the housing collapse where many who worked in the sector lost their jobs and their homes.
But since April, she and her dogs, Ranger and Phoebe, have spent every night in her car. It's cramped, but she says if they sleep diagonally they can all fit.

The car park lets the car sleepers enter from 7pm, local public toilets close at dusk.
As a result, Barbara says she doesn't drink any liquids after she arrives. In the mornings, she showers at a friend's house.
Dressed in clean, comfortable clothes and wearing sunglasses, she is far removed from the stereotypical image of homelessness.
"I don't think I fit into anybody's image," she says.
"There's going to be lots of homeless individuals who are middle-class, there can't be anything but. We're in an awful mess economically. I don't think we've seen half of what's going to happen in this country."

This new phenomenon of middle-class homelessness is hard to quantify, but New Beginnings, an organisation that runs the car park sleeping scheme in Santa Barbara, says they accommodate some 55 people in a dozen parking lots.
Outreach worker Nancy Kapp, once homeless herself, says there is a waiting list for car park spaces and she is getting more and more calls each day from people about to lose their homes.
She identifies it as a new breed of homeless emerging in America.

"Being poor is like this cancer, and now this cancer is filtering up to the middle-class," she says. "I don't care how strong you are, it's a breakdown of the human psyche when you start to lose everything you have."
"These people have worked their whole lives to have a house and now it's crumbling and it's in ashes and how devastating is that?" she says.
"It's not an American dream, it's an American nightmare."
California house prices fell by 30% in the year to May. Few parts of America have been hit as hard.
But national housing groups say they have seen a rise in homelessness across the US since the foreclosure crisis began last year.

The Miller family feel "cramped" in their small mobile home.
In another car park in Santa Barbara, Craig Miller, his wife Paige and their two children say they feel cramped in the small mobile home where they have been living for several months.
"It's hard to keep things clean," says Paige. "It's hard to feel complete and whole."
Originally from Florida, the family used to own a four-bedroom house with a pool. But when Craig's business failed, they lost it.
Undeterred, the family embarked on a dream to drive across America and make a new start in California. But unable to find full-time work, and unable to afford rent, as Craig puts it "we got stuck".
He says it was like a holiday at first but now it is much harder.
"Getting money for food, it's not something we've had to think about before," says Craig.
"We're definitely looking forward to getting out and getting a place. And we're working hard at getting there. This is just the journey, it's not the destination.'
As darkness falls on Santa Barbara, the car sleepers settle in for the night.
They'll have to be up early: they are not allowed to stay in the car parks beyond 7am. Some work, others spend their days driving from one spot to another.
When evening comes around again, they return to their car park homes.
In comparison to other countries, and indeed America's own long-term homeless, they are still fortunate.
But as America's economic crisis deepens, could there soon be more of them?

BBC NEWS REPORT.

" SAYINGS "

"IF YOU OBEY ALL THE RULES,

YOU MISS ALL THE FUN" !

__________

ZIMBABWEAN BANK ISSUES NEW NOTES !

The Zimbabwean central bank has issued higher denomination banknotes in order to battle the cash shortage caused by the world's highest inflation rate.
New 10,000 and 20,000-dollar notes have been released to help Zimbabweans deal with crippling hyperinflation which is said to be at 11.2 million per cent.
The central bank has issued a slew of new notes since August when it sliced 10 noughts off the local currency.
Cash supply is so tight only Z$20,000 (US$20) can be withdrawn daily.
This has led to large queues outside banks with people hoping to be among the first to be served before the cash runs out.
It has been hoped that a power-sharing deal between President Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai might have a positive effect on the moribund economy but thus far it has failed to have any considerable effect.
The two sides are yet to agree on which party should control key ministries, such as finance, home affairs and information.
Zimbabwe once had one of Africa's most prosperous economies but its fortunes have declined during the past decade.
Now unemployment in the Southern African country is rampant and it is estimated that at least 80% of the population lives below the poverty line.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NIGHT-TIME CATS IN BBC'S SIGHTS!

By Hugh Wilson

Cameras from the BBC's Natural History Unit are heading back out to Kenya's Masai Mara Reserve to observe Africa's biggest predators.
Given that the first Big Cat Diaries was broadcast in 1996, you could be forgiven for thinking that we know pretty much all there is to know about the reserve's lions and cheetahs.
Not so. In fact, this series of Big Cat Live hopes to uncover a side of life in the Mara that has rarely, if ever, been seen.
This year, the show will be broadcast live for the first time; and also for the first time, live filming will go on through the night.
"We're hoping to reveal the nocturnal habits of the big cats as well as the stuff that happens during the day," says producer Colin Jackson. "As for precisely what will happen... we have no idea, but what we do know is that every year the cats surprise us."
It should make for some exhilarating footage - lions and leopards, in particular, do most of their hunting at night. It also makes for an extraordinary technological challenge.

For daily updates/webcams.

"We're using brand new infra-red cameras to allow us to film at night without disturbing the cats," says Jackson. "These new cameras are the first truly widescreen infra-red cameras used in broadcast. And two months ago, they didn't exist.
"We'll also be using thermal-imaging cameras to detect hidden wildlife and a brand new image-intensifying 'starlight' camera developed from military tank gun-sight technology which can film with just the light of the stars."
The team is streaming live footage from the Mara to the show's website (www.bbc.co.uk/bigcatlive), using the first remote location webcams to exploit the new BBC Embedded Media Player coded on location.

The project has been running since 1996.
The internet will be a key component of Big Cat Live. Website users can expect almost instant updates, via text messages, images, audio or video, from the team in the field.
Logistically, all this kit makes the expedition a bit of a nightmare, as Jackson admits. "A generator of the type we need doesn't exist in Africa. One is currently on the high seas and we just hope it arrives in time!"
Aside from the generator, 20 tonnes of equipment (some just back from the Olympics) will help the Big Cat team - including new presenter Kate Silverton - give viewers the most complete Big Cat experience yet.
Field reports from the team's mobiles are already appearing on the Big Cat Live website. Big Cat Live on BBC One will be broadcast every evening, 5-12 October, starting at 1845 BST.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CADBURY RECALLS HK CHOCOLATES !

Eleven products are being recalled due to the safety scare. The makers of Cadbury chocolates have decided to recall 11 products from shops in Hong Kong.
The Asia-Pacific regional management of the British-based firm told the Hong Kong government that the recall was a precautionary step.
The government announcement did not specify whether the products had indeed been contaminated by the chemical.
Tens of thousands of babies have been sickened and at least four killed by Chinese milk tainted by melamine.
Cadbury Asia-Pacific said the 11 products were manufactured at their Beijing plant and distributed in Hong Kong.
The products include Cadbury Eclairs, dark and milk chocolate, hazelnut and praline chocolate, dark Chocettes, and products made specially for the Chinese New Year (in February).

Cadbury's Asia Pacific region includes Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, Thailand, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and South Korea. The recall order was so far only registered in Hong Kong.
"We appeal to the public to stop consuming the chocolate products concerned," said a spokesman for the government's Centre for Food Safety.
"We would alert the trade to stop selling the affected products," he added.
Click here to see a map of countries affected
The Centre for Food Safety said it would be testing the products itself and was closely monitoring the situation.
China's reputation for food safety has nosedived since the revelations last month that milk products poisoned by melamine were responsible for causing renal problems in babies who drank the milk formula.

In Jakarta, the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency was reported to have found traces of melamine in chocolate and biscuit products apparently made in China by Kraft Foods and Mars.
The two companies said they were investigating the claims, although their products had earlier been cleared of melamine tainting.
Some reports raised the possibility the products - including Oreo wafers, M&Ms and Snickers - could be counterfeit.
"We have asked our trade partners and retailers to suspend the sales of our products in accordance to the agency's order," the Mars spokesman in Indonesia, Bondan Ardi, told The Associated Press on Monday.
The companies involved said they would conduct their own tests.
Four babies have died and more than 53,000 children have so far been made ill by drinking contaminated powder milk in China.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has meanwhile urged five countries to immediately recall all milk powder imported from China.
The scandal came to light earlier this month when baby milk powder from the Sanlu Group was found to contain the industrial chemical melamine.
Since then, at least 22 other companies have been implicated - and milk products made by the Yili, Mengniu and Bright Foods groups have been recalled both at home and abroad.

Melamine is used in making plastics and is high in nitrogen, which makes products appear to have a higher protein content.
Health experts say that ingesting small amounts does no harm but sustained use can cause kidney stones and renal failure, especially among the young.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHAVEZ EYES RUSSIA NUCLEAR HELP !

Mr Chavez said he wanted nuclear power for energy and medical uses. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he wants to develop a civilian nuclear power programme with Russia's help.
Mr Chavez emphasised that he wanted nuclear power only for peaceful ends, citing energy and medical purposes.
His remarks follow last week's comments by Russian PM Vladimir Putin that Moscow was ready to consider nuclear co-operation with Venezuela.
Such a move would be likely to increase US concerns at the growing ties between the two nations, correspondents say.
"We certainly are interested in developing nuclear energy, for peaceful ends of course, for medical purposes and to generate electricity," Mr Chavez told a political rally in Caracas.
"Brazil has various nuclear reactors, as does Argentina. We will have ours and Vladimir told the media: Russia is ready to help Venezuela develop nuclear energy for peaceful ends," he said, adding that a commission was already working on the issue.

President Chavez was speaking after a global tour last week that included a stop in Russia.
During his visit, Mr Chavez signed accords on energy co-operation with his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev.
Mr Putin also indicated that Russia "was ready to consider the possibility" of working with Venezuela to build nuclear power facilities.
Russia and Venezuela have been increasing their ties in recent months. Russian warships are currently en route to the Caribbean Sea for joint exercises with the Venezuelan navy.
Venezuela is one of the best customers of the Russian defence industry, signing weapons contracts worth some $4.4bn (£2.39bn).
A staunch critic of the US, Mr Chavez backed Russian intervention in Georgia and has accused Washington of being scared of Moscow's "new world potential".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TOURISTS KIDNAPPERS 'SHOT DEAD' !

Sudanese officials say their forces have shot and killed six of the kidnappers who abducted a group of European tourists in Egypt last week.
Two other suspected kidnappers have been taken into custody, but the tourists themselves remain in captivity in Chad, officials in Sudan said.
The hostages - 11 tourists and eight Egyptian guides - were taken on 19 September and are said to be unharmed.
They include five Germans, five Italians and a Romanian.
A spokesman for Sudan's military told The Associated Press that the kidnappers were killed following a high-speed desert chase.
Sawarmy Khaled said the missing Europeans, who were abducted in Egypt but thought to have been taken first to Sudan and are now being held in neighbouring Chad.
Leader 'dead'
Mr Khaled said the Sudanese military forces were near the Libyan border when they encountered a white sports utility vehicle carrying eight armed men, AP reported.

"The armed forces called for it to stop, but they did not respond and there was pursuit in which six of the armed men were killed," he said, adding that the group's leader, who he identified as a Chadian named Bakhit, was among the dead.
The remaining two gunmen were captured and they confessed to being involved in kidnapping the tourists and their guides, who were on desert safari in southwest Egypt.
The tourists, who were seized while near Gilf al-Kebir in Egypt, are being held by 35 other gunmen in the Tabbat Shajara region of Chad, Mr Khaled added.
The shootings come as negotiations continue for the release of the hostages.
An Egyptian official told the AFP news agency that the kidnappers and German negotiators had agreed to a deal but that "negotiations were still ongoing to work out details."
The kidnappers have demanded that Germany take charge of payment of an $8.8m ransom.
German officials have declined comment.

LONELINESS 'MAKES YOU COLD' !

Loneliness and coldness are often associated in everyday language, but psychologists have found that social isolation does make people feel cold.
The University of Toronto team found people feeling excluded said a room was colder than those feeling included.
And people who felt left out also chose comforting hot soup, rather than an apple or soft drink.
A UK psychologist said the findings could help people feeling isolated, particularly in the winter months.
In the first study, 65 students were divided into two groups.
One group recalled a personal experience in which they had been socially excluded and felt isolated or lonely, such as being rejected from a club.
The other group recalled an experience in which they had been accepted.
The researchers then asked everyone to estimate the room's temperature.

There may be good reason why people are offered a cup of tea to make them feel better.
The estimates varied from about 54F (12C) to 104F (40C) - with those who had thought about an isolating experience giving lower estimates of the temperature.
In the second experiment, the researchers asked 52 students to play a computer-simulated ball game.
It was designed so that some of the volunteers had the ball tossed to them many times, but others were left out.
Afterwards, all the volunteers were asked to rate the desirability of hot coffee, crackers, soft-drinks, an apple, or hot soup.
The "unpopular" participants were much more likely than the others to want either hot soup or hot coffee.
The researchers suggest their preference for warm food and drinks resulted from physically feeling cold as a result of being excluded.

Dr Chen-Bo Zhong, who led the research, which is published in the journal Psychological Science, said: "We found that the experience of social exclusion literally feels cold.
"This may be why people use temperature-related metaphors to describe social inclusion and exclusion."
The team suggests the findings could be used to treat people's feelings of sadness or loneliness.

Writing in the journal, published by the American Association of Psychological Science, they say: "An interesting direction for research would be to determine whether experiencing the warmth of an object could reduce the negative experience of social exclusion.
"Such an implication has been used metaphorically in the self-help literature, but our research suggests that eating warm soup may be a literal coping mechanism for social exclusion."
They also suggest that raising the temperature could help someone who is feeling low - in the same way that people with seasonal affective disorder (SAD) are helped with light therapy.
They added: "Research on this disorder has predominantly focused on the connection between reduced daylight and increased likelihood of winter depression, although some evidence supports the idea that reduced temperature also contributes to an increase in depressive experience.
"Our research suggests one reason why that may be. Perhaps cold temperatures in the winter serve as a catalyst to the psychological experience of social exclusion."
Dr Lesley Prince, a lecturer in psychology at Birmingham University, said: "This is very interesting, and shows there are physiological correlates to emotions."
He added: "I particularly like the idea that if people are feeling despondent or lonely, you could help them feel better by putting the temperature up."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HUGE NEW PRIME NUMBER DISCOVERED!

Mathematicians in California could be in line for a $100,000 prize (£54,000) for finding a new prime number which has 13 million digits.
Prime numbers can be divided only by themselves and one.
The prize was set up by the Electronic Frontier Foundation to promote co-operative computing on the Internet.
The team from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) found the new number by linking 75 computers and harnessing their unused power.
This enabled them to perform the enormous number of calculations needed to find and verify a new prime.
Thousands of people around the world linked the powers of their personal computers in the search for a higher "Mersenne" prime number - named after 17th-Century French mathematician Marin Mersenne.
Mersenne primes are expressed as two to the power of P, minus one - with P being itself a prime number.
Edson Smith, the leader of the winning UCLA team, told the Associated Press news agency: "We're delighted. Now we're looking for the next one, despite the odds."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BLACK WIDOW'S INHOSPITABLE BEAUTY!

By John Simpson - BBC News, Tora Bora, Afghanistan.

The immense border between Afghanistan and the north-west frontier of Pakistan is harsh, inhospitable and breathtakingly beautiful.
It has been the cause of tension for at least a century and a half.
As "the Durand Line", the border was imposed on the Afghans by Britain in 1893. Even now, Afghanistan refuses to agree to it in principle, although, in practice, it is accepted.
Looking down from the Afghan side at Torkhum towards the Khyber Pass which leads into Pakistan, you can understand why stopping the movement of guerrillas and weapons across the border is so hard.
The road from the Khyber is the main trade route into Afghanistan, and is choked day and night with lorries packed high with Pakistani goods.
The border police on both sides try their best to check that guns and explosives are not hidden under the tons of onions or rice or electrical goods, but the job is an impossible one.
As we left the Black Widow's shadow there was no ambush - maybe the fact that we had an escort of 80 well-trained policemen had something to do with it
In Kabul, I interviewed a would-be suicide bomber from Pakistan who had given himself up when he realised his controllers had lied to him.
I asked if police had examined the lorry which he drove across the border laden with explosives. He shook his head.
The road from Kabul to Jalalabad and on to Torkhum is becoming more and more dangerous.
A year ago, when my team and I travelled along it, the police gave us an escort of a jeep containing four armed men.
This time we had eight jeeps and 48 armed men.

And when, a couple of days later, we drove southwards out of Jalalabad to the Tora Bora mountains, close to the Pakistani border, the Afghan authorities insisted on giving us a 14 vehicle escort.
On the dirt roads and mountain tracks which lead to Tora Bora, the biggest threat is landmines.
The Taleban who operate here cannot have failed to see our convoy, and would have guessed that we had to return this way. It would have been simple to lay mines in our path during the night.
Tora Bora means the black widow. It lies in the shadow of the Spin Garh (white-headed) range, which is covered with snow all year round.
The sight is breathtaking - fierce, brooding and impenetrable except on foot.
The Afghan border police have a hilltop position looking up at Tora Bora.
At the mountain's foot lies a narrow valley leading to the famous caves where Osama bin Laden hid, and eventually escaped from, in 2002.
Could we go there, I asked the police commander? No, he said, they were in no-man's land.
The Taleban, who have been forced out of the caves twice by coalition and Afghan troops, have now established themselves back there again.
From time to time the police fire heavy machine-guns and mortars across at Tora Bora, to assert their presence.
There was no return fire; the Taleban are too wary for that.
Ambush fears
During the night, as we slept under the stars, the police were vigilant. Occasionally, they called out softly to one another to show they were still there, and that their throats had not been cut by marauders.
Yet the base is easily infiltrated. At one point after dark a fully-grown wolf loped across the open space in front of us.
In the morning the commander decided we should return by a different route - until he was told that an American convoy had been ambushed there nine days ago.
It was plain he was pretty anxious.
Then he and his men consulted their maps. By driving along a couple of dry river-beds we could curve round and join the main Jalalabad road after three hours' hard driving across country.
It worked. As we left the Black Widow's shadow there was no ambush.
Maybe the fact that we had an escort of 80 well-trained policemen, all armed with AK-47 assault rifles, had something to do with it.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PAUL NEWMAN DIES !

Movie legend Paul Newman dies, 83.

Hollywood legend Paul Newman has died of cancer at the age of 83, his spokesman has confirmed.
The blue-eyed star of films like Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid had died at home on Friday surrounded by family and close friends, said Jeff Sanderson.
Newman was nominated for an Oscar 10 times, winning the best actor trophy in 1987 for The Color Of Money.
In May 2007, he said he was giving up acting because he could no longer perform to the best of his ability.

SELECT FILMOGRAPHY

The Silver Chalice, 1955
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1958
The Hustler, 1961
Hud, 1963
Cool Hand Luke, 1967
Rachel Rachel (director), 1968
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969
The Sting, 1973
The Towering Inferno, 1974
Absence of Malice, 1981
The Verdict, 1982
The Color of Money, 1986
Nobody's Fool, 1994
Road to Perdition, 2002
Cars (Voice) 2006

"I'm not able to work any more... at the level that I would want to," he told US broadcaster ABC.
"You start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention. "So I think that's pretty much a closed book for me."
Earlier this year, he pulled out of directing a stage production of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men in Connecticut because of unspecified health problems.
Broadcaster Sir Michael Parkinson, who interviewed Newman for a documentary, said the star had been "a real giant of the cinema".
"He was the link between the great time of Hollywood, the Cary Grant and people like that, and Tom Cruise," he told BBC News.
"He fills the gap between the two, and fills it in a most extraordinary, dominant manner."
Although his handsome looks and piercing blue eyes made him an ideal romantic lead, Newman often played rebels, tough guys and losers.
"I was always a character actor," he once said. "I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood."

The star won a total of three Oscars. He appeared in some 60 movies, including Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, The Hustler, The Sting and Hud.
Along the way, he worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood - including Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Elizabeth Taylor, Lauren Bacall and Tom Hanks.
He also appeared with his wife, Joanne Woodward, in several films including Long Hot Summer and Paris Blues. The star later directed his wife in movies such as Rachel, Rachel and The Glass Menagerie.
But his most famous screen partner was undoubtedly Robert Redford, his sidekick in both Butch Cassidy and The Sting.
In addition to his Academy Award for best actor, he was given an honorary Oscar in 1986 "in recognition of his many and memorable compelling screen performances and for his personal integrity and dedication to his craft".
In 1994, he won a third Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, for his charitable work.
His philanthropic efforts included the establishment of summer camps for children who suffered from life-threatening illnesses.
He also donated profits from his Newman's Own food range to a number of charitable organisations.

Newman became a professional racing driver and took second place at Le Mans in 1979. Newman's last film role was as the voice of Doc Hudson, one of the most famous racing cars in history, in the Pixar animation Cars.
It was perhaps a fitting epitaph for the actor, who had a lifelong fascination with the sport - and put his film career on hold in the 1970s to become a professional racing driver.
He is survived by his wife, five children, two grandsons and his older brother Arthur.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

10 THINGS !

10 Things we did not know this time last week !

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

1. Hollywood actors were paid to smoke.
More details
2. Brussels is the burglary capital of Europe.
More details
3. Henry V invented passports.
More details
4. Busta Rhymes' real name is Trevor George Smith Jr.
More details
5. Ruth Kelly and David Miliband dated briefly at university.
More details (Daily Telegraph)
6. The ideal drive is 16 minutes long.
More details
7. Hanging upside-down can give you a stroke.
More details
8. Scots drank two litres more pure alcohol than the rest of the UK last year, on average.
More details
9. Anti-depressants can harm sperm.
More details
10. The third most popular pet behind a cat and a dog is a rabbit, with 1.6m owners in the UK. More details (Times)

" SAYINGS "

"HAPPINESS IS WHEN

WHAT YOU THINK,

WHAT YOU SAY AND WHAT YOU DO

ARE IN HARMONY" !

_________

TERROR SUSPECTS HELD ON KLM PLANE !

Police in Germany have arrested two terrorism suspects on a plane preparing to take off from Cologne-Bonn airport.
The two men, both in their early 20s and of Somali origin, were under surveillance for months, police say.
They were said to be "possibly planning attacks" and had left suicide notes at their flats expressing their wish to die in a "holy war".
The KLM airliner, which was bound for Amsterdam, was eventually allowed to take off after a luggage search.
Police boarded flight KL1804 at 0655 (0455 GMT), police spokesman Frank Scheulen said.

"The police did not storm the plane - it was done by ordinary police, special forces were not used," he added, contradicting earlier reports by KLM staff that commandos had made the arrests.
He said the suspects - a 23-year-old Somali and a 24-year-old Somali-born German citizen - were "under suspicion of participating in a jihad [holy war] action and of possibly planning attacks".
The remaining passengers were ordered off the aircraft for a baggage inspection.
The plane was cleared for departure just over an hour later and has since landed in Amsterdam.
Germany's federal crime office said on Thursday it was hunting for two Islamic militants believed to be on their way to Germany.
The arrests in Cologne are thought to be unconnected with that terror alert.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE- LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

26th September 2008.

Dear Friends,

All week long I have been wandering what I would write about in this week's letter. With so little real news coming out of Zimbabwe during this current impasse, it was hard to see what there was to talk about that the political analysts hadn't already dissected and mulled over all week. Then, Robert Mugabe came to my rescue!

Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Mugabe said : "Once again I appeal to the world's collective conscience to apply pressure for the immediate removal of these sanctions by Britain, the United States and their allies which have brought about untold suffering to our people." No sooner had I read those words and watched the clip on the BBC website when my phone rang. It was a good friend of mine calling from Murehwa. He wanted to thank me for some money I had sent him and to tell me that the gift had enabled him to buy two buckets of maize. With very careful rationing that might last a couple of weeks he told me. One helping of sadza a day and perhaps a little bowl of thin porridge in the morning for the kids before they go to school. No meat, so they supplement the sadza with vegetables from his garden – grown I may add with seeds sent from the UK! My friend is one of the lucky ones but for most of the people in Murehwa it's an early morning trip on foot to the nearest muhacha trees. 'You know muhacha? he asked me. Of course I know muhacha. In this area of the country it is a scared tree and I had often sat under its shade with friends at a rural bottle store. The fruit of the muhacha is edible and sweet. Every child knows that and in the old days it was what you would call a 'leisure' activity, gathering the sweet fruit to munch on the way home. There's a grove of these trees deep in the rural area about eight or ten miles from Murehwa and every morning people trek there to gather the fruit. No longer is it a leisure pastime, now it is the people's only means of survival. 'You have to get there early' my friend told me because people fight, they actually exchange blows so desperate are they for the hacha. It is all they will eat for the day. Like all wild fruits, if eaten to excess, it will have a disastrous effect on the digestive system and acute diarrhoea follows. With nothing else in the stomach such conditions can prove fatal and without drugs or medical intervention people will die - have already died in the area. The local MP for the area is none other than the Minister of Health, himself a doctor. I wonder if he heard his president tell the UN Assembly that "The majority of our rural people have been empowered (by the Land reform programme) to contribute to household and national food security and to be masters of their destiny" If that is the case then why are the people surviving on wild fruits? Why are their own grain huts empty? Why are the huge grain silos in Murehwa housing imported maize accessible only to those with foreign currency to buy the precious commodity?

Mugabe appeals to the 'world's collective conscience' but apparently has none himself as he leaves his people to starve while he struts the world stage accusing everyone else of causing the Zimbabwean people's 'untold suffering.' The contrast between Mugabe's weasel words at the UN and what my friend told me of the people's suffering could not be more marked. This week I listened to two highly respected Africanists, Richard Dowden and William Gumede debating the situation in Zimbabwe and I was shocked to hear Richard Dowden remark that Mugabe cared nothing for Zimbabwe's future, that he was quite prepared to destroy the country in order to save his own position. Of course, I had heard that comment before from friends sitting around under the muhacha tree at the bottle store. I had even been inclined to make the same judgement myself but to hear that view coming from such a scholarly and objective source shocked me. Can it really be true that this great 'Liberation Hero' has become so bloated with power that he is blind to the suffering his policies have caused? Is it the fault of the sanctions against the leadership of Zanu PF as Mugabe claims that have caused the tide of human misery that has swept across the land? Climate change and sanctions have hindered food production, he claims but Mugabe knows that is not true. Has he not himself chivvied the resettled farmers for not growing more food?

I watched the Old Man being interviewed this week in New York. He was asked if he would allow Human Rights monitors into Zimbabwe to see for themselves, "Ah,ah,ah' he replied and shook his head. He was smiling at the time, the smile on the face of the crocodile, I thought. Later he claimed that his government had been falsely accused of human rights abuses. Tell that to the victims and their families, Robert Mugabe. Who else but you gives the orders for your opponents to be 'taught a lesson for not voting the right way.' "We won't stop" said one of his bully boys this week talking of the ongoing attacks on MDC supporters, "until the President himself tell us to."

Like everyone else in the diaspora, we are a long way from home and it's often hard to separate fact from journalistic fiction but that phonecall I received, just this morning, renewed my doubts about the wisdom of negotiating with such a man as Mugabe. Trusting Tsvangirai's personal integrity is one thing but can we be sure that all his top people are similarly motivated by what is best for Zimbabwe and not by hunger for money and power. All we can do from this far away is watch and wait and hope that truth, justice and, above all, conscience will prevail.

Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH

CHINA'S GRIP STILL FIRM ON TIBETAN AREA!

By Michael Bristow -BBC News, Gansu, China.

On the edge of Tibetan towns in this western province, special police officers carrying rifles stand guard behind checkpoints made of sandbags.
Inside the towns, convoys of police vehicles drive up and down the streets. Security personnel stop shoppers and question them.
Six months after Tibetans staged riots and protests against Chinese rule, Beijing still maintains a tight grip on this largely Tibetan area.
Locals say their lives have not yet returned to normal, and many people arrested during the March unrest are still in prison.
Trouble began in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in southern Gansu, shortly after riots erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.
According to the local authorities, schools, shops and buildings belonging to the Communist Party and government were attacked by "criminals".
In the town of Hezuo, there is a bustling open-air market, where shoppers haggle over live chickens, dried goods, clothes, fruit and music.
Outside town, in the small villages that line the valley roads, farmers are harvesting highland barley and potatoes. Others herd goats.

Few people will talk about the unrest, and monks are especially cautiousBut things are not as they were before the unrest, as one farmer with a weather-beaten face and a gold tooth was willing to explain.
"It hasn't returned to normal yet. They've released some of the people from prison, but not all of them," he said as he sat on a hillside near the village of Yumo.
The Chinese government blames the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's exiled spiritual leader, for orchestrating the unrest earlier this year.
But the farmer dismissed such claims. "We rose up on our own because there are no human rights here," he said.
Another Tibetan man told a similar story, although he only agreed to speak behind the relative security of closed doors.
"There are military personnel on every corner of the street. We don't have any freedom at all. Life is very difficult right now," he said.
He added that Tibetans want more freedom - and they want the Dalai Lama to return to his homeland.
There are signs that China is taking the carrot-and-stick approach to resolving the still-tense situation in Gannan, where just over half the population is Tibetan.
The large number of personnel from the People's Armed Police - they even guard petrol stations - suggests Beijing is prepared for further trouble.
But the authorities also appear to be spending money in what could be a bid to quieten a population that openly criticises the government.
The Yumo farmer said the local government had handed out 3,000 yuan ($440; £240) compensation to every citizen after the March unrest.
And when the BBC visited Hezuo, a van from the local propaganda department was on the streets telling people about a new healthcare scheme.
The town square was also being spruced up. Workmen were putting new paving slabs in place, planting trees and laying out lawns.
Beijing seems concerned about the unrest, even if it publicly says there was no justification for it.
While we were in Gannan, a national committee in charge of minorities and religious affairs was holding a three-day investigation tour of the area.
A document circulated among delegates at the meeting shows Beijing wants to push ahead and create a "well-off society" in the prefecture.
It talks about developing the area's hydroelectricity potential, and the tourism industry in what is an area of stunning natural beauty, with mountains, clear blue skies and pine forests.
Beijing is also engaged in talks with the Tibetan government-in-exile, based in Dharamsala in India, about the situation in Tibetan areas.
The next round of talks is due to take place in October.
But Wang Lixiong, who has written about the relationship between Beijing and its Tibetan regions, believes China is not serious about making a breakthrough.

The army were called in to stop the unrest in March"I've always thought that the talks were only about letting foreigners think the government is doing something - it's an act," he said.
Meanwhile Tibetans have seen very little benefit from negotiations which have been going on for several years, said the Chinese expert.
Mr Wang believes the next round of talks is critical. If Beijing does not offer concessions, the Tibetans may refuse to continue talking.
Back in Gansu, people are getting on with their lives, even if it is under the watchful eye of China's security forces.
At a monastery with a golden roof in the village of Zagzag, monks - some as young as 13 - are still praying and studying.
They are reluctant to talk about their lives since the March unrest, although that reticence suggests they face pressure from the authorities.
Author Mr Wang believes China's crackdown following the protests has made Tibetans more aware of their rights.
"Slowly, Tibetans who didn't know anything about independence are beginning to understand what it means," he said.
That suggests the tension in China's Tibetan areas will not quickly subside.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

10 WAYS TO REDISCOVER THE JOY OF MOTORING!

Getting behind the wheel of a car can turn the most mild-mannered person into an angry hothead. And as congestion increases, so do the irritation levels of motorists.
But help is at hand for the hard-pressed commuter, from US writer and driving expert Tom Vanderbilt.

1. DON'T MISREAD THE HORN
Too many people get irate at the sound of the horn, says Mr Vanderbilt, who spent three years examining driving habits around the world.
The horn's function could be entirely innocent, even benevolent. For instance, the honker could merely be pointing out that a fellow driver's petrol cap is loose.
"There's a tendency to want to go off at the first. Don't instinctively react to that noise. Try to think what the context is."
Drivers of convertible cars are less likely to use their horns than others, he says, because they don't have the anonymity of being enclosed and hidden.
Men honk more than women but women are most likely to be honked at, he adds.

2. DON'T CHANGE LANES IN SLOW-MOVING TRAFFIC
You're on a motorway and the traffic has slowed to a crawl. Why do the other lanes always seem to be moving faster?
They don't really, says Mr Vanderbilt. They only seem to because of something called "loss aversion" which means our brains are more sensitive to loss so we tend to notice the cars that overtake us, not the ones we leave behind.
And changing lanes is counter-productive. It increases the risk of an accident, makes a driver more stressed and doesn't make much difference. When tested in Canada, the driver that changed lanes at every opportunity only made four minutes in an 80-minute drive.

3. MAKE EYE CONTACT WHEN YOU CAN
Exchange glances as much as possible, especially with pedestrians at crossings, because it makes your intentions clearer.
Eye contact increases co-operation, he says, referring to a study which found that putting a photograph of eyes above an honesty box at a coffee machine made people give more money than if a photo of flowers was put there instead.
But the reality of driving means it's often impossible - not to say dangerous at anything over 20mph - to make eye contact with other motorists.

4. LIMIT YOUR COMMUTE TO QUARTER OF AN HOUR
The idea that any sort of a commute is a good thing might sound odd, but drivers actually benefit from a short spell in front of the wheel twice a day - 16 minutes each way being the optimum time, says Mr Vanderbilt. For many it is valuable, personal time.
"If you commute, you're going to a job so your day is very hemmed in. You have your job and your home.
"People listen to music most frequently in the car so it's a space you can do what you want. You see people singing and behaving in a way that's not usually possible. There aren't many private moments in a day so people turn the car into a private space."
But there are limits. The enjoyment evaporates the longer the drive, and a commute that creeps past the hour mark will test the patience of even the most passionate petrolhead.

5. REMEMBER, YOU DON'T OWN THAT PARKING SPACE
People leaving car parking spaces always take longer to do so when another car is waiting to get into the space.
This is because the space becomes more valuable, in the driver's eyes, when it is wanted by someone else.
The car is a private space in a public space, says Mr Vanderbilt, so motorists mistakenly think that once inside it, the land underneath is theirs as well. But there's no need to be territorial.

6. DRIVING IS A MENTAL WORKOUT
"For those of us who aren't brain surgeons, driving is probably the most complex everyday thing we do. It is a skill that consists of at least 1,500 'subskills'," says Mr Vanderbilt.
"At any moment, we are navigating through terrain, scanning our environment for hazards and information, maintaining our position on the road, judging speed, making decisions (about 20 per mile, one study found) evaluating risk, adjusting instruments, anticipating the future actions of others - even as we may be sipping a latte, thinking about last night's episode of American Idol, quieting a toddler or checking voice mail."
Because all this appears to be done so easily, experienced motorists treat driving like breathing. But problems arise if something unlikely occurs, because so much of driving is mundane.
The fragmentary nature of our attention was underlined in an experiment in which a video of people playing basketball was showed to the subjects of a study. Half of them failed to notice when a man in a gorilla suit walked through the players.
The lesson is to maintain concentration and don't slip all too easily into auto-pilot.

7. LATE MERGING IS OK
One of the biggest sources of road rage is late merging - when one motorway lane is going to end and the instructions are quite vague about when drivers should merge into the other lane. If a car doesn't merge straightaway, drivers in the backed up traffic queue get angry. In fact, those "selfish overtakers" are doing everyone a favour, says Mr Vanderbilt.
"People want to carry their personal idea of queuing into traffic and say 'That person is just [jumping the queue]' but why is there a lane anyway?
"More people will get through if drivers use both lanes to the end and then merge one at a time."

8. TAILGATING SLOWS US ALL DOWN
Tailgating accounts for 7% of road traffic accidents in the UK, says Mr Vanderbilt, but it's just another form of bully driving and it holds up the traffic.
"It increases your own crash risk and reduces the reaction time of the person behind you. If the person in front brakes, you have to come to a much faster stop and you have a chain reaction crash. Do you want to be reliant on the person behind you stopping in time?"

9. TREAT ALL CYCLISTS THE SAME, HELMET OR NO HELMET
An experiment conducted in the UK discovered that drivers gave far more space to cyclists that did not wear helmets, than those who did.
The researchers concluded this was because motorists interpreted the helmet as a symbol of a more predictable and sensible cyclist, one less likely to veer into their path.

10. LEARN FROM LEWIS
Racing car drivers accumulate more traffic tickets and take more risks in everyday driving than the rest of us, but there are certain things we can learn from them.
For a start, they have perfect driving posture, erect and alert, whereas others lean back.
And racing drivers always look ahead to where they are going, in order to speed through turns, which is something normal drivers would do well to adopt.
One reason for the high number of pedestrians struck by turning cars while crossing the road, says Mr Vanderbilt, is that drivers are not looking in the right place. They are looking at making the turn rather than where the turn will take them.

Tom Vanderbilt is author of Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (And What That Says About Us)

BBC NEWS REPORT.

FRITZL RETURNS TO INCEST CELLAR!

Police say Mr Fritzl has admitted imprisoning and raping his daughter. Josef Fritzl has been taken back to the house in Amstetten, west of Vienna, where he allegedly abused and jailed his daughter and her children.
Mr Fritzl was taken there under heavy police guard on Thursday to give investigators a tour of the cellar.
Officials say the visit is to help see if the cell can be opened from outside.
Mr Fritzl is accused of keeping his daughter for 24 years in a cellar he built, sexually abusing her and fathering seven children with her.
Lawyers for Mr Fritzl insist that an electronic timer would have unlocked the door in time for the occupants to free themselves if anything had happened to him, but investigators think the door could have been sealed off with metal bars.
Prosecutors say he has confessed to keeping his daughter Elisabeth captive in a cell at his home.
DNA tests have shown he is the father of six of Elisabeth's children - a seventh child is believed to have died shortly after birth - and authorities say that Mr Fritzl will go on trial by the end of the year.
Mr Fritzl has been in custody since April and is being held in pre-trial detention in St Poelten, 80km (50 miles) west of the capital Vienna since April.
Earlier this summer a court spokesman said preparations for the trial of Mr Fritzl, 73, were going at "full speed".
His alleged victims, including Elisabeth, 42, are undergoing treatment at a psychiatric hospital.
The case first came to light in April after 19-year-old Kerstin, one of the children fathered by Mr Fritzl, became seriously ill and was taken to hospital.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PILOT COMPLETES JETPACK CHALLENGE !

A Swiss man has become the first person to fly solo across the English Channel using a single jet-propelled wing.
Yves Rossy landed safely after the 22-mile (35.4 km) flight from Calais to Dover, which had been twice postponed this week because of bad weather.
The former military pilot took less than 10 minutes to complete the crossing and parachute to the ground.
The 49-year-old flew on a plane to more than 8,200ft (2,500m), ignited jets on a wing on his back, and jumped out.

Yves Rossy aimed to reach speeds of 125mph Mr Rossy had hoped to reach speeds of 125mph.
It felt "great, really great", said Mr Rossy: "I only have one word, thank you, to all the people who did it with me."
He said weather conditions on Friday had been perfect and his success signalled "big potential" for people to fly "a little bit like a bird" in the future.
Known as "Fusionman," he was aiming to follow the route taken by French airman Louis Blériot 99 years ago when he became the first person to fly across the English Channel in a plane.
In Dover, Mr Rossy flew past South Foreland lighthouse - which the building's manager Simon Ovenden said Blériot used as a target during his pioneering flight - and looped onlookers before landing in a field.
"It's a remarkable achievement, we saw the climax of his attempt as he came down to earth with his parachute. It's been an exciting afternoon," said Geoff Clark, a 54-year-old spectator from Chatham, in Kent.
His quote consistently is: I'm not worried about risk, I manage risk
Kathryn LiptrottNational Geographic ChannelMark Dale, the senior technical officer for the British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association, described Rossy's flight as a "fabulous stunt".
In an interview earlier this week, Mr Rossy said: "If I calculate everything right, I will land in Dover. But if I get it wrong, I take a bath."
The flight was broadcast live for the National Geographic Channel. Its producer, Kathryn Liptrott, told the BBC Mr Rossy was fearless.
"When we've talked to him and asked him are you worried about risk his quote consistently is: I'm not worried about risk, I manage risk.
"He flew Mirage fighters for the Swiss army, he now flies an Airbus. And in his sort of heart he's a pilot and a parachutist and what they do is manage risk."
The longest flight he had previously taken lasted 10 minutes.
The wing had no rudder or tail fin, so Mr Rossy had to steer it using his head and back.
As well as a helmet and parachute, he wore a special suit to protect him from the four kerosene-burning turbines mounted just centimetres from him on the wing.

RUSSIA TO UPGRADE NUCLEAR SYSTEMS!

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has announced plans to build a "guaranteed nuclear deterrent system", to be in place by 2020.
He said he wanted military chiefs to submit plans by December.
He called for a programme to build new nuclear submarines as well as "a system of aerospace defence".
The announcement comes just weeks after Russia accused America of starting a new arms race by siting part of its missile defence shield in Poland.
"We must guarantee nuclear deterrence under various political and military conditions by 2020," Mr Medvedev told military commanders.
He said it was necessary to build "new types of armaments", and to "achieve dominance in airspace", according to quotes carried by the Itar-Tass news agency.

Q&A: US missile defence
Guide to planned US missile shield

"We plan to start serial production of warships, primarily nuclear-powered submarines carrying cruise missiles and multifunctional submarines," Mr Medvedev said.
"We will develop an aerospace defence system, as well," he added.
Moscow has repeatedly criticised the US for going ahead with plans for a missile defence shield, using rockets based in Poland and radar in the Czech Republic, saying it destabilises the strategic balance and builds "a ring of steel" around Russia.
Russia warned it would be "forced to react".
This, it seems, is Russia is showing its own determination to bolster its nuclear deterrent, says the BBC's defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

I CAN WORK WITH MDC, SAYS MUGABE!

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has said he can work with his long-time rival Morgan Tsvangirai, following a recent power-sharing deal.
"I don't see any reason why we can't work together as Zimbabweans. We are all sons of the soil," he said.
Under the deal, MDC leader Mr Tsvangirai becomes prime minister, but the two sides have disagreed over the distribution of ministerial posts.
Mr Mugabe told the AP news agency the hold-up only concerned four posts.
But he did not say which ones they were.
Under the deal, Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has 15 ministries, with 13 going to Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and three to a smaller MDC faction.
Mr Tsvangirai is understood to want the home affairs portfolio so he can control the police.
Zimbabwe's president recently told his Zanu-PF party that the deal was a "humiliation" but said he would work with it.

Mr Mugabe also told reporters at the UN General Assembly in New York that he was "devastated" by the resignation of South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki, who brokered the deal.
It is not clear who will take over as the lead mediator in Zimbabwe, or if Mr Mbeki will continue.


Correspondents say that if he were to carry on with his Zimbabwe role, he would lose much of his authority following his resignation.
Mr Mugabe said it was up to the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) to decide whether Mr Mbeki would be replaced.
Asked who would have the final say if he and Mr Tsvangirai disagreed, Mr Mugabe said it would depend on the issue.
He said that he had always worked with his vice-presidents, so there would be little difference now there was a prime minister.
"And now that we have a prime minister we rope him in and we discuss in the presidency, or whatever we call it, together, and we look at the issues and see what solutions can be applied to any problem that confronts us."
Mr Tsvangirai gained most votes in the March elections but not enough for an outright victory, according to official results.
He pulled out of the run-off in June, accusing Zanu-PF militias and the security forces of attacking opposition supporters, leaving some 200 dead and 200,000 displaced.
Under the deal, Mr Mugabe retains control of the army.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.K. FLIGHTS HIT BY COMPUTER GLITCH!

Flights to and from UK airports are being cancelled and delayed because of a computer problem at the main air traffic control centre at Swanwick.
Departures have been suspended and arrivals delayed at Luton airport due to air traffic control restrictions.
Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports have also reported delays, along with Cardiff, Bristol, Southampton, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow.
Air traffic controllers said they hoped to restore the system by early evening.
National Air Traffic Services (Nats) said engineers were investigating the cause of the computer fault at the London Area Control Centre, which deals with planes flying over the south east of England.
The London Terminal Control Centre, also based in Swanwick which is responsible for landing and departing aircraft, is still operating fully but it is restricting departures due to the additional workload.

LONDON AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL
The London air traffic control centre at Swanwick, Hampshire, has two parts with different responsibilities:
The London Area Control Centre (LACC) is responsible for aircraft flying over England and Wales
The London Terminal Control Centre (LTCC) handles aircraft approaching and departing south-east England airports
Both centres are run by National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which is part-owned by the government and a consortium of airlines

Swanwick's troubled history

Nats said restrictions on take-offs and landings had been introduced to ensure passenger safety while controllers operated manual systems at reduced capacity.
BBC transport correspondent Tom Symonds said the problems stemmed from a glitch with computers which deal with information about flights when they are at higher altitude.
Air traffic controllers could still see where planes were, but were finding it difficult to identify them, he said.
This has resulted in a reduced flow of aircraft from airports, with planes at Heathrow leaving every two minutes rather than every 90 seconds.

Luton airport has so far cancelled seven European flights to Budapest, Lisbon, Zurich, Barcelona, Berlin, Amsterdam and Dortmund.
Flights from Cardiff International Airport were also temporarily halted by the fault, a spokeswoman said.
"All flights are currently grounded, inbound and outbound. We are not entirely sure at the moment when they are going to be back up and running," she added.
A spokesman for Manchester Airport said some European and international flights had been affected as they were routed to fly over south east of England.
A spokesman for airport operator BAA, which runs Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Southampton airports, said "many UK airports" would be affected by the problem.
"Aircraft continue to land and depart, however the process is slower than normal, which means that inevitably, some flights will be delayed and some will be cancelled," he said.
"We are working hard with the airlines to minimise disruption and restore the operation as quickly as possible."
British Airways says it is cancelling "a few" short haul flights to domestic and European destinations from Heathrow.
Airport authorities have advised passengers to contact their airlines before travelling.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.S. 'AGREES WALL STREET BAIL-OUT' !

A leading US senator says both parties in Congress have reached agreement on the outline of a $700bn (£380bn) bail-out plan to revive the finance sector.
Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd said they had reached "fundamental agreement" on the principles of a package though he did not give details.
He said Congress could act in the next few days to pass a bill on the subject.
A main concern for Democrats and Republicans has been who will bear the brunt of the cost of the package.
The plan, as it was first proposed last week, would broadly help finance firms offload bad debt, which has triggered a global credit crisis.
"We now expect that we will have a plan that can pass the House, pass the Senate and be signed by the president," Senator Robert Bennett of Utah said after meetings with lawmakers on Thursday.
Details of the package were not immediately available but it is expected to include limits on executives' pay as well as oversight requirements.
The news comes as President George W Bush is set to meet both presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama, to discuss the bail-out and how to revive the economy.
The benchmark Dow Jones index continued to rise after Senator Dodd's comments, adding 3%, to 11,128.7.

The bail-out has been under scrutiny with politicians on both sides nervous about the deal being rushed through too quickly.
Of particular concern has been the issue of pay for the bosses of the firms in question, as well as concerns over the cost of the plan to the US taxpayer.
But both US Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke and US President George W Bush have warned that without a deal, it would cause a significant set-back to the economy as a whole.

Those in favour of the deal have argued that:

The deal would boost global financial stability
Increase investor confidence
Prevent a global slowdown
Encourage banks to lend to each other, and beat the credit crunch
Those with reservations have said the bail-out would:
Cost the taxpayer too much money
Benefit bosses of firms who have taken huge risks
Increase state debt
Give too much power to the US Treasury
BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"WHAT WE NEED

ARE MORE PEOPLE WHO

SPECIALISE IN THE

IMPOSSIBLE" !

__________

FRENCH AUTHOR IN DOCK OVER RWANDA!

A prominent French writer, Pierre Pean, is on trial in Paris accused of inciting racial hatred in a book on the Rwandan genocide.
Mr Pean wrote that the Tutsis had a culture of lies and deceit, and this had somehow spread to the Hutus.
He said it made investigating Rwanda "an almost impossible task". Some 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered in 1994.
A French rights group, SOS Racisme, filed the lawsuit against Mr Pean.
The case against him is backed by the public prosecutor. It centres on four pages in Mr Pean's book Noires Fureurs, Blancs Menteurs (Black furies, white liars), published in 2005.
In remarks broadcast on French radio on Wednesday, Mr Pean said he "wrote a book on lies, misinformation, which were, I believe, conducted through extremely elaborate methods, whereby a dictatorial regime wanted people to believe in lies".
An investigative journalist, Mr Pean wrote a bestseller about former French President Francois Mitterrand, among other works.
Historians, other experts and politicians, including former Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, are due to testify this week. The verdict is expected at a later date.

SOS Racisme President Dominique Sopo said that "when you are aware what cliches can trigger in terms of killings, racism and confrontation, especially in that country, it seems to me that this particular issue greatly disturbs those who went through such drama and who prefer not to go through it again".
France has consistently denied any responsibility for the genocide, rejecting claims by the Rwandan government that French officials played an active role in it.
An independent Rwandan commission said France had been aware of preparations for the genocide and helped train the ethnic Hutu militia.
The two countries have had a frosty relationship since 2006, when a French judge implicated Rwandan President Paul Kagame in the downing in 1994 of then-President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane - an event widely seen as triggering the killings.
President Kagame has always denied the charge.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KEY FINANCE FIRMS 'PROBED BY FBI' !

The FBI has begun an investigation into four major US financial institutions caught up in the current financial crisis, US media say.
Investigators are reportedly examining possible fraud by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed bank Lehman Brothers and insurer AIG.
Top managers at those firms are also being investigated, the reports say.
In the past year, as the US housing market slumped, the FBI began a broad inquiry across the financial sector.
It was prompted by concerns over the way high-risk, "sub-prime" mortgages were being sold.
The FBI has been looking at lenders who sold home loans to buyers on low or unpredictable incomes and also the investment banks that packaged these loans and sold them on.

Investigations into the four companies were at an early stage, officials told the Associated Press news agency.
ABC News, citing unidentified sources, said the probes were assessing whether company officials systematically misled investors about the financial strength of their institutions.
The slump in the US housing market has resulted in billions of dollars of losses for these banks and turmoil in world credit markets.
Last week FBI director Robert Mueller said more than 20 large financial firms were already under investigation.

Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and AIG are all being bailed out by the US government.
And the government recently announced a $700bn bail-out plan that would enable banks to offload their bad debt.
But both Democrat and Republican politicians have voiced concerns that taxpayers could be paying a high price for the risks initially undertaken by banks.
Democrats want help for individuals who stand to lose their homes, as well as limits on pay for the bosses at the firms in question.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BRUSSELS IS 'EU BURGLARY CAPITAL' !

Burglaries plague Brussels, but car thefts are most common in Italy
Brussels is not only the hub of European Union business - it is also the burglary capital of the EU, according to a new survey.
The Urban Audit report puts Brussels just ahead of London, with 11.2 domestic burglaries per 1,000 residents, among the 27 EU capitals.
The wide-ranging survey by the EU statistical body Eurostat includes various quality-of-life data.
It says Almere in the Netherlands is the EU's fastest-growing city.
The data released on Tuesday was mostly collected in 2004.
Cambridge in the UK tops the list for people employed in the service sector - 94.4%, followed by Luxembourg with 93.3%.
In contrast, Greek cities dominate the list for self-employed people, forming the top eight in that category, followed by two Italian cities. Self-employment is very rare in Scandinavia, with rates below 5%.

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EU Urban Audit: The findings
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Seven of the 10 cities with the highest unemployment rates are in Poland, the survey says.
Urban Audit covers 321 cities, with populations ranging from 50,000 to 10 million in the EU member states, as well as 26 Turkish cities, six in Norway and four in Switzerland.
All the cities with the highest proportion of elderly people are in Italy, with the sole exception of Lisbon in Portugal.
Five of the 10 fastest-growing cities are in Turkey, but top of the list is Almere in the Netherlands, a city created only in 1984 to accommodate the population overflow from Amsterdam.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE SCHOOL FEES PAID IN COWS!

By Themba Nkosi - BBC News, Bulawayo.

Cattle are a better store of value than Zimbabwe dollars.
Residents in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, have called for government action against a school asking for fees in livestock or fuel coupons.
Those who do not have coupons have been asked to deliver 700 litres of fuel.
One teacher at Petra High School said it was cash-strapped parents who originally wanted to pay in kind.
Though politicians in Zimbabwe signed a power-sharing deal last week, the country is still suffering from an acute economic crisis.
The last official figure given for annual inflation was 11,000,000%. Last month the central bank struck 10 zeros from the currency, making 10bn Zimbabwe dollars equal to one new dollar.
Banks only allow people to withdraw a maximum of 1,000 new Zimbabwe dollars a day.
"If you are paying school fees of 100,000 dollars, that means I will be going to the bank for the next five months to withdraw 1,000 dollars until I reach the requirement amount for fees," said one parent, Babongile Simanga.
Petra High School was not available for comment but two teachers confirmed that if parents failed to raise enough cash, they could pay in whatever they have, including livestock.
It is not clear how many parents have handed over animals, but the practice is said to have been going on for some time.
"It's not only Petra High school that is doing that," said Dumisa Tshabalala of Magwegwe township, who has two children at Embakwe High School in the neighbouring province of Matabeleland South.
"Many schools these days are doing it and we should blame the government not schools."
Cows are the usual method of payment because of their higher value, though poor people in rural areas have also used goats.

Another teacher at Petra High said the decision to ask parents to improvise was taken at a meeting with the school development association.
Most of the parents who attended are said to have agreed because of the cash shortages, but some are now complaining and calling for teachers to be dismissed.
One problem is how to determine the market value of the animal, since cattle sales have ceased amid Zimbabwe's economic crisis.
Themba Sithole, an official for the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, criticised schools demanding fees in the form of livestock or fuel coupons.
"The question here is who is benefiting from this practice. Is it the school or individual teachers or heads?" he asked.
But Eunice Sandi, a former Zanu-PF senator for the Bulilima constituency, said schools should not come under fire.
"We must not blame schools when they ask us as parents to find ways of beating the cash crisis," she said.
Meanwhile, teachers are demanding that the government pay them US$1,200 a month - or about Z$48,000.
Currently teachers earn Z$1,200, which is about $US35 on the local parallel market.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BAIL-OUT FEARS RETURN TO MARKETS !

Monday's falls wiped out Friday's gains in the US.
Concern returned to the US stock market as US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson faced tough questions about his $700bn (£382bn) financial rescue plan.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 0.8% as Mr Paulson finished his testimony at a Congressional hearing. Earlier the index was up 0.7%.
Investors worried the plan could face more opposition than had been expected.
Mr Paulson has urged Congress to move quickly to pass a package of measures to end the financial turmoil.
Share prices in Europe and Asia also declined amidst uncertainty about the effectiveness of the bail-out.

Despite positive reaction soon after the plan was announced, doubts over how soon the rescue plan could be applied have emerged from both the Democrats and Republicans.
Mr Paulson and others on the Senate Banking Committee met tough questions at a Congressional hearing on Tuesday.
Senators from both parties voiced concerns that taxpayers would be paying the price of mistakes made by banks.
Until Lehman brothers collapsed, Japanese financial institutions were pretty confident - BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo.

Global reaction to financial turmoil

They also said it was crucial not to rush through the bail-out, without carefully considering how it would work.
Richard Shelby, a senior republican on the Senate Banking Committee said: "I have long opposed government bail-outs for individuals and corporate America alike."
And Senator Chris Dodd, a Democrat and the committee's chairman, said the "economic maelstrom" stemmed from a mixture of "private greed and public regulatory neglect".
In prepared remarks, US Federal Reserve head Ben Bernanke said: "Action by Congress is urgently required to stabilize the situation and avert what could otherwise be very serious consequences for our financial markets and our economy."
The White House has said Congress must back the rescue plan to stop wider economic harm.
On the European markets, the UK's FTSE 100 closed down 1.6%, France's Cac 40 fell 1.7%, while in Germany the Dax ended 0.5% lower.
Earlier in Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index ended nearly 4% lower. Japan's market was closed for a public holiday.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINESE MILK FEARS SPREAD IN ASIA !

Countries across Asia are testing Chinese dairy products as fears spread over melamine-tainted milk - and some have banned these products outright.
Four Chinese children died after drinking contaminated milk and 13,000 others remain in hospital.
Four children in Hong Kong have now been diagnosed with kidney stones after drinking milk from the mainland.
The company at the centre of the scare, Sanlu, failed to report the health problems for months, state media say.
Sanlu began receiving complaints about sick children as early as last December but did not report the issue to the authorities until early September, according to a CCTV report citing an official investigation.
The report appears to be the first official admission that news of the health scare was deliberately suppressed.
Products pulled
Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Bangladesh, Gabon, Burundi and the Philippines are all either testing Chinese diary products or pulling them from shops.

Many countries have recalled products which could be affected.
US coffee giant Starbucks has stopped serving drinks with milk in many Chinese outlets and many other large companies are testing products in some Asian locations or pulling them straight from the shelves.
Malaysia has expanded its ban on dairy products to include candies, chocolates and all other foods containing milk, an official there has confirmed.
In Japan, one major supplier has pulled buns made from Chinese milk from supermarket shelves and a petition signed by regional governors urges the central government to suspend imports of all Chinese dairy products.
Parents concerned
The problem was first revealed two weeks ago, when milk powder from the Sanlu Group was found to contain melamine, an industrial chemical.

Read James's blog in full

At least 22 other companies have since become involved in the scandal and milk products made by the Yili, Mengniu and other groups have been recalled from supermarket shelves in China and many other countries.
Many parents across Asia are concerned that their children may have drunk the affected milk.
"I'm still worried about my child," said Mary Yu, a Hong Kong mother who took her 3-year-old son for hospital tests on Tuesday, along with dozens of other parents.
"I want to have a thorough check to play it safe," she told the Associated Press.
Melamine is used in making plastics and is high in nitrogen, which makes products appear to have a higher protein content.
Health experts say that ingesting small amounts does no harm but sustained use can cause kidney stones and renal failure, especially among the young.
One result of the scare is that wet nurses around China are now in huge demand, according to the Chinese media.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MOTLANTHE : S.A.'S SAFE HANDS!

Kgalema Motlanthe cut his political teeth as a trade unionist. South Africa's ruling African National Congress has confirmed that its deputy leader Kgalema Motlanthe is to become caretaker president until next year's elections.
He was not even an MP until May this year but has a long history as an ANC official and a trade unionist.
He is seen as a close ally of ANC leader Jacob Zuma, who is expected to become South African president after elections due next year.
Correspondents say Mr Motlanthe's low public profile and lack of a personal support base mean he is regarded as a safe interim president - there is no way he could possibly hold on to the presidency once Mr Zuma decides his time has come.
Asked after his election last year as the ANC's deputy president whether he was interested in the top job, he replied he would prefer to oversee the country's national football team, Bafana Bafana.
At school, Mr Motlanthe was influenced by the ideologies of the Black Consciousness Movement and the late anti-apartheid campaigner Steve Biko.
He cut his political teeth in the National Union of Mineworkers, working there from 1987 when he was released after serving 10 years on Robben Island - where Nelson Mandela was also imprisoned.
He had been sent to jail for his activism a year after the 1976 Soweto uprising, when black students fought against the policy forcing them to learn in Afrikaans.
'Grandfather'
His political rise has been slow but sure.
In 1997, he became ANC secretary-general and 10 years later he was elected as the ruling party's deputy president.

KGALEMA MOTLANTHE
1949: Born
1967: Detained for 11 months
1977: Sentenced to 10 years on Robben Island
1987: Joined National Union of Mineworkers, rising to become its secretary general
1997: Elected ANC secretary general
2007: Elected ANC's deputy president
2008: Becomes an MP and minister without portfolio

Affectionately known as "Mkhulu" (grandfather in Zulu), he is well respected by both the core supporters of bitter rivals - outgoing President Thabo Mbeki and Mr Zuma.
According to South Africa's Business Day paper, he is regarded by many "as the glue that holds the tripartite alliance [ANC, South African Communist Party and trade union federation Cosatu] together".
Usually smartly dressed in a blazer and tailored trousers, the 59-year-old has publicly defended the ANC's decision to back Mr Zuma in his battle against corruption charges.
Earlier this month, a judge suggested what Mr Zuma's supporters have always claimed - that the government may have interfered in the case, a statement that led to Mr Mbeki's resignation.
But Mr Motlanthe has also proved that he can be his own man.
During the bitter dispute over the corruption case, ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema said he was prepared to kill for Mr Zuma.
I took a decision a long time ago that when I became involved in politics I would try shield my family from the glare of public life
Kgalema Motlanthe
Zuma supporters said they would organise huge protests outside the court, which some saw as an attempt to intimidate the judge hearing the case.
Mr Motlanthe responded by urging the Youth League to respect the judiciary, earning the respect of many in the country.
Little is known about his personal life. On his government profile his marital status is listed as "unavailable". However, his is known to be married with three children and is a jazz-enthusiast.
Author Richard Callard says he is the son of a miner and on his Wikipedia entry, it says he was the youngest of 13 children.
Mr Motlanthe acknowledged to South African journalist Karima Brown that he has always been careful to guard his privacy.
"I took a decision a long time ago that when I became involved in politics I would try shield my family from the glare of public life," he said.
But according to Mr Callard, Mr Motlanthe is well-known in the party.
In his book Anatomy of South Africa: Who Holds the Power?, he remembers Mr Motlanthe's election as ANC secretary-general.
"When the result was announced, he was carried from the back by a group of supporters. It took another 15 minutes for him to reach the stage, struggle songs filling the air."
When he was appointed as minister without portfolio in Mr Mbeki's cabinet earlier this year, it was seen as an attempt to smooth the transition to a post-Mbeki era.
The BBC's Mohammed Allie in Cape Town, where parliament sits, says Mr Motlanthe accepted the post reluctantly and it took weeks of persuasion by the ANC leadership before he relented.
Now he is to become South Africa's president, albeit for just a few months.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BURMA TO FREE 9,000 PRISONERS!

The military government in Burma says it is releasing 9,000 prisoners because of their good conduct.
State media said the prisoners would be freed so that they could participate in elections due to be held in 2010.
The National League for Democracy - led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained for most of the past 19 years - said it did not know whether any political prisoners would be released.
The amnesty follows the detention of two democracy activists last week.
The Myanmar Times, a state-censored newspaper in Rangoon, reported that the military government was releasing 9,002 prisoners as a gesture of "loving kindness and goodwill".
"We haven't heard of any political prisoners being freed," said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the opposition NLD.
"I do hope they will be released, but I don't think it will happen," he added.
ILO concern
Burma is holding at least 2,000 people because of their political or religious beliefs, human rights groups say.
On Friday, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) expressed its concern about the sentencing of Thet Way to two years of hard labour.
Thet Way had been helping people, including child soldiers, to file complaints about forced labour, the ILO said.
The ILO said it was "concerned and disappointed" at the sentence, the maximum permissible under the law. It added that it had been in contact with the military government about the case "at a senior level".
"The ILO cannot but consider that the sentence imposed is related to Thet Way's role in complaining on forced labour practices," the United Nations agency said, urging that the sentence be reviewed and Thet Way released immediately.
Burmese opposition media reported that a former student activist was also jailed last week.
The New Delhi-based Burmese opposition Mizzima News Agency said Lu Tin Win was sentenced last Thursday to two years in jail, on charges of "disrespectful act towards the state".
Lu Tin Win, detained in 1999 but released in 2007, was re-arrested on 29 September 2007 at a checkpoint where he was searched and found by the police to have a copy of the book 'Opinion of 88 Generation Students', the agency said.
Huge pro-democracy protests in 1988 gave rise to the "88 Generation" of activists.
In 1990, general elections were won resoundingly by the NLD and Aung San Suu Kyi. The result was ignored by the military.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE -

BUT IF YOU WORK IT RIGHT,

ONCE IS ENOUGH" !

________

S.A. MBEKI RESIGNS : YOUR VIEWS !

South Africans share their views about Thabo Mbeki's resignation, after accepting a call by the governing African National Congress to quit as president.


NOMSA, 34, PHYSICIST, CAPE TOWN I watched the press conference yesterday with a lump in my throat.
I was really sad to see how it was done - the way he was treated - the way people were saying the things they said on national TV.
And now, I am scared because to me it is like people are too hungry for power... saying things like 'I would kill for Zuma'.
What message is that sending not only to the rest of the world but to young people in South Africa?
President Mbeki had a great political career; he did a good job not only for our country but for our continent as a whole.
Yes he failed in some areas but he still did a lot of good.
He was helping and had helped to bring peace to many parts of our continent - Zimbabwe and Sudan; and Burundi, the DRC and Liberia.
And the economy - I am a physicist and not an economist but I would say it is better now.
This whole thing will not just affect us, it will affect everyone up to Sudan.
This fiasco is all because of infighting and I don't agree with the way events have been conducted.
Mbeki is a member of the ANC but he was also the president of the republic.
We should have been asked. I understand it is not easy to consult 47m people but there should've been room for public debate.
However, I am so impressed with the way Mr Mbeki has handled it all. Yesterday he looked strong and composed and so together.

AFRICA HAVE YOUR SAY

The resignation of Mbeki is long overdue. He was gradually destroying the ANC that we Africans see as one of the vabrant political institutions in Africa
Akoi Dakaka, Monrovia

What next for South Africa?

The idea of Jacob Zuma as president is not a nice thing to me. Someone who allegedly raped an HIV-positive woman... I can't believe he is fit to lead our country. [He was acquitted.]
We as woman, we are really worried because of this rape issue. He is nonsense.
We need a good leader.
It is obvious that the ANC is split into two camps now. I just hope that after this whole fiasco is over there can unity again.
We have a terrible past. We need to move forward and be united. We need to do something useful. We need to develop our country and ourselves.
I just hope that whoever gains power does the right thing.
I just want to live in peace.

BONA KHATHI, 50, UNEMPLOYED NURSE, DURBAN

In my opinion it's the right thing.
Since Polokwane we have been waiting and then with all the Zuma things going on... it was inevitable.
Then the NEC (National Executive Council) decided that he must stand down and so he has. I am glad he did so so willingly.
Very glad actually.
In fact I think Zuma is the right candidate. Since he stepped down from vice-presidency it was really unfair.
Everyone here already sees him as the future president.
But he must wait for the election and until that comes, someone must take over as acting president.
Mr Mbeki has done his role excellently but his time has come to an end.
During his term he served his country well. No-one is 100% right and I accept that what he did, he did.
But life must change. We need jobs.
Since 2005, I have been unemployed. I am a qualified nurse.
I have a family and should be supporting them but I can't.
I get part-time work but it's not sufficient.
Thankfully my wife has a job and manages to support us all.

MOSES MPHAHLELE, 25, STUDENT, JOHANNESBURG

I was not really surprised considering the way the ANC have been acting.
Thabo Mbeki announced his resignation on state television
It was like the decision had been made ages ago.
No, I wasn't surprised.
I don't really have a problem with Jacob Zuma but everyone knows that Cosatu [Congress of South African Trade Unions] wants change and so who will Zuma tow the line with... because you know, Cosatu, they control them.
And Cosatu sometimes talk rubbish - the way they have been treating our judiciary system.
And that Julius Malema guy too, who said that he would kill for Zuma (back in June)... so the youth of this country know what to do if Zuma is prosecuted.
I like Mr Mbeki because of his intellectualism and the way that he goes about things with his own mind.
He is not influenced by the George Bushs of the world.
I also believe we need to find African solutions for African problems.
So many have criticised Mbeki for not alleviating poverty and the housing problem but I think it's in every state of the world. Things like that are part of life, wherever you live.
I think the problem is the media - they are the ones that exaggerate. Wherever I go around, I see houses being built and so I don't where they get some of their reports from.
And anyway, I hate to think what my country's foreign policy will be like under Jacob Zuma. The way he's portrayed around the world - It's shocking. How will the big powers ever take him seriously?
Mr Zuma mustn't go around promising gold medals to everyone here.
One wonders what will happen if Zuma fails in the next election.

ROBERT KULOBA, 42, ACCOUNTANT, DURBAN

Why should people think that by changing leaders they will change the economic and social life?
Rather, they should understand that Mbeki has tried to hold this country together for a period of 10 years now and so far, so good.
Things are not so bad!
Sure Mbeki was about to go anyway.
Nowhere is it written as law that he will rule South Africa forever. So why the unnecessary hurry? This is typical African behaviour which leads nowhere!
People from Zuma's side think there will be a huge change. They are thinking that because they are poor they will soon be rich now.
When one government leaves and another comes in there is no change. But the belief in the Zuma cocoon is that if Mbeki is removed then they will socially or economically benefit.
I say to them:
Maybe it is better the devil you know than the one you don't.
If you look at most of Africa - the countries who gained independence in the 1960s, 1970s but then after eight years everything went zig-zag and such a mess.
People get in and then do what? Are they trying to satisfy their ego or the national interest?
Mbeki has tried and he is trying. Things cannot be delivered at once. There is a process.
South Africans are misguided by the ethos of apathy. They suffered a lot and are traumatised and so now they look to the government to provide everything; just folding their hands and sitting back in their locations and doing nothing.
It is a problem.
The effects of apartheid cripple us today - the number of skilled workers are very low. Instead foreigners come to do our jobs. The jobs are there but most people haven't been properly educated and so don't know how to do them.
We know that no government can provide everything. Even in Libya, Gaddafi can't.
South Africa's government is constrained by a lot of problems and the masses have to understand that. They have to add to the effort.
Because people are uneducated, they are vulnerable.
Mbeki has not brought poverty to our country - he has handled an economy that was in a very bad way and because of him and his policy of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) it isn't anymore.
It is outrageous to hurry him out. There was no need.
And it could be very dangerous. No-one can promise everything.
People lust for power but then when they have it, what will they do?
Even by unconstitutional means?
They have hidden agendas to fill their bellies and satisfy their stomachs.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PAKISTAN LEADERS 'NARROW ESCAPE' !

See the scale of the damage at the Marriott in Islamabad
Enlarge Image

Pakistan's top leaders were to have been in the Islamabad Marriott hotel when it was bombed - but changed venue at the last minute, officials say.
Interior ministry head Rehman Malik said the president, prime minister and military chiefs should have been there.
He told journalists it would have been "a great catastrophe", but did not say why the dinner plans were changed.
A suicide bomb devastated the Marriot on Saturday, killing at least 53 people and wounding more than 266.
The Czech ambassador to Pakistan was also killed in the blast, it was confirmed on Sunday.
President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani were planning to dine at the Marriott, Mr Malik said, before a late change of plan.

Pakistan troops 'repel US raid'

"The national assembly speaker had arranged a dinner for the entire leadership - for the president, prime minister and armed services chiefs - at the Marriott that day," Mr Malik told reporters.
"The president and the prime minister changed the venue to the prime minister's house. The function was not held at the Marriott, thus the whole leadership was saved."
In other developments, it was reported that Pakistani troops fired on US helicopters that violated Pakistani airspace near the border with Afghanistan on Sunday night.
Tensions between the US and Pakistan have risen in recent weeks amid US accusations that Pakistan is not doing enough to combat Taleban militants in the region.
And in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, an Afghan diplomat was kidnapped and his driver killed, reports said.
Taleban suspects
The heavily guarded Islamabad Marriot was attacked at about 2000 (1500 GMT) on Saturday.
CCTV footage of the moments before the blast show a six-wheeler lorry ramming the security barrier at the hotel gate.
The bomb - believed to have been detonated in the lorry - left a six-metre (20ft) crater.

Rescuers have been combing the wreckage for survivors and bodies.
Most of the dead were Pakistanis, although one Vietnamese, a German and an American are also known to have died, with an American and a Danish intelligence officer missing, presumed dead.
The blast has prompted British Airways to cancel two flights to Pakistan "in light of the security situation".
No-one has yet admitted carrying out the attack, but the Pakistani Taleban are thought to be the most likely perpetrators.
The Marriott was the most prestigious hotel in the capital, located near government buildings and diplomatic missions. It is popular with foreigners and the Pakistani elite.

Eyewitnesses: Pakistan blast
In pictures: Islamabad aftermath

The hotel has previously been the target of militants. Last year, a suicide bomber killed himself and one other in an attack at the hotel.
The BBC's Barbara Plett, in Islamabad, says the latest attack might have been retaliation for army bombardments of suspected Taleban targets with jet fighters.
Earlier on Monday, Pakistan's government said it would take targeted action against the militants, promising raids in some "hotspots" near the border with Afghanistan.
Away from Islamabad, troops reportedly forced US helicopters out of Pakistani airspace in the tribal area of North Waziristan.
Our correspondent says that following a series of US raids on Pakistani territory earlier this month that it reserved the right to retaliate, with a series of warning shots the standard procedure.
In Peshawar, Afghan consul Abdul Khaliq Farahi was in a car in a city suburb when it was attacked by six unidentified men, officials say. His driver died in the attack.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BIG BANG MACHINE?

By Paul Rincon - Science reporter, BBC News.

The fault that has shut down the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be hugely disappointing for scientists and engineers following the successful "start-up" of the experiment.
It is now over a week since the first beams were fired around the accelerator's 27km (16.7 miles) underground ring. The crucial next step is to collide those beams head on.
But hopes that the first trial collisions would be carried out before the machine's official inauguration on 21 October now seem to have been dashed. It even looks uncertain whether this can be achieved before 2009.
The failure on 19 September - described as a "massive" magnet quench - certainly seems dramatic: it caused the temperatures in about 100 of the LHC's super-cooled magnets to soar by as much as 100C.
The fire brigade had to be called after a tonne of liquid helium leaked out into the LHC tunnel.

One of the LHC's eight sectors will now have to be warmed up to well above its operating temperature of 1.9 Kelvin (-271C; -456F) – which is colder than deep space – so that repairs can take place.
But the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), which operates the LHC, maintains the setback is a relatively minor one in the grand scheme of things and poses no longer-term threat to the LHC.
"If you keep an eye on the big picture, we've been building the machine for 20 years. The switch-on was always going to be a long process," James Gillies, Cern's director of communications, told BBC News.
"A year or two down the line, this moment will be a distant memory, and we'll be running smoothly."
This incident is the latest in a line of setbacks during the construction and testing of this impossibly complicated machine built 100m beneath the French-Swiss border.
Serious difficulties were encountered when boring an artificial cavern designed to house the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), one of the LHC's massive detectors - which are designed to monitor beam collisions for interesting events.
The cavern shaft had to be bored through a 50m layer of glacial deposits – including fast-flowing water – which threatened to flood the hole.
Engineers had to create a 3m-thick wall of ice around the circumference of the shaft as a barrier to the underground rivers.
In April 2007, part of a magnet ruptured suddenly during pressure testing. The incident prompted an evacuation of personnel behind the tunnel safety perimeter.
Later that year, a problem was uncovered with a handful of "plug-in modules", or PIMs, which link the beam tube of one superconducting magnet to another. Engineers found sliding parts inside the modules had buckled into the beam pipe.

Super-cooling the magnets to -271C allows them to conduct electrical current without resistance
The LHC was expected to be complete by 2006, so a further delay of two months is unlikely to faze particle physicists who are waiting to begin harvesting data once the machine begins colliding its two beams of protons together at high energies.
The machine has more than 1,200 "dipole" magnets arranged end-to-end in the underground ring. These magnets carry and steer the proton beams which will whizz around the machine at close to the speed of light.
Chilling them to -271C – where even helium gas is turned into a liquid - makes them "superconducting".
This allows the magnets to conduct electrical current without resistance, thereby generating the large magnetic fields required to steer the beams while at the same time consuming relatively little power.
A quench occurs when part of a superconducting magnet heats up and becomes resistant to electrical current; the magnet essentially starts to lose its superconducting properties.
Engineers have a system in place to deal with this issue, but in this case, the quench created a hot spot in the magnet which got out of control and damaged hardware. The current problem appears to have affected the "bus bar" – a cable that carries current between the two magnets.
'Helium leak'
"What appears to have happened... is that there was a faulty connection in the bus bar," Mr Gillies told BBC News. He described this connection as a hi-tech version of a soldering joint to link the two stretches of cable together.
"The bus bar quenched, and that connection seems to have melted. The melting appears to have caused the helium leak.
"It seems to be a badly made connection – but this all has to be confirmed once we have had the chance to take a look at it."
The incident occurred during the final test of the last of the LHC's electrical circuits to be commissioned.
Cern says such problems are par for the course considering the vast complexity of the project. However, since the official start-up on 10 September, the organisation, which is based in Geneva, has had to deal with a level of media scrutiny it has never encountered before.
The two-month halt means there will now be a much smaller window in which to try for the first low energy collisions before the LHC shuts down for the winter – which is done in part to save money on electricity.
But Mr Gillies refused to rule anything in or out, and said a more complete picture of both the impact on the schedule and the nature of the fault itself would emerge next week, after engineers have had time to carry out their analyses.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE - LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

19th September 2008.

Dear Friends,

Monday, September 15th 2008 was described in the papers here as 'Manic Monday' but it had nothing to do with what was happening in Harare! It was the day that Wall Street appeared to be collapsing under the weight of failing banks. That story took up the front pages and was the headline on all the News broadcasts. However, Zimbabwe had its fair share of news coverage and the evening bulletins showed Mugabe ranting on in the same old way as if nothing had changed. Maybe it was 'Manic Monday' after all, I thought as I watched the Old Man draped over the lectern, rambling on like King Lear in his dotage. It was profoundly embarrassing and when Mugabe launched into his blatantly racist comments about the Americans and the British Morgan Tsvangirai covered his face with his hand. Those very Americans and Brits are after all the ones who will be called on to rescue Zimbabwe's near moribund economy; only Mugabe is arrogant enough to insult the very people whose money he needs so badly.

It was a not a good beginning and as the week went on there was even less to be hopeful about. If any of us had thought that Mugabe might show at least a little humility at this key moment in Zimbabwean history then 'Manic Monday' showed how wrong we were. Publicly anyway the Old Man was totally unrepentant; it was Morgan Tsvangirai in a statesmanlike address who cleverly reminded Mugabe of his own words at Independence, "If you were my enemy yesterday, today we are bound by the same patriotic duty and destiny." All weekend, there had been the fear that the Old Man would not even turn up for the signing ceremony but there he was on Monday, large as life. Despite his public posturing the mere fact that he had sat down and negotiated with his mortal enemy shows clearly that the Old Man recognises, albeit with profound reluctance, that he has no choice but to share power. He knows that he lost the March elections, he admitted as much when speaking to top Zanu PF officials: "If only we had not blundered in the March elections...we wouldn't be facing this humiliation now...This is what we have to deal with." Those words do not suggest to me that the Old Man has lost touch with political reality. My own view is that he knows very well that his days are numbered but he will manage his going to suit himself and he will certainly not do anything to assist the 'enemy within and (now) well embedded' as Nathaniel Manheru described the MDC in a leader article over the weekend. Mugabe needs this Agreement to work. He is counting on Morgan Tsvangirai to get the foreign donors on board to rescue the economy and feed the near-starving population.

The first two Articles in the Agreement deal with sanctions and land, Mugabe's two pet obsessions. Indeed, Mugabe's hand is evident throughout the Agreement, like an iron fist inside the velvet glove of Mbeki's 'quiet diplomacy'. The reality that Zimbabweans and the world have to accept is that Mugabe is still there and all the carping criticism of the Agreement cannot change that fact; as a UK columnist had commented earlier, 'Jeer and boo as much as you like, he's still there.' The Agreement is cumbersome, vague and ambiguous and omits crucial issues. Without doubt Zanu PF and Mugabe will do their level best to derail and delay its implementation every step of the way. Five days after the signing the country still has no cabinet and today, Friday, we hear that six hours of talks between the principals have failed to get agreement on the allocation of cabinet posts. Hardly surprising really after Mugabe had told his top party officials, " We remain in the driving seat. We will not tolerate any nonsense from our new partners." It is very clear that Mugabe's concept of partnership involves only 'junior' partners to his own permanently senior position. It was Morgan Tsvangirai who identified the first priority of the new government as feeding the people.

And there are a few hopeful signs. The Red Cross is immediately resuming food aid; the police are beginning to act like the true guardians of law and order again but only in some areas. If reports are to be believed war vets and Youth Militia are no longer getting priority in food queues and although it sounds unbelievable, it is reported that the service chiefs have acknowledged Tsvangirai as Prime Minister, worthy of equal respect with Mugabe. MDC T shirts are even being openly worn in some areas.

The biggest problem as I see it is changing the political culture in the country as reflected in the state-controlled media. That is going to take the repeal of legislation: AIPA and POSA and the Broadcasting Act and that needs parliament to reconvene. Once the Agreement is amended into law - by Mugabe as president - with Constitutional Amendemnt No 19, parliament can begin work straight away. Robert Mugabe will of course delay that as long as he can and five days after the signing of the Agreement Zimbabwe still has no functioning government. There are in fact two opposing centres of power and who knows what games the various internal players are up to within parties and factions in the struggle for powerful positions and all the perks involved. Those cynics within and outside the country who say the Agreement will never work may well be proved right. No thinking person can be unaware of the pitfalls that lie ahead but the cynics should ask themselves, what alternative was there for a country and people so near the edge of annihilation? Cynicism cannot feed the children or give them hope for a better future.

Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH.

10 THINGS !

10 things we did not know this time last week !

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

1. Kenyan women eat stones.
More details
2. Whaling began in the US.
More details
3. A 1,999ft peak is a hill but a 2,000ft one is a mountain.
More details
4. Loaves of bread are sold for 5p.
More details
5. Plants can combat stress.
More details
6. Cancer can be diagnosed by palm reading.
More details
7. Sagging jeans are a fashion that began in US prisons, where belts were removed to prevent inmates hanging themselves.
More details
8. Noel Edmonds believes the souls of his dead parents follow him as orbs.
More details (Daily Mail)
9. Texting impairs drivers more than alcohol.
More details
10. The UK has more than 20 types of toxic fungi that can kill humans.
More details (Times)

S.A. MBEKI TO ADDRESS THE NATION!

South African President Thabo Mbeki is to make a televised address, a day after accepting a call by the governing African National Congress to resign.
Mr Mbeki will step down once "all constitutional requirements have been met", his spokesman has said.
The move comes days after a high court judge suggested that Mr Mbeki may have interfered in a corruption case against his rival, ANC leader Jacob Zuma.
Mr Mbeki is currently holding an emergency cabinet meeting.
The BBC's Peter Biles in Johannesburg says it is not yet clear when he will step down or who will succeed him, but the ANC appears to favour the appointment of the parliamentary speaker, Baleka Mbete, as acting president.
Parliament is likely to meet in the coming days to formalise the resignation.
Mr Zuma is widely expected to succeed Mr Mbeki in scheduled elections next year.
The decision to call for Mr Mbeki's early resignation was taken at a meeting of the ANC's National Executive Committee (NEC).


Mbeki left with few choices
Rise and fall of Thabo Mbeki
Send us your comments

The ANC's Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said the move had followed "a long and difficult discussion".
He said Mr Mbeki, who has ruled for more than a decade, "did not display shock" at the decision and had agreed to participate "in the process and the formalities".
The decision had been taken for "stability and for a peaceful and prosperous South Africa", Mr Mantashe told a news conference on Saturday.
The ANC secretary general said this was not punishment for Mr Mbeki, adding that the president would be given the chance to continue his role as mediator in Zimbabwe.
At the same time, ANC cabinet members are being urged to remain in government to ensure continued stability.
Our correspondent says this dramatic decision will fundamentally change South Africa's political landscape.

Jacob Zuma: Comeback kid

Mr Mbeki fired Jacob Zuma as deputy president in 2005 after his financial adviser was found guilty of soliciting a bribe on his behalf.
But Mr Zuma returned to the political stage to topple his rival as ANC leader in bitterly contested elections last year.
Earlier this month a High Court judge dismissed corruption and other charges against Mr Zuma, saying there was evidence of political interference in the investigation.
In his ruling the judge said it appeared that Mr Mbeki had colluded with prosecutors against Jacob Zuma as part of the "titanic power struggle" within the ANC.
The accusation was strongly denied by Mr Mbeki.
Mr Mbeki, who has devoted his life to the ANC, succeeded Nelson Mandela as the party's president in 1997.
He became leader of South Africa in 1999 and won a second term in 2004.

Perhaps his biggest policy success has been South Africa's rapid economic growth since the end of apartheid and the rise of a black middle class - but to the anger of many, wealth is more unevenly distributed than ever before.
He has failed to convince the trade unions and the poorest South Africans that the government has acted in their interest - providing space for Mr Zuma to mobilise a powerful constituency.
Domestically, his government's handling of the HIV/Aids crisis and failure to stem violent crime in the country has weakened his hand.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

MOBILES COMBAT KENYAN POLIO OUTBREAK !

A mobile phone based health application has helped to investigate and contain a polio outbreak that threatened thousands in East Africa.
Health officials in Kenya used the life saving application, EpiSurveyor, after refugees fleeing violence in Somalia introduced the first case of polio into the country in more than 20 years.
The application can be downloaded onto handheld devices to log patients' symptoms and any treatment they receive.
Kenyan health workers modified the survey forms used by EpiSurveyor to track an emergency vaccination campaign and managed to stop a potential epidemic in its tracks.
EpiSurveyor has been funded by the United Nations and Vodafone Foundation Technology Partnership, which is using strategic technology programmes to strengthen UN humanitarian efforts worldwide. It is free to use and is run on an open-source basis.
The trial in Kenya has been so successful that this week the World Health Organisation has announced that it is expanding the project to another 20 countries in Africa.
Outbreak success
The BBC World Service's Digital Planet radio programme spoke to Dr Patrick Nguku from the Kenyan Health Ministry where the project has been piloted.
"In 2006 after 21 years of absence of polio in Kenya, we did confirm a case in our north eastern province and this was followed by massive immunisation campaigns to try and protect susceptible children.
"We used EpiSurveyor to basically control our supplies, monitor which areas needed to be vaccinated and the quick flow of information helped us in achieving very good results", he added.
When health authorities want to collate information on the spread of disease, all they has to do was compile a form with a questionnaire which can then instantaneously be sent out across mobile networks, so data can be gathered from people on their phones.
The completed forms are then sent back to the authorities via the mobile phone network.
"If there is a vaccine shortage in a health facility 800km from Nairobi, this information is relayed in real time to the headquarters and sorted out very fast", said Dr Nguku.
In many countries, a lack of timely and accurate data is one of the greatest obstacles to overcoming long-standing public health challenges. The time taken to record epidemiological information can be slow when healthcare workers have only paper and pen to record which children have been immunized, or where vital stocks of medication have been sent.
"Paper is cumbersome, you have to carry it to wherever you are going, you have to photocopy it and enter the data.
"The EpiSurveyor programme in comparison with paper is much cheaper, better quality and easier to do", he added.

As the mobile phone becomes commonplace even in many of the world's poorest countries, there is a new window of opportunity for technology to play a vital role in developing solutions to long-standing international development challenges.
"We just got back from Kenya where two weeks ago we did a field test of using Nokia mobile phones to do this kind of data collection," said Joel Selanikio, co-founder of DataDyne.org which designed the application.
"It is a huge step to be able to say we can both distribute the forms wirelessly and transmit the data back to some headquarters location wirelessly.
"So they are really eager to move to mobile phones from using PDAs", he added.
EpiSurveyor is an open-source application, so anyone can look at the computer code that has been used to create it and adapt it to their needs.
"Being open-source, I can tell you that the first time we got contacted by another organisation, who were not only calling us to ask how to use the software, but to say that they also had coding resources and they wanted to make some changes and would that be okay.
"We said that would be terrific and the fellow that I was speaking to said we could add those features and give me the modified code so that I could incorporate it into the general code base.
"We are hoping that as the implementation widens and the more people hear about it, the more people will contribute to the code base and improve EpiSurveyor", added Mr Selanikio.
Mobile technology has revolutionised the way contagious diseases are monitored in sub-Saharan Africa.
"I would encourage people to embrace technology," said Dr Nguku. "This is a programme that will help us do it better."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TORTURE CHAMBER FOUND IN MOSCOW !

Moscow police investigating an alleged abduction have found what appears to be a torture chamber in a basement in an upmarket area of the Russian capital.
A cage and electric shock devices were found in the basement of a large house, Russia's Kommersant newspaper reported.
Police were led to the basement by a man who says he was tortured there.
The man, from southern Russia, was found in the street handcuffed and wearing only his underwear after he managed to escape, media reports say.
Magomed Khamkhoyev, a 35-year-old Ingush man, told police he had been kidnapped and tortured in the basement of the cottage in Serebryanny Bor, according to Kommersant.
He said his captors had shown him a corpse and threatened him with a similar fate.
A criminal investigation has been opened into Mr Khamkhoyev's abduction, Russian officials said in a statement.
Community leaders from Ingushetia, a troubled Russian republic in the North Caucasus, say up to 10 Ingush have gone missing in the capital this month.
Some media reports suggest Mr Khamkhoyev's kidnapping could have been linked to investigations into the disappearances.
Some of the abductions are believed to have been carried out as a revenge for the Beslan school seizure in North Ossetia in 2004, in which more than 330 people died, many of them children.
Some of the pro-Chechen attackers were ethnic Ingush.

BBC NEWSD REPORT.

BEIJING PARALYMPICS CAN TAKE A BOW!

By Peter White - BBC disability affairs correspondent.

There has never been a Paralympics that has not been hailed the best ever.

Will the perception of disability in China be changed by the Paralympics? The first time I heard the phrase delivered "live" in the stadium was at Atlanta, which was almost certainly the worst ever.
On Wednesday evening in Beijing, President of the International Paralympic Committee Sir Phillip Craven did not let me down, delivering the mantra word for word.
So how does it stand up to the claim?
Let us do the pluses first, and there are plenty of them.
My own personal abiding memory of the Beijing games, the fourth I have attended, was the crowds.
Disabled athletes over the years have been used to performing at most of their meets to sparse crowds made of friends, family and other team members.
Even at the best of the games - Sydney - there was still an element of "rent-a-crowd" about the attendances.
Many of the audiences were almost entirely made up of children, allocated tickets en bloc as an educational exercise.
The athletes all said the same - that facilities in the village, the stadiums and around the Olympic complex were second to none
They were reminiscent of those schoolboy and schoolgirl hockey internationals that used to be staged at Wembley, where the pitch and decibel level of the cheering were excruciating.
Nothing like that in Beijing but many of the events were total, or almost total, sell-outs.
The Bird's Nest stadium several times had its full complement of 91,000 spectators. The swimming events were full every night. Great attendances too at the basketball.
And when GB quadriplegic wheelchair tennis star Peter Norfolk was winning his gold in the singles, there were more people watching him than turned up to see Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer in the Olympics.
Perhaps people were benefiting from the fact that the Paralympic tickets were considerably cheaper than at the Olympics, and also yielding to a huge curiosity to get inside stadiums like the Bird's Nest?
Another major plus was access. I am guided by the athletes here. I talked to many of them, and they all said the same - that facilities in the village, the stadiums and around the Olympic complex were second to none.
Libby Kosmala, a Paralympian attending her 11th games, said she thought that Beijing's access was "faultless".

Now for a couple of minuses. These reflect as much on the nature of the games themselves, and their management by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), as they do on Beijing.
There were a number of foul-ups in the running of events trackside and poolside.
What is clear is that in terms of rigorous organisation, these games must look as professional as the Olympic counterparts they seek to be compared to
It has been hard to get to the bottom of what led to them, but they need to be sorted if the Paralympics is to take its place as a major sporting event.
For instance, two events were ordered to be re-run. One actually took place, the other re-run was cancelled after the objection was withdrawn.
But the re-run is an odd concept in all but the most extreme cases. To be honest, it smacks of patronising attitudes. Olympic gold medallist Steve Cram said he could not remember a re-run ever being ordered.
In one case a re-run was deemed necessary because of a crash, which led to a disqualification.
The disqualification was fair enough, but ordering a re-run because someone screws up smacks too much of the sports day "oh give them another go" attitude, which has no place in the Paralympics.
The other was caused by an administrative error, a wrong lane allocation. The protest about that should have happened before the race was ever run.
Both of these re-run decisions were reached after the medal ceremonies had taken place - so that athletes who had publicly been cheered suddenly found themselves deprived of that medal.
Whether it was miscommunication between the IPC and local organisers is not clear.
What is clear is that in terms of rigorous organisation, these games must look as professional as the Olympic counterparts they seek to be compared to.
Which leads me to the other matter that must be sorted out before London 2012 - classification.

There has to be classification in Paralympic sport. The principle of grading people on the basis of their severity of disability, so that like competes with like, is essential. But classification must be managed better.
In these games, there were a number of examples of people being thrown out of events because they were felt to be less disabled than their classification allowed.

Clearly, if there is a blatant example of cheating, it must be dealt with. But the answer to that is not expulsion during the games, but a proper, independent and transparent programme of classification before the games ever begin.
If a competitor performs above the level which appears to be consistent with their disability, it should be dealt with after the games.
We cannot have a situation where doing particularly well, is regarded as a reason for re-classification within the games.
Classification is confusing enough for spectators, and I think in London there should be more attempts to explain it to crowds.
What happened here is likely to lower the reputation of the games, which on the whole is rising exponentially.
The Beijing games have done plenty to continue that process, and they should be congratulated on that.
They should also be congratulated on changes to the environment which will provide a permanent legacy for disabled Beijingers for the future.
It seems impossible to think that the exposure of huge numbers of people to disabled athletes performing extraordinary feats would not change the perception of disability in China.
Though whether change will be sustained at the rate achieved by the needs of staging the Paralympics remains to be seen.
Was it the best ever? It is a subjective judgment, but I would say yes. I would put it on a par with Sydney, but with the added dimension of genuine, deeply enthusiastic crowds. Well done, Beijing!

POLITICAL VIEWS 'ALL IN THE MIND' !

By Matt McGrath Science reporter, BBC World Service

Scientists studying voters in the US say our political views may be an integral part of our physical makeup.
Their research, published in the journal Science, indicates that people who are sensitive to fear or threat are likely to support a right wing agenda.
Those who perceived less danger in a series of images and sounds were more inclined to support liberal policies.
The authors believe their findings may help to explain why voters' minds are so hard to change.
In the study, conducted in Nebraska, 46 volunteers were first asked about their political views on issues ranging from foreign aid and the Iraq war to capital punishment and patriotism.
Those with strong opinions were invited to take part in the second part of the experiment, which involved recording their physiological responses to a series of images and sounds.
The images included pictures of a frightened man with a large spider on his face and an open wound with maggots in it. The subjects were also startled with loud noises on occasion.
Conducting experiments
By measuring the electrical conductance of the volunteers' skin and their blink responses, the scientists were able to work out the degree of fear they were experiencing - how sensitive they were to the images and sounds.
Instead of political opponents thinking the opposite party are being wilfully bull-headed, you can say 'well ok, they see the world differently than I do'
John Hibbing
They found that subjects who were more easily startled tended to have political views that would be classified as more right wing, being more in favour of capital punishment and higher defence spending, but opposed to abortion rights.
The scientists explained that these political positions were protective of the volunteers' social groups.
"We focussed primarily on things that we call 'protecting the social unit'," said John Hibbing from the University of Nebraska.
"So the idea is we have this unit - maybe it's the US - and we want to protect this from outsiders; so we might be opposed to immigration, we might advocate patriotism, and we like leaders who are strong and clear who are able to protect us from those outsiders.
"We might even be opposed to pornography or any kind of corrosive element that we see threatening the social unit.
"On the other hand, you have people who are more supportive of pacifism and who advocate gun control - and there are lots of areas where people who are less sensitive to threat would project those kinds of feelings into the political arena."
Different strokes
The researchers say there is no political relevance to their research - but Dr Hibbing feels it may help explain why it is so hard to change someone's mind in a political debate.
Different people, he said, started from a different psychological point.
"You have people who are experiencing the world, who are experiencing threat, differently.
"It's just that we have these very different physiological orientations. We're not sure where they came from, they may be genetic, they may be something from childhood; we do know, though, that they run deep because it's a reflex, it's not something you can change tomorrow, the depth of that may be something of an asset in figuring out why people are so stubborn in their political beliefs," he said.
"I even have the hope that this might facilitate understanding a little bit. Instead of political opponents thinking the opposite party are being wilfully bull-headed, you can say 'well ok, they see the world differently than I do'.
"People haven't just thought about things differently, they feel things differently."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HACKERS INFILTRATE PALIN 'S E-MAIL !

Hackers have broken in to the e-mail of the US Republican vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
The hackers, who targeted a personal Yahoo account, posted several messages and family photos from her inbox.
The campaign of running mate John McCain condemned their action as "a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of the law".
The hacking comes amid questions about whether Mrs Palin used personal e-mail to conduct state business.
According to law, all e-mails relating to the official business of government must be archived and not destroyed. However, personal e-mails can be deleted.
Mrs Palin is currently under investigation in Alaska for alleged abuse of power while governor.
A group called Anonymous has claimed responsibility for the hacking of Mrs Palin's Yahoo e-mail.
It posted five screenshots, two digital photos of Mrs Palin's family and an address book to the whistle-blowing Wikileaks website. The information was taken from Ms Palin's gov.palin@yahoo.com e-mail account.
One message exposed is apparently an exchange between Mrs Palin and the deputy governor of Alaska, Sean Parnell, who is seeking election to Congress.
Another is between Mrs Palin and friend Amy McCorkell, in which the latter says she is praying for the governor and adds: "Don't let the negative press get you down!"
The family photographs of the Palins posted on Wikileaks are not thought to have previously been in the public domain.
"The matter has been turned over the the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them," the McCain campaign said in a statement.
Subsequent investigation has shown that the gov.palin@yahoo.com account has been shut down along with another, gov.sarah@yahoo.com, also owned by Mrs Palin.
It is not clear yet what methods the hacking group used to access to the e-mail account. The screenshots posted by the hackers reveal that they carried out the attack via a so-called proxy service to hide their tracks and limit the chance that they would be traced.
Earlier in 2008 the Anonymous group launched several online assaults against the Church of Scientology.
Mrs Palin has been on the campaign trail for Mr McCain this week, appearing at events in Colorado, Ohio and Michigan. The pair are due to hold an airport rally in Iowa on Thursday.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CONSORTIUM WITHDRAWS ALITALIA BID !

A consortium of investors proposing to rescue airline Alitalia has withdrawn its takeover offer, raising fears the carrier may go into liquidation.
The Italian group, called CAI, dropped its bid after unions failed to back the deal before a 1400GMT deadline.
While four of Alitalia's unions had supported the deal, five had objected because of plans to cut 3,000 jobs.
Italy's flag-carrier has already warned that it is running out of funds to buy all the aviation fuel it needs.
Making its announcement, CAI said it expressed "profound disappointment".
"Further concessions would inevitably have put the realisation of the plan at risk," it said.
Cancelled flights
Italian Labour Minister Maurizio Sacconi said before the deadline that the future of Alitalia was "hanging by a thread".
The company is dead and some of my colleagues want to be its undertakers
Head of the UIL union, Luigi Angeletti
While Italy's four main union organisations - CGIL, CISL, UIL and UGL - had signed up to the agreement with the CAI, five other unions had rejected the deal as "useless and provocative".
Those opposed to the package - SDL, ANPAC, UP, ANPAV and Avia - include pilots and cabin crews.
Their protests forced Alitalia, which is losing 2.1m euros ($3m; £1.7m) daily, to cancel 40 flights on Wednesday.
The head of the UIL union, Luigi Angeletti, attacked those unions that rejected the CAI offer.
"The company is dead and some of my colleagues want to be its undertakers," he said.

Under the CAI rescue proposal, the Italian consortium had put forward a 1bn-euro offer for the airline.
It wanted Alitalia to merge with Air One, the country's second-largest airline, while its 1.2bn-euro debt would be absorbed by a second firm, which would then be liquidated.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to do all he can to save Alitalia, in which the Italian government holds a 49.9% stake.
In April, plans for the airline to be taken over by France-KLM collapsed when unions refused the accept the terms of the deal.
Alitalia suspended trading in its shares in June and filed for bankruptcy protection last month.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE VICTIMS DEMAND JUSTICE !

By Farai Sevenzo.

As Zimbabwe's erstwhile political rivals and now comrades in government were signing a power-sharing deal in a luxury Harare hotel, many political activists and their families remain consumed by their grief.
One opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) official, who I met as he showed me the burned huts of party sympathisers during the worst days of the violence, feels there is a strong sense of betrayal over what MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai did to become prime minister.
"I now know one thing - all my friends died for nothing. Betta, Solja, Tatenda, Gift - all of them died for nothing.
"The people who always talk about the heroic dead, like Mugabe, are very alive. Next time there is a war over voting or democracy, I want to be a hero but I want to stay alive."
Others, however, accept that peace - and a share of power to help rebuild the country - come at a price.
Tineyi Munetsi, another MDC official who saw body after mutilated body, with marks of senseless torture all too evident, says the feeling on the ground is difficult to gauge.
"People are happy because they can now concentrate on surviving, rather than running away from political thugs.
"Times are so hard there was no other way but for the politicians to sit and work things out. Talk of trials may unravel the whole fragile peace."
This is the dilemma victims face - that at this particular juncture in the country's history, Zimbabwe is not keen on looking in the rear-view mirror to the crimes of 20 years ago, or those of the recent past, because the peace may not hold.
As the deal was announced last week, Zimbabwe's long-suffering civil society and the Human Rights Forum put out a statement of demands.

These demands included:
"No amnesty for: (a) crimes against humanity, torture and other international crimes (b) rape and other sexual based crimes (c) corruption and other crimes of greed.

"No extinguishing of civil claims against the perpetrators or the state. No guarantee of job security for those found responsible for gross human rights violations and corruption."
Of course there will be those who say such demands are being made by those who were not privy to the two-month talks that culminated in Monday's fanfare.
Maybe when Mr Tsvanigirai talked about "painful compromises" he had a blanket amnesty for the bloody election violence in mind as one such painful compromise.
But he also said: "Only through a public acknowledgement of past wrongs can we begin the process of national healing."
Relatives of the victims of political violence may be forgiven for thinking that this means something in terms of their achieving closure to their loss and grief. But does it?
Amnesty worries
Edwin Sakala, from ZimRights, so long the custodians of human rights in the country, outlines the organisation's fears over the deal:
"Yes we are very worried about issues of amnesty, should there be amnesty at all?" he asked.
He noted that Mr Mugabe's Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa appeared on ZBC (the state broadcaster) immediately after the signing ceremony and said all parties agreed that they share liability for violence around election time.
To make matters worse, President Mugabe even found time to tell his listeners in his Monday address that the opposition in Africa "want to be the ruling party, and will devise ways and means of getting there. Including violence…"
The audience of MPs, aid workers and diplomats responded with boos, forcing him to try to explain himself.
The facts and the bodies clearly point to his party and his shadowy generals as having had the lion's share of the blood.
Mr Sakala says: "It is our belief that whoever committed crimes which include murder and rape should be arrested, sent to the courts and receive the appropriate punishment."
And how far up would the punishments go? What about the issues of reparation?
The Human Rights Forum on Monday said there should be "comprehensive reparations for victims of human rights violations.
The group also wants "a credible and independent truth-seeking inquiry into the conflicts of the past, which holds perpetrators to account and which provides victims the opportunity to tell their stories with a view to promoting national healing."

Mr Sakala believes it is right and proper that the issue of reparations be raised.
"Too many people, particularly the poor and the powerless, lost their homes and relatives to the violence. We are talking thousands. How can they move on?"
Mai Samantha of Sasa village, some 40km north of Harare, has had to move her whole family to the township of Budiriro in the capital over the last two months.
The men who burnt her hut were arrested in April but the following month, she no longer felt safe in her village and had to flee.
On the phone she is still bitter.
"I'm a poor person, it took me years to gather my property. I just want some way of recovering what I worked so hard for."
I ask her if she cannot forgive and forget for the sake of the nation.
"Why should I? Did I burn anyone's property? Did I kill anyone? All the time in this country, every election, people do these things and they never have to pay. It's time it all stopped."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"WE CAN DO ANYTHING WE WANT,

AS LONG AS WE STICK TO IT LONG ENOUGH" !

_________

WOMEN TO RULE RWANDA PARLIAMENT !

Rwanda already holds the world record for highest proportion of female MPs.
Rwanda will be the first country where women will outnumber men in parliament, preliminary election results show.
Women have taken 44 out of 80 seats so far and the number could rise if three seats reserved for the disabled and youth representatives go to females.
Rwanda, whose post-genocide constitution ensures a 30% quota for female MPs, already held the record for the most women in parliament.
The ruling party coalition won 78% of seats in Monday's vote.
Indirect elections for women's quota seats took place on Tuesday and votes for two youth representatives and a disabled quota seat are taking place on Wednesday and Thursday.
It is the second parliamentary elections since the genocide of 1994 when some 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu militias in just 100 days.

80-SEAT PARLIAMENT
Elected seats: 53* RPF: 42 seats, 78.76% of the vote* Social Democratic Party: 7 seats, 13.12% of the vote* Liberal Party: 4 seats, 7.5% of the vote
Quota seats: 27 (women 24, youth 2, disabled 1)
Women total: 44 seats, 55% of parliament
Preliminary results Rwanda National Electoral Commission

President Paul Kagame was instrumental in establishing the Tutsi-led 's Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) - the rebel force which took power and ended the genocide.
The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma in the capital, Kigali, says the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party have conceded defeat.
In the outgoing parliament, 48.8% of MPs were women - the world's highest rate. It is now set to be at least 55%.
Women who stood in seats reserved for female candidates were not allowed to represent a party.
"The problems of women are understood much better, much better by women themselves," voter Anne Kayitesi told the BBC's Focus on Africa.
"You see men, especially in our culture, men used to think that women are there to be in the house, cook food, look after the children... but the real problems of a family are known by a woman and when they do it, they help a country to get much better."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DRINKERS FALL INTO 'NINE GROUPS' !

The government believes it has identified nine types of heavy drinker as it launches a new alcohol campaign.
Research by the Department of Health in England with focus groups found heavy drinkers often fell into one of a number of categories.
These ranged from de-stress and depressed drinkers to people who boozed because of boredom or to bond.
Experts said helping people to understand the reasons for their drinking habits was "very useful".

THE NINE TYPES OF DRINKER

Depressed drinker
De-stress drinker
Re-bonding drinker
Conformist drinker
Community drinker
Boredom drinker
Macho drinker
Hedonistic drinker
Border dependents

The nine types of heavy drinker

The research showed that those drinking heavily - defined as consuming 35 units a week for women, 50 for men, which is twice the recommended limit - did so for a variety of reasons.
For example, de-stress drinkers were defined as people in pressured jobs who used alcohol to relax.
Whereas it said bonding drinkers could be anyone in society who had hectic social lives and lost track of their drinking.
The research was done to inform a new drive by ministers to crack down on heavy drinkers.
A pilot is being run in the north west of England over the coming months to specifically target heavy drinkers.
Over 900,000 households will receive leaflets through the post highlighting the link between drinking and conditions such as cancer and liver disease.
The campaign is focusing on adults aged over 35 who fall into the nine drinking categories.
Risk
Along with the information about disease risk, people will be given details about where they can go to get help.
This will include a website where they can calculate their own individual risk from drinking and get access to a self-help manual. A telephone helpline will also be set up.
The government hopes the tailored approach will help 4,000 people in the region to reduce their drinking within a year.
If it is successful, officials hope to roll it out to other parts of England.
Public health minister Dawn Primarolo admitted these heavy drinkers were a "tough one to crack".
But she added: "This is a totally fresh approach to helping people understand the effects of their drinking habits and help them make changes for the better."
Alcohol Concern chief executive Don Shenker said: "This type of marketing is very useful.
"In order to get people to examine their drinking they need to become aware of why they are doing it and what motivates them."

Life in a state of crisis eg recently bereaved, divorced or in financial crisis
Alcohol is a comforter and a form of self-medication used to help them cope

De-stress drinker
Pressurised job or stressful home life leads to feelings of being out of control and burdened with responsibility
Alcohol is used to relax, unwind and calm down and to gain a sense of control when switching between work and personal life. Partners often support or reinforce behaviour by preparing drinks for them
Re-bonding drinker
Relevant to those with a very busy social calendar
Alcohol is the ‘shared connector' that unifies and gets them on the same level. They often forget the time and the amount they are consuming
Conformist drinker
Traditional guys who believe that going to the pub every night is ‘what men do'
Justify it as ‘me time'. The pub is their second home and they feel a strong sense of belonging and acceptance within this environment
Community drinker
Drink in fairly large social friendship groups
The sense of community forged through the pub-group. Drinking provides a sense of safety and security and gives their lives meaning. It also acts a social network
Boredom drinker
Typically single mums or recent divorcees with restricted social life
Drinking is company, making up for an absence of people. Drinking marks the end of the day, perhaps following the completion of chores
Macho drinker
Often feeling under-valued, disempowered and frustrated in important areas of their life
Have actively cultivated a strong ‘alpha male' that revolves around their drinking ‘prowess'. Drinking is driven by a constant need to assert their masculinity and status to themselves and others
Hedonistic drinker
Single, divorced and/or with grown up children
Drinking excessively is a way of visibly expressing their independence, freedom and ‘youthfulness' to themselves. Alcohol used to release inhibitions
Border dependents
Men who effectively live in the pub which, for them, is very much a home from home
A combination of motives, including boredom, the need to conform, and a general sense of malaise in their lives

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE ANALYSIS

Jorn Madslien - Business reporter, BBC News.

The power-sharing deal signed in Harare on Monday may eventually secure the peace in Zimbabwe, but it is far too early to talk about prosperity.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which turned off the flow of cash to Zimbabwe nine years ago and severed contact with Mr Mugabe's regime in 2006, says it is ready to enter into talks with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's new government.
"We stand ready to discuss with the new authorities their policies to stabilise the economy, improve social conditions and reduce poverty," says IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
"I encourage the government to take steps to show clear commitment to a new policy direction and to seek the support of the international community." But with Robert Mugabe staying on as president, this may prove difficult.

Mr Mugabe's presence is expected to hamper the government's efforts to push through a reform programme aimed at fixing the seemingly unfixable - an economy blighted by an inflation rate of more than 11 million per cent, however meaningless that figure is, and where eight in 10 people are unemployed.
In addition, the fact that Mr Mugabe's 28 years in power have not ended with his ousting means Mr Tsvangirai's international supporters are loath to get involved just yet.
"In a power-sharing government, the architects of the economic implosion are still partly in the driving seat," observes portfolio manager Roelof Horne at Investec Asset Management.
"And therefore neither generosity nor austerity will be delivered as enthusiastically as they might have in the case of a fresh start."
Foreign investors are sitting on the fence, even though many of them are eager to gain access to Zimbabwe's platinum and diamond mines, as well as to the grain and tobacco farms that were looted by Mr Mugabe's cronies during the early 2000s.
And both the US and the European Union say they are reluctant to lift sanctions.
In the absence of desperately needed cash from the West, Zimbabwe's war on poverty will be one fought by an army of children lacking in both life skills and life expectancy.

ZIMBABWE'S PLIGHT

Inflation: 11,000,000%
Unemployment: 80%
Life expectancy: 37 years
Malnutrition: 45% of the population
Sources: Reuters, WHO, World Food Programme
Zimbabwe: Facts and figures

No quick economic fix

Half the remaining population is now under the age of 18, with more than one in four of those being orphans.
Many have lost their parents to an HIV/Aids pandemic that has resulted in early deaths on a vast scale and contributed to an infant death rate of more than 12%.
"Much of the fabric of what once made Zimbabwe an exemplary country has been seriously eroded over the last 10 years," according to Mr Horne.
The average age in the country has nosedived to 37 years from 60 years in 1990, according to estimates by Save the Children, the World Bank and the UN.
Many of those who have not been affected by disease and malnutrition have fled the country's oppressive regime.
And the Zimbabweans remaining in the country - even if they had the money -would struggle to rebuild the country's roads, sewers, houses and hospitals.
"Economic capital, infrastructure, banking capital, human capital and the institutional framework are all in need of recovery and repair," says Mr Horne.
But relatively high literacy rates and education levels, at least by African standards, will not be enough to compensate for the lack of experience. Many simply do not know how to do what needs to be done.
Economists tend to operate with longer time-scales than most people.
So it should come as no surprise that when they say it will take time to revive Africa's worst basket-case economy they mean years - not months.
"Getting back to where we were in the 1990s, it would take us another 10 years," says Professor Anthony Hawkins at the University of Harare. "And getting back to the 1980s, it would take us another 15 years."
And it is going to get worse before it gets better, predicts Harare-based economist John Robertson.
"Despite the deal, this year's economic shrinkage will be worse," he says, and his dire forecast is echoed by Mr Horne.
"No-one should hope for a magical reversal of the economic tragedy that is Zimbabwe."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

S.A. FURY OVER ZUMA RULING APPEAL!

South African state prosecutors say they will appeal against last week's ruling, dismissing corruption charges against ruling party leader Jacob Zuma.
His supporters have reacted with fury and outrage. The ANC said the move was "cynical", while trade unions said prosecutors were trying to "save face".
They say the charges are political - a claim backed up by the judge last week.
As ANC leader, Mr Zuma is the strong favourite to become South Africa's president after elections next year.
He won a bitter election against President Mbeki to become African National Congress leader in December last year.
Supporters of Mr Zuma accuse the president's allies of trying to prevent the ANC leader succeeding him.
Following the ruling by judge Chris Nicholson last week, President Mbeki has been put under pressure to step down.
The South African Community Party, which backs Mr Zuma, said that the appeal by the National Prosecuting Authority was "further proof that there is a political force driving the NPA to make Comrade Zuma's ascendancy to the [presidency] as difficult and unpleasant as possible".
The umbrella trade union federation Cosatu also condemned the NPA appeal.
It said prosecutors were trying to "save the faces of themselves and government leaders who quite correctly came in for serious criticism from the judge for political interference in legal processes," reports the AP news agency.
The 16 charges of corruption, racketeering and money-laundering were dismissed by a judge on a legal technicality.
The judge said the NPA was free to resubmit them.

ZUMA TIMELINE
June 2005: Sacked as deputy president
October 2005: Charged with corruption
December 2005: Charged with rape
April 2006: Acquitted of rape charges
September 2006: Corruption case collapses
December 2007: Elected ANC president; re-charged with corruption shortly afterwards
September 2008: Judge rules corruption case cannot proceed
2009: Elections due

Timeline: Zuma's legal problems
Zuma: Comeback kid

Mr Zuma's corruption trial was halted two years ago, five months after he had been acquitted of rape.
The corruption charges were then brought back just a few days after Mr Zuma was elected ANC leader.
ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said the prosecuting authority should put Mr Zuma's case behind it.
"If they re-open that case, they would have lost a very important opportunity that is there for the country and our view is that it is a question of personal egos totally elevated above national interests and public interests," he told SAfm radio.
On Tuesday, opposition leader Helen Zille said her party might launch a private prosecution against Mr Zuma, if the NPA failed to press charges for a third time.
The charges relate to a multi-million dollar 1999 arms deal.
"It would be a miscarriage of justice if Zuma was to get off the hook due to a legal technicality," Ms Zille said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA BABY MILK TOLL 'MAY RISE' !

China's health ministry says the number of babies sickened by contaminated milk powder could rise further.
Two babies died and over 1,200 became ill after drinking the milk, which was spiked with the chemical melamine.
State media quoted the ministry as saying medical agencies were ready for a "possibly rising" number of cases.
Hundreds of angry parents queued outside the company premises demanding explanation and compensation, Reuters news agency reported.
"Their number could rise as the search for more infants fed Sanlu milk food spreads across the country's rural areas," China Daily reported.
"The number could rise sharply in coming days as more parents take their children for medical check-ups," the report added, citing Health Minister Chen Zhu.
The government has called the poisonings a "Level 1" food safety incident and formed an emergency team to grapple with the fallout, Xinhua news agency reported.
But rising public anger, expressed on China's active internet forums, is prompting reports of a crackdown by the government on reporting of the milk scandal.

That anger was reflected outside the headquarters of the company blamed for making the contaminated formula, Sanlu Group, in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, where distraught parents gathered, Reuters reported.
Businessman Yang Letong, 34, told the agency his toddler twin daughters had drunk Sanlu products since they were born.
"So what if they give us our money back, you can't give our children their health back," he said.
"I am angry," he said, tears welling in his eyes. "I'm furious."
Sanlu apologised on Monday, saying that suppliers who sold the milk had apparently added the chemical.

[This] has caused severe harm to many sickened babies and their families. We feel really sad about this - Zhang Zhenling Sanlu ,vice president.
Normally used in the manufacture of plastics, melamine makes foods appear higher in protein, but has caused kidney stones in babies in several Chinese provinces.
Zhang Zhenling, Sanlu's vice-president, did not explain why the company took so long to inform the public about the contamination despite receiving complaints as early as March and having tests confirm the presence of the chemical in early August.
News emerged of the problem only after a New Zealand company, Fonterra, which owns 43% of Sanlu, informed New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, who then informed the Beijing government.
"The serious safety accident of the Sanlu formula milk powder for infants has caused severe harm to many sickened babies and their families. We feel really sad about this," Mr Zhang said, reading from a prepared statement.
Four people have so far been arrested in connection with the scandal, with more expected. Twenty-two others are being questioned.
Vice-health minister Ma Shaowei warned on Monday that as many as 10,000 infants may have drunk the contaminated milk.
Mr Ma said that 340 children remained in hospital, and that out of these 53 were in a serious condition.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

NEW FACE OF CANADA'S LUMBERJACKS !

By Michel Arseneault Dolbeau -Mistassini, Quebec.

It's already 4 a.m., as little late for breakfast.

African immigrants make up the bulk of the region's forestry workers. In a fiercely-lit canteen, dozens of forestry workers in oilskin jackets are swallowing eggs and ham. It is a typical work-camp meal in northern Canada. Yet these workers are not typical - most hail from Africa.
The loggers are employed by a forestry management company, Amenagement Myr, which is based in a town called Dolbeau-Mistassini, 300km (186 miles) north-west of Quebec City.
The company has hired some locals, but none are around. They have all left the camp to spend a long weekend with their families in nearby towns and villages.
The Africans who work here do not take weekends off. Montreal, where they have left wives and children behind, is not a weekend destination. Driving there takes almost seven hours.
Raymond Bertrand Neabo, 28, worked for a French bank in Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, after graduating from university there. After moving to Canada in 2006, he found that prospective employers deemed his business administration degree useless. So he started a second degree from scratch.
For him, logging is a well-paying summer job that has, however, forced him to leave his pregnant wife behind in Montreal. "It's very hard work," he said in French. "You cannot get used to it. It's like winter."
Workers use brush cutters and power saws that look like oversized weed-whackers but roar like motorcycles, to "thin" the forest. This means removing small deciduous trees, usually birch, to allow commercially valuable spruce and fir trees to thrive.

It is physically demanding work that many of the workers would never have done back home. Many speak a polished French that conveys their urban, middle-class backgrounds.
Amenagement Myr initially hired a man from Ivory Coast in the late 1990s. The word quickly spread in the African community that there was money to be made in the bush.
Now, the majority of the camp's 90 employees are African-born. Another local forest management company, Foresterie DLM, also primarily employs African immigrants.
After moving to Montreal, Thomas Shase, a 25-year-old Nigerian, first started working in telemarketing, phoning resentful people who sometimes told him to "go back to Africa".
He then heard about the forestry job. "It's hard, my brother, but it's better than Montreal," he said. "The forest is peaceful. You get to think. But the best part is the money."
Amenagement Myr, who works under contract for AbitibiBowater Inc, one of the largest pulp and paper companies in the world, pays them $500 (US$472, £266) per hectare "thinned". This means that experienced brush cutters earn good money if they clear three or four hectares a week. Beginners, however, do not earn good money.
"You pay to learn," admits Mario Richard, who owns and runs Amenagement Myr.
Some locals have accused him of luring Africans to work as cheap labour.
"I pay everyone the same," he says. "Whether you're black or white, green or yellow makes no difference to me as long as you can do the job."
Mr Richard believes that his African employees have more stamina, noting that the overwhelming majority tough it out until the end of the season.
Homesick
By 5am, the workers pile into a school bus that bumps along pot-holed forest roads and log bridges.
They have packed sandwiches, fresh fruit and pre-packaged desserts. But there is a cap on everything. The company says it is essential that no uneaten food be thrown out for fear of attracting black bears.

What loggers most fear are snakes. The land is covered in "slash", the unwanted branches, tops and stumps that were removed during clear-cut logging operations more than a decade ago. The garter snakes that live there are harmless, but workers remain watchful.
Mosquitoes are the real issue. The loggers douse themselves with a powerful insect repellent supposed to protect them for six hours, but they sweat it off in an hour.
Burundian Leonard Haninahazwa tries to see the bright side. "At least," he remarks, "these mosquitoes don't give you malaria."
The bus drops the loggers off. Within minutes, the brush cutters are whizzing and whirring. These workers are in effect selecting the spruce trees that will be felled in 30 to 40 years. If the brush wood is not cleared, it will take these trees twice as long to mature.
The school bus is back at the camp by 6.30pm. Visibly exhausted loggers fan out to their trailers. After a quick shower they return to the canteen for an all-you-can-eat supper.
By 9pm, those who are still awake are firing off e-mail messages on the one computer they can use.
Some workers look a little downcast. One African, who declined to give his name, said he was homesick.
"In Montreal, my wife massages me every morning," he said. "Here, I only get massaged by the mosquitoes."

BBC NEWS REPORT

STAR TREK'S TAKEI MARRIES PARTNER!

Former Star Trek actor George Takei has married his long-term partner in a Buddhist ceremony in Los Angeles.
Takei, 71, who played Mr Sulu in the sci-fi series, married business manager Brad Altman, 54, in front of a number of his Star Trek co-stars.
They included best man Walter Koenig, who played Chekhov, and matron-of-honour Nichelle Nichols - Uhura.
The wedding - at Japanese American National Museum - came after California lifted a ban on same-sex marriage.
The couple, who have been together for 21 years, wore matching white tuxedos in the ceremony.
Takei, who recently appeared in US TV show Heroes, said in his vows that Altman was "an organised, detailed-obsessed, punctuality-driven control freak".
"I'm easygoing so we're a good fit," he added.
Speaking before the ceremony, Takei said: "We have a relationship that's been stronger and longer-lived than some of our straight friends and yet we were not equal.
"What this does is give us that dignity."
The couple were among the first Californian couples to receive a wedding licence when the state lifted its same-sex marriage ban on 17 June.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE'S UNEASY BALANCING ACT!

By Martin Plaut - BBC Africa analyst.

Zimbabwe's deal sparked optimism, but the details beg new questions.
The full details of the deal hammered out on power-sharing in Zimbabwe have been made public, but the document leaves its readers with more questions than answers.
The agreement signed in Harare on Monday is far from clear.
It says that executive authority shall be shared between President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the cabinet.
The only guidance on how this will be done is the instruction that "in exercising this authority the President, Vice Presidents, Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Ministers, Ministers and Deputy Ministers must have regard to the principles and spirit underlying the formation of the Inclusive Government and act in a manner that promotes cohesion inside and outside government."

READ THE AGREEMENT
Agreement between Zanu-PF and MDC on resolving the challenges facing Zimbabwe [163.25KB]
Most computers will open this document automatically, but you may need Adobe Reader
Download the reader here

How responsibility will be divided between the cabinet and the council of ministers remains to be seen. There is little to distinguish between them, and little to distinguish their functions.
It seems very much down to what Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai and their respective parties make of what they are allocated. Two other bodies have been established.

Diagram of Zimbabwe's power-sharing deal

There is a Joint Monitoring and Implementation Mechanism, consisting of the political parties to sort out difficulties.
There is also a National Economic Council, including business and farmers to help rebuild the economy.

DEAL'S KEY POINTS
Robert Mugabe:
President
Chairs cabinet
Chairs National Security Council (includes security chiefs)
Zanu-PF has 15 ministers
Morgan Tsvangirai:
Prime minister
Chairs council of ministers
Runs the country day-to-day
Member of National Security Council
MDC has 16 ministers - 3 from smaller faction
Other agreements:
Both men needed to dissolve parliament
End violence, abusive language
Free political activity
Press freedom
Carry out land audit, UK urged to compensate white farmers
Demand end to international sanctions, calls for regime change
State bodies must be non-partisan

Press cautious on Zimbabwe deal
Zimbabwe deal: Speech highlights

While it remains unclear who is ultimately in charge, President Mugabe has retained control of the security forces, as he chairs the National Security Council.
Mr Tsvangirai, who says his supporters were brutalised by the security forces during the election campaign, does however gain a seat on the NSC, which includes Zimbabwe's military chiefs.
Cheryl Hendricks of South Africa's Institute for Strategic Studies (ISS) says much of the detail is to be fleshed out later.
"This is an agreement that will have to be made to work in practice."
But she points to the role of South Africa, the African Union and the regional Southern African Development Community (Sadc), as guarantors.
If this deal fails, it will be up to these organisations to come to the rescue.
Perhaps the best that can be said of this agreement is that it is an indication of the direction of travel, rather than a final destination.
With goodwill it might work, without it, the crisis in Zimbabwe will only continue.
Which is why the European Union and the United States have decided to wait and see, before giving it their blessing.


BBC NEWS REPORT.

TEXAS BEGINS MASS POST-IKE RESCUE!

Texas has begun what is being described as the biggest search and rescue effort in its history following Hurricane Ike.
At least 2,000 people have been rescued but many thousands more are believed to have ignored the mandatory order to evacuate before Saturday's storm.
The death toll rose to 30 as Ike swept on from Texas into the mid-US, with heavy rain causing flooding.
Millions of people are without power and Houston is under a week-long curfew as work continues to restore services.
By Sunday evening, three out of four households in the fourth-largest US city were still without electricity.
Although many schools remained shut, there were some signs of a return to normality on Monday. The city's two airports resumed a limited service, roads into the city were open and some shops and restaurants were back in business.
'Stay away'
The same could not be said for Galveston Bay, which bore the brunt of Hurricane Ike's arrival early on Saturday.

In pictures: Ike damage
Eyewitness: 'People are in shock'
'One million homeless' in Haiti

At least five people were killed and rescuers feared the toll could rise as they continued searching for those who did not leave before the hurricane hit.
Galveston resident Michael Geml, 51, had decided to stay put, looking after family pets in his bay-front neighbourhood, as he had for previous hurricanes.
"I'll never stay again," he was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. "I don't care what the weatherman says - a Category 1, a Category 2. I thought I was going to die."
The centre of Galveston, which was pummelled by 13ft high waves and 110mph (175km/h) winds, was said to be awash with foul-smelling mud and sewage.
Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas urged residents to stay away. "Do not come back... You cannot live here at this time."

Across Texas, more than 50 helicopters, 1,500 federal, state and local search teams were looking for those who had not evacuated the area before the storm came.
As well as carrying out door-to-door searches by boat and high-wheeled trucks, many people were plucked to safety by air. By Sunday afternoon, around 1,984 people had been rescued.
But there are fears that many more thousands are still at risk, with reports that as many as 140,000 people - some 10,000 in Galveston alone - failed to heed the order to evacuate.
Nearly 40,000 evacuees have now been housed in more than 250 shelters across Texas - some with little money and no idea how long they would have to stay.
"I don't know what I'll be coming back to. I have nothing," Arma Eaglin, 52, told the AP as she waited for a bus to take her to a shelter in San Antonio.
Although Hurricane Ike weakened to a tropical depression as it headed beyond Texas, torrential rain led to severe flooding and power outages in parts of Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois.
At least two other people were killed in Texas and six in Louisiana. Six people were killed in Indiana, three in Missouri, one in Arkansas, one in Tennessee and three in Ohio.
Ike killed 80 people when it passed through the Caribbean earlier.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE LEADERS PROCLAIM NEW ERA!

By Adam Mynott - BBC News, Johannesburg.

The historic moment when Zimbabwe's political rivals marked their agreement to work together for the future of their country was delayed by an hour.
But cheers greeted President Robert Mugabe and the new prime minister and leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, as they climbed onto the stage of the Harare International Conference in the capital to sign the 55-page document putting their power-sharing deal into effect.
They did so under the watchful eyes of the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, who had brought the two men together over a protracted and often precarious two-month period of negotiations.
The signing ceremony took place before a large crowd of invited guests, including heads of state and leaders of other African countries, including the chairperson of the African Union and Tanzanian President, Jakaya Kikwete.

The full details and content of the deal have not been confirmed but they propose a 50-50 division of power, with President Mugabe remaining head of state, head of the cabinet and head of the armed services.
Morgan Tsvangirai will preside over the council of ministers and will be in charge of the police. The most arresting moment came when the two men, President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai - for so long sworn enemies - shook hands briefly and exchanged a few words to the sound of wild cheers coming from hundreds of people in the hall.

Diagram of Zimbabwe's power-sharing deal

After the ceremony the new Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, who leads a small breakaway faction of the MDC, made a speech calling for a new future for Zimbabwe.
He was followed by Morgan Tsvangirai, who said - borrowing a phrase from Mr Mugabe's comments on reconciliation at the time of Zimbabwe's independence - that "it is time to turn our swords into plough-shares".
He called on all the people of Zimbabwe to put division and hatred into the past and he urged everyone to work together.
The priority, he said, was to "stop the devastating food shortages affecting the country".
He also turned to the international community to help rebuild the country.
"We need electricity, water, petrol for our vehicles," he said, "and we need to access our cash from bank."
It is the crippled Zimbabwean economy, with official inflation running at more than 11,000,000% annually, which poses the biggest threat to the country's future stability.
Independence struggle
When President Mugabe came to the microphone, there were cheers, but also some boos from the crowd.

He called the event "historic", and reminded his audience that Zimbabwe has emerged from a liberation struggle.
"We decided it was not right to bear the yoke of colonialism any longer", he said.
He then accused Britain of meddling in Zimbabwe's affairs, saying the former colonial masters had interfered calling for "regime change... and imposing sanctions".
He congratulated and thanked the Southern African Development Community (SADC) for helping to solve the difficulties that Zimbabwe has faced.
President Mugabe said his party, Zanu-PF, was committed to the power-sharing deal, but his speech was marked by repeated references to Zimbabwe's past, and not about the challenges that the country faces in the future.
The eyes of the Zimbabwe's neighbours, the continent of Africa and the whole world will be fixed now on seeing whether this historic deal does indeed result in a genuine sharing out of executive authority.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

LEHMAN BROS FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY !

Share prices in Europe and Asia have fallen sharply in the midst of the financial turmoil over the fate of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers.
The UK's FTSE 100 index fell 2.7% in early trade, France's Cac 40 index shed 3.4% and Germany's Dax dropped 2.8%.
In Asia, the key Australian share index ended down 1.8%, and in Singapore the STI dropped 2.3% in morning trade.
In Taiwan, the benchmark share index closed down 4%, and in India share prices fell by more than 5% on opening.
Several of Asia's major stock exchanges - in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul - were closed for holidays.
In markets that were trading, banking, insurance and financial sectors suffered most after Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest investment bank in the US, said it would file for bankruptcy protection.
Meanwhile the US dollar fell in Asian trade on Monday, on concerns about the US financial system's stability.
The dollar fell 2.3% to 105.45 yen - the biggest one-day percentage fall since early 2002. The euro also gained against the dollar, at $1.4479, up 1.7%.
The pound rose to $1.8040, from $1.7946 on Friday.
The Bank of England said it was monitoring conditions in sterling money markets and would act to stabilise them if needed.
The European Central Bank said it would intervene in eurozone money markets if necessary.
Anantha Nageswaran, head of investment research at Bank Julius Baer, said: "The dollar rally over the last two months was unsustainable and it was brought about by short-term liquidation pressures by many hedge funds and because of a mistaken feeling that the US economic numbers had turned the corner."

Lehman Brothers has suffered losses of billions of dollars in the sub-prime crisis, and has seen its share price plummet during recent months.
A consortium of international private sector banks and securities firms announced a new $70bn loan fund, intended for use by financial companies to help ease the credit shortage.
The US Central Bank, the Federal Reserve also made new moves to ease access to emergency credit for struggling financial companies, broadening the types of securities financial institutions can use to obtain emergency loans.

BBC NEWS REPORT

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Top of the agenda?

Saturday 13th September 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

A power sharing deal between the MDC and Zanu PF has been agreed. This is not what Zimbabweans voted for but it seems we must make the best of it if we are to save the country from complete ruin. The very people who designed and implemented the 9 year collapse of Zimbabwe will now sit alongside the victims of their ruinous policies. What will be top of the agenda?

Should it be electricity? Supplies are down to 6 or less hours a day in most places. Businesses, manufacturing and industry are close to collapse. Schools, hospitals and institutions are barely functional.

Should it be water? Supplies to urban, residential and industrial areas are down to 2 hours a day in most places and non existent in others. Cholera and other water born disease are commonplace.

Should it be food? Shops are empty of all basic goods and individuals have resorted to imported their own supplies in order to survive. Food growing on seized farms is negligible and in most cases barely enough to feed one or two families. Almost half the population will need international food aid by Christmas.

Should it be money? Bank queues run into thousands as the Reserve Bank Governor restricts daily withdrawals to the current equivalent of just 2 British pence per customer. Without access to their own money people cannot buy food or medicines or pay their bills.

Should it be Health? Hospitals have no drugs, equipment, food, linen or staff. Pharmacies increase their prices at least once every day and people are dying for lack of basic, simple life sustaining medication.

Should it be education? Teachers earn less than street cleaners and so they are always on strike. Pupils have no books. Parents cannot afford school and examination fees, uniforms or even food for their children. What hope for our next generation.

Should it be land and the environment? Restoring property rights and Title Deeds. Controlling gold panning, diamond digging, tree cutting, poaching, streambank and roadside cultivation and fires.

Perhaps it should be repealing legislation which has destroyed freedom of speech, movement and association; freedom of the press and media and citizenship laws which have made born and bred Zimbabweans into aliens.

I could go on and on but perhaps my own favourites will be top of the agenda: law and order and accountability. Until Zimbabwe's Police stop saying "It is political" and start arresting people who break the law, regardless of their political affiliations, we can surely not move forward. So too the people who raped, murdered, burned. looted, tortured, stole and incited others to do likewise - they must be held accountable and punished for their deeds. Zimbabwe stands at the threshold and we pray that our trust is not betrayed because we have suffered so much and for so long.

Until next week, thanks for reading,
love cathy

" SAYINGS "

"THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

IS

TO LIVE A LIFE OF PURPOSE" !

______

ZIMBABWE ON EDGE AHEAD OF DEAL !

By a BBC correspondent in Zimbabwe

Details have started to emerge of a power sharing deal in Zimbabwe. Leaks suggest President Robert Mugabe will still remain head of state and head of government with curtailed powers, but he escapes being consigned to the role of ceremonial president.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition MDC, gains substantial influence, but not "absolute control".
So Zimbabweans are holding their breath. The country is in a state of suspended animation as the world looks on.
Until they have see the small print of what the African Union has hailed a turning point for Zimbabwe, many of its people are saying nothing. Waiting and watching.

REPORTED DEAL
Robert Mugabe:
President
Heads armed forces
Chairs cabinet
Zanu-PF has 15 ministers
Morgan Tsvangirai:
Prime minister
Chairs council of ministers
Controls police force
MDC has 16 ministers - 3 from smaller faction

Muted reaction to Zimbabwe deal
Zimbabwean readers' views

For many, the daily chore of trying to find affordable food is a more pressing concern.
Zimbabweans who have bank accounts are now only permitted to withdraw $1 a day. Inflation is running at more than 11,000,000%.
The black economy is thriving. A woman I spoke to who bought a modest clutch of vegetables, found she had shelled out $50 by the end of the transaction, for a lemon, some potatoes and a pack of French beans.
And for the poorest Zimbabweans, for whom the staple maize meal is now a luxury, they are finding themselves going without.
First step
It comes as little surprise then that there has been an absence of jubilation on the streets and in the rural areas where the MDC has won over support from former loyalists of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF.
But many Zimbabweans are quietly optimistic.
Those looking for change have said that they would rather no deal than a bad deal. So the fact that Morgan Tsvangirai has declared himself "satisfied" gives them some hope.
Many Zimbabweans expect a coalition deal to mark the first step towards salvaging a shattered economy.
"I think the future of the economy is going to be better and I think this deal is going to shed new light on the economy," said one young woman, hours after South African President Thabo Mbeki announced a settlement had been signed.
A deal "made in Zimbabwe, owned by Zimbawean people" - but under wraps until Monday.
Certainly the hope is that the compact between Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai will be endorsed by the international community, which has promised billions of dollars in aid to revive an economy on the brink of collapse.
But so far, the the diplomatic community has given a lukewarm response to the settlement, making it clear the devil will be in the detail.
Although control of the police and military is expected to be shared, the fate of the much-feared intelligence services remains far from clear
"A good positive first step," as one man described it, is perhaps how many pragmatists will respond to this deal.
One MDC supporter described it like plucking the feathers off a cockerel (the cockerel is the symbol of Zanu-PF).
And optimists say the MDC may be able to gain influence by stealth - by operating inside a coalition government - and exerting influence from within.
But there are other voices who feel the MDC has "sold out", leaving too much control in the hands of one of Africa's last surviving liberation leaders, who has clearly demonstrated an unwillingness to go.
A reading of an opinion column in the state-owned Herald Newspaper on Saturday helps to illustrate why sceptics still have fears about what could emerge in the coming days.
Some are anxious that powerful allies of Mr Mugabe, threatened by the deal, may revive their campaign of violence against opposition supporters.
It suggests the settlement was reached under duress by an MDC clearly frightened about the alternatives.
It describes how the opposition had "overplayed its hand" during the negotiations. Zanu-PF felt they were asking for too much. Three days into negotiations they became deadlocked, drifting back to what the paper describes as "hard knuckles".
But the MDC "backed down" and in a matter of minutes a deal was done.
It is not the kind of language that suggests compromise.
Although control of the police and military is expected to be shared between the two leaders, the fate of the much-feared intelligence services remains far from clear.
Drive through the areas where farms lie derelict after their occupants were evicted, and the deafening silence is a symbol of the damage which could still be done.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WAVE OF BLASTS HITS DELHI MARKETS!

Five bombs have ripped through busy markets in India's capital, Delhi, within minutes of each other, killing at least 14 people, police say.
The explosions, which also injured about 80 people, are not thought to have been very powerful but happened in areas crowded with evening shoppers.
Crude explosives have been detonated in several Indian cities recently.
More than 400 people have died since October 2005 in attacks on Ahmedabad, Bangalore and other cities.
India has blamed Islamist militant groups for these previous bombings.

In pictures: Delhi blasts

CNN-IBN, a local TV news channel, said it had received an e-mail before the blasts from a group calling itself the "Indian Mujahideen".
"Do whatever you can. Stop us if you can," the e-mail reportedly said.
The same group has claimed responsibility for two other recent bombing attacks.
Pakistan's new President, Asif Ali Zardari, "strongly condemned" the bomb attacks, expressing "shock and grief over the loss of precious human lives".
His Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, said the bombers were "enemies of humanity".
Two of the latest blasts in Delhi are believed to have happened metres away from each other in the central shopping district of Connaught Place.

Another blast took place in a market in the Greater Kailash area in south Delhi.
A BBC producer who visited the scene said a low-intensity explosion had scattered glass over a large area, near a popular cafe.
Two of the other explosions were reported in Delhi's Karol Bagh area and on the Barakhamba Road.
Chanchal Kumar helped carry several casualties to ambulances after witnessing one of the explosions, outside a metro station.
"Around 1830 we heard a very loud noise, then we saw people running all over the place," Reuters news agency quoted him as saying.
"There were about 100-200 people around this place."
Another eyewitness, Sanjeev Gole, heard a "huge blast":
"I was around the corner from the road. I came running down and I saw at least four to five people lying on the road."
Television pictures show scenes of chaos at the blast scenes. Crowds milled around mangled vehicles, with debris and blood scattered across the streets.

An unexploded bomb was reportedly found and defused at the capital's India Gate monument, local TV quoted police as saying.
After the bombings in Jaipur and Bangalore, a group calling itself the Indian Mujahideen also claimed responsibility.
While it is too early to say exactly what caused Saturday's blasts in Delhi, they appear similar to the earlier attacks.
The earlier attacks involved multiple small devices hidden in small boxes or bags and aimed at soft targets such as crowded markets, analysts say.
The devices contained shrapnel such as nuts, bolt and ball bearings while the explosives used were improvised. Islamic militants in Kashmir have tended to use military-grade explosives.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ALITALIA 'RUNNING OUT OF FUEL' !

Italy's national airline, Alitalia, may have to cancel some flights because of a lack of funds to buy fuel, a top official has warned.
Augusto Fantozzi, Alitalia's bankruptcy administrator, made the comments as he called unions to emergency talks a day after the latest session broke down.
The unions earlier quoted him as saying flights could not be "guaranteed" because we cannot "get fuel".
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi blamed "political" motives for the failure.
He said he would do all he could to save Alitalia from collapse.
"The executive is always ready... to give all the possible support to get to the only solution possible to avoid the airline going bust," he said.
Alitalia later issued a note it said was sent by Mr Fantozzi, which said: "There are difficulties relating to the supply of fuel which could put some flights at risk," Reuters news agency said.
Italian investment consortium CAI, which was poised to take over the company's profitable parts, walked away from talks with the unions on Friday, accusing them of intransigence.
CIA chief executive Rocco Sabelli said on Saturday it was not ready to make any further concessions.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SAUDI JUDGE CONDEMNS 'IMMORAL TV!

The most senior judge in Saudi Arabia has said it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV channels which broadcast immoral programmes.
Sheikh Salih Ibn al-Luhaydan said some "evil" entertainment programmes aired by the channels promoted debauchery.
Dozens of satellite television channels broadcast across the Middle East, where they are watched by millions of Arabs every day.
The judge made the comments on a state radio programme.
He was speaking in response to a listener who asked his opinion on the airing of programmes featuring scantily-dressed women during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
"There is no doubt that these programmes are a great evil, and the owners of these channels are as guilty as those who watch them," said the sheikh.
"It is legitimate to kill those who call for corruption if their evil can not be stopped by other penalties."

Given his position as the country's most senior judge, the sheikh's views can not be easily dismissed, says BBC Arab affairs analyst, Magdi Abdelhadi.
Clerics like Sheikh al-Luhaydan represent a huge dilemma for the Saudi royal family, our correspondent adds.
On the one hand, Saudi rulers need their support to claim that they rule in the name of Islam.
But on the other hand, fighting militant Islam can be difficult when the country's top judge calls for the beheading of those he views as immoral broadcasters.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

10 THINGS !

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

1. Baseball was played in Surrey in 1755.
More details
2. There are algae that can bend light.
More details
3. Women are more prone to nightmares.
More details
4. The British Antarctic Survey needs a full-time plumber.
More details
5. While everything else is getting more expensive, broccoli is getting cheaper.
More details
6. Radio adverts can be banned for being too quick.
More details
7. Zoroastrians were the first religious adherents to incorporate the end of the world into their beliefs.
More details
8. Portraits of famous people often look like the painter instead.
More details
9. When the police fire a baton round, they aim for the belt buckle.
More details
10. Goats are a cost effective way of clearing waste ground.
More details

BBC NEWS MAGAZINE

ZIMBABWE - LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

12th Septemver 2008.



Dear Friends,


"We've got a deal"! With those words Morgan Tsvangirai told waiting journalists at the Rainbow Towers Hotel that the unbelievable had happened; the long months of agonising on/off indecision were over. There had finally been a breakthrough. Later at an official press conference Thabo Mbeki announced, "An agreement has been reached on all items on the agenda. All of them endorsed the document tonight. I am absolutely certain that the leadership of Zimbabwe is committed to implementing this agreement." The formal signing ceremony, attended by regional leaders will take place on Monday, Mbeki added, but gave no further details.


For Zimbabweans at home the news may well have come too late at night. By that time they may well have retired to their beds, hungry and without lights or power to cook their evening meal or listen to their radios and televisions. Here in the UK diaspora I heard it first on BBC News at Ten after another day of watching and waiting for hard news. Mugabe had attended the Chiefs' Ndaba in Bulawayo earlier in the day and had given no indication that a settlement was anywhere near. On the contrary, he had told the chiefs, "We have not gone anywhere. We're still stuck at the same point where those from the MDC want to govern. They want Mugabe to go. Where shall I go? I can't go anywhere…It is humiliating to be negotiating with a party sponsored by countries pushing for regime change," It seemed nothing had changed, the Old Man was just not prepared to budge. Yet there was something different; after his speech, the traditional leaders had most uncharacteristically given Mugabe's government a positive tongue-lashing about the food shortages, the corruption of government ministers and police involved in food scams. Had the chiefs' words perhaps reminded Mugabe that he has no money to solve the problem of hunger and food shortages? Could that be the reason he finally put his name to a document that virtually entails sharing power with the hated enemy , the man he has done his level best to destroy? Only a couple of days before Kofi Annan had launched a scathing attack on the AU, "they should have endorsed the results (of the March elections) and said to Mugabe; You are not a legally elected president". With those words ringing in his ears, Mugabe perhaps realised that the game was almost up. Whatever the reason, he arrived back in Harare, ninety minutes late apparently, to sign the deal that was to change the status quo.


No one knows the details of the Agreement yet but we all understand ‘the devil is in the detail'. So many questions spring to mind. How long is the ‘Inclusive' government going to last? Are we in for another five years of Mugabe's presidency? One thing is clear: Mugabe's henchman in the state media have not come to terms with the new reality. On the very day the deal was announced the state controlled Herald was still spreading its lies about Morgan Tsvangirai, claiming that the new Prime Minister was about to appoint a retired Colonel, one Lionel Dyck (a white man of course) to the post of Commander of the Zimbabwe National Army; MDC MP's are still incarcerated, the violence goes on against MDC supporters and Gideon Gono announces the setting up of licences for one thousand retail and wholesale outlets who will for the next eighteen months buy and sell in US dollars. No prizes for guessing who will get these licences; it will be Zanu PF fat cats but for ordinary Zimbabweans with no access to forex it is a pointless exercise which will only increase the shortages and extend their suffering. Right up to the last minute before the deal was announced, Mugabe was busy trying to ensure that his appointees were in place as Provincial Governors and, if rumour is to be believed, under the terms of the agreement, Mugabe will be forced to revise these appointments. Zimbabweans have three days to ponder the deal and from what I hear no one is dancing in the streets. What they are all asking themselves is will this bring an end to our suffering, will this deal bring an improvement in our lives. And above all, can we trust Mugabe to stick to his word? Will he really allow Morgan Tsvangirai and his ministers to operate without interference? ‘Sources' tell us Mugabe will continue to chair the cabinet while Tsvangirai controls a Council of Ministers but what happens when those two bodies clash? We have to wait until Monday and the formal signing before we have the answers to these questions - and maybe not even then. Three days in which the so-called war vets and youth militia may resort to even more violence against opposition supporters. Will they listen if or when Mugabe tells them to desist and what of the police and army who, again if rumour is to be believed, have been promised immunity for their horrendous crimes. Will they now enforce the law impartially?


It's going to be a very long weekend but despite all our reservations and whatever the future holds the truth is that Zimbabwe will never be the same again. Something has changed forever.


Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH.

ZUMA TRIUMPH IN S.A. COURT!

The BBC's Jonah Fisher relives dramatic moments in South Africa's courtroom where corruption charges against ruling party leader Jacob Zuma were dropped.

Jacob Zuma took his seat with a smile and wave to his supporters. The senior members of the ANC (African National Congress) who had travelled down to Pietermaritzburg to support him responded with a round of applause.
It was only when Judge Chris Nicholson walked in - wearing flowing red robes - that the attention focused on the matter at hand.
Sixteen charges of corruption, money laundering, fraud and racketeering had been brought against the ANC president.
A month ago - in the latest step of a drawn out legal process - Mr Zuma's lawyer had asked Judge Nicholson for the charges to be struck down as unlawful.
The judge read his ruling at a steady pace. Talking the court through the steps which had brought Mr Zuma to this point, his words were broadcast live on South African TV.
It had all begun with an arms deal in 1999, an investigation that followed, and then in 2005 Mr Zuma's financial adviser Schabir Schaik was jailed for 15 years for corruption. The first charges brought against Mr Zuma were struck off in 2006, and this was the second attempt by South Africa's National Prosecution Authority to bring the 66-year-old to trial.
Street party
Outside, a crowd of several thousand Zuma supporters listened to every word.
"It's like a football team," one man told me, "We've come here to support our man JZ".
And there were elements of a football match.
Zuma's crowds sang well-practised songs and chants - and many were dressed in the ANC colours of black, green and gold.
Some had shirts with Nelson Mandela on. Others were wrapped in Jacob Zuma fabric. Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's current president and adversary of Mr Zuma, was conspicuous by his absence.
Then two hours after he began, Judge Nicholson delivered his killer line.
"It is declared that the decision taken by the National Prosecuting Authority to prosecute the applicant is invalid and set aside."
The gallery inside the court erupted. Across the road the party started. Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle danced in khaki military uniforms, while large groups stomped their feet and waved sticks in the air.
"I'm so happy," a woman wrapped in a Zuma sheet told me. "Zuma is one of us. He is our man and he will be our president."

But - in what may turn out to be a very bad day for President Mbeki - the judge went still further, endorsing Mr Zuma's long standing complaint that there were political motives behind the decision to press charges against him.

ZUMA TIMELINE
June 2005: Sacked as deputy president
October 2005: Charged with corruption
December 2005: Charged with rape
April 2006: Acquitted of rape charges
September 2006: Corruption case collapses
December 2007: Elected ANC president; re-charged with corruption shortly afterwards
September 2008: Judge rules corruption case cannot proceed
2009: Elections due

In pictures: Zuma zeal
Timeline: Zuma's legal problems

Mr Zuma was charged in December 2007 - shortly after he had beaten Thabo Mbeki to the presidency of the ANC at a meeting in Polokwane.
Calling the timing "most unfortunate", Judge Nicholson said that it suggested that "baleful political influence" was continuing.
Half an hour after the verdict, Jacob Zuma took to the stage to a hero's welcome.
His supporters' very public battle against the corruption charges has been widely reported as an ANC assault on the independence of the judiciary.
"I believe that this judgement is a lesson to all of us," Mr Zuma said.
"It is a lesson particularly to the legal fraternity. It is a victory for the judiciary. It is a victory for our justice system."

It is expected that Mr Zuma will now seek a permanent stay of prosecution to prevent corruption charges being brought against him for a third time.
"We need to sit down and apply our minds," prosecution spokesman Tlali Tlali said.
"To see if there are options legally available for us to explore. Then we will come back to you and say if we are going to continue the matter or abandon it," the spokesman said.
The prosecutor could try again but the momentum now seems to be firmly with Jacob Zuma.
The dismissing of the corruption charges make it a near certainty Mr Zuma will follow Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki as South Africa's third democratically elected president.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

AIRSHOW COULD BE VULCAN SWANSONG!

By Angie Brown - Edinburgh reporter, BBC Scotland news website.

The last flying Vulcan Bomber could be making one of its final appearances at Leuchars Airshow at the weekend unless £1.6m can be raised, restorers warn.
Dr Robert Pleming, Vulcan To The Sky Trust chief executive, said after five years and a £7.5m restoration project the cash was needed to run it annually.
The Cold War aircraft, which makes an "earth-shaking roar" on take off, has just been brought back to life.
But now it could be destined for the hangar once again without a sponsor.
The news comes after a major sponsor, which was to invest to keep the aircraft flying, was lost.

Dr Pleming said: "It looks as if the door may now be closing on the future of the Vulcan in flight. "I think that anyone wishing to see a Vulcan in flight should do so as soon as possible.
"If we don't achieve a significant change of circumstances soon, we won't be able to carry out our role of 'honouring the past, inspiring the future', providing the once-seen, never-forgotten sight of XH558 in flight to a new generation, stimulating interest in design and engineering and telling people about an important period in our nation's history.
"With the public's help, the triumphant return of the Vulcan this summer became the not-to-be-missed spectacle of the season.
"I sincerely hope that 2008 will not also turn out to be her swansong."
The Civil Aviation Authority gave permission for the plane to fly in July.

The idea behind the restoration project was to take the bomber to airshows to raise awareness of the project and gain sponsorship.
The Vulcan was restored at the airfield in Bruntingthorpe, Leicestershire, where it has been kept since being decommissioned in 1993. It was based at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire when it was operational.
About 20,000 people have contributed to the restoration fund for the bomber.
A total of £2.7m funding has come from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Designed in 1948 by Roy Chadwick, the aircraft could travel at speeds of up to 645mph and was capable of carrying nuclear bombs.
Thousands of people are expected to turn out to see the aircraft fly for 10 minutes on Saturday at Leuchars Airshow.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DETAILS OF ZIMBABWE DEAL EMERGE !

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is to retain control of the army and chair cabinet meetings, according to leaks of Thursday's power-sharing deal.
South African President Thabo Mbeki said Mr Mugabe had agreed to share power with Morgan Tsvangirai but said details would be released on Monday.
Mr Tsvangirai will control the police force and chair a new council of ministers, the sources say.
The deal followed seven weeks of talks and this year's election violence.
Mr Mugabe has yet to comment on the agreement, brokered by South Africa's leader.
Donors have said they would resume financial aid for Zimbabwe's collapsing economy if Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is given a genuine share of power.
The European Union said it would "evaluate the situation" when EU foreign ministers meet on Monday.
BBC world affairs correspondent Adam Mynott says the agreement splits power approximately equally between Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai.

REPORTED DEAL
Robert Mugabe:
President
Heads armed forces
Chairs cabinet
Zanu-PF has 15 ministers
Morgan Tsvangirai:
Prime minister
Chairs council of ministers
Controls police force
MDC has 16 ministers - 3 from smaller faction

Muted reaction to Zimbabwe deal
Zimbabwean readers' views

He says Mr Tsvangirai's MDC and another MDC faction will together have 16 seats in the cabinet, while Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF will have the remaining 15.
Mr Mugabe will also control the armed forces, while Mr Tsvangirai will be in charge of the police.
Our correspondent says the devil will lie in the detail and in the ability of the two men and the power blocks under them to wield genuine authority.
Work on finalising the agreement will continue over the weekend. Some opposition MDC voices have already called the deal a climb-down, although others have said it is the best available.
There has been a muted reaction on the streets of Harare as people wait to see full details of the agreement.
Most people are desperate for an end to their economic misery.
"We just hope and pray that this is truly the end of our troubles," Dalton told the BBC from the capital.
MDC chairman and Zimbabwe's parliamentary speaker Lovemore Moyo told the BBC that although his party was pleased with the deal, it had been a compromise.
"We wanted a titular head of state with an executive prime minister but that did not happen. So what we got at the end of the day perhaps was probably nearly a sister-sister power-sharing, so I'm saying it's not exactly initially what we wanted."
'Landmine field'
Political activist Lovemore Madhuku told Reuters news agency that the MDC was obviously the junior partner in the new set-up.
Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at the University of Zimbabwe, said it would not be easy for the two foes to work together.
"It's going to be like walking out of a landmine field while carrying a huge load," he told Reuters.
"The deal will only survive on a lot of goodwill, commitment and strategic thinking by all the key players because it can easily collapse even on small things and misunderstandings," he said.
Negotiations started at the end of July, but had stalled over the allocation of executive power between Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai, bitter rivals for a decade.
The breakthrough came after the last four days of talks in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.
Mr Tsvangirai, the head of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, had demanded to become executive prime minister, thereby taking over some of the powers that Mr Mugabe has exercised for more than 28 years.
On Thursday, Mr Tsvangirai was first to announce the breakthrough, telling reporters simply: "We've got a deal."

Later, Mr Mbeki told a news conference the two sides had agreed to form an inclusive government.
He said: "I am absolutely certain that the leadership of Zimbabwe is committed to implementing these agreements."
The deal would be signed at a ceremony in Harare attended by African leaders, he said.
'African triumph'
Zimbabwe's envoy to the UN, Boniface Chidyausiku, told the BBC that the deal was a "triumph for African diplomacy".
The UN special representative on Zimbabwe, Haile Menkerios, said the announcement marked a way forward that all sides could live with.
Britain's Foreign Office said it was following the situation closely, adding that "our concern is the welfare of the Zimbabwean people".
Zimbabwe has the fastest shrinking economy in the world with annual inflation of more than 11,000,000%.
Mr Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, won a controversial presidential run-off election in June.
He ran unopposed after Mr Tsvangirai withdrew, claiming the MDC was the target of state-sponsored violence.
In the first round of the presidential election in March, Mr Tsvangirai gained more votes than Mr Mugabe, but official results say he did not pass the 50% threshold for outright victory.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MAN SHOT DEAD BY S.A. ARMED ROBBERS!

A man from Cardiff has been shot dead in what is believed to have been a bungled armed robbery during a visit to a dying relative in south Africa.
Stephen Peters, 52, and his wife Anne from Canton, Cardiff, had been visiting his sister-in-law, who has cancer.
The couple were with his niece and her nine-month-old baby in her house in Pretoria when three robbers attacked.
Siobhan Forman said her uncle had pleaded with the men not to hurt the family before he was shot in the neck.
Mrs Forman, 29, said the men entered the house in the Rietvallei Park area at 0300 BST on Friday.
"They came in through my son's bedroom window, and then to my room," she said.
"I woke up and screamed. My uncle came in and pulled me away from them (the robbers)."
She said the men fetched her baby and one of the three stayed with them, while the other two searched the house.
"My uncle pleaded with them to take what they wanted, but to leave us. They shot him. They kept searching the house after they killed him.
"They killed a man for nothing. They didn't even take much. He just came to say goodbye," said Mrs Forman.
An autopsy is to be carried out on Monday and he family will then arrange to have Mr Peters' body flown home.

She said the couple arrived a week ago staying with her parents before coming to visit her on Tuesday.
"Can you imagine what we are going through? My mother is dying of cancer, my uncle came to visit under these sad circumstances, and now he is murdered.
"Life is very, very unfair. Why? What for? They could have taken anything, anything. What is this country coming to?," Mrs Forman asked
Police spokeswoman Aveline Hardaker said one of the three robbers was armed with a gun.
Ms Hardaker said when Mrs Forman screamed, one of the attackers put his finger in her mouth to stop her.
"Her uncle, who was visiting from England, entered and pulled her away from the man who tried to keep her quiet.
"They were told to sit on the bed while the men searched the cupboards and closets," she said.

The spokeswoman said Mr Peters was given Mrs Forman's baby to hold.
"The robbers repeatedly told them to keep quiet in English and Afrikaans. They demanded the keys to the safe and to the family's black Mercedes Benz. They spoke to each other in their own language," she added.
She said Mr Peters stood up and asked the robbers not to hurt them, and he was then shot in the neck.
The robbers escaped leaving the women tied up with shoe laces and their mouths covered with belts, Ms Hardaker said.
One of the robbers came back as Mrs Forman struggled to untie herself and asked how to put the car in reverse, she said.
South African police recovered the stolen vehicle and are investigating murder, aggravated robbery and the theft of a motor vehicle.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We can confirm the death of a British national in Pretoria on 11 September."
The spokeswoman said consular staff in South Africa were providing assistance .

• In January, another Welshman was shot dead in front of his wife and four children during another house robbery in Pretoria .
Fred Picton-Turbervill, a father-of-six, originally from Ewenny, near Bridgend, south Wales, was killed in an attack at Waterkloof Ridge, an eastern suburb.
Three men have been remanded in custody charged with his murder.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SCOTCH WHISKY EXPORTS BUCK DOWNTURN !

By Hugh Pym - Economics Editor, BBC News.

The scotch whisky industry is optimistic about its prospects even with the downturn in the world's leading economies. Exports in the first half of this year were up 14%.

Today a consignment of scotch bound for China leaves the port of Greenock near Glasgow in the BBC Box.
The BBC Box is a year-long project to illustrate the growth in world trade.
It was launched on Monday at Southampton - equipped with GPS satellite transmitter.
Its progress can be tracked through the BBC website during its voyages around the world over the next year.
The aim of the project is to lift a veil on the complex patterns of global trade.

First stop is a scotch whisky bottling plant in Paisley. Here a consignment of Chivas Regal has been bottled for the Chinese market.
Export sales are booming - and the company is working flat out to meet demand from overseas customers. Some 150 containers come and go every working day.

Even with the slowdown in many leading economies, demand for scotch is holding up.
There is robust growth in most of the major markets, including North America.
Total Scotch sales in China have risen dramatically, from just £1m in 2000 to £40m last year.
It is thought another £30m or so is sold on from consignments arriving in Singapore.
Distilling capacity is being increased at its fastest rate since the early 1970s.

A new malt distillery was opened in Girvan by William Grant and Sons last year.
Diageo is planning a major new plant on Speyside.
Mothballed plants are also coming back into operation.
More than £500m of new investment has been announced over the last 18 months, according to the Scotch Whisky Association.

The industry says there are just more than 9,000 people directly employed and another 31,000 in related trades such as bottle manufacture.
But it admits that when sales increase employment levels remain static.
The Box, with its cargo of whisky, is bound for the port of Greenock.
There it will be loaded onto a container ship - ultimate destination Shanghai.
The industry's upbeat mood is good news for the British economy, which needs whatever export growth it can get as demand and activity falters in other sectors.
The weaker pound can only lift spirits even higher.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE RIVALS AGREE UNITY DEAL !

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says a power-sharing deal has been reached with President Robert Mugabe in Harare.
"We've got a deal," said Mr Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has helped broker the talks, said an agreement would be signed on Monday. Mr Mugabe has not yet commented. Weeks of negotiations have faltered over how the two sides are to share power.
The government and MDC have already agreed Mr Tsvangirai will be named prime minister and Mr Mugabe will remain as president.
Mr Mugabe won a controversial June presidential run-off election unopposed after Mr Tsvangirai withdrew, claiming his supporters were the brunt of a state-sponsored campaign of violence.
In the first presidential election in March, Mr Tsvangirai gained more votes than Mr Mugabe, but official results say he did not pass the 50% threshold for outright victory.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"THE REWARD OF A THING WELL DONE

IS TO HAVE DONE IT" !

_______

RUSSIA TELLS US TO RETHINK ALLIES !

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has said the US should join Russia in combating terrorism, rather than supporting "rotten regimes".
Speaking on the anniversary of 9/11, Mr Medvedev pledged full co-operation with the US on anti-terrorism.
But he said the US should reconsider its ties with regimes that "conduct military adventures", in a clear reference to Georgia's government.
He said Russia would focus on rearming after the Georgian conflict last month.
Russia and Georgia clashed briefly over the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
After five days of fighting a ceasefire was agreed - but each side has accused the other of breaching the accord.

Russia, which has backed self-declared governments in the nominally Georgian regions for years, recently infuriated the West by recognising their independence.
Kremlin officials have been involved in a bitter war of words with the US throughout the crisis.
Moscow has repeatedly accused Washington of arming Georgia. The US says Russia is violating Georgia's sovereignty.
The Georgian government, meanwhile, has accused Moscow of attempting to annex the two provinces.
Some critics have even suggested that Russia wanted to re-establish its spheres of influence from the Cold War era, and planned to target Ukraine's pro-Western government next.
But Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has once again angrily denied those claims.
"We do not have and will not have any of the imperial ambitions that people accuse us of," Mr Putin said from the southern resort of Sochi.

At a Kremlin meeting Mr Medvedev said the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks was a "sorrowful day for the USA and for all the other countries which suffer from terrorism".
He said that Russia was ready for "co-ordinated, fully-fledged co-operation with the USA and other states on issues of the fight against terrorism".
But he added: "We consider this our primary task and we believe that it is much more useful to the USA than developing relations with rotten regimes which undertake military adventures."
Mr Medvedev's remarks come a day after Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov accused the US of attempting to start a war in the Caucasus.
Mr Kadyrov, a Moscow supporter, accused the US of using the Caucasus as a testing ground to challenge Russia's resolve.
Fighting between Russia and Georgia began on 7 August after the Georgian military tried to retake the breakaway region of South Ossetia by force.
Russian forces launched a counter-attack and the conflict ended with the ejection of Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHANNEL TUNNEL SHUT AFTER BLAZE!

The Channel Tunnel has been closed after a fire broke out on a freight train about seven miles from Calais.
Thirty-two people on board the train were led to safety although 14 people suffered minor injuries, including smoke inhalation.
The blaze broke out at 1400 GMT about 11km (7 miles) from the French entrance, the operator Eurotunnel said.
The blaze has been contained but all trains have been suspended and thousands of passengers are stranded.

See graphic of Channel Tunnel

The fire was detected about four-fifths of the way through the 50km-long north tunnel on a freight shuttle travelling from Folkestone to Calais.

Guide to Channel Tunnel

The French Interior Ministry said the lorry, which is understood to have overturned on the train, was carrying the chemical phenol, a toxic product used by the pharmaceutical industry.
The incident resulted in "minor injuries" but no-one was seriously hurt, Eurotunnel officials said.
"A train is now on its way from France to pick up the people from the service tunnel and take them back to France," a UK police spokesman said.
The French state train company SNCF said services would not resume until Friday.
It is understood that no trains are stuck in the tunnel.
Eurostar said five of its trains were en route when the fire broke out, with 2,000 passengers affected. All trains are now returning to the stations where they began their journeys.

Traffic has begun building up at the British end of the tunnel and there are queues of lorries and cars tailing from the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone.
Kent police have closed junctions eight to nine of the coastbound section of the M20 and sections of the motorway have been used to queue lorries as part of Operation Stack.
Meanwhile, passengers waiting to board trains at London's Kings Cross terminal are being told to come back in the morning when it will be first-come, first-served to get on the trains.
Long queues of people were trying to find out what was happening.

Clive Evans and Albert Cole were on board a Eurostar train to Brussels to stay with friends for the week when their journey was terminated.
Mr Evans told BBC News website: "We got as far as Ashford and they said 'You're not going any further. You can either get off here and get the ferry to France' - God knows where the ferry goes from in Ashford - 'or you can go back to London.'"
He said: "We've just got back [to London]. It's total chaos. They say they can't put us up in hotels because there's too many of us. It's total disorder."
The Channel Tunnel has suffered several incidents since it opened to traffic in 1994 although only one - a fire in 1996 - caused casualties.
Security exercises are staged in the Channel Tunnel by police, fire and ambulance services from both England and France to ensure preparedness for such incidents.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYA THIEVES TARGET OBAMA GRANNY !

Mr Obama's grandmother lives in the village where his father was born. Kenyan police have stepped up security in the village of US presidential candidate Barack Obama's grandmother, after a break-in at her home.
The police believe the thieves were trying to steal a solar panel from Sarah Hussein Obama's tin roof.
Four people have been arrested and patrols increased around Alego-Kogello village, 60km (37 miles) from Kisumu.
The Illinois senator is a local hero in his father's homeland, where a local beer has been named after him.
Correspondents say bottles of Senator are now referred to as "Obama" in honour of the Democratic party presidential hopeful.
Fear
The robbery occurred on Wednesday night, when thieves broke down the kitchen door.

Beer stirs Obamamania

"I only realised that something had gone wrong when I went to make breakfast in the morning. I did not hear anything in the night as it was raining,” Kenya's Daily Nation quotes Mrs Obama, 86, as saying.
She said she now feared for her safety.
"These are just people from around who think that Obama has been sending me a lot of money," she told the East African Standard paper.
Area police commander Johnston Ipara said the robbers were unable to dismantle the panels and nothing was stolen.
"There is now a 24-hour security patrol in the entire village to curb any further incidents," he told AFP news agency.
Mr Obama - the first black person to be nominated by either main party in the US - faces Republican candidate John McCain in elections on 4 November.
Mr Obama has never lived in Kenya and he has visited the country just three times.
His father, Barack Obama senior, was born in the remote village in western Kenya, where he herded goats as a child.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WHY REDNECKS MAY RULE THE WORLD!

By Joe Bageant Author of Deerhunting With Jesus

During this US election cycle we are hearing a lot from the pundits and candidates about "heartland voters," and "white working class voters." What they are talking about are rednecks. But in their political correctness, media types cannot bring themselves to utter the word "redneck." So I'll say it for them: redneck-redneck-redneck-redneck.

The fact is that we American rednecks embrace the term in a sort of proud defiance. To us, the term redneck indicates a culture we were born in and enjoy. So I find it very interesting that politically correct people have taken it upon themselves to protect us from what has come to be one of our own warm and light hearted terms for one another.
On the other hand, I can quite imagine their concern, given what's at stake in the upcoming election. We represent at least a third of all voters and no US president has ever been elected without our support.
Consequently, rednecks have never had so many friends or so much attention as in 2008. Contrary to the stereotype, we are not all tobacco chewing, guffawing Southerners, but are scattered from coast to coast. Over 50% of us live in the "cultural south", which is to say places with white Southern Scots-Irish values - redneck values.

We fry things nobody ever considered friable - things like cupcakes, banana sandwiches and batter dipped artificial cheese…even pickles
They include western Pennsylvania, central Missouri and southern Illinois, upstate Michigan and Minnesota, eastern Connecticut, northern New Hampshire…
So when you look at what pundits call the red state heartland, you are looking at the Republic of Redneckia.
As to having our delicate beer-sodden feelings protected from the term redneck; well, I appreciate the effort, though I highly suspect that the best way to hide snobbishness is to pose as protector of any class of folks you cannot bear. Thus we are being protected by the very people who look down on us - educated urban progressives.
And let's face it, there's plenty to look down on. By any tasteful standard, we ain't a pretty people.
Uppity and slick? Not us...
We come in one size: extra large. We are sometimes insolent and often quick to fight. We love competitive spectacle such as NASCAR and paintball, and believe gun ownership is the eleventh commandment.
We fry things nobody ever considered friable - things like cupcakes, banana sandwiches and batter dipped artificial cheese…even pickles.
Her daughter had a baby out of wedlock? Big deal. What family has not?
And most of all we are defiant and suspicious of authority, and people who are "uppity" (sophisticated) and "slick" (people who use words with more than three syllables). Two should be enough for anybody.
And that is one of the reasons that, mystifying as it is to the outside world, John McCain's choice of the moose-shooting Alaskan woman with the pregnant unmarried teen daughter appeals to many redneck and working class Americans.
We all understand that there is a political class which dominates in America, and that Sarah Palin for damned sure is not one of them. And the more she is attacked by liberal Democratic elements (translation: elite highly-educated big city people) the more America's working mooks will come to her defence. Her daughter had a baby out of wedlock? Big deal. What family has not? She is a Christian fundamentalist who believes God spat on his beefy paws and made the world in seven days? So do at least 150 million other Americans. She snowmobiles and fishes and she is a looker to boot. She's a redneck.
The term redneck indicates a lifestyle and culture that can be found in every state in our union. The essentials of redneck culture were brought to America by what we call the Scots Irish, after first being shipped to the Ulster Plantation, where our, uh, remarkable cultural legacy can still be seen every 12 July in Ireland.

Ultimately, the Scots Irish have had more of an effect on the American ethos than any other immigrant group. Here are a few you will recognize:

Belief that no law is above God's law, not even the US Constitution.

Hyper patriotism. A fighting defence of native land, home and heart, even when it is not actually threatened: ie, Iraq, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Haiti and dozens more with righteous operations titles such as Enduring Freedom, Restore Hope, and Just Cause.

A love of guns and tremendous respect for the warrior ideal. Along with this comes a strong sense of fealty and loyalty. Fealty to wartime leaders, whether it be FDR or George Bush.

Self effacement, humility. We are usually the butt of our own jokes, in an effort not to appear aloof among one another.

Belief that most things outside our own community and nation are inferior and threatening, that the world is jealous of the American lifestyle.

Personal pride in equality. No man, however rich or powerful, is better than me.

Perseverance and belief in hard work. If a man or a family is poor, it is because they did not work hard enough. God rewards those who work hard enough. So does the American system.

The only free country in the world is the United States, and the only reason we ever go to war is to protect that freedom.

All this has become so deeply instilled as to now be reflexive. It represents many of the worst traits in American culture and a few of the best. And that has every thinking person here in the US, except perhaps John McCain and Sarah Palin, worried.

Very worried.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

WIFE NO.25 BRINGS CONTENTMENT!

By Surendra Phuyal - BBC News, Kathmandu.

After 24 failed marriages, a 49-year-old porter in eastern Nepal says that he has finally found happiness in his latest union.
The simple reason is that the landless labourer's latest marriage seems to be working out, unlike the previous ones.
Ramchandra Katuwal, of Khandbari municipality in Sankhuwasava, and his wife recently celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary.
He say that his marriage to Sharada has been a "journey of happiness".

And for Mr Katuwal, the trek before his latest journey was paved with pitfalls and potholes.
He first got married when aged 26 at his home about 600km (373 miles) east of the capital, Kathmandu.
From then onwards his life veered from one disastrous marriage to another.

His first wife set a precedent followed by many of her successors: she eloped with her lover.
"My second wife also ran away," he said, "and the third one too.
From the succession of wives who came and went over a 16-year period, Mr Katuwal says that he can only remember nine of them clearly.
"(Like other ex-wives) the 24th one also ran away. And I decided not to marry again," he said.
But his resolve did not last and he wed 23-year-old Sharada seven years ago.
Mr Katuwal says that he is now so happy he has vowed not to marry again. Instead, he wants to focus on his children's education.
They go to a nearby primary school, one of them on a Belgian-funded scholarship.
Slim, sturdy-looking and wrinkled, Mr Katuwal struggles to make ends meet.
Even his small thatched-roofed house is built on a government-owned land. He says that the constant battle against poverty could well be why so many of his wives left him.
Mr Katuwal's work as a porter is a tough job for low pay.
Porters in the Himalayan country are renowned for their strength - often carrying loads of more than 45kg for many miles in the mountainous terrain.
So despite the repeated failures, why did he decide to marry again?
"I wanted to have a wife, because a house is not house without a wife," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

US SANCTIONS TARGET IRAN CARRIER !

The US has imposed sanctions on an Iranian shipping company and 18 of its affiliates over its alleged support for Tehran's nuclear programme.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) had provided logistical support for the Iranian defence ministry, the US treasury said.
IRISL's US-based assets would be frozen and transactions banned, it said.
The US has already imposed a number of sanctions on Iran linked to its controversial nuclear programme.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BUDGET HOLIDAY COMPANY GOES BUST !

Almost 2,500 holidaymakers have been stranded abroad after a firm which runs budget package holidays went into administration.
Cheshire-based Seguro Holidays, which flies from airports in Kent and Prestwick in Ayrshire, blamed its troubles on Spanish airline Futura.
Futura, which operated 80% of its flights, has launched insolvency proceedings, blaming high fuel costs.
A further 17,253 people had made advance bookings with Seguro.
The operator, based in Macclesfield, operated package holidays and flights to Spain, the Canaries and Portugal.
Seguro, which also traded as Seguro Holidays and Kent Escapes, sold mainly through travel agents.
In a statement released by the firm, directors Rachel Elliott and Richard Burke said: "Futura's collapse was totally unexpected as an airline with over 30 planes, having a good reputation and being one of Spain's respected airlines.
Clients in resorts will remain in their accommodation until alternative return flights are sourced
Seguro statement"After 10 years flying from Glasgow Prestwick Airport and great support from travel agents and clients, we offer our sincere apologies and are very sad to have had to make this decision, but we were left with no alternative."
The firm's website has been taken offline and has been replaced by a statement which reads: "Seguro Travel Limited and its subsidiary Seguro Aviation Limited which trade under the style Seguro Holidays and Kent Escapes ceased trading on 10 September 2008.
"Customers who have booked to travel by air from 10 September onwards should refer to the Civil Aviation Authority website where further advice is given.
"The directors of the company deeply regret the closure of the business which has been brought about by the failure of Futura Airlines last weekend."
The firm flew holidaymakers to resorts in the Algarve, Benidorm, Lanzarote, Majorca and Tenerife.

Those who have booked a package holiday are likely to be protected by the Air Travel Organisers' Licensing (Atol) system.
Travel companies in the Atol scheme lodge a financial guarantee bond with the Civil Aviation Authority which can be used to bring stranded clients home, and compensate those who have future bookings.
But Seguro said people already on holiday would have to wait until alternative flights were found.
A statement said: "Seguro Holidays are Atol bonded and protected and as such are working with the CAA and [the travel association] Abta to protect both their clients and travel agents.
"Clients in resorts will remain in their accommodation until alternative return flights are sourced, and those who have already booked a future holiday, their money is protected, and they will be able to claim back through the CAA or their credit card companies."
Abta said on its website that it understood there were 2,400 people abroad with Seguro Travel and 17,253 with forward bookings up until the end of summer 2009.
A statement issued by Futura said difficulties in the airline sector, including "the excessive and speculative increase of fuel" had put it "in a very difficult situation from the financial point of view".
The statement said: "Not presenting this request for insolvency proceedings would make complying with our payment obligations with the suppliers impossible."
The development comes two weeks after the Scots-owned transatlantic budget carrier Zoom Airlines went bust.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HOPES GROW FOR DEAL ON ZIMBABWE!

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai have resumed talks in Harare, amid growing hopes of a power-sharing deal.
"We are optimistic, we are never pessimistic," Mr Mugabe said as he arrived at the Harare hotel.
On Tuesday, both men both said they hoped to address the outstanding issues between them on Wednesday.
South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki has stayed in Harare to lead the talks, delaying a summit in Swaziland.
In a sign of Zimbabwe's economic crisis, some shops will be allowed to sell goods in foreign currency, the government has announced.
With annual inflation running at an official 11,000,000%, the Zimbabwe dollar is rapidly depreciating. Last month, the currency was revalued, so Z$10bn became Z$1.

"I must say that there is a positive development," Mr Tsvangirai said on Tuesday evening after two days of talks.
Mr Mugabe noted there had been "progress - and lack of it - in some areas".

BBC Southern Africa correspondent Jonah Fisher says it is very hard to predict when and if a deal will be reached, there have been so many hitches in this eight-week, stop-start process.
Zimbabwe's state-owned Herald newspaper reports that Mr Mugabe, Mr Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, head of a smaller opposition faction, held individual talks with Mr Mbeki on Tuesday and then the three of them met without the South African leader.
Sources in Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) say they are now proposing that Mr Tsvangirai be named prime minister, with full authority over all the ministers, while President Mugabe chairs a new National Security Council.
This would mean he keep some authority over the security forces.
Several Zimbabweans security chiefs have said they would refuse to take orders from Mr Tsvangirai, who they see as being a Western stooge.
The MDC and human rights groups have accused the army of spearheading a campaign of violence against opposition activists ahead of June's presidential run-off.
Mr Mugabe has threatened to form a government alone if a deal is not reached this week.
Donors have been withholding aid to rescue the collapsing economy until the opposition are given real power in government.
Talks between the government and the MDC in August broke down after they agreed that Mr Tsvangirai would be named prime minister while Mr Mugabe remained president, but failed to agree on how to share powers.

"Nothing has been concluded yet but we are hoping that tomorrow [Wednesday] we will be able to look at the outstanding issues," Mr Tsvangirai was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
Mr Mugabe said "one or two areas" were still outstanding.
"We are still going to talk. We are finishing tomorrow [Wednesday]," he said, according to Reuters.
Mr Mutambara talked of "tremendous progress".
"We hope tomorrow [Wednesday], we will be able to bring finality and closure to the dialogue process," he said.
The MDC leader gained more votes than Mr Mugabe in March elections but official results say he did not pass the 50% threshold for outright victory.
Mr Tsvangirai pulled out of the June run-off, saying some 200 of his supporters had been killed and 200,000 forced from their homes in a campaign of violence led by the army and supporters of the ruling Zanu-PF.
Zanu-PF has denied the claims and accused the MDC of both exaggerating the scale of the violence and being responsible for it.

BBC NEWS REPORT

SARAH PALIN : 10 THINGS WE'VE LEARNT !

It has been a week since Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was catapulted from relative obscurity to centre stage as US Republican John McCain's choice for running mate.

Here are 10 things we now know about her.

1. Her five children are named Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper and, last but not least, Trig Paxson Van Palin. According to the Washington Post newspaper, Track was named after the course of the sockeye salmon the family fishes off the town of Dillingham, while her eldest daughter's name comes from Bristol Bay, an area known for its salmon fisheries. The name Willow relates to the state bird, the willow ptarmigan, and a nearby town, the paper says, while daughter Piper shares her name with the family's small plane. Trig is the Norse word for "brave victory", the Post adds.
2. Her rimless glasses are now a style phenomenon. The titanium Kawasaki 704 frames - designed in Japan, where they sell for $300 - are apparently flying off the shelves. Her upswept hair-do is also reportedly spawning imitators. LA Times fashion writer Booth Moore writes: "The untidiness of her updo has a can-do spirit that says, 'I have more important things to do than worry about my hair, so I just twirled it into this clip so I could get to the real business of governing and shooting caribou and having babies and taking them to hockey practice.'"
3. John McCain picked someone who not only appeals to "Wal-Mart Moms" but is one herself, shopping for the family in a local branch. Not only that, writes New York Times columnist William Kristol, but "he picked someone who, in 1999 as Wasilla mayor, presided over a wedding of two Wal-Mart associates at the local Wal-Mart".
4. Mrs Palin enjoys moose-hunting and salmon-fishing - and has said her favourite dish is moose stew. Former Republican senator and one-time presidential hopeful Fred Thompson described her as "the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field-dress a moose". Cindy McCain, in her speech to the party's national convention, said her husband John had "picked a reform-minded, hockey-mommin', basketball-shooting, moose-hunting, salmon-fishing, pistol-packing mother-of-five for vice-president".
5. A month before her fifth child, Trig, was due, Mrs Palin's waters broke while she was in Texas to address a conference. She delivered her speech nonetheless and embarked on the long flight back to Alaska - changing planes in Seattle - before travelling an hour by road to hospital to give birth. She says she was not in "active labour" and her doctor said it was fine. Alaska Airlines allows women to travel in the late stages of pregnancy. Husband Todd - a commercial fisherman - is quoted by the Anchorage Daily News as saying: "You can't have a fish picker from Texas." Three days later, Mrs Palin was back at work.
6. As governor of Alaska, Mrs Palin ditched plans for a "bridge to nowhere" - a federally-funded project to link a handful of Alaskans to an airport at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. In her speech to the Republican National Convention, she said she had told the US Congress "thanks, but no thanks". But US media say she appeared to support the project while running for governor in 2006, though she said the proposed design was too "grandiose". And when she announced the cancellation of the bridge a year ago - after it gained notoriety as an example of wasteful spending - she hardly seemed to be turning down federal funds out of thrift. She explained the decision by saying, "It's clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island." The federal funding was diverted to other projects in Alaska.
7. In a line that has gone down well at the Republican National Convention and on the campaign trail, she boasts of putting the previous governor's "luxury jet" on eBay as a measure to cut wasteful spending. That is true. But what she has not always explained to her audience is that the plane failed to sell on the internet auction site and so aides had to broker a deal with a buyer.
8. She was baptised a Catholic as an infant but attended a Pentecostal church in Wasilla - her hometown since her parents moved to Alaska from Idaho when she was three months old - for many years. She now attends Wasilla Bible Church, a non-denominational, evangelical church. The Associated Press reports that the church is promoting a conference that promises to convert gays into heterosexuals through the power of prayer.
9. As hunters sometimes do, Mrs Palin has incurred the wrath of wildlife-lovers. It's not just that she shoots moose and caribou, she has also backed legislation to encourage the aerial hunting of wolves, as a "predator control" measure. Plus, she has opposed the US government's listing of a variety of animals as endangered, including the polar bear and the beluga whale. Unlike Mr McCain and to the horror of many environmentalists, she actively supports drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
10. She is a self-described "average hockey mom"; a biography published a few months ago was entitled Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment on Its Ear. The hockey mom branding could prove useful come November in the swing states of Michigan and Minnesota, where ice hockey is a big game. Her best-known joke so far? "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"DRIVER' AGED 3 IN POND DRAMA!

A three-year-old boy who managed to start a car was rescued just before it crashed into a pond.
Hayden Hay started the Nissan Micra after climbing into the driver's seat while his child seat was being fixed at Cooper Park, in Elgin, Moray.
His mother's boyfriend, Gordon Stronach, pulled him to safety just in time, on Monday afternoon.
Mr Stronach said: "The car took off but I managed to get him out. The ducks got more than they were expecting."
Joiner Mr Stronach, 19, of Huntly, had left the keys in the ignition while he was trying to fix the car seat.

The car rolled into the pond after the engine was started.
He told the BBC Scotland news website: "He was complaining about the straps in the car seat, so I took him out and was sorting it.
"But the keys were in the ignition, he turned the keys and the car was in gear.
"I jumped out and got him, but I could not stop the car."
He added: "He's fine, in fact he's telling all his friends about it.
"I think he's quite proud."
The car was taken to a garage after being removed by a tow truck from the pond.
It appeared to have escaped damage despite being in the water.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"GREAT WORK IS DONE BY PEOPLE

WHO ARE NOT AFRAID TO BE GREAT" !

______________

CERN COLLIDER READY FOR POWER-UP !

By Paul Rincon - Science reporter, BBC News.

Three decades after it was conceived, the world's most powerful physics experiment is ready to be powered up.
On Wednesday, engineers will attempt to circulate a beam of particles around the 27km-long underground tunnel which houses the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
The £5bn machine is designed to smash particles together with cataclysmic force, revealing signs of new physics in the wreckage.
This will re-create conditions in the Universe moments after the Big Bang.
But it has not been plain sailing; the project has been hit by cost overruns, equipment trouble and construction problems. The switch-on itself is two years late.
The collider is operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research - better known by its French acronym Cern.
The vast circular tunnel - the "ring" - which runs under the French-Swiss border contains more than 1,000 cylindrical magnets arranged end-to-end.
The magnets are there to steer the beam - made up of particles called protons - around this 27km-long ring.

Big Bang Day
What is the Large Hadron Collider?

Eventually, two proton beams will be steered in opposite directions around the LHC at close to the speed of light, completing about 11,000 laps each second.
At allotted points around the tunnel, the beams will cross paths, smashing together near four massive "detectors" that monitor the collisions for interesting events.
Scientists are hoping that new sub-atomic particles will emerge, revealing fundamental insights into the nature of the cosmos.

"We will be able to see deeper into matter than ever before," said Dr Tara Shears, a particle physicist at the University of Liverpool.
"We will be looking at what the Universe was made of billionths of a second after the Big Bang. That is amazing, that really is fantastic."

The LHC should answer one very simple question: What is mass?

LHC DETECTORS
ATLAS - one of two so-called general purpose detectors. Atlas will be used to look for signs of new physics, including the origins of mass and extra dimensions
CMS - the second general purpose detector will, like ATLAS, hunt for the Higgs boson and look for clues to the nature of dark matter
ALICE - will study a "liquid" form of matter called quark-gluon plasma that existed shortly after the Big Bang
LHCb - Equal amounts of matter and anti-matter were created in the Big Bang. LHCb will try to investigate what happened to the "missing" anti-matter"We know the answer will be found at the LHC," said Jim Virdee, a particle physicist at Imperial College London.

The currently favoured model involves a particle called the Higgs boson - dubbed the "God Particle". According to the theory, particles acquire their mass through interactions with an all-pervading field carried by the Higgs.
The latest astronomical observations suggest ordinary matter - such as the galaxies, gas, stars and planets - makes up just 4% of the Universe.
The rest is dark matter (23%) and dark energy (73%). Physicists think the LHC could provide clues about the nature of this mysterious "stuff".
But Professor Virdee told BBC News: "Nature can surprise us... we have to be ready to detect anything it throws at us."

Engineers injected the first low-intensity proton beams into the LHC in August. But they did not go all the way around the ring.
On 10 September, engineers will attempt to pass a proton beam around the full circumference of the LHC tunnel.
"We see how far the beam will go," said Steve Myers, head of the accelerator and beams department at Cern, "we will try and make it go round the full 27km sometime on Wednesday morning."

Engineers will be on the lookout for any potential problems: "There are on the order of 2,000 magnetic circuits in the machine. This means there are 2,000 power supplies which generate the current which flows in the coils of the magnets," he told BBC News.
"If any single one of them has got the wrong polarity, or has the wrong calibration constant, or whatever, then the beam will not go round.
"If, in any of the channels [in the magnets], there is any piece of debris - it is a very small channel - then the beam will not go round."

Mr Myers has experience of the latter problem. While working on the LHC's predecessor, a machine called the Large-Electron Positron Collider, engineers found two beer bottles wedged into the beam pipe - a deliberate, one-off act of sabotage.
The culprits - who were drinking a particular brand which advertising once claimed would "refresh the parts other beers cannot reach" - were never found.
If all goes well on Wednesday, and the beam makes one turn, engineers will "close the orbit", allowing the beam to circulate continuously around the LHC.
Engineers will then try to "capture" it. The beam which circles the LHC is not continuous; it is composed of several packets - each about a metre long - containing billions of protons.
The protons would disperse if left to their own devices, so engineers use electrical forces to "grab" them, keeping the particles tightly huddled in packets.
Once the beam has been captured, the same system of electrical forces is used to give the particles an energetic kick, accelerating them to greater and greater speeds.
After Wednesday's test, engineers will need to get two beams running in opposite directions around the LHC. They can then carry out collisions by smashing them together.
The idea of the Large Hadron Collider emerged in the early 1980s. The project was eventually approved in 1996 at a cost of 2.6bn Swiss Francs.
However, Cern underestimated equipment and engineering costs when it set out its original budget, plunging the lab into a cash crisis.
Cern had to borrow hundreds of millions of euros in bank loans to get the LHC completed. The current price is nearly four times that originally envisaged.
During winter, the LHC will be shut down, allowing equipment to be fine-tuned for collisions at full energy.
"What's so exciting is that we haven't had a large new facility starting up for years," explained Dr Shears.
"Our experiments are so huge, so complex and so expensive that they don't come along very often. When they do, we get all the physics out of them that we can."
Steve Myers said engineers would break out the champagne if all went to plan on Wednesday. But a particular brand of beer will not be on the menu, he said.
Paul.Rincon-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
BBC NEWS REPORT.

WONDERFUL RETURN FOR STEVIE FANS !

By Ian Youngs - Music reporter, BBC News, Birmingham.

With a canon of classic songs, unbowed enthusiasm and his musical faculties still sharp, Stevie Wonder has opened his first European tour for a decade.
The US star took fans at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena on a two-hour journey through almost 50 years of songs that helped shape soul and pop.
A sold out crowd of 13,500 saw him play with a 10-strong band and four backing singers, including his daughter Aisha.
Wonder, 58, now visits Manchester and London before other European cities.
With a musical catalogue that few can match, Wonder took a couple of detours but made sure his biggest hits were in the bag.

They ranged from 1960s Motown standards like Uptight through the groundbreaking 1970s funk of Superstition to his 1980s pop smash I Just Called To Say I Love You.
Wonder's mid-'70s albums will go down as his masterpieces, and he saved their highlights until last.
Superstition merged into Sir Duke, which segued into I Wish before the finale of As - a breathless medley that left the crowd on a high.
But with time running out, the most anticipated songs were also the most rushed.
Dressed all in black, with a growing girth and receding hair, it is now 45 years since Wonder had his first hit as The 12-Year-Old Genius, and 23 since he last reached the top of the charts.
But the massive cheer that greeted Wonder at the start of the night confirmed his status as one of pop's sacred stars.
For the first tune, he reached for the harmonica, coaxing intricate nuances as easily as if it were a grand piano.
His other instruments - and that includes his voice - were played the same way, with sincere, soulful expression, warm passion and jazzy improvisation.
His vocal cords and his fingers are in fine condition, and he is one of the most irrepressibly enthusiastic men in pop, brimming with infectious energy.
That was summed up as he sat at his keyboard, with his head up, body swaying and mouth in a wide open grin.
He led lots of audience participation, getting the crowd to chant or sing lines, and told us how much he loved us several times, thanking us for everything we had done for him.
He also revealed how the death of lost his mother in 2006 inspired him to go back on the road after so long.

I Just Called To Say I Love You was a little understated, apologetic even, but nothing was going to stop the crowd singing and swaying along
"I want to take all the pain that I feel and celebrate and turn it around," he told us.
"What a blessing I've had in this life to be able to go places I've never imagined, and meet so many wonderful people, people like yourselves."
But his exuberance did get slightly out of hand. The funky interludes and jams dragged and his monologues had a habit of turning into rambles.
At one point, he launched into a speech about the people who have had visions to bring people together "through all the craziness", about "unity and peace and oneness", and the 200th anniversary of the birth of Louis Braille.
Then things took a turn for the bizarre with an appearance by Hull City footballer George Boateng.
He presented Wonder with a statue of Arthur Wharton, the UK's first black professional footballer, and in return the singer added his voice to the campaign for Wharton to be more widely recognised.
But during the second half of the show, proceedings got back on track and the hits came thick and fast.
Living For the City was followed by Signed, Sealed, Delivered and Uptight, and the 13,500-strong chorus was in fine voice for My Cherie Amour and For Once In My Life.
I Just Called To Say I Love You was a little understated, apologetic even, but nothing was going to stop the crowd singing and swaying along.
They were more reluctant to join his chants of Barack Obama's name, though, as Wonder launched into Superstition and the finale.
Those last songs summed up Wonder's greatest achievements, weaving a vibrant tapestry of melodic adventure, dynamic arrangements, bubbling soul and indefatigable spirit.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HUNGER ROAD TRIP IN ZIMBABWE!

Aid worker Matthew Cochrane tells the BBC News website about the Zimbabweans he met while visiting the country's south-east Masvingo province.
He works for the International Federation of Red Cross, which was not included in the recent government food aid ban - lifted last month - because of the agency's unique operating status under international law.

Read Matthew's account of his road trip and the people he met:

SUNDAY 31 AUGUST 2008
My first impression driving through Masvingo province is how dry and bare it is.
The countryside is brown.
Riverbeds are full of rocks and sand.
Supermarket shelves are also bare, apart from a couple of boxes of tea.
Masvingo is about three-hours' drive from the capital, Harare. My colleagues at the local Red Cross branch in Masvingo town visit people living with HIV/Aids in their homes. They also look after children who are considered to be vulnerable as well as those who have been orphaned by the disease.
Living close to the clinic is an HIV-positive mother, Tendai.
Tendai longs for the day when she can provide for her own child again
She welcomes us into her very small room that she shares with her daughter-in-law and her five-month-old granddaughter.
Tendai has been living with HIV for the past three years.
She has been receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) treatment but now without food it is having an extraordinarily effect on her life.
She explains she often has to go for three or four days without anything to eat. And because the body needs food to absorb the drugs, she now regularly has to be hospitalised because her body cannot cope.
If she has nothing to eat, she suffers from chronic nausea, headaches and diarrhoea.

The last time she was admitted to hospital, her brother came and offered to look after her son for her as he was in a better position to look after him.
Tendai misses her son but knows he is being looked after well.
She is visited everyday through by Red Cross volunteers, who bring food when they can, although it is not always possible and even they have to go without.
Tendai tells me how she longs for the day when she can provide for her own child again.

MONDAY 1 SEPTEMBER 2008
First thing Monday morning, we visit a child-headed household - a 16-year-old girl and her two brothers, aged 14 and 12.
Their youngest brother, who is now 10, was adopted by a family living in Harare after their parents died in 2002 from an Aids-related illness.
In the past, before the food crisis got so bad, they received food from organisations like the Red Cross but now because of a lack of funding they do not.
They tell me that they ate yesterday as the local pastor came to see them and gave them some beans.
As far as my colleagues know, none of the children are HIV-positive.

We say our good-byes and then travel to Chivi, which is about an hour's drive from Masvingo town, to meet a woman called Otellia.

Otellia says she is unable to walk if she takes her tablets on an empty stomach.
She has three children.
Last year her husband died.
Soon after he passed away, she started feeling unwell herself and after going to the local clinic she found she was also HIV-positive.
We come across her walking along the road from her home. She tells us she was on her way to one of her neighbours in search of a pinch of sugar so she can make herself a cup of tea - all she would have had that day.
Like Tendai, when she has nothing to eat the ARVs affect her badly.
Sitting - exhausted and weak - against the wall in her small home, Otellia tells us how she is unable to even walk if she takes her tablets on an empty stomach.
Otellia's nearest source of water is now nearly three miles away.
Despite her situation, she is proudly dignified and speaks overwhelmingly about her appreciation for the support she does get.
She has a vegetable patch but because she has been so ill lately she has not been able to plant any seeds and tend to them.
But as she says, even if she is strong enough to, there is no water anymore.
Her family's nearest source of water is nearly three miles (4.5km) away - a trip her children or kind neighbours make for her these days.
A lack of rain and access to agricultural inputs has left many thousands of people in this area without the means to grow their own food, as they used to do; and on top of that, even those with money are unable to buy much in the local stores because their shelves are mostly empty these days.

After leaving Otellia we travel further up the road to visit a lady called Siziwe, a single parent with three children.

Siziwe cares for 12 children altogether.
She also cares for another nine Aids orphans from three different families. The children are aged between five and 12.
The impact of the food situation is well illustrated by her extended family.
Siziwe tells me that they often go hungry for four days at a time.
She used to be able to afford to send seven of the children to school but now because of the rampant hyperinflation and the high and ever-increasing cost of life in Zimbabwe she can only pay for three.
But as she explains, sometimes they can't even make the journey to school because they're so weak from hunger.
I am taken aback by Siziwe's extraordinary strength and humility.
On the way back to Masvingo we come across some children in the trees along the side of the road - it is hard to tell if they are picking the fruit to supplement their diets or whether they are just playing.

TUESDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 2008
On Tuesday I visit one of the Red Cross's supplementary feeding centres in Mwenezi, where more than 200 children are given a daily meal, Monday to Friday.
The children, all aged five years old and under, come from households that have been identified as vulnerable homes - most are looked after by an older sibling or by parents who are very ill with HIV/Aids.
The children wait patiently, talking and laughing amongst themselves, for their lunch of sadza [porridge made from maize meal] and beans.
After the children have eaten we sit on the floor and play and chat.

The provisional manager, Lucky, calls round to the feeding centre.
I ask him for his view on the impact of the feeding programme and he says that the local health authorities are really optimistic about the children who are able to benefit from it.
As lunch is wrapping up, a few children from the local school appear - they enter the area quietly and sit to one side away from the little ones, waiting to be called over.
Apparently they ask their teacher if they can leave their class to come and wait for the leftovers and she allows them to. Although they're older than five and not considered to be so needy, they are allowed to come and have some food after the little ones have eaten.
In this part of Zimbabwe, almost 2,000 people are living with HIV and about 650 vulnerable children are looked after by the Red Cross.

Musa - one of my colleagues working in the field - describes the current food crisis, as "severe".
Musa describes Zimbabwe's current food crisis as "severe"
And most worrying for her is the fact that because so many of her HIV-positive patients are unable to eat a proper diet, they are now beginning to stop taking their ARVs.
She tells me how they blame the pills for how they are feeling; not the lack of food.
She goes on to say that in the past six months, at least 30 of her patients have died.
One thing that will stay with me from this trip is how proud and dignified people were.
Not once did anyone ask for help.
But their main topic of conversation was food and climate change as the seasons that enabled them to always live in this land are not the same anymore.
I found the severity of it and the way it is affecting so many, who are already so vulnerable, extremely dispiriting. HIV Crisis Trop
BBC NEWS REPORT.

CUBA HAMMERED BY HURRICANE IKE !

Hurricane Ike has been battering eastern Cuba with torrential rain and giant waves, leaving chaos in its wake.
Some homes on the coast, from where about 800,000 people have been evacuated, are damaged beyond repair.
Forecasters say Ike has moved out over warm Caribbean waters off Cuba's coast and may strengthen before hitting the west of the country late on Monday.
Earlier, Ike killed 61 people in Haiti and reportedly damaged 80% of homes on the main Turks and Caicos islands.

Hurricane Ike's projected path
Enlarge Map

The Cuban Meteorology Institute said the eye of the hurricane came ashore near Punta Lucrecia in the state of Holguin about 510 miles (823km) south-east of the capital, Havana.
The storm surge flooded streets in the eastern part of the island as it made landfall.
Although it weakened slightly to a Category Two storm, Ike was still packing maximum sustained winds near 160km/h (100mph).
The winds have torn the roofs off buildings, knocked down trees and destroyed coffee plantations and sugar cane fields.
Ike has moved out over water where it could strengthen before it makes a turn to the west-north-west later on Monday, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
It should then hit land again in western Cuba, heading in the direction of Havana, the NHC said.

With Hurricane Gustav striking just a week ago, Cuba's internationally acclaimed emergency services are being stretched to the limit, the BBC's Michael Voss reports from Havana.
Gustav caused serious damage to the western side of the island, damaging almost 100,000 homes.
"In all of Cuba's history, we have never had two hurricanes this close together," Jose Rubiera, head of Cuba's meteorological service, told state TV.
Havana alert
Ike is forecast to reach Havana early on Tuesday.

RED CROSS APPEAL
The charity is accepting donations to help people in the Caribbean
Donations can be made on 0845 053 53 53 or via its website

Havana prepares for the worst
Caribbean's devastating season

A direct hit on the densely populated city of two million people, with its precarious colonial buildings, could be devastating, our correspondent says.
The city has been put on alert as authorities prepared to evacuate residents from some of the crumbling, older buildings.
Among those evacuated from Cuba before the arrival of Ike were 15,000 tourists.
North of Cuba, in the Florida Keys, authorities called off an evacuation order as it appeared the storm would pass to the south.
But residents who had left the string of islands were urged to stay away until Wednesday until it was clear which way Ike was heading.
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency and warned coastal residents to be prepared to move inland for the second time in 10 days.
The NHC said it was still too early to tell which direction Ike would move in once it entered the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday night.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, has endured the onslaught of four tropical storms in a three-week period.
Heavy rains and flooding sparked by the outer bands of Hurricane Ike killed at least 61 people in Cabaret, to the north of the capital Port-au-Prince.

RECENT MAJOR STORMS
Hurricane Ike: September
Tropical Storm Hanna: September
Hurricane Gustav: August, September
Tropical Storm Fay: August

In pictures: Hurricane Ike
Eyewitness: Waiting for Ike
Guide: How hurricanes form

"The whole village is flooded," said local civil protection official Moise Jean-Pierre. "The death toll could go higher."
The destruction in Haiti has been described as catastrophic.
Police said 500 people were confirmed dead from recent Tropical Storm Hanna while others were still missing and the number could rise.
The newly installed Prime Minister, Michele Pierre Louis, has launched a fresh appeal for international aid.
He called in particular for helicopters to bring those left stranded by the floods to safety.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DECLARING LOVE BOOSTS SEX APPEAL !

The secret to successful flirting is letting someone know how you feel.
Telling someone you fancy 'I really like you' could make him or her find you more attractive, research suggests.
Making eye contact and smiling have a similar effect, says Aberdeen University psychologist Dr Ben Jones.
His study, involving 230 men and women, found such social cues - which signal how much others fancy you - play a crucial role in attraction.
The work will appear in Psychological Science and will be presented at the BA Festival of Science in Liverpool.
Dr Jones said singletons could use his findings to help prevent wasting time chatting up people who were clearly not interested.
"Combining information about others' physical beauty with information about how attracted they appear to be to you allows you to allocate your social effort efficiently," he said.
In other words, avoid wasting time on attractive individuals who appear unlikely to reciprocate.
In the study, 230 men and women were asked to look at flash cards picturing a face with different expressions - making eye contact or not and smiling or not.
The volunteers were then asked to rate how attractive the faces were.
The preference for the attractive face was much stronger when people were judging those faces that were looking at them and smiling.
Dr Lynda Boothroyd, a psychologist at the University of Durham, said: "We like it when attractive people seem to be behaving positively towards us.
"And we seem to end up with people who are on our level in terms of attractiveness.
"Maybe one of the ways you learn your level of attractiveness is through how other people behave towards you."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

AL-QAEDA 'MARKS 9/11 WITH VIDEO' !

The Islamic militant network al-Qaeda, which claimed the 9/11 attacks, has issued a video to mark their seventh anniversary, an Arabic TV channel says.
In the 90-minute tape obtained by Qatar's al-Jazeera TV, deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri denounces Iran and the "Crusader" threat to Islam.
Zawahiri is last known to have appeared in an al-Qaeda video in April.
Other al-Qaeda videos since the 9/11 attacks on America in 2001 featured the group's leader, Osama Bin Laden.
The latest tape refers to last month's war over South Ossetia between Russia and Georgia as well as the resignation of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, suggesting it was made as recently as mid-August.
Zawahiri is shown accusing Iran of "co-operating with the Americans in occupying Iran and Afghanistan".
The deputy leader of al-Qaeda, which draws its support from Sunni Muslims, also condemns Shia Muslims for not calling for a holy war in Iraq against Western forces there.
Last week, it was reported that Pakistani troops had narrowly missed a chance to capture Zawahiri.
A location in Mohmand tribal region on the Afghan border was attacked after his wife was seen there but soldiers failed to find the couple.
Zawahiri, an eye surgeon who helped found the Egyptian Islamic Jihad militant group, is often referred to as Bin Laden's right-hand man and the chief ideologue of al-Qaeda.
He is also believed by some experts to have been the "operational brains" behind the 9/11 attacks and continues to have a $25m bounty on his head.
The whereabouts and fate of Bin Laden himself remain a mystery.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BELGIAN GRAND PRIX !

By Andrew Benson.

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton was stripped of a dramatic victory in the Belgian Grand Prix after stewards handed him a 25-second post-race penalty.
The Englishman was demoted to third place behind Ferrari's Felipe Massa and BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld.
He was accused of gaining an advantage by cutting the Spa circuit's Bus Stop chicane in a late-race battle with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.
McLaren announced that they intend to appeal the stewards' decision.
The demotion meant Hamilton's lead over Massa in the title chase cut to two points.
Massa's team-mate Raikkonen, who crashed out of second place shortly after losing the lead, is 19 points behind Hamilton.

Raikkonen is a point behind BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica.
Before the penalty, Hamilton had extended his lead over the Brazilian to eight points, with Raikkonen effectively out of the running on 23.
On the track, Hamilton had survived a frantic last two laps in a late shower of rain to apparently score a superb win.
Hamilton lost the lead to Raikkonen with an early spin but fought back in the closing laps to re-take the lead with two laps to go.
In a dramatic climax on a soaking track, Hamilton passed Raikkonen, lost the lead again with a spin, re-took it and then saw Raikkonen crash.

In a chaotic final couple of laps, Heidfeld jumped from eighth to third place on the track with what he called a "hero or zero decision" to come in for wet-weather tyres with two laps to go.
Renault's Fernando Alonso chose the same tactic a lap later and it secured the double world champion the fourth place he had held for much of the race.
"It was an experience and a half," Hamilton said before his penalty was announced. "I was praying for rain. I wanted it to come because I knew how to deal with it.
"The heavens opened and I saw Kimi begin to back off and to brake a bit earlier.
"I was going reasonably wide at Turn 12 but Rosberg spun and went off where I was coming back on. I went over the grass. It was incredibly tough.
"Kimi pushed me wide. I was a little bit ahead. I was outside on Turn One, I had no room and he basically pushed me so I went on the escape route.
"So I let him past, then got in his tow and he was ducking and diving left and right but I managed to get past him and I was pretty much gone from there."

It was another superb performance in the wet from Hamilton, who has inherited Michael Schumacher's mantle as Formula One's rain master.
But for a long time it had looked as if the Englishman had tossed away his chance of victory on the daunting Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
The race started with the track wet in the immediate vicinity of the pits but dry on the majority of the lap.
Hamilton, along with every other driver in the race other than Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr, chose dry tyres.
But the conditions caught him out at the start of lap two, and he spun turning into the La Source hairpin.
The mistake put Raikkonen right behind him and the Ferrari driver simply drove past on the straight after the Eau Rouge esses.
It was a critical error from Hamilton, who was fuelled to make his first pit stop a lap earlier than Raikkonen.
That meant his main hope of holding off the Ferrari driver was to build a lead big enough before his stop on lap 10 that Raikkonen could not close it on his extra lap.
Instead, although Hamilton shadowed Raikkonen to the first stops, he could not pass him.
Hamilton's hopes were further dented when he came out from his pit stop right behind his slower team-mate Heikki Kovalainen, who was battling for position with Kubica.
By the time he had cleared Kovalainen and Kubica five laps later, Raikkonen was five seconds ahead, a lead he was able to maintain comfortably to the second round of stops.
The two men both made their final stops on lap 25 and on the harder tyre Hamilton was able to close on the Ferrari.
The 23-year-old shaved about half a second a lap out of Raikkonen's lead and was within two seconds of the Ferrari by lap 31.
Raikkonen's hopes of victory - and probably the title - ended with a crash.
He was unable to make much more of an impression until the predicted late shower of rain arrived with about five laps to go.
Within minutes, the back of the circuit was soaking, while it remained dry in the vicinity of the pits - not an unusual situation at a track renowned for its capricious weather.
Hamilton closed right up to Raikkonen on lap 42 but he fatefully cut the Bus Stop chicane after pulling out of a passing move at the end of the lap.
He then chased Raikkonen down the pit straight and passed the Ferrari going into the La Source hairpin at the start of lap 43.
But that was not the end of the battle.
When the two men reached the wet part of the track halfway around the lap, Hamilton slid off, handing the lead back to Raikkonen, who almost immediately lost it again by sliding off himself.
The Finn then lost control going through the fast Blanchimont corner, and speared into the wall.
But the drama had not finished, and was merely switched to the stewards' office.
Their decision is likely to be greeted with cynicism as it makes the championship battle dramatically closer at a time when Hamilton was beginning to look like he was inching towards his first title.

Result of Belgian Grand Prix:
1. Felipe Massa (Brz) Ferrari one hour 22 minutes 59.394 seconds2. Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 9.383 seconds behind3. Lewis Hamilton* (GB) McLaren-Mercedes at 10.539secs4. Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault 14.4785. Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 14.5766. Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 15.0377. Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 16.7358. Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault 42.7769. Timo Glock** (Ger) Toyota 67.045, 10. Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes one lap behind11. David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault one lap12. Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams one lap13. Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India-Ferrari one lap14. Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams-Toyota one lap15. Jenson Button (GB) Honda one lap16. Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota one lap17. Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India-Ferrari one lap18R Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari two lapsR Rubens Barrichello (Brz) Honda 19 laps completedR Nelson Piquet (Brz) Renault 31 laps
Key: R = retired
Fastest lap: Raikkonen, 1:47.930, lap 24
* Hamilton penalised 25 seconds for gaining an advantage by cutting a chicane
** Glock penalised 25 seconds for ignoring yellow warning flags

BBC SPORTS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Gangrene !

Saturday 6th September 2008.

Dear Family and Friends,

If you come first in a running race, why would you give ninety-nine percent of the gold medal and prize money to the person who came second? The answer is obvious but as each day passes it seems the real winner, and the will of the majority of Zimbabweans is not going to be respected. The people and political party who came second in Zimbabwe's March 29th elections are simply not going to step down and their refusal to accept defeat has sent us into a dizzying collapse out of all control.

The rich are getting much, much richer; the poor are virtually destitute and the middle class has all but disappeared as Zimbabwe moves into trading in US Dollars. No one in government - winners or losers - has said or done anything to stop people charging in US dollars and all control now seems to be lost. For the last few weeks medical specialists have been charging their patients in US dollars. You have to provide hard currency (US dollar bank notes) in order to see a dentist, have an operation, receive the services of an anaesthetist and lately you even need US dollars to buy prescription medicines from pharmacies.

The trend has spread to spare parts for machines and to computer accessories and the more this US dollar trading goes on unchecked and uncontrolled so the pattern spreads. Now even locally produced goods are being charged in US dollars: meat, eggs, potatoes and milk.

As people do their own thing and while there remains a non functional government and non existent authority base, the situation grows worse and worse. We are now in a sudden greedy spiral of US Dollar inflation in Zimbabwe. A pocket of potatoes that was selling for 5 US dollars last week now suddenly costs 8 US dollars. The same is happening to meat prices and to property rentals.

For the vast majority of people who have no access to US dollars, life has become simply unbearable these last few weeks. Pensioners who have no foreign currency and cannot buy life sustaining medicines; people who are sick and in pain but cannot see dentists, specialists or undergo operations. One friend described how she took a desperately sick man with gangrene to a government hospital this week only to be told that they were not accepting any admissions as they simply have no resources : no drugs, linen, food or equipment. After much pleading, long negotiations and under the counter payments of huge amounts of money, the sick man was finally taken in. He had to provide his own bedding and linen, bandages, dressings, medication, drugs and food.

Health for all by the year 2000 has been the the clarion call of Zanu PF since they took power and yet after 28 years this is the state we are in. And still they talk of sharing power?
Until next time, thanks for reading,

love cathy

"SAYINGS" !

"YOU MAY BE DISAPPOINTED IF YOU FAIL,

BUT YOU ARE DOOMED IF YOU DON'T TRY" !

___________

CHANNEL 4 'BROKE RULES' !

By Richard Black - Environment correspondent, BBC News website

The Great Global Warming Swindle, a controversial Channel 4 film, broke Ofcom rules, the media regulator says.
In a long-awaited judgement, Ofcom says Channel 4 did not fulfil obligations to be impartial and to reflect a range of views on controversial issues.
The film also treated interviewees unfairly, but did not mislead audiences "so as to cause harm or offence".
Plaintiffs say the Ofcom judgement is "inconsistent" and "lets Channel 4 off the hook on a technicality."

Why I challenged Channel 4's film

The film's key contentions were that the increase in atmospheric temperatures observed since the 1970s was not primarily caused by emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, and that the modern focus on climate change is based in politics rather than science.
It is seen in some "climate sceptic" circles as a counter to Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, and credited with influencing public perception of climate science. It has reportedly been sold to 21 countries and distributed on DVD.

"It's very disappointing that Ofcom hasn't come up with a stronger statement about being misled," said Sir John Houghton, a former head of the UK Met Office and chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientific assessment.
"I know hundreds of people, literally hundreds, who were misled by it - they saw it, it was a well-produced programme and they imagined it had some truth behind it, so they were misled and it seems Ofcom didn't care about that," he told BBC News.

Ofcom defines a misleading programme as one by which the audience is "materially misled so as to cause harm or offence", and that Swindle does not meet this "high test".
"The programme has been let off the hook on a highly questionable technicality," said Bob Ward, former head of media at the Royal Society, who played a prominent role in co-ordinating objections to the film.
"The ruling noted that Channel 4 had admitted errors in the graphs and data used in the programme, yet decided that this did not cause harm or offence to the audience."
Plaintiffs accused the programme of containing myriad factual inaccuracies, but Ofcom says it was "impractical and inappropriate for it to examine in detail all of the multifarious alleged examples... set out in the complaints."
The regulator also says it is only obliged to see that news programmes meet "due accuracy".

The broadcaster argued that the judgement vindicated its decision to showcase the documentary.
"Ofcom's ruling explicitly recognises Channel 4's right to show the programme and the paramount importance of broadcasters being able to challenge orthodoxies and explore controversial subject matter," said Hamish Mykura, the station's head of documentaries.
"This is particularly relevant to Channel 4 with its public remit and commitment to giving airtime to alternative perspectives."

On another issue - whether contributors to the programme had been treated fairly - Ofcom mainly found against Channel 4 and the film's producer WagTV.
Former UK chief scientific adviser Sir David King had been misquoted and had not been given a chance to put his case, the regulator said.
Ofcom also found in favour of Carl Wunsch, an oceanographer interviewed for the programme, who said he had been invited to take part in a programme that would "discuss in a balanced way the complicated elements of understanding of climate change", but which turned out to be "an out-and-out propaganda piece, in which there is not even a gesture toward balance".
The film alleged that the IPCC's scientific reports were driven by politics rather than science, and Ofcom ruled the organisation had not been given adequate time to respond.
"I think this is a vindication of the credibility and standing of the IPCC and the manner in which we function, and clearly brings out the distortion in whatever Channel 4 was trying to project," said Rajendra Pachauri, the organisation's chairman.
Ofcom's Broadcasting Code requires Channel 4 to show "due impartiality" on "matters of major political and industrial controversy and major matters relating to current public policy".

Human hands are driving climate change, Ofcom acknowledges
The last segment of the programme, dealing with the politics of climate change, broke this obligation, Ofcom judged, and did not reflect a range of views, as required under the code.
But the main portion of the film, on climate science, did not breach these rules.
Ofcom's logic is that "the link between human activity and global warming... became settled before March 2007".
This being so, it says, climate science was not "controversial" at the time of broadcast, so Channel 4 did not break regulations by broadcasting something that challenged the link.
"That's a very big inconsistency," said Sir John Houghton. "They said it's completely settled, so why worry - so they can just broadcast any old rubbish."
While some of the 265 complaints received by Ofcom were short and straightforward, one group assembled a 176-page document alleging 137 breaches of the code.
Channel 4 will have to broadcast a summary of the Ofcom ruling, but it brings no sanctions.
Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

BBC NEWS REPORT.