" SAYINGS "

"IN MATTER OF PRINCIPLE,

STAND LIKE A ROCK;

IN MATTERS OF TASTE,

SWIM WITH THE CURRENT"!

_______

DOOR FALLS OFF PLANE MID-FLIGHT!

A landing gear door fell of a KC-135 operating out of RAF Mildenhall.
US Air Force staff in Suffolk have appealed for help in finding a landing gear door which fell off an aircraft mid-flight.
The door dropped from a KC-135 refuelling plane during a flight from RAF Mildenhall to the Wash.
The plane from the 100th Air Refueling Wing was on a routine mission when the panel fell off on Thursday.
The USAF has appealed for anyone who finds the door, measuring one foot by two feet, to report it immediately.
The aircraft travelled north from RAF Mildenhall toward RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire before carrying out the refuelling mission over the Wash and returning to base.
A USAF spokesman said it was not clear at what stage of the flight the door fell off, nor what caused the accident.
The spokesman said: "If anyone discovers this door, they should contact local authorities immediately."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

E-MAIL ERROR ENDS UP ON ROAD SIGN !

The English is clear enough to lorry drivers but the Welsh reads "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated."
When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road sign, they thought the reply was what they needed.
Unfortunately, the e-mail response to Swansea council said in Welsh: "I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated."
So that was what went up under the English version, barring lorries from a road near a supermarket.
"When they're proofing signs, they should really use someone who speaks Welsh," journalist Dylan Iorwerth said.
Swansea council became lost in translation when it was looking to bar heavy goods vehicles near an Asda store in the Morriston area of the city.
All official road signs in Wales are bilingual, so the local authority e-mailed its in-house translation service for the Welsh version of "No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only."
The reply duly came back and officials set the wheels in motion to create the large sign in both languages.
The notice went up and all seemed well - until Welsh speakers pointed out the embarrassing error.
Welsh-language magazine Golwg was promptly sent photographs of the offending sign by a number of its readers.
Managing editor Mr Iorwerth said: "We've been running a series of these pictures over the past months.
"They're circulating among Welsh speakers because, unfortunately, it's all too common that things are not just badly translated, but are put together by people who have no idea about the language.
"It's good to see people trying to translate but they should really ask for expert help.
'Mistranslation'
"Everything these days seems to be written first in English and then translated. Ideally, they should be written separately in both languages."
A council spokeswoman said : "Our attention was drawn to the mistranslation of a sign at the junction of Clase Road and Pant-y-Blawd Road.
"We took it down as soon as we were made aware of it and a correct sign will be re-instated as soon as possible."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SPRINGSTEEN POSTS HALLOWEEN SONG!

US rock star Bruce Springsteen has put a free musical download on his website as a seasonal treat for fans.
The new song, entitled A Night With the Jersey Devil, talks about "16 witches casting 16 spells".
Springsteen wrote: "If you grew up in south or central Jersey, you grew up with the Jersey Devil."
The musician recently cancelled an annual Halloween display at his New Jersey home over concerns about the volume of visitors it would attract.
Springsteen's website also features a video to accompany the song.
The Jersey Devil is a legendary two-legged creature, often depicted with wings and hooves, which is said to inhabit the Pine Barrens area of New Jersey.
Various sightings of the animal have been reported since the 18th century.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE CONDITIONS 'WORSENING" !

Conditions for ordinary Zimbabweans are growing ever more desperate as the political crisis continues, says human rights group Amnesty International.
In a report, Amnesty warns that many people are at risk of extreme hunger after a failed agricultural season.
It says many victims of the political violence that followed the March elections were subsistence farmers.
Amnesty has released video footage of a farmer said to have been beaten up by secret police earlier in October.
Some famers have been crippled and are now unable to work the land, the group says, leaving them dependent on food aid.
Amnesty says much of the violence was state-sponsored, often perpetrated by members of the security forces in government vehicles.

The report, Zimbabwe - Time for Accountability, urges southern African leaders to resolve the political crisis.
Although a power-sharing agreement was signed six weeks ago, there is deadlock over the allocation of cabinet posts.
"Every day that passes without a political solution, the living conditions for ordinary Zimbabweans become more and more desperate," says Amnesty International's Zimbabwe researcher Simeon Mawanza.
Mr Mawanza warned that "the most vulnerable Zimbabweans are at risk of extreme hunger".
"If we think the food situation in Zimbabwe is bad now, just wait until the end of this year, when half of the population is likely to need aid," he said.

Amnesty said the majority of victims it had interviewed said they could name their attackers, most of whom were in the security forces, so-called war veterans or local activists with the ruling Zanu-PF.
In video footage released by Amnesty, a 26-year-old farmer and MDC supporter recalls an attack earlier in October, which left her with internal injuries.

One farmer, whose face has been obscured to protect her identity, said she was attacked this month - filmed by Amnesty International
"I locked my doors, but they broke them down and came in. They started beating me, they hit me on the head with a big stick and kicked me in the chest while I was on the floor," she said.
Lyn, an 86-year-old farmer, told Amnesty her arm was broken for not attending Zanu-PF meetings.
She told the rights group: "I am now disabled. I can't work in the field. I want to be compensated for the injuries. I want [my attackers] to be brought to justice."
President Robert Mugabe denies his government backed a campaign of violence and torture against supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

THE DEATH OF THE DOLLAR !

By Professor Ngaire Woods - Presenter, Analysis, BBC Radio 4.

The dollar is becoming more of a problem for the US, Prof Woods argues.
We are living in economic chaos. Banks, homes, jobs, and businesses are at risk.
Yet curiously, the one thing that seems stable is the dollar.
It is a symbol - and a lever - of American power and leadership, itis the standard unit of account for much of the world's economic activity. And in times of crisis, it has often seemed a safe haven.
But in the longer term, some experts believe this crisis could mark a turning point in the dollar's fortunes, hastening a fall from power which has seen its value decline over several years before its recent rally.
"I think today's financial crisis is going to hasten the end of the dollar as the world's reserve currency", says Avinash Persaud, chairman of Intelligence Capital Limited.
"For the first time ever we're now seeing that in the financial markets it costs money to guarantee you against a US government default."

Dollars and dominance
Listen to the programme

He wonders whether the combined cost of foreign wars and domestic bail-outs is being seen as "a burden too far" for the US.
But for the dollar to lose reserve currency status would end what has been in many ways a huge bonus for the US.
It is sometimes described as the ability to write cheques that no-one ever cashes.
So for the American government there is simply no such thing as living beyond its means. With the rest of the world demanding dollars, all the US has to do is to keep printing them.
This makes possible things that no other government could imagine - a power that America's rivals have historically denounced as an "exorbitant privilege".
In the early 1970s, US Treasury Secretary John Connally even told the outside world, brutally, that the dollar was "our currency, but your problem".

Since then, Europe has developed its own currency, the euro, which has taken on a global role. As it grew in strength against the dollar it challenged some of the dollar's glamorous reputation. Supermodels in New York started asking for contracts in euros rather than dollars. But European leaders are far from keen on seeing their currency become the world's reserve money.
"Europe has got a much less vast set of ambitions than America has ever had", says David Marsh, a banker who is just finishing a book charting the birth of the euro. Adopting the currency, he adds, was a "flight into a lack of ambition". So might a rising economic power like China supply the dollar's eventual global successor?
At present, China lacks the open markets or institutions to support that role. But Avinash Persaud points out that similarly dismissive things were said about the US a century ago.
The US did not have a Central Bank until 1913, yet within a few decades the dollar was challenging sterling for world domination.
For now, China has a huge stake in what happens to the dollar, as it has built up well over a trillion dollars' worth of assets in the US currency thanks to its recent export boom.
That gives China a vested interest in a strong dollar. But it also gives Beijing the power to undermine the US currency should it choose to move its money.
This has been called by one former US Treasury Secretary the "balance of financial terror".
"It's like the idea of mutually assured deterrence" says leading US political scientist Barry Eichengreen. "We hope that everybody becomes respectful of the financial power of the other side, but that such destructive power won't be deployed."
So a new kind of American economic diplomacy has to emerge, particularly with the Gulf States. They're not only holding dollars, but pricing their oil in "petrodollars".
The US government is torn. Dollar-rich foreign states may demand a strong US currency, but that is bad for American exporters.

It makes every American car or computer sold abroad more expensive. That is why the dollar has been quietly let slide over the last six years - and the weaker dollar has boosted American exports.
Jim O'Neill, Head of Global Economic Research at Goldman Sachs, believes "we are emerging into is this very hazy and slightly worrying state of affairs where there isn't going to be any single country leading the world in the way the US has done and with it no single currency either".
So the next American President has a delicate balancing act ahead.
If dollar-rich foreign countries don't like what's happening to the US currency, they may look for alternatives. And everyone knows that, down the line, the power of the dollar has to decline as the global balance of economic power changes.
So the dollar is no longer their currency and everyone else's problem. It is now the world's currency - and mostly America's problem.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SARKOSY BOSES 'VOODOO DOLL' CASE!

A French judge has rejected President Nicolas Sarkozy's attempt to stop sales of a "voodoo doll" in his image.
Dismissing the case, the Paris judge said the doll was "within the authorised limits of free expression and the right to humour".
Mr Sarkozy's lawyer said the president would appeal against the decision.
The doll comes with pins which users can stick into memorable quotes from the president printed on the doll, such as "work more to earn more".
Mr Sarkozy took the makers of the kit - publishing company K&B - to the courts after it went on sale on 9 October. His lawyer said Mr Sarkozy had "exclusive and absolute rights" over his own image.

The company refused to stop selling the kit, saying Mr Sarkozy's reaction was "totally disproportionate".
The case has attracted a fair amount of mockery in France and boosted sales of the kit, says the BBC's Alasdair Sandford in Paris.
K&B also released a similar doll of Segolene Royal, Mr Sarkozy's rival in the presidential elections last year.
She has decided not to take action against K&B, saying: "I have a sense of humour."
This is Mr Sarkozy's sixth legal action since he was elected last year, but it is the first case the courts have rejected.
Voodoo has become associated with zombies and sticking pins into dolls to curse an enemy, but practitioners say this misrepresents their religion.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA TOXIC EGG SCANDAL SPREADS!

By Quentin Sommerville - BBC News, Beijing.

Three more Chinese brands of chicken's eggs have been found to contain high levels of the chemical melamine.
Tests in Hong Kong first revealed dangerously high levels of the substance in eggs from a mainland supplier earlier this week.
Officials were reportedly aware of the contamination a month earlier.
The growing scandal follows the discovery of melamine in Chinese milk, which has killed four children, and triggered product recalls across Asia.
Like the milk scandal before it, the contamination of China's egg supply appears to be far more widespread than first realised.
And as before, it seems that local officials on the mainland attempted to cover up news of the contamination.

A newspaper in Beijing reports that the sanitation department of Liaoning province, in the north-east, began investigating a local egg producer at the beginning of October.
It then ordered a ban on any media interviews.
Four babies died as a result of the milk scandal and thousands were made sick.
Despite a nationwide campaign to raise food safety standards and reassure consumers, the mainland's broken down food safety inspectorate is still failing to catch and report lapses in standards when they happen.
Hong Kong is stepping up its tests of mainland Chinese food products, and is asking China's help to trace the source of melamine contamination in eggs.
Testing of animal feed, chicken meat and eggs will also be introduced.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WEARING RED 'BOOSTS ATTRACTION'!

Women who don a little red dress before going out with a man may find their date more attentive and generous, according to scientists.
The University of Rochester study, published in a psychology journal, supports other evidence linking the colour to attractiveness.
Men said they would spend more money on a woman pictured in red, compared with the same woman wearing a blue shirt.
Experts say that red signals ovulation or attractiveness in other species.
The colour has traditionally been linked with romantic and sexual matters, from red hearts on Valentine's Day, to red-light districts.
The researchers say that their study is clear evidence that the colour red makes men feel more amorous - even if this is only on a subconscious level.
Their volunteers were told they had $100, shown the picture of their "date", then asked how much of that money they were prepared to spend.
On average, wearing red meant a more expensive night out, and in general, a higher rating of attractiveness.
When the pictures were shown to other women, there were no wardrobe-dependent differences in attractiveness ratings.

Professor Andrew Elliot, who led the research, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, said: "It's fascinating to find that something as ubiquitous as colour can be having an effect on our behaviour without our awareness."
Dr Jo Setchell, an anthropologist from Durham University, said that, as the colour of blood, red was the easiest signal for an animal to produce externally, and had become a handy method of advertising fertility.
"For example, a lot of female monkeys have bright red sexual swellings, which show that they are around the time of ovulation.
"There has been controversy over whether, in female humans, ovulation is advertised or not, although there is some evidence that behaviour, such as going out, changes around that time.
"But wearing red could give you an advantage."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CROATIA LAUNCHES ANTO-MAFIA DRIVE!

Croats have been shocked by a spate of mafia-style killings.
Croatia's new justice minister has announced a package of measures to tackle organised crime, following a spate of mafia-style killings.
Ivan Simonovic told the Croatian parliament that courts would fast-track such cases and witness protection would be improved.
He said the problem needed "a scalpel", because it threatened people's security and Croatia's bid to join the EU.
New legislation would allow criminals' property to be confiscated, he said.
"That way we will hit the mob where it hurts most - their wallets!" he said.
On 23 October a car bomb blast in the capital Zagreb killed Ivo Pukanic, editor of the weekly newspaper Nacional, along with the paper's chief marketing executive, Niko Franic.
Earlier this month, a prominent lawyer's daughter, Ivana Hodak, was shot dead in Zagreb. Her killing prompted Prime Minister Ivo Sanader to replace his ministers of justice and the interior.
"Croatia doesn't need a sabre, but nor does it need an aspirin. It needs a scalpel that cuts deep and with precision," Mr Simonovic said on Wednesday.
The new Interior Minister, Tomislav Karamarko, pledged police reforms, saying: "I'm sure the Croatian police will very soon regain lost trust from citizens."
Special departments will be established at municipal courts in Zagreb, Split, Rijeka and Osijek to deal with organised crime and corruption cases.
Mr Simonovic also said there would be closer monitoring of communications between prisoners jailed for organised crime and their outside contacts.
Effective action to combat organised crime and corruption is a key condition in Croatia's bid to join the European Union. The European Commission will deliver a progress report on its bid next month. Croatia hopes to join as early as 2010.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

POLAND MAY GET REFERENDUM !

The Polish government says it wants Poland to adopt the euro in 2012, but opposition to the plan - including from the president - may force a referendum.
The pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk approved a roadmap for eurozone entry at a meeting on Tuesday.
But opposition Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, favour a referendum on the euro.
Poland committed itself to adopting the euro under its 2004 EU entry terms.
Poland's constitution would have to be amended to enable its currency, the zloty, to be swapped for the euro.
Mr Tusk said eurozone membership would make Poland more secure in the long term.
But PiS opposition in parliament to the plan could force a referendum. The PiS believes switching to the euro could undermine Poland's strong growth and national sovereignty.
"If there is no other possibility and I need the opposition's support on this matter, we may have to decide to organise a referendum," Mr Tusk said, quoted by the AFP news agency.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PARENTS QUEUE TO SELECT BABY GENDER!

A growing number of British couples are undergoing procedures at clinics overseas to determine the gender of their babies. However, as the BBC's Colette McBeth reports, this service is often offered illegally.

Like many a story, it started out with a simple conversation with a friend.
Is that really possible? I remember asking, before going straight home to my laptop and typing the words "gender selection" in the search engine.
My friend had told me she knew of someone who was going abroad to have a daughter through IVF.
The woman in question had two boys, both conceived naturally, but had a burning desire for a girl and didn't want to leave anything to chance.
Once on the internet, I was amazed to learn how many women not only wanted the same but felt so strongly about it.
I found whole websites devoted to discussion about where gender selection was legal (not the UK or most of Europe) and the cost of treatment (anything from £7,000 to £17,000).
Many patients who were planning to go abroad were completely confused as to where it was legal and where it wasn't

UK couples 'choosing baby gender'

Women who had four boys but couldn't rest until they had a daughter, or three girls and desperately wanted a son.
And this wasn't a cultural thing. If anything, girls won over boys.
It is possible to almost guarantee the sex of a baby using IVF and a type of embryos screening called Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD).
In most countries, though, PGD is used only for medical reasons. So if there is a genetic disease which runs in boys, couples would be allowed to have PGD to implant only female embryos.
Website advert
Some countries, such as the US and Russia, do allow sex selection - but I quickly realised there was a problem with all of this.
Many patients who were planning to go abroad were completely confused as to where it was legal and where it wasn't.
And some clinics seemed to be profiting out of the confusion.
One such clinic is the Jinemed Center in Istanbul. It has a slick website and boasts the claim "life begins with us".
It was also advertising on a gender selection website. You could even plan a fortnight's break in the sun, tell your friends you're taking the family on holiday and go for IVF/PGD.
The only problem with all of that is that gender selection is illegal in Turkey.
No matter, I found many posts in which women said they'd had treatment there or had been told it was possible.
And it happened two Jinemed representatives were coming to London for the weekend to see prospective patients.

So one Sunday a few weeks ago I went along to a dental practice in Shepherds Bush in London where the Jinemed had hired a room.
I took a small handbag which in itself was fairly normal except this one contained a hidden camera. We (my husband accompanied me) waited an hour to be seen.
The doctor and nurse had been rushed off their feet, it seemed.
Two days of back-to-back appointments - and 50% of those couples wanted sex selection.
I began to explain our story. "I'm 33 and we have two boys conceived naturally and..."
Before I could finish the nurse interjected with a smile. "And you want a daughter."
Over the course of half an hour they explained the costs involved and said we could have the whole procedure done in Turkey.
They also said they normally put in three embryos. That rang alarm bells.
The maximum in the UK is two and most doctors would like to see that reduced to one because multiple pregnancy is the single greatest risk with IVF.

In an earlier conversation it was suggested any extra foetuses could be "taken out" or aborted if I did get pregnant with twins or triplets.
I showed Professor Peter Braude of King's College London our footage.
Having been involved in IVF for many years he advocates implanting only one embryo in women going for fertility treatment.
He said: "Putting three embryos back in a young woman is really bad practice because of the high risk of multiple pregnancy.
"So even if you went abroad for treatment and had your IVF treatment you're bringing those twins back for care in this country - and besides the impact on the NHS there's significant impact on those babies."
Despite being told we had filmed its representatives offering to carry out the procedure, the Jinemed Center says it does not do it, and always warns patients about the risks of multiple pregnancies.
But, after contacting the Turkish government with our findings, it has now launched an official investigation into the Jinemed Center and warned UK patients not to travel there for gender selection.
Proof if needed that the desire to complete a family with a son or a daughter by going down the "high tech" route could turn into a legal nightmare.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BRAND AND ROSS SUSPENDED BY BBC !

Andrew Sachs says he accepts Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross's apologies.
Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand are to be suspended and all their shows taken off air until the BBC has investigated their prank calls made on Radio 2.
It follows a series of calls made by the pair to actor Andrew Sachs on Brand's Saturday night programme.
The actor, 78, said he would not be reporting the matter to police.
Meanwhile, Brand has told reporters: "It would be silly of me to speak without thinking because that's caused all this trouble in the first place."
He added he was sorry he upset Sachs, famous for his part in Fawlty Towers, over comments made about the actor's granddaughter.
Sachs, 78, said he was "not surprised" by the BBC's suspension of the pair but added: "I am not going to take it anywhere. I'm not out for revenge."
The calls were broadcast as part of Russell Brand's pre-recorded show on 18 October.
During the calls, Ross swore and said Brand had slept with Sachs' granddaughter.
More than 18,000 people have complained to the BBC while watchdog Ofcom has launched its own investigation.
The corporation's governing body, the BBC Trust, has now called a special meeting of its editorial standards committee for Thursday.
Director general Mark Thompson will report management findings to the meeting and tell bosses what action he plans to take.
Announcing the suspensions in an earlier statement, Mr Thompson said he would be returning from a holiday and would "in the coming days, announce what action we will take".

Statement in full

"Since Sunday, I have been in regular contact with the senior executives I tasked with handling this issue," he said.
"In the meantime, I have decided that it is not appropriate for either Russell Brand or Jonathan Ross to continue broadcasting on the BBC until I have seen the full report of the actions of all concerned.
"This gross lapse of taste by the performers and the production team has angered licence payers."
He added his "own personal and unreserved apology to Andrew Sachs, his family and to licence fee payers for the completely unacceptable broadcast".
BBC One show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross was due to have been filmed at BBC Television Centre, west London, later on Wednesday.
Guests on the show were to have been Sir David Attenborough, comedian Frank Skinner, US teen singer Miley Cyrus and band The Killers. The BBC said people with tickets to be in the audience should not attend.
A decision has yet to be taken on what should be shown in its place on Friday night.
Ross's Saturday morning radio show, as well as Brand's Saturday night radio show, have also been pulled from Radio 2's schedules.
Meanwhile, Ms Baillie, 23, told the Sun the pair should "pay for what they've done with their jobs".
Brand and Ross both have Saturday shows on Radio 2. She said her grandfather was "really upset and says he wants the whole situation to end".
"What's funny about humiliating a lovely old man who has never harmed anyone in his life?" she added.
She said Brand and Ross were "beyond contempt".
"It was bad enough that they recorded these things on my grandfather's answer machine but astonishing the BBC saw fit to broadcast it when they could have stopped it.
"Someone high up at the BBC must have decided it was funny and suitable for national radio. They've shown an appalling lack of judgement."

Andrew Sachs is best known for playing Manuel in Fawlty TowersPrime Minister Gordon Brown criticised the pair for "inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour", while Conservative shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a speech on Wednesday that it was "wrong for broadcasters to produce programmes that legitimise negative social behaviour".
He told BBC News the corporation's reaction to the affair was "concerning".
Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman, former chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, said it was "essential for the BBC to ascertain quickly who was responsible for approving this pre-recorded episode".
"This has not been handled well - clearly this should not have been broadcast in the first place and if Mr Thompson did not know about it then he needs to cut some heads off of the people that didn't let him know," he told BBC News.
Sir Gerald added that if media regulator Ofcom were to fine the BBC for the incident, it should not be paid with licence payer's money.
"If the BBC is fined I believe the two people involved should pay the fine and not the licence payers," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

VW BECOMES WORLD'S BIGGSET FIRM!

Bizarre stock market activity made Volkswagen briefly the world's biggest company by market value on Tuesday.
The carmaker's shares peaked at 1,005 euros, which valued the company at 296bn euros ($370bn; £237bn), which is well over Exxon Mobil's $343bn value.
The panic buying was caused by traders who had short-sold VW shares desperately trying to buy them back so they could close their positions.
Porsche bought VW shares at the weekend, leaving few others available.
On Sunday, Porsche announced that it held more than 74% of Volkswagen's shares.
VW's home state of Lower Saxony controls 20% of the shares, leaving just over 5% available on the market.

Before Porsche's announcement, many traders had been betting on VW's shares falling.
They had borrowed VW shares and sold them in the market, planning to buy them back when the shares had fallen, return them to the lender and pocket the difference.
But what actually happened was that the shares rose as a result of Porsche's effective takeover and the traders found themselves forced to buy the shares at any price to close their positions.
In afternoon trading, VW shares had fallen back to 686 euros, up 32%, following Monday's rise of 146.6%.
Last Friday, the shares closed below 200 euros.
"Each and any short-seller in the world is trying to close up their position and there is no way they can do it, except for trying to buy like mad," said Heino Ruland, an analyst at FrankfurtFinanz.
As an indication of how silly the market valuation is, Exxon last year made profits of $41bn on sales of $390bn. It employs 80,800 people worldwide.
Volkswagen managed profits of about $8bn on sales of $136bn.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BBC PRESSURED TO SACK PRESENTERS!

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross both have separate Saturday shows on BBC Radio 2.
The BBC is coming under increased pressure to sack Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross following their prank calls to actor Andrew Sachs.
His granddaughter Georgina Baillie told the Sun the pair "should at least pay for what they've done with their jobs".
Tory media spokesman Jeremy Hunt will say in a speech that Radio 2 was wrong to approve the material.
The BBC has apologised, and it and the regulator Ofcom are investigating following 10,000 complaints.
Brand and Ross made a series of prank calls to Sachs, 78, famous for his part in Fawlty Towers. The calls were broadcast on Radio 2 as part of a pre-recorded show on 18 October.
During the calls, Ross revealed Brand had slept with Sachs' granddaughter.
Shadow culture secretary Mr Hunt will say it is "wrong for broadcasters to produce programmes that legitimise negative social behaviour".
"That is why the BBC was quite wrong to take the decision to broadcast the offensive phone calls", he will say in the speech at the London School of Economics.
Someone high up at the BBC must have decided it was funny and suitable for national radio. Ms Baillie, 23, said she felt "betrayed" and "embarrassed" the relationship had been publicly revealed to her grandfather.
She said he was "really upset, and says he wants the whole situation to end".
She added of Brand and Ross: "They are beyond contempt. They are warped for what they have put me and my grandfather through.
"It was bad enough that they recorded these things on my grandfather's answer machine but astonishing the BBC saw fit to broadcast it when they could have stopped it.
"Someone high up at the BBC must have decided it was funny and suitable for national radio. They've shown an appalling lack of judgement."

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also criticised the pair for their "inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour" on Brand's radio show.
But Comedian Helen Zaltzman, who ran a comedy club where Brand performed before he became famous, told BBC Radio Five Live it was well-known Brand and Ross "toe a particularly risky line" and said that was why millions of people listened to their Radio 2 shows.
"I'm sure they regret this trouble. But, I think the reason why Russell Brand is popular is because... he is a liability.
"He was sacked from MTV, he was sacked from XFM.
"This is why people are interested in him as a broadcaster - and why, presumably, he got employed and has a very popular show - about which the majority of people didn't complain."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DALAI LAMA 'LOSES HOPE' FOR TIBET!

This weekend the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, told his followers he had lost hope of reaching agreement with China about the future of his homeland. The BBC's Asia analyst Jill McGivering assesses what this means.

The Dalai Lama has championed a "middle path" policy with China. For decades, the Dalai Lama's approach to China has been cheerfully patient and optimistic.
So the announcement he is giving up attempts to persuade China to grant greater autonomy to Tibet will come as a shock to many.
He has expressed frustration before - and threatened to go into political retirement. But the key question now is what implications this announcement will have.
Will it lead, for example, to a hardening of position by the Tibetan government-in-exile, if the Dalai Lama's middle ground of modest autonomy within China is abandoned?
And does it also mean that the Dalai Lama wants to extract himself personally from the political fray? That too is unclear.
The full answers may not emerge until after a special meeting of Tibetan exiles, now scheduled for November.
It is clear that frustration in the Tibet camp has rarely been greater.
In the aftermath of the riots in Tibet and surrounding areas earlier in 2008, China promised fresh talks.
Some Tibetans said at the time that they feared this was an empty gesture, merely designed to ease international pressure on Beijing in the run up to the Olympics.
The apparent deadlock in the talks seems to have confirmed those fears.
There is also confusion about what new strategy might emerge from the Tibetan camp.

Riots broke out in several Tibetan areas in March. Despite China's allegations, the Dalai Lama has always stopped short of a demand for full independence.
But pressure for independence has grown amongst a feistier young generation which feels years of attempts at compromise have achieved nothing.
It is unlikely the Dalai Lama would support a pro-independence policy, but there may be some hardening of the Tibetan position.

As a political ploy, the Dalai Lama's move does help to push Tibet back into the spotlight.
Post-Olympics, many Tibetans feel forgotten. And there is also the wider question of whether the Dalai Lama may indeed decide this is the time to extract himself from the political process in which he's been engaged for so long.
That would have striking implications. His international profile is one of Tibet's strongest cards and the government-in-exile would surely be weakened without his advocacy.
But his absence would also raise the stakes for China. Many see the Dalai Lama as Beijing's best hope - and urge the Chinese to do business with him while they can.
They may find what comes next - in terms of policy and personality - much less acceptable.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ICELAND UPS INTEREST RATE !

Reykjavik has already arranged a $2bn loan from the IMF.
Iceland's central bank has raised its key interest rate to 18% from 12% as the country battles against financial collapse.
The move came as Iceland's prime minister said the country needed another $4bn (£2.6bn) in loans.
"It's not a precise number, it's not a scientific number but we are looking in that neighborhood," Geir Haarde said.
The country has already agreed a $2bn loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
BBC NEWS REPORT.

THATCHER RELIVES BRUGES HEYDAY!

By Brian Wheeler - Political reporter, BBC News

She may no longer make speeches, on doctor's orders, but there is no keeping Lady Thatcher away from her public.
From the moment she clambered shakily from the back seat of a black Jaguar, on to the forecourt of the Grosvenor House Hotel, London, this was going to be her night.
At 83, and reportedly suffering from dementia, she makes few public appearances these days.
But this was a special occasion - the 20th anniversary dinner of the Bruges Group, which takes its name from a speech in which she first warned against the creation of a European "super state".
She is still recognisable from her prime ministerial heyday. The extraordinary sweep of back-combed hair is still there - as is the famous handbag - but she is clearly very frail.
She walks with tiny, deliberate steps, all her effort seemingly concentrated on getting from A to B.
But she managed to summon up a hint of the old steel, as she paused at the hotel entrance for the photographers, shooting them a determined glare of the type that once reduced Cabinet ministers - and Brussels bureaucrats - to jelly.
And instead of being shepherded past the crowd of admirers in the bar on her way to the top table, she was thrust straight into the middle of them.
They could hardly believe their good fortune.
"How many times in your life, do you get to meet a legend? She will be remembered for hundreds of years," said Nikki Sinclaire, a UKIP Euro election candidate.
"She is the reason I got involved in politics."
These are Thatcher's people - true believers who had paid upwards of £125 each for the opportunity to have dinner in her presence, including several current Tory MPs, the novelist Frederick Forsyth and the UKIP leader Nigel Farage.
And for a good half hour she walked among them, steadily working the room as her minders battled to keep the pin-striped throng at bay.
At times, the crowd threatened to overwhelm her, as they held up their camera phones to film her progress and pushed forward with outstretched hands, always deferential, but eager for just a few seconds with the former prime minister.
"You are my heroine," said one woman.
"You inspired me," said another, reaching out to grasp her fragile hand, "we need more like you".
Ms Sinclaire explained that she was standing for the UK Independence Party in the West Midlands.
"Good for you. Never give up, never give up," Lady Thatcher told her.

Then, unexpectedly, as she pushed further into the crowd, I found myself face-to-face with her.
"It's an honour to meet you," I said, shaking her hand and, for reasons which now escape me, adding: "I come from the North East."
She seemed delighted.
"Thank you for coming down. Give them my warm regards," she said.
I did not have time to explain that, on this occasion, I had only come down from North London, but it did not seem to matter.
She seemed much sharper than I had expected.
Her daughter, Carol, recently wrote about her battle with dementia and that on bad days "she can hardly remember the beginning of a sentence by the time she got to the end".
There was little sign of that here.
"I think she gets a bad press about how bad her condition is. She comes to visit us and talks to people for hours without any trouble and of course the pensioners love her," said Susan Smith, of the Chelsea Pensioners' Appeal, one of Lady Thatcher's charities.
She appeared to be flagging a little by the time dinner was over and the speeches were under way.
She was seated at the top table, next to her old comrade in arms Lord Tebbitt, who gave a speech calling for a referendum on Britain's relationship with the EU - and a move towards an alliance of sovereign states, of the kind first outlined by Lady Thatcher in her Bruges speech.
It was typically red-blooded stuff, with much scorn poured on the "euro fanatics" in his own party and their "fellow travellers" in the civil service and the BBC, which went down a storm with the die-hard Euro sceptics in the audience.
But the night belonged to Lady Thatcher.
The sense of betrayal many of her supporters felt 18 year ago at the way she was ejected from Downing Street is evidently still raw among members of the Bruges Group.
As she reached the end of her final procession through tables of applauding admirers, pausing at the top of the stairs for a farewell wave, a chant went up from the back of the room which summed up the night perfectly and - if she heard it - will have left her with a smile on her face.
"Ten more years! Ten more years! Ten more years!"

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MAN'S ARM TRAPPED IN TRAIN TOILET!

A passenger on a French train had to be rescued by firemen after having his arm sucked down the on-board toilet.
The 26-year-old victim was trapped when he tried to fish out his mobile phone, which had fallen into the toilet bowl, and fell foul of the suction system.
The high-speed TGV train had to stop for two hours while firemen cut through the train's pipework.
The man was carried away by emergency services, with the toilet still attached to his arm.
"He came out on a stretcher, with his hand still jammed in the toilet bowl, which they had to saw clean off," said Benoit Gigou, a witness to the man's plight.
The incident happened on Sunday evening, aboard a train travelling in western France between La Rochelle and Paris.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE TALKS FAIL TO REACH DEAL!

A summit of African leaders in Zimbabwe has failed to reach a breakthrough to end the country's political deadlock, say government officials.
Power-sharing talks between President Robert Mugabe and his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, have been taking place in the capital, Harare.
The process has been deadlocked over the allocation of key cabinet posts.
The Southern African Development Community says a larger regional summit should be held to try to reach a deal.
Six weeks have passed since Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai shook hands in Harare and signed what appeared to be an historic power-sharing agreement.
But attempts to form an inclusive government have run into serious trouble, BBC Southern Africa correspondent Peter Biles reports.
On Monday, Mr Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai held 13 hours of talks under the continued mediation of South African ex-leader Thabo Mbeki, with leaders from South Africa, Angola, Mozambique and Swaziland.
The meeting had been due to take place last week in Swaziland, but Mr Tsvangirai said he could not attend as the Zimbabwean authorities had refused to give him a passport.
Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change says President Mugabe and his party, Zanu-PF, seem intent on controlling all the important ministries and sidelining the MDC.
Regional leaders from SADC had hoped to use Monday's summit to put pressure on Zimbabwe's rival leaders to bring an end to the political impasse.
But following a day of talks, they released a statement saying the talks had failed, and calling on all member states to hold a summit "to further review the current political situation in Zimbabwe as a matter of urgency".
'UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday said that it was "urgent to resolve the ongoing political impasse so that recovery can begin".
A statement issued in New York said he was concerned that "the humanitarian situation in the country may worsen in the course of 2008 and 2009".

Mood sours over Zimbabwe deal
Zimbabwe deal: Key points

"Our commitment is to an equitable power-sharing arrangement, otherwise we are not going to be party to it and we may as well look for alternative political options," Mr Tsvangirai told a rally of his supporters on Saturday.
"When it comes to negotiations, no-one is to bully us."
The MDC leader has threatened to pull out of the deal, under which he would be named prime minister.
Mr Mugabe has allocated the key ministries of defence, justice and foreign affairs to Zanu-PF.
After four days of talks earlier this month, he agreed to let the MDC have the finance portfolio.
The deadlock is centred on the question of who gets responsibility for the home affairs ministry, which controls the police.
The deal specifies that Zanu-PF should have 15 ministries, Mr Tsvangirai's MDC 13 and a breakaway MDC faction three.
But Zimbabwean journalist Brian Hungwe says the MDC also wants a share of provincial governors and ambassadors.
Although Mr Mbeki remains the facilitator of this tortuous process, some observers say he may have lost some of his influence since being forced to resign as South African president just days after brokering the deal.
The MDC has long criticised Mr Mbeki for his policy of "quiet diplomacy" towards Mr Mugabe and has previously called for him to be replaced.
"We respect Mbeki but quiet diplomacy has its limits if it leads to quiet approval of wrong things," Mr Tsvangirai said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SKINHEADS 'PLANNED TO KILL OBAMA' !

US government agents say they have foiled a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Court records unsealed on Monday quote agents as saying they had disrupted plans by two neo-Nazi skinheads, the Associated Press news agency reports.
The pair also allegedly planned to murder more than 100 black people at a school in the state of Tennessee.
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) brought the case, AP reports.
The two skinheads allegedly planned to rob a gun store and then carry out a killing spree at an unnamed predominantly African-American high school, AP quotes the court records as saying.
Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office of the ATF, told AP that the two men had planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are said to be symbolic in the white supremacist community.
Mr Cavanaugh said the men had sought to go on a national killing spree, with Mr Obama as its final target.
"They said that would be their last, final act - that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama," Mr Cavanaugh told AP.
"They didn't believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying."
The Obama campaign had no initial comment on the report.
Mr Obama, who if elected will become the first black US president, is leading Republican rival John McCain in opinion polls ahead of the 4 November election.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

'PALESTINE' TAKE TO FIELD OF DREAMS !

By Aleem Maqbool - BBC News, Ramallah

For so many of the Palestinian fans that packed their brand new stadium hours before kick-off, or those that found vantage points on the roads and buildings outside the ground, this was the most important match that had ever been played.
"I'm a big sports fan," said Rashad Bishtawi, from Jerusalem.
"For Palestinian people, football is the most important sport. My son loves it, but up to now he's had to watch European sides on TV, like Barcelona and Real Madrid. Now we have the chance to see our own team. It's incredible."
The ground is basic by international standards; two concrete stands, seating just under 7,000 people.
But it is much more than the Palestinian territories have had until now.
It was almost exclusively men and boys that filed through the gates, where they were checked by Palestinian security forces.
On the opposite side of the ground, behind one of the stands, children were excitedly clambering over boundary walls, not seeing the need to queue.

Fayaz Kattoush predicted his team would win 2-1Most had never seen the team they were coming to support, one which languishes close to the bottom of the world ranking tables drawn up by football's governing body, Fifa.
That did not seem to matter.
Ten years ago, Fifa allowed the Palestinian team to play under the name Palestine even though the state has yet to be created.
But since then, because of conflict and poor sporting infrastructure, "home" internationals have had to take place elsewhere in the Middle East.
Fans were determined to use this first match on home soil as an opportunity to display some

'national' pride. Huge Palestinian flags were draped over the sides of buildings, and well before the game started, nationalistic songs were being sung from every corner of the ground.
Leading the singing in one section of the crowd was Fayaz Kattoush, who had come dressed in a Palestine football shirt and a Palestinian flag wrapped around his waist.
"For so long, we have been thirsty for this kind of football in our lovely land. I have been to see the team before, but that's always had to be abroad. It makes me feel so proud."
In the traditions of football supporting all over the world, he added "I think we'll win... 2-1."

There was a huge roar when the home team took to the field for their pre-match warm-up exercises, and the public address announcer took his time in announcing the name of each player, ensuring that they all had a taste of whole-hearted applause from a home crowd.
Fifa President Sepp Blatter was warmly received by the fans too. He said this match was about "realising a dream."
But this event could not mask the problems of living under occupation.
A concrete wall, part of the barrier Israel has built, runs alongside the stadium.
Some of the players who live outside the Palestinian territories were not given Israeli permission to come to the West Bank.
And fans in the Gaza Strip had to be content watching the match on television, since getting Israeli clearance to leave Gaza has become almost impossible for most Palestinians.
But having missed many internationals in the past, the Gazan members of the Palestine football team were permitted to travel. They lined up alongside their team-mates in the al-Ram stadium for a passionately sung Palestinian national anthem.
Noise levels in the stadium reached new heights just a few minutes later.
Ahmed Kashkash from Gaza, wearing the white and green strip of the Palestine team, rounded the Jordanian goalkeeper and slotted the ball just inside the near post.

The first Palestine goal on Palestinian soil.
Even the tea-sellers outside the ground put down their cups and embraced, just as thousands were doing inside the stadium.
Hussein, from Ramallah, sitting in front us, was ecstatic. "Seeing that goal is a feeling you can't really describe," he said. "It's a sense of pride for all Palestinians. It really is an amazing feeling."
Jordan may have equalised early in the second half, but the celebrations did not stop, even after the final whistle.
We tried to get hold of the Palestine goal-keeper, Muhammed Shbair, on his mobile phone soon after the game.
"I can't hear you, we're having a party, we're so so proud," he shouted, with singing and cheering going on in the background.
Of course, this match changes little in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but over and over again those who managed to come and see it, told us they were convinced it could lead to bigger steps.
"It's given us some sense of freedom," said Nidal Zigari, from Ramallah, excitedly "I am just very happy right now."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

FIGHTING FOR MUSLIM WOMEN'S RIGHTS !

Some of the world's leading Islamic feminists have been gathered in Barcelona for the third International Congress on Islamic Feminism, to discuss the issues women face in the Muslim world.
Some of the women taking part in the conference explained the problems in their home countries, and where they hoped to make progress.

ASMA BARLAS, Author, Pakistan
Religions always come into cultures, they don't come into abstract and pure spaces. Islam came into a very patriarchal, tribal and misogynistic culture. One of the deepest damages to Islam has been its reduction to "Arabisation".
I'm not going to say that the Arabs are particularly misogynistic in a way that nobody else is, but I do think there are very particular traits and attitudes towards women that have crept into Islam.
I have a friend who has been studying the interface between what he calls the Persian models and the Arabist models of Islam in the subcontinent and surprise, surprise: the Arabist models are misogynistic, authoritarian, unitarian and the Persian models are much more plural and tolerant.
This is a fight on two fronts - on the one hand we are struggling against the kinds of oppression dominant in Muslim patriarch societies and, on the other, Western perceptions of Islam as necessarily monolithic, and confusing the ideals of Islam with the reality of Muslim lives.
If we read the Koran as a totality rather than pulling out random verses or half a line, that opens all kinds of possibilities for sexual equality.

RAFIAH AL-TALEI, journalist, Oman
Oman is relatively liberal, women are free to choose what to wear, and can choose their jobs and education. And the law does not require us to wear any particular form of clothing. But there are strong social and cultural factors - coming from the fact that we are in Arabia - that limit women.
Sharia is fair, but it is the wrong interpretations that are the problem. Male judges often don't understand the principal goals of sharia
As a journalist, it has not been hard for me to work among men, but it has been hard for some of my colleagues whose families told them this was not "appropriate" work for them.
The biggest difficulties are the social and cultural factors, and some aspects of law. For example, women who marry a foreigner cannot pass on their nationality to their children, whereas men in that situation can.
Religion is not an issue in our struggle, although there are problems with family law about divorce and marriage status. Omani laws are based on sharia law. Sharia is fair, but it is the wrong interpretations that are the problem. Male judges often don't understand the principal goals of sharia. We feel the law is fair, but ends up being unfair for women because of how judges interpret it.
Cultural and social factors often get mixed up with religion. Educated women can be more empowered and separate the two, but many don't dare challenge the conventions.

NORANI OTHMAN, Scholar-activist, Malaysia

I don't think it is any more difficult to be an Islamic feminist than a non-Muslim, or secular feminist.
Feminists in general have to face up to political and cultural obstacles, to achieve our objectives of women's rights. Even Western feminists have had a similar history - having to engage with certain religious beliefs not conducive to gender equality.
Perhaps the only distinctive difference peculiar to Muslim feminists is that we are caught in the cross-currents of modernisation and a changing society, due to a modern economy on the one hand and the global resurgence of political Islam on the other.
Political Islam wants to impose a world view about the gender order that is not consistent with the realities and the lived experiences of Muslim men and women in contemporary society.
Our detractors would hurl empty accusations at us - calling us Western, secular or anti-Islamic
There is a difference between South East Asian Muslim countries and the ones in the Middle East - culturally we are less patriarchal, we can always respond to our detractors by pointing out we don't have the cultural practices that they do.
Our detractors would hurl empty accusations at us - calling us Western, secular or anti-Islamic.
Our arguments are rooted within Islam - we want renewal and transformation within the Islamic framework. They don't like that.
We have a holistic approach, seeking gender equality within the Islamic framework, supported by constitutional guarantees. We see that these are not inconsistent with the message of the Koran, particularly during its formative stages. We have to understand the history and cultural context and extract the principle that will be applicable in modern times.

SITI MUSDAH MULIA, Academic, Indonesia
In my experience, I find that it is very difficult to make Indonesian Muslim women aware that politics is their right.
In Indonesian society, politics is always conceived as cruel and dirty, so not many women want to get involved, they think it is just for men.
According to the [radicalist] Islamic understanding, women should be confined to the home, and the domestic sphere alone We try to make women understand that politics is one of our duties and rights and they can become involved without losing their femininity.
Personally, I'm non-partisan, I'm not linked to one political party because, in Indonesia, the political parties often discriminate against women.
I struggle from outside the political sphere to make it women-friendly, to reform political parties and the political system.
One day, I hope to be involved more directly, if the system becomes more women-friendly. We have passed a law about affirmative action and achieving 30% female representation, but we won't see if it is implemented until after 2009 elections. We are waiting.
In Indonesia, some groups support us, but some radical groups oppose what we are trying to achieve. They accuse me, accuse feminist Muslims, of being infidels, of wanting to damage Islamic affairs.
According to their Islamic understanding, women should be confined to the home, and the domestic sphere alone.

AMINA WADUD, Academic, United States
There are many more conversations going on today between different interpretations of Islam. Some interpretations are very narrow, some are more broad, principled, ethically-based.
Unless we have sufficient knowledge about Islam, we cannot bring about reform of Islam. I am not talking about re-interpretation, I am talking more about gender-inclusive interpretation.
We have a lot of information about men's interpretations of Islam, and of what it means to be a woman in Islam. We don't have equal amounts of information about what women say it means to be a good woman in Islam. Now it's time for men to be active listeners, and after listening, to be active participants in bringing about reform.
There is a tendency to say that it is Islam that prohibits women from driving a car, for example, when women drive cars all over the world except in one country. So then you know it is not Islam. Islam has much more flexibility, but patriarchy tends to have the same objective, and that is to limit our ability to understand ourselves as Muslims.
I have always defined myself as pro-faith and pro-feminism.
I do not wish to sacrifice my faith for anybody's conception of feminism, nor do I sacrifice the struggle and actions for full equality of women, Muslim and non-Muslim women, for any religion. Islamic feminism is not an either/or, you can be Muslim and feminist and strive for women's rights and not call yourself a feminist.

FATIMA KHAFAJI, Consultant, Egypt
In Egypt, Islamic feminism is a way for women activists to reach a large number of ordinary women in the villages and in urban low-income areas, using a framework of Islam. So there would be a reference to Islam when talking about women's rights. Experience has shown that that is an easy way to get women to accept what you're saying.
Not many women get information about women's rights easily, so you have to counter what has been fed to them, to both men and women, from the strict, conventional, religious people who have more access to women.
They have their own idea of women's rights in Islam - that is, patriarchal, still limiting opportunities for women. But women have been receiving this concept for ages, through the radio, TV, mosques, so the challenge is how to give them another view, of enlightened Islam, that talks about changing gender roles. It's not an easy job.
Sexual harassment is happening because men think the control of women's bodies is a matter for them
Historically, in Egypt in the feminist movement, there have been both Muslim and Christian women. It has never been a problem. Unfortunately nowadays, it has become a problem. Religious discrimination has been dividing people very much. We have to think carefully about how to supersede the differences.
With family law, we're aiming to change the philosophy of the law itself. Traditional family law puts women down. I can see this whole notion of "women do not have control over their bodies" in so many laws, in the penal code and family law. For example, sexual harassment is happening because men think the control of women's bodies is a matter for them. Even the decision whether to have children is the decision of men. This whole notion has to be changed in a dramatic way if we are really going to talk about women's rights in Egypt.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"PEACE IS A JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MILES,

AND IT MUST BE TAKEN ONE STEP AT A TIME" !

_________

BEACH SEX SENTENCE 'MAY INCREASE' !

Two Britons found guilty of having sex on a Dubai beach could have their jail terms increased, their lawyer has said.
Michelle Palmer, 36, of Oakham, Rutland, and Vince Acors, 34, of Bromley, south-east London, were both sentenced to three months in prison.
But Hassan Matter said prosecutors had lodged an appeal, arguing the sentence was "not enough", and a judge would now have to decide whether to extend it.
Mr Matter has already lodged an appeal against the pair's convictions.
Both were found guilty of unmarried sex and public indecency at Dubai's Court of First Instance earlier this month.
They were also fined 1,000 dirhams (£160; $350) for being drunk in a public place and issued with deportation orders.
Mr Matter said on Monday: "The Dubai Public Prosecution made an appeal yesterday.
"They say the three months is not enough. They say it should be longer.

Beach sex sentence 'sets example'

"It means the judge will now have to decide whether to increase their sentences."
Mr Matter said the prosecution appeal would be heard on 18 November at the same time as the defence argument against the convictions.
Palmer and Acors were arrested on 5 July on Jumeirah Beach hours after meeting at a champagne brunch.
After their conviction, a spokesman for the judge said a sentence of three months was "usual in these cases".
But senior prosecutor Faisal Abdelmalek Ahli said he was disappointed.
"It's very light," he said. "It's normal for a sentence to be six months to a year for an offence such as this."
Palmer, who was sacked from her job in Dubai as a publishing executive after her arrest, said in a statement she and Acors had been "just kissing and hugging".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MOOD SOURS OVER ZIMBABWE DEAL!

By Jonah Fisher - BBC News, Johannesburg.

In the seven weeks since the signing of a power-sharing agreement in Harare, the poisonous relationship between Zimbabwe's political parties has continued to sour.
What some hailed as a "miracle" has stalled over the allocation of cabinet portfolios between Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
A regional summit on the deadlock is due to open on Monday in Harare as power sharing for President Mugabe so far does not extend to giving the prime minister designate - MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai - freedom of movement.
Having spent the last few years canvassing support abroad, Mr Tsvangirai's passport ran out of pages earlier this year and the Zimbabwean immigration authorities are refusing to give him a new one.

Zimbabwe starves as despair grows

Such is the toxic atmosphere that an issue that had previously just been an irritant to the MDC has become a major obstacle to further talks.
The MDC refused to attend a regional meeting in Swaziland last week unless this was resolved.
"The denial of that passport is a symptom of the real problem in Zimbabwe," said MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti.
"Despite the Global Political Agreement on 15 September there is no readiness on the part of Zanu-PF to enter into co-operative government with Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC."

In the week that followed the breakdown of former South African President Thabo Mbeki's latest negotiations in Harare, a copy of the facilitation document was leaked to the press.
It contains Mr Mbeki's proposals to the parties and is a revealing insight into what the mediator regards as a fair deal.
When Mr Mugabe unilaterally announced his cabinet the opposition condemned it as "a power grab, not power sharing".
Those words were echoed by EU foreign ministers, but Mr Mbeki's proposals only differ slightly from Mr Mugabe's list.
Just two ministerial allocations have been changed. The finance ministry was awarded to the MDC, while home affairs - and control of the police - was to be shared.
Twenty-seven ministries were listed in the paper with each party given a stake in so-called "priory sectors".
It may have looked fair on first reading but Mr Mbeki made no mention of four ministries that Zanu-PF have also claimed for themselves.
They are not insignificant: defence (and with it control of the army), justice, information and foreign affairs.
The MDC has never had much confidence in Mr Mbeki as mediator and one source said that following these proposals they had informed the former South African president that he could "go to hell".
In that light, it is of little surprise that those four days of talks failed to move the process forward.
"It says a lot about Thabo Mbeki's own ideology and the way he sees democracy in the African context," Zimbabwean analyst Immanuel Hlabangana says.
"You can see a man who struggles with Western ideologies and is trying to champion something different for Africa."
The MDC now talk about Mr Mbeki in the past tense, but his spokesman, Mukoni Ratshitanga, dismissed queries about whether his mediation would continue.
While stressing that they remain committed to the 15 September agreement, the MDC now say both the spirit and wording of the deal have changed since they were first initialled. Three full days passed between the announcement of a deal and the signing ceremony.
During that time the MDC say a number of small but significant changes were made to the publically released text.
These included an increase in the number of non-constituent senators given to the smaller MDC faction and the removal of a promise that MDC and Zanu-PF would have to agree on ambassadorial appointments.

MINISTRY DIVISION
Zanu-PF: 15 ministries including:
Defence
Foreign affairs
Justice
Local government
Media
Main MDC: 13 ministries including:
Constitutional and parliamentary affairs
Economic planning and investment promotion
Labour
Sport
Arts and culture
Science and technology development
MDC (Mutambara): Three including:
Education
Industry and commerce
Source: Government gazette

The meaning of the word "consultation" in the document is also being hotly debated.
Under the terms of the agreement President Mugabe is entitled to allocate cabinet portfolios after "consultation" with other parties.
Much to the MDC's annoyance, Zanu-PF are interpreting that to mean that after discussions, Mr Mugabe decides.
"We have had a big quarrel over the meaning of the word consultation," Mr Biti said.
"As far as us negotiators are concerned, whenever the word consultation appears in the agreement it means in agreement with the prime minister."
For different reasons neither Zanu-PF nor the MDC want to be the one to walk away from this agreement.
"If the MDC do walk away they risk being seen as a weak party and not understanding the African context," Mr Hlabangana says.
"For Zanu-PF this deal provides an opportunity for them to stay in power and keeps them from prosecution."
But with prospects appearing bleak, thoughts are beginning to turn to what will happen next.
The MDC has called for an extraordinary summit of all southern African leaders but is now openly talking about new elections.
Last week Botswana, Mr Mugabe's sternest critic in the region, called for a re-run of the 27 June presidential election.
If that was to happen the big question would be whether the violence that forced Mr Tsvangirai to pull out in June could be avoided.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GLOBAL SHARES CONTINUE TO SLIDE!

European markets have opened sharply lower following hefty falls in Asia that saw Japan's Nikkei index falling 6.4% to its lowest close since 1982.
The FTSE 100 in London was trading down 4.6%, the Cac 40 in Paris fell 5.7% and the Dax in Frankfurt lost 4.1%.
It follows hefty falls on Friday with investors continuing to fret about the depth of the global slowdown.
The Japanese yen stayed near its 13-year high against the US dollar, despite threats of G7 intervention.

In other market news:
In the Philippines, the main index fell 12.3%, as the country's second biggest bank Banco de Oro Unibank reported a loss of 1.3bn pesos ($26.8m; £16.8m) because of its exposure to the US investment bank Lehman Brothers
The Seoul market reversed early losses to close up 0.8% after South Korea's central bank cut its key interest rate from 5% to 4.25% at a rare, unscheduled meeting
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng closed down 12.7% in its biggest single-day fall since 1991
Chinese shares also fell, with the Shanghai Composite Index losing 6.3% to its lowest level since September 2006
India's Sensex index dropped 6.1% to its lowest level since November 2005.
"There is more pain left. The global turmoil does not appear to be resolving soon," said Atul Mehra at the brokerage J M Financial in Mumbai.

Earlier on Monday the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations issued a statement warning that the strength of the yen was a threat to economic stability, which was taken as a threat of co-ordinated action to reduce the value of the currency.
While the yen briefly weakened, it soon climbed back towards Friday's 13-year high against the dollar.
The yen has been strengthening as a result of the end of the carry trade, in which traders borrowed the Japanese currency and used it to buy currencies with higher interest rates.
As the difference between Japanese rates and those elsewhere in the world has fallen, traders have been unwinding the carry trade, which means they have been using other currencies to buy yen, which has boosted the Japanese currency.
In other currency news, the Australian government intervened for a second time to support its currency, which was trading at a 5-year low against the US dollar. One US dollar was worth 0.6122 Australian dollars.
The Australian central bank last intervened more than a year ago and before that had not done so since 2001.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

DARING $1m MID-DAY RAID HEIST IN MILAN!

By Mark Duff - BBC News, Milan

Police in Milan are investigating an unusual $1m (£628,420) robbery in the heart of the Italian fashion capital.
It was, said the victim, "a masterpiece of its kind". It was certainly daring - in broad daylight and on one of Milan's swankiest shopping streets.
Staff at Pederzani's, one of the city's exclusive jewellers, thought nothing amiss when a window cleaner went to work on the plate glass display.
Dressed in regulation overalls, he propped his ladder against the window.
But then, instead of using the bucket and squeegee to clean it, he calmly unscrewed it before scooping an estimated $1m-worth of jewels into his bucket and walking off into the Friday shopping crowd.
This is not the first audacious crime to hit Milan's fashion district this year.
In February robbers tunnelled their way into another top jeweller's - escaping with almost $24m-worth of gems while its owners were away entertaining Hollywood stars at the Oscars.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BALI BOMBERS' EXECUTION DATE SET!

Three men convicted over the 2002 Bali bombings will be executed in early November, the Indonesian attorney general's office says.
The three - Imam Samudra, Amrozi and Mukhlas, also known as Ali Ghufron - were sentenced to death for their roles in the attacks which killed 202 people.
They were found guilty of planning the attacks, which targeted nighclubs at Bali's tourist resort of Kuta.
The bombings were blamed on the militant group Jemaah Islamiah.
Friday's announcement comes after several appeals made on behalf of the three men.

The Bali bombing plot
Relief and fear over executions

The three are held in Nusakambangan maximum security prison, where officials said the executions would take place.
A pledge by the attorney general to see them die by Ramadan - which fell in early September - was not met.
However in its latest statement, his office said: "All legal recourse for the convicts has been finalised, and all requirements met.
"The execution of Amrozi, Ali Ghufron and Imam Samudra will be carried out at the beginning of November."
Earlier this month, Indonesia's Constitutional Court rejected defence arguments that the three should be beheaded, instead of being executed by firing squad, which, they argued, did not guarantee instant death and would amount to torture.
The BBC's Lucy Williamson in Jakarta says few Indonesians support the bombers, but the execution of men who say they were defending Islamic values is likely to spark some reaction even so.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

The names are felled !

Saturday 25th October 2008.

Dear Family and Friends,

Every day ends in Zimbabwe with the most magnificent golden sunset at this time of the year. As the sun drops over the horizon we are bathed in orange, copper and caramel and are then so spoilt to witness a magnificent vista of stars light up our night skies. Some evenings the wattled plovers call in alarm as someone walks near their nests, other evenings the bats swoop over the garden catching insects but every night I think of a friend who has now left who told me that no matter how bad things got, I should keep looking up!

Looking for a telephone number in my address book the other day I got distracted by the names of people who needed to be erased as they aren't in the country anymore. In the last eight years all of my immediate and extended family members have gone; my lawyer, doctor, optician and chiropractor have emigrated; the vet I took my animals to has left so has the electrician, plumber and car mechanic. Nurses and teachers that I knew are gone, so has a physiotherapist, radiographer and three pharmacists. The farms where I bought meat, eggs, fruit and vegetables have all been taken over and none of them produce anything for sale at all anymore - they have been reduced to dusty weed lands housing a few desperately poor subsistence farmers and their families. The two huge agricultural companies where I bought tools, seed, fertilizer and equipment are all but empty. The stock feed companies where I bought cattle and chicken food, flour, salt and maize meal for many years now have nothing at all to sell, not even a bag of dog food. The polythene factory has closed down, two transport companies have gone, a butchery, abbatoir, florist, sports shop and school outfitters have closed down. The nursery where I used to buy tree seedlings has collapsed and the flower nursery has gone too and then of course come the friends and neighbours who have left. Page after page in my address book the names are felled and each one is crossed out with a heavy heart. How far Zimbabwe has fallen and all because a handful of people are so determined to stay in power.

For the last eight years those of us who have managed to stay in Zimbabwe have been deeply traumatized witnessing the break down of communities and the collapse of our country. Most days we don't know how, when or if, it will ever end and if we can ever be "normal" again. At the same time, the millions who have left the country are just as traumatized by everything they've left behind: families, friends, pets, homes, memories and simply that feeling deep in your soul that you are at home. I can't wait for the day when I can write to the millions of Zimbabweans scattered all over the world and say: come home, we are ready to rebuild. Sadly that time has not come yet, we hope it will be soon.

Until next time, thanks for reading,
love cathy

A GUIDE TO THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH!

By Dr Daniel Sokol - Medical ethicist.

Hippocrates: the father of modern medicine?

When I asked my medical students to name famous doctors in the history of medicine, their first answer was Harold Shipman, the GP who murdered hundreds of patients.
I nearly swallowed my tongue.
Their second answer was House, the fictional doctor from the American TV series.
Tears of frustration welled up in my eyes.
Their third answer was Hippocrates, presumed author of the Hippocratic Oath - I breathed a sigh of relief.
Written nearly 2,500 years ago, the Oath is the most famous text in Western medicine, yet most people (including doctors) know precious little about it.
One GP recounted the story of an elderly patient who believed the Oath instructed doctors never to tell patients the truth. It contains no such advice.

Here is a brief guide to the Oath.

The Oath starts: "I swear by Apollo the physician and by Asclepius and Hygieia and Panacea... to bring the following oath to fulfilment."
Apollo, the god of healing, fell in love with a human, Coronis.
I will use treatments for the benefit of the ill in accordance with my ability and my judgment, but from what is to their harm and injustice I will keep them
In his absence, Apollo sent a white crow to look after her.
When the crow informed Apollo that Coronis loved another man, Apollo's rage turned the crow black.
To avenge her brother, Apollo's sister shot Coronis with an arrow and, as she lay dying, Coronis told Apollo that she was bearing his child.
Although Apollo could not save Coronis, he rescued the unborn child, Asclepius.
Hygieia, the goddess of health, and Panacea, the goddess of cures, are the daughters of Asclepius.
According to legend, Hippocrates was a descendant of one of Asclepius' sons.
Doctors taking the Oath would doubtless have been inspired by this illustrious lineage of healers.
The next section instructs the doctor to treat his teachers as his parents, and to pass on the art of medicine to the next generation of healers.
In a pure and holy way, I will guard my life and my art and science -Hippocratic Oath
The Oath continues: "And I will use treatments for the benefit of the ill in accordance with my ability and my judgment, but from what is to their harm and injustice I will keep them."
In other words, doctors should act in the best interests of their patients, and when unjust circumstances arise - for instance, a certain life-prolonging drug may not be available on the NHS - they should strive to correct the injustice harming their patients.
The next part seemingly concerns euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, saying: "And I will not give a drug that is deadly to anyone if asked, nor will I suggest the way to such a counsel."
Two leading scholars of the Oath, Littre and Miles, have however suggested that this passage alludes to the then common practice of using doctors as skilled political assassins.
Steven Miles notes: "Fear of the physician-poisoner may be traced very close to the time of the Oath."
The word "euthanasia" (meaning "easeful death") was only coined a century after the writing of the Oath.
Abortion
The text continues: "And likewise I will not give a woman a destructive pessary."
This passage is often interpreted as a rejection of abortion.
However, abortion was legal at the time and the text only mentions pessaries (a soaked piece of wool inserted in the vagina to induce abortion), not the oral methods of abortion also used in ancient Greece.
As pessaries could cause lethal infections, the author of the Oath may have had a clinical objection to the method, rather than a moral objection to abortion itself.
The next sentence - "In a pure and holy way, I will guard my life and my art and science" - is a call for professional integrity.
Doctors should refrain from immoral behaviour and resist the temptations that accompany their privileged position (today, from drug companies offering generous gifts, for example).
Surgery
The Oath continues: "I will not cut, and certainly not those suffering from stone, but I will cede this to men who are practitioners of this activity."
Another common misconception is that the Oath forbids surgery.
About whatever I may see or hear in treatment, or even without treatment, in the life of human beings, I will remain silent, holding such things to be unutterable -Hippocratic Oath.
In fact, it instructs doctors to acknowledge the limits of their competence and to refer cases to more specialised practitioners.
Next, the doctor enters the patient's house: "Into as many houses as I may enter, I will go for the benefit of the ill, while being far from all voluntary and destructive injustice, especially from sexual acts both upon women's bodies and upon men's."
The need for such a statement reflects the wide distrust in healers at the time.
In a competitive marketplace where quacks abounded, it was necessary to reassure the public that doctors would not exploit patients.
Confidentiality
The penultimate section deals with confidentiality and reads: "And about whatever I may see or hear in treatment, or even without treatment, in the life of human beings, I will remain silent, holding such things to be unutterable."
As today, patients in ancient times shared deeply personal information with doctors on the assumption that their details would not be revealed to others.
Without this trust, patients may withhold facts that would help the doctor make an accurate diagnosis.
The text ends with the rewards that await those who respect the Oath ("the benefits both of life and of art and science, being held in good repute among all human beings for time eternal") and the punishment of those who do not ("if, however, I transgress and swear falsely, the opposite of these").
This whistle-stop tour of the Oath gives some idea of the content and spirit of this ancient text. In an age of technological developments, cosmetic surgery, complementary medicine, drug companies, and many other temptations for patients and doctors alike, the spirit of the Oath is as relevant as ever.

• Dr Daniel Sokol is a medical ethicist at St George's, University of London, and Director of the Applied Clinical Ethics (ACE) programme at Imperial College, London.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HOW DO GAY COUPLES DIVORCE?

WHO, WHAT, WHY? The Magazine answers...

Comedian Matt Lucas and his partner Kevin McGee are splitting up, in what has been described as the first "gay divorce". So what's different about the break-up of a civil partnership?
With the news hitting the headlines of the first celebrity "gay divorce" of Matt Lucas and Kevin McGee, following within days of Madonna and Guy's much publicised separation, certain important questions arise.
Is gay divorce any different to straight divorce? Will divorcing gay couples receive the same sort of hefty divorce settlements that have given London the title "Divorce Capital of the World"?
Despite the fact that the courts have been carving up the assets of husbands and wives for years, it is still quite difficult to accurately predict what someone like Guy Ritchie will receive. It is even less clear in relation to gay couples since there have been so few cases to draw upon.
Civil partnerships only began in 2005. Matt and Kevin entered their civil partnership in December 2006, making their marriage only 22 months long.

THE ANSWER
It's a dissolution, not a divorce
In most aspects it is the same as a divorce
But adultery cannot be cited as a reason
And maintenance is less likely to be an issue

So are the rules the same for gay couples getting divorced?
Yes, virtually all of the same rules apply. As with straight couples, gay couples must have been married for at least 12 months before they can file for a divorce (or "dissolution" as it is known).
Although Lucas and McGee announced in June that they would split, this week a decree nisi was ruled by London's family court, in the same way that it would for a married couple.
All the same grounds apply for a gay couple, save that "adultery" cannot be used since it is technically only possible to commit adultery within a relationship between two people of opposite sexes. Consequently, in same-sex unions, it is not applicable, although would probably be described as "unreasonable behaviour".

Splitting the assets.
On the issue of whether money would be divided up in the same way as for straight couples, the courts have been at pains to emphasise that there should be no discrimination and that exactly the same principles apply.
This means that they can each claim for a share of the capital assets, for properties to be transferred to each other, for their pensions to be shared and for ongoing maintenance payments.

The fact that the same claims are theoretically available does not mean that they will be appropriate in every case. Gay unions are statistically less likely to produce children and therefore it is likely that less maintenance orders will be made.
That is because such orders often arise because a spouse has given up work to care for children, making that spouse financially dependent on the other and therefore in need of maintenance after a split.
It is most unlikely that Kevin McGee will get half of Matt Lucas's wealth, for the same reasons that Guy Ritchie will not get half of Madonna's wealth.
Both Madonna and Lucas were well-known and wealthy prior to getting married and their relationships have been fairly short, particularly so in relation to Matt and Kevin.
The court takes into account a number of factors when deciding on the right award to make.

These include:
• the length of the marriage/civil partnership
• their ages
• whether there are children
• how much money each had before the marriage/civil partnership
• how much they have each contributed both in monetary and non-monetary terms to the relationship

There is no easy answer to what Guy Ritchie or Kevin McGee will receive as the manner in which courts treat the division of assets on divorce depends very much on the individual facts of the case.
This is why Heather Mills-McCartney only received what amounted to 6% of Sir Paul's assets whilst Beverley Charman (in one of the largest reported British divorces) walked away with 37% of the assets (just under £48 million).
It will, however, be important for the courts to demonstrate that what Kevin McGee receives is the same award that a wife in his situation would have received.
Unless the courts can show there is an even playing field, there will inevitably follow a number of human rights act cases initiated by gay divorcees complaining that the treatment they have received amounts to discrimination.
Compiled by Anne Kay at Boodle Hatfield

BBC MAGAZINE REPORT.

JAPAN RECALLS NOODLES OVER SCARE!

Two large Japanese food manufacturers have found insecticide in their instant noodles, triggering a food scare.
First, Nissin - which invented the instant noodle - recalled 500,000 pots after a woman became ill. She had eaten from a cup containing insect repellent.
Now another Japanese food giant, Myojo, says it too has found the same substance in two of its own pots.
The incidents are the latest in a series of scares that have shaken the confidence of Japanese consumers.
Earlier this year ten people fell ill after eating dumplings imported from China.
The Japanese manufacturers are warning customers not to eat noodles with a strange smell or damaged packaging.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

10 THINGS !

10 things we didn't know last week

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

1. Stars make noise.
More details
2. Fast eaters are more likely to be obese.
More details
3. 'Stink bomb' gas can control blood pressure.
More details
4. Alan Bennett does not own a computer.
More details
5. Peeling sticky tape emits X-rays.
More details
6. Gay couples can't commit adultery.
More details
7. Kate Moss's favourite drink is a vodka tonic.
More details (The Times)
8. Robin Gibb has never watched Saturday Night Fever all the way through.
More details
9. Warm drinks aid friendship.
More details
10. The Smurfs have sold more than 10 million albums in the last three years.
More details

BBC NEWS MAGAZINE

"SAYINGS" !

"KINDNESS IS FOR ALL TIMES,

IN ALL SITUATIONS,

NOT

JUST WHEN IT SUITS YOU"!

_________

WOMAN IN JAIL OVER VIRTUAL MURDER !

The online game Maplestory has gained in popularity around the world.
A woman has been arrested in Japan after she allegedly killed her virtual husband in a popular video game.
The 43-year-old was reportedly furious at finding herself suddenly divorced in the online game Maplestory.
Police say she illegally accessed log-in details of the man playing her husband, and killed off his character.
The woman, a piano teacher, is in jail in Sapporo waiting to learn if she faces charges of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating data.
She was arrested on Wednesday and taken 620 miles (1,000 km) from her home in southern Miyazaki to Sapporo - where her "husband", a 33-year-old office worker lives.
If charged with the offences, and convicted, she faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

A Sapporo police official, according to the Associated Press news agency, said the woman had used the man's ID and password to log in to the game last May to carry out the virtual murder.
"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," she was quoted by the official as telling investigators.
Maplestory is a Korean-made game, which has grown in popularity around the world but has a strong fan base in the Far East.
The game centres on defeating monsters, but players can also engage in social activities and relationships - including marriages - through their digital characters, called avatars.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HOPE FADES UNDER ZIMBABWE FACADE!

Peter Biles reflects on his trip to Zimbabwe, where one of the country's worst harvests, spiralling inflation and political deadlock mean prospects for change seem to be disappearing.

Under the facade, many parts of Zimbabwe are in poverty. In October - at the start of summer here - Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, looks at its very best.
The lilac-flowered jacarandas are in full bloom. So too are the purple bougainvillea and the red flamboyants.
The tree-lined avenues are a riot of colour. There is no finer sight anywhere in southern Africa right now.
It all seems idyllic. The suburbs laid out by the British more than half a century ago are spacious.
On the well-watered playing fields of the city's private schools, young boys play games of cricket, while the nearby golf course is also beautifully maintained, and here, too, the sprinklers are turning.
But it is all rather incongruous because as I drive around Harare, probing the city's facade, I can see the decay and degradation.
Some houses have not had water for many months.

For some in Harare, holes in the ground are their main source of waterZimbabwe's crumbling infrastructure has forced many residents to sink boreholes or buy in supplies of water that have to be delivered off the back of a truck.
In the matchbox homes of the high-density suburbs - the traditional townships - life is worse, a great deal worse. There are no private schools and boreholes here.
The political optimism of the Harare Spring that we savoured in mid-September is fast being eroded.
The historic power-sharing deal - when Robert Mugabe and his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, agreed to form a coalition government - has come to naught so far.
Millions of people are now facing the threat of hunger, with food and money in short supply There is deadlock on who should control which ministries. Robert Mugabe has shown a steely determination to cling on to power at all costs, outmanoeuvre his opponents, and grab all the key cabinet posts.
A cartoon in a South African paper this week summed up the situation.
It showed three men: "the Broker" - Thabo Mbeki who has been facilitating the talks, "the Breaker" - Robert Mugabe and "the Broke" - the penniless Zimbabwean who symbolises the plight of so many.
And there is suffering aplenty in Zimbabwe.
Millions of people are now facing the threat of hunger, with food and money in short supply.

Soaring inflation has left many Harare shops with empty shelves. Every day, long queues form outside the banks in Harare, as people wait patiently to get cash.
The daily limit that can be withdrawn is miniscule, little more than it costs to make the bus journey into town, or buy a loaf of bread. It seems rather pointless, but this is a hand-to-mouth existence.
I wandered into a local supermarket to see what I could buy.
I had seen the television pictures of empty shelves some months ago, but the situation gets more and more desperate.
The store looked as though it was closing down. It was a depressing sight. There were a few packs of frozen meat in the freezer and a few unappetising vegetables.
But no mielie meal, the staple diet. No dairy products and no household goods. It soon became apparent to me that this was not the place to find essential supplies.
Of course, if you have access to foreign currency, life is a lot easier. But few Zimbabweans have US dollars or South African rand, and most do not earn enough to buy what little food is on sale, especially if it has been imported.
A question I am often asked is how the country keeps going. Why has it not fallen victim to this staggering economic decline and collapsed completely?
The answer lies in the importance of foreign remittances.
Millions of Zimbabweans living abroad - many of them in neighbouring South Africa - regularly send money home. Without this, many more lives would be in ruins.
In the meantime, Zimbabwe's inflation has become legendary.
Annual inflation in July was officially 230,000,000%. Ten zeroes were knocked off the currency a little while ago.
It has made no difference. The Zimbabwe dollar is worthless.
The figures change by the day. No-one knows what the inflation rate is any more. It could be as much as 1,000,000,000% by the end of this month.
It is generally illegal to trade in US dollars, but it is the only option now.
People continue to express themselves with a dignified eloquence In the meantime, worthless bank notes are discarded, and some people collect these absurdities as souvenirs. After all, a 5bn Zimbabwean dollar note must be something to show your grandchildren one day.
I spoke to one keen observer of the Zimbabwean scene.
He likened Robert Mugabe to Cambodia's Pol Pot, and said that President Mugabe seemed hell-bent on political survival.
"If that means reverting to a peasant society, and bringing the country down in the process, then so be it," he said.
The other unusual feature of life here is the patience which ordinary Zimbabweans display.
Voices were raised in the queue outside the bank, but there was no pushing and shoving, and certainly no sign of open rebellion. And people continue to express themselves with a dignified eloquence.
When I was in Harare to witness the signing of the power-sharing agreement last month, I saw a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition supporter on the street outside, voicing a simple - yet poignant - remark as he wandered among the crowd:
"More jobs, more food on the table," he said. Make no mistake, food is what Zimbabweans need now, and time is running out.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 25 October, 2008 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE - LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

24th October 2008.

Dear Friends,

Another week gone by and still no settlement in Zimbabwe while the agony of the people continues with even greater ferocity. Despite the heart breaking reality of starving children and villagers surviving on wild fruits and roots, the rising death toll from of cholera and water-borne diseases and supermarket shelves empty but for 'Cabbages and Condoms' as Cathy Buckle describes the situation in her hometown, Robert Mugabe still had the crass insensitivity to make a joke at the nation's expense. Speaking after the failure to reach agreement last weekend, Mugabe commented, "It went very well - in the wrong direction." This supposed off-the-cuff witticism by the Dear Leader was greeted with sycophantic mirth by his hangers on.

That was just the start of a week of humorous 'jests' by various Zanu PF functionaries. When Morgan Tsvangirai was denied a passport to allow him to travel to Swaziland to attend the meeting of SADC leaders, the explanation given was that there was no paper to print passports. The reason of course was Sanctions; that was why the country was running out of bond paper! Tsvangirai applied for a passport five months ago and during those intervening months the Reserve Bank Governor has issued thousands of new bank notes - printed on bond paper! Instead of telling Mugabe to behave himself and issue the new Prime Minister with a valid passport, the cowardly SADC leaders decided to postpone the talks for a week and then resume in Harare. The king of Swaziland offered to send his personal jet to collect Morgan Tsvangirai. Another joke perhaps but Morgan wasn't falling for that one and remained in Harare while Mugabe flew off to a summit in Kampala where the situation in Zimbabwe was high on the agenda. So now we see why Morgan was denied a passport, another sick joke on the regime's part.

Then it was the turn of a group called Zimbabwe Lawyers for Justice. No joke intended! They are a group of pro-government lawyers, heaven knows what justice they stand for. They issued a statement accusing the MDC 'of sowing seeds of chaos and mayhem' and called on Mugabe to go ahead and install a new government, urging him to declare a State of Emergency. Someone should tell this self-serving bunch of lawyers that the outstanding emergency in the country is impending starvation. 'Nzara', hunger, is the word on everyone's lips while Mugabe and his cronies play games with the country's future and condemn five million people to starvation.

Nothing changes in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe. Back in 1992 I was teaching teachers on a remote mission station. Now that really was a drought year and I remember that commercial farmers were carrying grain out to starving villagers in the rural areas. The then Minister of Agriculture announced that in order to pay for drought relief the price of food would go up and people 'Should adjust their lives accordingly'. The sick humour of that remark incensed me into writing the following poem. I make no apology for copying it here, the message is as relevant now as it was then.

He who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune.

To pay for drought relief The price of foodstuff will go up, the Honourable Minister said, adjust your lives accordingly. Hear the Honourable Minister's words all you good Zimbabweans.

Tighten your belts another notch. Rest assured drought relief is on its way– only accept that someone always has to pay. Harden your hearts to hungry children, explain to them in simple terms, times are hard. They will surely understand- and adjust their appetites accordingly. Mothers hush your crying infants, their cries disturb the peace. Stretch the food a little further, make it last another day! Remember drought relief is on its way. only accept that someone always has to pay. In town your husband's lost his job, your kids at school faint clean away. The old ones in the village totter slowly to the grave. Tell them to be patient, explain to them in simple terms, times are hard.

They will surely understand – and adjust their deaths accordingly.

Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH

'FART GAS' LINK TO BLOOD PRESSURE!

The gas best known for being used in many stink bombs may also control blood pressure, say US researchers.
Small amounts of hydrogen sulphide - a toxic gas generated by bacteria living in the human gut - are responsible for the foul odour of flatulence.
But it seems the gas is also produced by an enzyme in blood vessels where it relaxes them and lowers blood pressure.
The findings in mice may lead to new treatments for high blood pressure, the Science journal reported.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland, found that the gas is produced in the cells lining blood vessels by an enzyme called CSE.
In mice engineered to be deficient in this enzyme, levels of hydrogen sulphide were almost depleted compared with levels in normal mice.
The CSE-deficient mice also had blood pressure measurements about 20% higher than the normal mice, comparable to serious hypertension in humans.
When the engineered mice were given a drug which relaxes normal blood vessels - methacholine - there was no difference, indicating the gas is responsible for the relaxation.

Another gas, nitric oxide, is already known to be involved in control of blood pressure.
Researcher Dr Solomon Snyder said: "Now we know hydrogen sulphide's role in regulating blood pressure, it may be possible to design drug therapies that enhance its formation as an alternative to the current methods of treatment for hypertension."
Professor Amrita Ahluwalia, an expert in vascular pharmacology at Barts and The London Medical School, said: "This study shows that smelly hydrogen sulphide is also likely to have a role in regulating blood pressure and it will be a bit of an impetus for scientists to develop more specific tools to work out what's going on.
"We know hydrogen sulphide is not good for us at high levels but it seems that at the lower levels in the body it is essential."
Dr Allan MacDonald, a reader in pharmacology at Glasgow Caledonian University, said: "Treatments based on hydrogen sulphide could become important in a variety of cardiovascular diseases," he said.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

DRINKS FIRM TO KEEP ROSES PLEDGE!

A US manufacturer which promised a free soft drink to all Americans if Guns N' Roses released a new album in 2008 has said it will honour its pledge.
Dr Pepper made the offer after several release dates for the rock band's long-awaited album passed.
"We never thought this day would come. Now it's here, all we can say is the Dr Pepper's on us," said a spokesman.
The drinks will be made available via a voucher system. Chinese Democracy is due to be released next month.
The album, which is the band's first since 1993, is coming out in the US on 23 November and a day later in the UK.
Americans will have to visit the drinks manufacturer's website to register for a coupon to obtain their free can.
Registration will only be possible for 24 hours after the album's US release date next month, and vouchers could take up to six weeks to arrive.
Earlier this year, Dr Pepper challenged Guns N' Roses to finally bring out their CD.
The company said that in an "unprecedented show of solidarity with Axl", all Americans would receive a free can, "except estranged guitarists Slash and Buckethead".
The band's frontman, Axl Rose, said at the time that he was "surprised and very happy" to have the firm's support.
The company said the star's "quest for perfection" was understandable, leading them to believe that Chinese Democracy would not hit the shops in 2008.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

RAPED INDIAN NUN DENOUNCES POLICE!

The nun now refuses to co-operate with the Orissa police.
A Roman Catholic nun raped in the Indian state of Orissa, allegedly during a riot by Hindus, has publicly denounced local police.
The nun held a news conference in the Indian capital, Delhi, in which she demanded that national police take over the investigation.
The Orissa police have been heavily criticised for delays in the case.
More than 30 people have been killed in anti-Christian violence in Orissa's Kandhamal district in recent months.
Thousands of Christians have been made homeless.
The 29-year-old nun lodged a complaint on 25 August alleging rape by a member of a Hindu mob. The first arrests in the case were on 3 October.
The nun's head and face were covered with a scarf as she addressed a brief news conference in Delhi.
She alleged that a Hindu mob attacked the Christian prayer hall where she worked in Kandhamal in Orissa.
She said a group of some 50 men tore off her clothes. She was then raped, before being paraded down the road as police looked on.
"They had already torn away my blouse and undergarments... and they went on beating me with hands on my cheeks and head and with sticks on my back."
She said that when she asked for protection from local police officers, they did not move. And later, she said, they were unwilling to hear the details of her ordeal.
"I was raped and now I don't want to be victimised by Orissa police," the nun said.
The violence in Orissa began after a Hindu religious leader was shot dead.
Although left-wing Maoist rebels in the state claimed responsibility for the killing, hard-line Hindu groups blamed the minority Christian community for the death.
It is the worst outbreak of communal violence against Christians since Indian independence. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described it as a national shame.
A heavy security presence in Kandhamal has brought the situation under some control now.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

RELIEF AND FEAR AS EXECUTIONS NEAR!

By Lucy Williamson - BBC News, Jakarta.

It has been six years, but the bombings still evoke strong passions.
Down behind the sweeping tree-lined avenues of Jakarta's diplomatic area, Indonesians sitting at the roadside food stalls are absorbing the news.
It is only a few hours since the spokesman for Indonesia's attorney general made the announcement: that the country's best-known prisoners - Amrozi, Ali Ghufron and Imam Samudra - are due to be executed at the beginning of next month.
But the news has travelled at lightning speed around the city.
"Yes, I've heard already," Sidi tells me, lounging at a cafe table. "It's too bad that justice in Indonesia takes a while. I think they should have been executed a while ago."
Sitting next to him, his friend agrees: "The sooner the better. If we keep delaying it, it's not good for other areas of the country where similar things may happen."
'They might do something'
It has been six years since the men co-ordinated the bomb attacks on the island of Bali, blowing up two nightclubs. They were packed with people: 202 died, Indonesians alongside Westerners; tourists, taxi drivers, nightclub staff.

The bombers never expressed remorse for the devastating attacks. The men on death row have never expressed remorse for the bombings; never regretted killing people they regard as infidels.
But there are very few Indonesians who support them. Eating a late lunch at a nearby table, Ratna says she's happy Amrozi and the others will be executed next month.
"The only thing is," she says, "I'm a little worried his followers may do something when the time comes."
And that has been a key issue for the authorities here all along. Supporters of the radical Islamist group, Jemaah Islamiah, are expected to gather in their thousands after the execution to mark the passage of their comrades' bodies back home for burial.
The security forces here say they are considering flying the bodies back rather than allowing the crowd a long and emotional trip by road.
Indonesia may be largely tolerant, but there is still a debate among some people over the role Islam should play here. And executing men who say they were defending Islamic values carries a risk.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE STARVES AS DESPAIR GROWS !

By Peter Biles - BBC News, Zimbabwe.
This year's harvest in Zimbabwe has been the worst in the country's modern history.
In Mashonaland West province, some people are trying to survive by eating wild fruit and digging for roots.
If we don't get help now, most of us are going to die. Nearly everyone here is starving
Mashonaland West villager

Hunger road trip of Masvingo

"It's very, very bad. I've got 12 children and it's hard to find anything to give them," says a local village chief. "The whole of my village is struggling. No-one has food. "There's nothing left here. So there's nothing I can do."
Driving deep into Mashonaland West is a reminder that most Zimbabweans live in rural areas.
The area around Karoi - 200km (124 miles) north of the capital, Harare - provides an illustration of the suffering currently being experienced in the countryside.
Farmers are without seeds, fertiliser and fuel. Next year's harvest is already being written off as a disaster as well.
As the political paralysis over the formation of the new power-sharing government continues, people are experiencing severe food shortages brought on by the catastrophic mismanagement of the economy and the virtual destruction of the country's commercial agricultural sector.
Some Zimbabweans get by on one meal a day if they are lucky, but there is a growing sense of desperation.

One consequence is that thousands of children are said to be dropping out of school to look for food.
"In one district, 10,000 children of a population of 120,000 left school in a period of six months," says Rachel Pounds, country director of UK charity Save the Children.
"There's a lot of lost hope. Zimbabweans put up with things that get worse and worse, but you can see the despair in some of the poorer families in the villages.
"It's causing a breakdown of the community when people have to leave in order to find food," she added.
One villager in Mashonaland West pleaded for help before it was "too late". "If we don't get help now, most of us are going to die. Nearly everyone here is starving."

He showed me three tins of stored maize, but said that with seven children to feed, the supply would only last for a week.
Earlier this month, the UN World Food Programme appealed for $140m (£86m) to provide vital relief rations over the next six months.
The UN warned that more than five million people (45% of the population) could need assistance by early 2009.
In the meantime however, non-governmental organisations working in Zimbabwe have been hit hard by the economic collapse of this once prosperous country, and the resulting cash crisis stemming from levels of inflation that are now completely out of control.
But it is not just the rural population which is suffering.
In the towns and cities, food is also in increasingly short supply.
A walk around a suburban supermarket in Harare is a bizarre and depressing experience.

What's the lie of Zimbabwe's land?

One store I visited looked as though it was in the final stages of a clearance sale.
Only two of the 19 check-out tills were operating, and most shelves were entirely empty.
There was no milk, cheese, margarine or yoghurt.
Some cabbages, onions and limp bunches of spinach were available, along with a few odd packs of frozen meat.
The aisles intended for household goods such as soap and toilet paper were empty and closed off.
The only fresh-looking food items in the shop were a few loaves of bread, priced this week at Z$30,000 a loaf (about $1).
However, Zimbabweans are only permitted to withdraw Z$ 50,000 a day from the banks.

Residents of Harare are digging holes to find water.
Most people often cannot afford what little food is available.
Only those fortunate enough to have access to foreign currency can circumnavigate the shortages.
"We are distinctly aware that this is a food crisis that is growing," says Karen Freeman, the director of USAid in Zimbabwe. "The issue of urban vulnerability has never really been felt here before. "You could go to the store and buy food in the past, but now you have no option. "There's no food in the store and there's no food on the ground. The crisis now is one where you can neither buy food nor grow food."
This is almost entirely a man-made crisis, created by President Robert Mugabe's government, and his administration stands accused of having done nothing to help.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

US SCIENTISTS 'ERASE MICE MEMORY'!

By Matt McGrath - BBC science reporter.

Scientists say it may be possible to make a pill to wipe painful memories.
Scientists in the US say they have developed the ability to selectively wipe out uncomfortable memories.
In experiments with mice, researchers from the Georgia College of Medicine were able to eliminate memories without any damage to the rodents' brains.
They suggested that the technique which works on a particular protein in the brain could, one day, be used to help humans overcome traumatic events.
However, the chief scientist said this was "years or even decades away".
Memories, even painful ones, are an important part of the learning process but for some people recalling traumatic events can be extremely damaging to their lives.
Scientists at the Georgia College of Medicine say they have found a molecular mechanism that can rapidly remove specific memories.
Working with mice, the researchers found that a particular protein has a crucial role in the formation of memories.
Making the mice over-produce this protein while recalling a specific and painful event caused the memory to be completely eliminated.
The scientists say that in the long-term it should be possible to develop a pill that wipes out traumatic and fearful memories in humans.
Dr Joe Tsien, of the Brain and Behaviour Discovery Institute in Georgia said: "First of all I should emphasise the methodology is not applicable to the human clinical situation yet.
"However, it does suggest molecular paradigms which we can explore to perhaps achieve the same kind of effects in humans - but those are probably years or decades away."
Dr Tsien said the technique might one day be applied to war veterans who "often suffer from reoccurring traumatic memory replays after returning home".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

FRITZL SAYS HE WAS 'BORN TO RAPE' !

The Austrian father who allegedly imprisoned and abused his daughter for 24 years has said he was "born to rape", according to a leaked report.
The report by psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner says Joseph Fritzl's mother humiliated him in childhood, creating his need to "possess a human being".
Mr Fritzl said he had an "evil streak" and that he "could have behaved a lot worse than locking up my daughter".
Mr Fritzl fathered seven children with his daughter in a cellar he built.
Dr Kastner says in her 130-page report that Mr Fritzl is fit for trial and would be "highly" likely to reoffend if he had the opportunity. A trial could begin in the next few months.
Mr Fritzl has been in custody since the case came to light in April.
Dr Kastner's report has been submitted to the prosecutor's office but was leaked to the Austrian media.
In the report, Mr Fritzl, 73, tells the psychiatrist: "I was born to rape and I held myself back for a relatively long time."

Dr Kastner says Mr Fritzl spoke of humiliating and unprovoked attacks by his mother in childhood.
"His childhood made him susceptible to an emotional handicap," she writes, creating the need for him "to possess an entire human being".
The report says Mr Fritzl believed incarcerating his daughter, Elisabeth, meant he would have someone "just for me".
He believed having children with her would mean she would have to stay with him as she would "no longer hold any attraction for other men".
Mr Fritzl speaks of himself as a "volcano" who has a "flood of destructive lava that was barely controllable".
Prosecutors say Mr Fritzl has confessed to keeping Elisabeth captive in a cell at his home in Amstetten, west of Vienna.
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.
Elisabeth, 42, her six children and her mother Rosemarie have been undergoing psychiatric treatment and are thought to be at a secret location learning to resume a normal existence.
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.

MDC SEEKS NEW ZIMBABWE ELECTION!

Zimbabwe's main opposition party has called for new elections, if power-sharing talks remain deadlocked.
New polls are the "only way forward", Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Nelson Chamisa told the BBC.
Neighbouring Botswana has also called for new elections, after a regional summit on Zimbabwe was postponed.
The MDC and the ruling Zanu-PF agreed to share power last month but they cannot agree on the details. A BBC reporter says there is a lack of trust.
The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Johannesburg says the atmosphere between the two parties is absolutely toxic.
A summit in Swaziland to discuss the deadlocked power-sharing agreement was postponed for a week after the MDC insisted that its leader Morgan Tsvangirai be granted a passport.
He even refused an offer to travel in Swazi King Mswati's private jet.
The Zimbabwe authorities gave him an emergency travel document - which the MDC said was an "insult".

But chief Zanu-PF negotiator Patrick Chinamasa blamed Mr Tsvangirai for the delay.
"Tsvangirai's failure to come to Swaziland seems to us to reflect his own reluctance or hesitancy to finalise and conclude discussions on the formation of an inclusive government," he told the state-owned Herald newspaper.

Zimbabwe deal: Key points
Crunch time for Mbeki's legacy
Have Your Say
Diagram of power-sharing deal

Mr Chamisa said the talks were in a "very precarious position".
"People are suffering. The humanitarian situation... is dire. We need to respond to these challenges but we can't if we are locked up in endless negotiations," he told the BBC.
The power-sharing deal was supposed to resurrect the collapsing economy.
Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate - 231,000,000% - and donors say half the population will soon need food aid.
Mr Tsvangirai has agreed to become prime minister, working with President Robert Mugabe but the two men cannot agree on the division of cabinet posts.
Mr Mugabe has allocated the key posts to his Zanu-PF party, prompting Mr Tsvangirai to threaten to pull out of the deal.
Talks will now resume in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, on 27 October, according to a statement from the regional Southern African Development Community (Sadc), which oversaw the power-sharing deal.
Desperate
But Botswana adopted a different line and called for new elections.
"The Zimbabwean leadership seems to have failed to honour the agreement," Foreign Minister Phando Skelemani told the BBC.

MINISTRY DIVISION

Zanu-PF: 15 ministries including:
Defence
Foreign affairs
Justice
Local government
Media

Main MDC: 13 ministries including:
Constitutional and parliamentary affairs
Economic planning and investment promotion
Labour
Sport
Arts and culture
Science and technology development

MDC (Mutambara): Three including:
Education
Industry and commerce
Source: Government gazette

The BBC's Africa analyst Martin Plaut says the statement carries an air of desperation. Given the bloodshed during the last presidential election it is hard to see how this could be undertaken without foreign troops or a terrible loss of life, he says.
President Mugabe has allocated the main ministries, including defence, home, foreign affairs, and justice to Zanu-PF.
As well as finance, the MDC also insisted it should have home affairs - and control of the police - if Zanu-PF had defence.
The MDC accused the security services of taking part in violent attacks on its supporters before June's presidential run-off election.
Reports on Friday suggested that Mr Mugabe might have agreed to let the MDC take the key post of finance minister, but that he would not give it home affairs.
Finance is one of the most crucial posts, as Zimbabweans hope the power-sharing deal will lead to action to tackle the economic crisis.
Donors have promised to help finance a recovery plan but they are unlikely to release funds if a Zanu-PF minister is in charge.
Some two million people need food aid and non-governmental agencies warn that figure could double within the next few months.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

HUMAN HEADS SENT TO MEXICO POLICE!

The severed heads of four men have been delivered by a courier service to a police station in northern Mexico, according to the local authorities.
The heads, all of men believed aged between 25-35, arrived last week in an icebox marked as containing vaccines.
Police thought the package was meant for a local hospital - they only opened it on Monday, revealing the four heads.
Police are investigating if the heads belong to any of the 10 local people who were kidnapped last week by gunmen.
The gruesome delivery was made in the town of Ascension, not far from Ciudad Juarez, close to the US border.
Ciudad Juarez has a reputation as one of Mexico's most violent cities, with more than a quarter of the country's 3,800 drugs-related murders reported to have taken place there since the start of the year.
The authorities have discounted reports that one of the heads may have been of a police commander who was kidnapped on 18 May this year.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"BELIEVE

THAT LIFE IS WORTH LIVING,

AND YOUR BELIEF WILL

HELP CREATE THE

FACT"!

_________

AIRLINER HAD NEAR MISS WITH UFO !

A passenger jet bound for Heathrow Airport had a near miss with a UFO, Ministry of Defence files reveal.
The captain of the Alitalia airliner shouted "Look out" to his co-pilot at the sight of a brown missile-shaped object shooting past them overhead.
Civil Aviation Authority and military investigations could not explain the 1991 incident near Lydd in Kent.
The unsolved close encounter features in UFO-related military documents made available by the National Archives.
After ruling out the object flying past the Alitalia jet being a missile, weather balloon or space rocket, the MoD closed the inquiry.
Nineteen files covering sightings between 1986 and 1992 are being made available online.
Almost 200 such files will be made available by the MoD over the next four years.
The current batch also includes a US Air Force pilot's account of being ordered to shoot down a UFO that appeared on his radar while he flew over East Anglia.
There is also an MoD request that army and navy helicopters not take photographs of crop circles, because of concerns about undermining the official line that the military did not investigate unexplained phenomena.
And the files also contain a letter from a woman claiming to be from the Sirius system who said her spacecraft - also containing two "Spectrans" with "Mr Spock ears" - crashed in Britain during World War II.
UFO expert and journalism lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, Dr David Clarke, said the documents would shed new light on relatively little-known sightings.
He said some conspiracy theorists would already have decided that the release of the papers was a "whitewash".
He added: "Because the subject is bedevilled by charlatans and lunatics, it is career suicide to have your name associated with UFOs, which is a real pity.
"The National Archives are doing a fantastic job here. Everyone brings their own interpretation.
"Now you can look at the actual primary material - the stuff coming into the MoD every day - and make your own mind up."
BBC NEWS REPORT.

TSVANGIRAI 'CANNOT ATTEND TALKS' !

Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai cannot attend regional talks on the crisis because of delays with his travel documents, officials say.
The authorities did not give him a passport but an emergency travel document, and he did not have time to get a visa, one of his aides said.
The summit in Swaziland was called after the failure of four days of talks last week on allocating cabinet posts.
Mr Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe have agreed to share power.
But Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has accused Mr Mugabe of trying to grab power, by allocating all the key ministerial positions to his Zanu-PF party.
I wouldn't say there is a deadlock... The matters are capable of solution quite easily - Thabo Mbeki - Former South African President.

Zimbabwe deal: Key points
Crunch time for Mbeki's legacy
Diagram of power-sharing deal

MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti said the difficulties Mr Tsvangirai has had getting travel documents made it clear that Mr Mugabe was not ready to share power, the Associated Press news agency reports.
The MDC leader has not had a normal passport for almost a year, the AFP news agency says.
He was reportedly given an emergency document only valid for a single trip to Swaziland. However the only way of getting from Zimbabwe to Swaziland is via South Africa.
But Zimbabwean Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu dismissed the MDC claim as "a gimmick", reports the Reuters news agency.
"He has been given a travel document. South Africa is mediating, how can they deny him passage?"
Monday's meeting is being hosted by King Mswati of Swaziland. He is a member of the security panel of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), along with the leaders of Angola and Mozambique.
On Sunday, Mr Tsvangirai said the deal was sound but there was "a problem of trust" between himself and Mr Mugabe.
But Zanu-PF's chief negotiator Patrick Chinamasa warned: "They [SADC] can't impose anything on us especially on such a small matter as the allocation of ministries."
Difficult negotiations
Mr Tsvangirai described last week's talks in Harare as "a one-man monologue" by Mr Mugabe.

Robert Mugabe said his allies should hold the key posts in the cabinet.
The efforts to reach a deal were mediated by former South African President Thabo Mbeki.
Mr Mbeki oversaw the signing of the power-sharing framework deal a month ago, but has since stepped down from office in South Africa and is now attempting to construct Zimbabwe's new government as a private citizen.
The BBC's Jonah Fisher, following events from South Africa, says the power-sharing deal now teeters on the brink of collapse.
President Mugabe has allocated the main ministries, including defence, home, foreign affairs, and justice, to Zanu-PF.
Mr Tsvangirai later told Mr Mbeki that 10 cabinet positions needed to be revisited at the negotiations, officials said.
MINISTRY DIVISION
Zanu-PF: 14 ministries including:
Defence
Foreign affairs
Justice
Local government
Media
Main MDC: 13 ministries including:
Constitutional and parliamentary affairs
Economic planning and investment promotion
Labour
Sport
Arts and culture
Science and technology development
MDC (Mutambara): three including:
Education
Industry and commerce
Source: Government gazette
As well as finance, the MDC also insisted it should have home affairs - and control of the police - if Zanu-PF had defence.
They say they need home affairs to give them a stake in the country's security forces and that power sharing should mean them getting a fair share of key cabinet positions, our correspondent says.
The MDC accused the security services of taking part in violent attacks on its supporters before June's presidential run-off election.
Yet it was the MDC's insistence on taking the home affairs portfolio that has proved the biggest sticking point, a senior aide to Mr Mugabe told The Herald newspaper.
Reports on Friday suggested that Mr Mugabe might have agreed to let the MDC take the key post of finance minister, but that he would not give it home affairs.
Finance is one of the most crucial posts, as Zimbabweans hope the power-sharing deal will lead to action to tackle the economic crisis.
Donors have promised to help finance a recovery plan but they are unlikely to release funds if a Zanu-PF minister is in charge.
At 231,000,000%, Zimbabwe has the world's highest rate of annual inflation, while some two million people need food aid. Aid agencies warn that figure could double within the next few months.
According to the original power-sharing deal agreed last month, 15 ministries are to be allocated to Zanu-PF, 13 to the MDC, and three to a smaller MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara.


Return to top

BBC NEWS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Cabbages and condoms !

19th October 2008.

Dear Family and Friends,

This week the word being used to describe the government of national unity is 'deadlocked' and it couldn't be more apt. We are locked in a death grip and things are falling apart at a dramatic pace.

For the benefit of people not in Zimbabwe, let me put a face to deadlock. This morning I went shopping and this is what I saw. In one locally owned supermarket which has branches all over the country they are selling goods in Zimbabwe dollars. On their shelves they had: light bulbs, cayenne pepper and soya mince, a few vegetables which were distinctly past their best and a few packets of meat which didn't look too safe. More than half of the supermarket is completely empty and closed off with strings of white plastic tape.

In another local supermarket which has branches all over the country they are also operating in Zimbabwe dollars. Half of the shop is empty and barricaded off. Spread out on a couple of shelves were the few goods they had for sale: tea leaves, condoms, cabbages and onions. Against one wall stood some crates of fizzy drinks and in a rack a handful of unaffordable imported magazines gave colour to this most dismal scene.

For Zimbabweans who have no access to foreign currency, these two supermarkets offer the full extent of food available to buy in our deadlocked country. The vast majority of Zimbabweans do not have foreign currency or if they do it is one single, precious note hidden away in a safe place - not anywhere near enough to buy food with every week.

The third supermarket I visited has just started selling goods in US dollars and there, if you have foreign bank notes, you can buy sugar, cooking oil, biscuits, cereals, tea, coffee, pasta, tinned goods and a few toiletries. On the wall near the check out tills is a poster announcing what the equivalent of 1 US dollar is in South African Rand, British Pounds and Botswana Pula - no mention of the dead Zimbabwe dollar.

Food shopping is the tip of the nightmare, then there are the bills. This week I was advised that an account I have with an internet service has been terminated for non payment of 1.4 million Zimbabwe dollars. Paying the bill is almost impossible as Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono has banned inter account and electronic transfers and limited cash withdrawals to 50 thousand dollars a day. If I am to pay my bill of 1.4 million dollars in cash I must queue for 2 - 3 hours a day for 28 days by which time the bill will have gone up at a rate I cannot calculate as inflation stands at 231 million percent. The internet provider have said I can pay the bill with a cheque, but because of inflation the cheque should be for 6.5 BILLION dollars.

When Mr Gono banned electronic transfers and inter account transfers he closed business down in one quick and deadly blow. The rich and connected have got dramatically richer as they and their dealers have poured out onto our streets to buy up all those preciously saved single notes at obscenely low rates. People have had no choice but to sell because they cannot get their own money out of the banks - thanks to Mr Gono's punitive policies and crippling limits.

When Mr Gono licensed some shops to sell in foreign currency his policy wiped out Zimbabwe's own supermarkets in one quick and deadly blow - gone is the great propaganda line of Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans. This is what deadlock looks like seven months after we voted for a change in government.

Until next week, thanks for reading and thanks to my email service provider for helping me tell this story for so long,

love cathy.

10 THINGS !

10 things we didn't know last week !

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

1. Pets don't like divorces.
More details (Telegraph)
2. More than one in four commuters has bacteria from faeces on their hands.
More details
3. The Queen has a gold Blue Peter badge.
More details
4. Val Singleton not only had a fling with Peter Purves, but fancied John Noakes.
More details (Daily Record)
5. Prince Charles could have had a cameo in Doctor Who.
More details
6. Men are most romantic aged 53.
More details (Telegraph)
7. The world's longest insect is 56cm long.
More details
8. Sugar makes you a nicer person. But artificial sweetener does not have the same effect.
More details (Telegraph)
9. A spurtle is a spatula-like tool traditionally used to stir porridge.
More details
10. The brains of obese people find eating less rewarding than brains belonging to other people.
More details (Times)

BBC MAGAZINE REPORT.

IMF TO INVESTIGATE ITS DIRECTOR!

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is investigating whether its French director abused his power in an alleged relationship with a subordinate.
The IMF said the inquiry was instigated by a long-serving governing board member, Shakour Shaalan of Egypt.
In a statement Mr Strauss-Khan said he was co-operating with the inquiry but denied abusing his power, according to Reuters news agency.
It comes as the world grapples with the worst financial crisis for decades.
The investigation is believed to centre on whether Mr Strauss-Kahn had a relationship with Piroska Nagy, until recently a senior IMF official.
It is to examine whether she got a larger severance package than would otherwise have been expected when she left the organisation in August.
The investigation is also looking at whether she was put under pressure to leave her job.
The IMF is currently receiving an increased number of requests for help from countries seeking to ease the effects of the global financial crisis.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IRAQIS STAGE MASS ANTI-US RALLY!

Supporters of Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr have staged a mass demonstration in Baghdad in protest against plans to extend the US mandate in Iraq.
An estimated 50,000 protesters chanted slogans such as "Get out occupier!".
Iraqi and US negotiators drafted the deal after months of talks but it still needs approval from Iraq's government.
Under the agreement US troops would withdraw by 2011, and Iraq would have the right to prosecute Americans who commit crimes while off-duty.
The UN mandate for US-led coalition forces expires at the end of this year. About 144,000 of the 152,000 foreign troops deployed there are US military personnel.
Chanting slogans and waving banners, tens of thousands of Shias, mainly young men, marched on the eastern suburb of Sadr City towards the centre of Baghdad.

Iraq regards blanket immunity for US troops as undermining its sovereignty The BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad says Moqtada Sadr's militant opposition to the US presence has strong grassroots support among many Shias - and this was a physical manifestation of that opposition.
He says leaders of the 30-strong Sadr bloc in the Iraqi parliament will have expressed that rejection at a meeting of Iraq's Political Council for National Security late on Friday.
The meeting of top political leaders and the heads of parliamentary factions was convened to discuss the draft agreement covering the US military presence after its mandate expires.
No decisions were taken but the Council is to meet again to hear back from military experts on what is a very complex and detailed document.
Our correspondent says its passage through parliament may follow naturally if it is approved by the Council, but this is by no means assured and a tough political battle is already shaping up.
In Washington, US defence chief Robert Gates has been courting support for the deal from key members of Congress - although their approval is not mandatory.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE - LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

17th October 2008.

Dear Friends,

Zimbabwe is not alone in its distrust of politics and politicians. In the west too there is widespread scepticism about politics; here in the UK a commonly heard remark is that 'Politics is a dirty game, it doesn't matter which party is in power, they're all the same.' Power is the key word and the ongoing impasse between the two sides in the current negotiations in Zimbabwe is characterised in the media as a 'struggle for power' as if power in itself was a dirty word and the two sides are no better than dogs fighting over a bone. I would argue, however, that the desire for power is not necessarily harmful in itself. The desire for political power for its own sake, for personal gain and self- aggrandizement is very different from wanting power in order to bring about change in people's lives; to make life better for the majority of the population.

Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF have been in power for twenty eight years. They have become used to the trappings of power; they are richer than their wildest dreams. All of this has been made possible through their unquestioning support for Mugabe and the ruling party. Personal integrity has gone by the board; judges have delivered their judgements not in accord with justice but according to the political dictates of Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF; policemen have long forgotten their true mandate to serve and protect the people and have instead become no more than party functionaries willing to beat and kill the people they deem to be the enemies of the state. In Zanu PF's eyes they are the state, all power is theirs and the people are merely appendages to be used and abused as the state sees fit. Absolute power has corrupted Zanu PF absolutely. After twenty eight years of unchallenged power they simply cannot accept that any other party is entitled or competent to share power. A statement in the government mouthpiece, The Herald, this week claimed that: "The MDC is too inexperienced to run finance…Government" they added "is formed by the President …the MDC is not fit to oversee security agencies. We urge them to get into government to learn the ropes and build trust." Unintended irony perhaps, I wondered as I read the Herald comments alongside the list of ministries that Robert Mugabe abrogated to himself in an Extraordinary Government Gazette, issued late one evening just before Thabo Mbeki arrived on yet another attempt to rescue the floundering negotiations. Could anyone, even within the ruling party, with a modicum of intelligence claim that the Ministries of Finance, Foreign Affairs, Defence, Home Affairs, Justice and Information had been competently run by the present holders of power? The evidence of financial mismanagement is clear for all to see. You don't need to be an economist to know that inflation makes your salary worthless before you have even withdrawn it from the bank or bought a loaf of bread or paid the bus fare home again, let alone put food on the table or paid the school fees. Are we seriously supposed to believe that the MDC is 'too inexperienced (ie.incompetent) to run finance' as the Herald would have us believe? And what of Home Affairs, the Ministry that runs the elections? The electoral roll is stuffed with names of long dead voters and under the hopelessly incompetent Mugabe puppet, Tobiwa Mudede, has reduced the country's electoral system to a laughing stock. The police, the army and the justice system have similarly been reduced to nothing but caricatures under Zanu PF mismanagement but still Mugabe claims he wants all of them and his puppets at the Herald and ZBC continue to spew out their poisonous lies to the effect that 'no one could have done it better'

But, you can't fool all the people all the time and this week there are signs that Hungry people are indeed Angry people. Civic society appears to be on the move, sporadic as yet and certainly not free of police violence. It was the students on Tuesday in Harare trying to present a petition as the House re-assembled and getting beaten and gaoled for their trouble; on Tuesday and Wednesday it was journalists thrown out of the Talks venue for supposedly not being accredited; on Thursday it was the Woza women in Bulawayo, inexplicably beaten and arrested this time despite last week's peaceful demo and today, Friday, the residents of Chitungwiza take to the streets in an action organised by NANGO and titled Do the Right Thing, designed to send a message to the government about the desperate lack of water and sanitation in their home town. "The government has always been doing the right thing," claimed one Clever Mutukwa a senior civil servant and war veteran, "The crisis is directly linked to the imposition of sanctions. Instead of calling on the government to do the right thing it is the NGOs and their allies in the opposition who should do the right thing and call for the lifting of sanctions."

You have to hand it to Robert Mugabe; the one ministry he has really run well is his (mis)Information Ministry. Those pesky sanctions must really be hurting him and the other listed Zanu PF top people. For the rest of Zimbabwe, it is not sanctions that are making people's lives unbearable, it is one old man and his power hungry Zanu PF followers who are unable to see beyond their own greed. A heart-breaking story from the eastern district of Nyanga tellingly illustrates that very point. A group of MDC officials had managed to gather donations of food for starving AIDS orphans and were busy distributing the food when a lorry load of police and war vets in Zanu PF shirts arrived and drove the Good Samaritans out claiming they were not licensed to distribute food. The biblical parallel is painfully clear: Suffer the little children. Such gross inhumanity, such blatant abuse of power defies belief; yet still Mugabe and Zanu PF claim they are the only ones fit to govern Zimbabwe.

Yours in the (continuing) struggle PH

MAN KILLED WIFE IN FACEBOOK ROW!

A man has been jailed for life for stabbing his wife to death over a posting she made on the social networking site Facebook.
Wayne Forrester, 34, told police he was devastated that his wife Emma, also 34, had changed her online profile to "single" days after he had moved out.
The Old Bailey heard Forrester drove to her home in New Addington, south London, and attacked the mother-of-two.
He stabbed her with a kitchen knife and a meat cleaver on 18 February.
Forrester, who pleaded guilty to murder, was ordered to serve a minimum term of 14 years.
Judge Brian Barker, the Common Serjeant of London, told him: "You committed a terrible act. There is no possible excuse or justification. "This is a tragic killing and what you have done has caused untold anguish."
Forrester, an HGV driver, was drunk and high on cocaine when he attacked the mother of two in the early hours as she slept.
He beat her, tore out clumps of her hair, and repeatedly stabbed her in the head and neck.
Neighbours were woken up by her screams. They found him sitting outside the house covered in blood and called the police.
The court heard Forrester thought his wife, a payroll administrator, was having an affair and had threatened to kill her.
The couple, who had been together for 15 years, had a "volatile" marriage, jurors were told.
The day before the murder, he called her parents and complained about his wife's Facebook entry which he said "made her look like a fool", the court heard.
In a statement to police Forrester said: "Emma and I had just split up. She forced me out.
"She then posted messages on an internet website telling everyone she had left me and was looking to meet other men.
"I loved Emma and felt totally devastated and humiliated about what she had done to me."
In a victim impact statement, Mrs Forrester's sister Liza Rothery said the murder had had a "devastating" impact on her and parents Frances and Robert.
Miss Rothery added: "What on earth could Emma have done to result in such a brutal, callous attack on a defenceless woman?"

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MUGABE OPTIMISTIC AS TALKS RESUME!

A fourth day of power-sharing talks has begun in Zimbabwe, with President Robert Mugabe appearing optimistic and the opposition cautious.
"It's a day for deals," Mr Mugabe said as he arrived for the talks.
But an opposition spokesman has reportedly called for the UN and African Union to help break an impasse.
The US has threatened to impose new sanctions on Mr Mugabe if he does not agree to share key posts with the opposition, AFP news agency reports.
Former South African President Thabo Mbeki is hosting the crisis talks in Harare.
If it doesn't work... We will look at new sanctions against President Mugabe and his regime
Jendayi FrazerUS assistant secretary of state for African affairs
The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Johannesburg says earlier rounds of talks were given impetus by Mr Mbeki's need to return to his presidential duties in South Africa.
Now removed from office, Mr Mbeki's diary is clear and his ability to seal a deal once again open to question, our correspondent says.
When Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, arrived for the talks on Friday he sounded cautious saying, "We all have to have hope don't we?"
President Mugabe last week allocated the most important cabinet posts to his Zanu-PF party, prompting Mr Tsvangirai to threaten to pull out of a deal to share power.
The rivals signed the deal last month, under which Mr Tsvangirai would become prime minister, but they did not thrash out which party would hold which posts.

"We have reached a deadlock on all issues," said opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa as talks ended on Thursday.
"They [the UN and AU] are the guarantors of the agreement. If Zanu-PF continues to be intransigent, then those institutions should step in," he told Reuters news agency before talks resumed on Friday.
Robert Mugabe said his allies should hold the key posts, sparking crisis talks
Reports suggest that Mr Mugabe may have agreed to let the MDC take the key finance post on Thursday.
But they could not agree on home affairs, sources say.
Zanu-PF officials have accused the MDC of intransigence, state media reports.
"I would not want to call the delay dilly-dallying, but we have made a lot of compromises. Everyone has made some compromises and we hope that this will be all concluded tomorrow [Friday]," the state-owned Herald newspaper quotes Mr Mugabe as saying after talks ended on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the top US diplomat for Africa, Jendayi Frazer has said she is disappointed by the lack of progress.
"Right now we're not so optimistic. It doesn't look very good for power-sharing," she said, according to the AFP news agency.
"If it doesn't work then we are going to continue the pressure that we've put on the government. We will look at new sanctions against President Mugabe and his regime."
On Wednesday, Mr Mugabe and MDC secretary general Tendai Biti had both said they hoped a deal could be reached on Thursday.

Mr Mugabe had earlier allocated the main ministries, including defence, home, foreign affairs, and justice, to his Zanu-PF party.
Mr Tsvangirai wants 10 cabinet positions to be revisited in discussions with Mr Mbeki.
But Zanu-PF says only one ministry - finance - is up for discussion.
According to the original deal - which allocates 15 ministries to Zanu-PF, 13 to the MDC and three to a smaller MDC faction - only Zanu-PF has a ministerial seat vacant.
Finance is one of the most crucial posts, as Zimbabweans hope the power-sharing deal will lead to action to tackle the economic crisis.
Donors have promised to help finance a recovery plan but they are unlikely to release funds if a Zanu-PF minister is in charge of the economy.
At 231,000,000%, Zimbabwe has the world's highest rate of annual inflation, while some two million people need food aid.
Aid agencies warn that figure could double, leaving almost half the population going hungry within the next few months.
As well as finance, the MDC also insists it should have home affairs - and control of the police - if Zanu-PF has defence.
The MDC has accused both the police and the military of taking part in violent attacks on its supporters ahead of the presidential run-off in June.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

T.V. PRESENTER IN HARASSMENT CLAIM!

Sky News presenter Kay Burley has made an allegation of harassment against Barry George, the man acquitted of Jill Dando's murder, the BBC understands.
It follows a visit by Mr George to Ms Burley's workplace in West London.
A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that a woman has made an allegation of harassment against a man, and we are investigating."
Ms Burley has been off work since Tuesday. A Sky spokesman said she hoped to return to work soon.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

" SAYINGS "

"FAITH IN ONESELF......

IS THE BEST AND SAFEST COURSE" !

_____

WHAT IS CONSUMER FOCUS FOR?

By Ed Mayo - Chief Executive of Consumer Focus.

Consumer Focus started life on 1 October and what a couple of weeks we have had since then.
There have been emergency moves to keep our banks solvent, and share prices in the UK have experienced their sharpest fall in more than 20 years.
Consumers face huge uncertainty and a small but growing number are already facing real financial difficulties.
It feels as if there could not have been a more important time for a new consumer champion (we have been called the "superwatchdog") to get to work.

What are we?
We are a campaign organisation, just as Greenpeace is for the environment or Amnesty International for human rights.
So the best news for us was that the first campaign that we ran - in partnership with many others, I should add - came good very quickly.
The energy regulator agreed that companies should cut fuel bills for the poorest consumers, who have paid over the odds in the past (we estimated £540m) when using pre-payment meters.
This has been a long-running injustice and although the regulator will now consult before final action, we are hopeful that companies that have inflated the real costs will see sense.
This is only part of the campaign work that is needed to get action on fuel poverty.
This winter, we estimate that more than 5 million households will be in fuel poverty, a huge increase from the 3.5 million just two years ago.
Many will struggle to heat their homes this winter, while others may find their health affected or fall into debt.
For the UK's most vulnerable consumers, hard economic times are nothing new.
They must honour their debts, not only financially, but in the way they treat their customers
The current crisis in the financial markets is frightening for everyone.
Consumer Focus welcomes the government's attempts to bring stability to our economy.
We argued in public in our first days for raising the level of protection for depositors.
Deposits are a special case for consumers. It is not like investing money.
If you put money in the bank or building society, you need to know it is safe, because otherwise we are back to money under the mattress.
The rise to £50,000 of coverage and the wider rescue plan for banks is therefore absolutely the right thing for government to have done.
If banks are too big to fail and therefore will be rescued if things go wrong, they also have return obligations to us as taxpayers and consumers.
They must honour their debts, not only financially, but in the way they treat their customers.
That means fairer and more sensitive treatment of customers struggling to pay off a loan or meet their mortgage payments, as well as more information and support about how we can protect ourselves financially.
We are well placed for arguing for increased responsibility in the way businesses and government treat consumers.
As part of the legislation that created Consumer Focus, there are enhanced obligations for energy and postal suppliers to deal effectively with customer complaints and increased advice and support available on any consumer issue from Consumer Direct (08454 04 05 06).
As one organisation, we will take a more co-ordinated approach to tackling the issues that affect us all.
We will be able to engage more effectively with government, business and regulators and will have stronger powers and more teeth.
That includes the power to demand information from companies on specific issues of consumer concern and greater investigative powers.
Our fundamental priority will be to make a difference to people's lives - by championing change, campaigning for existing problems to be addressed and ensuring that vulnerable consumers are given the protection and support they urgently need.
As we face widespread economic turmoil, and in what we hope will be a more settled future, we promise to be passionately independent in our work for consumers, working with people to put them first, and ready to stand up to those who do not.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and are not held by the BBC unless specifically stated. The material is for general information only and does not constitute investment, tax, legal or other form of advice. You should not rely on this information to make (or refrain from making) any decisions. Always obtain independent, professional advice for your own particular situation.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

CHINA PRESS FREEDOMS DUE TO END!

By Michael Bristow - BBC News, Beijing.

China introduced the new rules ahead of the Olympics. Rules that gave foreign reporters greater freedom during the Beijing Olympics are due to expire.
China has not yet said whether they will be extended, scrapped or replaced by a new set of regulations.
The rules were brought in as part of China's efforts to open up further to the outside world for the Olympics.
Critics claim that while they did give reporters more freedom, journalists were still harassed and intimidated by the authorities.

Despite repeated questions from foreign journalists about the issue, China has not yet said what will happen after the rules expire.
At a regular press briefing on Thursday, foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said new arrangements would be "released shortly".
"We will, as always, welcome foreign journalists to China and continue to facilitate your work and stay," he told reporters.
China introduced the rules in January last year for foreign journalists who wanted to report on Olympic-related issues. They expire on 17 October.
China still maintains a tight grip on what can be reported.
They allowed correspondents to travel around China without first getting permission from the authorities - as they had to do previously.
"To interview organisations or individuals in China, foreign journalists need only to obtain their prior consent," the regulations stated.
In practice foreign reporters did have more freedom to do their work, but were not completely left alone by the authorities.
Certain sensitive areas, such as Tibet, were off limits, and correspondents continued to be detained by the authorities.
Also these regulations did not apply to Chinese journalists, who face a high degree of control and censorship by the Chinese government.
"[The rules] did mark a new and much higher standard in Chinese law for reporting freedom," said Sophie Richardson, of US-based Human Rights Watch.
"But keeping the regulations in effect and extending them to Chinese journalists would be one of the most important legacies of the Games."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SOMAIL ISLAMISTS THREATEN KENYA !

Islamists want Ethiopian troops to leave Somalia.
Somali Islamists say they will attack Kenya if it goes ahead with plans to train 10,000 government troops.
"We will order all our holy warriors to start the jihadi war inside Kenya," said spokesman Sheikh Muktar Robow.
Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula has been quoted recently offering the training to beleaguered government forces.
The warning comes as insurgents have again battled government troops and peacekeepers in the capital, Mogadishu.
At least five people have been killed, residents and doctors say.
A witness told the BBC there were clashes near an African Union peacekeeping base at the strategic K-4 junction and that mortars were used.
The Islamists have increasingly targeted the AU peacekeeping force in recent months, as well as the government and their Ethiopian allies.
The K-4 junction is strategically placed in the south of the city linking the airport and the presidential palace, and some AU peacekeepers are based there.
The witness said he could see houses on fire, and heavy gunfire could be heard in the background.

The government is recognised by the international community but correspondents say it only controls a few patches of the country.
Somalia has been without a functioning government since President Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.
Ethiopian troops helped the government push Islamist forces from control of central and southern Somalia in late 2006, triggering an insurgency.
The US supports Ethiopia's intervention in Somalia and accuses the Islamists of links to al-Qaeda.
The US says they are sheltering al-Qaeda operatives who attacked Israeli targets in Kenya in 2002.

On Thursday, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Ethiopia would review its position in the coming months, but would stay longer if Somali politicians showed "readiness for peace".
Even if Ethiopian troops left, he said, they could still return if the powerful Islamist militia al-Shabab threatened to take power.

"Whenever there's a threat posed, we will come back to break their backs," he said.
"Any government is preferable to the Shabab. It's in the interest of Ethiopia and the Somali people to prevent them from coming to power."
More than three million people - almost half of Somalia's population - need food aid, according to the UN.
Aid agencies recently estimated that 1.1 million people had been uprooted from Mogadishu over the last nine months.
Last weekend, Burundi deployed more than 800 peacekeepers to Somalia, boosting the strength of the AU force to just over 3,000.
But the mission, which is made up of troops from Uganda and Burundi, remains well below the force of 8,000 that the AU originally said it would send.
Mr Meles said Ethiopian troops would remain in Somalia "at least until the African peace force is fully deployed."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

EBAY WARNING OF TOUGH CHRISTMAS !

EBay expects sales to fall in the run-up to Christmas.
Online auction site eBay has reported robust profits but warned that the slowing economy will hurt its business.
The firm's net profit was $492m (£286m)in the third quarter, after a loss of $936m in same period a year earlier.
Hard-up consumers are already reducing online purchases and this will affect the normally strong Christmas period, eBay said.
Besides its main auction site, eBay also runs internet call service Skype and web payments service Paypal.
"There is a high degree of economic uncertainty and turmoil in the business market and this is impacting consumer spending," said John Donahoe, the firm's chief executive.
Revenue rose 12% to $2.12bn in the quarter, slightly lower than analysts had anticipated.
EBay now expects 2008 revenues to total between $8.53bn and $8.68bn - below a previous estimate of $8.8bn to $9.05bn.
Meanwhile, in a further sign that retailers are expecting a tougher Christmas trading environment, online bookseller Amazon has cut its postage charges in the UK.
The amount customers have to spend to qualify for free delivery has been cut from £15 to £5.
"This means that UK customers can get over 90% of what Amazon sells delivered for free," said Brian McBride, from Amazon UK.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BALLESTEROS SUFFERS COMPLICATION !

Golf legend Seve Ballesteros suffered a complication following surgery on a brain tumour on Tuesday but remains in a stable condition.
Doctors removed a piece of Ballesteros's skull on Thursday to relieve pressure that was building up on the brain after Tuesday's surgery.
A statement from La Paz Hospital in Madrid said: "His situation is stable and is under control."
The Spaniard, 51, collapsed at Madrid Airport on 6 October.
He underwent a number of tests over the weekend which uncovered the tumour and after informing his family, Ballesteros confirmed the news in a statement on Sunday.

A biopsy on the tumour had been scheduled for Tuesday but doctors decided to operate to remove as much of the tumour as possible before treatment.
"Forty-eight hours after his operation, the patient Severiano Ballesteros suffered a loss of consciousness because of a cerebral oedema and had to undergo a decompressive craniectomy," said the statement on Thursday.
A decompressive craniectomy is a medical procedure aimed at relieving critically increased intracranial pressure.
Ballesteros won 87 titles during his career, including the Open in 1979, 1984 and 1988 and the Masters in 1980 and 1983 and captained Europe to Ryder Cup victory at Valderrama in 1997.
He retired last year following arthritic back and knee problems late in his career and doctors discovered an irregular heartbeat when he was admitted to hospital in 2007.

BBC SPORTS REPORT.

LEGAL CASE AGAINST GOD DISMISSED!

A US judge has thrown out a case against God, ruling that because the defendant has no address, legal papers cannot be served.
The suit was launched by Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers, who said he might appeal against the ruling.
He sought a permanent injunction to prevent the "death, destruction and terrorisation" caused by God.
Judge Marlon Polk said in his ruling that a plaintiff must have access to the defendant for a case to proceed.
"Given that this court finds that there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant this action will be dismissed with prejudice," Judge Polk wrote in his ruling.
Mr Chambers cannot refile the suit but may appeal.

Mr Chambers sued God last year. He said God had threatened him and the people of Nebraska and had inflicted "widespread death, destruction and terrorisation of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants".
He said he would carefully consider Judge Polk's ruling before deciding whether to appeal.
The court, Mr Chambers said, had acknowledged the existence of God and "a consequence of that acknowledgement is a recognition of God's omniscience".
"Since God knows everything," he reasoned, "God has notice of this lawsuit."
Mr Chambers, a state senator for 38 years, said he filed the suit to make the point that "anyone can sue anyone else, even God".

BBC NEWS REPORT.

PROFILE : JOE WURZELBACHER !

Joe Wurzelbacher is an Ohio man thinking of buying a plumbing business who has briefly come to prominence in the US presidential debate.
Last week, when Democratic candidate Barack Obama came to his hometown of Holland, Ohio, Mr Wurzelbacher told the presidential hopeful that the Democrat's tax plans would prevent him from buying the business where he has worked for years.
Mr Wurzelbacher said the company earned $250,000-$280,000 (£144,800-£162,250) a year, and he challenged Mr Obama: "Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?"
Mr Obama said that under his proposals, taxes on any revenue below $250,000 would remain the same, but that earnings above that level would be subject to a 39% tax, instead of the current 36% rate.
Mr Obama said that 95% of small businesses earned less than $250,000 and that he wanted to give those small businesses a tax cut.
Mr Wurzelbacher told Mr Obama that would mean he would be taxed more "for fulfilling the American dream".
The encounter was picked up by the Republican campaign, and Senator John McCain spoke of "Joe the plumber" several times during the final presidential debate on Tuesday.
"Joe wants to buy the business that he's been in for all these years. Worked 10, 12 hours a day. But he looked at your tax plan and he saw that he was going to pay much higher taxes," Mr McCain said.
"And what you want to do, to Joe the plumber, means more like him have their taxes increased, and not be able to realise the American dream."
"Joe" came up more than a dozen times as both candidates argued over how their economic and healthcare policies would help him.

After the debate, Mr Wurzelbacher told CBS News that being mentioned in the campaign was "surreal" but that Mr Obama's answer to his question had left him feeling uneasy.
"I've always wanted to ask one of these guys a question and really corner them and get them to answer a question... for once instead of tap dancing around it.
"And unfortunately I asked the question but I still got a tap dance... Almost as good as Sammy Davis Jr," he said.
Robin Hood stole from greedy rich people and redistributed it to the peasants, so to speak, so if he's calling us peasants, I kind of resent that -Joe Wurzelbacher.
"When's he going to decide that $100,000 is too much, you know? I mean, you're on a slippery slope here. You vote on somebody who decides that $250,000 and you're rich? And $100,000 and you're rich? I mean, where does it end?" he added.
Speaking to Fox News, Mr Wurzelbacher said Mr Obama's plan to raise taxes to redistribute money was "kind of a socialist viewpoint".
"Robin Hood stole from greedy rich people and redistributed it to the peasants, so to speak, so if he's calling us peasants, I kind of resent that," he said.
He added that the American dream for him was "you work hard. You're going to get what you want eventually... I just resent the government or Barack Obama's plan to take more away from me."
Mr Wurzelbacher said Mr McCain did a "fine job" and said Obama did well too, though added "talk is talk".
He still thinks Mr Obama's tax plan would keep him from buying the business, whereas Mr McCain had "got it right as far as I go".
Nonetheless, Mr Wurzelbacher declined to reveal how he would vote in the election on 4 November.
"Only me and the lever knows," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SEX-ON-BEACH TRIAL BRITONS GUILTY!

A British man and woman have been sentenced to three months in jail in Dubai after being found guilty of having sex on a beach.
Michelle Palmer, 36, of Oakham, Rutland, and Vince Acors, 34, of Bromley, south-east London, were arrested on 5 July.
They were fined 1,000 dirhams (£160; $350) and will be deported after serving their sentences.
Their lawyer says the pair will appeal against the sentence.
Palmer and Acors had denied charges of public indecency and having unmarried sex but admitted consuming alcohol.
They were not at Dubai's Court of First Instance to hear the ruling but had been ordered not to leave the emirate.

Their defence lawyer Hassan Matter said the pair were upset but not surprised by the verdict.
"They are not guilty but they were prepared for this," he said
He said he was hopeful the verdict would be overturned.
"I think I have a chance in the appeal court. I have 15 days to appeal. I have to find the reason why the judge gave three months."
Acors and Palmer will remain on bail until their appeal is heard at the court.
Senior prosecutor Faisal Abdelmalek Ahli said he was disappointed at the length of sentence.
"I'm not happy," he said, speaking outside court. "It's very light. It's normal for a sentence to be six months to a year for an offence such as this."
Mr Ahli said he expected Acors and Palmer to serve their full three-month term in a Dubai prison.
"Sometimes people serve half their sentence, but this is so short I expect they will serve it all," he said.

The pair were arrested on Jumeirah Beach hours after meeting at a champagne brunch at Dubai's five-star Le Meridien hotel.
A police officer told the court he had warned the pair about their inappropriate behaviour, but returned later to find them having sex on a sun lounger.
Palmer, who was sacked from her job in Dubai as a publishing executive after her arrest, said in a statement she and Acors had been "just kissing and hugging".
Mr Matter said witness statements, including one from the police officer, were "wrong" and medical examinations had proved Palmer had not had sex on the beach.
Friends of Palmer say she has been admitted to hospital in recent weeks suffering from anxiety and depression.
The case has turned the spotlight on the lifestyle of the 120,000 British residents of the United Arab Emirates.
The BBC's Christian Fraser, in Dubai, says there have been concerns lately that tourists are ignoring the emirate's strict Islamic laws and that the outcome of this case will be a warning that such drunken behaviour will not be tolerated in public.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

U.S. RIVALS TO SPAR IN FINAL DEBATE!

Barack Obama and John McCain are set to face each other in the final televised debate before the US presidential poll.
With just three weeks to go before the election, Mr McCain badly needs a victory on Wednesday to dent Mr Obama's growing lead in the opinion polls.
The third debate is likely to centre on the state of the US economy, and both candidates revealed new economic rescue plans in the past few days.
Meanwhile, a new national poll puts Mr Obama ahead by 53% to 39%.
The poll, by the New York Times and CBS News, suggests that Mr McCain's recent turn to negative campaigning has backfired.
The majority of those voters whose opinion have changed for the worse about Mr McCain cite his attacks on Mr Obama.

Pugnacious John McCain is about to walk into yet another trap
BBC North America editor Justin Webb
Read Justin's thoughts in full

Mr McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as running mate also drew criticism from those who have changed their minds about him.
Mr Obama was also ahead for the first time among men and among independent voters, two key groups he has been trying to win over.
Other polls, including two daily tracking polls, put Senator McCain between five and nine points behind Senator Obama.
The final debate will take place at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, hosted by Bob Schieffer of CBS News.
But already the candidates have exchanged barbs on their latest economic proposals.

Economic plans compared
Last chance to shine

Mr McCain has proposed an extra $52bn in tax cuts to help retired people whose savings have been hit by the credit crunch, while Mr Obama wants an additional $60bn emergency spending package to help states, the unemployed and companies to create jobs.
Mr McCain attacked Mr Obama's plans as "more of the same" tax and spend, and warned that it would be a disaster to raise taxes during a recession.
He said that he was the candidate who would take decisive action to deal with the crisis.
"We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight, waiting for our luck to change. As president I intend to act quickly and decisively," he told voters.
But Senator Obama sought to tie John McCain to the "failed Bush economic policies " and said that putting a Democrat in charge was the only way to fix the economy's woes.
"It will take a new direction. It will take new leadership in Washington. It will take a real change in the policies and politics of the last eight years," he said.
The Obama campaign sought to characterise Mr McCain's plan as "too little, too late" and said that he was "ill-equipped" to lead during this crisis, saying his response "has careened, changing course within the span of a single day".

The debate is taking place against a dark public mood, with deep worries about the direction the country is going in.
More than 85% of voters think the country is going in the wrong direction, and 80% do not trust the government to do the right thing, according to the latest NY Times poll.
The state of the economy now rates as overwhelmingly the most important issue for voters.
With Mr Bush's poll ratings also at a record low, Mr McCain is finding he is facing an uphill task in separating himself from the current Republican administration.
The scale of the economic challenge facing whoever becomes president was demonstrated by the news that the US government's budget deficit hit a record high of $455bn in the current financial year that ended on 1 October - even before the cost of the $700bn bail-out is taken into account.

The final US presidential debate will be available live in streaming video on the BBC news website, with full commentary, a blow-by-blow description, and analysis, from 0100 GMT.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE?

WHO, WHAT, WHY? The Magazine answers...

Billions of pounds have been wiped off property values and share prices remain volatile, while the debt-laden banks are being bailed out. But where has all this money gone? Economist John Sloman explains.

Money consists of two main elements.

The first is cash (notes and coins). The total amount of cash in the UK is just over £50bn, with about £43bn circulating outside the banks and £7bn in banks' safes, tills and cash machines.
But cash is a relatively small proportion of the total amount of money. So what is the rest?
The bulk of money is in the form of bank deposits not backed by cash. This totals around £1,800bn. The point is that the main purpose of money is for buying things. And for most large purchases - and many small ones too - we don't use cash.

THE ANSWER
Money is more than just cash, and the quantity of money can rise and fall
Houses and shares are not money, but assets whose values vary with market forces
Instead, we access the money in our accounts by using debit cards, direct debits, standing orders and cheques. When you pay for something with your debit card in Tesco, your account is debited and Tesco is credited. Money is transferred between the two accounts - but no cash has been used.
It is similar with credit cards. When you buy something with a credit card, the shop's account is credited. You get a monthly bill and when you pay it, your account is debited. The bulk of money, then, is simply a record of deposits - entries on balance sheets.
But isn't all this very worrying? The answer is: not in normal times. Of course, times have not been "normal" recently. So let's look first at what banks do in normal times and then we'll look at the abnormal times of recent days and weeks.
Worst case scenario
Banks are not giant safes. When you pay in £100 in cash, the bank does not just hold on to it, waiting for you to withdraw it. Banks know that in normal times, only a small fraction of money deposited in them will be withdrawn in cash.

When people withdraw cash, other people are paying in cash.
The vast bulk of people's balances in their accounts will stay there. Even when people do spend some, most of it involves plastic or electronic transfer, not cash. Even when people do withdraw cash, other people are paying in cash.
So what do banks do with their deposits? The answer is that they lend to individuals and firms, and to each other. When people spend these loans - say in shops - the shops then deposit the money back into the banks.
These deposits are used as the basis of further loans to other people. These, in turn, generate more deposits and yet more loans.
And so the process goes on and on. More and more deposits get generated. And these deposits count as money.

Thus money grows. But there is no more cash. Feeling worried? You shouldn't be for two reasons:
1. Banks are normally careful to keep enough cash to meet the demands of their customers
2. If they do start running short of cash, they can always borrow money from the Bank of England

But what about abnormal times? What happens if people start getting worried that their bank will not have enough cash, or worse still, if it could go out of business? What happens if banks stop lending to each other, fearing they might not get their money back?
Central banks are backed by governments and can always print enough cash to meet all demands
The worst-case scenario is a "run on the bank". This is what happened with Northern Rock. People queued to take their money out. In the end, it's up to the government and central banks (the Bank of England in the case of the UK). They have to guarantee that deposits are safe.
And this is what's been happening these past few days.
Central banks have been lending vast sums of money to the banking system. Central banks are backed by governments and can always print enough cash to meet all demands.
Governments themselves have been pumping mind-boggling sums of money into banks by buying shares in them. In the UK, the government has promised to purchase £37bn of new shares in banks if it cannot be raised from private investors - £20bn in the Royal Bank of Scotland alone.
In addition, the government has guaranteed everyone's personal deposits in banks up to £50,000. In practice, as with Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley, the government would almost certainly guarantee all deposits if a bank ran into difficulties. Even private deposits in the failed Icelandic banks have been guaranteed by the UK government.

So where has all the money gone? Your money is still there. So don't worry about that.
Nevertheless, money is being eroded in value by inflation. £100 today can buy only about 95% of what it could last year and only about half as much as it could 20 years ago. This is one reason why we need to be paid interest to save money..
WHO, WHAT, WHY?

A regular feature in the BBC News Magazine - aiming to answer some of the questions behind the headlines
But what about so-called "sub-prime debt"? This was money lent to people unlikely to be able to pay it back. The problem is that the loans were mainly to buy houses and houses have fallen in value. Thus if people sold their house, they would not get their money back.
It's the same with stocks and shares. If you had bought £1,000 worth of shares a year ago, they would be worth only around £670 today.
But houses and shares are not money. They are assets whose value varies with market forces. If demand rises and/or supply falls, their price will rise. If demand falls and/or supply rises, their price will fall. Don't forget that warning in small print: "prices can go down as well as up".
Thus your money as bank deposits may not have disappeared. But some of your wealth may well have.
But declining wealth feeds back into money creation. If banks are worried about bad debts, they may not lend so much. With a deepening credit crunch, there would be less spending and less money would be deposited by shops and businesses. There would be even less lending and the economy could fall into recession.
After all, less spending leads to less production and less employment. No wonder governments feel they have act. No wonder vast sums are being pumped into the banking system.

John Sloman is director, Economics Network, the Economics subject centre of the Higher Education Academy, based at the University of Bristol. He is author of Economics, Essentials of Economics and various other textbooks.

BBC MAGAZINE REPORT.

"SAYINGS" !

"THE HEART IS GREAT

WHICH SHOWS

MODERATION

IN THE MIDST OF

PROSPERITY" !

______

THE REVOLUTION OF PAPERLESS PAPER!

By Steven Rosenberg - BBC News, Dresden.

I love reading newspapers. Really I do. But whenever I read one on the train to work or on the bus, I always seem to end up sparking complete chaos.
Either the passenger sitting next to me gets it in the face with my elbow, or half the pages of my daily collapse onto the floor into an embarrassing heap which, in rush hour, is rather difficult to clear up.
But soon my problems with paper could be over.
At Plastic Logic's factory in Dresden, British engineer Dean Baker shows me a new kind of newspaper.
What's new about it? Well, for a start there's no paper - it's electronic.
The device looks just like a table mat, it's as light as a magazine.
We have paper being distributed all over the country which is consumed on that day and then discarded into the bin. This doesn't need to be the case.
Dean Baker
But onto it you can download hundreds of newspapers and - at the touch of a button - browse through them quite safely, without elbowing anyone ever again.
"It's very robust," says Mr Baker.
To prove it he whacks the screen with his fist. Not a scratch.The machine's so tough, because everything, from the screen to the electronics inside, is made of plastic.
That's why the electronic newspaper is so light, flexible and revolutionary.
Mr Baker believes the device will help consign ordinary paper to the rubbish bin of history.
"There's a huge amount of waste," says Mr Baker.
"We have paper being distributed all over the country which is consumed on that day and then discarded into the bin. This doesn't need to be the case.
"All of that contact could be transmitted electronically and stored on a single e-reader, with the same visual appeal as paper. "

Ralf Oberthuer believes paper remains more user-friendly.
The plastic microchips are produced in a top security "clean room" in Dresden.
The Plastic Logic factory, which opened last month, is the world's first ever commercial scale plastic electronics manufacturing plant.
It may be in Germany, but the company itself was born in Britain.
It was at Cambridge University that scientists pioneered the whole idea of replacing silicon chips with plastic ones.
A few miles down the road from the electronic newspaper factory is something a little more traditional - Dresden's printing press. Here paper is king.
The giant presses rattle and whir. They get through 60 tonnes of paper a day here, churning out 15 copies of the local paper every second.
You might think that in this old fashioned kind of place an electronic paper would be considered a dangerous competitor.
But printing manager Ralf Oberthuer believes that - even if paper isn't perfect - it's still far more user-friendly than an electronic upstart.
"The advantage is the feeling of a newspaper," Ralf says.
"And you can take it everywhere you are going - to breakfast, to the bathroom, to the toilet. Or if you go to work with you in the train, no problem.

The electronic reader is flexible, and very robust.
"And if you lose it, it's also no problem - 50 cents. But if you lose an electronic newspaper it will be expensive for you."
The electronic newspaper will only hit the high street next year.
So, for now, I'll have to continue to wreak havoc on the way to work with all that paper.
But, as Mr Oberthuer made clear, it's not all bad news with newspapers.
And, sitting on a commuter train, I suddenly realise there's another good thing you can do with an ordinary newspaper that you couldn't do with a flashy electronic one.
Leave it behind for someone else to read.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

SWEET PILL TACKLES CHILD MALARIA !

A cherry-flavoured pill which is easy to swallow could help save the lives of children in malaria-affected areas, say researchers in Tanzania.
They say the tablet is not as bitter as other anti-malaria drugs and does not need to be crushed before eating.
This would make it easier for children to stick to the treatment, the team told the medical journal, The Lancet.
Malaria kills more than a million people every year, many of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
There is no vaccine for malaria but it is curable if treated promptly.
However, drugs currently used to treat it are very bitter and often need to be crushed before children can swallow them, which can weaken the medicine.
Salim Abdulla of the Ifakara Health Institute in Tanzania said the new cherry-flavoured pill was easy to administer and effective.
Health experts say the pill could help to promote better outcomes from treatment and delay the development of drug resistant strains of the disease.

BBC NEWS REPORT

SPECTOR PREPARES FOR TRIAL ENCORE!

By Peter Bowes - BBC News, Los Angeles.

Record producer Phil Spector is once again preparing to face the music as jury selection for his murder retrial reaches its final stages.
Phil Spector has worked with The Beatles and The Righteous Brothers.
Mr Spector, best known for creating the "Wall of Sound" recording technique, is accused of killing 40-year-old B-movie actress Lana Clarkson in 2003.
His first trial ended with a hung jury. After deliberating for two weeks, the jurors told the court they were split 10 to two in favour of a guilty verdict. The judge declared a mistrial.
The prosecutors, convinced of their case against Mr Spector, were quick to announce that they intended to retry the record producer on the same charge of second degree murder.
"We start afresh with a brand new jury and, in this case, a new defence team," explains Darren Kavinoky, a criminal defence lawyer and legal pundit who is not connected to the Spector trial.
"We're going to hear new opening statements, new closing arguments and cross-examination of each witness and, of course, there may be some tactical and strategic decisions that are made that are brand new as well."
Mr Spector has been free on $1m (£570,000) bail since Ms Clarkson died more than five-and-a-half years ago.
He is an oddball character, known for his changing hairstyles as much as his musical legacy.

Back in the day, he helped mould the careers of The Beatles, Tina Turner, The Righteous Brothers and The Ronettes.
During his trial last year, which lasted five months, prosecutors painted Mr Spector as a serial womaniser with a penchant for lavish living and guns.
Mr Spector's driver told jurors that, on the night of Ms Clarkson's death, he heard a gunshot and saw his boss emerge from his home with blood on his hand and say: "I think I killed somebody."
He met the actress, who made her name in the cult film Barbarian Queen, earlier the same evening at a Hollywood nightclub. She worked there as a hostess.
The jury heard from five women who knew Mr Spector. They all told similar stories about the producer threatening them with a gun, usually after he had been drinking.
One of the five has since died but it is understood that a video of her testimony will be shown to jurors at the new trial.
It is also expected that there will be at least one new witness, a woman who emerged after the first trial and who is prepared to recount a similar story about Mr Spector.

Throughout the first trial, Mr Spector's lawyers maintained that there was no forensic evidence to prove that he fired the fatal shot. It was suggested that Ms Clarkson's death was an "accidental suicide".
"Generally retrials favour the prosecution," says Mr Kavinoky.
"The defence keeps the cards very close to the vest but once that first trial has been run through then everyone knows where the defence is leaning.
"So, generally, that's going to give an edge to the prosecution."

That said, Mr Spector has a new team of lawyers to fight his case having parted company with his previous defenders. And with a new team could come a new strategy.
"The celebrity factor certainly could come into play and that's something that prosecutors really fear," explains Mr Kavinoky.
"It only takes one juror to vote not guilty and that mucks up the works for the prosecution.
"That's the fear - that one juror will be awed by who Phil Spector is, that he created the Wall of Sound, and it will be that that will prevent a conviction in this case."
The trial is expected to move faster this time. With most of the arguments having been heard and tested in a courtroom, the lawyers are expected to streamline their cases.
Some factors will not change - the trial will be presided over by the same judge and there will be the inevitable media attention that accompanies all show business trials in Los Angeles.
"There's a certain curiosity that comes with it and, as much as we like to see people rise, we also like to see them fall," says Mr Kavinoky.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KEBABS MADE AS CORPSE LAY NEARBY!

A fast food shop owner was found preparing food while an employee's corpse lay nearby.
Police called to the Pappu Sweet Centre in Wolverhampton in August discovered the man's body on a sofa near the kitchen, magistrates in the city heard.
The business, owned by Jaswinder Singh, 45, was shut down immediately.
The council said it was one of the worst cases environmental health officers had seen. Mr Singh has been banned from running any food business.
The man's death was not suspicious, police said.

Wolverhampton Magistrates' Court heard about a long list of hygiene breaches at the Cannock Road shop.
The court was told that on 27 August a police officer had been called to a report of a dead man there.
A statement of facts, read out to the court, said: "Upon his arrival the officer observed a dead male lying on a sofa at the rear of the main kitchen.
"Sat opposite to him was Mr Singh who was preparing food, making kebabs."
The court also heard that in a nearby room were a large number of flies which were landing on food.
There was also an "awful smell", thawing meat which was oozing blood and covered in flies, and a man smoking and spitting on the filthy floor.
Environmental health officers had been visiting the shop since October 2007, the court heard.

During an earlier visit, officers noted a number of rat droppings and then found a dead rat underneath a cooking pot which had just been laid against a wall to dry.
Mr Singh admitted a string of hygiene offences and was ordered to pay nearly £4,000 in fines and costs.
A spokeswoman for West Midlands Police said the death had not been found to be suspicious and no further action had been taken over the matter.
Councillor Barry Findlay, Wolverhampton City Council's cabinet member for the environment, said the council would not tolerate the public being put at risk.
"We are pleased that the council's actions have resulted in the courts banning this individual from ever running a food business again," he said.
The shop is now under new management.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

US STOCKS SOAR AFTER CRISIS TALKS !

Wall Street shares rocketed 11% on Monday as investors welcomed fresh moves to deal with the worldwide financial crisis.
The Dow share index surged 936 points, ending at 9,387 points, after falling dramatically in the previous week.
Investors were helped by news the US government wanted to put in place its $700bn bank bail-out quickly.
This followed fresh moves by European governments to inject extra cash into their own banks.
Investors have generally welcomed the moves by governments.
"Sometime last week it seemed like we faced Armageddon, so to have a co-ordinated plan on stabilising banks is huge progress," said Jack Ablin, at Harris Private Bank in Chicago.

In Washington President George W Bush said he was confident that the challenges which faced governments trying to curb the market turmoil could be overcome.
"We can work our way through these challenges and America will continue to work closely with the other nations to co-ordinate our response to this global financial crisis," he said.
Rescue plans
On Monday US Treasury and Federal Reserve Bank officials met the chief executives of some of America's biggest banks, to work out details of the US government's $700bn (£400bn) bail-out package.
The US has said it was also getting ready to follow in Europe's footsteps and purchase stakes in financial institutions.
On Monday the US Treasury announced it was set to buy stakes in a "broad array" of financial firms.
European governments have said they are putting up to 1.7 trillion euros ($2.3 trillion; £1.3 trillion) to protect the continent's banks through guarantees and other emergency measures.
The sums are a maximum, and might not all be spent if the financial crisis eases.
So far Germany has approved a bank rescue plan worth up to 500bn euros, France will spend about 350bn euros, the Netherlands has pledged 200bn euros, Spain 100bn euros, and Austria 85bn euros.
Italy said it would spend as much as was needed, without giving any exact figures.
The bulk of the European money will be used to guarantee lending between banks - part of a plan agreed this weekend by the 15 nations that use the euro.
The cash will also be used to take stakes in ailing banks.

In other key developments on Monday:
The UK government said it would inject up to £36bn of taxpayers cash into Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS
The news lifted UK shares, with the main FTSE 100 index advancing 325 points or 8.2% to 4,256
However, shares in the three UK banks affected end down heavily, with HBOS losing 27%, Lloyds TSB falling 14% and Royal Bank of Scotland slipping 8.3%
Germany's Dax index added 518 points, or 11% to 5,062, while France's Cac 40 climbed 355 points, or 11% to 3,531
Some central banks said they would offer financial institutions an unlimited amount of short-term dollar loans to help stem the crisis
The Icelandic stock exchange said share trading would remain suspended until Tuesday due to continuing "unusual market conditions"
Momentous day
"Today marks another momentous day in both UK and global financial history," said Keith Bowman, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers.
"The hope in the markets is that political leaders have finally 'grasped the nettle', with substantial and coherent rescue plans now being formulated and rolled into place."
The cash injection moves by Germany, France and Spain follow after talks between all 15 eurozone countries in Paris on Sunday.
The two-fold plan involves guaranteeing lending between banks and taking stakes in financial institutions - similar to the bank rescue in the UK announced last week.
BBC NEWS REPORT

MBEKI SEEKS TO SAVE ZIMBABWE DEAL !

Mbeki, who stepped down last month, is in Zimbabwe as a private citizen.
Former South African President Thabo Mbeki has arrived in Harare to try and salvage the power-sharing deal he brokered last month, reports say.
President Robert Mugabe has given key posts to his own Zanu-PF party and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has threatened to pull out of the deal.
This is Mr Mbeki's first intervention since he stood down as president, just days after brokering the agreement.
Mr Mugabe has sworn in two vice-presidents ahead of his arrival.
The deal says these posts should be held by Zanu-PF officials and a source told Reuters news agency that incumbents Joyce Mujuru and Joseph Msika had been sworn in because their positions were not in dispute.
Look at this nation, we are starving. The shops are empty. The whole township is stinking of rot, all the sewage is seeping in the houses
Harare resident
Harare diary: Daydreaming over
Crunch time for Mbeki's legacy

The European Union has also condemned Mr Mugabe's "unilateral decision" to form a new government.
EU foreign ministers also hinted that they could extend sanctions against Mr Mugabe and his close allies.
"If the agreement is not applied we shall resume our sanctions and reinforce them," said Bernard Kouchner, foreign minister of France, which holds the EU presidency.
The BBC's Jonah Fisher in Johannesburg says Mr Mbeki is effectively going to Zimbabwe as a private citizen, although he does have the backing of the regional group, the Southern African Development Community (Sadc).
His policy of quiet diplomacy, which sealed last month's deal, may not hold much sway now that he has been forced to step down by his party, the African National Congress.
Our reporter says it will be interesting to see if Zimbabwe's veteran leader, 84-year-old Mr Mugabe, will be prepared to listen to him.
Local journalist Brian Hungwe, in Harare, says people in the capital hope Mr Mbeki's intervention will end the deadlock and their suffering.
'Jobs for the boys'
On Sunday, Mr Tsvangirai said that if Zanu-PF wanted the defence ministry, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) must have home affairs, which controls the police.
MINISTRY DIVISION
Zanu-PF: 14 ministries including:
Defence
Foreign affairs
Justice
Local government
Media
Main MDC: 13 ministries including:
Constitutional and parliamentary affairs
Economic planning and investment promotion
Labour
Sport
Arts and culture
Science and technology development
MDC (Mutambara): three including:
Education
Industry and commerce
Source: Government gazette
He told a rally in Harare: "If they [Zanu-PF] do it that way, we have no right to be part of such an arrangement.
"The people have suffered. But if it means suffering the more in order for them to get what is at stake, then so be it."
Zimbabwe's government says Mr Mugabe's actions do not violate the agreement.
A government list published on Saturday gave the main ministries, including defence, home, foreign affairs, and justice to Zanu-PF.
Zanu-PF believes the ministries allocated to the MDC are powerful, as they should be measured by their size of the budget.
For example, they argue since the education ministry gets a higher budget than home affairs or foreign affairs, it is a key ministry.
But MDC deputy leader Thokozani Khupe sees it differently.
"It is about moving this country forward; it is about making sure the people of Zimbabwe have a better life, but for Zanu-PF it is jobs for the boys," she said.
Under the existing agreement, Mr Mugabe remains president while Mr Tsvangirai becomes prime minister.
Under the deal, Zanu-PF should have 14 ministries, Mr Tsvangirai's MDC 13 and a smaller MDC faction three.
As the impasse continues, Zimbabweans are having to deal with the continuing economic crisis.
"I think when Mbeki comes here he must settle this thing once and for all," one man in the capital told the BBC.
"Look at this nation, we are starving. The shops are empty. The whole township is stinking of rot, all the sewage is seeping in the houses."
New banknote
On Thursday, it was announced that Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate had soared to 231,000,000% - by far the highest in the world.

The UN says it needs $140m (£82m) for food aid
In August, the government knocked 10 zeros off the currency, but this has failed to halt the rise of inflation and the central bank on Monday issued a new 50,000 Zimbabwe dollar banknote.
The UN says it needs $140m (£82m) for food aid in Zimbabwe over the next six months.
It says two million people are in need of food aid, and that the figure will rise to 5.1 million - or 45% of the population - by early 2009.
The current stalemate stems from disputed elections in March this year when Mr Tsvangirai gained more votes than Mr Mugabe, but not enough for outright victory.
Mr Tsvangirai then pulled out of a run-off vote in June, accusing Zanu-PF militia and the army of organising attacks on MDC supporters which left some 200 people dead.
Critics of Mr Mugabe say he triggered the economic crisis when he began seizing white-owned farms for land redistribution ahead of parliamentary elections in 2000.
But Mr Mugabe blames Western sanctions, which target him and his chief supporters, for wrecking Zimbabwe's economy.
BBC NEWS REPORT

'NO MORE NEED' FOR BRITISH TROOPS!

British troops are no longer needed to maintain security in southern Iraq as the situation has changed, the country's prime minister has said.
Nouri al-Maliki told the Times there might still be a need for their experience in training Iraqi forces.
He said a "page had been turned" in the country's relationship with the UK.
But he criticised Britain's decision to move forces from a base at a palace in Basra to an airport on the edge of the city last year.
He said: "They stayed away from the confrontation, which gave the gangs and militia the chance to control the city.
"The situation deteriorated so badly that corrupted youths were carrying swords and cutting the throats of women and children. The citizens of Basra called out for our help . . . and we moved to regain the city."
On the presence of British troops in southern Iraq, Mr al-Maliki said: "We thank them for the role they have played, but I think that their stay is not necessary for maintaining security and control."

He said he looked forward to a friendly relationship with the UK government.
"The Iraqi arena is open for British companies and British friendship, for economic exchange and positive co-operation in science and education," he said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has signalled he expects troop numbers in Iraq to be cut next year.
It is thought the 4,100 British troops will be reduced as they take on a more diplomatic role.
Mr al-Maliki said he was concerned discussions over the continued presence of UK troops beyond the end of year had not yet begun.
The UN Security Council mandate authorising the presence of UK forces in Iraq is due to expire on 31 December.
They stayed away from the confrontation, which gave the gangs and militias the chance to control the city - Nouri al-Maliki.
A status of forces agreement is needed to allow their continued presence - but Mr al-Maliki said discussions over its renewal had not yet started.
The US government is in negotiations with Iraq over the status of its troops after the end of the year.
Without an agreement, or an extended UN mandate, UK troops would "lose their legal cover and have to leave Iraq", he said.
"To avoid reaching the critical deadline, I wish for the negotiations between the two sides to start quickly to determine what elements of the force remain and their specialities," he added.
An MoD spokesman said the decision to withdraw from Basra Palace was taken jointly with the Iraq government and the US on a "very sound military rationale".
He said: "Our presence in Basra city was a motivating factor for a large proportion of the violence in Basra, and the decision to withdraw UK forces allowed the Iraqi Security Forces to develop lasting solutions to the security challenges in Basra.
"The transformation of the security situation in Basra is a vindication of that strategy."
The government was in discussion with coalition partners and the government of Iraq over the status of forces agreement, he added.
"This is with a view to ensuring that any future UK military assistance to Iraq remains on a sound legal footing," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

EU LEADERS VOW NO BANK WILL FAIL !

Europe's leaders meeting at an economic crisis summit in Paris have pledged that no major financial institution will be allowed to collapse.
They also pledged to guarantee loans between banks on a temporary basis, in order to address the liquidity crisis.
The reluctance of banks to lend to one another has been a key problem of the financial crisis sweeping the globe.
World governments have been racing this weekend to throw banks a lifeline before markets reopen on Monday.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy - the current European Union head - also said leaders had agreed a framework in which individual countries would be able to inject capital into their own banks by means of preference shares.
Mr Sarkozy said the guarantees would be at commercial rates, and he stressed that what he called defective managers would be removed - and rash shareholders would not benefit from the public intervention.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TAINTED CHINA WATER SICKENS 450 !

About 450 people have fallen ill in southern China after drinking contaminated water, the Xinhua state news agency says.
Four of the sick, in two villages in Guangxi province, have arsenic poisoning. Industrial waste from a metal company has been blamed.
Residents began to show symptoms of facial swelling, vomiting and blurred vision on 3 October.
Last month, tainted milk left more than 50,000 children sick.

Ge Xianmin, head of the Guangxi regional occupational disease prevention and control institute, told Xinhua: "The villagers were slightly poisoned. They can be cured in nine to 15 days with timely treatment."
Health officials said 23 children under the age of seven and 32 people aged over 60 had been kept in hospital for observation, while others were receiving outpatient treatment.
According to local government officials, torrential rain caused waste water containing arsenic from the Jinhai Metallurgy Chemical company to overflow and pollute nearby ponds and wells.
The company - a branch of the state-owned Liuzhou China Tin Company - was closed after the contamination was discovered.
Xinhua said the local government and the company had agreed to share the medical costs of the villagers.
Last month, four children died and more than 50,000 were sickened after they were fed on baby milk powder contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine.
The scandal resulted in a recall of many Chinese milk products.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MARA CATS ROAR BIG ON THE WEB!

By Hugh Wilson

There have been many surprises on Big Cat Live, from Shakira the cheetah facing down a male lion, to Shakira's cub facing down a fully-grown male cheetah.
But for the crew, one of the greatest revelations of this year's show has been the success of Big Cat on the web.

Some of the most memorable scenes from the Masai Mara Reserve have been captured on the webcams - seven in all - that have been feeding live pictures continuously to the Big Cat Live website.
They have shown us nocturnal lion hunts, the first hesitant steps into the wide world of hyena and jackal cubs, and thermal footage showing a zebra seemingly attack a zebra foal in the heat of a cheetah attack.
The absence of cars and cameramen has ensured that the behaviour recorded has been entirely natural.
"Look at what is happening on the webcam now," says presenter and Mara native, Jackson Looseyia.
"We are seeing unusual behaviour - if there was a car there, or people walking there, these (jackal) cubs would be gone."
But the webcams are only one part of the Big Cat online experience. According to presenter Jonathan Scott, the team is "loving" Big Cat Raw, a web exclusive that follows the live television show on BBC One, and allows presenters to answer viewer's questions posted online.
"One of the great things is that it draws much more information out of us than we could possibly give on the live show," he says. "It's giving added value." The Big Cat Live message boards are also teeming with activity (nearly 5,000 posts on over 1,200 threads at time of writing).

Web producer Simon Mackie says that it feels like an almost continuous conversation with a dedicated Big Cat community.
"You pick up something on webcam, and within a few minutes there's a post on the message board about it, saying 'wow, did I just see some tiny hyena cubs' or whatever. People are waking up and posting for the latest news on Shakira's cubs, or even just to witness an African sunrise. They're really involved."
He admits that the continuous feed has thrown up dilemmas, like how much blood and gore can tastefully be shown at teatime. But the immediacy of the web has also thrown up unforeseen opportunities.
"Something like Jackson's Sound Safari is a great example," he says. "There were no plans for that. We just decided to hook Jackson up with a microphone and let him comment on the web feed. People love it."
The final episode of Big Cat Live on BBC One will be broadcast on Sunday at 1815 BST; but the webcams operate all day and all night, and the Big Cat team is sending text message updates to the website throughout the day.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE - LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

10th October 2008.

Dear Friends,

I have been writing this Letter from the Diaspora for one whole year now. This is Letter No 52. I have no idea who reads the letter or whether it makes any difference but for the first time in 52 weeks I have to admit that I am lost for words. There are no words to express my horror and disgust at what is happening in Zimbabwe. Horror at the level of hunger and poverty being experienced by ordinary Zimbabweans and disgust at the politicians who continue to play their childish power games while all around them the country sinks further and further into the abyss.
The World Food Programme yesterday issued an appeal for 140 million dollars to save 5 million Zimbabweans from imminent starvation. With the international economies in such disarray and billions being spent by governments to rescue failing banks it is hard to see this WFP appeal succeeding in raising sufficient funds to rescue Zimbabwe from its self-inflicted wounds. The rainy season is less than a month away in Zimbabwe and there is still no seed and no fertilizer in the bankrupt country for the new agricultural season. The country faces another disastrous crop failure which Robert Mugabe will no doubt once again blame on sanctions and greedy white farmers. In a carefully researched piece in the UK Times this week Jan Raath estimated that less that 400 white farmers of the original 5000 remain on their farms. Since the Agreement was signed on September 15th some 60 farmers have been forced, often at gunpoint to abandon their farms. 'Land grabbers' Jan Raath call them. " Army officers, magistrates, agricultural officials, local government officials are walking into homesteads and settling in, commandeering farmers' vehicles, furniture and the food in their fridges." All this while the people of Zimbabwe die slowly of starvation, of AIDS or water-borne diseases. The forthcoming rainy season can only increase the misery as malaria takes its annual toll and health care system collapses for lack of resources. A whole generation is being wiped out while the land grabbers and fat cats look the other way, blind and deaf to the cries of the suffering masses.

What of the next generation? The pupils at primary schools, the bright young men and women at universities and colleges who will be the future leaders of the country. What hope for them? This week four major institutions of higher learning failed to open their doors for the new semester citing 'budgetary constraints', the collapse of basic infrastructure and the absence of lecturers who, along with secondary and primary school teachers, have fled the country in their thousands. In educational terms, 2008 has been declared a 'non-year'. There will be no Grade Seven exams and possibly no O's or A levels either. Pupils and college students will just have to repeat a year in 2009 they are told. And what guarantee do they have that things will be any different next year? Without a political solution, nothing will change. So while Mugabe and Zanu PF continue to hold on to power there is no end to Zimbabwe's misery in sight. The official inflation rate is an unimaginable 232 million percent, twenty times more than it was a month ago. None of Gideon Gono's attempts to bring down inflation and rescue the economy have succeeded; in fact; they have made things worse. The sight of food outlets laden with goods for sale in foreign currency right next to empty shelves for local currency sales proves the point.

The country is being held to ransom by Robert Mugabe and his gang of thieving supporters who continue to plunder the country's resources while the people die a slow and lingering death. More than anything else, it is the total lack of humanity, the callous indifference to the suffering of the African people by the president and his party that leaves me lost for words. In his determination to cling to power at all costs Robert Mugabe is committing silent genocide while Africa and the rest of world look the other way. There are no words to convey that horror.

Yours in the (continuing) struggle. PH.

"SAYINGS" !

"PURE LOVE IS A WILLINGNESS TO GIVE

WITHOUT A THOUGHT

OF RECEIVING ANYTHING IN RETURN" !

_____

FINANCIAL CRISIS : WORLD ROUND-UP!

By Quentin Sommerville - BBC News, Beijing.

The Chao Wai foodmarket is the kind of outdoor "wet" market that has been serving Beijingers for decades.
It is an old-fashioned affair. There are fresh noodles and vegetables on sale, and the shoppers here are a fairly traditional lot too - cautious spenders and careful savers.
"We keep our spending down," says the retired Ms Xu. "We don't dare to go to those shiny supermarkets, here things are much cheaper.
"Compared to five years ago, our living standard is improving. Although our salary is increasing, the price has gone up too. But in terms of food, it's still affordable."
China has had what it refers to as five golden years of economic prosperity, and ever so slowly this country of farmers and factory workers is becoming something else - a nation of shoppers.
The Village is Beijing's latest shopping mall. Despite the rustic sounding name, there are no fresh vegetables or noodles on sale here.
It looks like a supertanker of American consumerism has run aground in the city. There's Nike, Apple computer and Levi's stores, and the smell of Starbucks coffee hangs in the air.
Once China just manufactured the computers, iPods and training shoes on sale here - now Chinese people can afford to buy them too.
Hu Shijie, works in IT and is visiting the Apple store to buy a new computer.
"Although the economic crisis is hurting other countries, for China I can't see there is a big impact. The stock market hasn't changed a lot compared to several years ago. It has plunged 70%; that's just a return to where it was before," she said.
Wang Li, who works in the finance industry, is similarly upbeat.
"I have lots of confidence in China's economy. Investors from other countries think China is a very good business destination. The population of China is much bigger than the America. It is a huge market," he said.

It is these cocky new domestic consumers that the government hopes will keep China powering along - even if American and European shoppers stop spending.
There are certainly more of them, but how do Chinese wallets compare with those of the United States?
The vast majority of Chinese people still cannot afford luxuries. "Chinese wallets are getting bigger, but the scale is just hugely different. In China you've got an [annual] income on average of £1,000 ($1,700), whereas in America you've got an income of £15,000 ($25,000)," said Stephen Green, senior economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Shanghai.
"This is still a developing country. Although there are lots of Ferraris and Porsches floating around Shanghai and Beijing, they're not in the interior, where most of the people live. Most people still live on farms or small houses," he added.
Export growth is slowing, but so too are things at home.
Retail sales remain strong, but many economists do not believe the numbers.
On the mainland, car sales, house prices and the stock market have all taken a dive. Even the purchase of domestic air tickets is down - all signs of weaker consumer confidence.
And according to Cheng Siwei, a political and economic adviser to China's government, this superfast economy is shifting down a gear.
"This year, because of the internal and external challenges, China's economic growth is going to slow down a little bit, to around 10%. In the coming three years, we can keep our economic growth rate above 8%," he said.
But that might be optimistic. China's shops are busier than ever, but its factories are slowing down, and jobs are already being lost.
Even here, there will be no escaping the global economic chill.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

50 OF YOUR FAVOURITE WORDS!

Lots of sesquipedalians out there, judging by the response to our feature on the man who reads dictionaries for fun, Ammon Shea. We asked for your favourite words and were overwhelmed with nominations. Here we list 50 of the best.

1. To throw something (someone) out of a window is to defenestrate. I love this word because it immediately brings some interesting memories to the front, not to mention makes me think of some new things to toss out of a window.Lee Nachtigal, West Hartford, Connecticut, USA
2. Poodle-faker - a young man too much given to taking tea with ladies.Jane, Pembroke
3. Omphaloskepsis (self-absorbed, navel-gazing). I'm not really a selfish person, but I do occasionally need someone to remind me to look up from my navel. Plus, things that have to do with belly-buttons are generally pretty fun.Anise Brock, San Francisco, USA
4. Mallemaroking - the carousing of seamen in icebound ships. A wonderfully useful word! How many icebound ships do we all know?Sue H, Tiverton
5. Spanghew - to cause (esp. a toad or frog) to fly into the air off the end of a stick. (In northern and Scottish use.) Why? Well, all one has to do is imagine the myriad situations in which one might use this word.Michael Everson, Ireland
6. Scrimshanker - one who accepts neither responsibility nor work.Maurice De Ville, Chesterfield
7. Zareba - a protective hedge around a village or camp, particularly in the Sudan. Used to great effect by PG Wodehouse in, for example, The Clicking Of Cuthbert, with his description of a Russian novelist: "Vladimir Brusiloff had permitted his face to become almost entirely concealed behind a dense zareba of hair."Peter Skinner, Morpeth, UK
8. I first heard Stephen Fry (of course!) use this on QI. Tmesis - To break one word with another. For example: dis-bloomin-graceful, un-flippin-believable. Use it mainly when talking to British Gas.Colin Rogers, Maidenhead, Berks
9. I love the word quidnunc, which means one who gossips because it is a word I could use to describe a lot of people who fit the definition and they wouldn't know what I was saying.Katie, Hickory Hills, IL, USA
10. Ischial callosities is a great description, because of its precision. It refers to the leather-like pads on a monkey's bum.Paul Edward Hughes, Langley, Canada
11. One of my favourite words is cryptomnesia because it captures the meaning of a whole process that I previously never thought could make it into a single meaningful word. Of course it makes sense, and literally means "buried memory". I first came across it reading Jung when he described the process of forgetting the source of some information and assuming you've known it all along. That's such an ephemeral process, and I'm fascinated by it as much as the word used to describe it. Alan Languirand, Ypsilanti MI, USA
12. One of my favourite words is urt. Urt is almost onomatopoeic, since an urt is a "leftover bit".Eric McConnachie, Clear Lake, Ontario, CANADA
13. I like the word termagant meaning a quarrelsome shrew of a woman - because it's just obscure enough to get mixed up with "ptarmigan", a lovely bird.Jan, Portland, Oregon, USA
14. Oxter- space under the arm (not the armpit) eg he walked down the street with a copy of the Times under his oxter.David McLoughlin, Dublin, Ireland
15. Spelunking- the hobby or practice of exploring caves. The word just sounds good, I love it!Rachel, Reading
16. Petrichor - the sweet smell of rain on dry earth. Although I wouldn't consider myself enough of a lexiphane (another good word, meaning "one who uses words pretentiously") to bring it up in every day conversation. Plus, living in Scotland, dry earth isn't a phenomenon I'm used to.Natalie, Glasgow
17. Frippet (noun) - A flighty young woman prone to showing off. Could be used for the vast majority of contestants on Big Brother.Charley, Bristol
18. Panglossian - Excessively or naively optimistic. The world needs more people like this now than ever!VJ Patel, Luton, UK
19. I love the word proprioception (go ahead and look it up - I define it as knowing where you are in the world, where your body stops and everything else begins). I learned it in an undergraduate psychology course, probably. One of my favourite things about this word is that I can never remember it! I'll come across a use for it and then rack my brain for several minutes before having to give up and then of course suddenly remembering it (there's another word I have the same experience with but I can't remember what it is just now). There's a French term that I believe is tangentially relevant to proprioception - "jusqu'au bout". It means "to the end" but it was explained to me (by a nice young French man, many years ago!) in the context of "je t'aime jusqu'au bout", as in to love someone all the way to the ends of their fingers and tips of their ears (etc!).Marni Law, Brisbane, Australia
20. If you ever fly into the US, then one of the questions you're asked on the entry form you have to fill in is "Have you ever been convicted of moral turpitude?" What a great word turpitude is! I've never heard it anywhere else, but I can guess what it means and that the required answer is "NO". Just the sound of it is faintly dubious, once you've realised that it's not something you use to clean your paint brushes with.Stevie, Brighton
21. I like the word discombobulated. It has a staccato, mechanical sound and conjures up an image of a robot scrabbling to hold itself together when all its nuts and bolts suddenly start to fall out. Which is just how one feels when discombobulated!Sally Ratapu, Auckland, New Zealand
22. Floccinaucinihilipilification - this word was used by Bollywood star Amitabh Bachhan 20 years ago while giving an interview. I was struck by his choice of word and the meaning of it!Sudip Mazumder, London
23. Pusillanimous (lacking in courage or strength of purpose) just sounds funny and derisive and insulting.David Benning, Davis, CA USA
24. Sepulchral - of or pertaining to the tomb. I just love the way it sounds and the movements my mouth must make to say it. To be sure, I rarely have the opportunity to use it, except during Halloween.Gregory Strucaly, Apollo, PA, USA
25. I love the word sphygmomanometer, which is the medical instrument used to measure blood pressure. Try saying it after a drink or two.Lucy, Cambridge, UK
26. Crepuscular, which means "of or like twilight".Sarah, Bedford, UK
27. Sinecure - a position or office that requires little or no work but provides a salary.Stephen Lynn, Antrim
28. Word: kakistocracy. Definition: The government of a state by the worst citizens. A very useful word!Helen Collins, London, England
29. Chthonic: first encountered in Philip Pullman, then in the BBC series Rome, meaning dead, underground, of the nether world.Mike Crompton, Hayfield, High Peak
30. Runcible as used in Edward Lear's poem The Owl and the Pussycat - given in Chambers Dictionary as meaning a pickle-fork but used in our household as anything, especially cutlery, which is slightly ill-matched or bent/crooked.Kirsty Harrison, Binfield, Berkshire
31. I very much enjoy palimpsest because you would never think that there was a word for something so specific as that: "A parchment or other writing surface on which the original text has been effaced or partially erased, and then overwritten by another." Its etymology is beautifully direct. From Ancient Greek "palin" meaning "again" (as in palindrome) and "psen" which means "to rub smooth". William Kraemer, London, UK
32. I like susurrus which means a soft murmuring or rustling sound. Terry Pratchett used it to great effect in one of his books, and I couldn't help hearing the sound of a gentle breeze on tree leaves whenever I read it. Almost like magic.Sarah, Woking
33. I just like the sound of the word tintinnabulation and if you look it up in the OED, it simply describes a sound made by the ringing of a bell. Imagine using such a word in everyday language.Earl Okezie, Lokoja, Nigeria
34. Maieutic is one of my favourite obscure words. It means pertaining to intellectual midwifery and describes as no other word does a phenomenon that happens more often than you might think. It is very rewarding when you can match the moment to the word.Martin Ackland, London
35. Crenellate - to furnish a wall with crenels or battlements, the rectangular "gaps" seen atop castle towers. For me, this word conjures up images of seaside holidays and carefully constructed sandcastles.Simon Bonner, Liverpool, UK
36. Borborygmus - the rumbling sound that comes from an empty stomach.Rupam, Ashburn, VA USA
37. Fug. I love jazz and have always thought a cellar jazz bar with a hazy atmosphere created through captivating music and hazy smoke would be perfect if called "The Fug". However, the smoking ban now prohibits any kind of fug. And "The Sanitary" just doesn't have the right ring.Julian Williams, Stourport-on-Severn
38. Metanoia - the act or process of changing one's mind or way of life - is so beautiful.Sa Smith
39. Estivate (the opposite of hibernate), because that is what I do. With the onset of autumn, I am looking forward to awakening from my summer torpor. The colder the day, the happier and more energized I am.DJ Leslie, Falls Church, Virginia, USA
40. Rodomontade is my favourite, meaning boastful. Difficult to use in conversation though!Kevin Murphy, Glasgow
41. Slubberdegullion is a favourite word of mine, meaning, roughly ,a worthless person. Throw it in next time you're gossiping about someone.Bob Baker, Dunster, England
42. I like erythrismal, meaning "red by nature". An example would be a fox or a robin's breast. However, I am a redhead, so may be biasedJudith-Anne MacKenzie, London
43. Chatoyant is a word I learned from a poet/artist friend, and I teach it, or use it, whenever possible, which is quite often. It means something that glows from deep within, like a cat's eye (chat), or star sapphires, or highly polished hard woods.Roxann , Alexandria, MN, USA
44. I like enervating (to weaken physically) because it sounds like it SHOULD mean the opposite to what it DOES mean.Bob, Edinburgh
45. Tatterdemalion - a person with tattered clothing or of unkempt appearance. This word has, to my mind, a "bouncy" rhythm to it and use it often. I know several people who could have this word attributed to them...Graham, Luton, England
46. Mellifluous - sweet, pleasant-sounding speech, words or music - is a my favourite word, though I suppose it couldn't really be classed as obscure. It's so beautifully onomatopoeic.Maura Evans, Bradford
47. A word I recently learned and immediately liked, is ideation. It's like you take a creative word and turn it into a verb, make it creatING! Ideation means "the process of thought" or "the conceptualization of a mental image". Theresa, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
48. I used to love the word syzygy because, in the Oxford Illustrated Dictionary, its definition (in the mathematical sense) went something like: "A group of rational, integral functions, which, when severally multiplied together, the sum of the products vanishes identically." Reggie Thomson, Cambridge, England
49. My favourite word is sesquipedalian. From the Latin, sesquipedalis, meaning a foot-and-a-half, it means given to using long words.Chris Howard, Morden
...which is probably a fitting adjective for...
50. I'm disposed to immediately feel dyspathy with a secretary like Shea, but after goving at his story for a while, I begin to hansardize. There's no point in being philodoxical just because an apparently mundane subject deeply happifies another. I may stroke my natiform chin sceptically at Shea's cachinnations, but if such things truly make him tripudiate, then who am I to be the pejorist?Rob Stradling, Cardiff

BBC NEWS REPORT.

OBITUARY : JOERG HAIDER

To his supporters Joerg Haider was a patriot who dared to speak uncomfortable truths.
His critics saw him as an ambitious, racist opportunist who used anti-immigrant and pro-Nazi rhetoric to stir up populist sentiment.
What is doubtless is that Haider - whose death in a car crash at the age of 58 leaves a widow and two daughters - had charisma.
Commentators said he worked a room like former US President Bill Clinton, embracing supporters and using the familiar "du" form of address.
Born in the Upper Austrian town of Bad Goisern in 1950, Joerg Haider's parents were very early members of the Nazi party, who moved to Germany where they became party officials.
After the war, they were punished for their affiliations and forced to take up menial work.
Critics say Haider's views were shaped by this background, although he said his family seldom discussed the past.
After school, where he was regularly top of the class, Haider studied law in Vienna and joined the Freedom Party in 1976.
He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming the party's leader 10 years later.
Around the same time he became party leader, Haider inherited a controversial $16m estate in the southern province of Carinthia where he became governor in 1989.

JOERG HAIDER: KEY DATES
1950: Born in Upper Austria
1976: Joins Freedom Party
1986: Elected party's leader
1989: Elected governor of Carinthia
2000: Resigns as party leader
2005: Founds Alliance for Austria's Future

Barental, or Bear Valley, was bought during World War II by his great uncle from an Italian Jew who fled in 1940.
Critics say the sale was illegitimately forced upon the Jewish owner by the Nazis, but Haider consistently denied this.
He amassed a formidable power base in Carinthia, but his first stint as governor in 1989 ended abruptly when he praised the employment policies of Nazi Germany and was forced to resign.
He was re-elected, however, in 1999 and 2003.
When he became leader of the Freedom Party, it was winning barely 5% at the polls.
He had increased that support six-fold by 2000, when he resigned his leadership after the party entered into a coalition government with the conservative People's Party.
Despite his resignation as chairman, Haider remained a key figure within the party apparatus.
He showed he still had considerable personal appeal with voters when he was re-elected as governor of the southern province of Carinthia in 2004, although national surveys at the time suggested many Austrians mistrust him.
In 2005, he launched a new party - the Alliance for Austria's Future - after a split in the Freedom Party threatened the ruling coalition.
He was subsequently expelled from the Freedom Party.
The new party's increasing popularity won it 11% of the vote in September's general elections.
Carinthia powerbase
Haider gained notoriety for his pro-Nazi comments. He described World War II concentration camps as "punishment camps" and said the Nazi SS was "a part of the German army which should be honoured".
He also compared the deportation of Jews by the Nazis to the expulsion of Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia after the war.
He later apologised for the comments although suspicions remained that his real views did not change.
Haider always denied being an extremist and even compared himself politically to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
During the 1999 Austrian election campaign, he whipped up feeling against immigrants and suggested that without them the government's austerity budget would not be necessary.
He tried to stop Austria joining the European Union in 1995 and attempted to force a referendum on whether to join the single currency.
On both issues he failed, but his views on the EU remained trenchant.
He opposed plans to let in new countries and called it a ''declaration of war against all working and upstanding people".
The EU reciprocated Haider's sentiments, imposing sanctions against Austria in 2000 in protest against his party's role in government.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IMF TAKES ACTION TO STEM CRISIS!

The IMF has warned the financial crisis is the most dangerous since the 1930s.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has activated an emergency finance mechanism to help countries hit by the financial crisis.
IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the lending procedure would allow the IMF to react quickly to support countries facing funding problems.
The scheme, which was used during the Asian financial crisis in 1997, will help speed up approval of loans.
The news came as US stocks sank to a five-year low.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones ended down 7.3% - tumbling below 9,000 points for the first time since August 2003 and falling for a seventh consecutive session.
Mr Strauss-Kahn said the world was "on the cusp of recession", but could still recover.
The IMF has already sent a mission to Iceland, where the government has taken control of its three biggest banks.
Speaking ahead of meetings of the IMF and World Bank, Mr Strauss-Kahn urged countries to act "quickly, forcefully, and co-operatively" to solve the global economic problems.

Time to reform the IMF?
'Major global downturn' says IMF
Stocks falter as fears persist

A day after seven central banks around the world cut interest rates in an effort to calm financial markets, the IMF chief said further co-ordinated action was necessary.
"All kinds of policy co-operation are to be commended," he said.
But he issued a stark warning against countries acting unilaterally to fight the crisis, referring to recent isolated moves by certain European Union member countries.
"There is no domestic solution to a crisis like this one."
Finance ministers from the G7 group of wealthy nations are also meeting in Washington this weekend.
Turbulent week
It has been yet another turbulent week on world financial markets. Thursday's key developments include:
The Dutch government is preparing 20bn euros ($27.4bn) in funding to support financial institutions in the Netherlands during credit crisis.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is considering capital injections into troubled US banks, a White House spokeswoman said
The UK has condemned Iceland's handling of the collapse of its banks and its failure to guarantee British savers' deposits
The oil producers cartel Opec will hold an emergency meeting in Vienna on 18 November to discuss the impact of the financial crisis on oil prices, which fell below $87 a barrel

Mr Strauss-Kahn said the events of the past few weeks were beginning to take their toll on emerging economies as credit lines were cut and as trade was being hit by slowing demand in Western economies.
He said the IMF was ready to assist any country in need of funding through its emergency aid mechanism, set up in 1995 to help Mexico stabilise its financial system after a crisis of confidence that led to sharp declines in the country's currency.
The Philippines, Thailand, Korea and Indonesia also drew on the mechanism to access billions of dollars of loans after the eruption of the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
Separately, World Bank president Robert Zoellick warned against letting the "financial crisis become a human crisis".
He said a drop in exports combined with higher credit costs will trigger business failures in the poorest economies and, in some cases, "bankrupt" countries.
Acknowledging there was no "silver bullet" to fix the global financial difficulties, he said it was up to the Group of Seven industrialised countries to work together to come up with a plan to solve it.
"Countries will take different actions, customised to their circumstances, yet the actions need to target the same basic problems," he said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

IRAN CELEBRATES GLOBAL MELTDOWN!

By Jon Leyne - BBC News, Tehran.

Amidst the financial wreckage around the world, one government is celebrating.
Watching the global gnashing of teeth, the Islamic Republic of Iran is enjoying the ride.
"We are very happy that America's economy is in jeopardy and they are paying the price for their misdeeds. God is punishing them."
That is the verdict from Ayatollah Jannati, one of the most senior clerics in Iran.
President Ahmadinejad has pronounced on the collapse of global capitalism, and announced that Iranians should stand ready to manage the world.
If there is a Persian word for "schadenfreude", this is it.
And for the moment, Iran does seem to be above the fray.
Shares on the Tehran stock exchange, while down slightly in recent trading, have increased in value by 20% during the year.
In fact, to walk the floor of the Tehran Bourse, you could be excused for thinking you are in a parallel universe.
It looks like a normal stock exchange, with a vast computerised screen dominating the room and traders working from computer to phone to computer.
It is surely only a matter of time before the laws of gravity reassert themselves on the Iranian economy
But share prices have been almost entirely unaffected by the credit crunch.
Stock market insiders told me what they were more interested in was the progress of a government privatisation plan, and other domestic factors.
Bahrom, a stockbroker watching the trading floor, explained that the crisis presented opportunities for Iran. He advised foreign investors to take a good look at the market here.
Another stockbroker said the market here was more about politics than economics.
Any foreign investors tempted to join the party should be warned that foreign investments need government approval, in a process that takes at least a month - and that is probably an optimistic assessment. Iran, of course, is proud of going against the global trend.

Ayatollah Jannati says the West is being punished for its misdeeds. This is the only economy in the world - indeed possibly in world history - in which you can borrow money from the bank and then receive a higher rate of interest by depositing it in the same bank.
Mr Ahmadinejad, who says he is proud of his ignorance of economics, also seems to believe the laws of supply and demand do not apply to the Islamic republic.
He insists the excess amounts of cash in the economy, excess liquidity, is in no way to blame for the spiralling rate of inflation - 25% and counting.
In this particular case, however, it is surely only a matter of time before the laws of gravity reassert themselves on the Iranian economy.
Despite a growing industrial sector, and other attempts to diversify, Iran is still overwhelmingly dependent on its massive oil and gas reserves.
According to the BP survey, taken together this country has the largest combined oil and gas reserves in the world, and it is the world's third largest oil exporter.
Iran's oil minister said his country earned $70bn (£41bn) from oil exports last year - the vast majority of both its export earnings, and of government revenue.
But with oil prices already down to around $60 (£35) a barrel from their peak, and still falling, that must be bad news for Iran's finances.

In theory, in the good years Iran puts surplus oil revenue into a stabilisation fund.
However, Mr Ahmadinejad's government found no trouble spending the money, even as oil approached $150 (£88) a barrel.

It is not clear how much, or even whether any, of that windfall made it into the deposit account.
Instead, as Mr Ahmadinejad toured the country he sprayed out money to the provinces and local villages.
Vast contracts have been awarded to the Revolutionary Guards. Unspecified amounts have been given, lent, or "invested" with Iran's friends both in the Middle East and in Latin America.
What has happened to the money - you hear ordinary Iranians asking.
Now the day of reckoning may be approaching.
"The direct impact of this financial crisis in the United States for the Iranian people, could actually be more than for the American people, because of the oil price, and our dependency on oil income," explained Saeed Leylaz, one of Iran's most outspoken and independent-minded economists
"If the oil price for Iranian oil will be $75 to $80 a barrel, we will lose $50bn US dollars (a year) and that means we are losing between $700 and $800 per head."
In fact, Iranian oil, which trades slightly cheaper than the lighter crudes that set the world benchmark, is now close to that price, and looks set to fall further.
Already, even in plush north Tehran, you can see the signs of economic downturn. There has been a huge property boom, with many grand old villas being replaced by luxury apartment blocks.
But building work is beginning to grind to a halt. One estate agent told me that prices were down 20% from their peak. Hundreds of thousands of apartments are reported to be lying empty.
"We are in a recession. No-one wants to buy. Demand is very low and there are many properties for sale," said the agent, Alireza Jahan.
No-one will have too much sympathy for Iran's property elite. And most Iranians will be delighted at falling rents and property prices.
For them, life has been tough for as long as they can remember, with high inflation and unemployment.

The president could be unable to give out money during campaigning. But this decline in the value of property could be the first sign of a wider economic downturn that could have important social and political implications for Iran.
Mr Leylaz spelt out what low oil prices could mean to Iran and its government: "It means more liquidity, and more economic problems, more inflation. A worse social gap, and social troubles for the country."
For Mr Ahmadinejad, there is the serious possibility of the money running low, just as he runs for re-election - in a vote expected to be next June. If there is no cash left to distribute, the fervour of his supporters could be severely tested.
And if oil prices do hit rock bottom, that could also change the international picture. Until now, one of the biggest constraints on the West, as it challenges Iran, has been the danger of pushing oil prices through the roof. Without that problem, many new possibilities open.
All of this will take some months to play out. For the moment, the money is still coming in, and Iran's rulers can enjoy watching the world demoralised and distracted.
But however much the Ayatollahs celebrate the downfall of global capitalism, it could yet be that capitalism, eventually, bites back.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

MUGABE'S PARTY 'WANTS MEDIATION'!

The party of Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe has agreed to further mediation from South Africa over a deadlocked power-sharing deal, a minister says.
"The three leaders agreed to call in the facilitator to assist in resolving the outstanding issues," Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said.
South Africa's former leader Thabo Mbeki brokered an agreement last month.
But there has been a stalemate over the cabinet, and the ruling party had said outside mediation was unnecessary.
Mr Mbeki stepped down last month, not long after negotiating a deal between Mr Mugabe and his long-time rival, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
There is now consensus that there is indeed a deadlock
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa
The leader of a smaller opposition party, Arthur Mutambara, was also party to the agreement.
According to Mr Chinamasa, the leaders met on Friday morning and agreed to get outside help.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa confirmed the meeting.
"There is now consensus that there is indeed a deadlock, so the intervention of the mediator becomes both imperative and inevitable," he told Reuters news agency.
The MDC has alleged that the ruling Zanu-PF party is demanding all the key ministries in the new unity government.
Food aid
So far the deal has failed to ease the country's crippling economic crisis.

Some outlets have been licensed to sell goods in US dollars
On Thursday, it was announced that Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate had soared to 231,000,000%.
Meanwhile, the UN says it needs $140m for food aid over the next six months.
The UN World Food Programme estimates that two million people are in need of food aid, and that the figure will rise to 5.1 million - or 45% of the population - by early 2009.
In a bid to combat the shortages of many basic goods, the government has allowed some shops to sell in foreign currency.
Critics of Mr Mugabe say he triggered the economic crisis when he began seizing white-owned farms for land redistribution ahead of parliamentary elections in 2000.
But Mr Mugabe blames Western sanctions which target him and his chief supporters for wrecking Zimbabwe's economy.
The crisis worsened after disputed elections earlier this year.
Mr Tsvangirai gained more votes than Mr Mugabe in March's polls, 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.
Under the South African-brokered deal Mr Mugabe remains president while Mr Tsvangirai becomes prime minister.

BBC NEWS REPORT

DOWNTURN STIRS JAPAN SUICIDE FEARS!

By Chris Hogg - BBC News, Tokyo.

Earlier this year the Japanese government released the results of a survey which suggested that one in five men and women in the country had seriously thought of taking their own life.
Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the industrialised world. On average around ninety people kill themselves in Japan every day.
In past years the suicide rate peaked each time the country's economy fell into recession.
Now that Japan's government has reported one quarter of negative growth, and signalled it is likely there are more to follow, there are fears of further increases in the number of people taking their own lives.
Many of those who choose to kill themselves go to Tojimbo Cliffs whose stone columns rise 25 metres (82ft) above the Sea of Japan.
Each evening, a retired policeman, Yukio Shige, patrols the cliffs looking for those he thinks might be planning to jump.

If he suspects someone is contemplating suicide he approaches them and starts a conversation, hoping to change their mind.
"For a lot of them it's a cry for help," he says.
"They are really hoping someone will stop them before they take their own lives."
Sometimes grown men burst into tears in front of him, he says. "I say to them 'You must be in a lot of pain, tell me what happened'."
He is a volunteer. His group offers help and support to those he saves from the cliff edge.
He has saved around a 150 people who had planned to kill themselves, many more men than women. Often their problems are to do with work.
"Takanori", a young man in his mid-20s who asked not to have his real name used, is one of them.
A few months ago he came to the cliffs intending to throw himself into the sea after losing his job.
Standing on the cliff edge, he recalls what drove him to such desperation.
"I went to the unemployment office, but there was only training and help for older people," he says.
"People of my age were supposed to cope with this difficult situation alone. There was no help for me at all."

It was not always like this.
There's a lot more working poor, a lot more who are worried about losing their job, a lot more people stressed out that they might lose their job
Professor Jeff Kingston Temple University, Tokyo
Going to work for a Japanese company used to be like joining a family. You worked there your whole life.
But in today's harsher economic climate, that is no longer the case. One in three workers in Japan is now a part-timer, constantly moving from job to job on part-time contracts like Takanori.
"This means there's a lot more working poor, a lot more who are worried about losing their job, a lot more people stressed out that they might lose their job," says Professor Jeff Kingston from Temple University in Tokyo.
"Workers are having to take over more responsibilities because their colleagues have been fired and downsized."
The professor believes that is one reason why there has been a huge spike in the number of suicides in recent years in Japan.
However, he points out that the lack of adequate mental health services and a growing number of elderly people here - an age group more prone to take their own lives than others - are to blame too.
But if, as most economists believe, Japan is in recession already, then any spike in suicides this time could be worse than before.

The internet makes it easier to find new ways to kill yourself.
For instance, it is not hard to find instructions for how to make lethal poison gas from household cleaning products. Hundreds of people have used this method to kill themselves in Japan this year.
Japan accepts that it has a problem with suicides but struggles to find a solution.
One answer can be found in a basement bar, a "live house" in the Kabukicho district of Tokyo on a Saturday afternoon.
A group of performers are on stage, relating their life stories. All have in the past tried to kill themselves.
The event is being broadcast live on an internet site where people discuss suicide.
The organiser, Koji Tsukino, believes this is the best way to deter people, to show them that hard times can be overcome.
"When I was in my 20s I tried to kill myself many times," he explains.
"I didn't listen when people told me not to or said I was selfish or that there were others who were suffering. But I think I would have listened to others who had gone through what I was going through if I'd had the chance to come to an event like this."
Mr Tsukino says if they save just one life then efforts like this will be worthwhile. But the reality is that such small-scale initiatives only scratch the surface of the problem.

Back at Tojimbo Cliffs Yukio Shige says desperate people still come day in day out.
"The people who come here to try to die are all very earnest," he says.
"They take their work seriously, they care a lot about their families. That's why they become so stressed."
He tells them, he says, to learn to be irresponsible, to tolerate the mistakes other people make. "Otherwise," he warns, "they will just destroy themselves."
Japan's government has pledged to do more to cut the country's suicide rate, a promise which the retired policeman welcomes.
But he fears it will take years for any new initiative to work.
"I have no choice," he says, "but to stay out on the cliffs on patrol."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ICELAND HALTS ALL SHARE TRADING!

Iceland has suspended trading on its stock exchange in an attempt to prevent further panic spreading throughout the country's financial markets.
The OMX Nordic Exchange Iceland is closed for trading for two days and will reopen on Monday.
The decision to suspend trading was taken due to unusual market conditions.
It comes on the same day as Kaupthing, Iceland's largest bank, became the third bank to be taken over by the country's government in the past week.
The country's Financial Supervisory Authority said it took over Kaupthing to safeguard its domestic banking system.
All domestic deposits at the bank were fully guaranteed, it added.
On Wednesday, the UK Treasury arranged for ING Direct to take over the £2.5bn of deposits of 160,000 UK customers of Kaupthing's online arm, Kaupthing Edge.

Analysis: What happened to Iceland?

The Swedish central bank had already agreed to provide a loan to the bank's Swedish arm.
Iceland's government has now seized control of all three of the nation's major banks. Landsbanki and Glitnir were taken over earlier this week.
The country has struggled to cope with the global financial crisis.
"The action taken... was a necessary first step in achieving the objectives of the Icelandic government and parliament to ensure the continued orderly operation of domestic banking and the safety of domestic deposits," Iceland's Financial Supervisory Authority said.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

ANC SPLIT IS 'GOOD FOR DEMOCRACY' !

The leader of South Africa's official opposition, Helen Zille, says she would welcome a split in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party.
She was responding to former Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota's threat on Wednesday to form new party.
"We're seeing a non-racial alignment... on the basis of principles and that's a very good thing," she told the BBC.
But ANC leader Jacob Zuma said a new party would be not threat to the ruling party in polls due next year.
"This splinter party will never be a real threat. Here we are talking about a party that has not been formed as yet and if it were to be formed, it will have very little time to mobilise support before the elections," South Africa's Witness newspaper quotes him as saying.

Turning their backs on the ANC

Mr Lekota is a close ally of former South African President Thabo Mbeki who was forced to step down last month.
The governing party is divided between supporters of Mr Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, who won a bitter party contest to become ANC leader last year.
Ms Zille, who heads the Democratic Alliance, said if Mr Lekota did form a new party it would not threaten her party, which believes in "the supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law and due process".
"In the end there will be a convergence of all of those parties like ourselves who believe in that vision and that future," she told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
Asked if she would join forces with Mr Lekota, Ms Zille said that she would work with all parties "opposed to power abuse".
"We will do that with Mr Lekota's party if he decides to establish it," she said.
Mr Lekota, known as "Terror" because of his prowess on the football field, is a former ANC chairman and resigned after Mr Mbeki stepped down.
On Wednesday, he said that a conference would be held in the next few weeks where a decision may be taken to split from the ANC.
Earlier this week, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it would be good for South Africa to have a viable opposition party.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

SHARES RALLY AFTER INTERVENTION!

Most European and Asian shares have rallied after investors absorbed news of a co-ordinated interest rate cut.
Banking shares helped to push the UK's FTSE 100 index 1.3% higher by late morning while France's Cac 40 rose 2% and Germany's Dax added 0.5%.
The UK bank rescue package boosted financial shares, with HBOS up 30% and Royal Bank of Scotland adding 15%.
But Japan's Nikkei index closed lower after its prime minister urged more action to boost the country's economy.
The measures proposed by Taro Aso would be on top of a 2 trillion yen ($19.5bn; £11.5bn) stimulus plan already put forward.

Check UK bank shares

As the turbulent week continued, in other developments:
Iceland suspended trading on its OMX Nordic Exchange until Monday, citing "unusual market conditions". Earlier, its largest bank, Kaupthing, became the third financial institution to be taken over by the country's government in the past week.
Ireland extended its guarantee of bank deposits to cover savings in Irish branches of five foreign-owned institutions Northern Ireland's Ulster Bank, British-owned First Active and HBOS, Belgium's IIB Bank and German-owned Postbank.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson warned that some banks will still fail despite the $700bn (£406bn) rescue package to shore up the financial system.
Dexia shares jumped 25% after France, Belgium and Luxembourg announced they would provide state guarantees for its borrowings.
UK Chancellor Alistair Darling flew to the US to discuss the co-ordinated cutting of interest rates by six central banks.
After trading on Russian stock markets had been suspended following sharp share falls earlier this week, they were again halted - this time after stocks climbed too high after trade resumed.

Seven central banks on Wednesday cut interest rates in an effort to steady the faltering global economy.
It came after the UK government's announcement of a package of measures aimed at rescuing the banking system.
This package makes available £400bn ($692bn) of fresh money.
There was "an air of cautious optimism" that such measures would have some impact on the financial crisis, said Richard Hunter, head of UK equities at Hargreaves Lansdown stockbrokers.
"Banking shares have been the main beneficiaries of the UK's rescue plan, and the interest rate cuts," he added.
"We've had a few false dawns over the past couple of months and it's too early to call a complete recovery, but there's hope that these measures will get some traction at some point."

Japan's benchmark Nikkei lost 0.5% or 45.83 points to close at 9,157.5.
Shares had been ahead for most of trading after the Bank of Japan injected two trillion yen into the money markets in an effort to calm fears.
But Mr Aso's call for further action prompted a sell-off.
The Nikkei had suffered its biggest one-day drop in 21 years on Wednesday, with the index shedding nearly 10% of its value.
In Sydney, Australia's main share index fell 1.8%, but Hong Kong's Hang Seng index added 3.3% after its central bank announced a half a percentage point cut to its interest rate, taking it to 2%.
South Korea's stock market climbed after the central bank announced an interest rate cut of a quarter of a percentage point.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

£26m BANK ROBBERY TRIAL COLLAPSES!

The trial has collapsed of the only man charged with the £26.5m Northern Bank robbery in December 2004.
Chris Ward, 26, was found not guilty of facilitating the massive cash robbery at the Northern's Belfast headquarters.
The judge said: "Given the decision to present no further evidence, I could not arrive at any other verdict."
His defence lawyer claimed: "The mere fact he was a Catholic and charged with this offence was enough to seal his guilt in the eyes of some people."
Niall Murphy added: "This Kafka-esque farce started from the premise that Chris Ward was guilty and worked backwards, rather than commencing with the evidence and working forwards."
Speaking outside Belfast Crown Court, he said Mr Ward had been denied the presumption of innocence from the beginning.
"He should have appeared at this court today as a witness for the prosecution, instead he found himself in the dock for a crime he did not commit and of which he remains a victim," he said.
Mr Ward was also cleared of robbing the bank and two further charges of falsely imprisoning bank colleague Kevin McMullan and his wife Karyn.

Audacious raid blamed on IRA

The trial at Belfast Crown Court began on 9 September and lasted four weeks.
The prosecution's case against Mr Ward, of Colinmill, Poleglass, was based on circumstantial evidence.
The gang that robbed the bank had such detailed knowledge about its security procedures that detectives believed they had an inside man.
Mr Ward's family was one of those taken hostage by the gang, but police believed the 26-year-old had been a willing accomplice.
A key part of the prosecution case was a claim Mr Ward had made a last-minute change to the work rota to ensure he was on duty to facilitate the robbery.
However, during the trial it emerged that dozens of people could have known the identities of keyholders who had access to the bullion room where the money was stored.
On Thursday, prosecution counsel Gordon Kerr QC said the case had been brought before the court based on circumstantial evidence.
"An essential strand related to the circumstances in which the defendant came to be on the rota of the late shift of the Northern Bank on the day of the robbery.
"(It was) fundamental in the case to the prosecution inviting the court to draw inference from other parts of the case."

He added that differences had arisen during the trial around the rota which prompted the rethink.
"Having considered the remaining evidence and the advice of counsel... it has been concluded that it would not be proper to make further submissions."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

" SAYINGS "

"THE MAN WITH INSIGHT ENOUGH

TO ADMIT HIS LIMITATIONS

COMES NEAREST TO

PERFECTION" !

___________

THAI COURT DROPS TREASON CHARGES!

Thailand's appeals court has thrown out insurrection charges against nine leaders of anti

government protests.
The court ruling said the treason charges were groundless.
But arrest warrants on lesser charges remain in force, and reports suggest the leaders may be willing to surrender to police. Two are already in custody.
Protesters have been occupying the grounds of government buildings for weeks, saying the government is a proxy for ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra.
The protests turned violent on Tuesday, when two people were killed in clashes.
Way out of crisis?
"Although the nine suspects have committed illegal acts, it's unreasonable to issue an arrest warrant on insurrection charges, thus the court revokes insurrection charges for all nine suspects," said the Appeals Court ruling.
Arrest warrants remain on less serious charges, reportedly including that of illegal assembly.
Two leaders of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), Chamlong Srimuang and Chaiwat Sinsuwong, were arrested last week - helping to spark Tuesday's violent protests.
A lawyer for the remaining seven has said they may be ready to surrender to police if the more serious charges were dropped - paving the way for a possible way out of this political stand-off, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok.
Without their most charismatic leaders, he says, the protests at Government House would probably soon fade.
But he says the basic problem remains: the protesters' loathing for Thaksin Shinawatra and those perceived as his allies.
The new prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat - who has refused to bow to their demands to quit - is Mr Thaksin's brother-in-law.
Mr Thaksin was overthrown in a military coup in 2006 and lives in exile in the UK.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

IS ANYONE LISTENING OUT THERE?

Messages have been sent to a planet 20 light years from Earth in the hope they will reach intelligent alien life.
Some 501 photos, drawings and text messages were transmitted on Thursday by a giant radio-telescope in Ukraine normally used to track asteroids.
The target planet was chosen as it is thought capable of supporting life.
Any reply to the messages - collated through a competition by the social networking website Bebo - would not reach Earth for 40 years.
The competition - A Message From Earth - invited Bebo's 12m users to send in missives they would like extra-terrestrials to receive.

The beamed messages will be sent 120 trillion miles into space.
Topics submitted ranged from the environment, politics and world peace to family relationships and the sender's first kiss.
Having been translated into a binary format, the 500 selected will travel 120 trillion miles into space after being sent via high-powered radio waves from the National Space Agency of Ukraine's RT-70 radar telescope in Evpatoria.
After being launched at 0600 GMT Bebo's mission commander Oli Madgett said the message "passed the Moon in 1.7 seconds, Mars in just four minutes and will leave our Solar System before breakfast tomorrow".
Organisers hope the hi-tech package will reach its target - the planet Gliese 581C - in early 2029.
Bebo spokesman Mark Charkin said: "A Message From Earth presents an opportunity for the digital natives of today... to reconnect with science and the wider universe in a simple, fun and immersive way."
Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer from the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence Institute in California, said whether aliens who might receive the messages would understand them was beside the point.
"The point might simply be: well, here we are; we're clever enough to build a radio transmitter," he told the BBC.
"So if anybody's out there and they find that signal, they at least know it that, in the direction of that star system over there, there must be a planet with some pretty clever things on it."

BBC NEWS REPORT.

KENYA DISMISSES TANKS 'EVIDENCE' !

Contract numbers include the initials GOSS, thought to be government of South Sudan.
Enlarge Image

A Kenyan minister has denied BBC reports that the tanks seized by Somali pirates were bound for South Sudan.
According to the cargo's manifest, obtained by the BBC, the contract included the phrase "GOSS", widely used to mean the Government Of South Sudan.
But Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula said it meant General Ordinance Supplies and Security and that this was a code for the department of defence.
He also said force should be used to rescue the weapons from the pirates.
He said Kenya would send warships to join the US and Russian ships surrounding the Ukrainian vessel, MV Faina, which is still moored off the Somali coast.
Last week, the Somali government said the ship's owners were involved in direct negotiations with the pirates, who are demanding a $20m (£11m) ransom.

Pirates reveal precarious peace

Kenya has always insisted that the military hardware was destined for its army but refused to comment on the BBC evidence on Tuesday.
Officials in Ukraine have also denied that GOSS stands for South Sudan but military and diplomatic sources insist that it does.
The BBC's Karen Allen in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, says that although the import of military hardware to Sudan is not illegal, if the weapons were being passed on, it would put Kenya in a tight spot diplomatically as Kenya helped broker an end to the civil war between South Sudan and the government in Khartoum in 2005.
But Francis Nazario, head of South Sudan's mission in Brussels, said he had seen the manifest and it did not prove anything.
"What I know is that we have nothing at all to do with the content of this ship, and the ship was not heading for South Sudan," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
"I think if there was anything like that we would not hide it because constitutionally we have the right to do so, to bring arms from anywhere."
Military balance
On Tuesday, a Kenyan court granted bail to Andrew Mwangura, a spokesman for the Kenyan chapter of the Seafarers' Assistance Programme, who had been arrested after he said the tanks were bound for South Sudan.

The pirates want a $20m ransom for the MV Faina and its valuable cargo. Pirates Ransom
Mr Mwangura was charged with making alarming statements and illegal possession of marijuana.
However, he has not yet raised the 200,000 shillings, ($2,700) and so he is still in custody.
Last week, Western military experts told the BBC that the tanks on board the MV Faina were going to Sudan and that the shipment indicated an arms race between northern and southern Sudan had begun.
They are reported to both be building up their forces ahead of a referendum on independence for the South in 2011.
The military experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a previous delivery of tanks had taken place last November.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

TWO BACK HAWKS DOWN IN BAGHDAD!

An Iraqi soldier was killed when two US helicopters collided while landing at a base in northern Baghdad, the American military says.
A military spokesman said two American troops and two other Iraqi soldiers were wounded when the Black Hawks crashed on Saturday evening.
He said the crash did not appear to have been caused by hostile fire.
But Baghdad police said a US helicopter was downed by gunfire and there was fighting in the area after it crashed.
The police said the fighting was between local militias and American and Iraqi forces.
A freelance cameraman in Baghdad used by the BBC said he was in the area when a helicopter went down.
He told the BBC he heard an unusual sound from a helicopter and when he turned to look saw it crashing with flames and smoke coming from its engine.
The US military said it had no information about the clashes or a helicopter being shot down.
"Two UH-60 Black Hawks have crashed while landing at Combat Outpost Ford in (the Baghdad district of) Adhamiya about 2055 Baghdad time (1755 GMT) this evening," said US military spokesman Lt Patrick Evans.
He said emergency services were on the scene and that the situation was under control.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

WALLONIA BATTLES WASTELAND IMAGE!

Belgian politicians are struggling to end a crisis that has paralysed government for 16 months. At its heart are tensions between the country's north and south. In the second of a series of articles on Belgium, Henri Astier looks at French-speaking Wallonia's efforts to change its fortunes and prosper within a united Belgium.

Brownfield sites are the old face of Charleroi
Enlarge Image

Many in Belgium's Dutch-speaking north regard French-speaking southerners as a work-shy lot trapped in a sclerotic rust belt.
They contrast Flanders' entrepreneurial, service-led economy to Wallonia's struggle to overcome the collapse of its smokestack industries.
If Wallonia has a serious image problem, Charleroi, the region's second-largest city, has an even worse one.
A quarter of its workforce is out of work. And following a string of scandals in the past three years, the city has become a byword for corruption in Wallonia itself.
"Whenever a minor scandal arises in a small town, it is nicknamed 'Charleroi'," says Olivier Chastel, a centre-right politician who made his mark fighting mismanagement there and is now Belgium's deputy foreign minister.

Arriving in the city by rail does little to dispel the stereotypes. In the distance, a disused steel factory offers a Dantesque picture of industrial blight.
Outside the station, the rattling tramways appear to have been built in Eastern Europe circa 1962.
You reach the city centre after hurrying past beggars and a red-light district.
Sitting at a cafe, Murielle de Gerlache, 34, and Valom Idrizaz, 25, a couple from Viroinval further south, mull over a bleak future.
The mother of two has been unemployed for three years and social services are threatening to cut off her benefits.
"They say I'm not trying hard enough to find work. But job hunting is hell for me," she says.
There is no regular bus service from her village - and Ms de Gerlache blames the penny-pinching Flemish for this. "They try to keep their wealth but forget the time when they came here for jobs."
What about moving to an area with better transport? "We have the right to live where we choose," objects Mr Idrizaz, who is also unemployed.
Hopelessness and urban decay may be in evidence in central Charleroi, but on the outskirts the picture is changing.
The old slag heaps dotted over the landscape are overgrown with greenery.
"We used to be called the 'black country' because we had heavy industry and mines, but this no longer reflects economic reality in the region," says Nathalie Czerniatynski of Igretec, a body that promotes development in the area.
"Our phone is always ringing; the companies keep coming," she says. Her main problem, she says, is turning farmland into business estates fast enough.
Rust never sleeps
Charleroi's corporate showcase is the Aeropole, a business park-cum-research hub built in the 1990s near the airport.
With ponds and futuristic buildings, it looks more like Silicon Valley than Satanic Mills.

BELGIAN DEVOLUTION

Federal government: foreign affairs, defence, justice, health, welfare
Language-based communities: education, culture
Regional governments: economic policy, labour, housing, environment, energy, transport

Belgium's federal conundrum

The Aeropole's 138 companies include such giants as Caterpillar and Johnson & Johnson. But most are local firms that belie Wallonia's reputation as an entrepreneurial black hole.
One of them, Ecoplast Technology, has found a revolutionary way to make car parts, which it sells to automakers worldwide.
"Here in Wallonia big companies find the small specialists that add something to their products," says Bernard Gonsette, Ecoplast's managing director.
He says he ignores Flemish slights about Wallonia's business culture: "I don't have time for arguments when I'm busy selling to Iran and Romania, and taking on the American market."
The Aeropole exemplifies a Walloon turnaround that began a decade ago.
The region phased out subsidies to doomed industries, streamlined business paperwork, and wooed investors with tax breaks and other incentives.
Support from trade unions was crucial to the transition, in a country where 80% of the workforce is unionised.
"We could have chosen a purely welfare approach, but we chose reform," says Antonio di Santo, head of the Charleroi branch of the FGTB union federation.
"We try very hard to shake off the region's rotten image, as well as stereotypes about lazy Walloons," he adds, pointing out that fewer days are lost to strikes in Wallonia than in Flanders.
Need work, won't travel
Wallonia's economy may not be the basket case many think it is, but it still has a long way to go.

Flemish and Walloons give their views on tensions in Belgium
In pictures

The region still lags behind Flanders by almost every measure - productivity, exports, income, etc.
Most painfully, unemployment tops 17% - while the Flemish have labour shortages. "Walloons have problems travelling a few dozen kilometres to find jobs in Flanders," Olivier Chastel says.
And while the idea of southerners living off the industrious north can be overstated by some Flemish politicians, it is not utterly baseless.
A Belgian economist recently calculated that if Wallonia was on its own - without Flanders or Brussels - each of its residents would earn 1,200 euros less a year ($1,600, £900).
This enduring economic gap between north and south is a key reason behind Walloon resistance to Flemish devolution plans. Left to its own devices - notably for welfare - the south would be much poorer.
But economic fears alone do not explain Wallonia's fervent attachment to the Belgian state.
You do not encounter there the profound sense of national identity that is ubiquitous in Flanders.
"There is no Walloon nation," says historian Vincent Dujardin, from the Catholic University of Louvain.

Most southerners are proud of their region, but feel it needs to be part of a larger whole.
Culturally I feel French. I don't see the difference between a 'chti' (French northerner) and me
Thibault de la Motte
This was highlighted by a recent poll, which indicated that a tiny minority of Walloons wanted Belgium to break up - but that if secession was forced on them, about half wanted to be attached to France.
Some are already calling for such a move - particularly in Wallonia's economic capital, Liege.
A free principality for 800 years before joining Belgium, Liege has strong historic links to France and to this day holds fireworks displays on 14 July.
"A mere two centuries of Belgium have not severed those bonds," says Thibault de la Motte, a law student from Liege.
"Culturally I feel French. I don't see the difference between a 'chti' (French northerner) and me."
At present Walloons calling for union with France are very much in the minority. But their numbers could be boosted if nationalists continue to do well in Flanders.
Whether France would agree to take in Wallonia, of course, is another matter.
The last time the French tried to expand their territory - almost two centuries ago - the rest of Europe descended on them near a small Walloon town called Waterloo.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

MILITANTS 'FREE' NIGERIA HOSTAGES!

Nineteen Nigerian oil workers who were kidnapped two weeks ago have been set free, the main militant group in the oil-producing Niger Delta area says.

But the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said it was still keeping two British workers and a Ukrainian who were also seized. Mend said it had rescued the group of 22 from "pirates" who had originally taken them hostage.

Unrest in the Niger Delta has led to a 20% cut in Nigeria's oil production,

On Saturday, President Umaru Yar'Adua said the situation in the Niger Delta was a "nightmare", which was scaring away potential investors in the country.

Mend said it could not free the three foreigners because of "security concerns - due to the location where the expatriates were kept for their safety".

Trouble has escalated in the Niger Delta region in recent days.

Another Briton was released on Saturday after more than two weeks in captivity. More than 200 foreigners have been kidnapped by militants in the Niger Delta, the heart of the country's oil industry, since 2006. Almost all have been released, normally after the payment of a ransom, although this is always officially denied.

Mend caused severe disruption by attacking gas plants, oil installations and pipelines. It claims to be fighting for greater control over oil wealth in the impoverished region.

But opponents say the militants make money from criminal rackets and trade in stolen oil.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

10 THINGS !

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

1. JK Rowling makes £5 every second.
More details
2. There are two £1m banknotes still in existence. Nine were made after World War II.
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3. Television presenter and artist Tony Hart served in the Gurkhas.
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4. Paul Newman was prevented from flying on an ill-fated World War II mission by his pilot's ear infection. Everyone on his detail was killed.
More details (Guardian)
5. Egham receives more spam than any other place in the UK.
More details (Observer)
6. The chief designer at Waterford Crystal was not Irish, but Czech.
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7. Human HIV infections could have started as early as the 19th Century.
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8. The 1950s was not a golden age for train travel.
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9. Bradford and Bingley has registered the raising of the bowler hat as a trademark.
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10. The man who designed the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, Eero Saarinen, also designed the Sixties classic, the Tulip chair.
More details (Times)

ANGER OVER TATA CAR FACTORY MOVE!

Thousands of people have been protesting in the Indian state of West Bengal after the Tata group abandoned its plans to manufacture cars there.
Tata, one of India's leading industrial groups, had planned to make what it said would be the world's cheapest car, the Nano, at a factory in Singur.
But the project was disrupted by a row over land on which the plant was built.
Tata's decision to find an alternative location for the plant met with dismay from thousands of its supporters.
After weeks of sustained and sometimes violent protests, Tata announced on Friday that it would scrap the venture and shift production of the Nano elsewhere.
"You cannot run a plant when bombs are being thrown," said the firm's chairman, Ratan Tata. "You cannot run a plant when workers are being intimidated."
The plant was seen as a key part of efforts to regenerate what was once India's most industrialised state, but which is now one of its least developed.

Tata abandons Nano car factory

Local supporters of Tata's West Bengal project were bitterly disappointed with the decision and thousands of them took to the streets around the plant.
Some were armed with sticks and iron bars and they blocked roads and disrupted traffic.
Among them were labourers and contractors who had hoped that the Tata factory would provide them with sustained employment.
They vowed to take on those who had opposed the plant, and effigies were burnt of the opposition leader, Mamata Banerji, who was a major force in the campaign against it.
For her part Ms Banerji has accused Tata of conspiring with her political rivals to discredit her.
"We had stopped the agitation for more than a month, so why are the Tatas pulling out now?" she said.
Meanwhile the state authorities have greeted the collapse of the project with dismay.
"This is a black day for Bengal," said the Industry Minister, Nirupam Sen. "We will have so much more difficulty getting investment now."
Local economists and others have expressed similar misgivings.
An editorial in the Indian Express newspaper talked of Tata's withdrawal as being a grave loss for West Bengal.
"A door to its future has just closed," it said.
Controversy over the project was seen as a reflection of wider tensions in India.
Efforts to acquire land for factories have run into opposition from farming communities in a number of places.
The battle over the site at Singur on the outskirts of Calcutta was particularly high-profile and seen as something of a test case.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

GERMAN BANK AT RISK OF COLLAPSE!

A top German bank is on the brink of collapse after a 35bn euro ($48bn; £27.2bn) rescue plan collapsed.
Germany's second-largest commercial property lender, Hypo Real Estate, said a banking consortium had withdrawn their support for the deal.
Correspondents say its failure will put further strain on financial institutions in other countries.
The news came after EU leaders at a Paris summit refused to commit to a US-style rescue plan for banks.
Hypo Real Estate, which has large amounts of bad debt, has suffered from the credit squeeze in international markets.
The bank said a consortium of German financial institutions involved in a government-led rescue plan pulled out of the negotiations after refusing to come up with nearly 35bn euros ($50bn; £28bn) for a bail-out.
The reasons why the consortium pulled out are unclear but a Hypo Real Estate spokesman said the property lender was fighting for its survival.
Some analysts are saying the bank will not last more than a few days without a rescue package, so action must be taken before the markets open on Monday.
Another meeting of government representatives and private bankers is expected to take place on Sunday.
Correspondents say if Hypo Real Estate does collapse it could plunge already volatile markets even further into debt.

Peston: How to solve crisis
Send us your comments
No business rush to Irish banks

News of the failed plan came as leaders of the major European economies met in the French capital for talks hosted by President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Britain, Germany, Italy and France all agreed to work together to support financial institutions but did not agree to set up a big rescue fund similar to that of the US.
They decided instead to seek a relaxation of the EU rules governing the amount of money individual states can borrow.
The leaders also issued a joint call for a G8 summit "as soon as possible" to review the rules governing financial markets.
Mr Sarkozy announced a series of other measures - including unspecified action against the executives of failed banks.
Speaking after the meeting at a joint news conference, he said the four had agreed that the leaders of a financial institution that had to be rescued should be "sanctioned".
The French president added: "Each government will operate with its own methods and means, but in a co-ordinated manner."
Meanwhile German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on EU countries not to take steps at home that could cause problems for other member states.
The Irish and Greek governments have been criticised within the EU for deciding to act independently by guaranteeing to protect all savings deposited in their banks.
'Trial by fire'
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, meanwhile, called on European leaders to send the message that "no sound, solvent bank should be allowed to fail through lack of liquidity".
He also said the meeting had agreed to ask the European Investment Fund to release 15bn euros ($21bn; £12bn) in loans to help small businesses operate.
The head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Dominique Strauss-Kahn, had earlier urged EU action, saying the financial crisis was presenting Europe with a "trial by fire".
He held talks with Mr Sarkozy before the EU leaders' meeting and said although the EU was a more complex organisation than the US, Europe needed to take "concerted collective action".
Mr Strauss-Kahn said it had to be "indicated to the markets... that European countries will not react as every man for himself".
He also said he would be scaling back his world economic growth forecasts.
Calls for European action followed the bail-out of both Bradford and Bingley in the UK and Fortis Bank by the governments of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
But the president of the European Parliament has criticised the summit, warning that the leaders of Europe's four largest economies have no power to decide for the entire European Union.
BBC NEWS REPORT.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Gangster State !

Saturday 4th October 2008.

Dear Family and Friends,

In the three weeks since a power sharing deal was signed between the winners and losers of Zimbabwe's election, nothing has happened except arguments. So many of us had such high hopes but these are fading fast. There is no sign of leadership, either from the old or the new, and all we hear is bickering and whining about wanting more mediation when all we really need is action. No one knows who is in charge, or who is going to be in charge of what and while this vacuum continues we have virtually turned into a gangster state.

The shortage of bank notes has reached critical lengths. People are queuing outside banks from as early as 2 am in the morning in order to draw out their daily limit which is not even enough to buy a single packet of soup. No shops or businesses are accepting cheques anymore. Electronic transfers - known as RTGS's - have been stopped by the Reserve bank in the last few days and so with no cash, no cheques and no transfers, we are grinding to a halt. For all the people who simply cannot fight their way to the front of bank queues, which are literally thousands strong , there is real hunger, suffering and despair. For others, there are vast fortunes being made in a frenzy of illegal deals.

In a parking bay in the centre of a busy town and with literally thousands of people milling around, a black market currency deal was being done in broad daylight on the bonnet of a car. Thick wads of Zimbabwe dollars were being counted out in exchange for a few US dollars. No attempt was being made to disguise what was going on or conceal the illegal transaction and in fact no one seemed to even care. This is a common sight and just one of many deals going on in plain view of Police in uniform who mill around, stand in bank queues, lean against walls and trees but do nothing to stop the lawbreakers.

This week I've met pensioners, hungry because they can't pay for what little food there is by cheque and can't get cash out of the bank. I've met middle aged men desperate because they can't get enough money out the bank to buy food for their families. I've met people from rural areas who say that despite the propaganda being peddled every day in the State media, no food, seed or fertilizer has arrived in their villages yet. I've met nurses who say that despite news reports they still have no drugs for their patients. I've met shop owners whose businesses are collapsing as their employees are in queues at the banks, and so are their customers. I've met parents in total despair as their children are still not in school a month into the term because teachers are on strike.

The walls are falling down around us very fast now and still we baby-cry about mediators. Shame on us.

Until next time, thanks for reading,
love cathy.

"SAYINGS" !

"FAILURES ARE FINGER POSTS

ON THE ROAD TO ACHIEVEMENT" !

_________

BEIJING HOSTS FIRST 'MIND GAMES' !

By Shirong Chen - BBC China editor.

A display of mental strength and intelligence is under way in the first World Mind Sports Games in Beijing.
Nearly 4,000 competitors and officials from 143 countries and regions are taking part in the two-week event.
The Games come as China celebrated earlier in the week its success in hosting the Olympic Games and Paralympics.
The world has marvelled at the physical achievements of the Olympians and Paralympians this summer in Beijing.
Over the next two weeks, nearly 3,000 challengers will be competing for 35 gold medals in five events - bridge, chess and draughts, Go and Xiangqi or Chinese chess.
It is a mixed variety of hugely popular board and card games from the East and West.
Chess and bridge, which originated in the West, now have 400 million players across five continents.
Chinese chess is played by 200 million players in 20 countries.
The game of Go, invented in China more than 3,000 years ago, now boasts 60 million players in five continents, mostly in China, Japan, and South Korea. Top players have become idols in these countries.
Delegations have been asked to bring water - symbolising the source of human spirit - from their homeland to Beijing, to mix together.
At the end of the games, they will be able to bring home a small sample, symbolic of the combined wisdom of the world.
China was top of the gold medal table for the Olympics, and it hopes to achieve the same feat in this first ever mental sports competition.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

OJ SIMPSON CONVICTED OF ROBBERY!

OJ Simpson has been found guilty on 12 charges of armed robbery, conspiracy to kidnap and assault with a deadly weapon by a court in the US city of Las Vegas.
The former US football star and actor was accused of robbing two sports memorabilia dealers a year ago.
The armed robbery charges carry a mandatory jail sentence, and kidnapping carries a possible life term.
Simpson, 61, who denied the charges, was acquitted of murder in 1995 in what was dubbed "the trial of the century".

CHARGES AGAINST OJ SIMPSON
Conspiracy to commit a crime: guilty
Conspiracy to kidnap: guilty
Two counts of first degree kidnapping: guilty
Burglary in possession of a deadly weapon: guilty
Two counts of armed robbery: guilty
Two counts of assault with a deadly weapon: guilty
Two counts of coercion with use of a deadly weapon: guilty

The charges in the latest trial centred on an incident in the Palace Station hotel in Las Vegas in September 2007.
Simpson was accused - and convicted - of kidnapping two sports memorabilia dealers and holding them in the hotel.
The former National Football League running back seized the pair in an attempt to reclaim items in their possession related to his sporting career, which Simpson claimed still belonged to him.
Handcuffed
Asked by reporters on his way into court for the latest verdict, which was read late on Friday night local time, Simpson said he was prepared for the judgement.
"You gotta be ready," the former Buffalo Bills star running back told journalists.

Profile: OJ Simpson

Inside the court both Simpson and his accomplice, Clarence Steward, were found guilty on all charges by the Las Vegas jury.
Simpson blew out his cheeks and nodded as the verdicts were read out.
He was then led away with his hands cuffed by police. He will be sentenced in December.
The judge refused to grant him bail pending sentencing.
In his previous trial, Simpson was accused of murdering his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994.
The not-guilty verdict - exactly 13 years ago - shocked many in the US.
Mr Simpson was later found liable for the deaths in a civil case and ordered to pay $33.5m (£19m) to Mr Goldman's family.

BBC NEWS REPORT.

BIG CAT KILL CAUGHT ON BBC WEBCAM !

By Hugh Wilson

The BBC's Natural History Unit cameras are in Kenya's Masai Mara Reserve for a week of live programmes - and already they have seen some astonishing sights.
On Friday, one of the cameras set up to stream live pictures to the expedition's website 24 hours a day captured the moment a lion took down its prey.

For daily updates/webcams

It was a remarkable sequence, and quite possibly the first time such an event had been seen on a live webcam.
It augurs well for the Big Cat Live series which returns to UK TV screens on Sunday. No that there haven't been some predictable technical hiccups in getting the camera network up and running.
A generator that has spent six weeks on the high seas is still on the high seas, at least as far as anyone knows. But four live video streams are now online, along with a split-screen view.

Shakira and her cubs could be the story that really hooks people.
You can catch all the action - which has so far included lions stalking zebra, playful hyena young, a sleeping hippo and even a bat-eared fox - by going to the Big Cat Live website.

It is all, in part, thanks to some pretty ingenious technical innovation.
Wonderful footage of a hyena den, for example, is coming from autonomous Land Rover camera units - assembled on site - which are driven into prime positions and, to avoid disturbing the animals, pretty much abandoned to the dust, heat and rain of the Mara.
Creating the Land Rover cam was one of many challenges facing the Big Cat team on the ground, but for producer Colin Jackson, it's a worthwhile investment of time and technology.
"That's one of the most exciting things this year: the idea that viewers in the UK will be able to watch live film of the animals night and day," he says.
"That will be a unique experience." Big Cat Live promises quite a few of those.

The kit needed to follow the lives of Africa's big cats, 24 hours a day
Jackson says the footage brought in by camera teams is "already far exceeding expectations".

Thermal cameras bring a new view to night-time activity.
The film of night-time activity, in particular, is a revelation.
"It's all there," he says. "Life and death, lion hunts, unique behaviour only seen at night.
"We're using a thermal camera that can see even further than infra-red. We're seeing the invisible."
The cameras have already picked out the usual cast of Big Cat characters
The Marsh lions are in rude good health, led by two males in their prime..

Bella the leopard, meanwhile, will be familiar to fans of previous Big Cat Diaries. The pride's territory is also the fragile home to a female cheetah (nicknamed Shakira) and her five cubs, and presenter Jonathan Scott thinks their struggle to survive may grip viewers most of all.
"That story is going to give viewers the most incredible sense of the Mara - and why we love to be here," he says.
Big Cat Live on BBC One will be broadcast every evening for the next week, starting on Sunday at 1810 BST; but the webcams operate all day and all night, and the Big Cat team is sending text message updates to the website throughout the day.

bbBBC NEWS REPORT.

ZIMBABWE - LETTER FROM THE DIASPORA !

3rd October 2008.

Dear Friends,

On Monday 29th September Robert Mugabe returned, earlier than expected, from his ego-boosting trip to the UN. It's hard to see what else the expensive jaunt for himself, his wife and forty of his closest associates was intende