The World News--contributions welcome, the story behind the story Options

[angrezi]

so what are you saying Dhyana? I'm somehow less advanced now?

[0jijaji0]

Wow. jijaji. Your news service is not only reliable, it's fast! You definitely bet Angrezi to it. 

Actually, it seems like our other members desirous of posting news would be well advised to look up your news outlet first, to avoid exposing themselves as slow on the uptake...! 

Ha Ha Ha....

[0jijaji0]

Bill O'Reilly Loses His Mind

[Dhyana]

so what are you saying Dhyana? I'm somehow less advanced now?

Ahem, well, but fastest is not always the best!

[now I may get into trouble with jijaji ]

[babu]

so what are you saying Dhyana? I'm somehow less advanced now?

post-mature ejaculation syndrome

[0jijaji0]

Filipino devotees nailed to cross


Fri Apr 6-SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines - Seven devotees were nailed to crosses on Good Friday in a northern Philippine village where the rites drew thousands of tourists and spectators.

The Lenten ritual is opposed by religious leaders in the Philippines — Southeast Asia's largest predominantly Roman Catholic nation. But it has persisted to become one of the country's most-awaited summer attractions in San Fernando City's San Pedro Cutud village.

The devotees' palms and feet were attached to wooden crosses with 4-inch nails soaked in alcohol to prevent infection after a nearly mile-long walk to the mound, each carrying a wooden cross on their backs.

Among the yearly penitents in San Pedro Cutud was Ruben Enaje, a 46-year-old commercial sign maker who was nailed to the cross for the 21st time on Friday.

Earlier in the day in the same village, dozens of half-naked men hit their bloodied backs with bamboo sticks dangling from a rope in a flagellation rite meant to atone for sins.

More than 100 foreign tourists flocked to this year's Good Friday rites, with many of them seated on a stage at the side of the mound.

"They take this religion to the extreme," observed Gomas de Miguel, a tourist from Spain. "In Spain, we say we are Catholics but we don't do this anymore I think."

"It's not my belief, but I know that they are sincere in what they are doing so I respect it," said American tourist Dennis Smith.

[0jijaji0]

Babu asking for a bribe? Hand him a Rs 0 note

Chennai-based body launches a note that any corrupt babu would flinch at. It says: I promise to neither accept nor give bribe.



Chennai: Corrupt bureacrats long used to making lives of ordinary citizens miserable by demanding bribes for clearing files pertaining to everyday affairs will have to brace themselves for a rude shock — the next time they resort to their old tactics.

A Chennai-based organisation, in its bid to fight corruption, has launched a novel “non-co-operation movement” to assist ordinary citizens against those who want their palms greased.

Whenever an official seeks gratification for his otherwise free service, the commoner could flaunt the zero rupee and make his anti-bribe stance clear, says Vijay Anand, president of Fifth Pillar, a rights group, that has mooted the idea.



Though designed like a Rs 50 note with all details including Mahatma Gandhis picture printed on one side. The note displays in place of the RBI Governor’s promise the words “I promise to neither accept nor give bribe.”

“You may call it a sort of Gandhigiri. The zero rupee is a non-cooperation movement against bribery,” says Anand, president of Fifth Pillar, a rights group, which has also set up dedicated RTI centres for the first time in India to help people get info under Right to Information Act.

Tamil Nadu State Information Commissioner G Ramakrishnan says he feels that the “zero rupee is a symbol to express refusal to grease the palms of officials.”

The organisation’s ambitious plan is to undertake a campaign through schools, colleges and youth movements.

link

[Kalisurfer]

Bill O'Reilly Loses His Mind

I did not know he had one to lose, but now it's official, it's gone!

[0jijaji0]

Bill O'Reilly Loses His Mind

Here's the entire clip....

here

[rhapsodieff]

Filipino devotees nailed to cross


Fri Apr 6-SAN PEDRO CUTUD, Philippines - Seven devotees were nailed to crosses on Good Friday in a northern Philippine village where the rites drew thousands of tourists and spectators.

The Lenten ritual is opposed by religious leaders in the Philippines — Southeast Asia's largest predominantly Roman Catholic nation. But it has persisted to become one of the country's most-awaited summer attractions in San Fernando City's San Pedro Cutud village.

The devotees' palms and feet were attached to wooden crosses with 4-inch nails soaked in alcohol to prevent infection after a nearly mile-long walk to the mound, each carrying a wooden cross on their backs.

Among the yearly penitents in San Pedro Cutud was Ruben Enaje, a 46-year-old commercial sign maker who was nailed to the cross for the 21st time on Friday.

Earlier in the day in the same village, dozens of half-naked men hit their bloodied backs with bamboo sticks dangling from a rope in a flagellation rite meant to atone for sins.

More than 100 foreign tourists flocked to this year's Good Friday rites, with many of them seated on a stage at the side of the mound.

"They take this religion to the extreme," observed Gomas de Miguel, a tourist from Spain. "In Spain, we say we are Catholics but we don't do this anymore I think."

"It's not my belief, but I know that they are sincere in what they are doing so I respect it," said American tourist Dennis Smith.

I have pictures of this on slides from my time in the Philippines. It is prety gruesome...

[0jijaji0]

Quake lifts Solomons island out of the sea

Sat Apr 7- RANONGGA, Solomon Islands - The seismic jolt that unleashed the deadly Solomons tsunami this week lifted an entire island metres out of the sea, destroying some of the world's most pristine coral reefs.

In an instant, the grinding of the Earth's tectonic plates in the 8.0 magnitude earthquake Monday forced the island of Ranongga up three metres (10 foot).

Submerged reefs that once attracted scuba divers from around the globe lie exposed and dying after the quake raised the mountainous landmass, which is 32-kilometres (20-miles) long and 8-kilometres (5-miles) wide.

Corals that used to form an underwater wonderland of iridescent blues, greens and reds now bleach under the sun, transforming into a barren moonscape surrounding the island.

The stench of rotting fish and other marine life stranded on the reefs when the seas receded is overwhelming and the once vibrant coral is dry and crunches underfoot.

Dazed villagers stand on the shoreline, still coming to terms with the cataclysmic shift that changed the geography of their island forever, pushing the shoreline out to sea by up to 70 metres.

Aid agencies have yet to reach Ranongga after the quake and tsunami that killed at least 34 people in the Pacific archipelago but an AFP reporter and photographer on a chartered boat witnessed the destruction first hand.

At Pienuna, on Ranongga's east coast, locals said much of their harbour had disappeared, leaving only a narrow inlet lined by jagged exposed coral reefs either side.

Villager Harison Gago said there were huge earthquake fissures which had almost split the island in half, gesturing with his hands that some of the cracks were 50 centimetres (20 inches) wide.

Further north at Niu Barae, fisherman Hendrik Kegala had just finished exploring the new underwater landscape of the island with a snorkel when contacted by the AFP team.

He said a huge submerged chasm had opened up, running at least 500 metres (550 yards) parallel to the coast.

On the beach at Niu Barae, the earthquake has revealed a sunken vessel that locals believe is a Japanese patrol boat, a remnant of the fierce fighting between Allied forces and the Japanese in WWII.

Kegala said that from the perspective of those on the island, the sea appeared to recede and villagers still feared it would come back again as a tsunami, making them reluctant to return from higher ground where they fled.

"Plenty big noise," he told AFP, describing the disaster in the local pidgin dialect.

"Water go back and not come back again," he added, saying the whooshing sound of the receding water and the shaking from the quake occurred simultaneously.

Danny Kennedy, a dive operator in the provincial capital Gizo, said the earthquake had damaged coral reefs throughout the Solomon Islands' western province.

He said dive sites once ranked among the best in the world were dying because the tremors had upset the fragile natural ecosystem.

"Some of the most beautiful corals are the most delicate and those are the ones that have been affected," he told AFP.

"The more robust corals are still there but it's the ones that people want to photograph, the sea fans and the colourful corals, that are dying."

Kennedy said the damage to the coral reefs could dry up the region's major source of overseas money.

"Diving is huge here, it employs so many local people," he said. "The fear is that people are going to come here and see the reefs are damaged then tell people not to come back for a few years until they recover."

Jackie Thomas, acting manager for Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) in the Solomons, said the loss of the reefs was a huge blow for the fishing communities that are dotted along Ranongga's coast.

"The fish from the reefs are the major source of protein for the villagers," she told AFP from Gizo.

"They use shells for tools and rely on the sea for many of their basic needs.

"It just shows the incredible force of the earthquake, to move a whole island."

She said the reefs around Ranongga were a protected marine environment and locals had worked hard with WWF in recent years to ensure that they were managed sustainably.

"Now it's another marine environment that has been destroyed," she said.

"Who knows if the coral reefs will recover and the fish will come back? Villagers will have to travel further to find the same sort of food and nutrition they've relied on -- the whole food chain has been disrupted."

[0jijaji0]

Mystery illness at Mexico school

Hundreds of girls at a Mexican boarding school run by Roman Catholic nuns have been hit by a mystery illness that the authorities say is psychological.

Headmistress Margie Cheong, a nun from South Korea, said it was unclear what causes the symptoms, which include difficulty walking and nausea.

Some 600 of the 4,000 pupils at the Villa de las Ninas school outside Mexico City have been affected.

The outbreak has prompted allegations of abuse by the nuns.

'Strict discipline'

Mother Superior Margie Cheong said she regretted not immediately informing parents, when the first cases occurred in October.

"I couldn't advise them," she said. "This was too big, and I couldn't tell them what the girls had because there was no diagnosis."

Once the school told students in March about the findings, 80% recovered. About 130 pupils are still experiencing symptoms, she said.

The girls are only allowed to see their families three times a year. Some of the students have complained of strict punishments like being made to sleep in an animal enclosure.

Some also complained about the nuns treating them with traditional Asian medicine.

Government psychologists will interview pupils on Monday to find out what happened at the school, which offers a free secondary education to children from poor families.

Margie Cheong denied she had mistreated her pupils but said she would accept responsibility if the government investigations said otherwise.

Villa de las Ninas is run by the Sisters of Mary, a religious order founded in South Korea by US-born Aloysius Schwartz, who died in 1992.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/worl...cas/6534081.stm

[0jijaji0]

American writer Kurt Vonnegut dead at 84

Washington, April 12: American literary idol Kurt Vonnegut, best known for such classic novels as Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle, died on Tuesday night in Manhattan at age 84, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Longtime family friend, Morgan Entrekin, who reported Vonnegut's death, said the writer had suffered brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago, the newspaper reported.

Vonnegut, born in Indianapolis in 1922, also wrote plays, essays and short fiction. But his novels - 14 in all - became classics of the American counterculture. He was a literary idol, particularly to students in the 1960s and 1970s, the Times said.

The defining moment of Vonnegut's life was the firebombing of Dresden, Germany by Allied Forces in 1945, an event he witnessed as a young prisoner of war, the newspaper said.

Dresden was the basis for Slaughterhouse-Five, which was published in 1969 against the backdrop of war in Vietnam, racial unrest and cultural and social upheaval, the Times said.

Vonnegut became a cult hero when the novel reached No. 1 on best-seller lists, the article said, adding that some schools and libraries have banned the book because of its sexual content, rough language and depictions of violence.

The novel featured a signature Vonnegut phrase, "so it goes," which became a catch phrase for opponents of the Vietnam war.

After the book was published, Vonnegut went into severe depression and vowed never to write another novel. In 1984, he tried to take his life with sleeping pills and alcohol, the report said.

Vonnegut's books were a mixture of fiction and autobiography, prone to one-sentence paragraphs, exclamation points and italics, the report said.

Some critics said he had invented a new literary type and other accused him of repeating himself, of recycling themes and characters. Some readers found his work incoherent, the Times said.

Cat's Cradle was published in 1963 and although it initially sold only about 500 copies it is widely read today in high school English classes, the newspaper said.

Vonnegut's last book, published in 2005, was a collection of biographical essays, A Man Without a Country. It, too, was a best seller, the newspaper said.

His first play, Happy Birthday, Wanda June, opened Off Broadway in 1970 to mixed reviews and around the same time he separated from his first wife, Jane, the Times said.

Vonnegut, a fourth-generation German-American, is survived by his wife photographer Jill Krementz, their daughter and his six other children, The New York Times said.

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=84727

[Gerard]

April 18, 2007 from Prison Planet.com

Neo-Cons To Spin VA Massacre As Terrorist Attack
Propaganda junkies may milk "Ismail Ax" to say bloodshed was spurred by militant Islam

Paul Joseph Watson

Neo-Con media cheerleaders for the Bush administration's war on terror are set to connect killer Cho Seung-Hui with militant Islam as an excuse to propagandize the notion that Monday's VA Tech Massacre was a terrorist attack.
Reports state that Seung-Hui wrote two words on his arm in red ink before carrying out the bloodbath - "Ismail Ax."
Explanations as to the meaning of the words vary but according to a Chicago Tribune report , "One popular theory spreading across the web comes from a story in the Koran, the holy book of Islam, about Ibrahim and his son, Ismail. This theory picked up speed because many bloggers wondered if the actions at Virginia Tech could be related to terrorism."
"In Islam, Ibrahim is known as the father of the prophets and, upset that people in his hometown still worshiped idols and not Allah, he smashed all but one statue in a local temple with an ax. Ibrahim's son is Ismail, who also became a prophet. Ibrahim is Arabic for Abraham, who plays a significant role in Christianity, Judaism and Islam."
In what was described as a "disturbing note" left in his dorm room, Seung-Hui outlines his motivation for gunning down 32 victims. In the screed, Seung-Hui rails against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus. Although the full contents of the note have not been made public, it is understood that the killer also expresses his hatred of Christianity. This would parallel with the explanation that "Ismail Ax" is some kind of loyalty oath to militant Islam.
Though there are other literary possibilities for explaining the meaning behind "Ismail Ax," expect war propagandists like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and Shaun Hannity to run hard with this angle for the rest of the week and exploit it to make the case that the VA Massacre was a terrorist attack perpetrated by an America-hating militant Muslim.
"It may be that somebody wants to give the impression Cho Seung-Hui was a Muslim," writes blogger Kurt Nimmo . "Of course, it is possible Cho Seung-Hui converted to Islam after arriving in America in 1992, although there is no mention of this in news reports. In South Korea, the Muslim population stands at an underwhelming 0.2 percent. Is it possible a reclusive and basically non-communicative South Korean student—that is if we can put credence in the story now emerging—discovered this relatively cryptic and obscure Islamic religious reference on his own, maybe at the university library? If so, why was he compelled to pen this on the inside of his arm? Did Cho Seung-Hui want us to believe he was a Muslim?"
"Or did his handlers want us to believe he was but another crazed and psychotic Muslim gunning for innocent young Americans, “rich kids” (as Cho supposedly called them) attending a highly ranked engineering college?"
By connecting the massacre to militant Islam, the fraudulent war on terror can be perpetuated as the Bush administration lines up its aircraft carriers in the Gulf for an imminent strike on Iran. The base level propaganda that "the enemy" is attacking our college kids would give the Neo-Cons all the pretext they need for selling another pre-emptive war to a dumbed down public.
This may not be the false flag we were all fearing, but it certainly puts the population in a semi-comatose state and makes the horrors perpetrated in the name of Empire look insignificant when up against the terror on our doorstep.

[0jijaji0]

Buddhist monks clash in Cambodia amid anti-Vietnam protest

(Kyodo) _ At least two Buddhist monks were injured Friday in a street clash in Cambodia's capital between two opposing groups of monks during a protest against Vietnam, which some monks accuse of suppressing religious freedom.

The demonstration march was made by some 40 monks, most of whom identified themselves as Khmer Krom, an ethnic Khmer minority people of Vietnam who inhabited the Mekong Delta area prior to the colonization of that area by Vietnamese settlers.

The marchers were demanding relief from alleged religious suppression of Khmer Krom by Vietnamese authorities, and had hoped to deliver a protest letter to the Vietnamese Embassy but were dispersed by some 150 riot police.

They then walked to the Royal Palace, where the clash occurred, and to the U.S. Embassy.

Marcher Lim Yuth, 23, his face bloody from a cut above his eye, said he was injured by an object thrown by a small group of Buddhist monks, still unidentified, during his group's peaceful march.

It was unclear whether the Buddhist monks who clashed with the marchers acted on their own or under orders from above.
ADVERTISEMENT

Khmers are the predominant ethnic group in Cambodia, accounting for approximately 90 percent of the country's 14 million people.

The area of southern Vietnam where as many as 1 million ethnic Khmer reside is known in Cambodia as Kampuchea Krom. It was once part of Cambodia's territory but was made part of Vietnam by French colonial authorities in 1949.

Kampuchea Krom organizations and communities based in the region and abroad have long accused Vietnam of mistreating its ethnic Khmer minority.

[0jijaji0]

Seung-Hui Cho Was a Mind Controlled Assassin

Deadly accuracy, disturbing revelations suggest outside involvement in VA Massacre, cocktail of brainwashing from prozac, violent video games contributed to carnage.

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Thursday, April 19, 2007

Seung-Hui Cho was a mind-controlled assassin, whether you believe he was under the influence of outside parties or not, the fact is that the cultural brainwashing of violent video games and psychotropic drugs directly contributed, as it does in all these cases, to the carnage at Virginia Tech on Monday morning.

Gun grabbers are already exploiting the tragedy to disarm future students from the opportunity of being able to defend themselves against deranged killers, but the media circus is completely silent when it comes to the laying blame at the feet of a deadly cocktail of mind-warping drugs and bloodthirsty shoot-em-ups.

Outside of the obvious culpability of the factors we see in every mass shooting - video games and "antidepressant" drugs, numerous red flags concerning Monday events are beginning to suggest that Cho was more than a heartbroken nutcase with an axe to grind.

Charles Mesloh, Professor of Criminology at Florida Gulf Coast University, told NBC 2 News that he was shocked Cho could have killed 32 people with two handguns absent expert training. Mesloh immediately assumed that Cho must have used a shotgun or an assault rifle.

Full Story with Video Links

[0jijaji0]

Crow calls for limit on loo paper

Singer Sheryl Crow has said a ban on using too much toilet paper should be introduced to help the environment.

Crow has suggested using "only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required".

The 45-year-old, who made the comments on her website, has just toured the US on a biodiesel-powered bus to raise awareness about climate change.

She teamed up with environmental activist Laurie David for the shows.

The pair targeted 11 university campuses to persuade students to help combat the world's environmental problems.

I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting

Sheryl Crow

"I have spent the better part of this tour trying to come up with easy ways for us all to become a part of the solution to global warming," Crow wrote.

"Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating.

"I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting."

The tour ended on Sunday at the George Washington University in Washington DC, where Crow performed with Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Carole King.

Laurie David's husband, Seinfeld creator Larry David, also appeared.

Crow has also commented on her website about how she thinks paper napkins "represent the height of wastefulness".

She has designed a clothing line with what she calls a "dining sleeve".

The sleeve is detachable and can be replaced with another "dining sleeve" after the diner has used it to wipe his or her mouth.

The shows involved a short set by the singer, a talk by David and segments of Al Gore's environmental film An Inconvenient Truth.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/ente...ent/6583067.stm

[0jijaji0]

An island made by global warming

By Michael McCarthy, Environmental Editor

24 April 2007 - The map of Greenland will have to be redrawn. A new island has appeared off its coast, suddenly separated from the mainland by the melting of Greenland's enormous ice sheet, a development that is being seen as the most alarming sign of global warming.

Several miles long, the island was once thought to be the tip of a peninsula halfway up Greenland's remote east coast but a glacier joining it to the mainland has melted away completely, leaving it surrounded by sea.

Shaped like a three-fingered hand some 400 miles north of the Arctic Circle, it has been discovered by a veteran American explorer and Greenland expert, Dennis Schmitt, who has named it Warming Island (Or Uunartoq Qeqertoq in Inuit, the Eskimo language, that he speaks fluently).

The US Geological Survey has confirmed its existence with satellite photos, that show it as an integral part of the Greenland coast in 1985, but linked by only a small ice bridge in 2002, and completely separate by the summer of 2005. It is now a striking island of high peaks and rugged rocky slopes plunging steeply to a sea dotted with icebergs.

As the satellite pictures and the main photo which we publish today make clear, Warming Island has been created by a quite undeniable, rapid and enormous physical transformation and is likely to be seen around the world as a potent symbol of the coming effects of climate change.

But it is only one more example of the disintegration of the Greenland Ice Sheet, that scientists have begun to realise, only very recently, is proceeding far more rapidly than anyone thought.

The second-largest ice sheet in the world (after Antarctica), if its entire 2.5 million cubic kilometres of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of 7.2 metres, or more than 23 feet.

That would inundate most of the world's coastal cities, including London, swamp vast areas of heavily-populated low-lying land in countries such as Bangladesh, and remove several island countries such as the Maldives from the face of the Earth. However, even a rise one tenth as great would have devastating consequences.

Sea level rise is already accelerating. Sea levels are going up around the world by about 3.1mm per year - the average for the period 1993-2003. That is itself sharply up from an average of 1.8mm per year over the longer period 1961-2003. Greenland ice now accounts for about 0.5 millimetre of the total. (Much of the rest of the rise is coming from the expansion of the world's sea water as it warms.)

Until two or three years ago, it was thought that the break-up of the ice sheet might take 1,000 years or more but a series of studies and alarming observations since 2004 have shown the disintegration is accelerating and, as a consequence, sea level rise may be much quicker than anticipated.

Earlier computer models, researchers believe, failed to capture properly the way the ice sheet would respond to major warming (over the past 20 years, Greenland's air temperature has risen by 3C). The 2001 report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was relatively reassuring, suggesting change would be slow.

But satellite measurements of Greenland's entire land mass show that the speed at which its glaciers are moving to the sea has increased significantly in the past decade, with some of them moving three times faster than in the mid-1990s.

Scientists estimate that, in 1996, glaciers deposited about 50 cubic km of ice into the sea. In 2005, it had risen to 150 cubic km of ice.

A study last year by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology showed that, rather than just melting relatively slowly, the ice sheet is showing all the signs of a mechanical break-up as glaciers slip ever faster into the ocean, aided by the "lubricant" of meltwater forming at their base. As the meltwater seeps down it lubricates the bases of the "outlet" glaciers of the ice sheet, causing them to slip down surrounding valleys towards the sea,

Another discovery has been the increase in "glacial earthquakes" caused by the sudden movement of enormous blocks of ice within the ice sheet. The annual number of them recorded in Greenland between 1993 and 2002 was between six and 15. In 2003, seismologists recorded 20 glacial earthquakes. In 2004, they monitored 24 and for the first 10 months of 2005 they recorded 32. The seismologists also found the glacial earthquakes occurred mainly during the summer months, indicating the movements were indeed associated with rapidly melting ice - normal "tectonic" earthquakes show no such seasonality. Of the 136 glacial quakes analysed in a report published last year, more than a third occurred during July and August.

The creation of Warming Island appears to be entirely consistent with the disintegrating ice sheet, coming about when the glacier bridge linking it to the mainland simply disappeared. It was discovered by Mr Schmitt, a 60-year-old explorer from Berkeley, California, who has known Greenland for 40 years, during a trip he led up the remote coastline.

According to the US Geological Survey: "More islands like this may be discovered if the Greenland Ice Sheet continues to disappear."

A self-governing dependency of Denmark, Greenland is the largest island in the world but is inhabited by only 56,000 people, mainly Inuit. More than 80 per cent of the land surface is covered by the ice sheet.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/...icle2480994.ece

[Gerard]

Kryptonite' discovered in mine

Kryptonite is no longer just the stuff of fiction feared by caped superheroes.

A new mineral matching its unique chemistry - as described in the film Superman Returns - has been identified in a mine in Serbia.

According to movie and comic-book storylines, kryptonite is supposed to sap Superman's powers whenever he is exposed to its large green crystals.

The real mineral is white and harmless, says Dr Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at London's Natural History Museum.

"I'm afraid it's not green and it doesn't glow either - although it will react to ultraviolet light by fluorescing a pinkish-orange," he told BBC News.

Rock heist

Researchers from mining group Rio Tinto discovered the unusual mineral and enlisted the help of Dr Stanley when they could not match it with anything known previously to science.

Once the London expert had unravelled the mineral's chemical make-up, he was shocked to discover this formula was already referenced in literature - albeit fictional literature.

"Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral's chemical formula - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide - and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns.

"The new mineral does not contain fluorine (which it does in the film) and is white rather than green but, in all other respects, the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite."

The mineral is relatively hard but is very small grained. Each individual crystal is less than five microns (millionths of a metre) across.

Elementary clash

Identifying its atomic structure required sophisticated analytical facilities at Canada's National Research Council and the assistance and expertise of its researchers, Dr Pamela Whitfield and Dr Yvon Le Page.

"'Knowing a material's crystal structure means scientists can calculate other physical properties of the material, such as its elasticity or thermochemical properties," explained Dr Le Page.

"Being able to analyse all the properties of a mineral, both chemical and physical, brings us closer to confirming that it is indeed unique."

Finding out that the chemical composition of a material was an exact match to an invented formula for the fictitious kryptonite "was the coincidence of a lifetime," he added.


BBC

[0jijaji0]

Mexican capital legalizes abortion, defies church

Tue Apr 24, 2007 - MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The Mexican capital legalized abortion on Tuesday, defying the church but delighting feminists in the world's second-largest Roman Catholic country.

Mexico City lawmakers voted 46 to 19 to pass a leftist-sponsored bill allowing women to abort in the first three months of pregnancy.

The abortion vote split Mexico and prompted a letter last week from Pope Benedict urging Mexican bishops to oppose it.

Riot police kept rival groups of rowdy demonstrators apart outside the city's assembly building. Weeping anti-abortion protesters played tape recordings of babies crying and carried tiny white coffins.

Until Tuesday, only Cuba, Guyana and U.S. commonwealth Puerto Rico allowed abortion on demand in Latin America.

Church leaders threatened to excommunicate leftist deputies, mostly from the Party of the Democratic Revolution, who voted in favor of lifting the abortion ban, which will remain in force in the rest of the country.

Opinion polls show Mexico's population of 107 million, of whom some 90 percent are Catholic, is split over abortion.

Supporters of abortion rights, who are well represented in the liberal-minded capital, say 2,000 women die each year in Mexico due to abortions, often poor women who have to resort to unhygienic back-street clinics.

"We don't want any more women to die in clandestine abortions," said leftist local deputy Agustin Guerrero.

The Vatican's second-highest ranking doctrinal official, Archbishop Angelo Amato, denounced abortion and euthanasia on Monday as "terrorism with a human face."

link