The investigation, reported in the journal Nature, warns that large areas of currently productive land could become engulfed by shifting sands. 

"The social consequences of these changes could be drastic," they say. BBC

Take the biblical tale of Joseph. The famous seven-year cycle of feast and famine appears to be one of Egypt's regular routines, according to Dmitri Kondrashov, Yizhak Feliks, and Michael Ghil at the University of California at Los Angeles.

The scientists used new statistical techniques to fill in gaps in 1,300 years of Nile River water levels recorded from AD 622 through 1922. They then searched these data for climatically significant cycles. Their results, reported in Geophysical Research Letters, suggest "quite strongly" that North Atlantic circulation influences East African climate. The scientists add that "most strikingly," their analysis picked out a North Atlantic driven seven-year cycle of high and low river levels that is "possibly related to the biblical cycle of lean and fat years."

They also note the need for Joseph-like wisdom today. They explain that the "fairly sharp shifts" in river levels that have recurred in the past 1,300 years "support concerns about the possible effect of climate shifts in the not-so-distant future."

The ancient Mayans on the Yucatan Peninsula could have used such wisdom. Their once-flourishing civilization collapsed between AD 750 and 950. Many archaeologists suspect that prolonged drought was the precipitating cause.

Now a remarkable geological record that tracks the relevant climate on a bimonthly basis strongly reinforces that conclusion. Christian Science Monitor

From rewrites of the laws governing bankruptcy and class-action lawsuits to relief for oil, timber and tobacco interests, GOP supporters who gave millions of dollars last year are reaping decisions worth billions from a Congress with more Republicans. USA Today

Those fears are easing, poll results due to be released today indicate. They show renewed support for the First Amendment of the Constitution and the protections it gives to speech, the media and religion. Support for those rights had flagged in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. USA Today

US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years. 

Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution. 

The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity. 

But three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock. 

Plans to test the technique on humans should be realised within a year, according to the Safar Centre. NEWS.com.au

With approval ratings at their lowest level of the presidency - over the situation in Iraq and an unpopular domestic agenda - it may be that Mr Bush had earned less capital than he thought. BBC

The decision is a victory for the Central Intelligence Agency, which has long been the principal architect and instrument of the secretive operations. The agency has been struggling to retain its authority in the power structure headed by John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, especially as the Pentagon has pressed for a greater role in intelligence operations. 

The White House will also designate the C.I.A. as the main manager of the government's human spying operations, even those conducted by the Pentagon and the F.B.I., the officials said.

The decisions are part of a detailed White House response, expected to be announced later this week, to the 74 recommendations issued in March by the commission, headed by Lawrence Silberman and Charles Robb, that examined the role of intelligence agencies in detecting and countering the international spread of illicit weapons. The plan for covert action was the only major recommendation explicitly rejected by a White House team headed by Fran Townsend, the president's homeland security adviser, the officials said. NYT (reg/req)

As tense negotiations continue and a contract deadline draws near, the Voice’s salespeople, designers, photographers, editors, and writers are united in the face of management’s attempt to roll back hard-won benefits, undermine their bargaining power, and erode their ability to support their families.

In negotiations for a new contract to replace the agreement that expires at midnight on June 30, Voice management has:

* demanded that workers pay more for their health insurance and switch to a less generous health care plan.

* offered meager wage increases ($15 a week) paid for by reducing contributions to workers’ 401(k) plans — a “raise” that is unlikely to outpace inflation for most workers. 

* and insisted that terms for work on the Voice’s website be determined in one-on-one deals between individual writers and the corporation, not through the collective bargaining that is required in a union shop.

The Voice, which will mark its 50th anniversary this fall, has long been an advocate for social justice—and particularly the rights of workers—in New York City and elsewhere. 

Accepting an unjust contract is not how Local 2110 intends to celebrate the paper’s 50th birthday. And its members are prepared to remind management that there’s no party if workers aren’t invited, respected, and fairly compensated. Gawker

As knowledge has grown, the goals of treatment have changed, with lifesaving effects. And now they are changing again. 

At first, pioneers bent on preventing cardiovascular disease focused only on a person's total blood cholesterol level. A level of 240 milligrams per deciliter of blood serum was considered "normal" just a few decades ago. Then research, like the Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts, showed that at least half of heart attack victims had cholesterol levels of 240 or below.

Today, the goal for total cholesterol is 200 or less, preferably 180 if you want to remain heart-healthy. Cholesterol is not soluble in water and thus requires substances called lipoproteins to carry it in blood.

As the chemistry and physiology of cholesterol became better understood through the work of scientists like Dr. Michael S. Brown and Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein, who shared a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1985, attention shifted to low density lipoprotein cholesterol, or L.D.L., the so-called bad cholesterol. When L.D.L. is oxidized, it becomes glued to the lining of arteries that feed the heart, brain and tissues throughout the body, setting the stage for a heart attack, stroke or peripheral vascular disease. NYT (reg/req)

But on the basis of a new study, a team of political scientists is arguing that people's gut-level reaction to issues like the death penalty, taxes and abortion is strongly influenced by genetic inheritance. The new research builds on a series of studies that indicate that people's general approach to social issues - more conservative or more progressive - is influenced by genes. NYT (reg/req)

Since January 2004, at least five new, Muslim-written titles have come to offer general-interest readers an inside take on the state of Islam in the 21st century. At least three are going to press for the first time this year. 

Approaches vary, but the authors share a common goal: to reclaim the world's second-largest religion from hard-line extremists who have been dominating the headlines. USA Today

Imagine that, initially, they dismissed the revelatory documents and information that came out of the heart of administration policymaking; then almost willfully misread them, insisting that evidence of Pentagon planning for escalation in Vietnam or of the Nixon administration planning to destroy its opponents was at best ambiguous or even non-existent. Finally, when they found that the documents wouldn't go away, they acknowledged them more formally with a tired ho-hum, a knowing nod on editorial pages or in news stories. Actually, they claimed, these documents didn't add up to much because they had run stories just like this back then themselves. Yawn. 

This is, of course, something like the crude pattern that coverage in the American press has followed on the Downing Street memo, then memos. As of last week, four of our five major papers (the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and USA Today) hadn't even commented on them in their editorial pages. In my hometown paper, the New York Times, complete lack of interest was followed last Monday by a page 11 David Sanger piece ("Prewar British Memo Says War Decision Wasn't Made") that focused on the second of the Downing Street memos, a briefing paper for Prime Minister Tony Blair's "inner circle", and began: "A memorandum written by Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet office in late July 2002 explicitly states that the Bush administration had made 'no political decisions' to invade Iraq, but that American military planning for the possibility was advanced." Asia Times

Tuesday, Cosmos-1 is slated for launch from a Russian ballistic-missile submarine beneath the Barents Sea. If all goes well, the craft will unfurl its reflective sails 528 miles above earth to become the first spacecraft to harness the gentle nudge of sunlight for propulsion. 

The $4 million mission, spearheaded by the nonprofit Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif., and privately funded, is designed to demonstrate that solar sails can play a key role for space travel within the solar system. Christian Science Monitor

Bigger brains make for smarter people, says Michael McDaniel, an industrial and organizational psychologist at Virginia Commonwealth University.

"For all age and sex groups, it is now very clear that brain volume and intelligence are related," McDaniel said. Live Science 

On Thursday, a bipartisan group of congressmen, including one conservative who voted for the war in Iraq, introduced a resolution calling for initial troop withdrawal from Iraq starting Oct. 1, 2006.

Walter B. Jones, R-North Carolina, the congressman who once wanted the French fries in congressional restaurants to be renamed “Freedom Fries,” now says that the United States has done all it can to help Iraq.

“After 1,700 deaths over 12,000 wounded and $200 billion spent, we believe it is time to have this debate and discussion on this resolution,” said Rep. Jones, whose district is home to three military bases.

The congressmen admitted they do not expect to see any action on the resolution, but hope it will start a public conversation about bringing US troops home. Arab News

The Defence Department announcement came in the week that Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the jail after US lawmakers said it had created an image problem for the United States.

The two-storey prison, known as Detention Camp 6, will be built at Guantanamo to house 220 men. It will include exercise areas, medical and dental spaces as well as a security control room.

Work is to be finished by July next year. It is part of a larger contract that could be worth up to $US500 million if all options are exercised, the Defence Department said. The Age (reg/req)

Despite a veto threat from President Bush, lawmakers voted 238-187 to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that allows the government to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects. The AP

As with the Jun. 10 edition, the file's lead stories all dealt with Iraq. Indeed, news about Iraq, which faded to the inside pages after the Jan. 30 elections and well into the spring, has made a surprisingly strong comeback in the Early Bird of late, just like the Iraqi insurgency itself. 

Monday's first story, from USA Today and headlined ”Poll: USA Is Losing Patience on Iraq”, concerned the most recent Gallup survey which found that nearly 60 percent of the public now favours a partial or complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in what the newspaper called ”the most downbeat view of the war since it began in 2003.” 

Item number two, ”Officers, Military Can't End Insurgency,” published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, began: ”A growing number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,300 U.S. troops in the last two years.” 

Despite Vice President Dick Cheney's confident assertion two weeks ago that the insurgency was in its ”last throes,” the story featured one particularly telling observation from a U.S. officer who works with the task force overseeing training of Iraqi troops, regarding how easy it was for the insurgency to replenish its forces. ”We can't kill them,” he said. ”When I kill one, I create three.” IPS News

"Repression by government authorities and private groups has affected every major component of university life, including the classroom, research, student activities, and campus protests," says the report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). IPS News

But the public has a different view. About the same percentage considers the radio talk show host and the author and Washington Post editor to be journalists, says a survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center released yesterday.

The numbers: 27 percent say Limbaugh is a journalist, 55 percent say he's not and 18 percent don't know. Woodward may lag in the name-ID department: 30 percent say he's a journalist, 17 percent say he's not and 53 percent don't know. The survey of 1,500 adults was completed before the recent revelation of Deep Throat's identity. Washington Post (reg/req)

London-based Janan Harb has filed a claim that she is one of the king's wives and that he has failed to provide reasonable maintenance for her. 

The case will be heard in public after appeal court judges decided the ailing monarch's identity is relevant. BBC

He lashed out at the continent’s past after being challenged about his human rights’ record.

In an astonishing outburst, Mr Putin said: “We all know that African countries used to have a tradition of eating their own adversaries.

“We don’t have such a tradition or process or culture and I believe the comparison between Africa and Russia is not quite just.” The Sun

Researchers in Jerusalem have nicknamed the sapling Methuselah, after the biblical figure said to have lived for nearly 1,000 years. The palm is from a variety that became extinct in the Middle Ages and was reputed to have powerful medicinal properties. BBC

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier. 

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal. Times

The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterparts the potential for the post-invasion instability that continues to plague Iraq. Washington Post (reg/req)

The latest disclosures come in a prison log of the treatment of Mohammad al-Kahtani, a Saudi citizen whom many US investigators believe was the missing "20th hijacker" of 11 September 2001. The document, extracts of which appear in the new issue of Time magazine, covers a 50 day spell in 2002-03 - a period when additional interrogation techniques were approved by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary. The Independent

More than 150 gigantic monuments have been located beneath the fields and cities of modern-day Germany, Austria and Slovakia. They were built 7,000 years ago, between 4800BC and 4600BC. Their discovery, revealed today by The Independent, will revolutionise the study of prehistoric Europe, where an appetite for monumental architecture was thought to have developed later than in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

In all, more than 150 temples have been identified. Constructed of earth and wood, they had ramparts and palisades that stretched for up to half a mile. They were built by a religious people who lived in communal longhouses up to 50 metres long, grouped around substantial villages. Evidence suggests their economy was based on cattle, sheep, goat and pig farming.

Their civilisation seems to have died out after about 200 years and the recent archaeological discoveries are so new that the temple building culture does not even have a name yet. The Independent

Her job helps lift her family's income to a combined 1,400 rupees, or $20 a week. 

She'd prefer to be at school, but now believes it is too late to start her education. 

When asked why she continues to do the dangerous work, she says simply: "There is no alternative." BBC

"I think this hearing very, very clearly shows what the opponents of the Patriot Act are doing," said Mr. Sensenbrenner, Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "They will talk about practically everything but what is in the Patriot Act," he said, before closing: "Thank you all for coming. The committee is adjourned."

Representative Jerrold D. Nadler, Democrat of New York, protested, "Point of order!" as the Republican committee members filed out of the room; the staff eventually unplugged his microphone. "Even though the chairman is not going to listen," Mr. Nadler continued, "those of us who question some of the actions of the administration are seeking to make sure that our tradition of liberty and freedom is continued unsullied." NYT (reg/req)

To a noticeable degree, especially by those getting strafed, it seems like Alfred Hitchcock, the reality series.

Some of the incidents are, admittedly, a bit scary. One Houston lawyer this spring found himself getting pecked in the face. Even worse, police had to close down an entire downtown Houston street in late May after gang of grackles attacked pedestrians, knocking some of them down ...

As it turns out, experts do have an explanation for the increase in bird-man encounters. The spread of wood-shaded and bird-friendly suburbs has added to friction between the two species during nesting season.

For a few weeks in early summer, when eggs crack open and open-mouthed fledglings chirp and caw toward the sky, parent birds go on the offensive.

"We're seeing more and more inevitable clashes due to a lack of space," says Ms. Craig.

But certain species are definitely more Red Baronesque than others. Mockingbirds, crows, bluejays, Arctic terns, and even seagulls are known to divebomb. Christian Science Monitor

After a voyage of more than six months and 268m miles, the Deep Impact spacecraft will intercept the 2.5-mile wide (4km) Tempel-1 comet traveling at 23,000mph and fire a one-metre copper projectile into it. Astronomers hope the explosive encounter on July 4 will smash a hole in the comet's icy exterior and show what lies inside. 

Michael A'Hearn, chief scientist on the project, said: "The last 24 hours of the impactor's life should provide the most spectacular data in the history of cometary science. We know so little about the structure of cometary nuclei that almost every moment we expect to learn something." Guardian

The IG faulted the FBI for not knowing about the presence of two of the Sept. 11 terrorists in the United States and for not following up on an agent's theory that Osama bin Laden was sending students to U.S. flight training schools. The agent's theory turned out to be precisely what bin Laden did. 

"The way the FBI handled these matters was a significant failure that hindered the FBI's chances of being able to detect and prevent the Sept. 11 attacks," Inspector General Glenn Fine said. The AP

"Today’s decision marks the end of medical marijuana as a political issue," Walters said in a statement Monday. The press release was issued after the justices held 6-3 that Congress may ban medical pot despite laws in 11 states that allow physicians to prescribe it for their patients. Gonzales v. Raich, No. 03-1454.

But the political dispute remains alive as Congress prepares to vote as early as next week on a measure that effectively would end raids by federal agents on patients’ homes, such as one that sent the case to the high court in the first place. ABA Journal

The devastating impact is illustrated in pictures published on Saturday showing explosive urban sprawl, major deforestation and the sucking dry of inland seas over less than three decades. 

Mexico City mushrooms from a modest urban centre in 1973 to a massive blot on the landscape in 2000, while Beijing shows a similar surge between 1978 and 2000 in satellite pictures published by the United Nations in a new environmental atlas. 

Delhi sprawls explosively between 1977 and 1999, while from 1973 to 2000 the tiny desert town of Las Vegas turns into a monster conurbation of one million people, placing massive strain on scarce water supplies. 

"If there is one message from this atlas it is that we are all part of this. We can all make a difference," UN expert Kaveh Zahedi told reporters at the launch of the One Planet Many People atlas on the eve of World Environment Day. 

Page after page of the 300-page book illustrate in before-and after pictures from space the disfigurement of the face of the planet wrought by human activities. Reuters

The reporters covering the 2000 presidential primaries virtually swooned inside his campaign bus, which, you'll remember, was named the Straight Talk Express. The Arizona senator's message was: The rest of the candidates are dedicated spinners; I'll tell you the truth. Now the press is gushing over his leadership in breaking the Senate stalemate on the White House's nominees for federal judgeships. Journalists love this kind of politician. He's different, a Republican maverick, a thorn in the side of his own party and its president, George W. Bush. To sum up, he makes great copy. He also has made some laudable contributions to better government. 

There is one part of his record, however, that the press almost never asks him about. They never ask why this decorated navy pilot and Vietnam P.O.W. has spent so much of his time and energy as a senator pushing through legislation to block the release of information about American P.O.W.'s and M.I.A.'s who are still not accounted for. Village Voice

One of those signs came Friday when the Labor Department said the percentage of workers who were jobless in May because they voluntarily quit — not because they were laid off or fired — rose to the highest level in nearly four years. A seasonally adjusted 12.3% of workers who were jobless in May had quit, up from 11.7% in April and the highest percentage since August 2001. USA Today

Now for the first time, neuroscientists have produced brain scan images of this fevered activity, before it settles into the wine and roses phase of romance or the joint holiday card routines of long-term commitment.

In an analysis of the images appearing today in The Journal of Neurophysiology, researchers in New York and New Jersey argue that romantic love is a biological urge distinct from sexual arousal. 

It is closer in its neural profile to drives like hunger, thirst or drug craving, the researchers assert, than to emotional states like excitement or affection. As a relationship deepens, the brain scans suggest, the neural activity associated with romantic love alters slightly, and in some cases primes areas deep in the primitive brain that are involved in long-term attachment.

The research helps explain why love produces such disparate emotions, from euphoria to anger to anxiety, and why it seems to become even more intense when it is withdrawn. In a separate, continuing experiment, the researchers are analyzing brain images from people who have been rejected by their lovers. NYT (reg/req)

EnerDel, which makes lithium batteries, no longer hires people when it needs them. Rather, it hires them when it finds them.

And Marietta College in Ohio is proud that every one of its 14 petroleum engineers who graduated this spring has a job offer.

Accounting, electrical engineering, oil and gas specialists: These are just some of this year's hot jobs. Christian Science Monitor

They still fear terrorism, and most believe that Americans will experience another attack. But when asked, "What are you most fearful of at this time?" only 13.4% said a terrorist attack; 32.4% answered "going deeply into debt," and 31.2% said "being unemployed." USA Today

"Across a range of sports, we find that wearing red is consistently associated with a higher probability of winning," Dr. Russell Hill and Dr. Robert Barton, researchers in evolutionary anthropology at the University of Durham, wrote in a paper that appears today in the journal Nature. NYT (reg/req)

In Washington, the White House spokesman said Secret Service agents in Georgia were examining whether security changes were needed, noting that some people at Freedom Square were seen getting around metal detectors at Bush's May 10 speech.

Initially Georgian officials said the Soviet-era grenade was found on the ground, was inactive and posed no danger to Bush. The AP

Radicals in Pakistan and Afghanistan seized on the report about the Koran to help foment riots that killed at least 15 people. From the White House to the Pentagon, officials denounced the magazine. Newsweek belatedly retracted the story: Its single anonymous source no longer stood by his account. By Wednesday, pundits were trading shots over who the real villain is —Newsweek for printing the poorly sourced report or the administration for trying to deflect blame from its own contributions to Islamic hatred of the USA.

As the episode devolves into a squabble about sloppy reporting and editing — which it was — or administration overreaching — which it is — a far more important point is too easily lost.

This is no mere media-vs.-politicians skirmish. This is about the risk that the nation could lose the war against terrorism for failing to understand Islamic culture. And it is about another setback in the war of ideas between the West and Islamic fanatics for the minds of moderate Muslims.

The magazine and the administration are guilty of the same sin: They failed to recognize how acts of sacrilege can be exploited instantaneously to inflame Muslims around the world against America — a danger that is growing as the Internet expands and speeds news around the world. USA Today

But the Darwinian logic behind the female orgasm has remained elusive. Women can have sexual intercourse and even become pregnant - doing their part for the perpetuation of the species - without experiencing orgasm. So what is its evolutionary purpose? NYT (reg/req)

In one of several points of conflict in recent months, the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which allocates federal funds for public radio and television, is considering a plan to monitor Middle East coverage on NPR news programs for evidence of bias...NYT via International Herald Tribune

The ACLU says the Silver Ring Thing program violates the principle that the state budget cannot be used to promote religion. 

The program, which targets teenagers, is an offshoot of a Christian ministry. Since 2003, it has received more than $1m from the Department of Health and Human Services. BBC

Are these terrorist attacks against the legitimate government of Iraq or are these the actions of freedom fighters against what they perceive as a government placed by pro-western Shiite and Kurdish groups, waiting in the wings to get revenge for years of Sunni-led dominance under Saddam Hussein? Are these terrorist attacks against the legitimate government of Iraq or are these the actions of freedom fighters against what they perceive as a government placed by pro-western Shiite and Kurdish groups, waiting in the wings to get revenge for years of Sunni-led dominance under Saddam Hussein?

Probably, neither. Given that the majority of the Iraqi people want to get on with their lives, finding a job to put food on the table and create a brighter tomorrow for their children, the political element is relevant only for those actively involved in the fighting. However, to talk of a legitimate and legitimized government is to ignore the fact that in general terms, the Sunni population did not back the new government. How legitimate is a government elected by two sides of a triangle? Pravda

Mr. Nickels, a Democrat, says 131 other likeminded mayors have joined a bipartisan coalition to fight global warming on the local level, in an implicit rejection of the administration's policy. 

The mayors, from cities as liberal as Los Angeles and as conservative as Hurst, Tex., represent nearly 29 million citizens in 35 states, according to Mayor Nickels's office. They are pledging to have their cities meet what would have been a binding requirement for the nation had the Bush administration not rejected the Kyoto Protocol: a reduction in heat-trapping gas emissions to levels 7 percent below those of 1990, by 2012. NYT (reg/req)

A leaked document that appeared in a British newspaper offered clear new evidence that U.S. intelligence was shaped to support the drive for war. Though the information rocked British Prime Minister Tony Blair's re-election campaign when it was revealed, it has received little attention in the U.S. press.

The document, first revealed by the London Times (5/1/05), was the minutes of a July 23, 2002 meeting in Blair's office with the prime minister's close advisors. The meeting was held to discuss Bush administration policy on Iraq, and the likelihood that Britain would support a U.S. invasion of Iraq. "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided," the minutes state.

The minutes also recount a visit to Washington by Richard Dearlove, the head of the British intelligence service MI6: "There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)

Posada, who in an interview with the New York Times seven years ago admitted to organising a wave of bombings in Cuba in 1997 that killed an Italian tourist and injured 11 others, is best known as the prime suspect in the bombing of a Cubana Airlines flight shortly after it took off from Barbados in October 1976. 

The incident, in which all 73 crew members and passengers including teenaged members of Cuba's national fencing team were killed, was the first confirmed mid-air terrorist bombing of a commercial airliner. 

Then-President George Bush in 1990 pardoned Orlando Bosch, another Cuban exile opposed to President Fidel Castro and implicated in the plot, overruling a strong U.S. Justice Department opinion that called for Bosch's deportation.

Posada, who also worked for the operation supplying ''Contra'' rebels in Central America in the mid-1980s until the Iran-Contra scandal broke open with the downing of one of its planes, was also convicted of conspiring to assassinate Castro during a 2000 visit to Panama. A Panamanian court sentenced him to eight years in prison in 2004 but he was unexpectedly pardoned by outgoing President Mireya Moscosa last September and flew to Honduras. 

”This is a real test of (President) George W. Bush's commitment to fighting terrorism,” said Peter Kornbluh, a Latin American specialist at the non-governmental National Security Archive (NSA). This week, the organisation released a series of declassified U.S. documents that detailed Posada's terrorist history and his previous association with the CIA. IPS News

US troops killed three fighters who fired on their convoy after trying to ram it on Friday in Mosul, 390km north of Baghdad, the American military said. 

The soldiers then opened fire on two cars that approached the patrol and appeared to be hostile, killing five civilians, the military said. The incident is under investigation. Aljazeera

Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, the head of the Army Recruiting Command, said 2006 could be even worse than this year, a continuation of "the toughest recruiting climate ever faced by the all-volunteer Army." USA Today

A few days after his election the new pope moved his furniture, his books and his personal belongings across the road, from his former apartment in a block of flats owned by the Vatican into the official papal residence. It is on the top floor of the centuries-old Apostolic Palace. 

And he took his upright piano with him. BBC

The geneticists say there was only one migration of modern humans out of Africa; that it took a southern route to India, Southeast Asia and Australia; and that it consisted of a single band of hunter-gatherers, probably just a few hundred people strong. 

Because these events occurred in the last Ice Age, when Europe was at first too cold for human habitation, the researchers say, it was populated only later, not directly from Africa but as an offshoot of the southern migration. The people of this offshoot would presumably have trekked back through the lands that are now India and Iran to reach the Near East and Europe. NYT (reg/req)

The issue came to the fore earlier this year when a 25-year-old waitress looking for work was told that she faced losing her unemployment benefits because she had turned down a job at a brothel. Christian Science Monitor

Inflation rose 3.1 per cent in the year to March but salaries climbed just 2.4 per cent, according to the Employment Cost Index. In the final three months of 2004, real wages fell by 0.9 per cent.

The last time salaries fell this steeply was at the start of 1991, when real wages declined by 1.1 per cent. The Financial Times

Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi President, asked the king to resolve the differences between Jordan and Mr Chalabi, now Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, during a visit to Ammanthis week. Independent

But increasingly, doctors are identifying a group of people whose levels of L.D.L, the so-called bad cholesterol, are low, but who still appear to be at increased risk for atherosclerosis, heart attack and stroke.

They have a condition known as metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors that include mild hypertension, elevated glucose levels, high triglycerides and low levels of H.D.L. cholesterol. NYT (reg/req)

In fact, Mr. Birdman is of increasing relevance to Mr. Letterman and his NBC counterpart, Jay Leno. He is the protagonist of "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law," a campy animated program about a superhero-turned-not-very-bright-lawyer. That show, which airs on the Cartoon Network during Mr. Letterman's time slot, and a suite of other irreverent, animated shows, make up a seven-hour programming block called "Adult Swim." 

And, as Mr. Letterman might say, the kids love it. The ratings success of "Adult Swim," as well as that of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Comedy Central, is part of a trend in late-night television in which young men are slowly turning the channel from the broadcast networks to cable television. NYT (reg/req)

The brightening means that more sunlight - and thus more heat - is reaching the ground. That could partly explain the record-high global temperatures reported in the late 1990's, and it could accelerate the planet's warming trend. NYT (reg/req)

After five years of investigations beginning Jan. 2000, CPJ concluded that the vast majority of journalists killed on duty did not die in crossfire or while covering dangerous assignments. 

Instead, 121 of the 190 journalists who died worldwide since 2000 were ''hunted down and murdered in retaliation for their work,'' the organisation said in a study. IPS News 

Researchers at the University of Alberta carefully observed how parents treated their children during trips to the supermarket. They found that physical attractiveness made a big difference.

The researchers noted if the parents belted their youngsters into the grocery cart seat, how often the parents' attention lapsed and the number of times the children were allowed to engage in potentially dangerous activities like standing up in the shopping cart. NYT (reg/req)

A legend of sorts in public relations circles, he counted as clients Saddam Hussein of Iraq; Samuel K. Doe of Liberia; Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania; the military regime in Burma; Guatemalan businessmen who supported the country's murderous, military-backed government; Mobutu Sese Seko of the former Zaire; and, in a figurative coup of his own, the man who overthrew Mobutu and renamed the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Von Kloberg embraced the slogan "shame is for sissies" as well as an unabashedly Edwardian style of living. He arrived at balls and galas wearing black capes, and he traveled with steamer trunks. He added the "von" to his name because he thought it sounded distinguished.

In a life full of flamboyance, his end followed form: The District resident, 63, leapt to his death Sunday from "a castle in Rome," a State Department spokeswoman said. Von Kloberg's sister said a lengthy note was found on the body, and U.S. Embassy officials in Rome told her that he committed suicide. Washington Post (reg/req)

The new fragment from the Book of Revelation, written in ancient Greek and dating from the late third century, is part of a hoard of previously unintelligible manuscripts discovered in historic dumps outside Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Now a team of expert classicists, using new photographic techniques, are finally deciphering the original writing. Independent

"The enemy that appeared on 9/11 is wounded and off-balance, and on the run -- yet still very active, still seeking recruits, and still trying to find ways to hit us," said Cheney, who reviews intelligence on threats daily.

"As months and years pass, they are hoping that our country will grow complacent, and get lazy, and forget our responsibilities," he said in a speech to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Georgia, according to a text released in Washington.

"And it's our job, ladies and gentlemen, to make sure the United States of America never lets down its guard." Reuters

Starting May 13, Loews Cineplex theaters will begin alerting moviegoers that feature presentations start 10 to 15 minutes after the published show time, according to a letter signed last week by CEO Travis Reid.