The World Around The World

More than 75 young school children were killed when a rampaging fire engulfed a private school in southern India this morning, Indian media reported. The children attending the school in the state of Tamil Nadu were reported to be from 6 to 13 years old.

More than 30 of the children were burned to death and the rest died in a stampede, M.B. Venkatesh, a witness who lived near the Lord Krishna Middle School in the town of Kumbakonam told The Associated Press. There were also unconfirmed reports that no teachers or fire extinguishers were present in the building and one of its main exits was locked.

"Parents were crying, beating their chests and calling out for their children," S. Kalidas, one witness, told Reuters. "People looked scared. They were running around for help and there was complete panic. It was a huge fire."

More than 800 students were believed to be in the school when the fire began in a kitchen, according to Indian media reports. A short-circuit is believed to have ignited the kitchens thatched roof. Flames then spread to a portion of the main three-story school building that also had a thatched roof.

Images of firefighters trying to put out the fire as hundreds of panicked parents surrounding the building were broadcast on Indian television news channels. Some of the children's bodies were so badly burned that they could not be identified.

"They have been charred beyond recognition so we cannot say how many girls and how many boys," J. Radhakrishnan, chief administrator of the district, told The A.P.

Government officials called for an immediate investigation into the fire. The blaze was the worst school fire in India since 1995, when 400 people, half of them children, died at a school ceremony in the northern part of the country.

Today's tragedy could spark a crackdown on the thousands of private schools that have opened across India as government spending on education has declined. The schools, which offer poor families the promise of an education that will lift their children out of destitution, are poorly regulated.

Hospital officials said they expect the death toll to rise. As many as 30 school children arrived at a local hospital with severe burns. Over the next several days, they are expected to slowly perish from their injuries.

Organisers of an international music festival in Oslo have forced a Korean artist who planned to film couples having sex inside a tent on the festival grounds to cancel the shoot at the last minute.

The artist, Shu Lea Cheang, installed the tent at the Quart music festival and had intended to start filming couples who volunteered to have sex inside it in a fictive search for people to star in an imaginary pornographic movie called Fluid, Staale Stenslie, the head of Norway's National Touring Exhibitions told AFP.



Cheang's film of the search was to be shown at the Soerlandet Kunstmuseum, an art museum in the southern Norwegian town of Kristiansand.

The National Touring Exhibitions forced Cheang to cancel it at the last minute amid concerns that the shoot could violate Norwegian decency laws.

Stenslie had earlier said the project was "far from pornography".

"It's about humanity, nakedness and intimacy. Shu Lea is a very serious and respected artist," he insisted.

"This is a society-critical exhibit. It's commentary on how we have handled the AIDS epidemic, and it's a bridge between popular culture and art," Stenslie said.

The music festival did however feature sex on stage.

A young couple attending a Cumshots concert was called up by the lead singer in the middle of the concert, where they had sex on stage to the crowd's applause, as the band played on

A judge in America is reportedly facing the sack after using a penis pump while trying cases in court.

Donald Thompson, 57, was seen fumbling beneath his robes under his bench.


Witnesses claim they heard 'whooshing' noises, and a police officer said he saw the judge pumping a tube between his legs.

Court clerk Lisa Foster says Thompson's manouevrings meant she saw his penis at least 20 times.

The judge, who presides at Creek County Court in Oklahoma, said the gadget, used to extend the penis, was a 'gag gift' from a friend.

But the district attorney wants him sacked for his 'moral turpitude'.

A confidant of Osama bin Laden, seen on a videotape with the Qaeda chief as he talked about the Sept. 11 terror attacks, has surrendered to Saudi diplomats in Iran and been flown to Saudi Arabia.


Khaled al-Harbi, a potentially valuable asset in the war on terror because of his close relationship to bin Laden, was shown on Saudi television Tuesday being pushed in a wheelchair through the Riyadh airport.
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Harbi is the most important figure to surface under a Saudi amnesty promising to spare the lives of militants who turn themselves in. He told the television, "I called the embassy and we were very well received."
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Harbi, also known as Abu Suleiman al-Makki, is considered a sounding board for bin Laden rather than an operational planner for his terror network, a U.S. counterterrorism official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
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The Interior Ministry did not specify what Harbi is wanted for.
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Mansour al-Nogaidan, a Riyadh journalist and former militant, said Harbi appeared on a videotape released in November 2001 in which bin Laden described the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks.
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Nogaidan said Harbi was disabled in both legs while fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan. He used to preach in a mosque in Mecca, but left Saudi Arabia for Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
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On the videotape, bin Laden praised the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and credited them with inspiring conversions to Islam.
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Harbi is the third man to take advantage of the monthlong amnesty that King Fahd offered militants June 23.
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The Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayef, has acknowledged for the first time that Saudis had joined the insurgency against U.S.-led forces in neighboring Iraq. The government had previously denied reports of their involvement.
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"Surely, there are Saudis," Nayef told reporters but he said their number was not known.
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Nayef warned that there would be no extension to the amnesty, which expires July 23, and declared that the kingdom's fight against terror is not over. RIYADH A confidant of Osama bin Laden, seen on a videotape with the Qaeda chief as he talked about the Sept. 11 terror attacks, has surrendered to Saudi diplomats in Iran and been flown to Saudi Arabia.
.
Khaled al-Harbi, a potentially valuable asset in the war on terror because of his close relationship to bin Laden, was shown on Saudi television Tuesday being pushed in a wheelchair through the Riyadh airport.
.
Harbi is the most important figure to surface under a Saudi amnesty promising to spare the lives of militants who turn themselves in. He told the television, "I called the embassy and we were very well received."
.
Harbi, also known as Abu Suleiman al-Makki, is considered a sounding board for bin Laden rather than an operational planner for his terror network, a U.S. counterterrorism official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
.
The Interior Ministry did not specify what Harbi is wanted for.
.
Mansour al-Nogaidan, a Riyadh journalist and former militant, said Harbi appeared on a videotape released in November 2001 in which bin Laden described the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks.
.
Nogaidan said Harbi was disabled in both legs while fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan. He used to preach in a mosque in Mecca, but left Saudi Arabia for Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
.
On the videotape, bin Laden praised the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and credited them with inspiring conversions to Islam.
.
Harbi is the third man to take advantage of the monthlong amnesty that King Fahd offered militants June 23.
.
The Saudi interior minister, Prince Nayef, has acknowledged for the first time that Saudis had joined the insurgency against U.S.-led forces in neighboring Iraq. The government had previously denied reports of their involvement.
.
"Surely, there are Saudis," Nayef told reporters but he said their number was not known.
.
Nayef warned that there would be no extension to the amnesty, which expires July 23, and declared that the kingdom's fight against terror is not over. RIYADH A confidant of Osama bin Laden, seen on a videotape with the Qaeda chief as he talked about the Sept. 11 terror attacks, has surrendered to Saudi diplomats in Iran and been flown to Saudi Arabia.
.
Khaled al-Harbi, a potentially valuable asset in the war on terror because of his close relationship to bin Laden, was shown on Saudi television Tuesday being pushed in a wheelchair through the Riyadh airport.
.
Harbi is the most important figure to surface under a Saudi amnesty promising to spare the lives of militants who turn themselves in. He told the television, "I called the embassy and we were very well received."
.
Harbi, also known as Abu Suleiman al-Makki, is considered a sounding board for bin Laden rather than an operational planner for his terror network, a U.S. counterterrorism official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
.
The Interior Ministry did not specify what Harbi is wanted for

A woman in Iran claims to have given birth to a frog.

BBC Online says Iranian daily Etemaad claims the creature grew from larva inside the woman's body.

While the 'frog' has yet to undergo genetic tests, the paper quotes medical experts who say it has human characteristics.

Clinical biology expert Dr Aminifard said: "The similarities are in appearance, the shape of the fingers and the size and shape of the tongue."

The paper claims the mother-of-two, from the south-eastern city of Iranshahr, unwittingly picked up the larva when she swam in a dirty pool.

But it is unclear how this could have happened

A Romanian man faces charges after he tried to blow up his kitchen because his wife was such a lousy cook.

Viorel Leahu, 41, from Todiresti, said he decided to punish his wife for her terrible food.

He told police he had been inspired by watching Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, reports Natuional newspaper.

He opened the gas tap and threw a lighter on the cooker. The explosion damaged the room and left him with an injured hand.

Mr Leahu now faces up to three years in jail for destruction of property and putting his wife's life in danger.

PT-141 Sex Drug

A drug that seems to drive female rats mad for sex may offer the first real scientific aphrodisiac for women, US and Canadian researchers say.

James Pfaus of Concordia University in Montreal and colleagues there and at Palatin, tested the drug on female rats and found it affected their mating behaviour.

The drug, Palatin Technologies Inc's PT-141, is being developed for use to fight impotence in men, but the researchers said tests showed it also aroused female rats.

"Accordingly, PT-141 may be the first identified pharmacological agent with the capability to treat female sexual desire disorders," they wrote in their report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The female rats flirted more when injected with the drug and Dr Pfaus and his colleagues said: "Females treated with the highest dose of PT-141 also attempted to mount the males."

In rats, this is considered a sign of sexual impatience.

"Although the sexual behaviour of rats is different from that of humans, the effects of pharmacological manipulations of appetitive and consummatory sexual behaviours are similar in male rates and men," the researchers wrote.

The same is probably true of women, they added.

Although the drug was injected into the rats, in human tests for impotence it takes the form of a nasal spray.

PT-141 is the first of a new class of drugs called melanocortin agonists being developed to treat sexual dysfunction.

It may be safer than current impotence drugs because it does not affect the blood vessels.

Current drugs increase blood flow and could be dangerous to people on some heart medications.

The Company That Lies For You

A German company that offers alibis for men and women who want a fling on the side has proved so successful that it is now expanding abroad.

The Perfect Alibi agency has been such a success in providing straying Germans with plausible excuses for a weekend away that it is to open an office in Austria next month.

Perfect Alibi head Jens Schlingensief says he gets around 350 customers a month coming to him for the perfect excuse to give their wives, husbands or partners.

The lies can cost as little as £5 for a reassuring SMS to be sent to a distrustful spouse, or as much as £40 for an invitation to a weekend seminar.

Schlingensief says: "The favourite of our services is the written invitation. First we send an invitation for a business meeting and include with it a description of the seminar and the costs.

"While the partner believes their loved one has gone to Hamburg for the weekend for example, our customer is free to take their lover wherever they like."

Perfect Alibi employers then sit by a fake telephone all weekend fielding calls from partners by pretending to be the hotel receptionist and then secretly transferring the calls to the customer's mobile.

Schlingensief says he does not know his clients personally and the majority use his services over the internet. But he says he does ask for enough information to make sure his alibis are "watertight".

"I have to know enough about the client to make sure his or her alibi fits. There's no point sending a fork-lift truck driver to a doctor's conference," he said.

And Schlingensief says he doesn't suffer any sleepless nights over the fact that he provides people with bare-faced lies.

"Lies, necessary lies, is something you can discuss for a long time. That is a moral aspect. But I don't have any such thoughts. We are providing a service in modern-day Germany."

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi

Iraq's interim government intends to enact a national security law as early as today that would give Prime Minister Iyad Allawi broad powers of martial rule in troubled areas, including direct command of army, police and intelligence units, a senior Iraqi government official said Tuesday.


The Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has agreed on a law for the country that should increase security there.

Although the law will give Allawi new latitude to combat insurgents, the prime minister had sought even tougher measures, some of which were stripped out of early drafts because of objections from other members of the interim government and from foreign governments, said the senior official. The new law will restrict the prime minister's power by requiring any declaration of emergency rule to have the consent of the country's president and its two vice presidents, as well as a majority of the 32-member cabinet. Iraq's highest court also will be able to overturn Allawi's martial-law declarations.

Even so, the new law will allow Allawi to deploy Iraq's army to fight insurgents. When the country's old army was disbanded and a new army created, the former U.S. administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, issued a decree preventing the army from being used for domestic security purposes. But Bremer lifted that restriction in a final order issued before he departed Iraq on June 28.

The interim government also is preparing an amnesty offer to insurgents that it hopes to announce today, but terms of the deal have not been finalized, the senior official said. Preliminary drafts of the offer, which would have allowed Iraqis who attacked U.S. troops to avail of the amnesty, have been revised to exclude anybody who was directly involved in serious acts of violence, the senior official said.

"Anyone accused of killings will not be eligible," the senior official said.
The amnesty, which would provide fighters with a full pardon in exchange for laying down their arms, appears to be aimed more at low-level insurgents than at senior leaders. Among those the government is hoping to woo with the offer are poor Iraqis who have been bankrolled by Baath Party financiers to mount attacks and members of an illegal militia loyal to firebrand Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Allawi and top members of his security team hope the offer will bifurcate the insurgency by winning over nationalist Iraqis who have been fighting to evict foreign troops, while isolating foreign Islamic militants who conducted suicide-bomb attacks and assassinations in an attempt to turn Iraq into a battleground.

Multivitamin Pills & HIV

US doctors have discovered that a simple multivitamin pill can stymie the advance of HIV, a discovery that can greatly benefit patients in developing countries who could thereby get relief from popping expensive pills.

According to Nature , after a clinical survey involving nearly 1,080 pregnant women with HIV in Tanzania, the doctors found that those who swallowed a daily dose of vitamins B, C and E for up to five years were around 50 per cent less likely to progress to full-blown AIDS.


HIV Illustrations, pictures of the AIDS virus structure and lifecycle by Russell Kightley Media

Lead author Wafaie Fawzi of Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, believes that multivitamins should be given to developing-world HIV patients in the early stages of the disease.

This would cost around $15 per person, each year and would be a relatively cheaper option to improve their quality of life,he said.

These supplements can also postpone the point at which the disease worsens and patients need to be placed on antiretroviral therapy, which is more effective but costs around $300 to $400 annually for each patient.

Though these supplements are not a substitute for antiretroviral therapy, yet they are likely to have the biggest impact on HIV in the developing world, where poor nutrition is widespread, he concluded.

American-European Spacecraft Oribiting Saturn

VOANews.com


An American-European spacecraft has entered orbit around the ringed planet Saturn - the first to do so. The maneuver ended a seven-year journey and began a four-year inspection of the giant gas planet and eight of its 31 moons.

The mood was jubilant in Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, as joyful as it was in January when twin U.S. rovers landed on Mars. The director of the laboratory is Charles Elachi.

"I can tell you, it feels awfully good to be in orbit around the Lord of the Rings," he said.

On schedule and as programmed, the U.S. Cassini spacecraft passed swiftly between Saturn's rings from below, avoiding potentially fatal collisions with ring rocks. Then it turned and fired braking rockets to slow its speed of more than 100,000 kilometers an hour, so Saturn's gravity could capture the probe and pull it into orbit.

Cassini's camera was pointing toward EPIMETHEUS at approximately 16,729,327 kilometers away
The chief of space science at the U.S. National Aeronautics & Space Administration, Ed Weiler, notes the continuing success the United States has had in its solar system exploration, this year.

"Gee, here we are sitting on this little pale blue dot, third rock from the sun," he said. "We just landed on Mars twice. We flew by a comet and picked up some comet dust, and all within six months we're about to go into orbit around a planet that is a billion miles [about 1.5 billion kilometers] away. How do we get away with having so much fun?"

Soon after entering orbit around Saturn, Cassini began its scientific work. It photographed the dusty rings from above and below and began studying Saturn's magnetic field. The planet is mostly gas, but Cassini team member Michelle Dougherty, of London's Imperial College, says magnetic flux information can provide a better understanding of the what is going on inside the planet's solid core, where the field is generated.

"What that is going to allow us to do is to measure some of the fine detailed structure of the internal field, and that will be able to give us a better understanding of not only how the field is formed, but also hopefully give us a better understanding of about something of the internal structure of Saturn, too," she said.

Scientists are interested in Saturn because they consider it and its 31 moons a miniature planetary system that can provide clues to the origin and processes of the larger solar system.

The mission is a joint project of the American, European and Italian space agencies. Researchers from 17 nations are involved, prompting this comment from NASA's Ed Weiler.

"This wasn't NASA going into orbit around Saturn," he said. "It's the Earth going into orbit around Saturn."

In late December, the European Huygens probe will detach from the Cassini mothership to study the atmosphere of the big moon Titan, which researchers think is similar to that of Earth, before life appeared.

Abu Musal al-Zarqawi Bounty Raised To $25 Million

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had authorized the increase, from the previous reward of $10 million for Zarqawi's capture or conviction, a State Department spokesman said on Wednesday.


Among other charges, Zarqawi is believed to be behind the beheading of two hostages in Iraq.
The bounty on the head of Abu Musal al-Zarqawi, the accused terrorist mastermind in Iraq, has been raised to $25 million.

"Zarqawi has had a long-standing connection to the senior leadership of al Qaeda. His organization has committed numerous atrocities in Iraq in recent months, including the barbaric murder of American citizen Nick Berg," spokesman Adam Ereli said in a statement.

Zarqawi is also blamed for dozens of attacks on coalition forces and Iraqi civilians.

His terror network has claimed responsibility for strikes on police and security forces in Iraq last week that left around 100 dead.

He is also believed to be behind the beheading of two hostages in Iraq, an American and a South Korean.

"The United States is determined to bring him to justice for his crimes. We encourage anyone with information on Zarqawi's location to contact U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, any U.S. military commander or other U.S. official in Iraq, any U.S. embassy, mission, or consulate, or the Rewards for Justice staff via e-mail at mail@rewardsforjustice.net," the statement read.

The reward for the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was also $25 million.

That's also the amount offered for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Saddam Hussein Charged With Crime Against Humanity

When Saddam Hussein is charged today with crimes against humanity in an Iraqi court, much more will be at stake than his own fate.



For ordinary citizens, the Iraqi Special Tribunal could open the door for a thorough accounting of the crimes committed by his repressive regime.

For the fledgling Iraqi government, it could offer an opportunity to shore up confidence among a weary citizenry.

For the Bush administration, known for its dislike of international criminal tribunals, it could mean a chance to establish a war crimes court it can hold up as a model.

In an Iraqi courtroom Wednesday, the new government took legal custody of Hussein and 11 of his aides. The former Iraqi leader offered no protest or defiance as he was read the papers transferring legal -- but not physical --

custody, a senior military official said.

"Are you Saddam Hussein?" an Iraqi judge asked, according to the military official. Hussein, 66, apparently in good health and shorn of the long hair and gray beard he had when he was arrested in December in a bunker near his hometown in Tikrit, acknowledged that he was.

The arraignment today, like the hearing on Wednesday transferring custody, will take place at an undisclosed location before a senior Iraqi judge, who for security reasons has not been identified.

Among Hussein's co-defendants is Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali" for his role in directing a poison gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in March 1988.

Others are Taha Yassin Ramadan, one of Hussein's two vice presidents, long cited by international human rights groups for his role in the torture and killing of tens of thousands of Iraqis; and Tariq Aziz, a deputy prime minister who conducted many of Iraq's international negotiations, especially in the prelude to the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Hussein will be given a chance to speak to the court at today's televised proceeding. The charges against him are likely to include a range of crimes against humanity, including genocide, in connection with roughly a dozen specific incidents, from the quelling of the 1991 Shiite uprising to the 1988 poison gas attacks that killed 5,000 people in Halabja. With so much at stake, the proceedings carry as much promise as peril. Already, questions have come up about whether the Iraqi Special Tribunal, relying on Iraqi law and American legal expertise, can produce credible, transparent proceedings or whether the end product will amount to little more than victor's justice -- or victim's vengeance.

Critics say they wonder whether an Iraqi judiciary, crippled from years of isolation and repression, is up to the task of carrying out such a complex war crimes case. They also question the degree of U.S. influence over the entire enterprise.

Americans guiding the process say they are taking pains to preserve independence and credibility. American expertise is needed now to rebuild a judiciary eroded by the Hussein regime, they say. But with time and training, they say, Iraqis will be in full control.

The Iraqi Special Tribunal will rely on a mixture of international and domestic laws. "We try to meet as many international standards as we can, while keeping it a domestic tribunal," said Salem Chalabi, the administrator of the court and a nephew of the once-vital U.S. ally, Ahmed Chalabi.

Early today, the U.S. military launched another air strike against a suspected hideout of terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Fallujah. It was the fourth attack in a month against insurgency targets in the city.

The raid came hours after rebels fired mortar rounds at a U.S. base on the outskirts of Baghdad's airport, wounding 11 soldiers and starting a fire that burned for more than an hour.

That attack, along with a car bomb that exploded outside a police headquarters in Samawa, 150 miles south of the capital, added to the evidence that insurgents have no plans of letting up attacks now that U.S. occupation authorities have handed over sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government.

Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is suspected of masterminding a series of coordinated attacks on police and security forces last week that killed 105 people. He is also believed to be behind the beheading of two hostages, an American and a South Korean.