MICHAL DANIEL czechoslovakia in transition

Philosopher jokes are rare, but, even with a degree in contemporary philosophy, I'm not entirely sure I get this cut out Martin Heidegger doll.

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Colliding galaxies shed light on dark matter

Wed Aug 27, 6:44 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Astronomers have captured images of a powerful collision of galaxy clusters and say it may shed light on the behavior of dark matter.

They used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope to study the cluster, known a MACSJ0025.4-1222.

They can see a clear separation between dark and ordinary matter, answering a crucial question about whether dark matter interacts with itself other than via gravitational forces, the researchers said on Wednesday.

"Dark matter makes up five times more matter in the universe than ordinary matter," said Marusa Bradac of the University of California Santa Barbara, who led the work.

"This study confirms that we are dealing with a very different kind of matter, unlike anything that we are made of. And we're able to study it in a very powerful collision of two clusters of galaxies," Bradac said in a statement.

Using optical images from Hubble, the team was able to infer the distribution of the total mass of both dark and ordinary matter in the cluster using a technique known as gravitational lensing.

This method uses the distortion that mass causes as light passes by another object between the viewer and whatever is being observed. Dark matter cannot be directly seen but it has mass and thus gravitational pull.

The Chandra X-ray images showed more clearly where ordinary matter, in the form of hot gas, was.

As the two clusters collided and merged at speeds of millions of miles (km) per hour, the hot gas in each cluster collided and slowed down, but the dark matter did not.

The researchers are looking into the past with their observations. MACSJ0025 is 5.7 billion light years away, a light year being the distance light travels in a year, or 6 trillion miles.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Cynthia Osterman)

Exoskeleton Suit

Human exoskeleton suit helps paralyzed people walk

Wed Aug 27, 12:25 PM

By Ari Rabinovitch

HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) - Paralyzed for the past 20 years, former Israeli paratrooper Radi Kaiof now walks down the street with a dim mechanical hum.

That is the sound of an electronic exoskeleton moving the 41-year-old's legs and propelling him forward -- with a proud expression on his face -- as passersby stare in surprise.

"I never dreamed I would walk again. After I was wounded, I forgot what it's like," said Kaiof, who was injured while serving in the Israeli military in 1988.

"Only when standing up can I feel how tall I really am and speak to people eye to eye, not from below."

The device, called ReWalk, is the brainchild of engineer Amit Goffer, founder of Argo Medical Technologies, a small Israeli high-tech company.

Something of a mix between the exoskeleton of a crustacean and the suit worn by comic hero Iron Man, ReWalk helps paraplegics -- people paralyzed below the waist -- to stand, walk and climb stairs.

Goffer himself was paralyzed in an accident in 1997 but he cannot use his own invention because he does not have full function of his arms.

The system, which requires crutches to help with balance, consists of motorized leg supports, body sensors and a back pack containing a computerized control box and rechargeable batteries.

The user picks a setting with a remote control wrist band -- stand, sit, walk, descend or climb -- and then leans forward, activating the body sensors and setting the robotic legs in motion.

"It raises people out of their wheelchair and lets them stand up straight," Goffer said. "It's not just about health, it's also about dignity."

EYE CONTACT

Kate Parkin, director of physical and occupational therapy at NYU Medical Centre, said it has the potential to improve a user's health in two ways.

"Physically, the body works differently when upright. You can challenge different muscles and allow full expansion of the lungs," Parkin said. "Psychologically, it lets people live at the upright level and make eye contact."

Iuly Treger, deputy director of Israel's Loewenstein Rehabilitation Centre, said: "It may be a burdensome device, but it will be very helpful and important for those who choose to use it."

The product, slated for commercial sale in 2010, will cost as much as the more sophisticated wheelchairs on the market, which sell for about $20,000, the company said.

The ReWalk is now in clinical trials in Tel Aviv's Sheba Medical Centre and Goffer said it will soon be used in trials at the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in Pennsylvania.

Competing technologies use electrical stimulation to restore function to injured muscle, but Argo's Chief Operating Officer Oren Tamari said they will not offer practical alternatives to wheelchairs in the foreseeable future.

Other "robot suits," like those being developed by the U.S. military or the HAL robot of Japan's University of Tsukuba, are not suitable for paralyzed people, he said.

(Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Mary Gabriel)

Triumf

Giant atom-smashing experiment could alter our understanding of the universe

Sat Aug 23, 11:18 AM

By Sean Patrick Sullivan, The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER - Canadian scientists at the forefront of the world's largest science experiment say discoveries made by a giant atom-smasher now whirring deep under European soil could radically alter our understanding of the universe.

In experiments beginning next month, the $10-billion Large Hadron Collider will re-create what happened in the split second after the Big Bang, mind-bending science that may shatter existing theories of physics and prompt the discovery of new particles and unknown dimensions.

It's also designed to prove the existence of the theoretical Higgs boson, once dubbed the God particle, that is theorized to give mass to everything in the universe. The particle is key to the standard model of physics, yet has never been observed.

The first test-runs to circulate a beam in the collider begin on Sept. 10, leading to the first collisions in late October and early November.

Nigel Lockyer, director of Canada's TRIUMF national particle and nuclear physics laboratory at the University of British Columbia, said the endeavour could also produce tiny black holes and shed light on the existence of dark energy and dark matter.

"We're on the edge of a major breakthrough in understanding the universe," Lockyer said in an interview at TRIUMF's sprawling compound at the university.

This breakthrough may come from this massive experiment 100 metres under the French-Swiss border, where the particle accelerator essentially lets scientists smash parts of atoms together at blinding speed and study the resulting mess.

The world's largest scientific instrument will use unprecedented amounts of energy to shoot two clouds of protons, with trillions of the particles in each cloud, around a 27-kilometre long circular tube.

The clouds collide at almost the speed of light, blowing the protons to smithereens and - ideally - offering a treasure trove of discoveries.

"We'll know what's out there. We'll know what to do for the rest of our lives," said Isabel Trigger, lead scientist for TRIUMF's contribution to the project.

Canadian researchers built components for part of the project. ATLAS is a soda-can-shaped detector that's roughly half a football field long and weighs 7,000 tonnes.

It will analyze the aftermath of the particle collisions and then ship data out to 10 labs worldwide, including TRIUMF, for years of analysis.

Five university sites - the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., the University of Toronto, the University of Alberta in Edmonton and McGill University in Montreal - will crunch the data produced by TRIUMF.

More than 2,500 scientists and engineers from 35 countries helped build ATLAS, and TRIUMF's contribution of parts and expertise has given Canadian scientists access to the massive machine.

"We want our scientists to be involved in the leading project in this field in the world," Lockyer said.

The demand to work on this "mind-bending science" has been so great that TRIUMF has been turning away eager physics students, he said.

And while the mere mention of protons may invoke dreadful memories of high school science classes for some, the technology that powers electronics such as iPods and digital memory chips all owe a debt to physics advances such as this one, not to mention that the World Wide Web was created at CERN, the research centre hosting the particle collider.

"It's where science has been driving us for the last two or three hundred years," Trigger said.

"Asking basic questions: How does electricity work? How do magnets work? When you understand the connection between those different forces, suddenly you can make TVs and cellphones.

"You put that together and you understand something deeper and something more profound."

A number of fantastical discoveries could come from the experiments, but the crown jewel for scientists is the Higgs boson, the yet-unseen particle.

Though the detectors can't see the Higgs, which decays into other particles in a tiny fraction of a second, physicist Rob McPherson said scientists can infer its existence by measuring how those new particles react.

"It's different than any particle we've seen so far. If it doesn't exist, all of our theories of physics start to break," said McPherson, also with ATLAS-Canada.

Face Transplants

Face transplant patient can smile, blink again; such surgery could be more common

Fri Aug 22, 12:03 AM

By Maria Cheng, The Associated Press

LONDON - Transplanting faces may seem like science fiction, but doctors say the experimental surgeries could one day become routine.

Two of the world's three teams that have done partial face transplants reported Friday that their techniques were surprisingly effective, though complications exist and more work is still needed.

"There is no reason to think these face transplants would not be as common as kidney or liver transplants one day," said Dr. Laurent Lantieri, one of the French doctors who operated on a man severely disfigured by a genetic disease.

In Friday's issue of the British medical journal Lancet, Lantieri and colleagues reported on their patient's status one year after the transplant. Chinese doctors also reported on their patient two years after his surgery.

Last year, the French team operated on a 29-year-old man with tumours that blurred his features in a face that looked almost monstrous. They transplanted a new lower face from a donor, giving the patient new cheeks, a nose and mouth. Six months later, he could smile and blink.

The Chinese patient had part of his face ripped off by a bear. Surgeons in Xian gave him a new nose, upper lip and cheek from a donor. After a few months, he could eat, drink and talk normally, and returned home to Yunnan province in southwest China.

The patients were not identified although photos were included in the reports.

As is the case with all transplants, doctors use immune-suppressing drugs to prevent the recipient's body from attacking the donated tissue. In both face transplants, the patients started rejecting the transplanted tissue more than once. Their doctors solved the problem by juggling their medications.

The French patient now takes three pills a day to prevent rejection.

"That's less than most people with diabetes," said Lantieri, a plastic surgeon at the Henri Mondor-Albert Chenevier Hospital in suburban Paris.

Other doctors were reassured by the results.

"To be able to wean down the dosage of the medication in small amounts and relatively quickly, that is encouraging," said Dr. Bohdan Pomahac, a plastic surgeon at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Pomahac has permission to do a face transplant in the U.S., as do doctors at the Cleveland Clinic.

Experts have worried that if patients take lifelong anti-rejection drugs after a transplant, their cancer risk will jump. Some also predicted that rejection would destroy the face within a few years. Those fears seem to have been allayed, Pomahac said.

With three successful partial face transplants so far - including the world's first on a woman whose face was bitten off by a dog in France - doctors say that some of the surgery's initial uncertainties, like how functional the new face would be, are being answered.

For example, Lantieri's patient's face was paralyzed by tumours for more than a decade. The French team wasn't sure if nerves could grow after the transplant. But they discovered later their patient could blink, proving the brain was able to restore long-forgotten facial nerve connections.

Not everyone is convinced that face transplants are so revolutionary.

Dr. Patrick Warnke, a plastic surgeon at the University of Kiel in Germany, calls them a "dead-end road," because he doesn't think the rejection problem can be solved. Instead, he hopes to re-grow tissue from patients' own stem cells.

Still, the biggest obstacle to more face transplants may not be scientific, but social.

"When kidney transplants first began, people were reluctant to donate because there were a lot of cultural, social and religious issues," Pomahac said. "This is exactly the same scenario now."

Doctors plan to do more face transplants but are having a hard time finding donors.

"Everyone says they would accept a face transplant if they were disfigured," Lantieri said. "The real question is, would you be a donor, or would you allow your family member to donate their face? That is the answer we need to change."

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On the Net:

www.lancet.com

Japanese woman, 61, gives birth to own grandchild; egg donated by daughter

2 hours, 57 minutes ago

By Shino Yuasa, The Associated Press

TOKYO - A 61-year-old Japanese woman has reportedly given birth to her own grandchild, using an egg donated by her daughter.

The Suwa Maternity Clinic in Nagano, northwest of Tokyo, said it performed the procedure because the woman's daughter has no uterus.

The clinic refused to provide information such as the date of the birth or the sex of the baby.

However, a spokeswoman for the clinic, Chihiro Netsu, said both the surrogate mother and the baby are fine.

Japanese news reports said the baby was born last year.

Surrogate births are extremely rare in Japan and banned by industry groups, but they are not illegal.

Dr. Yahiro Netsu, who runs the clinic, has long defied national opposition to such procedures, arguing that they should be an option for women who are infertile.

In 2001, he performed what is thought to be the country's first successful surrogate birth.

In 1998, Netsu was expelled from Japan's gynecology association for performing in-vitro fertilizations with eggs and sperm of donors who were not married to each other, though he was later reinstated.

The clinic spokeswoman said the 61-year-old woman was believed to be the oldest surrogate mother in Japan.

The Japanese Health Ministry does not release precise statistics on mothers' ages, saying only that there were two births to women aged 55 or older in 2006, the latest year that figures were available for.

The Mainichi newspaper reported that the previous oldest mothers in Japan were two 60-year-old women implanted with their own fertilized eggs in the United States.

Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a powerful body with over 15,000 members, has banned such procedures, but they are not illegal and individual clinics are free to perform them - though few actually do.

At Suwa Maternity Clinic, eight surrogate mothers have given birth. Of them, four women have delivered babies using fertilized eggs from their daughters.

The clinic will report the latest case at a conference of the Japan Society of Fertilization and Implantation later this month. It was the first time the fertilization conference had taken up the subject of surrogate births, Netsu said.

Crocodile eats Bangladesh man who sought its blessing

Thu Aug 21, 6:45 AM

DHAKA (AFP) - A crocodile killed and devoured a 25-year-old man in Bangladesh who waded into a pond next to a shrine hoping to be blessed by the animal, police said Thursday.

Inspector Humayun Kabir told AFP that Rubel Sheikh and his mother travelled 50 kilometres (30 miles) from their home to visit the Muslim Khan Jahan Ali shrine, where the attack happened.

Kabir said hundreds of people visit the shrine every day to offer hens and goats to the five crocodiles living in the pond. Part of the ritual also involves bathing in the water.

"He went into the pond hoping to be blessed when a crocodile attacked him and dragged him into the deep part of the pond," Kabir said.

"This is a very unusual incident. Normally, the crocodiles are very friendly and do not harm people."

Kabir said about 25 people dived into the pond following the attack on Wednesday, but could not find the man's body.

It washed ashore on Thursday and had been largely eaten, he said.

Commercialized Safety

Activists promote safe sex in India with cellphone 'Condom, condom!' ring tones

Tue Aug 19, 11:07 AM

By Sam Dolnick, The Associated Press

NEW DELHI - A cellphone ring tone that sings "Condom, condom!" has been launched to promote safe sex in India.

The a cappella ring tone features a professional singer chanting the word condom more than 50 times.

It's a playful approach that public health activists hope will spark discussion and make condoms more socially acceptable in India, where condoms carry a strong social stigma but where AIDS is a growing problem.

Nearly 2.5 million people in India are infected with HIV and the disease is still largely taboo.

The activist BBC group, which is funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, hopes the condom ring tone can make people in India more comfortable with safe sex issues.

More than 270 million people use mobile phones in India and ring tones, especially those featuring hit Bollywood songs, are extremely popular.

"We've made a conscious effort to move the concept of the condom away from negative association, like HIV and sex work," said Yvonne MacPherson, country director of BBC World Service Trust India.

"Condoms are actually health products and if you have a condom and you use it, you are seen to be smart and responsible."

"A ring tone is a very public thing," she said. "It's a way to show you are a condom user and you don't have any issues with it."

The ring tone was launched Aug. 8 and has been downloaded 60,000 times, MacPherson said.

Food crisis? Try rats, says Indian state government

Mon Aug 18, 7:35 AM

PATNA, India (Reuters) - A state government in eastern Indian is encouraging people to eat rats in an effort to battle soaring food prices and save grain stocks.

Authorities in Bihar, one of India's poorest states, are asking rich and poor alike to switch to eating rats in a bid to reduce the dependence on rice. They even plan to offer rats on restaurant menus.

"Eating of rats will serve twin purposes -- it will save grains from being eaten away by rats and will simultaneously increase our grain stock," Vijay Prakash, an official from the state's welfare department, told Reuters.

Officials say almost 50 percent of India's food grains stocks are eaten away by rodents in fields or warehouses.

Jitan Ram Manjhi, Bihar's caste and tribe welfare minister, said rat meat was a healthy alternative to expensive rice or grains, and should be eaten by one and all.

"We are very serious to implement this project since the food crisis is turning serious day by day," Manjhi, who has eaten rats, told Reuters.

In Bihar, rat meat is already eaten by Mushars, a group of lower caste Hindus, as well as poorer sections of society.

(Writing by Melanie Lee; Editing by Paul Tait)

Monkey Brains and Military Neuorscience

A biological robot controlled by a blob of rat brain has been created by British scientists.

The wheeled machine is wirelessly linked to a bundle of neurons kept at body temperature in a sterile cabinet. Signals from the "brain" allow the robot to steer left or right to avoid objects in its path.

Researchers at the University of Reading are now trying to "teach" the robot to become familiar with its surroundings. They hope the experiment will show how memories manifest themselves in nerve connections as the robot revisits territory it has been to before.

Scientists in other parts of the world are also developing robots with living brains made from cultured cells. At the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, US researchers have built a similar mobile machine.

New Scientist magazine reported that the US team was training their robot as if it was an animal learning tricks.

The British research is led by Professor Kevin Warwick, who has pioneered the merging of biology and robotics by conducting bizarre "cyborg" experiments on himself. One involved embedding a microchip into the nerves of his left arm that allowed him to control an electric wheelchair and artificial hand.

The Reading robot's brain consists of a small pot containing some 300,000 rat neurons.

After first being disconnected, the nerves were then encouraged to make new connections with each other in a continuing process. The complex way neurons connect and "talk" to each other is fundamental to how an organic brain works. Electrodes attached to the neural network allow sensory and command signals in and out of the brain.

The robot has just one means of sensing its surroundings, an ultrasound probe that bounces sound waves off objects. If the sensor detects a wall in its path, a signal is sent to the brain through a Bluetooth radio link. The brain then replies with another message telling the robot to steer away from the obstacle.

The team is now moving away from this simple system and getting the robot to learn how to navigate. Eventually the robot will be able to recognise familiar surroundings it has memorised.

and

Guess what? Military funds mind-reading science

Fri Aug 15, 9:30 PM

By Alicia Chang, The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - Here's a mind-bending idea: The U.S. military is paying scientists to study ways to read people's thoughts.

The hope is that the research could someday lead to a gadget capable of translating the thoughts of soldiers who suffered brain injuries in combat or even stroke patients in hospitals. But the research also raises concerns that such mind-reading technology could be used to interrogate the enemy.

Armed with a $4 million grant from the Army, scientists are studying brain signals to try to decipher what a person is thinking and to whom the person wants to direct the message.

The project is a collaboration among researchers at the University of California, Irvine; Carnegie Mellon University; and the University of Maryland.

The scientists use brain wave-reading technology known as electroencephalography, or EEG, which measures the brain's electrical activity through electrodes placed on the scalp.

It works like this: Volunteers wear an electrode cap and are asked to think of a word chosen by the researchers, who then analyze the brain activity.

In the future, scientists hope to develop thought-recognition software that would allow a computer to speak or type out a person's thought.

"To have a person think in a free manner and then figure out what that is, we're years away from that," said lead researcher Michael D'Zmura, who heads UC Irvine's cognitive sciences department.

D'Zmura said such a system would require extensive training by people trying to send a message and dismisses the notion that thoughts can be forced out.

"This will never be used in a way without somebody's real, active cooperation," he said.

John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia-based defence research firm, said the technology is still too nascent to be of practical use for the military.

"They're still in the proof of principle stage," Pike said.

A message left with the Army was not immediately returned Friday.

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On the Net:

UC Irvine: http://www.uci.edu

Feed the Dead

The Ghost Festival (simplified Chinese: 中元节; traditional Chinese: 中元節; pinyin: zhōngyuánjié) is a traditional Chinese festival and holiday, which is celebrated by Chinese in many countries. In the Chinese calendar (a lunisolar calendar), the Ghost Festival is on the 15th night of the seventh lunar month.

In Chinese tradition, the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar is called Ghost Day and the seventh month in general is regarded as the Ghost Month (鬼月), in which ghosts and spirits, including those of the deceased ancestors, come out from the lower realm. During the Qingming Festival the living descendants pay homage to their ancestors and on Ghost Day, the deceased visit the living.

On the thirteenth day the three realms of Heaven, Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths. Activities during the month would include preparing ritualistic food offerings, burning incense, and burning joss paper, a papier-mache form of material items such as clothes, gold and other fine goods for the visiting spirits of the ancestors. Elaborate meals would be served with empty seats for each of the deceased in the family treating the deceased as if they are still living. Ancestor worship is what distinguishes Qingming Festival from Ghost Festival because the former includes paying respects to all deceased, including the same and younger generations, while the latter only includes older generations. Other festivities may include, buying and releasing miniature paper boats and lanterns on water, which signifies giving directions to the lost ghosts and spirits of the ancestors and other deities.

The Ghost Festival shares some similarities with the predominantly Mexican observance of El Día de los Muertos. Due to theme of ghosts and spirits, the festival is sometimes also known as the Chinese Halloween, though many have debated the difference between the two.

Via

Via

Dede Koswara, 37, who is also known as ‘The Tree Man of Java’ had underwent four major operations that hacked away the bark like tissue sprouting from his hands and feet. Dede was able to see the outline of his toes for the first time as medics removed more than 4lbs of warts from his body. Spending his last 20 years (his ordeal started when he was 15 and cut his knee where a small wart developed and spread) with the bizarre condition, Dede expressed that he wants to get better and find a job and hopes that one day he will meet a girl and get married.

What we are seeing are youngsters

Montreal riot raises questions about police tactics as anger simmers

Mon Aug 11, 6:12 PM

By Jonathan Montpetit, The Canadian Press

MONTREAL - A tough, multi-ethnic neighbourhood was under tight police surveillance Monday after erupting in violence over a fatal shooting that has stoked simmering anger toward authorities.

Montreal police gunned down an 18-year-old man during a routine operation over the weekend and by Sunday night several blocks in the city's north end were in flames.

"What we are seeing are youngsters, a community that is in revolt because they don't like the way they are being treated," said Pierreson Vaval, who heads a community youth group in the city's north end.

"They don't like how authorities interact with them.

Hundreds of residents had gathered in the borough of Montreal North on Sunday to protest the death of Freddy Alberto Villanueva.

As the march wound down, a series of cars were torched outside a fire station.

Widespread looting began shortly after as rioters hurled Molotov cocktails at any sign of authority, including firefighters and paramedics.

Three officers were slightly injured, including one who was hit in the leg by gunfire. Police made six arrests in all.

But even as Montreal police moved to reassert control of the neighbourhood Monday, they faced accusations they were to blame for Sunday's riot.

"I think the biggest problem is not the young people... it's squarely the police," said Eric Plante, 33, the supervisor of a pawn shop that was heavily damaged.

"Without their bungling, we wouldn't have had this trouble."

Montreal Mayor Gerald Tremblay promised to push for a speedy and public investigation into what prompted police to open fire on Villanueva on Saturday.

"I think it's important we have this sentiment of security and the only way we can have it is by being very transparent in the investigation that will be put forward by the minister of public security," he told reporters Monday.

"I was very clear with him this morning that this has to be done as soon as possible and the information will be made public."

Quebec provincial police have taken over the investigation into the shooting and will have to contend with varying versions of what happened.

Their Montreal counterparts claim two officers were trying to arrest an individual in Henri Bourassa Park when they were surrounded by a group of about 20 youths.

They opened fire and, along with Villanueva, hit an 18-and 20-year-old, both of whom were listed in stable condition on Monday.

Witnesses counter there were only five or six youths and that Villanueva only charged police when they became aggressive with his brother, Danny, who was resisting their efforts.

Danny Villanueva, 20, was later released by police.

Montreal police Chief Yvan Delorme called for an end to the violence and said he's prepared to do whatever it takes to mend the shaky relations between police and the community.

"We're there to listen, to understand what happened yesterday (Sunday) night and to avoid these kinds of situations," he said Monday.

"We have to feel safe in Montreal."

But that could to be a difficult task in a neighbourhood known for its high unemployment and active street gangs. Distrust for police already runs high in the area, and observers suggest they will have to overhaul many of their policies before they can regain the confidence of residents.

"If they don't change their tactics, they run risk of instigating a significant rupture with the community," said Martin Courcy, a security expert who acts as a consultant for Quebec's police forces.

He said Montreal police should re-examine their approach to racial profiling as well as how they patrol the streets of neighbourhoods like the city's north end.

Police beefed up their presence in the area on Monday, hoping to restore calm to the area, but Courcy indicated it could have the opposite effect.

"The youngsters of the neighbourhood will feel under surveillance, more so than they already are."

Sunday night's incidents marked the second time in four months the city has been the scene of a large-scale riot.

In April, a downtown celebration after the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Boston Bruins in an NHL playoff game turned violent when people began torching police cars and looting stores.

Police have since arrested 56 people in connection with the riot.

Tremblay stressed there was nothing inherently unruly about Montrealers and that the city wasn't unique in dealing with violence.

"I feel very upset and I'm not going to tolerate what happened on the weekend,"

"Why does it happen in Toronto? Why does it happen in every major city? I think that the police force is doing what it can do."

Ancient Curses

Sex curse found at ancient Cyprus site: report

Fri Jul 11, 5:58 AM

NICOSIA (AFP) - An unexpected sexual curse has been uncovered by archaeologists at Cyprus's old city kingdom of Amathus, on the island's south coast near Limassol, according to a newspaper on Friday.

"A curse is inscribed in Greek on a lead tablet and part of it reads: 'May your penis hurt when you make love'," Pierre Aubert, head of Athens Archaeological School in Greece told the English language Cyprus Weekly.

He said the tablet showed a man standing holding something in his right hand that looks like an hour glass. The inscription dates back to the 7th century AD when Christianity was well established on the island, leading the French professor to surmise that it referred to the activity of witchcraft or shamans surviving from the pagan era.

The ancient city of Amathus was founded by the Phoenicians at around 1500 BC and derived its wealth from grain and copper mines. The city, a regional capital under the Romans, still flourished in the 7th century AD but was abandoned by the 12 century.

Coup

Troops overthrow president in Mauritania coup

1 hour, 45 minutes ago

NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) - Troops overthrew Mauritania's president in a military coup on Wednesday after he tried to sack senior army officers accused of being behind a political crisis destabilising the country.

President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi was arrested after military convoys rolled through the capital Nouakchott and took over the presidential palace and the prime minister's office, apparently without a shot being fired.

Soldiers also took over the national radio and television headquarters, chasing staff from the building, and shut down the international airport.

A statement read on public radio later said General Ould Abdel Aziz, the head of the presidential guard sacked that morning, was leading the coup.

A newly constituted Military State Council said it was immediately annulling the army appointments made by the president.

"The president has just been arrested by a commando, who came to fetch him, arrested him here and took him away," the president's daughter, Amal Mint Cheikh Abdallahi, told Radio France International from the palace.

"This is a real coup d'etat," she said.

Abdallahi said armed men had occupied the presidency and that she was being prevented from leaving the building, but that she had not heard shots fired.

The president's whereabouts were unknown, while Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf was taken to an army barracks near the presidency, security sources said.

"The airport is closed, I think it will stay that way for a while until the new authorities get organised," said a security source on condition of anonymity.

Borders and international telephone communications remained open, however.

The European Union and African Union led international condemnation of the coup, with Brussels saying the move jeopardised a 156 million euro (241 million dollar) five-year aid package currently being finalised.

The Brussels-based bloc said the coup imperilled "the exemplary democratic advances which the country has made since the 2005 coup d'etat."

The AU said it was dispatching Ramtane Lamamra, its peace and security commissioner, to "assess the situation on the ground and to assist in promoting a peaceful solution to the crisis."

Condemnation also came from regional powerhouses South Africa and Nigeria.

Police fired tear gas grenades to disperse a crowd of about 50 people gathered near one of the main markets during the afternoon, local journalists reported, but the capital of the nation of 3.1 million people was otherwise calm.

A spokesman for the ousted president told AFP the coup was in response to the earlier presidential decree sacking the officers.

"These officers, three generals, refused to accept the presidential decree and are rebelling against the constitutional order," the spokesman Abdoulaye Mahmadou Ba said.

The coup came 15 months after Abdallahi came to power in elections hailed as a model of democracy for Africa, following a three-year transition after a bloodless coup in August 2005.

Mauritania has been facing a political crisis and on Monday 48 MPs walked out on the ruling party less than two weeks after a vote of no confidence in the government prompted a cabinet reshuffle.

Renegade lawmakers criticised Abdallahi's exercise of "personal power", adding that he had "disappointed the hopes of Mauritanians," a spokesman for the group said on Monday.

Coup leader Abdel Aziz and another general, army chief-of-staff Ould Cheikh Mohamed Ahmed, were accused of being behind the mass walkout, political observers in the capital said.

The breakaway MPs said they will form a new party to seek a change of direction in the country, which imports more than 70 percent of its food and has been hard hit by the global food crisis.

The Mauritanian president last month threatened to dissolve parliament after MPs filed a motion of no confidence in his new government, which then resigned.

A spokesman for the rebel MPs said the president was "reaping the fruits of his bad decisions".

The largely desertified country has a history of coups since gaining independence from France in 1960.

Mauritania was shaken between December 2007 and February 2008 by three attacks by extremists linked to Al-Qaeda which left seven people dead including four French tourists.

The attacks caused the organisers of the 2008 Dakar rally to cancel the race, which usually crosses the Mauritanian deserts.

Latvian vote on sacking parliament falls short
Sun Aug 3, 2008 12:11am BST

By Patrick Lannin and Jorgen Johansson

RIGA (Reuters) - A Latvian referendum on whether to give people the right to dismiss parliament outside regular elections failed to win enough backing, but an opposition party said a high turnout showed the legislature should go anyway.

With ballots in 966 of 998 voting centres counted by 2230 GMT, more than half a million people, 591,697, had voted in the Saturday referendum for the right to dissolve parliament.

But this was short of the 757,607, or half the eligible electorate, needed for a constitutional change. Remaining ballots were unlikely to make up the gap.

The vote had tapped into popular discontent with the ruling parties, after allegations of high-level corruption and amid an economic slowdown combined with soaring prices.

"The policies of the parties in power are bankrupt and the president has the chance to do what people asked him to do on November 3 (2007)," Solvita Aboltina, chairman of opposition party New Era, was quoted as saying by newspaper Diena.

She was referring to a protest last year which demanded the president dissolve parliament.

The next election for the 100-seat parliament is due in 2010. The opposition had backed the referendum, but the four-party coalition, led by Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis, was against and had lobbied strongly against it.

The size of the turnout could create pressure for change. A team of experts under President Valdis Zatlers has drawn up more detailed proposals on mechanisms to dissolve parliament, including one involving a referendum.

Latvia has since 2004 been a European Union and NATO member, but living standards are well below those in the West. Critics of parliament accuse it and the government of corruption and working in favour of a select group of businessmen and allies.

Anger has grown as an economic boom, with growth figures in double digits in recent years, has turned into a slump this year due to the credit crunch. Inflation has hit nearly 20 percent.

"I don't trust politicians. They only lie and steal and make promises they never keep. Now they will be forced to do what they say," said pensioner Elsa Karpova, 71, after voting.

Others disagreed. "I voted against changing the constitution. It's good enough. I don't want Latvia to become like Switzerland where they have to vote all the time to make things happen," said Maris Aboltins, 28, a computer specialist.

(Writing by Patrick Lannin; editing by Andrew Roche)

Disastrous Pilgrimage

Stampede kills 145 Hindu worshippers in India

36 minutes ago

By Geetinder Garewal

CHANDIGARH, India (Reuters) - At least 145 people, mostly women and children, were crushed to death under the feet of thousands of pilgrims in a stampede at a temple in northern India on Sunday, police said.

Hindu worshippers, chanting and singing hymns, were snaking up a 4-km (2.5-mile) trail leading to a hill-top temple in Himachal Pradesh state when the stampede occurred.

Police said the pilgrims might have panicked after heavy rains caused some loose stones from a retaining wall along the hilly trail to fall.

The pilgrims started fleeing down the slope, breaking an iron side railing and trampling falling women and children under their feet, said Daljit Singh Manhas, a senior police officer.

"We have confirmation now that 145 people have been killed," he told Reuters. "We found eight to 10 stones which had fallen off and probably scared the people, causing the stampede."

At least 40 children and 45 women were among the dead, police and health department officials said.

Thousands of worshippers had gathered at the temple in Bilaspur district to pray to a Hindu goddess during the annual festival.

Authorities said at last 48 people were injured, but this figure could rise as dozens of people were admitted to private clinics as well.

Witnesses said people jumped over broken railings and bodies to save themselves. Children lost their grip on their mothers' hands and were crushed under the feet of scared pilgrims.

"Many children and women were shouting for help and I saw people tumbling down the hillside," pilgrim Dev Swarup, 48, told Reuters by telephone from Bilaspur.

"There were rumors of boulders coming down on us and we all ran like the others," said Swarup, his voice choked with emotion.

SLIPPERS, TORN CLOTHES AND FLOWERS

Slippers, torn clothes and bags with flowers and offerings lay along the narrow path winding up the hill, television pictures showed.

People crowded into hospitals looking for injured relatives.

A television channel showed a young woman pilgrim pleading for water in a corner as rescuers brought in more injured people on stretchers for treatment.

More than 10,000 people were trying to get into the temple when the stampede began and police had been struggling desperately to keep the situation under control.

"There were too many rumors, we tried our best to keep things under control but it went out of hand," one officer said.

Most of the worshippers were from the neighboring state of Punjab, and their numbers rose sharply at the weekend.

Stampedes at temples are not uncommon in India where thousands of people gather to pray during festivals. In 2005, about 265 pilgrims were killed in a stampede near a temple in the western state of Maharashtra.

(Writing by Bappa Majumdar; editing by Tim Pearce)

HAVIDOL