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Saturday, September 05, 2009 WASHINGTON: The cub is four weeks old, but up until now, workers at the zoo have not been able to get close to it.They had to wait until its mother was comfortable leaving the cub alone before they could remove it from its den.Giant pandas are on loan to the United States from China, and in keeping with Chinese tradition, the cub will not be named until he is at least 100 days old.

Saturday, September 05, 2009 MEXICO CITY: The remnants of what was once Hurricane Jimena lashed the northwestern Mexican mainland on Friday, blocking roads and cutting electricity and phone lines to two isolated towns, officials said.Jimena was a Category Four hurricane -- the most powerful of 2009 -- shortly before making landfall on the Baja California peninsula Wednesday, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. It has since weakened to Tropical Depression strength, but still packs a powerful punch.Mexican authorities said at least two towns in the desert state of Sonora had been cut off by the storm, now gusting at 30 miles (45 kilometers) per hour."Guaymas and Empalme are isolated, there is neither light, nor telephone communications and the roads are closed," said Marco Antonio Marquez, from the state's civil protection service."Seventy percent of these cities are flooded and in some places the water has risen to such a level that people had to t...

Saturday, September 05, 2009 TEL AVIV: The exhaled breath from patients with lung cancer has distinct characteristics that allow those with the disease to be identified by an "electronic nose," according to a report in the first issue for June 2005 of the American Thoracic Society's peer-reviewed American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Researchers reported the results of measuring exhaled breath of 14 individuals with bronchogenic carcinoma and 45 control subjects without cancer to develop the screening capability. The authors said that they hypothesized that an "electronic nose" would detect lung cancer on the basis of complex "smellprints" of numerous volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath from individuals with lung cancer as compared with either other non-cancerous lung disease or healthy controls. According to the authors, analysis of results from the "electronic nose" demonstrated its ability to discriminate bet...

Saturday, September 05, 2009 TOKYO: Feeling stressed? Stop and smell the roses. Or perhaps get a good whiff of lavender, lemon, mango, mint, coriander or other fragrant plants.We`ve all heard the old adage that we should take breaks and "stop and smell the roses" to relieve stress. Now, scientists in Japan have reported the first scientific evidence that inhaling certain fragrances does indeed alter gene activity and blood chemistry in ways that can reduce stress levels.The study, which appears in the American Chemical Society`s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, exposed lab rats to stressful conditions while inhaling and not inhaling linalool, which is a fragrance found naturally in lavender, mint, coriander, bergamot, lemon, mango and many other fragrant plants. After inhaling linalool, the rats which were exposed to stressful conditions had stress-elevated levels of neutrophils and lymphocytes return to near normal levels (both neutrophils and lymphcytes are key p...

Saturday, September 05, 2009 BIHAR: A lady teacher despite the odds in her physique has put her best foot forward in educating children at an obscure remote village named Guraru in Gaya district of India's eastern state of Bihar.In fact, her dedicated vocation could be termed as a perfect role model of a teacher. And the entire India observes September 5 as Teachers' Day, dedicated to the teacher on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Dr. S Radhakrishnan, the country's first Vice President who was a teacher.As for this unique teacher, it is Radha Kumari who is just two-and-a-half feet in height.She teaches at the Government Middle School of her village Guraru.Due to her height, Radha Kumari (33) uses a bench as an aid to reach the blackboard while conducting her classes.In a candid chat, she recalled the dream of becoming a teacher and how those wishes have come true."When as a student, I used to see my school teacher I always dreamt of following her footsteps and...

Saturday, September 05, 2009 TEHRAN: Iran's parliament on Thursday backed a cabinet proposed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that includes the Islamic republic's first woman minister and a man wanted in connection with the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina.The conservative-dominated assembly approved 18 of 21 nominees, propelling Ahmadinejad into his second four-year term as Iran battles its worst crisis since the hardliner's re-election in June.The candidates who failed to secure the required majority of votes were two other women nominees and Ahmadinejad's pick for energy minister.Highlighting Iran's often maverick status, nearly 80 percent of lawmakers approved Ahmad Vahidi -- wanted by Argentina as a suspect in a 1994 Buenos Aires bombing that killed 85 people and wounded 300 -- as defence minister.After the vote, Vahidi called his selection, by much the greatest margin of any nominee, a "decisive slap to Israel," Iran's arch-enemy...

Saturday, September 05, 2009 LOS ANGELES: Madonna smashed her own record for top-grossing tour by a solo artist, but the "Material Girl" had to play more shows in bigger venues, according to data released by concert promoter.The pop singer's yearlong "Sticky & Sweet" world tour, which wrapped in Israel on Wednesday, pulled in $408 million after playing to more than 3.5 million fans at 85 shows.It broke the record set in 2006 by her previous outing, the "Confessions" tour, which grossed $194 million from 1.2 million fans at 60 shows. A promoter spokesman said the previous trek featured many arena stops, while the latest one was centered on bigger stadiums.On September 28, Madonna will release "Celebration" CD and video compilations, which will draw the curtain on her 27-year relationship with Warner Music Group Corp. In 2007, she signed a pioneering, 10-year, $120 million "360" deal with Live Nation covering recording, merchandis...

Saturday, September 05, 2009 NEW DELHI: An Indian railway station, which was abandoned for 42 years because of, fears that it was haunted has reopened in the eastern state of West Bengal.Locals and railway workers say they lived in fear of a female phantom that frequented Begunkodor 260km (161 miles) from the state capital, Calcutta. In 1967, a railway worker is said to have died days after he saw a "woman ghost" draped in a white sari. Officials say the story was made up to avoid postings at the remote station.

Saturday, September 05, 2009 NEW YORK: US scientist Qinghua Sun, an assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Ohio State University, says that diesel exhaust has the ability to induce the growth of new blood vessels that serve as a food supply for solid tumours. The researchers found that in both healthy and diseased animals. According to them, more new blood vessels sprouted in mice exposed to diesel exhaust than did in mice exposed to clean, filtered air. They say that this finding indicates that previous illness is not required to make humans susceptible to the damaging effects of the diesel exhaust. The researchers say that inhaled diesel particles are very tiny in size, which is why they can penetrate the human circulatory system, organs, and tissues. This suggests that diesel fumes can cause damage just about anywhere in the body, they add. Diesel exhaust exposure levels in the study were designed to mimic the exposure people might experience while living in urban a...

Saturday, September 05, 2009 LONDON: Trade deals with Libya played a "very big part" in Britain's decision to include the Lockerbie bomber in a prisoner transfer deal with Tripoli, a government minister acknowledged in an interview Saturday. Justice Secretary Jack Straw told the local newspaper that trade and an oil exploration deal between BP and Libya were factors in deciding whether to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi eligible for transfer to a prison back home.However, his spokesman insisted Megrahi's release was not agreed because any possible transfer was always subject to a veto by the Scottish authorities.Asked if trade and oil were part of the discussions, Straw said: "Yes, a very big part of that. I'm unapologetic about that Libya was a rogue state. We wanted to bring it back into the fold. "And yes, that included trade because trade is an essential part of it and subsequently there was the BP deal."Megrahi, the only person convicted ...

Saturday, September 05, 2009 DAMASCUS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told the Israeli people not to support their government, which he described as "genocidal" on Friday, the second day of his trip to Syria.Chavez is on an 11-day trip to Libya, Algeria, Syria, Iran, Belarus, Russia and Spain in what he is describing as a bid to build a multi-polar world and decrease U.S. influence in the region.The Venezuelan president has singled out Israel for criticism during his visit to Syria, slamming it for mistreating the Palestinians and being an agent of U.S. imperialism."The state of Israel has become a murderous lackey at the service of imperialism," Chavez said. "It's a genocidal government. I condemn that Zionist government that persecutes the heroic Palestinian people."Chavez, whose remarks were broadcast by state television in Venezuela, added that "the people of Israel shouldn't support a genocidal government."Chavez spoke in front of ...

Saturday, September 05, 2009 NEW YORK: Seeking her third grand slam victory of the year, Serena Williams withstood a strong test from Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez of Spain 6-3, 7-5 to advance to the fourth round of the U.S.Open. No. 3 Venus Williams, the 2000-01 Open champion, avoided adding to the list of stunning results when she got past 46th-ranked Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia 6-2, 7-5. Next up for the elder Williams. Other winners included No. 7 Vera Zvonareva of Russia, No. 10Flavia Pennetta of Italy, No. 18 Li Na of China and No. 26 Francesca Schiavone of Italy.No. 1 Dinara Safina made it to Saturday's third round, but barely. She needed more than 4 hours to get through two three-set victories. The best men have faced no such problems: No. 3 Rafael Nadal's 6-0, 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory Friday night in the last match of Day 5means the men seeded 1-16 all reached the third round at a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in the 41-year Open era. Friday's other winne...

Saturday, September 05, 2009 LONDON: Australia survived a late flourish by England to beat its old rival by four runs in the first of their seven one-day internationals.England took the Ashes two weeks ago but Australia regained alittle pride at The Oval through Callum Ferguson's best-ever 71 not out and Mitchell Johnson's three wickets in a 13-ball spell that cost just five runs. England's spinners did well to restrict Australia to 260-5 but the tourists got an even firmer grip on the English run rate, at least until a seventh-wicket blitz of 46 from 33 balls by Luke Wright and Adil Rashid made the score competitive. The home side needed 13 from the last over to win but Rashid and No. 10 batsman Ryan Sidebottom just came up short in front of a crowd that had earlier jeered England for its slow scoring. The target had looked attainable on a slow pitch but England quickly fell behind Australia's scoring rate as none of the top-order batsmen could build a game-changing sc...