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GLOUCESTER, England (AFP) - Fearless thrill-seekers on Monday flipped, slipped, somersaulted and tumbled down a suicidally steep slope in western England to try to catch a giant runaway circle of cheese. The cheese rolling event at Coopers Hill is one of Britain's more unusual annual events and is not for the faint-hearted but it was made even more perilous this year by torrential rain that turned the course into a mudbath. Organisers claimed the downpours that lashed much of southern Britain over the weekend made the vertiginous slope softer underfoot but more than 30 first aid volunteers were kept busy...

FORT MEADE, Md., August 2, 2006 -- A step through the doors of the Military Entrance Processing Station here blows away the myths that the military is struggling to get enough recruits, dropping its standards to get those it does, or glossing over the fact that it’s recruiting into a wartime force. July 31 was the last day of a month in which all the services had already met their quotas for recruits. It was a relatively slow day at the station -- one of 65 dotting the country. Yet the station buzzed with activity as 102 men and women...

HARARE, Zimbabwe - Nearly 300 striking doctors in Zimbabwe ignored government demands Tuesday for them to return to hospital wards, officials said. The strike has deepened a crisis in Zimbabwe's health system which has seen qualified staff fleeing the country in droves for jobs that pay up to six times more abroad. A young doctor here earns only about $564 a month. The junior doctors walked out Thursday after authorities extended their seven-year attachment to state hospitals by another year, to be spent working at rural facilities. State-run radio reported a "critical" situation at government hospitals Tuesday, with only the...

EL PERU WAKA, Guatemala (Reuters) - Archeologists outsmarted tomb raiders to unearth a major Maya Indian royal burial site in the Guatemalan jungle, discovering jade jewelry and a jaguar pelt from more than 1,500 years ago. The tomb, found by archeologist Hector Escobedo last week, contains a king of the El Peru Waka city, now in ruins and covered in thick rainforest teeming with spider monkeys. He may have been the dynastic founder of the city, on major Mayan trade routes that could have stretched from the city of Tikal in Guatemala up through Mexico. "If this is indeed the...

Bolivia urges UN to defy Washington and legalise coca By Sophie Arie in La Paz (Filed: 20/03/2006) Bolivia is leading a Latin American campaign to legalise coca plants despite them being vilified by the United States as the source of the world's cocaine industry. Coca leaves: fans claim it aids digestion and contains more vitamins and nutrients than most vegetables Under the slogan "coca is not cocaine", politicians, consumers and growers across the Andes are promoting the leaf's qualities and calling for coca-based tea, yoghurt, bread, toothpaste, shampoo and soap to be mass produced and exported. Its fans claim it...

More European papers defy Muslim protests Gwladys Fouché Thursday February 2, 2006 More newspapers across Europe today reprinted the 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that have sparked protests across the Middle East - although most refrained from publishing them on their websites. Earlier this week hackers attacked the website of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which first published the controversial pictures last September, and the site became unavailable for a time. When the website reappeared it published a statement in Danish, Arabic and English stating that the cartoons "were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish...

http://www.coralridge.org/specialdocs/PR_KennedyCallsOnGovernorBush.htm    D. JAMES KENNEDY: GOVERNOR JEB BUSH DUTY BOUND TO ACT TO PRESERVE LIFE OF TERRI SCHIAVO Fort Lauderdale, March 24, 2005 — Dr. D. James Kennedy issued the following statement today: Governor Jeb Bush is to be commended for all he has done in seeking to save the life of Terri Schiavo. His course of action thus far has proven fruitless. Neither the state legislature nor the courts, state or federal, have been willing to act on behalf of this helpless woman who is now within hours of death. As Governor, Jeb Bush is the only legal authority...

It's very late. Does the President know what the Army is doing? On the issue of women in land combat, it seems no one is in charge. High-level civilians are circumventing law and policy, members of Congress are being misled and decorated generals seem to have lost all perspective. President Bush has been a strong leader on national defense, which makes it difficult to understand why he is saying one thing, but the Pentagon is doing another. During an interview with the Washington Times in January, Bush declared, "No women in [land] combat." He was referring to current Defense Department...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqis embraced democracy in large numbers Sunday, standing in long lines to vote in defiance of mortar attacks, suicide bombers and boycott calls. Pushed in wheelchairs or carts if they couldn't walk, the elderly, the young and women in veils cast ballots in Iraq (news - web sites)'s first free election in a half-century. Iraqi election officials said it might take 10 days to determine the vote's winner and said they had no firm estimate of turnout among the 14 million eligible voters. The ticket endorsed by the Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani was the pre-voting favorite....

Only a few months ago, this question never would have occurred to us, but now it must be asked: Are city officials engaged in a cover-up of incriminating information sought by federal authorities investigating San Diego's financial irregularities? Highly disturbing evidence is mounting that some city officials have been less than cooperative with the separate civil and criminal probes being conducted by the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the last two weeks, an SEC lawyer found it necessary to remind city officials by letter that subpoenaed documents "within the possession, custody or control of the...

As we reported last week, Venezuela's vengeful dictator, Hugo Chavez, continues to target eight helpless fired oil workers for long prison terms. Their "crime" was leading a strike. Former Venezuelan oil company executive Gustavo Coronel points out that they are, shockingly, being charged with crimes and neglect against the state oil company that happened after they were fired from their jobs by Chavez himself on live television. In today's El Universal, another Unapetrol oil union leader speaks out, pointing out the shifty legal maneuvers the Chavez court has engaged in over Christmas to deny the eight arrested strike leaders any...

Iranian cleric urges Teheran to defy West's nuclear curbs By David Wastell and Behzad Farsian (Filed: 21/09/2003) A call by a leading Iranian cleric for his country to consider withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty has raised fresh fears that Iran will ignore an international deadline to curb its nuclear ambitions. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a hardliner who heads the Guardian Council, the most powerful governing body, said during prayers at Teheran University that Iran should defy demands for tougher nuclear inspections. He said Iran should not sign an extra protocol to the treaty, demanded by the International Atomic Energy Agency,...

France, Germany and Russia defy the US by declaring that war is unjustified By John Lichfield in Paris and Anne Penketh 11 February 2003 France, Germany and Russia begged Washington to give peace "every chance", in an unprecedented joint statement yesterday rejecting the American arguments for early military intervention in Iraq. The former Cold War adversaries agreed a joint declaration, which was read out by President Jacques Chirac at the start of a press conference with Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, in Paris. "There is still an alternative to war, we are sure. The use of force must be only...

Saddam to defy Bush ultimatum By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor and Toby Harnden in Washington (Filed: 04/12/2002) Saddam Hussein began a new round of brinkmanship yesterday when his lieutenants said they would tell the United Nations on Saturday that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction. UN personnel arrive at Al Sajoud Palace in Baghdad, which they will inpsect for the first time Tony Blair said such a claim would be a blatant lie. He warned the Iraqi dictator that if he refused to co-operate in any way "he must be disarmed by force". But British and American officials...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House urged Iraqi military commanders Monday to defy Saddam Hussein if he orders biological or chemical attacks on U.S. forces. President Bush planned to issue a similar warning in a Monday night speech designed to lay out his case against Saddam.</p>

Boeing confirms research to defy gravity Boeing has confirmed it's carrying out tests on several anti-gravity devices which could allow almost fuelless aircraft and huge spacecraft. The company wants to join forces with a Russian scientist who claims to have developed a way to shield objects from gravity. Dr Yevgeny Podkletnov was ridiculed by sections of the science community when he released details of his research in 1996. He claimed objects above a spinning, superconducting disc lost weight, but other researchers say they have been unable to validate the results. A Boeing spokesman said: "We feel there is a basic...