"We believe the Americans were always a few hours behind them, dropping bombs on villages they just left," said Habib Rahman, a village elder in the Zamar Khel district, where a huge bomb fell on the house of a man named Akal Khan, killing four family members, including two women.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 06:03 PM

Yamasaki received the World Trade Center commission the year after the Dhahran Airport was completed. Yamasaki described its plaza as "a mecca, a great relief from the narrow streets and sidewalks of the surrounding Wall Street area." True to his word, Yamasaki replicated the plan of Mecca's courtyard by creating a vast delineated square, isolated from the city's bustle by low colonnaded structures and capped by two enormous, perfectly square towers -- minarets, really. Yamasaki's courtyard mimicked Mecca's assemblage of holy sites?the Qa'ba (a cube) containing the sacred stone, what some believe is the burial site of Hagar and Ishmael, and the holy spring -- by including several sculptural features, including a fountain, and he anchored the composition in a radial circular pattern, similar to Mecca's.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 05:57 PM

Chief Suddle said police recovered 124 submachine guns, 248 rifles, one recoilless rifle, two mortars, 342 mortar bombs, rockets and almost 30,000 rounds of ammunition.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 05:31 PM

The Banque Royale, as it officially became in 1718, was a roaring success at first, especially when it became linked to Law's Mississippi company. But when it was noticed that Law had issued twice as much currency as France's total supply of gold and silver, confidence and the bank both collapsed, and Law headed into exile.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 02:48 PM

The centre says 46 year old Gong Shengliang was sentenced to death for having founded the group and having been involved in more than a dozen cases of rape and "immoral conduct".

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:50 PM

"I'm expecting a moderate slowdown next year. I believe seven percent is achievable but it depends on how the global economy will behave and when it will begin to recover," Liao said.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:50 PM

If the Korean press does not work to be even more accurate and even more impartial, then readers in 2002 will ignore the press that beat state authority in 2001. If it does not accept readers' advice, that it abandons its authoritativeness and become more modest; if it does not learn to speak of the dark areas in our society and those who alienated from it, then its hard-earned freedoms will be meaningless.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:45 PM

The smuggled weapons allegedly included a 10cm blade hidden inside a lady's comb, a razor-sharp toughened-metal stiletto concealed in a pen, and a steel cleaver which could be hidden in a wallet.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:43 PM

The deal on Afghanistan's International Security Assistance Force, which the United Nations Security Council authorized to fill the security vacuum after last month's defeat of the Taliban, paves the way for the arrival of about 3,000 troops.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:36 PM

Corporations are helping us to reach Nirvana by not allowing us to own property. They figure if we simply license everything, we won't own it and all of us will become Zen masters with no attachment to the physical world.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 10:56 AM

The tone of the poll respondents wasn't an indictment of American power so much as a plea that the United States use this great power to solve problems that create instability. The poll respondents suggested the need to do more to alleviate poverty, for example; they also urged the United States to help create a Palestinian state that would defuse tensions in the Middle East.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 02:37 AM

"I put my money in the bank for them to look after it - not to be stolen," read one protester's banner.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:59 AM

Cuban police beat up five dissident journalists as they tried to cover an opposition event on Christmas Day, a local reporters association and an international press watchdog said Friday.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:58 AM

"I put my money in the bank for them to look after it - not to be stolen," read one protester's banner.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:56 AM

Pressure has been growing in Afghanistan for a halt to the American bombing, and Mr. Fahim said there would be no need for bombing once a few remaining border areas had been cleared of final resistance. Earlier, his spokesman said that suppressing that resistance would take no more than three days, after which the bombing must stop.
The United States, though, said it had received no request to stop the bombing, and declined to make such a promise.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:54 AM

"When a man faces a woman for the first time, some of them suffer from a lack of basic knowledge. This can create sexual problems in the future."

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:51 AM

Officials at the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) said on Saturday they planned to drape the shrine in the northern city of Agra with olive green cloth so that it blended with the surroundings.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:49 AM

Wellie Chao, chief executive of Xerxes, an e-commerce consulting business in Manhattan, said that while studying at Harvard he found a file with hundreds of his classmates' passwords on his computer after a hacker used the computer to steal passwords. "You could see who had a crush on whom based on which girls had which guys' names as passwords," said Mr. Chao, who once also had a password based on a girl's name.

Posted by at December 30, 2001 01:10 AM