In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, they describe burns and hearing damage suffered by a patient hit by lightning while using his iPod. The man, who was jogging in a storm, suffered burns to his chest and on his leg where he was wearing the player.

Medical experts say electronic devices, such as music players or mobile phones, on their own do not attract lightning. But in the Vancouver man's case, "the combination of sweat and metal earphones directed the current to, and through, the patient's head," wrote Drs Eric J Heffernan, Peter L Munk and Luck J Louis of Vancouver General Hospital.

The man's jaw was broken, probably by muscle contraction, say the doctors. The current of electricity through his headphones caused the air in his ears to heat and expand, creating pressure waves which burst his eardrums. The extra jolt of electricity through the wires of the man's music player caused second-degree burns all the way down his chest and to his left leg. In addition, witnesses reported the man being thrown about eight feet (2.4m) after the lightning hit him, the doctors said.

The incident, which happened two years ago, has left the man with less than 50% hearing in both ears. Several other cases of people suffering burns and hearing loss after being struck by lightning while wearing personal stereos have also been recorded.

What to do in a thunderstorm?

Thunderstorms are short, sharp and shocking - for some literally. For if you can hear the clouds rumbling, chances are the storm is close enough to for you to be struck by lightning - it can strike up to 10 miles away from the centre of a storm.

If thunderstorms are forecast, postpone or cancel outdoor activities - especially golf and rod fishing. If a storm is approaching, take cover inside or in a car with the windows wound up - sheds, isolated trees and convertibles do not afford sufficient protection. Boaters and swimmers should get to shore as quickly as possible, as water conducts electricity. So too do metal pipes and phone lines. Only make calls in an emergency, and best put off baths, showers and dish washing, in case lightning strikes the house and sends a jolt of electricity through the metal plumbing.

Do not put up an umbrella or use a mobile phone - the metal directs the current into the body. Be wary of venturing out too soon - the BBC Weather Centre advises waiting 30 minutes after the last flash, as over half of lightning deaths occur after the thunderstorm has passed. While the forecast storms will bring much-needed rain, the sudden dump of water poses the risk of flash flooding. If waters start to rise, head for higher ground. Don't try to drive to safety, as most flash flood deaths occur in vehicles.

And one final tip - it's a myth that lightning never strikes the same place twice.

Most of the Bushmen cannot read or write, but they can see what is alive in front of them - and the icons on their PDAs. The screen displays more than 40 animal species, subspecies and plants. The icons also cover activities such as drinking, feeding, running, fighting, mating and sleeping.

Pressing an icon records a sighting or other indications, which is sent wirelessly to a computer server by satellite. Of course, this free software can be used for other purposes than nature conservation. It can be applied around the world to social surveys, organic farming, integrated pest management and disaster relief.

Each screen allows the user to record increasingly detailed information. They found that one tracker might record up to 300 observations in a day. Connected to a satellite navigational system in 1996, the hand-held computer automatically recorded the details, time, date and exact location.

This information was processed on a base-station computer to create maps and charts of animal movements and feeding habits. Today, all the data collection can be done on a PDA and worked on a personal computer. The free software used to turn a tracker into a digital wildlife tracker has now been downloaded over 25,000 times in more than 50 countries.

Hundreds of people were injured when the 6.8-magnitude tremor struck the Niigata area. The fire at the nuclear plant has been extinguished, and there was no release of radiation or damage to the reactors, officials said.
City official Takashi Otsuka said about 2,000 people had been evacuated from their homes, while tens of thousands are reported to have no power or running water.

Older buildings, many of them with wooden walls and heavy tile roofs, appear to have suffered the most damage in the earthquake, which also cracked roads and buckled bridges. The region has subsequently suffered several strong aftershocks. Clouds of black smoke poured from the Kashiwazaki nuclear plant, which automatically shut down during the quake. Motoyasu Tamaki, a Tokyo Electric Power Company official, said the fire had occurred in an electrical transformer.

Hospital officials said about 300 people had been brought in for treatment of injuries including broken bones, cuts and bruises, they added. Skyscrapers swayed in Tokyo, more than 200km (125 miles), from the earthquake's epicentre in the Sea of Japan.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, which is situated in one of the world's most seismically active areas, and the country regularly holds safety drills. Three years ago, an earthquake in the same area left 65 people dead.
In 1995, a magnitude 7.3 tremor hit the city of Kobe, killing more than 6,400 people.

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network - a series of British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology - I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the Government for our actions, those who pushed this "Blair's bombs" line did our propaganda work for us. MORE IMPORTANT, THEY ALSO HELPED TO DRAW AWAY ANY CRITICAL EXAMINATION FROM THE REAL ENGINE OF OUR VIOLENCE: ISLAMIC THEOLOGY.

The attempts to cause mass destruction in London and Glasgow are so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that they are likely to have been carried out by my former peers. And as with previous terror attacks, people are again saying that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy.
The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: "What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq."

I left the British Jihadi Network in February 2006 because I REALISED THAT ITS MEMBERS HAD SIMPLY BECOME MINDLESS KILLERS. But if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. And though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many others to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain and abroad was a sense that WE WERE FIGHTING FOR THE CREATION OF A REVOLUTIONARY WORLDWIDE ISLAMIC STATE THAT WOULD DISPENSE ISLAMIC JUSTICE.

If we were interested in justice, you may ask, how did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting such a (flawed) Utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion?

THE FOUNDATION OF EXTREMIST REASONING RESTS UPON A MODEL OF THE WORLD IN WHICH YOU ARE EITHER A BELIEVER OR AN INFIDEL. Formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion: they are considered to be one and the same. For centuries, the reasoning of Islamic jurists has set down rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war. But what radicals and extremists do is to take this two steps further.

THEIR FIRST STEP HAS BEEN TO ARGUE THAT, SINCE THERE IS NO PURE ISLAMIC STATE, THE WHOLE WORLD MUST BE DAR UL-KUFR (THE LAND OF UNBELIEF). STEP TWO: SINCE ISLAM MUST DECLARE WAR ON UNBELIEF, THEY HAVE DECLARED WAR UPON THE WHOLE WORLD.

Along with many of my former peers, I was taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians. The notion of a global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain.

For decades, radicals have been exploiting the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state - typically by starting debate with the question: "Are you British or Muslim?" But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Muslim institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology.

They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex truth that ISLAM CAN BE INTERPRETED AS CONDONING VIOLENCE AGAINST THE UNBELIEVER - AND INSTEAD REPEAT THE MANTRA THAT ISLAM IS PEACE AND HOPE THAT ALL OF THIS DEBATE WILL GO AWAY.

This has left the territory open for radicals to claim as their own. I should know because, as a former extremist recruiter, I REPEATEDLY CAME ACROSS THOSE WHO HAD TRIED TO RAISE THESE ISSUES WITH MOSQUE AUTHORITIES ONLY TO BE BANNED FROM THEIR GROUNDS.

Even up to the second world war, honey was being used for its antibacterial properties in treating wounds. But with the advent of penicillin and other antibiotic drugs in the twentieth century, honey's medicinal qualities have taken a back seat. But that might be about to change - thanks to one New Zealand based researcher. Working in his Honey Research Unit at the University of Waikato, in the central North Island, biochemist Professor Peter Molan has identified one particular type of honey with extraordinary healing qualities.

Professor Molan has shown that honey made from the flowers of the manuka bush, a native of New Zealand, has antibacterial properties over and above those of other honeys. And he has found a way to measure its antibacterial efficacy, by comparing UMF manuka honey with a standard antiseptic (carbolic, or phenol) in its ability to fight bacteria. The results are astonishing.

He said: "We know it has a very broad spectrum of action. "It works on bacteria, fungi, protozoa. We haven't found anything it doesn't work on among infectious organisms." In fact, he says UMF manuka honey can even tackle antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria - a growing problem for hospitals around the world.

"Staphylococcus aureas is the most common wound-infecting species of bacteria, and that's the most sensitive to honey that we've found. "And that includes the antibiotic resistant strains - the MRSA - which is just as sensitive to honey as any other staphylococcus aureas."

That's a view shared by beekeeper Bill Bennett a few kilometres up the road from the hospital. He and his wife Margaret run the Summerglow Apiaries, one of just a handful of registered suppliers of UMF manuka honey in New Zealand. They produce between eight and twelve metric tonnes of manuka honey every year, and sell it across the world.

The honey is rigorously tested three times during production for that elusive unique manuka factor; only then can it carry the label "UMF manuka honey". "It just seems that manuka from a few areas within New Zealand produces a nectar that has this special property," said Bill Bennett. "There is a lot of manuka honey out there that doesn't have this special property. That's why it's so important to look for the name UMF."

Thousands of people in every major town and city took to the streets, and three people are reported to have been killed in clashes around the country. The protests are widely seen as a show of disapproval with the government of President Alan Garcia. They come just a fortnight before President Garcia completes his first year in office. In the biggest demonstration since Mr Garcia became Peru's president, there was a national show of discontent with his government.

It began as a national strike by the left-wing Peruvian education workers' union. But as construction workers, farmers and miners joined, it grew in size and became more widespread. There have been running battles with the police in the centre of Lima, and the authorities have detained more than 100 union leaders. In the southern region of Puno, protestors stormed an airport and a railway station, and three people have been killed in different clashes across the country.

On Friday, a tourist train on its way to Machu Picchu was pelted with stones, and in Peru's second city, Arequipa, striking teachers tried to throw eggs and tomatoes at President Garcia and clashed with his supporters. Several police officers were held hostage by angry demonstrators in the same city but later released.

The protesting teachers object to a new law which obliges them to take a proficiency test and says they will be sacked if they repeatedly fail it. The test is part of the government's attempt to reform the appalling standard of Peru's state education. But union leaders say it will mean hundreds of arbitrary sackings.

President Garcia appears to have inflamed the protests by launching insults at union leaders and dismissing them as left-wing radicals. But the opposition leader, Ollanta Humala, and several MPs have also joined the demonstrations. They accuse Mr Garcia of reneging on his campaign pledges and say social development and working conditions have not improved, despite Peru's booming economic growth.

Since July 7, nine people were killed and two missing in Hubei Province, and 100,710 persons were evacuated, according to the ministry.

More than 206,900 hectares of farmland were inundated in Hubei, and 12,800 houses collapsed, causing direct economic losses of 1.35 billion yuan (177.63 million U.S. dollars), said the ministry.

In Henan Province, more than 4.38 million people were affected by floods and 331,000 people were evacuated.

The ministry has sent rescue teams to the provinces

For 60 years they have towered over some of London's most famous thoroughfares, admired by strolling tourists and office workers. At a time when Gordon Brown has pledged to make environmental issues one of his key priorities, the decision to chop down trees just yards from No 10 has been criticised by Tory MPs and environmental groups.

Conservative environment spokesman Peter Ainsworth said he was 'depressed and unhappy' at the loss of the trees, which he said made the environment 'another victim of the so-called War on Terror'. The cull is part of a £25million 'streetscape' scheme agreed six months before the recent attempted bomb attacks on Central London. But a council spokesman has admitted that national security was one of the reasons for it.

Pope Benedict XVI urged Shimon Peres to advance peace between Israel and the Palestinians in his new capacity as the President of the Jewish State. Peres will be sworn in as president at a special ceremony at the Knesset on Sunday evening.

"On the eve of your appointment as the President of the State of Israel I would like to express my deepest wishes and congratulate you for you appointment to the highest ranking position in your country," the Pope wrote in a letter sent to Peres. "Many people around the world, as well as Israel's citizens expect you to push the government and other relevant bodies to do everything to advance peace," the Pope added

"Mr. President," the Pope added, "Your reputation and achievements are exceptional, clear and absolute in the field of peace and the pursuit of justice. I am sure you will continue to influence and incite courage in other leaders to deal with the challenges of the future in the clear hope to advance the good of peace."

"This will be the best way to defeat the deadly terror and violence that are condemned by the whole world. The terrorists are betraying humanity," he said. Israel's Ambassador to Italy Oded Ben-Horin said the Pope's letter was personal, warm and unusual. Peres was congratulated by a string of world leaders that included the presidents of Egypt, Jordan, Russia and China.

WASHINGTON - The American State Department has issued a warning Saturday to citizens and residents of the US living in Israel. The warning was released after information was received that suicide bombings were planned against American institutes, restaurants and businesses in Israel that are connected to the US, especially in Jerusalem.

The warning refers to the "general state of security in Israel, Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and to the repeated threats against American citizens and sites." The State Department added that "the Israeli authorities are concerned by the continued threat of suicide attacks," and that "the US government has received information that American interests might be targeted for terrorist attacks."

Americans were cautioned to leave the Gaza Strip immediately and to refrain from entering the West Bank. They are asked to be attentive in the vicinity of American buildings such as the embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate in Jerusalem.

American tourists are requested to "remain alert and watchful, and exercise discretion in restaurants, coffee shops, malls, work places and theaters." The Old City of Jerusalem is off limits for American diplomats and their family members at night and during Friday prayers.

The report followed two claims by the US army over the weekend implicating Iran in attacks against US forces in Iraq. According to an announcement on Saturday night, US troops in Iraq uncovered a field containing 50 Iranian-made rocket launchers, all aimed at a US army base.

The discovery came after the US claimed that an explosively formed penetrator - a high-tech device that the US military believes is smuggled from Iran - was used against US forces in the Baghdad area earlier Saturday. The penetrator was one of several bombs used in an attack that killed two American soldiers in the Iraqi capital. The Iranians denied the charge.

Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shrugged off US doubts of his government's military and political progress, saying Iraqi forces are capable and American troops can leave "any time they want." One of his top aides, meanwhile, accused the United States of embarrassing the Iraqi government by violating human rights and treating his country like an "experiment in an American laboratory."

A BOMB threat against supermarket giant Tesco closed 14 stores yesterday, three of them in Scotland. Last night, Tesco sources ruled out extremism of any kind, making it more likely the incident was an attempt at extortion against the UK's biggest supermarket chain.

Police closed the shops across the UK on Saturday afternoon but they reopened for normal trading on Sunday. Hertfordshire Police, which is leading the investigation, said each store had been searched and given the all-clear. "There is still no reason to believe that the incidents are linked to extremism of any kind," the constabulary added.

The supermarket giant is understood to have lost millions of pounds in sales as the 14 stores were forced to shut. Hertfordshire Police said the stores were closed on Saturday as a precaution and no-one had been hurt. Tesco is continuing to work closely with police, it added.

The deal, said to be for $660m (£324m), has yet to be approved by a judge. It would be the biggest compensation payment the Church has made since the sexual abuse scandal erupted in 2002. It would take the total paid out by the Church in the US to $2bn since 1950, with the LA diocese paying about one quarter of that.

The settlement figures have not yet been officially announced. The diocese is expected to sell property to raise the compensation funds. Ray Boucher, lead plaintiff lawyer in the case, said the settlement also called for the release of confidential priest personnel files. "Transparency is a critical part of this and of all resolutions," he said.

Since 2002 nearly 1,000 people have filed such claims against the Roman Catholic Church in California alone.

In February 2004, a report commissioned by the Church said more than 4,000 Roman Catholic priests in the US had faced sexual abuse allegations in the last 50 years.

The Pope sent that message to the participants in the first meeting of Christian Movements and Communities, held Saturday in Stuttgart with the theme "Together Pro-Europe." Archbishop Stanislaw Rylko, president of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, read the message to the participants. The meeting gathered 10,000 Catholics, evangelicals, Orthodox and Anglicans, and was linked to 158 European cities by satellite. The event in part celebrated the entry of 10 new countries into the European Union.

THE [PONTIFF] BEGAN HIS MESSAGE BY SAYING THAT THE STEPS THAT ARE BEING TAKEN IN THE PROCESS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION ARE DUE TO THE COMMITMENT OF THE "FATHERS" OF EUROPE, the great majority of whom were Christians, who understood the need for reconciliation in the Old World in the wake of World War II.

However, the Pope added that the Christian faith is not something that forms part of the European past. "It also represents the present and the future of Europe," he said."In the commitment to bring about a more humane society, open to others and solidaristic in love, we must not cease to open our hearts to the Gospel," the Pope exhorted the movements and communities.

"Ecumenical dialogue contributes decisively to develop a European identity based on the Christian faith," he said. To this end, "thanks to a careful and respectful dialogue, the movements offer an important contribution to consolidate among Christians the Lord's commandment of love."

The papal message concluded: "The new evangelization gives a soul to Europe and helps the Continent not to continue living for itself, enclosed in its borders, but to build a more humane society that respects life, and to have a generous presence on the world scene."

So much so that scientists talk about the "Anthropocene" - the destructive Era Of Man. Our gases are polluting the atmosphere and warming the skies. Our chemicals taint the seas and the rivers; our farms and cities gobble up the landscape, pushing flora and fauna aside like sand before a bulldozer. Our green-and-blue world is still beautiful, but it is far from pristine.

In fact, the first things to happen after the disappearance of humanity would be very dramatic - and destructive. Within a week, the emergency fuel supply to the diesel generators that circulate cooling water around the world's 441 operating nuclear reactors would run out. After that, one by one, the reactors would overheat, burn, melt and in some cases explode. Several hundred Chernobyl disasters would play out, simultaneously, across the deserted world. Huge quantities of radioactive material would be released into the air, rivers and oceans.

But much to everyone's surprise, the flora and fauna around the Chernobyl disaster site has thrived. The ecologist James Lovelock, a pro-nuclear Green, argues that wildlife, by and large, does not notice radiation.
Certainly, from then on, planet Earth would probably give a sigh of relief at our passing, as a spectacular environmental recovery would begin to take place. Quickly, the oceans would cleanse themselves; similarly the air, the streams and the rivers. In a remarkably short time, Mother Nature would reassert herself over her old dominions.

In the new, human-free world, a few species would do badly - the rats, cockroaches and starlings that cling to our coat-tails would suffer. So would cows, sheep and other farm animals. The human head-louse would become extinct within a year, and HIV would vanish. In Africa, an orgy of feasting would take place as an exploding lion and leopard population guzzled its way through the continent's millions of cattle, no longer protected by the herdsmen's spears and guns.

Britain's farmlands would see the rapid growth of fescues and lupins, tangled swathes of grass and wild mustard. Within years, oak shoots would sprout from the former fields of wheat, barley and rye. After a couple of centuries, Britain would revert to a pre-medieval knot of forest and undergrowth, its ancient patchwork of fields and hedgerows gone for ever.

The big cities would crumble with remarkable ease. London or New York, like all large towns near the sea, would start to rot from their foundations up, as underground tunnels and conduits that carried trains and cables, roadways and sewage, started to fill up with water within days. The pumps that keep them dry would have simply ceased to operate. Within a few weeks, grass shoots would begin to shatter every road surface in the world.

Within 15 years, the M1 would look like one of those roads built in Africa in the 1960s and never since maintained. Within a decade, the combined onslaught of weeds, waterlogging from blocked drains and the freeze-thaw action of water seeping into cracks would combine to turn the foundations of the urban world to rubble.

Many buildings would start to fall apart within 20 years. Walls would groan and creak, roof tiles lift, joints between walls and roofs separate. Without central heating, with gutters permanently clogged and no maintenance, most of Britain's homes would be in ruins by 2040. America's cities, with their generally harsher climates, would fall apart even sooner.

"Don't be fooled," says David Olsen, an American materials scientist, "by massive steel buildings, steamrollers, tanks, railway tracks - without maintenance and painting - the steel fabric of our civilisation would soon crumble."

We live in the steel age, but we might also be said to live in the plastic age. Depressingly, it may be the plastic bag that proves to be one of mankind's most persistent legacies. Come back in ten thousand years, and most of them will still be there.

From the new book - "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman, of Arizona University