He tells me the policy is clear. "We ask from the beginning and we say once again one to enforce the Sharia law and Islamic government in Afghanistan, and to remove foreign forces remove from our country."

He tells me presidential elections expected this year are a sham, that the Taliban are telling Afghans to stay away and he warns: "We will target the Afghan parliamentary members and government officials so if there is elections, yes it is clear we will target them."

I was told, was to tell their fighters to avoid civilian casualties.

When I asked Mujahid he told me that policy hadn't changed. In their newly announced battle plans to target Afghan officials as well as U.S. and NATO troops he told me "we ask of the civilians don't be close to the troops; be away from them; not to be targeted."

I ask what are the conditions for going into talks? "Our conditions are clear, we want to negotiate and they [the U.S.] will not interfere in our affairs, secondly they [the U.S.] will leave the country, third let the Afghan people to do what they want to do, like form the Islamic government they want to establish."

The man in front of me is Zabiullah Mujahid -- one of two spokesmen for the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

He is around 30, maybe a little younger, bearded, but not heavily so. He is slight but not weak and close to my height -- a little over six foot -- and meeting him is a big deal.

The man in front of me is Zabiullah Mujahid -- one of two spokesmen for the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

He is around 30, maybe a little younger, bearded, but not heavily so. He is slight but not weak and close to my height -- a little over six foot -- and meeting him is a big deal.

The man in front of me is Zabiullah Mujahid -- one of two spokesmen for the Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

He is around 30, maybe a little younger, bearded, but not heavily so. He is slight but not weak and close to my height -- a little over six foot -- and meeting him is a big deal.

A television company has joined forces with a social networking site to send a message to the nearest theoretically inhabitable planet. But can our television and radio broadcasts already be picked up in space?

There is no widely accepted evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

A television company has joined forces with a social networking site to send a message to the nearest theoretically inhabitable planet. But can our television and radio broadcasts already be picked up in space?

There is no widely accepted evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

A television company has joined forces with a social networking site to send a message to the nearest theoretically inhabitable planet. But can our television and radio broadcasts already be picked up in space?

There is no widely accepted evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

A television company has joined forces with a social networking site to send a message to the nearest theoretically inhabitable planet. But can our television and radio broadcasts already be picked up in space?

There is no widely accepted evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

Thanksgiving Has Hindu Roots?

Barack Obama yesterday renewed his promise to make a decisive break with George Bush on the environment, using a summit convened by Arnold Schwarzenegger to promise a "new chapter in America's leadership on climate change".

The glaciers in the Himalayas are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, a large number of them may disappear by 2035 because of climate change, warn Indian and foreign environmentalists and geologists.

The Himalayas have the largest concentration of glaciers outside the polar caps. That is why, they are called the “Water Towers of Asia.”�

"This blood test can act as a tie-breaker in making treatment decisions," he said. "It would be particularly beneficial for patients that are at intermediate risk for coronary artery events, for somebody with risk factors but not enough to absolutely need medication."

Like other physicians, Steimle said that he has used the CRP test for a handful of years. The test costs about $20.

Kumar said that India needs to continuously improve its climate change forecast models, given there are unaddressed uncertainties and biases in existing models.

These include uncertainties about projected greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations, as well as the influence of haze or smog over northern India during winter — a factor which has not yet been considered.

Scientists have discovered what they believe is an eight-armed creature, which colonised a large section of the world's oceans over 300 million years before the first dinosaurs emerged.

The findings represent the first comparable animal fossils from the Ediacaran Period, 635 to 541 million years ago, which appear in two drastically different preservation environments - black shale of South China and quartz rock of South Australia.

"According to palaeogeographic reconstructions, South China and South Australia were close to each other at the time, belonging to a supercontinent called Gondwana," says lead author Dr Maoyan Zhu.

Zhu, a scientist at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, first helped to make the China-Australia connection two years ago during a Beijing conference. He showed a photo of the unusual eight-armed creature, called Eoandromeda octobrachiata, to co-author Dr James Gehling of the South Australia Museum.

"He was so surprised and immediately opened his laptop and showed me images of new fossils uncovered from a new locality at the Flinders Ranges of South Australia," says Zhu. "We wondered if these were the same fossils."

Zhu, Gehling and their colleagues collected eight compressions of the animals from the Doushantuo Formation at Wenghui, China.

They then traveled to Flinders Ranges, Australia, and collected seven specimens, leaving 31 others on two excavated and reassembled beds.

The findings are published in the November issue of Geology.

"Many other countries are watching what the EU is doing...It should take these matters much more seriously than in the past," Grandjean said. Many pesticides used in the EU are also used in other nations.

Pesticides used on food crops in the EU exceed 140,000 tonnes a year, corresponding to 280 grams (10 ounces) per EU citizen, the study said.

More than 25 percent of fruits, vegetables, and cereals contain detectable residues of at least two pesticides.

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