A five-strong Swiss crew have sailed into history by completing the first solar-powered transatlantic crossing.

The Sun21 catamaran arrived in Miami late on Thursday, 117 days after leaving Seville in southern Spain.

The crew of four academics and one full-time sailor said they were trying to promote the “great potential” of solar power to combat climate change.

A similar-sized boat would have used about 72 litres of diesel every 24 hours on the same voyage.

After reaching Miami, crew member Dr Martin Vosseler told the BBC it was a thrilling experience.

“The crossing itself, from Las Palmas to Martinique - 29 days of not seeing any land - that was fantastic. We had very much luck - no storms.

“This trip is like a galaxy and the stars - all these encounters with very welcoming, hospitable people and all the natural miracles we encountered. So I feel very well.”

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CHIANG MAI, Thailand: A Swiss man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Thursday for spray-painting graffiti over images of Thailand’s revered king, the first conviction of a foreigner in at least a decade under strict Thai laws protecting the monarchy.

Oliver Rudolf Jufer, 57, who had pleaded guilty to five counts of lese majeste, or insulting the monarchy, had faced a maximum sentence of 75 years in prison. Shackled at the ankles and dressed in an orange prison uniform, Jufer was expressionless as the verdict was read and made no comment to reporters as he was ushered from the courtroom into a prison van.

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BRASILIA, Brazil: Black university students were attacked in their dorms on the very day the Brazil’s vice president denied racial problems exist in the country, feeding a debate about Brazil’s treasured self-image as a land of racial equality.

Assailants placed flaming gasoline-soaked towels against the doors of three dormitory rooms occupied by west African students at the University of Brasilia on Wednesday. While none of the 10 students from Guinea-Bissau were hurt, police are investigating whether it was a hate crime.

The university’s president condemned “all forms of aggression and discrimination,” and Foreign Minister Celso Amorim spoke out as well on Thursday, saying “The incident fills us with shame. I hope that this kind of absurd incident never repeats itself.”

Red crosses and the phrase: “Death to foreign students” were painted on the same three doors last month, said 26-year-old Samory de Souza, one of those targeted at the federally run university, where only 380 of 21,000 students are foreigners.

Brazil was already roiled by controversy over comments by the racial equality minister, Matilde Ribeiro, who said in a BBC interview, “It is not racism when a black person lashes out against a white person.”

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Experts have called for a halt in the spread of CCTV cameras.

Britain is now being watched by a staggering 4.2million - one for every 14 people and a fifth of the cameras in the entire world.

The Royal Academy of Engineering also warned that lives could be put at risk by the lurch towards a ‘big brother’ society in which the Government and even supermarkets hold huge amounts of personal information on us.

It said any system was vulnerable to abuse - including bribery of staff and computer hackers gaining access.

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The European Union will partially re-start accession talks with Turkey on Thursday, the first such talks since negotiations were largely frozen last year.

Turkey’s accession talks stalled over Cyprus last year

EU ambassadors agreed the move on Wednesday.

Last December, the EU suspended negotiations on eight out of 35 “chapters” or policy areas.

For the first time in months, Turkey’s bid to join the EU has taken a step forward, albeit a small one.

Negotiators from the two sides will hold talks in Brussels on enterprise and industry, one of more than 20 policy areas still open for discussion.

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The CB-radios are rumbling already- we have a ‘war’ on our hands.

Do you agree with the Bush-Kennedy Plan to “outsource” your job to a Mexican national driver ? Do you remember how the Congress stood up when the farmers circled the Capital with John Deere tractors, and tied-up the city big-time ?

President Bush and his ally, Sen. Teddy Kennedy have already set in motion a process to displace American truckers out of their jobs within 45 days- with their insidious Mexican trucker pilot program. Bush signed a Bill that allows thousands of substandard 18-wheeler long haul rigs from Mexico onto America’s Interstate and local highway system. Mexican drivers, who can’t read, speak or understand English- receive full access to America’s highways.

What are we thinking ?

Bush, Kennedy and friends place all American motorists at risk- Mexican drivers with average 6th grade educations gained in a Third World country, gross incompetence and habitually drunk Mexican drivers- as well as their un-inspected, unsafe trucks and trailers. Not only will American truckers lose their jobs, but American motorists become collateral damage in accidents guaranteed to occur-closing highways and tying up traffic in the process.

The Bush-Kennedy action mandates a new beginning- where American truckers’ jobs vanish with a new version of the familiar song, “Mexican drivers do the jobs that American truckers won’t do- for slave-wages.”

This “takeover” will happen in gradual stages. Talk About Depressing.

First, the independent haulers will see their loads undercut by Mexican drivers. Later, Mexican drivers will chip away at produce- and contract- haulers.

Given just a little time- Wal-Mart and CostCo (Swift) and Home Depot will hire Mexican drivers at half the wages of American truckers- with no fringe-benefits.

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[Israel should let them all in as this will boost their economy, creat jobs, lower crime etc-ed]

Thousands of Ethiopians who say their Jewish roots entitle them to live in Israel are stuck in a squalid camp in Ethiopia, their dream of a promised land fading as Israel scrutinizes their family ties.

Known as ‘Falashas Mura’, the descendants of Ethiopian Jews have reverted to Judaism since their late 18th and 19th century forebears converted to Christianity, sometimes under duress.

Tens of thousands of practising Ethiopian Jews or Falashas — which means “outsiders” in Ethiopia’s Amharic language — were airlifted to Israel in dramatic, top-secret operations in the 1980s and 1990s after a rabbinical ruling that they were direct descendants of the biblical Jewish Dan tribe.

By 1998, Israel said it had brought all of Ethiopia’s Jews home to the Jewish state but another rabbinical ruling that year complicated matters by also recognizing as Jews those Falashas Mura — converted outsiders — who reverted to Judaism.

That spawned a special law allowing Falashas Mura with immediate relatives in Israel to immigrate, stopping short of recognizing them under the “law of return” which gives Israeli citizenship to any Jew from anywhere in the world.

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SANTA ANA, Calif. — As a top engineer at a major U.S. defense contractor, Chi Mak helped develop some of the most advanced and closely guarded naval technology in the world, including silent-running propulsion systems that can make submarines virtually undetectable.

Now, in a case that experts say could have serious implications for U.S. security, he is accused of stealing those secrets for the Chinese.

Prosecutors say the Chinese-born Mak was working for China from 1983 until his arrest two years ago, stealing hundreds of documents about a number of defense systems, including the weapons, nuclear reactors and propulsion systems aboard U.S. submarines.

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The city council in Brooksville, Florida voted this week to advance a proposal granting city officials the authority to place liens and foreclose on the homes of motorists accused of failing to pay a single $5 parking ticket. Non-homeowners face having their vehicles seized if accused of not paying three parking offenses.

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BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s state-run Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp, the biggest buyer of Iranian crude worldwide, began paying for its oil in euros late last year as Tehran moves to diversify its foreign reserves away from U.S. dollars.

The Chinese firm, which buys more than a tenth of exports from the world’s fourth-largest crude producer, has changed the payment currency for the bulk of its roughly 240,000 barrels per day (bpd) contract, Beijing-based sources said.

Japanese refiners who buy about 500,000 bpd of Iranian crude, nearly a quarter of Iran’s 2.2 million-bpd shipments, continue to pay in dollars but are willing to shift to yen if asked, industry sources and officials said separately.

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