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| KOKO |
Posted
on 22-Aug-01 02:42 PM
The Nepalese Government has announced it is to release senior Maoist rebel leader, Iswori Prasad Dahal.
The move is being widely seen as another attempt to gain the confidence of rebels ahead of peace talks.
Sher Bahadur Deuba wants to end the conflict
Mr Dahal will be released along with another rebel activist.
He is the most senior rebel to be freed by the government since the two sides agreed to a dialogue last month.
The announcement came as the proposed deadline for the peace talks drew closer.
Last week, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba formally invited the rebels for talks within 10 days, but no dates have been announced.
He has named senior cabinet minister Chiranjibi Wagle as the chief government negotiator.
The rebels have also named a three-member team, led by senior leader Krishna Bahadur Mahara.
Rebel goals
Widescale land reform
Break close ties to India
No more foreign aid
No role for the royal family
This would be the first time the two sides have held talks since the Maoist insurgency began almost six years ago.
Mr Dahal was arrested last year on charges of possessing illegal weapons.
Thirty-three rebels have so far been freed from government jails since the peace initiative was launched.
The rebels have also freed dozens of kidnapped policemen.
The peace move gathered momentum after Mr Deuba became prime minister for the second time in six years.
He is said to be giving priority to the Maoist problem, which began during his earlier term.
About 1,800 people have died since the rebels began their campaign to replace constitutional monarchy with a communist republic.
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| KOKO |
Posted
on 22-Aug-01 02:44 PM
Nepal communists oppose republic plan
Nepal's largest communist party has re-iterated its objection to a plan to replace the monarchy with a republic.
The United Marxist-Leninists - the country's main opposition party - said the abolition of the constitutional monarchy advocated by Maoist guerrillas would harm both Nepal's independence and the communist movement.
The party's rejection of the Maoists' demand is a setback to the rebels, who have been trying to forge a united left front ahead of proposed peace talks with the government.
The rebels are insisting on an interim government and a new constitution, as well as the monarchy's abolition.
No date for the proposed peace dialogue has yet been set.
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| YOKOHAMA |
Posted
on 22-Aug-01 02:56 PM
Physicists make 'strange' matter
Strange matter may exist in neutron stars
By BBC News Online's Helen Briggs
International scientists have made a batch of "strange" particles, in experiments that could further our understanding of the Universe.
This is the first experiment to produce large numbers of these doubly strange nuclei
Adam Usek, Brookhaven
Physicists created atomic nuclei containing two strange quarks at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in the United States.
Since the 1960s, only a handful of such particles have been detected and then only in small quantities.
"This is the first experiment to produce large numbers of these doubly strange nuclei," said Brookhaven physicist Adam Rusek. "That's enough events to begin a study using statistical techniques."
Atom smasher
The experiment took place within a particle accelerator, where atoms were smashed into their constituent particles, the building blocks of matter.
The collisions produced a "significant number" of nuclei containing two strange quarks.
What is the world made of?
Physicists have identified 12 building blocks that are the fundamental constituents of matter
Our everyday world is made of just three of these building blocks: the up quark, the down quark and the electron
Strange matter is composed of up, down, and strange quarks
Out of 100 million collisions, the team found 30-40 examples of the doubly-strange object.
The 50 physicists - from the US, Canada, Japan, Korea, Russia and Germany - hope to make further studies of the particles. They aim to explore the forces between nuclear particles, particularly within "strange matter".
The research may also contribute to a better understanding of collapsed stars called neutron stars, which could contain large numbers of strange quarks.
Dr Christine Sutton of Oxford University, a spokesperson for the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, said: "We know that the physical Universe has more to it than makes the ordinary matter of the world around us.
"This gives us a window into how this more peculiar matter might operate within more exotic locations of the Universe such as in neutron stars," she told BBC News Online.
Strange world
Quarks are elementary particles - pieces of matter that cannot be divided into anything smaller.
The protons and neutrons of normal matter in the everyday world are made of two types of quark - called up and down.
Strange matter, however, is composed of up, down, and strange quarks.
Some theorists have suggested that strange matter may have been formed in the early Universe, and that remnants of this matter may still exist.
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| zdnet |
Posted
on 22-Aug-01 03:17 PM
Intel, one of the first mainstream companies to endorse the Linux operating system, will release programming tools Thursday to make Linux programs run better on its chips.
The chipmaker plans to announce compilers that translate Linux programs written in C++ or Fortran languages into commands an Intel Pentium 4 or Itanium chip can understand, the company said in a statement.
Compilers are key to making sure programs can take advantage of a chip's new features, such as those that distinguish the Pentium 4 from its predecessors, but the design of the Itanium family relies even more heavily than most chips on the performance of the compiler.
The compilers will include several features already incorporated in Intel's compilers for Windows computers, including support for the OpenMP standard for multiprocessor computers, the chipmaker said.
Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel has been a backer of Linux, a clone of Unix that's grown popular for use in servers--chiefly those based on Intel chips. Releasing compilers helps write programs that show off Intel's chips to their greatest advantage.
However, the standard compiler most Linux programmers use is GCC, recently upgraded to version 3.0. Scientific programmers, the chief users of the Fortran language and people who often write their own software, are often interested in squeezing every bit of performance possible out of a chip.
Each Linux compiler is expected to be released in September as a $399 download or $499 CD on sale at Intel's software site.
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