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West End theatre staff have long had to deal with the bizarre demands of stars, from extra security to chauffeur-driven limousines. But nobody - until now - had requested a new penis.The demand involves a scene in Charlotte Jones's acclaimed play Humble Boy, now showing at the Gielgud Theatre. A coarse, small-time businessman called George Pye returns drunk from a night out.He wanders into the garden and proceeds to urinate - front of stage - over his neighbour's funeral urn.It is a technically tricky two minutes of drama. But Dennis Quilley performed it each night for four months using...

THE government has approved the importation of genetically-modified maize as part of efforts to feed starving Zimbabweans, the Zimbabwe Independent established this week. World Food Programme (WFP) public affairs officer in Zimbabwe, Makena Walker, this week confirmed government had agreed to allow GM maize into the country. "The government of Zimbabwe has agreed to take GM maize so long as it is milled immediately upon arrival in the country," Walker said. The Independent understands the Bio-Safety Board in the Office of the President and Cabinet recently wrote to the WFP, which is co-ordinating relief efforts in the country, stating government...

<p>LEXANDRIA, Va. - A Saudi Arabian man with Massachusetts ties was ordered held without bail here yesterday, after a search of his home allegedly found materials referring to terrorist attacks. He is accused of scheming to fake English-language proficiency tests for foreign student-visa holders to enable them to remain in the United States.</p>

<p>The possibility of at least a partial state shutdown will loom large today over the state legislature, which has until midnight tomorrow to approve a state budget. Little progress was made yesterday. The Senate yesterday broke a self-imposed deadline to pass new taxes, delaying votes on two tax proposals, one of them an income tax. A Senate vote was taken on House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh's income tax plan — but in a way that income tax advocates denounced as an insincere ploy. They urged senators to vote against the measure, which had been attached as an amendment to another bill, saying they would bring up the tax bill later for discussion. Not a single senator voted for it in the way it was presented.</p>

VIENNA (Reuters) - An Austrian farmer's faithful dog saved his life by running for help after a hay-making machine sliced up the 62-year-old's left foot, police said on Friday. The farmer was working alone on Thursday except for Tschibsi, his one-year-old Alsatian mixed breed, and could have bled to death without help, police in Upper Austria province said. Tschibsi ran two km (more than a mile) after the farmer's wife as she bicycled into town and barked and whined until she came back. The wife called for a medical helicopter that took her husband to a hospital, where he was...

[Excerpt] U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson corroborates the theory that tighter border enforcement is responsible. Cocaine purity fell 9 percent last year in the United States, reflecting tight supply, Hutchinson said in an interview. U.S. coke dealers are ''diluting it to make it go further,'' he said. At a group therapy session for parents of drug addicts outside Mexico City, Pedro Bernal Garcia rues the consequences. The working class father says he thought Mexico was only a transit country for Colombian cocaine bound for the United States. ''We are just so sad because we don't want to accept...

THE government, in a bid to whitewash its appalling human rights record, did not invite the independent media to speak to the African Commission and People’s Rights delegation, in the country this week to probe allegations of human rights abuses. On Wednesday, government apologists William Chikoto of The Sunday Mail, Pikirayi Deketeke of The Herald and Tafataona Mahoso from the Harare Polytechnic’s mass communications school, lined up to praise the government before the commission at the Harare International Conference Centre. No one from the independent media was invited by the government secretariat, resulting in Andy Moyse of the Media Monitoring...

HONOLULU, Jun 29, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A state representative was charged with filing false income tax returns and failing to report his interest in two foreign bank accounts. A federal grand jury indictment announced Thursday stems from work that state Rep. Nathan Suzuki, a certified public accountant, did for businessman Michael Boulware. Boulware was convicted in November of defrauding millions of dollars from the state and the Internal Revenue Service, and sentenced to four years and three months in prison and fined $25,000. Suzuki, a Democrat, refused to testify at Boulware's trial on grounds of self-incrimination....

Harare - An African commission on human rights on Friday wrapped up a six-day fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe, where it was investigating widespread allegations of rights abuses. Jainaba Johm, who headed the delegation from the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, said the team had accumulated 20kg of documents, interviewed victims of political violence, and met with officials from government, police, the opposition, pro-democracy groups and local rights bodies. "As for what our conclusions will be at the end of the day, that is for our report," she told a press conference. Her team's report will be released at...

VIENNA (Reuters) - A cow toppled off its lofty Alpine pasture and crashed onto the hood of an Austrian couple's car in the picturesque province of Salzburg, police said Thursday. The cow did not survive Wednesday's fall off the so-called gallery -- an open-sided roof over roads to protect people from avalanches. The car was a write-off. The driver's wife was hurt and taken to a hospital, the Salzburg police added.

<p>BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Chanting "Freedom for Slobodan," 4,000 supporters of Slobodan Milosevic demonstrated Friday at a Belgrade square to mark the anniversary of the former president's extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.</p> <p>Milosevic was extradited June 28, 2001, to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, where he is on trial for charges of war crimes and genocide committed during the 1990s Balkan wars.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) - Complaining of parasitical behavior, some of the nation's largest news publishers are suing Internet advertising company Gator Corp. over software that triggers pop-up ads when surfers visit their Web sites. ``We make all the investment to gather and collect news and set up an attractive Web site,'' Terence Ross, an attorney for the publishers, said Friday. ``Gator, without making any equivalent investment, reaps the profits.'' The lawsuit was filed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., by a group that includes parent companies of The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal...

We arrive in the Mile High City of Denver,Colorado Taking the train, can you imagine all of us together on this wonderful train through the mountains and pass. All the beautiful flowers we see along the way. Taking in the sports of your choice if you like. Wonderful animals you might see if you are luky Bridal Veil Falls See the fish clearly in the Lake We travel on to Breckenridge,Colorado Breckenridge is a major international ski resort, set high (9600 feet above sea level) in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado 4th of July parade down Main Street Small...

<p>June 29, 2002 -- The vast disastrous fires roaring across the Southwest are not simple acts of God. Nor can the scale of the destruction be blamed on careless campers.</p> <p>Fires, in nature, make for healthy forests. But these blazes are mostly the result of bad forest management - exacerbated by environmentalist foolishness.</p>

<p>June 29, 2002 -- As Xerox's books were being cooked by the brass, its chairman Anne Mulcahy was getting served up a new bonus package of $10.1 million.</p> <p>Mulcahy, 49, the corporate world's first woman to break the glass ceiling, is the central figure in the newest profit-rigging scandal to hit Wall Street - this one right under the noses of federal investigators.</p>

HEBRON, West Bank, June 29 (AFP) - Israeli troops were searching Saturday for the bodies of 15 Palestinian militants reportedly killed when the army blew up a Palestinian administrative building in Hebron overnight. The massive three storey building, which housed administrative and security offices and had been under siege since Tuesday, was reduced to rubble by two huge explosions. Israeli military radio said 15 Palestinian militants bunkered in the building were "killed" in the operation, while army officers later said a search for the bodies was still on. The 15 were wanted men from the Hebron region who belonged...

Iraq conflict probable: Hill DEFENCE Minister Robert Hill believes there is going to be military conflict between the US and Iraq. Although he stops just short of saying so explicitly, that is the inescapable consequence of remarks he made in an interview this week. This is a development of first-order importance for Australia, which, although no formal decision will be made until a request is received from Washington, is overwhelmingly likely to participate. Since taking up Defence after the election, Hill has developed, much like his US counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, a welcome penchant for plain speaking. I asked him point-blank...

TUNCELI, Turkey, June 29 (Reuters) - A restaurant bombing in Kurdish-run northern Iraq wounded 20 people, two seriously, a northern Iraqi Kurdish official said on Saturday. No one was killed when the blast damaged the restaurant on Wednesday in Arbil, a city controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party, a KDP official told a news conference in the Turkish town of Tunceli. He said it was not clear who planted the bomb in the city about 90 km (60 miles) northwest of Kirkuk. But KDP sources in Arbil said police were investigating members of Jund al-Islam, a militant Islamic group...

Investors who lost money in the corporate scandals sweeping the nation shouldn't look to Mayor Bloomberg for sympathy."People who were buying stocks in the stock market at multiples that never made any sense should look at themselves in the mirror," the mayor said."They're as responsible, I think, as those that actually committed the crimes of misstating earnings and fudging the numbers," he said.The remark, made on Bloomberg's weekly WABC-AM radio show, drew heated criticism from the other side of City Hall.'Knee-Jerk' Reaction"That's just like equating a woman who dresses in ways that some might feel is provocative as being...

Muslim teen refused new passport The Federal Government has defended the cancellation or refusal of passports to Australians of Middle Eastern background, based on adverse security assessments by the country's domestic intelligence organisation. But the NSW Council for Civil Liberties said the Federal Government's refusal to let these citizens travel, and other cases involving people of Middle Eastern extraction, revealed a pattern of victimisation by ASIO. ASIO is responsible for writing reports on individual passport application cases where security issues are involved, which are then referred to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, for a decision on whether to...