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JAPAN'S Princess Kiko gave birth today to a baby boy – the first male heir to be born into the ancient imperial family in more than four decades, Japanese media reported. Princess Kiko, 39, the wife of the emperor's younger son, Prince Akishino, gave birth by Caesarean section after complications in her pregnancy, public broadcaster NHK said. The child will be third in line to the throne after crown prince Naruhito, the baby's uncle, and his father, Akishino. The birth is likely to stall debate on revising the 1947 imperial succession law to allow women to inherit the Japanese throne....

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Princess Kiko gave birth on Wednesday to a baby boy -- the first male heir to be born into the ancient imperial family in more than four decades. The birth of a boy, who will be third in line after his uncle and his father, will likely dampen debate on letting women inherit the throne -- an idea opposed by conservatives eager to preserve a tradition they say stretches back more than 2,000 years. An Imperial Household Agency official told reporters Kiko had given birth by a Caesarean operation to the 2,558 gram (5 lb 10...

Two of our gutsy members stood the line against the moonbataloonies today at the corner of Massachusetts Ave and Observatory Circle.We were running very very late, and after a few wrong turns and a missed pickup at Catholic University, we parked and got our signs out.My "Thank God for George Bush" sign brought a few hoorahs, and attaboys from some youngsters walking on the other side of the street, but that was short-lived.When we arrived at the corner, I announced that "Protest Warrior is in the house" and called out Princess, who was hiding behind a tree with his desecrated...

'Warrior princess' to White House? By Jonathan Beale BBC News, Washington It has been an amazing transformation. In the first Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice was known as the "warrior princess". From "warrior princess" to smiling face of US diplomacy As national security adviser, she was seen as a leading hawk and architect of the Iraq war. But Ms Rice has now become the smiling face of American diplomacy. She is the stylish pin-up of the Republican Party and the poster child of African-American success. Opinion polls suggest a majority of Americans think that she is doing a good job as...

(AP) Spain's Crown Princess Letizia gave birth Monday to her first child, a girl who becomes second in line to the throne after her father Crown Prince Felipe. With Felipe by his wife's side, Leonor was delivered through a Caesarean section at Madrid's Ruber International Clinic, three weeks before the scheduled due date. Both mother and child were doing fine, said a visibly moved and happy Felipe accompanied by the team of doctors who assisted in the birth. "This is the most beautiful thing that can happen in someone's life," Felipe told reporters. "Both Princess Letizia and myself are absolutely...

Finally, we have a solution to the threat of Islamic Jihad. Just shy of a year after the Jihadist murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and only weeks past the four-year anniversary of 9/11, that fateful day when the world discovered such a war even existed, Holland’s Princess Irene, sister to Queen Beatrix, offers up a strategy for world peace: “Let’s talk.”

SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA (FOX Carolina News) - A Campobello teen is accused of raping one neighbor's dog and another neighbor's two little girls. Now the dog has died and charges against the teen have been upgraded. After receiving word that the dog died possibly because of the rape. Fox Carolina called the Solicitor's office to see if now new charges would be filed against the teen. An hour later Solicitor Trey Gowdy called to say that the charges will be upgraded to the "most serious animal cruelty charges they have on the books." The dog's owner Sylvia Jones says, "At...

CAMILLA Parker Bowles will be given the title Princess of Wales when she marries Prince Charles on Friday, the government will announce tomorrow. The title will be confirmed in a parliamentary statement in response to a question from Andrew Mackinlay, a Labour MP. It is likely to anger supporters of the late Diana, Princess of Wales. The disclosure, four days before the wedding, is potentially more embarrassing for Parker Bowles than the earlier admission that she will one day become queen. The title remains closely linked in the public mind to Diana, especially among those who blame Parker Bowles for...

No Name Calling Week?     1/12/2005By Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D.Yes, name-calling is wrong. But this event’s sponsors reveal the agenda behind banning it. “There is a special place in hell for people like you!” These words were directed at me by a teacher during this past summer’s National Education Association (NEA) convention in Washington, D.C. This delegate to the NEA convention made his prediction in response to my presence at the NEA’s Ex-Gay Educators’ Caucus booth in the convention exhibit hall. His cheery salutation caught me off-guard given the message of tolerance and acceptance I had been hearing around the exhibit hall....

TOKYO -- Princess Sayako's engagement to a Tokyo city bureaucrat, a commoner, became official Thursday with an announcement by Japan's Imperial Household Agency. Japan had eagerly awaited word of the engagement between Sayako, 35, the only daughter of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, and Yoshiki Kuroda, 39. "Mr. Yoshiki Kuroda is a fine and appropriate person," Toshio Yuasa, grand steward of the Imperial Household, told reporters at the palace, a closely guarded area in Tokyo, surrounded by a swan-gliding moat. The wedding will probably occur in the latter half of next year, Yuasa said. The announcement was postponed after the...

Pretend princess An toinette Millard is showing some real gall: She's suing American Express for $2 million for allowing her to go on a nearly $1 million shopping spree she couldn't afford at some of the city's priciest stores. Millard's filing says she "was suffering from anorexia, depression, panic attacks, [and] head tumors," and the credit-card giant "knew or should have known that [she] was acting impulsively and irrationally." That argument hasn't moved American Express, which got a court order this week to freeze her assets.

MADISON, Wis. — Audrey Seiler (search), the University of Wisconsin-Madison (search) student who faked her abduction, was sentenced Thursday to three years probation after she pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts. Seiler read a statement during the hearing in which she attributed the ordeal to a severe state of depression that caused her to act irrationally.

'Burying the mummy will stop the earthquakes' April 01 2004 at 06:33AM Moscow - Residents of Russia's Altai region say that a 25-century-old mummy that was dug up 11 years ago is causing earthquakes in their corner of Siberia and have demanded that it be reburied. "We must calm people down and bury the Altai Princess," which is being studied by researchers at an institute 600km away, said Aulkhan Jatkambayev, the administration chief in the area where the mummy was discovered. "We are having tremors two or three times a week, sometimes measuring up to four (on the Richter scale)....

Our own Amazon princess December 10, 2003 Back when Indonesia was part of Australia, a young woman left treasure in a cave. Deborah Smith reports. SHE was tall and strong and in her late 20s when she died about 18,000 years ago. Her teeth were not worn down, so she had probably enjoyed a diet of wallaby and other animals rather than chewing on tough plants. And from the unusual holes in some of her bones, it is possible that cancerous growths contributed to her early demise. Named after the limestone cave where she was found, Lemdubu Woman and her...

British victims of the September 11 attacks were being remembered on the second anniversary of the terrorist atrocity. Families of the 67 Britons who died when two hijacked passenger planes slammed into the twin towers of New York's World Trade Centre were gathering at a garden dedicated to their memory. More than 750 relatives and guests were visiting the site in London's Grosvenor Square, which is overlooked by the United States Embassy and which was the focus of grief in the aftermath of the tragedy. The Princess Royal was officially opening the garden of remembrance which contains a small pavilion...

DI INQUEST TO GO AHEAD  Aug 29 2003   EXCLUSIVE   By Justine Smith The Mirror  http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13345429_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-DI%2DINQUEST%2DTO%2DGO%2DAHEAD-name_page.htmlAN inquest into the tragic car crash that killed Princess Diana is finally to be held in Britain, six years after she died. Surrey coroner Michael Burgess will announce the date in the next few days. The £1million inquest - into the death of Diana's lover Dodi Fayed - may at last give answers to how and why the princess died in the 1997 Paris car crash. __________ THE date for an inquest in Britain which could finally solve the mystery of the car...

Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, in full camouflage gear, demonstrates her combat and first aid skills to the media as part of a three-week military training course in Almnas, Sweden, to prepare her for international peacekeeping missions, March 18, 2003. The 25-year-old princess, the oldest of the three children of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia, practiced combat skills, marksmanship, first aid and chemical warfare safety with 41 other men and women at the Swedish armed forces' peacekeeping training ground south of Stockholm. Enlisting for military service is obligatory for men in Sweden but only a third actually undergo...

James Hewitt has put intimate love letters from Princess Diana up for sale at £10 million ($A27.9 million) during an interview on American television. The 44-year-old former Life Guards major, who had a five-year affair with the Princess, once proclaimed he would "never dream" of parting with them. The 64 letters contain personal details of their affair. Many were sent to him as he served with the army during the 1991 Gulf War. Mr Hewitt told a US chat show on Thursday: "Yes, I would be available to sell them." He made it clear he hoped to raise up to...

She is 18-year-old Liesel Pritzker, heir to the Hyatt hotel chain. She is young, beautiful, and ostensibly, wealthy. She co-stars in movies with Harrison Ford (Air Force One) and played -- prophetically, as it turns out -- the title role in the 1995 Warner Brothers film, A Little Princess, in which her character takes on the British government in a fight over -- what else? -- her father's money. According to a civil lawsuit filed by the young heiress, life indeed imitates art. In the suit, Pritzker claims that her father, 76-year-old business exec Robert Pritzker, sold off assets belonging...

Britain's Princess Diana was at one stage prepared to convert to Islam, according to the mother of the Pakistani surgeon she was supposed to be in love with. Nahid Khan, Lahore-based mother of heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, is quoted in the British media as saying, "Everyone knew she wanted to marry him, but he felt it would be impossible. He said 'we would not be able to go anywhere together. Our cultures are so different'. Perhaps this is why she wanted to become a Muslim. She said she had made a decision that would shock the world." Diana's relationship with...