The UN General Assembly is being urged to hold an inquiry into the Lockerbie bombing, it has emerged.
Campaigners say they are optimistic the UN will put in place a commission to investigate the 1988 atrocity which resulted in the deaths of 270 people.
An appeal by Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi against his conviction for the bombing has been dropped, raising fears the whole truth of the case could be lost.
Hans Koechler, the UN observer at the original trial, backs the campaign.
Professor Robert Black, one of the original architects of the trial at Camp Zeist, is also supporting the campaign.
He said: “It’s about trying to get an inquiry of some description into Lockerbie.
“Now that al-Megrahi has been released, that method of trying to secure some truth through an appeal has vanished and this is about trying to look at other methods.”
Megrahi – who is the only person convicted over the bombing – is dying from cancer and was released from jail on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government last month.
He had been pursuing an appeal against conviction which campaigners hoped would have shed new light on the case, but he dropped this just before his release.
Prof Black said: “The original trial was set up through the UN and that’s the reason that many countries other than UK co-operated.
British scientists are planning to see whether a Star Trek-style deflector shield could be built to protect astronauts from radiation.
They argue that magnetic shields could be deployed around spacecraft and on the surfaces of planets to deflect harmful energetic particles.
Several countries’ space agencies have announced their intentions to resume human exploration of the Solar System.
Scientists hope to mimic the magnetic field which protects the Earth.
Details have been presented at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Preston, UK.
There are a variety of risks facing future space explorers, not least of which is the cancer-causing radiation from cosmic rays and solar flares that astronauts will encounter when they venture beyond the Earth’s protective magnetic envelope, or magnetosphere.
The Earth’s magnetosphere deflects many of the energetic particles from space; others are largely absorbed by the atmosphere.
Between 1968 and 1973, the Apollo astronauts were only in space for about 10 days at a time.
They were simply lucky not to have been in space during a major eruption on the Sun that would have flooded their spacecraft with deadly radiation.
Crew members on the International Space Station can retreat to a thick-walled room during times of increased solar radiation.
An independent inquiry into the Iraq war will be held in private, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told MPs.
Opposition parties – and many Labour MPs – have been calling for the probe since shortly after the 2003 invasion.
It will start next month and take at least a year, Mr Brown said. It will not aim to “apportion blame”, he added.
The Tories said it “should have started earlier” and have public hearings. The Lib Dems accused the PM of trying to “cover up the path” that led to war.
The inquiry will cover the period from July 2001 to July 2009 and be chaired by civil servant Sir John Chilcot, Mr Brown told MPs.
At one point, the dancing 65-year-old even gave tongue-in-cheek thanks to the ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo – for bringing the Sudanese together on the streets.
The roads were clogged far out from the centre with busloads of protesters travelling to the demonstration, singing in support of Mr Bashir as they went.
Not all support Mr Bashir. There is little love lost for the leader in those areas affected by the long years of fighting with Khartoum, such as Darfur, the east or the south.
But here in the heart of government loyalists, there was almost a party atmosphere.
A group of women chanted “Down with Ocampo”, while a column of school-children shouted, “Down, down America”.
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He quoted figures to the festival to show that Britain now had a “massive” alcohol abuse problem which dwarfed the issue of illegal drugs
It is recommended men drink no more than 21 units a week, and women no more than 14.
In contrast he said, only one in 200 people who had a serious drug problem.
He said the impact of alcohol abuse was keenly felt in the health service which now had to set aside considerable resources to deal with affected patients.
Professor Drummond surveyed 32 A&E departments in the UK.
He said: “Forty percent of those who go to A&E on a Saturday, over the 24-hour period, will be an alcohol-related attendance. After 10pm that goes up to 70%.”
Only students at universities which have had higher than average cases in the past will be offered vaccination.
“Unfortunately, this vaccine is not ideal,” said Julia Warren. “It is only effective against C-strain meningitis and about 60% of the cases are B-strain, and there is no vaccine for that.
In 1997 there were 2,660 reported cases of meningitis in the UK with 243 deaths – an all-time high.
Information packs containing the leaflets will be sent to the National Union of Student (NUS) offices at 800 universities and colleges of further education
Japanese authorities have hanged three men, bringing the number of executions in the country this year to nine.
For the first time, the names of the hanged men were made public.
Previously, authorities would not release any details about executed men, in order to reduce the psychological damage to their families.
Human rights groups have been critical of the secrecy surrounding executions in Japan, one of the few industrialised countries to retain the death penalty.
Mr Jobs did not dwell on the issue of his own health for very long. Minutes after the show kicked off, the Apple boss got down to business.
The chief executive showcased a new iPod Nano with a built-in video camera, FM tuner and voice recorder ranging from £115 to £135 in the UK and $149-$179 in the US.
Mr Jobs called the Nano “the most popular music player in the world”, with more than 100 million sold to date. The company revealed that as a whole, it has sold more than 220 million iPods and now commands 73.8% of the market, compared with Microsoft’s 1.1%.
Apple also lowered the prices of existing iPods and introduced a new 32GB and 64GB iPod Touch that it promised would run faster than previous models.
