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Next Wednesday, December 5, the 2007 Festival of Cabaret will begin in Zielona Góra. The event is to last 5 days, till Sunday, December 9. It is organised by Zielonogórskie Zagłębie Kabaretowe (English: Zielona Góra Basin of Cabarets). The programme The official opening of the Festival will take place at 17:00 (UTC) in the assembly hall of the University of Zielona Góra, 50 Podgórna Street, which is to be the main arena of the performances. Apart from the opening, the audience will see a show called Kabaret Teatr Absurdu "Żżżżż" (English: "Ż

A Spanish civil guard was killed today and another seriously wounded in the town of Capbreton, on the southwest coast of France, in a shootout with suspected members of the Basque separatist group ETA. The events occurred around 8:30 a.m. UTC, when the two plainclothes guards were entering in their car after leaving a coffee shop in the locality. They were then assaulted by two men who fired on them. Agent Raul Centeno Pallón died on the scene instantly, while Fernando Trapero Blázquez was injured seriously and is in a coma. The civil guard w

This Sunday Venezuelans will decide whether a series of constitutional reforms should be approved or not; among these reforms, one issue which has received widespread media attention is that the new constitution will allow presidents to be re-elected without term limits. The amendments—which will affect 69 of the 350 articles—have already been passed by the Venezuelan National Assembly (Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela). Now the referendum will take place on Sunday, being the last step required before the reform can come into effect. According

Five tourists including a child, have been killed in a car accident in Kruger National Park in South Africa. Four of the tourists were from Austria and one was from Germany. The driver survived the crash with minor injuries. On Thursday November 29, the tourists were traveling in a Mercedes-Benz 4x4, near a gate to the park when the driver "miscalculated" the turn onto a bridge crossing the Letaba river, causing the car to plunge over the edge, flip over and fall into the river below with the roof in the river's water. No names have been rele

An Amtrak train collided with a parked Norfolk Southern freight train in Chicago on Friday. 30 people were injured, five of them Amtrak personnel who were most seriously injured. Amtrak train 371, the Pere Marquette, started in Grand Rapids, Michigan and carried 193 people on board including six crew members. The train was in south Chicago heading towards its destination of Chicago Union Station when the crash occurred around 17:30 UTC. No injuries were reported among the crew of the Norfolk Southern freight train. Amtrak's locomotive, a GE Ge

__NOTOC__ Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher arrested in Sudan on Sunday for naming a teddy bear Muhammad, was charged on Wednesday, and tried, convicted, and sentenced yesterday to 15 days imprisonment for "insulting religion." The 54-year-old mother of two avoided a possible 40 lashes, but will be deported at the end of her sentence, which will run from the date of her arrest. Following the speedy trial, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband summoned Sudanese ambassador Omer Siddig to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to explain the

Christine Comer resigned this month as the director of the science curriculum for the Texas Education Agency's (TEA) director after more than nine years. Comer said her resignation was due to pressure from officials who claimed she had given the appearance of criticizing the teaching of intelligent design. According to documents obtained by the Austin American-Statesman, "Comer was put on 30 days paid administrative leave shortly after she forwarded an e-mail in late October announcing a presentation by Barbara Forrest, a critic of the intelli

Roughly 600 enraged Sudanese protesters, some armed with knives and sticks, converged on Khartoum's Martyrs' Square after Friday Prayers to demand the death of Gillian Gibbons, the British teacher jailed yesterday for allowing her class of 7-year-olds to name a teddy bear Mohammad, one of the most common names in the Arab world. A number of prominent Sudanese clerics ignored government instructions not to inflame the situation, although they stopped short of directly calling for her death. By the end of Friday Prayers passions were running hig

A man claiming to have had a bomb is reported by WMUR to have surrendered peacefully at the campaign office of Senator Hillary Clinton in the small New Hampshire city of Rochester. Three individuals, which includes a child, were taken hostage and were later released without injury. Earlier reports stated that there might have been a fourth hostage. The adults are said to be campaign employees. The hostage taker is being named by media as Leeland Eisenberg from Somersworth, N.H., a white male in his "40s with salt and pepper hair" and is known

Elly Beinhorn, a German pilot who was a long-distance-flying pioneer in her Klemm monoplane has died at the age of 100 on Wednesday, November 28. Beinhorn was born Elly Beinhorn-Rosemeyer on May 30, 1907 in Hanover, Germany. In 1928, Beinhorn attended a lecture by famed aviator Hermann Köhl, who had recently completed a historic East-West Atlantic crossing. This lecture is described as the spark that ignited her interest in aviation. At age 21, Beinhorn had a little money from an inheritance and against the wishes of her parents moved to Spa

Daredevil Evel Knievel has died today at the age of 69, according to a family member. Knievel's granddaughter, Krysten Knievel confirms that he died after his health failed due to diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. In 1999 he also underwent a liver transplant after complications from hepatitis C. He was born Robert Craig Knievel Jr. on October 17, 1938 in Butte, Montana. Knievel will likely be most remembered for a failed stunt he tried to perform in Idaho. He attempted to jump over the Snake River Canyon with a rocket powered motorc

A major oil pipeline in Minnesota exploded and caught fire, killing two workers. The pipeline carries oil from Saskatchewan, Canada to close to Chicago, United States, representing 16% of America's total oil imports. The section of the pipe that exploded was undergoing maintenance at the time to address a pinhole leak first identified three weeks earlier, and patched at the time with a metal sleeve. On Wednesday, the entire section was removed and replaced with a new one. When oil was reintroduced on Thursday morning, oil leaked where the new