The New Nation - Internet Edition

Marathon on Himalayas

BBC Online: Ten minutes before the leader is due home in the world's toughest marathon, a small army of locals are chipping away with axes at the ice on the path metres from the finish. Once that potential hazard is removed, another more awkward obstacle presents itself. A herd of yaks is inching its way up the same narrow, uneven street in Namche Bazaar, the commercial capital of the Sherpa community in Nepal. The doughty creatures are unmoved by the kerfuffle surrounding them as they move slowly upwards with their supplies of rice, soybean oil and San Miguel beer.

Venezuela creates own time zone

BBC Online: Venezuela creates its own unique time zone on Sunday, putting the clock back half-an-hour on a permanent basis. President Hugo Chavez says that an earlier dawn means the performance of the country will improve, as more people will wake up in daylight. "I don't care if they call me crazy, the new time will go ahead," he said. But critics say the move is unnecessary and the president simply wants to be in a different time zone from his arch-rival, the United States.

Shuttle launch called off

Cape canaveral: NASA called off Sunday's planned launch of the space shuttle Atlantis after a gauge in a fuel tank failed for the second time in four days. NASA began fueling the shuttle at about 6 a.m., hoping that the gauges in its big external tank would work properly and allow launch controllers to proceed with an afternoon liftoff. Shuttle managers said they would halt the countdown and call everything off if any of the four hydrogen fuel gauges acted up. Three failed during Thursday's launch attempt; no one knows why.