January 15, 2004

Charge over ammo on London flight The Australian - A SUDANESE man was charged today with carrying illegal ammunition on a flight from Washington to London's Heathrow airport, British police said. 10:50:40 PM

Judge rules Microsoft infringed on Internet patents eChannelLine - A Chicago-based US federal court judge has upheld a $512 million (US) patent verdict against Microsoft for violating patents on Internet- based technologies held by a small developer called Eolas Technologies. UPDATE: fixed the link. 9:54:35 PM

A young Palestinian mother of two, a 3-year-old son and an 18-month- old daughter, made her way to the front of a line of workers at the heavily fortified Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip Wednesday morning, feigned a medical problem and then detonated a bomb that was strapped to her body, killing herself and four Israelis -- three soldiers and a civilian security inspector, Israeli authorities said. She also wounded seven people, four were Palestinians. The Erez crossing is to an industrial zone that provides crucial jobs to residents of the impoverished coastal plain, where 60 percent of working-age people are unemployed. Both Israeli and U.S. officials expressed dismay that militant groups would select a target that put livelihoods as well as lives at risk. Israel shut down the industrial zone and sent home the roughly 4,000 Palestinian workers employed in its factories. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, claimed joint responsibility with Hamas for the bombing. The Palestinian Authority, and Yassar Arafat celebrated and blessed this mass murder.  “Citizen Rim al-Riyashi was heroically martyred when she carried out an explosive operation at the Beit Hanoun Junction , killing four soldiers of the Occupation,” declared Voice of Palestine Radio in its 4-PM newscast, about an hour after the attack in the Gaza Strip. 12:53:00 PM