| 92-year-old to break record with visit to North Pole
A California man who's young at heart at the age of 92 has set off in his quest to become the oldest person to ever visit the North Pole. Fred Fox boarded a chartered jet at Van Nuys Airport in California Monday to begin a trip he hopes will rewrite the record book. First stop: Alaska where in just a few days, Fox will fly over the North Pole in a private plane breaking the record of a 91-year-old woman who visited the pole in 2004. Fox had an answer for the question he is asked most often: why. "I was afraid you would ask why, because it is there," he laughed. "Just to do something different that is interesting. And you live life only once -- and within reason, I will do anything within reason." This summer, Fox plans to visit Africa where he hopes to take part in a walking safari.
Candidates take aim at their own feet, pull trigger
In tennis, they call them unforced errors. The player is in position, has plenty of time -- and still whacks the ball into the net. As the 2008 presidential campaign heats up, the candidates are hitting a lot of balls into the net. This week it was John Edwards, the Democrat with great hair who spent $800 in campaign money on two haircuts. The pricey salon visits looked especially silly because Edwards portrays himself as the candidate fighting for the poor. On the Republican side, it was Sen. John McCain who muffed an easy shot. He responded to a question about military action against Iran by singing a variation on the Beach Boy's song Barbara Ann: "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." Edwards and McCain are by no means the first. Former Massachusetts Gov.
Elephant kills safari tourists
TWO British tourists died when an elephant charged them in western Zimbabwe, the British embassy in Harare said today. A third injured Briton was hospitalised with serious injuries. Zimbabwe authorities declined to identify the tourists until their family was informed, but said the dead were a mother and daughter. They said the injured Briton was the husband and father of the two dead. The family was on a walking safari in the Hwange National Park on Saturday and was accompanied by a guide and a professional hunter. The authorities said the family was attacked by a bull elephant that was exceptionally aggressive because it was in musk. The guide fired a shot at the elephant, but missed. Police in the western provincial capital of Bulawayo and wildlife authorities reported investigations were under way to see whether the tour group's armed local guides had been negligent, though guides are often taken by surprise by the speed of such attacks.
Mr. Yoshinobu Ishikawa Appointed President and CEO of Nikon ...
MELVILLE, N.Y., April 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Nikon Instruments Inc., (http://www.nikoninstruments.com/) today announced the appointment of Mr. Yoshinobu Ishikawa to President and Chief Executive Officer. Ishikawa will be in charge of all Nikon Instruments divisions in North America and Latin America. Ishikawa most recently served as President and CEO of Nikon Instruments Europe and has also held key management positions at Nikon Instruments UK, as well as the International Sales Department in Japan. "Mr. Ishikawa's experience in global instruments management has proven to be a valuable resource and he comes to Nikon Instruments Inc. at a time of significant growth opportunities," said Toshiyuki Masai, outgoing president. Mr. Masai will now assume the position of Chairman of Nikon Instruments Inc.
Face to face with Zimbabwe's misery
A BAD jail wastes a body quickly. When I entered Cell 6 at Gwanda police station, I was fit. After five days in a concrete and iron-bar tank, with no food and only a few sips of water, my skin was flaking and my clothes were slipping off. A prison blanket had given me lice. The water I had palmed from a rusty tap in the shower had given me diarrhea. Under a 24-hour strip light, I hadn't slept more than a few minutes at a time. And I stank. So many men had passed through Cell 6 that they had left their smell on the walls, and while I was making my own stink, the walls were also passing theirs onto me. It took 22 hours to get arrested in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. On March 28, I flew into Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, with the intention of reporting on the ruinous policies that have turned Zimbabwe into one of the poorest and most repressive countries in the world.
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